al mashreq english june 2013

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35

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US Muslim man sues FBI over allegations of torture abroad and demand 30M in compensation

16 Pages Issue No. 49

6

45

7June 2013

www.almashreqonline.com

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

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Associated Press

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Newspaper

Tel.: (480) 427-0012

One in five US adults can’t afford medical care: report

Police look for motive in California shooting spree

Where does evilcome from?

Iraq claims foilingal-Qaeda nerve-gas plot

�شحن بحري و جّوي

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: The Arab Advisory Board is a coalition of multiple Arab organiza-tions and individual activists in Arizo-na. It held its first preliminary meeting on May 15, 2013 at the main office of the Arab American Association in Downtown Phoenix. Mr. Christopher Abril attended the first session of the meeting on behalf of the Phoenix Po-lice Department. Mr. Abril expressed his department willingness to work closely with the advisory board to insure that the Arab communities in Arizona are served adequately. The 23 attending board members at the second session elected the follow-ing executive members:Dr. Mohammad Riyad- CoordinatorMr. Ashraf AlgamalMr. Ali Al Tarsha

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: U.S. District Court in Arizona ruled last month that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies vio-lated the civil rights of Latinos by racial profiling during raids and traffic stops.According to the ruling, it is now ille-gal to use “race or ancestry” as a factor when making traffic stops. Judge G. Murray Snow said that Sherrif Arpaio “had turned much of his focus to arresting immigrants who were in the

Forming the Arab Advisory Board

The U.S. District Court issued a ruling

preventing Sherriff Arpaio and his

department from using “race or

ancestry” as a factor when making traffic

stops

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Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: Yonas Fikre an American Muslim of Sudanese decent and a former resident of the State of Oregon has sued the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the State Department over the claim that he was subjected to torture at their behest while being held abroad.

Named in Yonas Fikre’s suit are Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State John Kerry, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and two Portland-based FBI agents. The lawsuit, filed Thurs-day in U.S. District Court in Oregon, seeks $30 million in damages and injunctions against similar mistreatment of Ameri-

can citizens.The plaintiff claims in his law-suite that the FBI took an interest in him in 2009, when he decided to move from Portland, Oregon, to Sudan in order to open an electronics retail business in the North African country

For thE dIgItAl ISSuE VISItwww.ALMASHREqONLINE.COM

Mr. Ali AL-Sayyed and his familyproudly congratulate their son Attorney

Zayed Ali AL-Sayyed

For passing the AZ Bar Exam and receiving his license to practice law in the State

We ask the almighty God to enlighten his path and guide him to

serve his community and wish him success in his career

Congratulations!Congratulations!

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June 2013


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June 2013


3

Cooking & Recipes

ingredients

• 4-6 bonesless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs

• 1 onion sliced• 2 cloves garlic, chopped• 1 cup potatoes chopped into 1 inch

pieces• 1 1/2 cup tomato, wedged• 1cups carrots sliced• 1/2 teaspoon pepper• 1 teaspoon salt• 3/4 cups water• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

ingredients• 1 1/2 lbs. uncooked ground beef or ground lamb• 16 oz. can of tomato sauce or 2 1/2 cups peeled, diced tomatoes• 2 cups uncooked white rice• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped• 1 tablespoon coriander• 1/2 teaspoon salt• 1 teaspoon black pepper• 2 tablespoons of lemon• 1 16 oz. jar grape leaves or 1 lb. fresh vine leaves• 1 lemon sliced

Entertainment

Jokes

Preparation :In a tagine, or heavy large skillet, saute onions and garlic in vegeta-ble oil. Add chicken and brown on each side for about 4-6 minutes.

Stir in 3/4 cups water, add potatoes and carrots. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Allow to cook on low heat for 35-45 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add tomato wedges and continue cooking for 10-15 minutes.

Serve immediately. You can serve this chicken tagine alone or along with white rice.

Preparation :Remove grape leaves from jar and soak for a few hours in cold water. If not soaked properly, they have a very salty taste. While grape leaves are soaking, mix together ground beef, tomato sauce, rice, parsley, coriander, salt, pepper and lemon juice. This is best done with your hands. Cover and place in refrigerator until ready to stuff leaves.Preparing the Grape Leaves to StuffDrain grape leaves and dry with paper towels. Remove stems. Place leaves shiny side down and have yout meat mixture ready.Stuffing and WrappingPut about a teaspoon of mixture towards the bottom of the leaf. Fold in sides and roll upwards firmly. Do not roll too tightly. The rice does expand during cooking and may tear the leaf. Repeat with remaining leaves and mixture. How to Properly Place Them in The PotIn a large saucepan or dutch oven, place them side by side in cir-cular layers. Place two lemon slices between the layers of grape leaves. Put a weight on top of the last layer of stuffed grape leaves. I use a ceramic plate. This ensure that the leaves to do not move around during cooking. Fill pot with water, covering the leaves. Simmer and cook for 30 minutes on low until the rice is done.

When rice is tender, remove vine leaves from pot and serve.

1. What’s Beethoven’s favorite fruit?…Ba-na-na-naaa!

2. What did the little fish say when he swam into a wall? DAM!

3. Where does a sheep go for a haircut? To the baaaaa baaaaa shop!

4. What does a nosey pepper do? Gets jalapeno business!

5. What’s the last thing that goes thru a bug’s mind as he hits the windshield? His butt.

6. What do you call cheese that’s not yours? It’s nacho cheese.

7. Two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff. Ba-dum Tish!

Chicken TagineYou will never experience a flavor better than a tagine. This chicken tagine recipe is perfect for beginners!

