A Question to Muslims (#468)

Quran 009:029 says:

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

The "People of the Book" are primarily Jews and Christians.

What should Muslims say to Muslims who include Jews and Christians among "those" who should be "fought" on the basis of this verse?

Cultural Diversity and Social Customs

thenews - Two killed over Karo-Kari.

June 24, 2007 ◊ A man and a woman were gunned down and three others, including an eight-year-old girl, injured seriously by armed persons over Karo-Kari in the Bello Banglani village near Thull on Sunday.

Khamiso Banglani, along with his accomplices, allegedly gunned down his wife Zarina (25) and her alleged paramour Gahi (15), and injured two women, Jamali Khatoon, Jannat Khatoon, and an eight-year-old girl, Zahida.

The injured were shifted to a local hospital in critical condition.

Police have registered a case against five attackers identified as Khamiso Banglani, Fazil, Bahadur, Ghulam Rasool and Suhrab.

Separately, a policeman was put to death over a minor issue in Gambat late on Saturday night.

Ashiq Hussain Thebo, who was a police constable at the Gambat police station, was attacked with wooden sticks by unidentified persons, injuring him seriously. He succumbed to his injuries at a Gamat hospital. Police have arrested an accused, Sarwar Shaikh, and are investigating the matter.

anp - 24-yr-old woman shot dead.

June 25, 2007 ◊ Alkmaar Station was evacuated and shut by police on Monday morning after a shooting just after 10 am this morning. One person was killed and another seriously injured.

The reason for the shooting may have been the result of an argument in a relationship. RTV Noord-Holland reports that the male gunman tried to kill himself immediately after shooting a 24-year-old woman. He has been taken to hospital in serious condition.

Eye witnesses say the gunman and the victim exchanged words in Turkish before the shooting.

At about 10.30 am two ambulances were called and a trauma helicopter was on hand. One of the 2 had been shot in the head. Witnesses say the woman was shot as she ascended the steps to platform 5.

Limited train service to and from Alkmaar has resumed. Travellers should still expect delays.

calsun - Repentant honour-killer asks court for early release.

June 26, 2007 ◊ Triple-murderer Daljit Singh Dulay has renounced the culture of honour-killings that led him to commit his crimes and deserves a chance at early release, his lawyer argued yesterday.

Dulay, 43, who gunned down his sister Kulvinder, her husband Gary Dulay and their friend Mukesh Sharma outside a Marlborough strip mall on March 19, 1991, is seeking a Section 745 hearing -- the so-called faint-hope clause -- that would shorten his 25-year life sentence.

His lawyer, Richard Cairns, told Court of Queen's Bench his client, who has served 16 years in prison, takes full responsibility for his acts and rejects the concept of honour-killing derived from his native India.

"He's taken treatment and programs, he has come to challenge his Sikh beliefs," said Cairns.

"He willingly says he denounces his cultural violence and believes Canadian culture is much more compassionate ... the course of his length of imprisonment has affected the change."

His sister Kulvinder's marriage to her husband, who was considered a relative before their union, enraged Dulay and shamed his family.

Crown prosecutor Steve Koval argued the scope of Dulay's crimes and his lack of remorse make the likelihood of early release remote.

"At the end of the day, he has no reasonable hope -- he's a violent man," said Koval.

Justice Sandy Park is to rule on whether Dulay will get his Section 745 hearing July 30.

Religion of Peace strikes Spain

ap - Spain: 3 suspected al-Qaida recruiters arrested.

Spanish police have arrested three men on suspicion of having links with al-Qaida, authorities said Tuesday.

Mohamed Laksir, 23, Mohamed Akazim, 32, and Moulay Lahoucine Miftah Idrissi, 27, were detained in the northeastern port city of Barcelona on suspicion of belonging to and recruiting volunteers for a terror organization, the Interior Ministry said.

Recruits would have been sent for training in terror activities in Africa's dry Sahel region, south of the Sahara Desert, the ministry said.

The two suspects are believed to have belonged to a cell which also promoted radical Islam, the statement said.

Abbas issues Decree forbidding Problems

jpost - Abbas issues decree forbidding weapons carrying.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abba signed a presidential decree on Tuesday forbidding the brandishing of weapons without a license in the West Bank.

While the decree is aimed mostly at Hamas, Abbas-affiliated Fatah groups, such as the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, will also be expected to follow the new law.

Terrorbusiness as usual

jpost - 'Hamas is trying to create a humanitarian crisis'

A security source said that Hamas was trying to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which was why it was consistently trying to target border crossings, Israel Radio reported. The source added that Hamas's objective was to generate international pressure on Israel.

Security sources said that Gazans had an 80-day supply of food, water and fuel.

jpost - Peace Now: Remove unnecessary W. Bank checkpoints.

A report published by Peace Now on Wednesday morning called on the IDF to remove dozens of checkpoints in the West Bank, saying they were not vital to Israel's security and were causing unnecessary difficulties for the Palestinians.

The organization noted that of the 93 manned checkpoints, only 35 were located on the Green Line, with 15 in Hebron and the surrounding area and 43 in other areas of the West Bank.

"More than half of the manned checkpoints (and almost all of the roadblocks) are internal, and are not the last point before entry into Israel," the report said. "As such, no Palestinian can pass through these roadblocks/checkpoints without passing another checkpoint before entering Israeli territory. Thus, there is no immediate security necessity in order to prevent a terror infiltration into Israel."

In addition, the report said, "the checkpoint is a dangerous place for the soldiers manning it. Soldiers are required to man one area for lengthy periods of time and come in close contact with the Palestinian population, raising the risk of a suicide attack. Each checkpoint requires at least six soldiers per shift for many hours of the day, using a large portion of the army's personnel."

ap - EU aid chief urges opening of Israel-Gaza border.

The European Union appealed Tuesday for the opening of border crossings between Israel and the Gaza strip to allow in more humanitarian aid supplies.

"The needs are increasing all the time," EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said. "€30 million (US$40 million) in supplies and funding from the EU are ready and waiting, give us the tools to get on with the job."

International aid officials say the number of people in relying on food handouts has grown since Hamas seized control in Gaza two weeks ago.

The World Food Program in Geneva said about 60 commercial trucks and 11 carrying food aid were passing through the Sufa cargo crossing into Gaza Tuesday, but mortar fire forced the closure of another crossing point Monday.

Separation of Faith and Culture in Britain

bbc - 'Honour' violence 'terror-linked'

There are links between some cases of "honour" violence in Britain and extremist groups abroad, a BBC investigation has been told.

Victims of such attacks are alleged by their families to have disgraced them.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Islamist terror groups were behind one murder, as well as a case where a woman was threatened and is in hiding.

But the Muslim Council of Britain said "honour" violence was a cultural practice, and nothing to do with faith.

The CPS pointed to the death five years ago of Heshu Yones, 16, who was stabbed to death by her father.

Nazir Afzal, the CPS's national lead on honour crime, told BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme the threats to kill a woman known as Miss B, who is now in hiding, came from her family but originated in an Egyptian terrorist group.

He said: "They told her husband that if he didn't put his wife in her place then they would do it themselves."

Heshu Yones was stabbed to death by her father, Abdalla Yones, who had associations with a Kurdish nationalist organisation, says Mr Afzal.

While he was on remand, the group raised substantial amounts of cash to try to secure his release on bail.

Mr Afzal said honour violence was not confined to fathers and grandfathers, but was carried out by younger relations too.

"You have a second generation youth who have an exaggerated concept of what home is like," he said.

"They get their identity and their ethnicity from these traditions.

"We know they are bizarre and outdated but they get their identity from those traditions and they feel very strongly that how you treat your women is a demonstration of your commitment to radicalism and extremist thought."

However, Reefat Drabu of the Muslim Council of Britain told the BBC she disagreed with Mr Afzal's comments.

She said: "First and foremost there has to be clarity that this is nothing to do with any faith, in particular Islam.

"It is a cultural practice and there is nothing in any faith that would condone it or say that it is the right thing do it.

"This is to do with misguided notions of family honour. It has nothing to do with radicalism or terrorism."

Contract killers

According to the United Nations Population Fund, 5,000 women a year die in honour killings.

There were a dozen such murders recorded in the UK last year although some police officers and campaigners say there may be many more.

Two weeks ago, three men were found guilty of the murder of 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod who was found in a suitcase buried in a garden in Birmingham last year.

She had been strangled with a bootlace by contract killers on the wishes of her father because she had fallen in love with a man her family did not approve of.

Her case is now being reviewed by the Independent Police Complaints Commission after it emerged she made several attempts to warn police that her life was in danger.

Praying to the Gods of Earth, Wind & Fire

ap - Blair, Schwarzenegger hold talks on environment.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger met on Tuesday to discuss the trans-Atlantic battle against global warming.

Schwarzenegger, a conservative who has put major emphasis on the fight against climate change, praised Blair's "great leadership" on the environment.

He said that during a decade in power, the British leader has "proven to the world that you can do both, you can protect the Earth and protect the economy."

Last year, Schwarzenegger signed legislation that imposed the first statewide cap on greenhouse gases. The move put California at odds with the administration of US President George W. Bush, which has resisted global agreements to limit emissions.

UNstoppable

ap - UN team: Arms smuggling into Lebanon unstoppable.

Security along the Lebanon-Syria border is insufficient to prevent arms smuggling and Lebanon should quickly establish a mobile force to intercept any flow of weapons, a UN-appointed team said in a report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

The 46-page "Report of the Lebanon Independent Border Assessment Team" said management of the border is currently shared by four different Lebanese security agencies that do not coordinate operations or planning, and do not share intelligence.

In addition, it said, most of Lebanon's border posts are far from the border, are not fenced or secured by gates, and operate with no obvious procedures to determine which goods to inspect -- and which people to question.

"Therefore, the ingenious smuggler may find it quite easy to conceal not only explosives, light weapons and ammunition, but also assembled and unassembled heavy weaponry, such as missiles and rockets into the country concealed in compartments and panels of cargo trucks and passenger vehicles," the team said.

Faces of Peace

ap - Probe implicates Saudi religious police in death.

In a new blow to Saudi Arabia's powerful religious police, a member of the force has been implicated in the death of a man whose house was raided because he was suspected of possessing and consuming alcohol, an official statement said Wednesday.

The accusation leveled against the unnamed agent of the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which employs the religious police, is the second such charge of police brutality targeting the governmental body. The commission is charged with enforcing the kingdom's strict Islamic lifestyle.

Last Saturday, a judge postponed the trial of three commission members allegedly involved in the death in custody of Ahmed al-Bulaiwi, a retired border patrol guard in his early 50s.

Al-Bulaiwi died shortly after his June 1 arrest in the northern town of Tabuk for being alone with a woman who was not a relative -- an act considered an offense in the kingdom. No date has been set for the new trial.

ap - Jordan: 2 men get 10 years for 'honor killings'

A Jordanian man who stabbed his sister to death in a premeditated "honor crime" was sentenced to ten years prison along with his cousin and accomplice, a court official said Wednesday.

Jordan's criminal court initially sentenced both men to death but then commuted the verdict because the father and the husband of the slain woman dropped the charges, said the official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the press.

According to the indictment, the woman was killed with a kitchen knife by her brother while her cousin prevented her from fleeing as a punishment for having allegedly had a relationship with her husband before marrying him.

The indictment sheet said the brother did not approve this relationship and had intended to marry the victim to another man. It said he first planned to poison his sister, before stabbing her to death in September 2004. The knife broke during the killing, so he brought another knife and continued to hit until she died, it said.

Explaining Jews, Part V: Why are Jews liberal?

jpost - 'Fatah gunmen are the best chance against Hamas'

Israel should consider stopping the arrests of fugitive Fatah gunmen on condition that they cease receiving funds from Iran and halt their attacks against Israel, a senior government official told Israel Radio Tuesday morning.

Among the fugitives are also Al Aksa Brigades operatives, the official said, adding that if they would be allowed to openly join Mahmoud Abbas's forces instead of operating clandestinely (for fear of being arrested by Israel), they would constitute Fatah's "best chance" against Hamas.

Liberal Parenting Skills

cphpost - Au pairs affect children's language.

Working parents who hire au pairs to take care of their children during the day are helping to create an entire group of young people whose Danish language abilities are severely limited by the time they reach nursery school, reported 24timer newspaper Wednesday.

Existence of the phenomenon is supported by several language experts including Ulla Lahti Falkenberg, language acquisition expert at the University of Copenhagen, who said she encounters the problem regularly.

'We meet children that speak Danish with Thai or Latvian accents -- Danish children with severe accents primarily because of contact with their foreign au pairs,' said Falkenberg, who is also president of the Danish Speech Language Hearing Association. 'It's a problem that parents are so busy with their own lives and spend so little time with their children that they don't even realise the child speaks bad Danish.'

The problem is most common among wealthier parents that can afford au pairs and who themselves are well-educated and generally live in upper or upper-middle class neighbourhoods. Au pairs -- especially those from Asia and Eastern Europe -- rarely master the difficult Danish tongue and often only learn a few Danish phrases and speak limited English.

Lone Andersen, a speech and hearing consultant, has also encountered the problem in several areas in northern Zealand, where parents are generally well-to-do.

'It's of course practical to have an au pair, but when they often come from Eastern Europe it means that the children hear hardly any Danish in their most important learning years, and that negatively affects their language abilities,' said Andersen.

Maria, from the Phillipines, earns only DKK 2500 a month plus lodging and meals as an au pair. She said she is lucky that the oldest boy in the family she is employed by understands some English.

'The children get frustrated when I can't understand them. Sometimes I manage to handle the situation by getting different things and showing them to the children until I understand what it is they want,' she said.

Speech therapist Mariann Nysander said she believes parents are becoming busier outside the home. But she added most parents she has spoken with are motivated to help their children if a language problem exists, once they become aware of the situation.

'When there are Danish speaking adults who spend free time with the children, then the adults can read, relate and explain things to help develop the children's vocabularies. Those with another native language can't.'

Quota and Equal Rights for Women Plumbers

local - Few women employed in top state jobs.

Since the new government came into power last October, only four out of fourteen top management positions in the state sector have been filled by women. This corresponds to 28 percent, Svenska Dagbladet reports.

The previous government had set itself the stated aim of employing women in half of all top level state jobs. In 2005, 41 percent of available posts in this category were occupied by women.

The new government however removed this goal, a decision which Minister for Financial Markets Mats Odell still feels was the the correct one.

"If we were to take stock of our appointment policies now we would not see a satisfactory result. But our ambition is to improve this in the future and we will have to return to the matter to see how the situation has developed," he said.

Abtreibung Macht Frei

paulbelien - Secularist Europe silences pro-lifers and creationists.

