al-mashreq feb. 2013

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Drawing Winners Announced 16 Pages Issue No. 46

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8 January 20 - February 18 , 2013

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من جميع املوانئ واملدن الأمريكية اإىل كافة اأنحاء العامل ROROسحن �سيارات على ظهر الباخرة�

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Associated Press Bi-Weekly

Arizona • California • Illinois

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Woman with Sword Arrested at Mosque, Muslim School

The 2013 USA Belly Dance Queen™ Competition

Understanding Evangelical’s Prophesy of War and the “End Times”

Court rejects Islamist lawsuit to shut down show ‘insulting’ Mursi

�شحن بحري و جوي

The group that equated Muslim radi-cals with savages in advertisements last year has put up another set of provocative ads featuring quotes from the Quran in dozens of New York City subway stations.The American Freedom Defense Ini-tiative purchased space next to 228 clocks in 39 stations for ads with an image of the burning World Trade Center and a quote attributed to the Quran saying: “Soon shall we cast ter-ror into the hearts of the unbelievers.”

A Pakistani man accused of taking part in an international al-Qaeda plot to attack targets in the United States and Europe pleaded not guilty to ter-rorism charges during his first US court appearance in New York.

A woman beat her son to death for fail-ing to memorize parts of the Quran, the South Wales Guardian reported on Tuesday. She proceeded to burn his body in or-der to get rid of the evidence.

New anti-Muslim ‘Quran quote’ ads go up in NYC subways

Extradited al-Qaeda suspect “ Abid Naseer “faces US court

Mother kills son for failing to memorize Quran

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Cooking & Recipes

ingredients• 1 pound dry garbanzo beans• 1 onion, quartered• 1 potato, peeled and quartered• 4 cloves garlic, minced• 1/2 cup cilantro leaves, chopped• 1 teaspoon ground coriander• 1 teaspoon ground cumin• 2 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon ground black

pepper• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice• 1 tablespoon olive oil• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour• 2 teaspoons baking soda• 2 cups canola oil

ingredients• 2 cups semolina flour• 1/3 teaspoon baking powder• 1 cup white sugar• 1 cup sweetened flaked coconut• 1/4 cup butter, melted• 1 cup plain yogurt • 1/4 cup milk, or as needed• 1/4 cup whole almonds• 1 cup water• 1 cup white sugar• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Festival Photos & Entertainment

Although business across Egypt has suffered since the revolution started, the on-line and mobile technology company OTVentures has sustained growth through-out the uprising.Online social media played a significant role in expand-ing the enterprise through-out the Arab world. This has led to a dramatic rise in on-line traffic said chief execu-tive Hanan Abdel Meguid. “What is good after the rev-olution is the validation of the power of online media,” Meguid was quoted as say-ing by the Financial Times. With more than 700 em-ployees divided throughout 17 countries, including the U.S., Italy, Canada, and the Middle East, OTVentures has been able to develop its software, online share trad-ing, ecommerce and web hosting technology.“We are the Middle East’s gateway for international brands and at the same time we are a launching pad for local innovation,” Meguid said.

Prior to the revo-lution, citizens used the internet to check their emails and surf the web as an al-ternative form of entertainment. “The amount of time spent on-line is growing, which has in-creased the po-tential for doing business. The revolution may have temporarily been a disaster for some kinds of businesses - we witnessed a drop - but it will be an ac-celerator for us in the longer term,” Meguid added.Internet business was still sizable during the revolu-tion, he told the Financial

Times. As OTVentures reached a turnout of almost $100 million, the compa-ny proves it has sustained “steady” growth since 2010. OTVentures was announced as the official online adver-tising agent for Twitter in the Middle East and North Africa in November.

Emaar Properties’, revenue from apart-ments sales more than tripled in the third quarter, helping Dubai’s largest develop-er overcome a sharp decline in the sale of commercial units.Revenue from sales of condominiums in the third-quarter more than tripled to 567 million dirhams ($154.4 million) from 183 million dirhams in the same period in 2011, a detailed earnings state-ment released on Sunday showed. How-ever, revenue from sale of villas dropped slightly to 123 million dirhams from 126 million dirhams a year-ago.Income from sale of commercial proper-ties and plot sales took a major hit, gen-erating only 109 million dirhams com-pared with 798.4 million dirhams in the prior-year period.Emaar is one of the better performers

among property companies in Dubai as the sector recovers from a roughly 60 percent drop in real estate prices from their peak in 2008.The builder of the world’s tallest tower, reported a 4.7 percent drop in third-quar-ter revenue in October, missing analyst’s forecasts.Emaar launched three new real estate projects this year, with residential units generating strong interest.The report also showed that Emaar is owed 242 million dirhams by troubled mortgage affiliate Amlak, down from 595 million dirhams in 2011.This amount earns an average interest of 1.45 percent per annum compared with 3.13 percent to 4 percent last year, Emaar said.

A belly Dance competition was held on January 19, 2013 on Chandler Arizona to select a US Belly Dance Queen for 2013. The USA Belly Dance Queen™ Competition is organized by the Arab American As-sociation and sponsored by

Arab TV1 station.The #1 goal of our compe-tition is to establish nation-al standards for judging professional belly dancing techniques. The Competi-tion is designed to promote both Middle Eastern dance

and culture, and to raise the profile of belly dancing in the wider community as well as to give great danc-ers a chance to gain na-tional recognition for their skills and hard work. More coverage at our website www.almashreqonline.com

Digital media boom, the Egyptian revolution aftermath

Jokes

Preparation :1. Rinse the garbanzo beans under cold water and discard any bad ones. Place in a large pot, and cover with water. Let soak 24 hours, and rinse again.

2. Place the garbanzo beans, onion, and potato in the bowl of a food processor. Cover, and process until finely chopped. Leaving about 1 cup of the garbanzo bean mixture in the food processor bowl, pour the rest into a mixing bowl. Add the garlic, cilantro, coriander, cumin, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper to the garbanzo bean mixture in the food processor bowl; process on low to blend thoroughly. Return the reserved garbanzo bean mixture to the food processor bowl, and add the lemon juice, olive oil, and flour; pro-cess on low into a coarse meal. Cover, and refrigerate 2 hours.

3. Stir the baking soda into the garbanzo bean mixture until evenly blended. Using damp hands, form the mixture into 1 1/2 inch di-ameter balls.

4. Pour the canola oil into a wok 1 to 2 inches deep, and heat over medium-high heat. Cook the falafel balls, turning so all sides are evenly browned, about 5 minutes. Remove falafel from oil, and drain on paper towels. Repeat to cook remaining falafel balls.

Preparation :1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease an 8 inch square baking dish.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the semolina flour, baking powder, 1 cup sugar, coconut and butter. Add the yogurt and milk; mix until moistened but not runny or liquid. If you see that it is too dry, add more milk. Spread into a greased 8 inch square baking dish, smoothing the top as much as possible. Decorate the top with whole almonds.

3. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown. While the basboosa is baking, combine the water, 1 cup of sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, and cook for at least 5 minutes.

4. When the basboosa has finished baking, pour the syrup over it as evenly as possible. Place it back in the oven for about 5 minutes, or until the syrup has been fully absorbed. Let rest for about 20 minutes before cutting into pieces and serving.

• A man came home from work one day to find his wife on the front porch with her bags packed.‘Just where the heck do you think you’re going!’, said the man.‘I’m going to Las Vegas‘, said the wife, ‘I just found out I can get $400 a night for what I give you for free!‘The man said, ‘Wait a minute!’, and then ran inside the house only to come back a few minutes later with his suitcases in hand.‘Where the heck are you going?’, said the wife.The man said, ‘I want to see how you’re gonna live on $800 a year!’

• When do you know a lawyer is telling the truth? When his lips are shut.

• There was a lawyer and he was just waking up from anesthesia after sur-gery, and his wife was sitting by his side. His eyes fluttered open and he said, “You’re beautiful!” and then he fell asleep again. His wife had never heard him say that so she stayed by his side. A couple minutes later his eyes flut-tered open and he said “You’re cute!” Well, the wife was dissapointed because instead of “beautiful” it was “cute.” She said “What happened to ‘beautiful’? His reply was “The drugs are wearing off!”

The 2013 USA Belly Dance Queen™ Competition

Vegan-Friendly FalafelThis is an easy vegan falafel using dried garbanzo beans and ingredients you already have in your cupboard. No eggs or bread crumbs either as filler--just tasty falafel! Serve with tzatziki and typical falafel fare such as lettuce, tomato, and cucumber. It’s not much more work than using canned beans, but the taste is phe-nomenal and authentic.”

Basboosa II“This is a traditional Middle Eastern dessert made of semolina flour, yogurt, and coconut. To adjust the sweetness, you can half or double the amount of sugar in the lemon syrup.”

Dubai developer Emaar’sapartment sales jump in Q3

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Linguist and political activist Noam Chom-sky remains as vigorous as ever at the age of 84.His popularity - or notoriety as some would say - endures because he is still criticising politicians, business leaders and other power-ful figures for not acting in the public’s best interest. At the heart of Chomsky’s work is examining the ways elites use their power to control millions of people, and pushing the public to resist.In this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, Noam Chomsky sits down with Rosiland Jordan to talk about the two main tracks of his life: re-search and political activism.And it is his activism that keeps this US scholar engaged in the public discourse well into his ninth decade.

“The activism for me long antedates the pro-fessional work,” Chomsky says. “I grew up that way. So I was a political activist as a teenager in the 1940s before I ever heard of linguistics.”Discussing US politics, he attributes the growing popularity of the Tea Party move-ment, and the fanatical opposition to Presi-dent Barack Obama in some quarters, to what he calls “pathological paranoia”.“It’s something that exists in the country. It’s a very frightened country, always has been,” he says.At the same time, Chomsky sees Obama him-self as a man without a “moral centre”.“If you look at his policies I think that’s what they reveal. I mean there’s some nice rhetoric here and there but when you look at the actual

policies … the drone assassination campaign is a perfectly good example, I mean it’s just a global assassination campaign.”On Israel’s continued expansion of settle-ments in the West Bank, Chomsky says “there was no effort” by Obama to even try and curb it.“[Obama’s] telling Netanyahu and the other Israeli leaders: I’ll tap you on the wrist but go ahead and do what you like .... So in fact, Obama is actually the first president who hasn’t really imposed restrictions on Israel.”Chomsky also criticises neoliberal pro-grammes which, he says, have played a large part in the ongoing global financial crisis and are “pretty harmful” almost everywhere they have been implemented.“[In] the 1950s and the 1960s, which was the

biggest growth period in American history, financial institutions were regulated. The New Deal regulations were in place and there were no financial crisis, none .... Starting in the 1970s it changed pretty radically. There were decisions made - not laws of nature - to reconstruct the economy.”And decades later, these decisions have re-sulted in a situation which “really is a catas-trophe,” he says.But Chomsky also feels that “nothing’s ever gone too far. Anything can be reversed; these are human decisions.”He emphasises: “The more privilege you have, the more opportunity you have. The more opportunity you have, the more respon-sibility you have.”

Articles

Finding Hope in the Era of the Neo-Cru-sades. Is America’s warring in the Middle East politically or re-ligiously motivated? ANSWER: War is a political expedient, and the “Christian Right” is its enabler, not the reverse. War is the politician’s re-turn ticket to office, the only sure answer to full employment. In the 11th Century the landed gentry and their politicians looked to the Catholic Church for its en-ablement of the 11 Crusades ending with the shameful Children’s Crusade two centuries later. What has caused those who say they follow Christ to become the enablers of serial wars, and where is the hope? A young Southern Baptist fam-ily friend, a pro-life activist named Mike, distributed Edgar Whisenant’s epistle (88 Reason Why Jesus is Coming Back in 1988) in his and my large men’s church breakfast in the early months of 1988. Mike absolutely believed the book, and considered the rapture not only immi-nent, but was scheduled by God for Octo-ber 14 of that very year. Regretfully, this writer did nothing at the time to dissuade Mike, even though the book he gave me appeared to be full of holes.At first glance it might appear that 88 REASONS could only harm those who believed the stretched myths found in its pages. Mike was married and had a young family, yet he made a mission project of giving the books to all who would carry one out the door of the church, as I did. I am sure 88 Reasons made a difference in Mike’s life, and it could hardly have been positive, for he was truly convinced the world would end only months away.Mike gave up causes he believed were saving lives. He was an activist in the pro-life movement, and the volunteer leader of an important group. But as the spring came, he phased out of this com-mitment to spend more time with his young family in the months remaining

on earth. Mike believed in preserving life, but no one showed him or warned him he was playing into the hands of two political regimes that had little respect for human life. As you have guessed by now, “the Rap-ture” did not happen in 1988. But the first war on Iraq was already in the po-litical hopper, and the first blood of the Iraqi innocent would be poured out on us two years later. Edgar Whisenant’s book of trash prophesies contributed to the slaughter. Its pages are filled with hints and innuendos of racism and bigotry in the name of Christianity.88 Reasons to make war in the MideastMost of the 88 Reasons given for the im-minent rapture had to do with the State of Israel, directly or indirectly. In fact, Edgar tells us the dating of the “great event” was based on the 40th Anniver-sary of the creation of the new Zionist state of Israel in 1948. Edgar was most creative in inventing exactly 88 reasons, but almost all of them involved his belief in world Zionism incorporated as a part of his “Christianity.” Here are just a few of the 88 Reasons Whisenant suggested that God needed a Rapture to realize the destiny of the Zionist State:REASON #7 (in part) “this is the last generation, [M1]started on 14 May 1948, the day Israel became a nation. Israel is the time clock of God throughout history, Israel is the blooming fig tree, (Jer 24:4-8) and the last generation will end 40 wicked Gen-tile years later on 14 May 1988.”REA-SON # 66: “Israel is the key to this whole scenario. You read again to see how time begins and ends and moves with the na-tion of Israel. You have noticed how our news events seem to be constantly bring-ing our attention to the Middle East these last days. And that is just where God wants it”…Another reason men like Whisenant take themselves seriously is they had a cheer-ing section made up of the most radical element of anti-Arabs in the Mideast: Is-rael. Elmer quotes none other than Meir

