CAIRO – Egypts former military detention camps, feared by all those who ended up there - but particularly by Islamists because of the "special treatment" often reserved to them: torture and beatings in an environment free from judicial oversight - have reopened. Their new occupants are political activists and an assortment of other "troublemakers," and human rights groups are calling it an outrage.
AMMAN -- An increasing number of visits by Lebanese officials and politicians to Damascus in a bid to speed up normalization between the two countries is intensifying the discord between the pro- and anti-Syrian forces in Lebanon.
EDITORIAL
For much of this year, a cynic might have suggested that one of the many reasons for the decline in violence in Iraq was the soaring price of oil. A country that pumps over 2 million barrels a day was generating $1 billion a week in oil wealth, and that kind of money is a very powerful incentive for powerful people to become part of the governing system, rather than try to destroy it or blow it up.
OPINION
One permanent fixture of contemporary life is the reality that whenever terrorists strike, everybody, including intelligence and security forces are "surprised" by the "surprise." Make no mistake. King Solomon was correct when he observed that "nothing is new under the sun."
PARIS -- Those who believe in the "clash of civilizations" also claim that Islam cannot flourish in the West without creating a threat there. However, such talk falls on deaf ears in France where Islam has been present since the Middle Ages, albeit in very small numbers initially.