Last week, a German court sentenced a 55-year old Lutheran pastor to one year in jail for "Volksverhetzung" (incitement of the people) because he compared the killing of the unborn in contemporary Germany to the holocaust. Next week, the Council of Europe is going to vote on a resolution imposing Darwinism as Europe's official ideology. The European governments are asked to fight the expression of creationist opinions, such as young earth and intelligent design theories. According to the Council of Europe these theories are "undemocratic" and "a threat to human rights."

Without legalized abortion the number of German children would increase annually by at least 150,000 -- which is the number of legal abortions in birth dearth Germany. Pastor Johannes Lerle compared the killing of the unborn to the killing of the Jews in Auschwitz during the Second World War. On 14 June, a court in Erlangen ruled that, in doing so, the pastor had "incited the people" because his statement was a denial of the holocaust of the Jews in Nazi-Germany. Hence, Herr Lerle was sentenced to one year in jail. Earlier, he had already spent eight months in jail for calling abortionists "professional killers" -- an allegation which the court ruled to be slanderous because, according to the court, the unborn are not humans.

Other German courts convicted pro-lifers for saying that "in abortion clinics, life unworthy of living is being killed," because this terminology evoked Hitler's euthanasia program, which used the same language. In 2005, a German pro-lifer, Günter Annen, was sentenced to 50 days in jail for saying "Stop unjust [rechtswidrige] abortions in [medical] practice," because, according to the court, the expression "unjust" is understood by laymen as meaning illegal, which abortions are not.

Volksverhetzung is a crime which the Nazis often invoked against their enemies and which contemporary Germany also uses to intimidate homeschoolers. Soon, the German authorities will be able to use the same charge against people who question Darwin's evolution theory.

Indeed, next Tuesday, the Council of Europe (CoE), Europe's main human-rights body, will vote on a proposal which advocates the fight against creationism, "young earth" and "intelligent design" in its 47 member states.

According to a report of the CoE's Parliamentary Assembly, creationists are dangerous "religious fundamentalists" who propagate "forms of religious extremism" and "could become a threat to human rights." The report adds that the acceptance of the science of evolutionism "is crucial to the future of our societies and our democracies."

"Creationism, born of the denial of the evolution of species through natural selection, was for a long time an almost exclusively American phenomenon," the report says.

"Today creationist theories are tending to find their way into Europe and their spread is affecting quite a few Council of Europe member states. [...] [T]his is liable to encourage the development of all manner of fundamentalism and extremism, synonymous with attacks of utmost virulence on human rights. The total rejection of science is definitely one of the most serious threats to human rights and civic rights. [...] The war on the theory of evolution and on its proponents most often originates in forms of religious extremism which are closely allied to extreme right-wing political movements. The creationist movements possess real political power. The fact of the matter, and this has been exposed on several occasions, is that the advocates of strict creationism are out to replace democracy by theocracy. [...] If we are not careful, the values that are the very essence of the Council of Europe will be under direct threat from creationist fundamentalists."

According to the CoE report, America and Australia are already on their way towards becoming such undemocratic theocracies where human and civic rights are endangered. Creationism is "well-developed in the English-speaking countries, especially the United States and Australia," the report states.

"While most curricula in Europe today unashamedly teach evolution as a recognised scientific theory, the same does not apply to the United States. In July 2005, the Pew Research Center conducted a poll that showed that 64% of Americans favoured the teaching of intelligent design alongside the theory of evolution and that 38% would support the total abandonment of the teaching of evolution in publicly owned schools. The American President George W. Bush supports the principle of teaching both intelligent design and the theory of evolution. At the moment, 20 of the 50 American states are facing potential adjustments of their school curricula in favour of intelligent design. Many people think that this phenomenon only affects the United States and that, even if it is not possible to be indifferent to what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic, it is not the Council of Europe's role to deal with this issue. That, however, is not the case. On the contrary, it would seem crucial for us to take the appropriate precautions in our 47 member states."

Though one may disagree with people who take the Book of Genesis literally (believing that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh), surely secularist political organizations telling people what they may or may not believe, constitute a far greater threat to human rights than religious institutions telling their faithful how to vote. In the voting booth people are free to do what they like, whilst in contemporary Europe people are no longer free to publicly voice their own, deeply felt opinions in public.

In Germany, believing abortion to be as murderous as the holocaust is a crime, and educating your own children is a crime too. In France, saying that "homosexual behaviour endangers the survival of humanity" is a crime, and so is the distribution of pork soup to the poor. In Belgium, speaking out against immigration is a crime.

In the latest issue of the Dutch conservative magazine Bitter Lemon the Dutch author Erik van Goor writes that European courts are silencing conservative and orthodox citizens. Freedom of speech no longer exist, says van Goor.

"While many in the West still idolize the second-hand fighters for free speech, such as [Ayaan] Hirsi Ali and Theo van Gogh, the true victims of curtailment are deliberately kept under wraps. Hirsi Ali, [Pim] Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh were not curtailed by the state or by court, Johannes Lerle is. The former voiced mere opinions -- expressions of a public opinion which one may or may not value or believe. The latter -- Dr Lerle -- shows that what is at stake is not merely opinions, but a moral order which is being questioned; a reality of life and death which is at risk."

Hirsi Ali, Fortuyn and van Gogh did not defend Europe's traditional Christian moral order. People such as Johannes Lerle and Christian Vanneste, the French parliamentarian who was convicted for "homophobia," do. The latter are being persecuted by Western Europe's political regimes -- a phenomenon which is ignored completely by the Western mainstream media, who participate in the persecution.

Update

A quote from Reuters, 25 June 2007:

Europe's main human rights body on Monday cancelled a scheduled vote on banning creationist and intelligent design views from school science classes, saying the proposed resolution was one-sided. [...]

Guy Lengagne, the French Socialist member of the Assembly who drew up the report, protested after the Parliamentary Assembly voted to call off the debate and vote, and [approved a proposal of the Flemish Christian-Democrat Luc Van den Brande] to send the report back to committee for further study. [...]

Deputies said the motion by the Christian Democratic group of parliamentarians also won support from east European deputies, who recalled that Darwinian evolution was a favorite theory of their former communist rulers. [...]

Kremlin: Cold War ruined Socialist Economy

ap - Iran to launch English-speaking satellite TV.

Iran's state broadcasting company is launching an English-speaking satellite TV channel to counter the West's influence in covering news, the television's web site says.

The 24-hour PRESS TV news channel said its goal was to "break the global media stranglehold of western outlets," and "show the other side of the story" in the Mideast.

The English-speaking network has 26 correspondents around the world and is due to launch on July 2, Mohammad Sarafraz, the vice president of Iran's state broadcast company, told reporters.

Sarafraz accused western TV channels of being biased against Middle East nations and of spinning the news the way the US government wants.

jpost - Abbas's office condemns Israeli 'crimes' in Gaza.

"The crimes that were committed in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli occupation must be strongly condemned," read a statement released by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's office Wednesday.

The statement continued: "This bloody escalation, which was initiated by the Israeli government, is a distinct violation of the tahadiyeh, and will lead to a chain of retaliations and the prolongation of violence."

The PA chairman's office went on to say that "this aggression comes only a single day after the Sharm e-Sheikh summit and calls into question whether Israel really intends to seal an agreement and negotiate to end the occupation."

Separation of Church and State in Netherlands

anp - 'Cut benefits to burqa wearers'

A majority in Parliament wants the government to allow municipalities to cut benefits if the recipients are unable to find a job because they wear a burqa.

A motion to this effect from Liberal VVD MP Atzo Nicolaï and Labour PvdA MP Hans Spekman was passed on Tuesday.

Coalition party PvdA and opposition party VVD are concerned about a verdict from the court in Amsterdam earlier this month. The court found in preliminary proceedings that the municipality Diemen had unlawfully docked the benefits of a Muslim woman who wears a burqa because she had been unable to find a job after four job applications.

If this verdict becomes a precedent, Spekman and Nicolaï want to know what state secretary for social affairs Ahmed Aboutaleb plans to do to ensure that municipalities will be able dock benefits in cases like this.

The state secretary first wants to wait for the final outcome of the court case before drawing conclusions. But he will "of course" inform Parliament of any steps he plans to take.

Aboutaleb has said in earlier debates with Parliament that the case in Diemen should be put in perspective. He says it is just "one case," while there have also been court verdicts that have found in favour of municipalities in cases where the behaviour of the job seeker prevented him or her from finding a job. One of these cases also concerned the wearing of a burqa.

Let's play "Guess the Ethnicity"

dpa - Dramatic rise in school violence in Berlin.

Violence at schools in immigrant-dominated districts of Berlin has soared in recent months, with the opposition Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) accusing the city government of turning a blind eye to the violence at the city's educational facilities.

The violence reached a peak recently when two masked youths burst into a classroom at the Dag Hammerskjoeld School in the city's Tempelhof district to attack a 58-year-old woman teacher.

One beat the terrified teacher about the head and body with a steel rod, while the other tried to make off with her handbag. Pupils intervened, driving the intruders from the classroom. Curiously, the teacher was discussing the great late Indian leader Mahatma Ghandi's political philosophy of "non-violence" at the time.

Later it transpired that a girl in the class, who had learned she was to be kept down a class, had urged the youths to carry out the attack.

In another act of violence, a 54-year-old male teacher at the Roentgen Secondary School in the city's Neukoelln district was beaten up by a 17-year-old Serbian-born youth who surfaced at the school, demanding to see his ex-girlfriend.

Ordered to leave the premises, the youngster went berserk, punching and kicking the teacher to the ground in the school yard, before fleeing, pursued by several school pupils.

Three other bouts of school violence have occurred in Berlin in the past few days, two of them at schools in the city's "problem" districts of Neukoelln and Wedding. A 10-year-old boy of Palestinian descent called Abdul, was set upon by a group of older pupils at the Kurt Tucholsky School.

Singled out for "mobbing" by older pupils on previous occasions according to witnesses, he was slapped and kicked as he lay on the ground while an 11-year-old boy filmed the events on a mobile phone camera, intending to show it on the internet.

The school's deputy director Gerd Combecher said the filmed sequences had since been studied by the police. Iris Pakulat, the school's headmistress, claimed those who had seized the boy in what started as a prank, but got wildly out of control, had now been identified.

The boy's mother says the incident was no surprise. "Our boy has been attacked by pupils in the past," she said, adding "there's no point in sending him to another school now because in the coming months we must return to Palestine."

Her husband said he'd visited the school several times to protest his son's treatment. "He (Abdul) is a very shy boy so perhaps he became an easy target," he said.

Despite his son's experiences in Berlin, Abdul's father said it would be difficult for the family going back to the Palestinian territories. "We will be strangers there, having lived in Berlin for 20 years, and Abdul being born here."

Two years ago a puerile "game" dubbed "Happy Slapping," which became popular in some English schools, spread to Germany. This involved older pupils grabbing a younger child for so-called "slapping" sessions -- with the scenes captured in mobile camera phone sequences.

Reports of "mobbing" of teachers and pupils by students became widespread as a result, with bullying sequences appearing on the internet. In one film extract in England, a pupil was seen to approach a teacher from the rear, to yank down his trousers.

In subsequent sequences in England and Germany, teachers were made to look ridiculous by the antics of out-of-control students.

In another recent Berlin incident, a 19-year-old pupil at the Mildred Harnack Comprehensive School in Berlin-Lichtenberg, threatened a teacher who had repeatedly ordered him to put away his mobile phone by screaming, "you will be dead by this evening!"

Even Berlin's renowned Humboldt University has not escaped violence. A 34-year-old former student recently assaulted a 40-year- old woman professor and Harvard graduate, thrusting her to the ground and spitting in her face. He'd allegedly harboured a two-year grudge against the lecturer for her "low" assessment of his doctoral thesis.

In March last year the city's Ruetli School, dominated by Arab and Turkish youths in the tough Neukoelln district, made international headlines when a teacher published a letter claiming conditions at the school had become so bad that it should be closed down.

She felt teachers had lost all authority and were now so afraid that they only entered classrooms with a mobile phone so they could call for help in an emergency. As a result of her plea for help, city authorities installed a new rector who made sweeping changes.

School psychologists were called in "help" problem pupils, especially Arab male students, some of whom refused to respect the authority of women teachers. Today, the Ruetli School no longer makes negative headlines, with pupils evidently happy in the "new" environment.

Surprising progress has been made here," claims a member of the school staff. Berlin's education senator, Juergen Zoellner does not see a serious situation developing but concedes violence prevention programmes at city schools will have to be expanded.

CDU politicians, on the other hand, claim he is not doing enough to stem school violence. Whereas, in the year 2001 to 2002, there were 250 cases of school-related violence, the figure leapt to 1,500 in 2005 to 2006, they say.

City prosecutors confirm they have files on 342 youths, aged between 14 and 20, who have been involved in recent criminal activity. In ten cases, serious crimes were committed, such as robbery or causing serious bodily harm. Of those apprehended, 144 remain in youth custody.

The Meaning of Jihad

jpost - Islamic Jihad claims responsibility for Kassam.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the Kassam rocket that landed in the western Negev on Wednesday morning.

According to the group, the attack was in retaliation for the IDF's killing of two of its senior operatives.

aki - Mauritania: Five al-Qaeda suspects arrested in an internet cafe.

The recent arrest of five al-Qaeda suspects in an internet cafe in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott is the latest signal that the terror network is increasingly favouring the Web to recruit operatives and to communicate with its various cells in Africa, Arabic daily al-Watan reports.

The suspects -- two Algerians, two Moroccans, and Mauritanian -- were arrested on Sunday during raids of three Internet cafes close to the Palestinian embassy carried out by Mauritanian anti-terror police, the paper said.

The five suspects are members of the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb -- formerly the GSPC (the Algerian Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat) -- and had recently entered Mauritania, according to police. Their role was to plan and carry out an attack in Noakchott on behalf of the group and also recruited several locals to the jihadi cause.

The GSPC pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda last year and changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb in January.

Meanwhile, in the Islamic Republic of Kosova ...

aki - Kosovo: Serbian FM asks NATO to protect Serbs as tensions rise.

Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic on Wednesday asked NATO to protect minority Serbs in breakaway Kosovo province as tensions grew over the status of the province with majority ethnic Albanians, which has been under United Nations control since 1999.

Jeremic was quoted by Serbian media as telling NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Schefer in Brussels that the situation in Kosovo was complex and asked the western military alliance, which has a contingent of 17,000 soldiers (Kfor) stationed in Kosovo, "to do everything to protect peace and security of Serbs in Kosovo".

"Regardless of political and diplomatic developments, maintaining peace and stability in Kosovo and the region must be absolute priority," Jeremic said. His warning came as thousands of Serbs were planning to commemorate 617th anniversary of the historic battle of Kosovo in which Serbian army was defeated by Ottoman invaders, opening doors to six centuries of Turkish occupation of the Balkans.