Kahane, a man who was among the most violent killers in Israeli history. And Whisenant justifies Kahane: REASON #8 “Rabbi Meir Kahane, who wants to throw out all of the Arabs in Israel, is acutely aware of the 40-year grace pe-riod given by God, beginning in 1948.” Edgar Whisenant goes on quoting Rabbi Kahane page after page, supporting his militancy against Arabs with words of respect. To him Kahane was an oracle for God carrying out His will against the Philistine tribe. Meir Kahane was in fact an angry terrorist who deliberately incited documented brutality against the Palestinian people. Few Israelis openly advocated the Kahane program for de-portation or liquidation of 3.5 million Arab people. He was an embarrassment to the Jews in Israel, who claimed that they themselves were victims of a simi-lar liquidation a generation before. Ka-hane was founder of the Kach Party, which was committed to violence and repeated assassinations of Arab villag-ers, encouraging them to leave. Kahane’s public statements had much to do with agitating the Arabs toward the first Inti-fada in 1987. Whisenant used Kahane as a scripturally justified weather vane for war. Most of Whisenant’s “88 Reasons” were either tied to present happenings in Israel or based on Hebrew Old Testament prophesy. All 88 pointed unequivocally to war (“Armageddon”) being “God’s will.” Anyone who took the book seri-ously could not help but be conditioned to accept bloodshed in the Middle East. Most of my friends accepted the little book from Mike, who wanted no money for it. After all, what good would money be after October 14th? Most of us prob-ably did not take it seriously, and I would be surprised if many copies, save my own, survived these 18 years. I was later surprised to learn that the 88 Reasons had a national following, especially in the heartland. Edgar prospered, and is said to have sold a million copies at $2.00 each. But I was wrong about the little book do-ing no damage. Mike’s distribution of the

books and the distribution by thousands like him, damaged minds and bodies. He innocently helped convince some that the Arabs were dirt under the feet of the Is-raelis, and that anything that helped Israel was God’s will, no matter how mean and vile it might seem. American churchgo-ers are conditioned to the idea that war in the Mideast is inevitable and planned by God, and that nothing can be done to stop it. Nor should “Christians” try to prevent it. There is a cost. The blood is already pouring out on the hands of those who contrived the Neo-Crusade. Rivers of scarlet are trickling down all of our arms, staining each one of us. We, who call ourselves by Christ’s name and did noth-ing to stop it, are guilty of the shedding of innocent blood. Sad to say, we are in a conflict between the justice and human-ity Christ taught, and the pagan super-stition and bloodletting of a self-serving few who thrive on war. They have found their support in the Judaized, dispensa-tional institutions. Resistance to this is not an option to those who follow Christ. Where is the hope? There are “Mikes” in every church in America. You will find them leading, teaching, volunteering, passing the plate and paying tithes. They are doing their best, working, as they know God commands them to work, but not doubting the leadership’s acceptance of war. When they correctly place the blame on their churches for the blood that is on their hands, Judaized Christianity will be finished; it cannot survive in an envi-ronment of truth. Christ’s words tell us He is still waiting for men like Mike to follow Him out of the corrupted church. Project Strait Gate’s purpose is to find the “Mikes” with millions of letters like this one. Please pass it on.FULL TEXT OF June 27, 2005 STORY IS HERE: charlesecarlson.comCharles E. (Chuck) Carlson is a pro-peace activist who, with others, organized We Hold These Truths in 1996, and phased out his business interests soon thereafter.

Understanding Evangelical’s Prophesy of War and the “End Times” (extract) Charles E. Carlson

Noam Chomsky: The responsibility of privilege Agencies

I have demonstrated in an earlier article short cuts for hints on the multiplication facts of number between 6 and 9, as well as one only for the table of nine. Since these hints are literally at the tip of your fingers, children can check them anywhere, anytime.Thankfully, a number of books have been published on how to memorize addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. My favorite is a series called “Math It”, which includes “Add It”, “Timezit”, and so on. Some schools today even make basic fact memorization a fun exercise, so much so they call the teachers Math coach-es. Students shout out facts the way they would a cheer at a ball game. No wonder these schools are particularly successful at teaching math.Among all the math curricula in the world, one has been standing out for the past 15 years, and that is the Singaporean national curriculum for Math. One of the main rea-sons for its success is the simple fact that

mental math is taught very early, from Kin-dergarten and First Grade onwards. The same reason is also the reason why it is dif-ficult to implement in the US: Most lower elementary math teachers are not able to do mental math. But that’s not what I’m trying to focus on today. The mental math that the Singaporean curriculum promotes is based on the breaking down of 10 and 5, what they call “number bonds”. For example, 10 is 9 and 1, 8 and 2, 7 and 3, 6 and 4, and 5 and 5. This, in turn, is the basis for the an-cient Chinese mechanical calculator called the abacus.The abacus is a very simple little contrap-tion where one vertical row stands for a place value. The lower beads are single units, while the upper bead stands for 5 units. Up to 50 years ago, most shopkeep-ers in East Asia still used the abacus to tally customers’ total amount due. As recently as 20 years ago, abacus was still a part of the Math curriculum in East Asia. I believe that is the main reason why East Asians are known to be excellent in Math. They master the four basic operations of addition, sub-traction, multiplication and division early in childhood and never look back. Their minds are now free to tackle fractions, com-

plicated word problems, algebra, geometry and so on. By pushing beads to represent numbers, students can add, subtract, multi-ply and divide very large numbers, includ-ing decimals.The next step is to now give a “paper aba-cus” to the students, and ask them to push imaginary beads on the paper. Since only 4 lower beads and 1 upper bead maximum can be moved at any one time, visualizing and memorizing their position is a cinch. The “paper abacus” is then taken away, and students are trained to push totally imagi-nary beads in the air. The result is a “virtual calculator” imprinted on the child’s mind. I have watched the national finals of mental abacus competitions in Taiwan. It is quite a sight to behold. Thousands of adults in a hall watching three little five-year-olds on stage, standing in front of a table with a large poster-size board and a marker in the right hand. The announcer shouts out, “OK, Section 4. Ten numbers of 4 digits each, mixed addition and subtraction! Ready… Start! 7,428, plus, 4206, minus, 2,471, plus, 3092, minus, 5310, etc etc… answer?” And all this at the speed of a salesman at a fish market. The very minute he stops speaking, all three little cuties raise their marker pens

