American Buddhist Net

Israeli archaeologists have announced that ruins long thought to be of an ancient synagogue are actually the remains of a palace used by Muslim caliphs 1,300 years ago.

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The US shrugged off Israel’s small settlement announcement yesterday, insisting that it would have no impact on peace talks, even as Palestinian officials were condemning it and analysts were wondering why Israel did so as Vice President Joe Biden was arriving in the nation. Today, the other shoe fell.

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RIYADH: A Saudi cleric’s fatwa last week calling for those who promote co-educational environments to be put to death has shocked international and Saudi communities, according to a report.

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Saudi women to be allowed to argue cases in court

Shocked by growing reports about Ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting at Christians in Jerusalem's Old City, a group of Anglo residents is now mobilizing against this ugly practice. Although such incidents reportedly have decreased since a council of Haredi rabbis issued an official condemnation in January in response to the public outcry, Christian and Jewish activists agree the problem is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

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...[T]ragically, today the streets and residential quarters of Mecca have become filled with sewage. This is not only a moral and social catastrophe for the Meccans and for all Muslims who treasure the city, but also stands as a symbol of the corruption the house of Saud has imposed on its subjects.

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Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.

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Very likely caused by depleted uranium, which has a half-life of over 4 billion years. The consequences on human health of the use of this kind of material has been known for a long time, but they use it anyway! ABN

At least two suspected Israeli agents behind the murder of a senior Hamas official fled to the US during their escape, Dubai police now believe.

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by Edward C. Corrigan / March 1st, 2010

There is a controversy raging in North America over Israeli Apartheid Week (March 1-7 2010).1 A resolution was passed in the Ontario Provincial Parliament which was unanimously supported (only 30 MPPs voted) and declared the comparison of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid as “odious.” To quote an article in the Toronto Star Canada’s largest circulation paper.

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A Hamas leader killed in his Dubai hotel room was drugged and then suffocated, police said on Sunday, giving further details of the Cold war-style hit allegedly carried out by Mossad agents.

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..."I don't think the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, are going to drop it in the neighborhood," Barak said. "They fully understand what might follow -- they are radical but not total 'meshugah.' They have a quite sophisticated decision-making process and they understand realities."

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The quote just above contradicts the headline. I agree with the quote, not the headline. Threats against Iran seem to me to have much more to do with US control of Central Asia, and keeping Russia and China contained and on their toes. War with Iran, of course, risks war with Russia or China or both, though I doubt either nation would do anything to invite an attack. Constantly threatening Iran also cloaks US military escalations in Afghanistan and Pakistan by keeping the public distracted. Notice also that none of the rhetoric surrounding the "Iranian threat" works very well when argued or discussed in even the most basic ways. It does work very well though when sound bites and scary pictures are beamed across the TV to passive audiences who willingly accept their intellectual defeat with a bowl of popcorn. ABN

They're numerous, outspoken, and range from secular to orthodox to one group calling itself "True Torah Jews Against Zionism."

They believe that "traditional" Jews don't support Zionism, an ideology they call "contrary to Jewish law and beliefs and the teachings of the Holy Torah."

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NEW DELHI — India's best-known painter M.F. Husain, who went into exile after receiving death threats from Hindu hardliners, has accepted Qatar's offer of citizenship, his son was quoted as saying Saturday.

Husain, 94, a Muslim artist known as the "Picasso of India," angered hardline Hindus by portraying Hindu deities in the nude or in a sexually suggestive manner.

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A leading Saudi hardline Wahhabi cleric issued a fatwa in which he orders the killing of Muslims who allow the sexes to mix freely in the workplace or in educational institutions.

The prominent cleric, Abd al-Rahman al-Barrak, who is highly reputed within the Saudi religious establishment, issued the fatwa in Arabic on his website.

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DUBAI — A fertility clinic in Dubai is to begin next week disposing of about 5,000 human embryos on religious grounds, an Emirati newspaper reported on Monday.

A 2008 federal law banned the storage of fertilised human eggs due to religion-based concerns over "mixing in the lineage" between families, the English-language Khaleej Times said.

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A fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Martin Kramer, has called for “the West” to take measures to curb the births of Palestinians, a proposal that appears to meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide.

