French identity: poverty, racism and inequality
06 Nov 2009: Announcing plans for a French debate on national identity, France's immigration minister, Eric Besson, underlined the thinking behind the project. "We should never have abandoned to the Front National (FN) a certain number of values that belong to ourFrance court quashes Islamic Finance measure
16 Oct 2009: France's highest constitutional authority on Wednesday struck down a provision of a new law that would have opened up French banking to Islamic finance. The National Assembly last month adopted the measure to allow Sharia-compliant financing despiteFrench to end search for Flight 447 black boxes
20 Aug 2009: French investigators say they have abandoned a search in the Atlantic Ocean for the black boxes from Air France Flight 447. The Airbus jet crashed June 1 into the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 people aboard. The FrenchNeo-Nazis attack Muslim prayer Room in France
20 Aug 2009: Vandals have hung a pig's head from the door of a Muslim prayer room in eastern France and daubed the building top to bottom with swastikas. A passer-by alerted the police earlier on Wednesday after discovering the pig's head suspended from the door andAir France plane bumps Brazzaville building
30 Jul 2009: BRAZZAVILLE - An Air France Airbus A330 hit a building just after landing in Congo’s capital Brazzaville and was banned from taking off with any passengers, Civil Aviation Minister Emile Ouosso said Thursday. The incident occurred on Wednesday night atVeiled threats: row over Islamic dress opens bitter divisions in France
27 Jun 2009: In the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, with its busy market, fast-food joints and bargain clothes shops, Angelica Winterstein only goes out once a week – and only if she really has to. "I feel like I'm being judged walking down the street. PeopleMuslim burka "not welcome" in France: Sarkozy
22 Jun 2009: The burka, or face covering some Muslim women wear, is "not welcome" in France because it is not a symbol of religion but a sign of subservience for women, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday. "We cannot accept to have in our country women who areFrance's oldest Muslim school 'condemned to death'
28 May 2009: "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!" As the imam's wail rises, the rows of worshippers kneel. "Allahu Akbar!" The rows touch their foreheads to the floor. Between the prayer mats the white lines of a sports court are just visible. On the wall, a poster showingWeb designer opposes France's "3 strikes" law, loses job
11 May 2009: He's already being called "le premier martyr d'Hadopi." Who is he? He's a 31-year old Frenchman named Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim, and he works in the Internet innovation division of French TV broadcaster TF1. After sending a private note to his MPRama Yade: The political star who's eclipsing Sarko
14 Apr 2009: Rama Yade grins broadly and shrugs modestly. How, she has been asked, can she explain her overwhelming popularity after only two years in French politics? Is it because she is both "belle et rebelle" – strikingly beautiful and the only minister to haveHostage killed as French storm yacht held by Somali pirates
11 Apr 2009: A French military operation to free a yacht hijacked by Somali pirates backfired yesterday when one of the hostages was killed, highlighting the perils facing US forces trying to free an American seaman being held captive in a parallel pirate standoff.French MPs reject controversial plan to crack down on illegal downloaders
09 Apr 2009: French politicians have unexpectedly rejected a bill that would have cut off the internet connections of anyone found to be repeatedly downloading music or videos without paying for them. The legislation would also have led to the creation of the world'sFrance tightens visa policy as unemployment rises
08 Apr 2009: PARIS - France is tightening conditions for foreign workers to obtain visas because unemployment is rising and the priority is to get people already in the country back to work, a policy document signed by the president shows. In a letter to ImmigrationNATO's Global Mission Creep
15 Mar 2009: NATO, the main overseas arm of the U.S. military-industrial complex, just keeps expanding. Its original raison d’être, the supposedly menacing Soviet bloc, has been dead for twenty years. But like the military-industrial complex itself, NATO is keptFrance to rejoin Nato high command
11 Mar 2009: Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has said that France will rejoin Nato's integrated military command, more than 40 years after his predecessor, Charles de Gaulle, pulled out of the alliance's inner circle. Addressing defence experts at the Ecoleslashnews
Major quake shakes eastern city of Van
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey yesterday, triggering the collapse of buildings and killing many people, according
to officials and experts. At least 50 people were taken to the single hospital in the city of Van, Anatolia news agency said,
The wretched scandal of Gaza
Past bombed suburbs and scrubland stands the house on the frontier of hell. Once, Abdullah Wahdem's home was a pleasant villa set
in the citrus groves of northern Gaza. Now its cream stucco frontage is pitted by the bullets and artillery salvos that
From Hate to Love -
Story of Adiy ibn Hatim
In the ninth year of the Hijrah, an 'Arab king made the first positive moves to Islam after years of feeling hatred for it. He
drew closer to faith (iman) after opposing arid combating it. And he finally pledged allegiance to the Prophet, peace be on him,
Microsoft Bing in search deal with China’s
Baidu
Microsoft has signed a deal with China’s top search engine, Baidu, to provide the site with censored web search services in
English. Baidu, which dominates 83 per cent of the local market and whose success is built on its Chinese language services, said
