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Friday 04th July 2008
The systematic demonisation of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed. Negative attitudes to Muslims have become legitimised by right-wing think-tanks, budding neocon politicians and newspaper editors and commentators, who use language that is now being parroted by the far right. As Britain slides down this slippery slope, the spectre of internment of Muslims is just a short step away.
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Muslims feel like 'Jews of Europe'
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Friday 04th July 2008
Britain's most senior judge said he was willing to see Shariah law operate in the country, so long as it did not conflict with the laws of England and Wales. Lord chief justice, Lord Phillips insisted there was "widespread misunderstanding" of the nature of shariah law, and argued: "There is no reason why sharia principles, or any other religious code, should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution [with the understanding] ... that any sanctions for a failure to comply with the agreed terms of mediation would be drawn from the Laws of England and Wales." The customary hysteria from the usual Islamophobes is expected shortly!
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Friday 04th July 2008
Palestinian activist and former university professor Sami Al-Arian was arraigned in a US federal court on two counts of criminal contempt for his refusal to testify in a grand jury investigation of the think-tank, the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT). The indictment is the latest episode of a long, Kafka-esque process that has violated nearly every tenet of Al-Arian’s plea agreement following the end of his first trial in 2005, and kept Al-Arian in prison for over five years. Key to this process is the role of Gordon Kromberg, the assistant US attorney who has an anti-Muslim bias, springing in part, from a strong affinity for Israel. Kromberg participated in a United Jewish Committee’s mission to Israel and kept a diary in which he refers to the illegally occupied territories of the West Bank by the name “Judea and Samaria” — a term favoured by right-wing Israelis who often oppose land concessions and are apologists for ethnic cleansing — and referred to “the enthusiasm of the Palestinians to use mass murder as a tool against the Israelis for no apparent end other than to destroy Israel.”
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Friday 04th July 2008
Accusations are flying in Malaysia, where opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has retaliated to sodomy charges with a vengeance. His latest political broadsides, aimed at the minister of defense, attorney general and chief of police, symbolize a larger struggle between old and new political forces fighting for power.
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Friday 04th July 2008
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made a very calculated political - and potentially dangerous - move to seal the much-delayed civilian nuclear accord with the United States. The deal, though, is only one piece on the chessboard of India's global ambitions that includes the key players of Pakistan, Iran and the United States. There has been strong lobbying by high-flying US corporate groups that expect multi-billion dollar business opportunities and rallying by powerful Likud neocons who root for US-India and Israel-India strategic ties, and assured bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.
Related Links
India left gives nuclear deadline
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Friday 04th July 2008
The Iraqi war's worst-kept secret saw daylight this week with a report on the role US government-led advisers played in drawing up contracts for Western oil companies to develop Iraqi oil fields. The big prize is still being pursued, as is the White House's other dream - a US$7.6 billion, 1,600-kilometre pipeline through Afghanistan.
Related Links
Big Oil's Iraq deals are the greatest stick-up in history
Kurdish oil deal with Texas company is questioned
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Friday 04th July 2008
Pakistan's new civilian government has been struggling to end a conflict with militant forces along its border with Afghanistan. But the failure to bring a quick peace has led to some public disillusionment with the new coalition government.
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Friday 04th July 2008
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report. The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
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Friday 04th July 2008
Endangered species may become extinct 100 times faster than previously thought, scientists warned today, in a bleak re-assessment of the threat to global biodiversity. Writing in the journal Nature, leading ecologists claim that methods used to predict when species will die out are seriously flawed, and dramatically underestimate the speed at which some plants and animals will be wiped out.
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Thursday 03rd July 2008
Anecdotal evidence suggested for years that Americans were not particularly well-informed. As foreign visitors long ago observed, Americans are vastly inferior in their knowledge of world geography compared with Europeans. (The old joke is that “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”) But it was never clear until the postwar period how ignorant Americans are. For it was only then that social scientists began measuring in a systematic manner what Americans actually know. The results were devastating.
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