Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Reuters Investigates:
ElBaradei: From nuclear diplomat to Cairo politics
Who is Mohamed ElBaradei, the professional Egyptian opposition figure who joined the ranks of disaffected Eypgtians to topple President Hosni Mubarak after thirty years in power? Does the 68-year-old diplomat and lawyer have what it takes to become Egypt's next president if it holds free and fair elections?
Louis Charbonneau's special report takes a close look at ElBaradei's performance while at the helm of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), where he stood toe-to-toe with the Bush administration over Iraq and Iran. It tells how he survived a plot by hawkish U.S. politician John Bolton to oust him and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 jointly with the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. It looks into his questionable record as a manager while showing that he may have what it takes to lead Egypt -- if he wants the job.
To read this story in multimedia PDF format click here
from FaithWorld:
Almost two million vanish from Obama’s estimate of U.S. Muslims
(Dawn front page for Sunday, 21 June 2009)
Almost two million people have inexplicably disappeared from the estimates of the U.S. Muslim population that President Barack Obama has given recently. In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4, he spoke about "nearly seven million American Muslims in our country today." On Sunday, the Karachi daily Dawn published an interview with him where he said "we have five million Muslims."
There was no explanation for the change, but his reason for citing the figure seemed to be the same. Shortly before his Cairo speech, Obama told the French television channel Canal Plus that "one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." He cited no figure there but mentioned seven million in Cairo three days later.
from FaithWorld:
Obama wants to address the Muslim world — but from where?
Now here's an interesting question. The New York Times reports that President-elect Barack Obama wants to make "a major foreign policy speech from an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office." But from which one? As NYT staffer Helene Cooper explains, it's a question that's fraught with diplomatic, religious and personal complications. After a day of calling around Washington, she found a consensus:
It’s got to be Cairo. Egypt is perfect. It’s certainly Muslim enough, populous enough and relevant enough. It’s an American ally, but there are enough tensions in the relationship that the choice will feel bold. The country has plenty of democracy problems, so Mr. Obama can speak directly to the need for a better democratic model there. It has got the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization that has been embraced by a wide spectrum of the Islamic world, including the disenfranchised and the disaffected.
Banana art on the River Nile
It looked like a perfect picture story, with all the right elements — the Nile, a fountain, 2,000 large inflatable bananas heaped in the shape of a pyramid, all set in a framework of Austrian conceptual art theory. The idea was that when the fountain began to shoot water into the air the bundles of bananas piled up from the base would explode and the bananas would disperse, floating gently down the Nile.
”The numerous, individual elements of the floating bananas are not only supposed to change the river’s colour but also, while drifting down the river are expected to develop distinctive dynamics, individually and through mutual interplay,” read the blurb from the Austrian Cultural Forum/Cairo (acf/c), which dreamt up and organised the event.