Western powers are pushing for Kosovo independence to sooth majority ethnic Albanians, but Belgrade and Russia oppose the move. Moscow has threatened to use a veto in the UN Security Council and demanded fresh negotiations which might lead to a negotiated settlement.

Ethnic Albanians, who outnumber the remaining Serbs in the province by 17 to one, have grown restless over independence project being stalled in the Security Council and have hinted they might resort to violence.

"Schefer has completely agreed that the situation was complex, but he underlined that Kfor would do everything in its power to completely protect peace and stability in Kosovo," Jeremic was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, a group of Serbian youths calling themselves "The Guard of emperor Lazar", who embarked on a two-week march from Belgrade to Kosovo on June 14, reached Kosovo on Tuesday and was ready to take part in the commemoration at Gazimestan, near Kosovo capital of Pristina.

Emperor Lazar led Serbian forces at the historic 1389 battle, and the Guard rallies Serbian youths irritated over prospective loss of Kosovo. On the other hand, veterans of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which started a rebellion against Serbian rule in 1998, have threatened to settle accounts "with the Guard of criminals" and warned Kfor not to try to protect them.

"Hands away from Kosovo and the provocations which might lead to new wars in the region," KLA veterans said in a statement.

Brain Drain in Africa

jpost - 200 Sudanese refugees put on busses to Jerusalem.

200 Sudanese refugees have been put on busses by the Be'er Sheba municipality who announced Wednesday that they could no longer take care of the refugees' needs and that it was the responsibility of the Israeli government.

"The problem is that the government of Israel has not worked together with the municipality to deal with this crisis," a municipality spokesmen told the Jerusalem Post "so we've decided to take some of the refugees and leave them in the streets of Jerusalem."

The busses carrying the refugees are expected to arrive at the Rose Garden next to the Knesset by 6 p.m.

The gov't is set to discuss the policy on refugees on Thursday.

Main Stream Message: Iran needs Nukes

ap - Iran: Fuel rationing begins, gas stations attacked.

Angry Iranians attacked several gas stations in protest after the government suddenly began long-threatened fuel rationing, while many others rushed to fill their tanks.

The Oil Ministry announced the start of rationing Tuesday night only three hours before it was due to begin at midnight. The sudden announcement sparked long lines at stations as Iranians tried to get one last fill-up before the limitations kicked in.

Several stations were attacked "by vandals," state radio reported early Wednesday. It did not say how many stations were damaged or give details.

The Iranian government had been planning for weeks to implement rationing, which was supposed to begin May 21 but was repeatedly put off. In May, the government reduced subsidies for gas, causing a 25 percent jump in the price.

Pakistan warns of Muslim "Explosion"

danielpipes - Salman Rushdie and British Backbone.

Is the knighting of Salman Rushdie, 60, by the queen of England "a sign of the changing mood" toward British Muslims, as Observer columnist Nick Cohen wrote? Is it "a welcome example of ... British backbone," as Islamism specialist Sadanand Dhume described it in the Wall Street Journal?

I think not. Rather, the knighting, announced June 16, was done without heed of its implications.

Most of the uproar against the honor is taking place in Pakistan, as it did in 1988, when Sir Salman's novel, The Satanic Verses, was initially published. "We deplore the decision of the British government to knight him," a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said The lower house of parliament unanimously passed a government-backed resolution calling Rushdie a "blasphemer."

Most extraordinarily, Pakistan's minister of religious affairs, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, endorsed suicide bombing against the United Kingdom. "If someone exploded a bomb on his body, he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the 'sir' title." Ijaz ul-Haq later added that "If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honor of the Prophet Muhammad, his act is justified."

A trade union offered a $160,000 reward to anyone who beheads Rushdie. Iran's speaker of parliament, Gholamali Haddadadel, threatened that Muslims "will not leave this imprudent and shameless act without response."

Islamists demonstrate in Pakistan.

Such reactions from on-high spurred Islamists to the streets in many cities, including London's, burning effigies of Rushdie and Queen Elizabeth and chanting slogans such as "Death to Rushdie! Death to the queen!"

Fortunately, some Muslims decried these reactions. Canadian writer Irshad Manji noted that the Pakistani government had nothing to say about "assaults on fellow believers" in Kabul and Baghdad, where Islamist terrorism killed more than 100 Muslims. "I am offended that amid the internecine carnage, a professed atheist named Salman Rushdie tops the to-do list," she wrote.

These Islamist threats extend a drama begun on Valentine's Day, 1989 when Ayatollah Khomeini issued his death edict against Rushdie, stating that "the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses -- which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly."

That very day, I went on television and predicted that the novelist would never escape the edict. He, however, experimented with appeasement in 1990 and with self-delusion since 1998, when the Iranian foreign minister declared his government no longer intent on murdering him. Rushdie wishfully deemed this "a breakthrough," concluding that the Khomeini edict "will be left to wither on the vine."

I warned Rushdie in 1998 against his giddy insistence on being in the clear. For one, the edict remained in place; Iranian leaders do not believe themselves competent to undo it (a point reiterated by an ayatollah, Ahmad Khatami, just the other day). For another, freelancers around the globe could still nominate themselves to fulfill Khomeini's call to action.

But Rushdie and his friends ignored these apprehensions. Christopher Hitchens, for example, thought Rushdie had returned to normal life. That became conventional wisdom; such insouciance and naïveté -- rather than "backbone" -- best explains awarding the knighthood.

I welcome the knighting because, for all his political mistakes, Rushdie is indeed a fine novelist. I wish I could agree with Dhume that this recognition of him suggests "the pendulum has begun to swing" in Britain against appeasing radical Islam.

But I cannot. Instead, I draw two conclusions: First, Rushdie should plan around the fact of Khomeini's edict being permanent, to expire only when he does. Second, the British government should take seriously the official Pakistani threat of suicide terrorism, which amounts to a declaration of war and an operational endorsement. So far, it has not done that.

Other than an ambassadorial statement of "deep concern," Whitehall insists that the minister's threat will not harm a "very good relationship" with Pakistan. It has even indicated that Ijaz ul-Haq is welcome in Britain if on a private visit. (Are suicide bombers also welcome, so long as they are not guests of the government?) Until the Pakistani authorities retract and apologize for Ijaz ul-Haq's outrageous statement, London must not conduct business-as-usual with Islamabad.

Now that would constitute "British backbone."

The Inshallah Factor

ap - Ten die, thousands flee as cyclone hits Pakistan.

Ten people drowned and thousands fled to higher ground Tuesday as a tropical cyclone lashed Pakistan's coastline with heavy rains and high winds, officials said.

At least three small boats were reported to have sunk and 18 fishing boats were missing as the navy sent a warship and two helicopters to scour the rough seas in search of vessels caught up in the storm.

Cyclone Yemyin hit parts of the coastline of Baluchistan province at about noon with winds of up to 57 miles (91 kilometers) an hour, said Qamaruz Zaman, director-general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department.

Rain-swollen rivers flooded several coastal districts, killing at least ten people, including four children, said Raziq Bugti, spokesman for the provincial government.

Islam is a Religion of Peace

ap - Lebanese official: 300 killed, wounded in clashes.

Some 300 Islamic militants have been killed or wounded in the month-long battle with Lebanese troops in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, leaving only a few dozen fighters hiding in the besieged camp, Defense Minister Elias Murr said Tuesday.

In an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, Murr said that the Lebanese army has cornered the remaining members of the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam group in a small section of the camp.

The military now controls 80 percent of the Nahr el-Bared camp, the minister said.

jpost - Top Iraqi university official shot and killed.

A top Baghdad University official was shot to death in front of his daughter in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in the capital, police said.

Nihad Mohammed al-Rawi, a Sunni Arab in his mid-50s, was killed after gunmen intercepted the car that was carrying him home, a police official said, adding that al-Rawi's daughter and two bodyguards were in the car but were not harmed.

Al-Rawi, the deputy in charge of administrative affairs and head of the chemical engineering department at Iraq's main university, was the latest in a string of academics and students targeted by both sides of the sectarian divided as extremists see universities as bastions of Western, non-Islamic thought.

More than 200 university professors have been killed since the US-led invasion in March 2003. Thousands have fled abroad, according to the Ministry of Higher Education.

bangkokpost - Sadao market reduced to ashes.

A wet market went up in smoke, a petrol station worker was killed in a drive-by shooting, a teacher escort unit had a narrow escape from a bomb and a pick-up truck was set on fire in incidents throughout in the far South yesterday. Police suspected arson was behind the blaze which reduced about 90% of the wet market in Songkhla's Sadao district to ashes.

The other incidents occurred in Pattani and Yala, further south.

The cabinet yesterday approved a budget of 271 million baht for the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre to improve living standards in Yala, Satun, Pattani, Narathiwat and four districts of Songkhla.

Assistant government spokesman Natthawat Sutthiyothin said the money would be spent on educational, agricultural, vocational and religious projects.

The cabinet also approved an extra pension equivalent to that of a C-11 level retired official for the family of the late district chief of Pattani's Mai Kaen, Chaipat Raksayod, who was killed in a bomb blast in Pattani on June 19.

Police estimated the losses from the blaze at Sadao's Kobkul market, which housed up to 200 shops and stalls on two-and-a-half rai of property, at 100 million baht.

The fire began about 1.45am somewhere in the middle of the market. Firefighters from four neighbouring districts took four hours to douse the flames.

The market and shops had no insurance for losses from fire.

Police initially suspected arson and posited two theories _ an insurgent attack or retaliation by gamblers or gangs of racers who were earlier been arrested.

Since April, there have been at least five cases of arson at schools, shops and prayer sites in Pangla municipality. All told, about 11 places have been torched.

In Yala, a pick-up truck belonging to the tambon Lidol administration organisation was set on fire near its offices in Muang district. Shortly afterwards, nearby Ban Taloh school was torched, but damage was minor.

In Pattani, petrol station attendant Matorhae Mama, 27, was killed in a drive-by shooting at a tea shop in Muang district about 12.30am. Four other customers were wounded.

A teacher escort team narrowly escaped death when a bomb exploded in Khok Pho district yesterday morning.

Eight suspected insurgents were transferred from Surat Thani to the custody of Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc) Region 4 in Songkhla.

They had been in hiding in the province since June 22 following an attack on soldiers. They were apprehended and a pick-up truck riddled with bullet holes and three mobile phones seized in a raid on a vehicle repair shop on Monday.

Out of the eight, Humdee Bueraheng, 19, a resident of Narathiwat's Rueso district, was identified as a member of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil, which authorities say is a leading organiser of violence.

A Question to Muslims (#467)

Quran 009:029 says:

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

The "People of the Book" are primarily Jews and Christians.

What should Muslims say to Muslims who include Jews and Christians among "those" who should be "fought" on the basis of this verse?

Cultural Diversity and Social Customs

dailytimes - Girl crosses LoC to avoid marriage.

June 22, 2007 ◊ An 18-year-old Pakistani girl felt so strongly about being made to marry a man against her will that she fled to Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) in a high-altitude trek across the Line of Control (LoC), reports said on Thursday.

Anida Khan was arrested by Indian authorities after having successfully crossed the de facto divide -- one of the world's deadliest borders. The English-language Excelsior newspaper said that during questioning, Khan "revealed that her parents wanted her to marry against her wishes".

dailytimes - Church slams rape of 14-year-old.

June 22, 2007 ◊ The Women Desk Church of Pakistan condemned the alleged gang rape of a 14-year-old Christian girl and urged the government to immediately arrest the culprits and provide security to the victim's family, said a statement issued by the church on Thursday.

Mohammad Asif, Rizwan alias Khusri and Muhammad Nawaz allegedly raped Sumaira Rafiq Masih, 14, on May 14 in Nazampura Chak 2 Patoki.

The statement said they gave tea mixed with intoxicants to the victim and the three women had it without knowing. After the incident, it said, the victim allegedly was raped. An FIR numbered 250/07 U/S 376/337J was lodged on June 19 at the City Patoki police station, but no one had been arrested yet.

dailytimes - Blair hates Muslims, says Shujaat.

June 22, 2007 ◊ Pakistan Muslim League President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said on Thursday one should not be surprised by the British government's decision to award a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie, APP reported.

"(British prime minister) Tony Blair is personally against the Muslims," Hussain told the National Assembly while speaking on a point of order.

The PML president castigated Rushdie in the strongest possible words. "He is a mad man. He is a thief and he is a scoundrel," he said. He suggested the author should only be called Rushdie as Salman is a holy name and it is not appropriate to bracket it with Rushdie.

Earlier, the MMA's Farid Ahmed Paracha said the house should once again pass a resolution urging the British government to strip Rushdie of his knighthood. He said the British government, despite the strong Muslim protests across the world, had not apologised and what it only said was "it felt sorry because the sentiments of Muslims have been hurt". "To award Rushdie is an insult to Muslims."

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi said the house had passed a unanimous resolution in this context. "The government has strongly protested and told the British high commissioner that Pakistanis have been deeply hurt by their action," Afgan said.

The minister said Rushdie had made no contribution to literature and in fact, the British government had negated its own traditions by knighting him. "In Britain only those are knighted who have won a Nobel Prize." He, however, said he would not favour a second resolution in the house.

Dr Attaur Rehman of the MMA said Pakistan should withdraw as a frontline state in the "war on terrorism," because it also includes Britain and the US.

Staff report adds: Former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain came under fire when Dr Farid Paracha, without naming these leaders, regretted their silence over the issue.

thenews - I'll kill Rushdie: Punjab speaker.

June 22, 2007 ◊ Punjab Assembly Speaker Afzal Sahi has said that he will kill controversial writer Salman Rushdie if he comes across him.

"Death is the only punishment for a blasphemer," said the speaker when Rana Sanaullah of the PML-N asked the chair on a point of order to clarify the government's position on the federal religious affairs minister's statement about the award of knighthood to Rushdie.

The Euro-Arab Axis of Evil

aki - Syria: Italian senators visit.

A delegation of Italian senators visiting Syria has met with top officials in Damascus to discuss ways of how to relaunch a peace process in the Middle East. The head of the delegation, former Italian prime minister Lamberto Dini, held talks on Monday afternoon with Syria's deputy president, Faruq al-Sharaa. Sharaa said he appreciated Italy's efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflicts in the Middle East.

Dini and members of his delegation, who arrived in Syria over the weekend, earlier met Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the country's parliamentary speaker Mahmud al-Abrash. The discussion focused on bi-lateral relations and development initiatives.

According to Syrian sources, the issue of the return to Syria of the Golan Heights which were occupied by by Israel in 1967 were also discussed.

The Italian senators' visit follows one by Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema earlier this month in which he urged Damascus to play a postive role in creating stability in neighbouring Lebanon.

Helpless: Muhammad's Children

aki - Baghdad orphanage scandal raises concerns.

