BBC NEWS | Middle East | Saudi court jails 'sex boast' man - 0 views
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A Saudi Arabian man who boasted about his sex life on a TV talk show has been jailed for five years
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also sentenced to 1,000 lashes by a Saudi court on charges relating to immoral behaviour.
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Extra-marital sex is illegal in Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative societies in the Arab world.
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UN to teach children about Holocaust in Gaza schools - Middle East, World - The Indepen... - 0 views
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The United Nations' refugee agency is planning to include the Holocaust in a new human-rights curriculum for pupils in its Gaza secondary schools despite strident opposition to the idea from within Hamas. John Ging, the UN Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) director of operations in Gaza, told The Independent that he was "confident and determined" that the Holocaust would feature for the first time in a wide-ranging curriculum that is being drafted.
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Although the UNRWA director strongly emphasised that the de facto Hamas government had not sought to interfere with the agency – which is responsible for the welfare of some 1 million Gaza refugees – other figures in the movement have angrily condemned the idea of including the Holocaust in any part of the curriculum. Yunis al Astal, a religious leader and a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said last month that it would be "marketing a lie" and a "war crime" to do so.
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"This is also part of the frustration here. There are so many global tragedies and travesties that are learned worldwide. Who learns about the Nakba? Again [that is] a very reasonable and legitimate demand but it's not 'either/or'; it's both."
The Associated Press: Jolie urges world not to forget Iraqi refugees - 0 views
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Angelina Jolie met with Iraqi refugees in Syria on Friday and urged the world not to forget the plight of those among them who cannot return home because of the trauma they suffered and the country's instability.
UN commissioner urges move forward on women's rights - The National Newspaper - 0 views
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Women around the world are denied fundamental freedoms according to the UN’s human rights chief, citing in particular Sudan, Afghanistan and Gulf states.“Women’s rights continue to be curtailed in too many countries,” and efforts must be made to address this,
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She highlighted recent positive developments in the Gulf, such as the election of nine women in 2006 to the UAE’s Federal National Council [FNC], the election of four women to the 50-member Kuwaiti parliament, and the recent appointment of the first female deputy minister in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.But, Ms Pillay said, the overall situation of women in the region “falls well short of international standards”.
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South African legal expert, formerly the top judge on Rwanda’s war crimes tribunal, urged Gulf governments to adopt international conventions and reject home-grown laws that discriminate against women.“A crucial step in the right direction is the ratification and implementation of key human rights conventions, as well as the removal of the numerous reservations expressed by many Gulf countries regarding those human rights treaties they have chosen to accept,”
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BBC NEWS | Middle East | Jordan faces up to water crisis - 1 views
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In Jordan, the government can provide tap water to the capital only once a week
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Demand is enormous, but supply has been a problem.
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Jordanians are quite literally tapping into their very last supplies: underground water resources that can never be renewed.
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University of Minnesota Human Rights Library - 0 views
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No one shall be tried twice for the same offence.
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No citizen shall be expelled from his country or prevented from returning thereto.
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Free choice of work is guaranteed and forced labour is prohibited. Compelling a person to perform work under the terms of a court judgement shall not be deemed to constitute forced labour.
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Islamic Bonds Receive a Boost - WSJ.com - 0 views
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Global issuance of sukuk, or Islamic bonds, rallied during the third quarter with the value of sukuk issued rising 82% in the latest sign that confidence is returning to capital markets
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Investors are putting more faith in the sukuk market, seen as a more stable platform to raise capital, as the financial crisis eases and global market conditions improve rapidly, bankers say.
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Sukuk comply with Islam's ban on interest and are backed by physical assets from which returns are derived and paid to bondholders instead. European and Asian investors are increasingly buying into Middle East Islamic bonds in a bid to diversify their portfolios into a market showing greater signs of recovery, according to Mark Waters, BNP Paribas's head of debt capital markets in the Middle East.
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The demise of the dollar - Business News, Business - The Independent - 0 views
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The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
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a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."
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World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,"
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Memo From Cairo - Egypt Ponders Failed Drive for Unesco - NYTimes.com - 1 views
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after Egypt’s culture minister, Farouk Hosny, failed in his bid to lead the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Egyptian newspapers and government officials presented the defeat as a sign of Western prejudice against Islam and the Arab world,
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For days after Egypt’s culture minister, Farouk Hosny, failed in his bid to lead the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Egyptian newspapers and government officials presented the defeat as a sign of Western prejudice against Islam and the Arab world, the product of an international Jewish conspiracy.
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“America, Europe and the Jewish lobby brought down Farouk Hosni,” read a headline
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Is Turkey Renaming Istanbul Constantinople? | Foreign Policy - 1 views
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The Turkish government wants to end the PKK's terrorist campaign without splitting off a Kurdish state -- and sees extending cultural rights and linguistic freedoms as the way to do it. But what will it take to reconcile the Turks and the Kurds?
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Turkish journalists expect the government to allow public servants and politicians to speak Kurdish, end restrictions on Kurdish media, give some form of amnesty to all but the highest ranking PKK members, and possibly even revise the Constitution to allow Kurds to be full Turkish citizens without giving up their Kurdish identity. (Those Kurds who are proud to call themselves Turks have always been accepted and often risen high in the ranks of politics and pop culture)
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Realizing at last that the fight will never be won through purely military means, Turkey's leading general now supports greater cultural freedom for Kurds and wants to make it easier for PKK members to surrender. The National Security Council, traditionally a vehicle for the military to "advise" the government on political issues, also gave its blessing to the initiative.
