The pope's visit to the Holy Land

... In the event, he deeply upset his Israeli hosts, and to a much milder extent his Palestinian ones too, both mainly through sins of omission...

... The trouble came when... he spoke only of 'millions' of Jewish victims, not of 'six million'...

... The pope then made things worse for himself by speaking of the 'tragedy of the Shoah [Hebrew for the Holocaust]' without attributing blame...

... And yet another mistake: the pope used the word 'killed' rather than 'murdered'...

—The Economist, May 16th 2009, Pope Benedict - A Chapter of Incidents

Change of Gym

Changed gyms last week. Was training at London Shoot Fighters (West London) for a couple of years. Now training at Spartan Vale Tudo (East London). The change was spurred by LSF moving further West but alhamdulillah for the better. SVT is a smaller setup but I should now be able to train more often insha-Allah since it's closer to home.

Umrah

Got back from Umrah last Sunday afternoon. Went for a couple of weeks with my sister - 19th July til 2nd August - one week in Makkah and one week in Madinah. Fantastic. A rare place that gets better with each visit! Kept a log of positive encounters. Might be a while before I type it up.

Letter I sent to my MP Harry Cohen:

Dear Harry,

I hope you are well.

I flew back from Suadi Arabia last Sunday afternoon landing at Heathrow Terminal 5. As usual, just before baggage collection, all those arriving from the various flights pass through the same passport/immigration check place and behind each immigration/airport officer is a well dressed (suited/booted) CID (intelligence) officer "randomly" selecting people to question. I have always questioned the "randomness" of those selected for questioning and I can understood that all young brown/Muslim looking people are stopped for questioning and profiling regardless of the fact that they are UK passport holders, as has become the trend post-2001. However, what appalled me was that even elderly people and whole families were not exempted - every single brown/Muslim passing through a free CID officer, regardless of age, gender or the fact that they are with their families was being stopped. All of those stopped that I observed appeared to feel the need to be excessively polite, which I question, and I am ashamed that we as a community have come to accept such discrimination as normal.

I wanted you to be aware that such discrimination takes place but also wanted to know if you knew who I could direct this complaint to, if anyone?

Regards,
Adil Hussain

Is Obama waffling?

"... Indeed, on the ground, interviews with recently released Guantanamo detainees and investigations by organisations such as Human Rights First in Afghanistan are providing evidence that detainee abuse and lack of due process are continuing under the Obama administration, despite the shift in rhetoric..."

(Source: aljazeera.net, Bush's torture legacy haunts the US)

Article:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/07/20097298571341207.html

Interesting, American coverage of captured US soldier Bowe Bergdahl. Fox News showed him less love than the Taliban!