english issue 35

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who confessed to a string of New Year’s Day arson attacks at an Islamic cultural center and four other sites where he had personal grievances was arrested on a hate crime charge, police said. Ray Lazier Lengend, a 40-year-old of Guyanese descent, hurled crude firebombs at the Islamic center in part because he wasn’t allowed to use its bathrooms, a law enforcement official said. Lengend was tracked through a stolen car with Virginia license plates believed to be at the scene of at least two of the attacks Sunday evening on a convenience store, three homes and the cultural center, police said. He was arrested Tues-day on charges including one count of arson as a hate crime, four counts of arson and five counts of criminal possession of a weapon, they said. Lengend, who lives in Queens, was taken to a hospital for a psychiatric examination Tuesday night. He re-mained in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment. A man who answered a telephone call at Len-gend’s home said he would not give out any information over the phone and hung up. There was no informa-tion on whether Lengend had a law-yer…continue on page7

16 Pages English Section

Somalis scramble for way to send relatives

money MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — So-malis caught off guard when more than a dozen Minnesota businesses stopped accepting wire transfers said Friday they were scrambling to find a way to get money to relatives in East Africa and options mentioned by the U.S. Treasury weren’t re-alistic. Somalis in the U.S. use the businesses, known as hawa-las, to send money to relatives in the famine-stricken nation and nearby refugee camps because Somalia hasn’t had a functioning government since 1991 and has no banking system. But 15 Min-nesota hawalas stopped accepting wire transfers Thursday because the bank that handles the major-ity of the transactions planned to close their accounts Friday. Min-nesota-based Sunrise Community Banks has said it fears uninten-tionally violating complex regu-lations designed to combat terror financing. Abdirahim Hersi, 27, of Minneapolis, was among the Somalis who thought they could still send money Friday. He went to a money service business with the money in hand and was sur-prised to find the transfers had already stopped. “I don’t know what to do,” said Hersi, 27, who sends $500 every month to his mother, daughter and siblings in the Dadaab refugee camp in Ke-nya, near the Somali border. He usually sends the money at the

start of each month, so his De-cember transfer is running out. “I’m confused. I talked to my mother and she’s also confused. ... I’m really sad.” He and hundreds of other Somalis gathered to pro-test in a park, many holding signs with pictures of hungry children and messages such as “I am starv-ing — banks blocked transmitting money to me” and “Banks block me from feeding my family.” The U.S. Treasury said there are other legitimate and transparent ways for Somalis to send money home. They include setting up accounts with other U.S. banks or sending money through other money transmitters or U.S.-based banks to clearinghouses or hubs in Dubai, which arrange for pay-outs in Somalia. Another option, it said, is that Somalis could de-clare the money and legally ship cash or money orders to those same hubs for payout in Somalia. Minnesota has one of the largest Somali populations in the U.S., and residents there said those op-tions weren’t practical. Abdulaziz Sugule, former chairman of the Somali Money Services Business and now a consultant on the issue, said sending cash would be even more risky than wire transfers, as it would be tough to document and might not reach its intended destination. People handling the cash risked being robbed or killed, he said.

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A US Border Patrol Agent catches an illegal alien in the bushes right by the border fence, he pulls him out and says “Sorry, you know the law, you’ve got to go back across the border right now.” The mexican man pleads with them, “No, noooo Senior, I must stay in de USA! Pleeeze!” The Border Patrol Agent thinks to himself, I’m going to make it hard for him and says “Ok, I’ll let you stay if you can use 3 english words in a sentence”. The Mexican man of course agrees. The Border Patrol Agent tells him, “The 3 words are: Green, Pink and Yellow. Now use them in 1 sentence.” The Mexican man thinks really hard for about 2 minutes, then says, “Hmmm, Ok. The phone, it went Green, Green, Green, I Pink it up and sez Yellow?”

An Englishman, Frenchman, Mexican, and Texan were flying across country on a small plane when the pilot comes on the loud speaker and says “ We’re having mechanical problems and the only way we can make it to the next airport is for 3 of you to open the door and jump, at least one of you can survive” The four open the door and look out below. The Englishman takes a deep breath and hollers “God Save The Queen” and jumps.

The Frenchman gets really inspired and hollers “Viva La France” and he also jumps This really pumps up the Texan so he hollers “Remember the Alamo” and he grabs the Mexican and throws him out of the plane.

BLONDE: “Excuse me, what time is it right now?” WOMAN: “It’s 11:25PM.” BLONDE: (confused look on face) “You know, it’s the weirdest thing, I’ve asked that question thirty times today, and every time someone gives me a different answer.”

Sid and Al were sitting in a Chinese restaurant. “Sid,” asked Al, “are there any Jews in China?” “I don’t know,” Sid replied. “Why don’t we ask the waiter?” When the waiter came by, Al asked him, “Are there any Chinese Jews?” “I don’t know sir, let me ask,” the waiter replied, and he went into the kitchen. He returned in a few minutes and said, “No, sir. No, Chinese Jews.” “Are you sure?” Al asked. “I will check again, sir,” the waiter replied and went back to the kitchen. While he was still gone, Sid said, “I cannot believe there are no Jews in China. Our people are scattered everywhere.” When the waiter returned he said, “Sir, no Chinese Jews.” “Are you really sure?” Al asked again. “I cannot believe there are no Chinese Jews.” “Sir, I ask everyone,” the waiter replied exasperated. “We have Orange Jews, Prune Jews, Tomato Jews and Grape Jews, but we have no Chinese Jews.”

3Entertainment & Sports

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As she developed her story about lovers on opposite sides in the Bos-nian War, Angelina Jolie drew on everything she had learned traveling to combat zones. But she started at home, imagining herself and partner Brad Pitt at such extremes. “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” Jolie’s writing-directing de-but, hurls two lovers — a Bosnian Muslim woman and a Bosnian-Serbian man — from their tender relationship before the war into the horrors of work and rape camps, where brutali-ty, betrayal and degradation are daily matters.“The closest relationship in my life is Brad,” Jo-lie said in an interview for the film, which opens in limited release Friday and expands in Janu-ary. “It’s the man-woman relationship. So for me to put myself in a position to be able to write from, it would be, well, what if it was me, and what would it be like? And what would it take? Could I ever turn on him? Would this ever hap-pen? Would he ever turn on me? So you try to put yourself inside, and that’s how that relation-ship started.” The result is worlds away from the vanity projects some superstars end up with when they play at directing. Jolie holds nothing back in depicting the savagery of the war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, as ancient ethnic rivalries reignited after decades of communist rule. As a goodwill am-bassador for the United Nations, Jolie, 36, had visited Bosnia and felt a growing compulsion to help dramatize a conflict about which the world at large had been misinformed or even indiffer-

ent. When the war broke out, Jolie herself was a teenager with other things on her mind than con-flict in a distant land. “I was being a 17-year-old. I knew only a little bit about it,” Jolie said. “It just felt very far away, and until America got in-volved, I don’t even remember any headlines in our papers.” As the years passed, Jolie remained busy with other preoccupations — Hollywood party girl, Academy Award winner for “Girl, In-terrupted,” marriages to actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, the latter a wild love affair that was a gold mine for gossip tabloids.Then came the action comedy “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” in which Jolie and Pitt starred as mar-ried assassins gunning for each other. Home-wrecker headlines followed as Jolie took up with co-star Pitt, who ended his marriage to Jen-nifer Aniston. Jolie already had begun her hu-manitarian makeover, adopting a child from Cambodia and using her celebrity to shine light on children in peril, the plight of refugees and other causes around the world. As she and Pitt’s family has grown — they now have three ad-opted and three biological children — Jolie’s image has transformed from sinner to saint. “I’ve always tried to step outside my comfort zone. Sometimes that can be good and useful for hopeful things like this,” Jolie said, referring to her film. “And sometimes, when you’re young-er, it can be very destructive and a bad thing.”Visiting war zones changed her perspective, but it was the home front — taking on children — that made the big difference.

Director Jolie goes to war with ‘Blood and Honey’

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Dearborn’s may-or says it’s ludicrous to say his Detroit suburb is under threat from the imposition of the Islamic religious code called Sharia, and creators of “The Simpsons” TV show have given the idea a humorous twist. The Detroit Free Press reports Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr. says claims about Shar-ia in Dearborn are fear-mongering. In an epi-sode last week, the Fox cartoon looks to a future in which a married Lisa Simpson helps husband

Milhouse deal with seasonal allergies that make him allergic to Christmas-related objects. Mil-house says he could visit “one of the non-Christmas celebrating states.” Lisa says he “could go back to Michigan” because “it’s still under Sharia law.” The show then shows Mil-house at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, wearing a body-covering women’s dress known as niqab.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A popular Israeli-Arab singer had to cancel a show on New Year’s Eve in the West Bank because of threats from Palestin-ian activists opposed to coexistence with Israel, the performer and police said. It was the latest in a string of cancellations after threats and other pressure tactics by Palestinians groups promoting a boycott of virtually anything connected with Is-rael. The boycott movement says its tactics are a nonviolent way to protest Israeli policies. Israeli officials denounce the efforts as “delegitimiza-tion” of Israel’s right to exist. Sharif, who uses only one name, said he was expecting to perform before thousands of Palestinian fans at a New Year’s Eve concert in Ramallah, the west Bank administrative capital, but he was told the day be-fore that his concert was being canceled because of a threat to his life. “I’m an artist and I want to sing before all audiences,” said Sharif, a member of Israel’s Arab Druse minority who sees himself as a bridge between the two sides. “I’m a man of peace, not politics. I just want to bring my music to my fans.” Palestinian activists campaigned against his concert because he has performed be-fore Israeli soldiers. Palestinian police said the decision to cancel the show was based purely on security concerns. They said once they became aware of the opposition, which was organized in

a Facebook campaign, they ordered the concert canceled. “When we see people bracing to bar a controversial party like this, we interfere to pre-vent any tension or violence,” said Adnan Dam-ari, a police spokesman. Sharif said he separates his performances from politics, noting he has played in the West Bank and Gaza before and dreams of performing in Syria and Lebanon. “I’m surprised that this was done against me — I be-long to both sides,” said Sharif, 32, who per-formed earlier last year in the West Bank. “I’ve got to get back there and I hope it happens soon.” The Druse sect is part of the larger Israeli-Arab minority. It wasn’t the only controversy in Ra-mallah on New Year’s Eve. Palestinian singer Ba-sel Zayed was prevented from completing his concert after he performed a song that mocked the Palestinian leadership. Under pressure from Palestinian police, organizers shut down the event. The New Year’s incidents follow two other events in which Israeli-Palestinian dialogue meetings were thwarted because of Palestinian pressure. The activists behind the move oppose any “normalization” between Palestinians and Is-raelis as long as peace talks between the sides are deadlocked. Negotiators sat down in Jordan Tuesday for their first meeting in 15 months.

