Headlines:

• US Priest Pat Robertson: Islam 'Not A Religion'
• New Zealand Minister's Anti-Islam Statements
• Egypt Closes Gaza Tunnels to Hurt Palestinians and Strengthen the Jewish State
• Hundreds of UK Drones ‘Missing' in Iraq and Afghanistan
• 92% of Pakistanis Now Dislike America

 

Details:

US Priest Pat Robertson: Islam 'Not A Religion':

Controversial conservative Christian Pat Robertson doubled down Tuesday on claims that Islam is not a religion. According to Right Wing Watch, Robertson, an elder statesman of the evangelical movement, made the inflammatory claim during an episode of his TV program, "The 700 Club." "Every time you look up - these are angry people, it's almost like it's demonic that is driving them to kill and to maim and to destroy and to blow themselves up," Robertson said of Islam. "It's a religion of chaos." He went on to say, "I hardly think to call it a religion, it's more of - well, it's an economic and political system with a religious veneer." This is hardly the first time Robertson has spoken out on Islam. Think Progress points to an incident, after Major Nidal Malik massacred his fellow soldiers in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, when Robertson claimed not only that Islam is "not a religion," but also that he sees it as "a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination."

 

New Zealand Minister's Anti-Islam Statements:

A New Zealand politician has labelled young Muslim men a terrorist threat who should be banned from Western airlines, sparking condemnation from Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday. Richard Prosser, of the New Zealand First party, also labelled Islam a "stone age religion" in a magazine column, claiming that most terrorists were "angry young Muslim men who hate the West". "If you are a young male, aged between say about 19 and about 35, and you're a Muslim, or you look like a Muslim, or you come from a Muslim country, then you are not welcome to travel on any of the West's airlines," he wrote. He added: "I will not stand by while my daughters' rights and freedoms, and those of other New Zealanders and Westerners, are denigrated by a sorry pack of misogynist troglodytes from ‘Wogistan'." Key said Prosser's comments were "appalling", while the right-wing lawmaker's party leader, Winston Peters, rejected them as extreme and one-sided. "It's an extremist view on a very extremist issue, but you can't lump everyone in the same boat," Peters said. "Where's the side that says ‘I'm not talking about this group of people, the mass majority of Islamic people who are law-abiding and peaceful'?" Peters did not say if Prosser would face disciplinary action. Key said Prosser, who has previously called for the burqa to be banned, had deliberately set out to offend in the column for conservative current affairs magazine "Investigate". "It's stupid and it was premeditated because he wrote it in an opinion piece. It's clearly what New Zealand First Think of other New Zealanders," he told reporters. Former Labour Party politician Kelvin Davis responded to Prosser's remarks with a tweet paraphrasing Mark Twain: "Better to stay silent and have everyone think you're an idiot, than to open your mouth and confirm it."

 

Egypt closes Gaza Tunnels to hurt Palestinians and Strengthen the Jewish State:

Egyptian forces have flooded smuggling tunnels under the border with the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip in a campaign to shut them down, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said. The network of tunnels is a vital lifeline for Gaza, bringing in an estimated 30 percent of all goods that reach the enclave and circumventing a blockade imposed by Israel for more than seven years. Reuters reporters saw one tunnel being used to bring in cement and gravel suddenly fill with water on Sunday, sending workers rushing for safety. Locals said two other tunnels were likewise flooded, with Egyptians deliberately pumping in water. "The Egyptians have opened the water to drown the tunnels," said Abu Ghassan, who supervises the work of 30 men at one tunnel some 200 meters (yards) from the border fence. An Egyptian security official in the Sinai told Reuters the campaign started five days ago. "We are using water to close the tunnels by raising water from one of the wells," he said, declining to be named. Dozens of tunnels had been destroyed since last August following the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers in a militant attack near the Gaza fence. Cairo said some of the gunmen had crossed into Egypt via the tunnels - a charge denied by Palestinians - and ordered an immediate crackdown. The move surprised and angered Gaza's rulers, the Islamist group Hamas, which had hoped for much better ties with Cairo following the election last year of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist who is ideologically close to Hamas. A Hamas official confirmed Egypt was again targeting the tunnels. He gave no further details and declined to speculate on the timing of the move, which started while Palestinian faction leaders met in Cairo to try to overcome deep divisions.

 

Hundreds of UK Drones ‘Missing' in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Almost 450 drones operated by the British military have crashed, broken down or been lost in action during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last five years, figures reveal. The Ministry of Defence has disclosed for the first time the five Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems used in the conflicts and the number that have perished due to pilot error, technical faults or the undesirability of retrieving them from hostile areas. The figures highlight the military's increasing reliance on technologies that are regarded as a way of minimising risks to frontline troops. Officials say the UAVs have operated for thousands of hours on sensitive operations. The UAV to suffer most is the Desert Hawk 3, a small hand-held UAV used by the army: 412 have crashed or been lost in the last five years. British forces have been using other mini-UAVs, the Black Hornet, and the Tarantula Hawk, in Afghanistan; 25 of them have perished during operations. The Black Hornet is the latest piece of UAV equipment to be deployed in the conflict. A mini-helicopter, it is equipped with a camera which gives troops video and still images. Soldiers use it to peer around corners or over walls and the images are displayed on a handheld terminal.

 

92% of Pakistanis Now Dislike America:

With President Barack Obama's first term characterized by strained relations between Pakistan and the U.S., more than nine in 10 Pakistanis (92%) disapprove of U.S. leadership and 4% approve, the lowest approval rating Pakistanis have ever given. These findings are based on a survey conducted from Sept. 30-Oct. 16, 2012, in Pakistan. The survey directly followed massive demonstrations against the release of an anti-Muslim film made in the U.S. Concurrently, Pakistanis now more than at any other time in the past three years feel threatened by interaction with the West, according to a May 12-June 6, 2012, survey. A majority (55%) say interaction between Muslim and Western societies is "more of a threat," up significantly from 39% in 2011. This sharp increase is observed at a time of heightened Pakistani concerns regarding U.S. encroachment on Pakistani sovereignty, including an intensified number of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, as well as the aforementioned May 2011 killing of bin Laden by the United States military. 57% of Pakistanis aged 15 to 29 and 53% of those 30 or older -- deem interaction with the West as a threat. However, younger Pakistanis are slightly more likely to have an opinion on this matter: Fewer than one in 10 (9%) answered "don't know," whereas almost a fifth (17%) of older Pakistanis was unsure. Nearly half of the Pakistani population (49%) is between the ages of 15 and 29. The largely anti-Western sentiment among these young Pakistanis suggests that, even as this sizable group ages and begins to have a larger role in Pakistani governance, relations between the U.S. and Pakistan may continue to be fraught with challenges.

 

Abu Hashim