The Last Ephor

daily news, uk weather, business news - onl Antwerp race riots militant charged By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Filed: 30/11/2002) A Muslim firebrand accused of inciting two days of race riots in Antwerp was charged yesterday with conspiracy to foment disorder, destroying vehicles, and assaulting a police officer. Abou Jahjah, 31, a Lebanese-born extremist who once fought for Hizbollah, was blamed for stirring up ethnic conflict in the Belgian city's North African quarter after a Moroccan teacher was murdered on Tuesday by a white dockworker said to be mentally ill. The Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, vowed to put a stop to the open lawlessness of Abou Jahjah's militant organisation, the Arab European League. "The league is trying to terrorise the city," he said. The authorities were shocked by the targeted nature of vandalism this week. Flemish pubs and black-owned businesses in the Borgerhout district were attacked, but shops displaying AEL stickers w...

December 02, 2002

In Iran, a 'second revolution' gathers steam Ten days of pro-democracy protests spur militants to counter with a show of conservative force in the streets. By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor TEHRAN, IRAN – The deep roots of Iran's Islamic Revolution give meaning to the life of Zeinab Bolooki, an Iranian mother who sacrificed a son during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Every Friday, draped in black, Mrs. Bolooki visits the vast martyr's cemetery south of Tehran, sponges off the white marble tombstone of her son and sprinkles it with a mother's love and red flower petals. The fierce dedication to Islam, the Iraq-Iran war, and the 1979 revolution once made Bolooki's family quintessential supporters of Iran's conservative clerics. But their desire for reform is indicative of a significant change below the surface of the political battle now playing itself out in Tehran. "It's like a volcano coming up, which...