Tony Blair's sister-in-law has converted to Islam

Guardian: Tony Blair's sister-in-law has converted to Islam after having what she describes as a "holy experience" during a visit to Iran.
Journalist and broadcaster Lauren Booth, 43 – Cherie Blair's sister – now wears a hijab whenever she leaves her home, prays five times a day and visits her local mosque whenever she can.
She decided to become a Muslim six weeks ago after visiting the shrine of Fatima al-Masumeh in the city of Qom.
"It was a Tuesday evening and I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy," she said in an interview today.
When she returned to Britain, she decided to convert immediately.
Booth – who works for Press TV, the English-language Iranian news channel – has stopped eating pork and reads the Qur'an every day. She is currently on page 60.
Booth has stopped drinking alcohol and says she has not wanted to drink since converting.
Before her spiritual awakening in Iran, she had been "sympathetic" to Islam and has spent considerable time working in Palestine, she said, adding that she hoped her conversion would help Blair change his presumptions about Islam.

Ahmadinejad Blasts Unjust Structure of UN

FNA:Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his speech at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, slammed the "unjust structure" of the UN, and stressed that the structure of the UN Security Council should be reformed based on equal rights for all nations.
The full text of President Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN

Iranians condemn Qur'an desecration

PressTV:Thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to condemn desecration of the Holy Qur'an by extremists in the US on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The protesters, who gather at Palestine Square in Tehran and other Iranian cities, shouted slogans accusing the United States and Israel of "orchestrating the Zionist plot."
They denounced a move by a number of adventurists who tore pages of the Holy Qur'an and set them on fire.
The angry demonstrators called on the believers of other divine religions to not turn a blind eye to such blasphemous action and take a clear stance on the case.
The protesters held signs calling on Christians and Jews to assure the Muslims and non-Muslims that such a blasphemy would not happen again.
Iran's bazaars have also been closed in protest at the sacrilegious move.
Prior to the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, an extremist Florida pastor, Terry Jones, announced plans to burn the Holy Qur'an.
Although under international pressure and global condemnation he called off his plan, some anti-Islam extremists burned pages of the holy book, while others tore pages of it.
US officials including President Barack Obama had earlier warned against the move; however, they failed to take action to prevent the desecration or bring those behind the move to justice.
The insulting move has triggered angry protests across the world, particularly in Muslim states.


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Pakistan under Water

TheMuslim: Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said from Pakistan that the flood disaster is the worst he’s ever seen, characterizing the destruction as more dire than that caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2005 Pakistani earthquake. Ban urged the international community to send more relief funds to the area; the country now has just $93 million of the estimated immediate $460 million needed to provide flood relief.
One-fifth of Pakistan is still under water after three weeks of devastating flooding, and as many as 6 million affected people have not yet received any relief, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority told CNN.
About one in 10 Pakistanis — 20 million people altogether — have been affected by the flooding, according to estimates from the Pakistani government. About 1,500 people are feared dead, and at least 2 million are homeless, according to U.N. estimates. The country's most populous province, Punjab, was also one of the worst-hit areas. Relief agencies and the government are still tallying damage to millions of acres of farms.
Now, experts worry about disease spreading. Up to 3.5 million children are at risk for dysentery and other diseases caused by drinking dirty water, warned the United Nations. The U.N. is also worried that a cholera epidemic could spread, as a few cases have already been detected and many villages have no health care.

Ramadhan, holy month

Fasting in the month of Ramadan, like Namaaz (prayers) is a divine command. Allah says in the Holy Quran, "O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard (against evil)." (Al-Baqara, 183)
The Muslim fast means a complete abstention from eating or drinking between daybreak and sunset. The sighting of the thin sickle of the new moon of Ramadan heralds for the Muslim the beginning of a month of glory and of spiritual elevation, when, at Allah's command, he voluntarily and of his own free will, denies himself between day-break and sunset, the blessing of food and drink, and surrenders himself up wholly to Allah, observing the same abstention throughout the whole month in his thoughts, his speech, his behavior, his every act.
For this month, for the Muslim, means the triumph of the spiritual and the pure in his nature over all the grossness and carnation, which is an inevitable component of our human make-up. The Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in the following words beautifully explains the actual significance of the fast:
"One who, while fasting, does not guard his tongue from telling lies, does not refrain from doing bad deeds, is not respecting his fast and Allah does not approve of mere abstention from food". When you are keeping fast, you should not speak ill of anybody, nor should you be boisterous and noisy. If anybody speaks ill of you or tries to pick a quarrel with you return him not, but say unto him that you are fasting.
Source: tebyan.net