Haydari (Turkish Yogurt Dip)Stuffed grape leaves are not only delicious, but are fun to make. In my kitchen, my family stuffs and wraps the grape leaves together - even the children. It can be time consuming for one person, but with many, the time goes by very quickly and you are on to eating this delectable appetizer

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: For Kabul’s wealthy elite some things are de rigueur: armed guards, a marble-clad man-sion, a blacked-out SUV. But one man has taken the flamboyant lifestyle a step further and bought a lion.Mohammad Shafiq, a 42-year-old busi-nessman, is very proud of his growling pet, which spends its days prowling a roof ter-race at his sprawling home in a posh resi-dential area of central Kabul.“A friend said he had a lion in Kandahar and wanted to sell it to me,” Shafiq, who runs a construction company, said. “He knew I loved dogs and birds, but this was more than what I was expecting.“I had seen lions on television and in the zoo, but never this close. So without any hesitation, I said I will buy it. To me, lions are brave and I respect them. Knowing I could buy one was very exciting.”The lion, still unnamed, is not chained up and has no collar and spends much of the day lying quietly in a corner of the roof ter-race above a storeroom, coming down each evening to eat.Shafiq says he spends about $1,000 a month employing a caretaker to feed it fresh meat bought from a butcher and also paying a vet to check its health regularly.Tens of billions of dollars have flowed into Afghanistan in the 12 years since the US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban. Some Af-ghans have become very rich as a result and they are not shy when it comes to flaunting

their wealth.Kabul is dotted with the flashy houses of the nou-veau riche, dripping with chandeliers and nick-named “poppy palaces” -- hinting at the shady provenance of at least some of the money in the world’s leading opium producing nation.But so far Shafiq is thought to be the only person to acquire such an unusual status symbol.Shafiq, who says he was a resistance fighter when the Taliban fell and made his money through lucra-tive construction con-tracts for clients includ-ing the US embassy, said he had owned the male cub for two months and thought it was now about six months old.“It cost me $20,000, including transport from Kandahar to Kabul by road,” he said, declining to explain about how the lion was driven on the 480-kilometer route that is of-ten hit by insurgent bombs and ambushes.He brushed off suggestions he is being cruel by keeping a large wild animal in captivity in a city wrecked by decades of war, and said he though it may have come to Afghan-istan via Iran.But during a visit to the house by an AFP re-

porter and photographer, the lion appeared nervous and growled aggressively when anyone approached it. Shafiq has plans to move it to a large pen in the backyard of another property in the Afghan capital.Claire McMaster, wildlife director at the World Society for the Protection of Ani-mals, criticised Shafiq, warning that any captive lion posed a serious threat to human life.“Wild animals should not be kept as pets as it is cruel to hold them in captivity and con-fined away from their natural habitat, espe-cially as owners are unlikely to meet their complex needs,” she told AFP.

“The other problem with keeping a wild animal as a pet is that unlike domesticated animals, the size and unpredictable behav-ior could lead to serious injury or death to the owner.”“I would be shocked if there is a pet lion in Kabul,” Aziz Gul Saqeb, director of Kabul Zoo, said“It’s very hard to keep a lion, it’s a wild animal.”For now Shafiq says he is very happy with his pet, but admits he may not be able to keep it in the long-term.“I don’t know, I will see and I might give him to Kabul Zoo one day,” he said.

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: Manchester City for highly-rated strik-er Stephan El Shaarawy, according to Gazzetta dello Sport Saturday.El Shaarawy was the Rossoneri’s top scor-er in the first half of last season but hit a dry patch following the signing of Mario Balotelli.The 20-year-old half-Egpytian, half-Ital-ian, who wears a distinctive mohican-style haircut, is called the ‘Little Pharaoh’ and is a fans’ favorite at the San Siro.Gazzetta claims Milan could give in to City’s “pressing” and let El Shaarawy leave the club. The same report linked Kevin Prince Boateng with a move to Chelsea and fellow forward Robinho with Brazilian side Santos.

El Shaarawy, who alongside club-mate Mario Balotelli played for Italy in a score-less draw against the Czech Republic on Friday, finished the season with 16 goals in 37 games.He cost AC Milan approximately 15.5 m euros when the club bought him from Ge-noa and has emerged into one of the most exciting forward prospects in Italy.El Shaarawy has already been the subject of transfer speculation this season with re-ports claiming Milan rejected a bid from Napoli in January.Milan finished third in Italy’s Serie A, which ended three weeks ago, and will have to play a two-leg preliminary round tie to qualify for the Champions League group stages.

The $20,000 pet lion that lives on a Kabul rooftop

Report says, Manchester City wants El Shaaraway

June 2013


4 Articles

It’s very challenging to differentiate between the aspect of God’s na-ture and power which is wholly independent of the material uni-verse and divine attri-butes describing God’s powers and capabili-ties without falling into anthropomorphism which is an Attribution of human motiva-tion, characteristics, or behavior to inani-mate objects.

Hence, the argument of evil, attempts to show that the co-existence of evil and the deity is unlikely or impossible. In another word, should God’s noninterference in the universe to stop evil be construed as an ac-ceptance by him of such evil? Can God stop drunk drivers before running someone over?Can God prevent murderers from complet-ing their crimes?Can God force a drug addict husband from hurting his wife?

A No answer means God is incapable of be-ing a superpower or a creator! But if the an-swer is yes, then why does not he interfere in our life to stop evil?These are legitimate questions, indeed. But before addressing this issue, we need to de-termine an important element in this dilem-ma, which is, whether evil stems from hu-mans’ free will or from God’s own actions?If evil stems from God’s own actions, then God himself becomes the source of evil and consequently become unworthy of wor-

shipping. However, if the evil stems from humans’ free actions, then we will under-stand that imposing any limitations on the humans’ ability to create evil will result in the deprivation of humans’ free will itself. Therefore, it’s obvious that the existence of evil in the world manifests the existence of the humans’ free will and ability to pick their own actions; alternatively, humans would be forced or in another word programmed to only make good deeds and consequently become angels and no longer humans.

Where does evil come from? By, Dr. Mohammad Riyad

Half a century ago, in France, in the elemen-tary grades of public schools, every Satur-day morning (we then had to attend school on Saturday mornings), there was a class called “Morals”. The teacher would pull out a book and read a story from that book. We, the students, did not have a copy of the book. So, we would sit in the assigned position, that is, arms crossed on the table, and qui-etly listen to the story. There was always a moral to the story. So, at the end of the story, the teacher would ask us, “What is the moral of the story?” I always dreaded the question, because I wasn’t sure what the moral was, and was afraid the teacher would pick on me. How-ever, I loved these classes, because the stories were always very stimulating to the mind and caused me to have sleepless nights.

