What drove Melanie Phillips to the right? The much-mocked columnist stands as a warning of what happens when the liberal-left ignores its own weaknesses Keith Kahn-Harris guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 June 2010 10.48 BST Article history Melanie Phillips, journalist and political commentator, whose new book, The World Turned Upside Down, is a polemic against the values of the post-1960s liberal-left. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the GuardianAt least in liberal-left circles, the reaction to Melanie Phillips‘s The World Turned Upside Down has largely been a mixture of bemusement and amusement. The book is the culmination of Phillips’s journey from campaigning leftist journalist … Continue reading Melanie Phillips – why she became a Mad!

The MCB’s Wonderland election The vote for a new leader of the Muslim Council of Britain points up worrying fissures Madeleine Bunting The Guardian, Friday 18 June 2010 Article history Imagine an election with only one declared candidate running … and he is not going to win. It may sound like a form of democracy better devised in Alice’s Wonderland, but unfortunately it’s home grown: this is how the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is due to decide on its next leader this Sunday. Over the past few years, the MCB has been repeatedly lambasted in the media; its sins … Continue reading Muslim Council of Britain in Wonderland?

Fierce warriors set to battle at Shandur Dawn.com Sports Desk Players from Gilgit and Chitral in action at the 2009 Shandur Polo Festival, Chitral, Pakistan. -Photo by APP Sport Chitral bag annual Shandur title with win over Gilgit Chitral bag annual Shandur title with win over Gilgit It will be blood and guts when Gilgit will take on Chitral in Pakistan’s annual Shandur Polo festival next month. The festival takes place on the Shandur Pass, the world’s highest polo ground, rising 3,700 meters above sea level. To an outsider it may seem like a scene from a medieval war-epic and … Continue reading Polo – Shandur!

2014 will determine course of century, says Cambridge professor A dramatic event that will determine the course of the 21st century will take place in 2014, according to a Cambridge University academic. telegraph.co.uk In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door of Wittenburg church, sparking the Reformation and the rise of Protestantism Prof Nicholas Boyle claims that events of the fateful year will decide whether the world enjoys peace and prosperity over the coming decades or suffers war and poverty. He believes financial turmoil could be the trigger for the crisis, and that the reactions of American leaders … Continue reading 2014 not 2012 to be decisive moment

Saudi clerics issue fatwa okaying adult breast-feeding as way of circumventing Islamic law BY Paulina Reso Fuse/Getty Related News Articles Full-body airport scanners violate Islamic law, says Muslim-American group Muslim women barred from flight after refusing full-body scan Saudi woman blasts Muslim clerics’ ‘frightening’ religious edicts on TV Kissing cousins? Not quite. While it has been common for women to breast-feed their young male relations so that they may be allowed together alone later, two Saudi clerics recently advocated extending the practice to unrelated adult males. As part of Islamic law, men and women are forbidden to be alone together, … Continue reading I will NOT ask ‘any woman’ for her breast milk 😦

Danios of LoonWatch Accepts Robert Spencer’s Challenge to a Debate Posted on 17 June 2010 by Danios LOONWATCH.COM (Please keep checking this site for updates) Lord Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Once again, Robert Spencer responds to one of my articles but refuses to take my name.  I am forever “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”  Spencer says: And on those rare occasions when the opposition does offer a substantive response, it’s tissue-paper thin. A friend recently told me that he posted a lengthy rebuttal to a pseudo-scholarly presentation purporting to prove false something I said about the meaning of an Arabic word (my friend is a native … Continue reading Debate Robert Spencer!

VIEW: War for freedom —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad The allies and the Pakistan government have termed the military initiative as the war on terror. It is not. To my understanding, it is the war for freedom. Freedom of choice, of thought and movement Self-concept is a strange phenomenon. It encompasses not only our religious, social and political beliefs but is also based on a lethal cocktail of fact and fiction. An individual might be self-delusional to the extent that s/he starts living the delusion. Paranoia, schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness are based on a self-concept that is not rooted … Continue reading War for freedom

VIEW: The continual killing of physicians —Dr Mahjabeen Islam There is something seriously wrong with a society that harasses those who stand for justice. If I protest the killing of Ahmedis, then I am labelled as one. And now watch me metamorphose into a Shia What do you do with a nation that has been killing its physicians for the last 10 years? Not in the name of vigilantism and avenging malpractice or the egregious deaths of patients but for insane ideologies that fault a physician for being Shia. Or worse: Ahmedi. The spectrum of consent is vast: on the … Continue reading killing of physicians

COMMENT: The ‘Great Game’ resumes —Zafar Hilaly The trouble with the role we have chosen to play in Afghanistan is its inherently contradictory nature. An interested party cannot play the role of an honest broker. The conflict of interest is too glaring Hamid Karzai has finally decided to break with the Northern Alliance partners and return to his Pashtun roots for deliverance from the Taliban and the Americans. This, one feels, is the reason behind his brusque sacking of his national intelligence chief and his interior minister, both belonging to the Northern Alliance. Pakistan’s response was immediate, namely, to begin … Continue reading ‘Great Game’ resumes

VIEW: Pakistan at war —Jan Assakzai The militant infrastructure, regardless of the geo-political rationale for its existence, means Pakistan will continue to live under the spectre of a full-fledged war with India The attacks on worship places of the Ahmedis merely underscored the fact that Pakistan is at war on many fronts, involving religious and ethnic minorities, governance issues, neighbouring countries and the world at large. Let us start with religious minorities. The bigoted state and non-state actors launched a war against the Ahmedi minority in the 1950s. In the mid-1970s, they were declared non-Muslims. Their persecution continued over the … Continue reading Pakistan at war