‘Simpsons’ joke about Sharia threat in Dearborn

Palestinians block show by Israeli-Arab singer

Jokes

Cooking & Recipes

An Englishman, Frenchman, Mexican, and Texan were flying across country on a small plane when the An Englishman, Frenchman, Mexican, and Texan were flying across country on a small plane when the An Englishman, Frenchman, Mexican, and Texan were flying across country on a small plane when the

BLONDE: “Excuse me, what time is it right now?” WOMAN: “It’s 11:25PM.” BLONDE: (confused look BLONDE: “Excuse me, what time is it right now?” WOMAN: “It’s 11:25PM.” BLONDE: (confused look BLONDE: “Excuse me, what time is it right now?” WOMAN: “It’s 11:25PM.” BLONDE: (confused look

Um AliIngredients• 1 (17.25 ounce) package frozen puff pastry, thawed• 5 cups milk• 1 cup white sugar• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract• 1/4 cup raisins• 1/4 cup slivered almonds• 1/4 cup pine nuts• 1/4 cup chopped pistachio nuts• 1/4 cup sweetened, flaked coconut

Egyptian KosharyIngredients• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil• 2 cups uncooked white rice• 3 cups water• 1 teaspoon salt• 1 (16 ounce) package uncooked elbow macaroni• 1 cup beluga lentils, soaked in water• 1/2 teaspoon salt• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil• 5 onions, minced• 2 cloves garlic, minced• 3 tablespoons distilled white vinegar• 4 ripe tomatoes, diced• 1/2 cup tomato paste• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions: 1. Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in rice; continue stirring until rice is coated with oil, about 3 minutes. Add 3 cups water and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until the rice is tender and liquid has been absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes. 2. Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Stir in the macaroni, and return to a boil. Cook the macaroni uncovered, stirring oc-casionally, until the it has cooked through, but is still firm to the bite, about 8 minutes. Drain well in a colander. Return maca-roni to cooking pot, cover and keep warm. 3. Soak lentils for 30 minutes. Drain and rinse; drain again. Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a pot and stir in lentils. Bring to a boil; cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer until lentils are tender 15 or 20 minutes. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt. 4. Heat 1 tablespoon veg-etable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the onions in the oil, stirring often, until they begin to brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Onions should be a nice caramelized brown color. Add garlic and cook another minute. Remove from pan, drain on a paper towel-lined plate. 5. Place half of the onion mixture into a saucepan. Mix in the vinegar. Add the chopped tomatoes and tomato paste, black pepper, 2 1/2 teaspoons salt, cumin, and cayenne (if using). Bring to a boil then reduce heat to me-dium-low and simmer about 12 minutes. 6. Serve by placing a spoonful of rice, then macaroni, and then the lentils on serv-ing plates. Sprinkle with some of the browned onions, then top with tomato sauce.

Directions : 1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 de-grees C). Unroll the puff pastry sheets, and place flat on a bak-ing sheet. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until puffed and golden brown. 2. Break the puff pastry into pieces, and place in a large bowl. Add the raisins, almonds, pine nuts, pistachios, and coconut, and toss to distribute. Pour into a 9x13 inch glass baking dish, and spread evenly. 3. Pour the milk into a saucepan, and stir in the sugar and vanilla. Heat until hot but not quite boiling. Pour over the mixture in the baking dish. 4. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Turn the oven to broil, and broil for 2 minutes to brown the top. Remove from the oven and let stand for 5 minutes. Serve warm.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Fixed mortgage rates rose slightly this week off their record lows. The year ends much like it began, with few peo-ple able to take advantage of the best rates in history. Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average on the 30-year home loan increased to 3.95 percent from 3.91 percent. Last week’s rate was the lowest average on records dating to the 1950s. The average on the 15-year fixed mort-gage rose to 3.24 percent. That’s up from 3.21 percent, also a record low. Rates have been below 5 percent for all but two weeks in 2011. Even so, this year is shaping up to be one of the worst ever for home sales. Previously occupied homes are selling just slightly ahead of last year’s dismal pace. And new-home sales appear headed for their worst

year on records going back half a century. Next year could be better. More than 5 percent of households said this month they plan to pur-chase a home within the next six months, according to the Conference Board. Builders are also hopeful that the low rates could boost sales next year. Low mortgage rates were cited as a key reason the National Association of Home Builders survey of builder sentiment rose in De-cember to its highest level in more than a year. But so far, rates are having no major impact. Mortgage applications have fallen slightly in recent weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many Americans don’t want to sink mon-

ey into a home that they fear could lose value over the next few years. To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week. The average rates don’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrow-ers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount. The average fee for the 30-year loan was unchanged at 0.7; the average on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 0.8. For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate rose to 2.88 percent from 2.85 percent. The average on the one-year adjustable loan ticked up to 2.78 percent from 2.77 percent. The average fees on the five- and one-year adjustable-rate loans were unchanged at 0.6.

NEW YORK (AP) — Here’s one way to sum up 2011: I added 71 people as Facebook friends, shared 26 links and commented on 98 of my friends’ status updates. I was tagged in 33 photos and added 18 of my own to the site. I also attempted to keep up with Facebook’s endless redesigns, most recently with the introduction of Timeline. With it, your Facebook profile offers highlights from your past, not just your recent happenings. Last week, I urged all of you to carefully curate your Timelines to avoid coming across as vain or revealing forgotten skeletons. This week, I will go through other ways to man-age your life on Facebook. It’s good to take stock of your Facebook presence from time to time, given how quickly the site changes its features and settings and how easily many of us add people to our lists of friends. Even if you haven’t switched to Timeline yet, you can still follow these steps to review what you’re really revealing about your-self. WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS? In the early days, I was very judi-cious about whom I accepted as Facebook friends. People I hadn’t met in person, relatives I hadn’t spoken to in years and friends who simply annoyed me didn’t make the cut. Now, my friends list includes people I haven’t been in touch with since college and others I met only once at a party, wedding or trip. Do all of them need to know — or even care — that I started watching “How I Met Your Mother” or ate an undercooked hot dog at 3 a.m.? Should they see photos of me at a re-cent holiday bash? Maybe not. Now is a good time to go through your friends list to see who ought to disappear. A friend’s significant other long after they broke up? An acquaintance who has 1,000 friends and never interacts with you on Facebook? People who tighten their pri-vacy settings so much that you see no more than any stranger would?Gone, goodbye, nice to know you. Facebook won’t alert the friends you drop. ALL FRIENDS ARE NOT CREATED EQUALYou may want to share an ultrasound of your fetus only with family members, or share party photos with close friends. Other rants and milestones may be appropriate for everyone. Facebook has new tools to make it easier to create subgroups such as family and co-workers. Start by going to “lists” on the left side of your Facebook home page

(you may have to click on “more” to see it). Facebook had automati-cally added 103 of my friends to a “New York Area” list and suggested dozens of others who hadn’t told Facebook their location. The sugges-tions were surprisingly accurate; the inaccurate ones were for those who used to live in New York but have moved on. I added 31 so that I can broadcast New York happenings only to them and spare my Cali-fornian and European friends. Next came “Close Friends.” Again, the tool was pretty good at suggesting people with whom I have interacted the most, online and offline. One factor is whether you’ve appeared in photos together. Facebook won’t reveal who made your list of close friends, so don’t worry about keeping people off. I went through a similar exercise for “Family,” choosing to include only the closer ones I’d share more with. In this case, those you’re adding will be told, so if you don’t want that known, create a new list rather use the one Facebook already set up. To do that, click “lists,” then “Create List.” I added one for cousins, two for college, one for work, one for my run-ning group and one for those I still see from my days in Washington.Some people are in multiple groups, others in none. These lists make it easier to share posts with only a subset of my Facebook friends. I can also use the lists to see only posts from specific groups. Facebook also has a “Restricted” list where you can dump those you don’t want to share much with. Facebook promises not to reveal who gets added. WHAT ARE YOU SHARING? Update your biographical informa-tion. The current city is important because it’s what Facebook uses to create the list of nearby friends. Now is also the time to say if your work has changed or if you no longer want your birthday revealed. Look for the globe icon if you want to share certain details only with certain people, such as friends of friends or those on one of your lists. You should also go through your lists of favorite books, music and TV shows. Replace Milli Vanilli with Justin Bieber if you want to seem youthful and hip. While you’re at it, pare down the companies and products you’ve decided to “like” over the years. Be careful about what you’re endorsing. Facebook may use your name and profile pho-to next to ads that your friends see. So if you’ve liked Target’s page,

