Greece Revises School History Book after Church Protests
Greece has revised a school history book that enraged the Greek Orthodox Church, Cyprus and historians with what they said were toned down versions of Greek suffering at the hands of Ottomans and Turks.
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Pertinent Links:
1) Greece Revises School History Book after Church Protests
Showing posts with label greece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greece. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
DAR AL HARB - GREECE: A PLACE TO PRAY FOR MOSLEMS IN GREECE, AFTER CENTURIES OF OTTOMAN RULE
It’s a start: Muslims get place to pray in Athens
First center available in nearly two centuries; goal is to get a full mosque
ATHENS, Greece - Immigrant groups on Friday opened the first formal Islamic prayer site to operate in Athens since rule by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire ended more than 170 years ago.
Plans by Greece's government to build a mosque for tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants living in the capital have stalled, so businessmen in Arab countries financed the downtown cultural center.
"This is the first time in all the 35 years I've lived in Greece that we have a proper place to pray," said Naim El-Gandour, the Egyptian-born head of the Muslim Association of Greece. "It's hard for me to describe what's happening. I am overcome with emotion."
Most Muslims in Athens use makeshift mosques for prayer, including basements, apartments and converted coffee shops. For weddings, funerals and other important rites, they often travel more than 435 miles to Thrace, a region with a Turkish-speaking Muslim minority of 120,000 people.
More than 1,000 mostly Arab immigrants gathered for the official opening of the cultural center and prayer site, with men in traditional Islamic dress kneeling beside laborers in overalls.
El-Gandour said he did not know how much was spent on the center, a 19,500-square-foot space converted from a former textile factory. It has large prayer rooms, flat-screen televisions and uniformed volunteer stewards.
Representatives of Muslim organizations in Europe attended along with representatives of the Iranian and Saudi Arabian embassies, senior imams from Muslim countries and a representative of Greece's Orthodox Church.
Plans to build a mosque in Athens have been unpopular, because of their association with centuries of rule by the Ottoman Empire, which ended in 1833 after a long rebellion. Some 97 percent of Greece's native-born population of 11 million is baptized Orthodox Christian.
But last year, the government promised to spend $20 million for an Athens mosque by 2009. The Education and Religious Affairs Ministry will name a committee to choose the head imam, but says individual communities will be allowed to bring their own imams to the mosque.
...
Pertinent Links:
1) It’s a start: Muslims get place to pray in Athens
First center available in nearly two centuries; goal is to get a full mosque
ATHENS, Greece - Immigrant groups on Friday opened the first formal Islamic prayer site to operate in Athens since rule by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire ended more than 170 years ago.
Plans by Greece's government to build a mosque for tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants living in the capital have stalled, so businessmen in Arab countries financed the downtown cultural center.
"This is the first time in all the 35 years I've lived in Greece that we have a proper place to pray," said Naim El-Gandour, the Egyptian-born head of the Muslim Association of Greece. "It's hard for me to describe what's happening. I am overcome with emotion."
Most Muslims in Athens use makeshift mosques for prayer, including basements, apartments and converted coffee shops. For weddings, funerals and other important rites, they often travel more than 435 miles to Thrace, a region with a Turkish-speaking Muslim minority of 120,000 people.
More than 1,000 mostly Arab immigrants gathered for the official opening of the cultural center and prayer site, with men in traditional Islamic dress kneeling beside laborers in overalls.
El-Gandour said he did not know how much was spent on the center, a 19,500-square-foot space converted from a former textile factory. It has large prayer rooms, flat-screen televisions and uniformed volunteer stewards.
Representatives of Muslim organizations in Europe attended along with representatives of the Iranian and Saudi Arabian embassies, senior imams from Muslim countries and a representative of Greece's Orthodox Church.
Plans to build a mosque in Athens have been unpopular, because of their association with centuries of rule by the Ottoman Empire, which ended in 1833 after a long rebellion. Some 97 percent of Greece's native-born population of 11 million is baptized Orthodox Christian.
But last year, the government promised to spend $20 million for an Athens mosque by 2009. The Education and Religious Affairs Ministry will name a committee to choose the head imam, but says individual communities will be allowed to bring their own imams to the mosque.
...
