Yemeni tribesmen’s hostage ‘now held by al Qa’eda’

SANA’A: One week after a Japanese engineer was kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen, there are conflicting reports about the fate of the man, including the possibility he was taken by al Qa’eda members.

“The Japanese engineer who was held at Bait al Gob village in Arhab district was kidnapped by members of al Qa’eda, to which one of the tribesmen in jail belongs,” said Abduljaleel Sinan, one of the negotiation committee members seeking the release the hostage.

Japanese media have identified the man as Takeo Mashimo, 63.

“The relatives of the kidnappers were about to release the Japanese hostage, but one tribesman who belongs to al Qa’eda snatched the hostage Friday night and fled to unidentified area in al Jawf,” Mr Sinan told NewsYemen, an independent local online news site, yesterday.

Abdulrehman al Marwani, another negotiator, however, dismissed the idea that al Qa’eda had kidnapped the Japanese hostage. “It is not true that al Qa’eda kidnapped the hostage. We have been told the kidnappers moved their hostage into a village in al Jawf just to avoid the tribal negotiators’ pressure on them, though I expect he is still in Arhab,” Mr al Marwani said.

“We were about to reach an agreement with the kidnappers that they would release the hostage and we will write them a letter to guarantee the release of their relative in a month’s time. They were also seeking guarantees that they would not be arrested by the government.”

Mr Mashimo worked for a Japanese development agency in Yemen. He was kidnapped last Sunday along with his Yemeni driver by armed tribesmen in Arhab, 45km north-east of the capital, Sana’a, while on his way to to supervise the construction of a school building.

The kidnappers have said they would set him free in exchange for the release of a 22-year-old family member identified as Hussein Abdullah Gob.

Gob was imprisoned by US forces for a year in Iraq along with other jihadists and was later jailed for another year in Syria before he was handed to the Yemeni government.

Yemen has held Gob in jail for two years without trial, according to his relatives.

More at the National

Sympathy for America's Devils

For the past decade, the sight of Western liberals gathering in defense of terrorists seeking to impose a medieval patriarchal cult on the rest of the world by force seems incongruously odd. What is there about Islam that is so appealing to the erstwhile defenders of minorities, women and gays-- all of whom have next to no rights under Islam?

Looking over tomes by liberal authors that argue that Islam is truly feminist, progressive and shares all their basic values, the rational observer is forced to wonder, "Who exactly are they kidding?" The answer is a complicated one, but the problem is not as new as it seems.

The far left and the far left have a longstanding affinity for playing, "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend", with America designated as the primary enemy, and everyone from the headmasters of the guillotine to Al Queda has emerged as their friends.

Before 9/11, the Taliban had a spokesman named Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, today studying in Yale on a student visa, making the rounds of Berkeley to explain that the detonation of the Buddhist statues, then the worst thing that the jolly gang of headchopping boys in black were known for at the time, was actually a protest against the world ignoring Afghanistan's poverty.

His audience cheered and laughed along with him, able now to relate to the Taliban, not as murderous butchers who throw acid in the faces of little girls-- but as activists against Third World poverty.

But long before Sayed slimed his way across California, a Japanese consulate employee named Hikida Yasuichi would strike up close ties with Black Harlem intellectuals in the 1930's, in pursuit of General Sato Kojiro's then bizarre fantasy of destroying America's Pacific Fleet, occupying Hawaii and then invading the mainland with an African-American army. While no such army ever materialized, Hikida Yasuichi succeeded in stirring up sympathy for Imperial Japan among black writers like W.E. Du Bois, who were otherwise fervent Communists, by convincing them that Japan was fighting for all the non-white races. Read more here..

Source: CFP

Iran election a fraud, says Nicolas Sarkozy

An Iranian woman holds up a picture of the latest
crackdown by Iranian police on
reformist protesters in Tehran

June 17

FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy has branded Iran's election result a fraud as the international outcry over the security forces' crackdown on the opposition in Tehran intensifies.

