MRN

The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

Standing by sudan

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Standing by Sudan
It won’t be fun for Egypt if Sudan breaks up, or breaks down under pressure. So Cairo stands by Khartoum come what may, notes Gamal Nkrumah

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As unfavorable ideas go, this one is a corker, as far as Egypt is concerned. The choices that confront Sudan preoccupy Egypt. One danger, for both Egypt and Sudan, lies in failing to think clearly about short term and long term. In the short term, peace in Darfur is a priority for both Egypt and Sudan. In the long term, Sudan’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty are at stake. "Egypt seeks peace and we don’t have a hidden agenda," President Hosni Mubarak declared. Egypt proposed a United Nations conference to discuss the ICC indictment of Bashir, even though the Sudanese government declined Cairo’s bid on the pretext that it might lead to the internationalisation of the issue.

"We are only concerned about Sudan’s interests and the welfare of its people," Mubarak stated categorically. He dispatched Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul- Gheit and General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman to the Sudanese capital Khartoum to discuss the latest crisis concerning the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for President Omar Al-Bashir. Egyptian officials concur that the primary purpose of Egypt’s solidarity with Sudan is to advance the interests of the "two fraternal neighbouring states," as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the People’s Assembly Mustafa El-Feki told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Report Isaraeli defense official denied visa to us

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Report: Israeli defense official denied visa to U.S.

By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press

Tags: Israel News, Uzi Arad

Uzi Arad, who is in line to become Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of the National Security Council, is forbidden from entering the United States, according to a report in Tuesday’s Washington Times.

Since June 2007, American authorities have refused to grant Arad permission to enter the country on grounds that Arad poses "a security risk," the paper reported.

Torture team “ book review

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Torture Team – Book Review

rumsfield

‘Many in the Bush administration fall into Sand’s description of complicity in war crimes.’

By Jim Miles

Torture Team – Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law. Philippe Sands. Allen Lane, Penguin. New York. 2008.

"Only a few pieces of paper can change the course of history. On Tuesday, 2 December 2002 Donald Rumsfield signed on that did." From such a singular beginning Philippe Sands writes the history of U.S. attempts to abrogate international laws and conventions on the use of torture and the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. This is the memo Rumsfield approved with the sarcastic comment about standing: “However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” Perhaps Rumsfield should have been subjected to the other seventeen “techniques” that accompanied the memo to see if his limits for them were any better.

Torture Team begins carefully, reviewing and structuring the trail of evidence and the chain of command. Most of the participants in the chain of command were interviewed, some more willingly than others, and good portraits of their characters come through. They varied from casually ignorant and insouciant to defensively firm in their self-perspectives on the various papers, actions, and36that occurred. Through it all, the only groups/people that appear to be relatively ‘clean’ in these36are the military themselves and the FBI. All others, politicians (starting at the top with Bush, Rumsfield, Douglas Feith, Wolfowitz et al), government lawyers and advisors (Gonzales, Haynes, Jay Bybee, John Yoo et al), medical personnel, psychologists, anthropologists – pretty much anyone who had a hand in the interrogation – become complicit in war crimes under international law.

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Who said nearly 50 years ago that Isarael was an apartheid state?

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Who said nearly 50 years ago that Israel was an Apartheid State?

Address by Ronnie Kasrils: “ISRAEL APARTHEID WEEK”

Gaza Prison

Mandela: ‘We South Africans cannot feel free until the Palestinians are free.’

At the onset of international “Israel Apartheid Week” in solidarity with the embattled Palestinian people, I want to start by quoting a South African who emphatically stated as far back as 1963 that “Israel is an apartheid state.” Those were not the words of Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu or Joe Slovo, but were uttered by none other than the architect of apartheid itself, racist Prime Minister, Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd.

He was irked by the criticism of apartheid policy and Harold Macmillan’s “Winds of Change” speech , in contrast to the West’s unconditional support for Zionist Israel.