for example, your friends could see your photo next to an ad from Target. CONTROLLING WHAT YOU SHARE Look for the arrow at the upper left corner and select “Account Settings.” Begin with “Gen-eral” on the left and check to make sure everything’s up to date. Click “Edit” if you need to change anything such as your email address. Then go one by one down the list on your left. If you’re not sure what something is, click “Edit” for details. Under “Apps,” get rid of apps you no longer use so that they will no longer have access to your data. Under “Notifications,” choose what types of activities Facebook sends you alerts on. After that, go back to that arrow and select “Privacy Set-tings.” Under “How You Connect,” you can make it more difficult for people to reach you by restricting their ability to send you messages or make friend requests. You can also prevent people from posting on your profile. You can tweak “How Tags Work” and insist on reviewing photos or posts others tag you in before they appear on your profile. In most cases, you can find out more about what’s happening by clicking on the item. Finally, think about whether you want your list of friends visible to strangers on Facebook. If you have switched to Timeline, click on “See All” within your box of friends, then click “Edit” to narrow who sees it. For traditional profiles, hover over the friends box and click on the pencil that emerges. Then click on the globe next to your friends. CHECKING IT TWICE Test how others see your profile by going to “View As...” at the top of the profile. Those with Timeline should first click the wheel next to “Activity Log.” Enter the name of a close friend, a co-worker or a random acquaintance to make sure no one is seeing too much. Click “public” to see how everyone else sees the profile. Facebook changes so often, so don’t be surprised that by the time you figure it all out, the service unveils another redesign that may affect what you’ve already done. There used to be a way to prevent everyone from sending you friend requests, for instance. I’m now limited to blocking specific individuals. It’s good to go through this exercise on a regular basis — annually, quarterly or more often if you can. Be mindful that Facebook pushes for more openness, so the restrictions available today might be gone tomorrow.

5Articles

Where is the hope for world peace now that the season for singing “Peace on earth and mercy mild, Christ and sinners reconciled” and “Joy to the world, the Lord has come” is over? Political can-didates are competing for the votes of so-called “Christian Zionists,” who are, in mass, supporting the Warmakers’ goal of bigger conflicts in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Su-dan, Somalia, and Gaza and any place Muslims live. Note that all of these countries with the exception of Gaza,

have small populations and rich natural resources, The outcry for peace that fueled demonstrations a few years back has sadly faded. It seems the banker-warmakers have stamped out all resistance to their war-based economy. The call for jobs, tax reform, home financ-ing, and even concerns about the shaky states in Europe dominate financial news. Peace has become a non-issue. President Obama is trying to make it appear that he has fulfilled his 2008 promise by bringing home the occupation force from Iraq. This is a sham, for it appears that 8000 troops are not coming back, but will remain stationed on Kurdish territory near the Iranian border. Worse yet, a huge number of incredibly expensive non-military mercenaries--a private army in every sense--are staying in Iraq. They are no doubt there to control the corrupt government installed by the U.S. The people of Iraq have no peace. It is likely that President Obama does not himself understand the continued occupation, or who is pumping Iraq’s oil. He, like his opponents, is too caught up with the

election to unravel the “facts” he is fed from the Pentagon, central bankers. In America, war is too important a business to be entrusted to the President. As for the Republicans, Dr. Paul seems to be the only one who understands the war-based economy and how it is fi-nanced through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FED). The rest of the Republican candidates have accepted the wars as a given. The big media is ignoring the move toward new wars and playing down the old ones Failure to link the corruption of the bankers with the serial warmaking has defused the protests against Wall Street, leaving Occupy Wall Street a fractured and confused movement. We seem to live in the land George Orwell described in his 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty- Four, a kind of political science fiction. It was once read and acceptable in the U.S. because the economics it taught was wrapped around a Soviet or “communist” ideology that we thought was un-American. But today this book portrays here and now: We call it what it is not, “free enterprise capitalism.” In Orwell’s book, the implementation of control over the entire world population is accomplished by dividing the global land area into three nation states, all under an invisible world order that is left to our imagination. The three states constantly battle with each other to keep the population controlled and anesthetized. War is arranged and administrated somewhat like perpetual NFL playoffs, where at any time, two of the states are in a contrived war with each other, while the third rests and rearms, awaiting its turn to take on the winner. Our war-making machine is focused on the Muslim Middle East. Syria, Libya, and Egypt are in shambles. Egypt’s popular revolution seems to have stalled because the ruling clique still runs the Egyptian Central Bank, which controls the money supply. The Egyptian revolution leaders forgot to occupy the Central Bank and arrest and send the bankers to jail--a good lesson for us. Israel has openly stated it is preparing to again invade Gaza. This time expect it to murder or jail all those associated with Hamas, no matter how many families it has to destroy. The excuse for Israel’s second inva-

sion of Gaza is Mohmoud Abbas’ play for meaningless statehood. Poet Jonathan Azaziah has dubbed Abbas the Israeli “Donkey” be-cause he carries the load for Israel. Abbas has asked the United Na-tions to declare Palestine a state, but one without borders, an affront to every sacrificial life lost in quest of peace.* The U.S. and Israel should both be happy to accept this state without boundaries farce, which will then be an excuse for Israel to murder anyone connected with Hamas for the proclaimed purpose of unifying Palestine under Abbas. The “Donkey” will go home with what appears to be a state, but isn’t, and with renewed U.S. financial aid to cement his author-ity. Shame on the schemers. This is the reality of this moment. Who can fix it? Only God, with a little help from those who want to. Orwell wrote his book in 1949. The tide of war has risen from that time to this, and the awakening is coming not because of the horrors of war, as much as from the accumulated cost of war we all must bear. It is the economics of our war era that is bringing awakening. Someone like Ron Paul might start the needed revolt in motion, but no one man can sustain it against the architects of the war-based economy. A moral revolt does not require an honest President or an enlightened majority. It does requires an honest and moral and determined public minority. It calls for a different kind of miracle, and this is the season for miracles. America has more churches, syn-agogues, mosques, and “Christians” than any country. Christianity stands for brotherhood and love. Jesus is the Peacemaker we sing about at Christmas. Those who are warmakers cannot be Christians or Muslims. So what is the problem? We have the votes for peace, do we not? No, not right now we don’t have the votes or resolve because about half of voting Christians have been captured by the war worshiping cult called Christian Zionism. Our website teaches about it. When its grip is broken, as it will be, America will again try peace for a change. www.whtt.org

I have demonstrated in an earlier ar-ticle short cuts for hints on the mul-tiplication 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”, “Ti-mezit”, and so on. Some schools today even make basic fact mem-

orization a fun exercise, so much so they call the teachers Math coaches. 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 reasons for its suc-cess is the simple fact that mental math is taught very early, from Kindergarten and First Grade onwards. The same reason is also the reason why it is difficult 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 ancient Chinese mechanical calculator called the abacus. The abacus is a very simple little contraption 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 shop-keepers 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, subtraction, multiplication and division early in childhood and never look back. Their minds are now free to tackle fractions, complicated word problems, algebra, geometry and so on. By pushing beads to represent numbers, stu-dents can add, subtract, multiply and divide very large numbers, including decimals. The next step is to now give a “paper abacus” to the students, and ask them to push imaginary beads on the pa-per. 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 imaginary 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 imme-diately 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 extremely beneficial to brain development. Students develop better concentration, longer 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 stu-dents. 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 Alzheimer, keep your brain young and exercise it! Mental abacus is effective in that way, but it also makes you more sprite in calculations as well!

Try Peace For A Change Charles E. Carlson

Fixed mortgage rates end year above record lows

Scrutinizing your presence on Facebook

Memorization in Math

DEREK KRAVITZ

ANICK JESDANUN

Dr. Fawzia Tung

Jan 5 - 26 , 2012


6 National

5-year prison term for NJ rabbi in corruption case

Mom reunites with biologi-cal child 77 years later

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A once-prominent New Jersey rabbi who pleaded guilty in the state’s largest corruption case has been sentenced to a five-year prison term. Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim (ee-LA’-yoo ben HY’-eem) last year admitted using his net-work of religious charities to conceal more than $1 million in illegal pro-ceeds for a government informant. The 60-year-old Long Branch resi-dent is the former leader of the syna-gogue Congregation Ohel Yaacob in

Deal, 50 miles south of New York City. The case netted 46 defendants, another of whom was sentenced Wednesday in Trenton federal court. Arye Weiss (ahr-EE’-yay wys) was given five years’ probation after pleading guilty to running an illegal money transfer business prosecutors say operated as a “cash house.” The judge said the 57-year-old Brooklyn resident must serve his probation in a mental health facility.

