The future chief of the Anglican Church

It's not very encouraging, isn't it?

From Daniel Pipes

Mar. 25, 2006 update: As the first Westerner ever to address the Al Imam Mohammad Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Charles […] chose to give Muslims some advice about modernizing their religion. Note the "we" in the following quote: "I think we need to recover the depth, the subtlety, the generosity of imagination, the respect for wisdom that so marked Islam in its great ages." He also said Jews and Christians should learn from Islamic teachings:

What is so distinctive of the great ages of faith surely was that they understood, as well as sacred texts … the meaning of God's word for all time and its meaning for this time. … it was Islam's greatness to understand this in its full depth and challenge. This is what you … can give not only to Islam but by example to all the other children of Abraham.

[Back] in a 1997 Middle East Quarterly article titled "Prince Charles of Arabia," Ronni L. Gordon and David M. Stillman looked at evidence that Britain's Prince Charles might be a secret convert to Islam. They shifted through his public statements (defending Islamic law, praising the status of Muslim women, seeing in Islam a solution for Britain's ailments) and actions (setting up a panel of twelve "wise men" to advise him on Islamic religion and culture), then concluded that, "should Charles persist in his admiration of Islam and defamation of his own culture," his accession to the throne will indeed usher in a "different kind of monarchy."
 

And from Militant Islam Monitor:

 Charles considers Christianity inadequate to the task of spiritual restoration and denigrates science for having caused the West to lose its spiritual moorings. Echoing a common Muslim theme, he declares that "Western civilisation has become increasingly acquisitive and exploitive in defiance of our environmental responsibilities." Instead, he praises the "Islamic revival" of the 1980s and portrays Islam as Britain's salvation:

Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which Christianity itself is poorer for having lost. At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam-like Buddhism and Hinduism-refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us. . . . But the West gradually lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy of nature is no longer part of our everyday beliefs.

Eurabian News has also a post on this item -in Spanish-.

Advertisement

Court rules against Muslim girl who didn’t want to wear “uniform of the unbelievers”

From The Telegraph:

The Law Lords have overturned a court ruling that teenager Shabina Begum’s human rights were violated when she was banned from wearing full-length Islamic dress at school.

Well, she named the uniform (that is, same form, regardless any personal or individual concerns) the one of the un-believers, reason very important not to wear it.

If you scroll down the article from the Telegraph you can see that one of her defendants is Cherie Blair.

HT: IBA and Jonz.

Technorati Tags: hijad, Cherie Blair, Islamists, Great Britain,

Terrorist suspect accused of plotting to buy a radio-isotope bomb (UPDATED)

The trial is taking place in Britain. From Free Republic:

One of the suspected terrorists on trial for allegedly plotting a nationwide bombing campaign has been linked to a nuclear weapon.

The Old Bailey jury was told that Salahuddin Amin had been involved in discussions to buy a nuclear bomb.

The prosecution said contact had been made with the Russian mafia in Belgium, from whom they wanted to buy a radio-isotope bomb.

Yesterday, jurors heard the prosecution outline its case that the seven-strong gang – all British citizens – planned to blow up pubs, nightclubs, trains and also considered hitting the UK's power infrastructure.

Khyam, Garcia, Hussain, Akbar

The gang had wanted to blow up "the biggest nightclub" in central London, prosecutor David Waters QC said.

In February, 2004, they were allegedly overheard discussing bomb targets.

Mr Waters said: "Jawad Akbar referred to attacks upon the utilities, gas, water or electrical supplies.

"Alternatively, a big nightclub in central London might be a target."

The accused deny conspiring to cause explosions between January 1 2003 and March 31 2004.

Three of them also deny an additional charge of possessing an article for terrorism.

Mohammed Babar, a US citizen who pleaded guilty in New York to a role in a "British bomb plot", is expected to give evidence against the defendants.

The Guardian:

Seven British men with alleged links to al-Qaida plotted to carry out a terrorist campaign in the UK with homemade explosives containing more than half a tonne of fertiliser, the Old Bailey heard yesterday. The defendants, mainly of Pakistani descent, had most of the necessary bomb-making components ready but were arrested in March 2004 before they had finalised a target, said David Waters QC, opening the prosecution case.

[…] Most of the gang are accused of having undergone training at terrorist camps in Pakistan in the past few years. And they all "played their respective roles" in the plan to make a bomb or bombs, which would be used "to kill or injure citizens of the UK", said Mr Waters.

A US citizen, Mohammed Babar, who has already admitted his part in the "British bomb plot", will testify at the Old Bailey in a few days' time.

(snip) Most of the defendants, whom Babar called the "Crawley lot", visited him there, where they underwent terrorist training in explosives techniques and worked out how to get bomb components and bring them to the UK.

Khyam and Amin both told Babar they worked for a man called Abdul Hadi, whom they claimed was "number three in al-Qaida".

Khyam, whom Mr Waters described as "very much at the centre of operations", said he wanted to carry out operations in the UK because it was as yet unscathed and should be hit because of its support for the US.

"The majority of that contact [with Babar] was in Pakistan and it involved, for the most part, one theme – the acquisition of training and expertise, particularly in relation to explosives," said Mr Waters.

UPDATE: From Times On Line:

All the defendants, apart from Mr Hussain, allegedly trained at camps in Pakistan and spent time in Britain with Mr Babar. They frequently changed their names, used code words and regularly disposed of their laptop computers and mobile phones.

Mr Waters said that in one discussion with Mr Babar, Waheed Mahmood had said he “couldn’t understand why people were coming all the way to Pakistan or Afghanistan to fight when they should be fighting jihad in the UK”. Concerned about MI5 surveillance, he suggested that a new Islamic convert receive explosives training in Pakistan and return to Britain to teach others.