One such story has stuck in my mind till today. It goes something like this: A woman in the village loved to spread gossip. Once, she discovered that the gossip she had spread about another woman was untrue. She felt very ashamed and embarrassed and tried to undo the harm she had caused. Not knowing how to do that, she went to the vil-lage priest for advice. He said to her, “OK, get a chicken (remember, in those days, one could actually buy a live chicken and have it slaughtered), and take a walk by the seashore. Pluck the chicken while walking along the shore. Make sure to pull off every single feather. Then come back and I’ll tell you the next steps.” So the woman did as she was told, and came back running to the priest with her now naked chicken. “What do I do next?” she asked eagerly. The priest replied, “Well, now take a bag and go back to the seashore. Pick up every single feather you pulled out and put them in the bag and bring them back to me.” The distraught woman exclaimed, “But that’s impossible! The wind has blown them all over the place, and even over the sea! How am I to find all

those feathers?” The wise priest nodded his head, “That is exactly the point, madame. All those things you said have spread to the four corners of the earth by now. There is no way you can catch them and bring them back. The deed has been done. The evil has been committed. You cannot undo it.”Not only did we get a moral a week through these classes, we also had to memorize the fables by Jean de la Fontaine – poems based on Aesop’s fables. These also includ-ed a stated moral at the end of the poem. It wasn’t just the French who then taught their children morals through public and private schools. Even here in the US, there were books for children that collected stories such as that of George Washington and the cherry tree, for honesty; or famous sayings such as “early to bed and early to rise, that is the way to be healthy, and wealthy, and wise,” for good habits. In the Middle East, children had to learn about the stories of the prophets or of early Muslims, highlighting their righteousness. These moralistic stories were usually ac-

companied by direct discussion of their moral values. In other words, there was some kind of interaction between the adult and the child. As a result, the children grew up with solid character values, despite the fairy tales that made criminals into heroes, taught discrimination, and idolized super-ficial values. Jack of the famed beanstalk is praised for being a thief and a murderer, while the giant’s wife betrays her husband for a stranger. Most princes decide to marry a girl based on her looks, even though we the reader might know her for being hard-working, kind or honest (Snow White, Cin-derella, Donkey Skin). Children and youth who get into all kinds of adventures never remember their parents once they reach success in their lives, not Thumbelina, nor Rapunzel.Alas, today, schools have taken Morals out of the curriculum. It is not “cool” to give direct instructions to children about what is right and what is wrong. We adults are not supposed to know best any more. But the fairy tales have remained.

The Moral of the StoryDr. Fawzia Tung

In the previous article, what did the child teach his mother?The mother learnt from her child that the means to have peace and quiet, and not to get involved in embarrassing situa-tions is to execute the child’s orders: i.e. to buy the box of candy.Thus, the child has established a new behavioral type, and it is on this basis that the relationship between the mother and child will continue. The behavior of the mother along with the behavior of the child form and outline the nature of their relationship. If the child repeats the same behavior, the mother will repeat the same behavior she has previously done with him.A fatal error!This is the way many fathers behave when they face the anger of their chil-dren with submission, compliance and, subsequently, reward (the candy). This is because this way teaches the child to increase his display of anger in order to receive the reward.Additionally, anger is among the blame-worthy attributes a man can have. When many sociologists and educationalists regard anger among the despicable vices and blameworthy habits, they mean the blameworthy anger which produces the most negative effects and leads to the most critical consequences -- particular-ly at the time of excitement and anger for personal interests and selfish motives. It is known that this anger disbands unity, breaks up the group, and exterminates the meanings of brotherhood, love, and purity in the community.Another fatal error is made by fathers when they respond to the child’s anger. It is called pampering, which is to be lax in dealing with the child in such a way as to satisfy the child’s needs in the very time and manner he likes, and has-ten to do all that he demands, no matter how unacceptable it might be. In other words, everyone around him does their best to obey him and be at his disposal, and never refuse any of his demands whatever they may be.On the other hand, pampering makes the child unable to bear the responsibilities or burdens that are appropriate to his stage of life. This results in the child’s

slow emotional and social maturity. Such a child cannot easily undertake any matter, nor have the feeling of respon-sibility, nor appreciate it, nor resist the problems of life, nor confront the states of frustration. He is always vulnerable to psychological disorders when there is an obstacle or a problem standing in his way. More often, he inclines to be dependent on others rather than self-reliant. He also resorts to the method of avoiding, deferring or neglecting risks and problems.A successful plan to tackle the super-market battle:To put an end to the supermarket battle with your child, and eradicate the roots of this problem peacefully, parents should do the following:• Sit with the child before going to the supermarket.• Clarify where you would go with him and what you would buy.• Brief him on the shopping list.• Ask him about what he would like to buy before going to the supermarket.• Ask him to include what he would like

to buy in the shopping list.• Ask him to do something helpful and take charge of the shopping list. For ex-ample, he may be asked to hold it while shopping and tick the items that have been purchased to take it out of the list.• Promise the child that if he does his part well, you will buy him the candy he likes, and if he falls short in his task, he will not have any candy.• Parents should encourage the child by saying to him, “You are doing a good job following the list. Thank you and we appreciate your help. You are a co-operative child.”• The mother rewards the child for his good behavior with candy.At this very moment, the child learns three rules:The first rule: Anger brings about noth-ing but loss:That is because if he grows angry or raises his voice, he will get nothing: on the contrary, he will lose the candy be-cause the mother will not surrender to his anger.

