OUR SILENCE WILL SERVE NO ONE” — ALUMNI OF BRETT KAVANAUGH’S HIGH SCHOOL URGE GRADUATES TO SHARE INFORMATION ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULTS
A GROUP OF alumni from Brett Kavanaugh’s high school is calling on fellow graduates to come forward if they have information about any sexual assaults the Supreme Court nominee committed, stating in a new petition, “Please do not remain silent, even if speaking out comes at some personal cost.”
There have been petitions in support of Kavanaugh from alumni of Georgetown Prep. But in the wake of both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, some alumni of the all-male school are voicing support for Dr. Ford and asking others to come forward with any information that has been held back.
“We are alumni of Georgetown Prep standing in support of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and in solidarity with women everywhere who have endured sexual assault, violence, and harassment,” the petition begins. “We have heard Dr. Blasey Ford’s courageous and indelible sworn testimony in open hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee and we believe her.” It goes on to state:
The Satanic Verses sowed the seeds of rifts that have grown ever wider
Three decades after Salman Rushdie’s novel ignited Muslim fury and shook the world, we’ve yet to learn the right lessons
Thirty years ago last week, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was published. Rushdie was then perhaps the most celebrated British novelist of his generation. His new novel, five years in the making, had been expected to set the world alight, though not quite in the way that it did.
The novel was, Rushdie suggested, both about “migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death” and “a serious attempt to write about religion and revelation from the point of view of a secular person”. At its heart was a clash of race, religion and identity that, ironically, prophesied the controversy that engulfed the novel and still shapes our lives today.
Within a month, The Satanic Verses had been banned in Rushdie’s native India. By the end of the year, protesters had burned a copy of the novel on the streets of Bolton. Then, on Valentine’s Day 1989, came the event that transformed the controversy – Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death.
As Isis is defeated, the Trump administration is opening the door to a new round of Middle East wars by targeting Iran as the source of all evil
The exaggeration of ‘the Iranian threat’ by the Trump administration this week at the UN General Assembly in New York was very like what was being said by Bush and Blair about Iraq fifteen years ago
The shadowy figures of Kurdish fighters can be just made out on film as they ambush and kill three pro-Turkish fighters in a night time attack in Afrin in northern Syria. The Kurdish enclave was invaded and occupied by the Turkish army and their Syrian armed opposition allies earlier in the year. Sporadic guerrilla warfare has been going on ever since.
This skirmish took place a few days after an attack on a military parade by gunmen a thousand miles away from Afrin in Ahvaz in southwest Iran that killed 25 people. Film shows soldiers and civilians running in panic as they are sprayed with bullets, leaving 25 dead, including 11 conscripts and a four-year-old child. The killings were claimed by both Isis and Arab separatists from the province of Khuzestan whom the Iranians accused of acting as catspaws for the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
These incidents matter because they may be the harbinger of the next round of confrontations, crises and wars engulfing the Middle East. The most recent phase of conflict in the region saw the rise and fall of Isis and failed campaigns to overthrow the governments of Syria and Iraq. But Isis, which three years ago ruled a de facto state with a population of five or six million, has been largely crushed and confined to desert hideouts. President Bashar al-Assad – whose fall was confidently predicted after the uprising in 2011 – is firmly in power, as is the Iraqi government that suffered calamitous defeats at the time of the Isis capture of Mosul in 2014.
The Shadowy Arms TradeA Look Back at a Questionable Tank Deal
An intermediary received a commission of almost $200 million for the sale of battle tanks to United Arab Emirates. Some of that money, though, may have been used to bribe government officials.
The tanks were first deployed in combat three summers ago. In early August 2015, they rolled along Yemen's N1 highway, heading north to Al Anad Air Base. Their orders were to help government troops beat back the rebels.
The battle for the base only lasted a few days, after which the Sunni government declaredvictory over the Houthi rebels. The success came partly due to its foreign backers, most notably the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi had sent a brigade of Leclerc tanks to rout the Houthi rebels from the air force base.
The Emirates once shelled out more than $3 billion (2.6 billion euros) for 436 Leclerc tanks and other armored vehicles. The motors were from Germany, manufactured by the Motoren und Turbinen Union (MTU) in the city of Friedrichshafen on the shores of Lake Constance. The transmissions were from a company called Renk AG in Augsburg. The tanks were assembled by Giat, a state-owned enterprise in France that is now a part of the French-German joint venture Nexter.
Brazilian women take to the streets in protest of election candidate Bolsonaro
Women across Brazil launched a wave of nationwide protests on Saturday against the candidacy of the right-wing frontrunner in next week's presidential elections, Jair Bolsonaro.
The controversial Bolsonaro, who was released from hospital on Saturday after being stabbed and seriously wounded by a left-wing activist during a rally on September 6, is currently leading in opinion polls.
Marches organized by a social media campaign under the hashtag #EleNao (Not Him) began in earnest around 1800 GMT in dozens of cities including Rio de Janeiro, where thousands of women converged at vast Cinelandia square, to be joined by a column of others marching from the Avenida Rio Branco, a major thoroughfare, AFP journalists reported.
The toll of burying Grenfell's dead: London's Muslim undertakers
For those who cared for the living and the dead after the Grenfell Tower fire, the struggle for justice continues.
"I'd never heard of Grenfell before. I didn't think there were that many Muslims in Chelsea," exclaims Abu Mumin, 48, of Eden Care, a Muslim end-of-life support charity run from a compact, green and white-walled Whitechapel office.
It's a frantic Monday and the hallway outside clacks with rapid footsteps as doors open and close in quick succession. Mumin is bright, bubbly and dressed in a black suit. As he recounts the London Muslim community's mobilisation during the Grenfell Tower fire on June 14, 2017, he's joined by two female colleagues, Jusna Begum, 43, and Tahera Ayazi, 42.
When the blaze began at around 1am local time during the month of Ramadan, it was nearby Muslims, awake after tarawih night prayers, who were among the first to raise the alarm.
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