and write the answer in big digits across the poster board and raise them up immediately for the crowd to see. And, of course, they were correct. And I was still trying to figure what came after 7,428… Showmanship aside, mental abacus is ex-tremely beneficial to brain development. Students develop better concentration, lon-ger attention span, more fluent eye-hand coordination, more interaction between right and left brains, and stronger memory. Many parents were astonished to find that their children made progress in all subjects in school after taking up mental abacus! Of course, we offer mental abacus at Pax Academy, and I have seen firsthand the benefits of this skill on students. It is never too late to learn, and though I have long crossed the half-century threshold, I tried training along with my students this year. Amazingly, I actually felt rusty gears grinding away in my brain while students chugged along happily. Friends, if you want to avert the onset of Alzheim-er, keep your brain young and exercise it! Mental abacus is effective in that way, but it also makes you more sprite in calcula-tions as well!

Memorization in Math Dr.FawziaTung



6 National

NY Man Pushed to His Death Because Killer

Thought He was Muslim

Fed to tighten rules forforeign banks in U.S.

Senator blasts warrantless wiretapping: There’s going to

be extraordinary anger

US employment figures remain unchanged

Unemployment figures remain constant as government struggles

with fiscal cliff negotiations

a woman carrying a sword was arrested after entering a mosque on a school campus.CAIR-FL said the incident occurred this morning on the cam-pus of Leaders Prepara-tory School in Orange County, Fla. The campus includes a mosque, a day-care and a Muslim school. The woman, 47-year-old Dominique Eloi, was ar-rested and charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds, dis-rupting a school function and aggravated assault with a weapon.

The Florida chapter of the Coun-cil on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL) today called on the FBI to investigate a shooting attack in which the alleged perpetrator ob-jected to a man perceived as “Mid-dle Eastern” and Muslim being in the company of a “white” woman.CAIR-FL said the two people at-tacked in the incident were harassed with racial slurs, including shout-ing “n**ger with a white girl,” as they were leaving a local Walmart at 3 a.m. today. A police report in-

dicates that the shooting victim was asked if he is Middle East-ern and whether he is Muslim. He reportedly an-swered “no” to each question.The alleged at-tacker shot the man at least twice in the face with a pellet gun. Local law enforcement authorities are in-

vestigating the incident (Police Re-port 13-163) as a hate crime.

The United States Federal Re-serve plans to subject large foreign banks to the same rig-orous standards applied to U.S. banks. This includes subjecting them to stress tests.Draft rules were unveiled Fri-day and obtained by the media. The new rules, which if final-ized will come into effect on July 1, 2015, would apply to around 107 foreign banks, and another 26 or 27 foreign non-bank financial institutions.It says foreign banks with glob-al assets of more than $50 bil-lion that are active inside the United States will be subject to credit-exposure limits under the regulations, with more le-nient rules for smaller foreign banks.The regulatory regime that was tightened for U.S. banks in the wake of the financial crisis four

years ago would be effectively extended to foreign banks do-ing business in the United States.But what does it mean for Gulf stocks. The Gulfnews says this year the aggregate index, S&P GCC, has hardly gone along with the generalized lift in in-ternational equity prices, most-ly due to concerns over the re-gions stability.Kamco’s latest monthly review shows political issues restrained Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bah-rain bourses, while Oman lacked local catalysts. Qatar has revealed the gap between economic, financial and equity market conditions, with UAE markets clearly outperformed.The apparent separation of Gulf markets is beneficial, but there’s still time to see how de-tached Gulf stocks will remain.

President Barack Obama this week renewed the Foreign In-telligence Surveillance Act, de-spite his own misgivings about the law’s broad reach. The law allows the government to use warrantless wiretapping to monitor overseas phone calls and emails, and keeps the inter-pretations of the how the law can be applied secret from the public.Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) spoke to HuffPost Live’s

Mike Sacks on Thursday about his opposition to the applica-tion of the law.“When the public finds out that these secret interpretations are so dramatically different than what the public law says, I think there’s going to be ex-traordinary anger in the coun-try,” Wyden said. “Because it’s one thing to have debates about laws... but we assume that the law itself is public.”

The unemployment rate in the US has held at 7.8 percent in De-cember and remained unchanged for a constant four months.US Labor Department figures released on Friday showed that tepid economic growth meant that jobs created during the month stood at a modest 155,000.Employment figures have regis-tered little improvement in the final quarter of 2012 as compa-nies awaited the governement’s decision to avert the economic crunch of the fiscal cliff.The economy appears to have generated just enough new posi-tions to have shown a slight pull down on the jobless rate.Recovery of unemployment

rates showed a slight improve-ment on November and pulled a monthly average for both 2011 and 2012 at 153,000.Sticking with set patterns the private sector was the source of employment gains, add-ing 168,000 jobs in December, while government authorities at the federal and local levels continued to trim payrolls, by 13,000.At that pace, the unemployment rate has crept lower from 9.1 per cent in January 2011 to 8.3 per-cent in January 2012 and now the 7.8 percent level where it has hovered since September.The total number of the of-ficially unemployed was little changed over the last quarter at 12.2 million.

A New York woman was ar-rested for allegedly pushing a man to his death on the tracks of a subway station because she thought he was Muslim.the alleged killer, who has been charged with second-degree

murder as a hate crime, told police the attack was “an act against Muslims” and cited the 9/11 terror attacks as a motive for her actions. Her alleged vic-tim was reportedly Hindu, not Muslim.

Sara Ege was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years, said the report. The 33-year-old mother col-lapsed during her sentenc-ing at Cardiff Crown Court.The judge agreed with Ege’s lawyer that “in many respects she was a very good mother,” but noted that she had suffered from depression for various rea-sons.“The violence that you per-petrated on your son was not confined to one day,” the judge told Ege.“I am satisfied that over three months you beat him

on a number of occasions, often with a wooden pes-tle. His injuries must have caused him a good deal of pain. In my judgment Yas-een was subjected to pro-longed cruelty,” stated the judge. The evidence proved that on the day Yaseen died he was attacked and suffered “serious abdominal inju-ries,” continued Judge Wil-liams.He questioned the mother: “What was your motive for acting as you did? I am satisfied that on the day of his death Yaseen was kept home from school so that

he could dedicate himself to his [Quran] studies. On that day Yaseen must have failed in some way because

I am satisfied that it was that failure which was the trigger for the beating.”

