http://www.salaam.co.uk/news Salaam News - the muslim spin on the events that matter Uncle Sam is looking for ways to prolong the agony of Iraq. In preparation Washington has already armed over 150,000 ex-Ba'athists and primed the Kurds. Fighting back against Baghdad's demands for a timetable for the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq, the George W Bush administration and the US military leadership are making it plain that the objectives of Iraq must include continued dependence on US troops for an indefinite period. The riposte could be too late: the era of Iraqi dependence on the US is already ending. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253295 Iran needs to be convinced that Uncle Sam has been decisively weaned off the Likudnic neocon idea of regime change in the country. For this a modicum of respect and tacit acknowledgement that the lessons of the futility of gunboat diplomacy and the unsightly meddling of the past century in the country's affairs have been learnt. Possibilities of a genuine compromise then multiply manifold. Compared to a prematurely triumphant Bush of 2003, a cowed and battle scarred Uncle Sam may just be ready to swallow the bitter medicine. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253296 The question to ask is: when all the noise has died down, what will this initiative have achieved? The answer is very little. The likelihood is that Blears' committee of theologians will fare no better than Ruth Kelly's Muslim Action Committee, Sufi Council, or any of the other government-created paper bodies. The terrorists and would-be terrorists won't look to the government's scholars for fatwas, and ordinary Muslims are unlikely to give them much attention. It may help Blears, who insists on poking her nose in all things Islamic, to learn this old Islamic piece of wisdom: "If you see the scholar frequent the sultan, then point your finger at him and beware." Friday 25th July 2008 Religion http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253297 Many believe the Talibanisation of Pakistan is well under way and impossible to reverse. Pakistan's predicament is that of the bogus US-inspired war on terror. The only secure solution must deal with the totality of the social conditions underpinning the problem. There is no military solution that does not exacerbate social problems, thus fuelling the instability in which the Taliban can thrive. The war on terror has merely extended the agony it was meant to obliterate. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253291 Since the looting of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad in April 2003, the international press has accorded considerable space to the country's imperilled ancient heritage. Much of this coverage, however, has been devoted to the museum, the impressive campaign to recover its stolen works, and the continued struggle to reopen its galleries. Only occasional, anecdotal reports — mostly from the first year of the conflict — have borne witness to large-scale plunder of archaeological sites, to which the damage is irreversible. Friday 25th July 2008 Culture http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253290 Branding Hizbullah's military wing a "terrorist group" while apparently doing nothing about other extremist groups, grandstanding about the oppressive nature of the Iranian theocracy and the Syrian dictatorship while propping up Saudi Arabia and Egypt, highlighting the countless human and civil rights violations in some Arab/Muslim countries while cavalierly ignoring those committed by Israel and western allies in the region has led to a situation where being labelled an "enemy" of the west immediately translates into a boost for regional appeal and support. This hypocrisy of supporting whoever seems to be working for western interests, regardless of morals or ethics, while at the same time branding others as "terrorist" and "undemocratic" only reveals the true agenda of the Likud neocons in control in Washington and London. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253293 Government sanctioned Muslim-bashing and demonising of Muslims is now common practice In Britain. By supporting Uncle Tom Muslims and embracing the noxious ideas of Likudnik neocons, Brownites have indicated that they are fanning the flames of Islamophobia and steadily sliding towards the next step of the internment of Muslims. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253294 The European Union’s top food safety agency said on Thursday cloned animal products may not be safe and further study was needed, prompting another battle of conscience within the bloc over the merits of new technology. For many years, new technologies with potential food uses have split EU countries down the middle, with one group calling for tolerance, acceptance and more research while the other urges caution and rejection until the science is more advanced. Friday 25th July 2008 Food http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253292 "From the dawn of the occupation, Caterpillar has been a major arms supplier to Israel, no less than those who provide planes, cannons and tanks. Not for nothing are peace activists trying to call for a boycott of the manufacturer. Israel has sown almost unimaginable destruction using heavy equipment. Go to Rafah, stopping in Khan Yunis on the way, and see the results of the destruction scattered there to this day. Whole neighborhoods razed, the contents of houses - possessions and memories - crushed under the treads. Have you ever seen a street after being “stripped” by a bulldozer? Cars are crushed like tin cans and homes become piles of rubble, along with their contents. Any street in Rafah looks much worse than King David Street in Jerusalem this week", writes Gideon Levy. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253287 Libya's state shipping company says it has halted oil shipments to Switzerland in protest at the brief arrest of leader Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son. It threatened further action if the Swiss did not apologise for the arrest. Geneva police held Hannibal Gaddafi for two days after he and his pregnant wife allegedly hit two of their staff. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253289 In Srebrenica, where the massacre took place in 1995, local Muslims have little faith in a legal process undertaken by the United Nations tribunal in The Hague 13 years after the hunt for Radovan Karadzic began. Some feared the tragedy he is accused of helping to orchestrate was being overshadowed by the lurid soap opera, played out on front pages across the world, detailing his evasion as an alternative medicine specialist, with a mistress, a fake American family and an elaborate disguise. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253286 An Iranian TV station has had its Cairo office raided by police, the latest victim of a spat over a film on President Anwar Sadat's assassination. Tehran has sought to distance itself from the film, but that has not helped improve feelings towards Iran in Egypt. Friday 25th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253288 "The heavily militarized and nuclear armed state of Israel is entirely dependent upon US military aid, economic support, and political patronage. Israel is the direct recipient of more than six billion US tax dollars annually. Israel could not continue its brutal annexation policies, its militarized wall, its “settlement” of Palestinian lands or any of its other objectionable policies without the complete and bipartisan support of US ruling circles. For the US, Israel is a kind of offshore military base, a nuclear-armed white enclave in the middle of millions of brown people who sit atop a large share of the world’s most accessible oil", writes Bruce Dixon. Thursday 24th July 2008 Politics http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253281 When Jawdat Khoudary opens the first ever museum of archaeology in Gaza this month, it will be an act of Palestinian patriotism, showing how this increasingly poor and isolated coastal strip was once a thriving multicultural crossroad. The oldest Gaza site dates from the middle of the fourth millennium B.C., when Gaza became the head of all the caravan routes linking the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, via the Red Sea, to the Mediterranean. Friday 25th July 2008 Culture http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/index.php#253285