Olivier Roy – This is not an Islamic revolution An excellent piece on Islam and the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions by Olivier Roy, one of Europe's foremost thinkers on Islam. He affirms that political Islam…

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Religioscope: Tunisia: the advent of liberal Islamism – an interview with Rashid Al-Ghannouchi Rashid Al-Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia's Islamist party Ennahdha, returned home from his 22-year exile on Sunday. In this interview he lays…

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Cosmopolitan citizenship in the Middle East | openDemocracy Superb piece by Sami Zubaida on Ottoman Cosmopolitanism and its sad decline. 'In the popular mind, international relations were conceived in communalist terms: European powers are Christian…

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Endgame – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News Noam Sheizaf on the burgeoning support among the Israeli right and settlers for a one-state solution in the West Bank (though not Gaza). Though it doesn't quite…

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CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding | Foreign Policy John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn't know what he was talking…

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www.Syberberg.de Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's work, including his masterpiece Hitler: A Film from Germany, available free to stream or download. A superb collection.

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Is aviation security mostly for show? Bruce Schneier is the United States' foremost security expert and also a voice of sanity and reason in the debate on anti-terrorism measures. Here he correctly argues that terrorism…

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Letter from Tehran: Can Iran Change?: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker A lengthy and thorough profile of Iran and its leader. Excellent stuff. Ahmadinejad is a Twelver Shiite and a fervent Mahdist, which means…

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Israeli Arabs fear a Gaza backlash as far right prepares for power role | World news | The Observer “The difference between Lieberman and [Austria's] Jörg Haider and Jean-Marie Le Pen, to whom he has…

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The American Conservative — Another War, Another Defeat John Mearsheimer, author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, on the motives behind Israel’s mobilisation in Gaza. He correctly observes that Israel is locking itself…

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YouTube – Rocky Road To Dublin Peter Lennon Documentary Peter Lennon's 1967 documentary that was effectively banned for decades from RTE. An angry exposé of the stifling de facto theocracy then in place, it competed…

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