Parents who have had to leave their children at care institutions have expressed outrage at the discovery of over 20 severely malnourished boys who had been left without proper care in a Baghdad orphanage last week.

The 24 boys -- most of whom are mentally handicapped and aged 3-15 -- were found on 10 June naked in a dark room without windows by US and Iraqi soldiers on a routine patrol. Many of the children were tied to their beds and too weak to stand once released.

In a nearby locked room, the soldiers discovered food and clothing which should have been used for the children. Three women, claiming to be the caretakers, and two men, the orphanage director and a guard, were on site when the soldiers arrived.

The case has infuriated parents of the children. "If we were living in a normal country, I would have sued these criminals," said the father of two of the boys. "But we are living in complete chaos," he added.

The father refused to be identified. He left his children in the orphanage after becoming a displaced person nearly two years ago.

"What can we do? They became a heavy burden on us. We decided to send them there and we still can't take them back because of our harsh living conditions," said the father.

Ahmed Nasser Abdullah, 44, father of a mentally handicapped boy in another Baghdad orphanage, shared the same sentiments. "I'm totally shocked," he said.

Abdullah, a day labourer, left his son at the orphanage about three years ago as he could not afford his son’s treatment, but now he has decided to get him back.

"Living in severe hardship is better than leaving him in those uncaring hands. Now I understand why they insisted I made an appointment before visiting my son. They make sure the kids are in good shape before a visit," Abdullah added.

"Two members of staff have been arrested," said Hamid al-Zaidi, the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry's inspector-general. Arrest warrants were also issued for three employees of the orphanage who have gone into hiding and remain at large, according to al-Zaidi.

Two probes were under way -- one ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and one by the Labour Ministry, a government statement said last week.

"The incompetent employees will be severely punished and even imprisoned," al-Zaidi said.

He acknowledged that some caretakers had been negligent, but said the orphanage had been doing its best to provide care for the children under difficult circumstances. He said the caretakers had to take off the orphans' clothes to cool them down as the place had no electricity and thus no cooling systems.

"The handicapped children were abandoned by their families and we are trying to save them from death, but the whole of Iraq is undergoing difficult circumstances," he said.

Al-Zaidi said the manager of the boys' home had requested generators and pay rises but these had been rejected.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs declined to say how many orphans were in its facilities.

On 22 June the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) urged the Iraqi government to address the plight of orphans and vulnerable children in Iraq.

UNICEF also called for a transparent monitoring system for the management of such institutions, and measures to improve staff skills and boost community-based childcare alternatives.

"The ongoing conflict and displacement are now putting the welfare of all children at risk, particularly orphans. Families struggling to feed and educate their own children are increasingly unable to take on others," the UNICEF statement said.

The Principle of "free and undistorted Competition"

reuters - Blair presses Sarkozy on EU competition clause.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair told French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday that a new European Union treaty must provide clarity on the bloc's free-market competition policy, Blair's spokesman said.

"The prime minister is talking to President Sarkozy at the moment about it. ... We have to have a situation where there is clarity over the EU's attitude to competition," he told reporters at an EU summit.

Sarkozy's spokesman said France was satisfied with a German EU presidency draft mandate for a new reform treaty, which removed the principle of "free and undistorted competition" from EU objectives as set out in its defunct constitution.

Nestling in Hell

aki - Iran: Festival honours headscarf and chastity.

Iran's first festival to celebrate the Muslim headscarf and chastity, entitled 'A pearl nestling in its shell' is due to take place in Birjand in the western Khorasan region.

There will be close to 200 talks and over 60 poetry readings, as well as 43 photo exhibitions and viewings of the work of 13 painters, as well as 5 multimedia installations.

The event will close with a fashion show of more than five hundred garments which in the eyes of the organisers will show that chastity and elegance are not incompatible.

Democracy: The God that Failed

cphpost - Ministry accused of stonewalling UN investigation.

Authorities investigating corruption charges stemming from the UN's Oil for Food Programme are finding their progress slowed by the Foreign Ministry.

The National Serious Fraud Division is running up against a wall of silence in its attempts to investigate into the government's role in the discredited United Nation's Oil for Food Programme.

For the past 18 months, investigators have not been allowed to interview four Foreign Ministry employees who were involved with the programme nor to make copies of pertinent ministry documents, according to Jens Madsen, head of the Serious Fraud Dvision.

The foot dragging comes despite criticism this May by Per Stig Møller, the foreign minister, that the investigation into whether companies had abused the programme intended to help provide Iraqis with food and medicine after the first Gulf War was moving to slowly. At that time, he said it it was 'crucial that the national authorities are given the possibility to review' materials relating to the case.

The Oil for Food Programme -- which ran from 1996-2003, allowed Iraq, then under UN sanctions, to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine and other humanitarian items. A 2005 investigation found that of the 4500 companies that participated in the programme, nearly half, from some 40 countries, had colluded with Saddam's regime to bilk the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion in illegal surcharges and kickbacks.

Up to 17 Danish companies, including pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk and pump manufacturer Grundfos, are under investigation for their role in the scandal.

Madsen said he has not been given a reason for the ministry's procrastination over the request.

'That has means that a part of the investigation remains incomplete and we'd very much like to get things in place.'

Peter Taksøe-Jensen, the Foreign Ministry's under-secretary for legal affairs, denied that the ministry was stymieing the investigation, but acknowledged the office had not yet finished 'considering the principal aspects of the request'.

Taksøe-Jensen said the investigators have been allowed to view the documents they requested, but not to make copies for use as evidence.

The fraud division is seeking to obtain evidence that would support its confiscation of income received by Danish companies through improprieties committed during the Oil for Food Programme. According to Jyllands-Posten newspaper, the Foreign Ministry became aware of illegal activities in the programme in 2001, but has taken no action.

Lars Bo Langsted, a law expert at Aarhus University, said the ministry's refusal to co-operate with the fraud division's requests smells of a cover-up.

'It is incredibly difficult to understand why the Foreign Ministry does not wish to help resolve this case,' he said. 'It seems as if they could be interested in hiding their own role.'

Tactics of the Crescent Moon

aki - U.S.: Officer tells how Daniel Pearl was murdered.

The US security officer who investigated the the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan has absolved al-Fuqra leader Sheikh Gilani of involvement in the killing. In a highly unusual move, the US State Department posted an interview with the officer, Randall Bennett, on the front page of its website this weekend.

Bennett was the US Regional Security Officer in Karachi during the time Pearl was kidnapped and later murdered in 2002. Bennett was one of the last people to see Pearl alive.

The interview coincided with the release of a film "A Mighty Heart," which depicts the kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter. Bennett's character, played by actor Will Patton, was featured prominently in the film, which also stars actress Angelina Jolie in the lead role of Pearl's wife, Marianne.

Sheikh Omar, who has quite a history involved in the kidnapping -- the hijacking of airplanes out of India and affiliations with various hardcore jihadi organisations -- had very carefully plotted and planned this kidnapping of Danny," said Bennett.

"He had set it up where he had given Danny information and promised this interview with Sheikh Gilani. Sheikh Gilani, as it turned out, had no idea his name was even being used."

Bennett said that Sheikh Omar used the interview to bait Daniel Pearl. "He would throw the bait out and he would reel it back in. So over a period of two weeks, Danny was enticed and then lost the opportunity for the interview."

The US officer said Pearl had been looking forward to this interview because it was a very "hot item."

The so-called shoe-bomber, Richard Reed, who tried to bomb a Chicago-bound plane in 2002 with explosives hidden in his shoes, dominated the US media in those days and Pearl hoped to get some exclusive information about the bomber from this interview."So when it came time, after two weeks of baiting and switching, Danny was at the Metropol Hotel standing outside the Village restaurant. His meeting was at 1900 hours. At 1911 hrs, he received a phone call. The phone call lasted till 1916 hrs.

"So in those five minutes, the investigation later revealed that Sheikh Omar, who was using the name of Bashir at this time, told Danny that 'I'm sorry, he cannot come to see you again.' This was maybe the sixth or seventh time they had baited and switched Danny on a meeting.

"They said, 'He just cannot get away and we've tried and tried and it just hasn't worked out. If you want the interview, he's at the madrassa. We'll pick you up and bring you here and then we'll take you back, but he's not going to be able to come and see you there,'" said Bennett.

He said Pearl had asked him earlier if he could go to a madrassa to interview Sheikh Gilani, as his fixer had suggested and "I told him that that was definitely a no-go."

He said he explained to Pearl that all madrassas were essentially in dangerous locations. They typically had affiliations to the more radical elements. And for Pearl to go to one of those meant he would be completely cut off from his communication and any safe haven or recourse.

"And I guess at that moment, Danny had a tough decision to make and he made the decision that he was going to go and do the interview."

Bennett said that during the same period three other American citizens were also kidnapped in Karachi and his team and the Karachi Citizen-Police Liaison Committee were able to recover each of them within 24 hours.

But they could not recover Pearl because they learned about it 12 hours after the kidnapping, which gave the kidnappers the time to take Pearl out of the city.

In the interview, Bennett also explains how they detained Sheikh Omar's relatives in Karachi and Rawalpindi to force him to surrender.

Ultimately, Sheikh Omar surrendered to a relative, a retired intelligence officer, in Lahore who gave him to police after 15 days "and of course, we let (Sheikh Omar's) family go back to their house immediately."

The Liberal Dictionary: F - Freedom of Information

local - Prison porn for rapists approved by court.

Sweden's convicted rapists are entitled to have pornography in their cells, the Supreme Administrative Court (Regeringsrätten) judged on Monday.

The decision is the final word in a case that began when the Swedish Prison and Probation Service banned a man serving an eight year sentence for rape in Härnosand jail from receiving pornographic material.

The prison authorities argued that the use of pornography would disrupt the treatment being given to sex offenders. It was also claimed that porn would be a security risk at the jail.

In March 2006 the district administrative appeals court (kammarätten) in Sundsvall ruled that the principle of freedom of information was more important than the potential threat posed by the prisoners being allowed access to pornography.

The Prison and Probation Service appealed against that judgement but the Supreme Administrative Court upheld all the findings in the initial verdict.

Gays in Love for Right-Wing Moral Values

ap - Religious groups lead New York gay pride parade.

Religious groups including Christians, Jews and Buddhists led the New York gay pride parade on Sunday, lending gravity to the often outrageous event that celebrates the 1969 Stonewall riots when patrons at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back against a police raid.

"We stand for a progressive religious voice," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda I believe are blaspheming God's name."

Kleinbaum, who heads the world's largest predominantly gay synagogue, and the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, were the parade's grand marshals, waving from his-and-hers convertibles.

The march took place days after the New York State Assembly passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, which Governor Eliot Spitzer supports. Although the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled state Senate any time soon, parade-goers said they were cheered by the Assembly's action.

"This is one very important step toward full equality for all New Yorkers," Kleinbaum said.

Tens of thousands of people attended the march, including NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The Abu Mazen Fantasy

fpm - Why reward a failed illusion?

Once again a center-left government of Israel has seized on a fantasy it views as a panacea for the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a speech at an Israeli Naval base said, "An opportunity has arisen which we have not had for 40 years" to make peace with the Palestinians. In a meeting with President Bush at the White House this week Olmert vowed to support and strengthen Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) in the hopes that Abu Mazen's Fatah organization will combat the Islamist radicals of Hamas, and be a genuine peace-partner. President Bush and Secretary of State Rice expressed their hopes for the revival of the Road Map, and both Bush and Olmert viewed this week's declaration by Abu Mazen, that he is forming a new government and firing the Hamas Prime Minister Ismael Hanyia, as a very positive development.

These machinations -- counting on one Palestinian faction to do the bidding of the USA or Israel have failed miserably in the past, and are likely to fail again for the simple reason that the difference between the so called "secular" Fatah and the Islamist Hamas is merely tactical and not strategic in nature. The end game for both Fatah and Hamas is the elimination of the Jewish State and its replacement with an Arab-Muslim state. Hamas seeks a state governed by Sharia Islamic laws, while Fatah follows the vision of the Palestinian Covenant and Constitution drafted as a Palestinian Liberation Organization document in 1968.

In 1976, then Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres permitted Saudi funds to pass to pre-Hamas Islamists in order to offset the near certain election of PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) approved nationalists, pro-Arafat Palestinians in the West Bank municipal elections. The ploy failed, and the pro-Arafat mayors were elected.

Following the Oslo Accords of September 1993, Rabin and Peres ((Prime Minister, Foreign Minister respectively) who were concerned with the rise of radical Islamism in the Palestinian territories (being fueled by Iran's support to Sunni radical Islamist movements), counted on Yaser Arafat and his Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA), to basically serve as Israel's local policemen and clamp down on the Hamas. Shortly thereafter, Arafat gave Hamas a green light to carry out terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians and coordinated with Hamas the murderous work of his own terrorist groups affiliated with Fatah such as the Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades. Arafat nevertheless pleaded his innocence to the western media and the Rabin/Peres government looked the other way. The second Intifada against Israel that began in September 2000 was led by Fatah-not the Hamas.

Both Israel and the U.S. are heavily invested in Abu Mazen and Fatah. Hundreds of millions in U.S. taxpayer's money will once again flow to the Palestinian Authority under President Abu-Mazen, just as it did under Yaser Arafat. The U.S., Israel and the EU are hoping for accelerated talks between Israel and the PA on the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank.

It is therefore prudent to remind American taxpayers that the PA has been the largest recipient of international aid since its creation in 1993. In fact, the per-capita aid to the Palestinians exceeds that of the Marshall Plan, which provided U.S. funds to devastated Europe in the aftermath of WWII . According to U.S. State Department figures the U.S. has since 1993 given the Palestinians an average of $85 million in economic aid annually. The U.S. has also contributed nearly $1.098 billion, from 1993-2004, to the U.N. Relief Works Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA's sole purpose is to provide economic and educational assistance to the Palestinians. No other group of people or refugees enjoys a similar privilege.

Under Arafat, the bulk of international aid to the Palestinian went into the private accounts of the Rais Arafat and his minions. This glaring corruption by the PA and Fatah leadership was the reason why the majority of Palestinians "kicked out the Fatah bums" and voted for a Hamas government in January 2006. Fatah's fiscal malfeasance, coupled with the absence of the rule-of-law, and lack of commitment to peace with Israel, will once again dash American and Israeli hopes.

Fatah's original charter calling for a "secular, democratic state in Palestine" has been transformed since the Oslo Accords into an Islamist movement. Fatah has competed with Hamas in the building of mosques with public funds, and hired imams to spread the message of martyrdom by encouraging suicide bombing and hatred for Jews and Christians. It was Fatah-controlled PA TV that broadcasted programs showing young children spewing hatred for Jews and Israel, and declaring their intentions to become suicide bombers. Similarly, PA textbooks have poisoned an entire generation of youth to hate Jews and Israel. Is Fatah the entity that can make peace with Israel? Will Fatah-educated children be prepared to carry out, in good faith, any peace agreements?

