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Views on the news - 07/05/09

‘China cancels US credit card’ China, wary of the troubled US economy, has already “cancelled America’s credit card” by cutting down purchases of debt, a US congressman said last week. China has the world’s largest foreign reserves, believed to be mostly in dollars, along with around 800 billion dollars in US Treasury bonds, more than any other country. But Treasury Department data shows that investors in China have sharply curtailed their purchases of bonds in January and February. Representative Mark Kirk, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and co-chair of a group of lawmakers promoting relations with Beijing, said China had “very legitimate” concerns about its investments. “It would appear, quietly and with deference and politeness, that China has cancelled America’s credit card,” Kirk told the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American group. “I’m not sure too many people on Capitol Hill realize that this is now happening,” he said. UK police search powers alienate Muslims Po

Views on the News- 22/04/09

Torture matter of policy under Bush A Senate inquiry published on Wednesday directly implicates senior members of the Bush administration in the extensive use of harsh interrogation methods against al-Qaida suspects and other prisoners round the world. The 232-page report, the most detailed investigation yet into the background of torture, undercuts the claim of the then deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq was the work of "a few bad apples". The report says: "The abuse of detainees in US custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of "a few bad apples" acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorised their use against detainees." The report says that instructors trained CIA and other military personnel early in 2002 on the use of harsher

Q&A: Recent Developments in Somalia

This is a translation of an Arabic article بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم Question: Sheikh Shareef Ahmad has become the president of Somalia, so does this indicate the resurgence of the Shar'iah courts as they were two years ago. If it is so, why is the al-Shabab Mujahideen Movement opposed to them though they a part of the courts or at least very cloase to them? Has in the meantime Sheikh Shareef changed and the al-Shabab Mujahideen Movement is trying to sideline him, does this mean that the al-Shabab Mujahideen Movement is a sincere and dedicated force? Answer: Yes, Sheikh Shareef Ahmad is not what he used to be. He was the head of the Islamic courts in the past, and has now come to head the country. He was earlier fighting the greedy foreign kafir colonialists and was talking about implementing the Islamic Shariah, but his politicalacumen and awareness was very weak, just like most of the Islamic militant movements have. Therefore the sincere ones or al-Mukhlisoon sent him a delegation