Islamic World

Jeddah, June 23: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah told citizens yesterday he is part of them and feels their pains. He said they would see many good things happening in the coming days.

Addressing citizens and officials who came to greet him on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of his accession to the throne, King Abdullah said what he had done for the country and its citizens was the result of God’s blessings. He wished every citizen success and good health.

Jeddah, June 23: As violence rages in the Horn of Africa nation, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called, for an urgent international action against rebels in Somalia.

“It has become inevitable that the international community should intervene immediately to support the transitional government, re-establish order and lighten the suffering of innocent civilians,” OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said in a statement cited.

Ihsanoglu called on OIC member-states to help the Somali government, assuring it of the organization’s “unshakeable support.”

Mindanao, June 23: Armed with knowledge and skills, a like-minded group of Filipino young Muslim intellectuals who retuned to their homeland Mindanao after pursuing education are joining hands to nurture peace and stability in the disputed Muslim-majority region.

“We could not remain apathetic to the plight of our communities,” engineer Don Loong, a member of Young Moro Professional Network (YMPN), told.

Tehran, June 23: Amid claims of a ‘rigged-election’ by certain defeated Iranian presidential candidates, a top election official says the box-by-box details of the vote will be released.

“During previous elections in the Islamic Republic, statistics concerning individual ballot boxes were considered confidential information … this kind of information was only available to certain officials,” deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s election headquarters Ali-Asghar Sharifi-Rad said Sunday.

Tehran, June 23: Iranian riot police have fired tear gas to break up a new opposition rally in the centre of the capital Tehran, hours after a stern warning to protesters.

Some 1,000 people had gathered on Haft-e Tir Square despite the warning from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards against holding unapproved rallies.

Basij militiamen wielding clubs were brought in to reinforce the police.

The Guards, an elite armed force, vowed to crack down on new street protests over the presidential election results.

Tehran, June 22: Iran plans to outlaw stoning as a form of punishment, the country’s IRNA news agency reported Monday.

The head of the parliament judiciary commission Ali Shahrokhi said some traditional Islamic punishments, including stoning, would be removed from the country’s laws.

He added that the cutting off hands – an Islamic punishment for thieves – would also be outlawed.

The draft by the judiciary commission is expected to be approved by the parliament, and finalised by the Guardian Council, he said.

–IANS–

Washington, June 22: The lenses of cell-phone cameras have become the West’s only tool for assessing the scope of the demonstrations now taking place in Iran’s streets, since conflicting blog posts and government pronouncements offer a distorted picture of reality. As a result, the number of people thronging a few Tehran streets has become the sole means by which to measure the “revolution.” This is an important – but it is insufficient.

Tehran, June 22: European telecommunications companies Siemens and Nokia, most commonly known for developing advanced cell phones and other network technologies, are responsible for creating the technology behind Iran’s sophisticated Internet censorship, according to a Monday report in The Wall Street Journal.

The tech, which can block Web sites and cut lines of communication, goes much further than many other countries’ Web filtration and actually enables government agents to alter communications to spread disinfo.

From the Journal:

Ankara, June 22: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said Iran’s stability has a profound impact on the stability of the whole region.

The Turkish minister made the remarks while meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov on Sunday evening.

“Iran is our very important neighbor. Stability in Iran has great influence on the stability of the whole region. Turkey will support every step taken in this direction,” Davutoglu said.

Tehran, June 22: Iran appears to be stepping up its clampdown on the media amid continuing protests over the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

At least 24 journalists have been detained by authorities since the protests began a week ago, according to figures from a media watchdog and international media organisations.

Among those detained were the head of the Association of Iranian Journalists and a Canadian reporter for Newsweek.

Sharjah, June 22: Dumbuk…dumbak… the beats of the darbuka, locally known as Al Raas, filled the evening air at Sharjah Museum recently as Saeed Mubarak Ali Alhaddad went full blast with his forceful performance.

“The technique in the Al Ayala chant imitates military life. It starts slowly with the key players standing in a semi-circle with the Thakmira, Al Raas and Al Tar drums. It then gradually picks up tempo, but never goes too fast,” said Alhaddad, senior researcher at the UAE Department of Culture and Information, Government of Sharjah.

Dubai, June 22: Developing property estates without involving the police — coupled with poor security by private companies — has seen a rise in house break-ins and burglaries, a top Dubai Police official said on Sunday.

Dubai Police Criminal Control Department Director Jamal Al Jalaf said 173 homes in Dubai had been burgled in the first quarter of this year. Though corresponding figures for last year were not available, he said they were up, a rise he attributed to real estate expansion in the emirate.

