N korea to halt denuclearisation
Picture: REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/Files Sung Kim, the State Department’s Korea expert, speaks about documents North Korea handed over on the North’s… Read More »N korea to halt denuclearisation
The Truth about 42- Features
Imagining an Isaraeli strike on Iran
By David E Sanger
(source: NewYork Times)
In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, declaring it could not live with the chance the country would get a nuclear weapons capability. In 2007, it wiped out a North Korean-built reactor in Syria. And the next year, the Israelis secretly asked the Bush administration for the equipment and overflight rights they might need some day to strike Iran’s much better-hidden, better-defended nuclear sites.
They were turned down, but the request added urgency to the question: Would Israel take the risk of a strike? And if so, what would follow?
Now that parlor game question has turned into more formal war games simulations. The government’s own simulations are classified, but the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution created its own in December. The results were provocative enough that a summary of them has circulated among top American government and military officials and in many foreign capitals.
Stabbed pupil dies in hospital
A Roodepark High School pupil who was stabbed in the head died today. Spokesman Captain Siphiwe Ndlovu says the 16-year-boy,… Read More »Stabbed pupil dies in hospital
Taking a leaf out of the prophets life
By Mufti Zubair Bayat
(This article was published in the Natal Mercury Paper on Thursday, 27 May 2010 p.15)
The recent Mail & Guardian cartoon, which attempts to depict the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) lying on a psychiatrist’s couch and supposedly lamenting the lack of humour of his followers, has evoked an angry response and strong objection from the Muslim community.
Depicting40of God and the Prophet (pbuh) are strictly forbidden in Islam. The rationale for the prohibition of depicting the image of God is because He is beyond human perception. The rationale for the prohibition, inter alia, of depicting the Prophet (pbuh) is that he was too sublime to be truly portrayed. Furthermore, attempts at portraying him could result in his image being distorted. There are therefore no records of any authentic image or portrait of the Prophet (pbuh) anywhere in the world, from any period of Islamic history, which is a significant point to note.