[…]Shujah Mahmood arrived in Pakistan with digital scales for weighing ratios of ammonium nitrate to aluminium powder. Mr Garcia attended training camps and “taught those with less experience how to dismantle and reassemble weapons”. The men were said to have experimented at the camp with ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder, causing small explosions.

 

Tags: Great Britain, terrorism, radio-isotope bomb

Powered by Qumana

Muslim leaders: Children abused at Madrassas in Great Britain

From THE INDEPENDENT:

Thousands of Muslim schoolchildren are being physically and sexually abused by their religious teachers every year, according to a report into the Islamic education system in this country.

The potential scale of the abuse has led to fears among Muslim leaders that Britain’s Mosque-based schools will face the kind of child abuse claims that has recently scandalised the Roman Catholic Church.

Up to 100,000 children are taught at 700 Islamic schools, or madrassas, of which almost a half use unlawful corporal punishment to discipline pupils.

Sugiero has more news.

You can also read what Jonz has posted about the BBC bias in this case.

Welsh Church apologizes for Cartoons’s publication

The Anglican Church in Wales has apologised to Muslims after a cartoon satirising the Prophet Mohammed was printed in its Welsh-language magazine.

The Church in Wales has issued an immediate recall of all copies of the latest edition of Y Llan – meaning Church – following the reproduction of the cartoon.

The drawing, reprinted from the French magazine France Soir, satirises the Prophet Mohammed by depicting him sitting on a heavenly cloud with Buddha and Christian and Jewish figures.

The cartoon was used to illustrate an article about the shared ancestry of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

The Prophet’s depiction is banned in Islam and similar images in European papers sparked violent global protests.

"The Church in Wales is thoroughly investigating how this cartoon came to be reproduced in Y Llan," Sion Brynach, spokesman for the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said.

"Despite the publication’s small circulation, we are concerned about the possibility of causing any offence to the Muslim community in Wales – with whom the Church in Wales has an excellent relationship – as a result of the reproduction of this cartoon."

A letter from the Archbishop has been sent to all subscribers to the magazine requesting that they return all the estimated 400 copies.

The publication of similar cartoons in newspapers in Denmark, Norway, France, Germany, Italy and Spain earlier this year provoked complaints by Islamic countries, and led to protests at Danish embassies in Europe and the Middle East.

From The Telegraph.

Tags: Anglican Chruch, Mohammed cartoons, freedom of the press, freedom of expression

Powered by Qumana

Security Council Fails To Reach Accord on Iran

The Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany failed to reach agreement at a meeting Monday on how to respond to the Iranian nuclear crisis but said they would forge ahead in the coming days to break the impasse.
The deadlock comes as U.S. and European officials confirmed that Britain had presented the United States with a paper outlining a possible diplomatic strategy to resolve the crisis, including new talks and concessions. But the British representative at Monday’s talks, John Sawers, said Britain had not made such a proposal at the meeting.
Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said the United States is not going to participate in direct negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue.
Top foreign policy coordinators for the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany issued a joint statement that echoed an agreement Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had reached with those five governments in January. The statement expressed “deep concern” that Iran has “failed to respond positively” to requests by the United Nations’ Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to suspend its uranium enrichment activities and allow for more intrusive U.N. inspections of its nuclear energy program.

From the Washington Post

Iran must be very worried because of this “deep concern”.

At the same time, Victor Harel, the Israeli Ambassador in Spain has stated that

“Iran is an international danger” because of “its economic potential, the antisemitism of his President, Ahmadinejad, and its intentions of achieving nuclear weapons”.

He also added that is necessary that the EU, USA and Israel continue to be united in pointing Iran as an international danger and the “conclusive” diplomacy, because if that policy does not succed “we will enter a much more dangerous path”.

Accordingly to Iran Focus, not only Israel is going to be the target -being that grave enough-, but looks like Iran is making an alliance with the Al-Qaeda people living in Iran.

We should also read a very discouraging post from Sandmonkey. The comments are also worth reading.

And by the way, looks like BBC has signed a deal with Iran. In fact a HUGE ad campaign:

“The publicity campaign will be in the form of advertisements introducing cultural, historical and development attractions of Iran,” said Deputy Head of ICHTF for Cultural and Communication Affairs Alireza Sajjadpour.

Talking to IRNA, he referred to BBC, CNN, Germany’s ZDF, al-Jazeera and al-Arabia as the international TV networks selected for introducing the tourist sites.

“We have signed a huge agreement with BBC,” he added. He, however, declined to cite the contracts’ details.

Are they going to talk about the mullahs and the human rights abuses? Are they going to speak about the women’s situation? I think it’s good that the internal situation of Iran is known abroad. But really, an ad campaign paid the ayatollahs is going to really show the real Iran? I just doubt it.We have only good news about the dissident Akbar Ganji, who is home at last: although he is very frail, he is more determined now to say what he said 6 years ago.

technorati tags: nuclear crisis, Security Council, Akbar Ganji, BBC, Victor Harel, Iran, Germany

Britain and the US are building new warheads

From TimesOnlIne:

BRITAIN has been secretly designing a new nuclear warhead in conjunction with the Americans, provoking a legal row over the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The government has been pushing ahead with the programme while claiming that no decision has been made on a successor to Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent. Work on a new weapon by scientists at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire has been under way since Tony Blair was re-elected last May, and is now said to be ahead of similar US research.

The aim is to produce a simpler device using proven components to avoid breaching the ban on nuclear testing. Known as the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), it is being designed so that it can be tested in a laboratory rather than by detonation.

“We’ve got to build something that we can never test and be absolutely confident that, when we use it, it will work,” one senior British source said last week.