The second rule: Good behavior brings rewards:When the child plays his role success-fully and keeps quiet, he will have the candy he wanted.The third rule: His parents mean what they say:For example, if the mother threatens to deprive him of candy if he gets angry, the child will find that she is steadfast in implementing her decision.At that very moment too, the mother will learn the following:That the optimum means to have peace and quiet, and not to get involved in em-barrassing situations is not to execute Khaalid’s orders by buying the box of candy, but it is to teach Khaalid how to change his behavior; that punishment is the inevitable outcome of bad behavior, whereas reward is the pleasant outcome of good behavior.In this way, the mother learns that to hush her child’s cries, the solution is neither to surrender to him nor to beat him, in so much as to co-operate with the child to change his behavior.

Our Children and the Battle of the Supermarket - IIislam online team

June 2013


5National

Bank of America sold out its customers

Georgia Mosque vandalized

The U.S. District Court issued a ruling preventing Sherriff Arpaio and his department from using “race or ancestry” as a factor

when making traffic stops

Anti-Muslim crowd interrupts Fed officials

during an event hosted by a coalition of Islamic

organizations

One in five US adults can’t afford medical care:

report

Almashreq/Agencies Edi-torial Staff: Bank of America has sold out its customers who had invested in failed mortgage securities during the 2008 fi-nancial crisis,Media sources reported that reports. “It was a shameless sellout of people who were literally robbed blind in the home mortgage crisis of the post Glass-Steagall repeal period,” said Jeff Steinberg, a US eco-nomic analyst. This is while Bank of America headed to court on Monday to push for an $8.5 bil-lion settlement with investors in mortgage securities that went bad during the financial crisis. Oppo-nents criticized the move, saying the settlement represented only pennies on the dollar for the bil-lions that were lost in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Several state attorneys general said that losses to the trusts might exceed $100 billion, and that the bank-

ing giant is liable to its custom-ers. “New York State Attorney General [Eric] Schneiderman and a number of other state attorneys general who are going back in to prosecute, to re-sue these banks over the fact that they failed to even live up to the demands of that deal that was a sweetheart deal to begin with,” said Stein-berg. A bank settlement would leave investors without the option of a trial as well as strike the abili-ty to hold the bank responsible for misrepresentations on the quality of the underlying mortgages. Fol-lowing the housing crisis in 2008, a massive investigation revealed that many US banks were respon-sible for pushing unaffordable mortgages, issuing higher rates to minorities who were qualified for a better rate, having employ-ees ‘robo-sign’ foreclosure docu-ments, and other offenses.

Almashreq/Agencies Editori-al Staff: Police in Alpharetta, Ga., are investigating graffiti spray-painted on the sign for the Islamic Center of North

Fulton. The graffiti included the phrase «London Justice,» an apparent reference to the re-cent attack on a British soldier in London.

Almashreq/Agencies Edito-rial Staff: Bill Killian, U.S. Attorney of the Eastern Dis-trict of Tennessee, and Ken-neth Moore, FBI special agent in charge of the Eastern Ten-nessee District were interrupt-ed by a large group of Anti-Muslim protesters.The federal officials were scheduled to speak at an event sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council in Tennessee. Despite interrup-

tions, Killian›s presentation covered the First and 14th amendments and what consti-tutes a hate crime. One attend-ee told the Tennessean news-paper she was afraid of other audience members because of their bigoted actions.The protesters chanted Anti-Muslim slurs including “Is-lam is Evil” Other hecklers shouted «communist,» «so-cialist» and «Muslim» at the officials

Almashreq/Agencies Edito-rial Staff: More than one in five US adults have problems paying their medical expenses, opting to forgo treatment or fill prescriptions, a new govern-ment report shows. A report released Tuesday by the Cen-ters for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 20.3 percent of US adults under the age of 65 - 54.2 million people - had trouble paying health bills during the first half of 2012. The report said that an individual who was uninsured or with public insurance was twice as likely to experience trouble paying medical bills than someone with private medical insurance. The report highlighted the most common medical expenses including medication, equipment, home

care, or trips to doctors, den-tists, hospitals and therapists. Previous studies revealed that the high cost of medical care discourages people from ob-taining treatment, which wors-ens their health over time. The survey, conducted be-tween January 2011 and June 2012, was based on nation-wide in-person interviews with 155,321 American adults. The new report came amid plans to implement the Affordable Care Act in January 2014, which re-quires insurance for all Ameri-cans. The US has the costliest health care system in the world when it comes to several condi-tions including having a baby, heart surgery, hospital stay and basic doctor care, according to the International Federation of Health Plans.

Almashreq/Agencies Ed-itorial Staff: The U.S. Dis-trict Court in Detroit Judge Avern Cohn said during a hearing over a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of Mus-lim Americans in Michigan who claimed that they were asked questions by federal agents about their religion such as: How many times a day do you pray? Which mosque do you go to? Are you Sunni or Shi’a?while attempting to cross into the U.S. from Canada: “ the allegations of profil-ing are “gnawing at me.” He then brought up the case of alleged profiling in

New York City of African Americans under the stop-and-frisk program, which has been criticized by civil rights groups, including the NAACP and ACLU.“This is analogous,” Cohn said in court.The department of Justice had filed a motion to dis-miss the case saying that the U.S. government does not have a policy that spe-cifically targets people of any religion, but Cohn did not rule on the case yet, in-stead, Cohn said at the end of the hearing the “matter will be taken under advise-ment.”

The Council on Amer-ican-Islamic Relations, which filed the lawsuit, welcomed Cohn’s com-parison, but their attorneys

said “it was too early to say whether Cohn’s comments will result in a favorable decision”.

