You start each year with false optimism. Things, you tell yourself, cannot get worse for the Palestinians. Each year proves you wrong. The crisis that has developed around al-Aqsa mosque has yielded many precedents: it’s the first time the mosque has been closed to Friday prayers since 1969; it’s the first time in centuries it has…
In Afghanistan on 24 July, a Taliban suicide bomber killed forty people in the centre of Kabul, just four days after a US airstrike killed 16 Afghan policemen in Helmand Province. Both incidents of slaughter were terrible and highlighted the US State Department official warning that «Travel to all areas of Afghanistan remains unsafe due to the ongoing risk of kidnapping,…
The crumpled heap of stones, all that is left of the minaret of the Great Mosque of Aleppo, asks questions of us all. How do we “restore” or “repair” or “rebuild” a jewel of Seljuk civilization from which millions of Muslims – perhaps even Saladin himself – were called to prayer five times each day for 900 years in…
Between July 24 and 27, the active phase of the Sino-Russian maneuvers “Joint Sea 2017” will proceed in the Baltic Sea. The naval strike group of the Chinese Navy arrived on Friday in the Baltic and this is the first ever visit of the Chinese Navy to the Baltic Sea. The exercises will involve a…
[The secular dates in this article rendered B.C.E. and C.E. (meaning “Before Common Era” and “Common Era”) are identical to the false religious dates B.C. and A.D. (“Before Christ” and “After our Lord”) which erroneously became standard in Christian countries (though 3 years off) in the sixth century of our Era.] There is absolute proof…
A team of researchers in Oregon have become the first to attempt to create genetically modified human embryos in the United States. The team reportedly demonstrated they could eliminate diseases in offspring with CRISPR. Led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a team of scientists at the Oregon Health and Science University used the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology…
