Ramallah Gets Five-Star Luxury Hotel

The city of Ramallah, less than half an hour north of Jerusalem, saw the opening this week of its first five-star luxury hotel, despite Palestinian Authority claims that Israel is strangling the local economy.

The hotel, a franchise of the Swiss-based Movenpick chain, has 171 rooms and suites, an outdoor pool, and a fitness center, and cost $40 million.

The opening was not entirely perfect, as the hotel is not yet set up to provide ice cream. Co-owner Talal Nasreddin spoke to the French news agency AFP and blamed the lack of ice cream on “Israeli procedures at the crossings.” Israel inspects goods imported to Judea and Samaria in order to prevent arms smuggling.

While AFP reported that foreigners have returned to Ramallah “as security has improved,” the article – and the PA officials it quoted – did not note Israel’s role in stemming terrorism in the region and creating initiatives to improve PA employment and ease travel in the region.

via Ramallah Gets Five-Star Luxury Hotel – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News.

Found.

The hotel has costed 40 million dollars. Impressive hein?

Last question: Will Jews be allowed to go to this hotel or the judenfrei place (1, 2) will only be enacted once the “Palestinian” state will be constituted?

Pakistan: Taliban blow up another school in Mohmand Agency

Taliban showing the world (again) how they really like culture:

A government primary school in Sagi area of Tehsil Safi in Mohmand Agency was blown up early Wednesday morning.

Another girls primary school was destroyed by miscreants on Tuesday. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack.

Just last week, a government school for boys in in Koza Bandai was attacked with explosives.

Schools have been a major target for militants in the tribal region with 61 schools having been destroyed in the agency in the last two years.

Security forces have been carrying out an operation against militants in Mohmand Agency. At least 17 militants were killed in the latest clash with security forces in the region on Tuesday.

via Militants blow up another school in Mohmand Agency – The Express Tribune.

Related: Pak-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) splits to form deadly Punjabi Taliban in Afghanistan.

But negotiating with the Taliban is good. They are going to respect education once the ISAF is gone from Afghanistan. This is just due to the “occupation”…

US: Oklahoma voters pass ban on Sharia Law

This is an update on this post:

Oklahoma voters have approved a measure that would forbid judges from considering international law or Islamic law when deciding cases.

Republican Rex Duncan, the sponsor of the measure, called it a “pre-emptive strike” designed to close the door on activist judges “legislating from the bench or using international law or Sharia law.”

Members of the Muslim community called the question an attack on Islam and some of them said they are prepared to file a lawsuit challenging the measure.

via Eye On The World: Oklahoma voters make English official language, ban judges from using international law.

UK: Mosque linked to hate campaign against Ahmadiyya Muslims

This is an update on this story:

A mosque has been linked to a hate campaign causing a dangerous rift in south London’s Muslim community.

Evidence shows Ahmadiyya Muslims are being demonised and ostracised by UK Islamic fundamentalist group Khatme Nabuwat, whose hardline clerics have been preaching in south London mosques.

The alleged campaign has seen Ahmadi residents, businessmen and politicians targeted, including inflammatory leaflets being distributed in south London encouraging violence against “Qadiyanis” – a derogatory term for Ahmadis.

The rift has stemmed from some Muslims not accepting members of the Ahmadi community as fellow Muslims.

Ahmadis differ from mainstream Islam in that they state the second coming of the messiah has already happened and is embodied by their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

South London Ahmadis – who built what is believed to be the biggest mosque in western Europe, based in Morden – say their beliefs have made them victims of a hate campaign.

via Mosque linked to hate campaign causes rift in Muslim community (From This Is Local London).

Pakistan: Taliban publicly flog men for ‘taking drugs’ against their diktat

Taliban fighters publicly flogged 65 men after they were convicted by a militant “court” for selling and using drugs in the restive Orakzai tribal region, barely days after a senior official had claimed that 90 per cent of the area had been cleared of rebels.

Members of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan detained 65 tribesmen on the “charge” of selling and using hashish and heroin.

The men were brought before a “ Shariah court” in Mamozai area of Orakzai Agency and they reportedly admitted they had violated a Taliban-imposed ban on using and selling drugs.