Public satisfaction in US remains depressed

Mother kills son for failing to memorize Quran

An average of 26% of Ameri-cans said they were satisfied with the way things were going in the United States in 2012, an improvement from 17% in 2011. Still, satisfaction remains depressed compared with the historical average of 38%.The 2011 average of 17% sat-isfaction was one of the lowest in Gallup records dating back to 1979, with only a 15% average from 2008 lower. The highest yearly averages were 60% in 1998 and 2000. Satisfaction has

averaged below 30% each year since 2007.Gallup asks Americans about satisfaction monthly and re-ported 14 separate measure-ments in 2012, ranging from a low of 18% in January to a high of 33% in November.Satisfaction had generally shown improvement, particu-larly in the fall months when it was at or exceeded 30% from September through mid-No-vember, before falling back to 23% in December. Gallup

Three U.S. senators, in-cluding the chair of the Senate Intelligence Com-mittee, have stepped up their pressure on the CIA over its response to “Zero Dark Thirty,” a new film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.In a letter sent to the CIA and released on Thursday, Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Intelligence Com-mittee, Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and Senator John McCain asked the agency for evidence that “enhanced interrogation techniques” produced in-formation that helped U.S. authorities locate and kill the al Qaeda leader in May 2011.The letter is the latest broadside in a renewed po-litical fight over enhanced interrogation techniques, which some equate with torture, touched off by the nationwide premiere of “Zero Dark Thirty” on Jan. 11.The movie depicts a de-tainee being subjected to harsh interrogation tech-niques, which President George W. Bush’s admin-istration later abandoned, and suggests they played a

role in finding bin Laden, who was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.Last month, in response to an earlier letter from the senators, acting CIA director Michael Morell said in a statement that some of the information that led agency analysts to conclude that bin Lad-en was hiding in Abbot-tabad, Pakistan, “came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques but there were many other sources as well.”In their latest letter, sent on Monday, the lawmak-ers said that an Intelli-gence Committee review of the CIA’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation and deten-tion program determined that an agency detainee who provided the most ac-curate information about a courier who led the CIA to bin Laden “provided the information prior to be-ing subjected to coercive interrogation techniques.”A lengthy report on the investigation, which the committee approved last month in a mostly party-line vote, remains highly classified.

Feinstein, Levin and Mc-Cain requested the CIA produce evidence to back up Morell’s assertion that useful information related to the hunt for bin Laden came from detainees sub-jected to harsh techniques, and whether it was ob-tained before, during or after enhanced interroga-tions.The senators’ release of the letter came a day af-ter Reuters reported that Feinstein’s committee was reviewing CIA re-cords about the agency’s interactions with “Zero Dark Thirty” filmmak-ers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal to see if the spy

agency gave them “inap-propriate” access to secret material.The committee also will investigate whether CIA personnel are responsible for the film’s portrayal of harsh interrogation prac-tices and the implication that they were effective, a person familiar with the matter said.Asked for comment on the senators’ latest request, CIA spokesman John Tomczyk said: “As we’ve said before, we take very seriously our responsibil-ity to keep our oversight committees informed and value our relationship with Congress.”

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Woman with Sword Arrested at Mosque, Muslim School

CAIR Asks FBI to Probe Shooting of‘Middle Eastern’ Man in Fla.

Congressional critics of bin Laden film step up pressure on CIA



7National

Al Jazeera Media Network has announced that it has acquired US cable channel Current TV.The Qatar-based network said on Thursday that with the ac-quisition it plans to create Al Jazeera America, a US-based news channel. Al Jazeera’s coverage will soon be avail-able in more than 40 million US households, up from 4.7 million prior to the deal.Terms were undisclosed, but analysts told the Reuters news agency the deal could be worth an estimated $500m. The new channel will be headquartered in New York City.In addition to the existing Al Jazeera news bureaus in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago, Al Jazeera will open addi-tional bureaus in key locations across the United States. It will also double its US-based staff to more than 300 employees.The deal brings Al Jazeera into closer competition with Amer-ican news channels like CNN, MSNBC and Fox. The award-

winning channel is seen in more than 260 million homes in 130 countries, but has had limited access to US markets.“For many years, we under-stood that we could make a positive contribution to the news and information avail-able in and about the United States and what we are an-nouncing today will help us achieve that goal,” Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani, director general of Al Jazeera, said in a statement.“By acquiring Current TV, Al Jazeera will significantly ex-pand our existing distribution footprint in the US, as well as increase our newsgathering and reporting efforts in Amer-ica.”Common goalsAl Jazeera said its new US-based news channel would be separate from Al Jazeera Eng-lish, and would provide both domestic and international news for American audiences.The new channel is scheduled to begin broadcasting in 2013.

Current Television was set up seven years ago by former US vice president Al Gore. Although Current TV has been struggling for ratings, it nonetheless reaches 60 million American households, accord-ing to its own figures.Gore and his partnaer Joel Hy-att also announced the sale in a statement.“Current Media was built

based on a few key goals: To give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide in-dependent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling,” Gore and Hyatt said.“Al Jazeera has the same goals and, like Current, be-lieves that facts and truth lead to a better understanding of the world around us.”

Al Jazeera buys US channel Current TVQatar-based network to launch Al Jazeera America, reaching 40 million US homes, up from 4.7 million

before the deal

Extradited al-Qaeda suspect “ Abid Naseer

“faces US court

US credit agency sues JP Morgan again

Agency lawsuit alleges bank misportrayed $2.2b in risky mortgage securities, leading

to collapse of three credit unions

House kills Violence Against Women Act

Abid Naseer, 26, was extradited on Thursday from Britain to Brooklyn, New York. He is fac-ing up to life in prison on charges including providing material sup-port to al-Qaeda and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in connection with an alleged plot to bomb a city centre in Manches-ter, England.The charges against Naseer are also connected to an alleged al-Qaeda plot in 2009 to bomb the subway system in New York City, US prosecutors said.Two men, Nahibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, have pleaded guilty to planning the attacks and a third man, Adis Medunjanin, was sentenced to life in prison after his conviction last year for taking part in the plot.During a brief court appearance in Brooklyn federal court on Fri-day, Naseer pleaded not guilty to the charges through his court-ap-pointed lawyer.The judge ordered Naseer to be held in detention without bail. His next court appearance is sched-uled for March 7.Naseer is one of a dozen men, mostly students from Pakistan, who were arrested in Brtiain in 2009 on suspicion of plotting to bomb a city centre in Manchester.Multi-national conspiracyBritish authorities conducted day-light raids on the suspects’ homes after Britain’s most senior coun-ter-terrorism official was photo-

graphed openly carrying details about the operation.British authorities said they found large quantities of flour and oil in the suspects homes, as well as highlighted surveillance photo-graphs of public areas in Man-chester and a map of the city cen-tre.Naseer and the other suspects were never charged, but British and US authorities said Naseer was part of a broader al-Qaeda cell bent on staging attacks in the US and Scandanavia.Naseer was indicted in Brooklyn federal court in 2010, along with Medunjanin and other individu-als alleged to be linked through a multi-national al-Qaeda con-spiracy.US prosecutors said Naseer and Zazi co-ordinated their plans through emails to the same Pak-istan-based al-Qaeda facilitator, “Ahmad”, using similar code words to discuss explosives and the timing of their respective plots.Naseer was re-arrested by Brit-ish authorities in 2010 after a US warrant was issued.He fought extradition, saying he feared he could be sent from the US to Pakistan and subjected there to torture.Naseer’s appeal was rejected last month by the European Court of Human Rights, paving the way for him to stand trial in the US.

