Time moves at a different pace in the Middle East. Believe it or not, it was only last March that Israeli voters elected Ehud Olmert and his new party, Kadima (Forward), to lead the country. During the campaign, Olmert, the heir apparent to the ailing former prime minister and army general Ariel Sharon, had spelled out his promise to pull most Israelis from the West Bank and draw the country’s permanent borders, without waiting for Palestinians to decide if they were ready to accept Israel’s right to exist. Since then, thousands of rockets have smashed into Israel, and the country’s [...]
Step aside MySpace, Facebook, and Xanga. A new social networking site has joined the ranks. You won’t find cursing here. Dating through this site is not permitted. And female members can only post photographs of themselves wearing a headscarf. Welcome to MuslimSpace.com, a new and rapidly growing social networking site catering to the 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. MuslimSpace is the brainchild of Mohamed El-Fatatry, a U.A.E.-born Egyptian professional Web developer, designer and programmer living in Finland. A former MySpace user, El-Fatatry created MuslimSpace in March 2006 because he said he was tired of the un-Islamic content of popular social networking [...]
GORI, GEORGIA — The keychain costs about 50 cents. It comes in a little plastic bag with a staple through the middle, and is sometimes given away free to visiting foreigners. On one side of the keychain is a thumbnail size photo, a scratchy black and white of the revolutionary when he was in his early 20s. On the flip side of this cheap souvenir is an image of the same man about 30 years later, no longer a revolutionary, but a despot who commanded one of the most heinous reigns of terror in the history of mankind. Welcome to [...]