Pertinent Links:
1) It’s a start: Muslims get place to pray in Athens
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
DAR AL HARB - NETHERLANDS: MOSLEM JUNIOR MINISTERS NOT TRUSTWORTHY
There is fresh news concerning a story I posted on February 25 about comments made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders and his doubts about the loyalty of two moslem that were appointed as "junior ministers" by the Dutch government.
First a refresher on the Wilders comments followed by the most recent article:
Poll: Majority Backs Motion Against Muslim State Secretaries
THE HAGUE, 27/02/07 - A majority of the Dutch seem to be backing a motion of no confidence in State Secretaries Ahmed Aboutaleb and Nebahat Albayrak. They agree with the motion that Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders will put forward on Thursday.
Aboutaleb and Albayrak were appointed State Secretaries of Social Affairs and Justice last week.
As well as their Dutch passports, Aboutaleb also holds a Moroccan, and Albayrak, a Turkish passport. This could land them up in a conflict of loyalties, Wilders believes.
This weekend, Wilders said in newspaper NRC Handelsblad he would put forward a motion of no confidence in the two Labour (PvdA) state secretaries on Thursday, during the Lower House debate on the coalition accord. The entire Lower House is furious about this.
But radio programme Standpunt presented its listeners yesterday with the statement: 'The motion of no confidence against the state secretaries is correct.' Of the 10,000 voters, 59 percent agreed and 41 percent disagreed. If the motion were adopted - which will not happen - the House would implicitly be demanding the state secretaries' resignation.
...
HatTip: UmmahNewsLinks.com
Pertinent Links:
1) Poll: Majority Backs Motion Against Muslim State Secretaries
First a refresher on the Wilders comments followed by the most recent article:
...
The leader of a Dutch anti-immigration party will call
for a vote of no-confidence in two Muslim government ministers next week, citing their dual nationality as the issue, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
...
In Saturday's interview, Wilders said: "I do not want to live
in a country where some day six or seven members of cabinet could be Muslim," adding that Islamic laws were "barbaric", referring to four people who were beheaded in Saudi-Arabia this week.
"I want to encourage Muslims to leave the Netherlands
voluntarily. The demographic development should become such, that the chance is small that we again have two Muslims in the cabinet."
...
Poll: Majority Backs Motion Against Muslim State Secretaries
THE HAGUE, 27/02/07 - A majority of the Dutch seem to be backing a motion of no confidence in State Secretaries Ahmed Aboutaleb and Nebahat Albayrak. They agree with the motion that Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders will put forward on Thursday.
Aboutaleb and Albayrak were appointed State Secretaries of Social Affairs and Justice last week.
As well as their Dutch passports, Aboutaleb also holds a Moroccan, and Albayrak, a Turkish passport. This could land them up in a conflict of loyalties, Wilders believes.
This weekend, Wilders said in newspaper NRC Handelsblad he would put forward a motion of no confidence in the two Labour (PvdA) state secretaries on Thursday, during the Lower House debate on the coalition accord. The entire Lower House is furious about this.
But radio programme Standpunt presented its listeners yesterday with the statement: 'The motion of no confidence against the state secretaries is correct.' Of the 10,000 voters, 59 percent agreed and 41 percent disagreed. If the motion were adopted - which will not happen - the House would implicitly be demanding the state secretaries' resignation.
...
HatTip: UmmahNewsLinks.com
Pertinent Links:
1) Poll: Majority Backs Motion Against Muslim State Secretaries
Friday, January 12, 2007
DAR AL HARB - GREECE: U.S. EMBASSY SHELLED BY AN ANTI-TANK MISSILE
Police: Blast at U.S. Embassy in Athens Is 'Act of Terrorism'
ATHENS, Greece — An anti-tank shell was fired at the U.S. embassy early Friday, striking the front of the building but causing no injuries. A senior police official said the blast was an act of terrorism, raising fears of a resurgence of far-left Greek militant groups.
Police cordoned off streets around the heavily guarded building after the explosion shortly before 6 a.m (0400 GMT). The shell struck the third floor and smashed glass in nearby buildings.
Investigators were examining what they believed was the device used to fire the shell from a construction site near the embassy.
