There are 846 articles

  • 'Toxic waste' behind Somali piracy

    Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste. The ransom demand is a means of "reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country.. More

  • Secrets of Iraq's Death Chamber

    Prisoners are being summarily executed in the government's high-security detention centre in Baghdad. Like all wars, the dark, untold stories of the Iraqi conflict drain from its shattered landscape like the filthy waters of the Tigris. And still the revelations come. The Independent has learnt that secret executions are being carried out in the.. More

  • Tunnels feed besieged Gaza

    Hundreds of tunnels under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt are keeping many of the Palestinian territory's 1.5 million impoverished residents supplied with food and fuel. On Saturday, Egyptian authorities found the entrances of three tunnels and confiscated a large amount of fuel about to be smuggled into the territory. Sources say.. More

  • Israel stocks up local cluster bombs instead of heeding calls for ban

    Israel has cut purchases of U.S.-made cluster bombs, defense officials said on Tuesday, stocking up on supplies from a state-owned Israeli company rather than heeding calls for an outright ban. More than 100 countries have banned the bombs because they can kill indiscriminately. Cluster bombs have a relatively high failure rate compared.. More

  • Casualties of another war

    The deadly blast in Islamabad was a revenge attack for what has been going on over the past few weeks in the badlands of the North-West Frontier. It highlighted the crisis confronting the new government in the wake of intensified US strikes in the tribal areas on the Afghan border. Hellfire missiles, drones, special operation raids inside Pakistan.. More

  • China vows "preemptive strikes" on Uighur Muslims

    China is preparing to put high-pressure on Uighur Muslims by forcing them to accept identification with the Chinese nation and Chinese culture. China will conduct a "re-education" drive against Uighur Muslims in East Turkistan with its Party chief vowing preemptive attacks, Reuters said. Historical records show that the Uyghurs have a.. More

  • Turkish PM: Islamophobia should be a crime of humanity

    Defining Turkey as not only a geographical but also a cultural, social and political bridge, Erdogan said that Turkey was therefore an important country for the Alliance of Civilizations Initiative. The Turkish prime minister said on Monday that countries should express their peace and justice demand. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.. More

  • Gaza's tunnel economy stumbles

    Fayez Shweikh, one of Gaza's up-and-coming businessmen, shakes his head as he considers his mixed fortunes. In the past year, he had significantly increased his household income by investing in a black-market, "tunnel" economy, which relied on smuggled goods siphoned through underground passages between Egypt and Gaza. Israel has always.. More

  • Palin and her pro-Zionist politics

    Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s religious life and her beliefs have become a topic of intense interest and scrutiny here — due to her recent meteoric rise from relative obscurity to Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential running mate. Press interviews with the two pastors she is most closely associated with in Wasilla, her hometown in Alaska.. More

  • Uncovering Turkey's dark past

    Many ethnic Kurds and Turks hope that an ongoing investigation into an undercover organization may help explain hundreds of unsolved murders, disappearances and bombings which rocked Turkey in the early 1990s. State prosecutors allege that a highly-secretive group - 'Ergenekon' - was responsible for many unsolved, high-profile killings in Turkey in.. More

  • Kashmir's forgotten collective past

    Over the past several weeks, dozens of Muslim protesters have been killed and injured in violence which has rocked the Kashmir Valley. The problem which sparked the most recent violent protests in Kashmir centers on the issue of land allocation for Hindu pilgrims who were planning to visit the cave Shrine of Amarnath. In late May, S. K. Sinha, the.. More

  • Australian Muslims enter politics

    Muslim leaders in Australia have announced plans to form a political party to fight what they say is a growing Islamophobia. The move came as the leader of a Christian party demanded an immediate halt to Muslim immigration to Australia, saying that Muslims were beginning to dominate some communities. Shaykh Tajuddin al-Hilali, the Mufti.. More

  • Intoxicants: Harms and impacts

    The Muslims of today, especially the youth, are facing many problems and temptations that were not there before. The youth are easily distracted by activities such as addiction to TV, addiction to video games, gambling, disco, parties, and addiction to drugs. This article will explore the harmful effects of drugs on our youth, the family, the.. More

  • Kosovo talks end in deadlock

    After more than 13 months of talks, Serbian and ethnic Albanian leaders have failed to reach a compromise on the future of the disputed province of Kosovo. The two sides were discussing a UN proposal that offers the trappings of statehood, including a constitution, flag and national anthem, under a draft but does not mention formal independence. The.. More

  • Kyrgyzstan: Debate on legalized polygamy continues

    The debate on legalizing polygamy has returned to Kyrgyzstan. The issue has come before the parliaments of all the Central Asian states -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Polygamy is practiced in all parts of Central Asia. For centuries Islamic law guided how societies in this region behaved and polygamy was a traditional.. More