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (AP) — For most of her 100 years, Minka Disbrow tried to find out what be-came of the precious baby girl she gave up for adoption after being raped as a teen.She hoped, but never imagined, she’d see her Betty Jane again. The cruel act of violence bore in Disbrow an enduring love for the child. She kept a black and white photograph of the baby bundled in blankets and tucked inside a basket. It was the last she saw of the girl — until the phone rang in her California apartment in 2006 with

the voice of an Alabama man and a story she could have only dreamed. Disbrow, the daughter of Dutch im-migrants, weathered a harsh child-hood milking cows on South Dakota dairy farms. Her stepfather thought high school was for city kids who had nothing else to do. She finished eighth grade in a country schoolhouse with just one teacher and worked long hours at the dairy. On a summer day in 1928 whilepicnicking with girls from a sewing class, Disbrow and her friend Elizabeth were jumped by three men as they went for a walk in

NEW BERN, N.C. (AP) — Two brothers who watched as their father transformed their rural North Carolina family home into a base camp to launch violent jihad will spend years in prison, even after cooperating with federal prosecutors. Zakariya Boyd, 22, was sentenced to nine years in fed-eral prison on Tuesday and Dylan Boyd, 25, was sentenced to eight years. Each had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide support to terrorists, which carried a maxi-mum of 15 years in prison and $250,000 fine. Both received less-er sentences after cooperating with prosecutors, including credit

for the jail time already served since their arrests in July 2009. Both men apologized to their American countrymen for failing to break free of their domineering father and his radical Muslim views, as their mother and siblings sobbed along with Dylan’s wife and the family of the girl Zak wanted to marry. “I apologize to the nation for failing to preserve the national security,” Dylan Boyd said as he read from prepared notes before being sentenced. Zak Boyd, sounding like the Eagle Scout he is, told U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan the shame he endures for failing to break

away from the group’s terror plots would motivate him to “reclaim the mantle of truth and justice.” According to prosecutors, the brothers were part of a group of eight men who raised money, stockpiled weapons and trained for jihadist attacks against Ameri-can military targets and others they considered enemies of Islam. All of the accused were either American-born or naturalized U.S. citizens, or legal permanent residents. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bowler praised the brothers for their cooperation and admira-ble behavior since their arrest re-moved them from the orbit of their domineering father, Daniel Patrick Boyd, who isolated his sons and subjected them to physical and psychological pressure to abide by his extremist views. Prosecutors have said Daniel Boyd brewed an atmosphere of intense militancy in the family and among the other defendants. Daniel Boyd’s dia-tribes against the United States grew along with the collection of rifles, pistols and ammunition amassed at the Boyds’ home in ru-ral Johnston County, near Raleigh, prosecutors said. Zak was in many ways an “exemplary” young man who showed kindness in small ways to many he met, Bowler said. Dylan resisted his father’s fury for as long as he could, mov-

ing away to college and pursuing a career in health care. Both worked at part-time jobs while studying to help support their family. “This is an agonizing case with respect to sentencing, between the distilled evil (of their father) and the cir-cumstances of these boys having this shoved down their throats,” Bowler said. “The term brain-washing comes to mind.” But the brothers were not innocent, Bowl-er said. The terror ring the FBI be-gan investigating in 2005 plotted attacks abroad, but Zak and Dylan Boyd must have known that the growing firepower would never have been used except within the United States, Bowler said. Daniel Boyd, a teenage convert to Islam and drywall contractor who once moved his family to Pakistan, pleaded guilty in February to charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons in a for-eign country. Flanagan said the sentences aimed to send a mes-sage about the penalties for those involved in terrorist plots, bal-anced against evidence that Daniel Boyd’s vitriol against the United States had twisted his sons.“The depravity of your father is etched in the record,” Flanagan said.

BOSTON (AP) — A man who grew up in the Boston suburbs was convicted Tuesday of con-spiring to help al-Qaida and plot-ting to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq after a two-month trial in which jurors heard references to Osama bin Laden and saw dramatic im-ages from the Sept. 11 attacks. The federal jury deliberated about 10 hours over three days before finding Tarek Mehanna, 29, guilty of four terror-related charges and three charges of lying to authori-ties. He faces life in prison, though his attorneys plan to appeal. “The heart of the case is really this: Did Mr. Mehanna conspire to support terrorists, conspire to kill in a for-eign country and then did he lie to federal investigators?” said Mas-sachusetts U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz. “Today a jury of his peers concluded that he did that.” Ortiz said the references to bin Laden and 9/11 were relevant and not in-flammatory, but defense attorneys said they made it impossible for their client to get a fair trial. “This is one the most cynical govern-ment cases I’ve ever seen tried,” said defense attorney Janice Bas-sil. “Picture after picture just wanting to scare the jury. Deal af-ter deal to government witnesses. All those government witnesses did way more than Tarek Mehan-

na.” Prosecutors said Mehanna and two friends conspired to travel to Yemen so they could receive training at a terrorism camp and eventually go on to Iraq to fight and kill U.S. soldiers there. When the men were unable to find such a training camp, Mehanna returned home and began to see himself as part of the al-Qaida “media wing,” translating materials promoting violent jihad and distributing them over the Internet, prosecutors said.One of the men, Kareem Abu-zahra, testified under a grant of immunity. A third man, Ahmad Abousamra, was also charged. Prosecutors say they believe Abousamra is in Syria. One ob-server said he was surprised Me-hanna was convicted of all counts. Boston College Law School professor George Brown said he wasn’t convinced prosecutors proved Mehanna was taking or-ders from a terrorist organization.“I think the jury overall had formed an unfavorable impression of Mehanna and when his credi-bility was on the line like that they were not about to find in his fa-vor,” he said. Mehanna, who was born in the U.S. and raised in the Boston suburbs, will be sentenced April 12. His mother, Souad Me-hanna, sobbed after the verdict was read and was consoled by her

younger son, Tamer. Mehanna’s lawyers also wept. Mehanna’s father, Ahmed, a professor at the Massachusetts College of Phar-macy and Health Sciences, said he was stunned by the verdict. “I can’t even think,” he said. “It was political.” Andrew March, a Yale University professor who testified for the defense as an expert wit-ness, said the verdict sends the message to Muslim Americans that they do not have free speech.“I do what he did almost every single day at Yale University. I teach Islamic law, I study Islamic law. I translate things about al-Qaida. I teach people to debate,” March said. “Because I’m not a Muslim and because of what my name is, I have no problem doing it. But if my name were Tarek Me-hanna, I would have everything being tapped, and that should wor-ry every single one of us.” During the trial, which started in October, Mehanna’s attorneys portrayed him as an aspiring scholar of Is-lam who traveled to Yemen to look for religious schools, not to get terrorist training. They said his translation and distribution of controversial publications was free speech protected by the First Amendment. Prosecutors focused on hundreds of online chats on Mehanna’s computer in which

they said he and his friends talked about their desire to participate in jihad, or holy war. Several of those friends were called by prosecu-tors to testify against Mehanna, including one man who said he, Mehanna and a third friend tried to get terrorism training in Yemen so they could fight American sol-diers in Iraq. Mehanna’s lawyers told jurors prosecutors were using scare tactics by portraying Me-hanna as a would-be terrorist and were trying to punish him for his beliefs. The defense built its case on the testimony of a half-dozen terrorism experts. Mehanna did not testify. His lawyers acknowl-edged that Mehanna expressed ad-miration for Osama bin Laden but said he disagreed with bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders about many things, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians. Jurors began deliberat-ing Friday. In his instructions, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. told them that in order to find Me-hanna guilty of conspiracy to pro-vide material support to al-Qaida, they must find that he worked “in coordination with or at the direc-tion of” the terrorist organization. He said independent advocacy on behalf of the organization was not a violation of the law.

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (AP) — For most of her 100 years, Minka Disbrow tried to find out what became of the precious baby girl she gave up for adoption after being raped as a teen. She hoped, but never imagined, she’d see her Betty Jane again. The cruel act of violence bore in Disbrow an endur-ing love for the child. She kept a black and white photograph of the baby bundled in blankets and tucked inside a basket. It was the last she saw of the girl — until the phone rang in her California apart-ment in 2006 with the voice of an Alabama man and a story she could have only dreamed. Disbrow, the daughter of Dutch immigrants, weathered a harsh childhood milk-ing cows on South Dakota dairy farms. Her stepfather thought high school was for city kids who had nothing else to do. She finished eighth grade in a country school-house with just one teacher and worked long hours at the dairy. On a summer day in 1928 while pic-nicking with girls from a sewing class, Disbrow and her friend Eliz-abeth were jumped by three men as they went for a walk in their long

dresses. Both were raped. “We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what to say. So when we went back, nothing was said,” Dis-brow recalled. Months passed. Her body began to change.Disbrow, who had been told ba-bies were brought by storks, didn’t know what was happening. Her mother and stepfather sent her to a Lutheran home for pregnant girls. At 17, she gave birth to a blond-haired baby with a deep dimple in her chin and named her Betty Jane.In her heart, Disbrow longed to keep her. But her head and her mother told her she couldn’t bring an infant back to the farm. A pastor and his wife were looking to adopt a child. She hoped they could give Betty Jane the home she couldn’t. “I loved that baby so much. I wanted what was best,” Disbrow said. She never met them, or knew their names. But over the years, Disbrow wrote dozens of letters to the adoption agency to find out how her daughter was faring. The agency replied faithfully with up-dates until there was a change in management, and they eventually lost touch. Disbrow’s life went on. She married a fruit salesman who

became a wartime pilot and draft-ing engineer and they had two chil-dren. She worked as a dressmaker, silk saleswoman and school caf-eteria manager in cities spanning from Rhode Island to Minnesota and Northern California before moving to the seaside town of San Clemente an hour’s drive north of San Diego. Every year, she thought about Betty Jane on her May 22 birthday. Five years ago, Disbrow prayed she might get the chance to see her. “Lord, if you would just let me see her,” Disbrow remembers praying. “I promise you I will nev-er bother her.” On July 2, the phone rang. It was a man from Alabama. He started asking Disbrow, then 94, about her background. Wor-ried about identity theft, Disbrow cut him off, and peppered him with questions. Then, the man asked if she’d like to speak with Betty Jane.Her name was now Ruth Lee. She had been raised by a Norwegian pastor and his wife and had gone on to marry and have six children including the Alabama man, a teacher and astronaut Mark Lee, a veteran of four space flights who has circled the world 517 times. She worked for nearly 20 years at

Walmart — and especially enjoyed tending to the garden area. Lee knew she was adopted her whole life, and grew up a happy child. It wasn’t until she was in her 70s that the search for her biological parents began. Lee started suffering from heart problems and doctors asked about the family’s medical history. She knew nothing about it. Her son, Brian, decided to try to find out more and petitioned the court in South Dakota for his mother’s adoption records. He got a stack of more than 270 pages including a written account of the assault and handwritten letters from a young Disbrow, asking about the tiny baby she had cradled for a month.He then went online to try to find one of Disbrow’s relatives — pos-sibly through an obituary. “I was looking for somebody I thought was probably not living,” said Lee’s now-54-year-old son. He typed Disbrow’s name into a web directory and was shocked when a phone listing popped up. “I kind of stopped breathing for a second.” On the phone with her biological daughter, Disbrow was in disbelief. Her legs began to tremble.