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: US authorities have moved to start tracking hate crimes against Arab Americans, Sikhs and Hindus after calls for more rigorous action following a massacre by a white supremacist at a Sikh temple. The Federal Bureau of Investigation al-ready compiles statistics on violence against Muslims, Jews, atheists and several other religious affiliations but did not specifically list crimes against Sikh, Hindu or Arab American. ..An FBI policy board, at a meeting in Virginia, voted to start listing all groups that appeared in two major re-cent studies of religion in the United States, agency spokesman Stephen Fischer said late Wednesday. The updated list will include Buddhists, Catholics, Hindus, Jehovah’s Wit-nesses, Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Protestant Christians and Sikhs and also start a category for anti-Arab crimes, he said. The FBI anticipates that it will start compiling the statistics in 2015, although the decision needs formal approval by FBI director Robert Mueller, Fischer said. Representa-tive Joe Crowley, who led a push by lawmakers to urge action against hate crimes against Sikhs and other groups, called on Mueller to carry out the changes “fully and urgently.” A step forward “While this is a monu-

mental step forward, our work can-not end here,” said Crowley, a mem-ber of President Barack Obama›s Democratic Party from New York City. Rajdeep Singh, director of law and policy for the Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group, said that the FBI de-cision will “give our community the dignity of recognition.” “The new changes will strengthen diagnos-tic and deterrence efforts, increase awareness about Sikhs among law enforcement officials nationwide, and encourage Sikhs to begin report-ing hate crimes to local, state and federal authorities,” he said. Sikhs, whose faith requires men to wear tur-

bans, have faced a wave of violence since the September 11, 2001 attacks by assailants who incorrectly associ-ate the religion with radical Islam. In the worst attack, a white former US Army specialist barged into a Sikh gurudwara in Oak Creek, Wiscon-sin, on August 5 last year, killing six people and wounding three. In 2011, the last year for which statistics are available, authorities reported to the FBI a total of 6,222 hate crimes in the United States. Nearly half were racial attacks, with around 20 percent moti-vated by religious hatred and another one-fifth triggered by bias based on sexual orientation

Judge compares alleged profiling of Muslims at border with the alleged profiling in New York City of African Americans under the

stop-and-frisk program

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Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: Hundreds of people demon-strated in New York on Saturday in a show of support for mass protests in Turkey against the Islamist-root-ed government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The march-ers gathered at Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street, which also became the nerve center for the Occupy Wall Street movement when it took over the public space in late 2011. Many

wore red and white, the colors of the Turkish flag. They chanted in Turk-ish: “Tayip, Resign!” Their ban-ners read, in English and Turkish, “Enough!” and “Resistanbul.”In Istanbul, thousands of protesters in Istanbul celebrated a victory ear-lier as police withdrew from Taksim Square, in one of the largest demon-strations against Erdogan’s govern-ment. “Government, resign!” pro-testers shouted as riot police pulled

back from the city’s central square, the epicenter of the demonstrations that have left dozens injured and earned Turkey a rare rebuke from its Western allies. Police have de-tained 939 protesters in over 90 demonstrations in 48 cities, officials said. Erdogan’s populist govern-ment is regularly accused of trying to make the predominantly Muslim but staunchly secular country more conservative.

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: US police have launched a probe into a shooting incident in which a gunman dressed in black killed at least four people and in-jured several others in the state of California. The investigation, which was started on Saturday, came a day after the gun rampage unfold-ed in the city of Santa Monica just miles from where President Barack Obama was speaking at a political fundraiser. However, the Secret Ser-vice called the bloodshed a “local police matter,” that appeared unre-lated to the president’s visit to the city. “We are aware of the incident and it is not impacting the visit. It’s a local police matter at this point,” a Secret Service spokesman in Wash-ington said. Police at first put the death toll from the attack at six, but later revised it to five people dead, including the gunman himself. Ac-

cording to police, the fatal assault started at a house in the coastal city before the gunman, wearing a bul-let-proof jacket, made his way to Santa Monica College. The attacker killed two people in the house be-fore setting it on fire. The victims were reportedly the gunman’s fa-ther and brother. Santa Monica Po-lice Sergeant Richard Lewis said the shooter afterwards carjacked a woman and ordered her to drive. He fired several rounds at a city bus on his way. Arriving at the college, the man, who was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and at least one handgun, opened fire on a vehicle in a staff parking lot and killed the driver, Lewis added He further said that the attacker fatally shot another victim at the college before getting killed in an exchange of gunfire with police. Investigators had not yet discovered a motive for the shooting rampage,

Lewis noted. The incident was the latest in string of mass shootings over the past year in the US. On December 14, 2012, twenty chil-dren and six adult victims were fa-tally shot by a gunman -- who later killed himself -- at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in the town of Newtown in the US state of Con-necticut. Earlier in the day, the as-sailant killed his mother in another location.

New York protesters march against Turkey’s government

Police look for motive in California shooting spree

US to track crimes against Arabs and ethnic minorities

country illegally, in most cases civil violations, at the expense of fighting crimes.”He also said that “sheriff relied on racial profiling and illegal de-tentions to target Latinos, using their ethnicity as the main basis for suspecting they were in the country illegally. Many of the people targeted were American citizens or legal residents.”Judge Snow ruled, the sheriff’s office “did not believe that it con-

stituted racial profiling to con-sider race as one factor among others in making law enforce-ment decisions.” In fact, he said its plans and policies confirmed that, “in the context of immi-gration enforcement,” deputies “could consider race as one fac-tor among others.”The ruling also makes it illegal to detain or report individuals to fed-eral immigration authorities based on “reasonable belief” alone.

June 2013


6 National

Protesters call for haltto police abuse in California

One in five US adults can’t afford medical

care: report

Almashreq/Agencies Edi-torial Staff: US police have launched a probe into a shoot-ing incident in which a gun-man dressed in black killed at least four people and injured several others in the state of California. The investigation, which was started on Satur-day, came a day after the gun rampage unfolded in the city of Santa Monica just miles from where President Barack Obama was speaking at a po-litical fundraiser. However, the Secret Service called the bloodshed a “local police matter,” that appeared unre-lated to the president’s visit to the city. “We are aware of the incident and it is not impact-ing the visit. It’s a local police matter at this point,” a Secret Service spokesman in Wash-ington said. Police at first put the death toll from the attack at six, but later revised it to five people dead, including the gunman himself. Accord-ing to police, the fatal as-sault started at a house in the coastal city before the gun-man, wearing a bullet-proof jacket, made his way to Santa Monica College. The attacker killed two people in the house

before setting it on fire. The victims were reportedly the gunman’s father and brother. Santa Monica Police Ser-geant Richard Lewis said the shooter afterwards carjacked a woman and ordered her to drive. He fired several rounds at a city bus on his way. Ar-riving at the college, the man, who was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and at least one handgun, opened fire on a vehicle in a staff parking lot and killed the driver, Lewis added He further said that the attacker fatally shot another victim at the college before getting killed in an exchange of gunfire with police. Inves-tigators had not yet discov-ered a motive for the shoot-ing rampage, Lewis noted. The incident was the latest in string of mass shootings over the past year in the US. On December 14, 2012, twenty children and six adult victims were fatally shot by a gun-man -- who later killed him-self -- at the Sandy Hook El-ementary School in the town of Newtown in the US state of Connecticut. Earlier in the day, the assailant killed his mother in another location.

