Jihad in the Bastion of “Moderation”: Understanding the Threat of ISIS in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Malaysia has long been hailed as a beacon of moderate Islam. Yet, at present, there is considerable support for ISIS amongst Malaysians, and it represents a unique articulation of contemporary violent Islamist extremism. Malaysians who joined ISIS in Syria and its supporters at home are characterized by a sense of Islamic righteousness. Also, they share distinctive features that differentiate them from the old jihadi generation: a diverse occupational background, the lack of either formal or informal religious training, and the growing nexus of criminality-radicalization. Malaysian support for ISIS can be historically and politically contextualized in relation to the Islamization race between the main political parties, the presence of Salafi-jihadi discourse and ISIS’s discursive construction of authentic Islam.     

The Effect of Time on Bone Fluorescence: Implications for Using Alternate Light Sources to Search for Skeletal Remains

Bones fluoresce when exposed to certain wavelengths of shortwave light, and this property can be useful in locating and sorting skeletal remains in forensic contexts. The proteins in bone collagen are largely responsible for its fluorescent properties, but these proteins degrade and denature over time. This study examined the fluorescence of bones from four temporal groups (recent, semi‐recent, ancient, and historic) ranging from 0 to 1064 years before present. Specimens were photographed under 490 nm wavelength light, and fluorescence was quantified by converting intensity to a gray scale value based on the RGB color model using ImageJ^® software. Significant (p < 0.05) differences were found in mean fluorescence between all four temporal groups, and a 0.324 coefficient of correlation indicates a significant (inverse) relationship between fluorescence and time. Bone fluorescence decreases with time, but some fluorescence is retained even in older samples. Fluorescence can therefore be reliably used in many modern skeletal remains searches.     

Ambiguity and Conflict in the Implementation of Evidence Law in Criminal Matters: a Study of the United Arab Emirates Jurisprudence

Due the lack of the law of evidence in criminal matters in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it is important to address the issue of the rules of evidence in the UAE where Sharia criminal law is applied along with enacted law of Criminal Procedural Law. The courts’ decisions contradicted each other because of the differences of opinions among the law schools exist in Islamic law in one hand and between the Sharia criminal law and enacted law in the other hand. Further, the Criminal Procedural Law does not state the rules of evidence in clear manner to judges and individuals. The lack of stated rules and procedures and what evidence could be accepted and what cannot are not definite in the UAE legal system. The article will argue that because of the differences in the opinions related to the admission and acceptance of the evidences exist among the Islamic law schools and between the Sharia law and enacted law, the court decisions have contradicted each other and create ambiguities in the field of the evidence in criminal law. The Islamic jurists have different opinions about evidence in fornication crimes, Qasama evidence in qisas, and women and non-Muslim testimonies. Such differences affect the Union Supreme Court decisions. Therefore, the UAE legislator must enact the law of evidence in criminal matters in order to reduce the contradiction between judges’ opinions, clear ambiguities, and protect individual rights as it did with civil and commercial matter.     

Finding of Hyperostosis Frontalis Interna During the Autopsy Procedure: Forensic Issues

Hyperostosis frontalis interna is a common phenomenon, which may have been overrated in its significance in the past, and may, currently be underrated in its significance. We present three cases of hyperostosis frontalis interna found during medicolegal autopsies and discuss their forensic considerations. The patients were all middle‐aged women with metabolic and endocrine manifestations and psychiatric ailments; thickening of the inner table of the frontal bone of the skull was found during each autopsy. We describe the relationship between hyperostosis frontalis interna, metabolic manifestations, and neuropsychiatric symptoms as part of Morgagni‐Stewart‐Morel syndrome. There is still considerable disagreement in the scientific community as to whether this syndrome is a clinical entity. Nonetheless, awareness of Morgagni‐Stewart‐Morel syndrome can be of help in understanding the circumstances surrounding death. In some other cases, hyperostosis frontalis interna could be used by forensic pathologists as criteria for sexing and aging a skeleton.     

Quantitative Determination of Cannabinoids in Cannabis and Cannabis Products Using Ultra‐High‐Performance Supercritical Fluid Chromatography and Diode Array/Mass Spectrometric Detection

Ultra‐high‐performance supercritical fluid chromatography (UHPSFC ) is an efficient analytical technique and has not been fully employed for the analysis of cannabis. Here, a novel method was developed for the analysis of 30 cannabis plant extracts and preparations using UHPSFC /PDA ‐MS . Nine of the most abundant cannabinoids, viz . CBD , ?⁸‐THC , THCV , ?⁹‐THC , CBN , CBG , THCA ‐A, CBDA , and CBGA , were quantitatively determined (RSD s < 6.9%). Unlike GC methods, no derivatization or decarboxylation was required prior to UHPSFC analysis. The UHPSFC chromatographic separation of cannabinoids displayed an inverse elution order compared to UHPLC . Combining with PDA ‐MS , this orthogonality is valuable for discrimination of cannabinoids in complex matrices. The developed method was validated, and the quantification results were compared with a standard UHPLC method. The RSD s of these two methods were within ±13.0%. Finally, chemometric analysis including principal component analysis (PCA ) and partial least squares‐discriminant analysis (PLS ‐DA ) were used to differentiate between cannabis samples.     