US federal regulators have launched a lawsuit against finan-cial firm JP Morgan Chase & Co over the sale of risky mortgage securities that contributed to the collapse of three credit unions.The National Credit Union Ad-ministration’s (NCUA) lawsuit, filed on Friday, alleges that the country’s largest bank misled US Central, Western Corporate and Southwest Corporate federal credit unions into buying $2.2b in risky mortgage securities that caused major financial losses.The three unions became insol-vent due to the losses and were placed in NCUA conservator-ship, the agency said.“The damage caused by the ac-tions of firms like Washington Mutual has been extremely ex-pensive to contain and repair,” NCUA board chairman Debbie Matz said in a statement an-nouncing the lawsuit.She added that “it’s only right that the people who caused the damage be required to pick up that burden, as well.”The lawsuit adds to a growing list of cases JPMorgan is fighting over conduct tied to the financial crisis, including the conduct of

entities it acquired at the height of the crisis.The NCUA says in the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Kansas, that Washington Mu-tual, acquired by JP Morgan in 2007, misportrayed how risky the securities were and omitted key facts in sales documents.It was the NCUA’s third lawsuit against JP Morgan over losses from mortgage securitiesIn December, it sued the bank over $3.5b in securities sold by Bear Stearns, which JP Morgan acquired during the financial cri-sis. In June 2011, the NCUA sued over $1.4b in securities, in which JP Morgan was the underwriter and seller.Both suits are still pending. In the past two years the agen-cy has brought similar actions against Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, RBS Securities, UBS Securities, Wa-chovia and others.Most of the cases are pending, but it has settled claims against Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Se-curities and HSBC for around $170m.

The current term of Congress ended on Wednesday without re-authorizing the Violence Against Women Act, a nearly two-decade-old measure to aid victims of domestic and sexual violence.Though the Senate approved the VAWA last year with bi-partisan support, Republicans in the U.S. House had opposed the legislation because it add-ed new protections for illegal immigrants, LGBT individu-als, and Native Americans.“The House Republican lead-ership’s failure to take up and pass the Senate’s bipartisan and inclusive VAWA bill is inexcusable,” Sen. Patty Mur-ray said in a statement to The Maddow Blog. “This is a bill that passed with 68 votes in the Senate and that extends the bill’s protections to 30 million

more women. But this seems to be how House Republican leadership operates. No matter how broad the bipartisan sup-port, no matter who gets hurt in the process, the politics of the right wing of their party always comes first.”Rather than vote on the Sen-ate version of the VAWA, House Republicans passed their own watered-down ver-sion of the bill that omitted the new provisions. The White House warned it would veto the House bill, which was opposed by groups like the National Network to End Do-mestic Violence, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Alli-ance to End Sexual Violence, the American Bar Association, and others because it ignored vulnerable populations.

A student was shot and wound-ed at a rural high school Thurs-day and another student was taken into custody, officials said.The shooting occurred about 9 a.m. at Taft Union High School, in community of fewer than 10,000 people amidst oil and natural gas production fields in San Joaquin Valley, about 193 km northwest of Los Angeles.The student who was shot was flown to a hospital in Bakers-field, said Ray Pruitt, spokes-man for the Kern County Sher-iff’s Department. There was no immediate word on the victim’s condition.Pruitt said the suspect is a stu-dent, and a shotgun was used in the attack.Kern County Fire Department Eric Coughran told KBAK-TV that another person suffered some type of injuries in the in-cident but refused medical at-tention.KERO-TV Bakersfield re-ported that the station received phone calls from people inside the school who hid in closets.It was not immediately clear how many students are enrolled at the high school.Biden task force Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday his task force ex-ploring ways to reduce US gun

violence plans to submit recom-mendations to President Barack Obama by next Tuesday, likely including background checks for all gun buyers.

Biden planned talks later in the day with a representative of the powerful US gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, as well as major retailers includ-ing Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the largest US gun seller.The task force, which also in-cludes US Attorney General Eric Holder, is trying to reach a consensus on a set of propos-als quickly while there is still a mood for action in Congress following the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a school in Newtown, Con-necticut last month.“There’s an emerging set of recommendations not coming from me, but coming from the groups we’ve met with,” Biden

said.Only a “tight window” exists for action, said Biden, who said he would submit his rec-ommendations to Obama by

Tuesday.After that, Obama will review them, decide which ones he wants to keep and then an-nounce a package of actions and proposals, the White House said.The Biden group is grappling with elements that go beyond gun control measures, looking into aspects of American popu-lar culture. Talks were expected later with representatives of the movie industry, whose films routinely feature gun violence.Background checksBiden, at a meeting of hunting and outdoor sports groups, told reporters two of his task force’s recommendations were likely

to be universal background checks for gun purchasers and a ban on high-capacity ammu-nition clips.The task force is also expected to propose a ban on assault weapons like the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle used by the gun-man in the Newtown elemen-tary school shooting.Biden said the universal back-ground check requirement would extend to all gun pur-chasers. This would close the so-called “gun show loophole” in which vendors at open-air gun sales events can sell with-out a background check on the purchaser, as well as private sales such as those conducted over the Internet.While a pool of the news me-dia was allowed in for part of Biden’s meeting with hunting groups such as Ducks Unlim-ited and Pheasants Forever, there was no such news cover-age planned for the Biden talks with the NRA, perhaps the most sensitive meeting of the series he is conducting.The NRA proposed after the Newtown massacre that armed security officers be stationed at schools.Asked what he would be telling the NRA, Biden offered no spe-cifics, saying he would raise the same issues he brought up with the hunting groups.

The group that equated Muslim radi-cals with savages in advertisements last year has put up another set of provocative ads featuring quotes from the Quran in dozens of New York City subway stations.The American Freedom Defense Ini-tiative purchased space next to 228 clocks in 39 stations for ads with an image of the burning World Trade Center and a quote attributed to the Quran saying: “Soon shall we cast ter-ror into the hearts of the unbelievers.”The Metropolitan Transportation Au-thority (MTA) said the ads went up Monday and will run for a month.The same group paid for ads to be displayed in 10 stations in September. Those ads implied enemies of Israel are “savages.”In October, a group of Jewish organi-zations in the United States joined a coalition of religious groups critical of an anti-Islam ad in the Washington DC metro system and urged that the profits made from the ad be donated to a charity. Countering the placement “of of-fensive, anti-Muslim ads in the D.C.