Abu Mazen will surely be seen and heard making declarations geared to please the western and Israeli media in which he denounces terrorism and pleads for negotiations and peace agreements, just as Arafat did. At the same time, he will signal to his own terrorist groups, such as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and other groups we haven't yet learned about, to resume terrorist operations against Israel "when the timing is right."

The Fatah Jihadists are unlikely to give up the armed struggle against Israel, and while Abu Mazen might condemn unapproved terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians "that are contrary to Palestinian national interests," he has never disavowed the "armed struggle" or the immorality of terrorism.

The Bush administration and the Olmert government are gambling on Abu Mazen and the Fatah to deliver peace, end terror, and create a functioning Palestinian state. Abu Mazen did not deliver peace with Israel nor proper governance when he served as Prime Minister under Arafat, or, as President since Arafat's death. Abu Mazen's incompetence and lack of leadership enabled Hamas to take over Gaza. The West Bank might also fall to Hamas precisely because of the nature of Fatah and the lackluster leadership of Abu Mazen.

Arming Abu Mazen's Fatah goons with sophisticated weapons, and removing the Jewish settlements in the West Bank as the Sharon/Olmert plan called for, will ultimately bring Palestinian terrorism to the heart of Israel. It would be another fantasy of Israel's political left gone astray.

French Weather and Global Climate in France

afp - France to get first cash from EU globalisation fund.

The European Commission on Monday approved the first two payments of cash from a new EU fund aimed at cushioning the impact of globalisation.

Small companies that supply French car makers Peugeot-Citroen and Renault will receive 3.8 million euros (5.1 million dollars) to help "workers made redundant due to company failures in a climate of changing global trade patterns," the EU executive said.

Commission spokeswoman Katharina von Schnurbein said the money would be disbursed once EU member states and the European Parliament gave their approval, which could take "three or four months."

The fund was set up at the end of last year to help workers who lose their jobs because of globalisation get back to work.

Schnurbein said that other candidates for cash from the fund were "in the pipeline," including the Finnish telecoms sector and textiles workers in Malta.

Religion of Peace strikes Peacekeepers

ap - Al-Qaeda kill three Spanish peacekeepers in Lebanon.

A car bomb killed six U.N. peacekeepers on patrol in southern Lebanon in the first attack on the international force since it was expanded after last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.

Ten people also died in the north Sunday, in the latest battle between Lebanese troops and Sunni militants, who have threatened to start launching attacks in other parts of Lebanon.

Among those condemning the attack on the U.N. peacekeepers was the Shiite Hezbollah, which called it a "suspicious act that harms the people of the south and of Lebanon." The militant group has had good relations with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon , known as UNIFIL, since the troops were first deployed in 1978.

The U.N. has since become increasingly involved in highly divisive issues in Lebanon, including its tense relations with neighboring Syria.

UNIFIL said in a statement that the six peacekeepers were killed and two others seriously wounded in an "apparent car bomb attack" while they were on patrol.

In Madrid, Spanish Defense Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said three Colombian and two Spanish peacekeepers were among the slain. He called it a "premeditated attack" and said the "most likely cause" was a car bomb or device activated by remote control.

Lebanese officials said no body parts were found in the car, meaning the bomb was detonated from a distance and did not involve a suicide attacker.

The blast threw the troops' armored personnel carrier to the side of a main road between the towns of Marjayoun and Khiam, a few miles (kilometers) north of the Israeli town of Metulla. Investigators worked under floodlights late Sunday at the scene to determine what happened.

Spain has 1,100 peacekeepers in Lebanon, part of the 13,000-member U.N. force from 30 countries. UNIFIL, along with 15,000 Lebanese troops, patrols a zone along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

UNIFIL's presence puts teeth in the U.N. cease-fire resolution that halted last summer's 34-day war. Southern Lebanon has been largely quiet after the summer war killed more than 1,200 people, most of them in Lebanon.

Western-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora denounced the attack, as did Israeli, U.S. and French officials.

Syria also condemned the attack, the country's official news agency reported. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told his Spanish counterpart in a telephone call that the attack was "a criminal act that aims at shaking security and stability in southern Lebanon."

Last month, the U.N. Security Council imposed an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri despite rejection from the country's Hezbollah-led opposition, which supports Damascus' involvement in Lebanon.

Complicating the picture, media reports earlier this month said interrogations by Lebanese authorities with captured al-Qaida-inspired militants revealed plots to attack the U.N. force.

The warnings became more serious after the al-Qaida-inspired Sunni Islamic group Fatah Islam began fighting Lebanese troops at Nahr el-Bared, a northern Lebanon Palestinian refugee camp, five weeks ago. The militants have threatened to expand their battle to other parts of Lebanon.

In addition, al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, in videos broadcast in September, has denounced the reinforced UNIFIL.

U.N. staff recently erected a 13-foot (4-meter)-high blast wall around the building housing U.N. offices in Beirut.

In the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanese troops on Sunday raided an apartment complex suspected of housing al-Qaida-inspired militants, sparking a gunbattle that killed six of the militants, security officials said.

A Lebanese soldier, a policeman and two family members were also slain in the fighting, which began when troops seized a building where militants had taken refuge after nighttime clashes.

The six dead militants were three Saudi nationals, one ethnic Chechen and two Lebanese who also held foreign passports, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The battle shifted the fighting from the bombed-out Nahr el-Bared back to nearby Tripoli, where violence first erupted May 20. The Nahr el-Bared fighting, Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war, has killed 80 soldiers and wounded more than 150. The fighting has claimed the lives of at least 60 militants and more than 20 civilians.

The Meaning of Jihad

aki - Egypt: al-Qaeda cell backs Hamas.

After the organisation's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, other cells of al-Qaeda have come out in suport of Palestinian militant group Hamas and invited its militants to help the militiamen controlling the Gaza strip.

The group calling itself the "Organisation of al-Qaeda in the land of Canaan" which represents the jihadi network in Egypt, has published an internet message inviting Egyptian Islamists to "help and support the mujahadeen in Palestine". The statement explains "here finally the Hamas of Jihad and martyrdom has returned to its former splendour, conquering and supporting the Jihad, and for this we support them.

What is more the statement invites the Egyptian jihadis to strike "any Jewish crusader objective present in Egypt" and criticised the initiative of Jamaa al-Islamia who had decided to repent and give up the armed struggle. Security sources in Cairo, contacted by the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat have however played down the extent of the threat, confirming that the security measures adopted in the Sinai where there are various tourism resorts, remain unchanged.

Can Norway Save Christianity?

aftenposten - Afghan refugees carry on fight to stay in Norway.

The fate of a group of Afghan refugees in Oslo remained unclear Monday, after several of them converted to Christianity in a last-ditch effort to avoid deportation.

More than 20 other Afghan refugees whose asylum appeals remain undecided, meanwhile, said they were setting up their own "asylum academy" at a new encampment outside a church building downtown.

They say they'll use what time they have left in Norway to study human rights and democracy.

Many of the 21 refugees arrested last week when police broke up their camp in front of the Norwegian Parliament were expected to be sent back to Afghanistan over the weekend. They remained in Norway Monday morning, after Oslo Bishop Ole Christian Kvarme told immigration officials that several had converted to Christianity.

Their conversion could leave them facing death threats in Afghanistan. Norwegian officials won't return refugees to their homelands if their lives would be in danger.

The refugees whose asylum applications have been rejected in Norway, 45 in all, have argued all along that Afghanistan is too dangerous for them. They also claim they're exhausted after dealing with 30 years of war in their homeland.

Police said their deportation had been postponed while immigration officials evaluated their situation once again.

Turkey by Numbers

aki - Turkey: EU keeps monetary, economic policy out of membership talks.

Ambassadors from the 27-European Union member states decided on Monday to keep chapters on monetary and ...

... and bla.

Islam is a Religion of Peace

ap - Iraq: 8 killed by suicide bomber in Hillah.

A suicide car bomber targeted the governor's offices in the predominantly Shiite southern city of Hillah on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding 31.

It was the second attack in three days. A parked car packed with explosives blew up on Saturday in the center of the city, 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad.

The explosion on Monday occurred about 6:30 a.m., a spokesman for the provincial police department said. He said the eight killed included three policemen and at least four officers were among the 31 wounded. The spokesman spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

ap - Suicide bomb kills seven at central Baghdad hotel.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in a central Baghdad hotel on Monday, killing seven people, police said. At least 12 other people were reported wounded.

A man wearing a belt of explosives walked into the lobby of the Mansour Hotel, approached the reception desk and detonated his bomb, said a police official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The high-rise hotel, on the banks of the Tigris River, houses the Chinese Embassy and the news agency Agence France-Presse, among other tenants.

bangkokpost - Two rangers shot, burned, schools torched.

Two plainclothes rangers were killed and their bodies burned in Rueso district of Narathiwat yesterday while they were on a mission to gather information.

The charred bodies of Sgt Chakkrapong Pol-nguen and ranger volunteer Thawatchai Maneesang were found on the side of a road in Pu Poh village in tambon Samaggi. A motorcycle was found nearby.

Police said the killers shot the soldiers before dousing their bodies with petrol and setting them on fire. They also stole their weapons.

The two rangers left their base at the 44th Ranger Forces Regiment in plainclothes to mingle with the locals as usual in order to monitor insurgent movements.

Earlier, rubber tapper Kuna Sangthong, 48, was shot and burned in Rueso district.

In nearby Sungai Kolok district, teacher Nattee Pungpetsawat, 48, was shot in the leg.

Two schools were set ablaze in Raman district during the weekend.

Arsonists who burned classrooms at Ban Zue Lo school also scattered spikes on the road to delay firefighters and deter pursuit.

A one-storey building housing kindergarten rooms, a first-aid room and library was destroyed. Firefighters saved a two-storey building.

Witnesses said four or five people broke into the buildings, doused books with petrol and set them on fire. A five-litre petrol container was found nearby.

Police suspect the same gang torched Ban Panathaksin school in the same district on Saturday.

In Yala's Bannang Sata district, Jogo Josamoja, 47, was the latest casualty of a drive-by shooting. He was standing in front of his house when he was killed.

In Raman district, two military outposts were attacked on Raman road and one soldier wounded.

A Question to Muslims (#466)

Quran 009:029 says:

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

The "People of the Book" are primarily Jews and Christians.

What should Muslims say to Muslims who include Jews and Christians among "those" who should be "fought" on the basis of this verse?

Cultural Diversity and Social Customs

dawn - Man kills daughter in name of honour.

June 19, 2007 ◊ A man shot dead his daughter in the name of honour in Jundo village, the Taxila police told Dawn on Tuesday.

The victim, Zaibun Nisa, had married Mr Yaqoob of the same village of her own will three years ago and shifted to some unknown place.

On Monday, when Zaibun Nisa revisited Jundo village, her father identified as Mohammad Taj in a fit of rage shot her Nisa dead and escaped from the crime scene.

After an autopsy at the THQ hospital Taxila, the police handed the body over to the family for burial.

Meanwhile, the police registered a murder case on the complaint of Yaqoob, but no arrest could be made till the filing of this news report.

aki - Afghanistan: Almost one in four children 'forced to work'

June 19, 2007 ◊ Poverty, lack of educational opportunities and the demand for cheap labour are helping to fuel the prevalence of child labour across Afghanistan, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned.

Nearly one quarter of Afghan children between the ages of seven and 14 are working, with more girls working than boys and the problem worst in rural areas, Noriko Izumi, head of child protection for UNICEF in Afghanistan, said at a press conference in Kabul.

"Poverty and low family income levels force children to work to support their family," said Izumi.

While some types of work serve to teach children new skills that can help them become responsible and productive adults, she said work that interferes with the education of children and affects their mental, physical and social well-being is considered child labour.

"It is those jobs which are detrimental to children's development that we are talking about."

Lack of educational opportunities also pushes a child to work, as did the demand for cheaper labour, she stated, adding "children are cheaper to employ than adults and easier to manipulate. It is easier to hire and fire children."

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 218 million children worldwide, from 5 to 17 years old, are engaged in some kind of labour, with 126 million children engaged in the worst forms of child labour.

UNICEF is working on several fronts to tackle child labour in Afghanistan, which already has a number of legal and policy instruments to protect children, including a national strategy for children at risk and a child labour law defining the legal age of employment.

At the same time, it urged the Afghan government to sign and ratify two important ILO conventions -- one concerning the minimum age of employment and the other one regarding hazardous work.

Among the challenges for UNICEF is difficulty verifying a child's age because of the low birth registration rate in the country, which has emerged from decades of conflict.

"It is also difficult to regulate informal sectors like agriculture where we know many children are employed in Afghanistan," Izumi added.

UNICEF's interventions in the country include non-formal education, which it hopes will help transit the child to formal schooling, and vocational skills training for older children. It is also supporting children "associated with armed forces and other war-affected children." Since 2003, over 12,600 children have been supported in 29 provinces with literacy classes and vocational training.

Izumi noted that while there are fewer children now involved in child labour globally, that does not seem to be the case in the Asia-Pacific region. "So we still have lots of work to do in this region."

The Rise and Fall of Islam

jpost - US Congress passes bill outlawing Saudi support.

The US Congress passed a unanimous bill Saturday to outlaw aid to Saudi Arabia due to the country's support of terror organizations including Hamas and lack of tolerance towards other religions, Israel Radio reported Saturday morning.

The US has financed Saudi military exercises and arms over the last few years and according to the new bill will stop doing so.

Representatives of the Democratic Party said that it was unfeasible that the US would finance the army of the country which produces the largest amount of oil in the world and at the same time many of its citizens have joined terror groups including al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

The Senate was expected to authorize the bill but President George Bush would likely veto.

One less

ap - Palestinian shot in exchange of fire with IDF.

Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian at a West Bank roadblock near the city of Hebron, Palestinian medics said.

The Israeli army said the Palestinian had tried to enter a military outpost. When the Palestinian did not respond to soldiers' calls to stop, the troops shot at him, the IDF said.

Terror Commander resigns over Terror Victory

ap - Fatah commander resigns over Hamas victory in Gaza.

A top Fatah security commander resigned Friday over his failure to prevent Hamas' takeover of Gaza, Palestinian officials said.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas accepted the resignation of Rashid Abu Shbak, who headed the Fatah-linked Internal Security organization in Gaza and the West Bank, officials in Abbas' office announced Friday.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Long hated by members of Hamas for his role in crackdowns against the Islamic group, Abu Shbak became the target of criticism from his own men after Fatah's forces collapsed in Gaza last week, allowing Hamas to seize full control of the coastal territory.

Problems with Muslims

aki - India: Muslims threaten protest over film.

