Press outlets that characterize Rouhani’s words at the U.N. as saber-rattling just aren’t listening:
The poet says she is “very happy to be free, finally, after three years” after “being sent to prison for a poem, but it will be impossible to stop my writing” …
- Palestinian Poet Dareen Tatour Set Free (Local Call / 972)
… as Labor Party delegates vote “to criticize Israel’s use of force against Gaza protests, urge more U.K. funding for the U.N. agency for Palestinians and back a freeze on British arms sales to Israel” …
… while the international community is revulsed by Israel’s order to “Palestinians living in a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank to demolish their homes within the next eight days and leave” …
… and Erdogan says, “The massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, recently in Myanmar, and in Palestine as we speak have all taken place before the eyes of the United Nations Security Council”:
- Erdogan: UNSC ‘Standing Idle to Oppressions in World’ (Global Daily News)
“The video, which has been circulated widely online, shows a female constable repeatedly striking the young student — who local media report is Hindu — and berating her for allegedly conducting an interfaith relationship”:
Yameen destroyed the statues “even though the statues have no religious symbols or meaning. … Despite the edict huge cutouts of Yameen towered over the capital Male in the lead-up to Sunday’s poll, which he lost after five years of strongman rule marked by a regression from democracy”:
- Maldives Destroys British Statues Deemed Offensive to Islam (Channel News Asia)
PM-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim asserted that “the new government defends free speech and that allowing space for pro-LGBT views should not necessarily be construed as accepting them”:
- Mahathir Has an Islam Problem (Asia Times)
“The Iraqi political scene has been roiled by a boiling over of public frustration with government incompetence and by the bellicose rhetoric between Washington and Tehran“:
- The U.S. and Iran Are Competing to Shape Iraq’s New Government. Both Are Failing (Washington Post)
“The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Washington, and the director of Israel‘s Mossad spy agency have joined ranks” …
… and the Saudi’s plan to reduce their own oil use “just as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries rebuffs demands from U.S. President Donald Trump that it take action to reduce prices” …
… while a British Foreign Office minister says “the UK would stand firm against Washington’s pressure to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and continue to pursue progress in ‘a different way'” …
- Trump’s Iran Threats Could Cause ‘Confrontation with Major Powers Involved’, Warns UK Foreign Office Minister (Independent)
… and EU members plan to “set up a payment system to allow oil companies and businesses to continue trading with Iran in a bid to evade sanctions after the US withdrew from a nuclear agreement” …
… but Israel insists on welshing on a billion dollar debt to despite an order upheld by Switzerland’s supreme court:
Muslim “victim of, or the perpetrator of, … terrorism?” Check. Male misogynist? Check. Oppressed female? Check. Irrational anger? Check. Superstitious, culturally backwards or anti-modern? Check. Threat to a western way of life? Check. Bodyguard fails the “Riz test” on every count:
