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Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said Thursday that Muslims had a right "to kill millions of French people", shortly after a knife-wielding man launched a deadly attack in Nice. Three people were killed at a church in the southern French city, with the attacker slitting the throat of at least one of them, in what authorities were treating as the latest jihadist attack to rock the country. Shortly afterwards, Mahathir -- who was prime minister of Muslim-majority Malaysia until his government collapsed in February -- launched an extraordinary outburst on Twitter. Referring to the beheading of a French teacher...

The Prime Minister of Malaysia said Muslims have “a right to be angry and kill millions of French people” just hours after an attacker yelling “Allahu akbar!” beheaded one woman and killed two others in a church in France. The incendiary comments were part of a tweetstorm from Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who railed against Western culture and French President Emmanuel Macron for refusing to denounce the caricatures of Prophet Mohammad that have sparked three attacks in two months in France. Macron has also vowed to fight “Islamist separatism” in wake of the beheading of school teacher Samuel Paty in a...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at the Kuala Lumpur Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Muslim nations looking to fight back against future sanctions are exploring an age-old approach — using gold dinar and bartering. Leaders from Qatar, Iran, Malaysia and Turkey met during the Islamic summit in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the matter this week. “With the world witnessing nations making unilateral decisions to impose such punitive measures, Malaysia and other nations must always bear in mind that it can be imposed on any of us,” Malaysia’s 94-year-old Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told Reuters. “I have suggested that...

Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian political veteran who helped build the Pakatan Harapan coalition that swept to power in elections last week, has been freed after being jailed during the tenure of the scandal-haunted deposed premier Najib Razak. The 70-year-old, who was granted a full pardon by the country's King Muhammad V. Anwar, had been serving a five year jail term -- his second prison sentence in two decades -- for a sodomy conviction he says was trumped up... "He is not a member of government, therefore his role will be in the party," Mahathir said, referring to the ruling Pakatan...

DIRE STRAITSTerrorists under the bed By Anil Netto PENANG, Malaysia - As United States troops pour into the southern Philippines to help in tracking down the armed Abu Sayyaf group, focus in the war against terrorism has clearly extended to Southeast Asia. The US troop deployment coincides with a Newsweek magazine report citing secret Federal Bureau of Investigation data that apparently showed that Malaysia was a primary operational launch-pad for the September 11 attacks on the US. Ironically, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, where more than 40 alleged militants have been detained without trial since last May, forcefully denied ...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to organize his 2002 meeting with President Bush, but denied the money came from the Malaysian government. Mahathir told reporters he was aware a payment was made to Abramoff, but he didn't know who made it. He said he had been persuaded by the U.S. think tank Heritage Foundation to meet with Bush at the time. "It is true that somebody paid but it was not the (Malaysian) government," Mahathir said. "I understood some people paid a sum of money...

Former Malaysian prime minister upset after border crossing guards delay entourage By Ali Waked TEL AVIV - IDF soldiers delayed former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at a border crossing before allowing him to enter the Palestinian Authority, sources at the former leader’s entourage charge. Mahathir, who arrived from Jordan Sunday for meetings with senior Palestinian officials, said guards at the Allenby Bridge humiliated him and his associates and performed humiliating searches through their belongings. Sources close to Mahathir said the delay caused by guards interfered with the visit’s schedule. Mahathir was slated to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed...

Photo: AFP KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia's former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who while in power was an important ally of Myanmar's junta, has called on the ruling generals to release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Mahathir, who engineered Myanmar's entrance into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said the junta should not be afraid of the ramifications of freeing Aung San Suu Kyi or making other reforms."I fought hard for Myanmar to be admitted into ASEAN. I think the leaders of Myanmar should consider public opinion (in support of her release) and there is nothing they have...

JEDDAH, 19 January 2004 — Former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad yesterday attacked Muslim extremism and called for greater tolerance between Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslims and people of other faiths have to work together, he said. Muslims must accept living with non-Muslims, whether the non-Muslims are in a majority or a minority. He attributed part of Malayisa’s success to tolerance. Its different communities respected each other and each other’s religions. That is what guaranteed stability. “Muslims should respect other people’s religions,” he said, “since that respect is part of the Islamic tradition.” On Day Two of the Jeddah Economic...

<p>For a free e-mail subscription to Best of the Web Today, click .</p> <p>The House approved its version of the bill, 281-142, earlier this month. Both houses have repeatedly passed bans on partial-birth abortion, always to be vetoed by President Clinton, but President Bush supports the ban.</p>

<p>Facing international condemnation, a senior Malaysian official Friday defended Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's assertion at an Islamic summit that Jews rule the world, but apologized for any misunderstandings or offense.</p> <p>At their own summit in Brussels, Belgium, European Union leaders had drafted a harshly worded statement condemning Mahathir's remarks, but French President Jacques Chirac blocked the wording from becoming a part of a final declaration.</p>

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday told a summit of Islamic leaders that "Jews rule the world by proxy" and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims should unite, using nonviolent means for a "final victory." His speech at the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit, which he was hosting, drew criticism from Jewish leaders, who warned it could spark more violence against Jews. Mahathir, who is known for his outspoken, anti-Western rhetoric, criticized what he described as Jewish domination of the world and Muslim nations' inability to adequately respond to it as he opened the meeting of...

Officials of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's party gave out translated copies of US industrialist Henry Ford's anti-Semitic book "The International Jew" to delegates at the annual United Malays National Organization (UMNO) conference in Kuala Lumpur. Tens of thousands of Muslim Malays attended the last day of the three-day conference to see Mahathir deliver his final speech as party president before stepping down in October. According to media reports delegates at the conference were handed free copies of an abridged version of Ford's book, translated into Bahasa Malay and published in Johannesburg, South Africa. Ford's book, first published in Ford's...

Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has opened a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement with a scathing attack on the West, calling the U.S.-led war on terrorism a pretext for an attempt to dominate the world. Mr. Mahathir told leaders and ministers from 114 non-aligned nations gathered in Kuala Lumpur today that "no single nation should be allowed to police the world." The Malaysian leader says war is a "primitive" way of settling disputes between nations and should be outlawed, adding that the United Nations should be the arbiter of all international disputes and take the lead in disarming the entire...

KUALA LUMPUR - The radicalisation of former Malaysian army officer Yazid Sufaat, suspected of abetting two Sept 11 hijackers and of being a Jemaah Islamiah bomb-maker, shows that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ambitious effort to use Islam as a vehicle for economic progress and social change has backfired, The Asian Wall Street Journal said in a report yesterday. It said that Yazid - the son of a poor rubber tapper and the winner of a government scholarship to study biochemistry in the US - was an 'ideal candidate for transformation into the progressive Muslim professional', a type of citizen that...

The second front in America's war on terror is yielding limited results THE arrival in January of 1,200 American soldiers in sleepy Basilan island in the southern Philippines drew attention to a wider threat of international terrorism in South-East Asia. Abu Sayyaf, a militant group the Americans have been helping to fight, is just one of many in the region, after all. Its founder, Abubakar Janjalani, trained with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Two of the September 11th hijackers had spent time in Malaysia. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first bombing of the World Trade Centre, in 1993, used...

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday that the world's Muslims had only themselves to blame for the poverty, misery and violence afflicting much of the Islamic world. The veteran leader made his comments in a speech to religious affairs ministers meeting for the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Last month he sparked a row at the outset of an OIC foreign ministers meeting by suggesting Palestinian suicide bombers should be considered terrorists for deliberately attacking civilians. This time he also laid into the OIC itself, saying its inaction and disunity had damaged its reputation. "I am ashamed to say...