After they were “sentenced” by the militant court, the men were taken to a ground on Sunday and each of them was given 10 lashes by Taliban fighters as a large crowd watched.

Hafiz Saeed, the Taliban spokesman in Orakzai Agency, told reporters on phone that the tribesmen had confessed to the “Shariah court” that they had been using drugs despite warnings by the militants.

He said the men were publicly punished so that no one would dare violate the Taliban’s warnings in the tribal region.

via ::News4u:: » Taliban publicly flog men for ‘taking drugs’ against their diktat.

Iraq: All Christians ‘targets,’ Al-Qaeda in Iraq says

All Christians in the Middle East are now “legitimate targets,” al Qaeda in Iraq announced Wednesday, as the group’s deadline for Egypt’s Coptic church to release alleged Muslim female prisoners expired.

An audio message released Monday gave the church 48 hours to disclose the status of Muslim women it said are imprisoned in Coptic churches in Egypt.

The message purportedly came from the Islamic State of Iraq, which claimed responsibility for an attack on a Baghdad church Sunday that killed 58 people and wounded 75. The umbrella group includes a number of Sunni extremist organizations and has ties to al Qaeda in Iraq.

UK: Woman stabbed MP ‘in revenge for Iraq war vote’

Mr Timms told the Old Bailey he thought Roshonara Choudhry, 21, was coming to shake hands, and she smiled before lunging at him on May 14 this year.

Mr Timms, Labour MP for East Ham, was sent ‘‘reeling and staggering” before retreating into the men’s toilets at the community centre in Beckton, east London.

His assistant Andrew Bazeley prised the kitchen knife away from her and she was placed in a ”bear hug” by a security guard before police arrived. Another knife was found in her bag.

Choudhry told detectives she was trying to kill Mr Timms for ”punishment” and ”to get revenge for the people of Iraq”, prosecutor William Boyce QC, said.

”When asked why she had stabbed him a second time she said ‘because I wasn’t going to stop stabbing until someone made me’,” Mr Boyce added.

Choudhry, who was not in court, is accused of attempted murder and two charges of having an offensive weapon.

Jeremy Dein QC, defending, said she did not recognise the jurisdiction of the court and did not wish her lawyers to challenge evidence put before the jury.

…The MP said: “She didn’t go and sit down as she continued to come towards me where I was standing to greet her at that point.

“I thought she must have been coming to shake my hand. She made as if she was coming to do that. She looked friendly. She was smiling, if I remember rightly.

“I was a little puzzled because a Muslim woman dressed in that way wouldn’t normally be willing to shake a man’s hand, still less to take the initiative to do so, but that is what she was doing.

“She lunged at me with her right hand.”

Mr Timms pointed at his stomach to show the jury where the knife had gone in.

He said: “I think I knew that I had been stabbed although I didn’t feel anything and I can’t recall actually seeing a knife but I think I said ‘She has a knife’ or words to that effect.

“I attempted to push away the second lunge but was not successful.”

via Woman stabbed MP ‘in revenge for Iraq war vote’ – Telegraph.

(found).

Saudi Arabia: 80-year-old man marries 14-year-old and now refuses to divorce

Saudi love inside marriage:

A Saudi old man aged above 80 years has married a 14-year-old girl and is refusing to divorce her unless she pays him back his wedding money, the Saudi Ajel Arabic language online paper reported on Wednesday.

The bride’s father, Showan Ateen, said his daughter had been forced to marry that man from the southwestern town of Sabya but that she has not moved in with him yet. He did not say who forced her to marry him. (Why? Who was that?).

“The father and the bride now want a divorce but the husband is refusing to divorce her before they pay him back his SR-17,000 dowry,” Ajel said.

“Her father said he does not have the money and is appealing for all benevolent people to help him so he will regain his daughter…the old man has threatened that they either pay him or he will take her by force.”

The report comes amidst furor in the Gulf Kingdom over widespread teen age marriage and calls for enacting laws to curb such practices

via 80-year-old man marries 14-year-old – Emirates24|7.