Tehran, June 22: Iran’s powerful Guardian Council has said there were some irregularities in the June 12 presidential election, which has been widely disputed and triggered bloody street protests.
The Guardian Council admitted that the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters, the council’s spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei told the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) channel Sunday.

Mosul, June 21: Athil al-Najifi, the Arab nationalist governor of Iraq’s restive Nineveh province, is striking an uncompromising tone on thorny relations with Kurds in the provincial capital, Mosul.

In an exclusive interview with the German Press Agency dpa, al- Najifi, who led the Sunni Hadba Coalition to victory in January’s provincial council elections on a platform of regaining control from Kurdish parties, said he expected Iraqi Kurdish parties “to come to grips with the changed situation” after his coalition’s victory and the US withdrawal from the city.

Tehran, June 21:­ The daughter of Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and four relatives were arrested over their involvement in protests against alleged election fraud in Iran, the Fars news agency reported Sunday. Faezeh Hashemi, a renowned women’s rights activist, former parliament deputy and head of women sports in Iran, has in the recent years emerged, like her father, as one of the main opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad had before the June 12 election accused Rafsanjani and his children of corruption.

Haifa, June 21: There is no place like home. To Nemra Abbas, that maxim holds true even when “home” exists at the crossfire between the war-torn Lebanese-Israeli borders, where she has chosen to remain in isolation for nearly a century.

The Lebanese woman Octogenarian is the last woman standing in an abandoned village that lies along the Lebanese-Israeli borders, after witnessing and surviving the bombs and gunfire of every war that took place in the ever-seething area.

Cairo, June 21: Judges in the United States can now order a veiled woman witness to remove her face covering to testify in court, according to a new court ruling issued last week that has human rights groups worried about potential discrimination against veiled Muslim women.

In a majority 5-2 vote, Michigan’s Supreme Court ruled that judges should “exercise reasonable control” over the appearances of witnesses to judge their body language and facial expressions and to ensure proper identification.

Tehran, June 21: Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani urges ‘politicians and candidates’ to separate themselves from rioters and seek legal channels to prove their claims.

“The issue can not be taken forward by shouting fraud, stirring the mood, and dragging the issue to the streets,” Larijani said in a Saturday televised interview.

“We must separate those who have burnt people’s shops in the streets and harmed the police and Basij (volunteer militias) forces, who are the guardians of the country, from the critics of the election results,” he added.

Tehran, June 21: Mir-Hossein Moussavi helped found the Islamic republic of Iran and led the country as prime minister during the grinding war against Iraq in the 1980s. For the close confidant of revered revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini to now be the leader of the opposition is unprecedented in Iranian politics.

A year ago, Iran experts would have laughed at the idea of Moussavi becoming a dissident. Now, a sizeable portion of the one- time political elite from the 1979 revolution has joined him in the opposition, including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Dubai, June 21: Kuwait is toughening its stance against expatriate workers and is likely to arrest and accordingly deport close to one lakh expatriates for being registered with bogus companies.
Thousands of Indians will be affected, being the single largest expatriate community numbering about 5,80,000 in the total population of 3.5 million.

Tehran, June 21: The terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) has reportedly played a major role in intensifying the recent wave of street violence in Iran.

Iranian security officials reported Saturday that they have identified and arrested a large number of MKO members who were involved in recent riots in Iran’s capital.

According to the security officials, the arrested members had confessed that they were extensively trained in Iraq’s camp Ashraf to create post-election mayhem in the country.

Tehran, June 21: Now that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has placed himself shoulder to shoulder with his officially elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the very existence of the Islamic regime may now be questioned openly in a nation ever more divided between reformists and those who insist on maintaining the integrity of the 1979 revolution.

Tehran, June 21: Iranian security forces used water cannon, batons and tear gas in clashes with protesters in Tehran yesterday after crowds demanding fresh presidential elections gathered in defiance of government and police warnings. Eyewitnesses described fierce clashes near Revolution Square in central Tehran after some 3,000 protesters chanted “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to Khamenei”.

Tehran, June 21: Police beat protesters and fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands who rallied in open defiance of Iran’s clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran’s English-language state TV said as reports of street clashes became public that a suicide bombing at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini south of Tehran had killed one person and wounded eight. The report could be not independently evaluated due to government restrictions on journalists.

Jeddah, June 21: Saudi Arabia is expected to generate 13 billion Saudi riyals (Dh12.73 billion) during this Umrah season, a key figure that will help strengthen the country’s status as the top tourist destination and a leading hotel market in the Middle East.

Around 3.5 million pilgrims are expected to visit the Kingdom during this Umrah season.

Religious tourism in Saudi Arabia, which generates around $7 billion (Dh26 billion) annually, achieved 30 per cent growth in the first quarter of 2009, according to recent statistics.