Brothers sentenced for roles in NC terror plot

Mass. man convicted of conspiring

to help al-Qaida

Iftekhar Murtaza accused of killing his ex-girlfriend’s family in CA

Last defendant in Iraq war case to stand trial

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The last de-fendant in the biggest and lengthiest criminal case against U.S. troops to arise from the Iraq War is expected to stand trial this week, more than six years after his squad killed 24 Iraqis, including unarmed women and children. The massacre of civil-ians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, is considered one of the war’s defining moments, further tainting America’s reputation when it was already at a low point after the release of photos of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. The killings continue to fuel anger in Iraq be-cause not one of the eight Marines initially charged has been convicted — a main reason behind the coun-try’s demands that US troops be subject to its laws if its forces re-mained there after the war ended in December. Those demands turned out to be the deal-breaker that led to the withdrawal of all American forc-es. Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich was the leader of the Marine squad that cleared several homes, by tossing in grenades and then peppering them with gunfire shortly after a roadside bomb hit a Marine convoy. One Ma-rine was killed and two others were wounded. His lawyer, Neal Puckett, said Wuterich, 31, is confident the all-military jury will acquit him.Wuterich has said he regretted the loss of civilian lives but believed he was operating within military com-bat rules when he ordered his men to attack after the roadside bomb ex-ploded. Marines in the unit have said they were under gunfire at the time. Wuterich declined to be interviewed before the trial. “He’s ready to go to trial and put this behind him and move on with his life, whatever that holds for him,” Puckett said. Mili-tary prosecutors declined to com-ment. Jury selection will take place Thursday and opening arguments are slated for Friday before the mili-tary jury at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, after years of delays. The late U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a former Marine and decorated Viet-nam War veteran, compared the kill-ings to the 1968 My Lai massacre, when American servicemen killed as many as 504 Vietnamese villag-ers. Marines, including Wuterich, filed lawsuits alleging that the com-ments damaged their reputations.The comparison started a debate over whether troops were doing what they were trained to do or getting revenge for the death of a comrade. Legal experts say mili-tary prosecutors face an uphill bat-tle trying to prove, so many years after the killings, that Wuterich’s actions were criminal and not the unfortunate result of being caught in the chaos of war. “Memories fade, evidence fades or is lost, so that is bound to benefit the accused and that’s too bad, because the trial should not be one that favors one side or other,” Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge who teaches law of war at George-town University Law Center. Dis-putes — including over whether a military court should order CBS News to hand over unaired outtakes of a 2007 interview Wuterich gave

to “60 minutes” — stalled the case for years. In 2009, a military appeals court ordered some unaired portions be turned over to prosecutors. The case also suffered from a delay in gathering evidence. Immediately af-ter the killings, investigators missed chances to collect evidence from the scene and speak with witnesses while their memories were fresh. Last year, defense attorneys filed a motion asking the case to be thrown out because one of Wuterich’s mili-tary lawyers has since retired from the Marine Corps. The judge ruled against the motion. Wuterich is the last of the eight Marines initially charged with murder or failure to in-vestigate the killings to face charg-es. Six have had charges dropped or dismissed, and one was acquitted.After the roadside bomb rocked the Marine convoy, Wuterich and a squad member were accused of shooting five men by a car at the scene. Investigators say Wuterich then ordered his men to clear sever-al houses with grenades and gunfire. The bodies of women and children, including toddlers, were found af-terward. A full investigation didn’t begin until a Time magazine report-er inquired about the deaths in Janu-ary 2006, two months later. Wut-erich’s charges were later reduced to voluntary manslaughter in nine of the 24 deaths and other crimes. Wuterich also has been charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice. Since his ordeal began, the Marine from Mer-iden, Conn., has gotten divorced and gained custody of his three school-age daughters, who live with him in nearby Temecula. He works a desk job at Camp Pendleton’s 1st Marine Division headquarters. He has com-pleted his service but can’t leave the military until his case has been resolved. Haditha is one of several Iraq War cases the government has pursued at Camp Pendleton. One case was filed in the kidnapping and death of an Iraqi man in Hamdania in April 2006. One Marine was con-victed of murder and sent to prison. A Navy corpsman pleaded guilty to kidnapping, and three other Marines pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.Another case involved the death of an unarmed Iraqi detainee in Fallu-jah in November 2004. One Marine was spared prison time after plead-ing guilty to dereliction of duty, and another was acquitted. Their former squad leader was acquitted in a fed-eral court. Former Navy officer Da-vid Glazier, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said a military jury — which likely knows the normal reactions of warfighters — is best equipped to handle a case like Haditha, although he notes the lengthy process counters the princi-ples of military courts. Those courts were started to ensure swift inves-tigations and speedy trials during wars, he said. “The idea was to do fair, but prompt justice in the field in order to have access to the witnesses and facts, but also to reinforce good order and discipline,” he said. “So dragging this on for years and years hasn’t done any good for anybody.

Jan 5 - 26 , 2012


7National

NEW YORK (AP) — Some re-ligious leaders attending Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s interfaith breakfast Friday expressed soli-darity with Muslims upset about police department surveillance in their communities while more than a dozen leaders boycotted the yearly gathering that is meant to be a showcase of tolerance. “I wouldn’t like it to happen to my house of worship,” Rabbi Robyn Fryer Bodzin said at the breakfast of the spying program first re-vealed by The Associated Press. “I would be hurt if it was my faith group that was in this situation or predicament. ... I see it as the may-or choosing one faith-based group to target.” The absence of 15 Mus-lim clerics and civic leaders made little difference to the size of a breakfast roster that totaled more than 360, but it made their con-cerns about police infiltration of Muslim neighborhoods and mosques a topic of conversation for many. Some worried aloud about what the surveillance meant for the privacy of their own con-gregations, while others dismissed the boycotters as agitators who were missing the point of an event meant to foster communication be-tween religious communities and city officials. “We just need to have dialogue. And if you don’t sit down and have the dialogue, you’re really not going to get very far,” said Katherine Vizcaino, a Muslim who said the boycotters were “trying to make it a contro-versy where there really doesn’t

need to be.” Bloomberg didn’t di-rectly address the boycott during the event, though he did quote his father as telling him that “discrimi-nation against anyone is discrimi-nation against everyone.”He also said: “We have to keep our guard up, but if we don’t work to-gether we’re not going to be able to have our own freedoms.” The mayor’s comments were a disap-pointment for Hussein Rashid, an Islamic studies professor at Hofs-tra University who had hoped that Bloomberg would speak about the Muslim community’s concerns. The mayor won the admiration of many Muslims when he spoke out last year in support of an Is-lamic cultural center and mosque planned near ground zero. Hus-sein, who wore a blazer over a T-shirt reading “I am not a terror-ist,” said that leaders of all faiths at the gathering had been supportive when he spoke to them about the matter. “I was able to talk to them about the fact that if I’m a poten-tial suspect, by being next to me, you’re a potential suspect as well,” he said. “So this isn’t a Muslim issue. This is a civil rights issue.” Hussein and others spoke to mem-bers of Bloomberg’s administra-tion at the breakfast in the hopes of setting up a meeting between city officials and concerned Mus-lims. Rabbi Michael Weisser, who signed the boycott letter as a sup-porter but attended the breakfast, said he told several city officials “the administration has an obliga-tion to fill in the gaps and talk to

people” about the surveillance pro-grams. All were receptive, he said.Weisser views the surveillance as not just a Muslim concern, saying it echoes the targeting of Jews in Germany ahead of World War II. “If we can have rampant surveil-lance with no suspicion of wrong-doing, then everyone is at risk,” he said. On his weekly Friday morning appearance on WOR-AM, Bloomberg defended police, saying they don’t target any eth-nic group. “It’s like saying you are going after people that are my height with brown hair. If a perp is described that way in the neigh-borhood, you look at everybody in the neighborhood that’s got brown hair, my height, you stop them,” he said. “But we have great race relations here. The communities whether they’re Muslim or Jewish or Christian or Hindu or Buddhist or whatever, all contribute to this city. We don’t target any one of them. We don’t target any neigh-borhood.” The AP series detailed police department efforts to infil-trate Muslim communities with aggressive programs designed by a CIA officer. Records examined by the AP show the police department collected information on people who were neither accused nor sus-pected of wrongdoing. Documents reviewed by the AP revealed that undercover police officers known as “rakers” visited businesses such as Islamic bookstores and cafes, chatting up store owners to deter-mine their ethnicities and gauge their views. They also played