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Afghanistan News October 3, 2009 - 0 views
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What I Saw at the Afghan Election By Peter W. Galbraith The Washington Post Sunday, October 4, 2009
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For weeks, Eide had been denying or playing down the fraud in Afghanistan's recent presidential election, telling me he was concerned that even discussing the fraud might inflame tensions in the country. But in my view, the fraud was a fact that the United Nations had to acknowledge or risk losing its credibility with the many Afghans who did not support President Hamid Karzai.
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As many as 30 percent of Karzai's votes were fraudulent, and lesser fraud was committed on behalf of other candidates.
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VOA News - Israel Tones Down Warnings of Strike on Iran as Diplomatic Efforts Intensify - 0 views
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Israel has for some time warned it is ready to launch preemptive strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities at any time. With international pressure growing on Iran to freeze its nuclear program, analysts say Israeli leaders are toning down those warnings and giving diplomacy a chance to work.
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Political scientist Avraham Diskin at Hebrew University in Jerusalem says Israeli politicians cannot afford to rule out military action."If Israel or the United States pick that alternative, Israel will pay costly for it. Israel is at the front line and because of that, maybe there is no alternative but to pay the cost and solve that in a military way," Diskin said.
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An Iranian-born Middle East analyst in Tel Aviv, Meir Javedanfar, says there are other reasons for Israel's leaders to temper their approach. "It is also possible that the recent events in Iran show this current regime is not as strong as people thought. Another possibility is that Defense Minister Barak has realized that the more Iran is threatened, the more it helps the [Iranian] leadership," Javedanfar said.
Iran agrees to ship enriched uranium to Russia for refinement | McClatchy - 0 views
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Iran agreed in principle Thursday to ship most of its current stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be refined for exclusively peaceful uses, in what Western diplomats called a significant, but interim, measure to ease concerns over its nuclear program.
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within weeks it would allow the inspection of a previously covert uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom
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Iran, which insists it isn't seeking nuclear weapons, got much from the meeting: help with its ostensibly peaceful nuclear program, no concessions on the enrichment issue and an opportunity once again to put its aspirations for a major global role on display.
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Iran Meets U.S. and Allies for Nuclear Talks in Geneva - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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an “extraordinarily difficult process”
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Washington would still like to begin bilateral talks with Iran on a broader relationship, including trade and Tehran’s support for Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi insurgent and terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.
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Washington buzzed over a quiet visit on Wednesday by the Iranian foreign minister to the unofficial embassy in Washington, the first trip to the capital by an Iranian of that rank in a decade.
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Barack Obama's great test | open Democracy News Analysis - 0 views
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the limitations of Obama's style and approach
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His administration, he promised, would do its best to revive the world's economy, to address climate change, to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, and to bring peace to Israel and Palestine. These are all admirable aspirations, and it is perhaps unreasonable to hope that the president might have admitted that the United States has been largely responsible for each of these problems.
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Barack Obama is increasingly coming to look like Lyndon B Johnson, a brilliantly gifted politician whose ambition to build a "great society" was sacrificed because of the war in Vietnam. The heart of the Obama approach is now clear. He genuinely wants to move away from the frozen folly of the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century, but he is not willing to take the political risk of acknowledging America's responsibility for the problems he wants to solve.
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Michael Brenner: Eyeless in Gaza: Obama's Palestine Flop - 0 views
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Obama's peace initiative on Palestine suffered a stunning, perhaps fatal, blow last week. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu rejected out of hand any freeze on the West Bank settlements which the White House had pressed as a necessary first step toward serious negotiations. The Obama plan is now stillborn, never having drawn a hopeful breath.
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The current Israeli government is even more resistant to proposals for a viable two state solution than its recalcitrant predecessors. It may bend but not break unless Obama threatens a rupture of Washington's all purpose commitment to the Jewish state. There is nothing in his performance to date that suggests he has either the necessary conviction or courage to do that.
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Obama rushed to say that the settlement matter is not so important after all, just a piece of a complex problem. Just as the "public option" was redefined as "just a sliver" of the overall package. There is no virtue in this approach. It is classic avoidance behavior.
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Syria Comment » Archives » "Engagement is Still On," by Joshua Landis - 0 views
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Washington’s desire to improve relations with Damascus has not come to an end, despite the claims of several Kuwaiti and Lebanese papers, which have been insisting that US engagement with Syria is over. Their false reports have been accompanied by a barrage of articles produced by Bush era diplomats proclaiming the failure of Obama’s engagement with Syria.
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The real problem for Obama’s Mid East policy is that Netanyahu is refusing to pursue peace. The lynch pin of Obama’s Middle East policy is Arab-Israeli peace. Everything else on his agenda flows from his promise that he can deliver on a two state solution. Syria will end its support for militant groups that fight Israel if it gets back the Golan and a credible effort is made to provide a modicum of justice for Palestinians. Iran would lose much of its influence in the region as a result. Ahmedinejad’s anti-Israel rantings would lose their purchase. As it is now, almost every Arab is hoping that Iran will get the bomb – if only to counterbalance Israel’s overwhelming military superiority. It is this superiority that allows it to scoff at both Syria and the Palestinians – and, indeed, scoff at the US.
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So long as Israel occupies the Golan Heights, Syria and Washington will remain adversaries, and engagement will be very difficult and limited. The question that hovers over Syria-US relations today is whether the Obama administration will turn to the Syrian peace track in the hopes of salvaging something of its Middle East policy. There seems to be no positive movement on the Palestinian peace track, so Obama may be forced to look north.
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