Ein Leser schreibt:

Es wäre vielleicht nicht verkehrt gewesen, in diesem Zusammenhang auch einmal die SS-Division Skanderbeg zu erwähnen, die aus moslemischen, albanischen Freiwilligen bestand. Bei der Aufstellung dieser Einheit hat übrigens auch der bekannte Grossmufti von Jerusalem Al-Husseini mitgewirkt.

Ich antworte: Umso bemerkenswerter ist freilich die Tatsache der albanischen Judenretter:

Albanien hatte – im Gegensatz zu anderen Ländern Europas – seine Einreisebestimmungen für Juden in den 30er Jahren nicht –oder nur wenig –verschärft. So wurde Albanien vor und während des Zweiten Weltkrieges für manchen Juden zum rettenden Aufnahmeland. Juden aus vielen europäischen Staaten beantragten Einreisevisa und begehrten in Albanien Asyl. Wer es nach Albanien geschafft hatte, war gerettet. Albaner haben Juden sogar zur Zeit der deutschen Besatzung nicht verraten. Die albanische Tradition der Gastfreundschaft – besa: Ehrenwort, Treue – hat sich auch in jenen schwierigen Zeiten bewährt.

Als kein anderes europäisches …

Tears welling in his eyes, an elderly Holocaust survivor on Thursday embraced the son of the Albanian man who saved him from the Nazi death camps, highlighting an event recognizing the little-known role played by European Muslims in helping Jews during World War II.

The two met for the first time at a photography exhibition at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, honoring Albanians who sheltered Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Albania, a tiny European country with a Muslim majority, sheltered about 1,000 Jews who, with the exception of one family, survived Nazi occupation, according to officials.

“This is a very unique story,” said Yehudit Shendar, the exhibition’s curator. Though Islam has an anti-Jewish image, these were “Muslims who endangered their own lives to save Jews,” she said. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Albanians sheltered between 600 …

The UN security council is likely to impose fresh sanctions on Iran if it fails to suspend its nuclear enrichment programme, it emerged today.

After a meeting of the permanent security council members, plus Germany, in London today, the group agreed to finalise the text for a third UN resolution.

Officials from Britain, France, Germany and the US - all in favour of sanctions - met representatives of China and Russia, which had previously blocked attempts to increase pressure on Tehran.

However, today’s unanimous agreement suggests that Moscow and Beijing are now ready to increase the pressure on the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2204240,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

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German opposition MPs reject new anti-Iran sanctions

Two leading German opposition lawmakers on Friday opposed US and Israeli calls for further sanctions against Iran, while stressing the need for diplomatic …

Der Jude trachtet danach, sich zum Fürsten seiner Herren zu machen. Trachtet danach, die Weltherrschaft zu erlangen. Das ist moralisch gar nicht zu verurteilen. Das ist eine Feststellung. Und die Frage, wie sich die Völker dazu verhalten, ob sie sich das gefallen lassen oder nicht, ist für mich die entscheidende Frage.

M.F. Was halten Sie von Juden?

Sie sind die Verkörperung eines Gottes, der nach unserem Verständnis Satan ist, und sie haben eine tragische Rolle in der Zersetzung und Verneinung des Lebens aller anderer Völker.
http://www.vanityfair.de/articles/agenda/horst-mahler/2007/11/01/04423/

A Saudi television programme has been giving teenagers lessons in how to beat their wives. The cleric who presents it, Muhammad Al-’Arifi, clearly doesn’t share Cherie Blair’s view that the Koran is against wife-beating. On the contrary, Al-’Arifi explains in detail how to go about it.

“If [a husband] beats her, the beatings must be light and must not make her face ugly. He must beat her where it will not leave marks,” he says.

In fact, the beating can serve a purely symbolic purpose – in which case the husband can use a toothpick, just to make his point. (That must be a curious sight.)

Little Green Footballs has the video, from a Ramadan show for young adults, and also includes a transcript. Here it is, in full.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/november07/how-to-beat-your-wife.htm

Wenn die Vordenker des Club of Rome, grüne Multimilionäre und die Bürokraten der EU Kommision im November in Brüssel zusammenkommen, werden wir vermutlich erfahren, warum Europa beim internationalen Wettkampf um Innovation und Wirtschaftswachstum nicht mehr mitspielen und andere Spielregeln einführen möchte. Ich wäre nicht überrascht, wenn die Bürger der EU dazu aufgerufen würden, den Gürtel enger zu schnallen und mit weniger glücklicher zu sein. http://www.beyond-gdp.eu/index.html

It is now a proven fact that eating food—any kind of food—will kill you. No one who has eaten food in the past is alive today and everyone currently eating food will die. Therefore, those noble people who seek to save us from eating every kind of food that the earth provides should be hailed and saluted for their efforts to keep us alive.

I say this as the son of a woman who taught the art of haute cuisine for over three decades and authored several cookbooks. That poor woman died at age 98 and I am convinced it was all that fabulous food that killed her. Ridiculous? YES! http://www.usadaily.com/article.cfm?articleID=140914

It turns out that the billions of dollars that have been spent on international AIDS programs have largely been wasted. In some places, like Botswana, AIDS programs have actually backfired, increasing child death rates. As a result, experts are now advising “devoting more of the world’s $10 billion annual AIDS spending to proven, lower-tech strategies against HIV, such as circumcising men, promoting sexual monogamy and making birth control more easily available to infected women.”

Earlier news reports showed AIDS rates finally falling in Zimbabwe, where the economy has collapsed and AIDS programs are scarce, because men became too poor to have mistresses and engage in promiscuity. By contrast, in other countries, like Swaziland, AIDS continues to spread at an astronomical rate because many men still have enough money to have mistresses on the side, and AIDS programs keep people infected with AIDS healthy enough to keep having sex …