News and Analysis (4/11/18)

“That the Red Crescent operates a hospital in a city supposedly inundated with wounded and didn’t get a single patient with confirmed exposure, however, is very noteworthy” …

• Red Crescent Says No Evidence of Chemical Attack in Syria’s Douma (antiwar.com)

… and in talks with the Trump administration both “France and Britain … stressed that the culprit still needed to be confirmed” …

• U.S., Russia Clash at U.N. over Chemical Weapons Attacks in Syria (Reuters)

… yet unlike 2013, when Russia blamed the US and UK for rushing to judgment, this time it is Russia that opposes an independent investigation into who is responsible for any chemical attack …

• UN Deadlock as Rival Resolutions on Syria Attack Probe Fail (Al-Jazeera)

… but Trump too has changed his position from 2013 when he  ” tweeted about Obama’s Syria policy…: “‘Be prepared, there is a small chance that our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III’:

• Donald Trump Is Reckless on Syria. It’s His Most Dangerous Foreign Policy Folly (USA Today)

“[T]he Bar Association of Kathua, the district where Asifa was abducted in January, said they wanted a federal investigation because the state government had failed to ‘understand the sentiments of the people’ … instead of condemning the heinous crime”:

• Prejudice Flares After Rape, Murder of Muslim Child in India: Lawyers Try to Block Police from Filing Charges Against Hindu Suspects (Human Rights Watch)

“Kazakhstan has a 75-per-cent female labour-force participation rate, … higher than either the United States or China. Egypt has a higher percentage of women going into the STEM fields than the United States. Seven Muslim-majority countries have had nine women as heads of states”:

• Gender Parity in Muslim-majority Countries: All Is Not Bleak (Globe and Mail)

“She doesn’t claim … that Islam already gives women all their rights. She argues that it could, if it was stripped of centuries of misogynist interpretation by male scholars”:

• Can Muslim Feminism Find a Third Way? (NY Times)

“Muslim Advocates and Democracy Forward filed the lawsuit on Monday after the departments failed to meet their demands to retract and correct information in the report, which was disseminated in January”:

• Terrorism Report Trump Touted ‘Misleadingly Inflates’ Muslim Threat to U.S., Lawsuit Alleges (Newsweek)

The clinic “is open to everyone who needs it, but members of the all-volunteer staff make no apology about being Muslim, and their connection to an Islamic service organization”:

• Free Muslim-run Health Clinic Opens to All in Northeast Philly (WHYY)

“The UN’s new Yemen envoy says all sides desire a political solution. But Resolution 2216, which demands Houthi rebels disarm and withdraw, is being invoked to create an ‘impossible precondition’ for talks”:

• How a Tough UN Resolution Is Making Push for Yemen Peace Talks Harder (Christian Science Monitor)

ImadadDean