Governments from Asia to Europe and the Americas voiced concern about the violence that erupted on Monday during rallies protesting the hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election with US President Barack Obama saying he had “deep concerns” but did not want to meddle in Iran's affairs.

Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith expressed his disquiet over “images of serious human rights abuses that we've seen on camera and in photos”.

In Japan, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said his country was “extremely concerned” about the situation.

Sarkozy said the unrest was a direct result of Ahmadinejad's failings in his first term.

“The extent of the fraud is proportional to the violent reaction,” the French leader today.

“It is a tragedy, but it is not negative to have a real opinion movement that tries to break its chains,” Sarkozy said.

“If Ahmadinejad has really made progress since the last election and if he really represents two thirds of the electorate ... why has this violence erupted?”

At least seven people were killed on Monday in street battles between the security forces and supporters of Iran's former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi who claim that their man was cheated of victory in Friday's poll.

Protesters took to the streets in capitals across Europe, including in London where hundreds outside the Iranian embassy demanded Tehran authorities “give our vote back” and “stop shooting people in Iran”.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said questions about the validity of the vote's outcome needed to be answered and that the violent scenes threatened Iran's standing.

“The regime must address the serious questions which have been asked about the conduct of the Iranian elections,” said Brown.

“The way the regime responds to legitimate protests will have implications for Iran's relationships with the rest of the world in the future.”

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said there “must be an end to the violence carried out by the security forces on demonstrators” while his Dutch counterpart Maxime Verhagen summoned the Iranian charge d'affaires.

“It cannot be that peaceful demonstrations are broken up violently,” a statement issued by his office said.

Rights groups also denounced the bloody crackdown with the New York-based Human Rights Watch saying the Ahmadinejad government “has a responsibility to stop the use of unlawful force against protesters”.

Despite the welter of criticism, Iran remained defiant and diplomats from Britain and the Czech Republic - the current holders of the EU presidency - were summoned in protest.

“Neither the European Union nor other countries are in a position to have the right to make rude and interfering remarks against Iran, especially about our glorious election,” Czech charge d'affaires Josef Havlas was told.

Obama meanwhile said he would not meddle in internal Iranian politics - reflecting a more widespread reluctance of governments to be sucked into the maelstrom.

“I have said before that I have deep concerns about the election. I think that the world has deep concerns about the election,” Obama said.

“It is not productive, given the history of US-Iranian relations to be seen as meddling - the US president meddling in Iranian elections.”

The government in Russia - Iran's key ally - said it was not up to outsiders to judge what was going on in Iran.

“The issue of the elections in Iran is an internal affair of the Iranian people,” Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, where Ahmadinejad was attending a summit.

In defiant comments there, Ahmadinejad sent a message to the West: “The international capitalist order is retreating ... It is absolutely obvious that the age of empires has ended and its revival will not take place.”

Source: The Australian

Japan moves carefully toward Islamic finance

By Manabu Hara

The Japanese government has taken a small but important step toward introducing Islamic finance here amid the global financial crisis triggered by unsustainable subprime loans in the United States.

Earlier this month, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) amended financial regulations to let bank subsidiaries handle Islamic finance operations.

The Islamic finance market has become increasingly attractive for Japanese, having already grown to about $1 trillion with a potential to reach an estimated $4 trillion.

Obviously, "oil money" has been undermined by the global financial crisis. Yet the latest push forward by the FSA strongly suggests that Japan has a growing interest in Islamic finance as a competitive way to attract huge amounts of petro-funds. Read more ...

Source: Asahi

Publisher to suspend cartoon sales after Muslims say it insults Islam

CAIRO - A popular Japanese cartoon is sparking off outcries in the Muslim world where some fear it could fuel a backlash not seen since European papers carried cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and a Dutch lawmaker released a controversial film earlier this year. Read more ...
Source: Japan Today