Almashreq/Agencies Edito-rial Staff: More than one in five US adults have problems paying their medical expens-es, opting to forgo treatment or fill prescriptions, a new government report shows. A report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Con-trol and Prevention showed that 20.3 percent of US adults under the age of 65 - 54.2 million people - had trouble paying health bills during the first half of 2012. The report said that an individual who was uninsured or with public insurance was twice as likely to experience trouble paying medical bills than someone with private medical insur-ance. The report highlighted the most common medical expenses including medica-tion, equipment, home care,

or trips to doctors, dentists, hospitals and therapists. Pre-vious studies revealed that the high cost of medical care dis-courages people from obtain-ing treatment, which worsens their health over time. The survey, conducted between January 2011 and June 2012, was based on nationwide in-person interviews with 155,321 American adults. The new report came amid plans to implement the Affordable Care Act in January 2014, which requires insurance for all Americans. The US has the costliest health care system in the world when it comes to several conditions including having a baby, heart surgery, hospital stay and basic doctor care, according to the Inter-national Federation of Health Plans.

Almashreq/Agencies Edi-torial Staff: The family of a US woman believed to have been killed in Syria was anxiously awaiting news of her fate Friday, after reports that she was shot dead by regime forces near the border with Turkey. “Keep us in your prayers,” Carole Mansfield told AFP as she awaited confirma-tion from U.S. officials that her granddaughter, Nicole Lynn Mansfield, was among three Westerners reportedly killed on Wednesday.Man-sfield, 33, grew up in Flint, Michigan and was raised a Baptist. She converted to Islam about five or six years ago and briefly mar-ried an Arab immigrant, her grandmother said. “She was a caring person. A firm be-liever in what she believed in. And a giving person,” Carole Mansfield said. “If you were down and out she would have been the first to come to your rescue.”

FBI agents came to Mans-field’s home Thursday try-ing to piece together how -- or if -- her granddaugh-ter ended up in Syria. They warned the family that the reported death was not yet confirmed, Mansfield said. A U.S. State Department official told AFP on Thurs-day that Washington was “aware of the case” and working to get more infor-mation. An FBI spokesman contacted by AFP declined to comment on the report. Mansfield said she hadn’t seen her granddaughter in months and had no idea that she was in Syria -- or why she would be there. Nicole Mansfield apparently called her aunt in Cincinnati about a month ago and told her that she was out of the country but would be home “soon” and would stop by to see her when she got back. Her 18-year-old daughter is tak-ing the reports of her death particularly hard, while her

father remains in denial, Carole Mansfield said. “She is devastated. very devastat-ed,” she said in a telephone interview.A monitoring group report-ed Thursday that Syrian sol-diers killed three Western-ers, including an American woman and a British man, both Muslims, in north-west Idlib province near the Turkish border. “They were shot dead during an ambush in the Idlib region and the

army found them with maps of military positions,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, di-rector of the Syrian Obser-vatory for Human Rights. The three had apparently been taking photos of mili-tary positions on the road between Harim, near the border with Turkey, and the town of Idlib further south when government troops ambushed them, he added. The nationality of the third Westerner was not clear, said Rahman.

Almashreq/Agencies Edito-rial Staff: President Barack Obama has staunchly defended US government programmes conducting surveillance of Americans’ phone and Inter-net activity, insisting that they were conducted with broad safeguards to protect against abuse.“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this programme is about,” Obama told reporters on a visit to California’s Silicon Valley on Friday.He insisted that the surveil-lance programs struck the right balance between keeping Americans safe from terrorist attack and protecting their pri-vacy.On Saturday, the Guardian re-ported from a secret directive that Obama has ordered his senior national security and in-telligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas tar-gets for US cyberattacks.His comments follow news that the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Fed-eral Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading US internet companies to spy on foreigners.According to the Washington Post newspaper, even though US citizens were not the in-tended targets of surveillance, this has allowed investigators to examine emails, photos and other documents of tens of mil-lions of Americans that can be used to track people and their contacts over time.In a statement on Thursday, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said the Post article contains “numer-ous inaccuracies”.Clapper said while the pro-gram, code-named PRISM, collects information concern-

ing “non-US” persons located outside the country, it cannot be used for any citizens or any-one within the US.“Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence informa-

tion we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats,” he said.“The unauthorized disclosure of information about this im-portant and entirely legal pro-gram is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans.”The highly classified national security program had not been disclosed publicly before. A US government source, who was not authorized to com-ment publicly on the program, confirmed its existence to the Reuters news agency late on Thursday.

Clapper said PRISM, referred to as Section 702 of the For-eign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was recently reauthorized by Congress after “extensive hearings and debate”.The program’s participants, the Post said, include Microsoft,

Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Pal-Talk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.The report came on the same day that another newspaper, Britain’s Guardian, revealed that the US government is col-lecting telephone records of millions of Americans as part of US national security efforts.In Washington, the Guardian report fuelled an ongoing de-bate over whether the US gov-ernment is violating citizens’ privacy rights while trying to protect them from attacks. That debate is sure to escalate with the Post’s report, which

said the NSA and FBI are ex-tracting audio, video, photo-graphs, e-mails, documents and connection logs to build a database involving trillions of communications by Ameri-cans.Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said that there have been many news stories over the years about intelligence gathering but this is the first time a par-ticular story is leading all local newscasts.She said change is possible and the program could end if there is a large enough outcry.In statements released late on Thursday, Google, Apple, Ya-hoo and Facebook denied that the government had “direct ac-cess” to their central servers.“Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to govern-ment in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully.“From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a ‘back door’ for the government to access private user data,” the company said in a statement.In a statement, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Joe Sul-livan said: “Protecting the pri-vacy of our users and their data is a top priority for Facebook,”“We do not provide any gov-ernment organization with di-rect access to Facebook serv-ers,”US Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday that members of Congress were fully briefed on the intelli-gence-gathering program that included the daily collection of telephone records from Ve-rizon Communications.