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Libyan ship 'will continue to Gaza'

Al Jazeera: Organisers of a Libya-sponsored aid ship have said they will continue their attempt to break the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, despite Israeli claims that the vessel would instead sail to Egypt.
Yousseuf Sawani, a director of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, told Al Jazeera that there were no plans for the Al-Amal to dock at the port El-Arish.
"This is definitely a part of the campaign against the ship, a campaign of distortion, but we are definitely heading towards Gaza, because that is where aid should be heading to," he told Al Jazeera.
"This is a purely humane mission, it is neither provocative nor hostile," he said.
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Game calls for Holocaust against Muslims

Islamic Times: A computer game urging players to ‘wipe out the Muslim race’ released amid rising Islamophobia.
British Muslims condemned as deeply offensive Friday a computer game called "Muslim Massacre," which trumpets itself as a "game of modern religious genocide."
The game, which can be downloaded for free on the Internet, urges players to "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons."
"The makers of this 'game' and the ISPs (Internet service providers) who are hosting it should be quite ashamed of themselves," said Inayat Bunglawala, spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain.
"Anti-Muslim prejudice is already on the increase and needs to be challenged and not reinforced through tasteless and offensive stunts like this."
Players in the game -- the aim of which is to "ensure that no Muslim man or woman is left alive" -- control an "American Hero" wielding a machine gun and a rocket launcher parachuted into the Middle East.
In a series of levels, they first kill Arabs before progressing to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Prophet Mohammed and finally Allah (the Arabic word for God).
The creator of the game, known as Sigvatr, described it as "fun and funny". Writing on a discussion forum website, he said: "Don't whinge about how offensive and 'edgy' this is."
"Don't be a liberal pussy! Download this game now!" adds the frontpage of the game.
The letter ‘M’ of ‘Muslim’ is draped in the American flag, and the exclamation marks take the shape of a cross.

Bill Clinton opposed to assault on Iran

Press TV: Former US President Bill Clinton says he believes military action against Iran over its nuclear energy program is not the right course of action to take.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Clinton said he thinks Iranians will all become alienated and oppose the West if military action is taken against the country.
He also raised the possibility that the decision to impose sanctions on Iran may not lead to any concrete results.
He went on to say that Iran was the only country in the world where the people voted six times during his presidency, adding that Iranians elected the most progressive president twice.
Clinton's comments contradict earlier statements by US officials that Iranians are not given the right to freely elect their president.
While the US possesses and has used nuclear weapons in the past, Washington, in a politically-motivated move, has imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, which does not possess nuclear weapons and does not seek to produce such weapons.
In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities and has never discovered evidence of diversion.

Iran Remembers Victims of Flight 655

Iranians commemorated the 22nd anniversary of shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by a US warship in the Persian Gulf in 1988 in an official ceremony held at the site of the incident on Saturday.
Iranians including families of those killed in the tragic incident gathered at the site of the incident to remember the victims by throwing flowers into the Persian Gulf waters.
At the height of the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf blew up Iranian airliner 655, killing all 290 citizens on board, including nearly 70 children.
Iranian Airbus A300 plane was making a routine flight from the country's southern port city of Bandar Abbas, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
The guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes launched two surface-to-air missiles, downing Iran Air Flight 655.
The American officials had later claimed that the USS Vincennes had mistaken the Iranian passenger plane for an F-14 fighter. The claim was later proved to be unfounded by more evidence.
Although Iran filed against the US in the United Nations and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), both bodies adopted a politicized attitude and declined to follow up the case legally, they only bothered to sympathize with the bereaved families of the victims.
Iranians mark July the 3rd each year by showering the site of the disaster with flowers.