Muslims in India's southernmost state of Tamil Nadu have threatened protests outside cinemas against superstar Rajnikanth's latest blockbuster Sivaji (The Boss).

They are upset that the movie shows the hero converting a huge amount of black money extorted from villains into legal tender by routing it through the hawala channels [informal transfers of money] of Muslim underground agents, and say it "insults the community of hawala traders."

"The scene showing the hero in an underground den full of Muslims dealing with hawala transactions is highly objectionable. It makes it seem that our community is involved in such illegal acts against the state and the people. We cannot accept this," said Tamil Nadu Muslim group Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary S. Hyder Ali.

The group has warned it will organise protests across the state unless the offending scenes are withdrawn. Hawala, also known as hundi, can been defined as 'transfer without money movement'.

"We will also appeal to the chief minister to intervene since we know he is sensitive to the feelings of minorities. We will launch protests throughout the state and may even go to court to seek justice for Muslims. We are law-abiding people, but this film shows us as criminals operating hawala," sai Ali.

He also accused Sivaji director Shankar of being "consistent in his insensitivity towards minorities and the oppressed classes through several of his films. "He must now realise his social responsibilities," said Ali.

An ancient system originating in South Asia, hawala is used by migrant workers around the world to send remittances to their home country. Cheaper and quicker than official channels bank transfers or international money orders, hawala is illegal under Indian and Pakistani law, whether the source of money is legitimate -- so-called 'white hawala' -- or illegitimate -- termed 'black hawala' or money-laundering.

The Liberal Dictionary: L - Love

aftenposten - Cannot compare homosexuality and pedophilia.

The Bishop of Hamar, Solveig Fiske, has taken action after a minister in Toten refused to allow homosexuals to be godparents in a christening ceremony.

In addition to his surprising decision, the minister made a close comparison between homosexuals and pedophiles.

"A comparison between pedophilia and homosexuality is of course unacceptable. Pedophilia is a criminal offense against children. Homosexuality is about love between adults," Fiske said, and she has asked to meet with the controversial clergyman.

Both the child's parents and prospective godparents reacted in shocked disbelief when the two homosexual men were turned down. The bishop has deeply apologized for the situation that has arisen and the strain it has caused those involved.

The incident has provoked shocked reactions from politicians and interest groups. Minister of Church and Culture Trond Giske called the incident extremely sad and emphasized that there is no law that prevents homosexuals from being godparents.

"I demand that the bishop call this minister in to a serious conversation about what the Church's message and role is. This is a consequence of the Church's unspecified relationship to homosexuality," said Håkon Haugli, the leader of the Labour Party's Homosexual Network.

"The Norwegian Church does not carry out church discipline at the baptismal font. At a baptism the child is in focus. The bishops of the Church have long said that no child shall be denied a baptism due to the living arrangements of its parents," Fiske said in a press release.

Fiske also referred to the rules of baptism that instructed that in cases of doubt the bishop was to be consulted.

One of the potential godparents, Bjørnar Aaslund, has reported the incident to police. The baptism will take place at another church on Sunday, with the homosexual couple as godparents.

Islam remains a Religion of Peace

aki - Student jailed for designing and building terror website.

The Semarang District Court in Central Java sentenced a Semarang University student on Wednesday to three years in jail for designing and setting up a website that provided instructions on how to carry out terrorist attacks against foreigners.

The sentence the court handed down to Agung Prabowo, 24, alias Max Fiderman alias Ahmad alias Kalingga alias Bebek-bebekan, was much lighter than the prosecutors' original demand of eight years.

Judge Sucipto said the defendant was found guilty of running the site, which was used by terror suspects to communicate with each other in 2005.

The Web site suggested targets in the capital of Jakarta frequented by foreigners and the best escape routes for those executing them.

Sucipto explained that Agung designed the site, anshar.net, under the orders of Abdul Azis, a senior high school teacher in Pekalongan, Central Java, who is a member of the Jamaah Islamiyah terrorist network led by fugitive Noordin M. Top.

It was disclosed in earlier trial sessions, Sucipto said, that Abdul Azis first received orders to design the site from Noordin to help the network's members communicate and disseminate information.

Abdul was unable to build the site himself, so he paid Agung to do so. When the site was completed in mid-August 2005, Abdul transferred 200,000 Indonesian rupiahs (22 dollars)to Agung's bank account.

Agung, in return, gave the site's password to Abdul. He said he was not aware of the contents of the site.

The site contained information on how to commit acts of Jihad, types of weapons, war games and tips on how to arrange explosives. At one point it ran the last will of Mukhlas, one of the first Bali bombing convicts to be placed on death row.

Agung claimed he was surprised and disappointed to see that the site he had created was used by the terrorist network.

He later moved the site to the nsisraeil.posting.com domain and closed access to it, but did not delete its contents.

"The problem is that even though he knew the site was being used by terrorists, he did not inform the authorities," Sucipto said.

The panel of judges considered Agung to have violated Article 13 of the government regulation that replaced the 2002 Terrorism Crime Eradication Law and later became a law itself in 2003.

After the trial, Agung said he accepted the verdict but added, "if the prosecutors want to appeal, I'm ready to continue the legal process".

His parents and younger brother attended session. As he was escorted by security officers to a police car, his brother handed him a bundle of clothes.

aki - Fugitive bombing mastermind 'arrested'

Indonesian police have arrested key Bali bombing suspect, Malaysian national Noordin Mohammed Top, the well respected Detikcom news agency reports. He is considered the mastermind behind a series of bombings in Indonesia, including the 2002 and 2005 Bali nightclub attacks which killed over 250 people.

Police arrested Top on 14 June, in Brebes Central Java and intend to announce this on 1 July -- national police day in Indonesia, Detikcom said, quoting an unnamed source.

The report of Top's arrest follows that of the arrest of Abu Dujana, the alleged military commander of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network and Zarkasih, believed to be JI's supreme leader. Zarkasih (also known by the aliases Nuaim, Abu Irsyad and Mbah). Both men were seized on 9 June in an anti terrorist police raid in Banyumas, central Java, the chief of indonesia's anti-terrorist unit announced last Friday.

Indonesia's most wanted fugitive, Top was once one of the leaders of JI. According to experts, the Malaysian is believed to have created his own splinter group, after JI expressed a preference for preaching instead of armed struggle. JI is responsible for a string of deadly terror attacks in Indonesia in recent years including the 2002 and 2005 Bali attacks and bombings of the Marriott Hotel and the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

Noordin is now believed to be the head of the group known as Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad -- which is said to be the original name of al-Qaeda. Sidney Jones the Southeast Asia director of the International Crisis Group recently told Adnkronos International she believes there is still a link between Noordin and the radical elements within JI -- represented by Abu Dujana -- but the level of collaboration is still unclear. Her view is shared by other experts.

JI is believed to recruit both through a select number of Islamic colleges and also through family ties. The terrorist group was created towards the end of the 1980s by a group of Indonesian exiles in Malaysia.

aki - Abu Dujana is lying says Bashir spokesman.

Radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir isn't a former leader of terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), according to a spokesman for his organisation Majelis Mujahiddin Indonesia (MMI). The MMI is made up of groups fighting for Islamic law or Sharia in Indonesia.

Fauzan al-Anshori told Adnkronos International (AKI) that allegations made by Abu Dujana, head of the military wing of JI, after his arrest on 9 June in a police raid in Central Java, that Bashir headed the militant group from 2000 to 2003 are "false and he was certainly forced to make them under torture."

Shortly after his arrest, Dujana gave a filmed confession to the police in which he said Bashir had headed JI for three years, starting in 2000.

Bashir, who is in his late 60s, was released from prison in 2006 after serving less than 26 months in Jakarta's Cipinang penitentiary for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people and thrust Indonesia onto the front lines of the war on terror. Bashir has consistently denied any connection to that or other attacks blamed on the Southeast Asian militant group, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) whose objective is the creation of an Islamic 'caliphate' in the region.

"It is obvious that security forces want to start a campaign to discredit Bashir and everything is due to the pressure exercised by the US," said al-Anshori.

Meanwhile Mahendradata, a well known local lawyer who like many Indonesians only has one name, believed to be close to Bashir has ruled out the possibility that he could be tried again, as hinted in recent reports.

"Bashir already stood trial in connection with terrorist acts and putting him on trial again would break the so-called 'double jeopardy' rule, that is the guarantee that a suspect cannot be tried twice on the same charges," he told AKI.

aki - Muslims remain tolerant poll finds.

Results from a recent survey indicate that the majority of Indonesian Muslims are tolerant toward other religions and ...

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Leviathanian Euroslaves

paulbelien - The 'EUSSR'

In the late 1980s the USSR, Ronald Reagan's "evil empire," imploded. America might soon be confronted with another evil empire. Tomorrow, Europe's politicians meet in Brussels to discuss how they can revive the constitutional treaty, often called the European Constitution, a bloated blueprint (more than 160,000 words in its English version) for transforming the European Union (EU) into a superstate.

Exactly two years ago, this constitution was rejected in referendums in the Netherlands and France. This came as a blow to Brussels, the capital of Belgium and home to the European Commission, the unelected EU executive, and its army of 54,000 eurocrats, a bureaucracy molded in the worst centralist and authoritarian French and German traditions.

Soon after the referendums it became apparent that the European politicians intended to ignore the people's verdict and proceed with their plans for constructing the superstate. During the past six months, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been busy drafting a so-called amended treaty. This bypasses the need for public referendums on the new powers for Brussels, but retains the substance of the constitution -- granting the EU substantial powers over its member states, such as the right to override national legislation and to impose a common foreign policy.

The British have always distrusted grandiose political schemes more than the continental West Europeans. In order to get London's support for Mrs. Merkel's amended treaty, Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France, has offered Tony Blair the job of the first president of Europe. Mr. Blair steps down as British prime minister on June 27 and is looking for a new job.

Nigel Farage, the leader in the European parliament of the British "euroskeptics", those who oppose the centralization of powers in Brussels and defend the national sovereignty of the EU member states, is certain that Mr. Blair will accept the offer. Mr. Farage has already accused him of "sign[ing] away our future just days before he leaves [office]." It remains to be seen, however, whether Mr. Blair will, indeed, "do a Schroeder." Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, negotiated a controversial gas deal with Russia in his final weeks in office and, in return, got himself a high position at the Russian gas company immediately after he retired from office. If Mr. Blair "does a Schroeder," accepting to reduce Britain's EU voting rights and its veto on European legislation in return for his own personal advancement, it is far from certain that the English will take this in as docile a fashion as the Germans accepted Mr. Schroeder's despicable behavior.

If Mr. Blair dares to put his signature under the amended treaty, Mr. Farage warns, "his legacy will be a hand grenade with the pin pulled out." In Monday's (London) Times, William Rees-Mogg warned that "Any treaty along the lines of Mrs Merkel's draft could trigger a fundamental rethinking of British policy. The British electorate, if not our politicians, might feel they would be better off out of such a federalized Europe, dominated by the Franco-German alliance." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard announced in Monday's Daily Telegraph that "If Europe's political leaders succeed in ramming through a barely disguised remake of the same European constitution rejected by the French and Dutch people, I for one will come off the fence after years of hesitation and join the fight for total British withdrawal from the [European] Union."

The British, and in particular the English, are the most euroskeptic of all European peoples. If forced to choose, they seem prepared to opt for British sovereignty over the European Union. Some regard this as almost a criminal attitude. Last week, the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, said that "those who are anti EU are terrorists," while his colleague Horst Kohler, the president of Germany, described the tactics of the "euroskeptics" as "populist, demagogic campaigning." It sounded almost as if Italy and Germany were blaming Britain for not having drawn lessons from the second World War, conveniently forgetting that it was England's love of freedom that saved Europe from dictators like Messrs. Napolitano's and Kohler's predecessors, Mussolini and Hitler. The latter, too, nursed dreams of European political unification.

Liberty and democracy require limited governments, while supranationalism by definition tends toward unlimitedness. The former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky refers to the EU as the "EUSSR." He does so, he explains, because the former USSR and the EU share the same goal: the obliteration of nations. "The European Union, like the Soviet Union, cannot be democratized," he says. If the EU becomes a genuine state it is bound to be an evil empire, because there is no European nation.

"National loyalty is a form of neighborliness: It is loyalty to a shared home and to the people who have built it," says the conservative English philosopher Roger Scruton. Without this loyalty there is no freedom, because "national loyalties enable people to respect the sovereignty and the rights of the individual."

By seeking to extinguish national loyalty, the EU also destroys freedom, accountability and democracy. The eurocracy aims to extinguish the old national loyalties of the European peoples, and put a cosmopolitan indifference in their place.

Muslim-Muslim Dialogue

aki - Gaza: Hamas threatens to reveal names of Palestinian 'Mossad agents'

Hamas has threatened to make public the names of Palestinian Authority officials working as agents for Israel's Mossad secret service.

Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said in an interview published Thursday by the Arab daily al-Hayat that the names of the alleged Mossad agents appeared on documents Hamas fighters seized from the offices of the Palestinian Authority's Tel-Hawa security services in Gaza.

The names included Palestinian officials "close to Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas) and "proof that they collaborated with the Israelis to kill members of the Islamic resistance" al-Masri said.

Besides the names of the alleged Mossad agents the documents also contained information on hiding places in Gaza where weapons including explosives to be used against Hamas were kept, he added.

Hamas, the spokesman said, would reveal the information "at the most opportune moment."

aki - Iran: Khatami says video in which he shakes women's hands was edited.

A handshake last month between former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, a moderate Muslim cleric, and two Italian women, renowned producers of grappa (husk brandy), has created an uproar in Iran which shows no signs of abating.

One day after reports said a religious tribunal would try Khatami and possibly ban him from preaching, his Baran foundation said Thursday the compromising footage shown on 'YouTube' was edited to give a false impression.

In the images, Khatami is clearly seen as he shakes hands with Cristina and Gianola Nonino in the northeastern Italian city of Udine during a visit there last month,

The footage, the foundation said in a statement, "is false and was edited to discredit the president."

On 12 June, the Baran foundation issued a statement denying the cleric had intentionally shaken hands with women, a gesture prohibited under Iran's strict interpretation of Islamic law banning all physical contact between men and women who are not related. The statement indicated Khatami had shaken the hands of people in a crowd without realising they were female.

aki - Italy: Shiite converts to appear in Iranian TV programme.

Italian converts to Shiism will on Friday appear in a programme that forms part of the first series about them to be aired by the Iranian Arabic language TV channel al-Kawathar.

'The Righteous Path' will be broadcast at 15.30 local time and repeated on Saturday at 10.30 local time. "It focuses on the daily lives of eight Italians who converted to the Shiite form of Islam," convert Hussain Morelli told Adnkronos International (AKI).

