Ennahda’s founder Rached Ghannouchi calls for an end to ‘political Islam,’ a groundbreaking shift for a key Tunisian leader and intellectual long identified as Islamist.
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Russian Doping, Tunisian Women, Free Coding
SPOTLIGHT: DOPING, FROM SOCHI TO RIO The terminology itself is telling: “State-sponsored doping” is the accusation that the The New York Times reports the U.S. Department of Justice is now pursuing against Russian athletes and officials, linked to the use of banned substances at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and other competitions. “The inquiry […]
Though a massive attack with a full-fledged nuclear weapon is highly unlikely, a so-called “dirty bomb” scenario is not out of the question.
SPOTLIGHT: CHINA’S SILENT ANNIVERSARY It was 50 years ago today that the Chinese Communist Party and its leader Mao Zedong released a circular that was bound to unleash a decade of violence that would kill more than 1.5 million people. It would come to be known as the Cultural Revolution, and the history books consider […]
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A Libyan Family’s Quiet Resilience
MISRATA — The weather is fair as the moon hangs over a family home in Misrata. The al-Rufai’s tiled courtyard, with its table and plastic chairs, and a vine shoot wrapped around the arbor, feels strangely peaceful this evening. Inside a dismantled Libya, the enclosure is an unexpected oasis, a welcome safe-haven against the chaos. […]
SPOTLIGHT: DEATH IN IRAQ As the attacks in Paris and Brussels have shown, ISIS is a very real threat to daily life in the West. But as unacceptable as the toll paid by innocent European victims may be, it’s always worth remembering who bears the brunt of Islamic terrorism: innocent Muslims. The latest case is […]
SPOTLIGHT: D-DAY FOR DILMA’S IMPEACHMENT After weeks, months even, of political chaos, the Brazilian Senate will vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff later today. That is the scenario Brazil’s top media outlets are predicting, barring any last-minute twists. Of course in the mess that has become the impeachment process and criss-crossing corruption probes that have […]
Already swamped by refugees from across the Syrian border, Kilis is now also having to contend with constant rocket attacks.
MAY DAY PROTESTS TURN VIOLENT Photo: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters/ZUMA While the United States reserves Labor Day for early September, the rest of the world marks International Workers’ Day on May 1, which was actually originally established in the U.S. to mark the 1886 Haymarket affair. Take it as a sign that the world is growing both […]
SABRATHA — It’s just past 10 p.m., and Omar, Mohammed and Isa are driving on the Mediterranean coast highway that links the Libyan capital of Tripoli with the Tunisian border. In the distance, flares of burning natural gas emanating from the Mellitah oil terminal light up the pitch black night. The three men, all in […]
SAO PAULO — João left Brazil to study abroad and expand his horizons thanks to the national program Science Without Borders. He intended to return home afterwards, but something unexpected changed the script: While he was studying in Europe, his dreams, his ambitions and his beliefs changed as Islamic militants tried to recruit him for […]
Under the watchful eye of the Indian government, yoga master Sri Sri Ravi Shankar wants to resolve the world’s conflicts through a breathing technique. At a gathering last month, he attracted 3.5 million followers in New Delhi.
ISIS has launched a radio program on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, airing programs that target jobless youths and encourage them to adopt extremist views and join the fight in Syria.
A recently inaugurated mega-mosque near Washington D.C. is one of many the Turkish government has built in an effort to extend its influence and tout a moderate model of Islam.
Top German security officials say criminals and violent Islamists are using the asylum crisis to recruit refugees. They especially target minors traveling alone.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has pledged to crack down on terrorism after the Easter Sunday attack that killed 72 people. But the tragedy has raised serious questions about the country’s strategy and the political factors at play.
CAMERON RELEASES TAX INFO British Prime Minister David Cameron released information from his 2009-2015 tax returns yesterday in an attempt to defuse controversy about how he profited from his late father’s offshore fund, The Independent reports. The details about the family’s investment company were leaked last week in the so-called Panama Papers. CIA WILL NOT […]
WORLD LEADERS SWEAT IN PANAMA SPOTLIGHT The global fallout continues, four days after the massive leak of documents linked to a Panama firm specialized in offshore financial operations. So far, there has been just one clear high-profile political casualty: Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who stepped aside on Tuesday — but the heat is […]
After gains by regime troops, with Russian air support, calm and nightlife have returned to the capital. And locals are back to betting on Assad’s survival.
Joachim Gerhard’s two sons joined the terror group ISIS, severed ties with home and may very well be dead. None of that will stop this German father’s quest to bring his boys home.
HOSTAGES HELD ON HIJACKED PLANE IN CYPRUS A Cairo-bound commercial jet that was re-routed to Cyprus this morning was hijacked over what appears to be a personal matter involving a woman, The Guardian reports. The hijacker is reportedly still holding seven hostages in the plane that landed at the Cypriot city of Larnaca 7:50 a.m. […]
PARIS — Jihadism in Europe seems to always be one step ahead of European security services, which despite enhanced cooperation remain fundamentally national operations. Paradoxically, terrorism is unifying Europe with a sense of common identity in the face of the attacks in Paris and Brussels, which seem as if they could have just as well […]
The Brussels attacks are a reap-what-you-sow moment for Europe, after biding its time and coddling its dangerous allies for too long.
