By Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam The current Ethiopian constitution provides for freedom of religion and requires the separation of state and religion. However the Muslim community in Ethiopia has been, for more than a year now, holding protests at mosques around the country against what is perceived as government interference in religious affairs. The protesters are [...]
How To End Government Intolerance Of Islam In Ethiopia – OpEd
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Victims’ Relatives Testify At U.S. Soldier’s Afghan Massacre Trial
(RFE/RL) — Relatives of victims killed in a massacre in southern Afghanistan in March have testified at a hearing for the U.S. soldier accused in the attack. The relatives spoke late on November 9 via video from Kandahar to the courtroom in the U.S. state of Washington where the trial of Staff Sergeant Robert Bales [...]
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Goodbye To A War – OpEd
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU and his patron, Sheldon Adelson, betted on Mitt Romney, with the State of Israel as their chip. They lost. For Adelson, the betting tycoon, that doesn’t amount to much. Some you win, some you lose. For Netanyahu, it’s a different matter altogether. He grew up in the US (where he got to know [...]
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Israel Fires Missile Into Syria As ‘Warning Shot’
The Israeli army fired on Sunday “warning shots” into Syria, according to Israel Radio. The Israeli army confirmed it had carried out the shooting after a mortar shell fired during clashes between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad , has accidentally landed in the occupied Golan Heights. Israel’s Haaretz daily website said that [...]
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Muslim Cleric Shot Dead In Dagestan
The imam of a village in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan was shot dead in his own backyard on Sunday, investigators said. The attackers pelted Gadzhi Aliyev with gunshots, killing the cleric on the spot, the local branch of the Investigative Committee said. They then fled the scene, leaving numerous shells for cartridges used [...]
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Petraeus Case Highlights Continuing Deficiencies In CIA And FBI – OpEd
In the history of the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), there have been three instances of Directors coming to grief because of their perceived wrong-doings. Richard M.Helms (1966-73) was removed by President Richard Nixon from office because of his alleged disloyalty to the President during the Watergate inquiry. James Woolsey (1993-95) had to resign following [...]
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Syria: Activist Preacher Voted Head Of Opposition Group
Activist preacher Moaz al-Khatib was elected as the first leader of a new Syrian opposition umbrella group that hopes to win international recognition and prepare for a post-Assad Syria, in a poll counted before reporters on Sunday. Veteran opposition figure Riad Seif, who proposed the U.S.-backed initiative to set up an umbrella group of opposition [...]
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Ahmadinejad, Hitler, Saddam And The Appeasement Analogy: A Knockout Argument – Analysis
Politicians like to draw analogies between those who sought to placate Germany’s Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the early 2000s, and those who seem to give in to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. The November 2011 report presented by the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukia Amano, left [...]
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Obama Visits Arlington National Cemetery To Honor Military
President Obama visited Sunday the Arlington National Cemetery where he delivered at the Memorial Amphitheater a speech honoring the nation’s military. Prior to making his speech, the President laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the monument dedicated to American service members who have died without their remains being identified. It is also [...]
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Egypt: Brief Salafi Occupation Of Coptic Land Part Of Larger Problem, Copts Say
It was a quick skirmish and no one was hurt, but it was typical of what Egypt’s Coptic leaders say are increasing attempts to harass Christians since the country’s 2011 revolution, according to Open Doors. The latest incident occurred Monday, Nov. 5 in the Shoubra el Kheima district of northern Cairo, where a Coptic Orthodox [...]
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Hindus Urge New Archbishop Of Canterbury To Promote Interfaith Dialogue
Congratulating Right Reverend Justin Welby, 56, on his nomination as the new 105th Archbishop of Canterbury, Hindus hope that he would promote interfaith dialogue in the world. Welby will assume the Church of England’s most senior position at a Canterbury Cathedral ceremony on March 21 next, replacing Dr. Rowan Douglas Williams who retires in December [...]
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Resisting Hell’s Maelstrom – OpEd
Over the past twenty months, as the Syrian crisis continued beyond most early predictions, this observer learned something about the Syrian people that I had known for decades about Palestinians. And that is their great concern for their countrymen wherever they are found and whatever their current condition. When I am in Syria I am [...]
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IMF Says Western Sanctions Causing Iran’s Economy To Contract
(RFE/RL) — The International Monetary Fund said that economic performance in Iran has shown a “small contraction” because of a Western ban on purchases of Iranian oil exports. Masood Ahmed, head of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, says Iran’s economy will contract slightly for 2012 and that an increase in inflation also [...]
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Guatemala: Army Kills Seven Indigenous Protestors In Totonicapán
By Louisa Reynolds After electricity costs in the northwestern department of Totonicapán doubled in under a year to almost US$12 a month, Mayan Kiché community leader Juana Celestina Batz Puac decided to protest. “It’s too much,” she said, shaking her head. To Batz Puac, it’s unfair that rural families that have one light bulb at [...]
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Petraeus Successor At CIA May Address Intel Deficiencies – OpEd
Gen. David Petraeus’ surprising and abrupt resignation from his position as director of the Central Intelligence Agency may have a silver-lining despite the uncertainty of leadership at one of the nation’s most important bureaucracies, according to an Inside-the-Beltway law enforcement and counterintelligence officer. The next director of the CIA could address agency deficiencies and those [...]
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Iran: Parliament To Probe Death Of Blogger
Iranian parliament has announced that it will probe into the death of jailed blogger Sattar Beheshti after his death created a wave of domestic and international outrage. Mehr News Agency reports that deputy head of parliament announced that the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Parliament have been charged with the responsibility of [...]
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Ron Paul: A New Beginning – OpEd
America is over $16 trillion in debt. The “official” unemployment rate still hovers around 8%. Our federal government claims the right to spy on American citizens, indefinitely detain them, and even assassinate them without trial. Domestic drones fly over the country for civilian surveillance. Twelve million fewer Americans voted in 2012 than in 2008, yet [...]
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Harirism Exposed – OpEd
By Mohammad Aslam Saad Hariri—the Saudi-born son of the late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri—has been on something of a speaking tour lately. The billionaire former prime minister has repeatedly tried to make the case that Lebanon’s incumbent government has put the country in harm’s way because of its stance on the conflict in neighboring [...]
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Iran Confirms Firing On US Drone Over Persian Gulf
Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says the Iranian military has driven away an unidentified aircraft violating the country’s airspace. “Last week an unidentified plane entered the airspace above the territorial waters of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Persian Gulf which, due to the timely, quick and decisive action of the Iranian [...]
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TAPI Pipeline: Despite Security Issues, Bangladesh Expresses Interest
Bangladesh said last week that it is keen to join the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline project. The pipeline is already projected to cover nearly 1,700 km, and would need to be extended if Bangladesh were accepted into the project. “There is a request from Bangladesh to join the project,” Turkmenistan’s acting Minister of Oil and [...]
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