Family fears worst for U.S. Muslim woman thought to be killed in Syria

Obama defends US surveillance programmes

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US Muslim man sues FBI over months of torture

abroad and demand 30M in compensation

US President says «nobody is listening» to phone calls as anger

grows over government tapping of communication services

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: Muslim religious leaders and scholars from around the globe is-sued a joint statement Monday con-demning any attempts to deny or justify the Holocaust in which six million European Jews perished un-der Nazi Germany.“We bear witness to the absolute horror and tragedy of the Holocaust where millions upon millions of hu-man souls perished, more than half of whom were people of the Jew-ish faith,” said a statement signed by 10 leading Islamic figures in-cluding President of the Islamic Society of North America, Imam Mohamed Magid and India’s Chief Imam, Umer Ahmed Ilyasi. “We acknowledge, as witnesses, that it is unacceptable to deny this histori-cal reality and declare such denials or any justification of this tragedy

as against the Islamic code of eth-ics,” they said, adding they “stand shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish brothers and sisters in condemning anti-Semitism in any form.” Imams and Muslim intellectuals from Bos-nia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States knelt in solemn prayer for Holocaust dead at Auschwitz on May 22, their fore-heads touching the ground before the notorious Wall of Death at the former Nazi German death camp in southern Poland. They offered the traditional Muslim “salat” prayers facing south towards their holy city of Mecca, shoes removed, as part of an anti-genocide program which also saw them meet Holocaust survivors and their saviors in an emotional encounter at Warsaw’s synagogue a day earlier. “With the disturbing

rise of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hatred, rhetoric and bigotry, now more than ever, people of faith must stand together for truth, peace and justice,” their Monday statement said. “Together, we pledge to make real the commit-ment of ‘never again’ and to stand united against injustice wherever it may be found in the world today,” it concluded. Their visit was part of a Holocaust awareness and anti-geno-cide program organized in part by the U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom. Operated by the Nazis from 1940, Auschwitz was liberated by the So-viet Red Army on January 27, 1945. It was part of a vast network of con-centration camps across Europe, set up as part of Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution” of genocide against Eu-rope’s Jewish population.

Muslim religious leaders condemn holocaust deniers

……In April 2010, Fikre was summoned to the US embassy in Khartoum by a man claim-ing to be an official requiring advice on “how Americans might stay safe during a period of political turmoil in Sudan.” Upon arrival, he was ushered into a small room and inter-rogated by FBI agents David Noordeloos and Jason Dundas for information on worshippers at Portland’s largest mosque, Masjid al-Saber. The agents sought to recruit Fikre as an informant at the mosque, and were angered when he refused. Fikre left Sudan in June 2010 and arrived in the United Arab Emirates in September 2010, where he obtained a residency permit. He was apprehended by Emirati police in June 2011, when they “invaded” his house

in Abu Dhabi. Fikre was then incarcerated for 106 days in solitary confinement in a win-dowless cell, and was beaten repeatedly during the period. Named in Fikre’s suit are US Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State John Kerry, FBI Director Robert Mueller, FBI Terrorism Screening Cen-ter Director Timothy Healy, and FBI agents Noordeloos and Dundas. Fikre’s story echoes those of Naji Hamdan, Amir Meshal, Sharif Mobley, Gulet Mohamed, as well as Yusuf and Yahya Wehelie. The six American Muslim men say that, while traveling abroad, they were arrested, questioned, and in some cases abused by local security forces at the be-hest of the US government.

June 2013


7International & Business

Almashreq/Agencies Edi-torial Staff: At least 18 dead as rival groups battle for control of southern So-malian port city of Kisma-yu.At least 18 people have been killed in gunbattles in the disputed southern So-malian port city of Kisma-yu, residents have said.Hundreds were fleeing the clashes on Saturday, the first since several former warlords staked rival claims on the lucrative port and fertile hinterlands in May.Gunmen from the Ras Kamboni armed group of Ahmed Madobe, recently self-appointed “president” of the southern Jubaland re-gion, battled against forces loyal to Iftin Hassan Basto, another leader claiming to be president.“Fighting started when sol-diers from Ras Kamboni attacked and tried to arrest me,” Basto said.“But my men fought back and defended me.”Several rival factions claim ownership of Kismayo, a former stronghold of the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab, where Kenyan troops in an African Union force are now based.

Kismayu residents counted at least 13 bodies, nearly all armed men, in the sandy streets of two neighbour-hoods which witnessed the brunt of Saturday’s fighting. Five people were killed a day earlier when the clashes first broke out.“The Ras Kamboni militia now controls this part of the city,” said Bile Nur, a resi-dent of Kismayu’s Calan-leey district.Residents bury dead“Residents are burying the dead of the militia driven out while Ras Kamboni are burying theirs.”Residents hid indoors ear-lier as fighters riding in ma-chine gun-mounted pick-up trucks battled for territorial control.Businesses remained shut and the streets of Somalia’s second biggest city were empty of civilians as mortar blasts rang out.Kismayu was controlled by al-Shabab until last Septem-ber when the armed groups fled an offensive by Kenyan troops supported by Ras Kamboni, an armed group loyal to a former governor of Kismayu, Ahmed Mado-be.