Metro system is an important oppor-tunity to affirm our commitment both to free speech and to a society that deplores hate and hate speech,” said Rabbi Batya Steinlauf, according to Global News Service of the Jewish People website.Rabbi Steinlauf is the Jewish Com-munity Relations Council of Greater Washington’s director of social justice and interfaith initiatives, and president of the Interfaith Conference of Metro-politan Washington.

“We are all part of one community,” she told the website. A similar ad in the New York subway system was sprayed-over in Septem-ber by Egyptian-American activist Mona Eltahway, who was briefly de-tained and argued that her move was an act of freedom of expression just as the ad was.The MTA also sold space last year to competing advertisements that urged tolerance.

Student wounded in California school shootingShooting comes as US Vice President Joe Biden meets with National

Rifle Association about tackling gun violence

New anti-Muslim ‘Quran quote’ ads go upin NYC subways

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8 International & Business

An Egyptian court Saturday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Muslim Brotherhood lawyer against a comedian, nicknamed Egypt’s Jon Stew-art, to shut down his show and CBC television channel that is broadcasting it.The comedian, Bassem Yousef, was accused of insult-ing Islamist President Moham-med Mursi in one of his shows.According to a Muslim Broth-erhood lawyer, Yousef has a number of times mocked Mur-si and made sexual innuendos that were deemed offensive to the audience and the Egyptian president.The lawsuit against the come-dian also accused him of for putting the Islamist leader’s image on a pillow and parody-ing his speeches.Youssef, a U.S.-trained heart surgeon, took advantage of the media freedom in Egypt fol-lowing the fall of former Presi-dent Hosni Mubarak’s regime to ridicule events on YouTube. His show gained fame after it was picked up by private tele-

vision networks in Egypt. He now presents his show “El-bernameg” (Arabic for “The Program”) on the privately-owned “CBC” Egyptian satel-lite channel.In one sketch of the episode, Youssef also lampooned the TV channel, saying it aligned to remnants of the Mubarak regime. But when a cash machine graphic pops up on the screen next Youssef, an intentional tongue-in-cheek reminder to the host that the channel is paying his wage, he changes course and praises CBC for “inciting the revolution,” jok-ing that the channel is revolu-tionary after all.“If Dr. Yousef wants to satiri-cally mock other people’s ac-tions and words, then he must know this is a channel with aims towards democracy, which is why no one should take things personally,” Adeeb said on his talk show which followed Youssef’s.“But there is a red line, for those who understand the real

difference between political satire and what can be legally be seen as an insult and defa-mation,” Adeeb added.“Egyptians have a long history as the region’s funny men. In many other Arab countries, Egyptians are known as “ibn nukta”, or “the son of jokes”. The sheer number of jokes from Egypt reveals the impor-tance of humor in daily life,” wrote journalist Megan Detrie earlier this month, in an article about surging “political com-edy” in the country. But has Youssef taken it too

far?Youssef began his show on Friday by announcing: “I for-got to tell you that this show is for adults only…the program might include content not suit-able for all ages.”“[To] those who feel shy, get up now so you won’t be em-barrassed by us,” he added.On Friday’s episode, Youssef recalled Egypt’s faltering eco-nomic situation, criticizing President Mursi’s latest speech in which he said the country is not going to become bankrupt.

Aleppo, Syria - On the sur-face, life appears normal in opposition-held districts in Aleppo, Syria’s war-torn commercial capital. Bus-tling crowds pack markets, and traffic congests its main streets. But the scene of ordinary life is dangerously decep-tive, as at any given mo-ment a Syrian fighter jet or artillery shell could strike the urban centre and incin-erate the precarious normal-ity.Few Syrians, however, complain about shelling and air strikes here these days. Their main concern is providing their families with food.“We can’t find bread and when we do, we can’t af-ford to pay for it. The price has increased at least three-fold,” resident Mohammed Ali told Al Jazeera. He blamed the rebels for his misery. “They promised

that they would make sure that basic commodities are available. They aren’t able to do that. They don’t even subsidise the prices,” he said. “The rebels should get rid of the corruption in the city before they fight battles elsewhere.”

Many residents of the city feel the same way, with lit-tle criticism against the Syr-ian government now over-heard in conversations on the streets. Indeed, public anger now is firmly directed towards the rebel forces.

Once a thriving financial centre, Aleppo is that no longer. Rebels stormed the city in mid-July and were able to set up bases in the poorer, mainly Sunni neigh-bourhoods. Syria’s oppo-sition is mainly made up of Sunnis, but Aleppo’s multi-ethnic and multi-class make-up hasn’t always worked to the benefit rebel fighters. Aleppo stalemateThe city is now carved up into government- and oppo-sition-controlled districts, with battle lines in some quarters drawn only metres apart. For weeks there has been a stalemate with both sides unable to make any major territorial advances.The deadlock has led many Aleppo residents to com-plain about how their lives have deteriorated, with some questioning whether the war is worth its conse-quences.

Thousands of Sunni Iraqis have taken to the streets of Baghdad and other parts of the country to decry the alleged targeting of their minority, in rallies harden-ing opposition to the country’s Shia leader.Counter-demonstrations were held on Friday in predominantly Shia areas of southern Iraq call-ing for authorities to resist de-mands to reform anti-terror laws or consider a wide-ranging pris-oner release, both key demands in majority-Sunni areas.The protests have worsened a po-litical crisis, pitting Prime Minis-ter Nuri al-Maliki against his erst-while government partners, with the premier facing accusations of authoritarianism and sectarianism ahead of key provincial polls.Anti-government protests were held in Baghdad’s mostly-Sun-ni districts of Adhamiyah and Ghazaliyah, as well as the cities of Ramadi, Samarra, Mosul and

Tikrit, AFP news agency journal-ists said.Several smaller towns north of Baghdad also held rallies.In Ghazaliyah, hundreds of pro-testers rallied after Friday prayers at the Umm al-Qura mosque, holding up banners calling for the repeal of anti-terror laws, the release of women prisoners, and improved human rights in jails.“These sounds do not represent only one community,” Ahmed Abdulghafur al-Samarraie, head of the foundation that manages Sunni mosques across Iraq, said in a speech at the rally, referring to the shouts of protesters.“No, these are the sounds of Iraq-is from all over Iraq, all shouting ‘No to suffering, no to the ab-sence of services, no to injustice, no to foreign agendas, no to con-flict, no to the return of the Baath, Qaeda or militias, no to torturing until death.”

