The froth of Imran Khan (RCM) – Racist Champagne Mullah?

Posted by Nadeem F. Paracha  What can one say about Imran Khan? A great former cricketer, a compassionate philanthropist … a sorry excuse for a politician. But his continuing forays into bad politics and tactical blunders can be excused, for he is yet to understand that politics is not a game of cricket, and that the democratic election process does not follow the selection policy he enforced as the captain of the Pakistan cricket squad. The truth is, Khan’s penchant for picking up talented players seemed to have gone haywire when he decided to pick his early political mentors. Coming … Continue reading The froth of Imran Khan (RCM) – Racist Champagne Mullah?

Facebook: A valuable Internet commodity?

Alyssa Ravasio displays her page on the social networking site Facebook, while attending school in Los Angeles January 26, 2010. – Reuters LOS ANGELES: College senior Alyssa Ravasio gave up MySpace on the day she got a Facebook account and never looked back. She has already lost interest in Twitter. But how does Facebook know it can keep her loyalty? The brief history of the Internet is littered with the ghosts of websites that people have abandoned in their relentless pursuit of something newer, faster, better and cooler. Tech-savvy Ravasio, a 21-year-old UCLA student designing her undergraduate degree around the … Continue reading Facebook: A valuable Internet commodity?

Cold and blinkered in London — Is it time Pakistan stood with a stronger backbone?

Syed Talat Hussain US Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ visit to India and Pakistan last week was a classic study in contradictory behaviour. He praised India’s role in Afghanistan and mouthed the usual rhetoric about Pakistan being the epicentre of global terrorism As these lines appear in print, the London Conference on Afghanistan will be in full swing. This one-day event shall culminate in a communiqué from all the interested parties spelling out the course of the international community’s response to the Afghanistan challenge. It is good that the world is now waking up to the grim realities in this war-torn … Continue reading Cold and blinkered in London — Is it time Pakistan stood with a stronger backbone?

Sex and the city!

Miranda Husain Nothing is as fragile as the male ego and no one more bitter than a man scorned; such cads become genuinely and surprisingly affronted when a woman tries to steer the banter back to the path of most resistance A chance encounter with a former colleague has led me to ponder. About men and how even those who have perfected the art of projecting an outward image of sophisticated intellect still, when it comes to women, nurture the soul and ego of the adolescent schoolboy. Nudge nudge, wink wink. Take my former colleague, for example. The gentleman in … Continue reading Sex and the city!

Yemen pledges to reform and wins support for fight against al-Qaida

Yemen pledges to reform and wins support for fight against al-Qaida Foreign ministers from the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and 20 other countries met to pledge not to interfere in Yemen’s internal affairs Ian Black, Middle East editor guardian.co.uk, A protester holds a South Yemen flag during a demonstration outside 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Yemen tonight won broad international and Arab support for fighting al-Qaida but was urged to carry out economic and social reforms to address the causes of its instability and stop it becoming a failed state where extremism can flourish. Foreign ministers from the … Continue reading Yemen pledges to reform and wins support for fight against al-Qaida

Islamabad likely to boycott London moot

Pakistan may boycott the London Conference on Afghanistan if certain states try to use the gathering to promote India’s increased role in Afghanistan. Reliable sources say that Islamabad is strongly opposed to any Indian military role in Afghanistan not only because it would complicate the efforts for peaceful negotiations between various Afghan parties but would also increase threats to Pakistan’s strategic interests. London Conference is being held today apparently to draw international support for a negotiated settlement of Afghanistan. A Pakistani official told this scribe on condition of anonymity that if some Western states continue to insist on a military … Continue reading Islamabad likely to boycott London moot

The Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings Islamist Ideology

by David Bukay Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/1003/the-religious-foundations-of-suicide-bombings Suicide terrorism has been the scourge of the last quarter century. A suicide bomb attack on the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut compelled Ronald Reagan in 1983 to withdraw peacekeepers from Beirut. Palestinian leaders deploy suicide bombers to force Israeli concessions, and Iraqi insurgents use suicide bombings to derail the new political order. Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the U.S.S. Cole in Aden in 2000 and, on September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center and Pentagon. While some scholars argue there is no religious component to suicide bombing[1]—often citing Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, who are … Continue reading The Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings Islamist Ideology

Beheading in the Name of Islam

by Timothy R. Furnish Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/713/beheading-in-the-name-of-islam Print Send RSS Share: Images of masked terrorists standing behind Western hostages in Iraq and Saudi Arabia have become all too common on Arabic satellite stations such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar. Islamist websites such as Muntadiyat al-Mahdi[1] go further, streaming video of their murder. The February 2002 decapitation of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, true to its intention, horrified the Western audience. Chechen rebels, egged on by Islamist benefactors, had adopted the practice four years earlier,[2] but the absence of widely broadcast videos limited the psychological impact of hostage decapitation. The … Continue reading Beheading in the Name of Islam

Mapping the Global Muslim Population

A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population Executive Summary A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion. While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, more than half of the 20 … Continue reading Mapping the Global Muslim Population

Assessing English Translations of the Qur’an

by Khaleel Mohammed Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/717/assessing-english-translations-of-the-quran Multiple English translations of the Qur’an, Islam’s scripture, line shelves at book stores. Amazon.com sells more than a dozen. Because of the growing Muslim communities in English-speaking countries, as well as greater academic interest in Islam, there has been a blossoming in recent years of English translations. Muslims view the Qur’an as God’s direct words revealed in Arabic to the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632).[1] Because the Qur’an stresses its Arabic nature, Muslim scholars believe that any translation cannot be more than an approximate interpretation, intended only as a tool for the study and … Continue reading Assessing English Translations of the Qur’an