In Brussels, the jihadists have again shown they have a plan, which extends from the Middle East to the heart of Europe. The West must urgently get one of its own.
BRUSSELS MANHUNT CONTINUES Belgian police are hunting two suspects believed to have participated in Tuesday’s Brussels terror attacks that killed at least 31 people and injured 270, Le Monde reports. One of them can be seen on airport security footage accompanying killers Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui. Police believe he fled after dropping off a […]
-Editorial- PARIS — This time, it’s Brussels, the heart of Europe, that was hit by Islamist terrorists. They targeted this free city, where humor, impertinence, a Belgian way of not taking yourself too seriously, is the opposite of what these barbarians have in mind: cheap certainties, hatred towards others, the violence of the “pure.” The […]
N. KOREA FIRES MORE MISSILES North Korea fired a pair of ballistic missiles today from its eastern coast, the latest in a series of provocations that included a nuclear detonation in January and the launch, last month, of a long-range rocket. BRAZIL IMBROGLIO Brazil is barreling toward a full-blown constitutional crisis over President Dilma Rousseff’s […]
–Analysis – MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin’s decision to withdraw the lion’s share of Russia“s troops from Syria might have come as a surprise, but insiders in Moscow say the timing makes perfect sense. Many factors can explain why now. “Putin promised this operation would be limited in time and wouldn’t lead to an Afghanistan-like stalemate,” […]
PARIS — This is a new kind of police investigation. It is a terrorist affair that touches the edges of childhood, psychological manipulation and social discontent. The protagonists of this story are a group of girls torn between their teenage troubles and the traps of a tormented time. Aged between 14 and 19, they come […]
SYRIA PEACE TALKS IN GENEVA Syrian opposition negotiator Mohamad Alloush said during the Geneva Syria peace talks Saturday that Syria’s political transition could only start once Bashar al-Assad was no longer president. “We consider that the transitional period starts with the fall of Bashar al-Assad or his death,” The Jerusalem Post quoted him as saying. […]
Sanders Surprises, Queen On Brexit, 5th Beatle Dies
TRUMP AND HILLARY SCORE BIG ON SUPER TUESDAY Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton moved closer to a presidential face-to-face, with each winning seven of the 11 states holding primaries on the so-called Super Tuesday. Trump took home Republican primary wins in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia, while Clinton won Democratic contests in […]
SALLA — On the door of the tourism bureau in Salla, Finland, there’s a poster proudly informing visitors that they are “in the middle of nowhere.” That much is indisputable: Salla is a dark, remote place, lost in the middle of hundreds of miles of Laponian pine forests and covered in a thick mantle of […]
The internationally brokered ceasefire had a rocky start. While the first 24 hours passed relatively quietly, Russian and Syrian government air strikes picked up again on Sunday, with airplanes targeting towns and villages controlled by the Free Syrian Ar
LUNEL — Tac trimmed his beard and cut his hair short. He also stopped wearing his long prayer shirt. After the Paris attacks in November, he thought, the police were bound to come looking for him. Even his family had gotten into the habit of calling him “Daesh” (acronym for ISIS) as a joke about […]
PARIS — Pinpointed strikes, carried out covertly: This is France’s strategy to face down the threat of ISIS in Libya. A senior French official has confirmed to Le Monde that “the last thing that should be done is to intervene in Libya. Avoiding any open military engagement, we must act discreetly.” In Libya where France […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Could the trap of the Syrian crisis break up NATO? This question, which carries potentially grave implications for the security of the West, might sound overblown. After all, NATO’s unfailing cohesion eventually brought down one of the most formidable war machines of all time, the Soviet Union. Still, the spreading corrosive capacities […]
ROME — Italian soldiers and antiquity experts alike will help lead a new dedicated UN peacekeeping force designed to protect and restore the world’s cultural monuments exposed to war and other conflicts. Italian daily Corriere della Sera reports that the taskforce, the first of its kind, will be composed of 30 Italian paramilitary troops and […]
ISIS TARGETS SYRIA’S MUSLIM MINORITIES Despite losing ground across much of Syria, ISIS remains a dangerous threat in the western part of the country under the Syrian government’s control. A series of explosions in the cities of Homs and in the capital Damascus yesterday killed at least 140 people and wounded dozens more. ISIS claimed […]
U.S. AIRSTRIKES TARGET ISIS IN LIBYA A predawn U.S. airstrike targeted an ISIS camp in Libya, killing at least 30 members of the terrorist outfit, The New York Times reports. The operation, about 50 miles west of Tripoli, targeted senior Tunisian operative Noureddine Chouchane who is linked to two major terrorist attacks in Tunisia last […]