Rights groups have criticised Saudi Arabia over the beheading of a young Sri Lankan domestic worker accused of killing an in-fant left in her care in 2005.The Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement run by the official SPA news agency that Rizana Nafeek was executed in the town of Dawadmy, near the capital Riyadh, on Wednesday morning.Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry said Nafeek was sentenced to death in 2007 after her Saudi employer accused her of killing his infant daughter while she was bottle-feeding.“President Mahinda Rajapaksa made a personal appeal on two occasions immediately after the confirmation of the death sen-tence, and a few days ago to stop the execution and grant a pardon to Miss Rizana Nafeek,” the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said in a statement.London-based Rights organisa-tion Amnesty International said the passport Nafeek used to enter Saudi Arabia in May 2005 stated she was born in February 1982, but her birth certificate states she was born six year later, which would have made her 17 at the time of the infant’s death.Condemning the execution, Ni-

sha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, said: “Saudi Arabia is one of just three countries that executes people for crimes they committed as children.“In executing Rizana Nafeek, Saudi authorities demonstrated callous disregard for basic hu-manity as well as Saudi Arabia’s international legal obligations.”Saudi Arabia follows the strict Wahhabi school of Islam and applies Islamic law. Judges base decisions on their own interpre-tation of the law rather than on a written legal code or on prec-edent.Saudi households are highly de-pendent on domestic workers from African and South Asian countries.In a statement before the execu-tion, Amnesty International said that it appeared Nafeek had no access to lawyers either during her pre-trial interrogation or at her trial in 2007.“It appears that she was herself a child at the time and there are real concerns about the fair-ness of her trial,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Mid-dle East and North Africa pro-gramme director, said the day before the execution.

Supreme Court judges in India have summoned the health sec-retaries in seven states over a worrying fall in the number of young girls in India.They are demanding details about clinics flouting the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Di-agnostic Techniques Act – to determine the sex of unborn babies – with potentially fatal consequences.The judges are blaming what they call rampant foeticide and infanticide, and they say the mindset of parents and society need to change.The UN children’s charity UNI-CEF says the culture of favour-ing males in India is costing the lives of millions of young girls.The agency says more than 2,000 illegal abortions are be-ing carried out every single day, and it is dramatically altering the balance of the population.It warns: “Decades of sex de-termination tests and female foeticide that has acquired pro-portions are finally catching up with states in India. This is only the tip if the demographic and social problems confronting In-dia in the coming years.”Speaking in April 2011, Man-mohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, called for a crusade against the widespread practice of foeticide and infanticide.“The falling child sex ratio is an indictment of our social val-ues. Our girls and women have

done us proud in classrooms, in boardrooms and on the sports field. It is a national shame for us that despite this, female foe-ticide and infanticide contin-ues.”The 1991 Indian census showed there were 945 girls for every 1,000 boys, aged up to six. Ten years later, it dipped even fur-ther to just 914 girls for every 1,000 boys.But that is just the average. The figures are far worse in some states.The 2011 census found there were 830 girls for every 1,000 boys in the northern state of Haryana. It was 846 in neigh-bouring Punjab state. And in the national capital territory of Delhi the figure was 866.In 1994 the government passed a new law making it illegal to use ultrasound scans to deter-mine the sex of the baby – a crime carrying a jail term of up to three years.So what needs to be done to change the centuries-old mind-set of favouring boys?Joining the Inside Story dis-cussion with presenter Shiulie Ghosh are guests: Mitu Khura-na, a pediatrician and a women’s rights activist; Suhas Chakma, the director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights; Sadanand Dhume, a journalist/writer and a resident fellow of the Ameri-can Enterprise Institute.

Anti-governmentprotests sweep Iraq

Anger at Saudi beheading of Sri Lankan maid

The ‘genocide’ of India’s daughters

We ask if the patriarchal mindset that runs across castes and class can be changed to

prevent foeticide and infanticide

Court rejects Islamist lawsuit to shut down show ‘insulting’ Mursi

Stalemate stokes anger at rebels in AleppoMany Syrian residents are fed up with rebel fighters as the conflict drags on in the once-thriving commercial centre

Israel orders Palestinians out of ‘tent city’Activists defy Civil Administration’s request to leave contested West Bank “outpost” on land

designated for settlementsThe Israeli Civil Administration has given Palestinian activists an ultimatum to quit a protest camp in part of the occupied West Bank where Israel has vowed to build new settler homes.As Palestinian politicians and others vis-ited the site on Saturday in a show of sup-port, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Ne-tanyahu issued a statement affirming his military’s order and asking that the “High Court of Justice rescind the injunction that it had issued and which is delaying the evacuation”.The statement also declared the “closure of access roads to the area in order to pre-vent gatherings”.More than 200 activists erected the 20-tent “outpost” on Friday in the sensitive West Bank corridor east of Jerusalem where Palestinians say Israeli settle-ment construction would make the creation of a viable Palestinian state highly problematic.The protesters modelled their action on the wildcat outposts set up by Is-raeli settler activists on Palestinian land in a bid to force the govern-ment’s hand into authorising settlement activity.“Members of the Israeli Civil Adminis-tration told us this morning that we have one hour to evacuate the site,” one of the organisers, Abir Kopty, told the AFP news agency.“We have no intention of leaving of our own accord,” she said, adding that the Israeli authorities had declared the area a “closed military zone” and demanded that the activists leave, but had made no de-

mand for the tents to be taken down.‘Highly creative’ actionThe Israeli military administration had is-sued previous expulsion orders

against the activists but late on Friday they successfully petitioned the Israeli supreme court for the orders to be frozen.Late on Saturday morning, Israeli security forces were deployed near the camp and a police helicopter hovered overhead.“The supreme court gave them six days as of yesterday,” said Al Jazeera’s Jane Fer-guson, reporting from the outpost.

“However, people say they’re going to stay until the military forcibly moves them out,” our correspondent said. “That could happen in the next few hours or over the next few days.”More than 50 more activists managed to reach the camp from the West Bank city

of Ramallah to join the activists and others were trying to do so from the city of Hebron, organisers said on

Twitter.Palestinian politicians, including

member of parliament Mustafa Barg-houti, also made solidarity visits to

the protest camp, where activists were recovering from a freezing night under

canvas amid the cold snap gripping the Middle East.PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said soldiers prevented him from joining the protest on Saturday and told him to turn back to Ra-mallah, just down the hill from the camp.The protest outpost, dubbed Bab al-Shams (Gate of the Sun in Arabic), was welcomed on Friday by a senior Palestin-ian official who described it as a “highly creative and legitimate non-violent” way of protecting Palestinian land from Israeli settlement activity.The camp lies between annexed East Jeru-salem and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim.The international community regards all Israeli settlements on occupied Palestin-ian land as illegal.The Israeli government makes a distinc-tion between those which it has authorised and those it has not, and sometimes takes action against the latter.

al-mashreq feb. 2013

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