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On Thursday’s broadcast of “NewsNation Now,” White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi denied that the Biden administration is attempting to shut down the coal industry or slow any industry down, and stated that the issue is “about how do we speed up to a stronger economy, a more durable economy, and one that, frankly, puts less pollution into the sky?” Host Connell McShane asked, “[C]oal executives, for the most part, are coming out and saying this — we can’t meet this. So, the real goal here is to kind of shut our industry down. Is that what’s happening?” Zaidi...

PARIS (AFP) - A protester who presented himself as an Iraqi journalist in exile hurled a shoe Tuesday at the colleague who one year ago found fame hurling his own footwear at then US president George W. Bush. Television reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi was in Paris to promote his campaign for the "victims of the US occupation in Iraq" when a fellow Iraqi critic turned the tables on him, shouting: "Here's another shoe for you." The thickset man with an Iraqi accent made a brief speech in Arabic during the question and answer session, defending US policy and accusing Zaidi of...

US activists call for release, pardon of Iraq shoe-thrower Dec 29 03:52 PM US/Eastern US activists on Monday urged Baghdad to release the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush, insisting that his gesture was meant to insult, not harm the US leader. "This was a form of insult... If he had wanted to hurt George Bush, he would have chosen a different weapon," Medea Benjamin of the Codepink peace activism group told AFP at a rally of about a dozen people outside the Iraqi consulate in Washington. Zaidi, 29, threw his shoes at Bush...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Devout Muslim found guilty of forcing boys to flog themselves in religious ceremony Last updated at 15:41pm on 27.08.08   A devout Muslim was found guilty of child cruelty today in a British legal first after forcing two boys to beat themselves during a religious ceremony.The jury at Manchester Crown Court found 44-year-old Syed Mustafa Zaidi guilty of two counts of child cruelty.The boys, aged 13 and 15, were forced to beat themselves with a zanjeer zani, an implement containing five curved blades, during a ceremony to commemorate the death of a Shia Muslim spiritual leader.Zaidi, of Station Road,...

A college student who joined armed Palestinians in Bethlehem's besieged Church of the Nativity remains jailed in Israel, fighting his deportation to America, federal officials said. Nauman Zaidi, 27, of Rancho Cucamonga, was among 10 foreign activists removed from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, West Bank, on May 10 as the standoff between armed Palestinians and Israeli soldiers ended after 39 days. Zaidi and others were carrying food to troops holed up inside the church. A State Department official in Washington, D.C., said Thursday that Zaidi is one of five Americans moved to Massiyahu Prison earlier this week...