Death threats and a hotel siege for the Britons trapped in the Indian Mutiny 2007

They came in peace to commemorate the thousands who died in the Indian Mutiny 150 years ago. But when a British tour party arrived in the northern city of Lucknow - scene of one of the mutiny's most brutal battles - their  reception was far from peaceful. Chanting anti-British slogans, an angry mob pelted their tour bus with rubbish and dirty water before laying siege to the group's hotel. The building was last night barricaded by police after the visitors received death threats.

The party of around 40 Britons - many of them elderly and some of them descendants of those killed in 1857 - were unable to leave as scores of nationalist protesters shouted "English go home" and called them "descendants of savages"...

READ ON:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23413861-death-threats-and-a-hotel-siege-for-the-britons-trapped-in-the-indian-mutiny-2007.do

Top Ways 9/11 Broke Islamic Law

Top Ways 9/11 Broke Islamic Law
On the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it is clear that al-Qaeda was a tiny fringe terrorist movement, not a globe-straddling threat to Western societies. The organization has been decisively disrupted and now lacks command and control. Its leader, Usama Bin Laden, has not been seen in a video since 2004, and is either dead or horribly disfigured. Its number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is dangerous only in the way that any other terrorist crank is, firing off crackpot messages to his dwindling band of followers from time to time. With the startling rise of anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States, fanned in large part by Republican Party fear mongering, it is worthwhile underlining the ways in which September 11 contravened Islamic values and Islamic law.
Read on...

Tennessee mosque fire 'was arson', investigators say

A fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a Tennessee Islamic centre has been ruled arson.

Officials in Murfreesboro have offered a $20,000 (£13,000) reward for help finding the person they say doused a lorry in diesel and then ignited it.

The FBI said it had yet to determine whether the fire was a hate crime and would not say if it has any suspects.

Saturday's incident came amid growing anti-Muslim animosity and opposition to new mosque building across the US.

READ MORE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11185701#

Park 51 imam speaks

September 7, 2010
Building on Faith
NY Times OPED
By FEISAL ABDUL RAUF
AS my flight approached America last weekend, my mind circled back to the furor that has broken out over plans to build Cordoba House, a community center in Lower Manhattan.I have been away from home for two months, speaking abroad about cooperation among people from different religions. Every day, including the past two weeks spent representing my country on a State Department tour in the Middle East, I have been struck by how the controversy has riveted the attention of Americans, as well as nearly everyone I met in my travels.

We have all been awed by how inflamed and emotional the issue of the proposed community center has become. The level of attention reflects the degree to which people care about the very American values under debate: recognition of the rights of others, tolerance and freedom of worship.

Many people wondered why I did not speak out more, and sooner, about this project. I felt that it would not be right to comment from abroad. It would be better if I addressed these issues once I returned home to America, and after I could confer with leaders of other faiths who have been deliberating with us over this project. My life’s work has been focused on building bridges between religious groups and never has that been as important as it is now.

We are proceeding with the community center, Cordoba House. More important, we are doing so with the support of the downtown community, government at all levels and leaders from across the religious spectrum, who will be our partners. I am convinced that it is the right thing to do for many reasons.

Above all, the project will amplify the multifaith approach that the Cordoba Initiative has deployed in concrete ways for years. Our name, Cordoba, was inspired by the city in Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims. Our initiative is intended to cultivate understanding among all religions and cultures. Read on: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/opinion/08mosque.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Rape Victims in Congo Raid Now More Than 240

September 2, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/world/africa/03congo.html?_r=1&ref=world

By JOSH KRON

KAMPALA, Uganda — The number of rape victims from a four-day rebel attack in eastern Congo a month ago has risen to more than 240 and will likely go higher, aid officials said Thursday.

Giorgio Trombatore, a director of the aid group International Medical Corps, said investigators working in eastern Congo’s North Kivu Province had so far “counted 242 cases individually, one by one.”

On July 30, hundreds of members of Rwandan and Congolese rebel groups occupied villages in the Walikale region of North Kivu, assaulting their victims in groups of two to six.

Countering reports from the area that some victims were male infants, Mr. Trombatore said that all were female and that the youngest was 16 years old and the oldest 75.

Thousands of women, and hundreds of men, have been sexually assaulted by the various armed groups warring in eastern Congo.

Officials with the aid group have said that the rebels — members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and the Mai Mai — left the villages on Aug. 3, and that later that day a local administrator alerted aid organizations in the area to the mass rapes.

Rebels from the same groups were suspected of attacking workers with the International Medical Corps on Wednesday after the workers landed by helicopter in Walikale, forcing the aid workers to escape into the surrounding forest.

Mr. Trombatore said Thursday that all the aid workers had been rescued and were safe.

Since the United Nations first publicly reported the mass rapes on Aug. 22, questions have arisen over how much the United Nations knew about the attacks as they were under way.

United Nations officials have said the peacekeepers did not know about the rapes until Aug. 12.

But a leaked United Nations e-mail dated July 30 shows that officials there were aware that the rebels had taken over one of the villages and raped one woman within the first day of the attack. By Aug. 10, the United Nations was aware that at least 25 women had been raped, according to another United Nations bulletin, published online.

What do you want to learn from this course?

"BIG" QUESTIONS:

• Team 1: Why caused the wars, violence and mass murder of the 20th century? (a total of 8 people asked similar questions)
• Team 2: Why were the imperial powers so hungry for African land? 
• Team 3: What can we learn from the history of the 20th century to help the economy of today and the future? (5 people asked similar questions)
• Team 4: Why does the US feel responsible for policing the world?
• Team 5: Why did communism fall and capitalism conquer the world?

...also asked: What can we learn from 20th century history to help our world today?/what's similar today? (2 people)

 ...and some people asked the questions that I posed in the syllabus:

• What was the cause and nature of the west’s “new imperialist” expansion?
• What caused the catastrophic levels of violence that made the 20th century the bloodiest in human history?
• What caused people to embrace radical alternatives to the way their societies were organized? Why did these utopian experiments fail?
• What was the nature of the anti-colonial/independence movements of the twentieth century?
• Why do we now speak of “world civilization” instead of “western civilization”?

 

Stimulus WAS Right Policy Just Too Timid

Read the Financial Times' Martin Wolf's trenchant discussion of these fascinating charts

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5799a774-b534-11df-9af8-00144feabdc0.html