cricket and eavesdropped in eth-nic clubs. The surveillance efforts have been credited with enabling police to thwart a 2004 plot to bomb the Herald Square subway station. Critics said the tactics amount to ethnic profiling and vio-late court guidelines that limit how and why police can collect intelli-gence before there is evidence of a crime. They have asked a judge to issue a restraining order against the police. Speaking to the media after the breakfast, Police Com-missioner Ray Kelly said the AP articles contained “half-truths and some just things that are not true” but refused to identify them. “I’m not going to get into it. I don’t have time to do that,” Kelly said. Kelly said that none of the attendees at the breakfast had raised the matter with him. “We believe we’re doing what we have to do, pursuant to the law, to protect this city,” he said. The police department has called the AP’s reporting inaccurate, saying for instance that there was never a secret squad known as the Demographics Unit, which sent the “rakers” into Muslim commu-nities. But internal NYPD docu-ments later obtained by the AP and made public show the unit did in fact exist. “Contrary to assertions, the NYPD lawfully follows leads in terrorist-related investigations and does not engage in the kind of wholesale spying on communities that was falsely alleged,” police spokesman Paul Browne said in an email Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) — A police security tower rose into the sky Monday, keeping watch over a globally prominent Islamic cultur-al center that was firebombed amid a handful of attacks being investi-gated as possibly linked bias crimes. Police, who had made no arrests, released a sketch of a sus-pect and a videotape from a sur-veillance camera at a private house that is used as a Hindu house of worship and was one of the targets. The video shows a car pulling up Sunday night. Someone suddenly appears, lifts his right arm high and hurls a lit object that strikes

the house and explodes into flames. Earlier Sunday evening, the entrance to the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation also was struck by two Molotov cocktails, the types of bombs usually made of glass bot-tles filled with flammable liquid and corked with rags. “But we are not afraid,” said the center’s assis-tant imam, Maan Al-Sahlani. Be-sides the private house and the Is-lamic center, the other targets in the suspected arson attacks Sunday night were a corner store and an-other house. No one was injured in any of the attacks.With New York Police Department cruisers parked outside the Islamic center and yellow police tape flut-tering, Al-Sahlani met on Monday afternoon with a dozen other cler-ics from the city’s Muslim com-munity. A news conference was planned for Tuesday, the imam said. Near a blackened, charred spot on the concrete overhang of the center’s main entrance, the front gates remained wide open to the street on Monday, and anyone could walk in to worship. “This is America, and we must continue to love one another,” Al-Sahlani, standing in flowing ritual robes in

the main prayer hall, said with a smile. On Sunday, about 80 faith-ful had gathered inside for dinner when a firebomb struck at 8:44 p.m. A second one followed, strik-ing a banner for the center’s school over the door. There was no visible damage there. Structural damage to the Queens Islamic center build-ing was minimal, but the commu-nity was emotionally shaken, the Muslim cleric said. “We were very surprised,” Al-Sahlani said. “This has never happened here before.”His decades-old foundation is among the foremost Muslim insti-tutions in New York, with branch-es around the world. Named for one of the most influential Shiite scholars, it promotes work in de-velopment, human rights and mi-nority rights as a general consul-tant to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The sprawling complex has two mina-rets rising over an expressway that leads to the John F. Kennedy Inter-national Airport. Visitors over the years have included Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and vari-ous New York mayors and inter-national diplomats, Al-Sahlani said. Besides a prayer hall, library,

kitchen and other facilities, the center has a full, accredited school that resumes Tuesday after holiday break. Some parents were con-cerned about the attack, the imam said. In releasing the security vid-eotape of the bombed home, police said they were looking for a man, 25 to 30 years old, about 5-foot-8 and weighing about 200 pounds. They said he fled the scene in a light-colored, four-door sedan with a sunroof. They were offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.Other targeted locations were more substantially damaged. Po-lice said at least three firebombs were thrown, though some didn’t explode. The first hit was at 8 p.m., when a bottle was thrown at a counter at a corner convenience store, but the damage wasn’t ex-tensive. Ten minutes later, a possi-ble firebomb smashed through the glass at a nearby home, setting it on fire and badly damaging it. About half an hour later, the Islamic center was targeted. And at 10:14 p.m., two bottles were thrown at the house police said was used for Hindu worship services, causing minimal fire damage.

NEW YORK (AP) — Police kept watch over a globally promi-nent Islamic cultural center that was firebombed as they investi-gated other possibly linked attacks that also could be bias crimes. Al-though structural damage to the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation build-ing was minimal, the incident Sun-day has left the community emo-tionally shaken, said its assistant imam, Maan Al-Sahlani. On Sun-day evening, the entrance to the foundation in Queens was struck by two Molotov cocktails, the types of bombs usually made of glass bottles filled with flammable liquid and corked with rags.A private house that is used as a Hindu house of worship also was hit. A videotape from a surveil-lance camera shows a car pull-ing up to the house Sunday night. Someone suddenly appears, lifts his right arm high and hurls a lit object that strikes the house and explodes into flames. Besides the private house and the Islamic center, the other targets in the sus-pected arson attacks were a corner store and another house. No one was injured in any of the incidents and no suspects have been arrest-

ed. Police have released a sketch of a suspect in the bombing of the Hindu worship site. With New York Police Department cruisers parked outside and yellow police tape fluttering, Al-Sahlani met Monday with a dozen other clerics from the city’s Muslim communi-ty. A news conference was planned for Tuesday. Near a blackened, charred spot on the concrete over-hang of the Islamic foundation’s main entrance, the front gates re-mained wide open to the street on Monday, and anyone could walk in to worship. “This is America, and we must continue to love one another,” Al-Sahlani, standing in flowing ritual robes in the main prayer hall, said with a smile. On Sunday, about 80 faithful had gathered inside for dinner when a firebomb struck at 8:44 p.m. A sec-ond one followed, striking a ban-ner for the center’s school over the door. There was no visible damage there. “We were very surprised,” Al-Sahlani said. “This has never happened here before.” The de-cades-old foundation is among the foremost Muslim institutions in New York, with branches around the world. Named for one of the

most influential Shiite scholars, it promotes work in development, human rights and minority rights as a general consultant to the Eco-nomic and Social Council of the United Nations. The sprawling complex has two minarets rising over an expressway that leads to the John F. Kennedy International Airport. Visitors over the years have included Iraqi Prime Min-ister Nouri al-Maliki and various New York mayors and interna-tional diplomats, Al-Sahlani said. Besides a prayer hall, library, kitchen and other facilities, the center has a full, accredited school that resumes Tuesday after holiday break. Some parents were con-cerned about the attack, the imam said. In releasing the security videotape of the bombed private home, police said they were look-ing for a man, 25 to 30 years old, about 5-foot-8 and weighing about 200 pounds. They said he fled the scene in a light-colored, four-door sedan with a sunroof. They were offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an ar-rest and conviction. Other targeted locations were more substantially damaged. Police said at least three

firebombs were thrown, though some didn’t explode. The first hit was at 8 p.m., when a bottle was thrown at a counter at a corner convenience store, but the dam-age wasn’t extensive. Ten minutes later, a possible firebomb smashed through the glass at a nearby home, setting it on fire and badly damag-ing it. About half an hour later, the Islamic center was targeted. And at 10:14 p.m., two bottles were thrown at the house police said was used for Hindu worship ser-vices, causing minimal fire dam-age. Police also were investigating a possible firebombing Sunday night in Elmont, in Nassau County, just east of Queens. A homeowner reported hearing glass shattering and smelling gasoline and found a broken glass bottle on his porch, county police said. It’s unclear if the attacks are related. Political leaders spoke out against the at-tacks. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said NYPD hate crimes unit detec-tives were working with precinct detectives and looking into wheth-er there were any connections to incidents outside the city.

NYC police investigate

possible bias crimes

Muslims skip NYC mayor’s event to protest spying

Fire attacks at NYC homes, Islamic center probed

TV show on Muslims takes on Sept. 11 attacks

Changes coming to JROTC policies on head coverings

Sacramento Muslim County employee alleges

discrimination

Father disputes Iran’s claims that son was CIA spy

Appeals court upholds convictions in Fort Dix plot

NEW YORK (AP) — A TV show about members of a Muslim commu-nity in Michigan is focusing an epi-sode Sunday on how its participants deal with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The TLC show “All-American Muslim” attracted at-tention earlier this month when a Christian fundamentalist group in Florida called it “propaganda” that hid an anti-American agenda and

urged an advertiser boycott. Filming for the series took place during the 10th anniversary of 9-11. TLC Gen-eral Manager Amy Winter says both the show’s participants and the net-work wanted to address it, with some of the people interviewed saying it had made life difficult even though they are loyal Americans. The series ends Jan. 8. TLC hasn’t decided whether there will be a second season.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Ca-dets of the Army’s junior ROTC pro-gram are going to be allowed to wear religious head coverings after a Mus-lim high school student in Tennessee was not allowed to participate be-cause she wore a headscarf. The Army office for diversity and leadership said in a letter this week that proce-dures are being developed to allow exemptions to their JROTC uniform policy based on religious beliefs.

Headscarves such as a hijab or a tur-ban will be allowed, according to the letter to the Council on American-Is-lamic Relations. A Muslim student at Ravenwood High School was told she could not wear her hijab while march-ing in a homecoming parade earlier this year. Army spokesman George Wright said JROTC policies are a greater accommodation of religious beliefs and practices.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A Muslim employee of Sacramento County claims he has been a victim of racial and religious discrimination since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Sacramento Bee reports that Abdur-Rahim Wasi, who is African-American, filed a lawsuit in Sacra-mento County Superior Court last year. Wasi claims his co-workers at the Human Assistance Department have called him numerous names

associated with terrorism since he joined the agency in 2001. Wasi also says the county failed to make reason-able accommodations to allow him to practice his faith. In a complaint to a federal agency two years ago, Wasi wrote he was “tired of being called Osama Bin Laden” and condemned the Sept. 11 attacks. The county has denied Wasi’s allegations and says it took reasonable steps to stop any ha-rassment or discrimination.