In a series of interviews, the Italian converts describe the reasons for their conversion and the changes it has brought to their daily lives. Interviews with the converts are spliced with footage showing them in their workplaces or at home, where their parents and spouses also speak to al-Kawathar.

The programme airing on Friday is the third in a series that began on 1 June. The previous programmes provided extensive coverage of the Imam Mahdi Muslim Association, of which Morelli is a spokesman and which all the converts are involved in. Earlier episodes showed Muslims praying at the Shiite Islamic Centre in the Italian capital Rome, and cultural, social and political activities, such as fundraising and collection of medicines for the Lebanese population organised during Israel's war last July against guerrillas from Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.

A further five episodes in the series are due to be broadcast in Italian with Arabic subtitles. Shortly after 'The Righteous Path's is screened, al-Kawathar will broadcast live Friday prayers from Tehran's mosque.

aki - Pakistan: Capital body destroys unauthorised mosque.

Pakistan's Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Thursday demolished a mosque in Sector G-8 -- Masjid Al Mehdi Asna-i-Ashri -- despite government orders against demolition of even 'unauthorised' mosques. A protest against the demolition was held at the site of the mosque.

The administration of the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) has been involved in a standoff with the city development body over the demolition of various mosques that were built without any permission. Students from a seminary linked to the Lal Masjid have been occupying a central library for months in protest.

Allama Sibtain Sherani, vice president of the Ulema Mashaikh Wing of the Pakistan Muslim League, who visited site of the demolished mosque and took part in the protest, said that razing of the mosque was a bid to fuel sectarianism among Muslims.

He told the Pakistani daily Dawn that he had drawn the attention of the government towards the issue and demanded reconstruction of the mosque. "It is shameful that the mosque was razed when women and girls were attending a Majlis (mourning ceremony) held in connection with the death anniversary of Hazrat Fatima Tuz Zahra."

According to the man in charge of the mosque, Maulana Syed Amir Hussain Shah, it was demolished by the staff of the Capital Development Authority (CDA). "Some 60 employees of the CDA in five trucks came without any notice and demolished the mosque," said Shah.

Democracy: The God that Failed

ap - Chirac refuses to be questioned in smear scandal.

Former French President Jacques Chirac is refusing to be questioned in an investigation into an apparent smear scandal during his tenure as president, his office said Friday.

Chirac was constitutionally guaranteed judicial immunity while he was in office, and therefore "cannot be ordered to provide testimony" in the investigation into the so-called Clearstream affair, his office said in a statement. The scandal centered on damaging but false allegations that current President Nicolas Sarkozy had secret bank accounts.

Liberal Heroes from the Roaring Seventies: Jimmy Carter

jpost - Father of the Iranian revolution.

We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess.

The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.

Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter's ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint." Carter's Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure." Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979 that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."

The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, "Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?"

Let's look at the results of Carter's misguided liberal policies: the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter's response was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization; the Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

WHEN CARTER entered the political fray in 1976, America was still riding the liberal wave of anti-Vietnam War emotion. Carter asked for an in-depth report on Iran even before he assumed the reins of government and was persuaded that the shah was not fit to rule Iran. 1976 was a banner year for pacifism: Carter was elected president, Bill Clinton became attorney-general of Arkansas, and Albert Gore won a place in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

In his anti-war pacifism, Carter never got it that Khomeini, a cleric exiled to Najaf in Iraq from 1965-1978, was preparing Iran for revolution. Proclaiming "the West killed God and wants us to bury him," Khomeini's weapon of choice was not the sword but the media. Using tape cassettes smuggled by Iranian pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf, he fueled disdain for what he called gharbzadegi ("the plague of Western culture").

Carter pressured the shah to make what he termed human rights concessions by releasing political prisoners and relaxing press censorship. Khomeini could never have succeeded without Carter. The Islamic Revolution would have been stillborn.

Gen. Robert Huyser, Carter's military liaison to Iran, once told me in tears: "The president could have publicly condemned Khomeini and even kidnapped him and then bartered for an exchange with the [American Embassy] hostages, but the president was indignant. 'One cannot do that to a holy man,' he said."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has donned the mantle of Ayatollah Khomeini, taken up bin Laden's call, and is fostering an Islamic apocalyptic revolution in Iraq with the intent of taking over the Middle East and the world.

Jimmy Carter became the poster boy for the ideological revolution of the 1960s in the West, hell bent on killing the soul of America. The bottom line: Carter believed then and still does now is that evil really does not exist; people are basically good; America should embrace the perpetrators and castigate the victims.

IN THE '60S it was mass rebellion after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. When humanity confronts eternity, the response is always rebellion or repentance. The same ideologues who fought to destroy the soul of America with the "God is dead" movement in the 1960s are now running the arts, the universities, the media, the State Department, Congress, and Senate, determined more then ever to kill the soul of America while the East attempts to kill the body. Carter's world view defines the core ideology of the Democratic Party.

What is going on in Iraq is no mystery to those of us who have had our fingers on the pulse of both Iran and Iraq for decades. The Iran-Iraq war was a war of ideologies. Saddam Hussein saw himself as an Arab leader who would defeat the non-Arab Persians. Khomeini saw it as an opportunity to export his Islamic Revolution across the borders to the Shi'ites in Iraq and then beyond to the Arab countries.

Throughout the war both leaders did everything possible to incite the inhabitants of each country to rebel -- precisely what Iran is doing in Iraq today. Khomeini encouraged the Shi'ites across the border to remove Saddam from power and establish an Islamic republic like in Iran.

Carter's belief that every crisis can be resolved with diplomacy -- and nothing but diplomacy -- now permeates the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Carter is wrong.

There are times when evil must be openly confronted and defeated.

KHOMEINI HAD the help of the PLO in Iran. They supplied weapons and terrorists to murder Iranians and incite mobs in the streets. No wonder Yasser Arafat was hailed as a friend of Khomeini after he seized control of Iran and was given the Israeli Embassy in Teheran with the PLO flag flying overhead.

The Carter administration scrambled to assure the new regime that the United States would maintain diplomatic ties with Iran. But on April 1, 1979 the greatest April Fools' joke of all time was played, as Khomeini proclaimed it the first day of the government of God.

In February 1979 Khomeini had boarded an Air France flight to return to Teheran with the blessing of Jimmy Carter. The moment he arrived, he proclaimed: "I will kick his teeth in" -- referring to then prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who was left in power with a US pledge of support. He was assassinated in Paris by Iranian agents in 1991.

I sat in the home of Gen. Huyser, who told me the shah feared he would lose the country if he implemented Carter's polices. Carter had no desire to see the shah remain in power. He really believed that a cleric -- whose Islamist fanaticism he did not understand in the least -- would be better for human rights and Iran.

He could have changed history by condemning Khomeini and getting the support of our allies to keep him out of Iran.

Religion of Peace strikes Seaside, Monterey

ap - US school apologizes for Muslim scarf incident.

A Muslim teenager who was ordered by a school monitor to take off a headscarf she wore for religious reasons returned to classes after school officials apologized to the family.

Issra Omer, 13, told her parents she was too embarrassed to show up for summer school classes at Seaside High School on Wednesday, the day after a monitor demanded she remove her hijab, the Muslim scarf covering the head and neck, to conform to the district's no-hat policy.

Issra, whose family is originally from Sudan, explained that her scarf is worn for religious reasons, but the school employee still yelled at her, said her father, Yousif Omer. The teenager felt humiliated by being singled out in front of her peers and started crying, he said.

The school's principal, Syd Renwick, explained the employee did not intend any harm.

Ottoman Rule, Part Deux

ap - Athens: 1st Muslim prayer center in 170 yrs opens.

Immigrant organizations on Friday opened the first official Islamic prayer site to operate in Athens since the end of Ottoman rule more than 170 years ago.

Government plans to build a mosque that would serve tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants living in the capital have stalled, and the downtown cultural center was funded by businessmen from Arab countries.

"This is the first time in all the 35 years I've lived in Greece that we have a proper place to pray," said Naim El-Gandour, the Egyptian-born head of the Muslim Association of Greece. "It's hard for be to describe what's happening, I am overcome with emotion."

Most Muslims in Athens currently use makeshift mosques for prayer, including sites prayer set up in basements, apartments, and converted coffee shops.

The Meaning of Jihad

jpost - Islamic Jihad claims Kassam rocket attack.

The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for four of the five Kassam rockets fired at the western Negev on Wednesday evening.

Three people were lightly wounded in the attacks and three buildings sustained damage.

Election 2008 - Hillary Clinton

wnd - Full Hillary 'smoking gun' video released.

The full, five-minute videotape touted as "smoking gun evidence" of two felonies committed by Sen. Hillary Clinton has been released to WND.

As WND reported, the tape was submitted as evidence to a California appeals court yesterday in a civil fraud suit against the New York Democrat and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

WND reported in April the tape indicates Clinton -- despite denials throughout six years of investigation -- was directly involved with business mogul Peter Franklin Paul in producing a lavish Hollywood fundraiser in August 2000 that eventually cost Paul nearly $2 million.

Click to start video

Clinton's participation in the planning of the event would make Paul's substantial contributions a direct donation to her Senate campaign rather than her joint fundraising committee, violating federal statutes that limit "hard money" contributions to a candidate to $2,000 per person. Knowingly accepting or soliciting $25,000 or more in a calendar year is a felony carrying a prison sentence of up to five years.

Paul's complaint charges President Clinton destroyed his entertainment company to get out of a $17 million deal in which Clinton promised to promote the firm in exchange for stock, cash options and massive contributions to his wife's 2000 campaign. Paul contends he was directed by the Clintons and Democratic Party leaders to foot the bill for the Hollywood event.

In the tape, Clinton is heard via speakerphone thanking Paul, business partner Stan Lee and other colleagues for their efforts in putting together the fundraiser.

She also describes the role of longtime aide Kelly Craighead as assisting in day-to-day involvement in preparation for the event as her liaison with Paul and his producers.

Craighead, Clinton says, "talks all the time" with Paul, "so she'll be the person to convey whatever I need."

The aide's hands-on role is significant, because the law also implicates a candidate if any of his or her agents are involved in coordinating expenditures with a donor.

In another portion of the tape, Clinton is heard discussing her direct solicitation of a large contribution from the entertainer Cher. Paul's legal team argues the value of Cher's performance alone vastly exceeded the FEC limits.

The tape was one of 90 Paul was ordered to turn over to the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York in 2001 as part of the investigation in a related securities case against him. But it has never been used as evidence, despite its relevance to the key question of Sen. Clinton's involvement in the Hollywood fundraiser.

Sen. Clinton has claimed through her spokesman Howard Wolfson that Paul gave no money to her campaign, and her supporters have denied she had any anything to do with coordinating the fund-raiser or soliciting contributions directly from donors.

Clinton's campaign has counted the more than $800,000 of in-kind contributions it reported in a 2006 amended FEC report for the Hollywood Gala as indirect, or "soft money," given to the New York Senate 2000 Committee, a state account that was run jointly by Clinton, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the New York State Democratic Party.

The Clintons' longtime attorney David Kendall has not replied to WND's request for comment on Paul's videotape. Kendall previously has declined comment on the case, saying only to WND regarding the felony assertion, "Any such allegation is totally false and totally unsupported."

Global warming will vaporize Earth!

ap - Scientists at odds after Chile lake disappears.

A glacial lake in Chile's southern Andes has disappeared -- and scientists want to know why.

The disappearance of the two-hectare lake in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park was discovered in late May by park rangers. Where the lake had been in March, they found a dry crater 30-meters deep and several large pieces of ice that used to float atop the water.

"The lake had simply disappeared," Juan Jose Romero, head of Chile's National Forest Service in the southernmost region of Magallanes, said Wednesday. "No one knows what happened."

Romero said that a group of geologists and other experts would be sent to the area 2,000 kilometers southeast of Santiago in the next few days to investigate.

One theory is the water disappeared through cracks in the lake bottom into underground fissures. But experts do not know why the cracks would have appeared because there have been no earthquakes reported in the area recently, Romero said. A river that flowed out of the lake was reduced to a trickle.

Liberals in a Nutshell

afp - Royal set on second presidential bid.

Defeated French presidential candidate Segolene Royal, who is bidding to take over as head of the Socialist Party, said Friday she planned to run again for head of state in 2012.

Asked whether she would seek to carry the Socialist banner five years' from now, she told France 2 television: "It is likely ... I want to carry on."

Royal, whose break-up with her partner of 30 years, party leader Francois Hollande, made headlines this week, is angling to take over his job when he steps down next year.

She kicked up a storm this week by disowning key parts of her presidential platform -- the extension of the 35-hour week and a big hike in the minimum wage -- as unrealistic, saying they were imposed on her by the party old guard.

She repeated a call for the Socialist Party, whose leaders meet on Saturday to draw lessons from their electoral defeat, to "quickly consult" party members on the need for renovation and reform.

Though her authority is contested by rival party heavyweights, Royal enjoys the support of a majority of rank-and-file party activists, many of whom signed up last year to back her presidential bid.

The Euro-Arab Axis of Evil

aki - Iran nuclear: Solana confirms talks with Larijani Saturday.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana confirmed Thursday he is going to meet Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani to discuss a way out of the international standoff over the Iranian nuclear programme, in the Portuguese capital Lisbon on Saturday.

The UN Security Council has approved two waves of sanctions against Iran over sensitive nuclear work the international community fears is aimed at building nuclear weapons.

During a previous meeting on 31 May, Larijani told Solana Iran was available to offer soon clarifications on its nuclear programme demanded by the UN atomic watchdog over suspicions it is seeking atomic weapons. Solana had then only announced progress "on some important issues" to be further discussed at their next meeting.

aki - Italy-Emirates: International economic forum kicks off.

The 'Italy-United Arab Emirates, Development Guidelines for Shared Growth' economic forum opens on Friday in the Umbrian town of Assisi. The event, taking place as trade between the two countries is burgeoning, forms part of the 'Assisi Endurance Lifestyle' 2007 trade fair.

On in Assisi until Monday, the fair aims to promote investment between the two countries and exchange good practices in the areas of business, tourism, sport and culture.

Meetings between Italian and UAE companies during the forum will seek to boost bilateral industrial and commercial ties: The UAE together with Saudi Arabia forms the main market for Italian exports in the Gulf region. Visits by UAE businessmen and businesswomen to industrial zones in central Italy -- where the region of Umbria is located -- are also planned.

The strongest Italian export sectors to the UAE are jewellery and goldsmith's art, machinery and tools, white goods, furniture, lamps and soft furnishings, as well as footwear and leather goods, ceramic tiles, marble and stone. Senior representatives from firms in these sectors as well as ambassadors from Italy and the UAE will be attending the forum, taking place at the Lyrick Theatre in Assisi.

