Category: Opinion

HERAT, Afghanistan (AP) — Too poor to even buy pens and notebooks for school, Mehdi left his home in Afghanistan soon after his 17th birthday and headed to Iran, hoping to make his way to Europe and find work. Instead, Mehdi ended up fighting in Syria’s civil war, a conflict he had nothing to do […]

Too often the political and media establishment contribute to an environment in which hatred can thrive hen it comes to the threat of Islamist terrorism, no one doubts the role of radicalisation. The internet, hate preachers such as Anjem Choudary and Abu Hamza, and the western-armed, extremism-exporting state of Saudi Arabia: all play their part in radicalising the […]

SRINAGAR, INDIA (WASHINGTON POST) – He was the kind of professor students adored, always ready to help with books, advice or small loans. His colleagues in the sociology department found him reliable and ambitious, a scholar whose research on consumerism might propel him to a post elsewhere in India. So it was out of character […]

By creating insensitivity to the deaths of Muslims — by drone strikes, drowning in the seas, caged for requesting asylum — there is a measure of “desensitisation” achieved. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the world’s response to the terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques should not be “in terms of boundaries… I would […]

Let it please not be mistaken that, when we make a critical analysis of our countries in the Middle East, especially on what is going on in Egypt, to our American friends, or the defenders of democracy and human rights, this is not an invitation for the U.S. to once again intervene in our affairs […]

When reality is too hard to bear imagination may rescue you from despair. This is the message of “Confessions of an English Opium-eater” by Thomas de Quincey, the precursor of psychedelic literature. That message, it seems, has reached Iran, triggering an avalanche of empire-building dreams. Earlier this month, “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei published a manifesto […]

  Is Brenton Tarrant really an aberration? In response to what has been described as New Zealand’s biggest “terrorist” attack, in which 50 people were shot and killed in two mosques in the city of Christchurch, Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern declared: “We were not a target because we are a safe harbour for […]

Vain promises and empty slogans have got us nowhere. Fossil-fuel extraction must end before more lives are lost s Africa climate week unfurls in Ghana, the countries of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe count the costs of Cyclone Idai, which ripped through villages and towns, taking hundreds of lives and leaving a trail of destruction. For a continent already […]

A new study of six Murdoch-owned newspapers in Australia reveals that on average eight negative stories appeared about Islam or Muslims per day – and that’s just a tiny fraction of the billionaire’s global media empire. “Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible,” […]