The United Arab Emirates has seized a cargo ship earlier this month bound for Iran with a cache of banned arms from North Korea, the first such seizure since sanctions against North Korea were ramped up, diplomats and officials told The Associated Press on Friday.
Graham Milne, a customer and chartered accountant from Norham, Northumberland, said difference in fees was tantamount to 'religious discrimination'.
He added: 'This means that all the non-Islamic account holders are subsidising those with such an account. It strikes me as something which is bordering on illegal.
***WARNING: Contains Some Spoilers***
I must admit I've spent the last month looking forward to Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds" with the enthusiasm of a 12 year-old girl following the next "Twilight" movie- or that of a 19 year-old girl; disturbingly, there's not much difference.
From what commercials I'd seen, I walked into the theater expecting 2 hours of Brad Pitt killing the uncensored and glorious crap out of Nazi after Nazi. Which would have left me more than satisfied.
Sad to say, by the end, there hadn't been nearly as much Pitt-on-Nazi violence as I'd've liked. There was some, but not nearly enough from what I was expecting. The movie is more plot-oriented rather than violence-focused- which I guess is the true mark of a great filmmaker; Tarantino didn't succumb to the temptation of making a 2 hour Nazi holocaust- and there are some pretty long scenes, Pulp Fiction style. Unfortunately, most of these scenes are full of superficial pleasantries exchanged between Nazis and Basterds disguised as Nazis and reveal very little about the characters, whereas in Pulp Fiction, the long conversations focused on more thought-provoking topics and helped us glean some information from the characters (What do they call a quarter-pounder.in France?) Too much of the movie feels wasted on this pointless banter, instigated primarily by the SS Detective introduced in the beginning as his sort of cat-and-mouse game with his suspects. These polite conversations drag on just long enough until the viewer begins to feel bored, but are then thankfully ended with a hostile twist in the conversation or a violent scene.
Pitt is grossly underutilized in this movie. His character, a Western-accented American Colonel with a mind focused on killin' them Nehtzis, shines brightest in the first (and really, only) scene between the Basterds and a group of Nazis they've captured. Pitt is calm and amusingly relaxed when informing the Nazis of the choices they have; do what the Basterds want, or die a painful, painful death. Most of the Jewish-American men Pitt has chosen to accompany him on his Nazi hunting spree rarely display any emotional animosity one would expect towards the Nazis, and instead laugh at their bigoted insults as an executioner laughs at a name the man on the chopping block has called him. Unfortunately, the story's plot doesn't allow for any more than one of these scenes, which is what the majority of the commercials advertised. Pitt offers an engaging performance, but sadly the film doesn't realize it to its full potential.
The plotline also follows one Shosana, a French Jew who escaped a Nazi shooting gallery of her family at a farm in the French countryside. After moving to Nazi-occupied Paris, Shosana opens up a cinema and eventually falls into the situation of hosting a premiere for Josef Goebbels new movie. The premiere will be attended by 350 top-ranking officials of the Nazi party. Shosana quickly becomes determined to burn down the entire theater with all 350 Nazis trapped inside. Meanwhile, Pitt and the Basterds undertake a mission to blow up the same theater with the same objectives. The Basterds and Shosana never meet, however, which allows for some loos threads after the climax of the movie. "Inglorious Basterds" is ultimately about assassinating the four topmost members of the Nazi high command (including Hitler and Goebbels) more than it is about bloody and explicit Jew-on-Nazi brutality
Not to say Basterds was a bad movie; it was great, it had several of its funny moments, and the acting is high-tier (though the German accent of the SS Detective sounds as authentic as a cardboard violin and twice as bland). And the comedic moments are funny enough to keep the entire theater laughing long after the joke's done. Just don't go into it expecting mass amounts of violence and Nazi-killing, or a great deal of Pitt screen-time. People should expect more "Pulp Fiction" than "Kill Bill".
Oh, and Mike Myers makes a surprise appearance.
-- 4 out of 5 stars--
Sweden’s embassy in Tel Aviv has sharply condemned Sweden’s largest circulation newspaper Aftonbladet for publishing an article accusing the Israeli Defence Forces of harvesting the organs of Palestinians…
Published on Monday, the article by photographer and writer Donald Boström accuses the Israeli army of involvement in the illegal human organ trade.
I'll trust that the irony of a culture editor publishing and defending bigoted blood libels does not escape any one of you.Aftonbladet’s culture editor Åsa Linderborg defended the publication and expressed surprise at the strong reactions in Israel.
“It surprises me really. The questions that it raises are nothing new....”
On Saturday when Israel played Sweden in a Davis cup tennis match in Malmö, an estimated 6,000 Leftists, Arabs, Muslims and anarchists protested the Israeli presence in the city, and hundreds attacked police. Almost no fans were allowed inside to watch the tennis series, because authorities feared disruptions or possible violence against the Israeli team.Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a word for generalizing an entire ethnicity based on the actions- however misinterpreted- carried out by only a small percentage of said ethnicity?
The Jews shall NEVER have peace of mind or feel secure, or arrive at the level of safety that they seek. This is a dream that shall remain unfulfilled because they do not seek to extend the same to others. All attempts at seeking to facilitate this unattainable peace shall end in failure. They shall continuously be under siege as has been ordained by Allaah as He has said:“And (remember) when your Lord declared that He would certainly keep on sending against them (i.e. the Jews), till the Day of Resurrection, those who would afflict them with a humiliating torment.” [7:167]We recognise that this return to grandeur [of the Jews] shall be short lived, by the leave of Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta'ala)...
As the radical Muslims began to set up their stall, they were surrounded by a [Muslim] crowd shouting 'we don't want you here' and 'move on, move on'.
Angry words were exchanged and scuffles broke out between members of both groups, with the extremists shouting 'Shame on you' and 'Get back to your synagogue'.
Nothing less from Islamic fundamentalists. But these Muslim "moderates", if they are to be labeled such, are continuing to surprise me. Hopefully this is not an isolated incident. More hopefully, these "moderates" are not the same ones Islamizing Europe (who are worse than the extremists, if you ask me) and actually just want to get on with their lives.
On May 16, four women were elected to Kuwait’s parliament and the Islamists were handed a political defeat. The Islamic Constitutional Movement, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Islamic Salafi Alliance lost four seats. They now only hold three of the 50 seats in parliament.This is music to long-battered ears, make no mistake. It's wonderful that we are receiving help from the Muslim world in fighting Islamic extremism.
"Iraqi teenager Raniya Ibrahim... The 16-year-old would-be female suicide bomber was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by a juvenile criminal court."In a prison interview, [an Iraqi female arrested for recruiting female suicide bombers] told The Associated Press about a plot in which young women were raped and then persuaded to carry out suicide attacks to reclaim their honor.