DETROIT (AP) — An Iranian-American from Michigan who ap-peared on Iran’s state TV is not a CIA spy as authorities in that country claim and was visiting relatives when he was detained, his father said Mon-day. Iran’s state TV broadcast video Sunday of 28-year-old Amir Mirzaei Hekmati and said he was a CIA spy who sought to infiltrate Iran’s secret services. The TV said he had received special training and served at U.S. military bases before heading to Iran. But Ali Hekmati told The Associated Press Monday that his son was visit-ing his grandmothers in Tehran when he was detained and never worked for the CIA. “He is not a spy. It’s a whole bunch of lies on my good son,” said Ali Hekmati, a microbiology profes-sor at Mott Community College in Flint, about 50 northwest of Detroit. “They have lied about any American ... captured in Iran for visiting or tour-ism, or for any other reason.” The CIA declined to comment, as did State Department spokeswoman Vic-toria Nuland. Iran and the U.S. are locked in a complicated intelligence and technological battle, and the vid-eo of Hekmati comes weeks after Iran first displayed a nearly intact Ameri-can spy drone that it claims it cap-tured and brought down. U.S. offi-cials say the unmanned aircraft malfunctioned and has demanded Iran return the top-secret aircraft. Iran has refused. Ali Hekmati said his son was a former Arabic translator in the

U.S. Marines who entered Iran about four months ago. At the time, he was working in Qatar as a contractor for a company “that served the Marines,” his father said, without providing more specific details. “My wife tried to talk him out of it,” Ali Hekmati said of the visit to Iran. “The first two weeks went without incident. The third week in Tehran, some people visited him and took him away. No-body heard from him in the next three months.” He later saw on a YouTube broadcast of an Iranian program that said Amir was “locked up” and ac-cused of “being a spy for the CIA.” “I have no idea what they are going to do with my son,” he said. “I’m wor-ried to death. I love my son. I’m very sorry he’s in the predicament he’s in.” He said he’s working with attorneys in Tehran to gain his son’s release. Amir Hekmati was born in Flagstaff, Ariz., and graduated from Central High School in Flint. From there, his son joined the Marines, the 61-year-old Ali Hekmati said. He declined to give the name of the company or say what type of work it performed, but Ali Hekmati said Amir — as a former Marine — “was fitting into the job perfectly.” From March to August 2010, the younger Hekmati worked for BAE Systems, said company spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. He said Hekmati left the company to take a position with the U.S. government as a civilian employee, but he did not have additional details.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A fed-eral appeals panel on Wednesday up-held the convictions and sentences of five Muslim men accused of planning to attack Fort Dix or other military bases, though it threw out a charge against one defendant. The main issue was prosecutors’ use of wiretaps ob-tained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a part of the Patriot Act aimed largely at gathering foreign intelligence. The recordings were a major piece of a 2½-month trial for the five men, all Muslim immigrants who grew up in the New Jersey sub-urbs of Philadelphia. The men — Mo-hamad Shnewer, Serdar Tatar, and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka — were arrested in May 2007. In 2008, a federal jury in Camden, N.J., convicted them of conspiring to kill U.S. military personnel at Fort Dix. All but Tatar are serving life terms. Defense lawyers said it was unconstitutional to use the recordings in a domestic criminal case and that it may have been impossible to convict the men without the evidence. But in a unanimous ruling written by Judge Marjorie O. Rendell, a three-judge

panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dis-agreed. The challenged search “was conducted in objectively reasonable reliance on a duly authorized statute,” and therefore admissible at trial, Ren-dell wrote. Another major issue came from an error that federal prosecutors acknowledged in January: Three of the men were convicted of attempted possession of firearms in furtherance of a crime, but the law in question does not have a provision that outlaws attempted possession. In the case of that count against Dritan and Shain Duka, the judges said defense lawyers should have raised it before the trial judge. Since they didn’t, the judges said, it should not be overturned. The judges also said that there was evi-dence at trial that the two actually possessed weapons. But the case of Shnewer was different. The court ruled that there was no evidence he possessed the weapons. As a result, his weapons conviction was dis-missed, along with the 30-year prison term that went with it. He is still serv-ing a life term.

Jan 5 - 26 , 2012


8 International & Business

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s army chief on Tuesday warned an American aircraft carrier not to re-turn to the Persian Gulf in Teh-ran’s latest tough rhetoric over the strategic waterway, part of a feud with the United States over new sanctions that has sparked a jump in oil prices. Gen. Ataollah Salehi spoke as a 10-day Iranian naval exercise ended near the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf. Iranian officials have said the drill aimed to show that Iran could close the vital oil passage, as it has

threatened to do if the United States enacts strong new sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program. The strait, leading into the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea, is the only possible route for tankers trans-porting crude from the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf to mar-kets. A sixth of the world’s oil ex-ports passes through it every day. Oil prices rose to over $101 a bar-rel Tuesday amid concerns that rising tensions between Western powers and Iran could lead to crude supply disruptions. By early

afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for February delivery was up $2.67 to $101.50 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The jump came a day after Iran test-fired a surface-to-surface cruise missile as part of the maneuvers, prompting Iran’s navy chief to coast that the strait is “completely under our control.” Salehi’s com-ments apparently referred to the aircraft carrier USS John C. Sten-nis, which along with another ves-sel exited the Gulf a week ago af-ter a visit to Dubai’s Jebel Ali port, according to the U.S. Navy’s Bah-rain-based 5th Fleet. His warning that it not come back seemed aimed at further depicting the Hormuz Strait and the Gulf as un-der Iran’s domination, though there was little way to enforce his warning without military action. The strait is divided between Iran and Oman’s territorial waters, and international law requires them to allow free passage through it. “We recommend to the American war-ship that passed through the Strait of Hormuz and went to Gulf of Oman not to return to the Persian

Gulf,” Salehi was quoted as say-ing by the state news agency IRNA. He said Iran’s enemies have understood the message of the naval exercises, saying, “We have no plan to begin any irratio-nal act but we are ready against any threat.” In Washington, the Pentagon said its warships will continue to sail in the Gulf despite the warming. Iran’s sabre-rattling over the strait and the Gulf has come in response to U.S. prepara-tions to impose tough new sanc-tions that would ban dealings with Iran’s Central Bank. President Barack Obama has signed the sanctions into law but has not yet enacted them. The sanctions would be the strongest yet by the U.S., aimed at forcing Tehran to back of its nuclear program, which many in the West say is intended to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran denies the claim, saying its pro-gram is peaceful. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Tuesday that is country wants Europe to agree on similar sanctions against Iran by Jan. 30 to show its deter-mination to stop Iran from devel-oping a nuclear weapon.

CAIRO (AP) — A top Egyptian official responsible for overseeing civil society groups on Sunday de-fended sweeps through the offices of 10 human rights and pro-democ-racy organizations, rejecting de-nunciations from the U.S., U.N. and Germany. It was the first com-ment from the Egyptian govern-ment since the sweeps Thursday that targeted, among others, U.S.-based groups invited to observe Egypt’s months-long election pro-cess. Reports of heavily armed po-lice and soldiers storming into of-fices, sealing the doors, rifling through files and confiscating com-puters set off a wave of internation-al protest against Egypt’s rulers.International Cooperation Minister Faiza Aboul Naga defended the op-eration as a legitimate investigation into organizations suspected of op-erating without permits and receiv-ing “political funding” against the law. Aboul Naga pointed to repeat-ed complaints from the judiciary and the ruling military about civil

society groups acceptng foreign funds to promote protests and insta-bility and “influence public opinion in non-peaceful ways.” She said the order to investigate the groups came from independent judges. The mili-tary has pointed to “foreign hands” behind clashes with protesters who are demanding that the military hand over power to civilians. More than 100 people have been killed in the clashes since the military took over in February. Rights groups dismiss the charges as an attempt to taint the reform movement that led to the ouster of longtime Presi-dent Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising that demanded democracy and human rights. The U.S.-based National Democratic Institute, In-ternational Republican Institute and Freedom House all denounced the sweeps.Aboul Naga, who was appointed by Mubarak and has sur-vived numerous Cabinet reshuffles since his ouster, refused to call the coordinated security sweep a raid. “This was not a raid or a storming or an attack. It was an investiga-

tion,” she said. “There are foreign civil society groups that began op-erating without permission, which is totally outside the law.” Under Mubarak, the government rarely licensed pro-democracy and rights organizations, forcing them to work in a legal limbo. The situation has not changed since Mubarak’s fall. The U.S. said it received as-surances that the sweeps would end. Defense Secretary Leon Pa-netta spoke by phone to the head of Egypt’s ruling military council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, to emphasize the importance the Obama administration places on the country’s democratic transition and appreciation for the decision to stop the raids. The State Department said Friday that U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson spoke with mem-bers of the ruling military council and “received assurances that the raids will cease and property will be returned immediately.” How-ever, Justice Minister Adel Abdel-Hamid said Sunday that property and bank statements would be re-

turned only after a full investiga-tion had been completed. He did not say how long the investigations could take. He also said the inves-tigations would look into whether these groups are behind the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the focus of protests by Egypt’s reformers. Aboul Naga said that the 17 offices belonging to the 10 organizations investigated last week sprouted up across Egypt “behind the govern-ment’s back” only after the Jan. 25 uprising that led to Mubarak’s top-pling. The International Coopera-tion minister also alleged that some of the organizations under investi-gation have received 200 million dollars since January, but she de-clined to name them or explain how the government believes the money was spent. The National Democrat-ic Institute said it had been operat-ing in Egypt since 2005 “in an open and transparent manner, working to assist the efforts of political parties and civic organizations.” Freedom House said it applied for permits three days before the sweep.

