Start communicating
this-just-in
Recent Village Updates
Login to find out
has added a new journalsalam everyone. im sure mostly all of you have heard about the bombing that happend in 3 hotels here in amman Jordan. In one of the hotels..it was a Iraqi husband and wife who went in with the bomb belts. The guys belt worked..his wife's 7amdilla didnt. well..they caught her and they aired a short interview with her yesterday on jordan t.v. it was reeeaallyy interesting just seeing her. After listening to what she had to say..i came to the conclusion that shes mental or hypnotized by Zarqawi. (Allahu A3lam) She knew exactly what she was doing...and didnt shwo any remorse. They came from Iraq under fake passports..rented an apartment close by..her husband taught her how to use the belt..and they got dressed up..rented a car and went to the hotel. she says..i saw the children, women, and men..and my husband went in a corner and i went in a corner and we were ready. I got sick to my stomache when i heard her. May Allah give her what she deserves
Login to find out
has added a new journalnews.bbc.co.uk
An angry photographer in Chechnya
By Neil Arun
BBC News
A lone figure runs through a field under the threshing blades of a Russian helicopter. A beautiful young woman in a headscarf cradles a Kalashnikov.
Stanley Greene points to another image from the Chechen conflict - his black-and-white photograph of a gaunt, bright-eyed man.
"He fought the Russians and ended up in a mental hospital, chained to the wall," he says. "Every time the bombing started, he would go wild."
Greene's photographs from Chechnya are a window on to a conflict increasingly overlooked by the western media.
A former fashion photographer, his images of rebels, refugees and Russian soldiers are artful and disturbing.
Describing his visits to the dangerous region, he brims with anger: "Why do I do it? Why put your head in a noose?"
"The world only pays attention to the Chechens when something atrocious happens, like Beslan," he says, referring to the rebels' armed occupation of a Russian school last year, starting a siege that ended in the deaths of hundreds of children.
Relying on Russians
The risk of death or abduction has forced most foreign reporters out of the region.
"Chechnya has become an information black hole from which, occasionally, something horrible emerges," Tom de Waal of the London-based Institute of War and Peace Reporting told the BBC News website.
It was not always so. Reporters who covered the Chechen rebels' first war against Moscow recall that they were relatively free to operate.
Conditions for correspondents worsened markedly during the second war over the breakaway republic - launched in 1999 by Vladimir Putin when he was prime minister of Russia.
According to Greene, Russians and rebels became increasingly wary of reporters, regarding them as enemies or at best, potential hostages.
He recalls a Russian commander telling him journalists are no different to spies - both gather information for their bosses.
Reporters who enter the region now usually rely on the Russian authorities for protection.
'Sordid conflict'
According to Tom de Waal, the near-total absence of any foreign media has worked mostly to Moscow's benefit.
"There are insufficient alternative sources to challenge the Kremlin's argument that the war in Chechnya is part of the global 'war on terror'", he says.
Greene says that what he saw in Chechnya turned him into a supporter of the separatist struggle and a fierce critic of Moscow's policy.
"Chechnya is a dirty little conflict, so sordid, so primeval in its brutality that it leaves journalists and aid workers who have trodden this land permanently stained."
His photographs have failed, he says, if they do not anger the audience over "the pointless vats of blood shed by Chechens and Russians alike".
Road to war
More than a year has passed since Greene was last in Chechnya. New risks lie in wait if he returns.
Right now, many Chechens feel they need Basayev
Stanley Greene
"A lot of the old commanders have been killed. They can no longer vouch for me," he says.
He fears for the future after Aslan Maskhadov, a man widely regarded as a moderate among Chechen rebel leaders, was killed this month in a Russian raid.
Shamil Basayev, a warlord linked to the Beslan siege, is the new rebel figurehead, according to Greene.
"Right now, many Chechens feel they need Basayev. He is seen as someone who takes it to the Russians and walks away from it," he says.
Greene has plans to go back to the Caucasus region but cannot say if he will return to Chechnya specifically.
"Who knows," he says. "There is an old proverb in the Caucasus - every road leads to a war."
An exhibition of Stanley Greene's photographs, Open Wound: Chechnya 1994 to 2003, is showing at the Trolley Gallery in London until 27 March.
Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk
Login to find out
has added a new journalnews.bbc.co.uk
Iran clerics blasted by academic
By Sadeq Saba
BBC News regional analyst
Iran's clerical leaders have come under attack from one of the country's most influential conservative academics.
Ali Mottahari, a Tehran University philosophy teacher, has accused the clerics of creating a schism between religion and the people.
Mr Mottahari's father was the late Ayatollah Morteza Mottahari, the intellectual leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979.
He told the Iranian news agency that clerics should stay out of government.
Impeccable credentials
Ali Mottahari has impeccable Islamic and revolutionary credentials.
When he calls for a non-clerical government in Iran, he cannot easily be accused of favouring Western liberalism.
Mr Mottahari said when clerics entered the government, they became distanced from their spiritual duties.
He said his late father, Ayatollah Mortaeza Mottahari, who is regarded as one of the founders of the Islamic Republic, was against the idea that clerics should get involved in government.
Mr Mottahari said only under special circumstances should clerics be allowed to assume government posts. But he added that he believed that clerics, like other people, could become judges and members of parliament.
Mr Mottahari's comments suggest that secularism may be now gaining ground even among conservative Muslims.
