Following the repeated insults against the Prophet Muhammad in the Western media, Dubai Governor Sheikh Muhammad Bin Rashid Al-Maktoom has ordered the establishment of the first museum of its kind in the world, on the life and works of the Prophet Muhammad, aimed at informing as many people as possible worldwide about the Prophet's life and about the positive messages that he spread.
Source: Islamonline.net, March 29, 2008
Official Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Sadeq has rejected the news published in the Los Angeles Times that the U.S. has presented a plan to improve relations with Sudan, subject to several conditions.
He said that there would be no improvement in relations in response to dictates, but only via dialogue.
Source: Al-Hayat, London; Al-Sudani, Sudan, March 31, 2008
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has ordered the government's general secretariat to lead a broad move to remove all political and religious pictures, slogans, and signs from the front of government buildings, and to take significant steps against anyone who does not do so.
In Iraq's government offices, which are divided along ethnic lines, portraits of Saddam Hussein have been replaced by portraits of each minister's spiritual leader and by signs bearing the slogan of each minister's party.
Source: Al-Arab, Qatar, March 30, 2008
In an announcement yesterday, Shi'ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr called on his men to stop fighting the armed government forces in Basra.
Al-Sadr also declared that he would cut off relations with anyone who did not lay down his arms, but some of his men said that even so they would refuse.
Meanwhile, Iraqi MP from the Sadrist bloc Ghafran Al-Sa'edi said that his faction would strive to topple the Iraqi government headed by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki if it persisted in fighting the Sadrists.
Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, March 31, 2008
Basing its story on Germany's Der Speigel, Turkey’s top daily Hurriyet reported that the German born Turkish citizen Cuneyt Ciftci [aka Saad Ebu Furkan] carried out the suicide attack on March 3, 2008 in eastern Afghanistan province of Khost which killed two U.S. soldiers and two civilians. The daily published photographs showing Ciftci happy and smiling as he prepared for his deadly mission. According to the report Cuneyt Ciftci had left Germany to go to Turkey in April 2007 and is thought to have gone later to Afghanistan through Iran.
Click here to see the full blog in addition to video on MEMRI's Turkish Media Blog
An announcement by the leaders of Arab countries at the end of the Damascus summit stressed that the Arab side would continue to present the Arab peace initiative, subject to Israel's full execution of its commitments in the framework of the international institutions, in order to achieve peace in the region.
Source: Al-Ba'th, Syria, March 31, 2008
In a speech at the opening of the Arab League summit in Damascus, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad accused Israel of ignoring the Arab peace initiatives.
He then called on the Arabs to reexamine their strategic choices.
Source: Al-Ba'th, Syria, March 30, 2008
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has announced a 10-day extension of the deadline he set for the "criminal gangs" to turn in their arms.
The deadline was previously March 28.
A senior source said that the government forces in Basra are having difficulty controlling the situation in the city, in light of the refusal by thousands of soldiers, especially those from Basra province, to fight against Mahdi Army members. He added that members of the "Mahdi Army are still in control of several police stations in the city."
Source: Elaph.com, March 28, 2008
At a meeting with a group of sheikhs of Basra tribes, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki called the armed operations in Basra city worse than those of Al-Qaeda.
The sheikhs expressed support for the government's "law enforcement" program in Basra.
It should be noted that the Banu Malk tribes in the Basra province took action against the presence of the armed groups in the Al-Qurna rgion and forced them out. Also, in a communiqué, 18 tribes in southern Baghdad and in the Wasit province expressed support for the government's activity to enforce the law across Iraq.
Source: Alnajafnews.net, March 30, 2008; aswataliraq.info, March 31, 2008
Source: Al-Dustour, Jordan, March 28, 2008