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — A moderate Islamist party pulled out of Algeria’s governing coalition on Sunday, saying that 2012 is the year of competition — not alliances. The announcement by the Move-ment for a Peaceful Society, or MSP, to leave the so-called presi-dential alliance comes ahead of April legislative elections. The MSP’s decision to enter the opposi-tion should allow it to try to capital-ize on the wave of Islamist victories in other Arab countries, although it

is unclear how well the party can prosper after years inside the power structure. The party had already reached out to Algeria’s Islamist ranks ahead of the elections, and differences with its partners, the powerful National Liberation Front and the National Democratic Rally, were well known. The decision to leave the governing coalition, which it joined in 2004, was an-nounced at the end of a gathering of the party’s Consultative Council focused on the upcoming elections

and the party’s role in the alliance behind President Abdelaziz Boutef-lika. MSP leader Abou Djara Soltani put the accent on disagree-ment over how to implement an ar-ray of reforms announced April 15 by Bouteflika to placate the restless Algerian population as uprisings now known as the Arab Spring have toppled leaders of other Arab nations. He accused coalition part-ners of “emptying the political re-forms of their substance in the name of partisan interests” rather

than ensuring reforms worked in the interest of the people. The year 2012, Soltani said, will be “the year of political competition ... and not that of the alliance,” synonymous with “political mediocrity which serves neither the country nor its citizens.” Alliance partners, the powerful FLN and RCD, have re-jected the MSP’s criticism that the planned reforms are tactical. The MSP has four ministers in minor posts.

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Morocco’s ruling coalition formed a new government on Tuesday that gives top posts to an Islamist party but also keeps close allies of the king in powerful positions. The Islamist Justice and Develop-ment Party, known as PJD, won the most seats in the Nov. 25 par-liamentary elections as part of the wave of election victories by Is-lamist political parties across North Africa following a series of uprisings across the Arab world. “This new government has a true will for reform and we will keep all the promises we made,” said Prime Minister Abdelilah Benki-rane outside the palace after the swearing in. “We will do every-thing to encourage foreign and domestic investment to create a climate of prosperity.” Benki-rane’s PJD party is not expected, however, to radically change the politics of this North African kingdom because it had to ally with three other parties close to the palace, and the king still re-tains veto powers over most deci-sions. Morocco was rocked last year by pro-democracy protests

calling for greater freedoms and an end to corruption. The king re-sponded by amending the consti-tution to grant more powers to the prime minister and parliament and holding early elections. While the PJD has taken 12 of 31 cabinet posts including prime minister, as well as the foreign ministry, jus-tice ministry and communication ministry, close allies to the palace retain important positions. Aziz Akhannouch, one of the wealthi-est men in the country, has re-tained the powerful Agriculture Ministry, despite the fact that his party is not in the ruling coalition. Four other posts were directly ap-pointed by the palace, including religious affairs. Both the Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministry have also been assigned “minister delegates,” with ties to the palace that may challenge the power of the ministers. Abdullah Baha, a top adviser to the new prime min-ister and now a minister of state to the new government, dismissed concerns about these new posts. “We are not in the logic of con-frontation, this is a group effort,” he told the Associated Press. Baha

did admit, however, that part of the six week delay in forming the government was because the pal-ace objected to the appointment as justice minister of party firebrand Mustapha Ramid, known for his anti-U.S. rhetoric and defense of terror suspects in court cases. “Concerning the case of Ramid, there were reservations on the part of the palace but those were even-tually overcome,” admitted Baha.The PJD has formed a coalition with the Istiqlal or Independence Party, which helped the coun-try win its freedom from France in 1956 as well as the Popular Movement, a party of rural nota-bles, and the Party of Progress and Socialism of former communists. Other key ministries like finance and interior, which controls the police, had to be parceled out to the PJD’s partners, something po-litical analyst Boubakr Jamai said will weaken the reformist efforts of the new government. “This is a major defeat for the PJD; it is at least a signal that the PJD is not serious in confronting the real problems of the government,” said Jamai, who is a fellow at Har-

vard Ash Center and founder of the Moroccan news website La-kome.com. “You cannot claim to have the government if you don’t control some important minis-tries.” Boubakr also noted that the palace has appointed Driss Dahak as the “secretary general” of the government, which functions as a kind of legal department for the cabinet and in the past has been used to keep laws from getting passed. “It is a way of keeping the government and parliament on a short leash,” he said, expressing doubt that the PJD will be able to fulfill its reformist agenda and tru-ly tackle some of the deep rooted corruption in the country. While never as autocratic as some of its neighbors, Moroccan politics has long consisted of weak politi-cal parties being manipulated by the powerful king and his coterie of advisers. Despite some of the concessions in the new constitu-tion, the makeup of the new gov-ernment will still give the palace a very strong voice in how the country is run.

Morocco king keeps checks on

new Islamist govt

Iran warns US carrier: Don’t come back to Persian Gulf

Egypt defends storming of civil society groups

Algeria’s moderate Islamist party exits government

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Around 200 students and professors demon-strated in Tunisia’s capital on Wednesday calling for an end to the standoff by ultraconservative Mus-lims at a nearby university. For more than a month classes and ex-ams at Manouba University’s hu-manities department have been put on hold by a sit-in demanding stu-dents be allowed to attend class in the conservative face veil, known as the niqab. “Science before the niqab,” and “no to shackles, no to niqab, knowledge is free,” read the signs of the demonstrators, who urged the minister of higher educa-tion to resolve the dispute so that

classes could resume. University policy prevents students from cov-ering their faces during class. The sit-in has been the latest crisis faced by Tunisia since it overthrew its long-serving dictator last year, who had aggressively promoted secular policies. In his absence there has been a resurgence of ultraconserva-tive Muslims known as Salafists, who are seeking a greater role for Islam in public life. The depart-ment’s dean, Habib Kazdaghli, at-tended the protest and said that the people blocking classes weren’t even university students. Kazdaghli said the Salafists attacked him and prevented him from going to his of-

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jor-dan’s state security court has upheld a five-year prison sentence for a militant known as the mentor of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Palestinian-born Isam Mohammed Taher al-Barqawi, better known as Sheik Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, was sentenced last July for “plotting ter-rorism” and recruiting militants in

Jordan to join the Afghan Taliban. He was tried in a military court with three other Jordanian Palestinians. Al-Maqdisi’s lawyers had appealed the sentence but their motion was rejected. Al-Maqdisi has served sev-eral jail terms in Jordan. In the 1990s, he shared a jail cell with al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in 2006 in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi had described him as a mentor.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli po-lice say two cars have been torched in a Palestinian village and that He-brew graffiti has been spray-painted at the scene. Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says no suspects have been arrested in connection with the vandalism in the village of Shaafat early on Wednesday. But the graffiti

— “price tag” and “revenge” — is typical of slogans painted by sus-pected Jewish extremists. The van-dalism is the latest in a long line of attacks in recent months on Israeli military bases and Palestinian mosques, cemeteries, farmlands and cars in the West Bank and Israel proper.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia said Monday it will begin enforcing a law that allows only females to work in women’s lingerie and apparel stores, despite disapproval from the country’s top cleric. The 2006 law banning men from working in female apparel and cosmetic stores has never been put into effect, partly because of view of hard-liners in the religious estab-lishment, who oppose the whole idea of women working where men and women congregate together, like malls. Saudi women — tired of having to deal with men when buy-ing undergarments — have boycot-ted lingerie stores to pressure them to employ women. The govern-ment’s decision to enforce the law requiring that goes into effect Thursday.The country is home to Islam’s holi-est site in the city of Mecca and fol-

lows an ultra-conservative form of the religion known as Wahhabism.The kingdom’s religious police, un-der the control of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Pre-vention of Vice, enforce Saudi Ara-bia’s strict interpretation of Islam, which prohibits unrelated men and women from mingling. Women and men in Saudi Arabia remain highly segregated and are restricted in how they are allowed to mix in public.The separation of men and women is not absolute. Women in Saudi Arabia hold high-level teaching positions in universities and work as engineers, doctors, nurses and a range of other posts. The strict ap-plication of Islamic law forced an untenable situation in which wom-en, often accompanied by uncom-fortable male relatives, have to buy their intimate apparel from men be-hind the counter.

PARIS (AP) — France’s interior minister says that since a ban on face-covering Islamic veils took ef-fect in April only six women have been convicted and fined. Claude Gueant said in an interview with the daily Le Monde published Monday that no woman has been sent to a citizenship class — another poten-tial punishment. Controversy sur-rounded the law. Muslim leaders,

most of them opposed to burqa-style veils, say the it stigmatizes all fol-lowers of Islam. Gueant says police cited a total of 237 women but only six were convicted. He expressed surprise that nearly a quarter of the women police questioned had con-verted to Islam. Backers say the law is aimed at ensuring France’s secu-lar values and gender equality and nipping radical Islam in the bud.

BEIJING (AP) — A crowd of Muslims fought with police who de-molished a mosque in China’s northwest, a police employee and a human rights group said Monday.The violence erupted Friday in Hexi, a town in the Ningxia region, after the mosque was declared an “illegal religious place” and about 1,000 officers arrived to demolish it, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and De-mocracy said. It said 50 people were injured and more than 100 detained after several hundred members of

China’s Muslim Hui minority tried to stop the demolition. It cited a vil-lager as saying two people died, but said it could not confirm that.An employee who answered the phone at the town police station con-firmed that officers had fought with protesters and said about 80 people were detained but denied there were any deaths. Police demolished the mosque after the clash, said the employee, who refused to give her name. She said she did not know how many people were involved or why police demolished the mosque.

Tunisians call for end to campus veil standoff

Jordan upholds sentence for al-Qaida mentor

Palestinian cars burned, Hebrew graffiti at scene

Saudi to apply law for women only to sell lingerie

France: Only 6 veiled women fined since April

Crowd fights Chinese po-lice at mosque demolition

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