For sometime, liberal Islamists in Iran have been calling for a separation of religion and state. But this is the first time that such a prominent conservative figure has echoed such calls.
sultanfilastin
both mosques actually: Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Thanks for taking the time to read my article. I spent TOO much time on it that I don't have right now. I'm glad someone read it. But I don't really consider it politics (based on your comment on my journal) it's religion, and its about trying to understand the state of the Muslims right now to see what can be done to improve it.
SHAYuwSUKAR
the mosque.
Login to find out
has added a new journalThis is a very telling article about US policy in the Middle East. Abbas' statement on Hizbohllah is also very telling. Democracy?
NY TIMES
February 17, 2005
Allies Resisting as U.S. Pushes Terror Label for Hezbollah
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - As rising instability in Lebanon increases tensions in the Middle East, the Bush administration is arguing with European governments over whether they should designate the Lebanon-based Shiite group Hezbollah a terrorist organization, American and European officials say.
The United States is already stepping up pressure on Iran and Syria, Hezbollah's main sponsors. The American rift with Syria deepened this week, with suspicions that Syria might have been behind the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister in Beirut on Monday.
The disagreement over Hezbollah presents another challenge for President Bush, who will go to Europe on Sunday on a mission to fix ruptures with Europe over the Iraq war.
In the past two weeks, the officials said, France has rebuffed appeals by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, which would prevent it from raising money in Europe through charity groups. The United States has long called Hezbollah a terrorist organization, but the French, American and European officials said, have opposed doing so, and argue that making such a designation now would be unwise, given the new turbulence in Lebanon.
Israeli and American officials say that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has told them that he, too, regards Hezbollah as a destructive force in the Middle East, one determined to undermine peace talks by supporting militant groups that attack Israelis.
The officials and diplomats interviewed would not give their names, saying they did not want to be seen as worsening tensions between the United States and Europe on the eve of Mr. Bush's trip.
The Europeans are not solidly opposed to listing Hezbollah as a terrorist group, the officials said. The Netherlands, Italy and Poland support the Bush administration's view, several officials said, while Germany and Britain believe the issue is moot unless the French change their minds. One European diplomat said other countries were "hiding behind" France on the issue.
Hezbollah, which is based in the Bekaa region in Lebanon, gets much of its financial support from Syria and Iran, American officials say. But besides carrying out attacks on civilians and opposing Israel, Hezbollah also provides social services to thousands of Lebanese Shiites and has political representatives in Lebanon's Parliament.
"This is a difficult issue because Hezbollah has military operations that we deplore, but Hezbollah is also a political party in Lebanon," said a European official. "Can a political party elected by the Lebanese people be put on a terrorist list? Would that really help deal with terrorism? Now with Lebanon in a fragile state, is this the proper moment to take such a step?"
A European diplomat said the issue of calling Hezbollah a terrorist organization was discussed in Brussels on Wednesday at a meeting of the Clearing House, a unit of the European Union that meets in confidential sessions to review terrorist activities in Europe. The group could reach no consensus, the diplomat said.
"Nothing is going to change on Hezbollah because we don't have an agreement among the member states," the diplomat said. "That doesn't mean we won't get a consensus. I know the Americans are impatient, but the European Union has 25 states, and these things take time."
The Bush administration persuaded the Europeans to list Hamas, the Palestinian militant organization, as a terrorist group in September 2003. But enforcement of a ban on Hamas's fund-raising and financial activities has been left to each country, so the effort has been uneven, European officials say. Most countries have not made serious enforcement efforts, they said.
Now, in a measure of continuing trans-Atlantic disagreement about how to handle the Middle East, some European countries are questioning whether Hamas should remain on the terrorist list, because some of its members won municipal posts in recent Palestinian elections, and Europeans want to encourage Hamas to enter the mainstream of Palestinian politics.
Britain and other countries have argued that the best way to press Hamas to drop its efforts to disrupt Middle East peace talks and to recognize Israel is to offer inducements, several officials said. But the Clearing House has not raised the question of whether to remove Hamas from the terrorist list.
A senior State Department official said that the United States had wanted Europe to list Hezbollah as a terrorist group for some time, but that it had become a priority now that the Israelis and the Palestinians were making progress in easing tensions.
"It's incumbent on everybody to tighten up on Hezbollah, but it's become this big fat wild card that everybody's afraid to take on," an administration official said.
Ms. Rice, speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during hearings on the State Department budget, singled out Hezbollah as a group that had tried to wreck the Middle East peace talks.
"Here you have Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, many of them supported by Syria, trying literally to blow up the process," Ms. Rice said.
In a statement before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Porter J. Goss, the new director of central intelligence, said Hezbollah's "main focus remains Israel, but it could conduct lethal attacks against U.S. interests quickly upon a decision to do so."
The dispute over how to handle Hezbollah underscores the number of issues that continue to divide the United States from its longtime European allies, despite Ms. Rice's recent visit.
French doubts about punishing Hezbollah echo the European-American dispute over how to handle Iran, which intelligence officials say is the main source of Hezbollah's financing. The administration favors punishments and penalties on Iran, while most European governments favor negotiations and engagement.
In addition, Europe is determined to lift an arms embargo imposed in 1989 on China, which the United States wants to keep, while the United States opposes the Kyoto Treaty on global warming and the International Criminal Court, each warmly supported in Europe.
Another issue is American opposition to another term for Mohamed El Baradei as chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, an issue also linked to Iran. Europeans argue that Dr. El Baradei, a Muslim, is best suited to press the Iranians to cooperate on its nuclear program.