One of Ours

Al-Qaeda has warned Muslims to flee Europe before its truce offer expires on July 15th.

A spokesman for the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades - who claimed responsibility for the Madrid train bombings - made the threat in a letter published in a London-based Arabic newspaper.

Muslims were urged to take suitable precautions: "Muslims in the West should depart to Muslim states if they can...Those who cannot should take precautions and live in Muslim areas, have enough food to last a month, find ways to protect themselves and their families, leave enough money in the house to last one month or longer and to pray a lot and put their fate in God's hands."

On April 15 Osama bin Laden issued a statement claiming al-Qaeda would remove Europe from its list of targets if European governments were to "Stop attacking Muslims and stop the occupation of Muslim countries." Most European governments dismissed the terror leader's offer of a truce.

However, only days before, veteran British politician Mo Mowlam urged leaders to "negotiate" with the terror group. And just after the Madrid bombing, which killed nearly 200 commuters, Britain's Guardian newspaper said that European nations had to "get beyond them and us, good guys and bad guys" when dealing with terror.

Slaughtered Innocents

Halabja

Terror and Genocide

..."However, now there's an interim government and, we hope, a fully independent process very soon in Iraq. I presume, if the Iraqis ask us for help directly it will be very difficult for us to say no," King Abd Allah said.

"My message to the president and prime minister is: Tell us what you want, tell us how we can help and we have 110% support for this."

Washington welcomed the prospect of Jordanian troops in Iraq, but was at pains to portray any such move as a service to Iraq rather than the United States...

...Yemen was discussing plans to send forces to Iraq.

But any deployment would have to have U.N. backing and the forces would have to be under the control of the world body...

One sign that my wife and I weren't in our 20's anymore is when we started getting most of our entertainment from NHK, the network of four channels run by the Japanese government. One day we realized that the most interesting shows to us weren't anime or young idols singing on Hey Hey Music Champ, but the excellent content of NHK. The other day we watched a very interesting documentary on "kikoku shijo, or Japanese kids who have lived abroad for many years, then returned to experience culture shock in their own home country. Ally McBeal (which I watch in Japanese with my wife) and Beverly Hills 90210 (which my wife watches in English) are shown on NHK, too. Foreigners living in Japan complain about the 2000 yen they have to pay the NHK man who comes collecting every month, but it's good to have something familiar to watch.

Near our house, we can see the Sphinx, the Statue of Liberty, and many other interesting wonders of world. These are pachinko parlors, a major source of entertainment for many Japanese men and women in Japan. An odd game which I don't pretend to understand, you basically buy a bucket of balls for $50, then sit for hours trying to hold a controller in just the right position to make most of the balls go into certain holes in the pachinko machine. Since "gambling" is illegal in Japan, except for certain events like horse, boat and bicycle racing, you don't win money if you get more balls than you started out with -- you get valuable prizes which you redeem for cash at a shady building next to the pachinko parlor. Pachinko is quite a competitive business to be in, and operators (who always seem to be getting involved with some crime or another) work very hard to bring in the newest machines in -- with little video screens or cute anime-style characters printed on them, for example. They have interesting names to attract customers, like one near us called Al Pacino. Despite the efforts of the pachinko industry to make the activity seem like a friendly and family-oriented thing to do, pachinko always seems to go hand in hand with the yakuza. Pachiko maker Sankyo is trying to change that image, and has hired Nicholas Cage to do its TV commercials. See them here.