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Childhood leukemia rates have more than doubled over the last 15 years in the southern Iraq province of Basrah, according to the study, "Trends in Childhood Leukaemia in Basrah, Iraq (1993-2007), published in the American Journal of Public Health. The authors, three of whom are from the University of Washington, say they hope their calculations can now pave the way for an investigation into reasons why the rates have climbed so high, and why they are higher than found in nearby Kuwait, or in the European Union or the United States.

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The community of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel is half a million strong and growing. They live in a parallel universe cut off from the modern world in tight-knit communities where everything revolves around religion. Only a few dare to abandon this life -- and the price for doing so is high.

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JERUSALEM - A home renovation in Jerusalem's Old City has yielded a rare Arabic inscription offering insight into the city's history under Muslim rule, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday.

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A Saudi court has sentenced an employee of the kingdom's religious police to 120 lashes for marrying six women.

The man said he was not educated enough to know that Islam does not allow men to marry more than four women at any one time, said an official at Ahad al-Massarha court in the southern province of Jazan.

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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The United States should break Israel's blockade of Gaza and deliver badly needed supplies by sea, a U.S. congressman told Gaza students.

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Talk to Hamas: As Israeli soldiers we hang our heads in shame over last year's attack on Gaza's civilian population. Dialogue, not war, is needed

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - A suspected Israeli cult leader alleged by prosecutors to have kept 21 wives under his spell was charged on Sunday with sexual crimes and enslavement.

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Saudi Arabia has asked florists and gift shops to remove all red items until after Valentine's Day, calling the celebration of such a holiday a sin, local media reported Monday.

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Ten agents, including three women, participated in the assassination of senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, according to Intelligence Online, a Paris-based journal dedicated to tracking intelligence activity worldwide.

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Michele Bachmann, the outspoken conservative House representative from Minnesota, says the United States will cease to exist if it "fails to stand" with Israel.

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OK, so how do the legal geniuses who established hate speech laws in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand deal with Bachmann's comments? Bachmann said: "We have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play." It does not take much thought to realize that this statement fully implies that any American who does not share Bachmann's version of Christianity is also "cursed." I am not talking about Israel or whether you support it or not and I am not talking about US policy toward Israel. I am talking about the clear implication that if you do not subscribe to Bachmann's version of Christianity, you are "cursed." How can these statements legally be aired in Australia, New Zealand, or Canada? They clearly denigrate, demean, and are intended to intimidate all who do not share Bachmann's version of Christianity. She might answer that she does not hate us; she actually "loves" us, but that does not work for me. Sorry, Michele, I don't want that kind of love. This is just one instance of many that show how politically charged and ignorant hate speech laws must necessarily always be. I support Bachmann and anyone else who wants to say something stupid - or even hateful - in public (or private). I do not support politicians anywhere in the world who think they can decide what constitutes hate and who gets to speak and who does not. ABN

Palestinian families have filed a petition with the United Nations over the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s plans to build a “Museum of Tolerance” over the historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. Opponents of the project have long questioned how a monument to tolerance can be built on the remains of the graves of generations of Palestinian Muslims. We speak to Columbia University professor and author Rashid Khalidi, a petitioner whose ancestors were buried at the Mamilla Cemetery; and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing the families in their petition.

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DUBAI — An Arab ambassador called off his wedding after discovering his wife-to-be, who had worn a face-covering veil whenever they met, was bearded and cross-eyed, the Gulf News reported Wednesday.

The envoy had only met the woman a few times, during which she had hidden her face behind a niqab, or face-covering veil, the paper said.

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Lebanon's Christian Maronite monks have injected a touch of modern marketing savvy into their age-old wine-making tradition to introduce the country's first certified organic wine.

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ZAAFARANA, Egypt — Egypt's chief archaeologist unveiled on Thursday an extensive renovation of the oldest monastery in the world, touting the work at the 1,600 year-old-site as a symbol of peaceful coexistence between the country's Muslims and Christians.

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Despite having served for years as a distinguished Pakistani diplomat, Akbar Zeb reportedly cannot receive accreditation as Pakistan's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The reason, apparently, has nothing to do with his credentials, and everything to do with his name -- which, in Arabic, translates to "biggest dick":

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Death reopens debate over 'honour' killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country's murders

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