"This is an act of terrorism. We don't know where from," Attica Police Chief Asimakis Golfis said.
"There was a shell that exploded in the toilets of the building ... It was fired from street level."
...
This event is not unexpected, what I would like to know is this: if this indeed was a strike committed by "far-left freaks" what exactly was their reasoning behind the attack?!?
Was it because:
1) We "far-left freaks" struck in solidarity with jihadist militants.
B) We "far-left freaks" struck to protest the Guantanamo detention facilities because our jihadist militant bretheren are being held there illegally.
C) We "far-left freaks" struck because the United States is responsible for global warming and we meant to bring it around to our way of thinking.
D) We "far-left freaks" struck because we hate globalization.
E) All of the above.
F) A combination of the above.
G) None of the above.
Pertinent Links:
1) Police: Blast at U.S. Embassy in Athens Is 'Act of Terrorism'
ATHENS, Greece — An anti-tank shell was fired at the U.S. embassy early Friday, striking the front of the building but causing no injuries. A senior police official said the blast was an act of terrorism, raising fears of a resurgence of far-left Greek militant groups.
Police cordoned off streets around the heavily guarded building after the explosion shortly before 6 a.m (0400 GMT). The shell struck the third floor and smashed glass in nearby buildings.
Investigators were examining what they believed was the device used to fire the shell from a construction site near the embassy.
"This is an act of terrorism. We don't know where from," Attica Police Chief Asimakis Golfis said.
"There was a shell that exploded in the toilets of the building ... It was fired from street level."
...
This event is not unexpected, what I would like to know is this: if this indeed was a strike committed by "far-left freaks" what exactly was their reasoning behind the attack?!?
Was it because:
1) We "far-left freaks" struck in solidarity with jihadist militants.
B) We "far-left freaks" struck to protest the Guantanamo detention facilities because our jihadist militant bretheren are being held there illegally.
C) We "far-left freaks" struck because the United States is responsible for global warming and we meant to bring it around to our way of thinking.
D) We "far-left freaks" struck because we hate globalization.
E) All of the above.
F) A combination of the above.
G) None of the above.
Pertinent Links:
1) Police: Blast at U.S. Embassy in Athens Is 'Act of Terrorism'
Sunday, December 31, 2006
DAR AL HARB-U.S.A. / GREECE: BOMB ON PLANE - ARAB CALLERS - ON BEHALF OF SADDAM...
Greek plane emptied after bomb alert
A Greek aircraft bound for Athens from New York was given the all-clear after a dawn emergency landing in Ireland Sunday prompted by a telephone tip-off that there was a bomb on board "for Saddam (Hussein)", the dead Iraqi dictator.
The plane, belonging to Olympic airlines, was carrying 183 passengers and 12 crew.But the airline told it to land at the nearest airport on receiving the tip-off and it touched down at Shannon, western Ireland, at 4:20 am (0420 GMT).
Those aboard disembarked while the aircraft, an Airbus 340, was searched.
"Unknown individuals speaking English with an arab accent warned of the presence of a bomb on the plane, saying it was 'for Saddam'", an airline spokesman said, adding two calls had been received at Athens airport early Sunday morning.
The plane was searched by police who found nothing and gave it the all-clear at around 1030 GMT, a spokesperson for Shannon airport said.
Pertinent Links:
1) Greek plane emptied after bomb alert
A Greek aircraft bound for Athens from New York was given the all-clear after a dawn emergency landing in Ireland Sunday prompted by a telephone tip-off that there was a bomb on board "for Saddam (Hussein)", the dead Iraqi dictator.
The plane, belonging to Olympic airlines, was carrying 183 passengers and 12 crew.But the airline told it to land at the nearest airport on receiving the tip-off and it touched down at Shannon, western Ireland, at 4:20 am (0420 GMT).
Those aboard disembarked while the aircraft, an Airbus 340, was searched.
"Unknown individuals speaking English with an arab accent warned of the presence of a bomb on the plane, saying it was 'for Saddam'", an airline spokesman said, adding two calls had been received at Athens airport early Sunday morning.
The plane was searched by police who found nothing and gave it the all-clear at around 1030 GMT, a spokesperson for Shannon airport said.
Pertinent Links:
1) Greek plane emptied after bomb alert
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