News and Analysis (5/28/13)

It’s as if Tunisia’s new Islamist rulers did not remember that “Tunisia’s 2011 uprising against the dictatorship was sparked by the self-immolation of a frustrated street vendor” …

… and Morocco too is accused of becoming more like pre-revolutionary Tunisia after adopting a more democratic constitution:

Threatening to turn a civil war into a world war, “Israel’s defence minister signals that its military is prepared to strike shipments of advanced Russian weapons to Syria”:

“The scholarly documents depicted Islam as a historically moderate and intellectual religion and were considered cultural treasures by Western institutions — reasons enough for the ultraconservative jihadists to destroy them…. This is the story of how nearly all the documents were saved”:

“Digests of selected hadiths are nothing new in Islam…. What makes this one different is that it selects and explains the hadiths from the perspective of today’s Turkey” representing “Turkey’s “Ankara School” of theologians” who “subscribe to what they call ‘conservative modernity’”:

“Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Islamic leaders expressed dismay over decisions by authorities in western Myanmar to restore a two-child limit on Muslim Rohingya families, a policy that does not apply to Buddhists and follows accusations of ethnic cleansing” …

… but “[n]ew sectarian violence flared Tuesday in northeastern Myanmar, with a mob burning some shops after unconfirmed rumors spread that a Muslim man had set fire to a Buddhist woman”:

Those who pretend Muslims and democracy don’t mix will have to explain this event “designed to cultivate relationships with lawmakers and other community members and encourage policies that promote civil rights and liberties”:

Under the new law prohibiting political activity by “ambassadors who served at any time in the Gaddafi era,” the congress leader had no choice despite “31 years in exile as leader of the Libyan National Salvation Front opposition group” …

… and France is agonizing over how to undo the conversion of Libya into “a weapons smuggling route for al Qaeda militants in the Sahara since” it and its allies arranged for the fall of Muammar Gaddafi:

The motive is unknown, the accused perpetrators were not in prison for terrorism and contrary to earlier erroneous reports, Pervis Khan was not the ringleader:

Accroding to the story in “Josh Ruebner’s new book, Shattered Hopes: The Failure of Obama’s Middle East Peace Process, … Obama’s performance in this area has been of a piece with his performance in every other.  Some people became very hopeful about his rhetoric and then very dejected about his actions”:


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RSS
Follow by Email