Patella sex determination by 3D statistical shape models and nonlinear classifiers

Sex determination is one of the essential steps in personal identification of an individual from skeletal remains. Most elements of the skeleton have been subjected to discriminant function analysis for sex estimation, but little work has been done in terms of the patella. This paper proposes a new sex determination method from the patella using a novel automated feature extraction technique. A dataset of 228 patellae (95 females and 133 males) was amassed from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection from the University of Tennessee and was subjected to noninvasive high resolution computed tomography (CT). After the CT data were segmented, a set of features was automatically extracted, normalized, and ranked. The segmentation process with surface smoothing minimizes the noise from enthesophytes and ultimately allows our methods to distinguish variations in patellar morphology. These features include geometric features, moments, principal axes, and principal components. A feature vector of dimension 45 for each subject was then constructed. A set of statistical and supervised neural network classification methods were used to classify the sex of the patellar feature vectors. Nonlinear classifiers such as neural networks have been used in previous research to analyze several medical diagnosis problems, including quantitative tissue characterization and automated chromosome classification. In this paper, different classification methods were compared. Classification success ranged from 83.77% average classification rate using labels from a Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering step, to 90.3% for linear discriminant classification (LDC). We obtained results of 96.02% and 93.51% training and testing classification rates, respectively, using feed-forward backpropagation neural networks (NN). These promising results using newly developed features and the application of nonlinear classifiers encourage the usage of these methods in forensic anthropology for identifying the sex of an individual from incomplete skeletons retaining at least one patella.     

Population genetic data of 15 tetrameric short tandem repeats (STRs) in Berbers from Morocco

The allele frequency distribution of 15 short tandem repeats (STR) loci contained in the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR Amplification Kit (Applied Biosystems), was determined in two Berber populations from Asni and Bouhria, in Central and Eastern Morocco, respectively. A total of 209 individuals were typed. No deviations from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were observed for Asni at the 15 STRs loci whereas for the Bouhria samples, two loci (D5S818 and TH01) showed significant departures from Hardy-Weinberg expectations (after Bonferroni's correction). All loci are highly polymorphic and population differentiation tests showed that the Moroccan samples from Asni and Bouhria have significant differences in 4 out of 15 loci (D21S11, D7S820, D16S539 and TPOX). The aim of the study was to obtain accurate allele frequencies relevant for forensic applications. Comparative analyses between our population data and other population samples gathered from the literature are also presented.     

Third world prize 1982

Mozambique: who calls the shots. by Joseph Hanlon, London: James Currey. 1991. 301pp. £11.95pb

Renamo: terrorism in Mozambique. by Alex Vines, London: James Currey. 1991. 176pp. £7.95pb

Behind the Intifada: labor and women's movements in the occupied territories. by Joost R Hiltermann, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 265pp

Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel. by Benjamin Beit‐Hallahmi, London and Concord: Pluto Press 1992, 218pp

Living Together Separately: Arabs and Jews in Contemporary Jerusalem. by Michael Romann and Alex Weingrod, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1991. 258pp

Veiled Half‐Truths: Western Travellers’ Perceptions of Middle Eastern Women. by Judy Mabro, London: IB Tauris. 1991

Ethnicity and Nationalism: theory and comparison. by Paul R Brass, New Delhi/Newbury Park/London: Sage Publications. 1991. 358pp

Policy Options for the Singapore Economy. by Lim, Chong‐Yah and Associates, London and Singapore: McGraw‐Hill. 1988. 499pp $US42.50 hb

Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore. edited by K S Sandhu and Paul Wheatley, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 1989. 1134 pp $US89. hb and $US59.90 sb.

Ethiopia: Transition and Development in the Horn of Africa. by Mulatu Wubneh and Yohannis Abate, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1988. 224pp. £32

Storm Signals: Structural Adjustment and Development Alternatives in the Caribbean. by Kathy McAfee, London: Zed Books. 1991.

The Significance of the Commonwealth 1965–90. by W David McIntyre London: Macmillan (Cambridge Commonwealth Series). 1991. 305pp

Multiple‐Shift Schooling: Design and Operation for Cost‐Effectiveness. by Mark Bray London: Commonwealth Secretariat. 1989. 155pp. £4.00pb     

A Comparative Study of the Principles Governing Criminal Responsibility in the Major Legal Systems of the World (England, United States, Germany, France, Denmark, Russia, China, and Islamic legal tradition)

The purpose of this survey is to examine the underlying principles of criminal responsibility in selected common law and continental law jurisdictions as well as in the Islamic legal tradition through the lens of comparative law (legal jurisdictions of England, Canada, United States, Germany, France, Denmark, Russia and China are subject to the legal analysis). By conducting a comprehensive legal analysis of the concept of crime in selected legal jurisdictions, this study reveals the common legal features pertinent to the concept of crime that are shared by the major legal systems of the world. Particular attention has been given to the thorny and much debated area of the subjective element of a crime and the standards employed to demarcate between intentional and negligent conduct. Turning to comparative law as an invaluable tool of legal analysis, the study demonstrates that there are more common characteristics than originally anticipated regarding the concept of crime, as well as the basis of the principle of culpability in such major legal systems.