News and Analysis (4/28/12)

Malaysian Spring? “Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who many hope will win the upcoming election, rallied the enthusiastic crowds as one of Bersih’s leaders, Ambiga Sreenevasan, said: ‘We all want change today’”:

“Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet, kids. At least until there’s like, you know, some proof”:

“[W]hile Egypt’s Islamists – generally not fans of free speech when it comes to matters of faith and social mores – are on the rise politically, it’s worth keeping in mind that [persecution of critics under color of blasphemy laws] were frequent under the presumably secular Mubarak regime”:

“On Friday around 1,000 protesters demonstrated outside the mission, demanding the release of” a prominent Egyptian lawyer “and other Egyptians held in Saudi jails,” chanting “‘Oh Saudi ambassador, we will respond to every lash with a hundred!” and “showing their anger by removing their shoes and waving them at the building”:

“Changing fundamental words of Scripture such as ‘father’ and ‘son’ will also fuel the Muslim claim that the Bible is corrupted, full of errors and has been abrogated by the Quran and example of Muhammad” — Most Rev. John Harrower, Anglican bishop of Tasmania, for whom, “the changes aren’t simply a matter of word choice, but theological choice”:

The ancient “pilgrimage route was abruptly halted after Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war” when potential pilgrims feared “visiting the mosque would amount to recognition of Israel’s claim to the area and be inappropriate when Israel prevents many Palestinians from entering”:

With the Nour Party candidate disqualified from running, ultraconservative clerics seek a role as kingmaker, questioning remaining candidates without connections to the Mubarak regime on implementation of Islamic law, foreign policy, and how they “would deal with the clerics if elected”:

Do we have this straight? The ISI told the CIA that bin Ladin’s cell phone was in Abbottabad, they just didn’t realize it was bin Ladin’s cell phone, but the CIA did?

Days after “Israel’s serving military chief, Benny Gantz, … said he did not believe the Iranian leadership was prepared … to acquire nuclear weapons,” former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin said Netanyahu and Barak are “misleading the public” because “many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race” rather than end it:

 


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