The trade fair is being promoted and organised by Italy's foreign trade ministry, ICE, as well as the Umbrian branch of the main Italian business association Confindustria, the regional agency for tourism and the Umbrian regional chamber of commerce.

Italy's undersecretary for foreign trade, Mauro Agostini, foreign trade ministry director general for development Gianfranco Caprioli, ICE director general, Massimo Mamberti, and Confindustria's diplomatic advisor, Vincenzo Petrone, will all be attending the forum, as well as local and regional government representatives.

Italy exported good worths 3.3 billion euros to the UAE in 2006 -- a 23.8 percent increase on 2005 -- while the UAE's imports to Italy rose by a more modest 2.5 percent in the same period to reach 268 million euros, according to Italy's foreign trade institute ICE.

aki - Spain: Foreign minister urges 'bold' migration policies at EU-Africa meet.

Europe and Africa must strike a balance between combatting illegal immigration and promoting legal immigration, integration and development policies, Spain's foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Thursday.

He was addressing senior representatives from European, North, West and Central African countries at the first follow up meeting to the Euro-African Conference on Migration and Development, held in the Moroccan capital Rabat, in July 2006.

Immigration is the big challenge of the 21st century but the responsibility for managing the phenomenon must be divided between the country of origin, of transit and of arrival of the migrants, Moratinos emphasised in his opening address.

Spain faces a constant flow of would be immigrants on the coasts of Andalusia and more recently of the Canary Islands. In 2006, more than 31,200 clandestine immigrants arrived on the Canary Island

At the first Euro-African conference on illegal migration organised last July by Spain and Morocco in Rabat, 57 countries agreed on a four-year plan to tackle illegal immigration to Europe. It included repatriation agreements between the home countries of migrants and the countries of destination of immigration flows, measures to identify would-be immigrants and police cooperation plans to alert countries of new migration flows.

The 'spirit of Rabat', Moratinos recalled, goes well beyond managing the flow of would-be migrants. He warned that "bold migration policies" were required that linked migration to development. "In this way, immigration will stop being an obligation for young Africans in the medium and long run," the minister said.

The action plan adopted in Rabat stressed the need to share the responsibility for illegal immigration between the migrants' countries of origin, transit and destination, Moratinos stressed.

The Madrid meeting prepared a second ministerial conference after Rabat, which is due to be held in Paris in 2008.

aki - EU: MEPs urge adoption of laws to curb racism and xenophobia.

European Union parliamentarians on Thursday adopted a report backing a legal framework to take effective action against racism and ...

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Faces of Peace

aki - Afghanistan: Man who 'betrayed' slain Taliban chief dies 'in custody'

A former close aide to Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah who was killed last month by Afghan government and NATO forces has died "in custody" after he was accused of betraying his former master, Taliban sources have told Adnkronos International (AKI).

"Takht Mohammed was for 14 years a companion of Mullah Dadullah but he turned out to be an informer who passed on the information to the Afghan government that allowed it to track down and kill Dadullah," the source, speaking on condition of anonymity told AKI.

"After Dadullah's killing, Takht Mohammed fled to Kuchlak (in Pakistan near Quetta) from where he was recently abducted by the Taliban. He died of cardiac failure," the source added.

ap - Iran: Juvenile executions 'practically stopped'

Iran's judiciary spokesman said Friday that the execution of people under the age of 18 has "practically stopped" in the country and the government is working to outlaw the practice, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ali Reza Jamshidi's comments came two days after Human Rights Watch called on Iran to stop executing juveniles, saying the country was the world's leading offender.

"The execution of children under the age of 18 practically stopped years ago," IRNA quoted Jamshidi as saying Friday.

Jamshidi said the judiciary had proposed a bill that would outlaw juvenile executions and hoped the country's legislators would soon approve it, IRNA reported.

Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain

reuters - 'Ex-Muslim' group launches in Britain.

"Ex-Muslims" hoping to change the terms of debate about Islam in Europe will launch a British group in London on Thursday.

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain will be the latest addition to groupings that began in Germany in February and spread to Scandinavia in May. A Dutch group will hold its launch in September.

The activists, many of them Iranian exiles, support the freedom to criticize religion and the end to what they call "religious intimidation and threats".

"Too many things in the media and government policies have been geared to pandering to the political Islamic movements and Islamic organizations," Maryam Namazie, head of the British group, told Reuters by telephone from London on Wednesday.

"I hope we'll get a lot more attention and begin to change the debate," said Namazie, who left Iran in 1980 after the Islamic revolution there.

Leaving Islam is considered a crime punishable by death in some Muslim-majority countries. Muslims in Europe practice their faith less than their co-religionists in the Middle East but few openly proclaim themselves apostates or atheists.

There are more than 15 million people of Muslim origin in western Europe, mostly in France, Germany and Britain. Spokesmen for Muslims are often religious leaders, some more conservative theologically or active politically than the silent majority.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, many Muslims in Europe have complained they are suspected of being terrorists or supporting extreme religious views.

Namazie said the launch of a Central Council of Ex-Muslims in Berlin inspired groups elsewhere to follow suit. The Central Council of Ex-Muslims in Scandinavia is based in Sweden with branches in Denmark, Norway and Finland.

Namazie said the British group had about 25 activists so far. She said expressions of support or interest had come in from the United States, France and Australia.

France, whose five million Muslims make up Europe's largest Islamic minority, has many non-observant Muslims but few describe themselves as atheists.

Several small groups call themselves "secular Muslims" who respect France's separation of church and state. They include some believers who want to keep religion out of politics.

Namazie said many ex-Muslim activists were Iranian exiles who did not fear reprisals from Muslim militants because they already had long experience opposing an Islamic government.

"We have been apostates for a long time," she said.

Brain Drain in Africa

jpost - Security forces catch 24 African infiltrators.

The IDF and Border Police caught 24 infiltrators from African nations, including Sudan, who had entered Israel through the Egyptian border overnight Friday.

The group was transferred to the appropriate authorities, Israel Radio reported.

The Islamic Invasion

aki - Iran: Zoroastrians meet to remember islamic invasion 700 years ago.

Hundreds of followers of the Prophet Zoroaster, a monotheistic philosopher whose teachings became the state religion of the Persian Empire in the seventh century B.C., are meeting in the cave of Chik Chik (drop drop), 600 km south of the Iranian capital Tehran, to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the Islamic invasion of Iran.

Zoroastrians commemorate every year the anniversary, which marks the end of their faith as the predominant religion in the country.

Legend has it that the daughter of Emperor Nikbanou fled the invading Arabs and sought refuge in the mountain where her tears created the Chik Chik cave where she hid.

Only 50,000 Zoroastrians have remained today in Iran out of the half a million who practised the religion before the 1979 Islamic revolution.

How the Palestinians Ruined Gaza

pdavidhornik - Why Arabs fared better under Israeli 'occupation'

Gaza has now reached its nadir as a poverty-stricken, Islamist terror state. Michael Medved quotes Gazan poet Bassem al-Nabris as writing that, if there were now to be a referendum in Gaza on whether the Israeli "occupation" should return, "half the population would vote yes. But in practice, I believe the number of those in favor is at least 70%."

How did things get this way? Is it time for soul-searching among the Western countries -- including an important part of the Israeli body politic -- that long regarded "Israeli occupation" as the ultimate evil, to be ended at all costs without checking too closely how it was done or the consequences?

Although statistics specifically for Gaza are hard to come by, an important 2002 Commentary article by Efraim Karsh noted that under the Israeli "occupation" -- more fairly termed administration -- that began in 1967, Gaza and the West Bank in fact made "astounding social and economic progress":

In the economic sphere, most of this ... was the result of access to the ... Israeli economy: the number of Palestinians working in Israel rose from zero in 1967 to 66,000 in 1975 and 109,000 by 1986, accounting for 35 percent of the employed population of the West Bank and 45 percent in Gaza. Close to 2,000 industrial plants, employing almost half of the work force, were established in the territories under Israeli rule.

During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world -- ahead of such "wonders"as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. ... GNP per capita grew somewhat more slowly, [but] expand[ed] tenfold between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715. ... By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria's, more than four times Yemen's, and 10 percent higher than Jordan's. ... Only the oil-rich Gulf states and Lebanon were more affluent.

If the Left-dominated Western media largely "missed" this story, it was because it was too sold on the idea of the Palestinians as victims of Israel to even inquire if that was really the case. Within Israel, more legitimately, the Zionist ethos of Jewish self-sufficiency seemed challenged by an influx of Third World menial workers who lived under Israeli rule but lacked citizenship rights.

The Israeli Left, however, instead of seeing a complex situation entailing benefits and costs for both sides and requiring a patient approach, cast it in Manichean terms of the corruption of the Zionist dream and joined the international community's pressure on Israel for a rapid "solution."

Yet, as Karsh pointed out, the great gains for the Palestinians under Israeli rule went well beyond employment and economic growth. Life expectancy rose sharply while mortality and infant mortality rates plummeted, and

perhaps most strikingly, during the two decades preceding the intifada of the late 1980's, the number of schoolchildren in the territories grew by 102 percent, and the number of classes by 99 percent, though the population itself had grown by only 28 percent. Even more dramatic was the progress in higher education. At the time of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, not a single university existed in these territories. By the early 1990's, there were seven such institutions, boasting some 16,500 students. Illiteracy rates dropped to 14 percent of adults over age 15, compared with 69 percent in Morocco, 61 percent in Egypt, 45 percent in Tunisia, and 44 percent in Syria.

But it all started to unravel -- fast -- as Israel, under the euphoric glow of the Oslo "peace process," withdrew from Gaza and the Jericho area of the West Bank in May 1994, turning them over to Yasser Arafat's rule. Gaza was especially hard hit.

As a dramatic spike in terrorism led Israel to impose repeated closures, unemployment in Gaza rose as high as 50 percent and by 1996 economic output declined about one-third. From that year to 1999 the situation improved under Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as terror reverted to pre-Oslo levels and the Israeli closures decreased.

But Netanyahu lost to Ehud Barak in the 1999 election, and the rest is well-known recent history: Barak's rejected offer of statehood to Arafat in summer 2000, the outbreak that fall of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and Gaza's (and the West Bank's) conversion into a launching pad for an all-out terror war necessitating Israeli closures and other measures, Gaza's severance from Israel under the 2005 disengagement plan, Hamas's win in the 2006 election and takeover of Gaza in June 2007 -- leaving Gaza in a state of violent squalor comparable only to Mogadishu and with its residents apparently longing for the "occupation" once seen as the epitome of evil.

With that "occupation" -- bête noire of just about everyone from scruffy radicals to State Department squares, from oil sheikhs to British profs -- partially gone from the West Bank and gone from Gaza, Gaza-2007 is one of the many dire results. In reality, the Israeli administration of the territories brought great socioeconomic benefits to the Palestinians there and great security benefits to Israel, along with a problematic psychological situation of dhimmi-Jewish rule over Muslim Arabs that was not really the greatest of evils, far from it, and would have required a solution involving genuinely moderate Palestinians and genuine security guarantees for Israel.

But the world didn't have the patience for that, and now the indigent jihadist statelet on the Mediterranean is the world's problem.

Meanwhile, in the Upper Orient ...

local - Woman falls from roof in protest over Bangladeshi.

A woman demonstrating against the deportation of a Bangladeshi opposition politician was injured on Thursday night when she fell from the roof of the Swedish Migration Board's offices in northern Stockholm.

The woman, 29, was protesting against Sweden's decision to deport Lutfur Rahman, who had been sentenced to jail for his involvement in opposition party Awami League's youth movement.

Earlier in the day, demonstrators had succeeded in stopping Rahman's deportation, Dagens Nyheter reports. Following an attempt to free him from police custody by force, the captain of the Thai Air plane due to remove him from Sweden refused to let Rahman board, citing security concerns. Rahman was taken back to the Swedish Migration Board's detention centre.

The protesters then gathered at the Migration Board's premises in Märsta, northern Stockholm, where they forced their way past guards.

Up to eight demonstrators made their way to the roof, according to Dagens Nyheter. One of these, a 29-year-old woman, fell at least three metres from the roof, injuring her back. She was taken to the Karolinska University Hospital. It is so far unclear how serious her injuries are.

Catholic Kuwait

aki - Kuwait: Catholic church is 'free of restrictions despite Islamic extremism'

The Catholic Church in Kuwait "enjoys freedom of worship and suffers no restriction whatsoever," Bishop Camillo Ballin, 63, Vicar Apostolic of Kuwait, told Adnkronos International (AKI) in an interview in Venice, where he is attending an international gathering of Catholic clerics and researchers under the auspices of the local patriarch, Cardinal Angelo Scola.

"Although Islamic extremists have different and adverse positions, there is no exterior sign to indicate it," he noted.

Kuwait is home to approximately 150,000 Catholics in a mainly Muslim population of over 2.5 million. The Kuwaiti Constitution provides for freedom of religion, but the government is reported to periodically send inspectors around to ensure that no religious teaching other than Islam is being done in both public and private schools.

Ballin, a Combonian missionary, said that "when there are major festivities such as Christmas and Easter we inform the authorities who send us security forces to protect our community attending services ... without interfering in what we are doing."

Relations with the Kuwaiti government are good, he said: "The local government fully meets our demands and is extremely generous. It offers us places of worship and all the necessary help in bureaucratic and official procedures."

The Vicar Apostolic of Kuwait is attending in Venice a gathering of clerics from 18 countries, 11 of which are majority Muslim, organised by Oasis, a research centre promoting inter-faith dialogue sponsored by Scola.

Ballin also said he is free to wear his robe and cross without "anyone looking at me in a strange way." "In Church too we are free to expose the crucifix without a problem."

Islam is a Religion of Peace

ap - Iraq: Suicide truck bomber strikes mayor's office.

A suicide truck bomber struck a mayor's office in northern Iraq on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 40, an Iraqi commander said.

The explosion, which occurred about 10:30 a.m. in the predominantly Sunni Arab town of Sulaiman Bek, caused part of the government building to collapse and destroyed at least four vehicles at the site, said Brig. Gen. Anwar Hamah, commander of the Iraqi army's 2nd Brigade.

Hamah said at least 10 people were killed and 40 were wounded but he expected the casualty toll to rise as people were pulled from the rubble.

ap - Pakistan: Grenade attack kills 2, wounds 18.

A lone assailant armed with grenades and a pistol attacked a religious gathering in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least one person, fatally wounding himself and injuring 18 others, police said Friday.

The attacker, a Pakistani, was wounded while hurling a grenade just before midnight Thursday in the city of Bannu and died later at a hospital, said Bannu's police chief, Dar Ali Khan. The attack took place at the regional headquarters of a group of Muslim preachers who were holding a gathering.

The motive for the attack remained unclear and police were investigating, Khan said.

He said hundreds of people had been praying or listening to lectures from senior clerics at the time.