A local assembly last month declared Madobe president of the southern Jubaland region, handing him back control of Kismayu.But Somalia’s central gov-ernment, which does not view Madobe favourably, said his appointment was unconstitutional.Within days three other men had pronounced themselves president, including Barre Hirale, a pro-Mogadishu former defence minister.Fighting broke out when Madobe’s fighters stopped another of the claimants from visiting a hotel were Somalia’s defence minis-ter and other officials were

meeting.Regional capitals and West-ern donors were nervous of any reversal of security gains made in Somalia by African Union peacekeep-ers in the fight against the al Qaeda-linked fighters, seen as a threat to stability in east Africa and beyond.Mogadishu has said there is no going back to civil war, but government-led talks on Kismayu were being sty-mied by the divisive clan politics that dog Somalia.Many residents weary of years of turmoil hold little hope for a negotiated end.Protests at ex-Libya rebel base turn deadly

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: At least 11 people have died and 38 others wounded when pro-testers attacked the headquarters in Benghazi of former rebels who fought to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gad-dafi, a hospital official has said.An army spokesman in Benghazi, cited by official news agency Lana, confirmed 11 people died but said that only 38 were wounded.Fighting erupted after dozens of dem-onstrators, some of them armed, tried to dislodge the powerful Shield of Libya brigade from its barracks in Benghazi, said an AFP correspondent at the scene.They encircled the the headquarters and called on regular security forces to step in.The Libya Shield brigade is made up of former rebel fighters who have said they are aligned with the Defence Ministry.

Adel Tarhuni, spokesman for the Shield of Libya, said one member of the brigade had died and another sev-en were wounded.He reported that there was a peaceful demonstration in front of the brigade’s headquarters, before armed men infil-trated it.The gunmen then opened fire on the Shield of Libya building and threw hand-made explosives, Tarhuni told television station Libya Al-Ahrar. Army rebuild callsA Benghazi resident who declined to be named said that a group of protest-ers started protesting against the pres-ence of militias. “They were calling for the disband-ing of groups to rebuild the army,” the resident said.“As I was leaving, I saw protesters throwing stones and the other side fired back.”Ahmed Belashahr, a local activist,

said: “People protested because they believe militias go against Libya’s stability, which can only be achieved through a proper army and police.”However, Tarhuni defended the legiti-macy of the brigade, which he said of-ficially came under the umbrella of the defence ministry.Libya’s new rulers are still struggling to impose their authority on a myriad of armed groups who often take the law into their own hands.Last September, shortly after an at-tack on the US mission in Benghazi in which the American ambassador and three others were killed, the city saw a huge outpouring of public anger at the militias.The government has taken a two-track approach, shutting down militias that operated without official government permission, but also offering public backing to many of the most power-ful armed groups, which have official licences to operate.

Almashreq/Agencies Edito-rial Staff: Republican senator slipped across border for visit last-ing several hours before returning to Turkey, spokesman says.US Senator John McCain has crossed from Turkey into Syria to meet with rebel leaders in the war-torn nation, according to his spokesman.McCain, the 2008 Republican pres-idential nominee, slipped across the border on Monday in an unan-nounced visit lasting several hours before he returned to Turkey, his spokesman Brian Rogers con-firmed.Rogers declined to give any details about the visit.The visit came as US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian For-eign Minister Sergei Lavrov pledged to do their utmost to bring Syria’s warring parties together, and new allegations surfaced about chemical weapons use in the civil war.General Salem Idris, who leads the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, told news website Daily Beast in an inter-view that McCain’s visit came at

a critical time for the rebels, who have stepped up their calls for US support, including heavy weapons, creation of a no-fly zone and air strikes.“The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time,” the publication quoted Idris as saying. “We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.”McCain is the highest-ranking US official to visit Syria since Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Syria, crossed the border into northern Syria to meet with Syrian opposi-tion leaders earlier this month.It was not immediately clear if Mc-Cain, a fierce critic of the Obama administration’s handling of the Syrian crisis, told government lead-ers about his plans to visit the coun-try.The White House had no immediate comment.A senior Sate Department official, in Paris with Kerry, confirmed that McCain did “cross into Syrian ter-ritory” but referred all questions to McCain’s office.

Almashreq/Agencies Editori-al Staff: At least five people have been killed in evening clashes in Tripoli between Lebanese fighters backing rival factions in Syria’s conflict, security sources told Al Jazeera.The fighting on Thursday brings the death toll in the new wave of sectarian violence that started on Sunday to at least 20 people. More than 200 others have been wound-ed.The northern city has suffered spo-radic clashes since the Sunni Mus-lim-led uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad broke out in March 2011, but Wednesday night saw the the fiercest fighting so far, as warring sides used mor-tar bombs, grenade and machine-guns.Sunnis sympathetic to Syrian reb-els living in the Tripoli district of Bab al-Tabbaneh have been fight-ing members of Assad’s Alawite sect in the hilltop neighbourhood Jabal Mohsen.The two groups have clashed in Tripoli on and off for decades, but the Syrian conflict has reopened

old wounds, with each side ac-cusing the other of using the city as a base for sending fighters and weapons in and out of Syria.Syrian activists said the fighting in Tripoli flared after a fierce as-sault by Assad’s forces on the Syr-ian border town of Qusayr, where fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbol-lah group are backing government troops in their battle against rebels.Local politicians said efforts to meet and discuss a ceasefire agree-ment have so far failed.Footage of funerals for Hezbollah fighters killed in Qusayr was being watched by Shias across Lebanon, raisingsectarian tensions in other parts of the country, which suffered its own civil war from 1975 to 1990.In the southern coastal city of Sidon, followers of a Sunni cleric blocked a funeral procession for a Hezbollah fighter.Lebanese soldiers tried to break the blockade, leading to an exchange of gunfire between the protesters and security forces, residents said. No injuries were reported.

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: In his first interaction with the media since he was removed from power in February 2011, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s former leader, has reportedly said President Mohamed Morsi faces a difficult job and it is too early to judge his performance.Mubarak made the comments in an interview with the newspaper El-Watan on Saturday.The authenticity of the interview could not be imme-diately verified.“He is a new president who is carry-ing out weighty missions for the first time, and we shouldn’t judge him now,” Mubarak said.The 85-year-old also said he was concerned about lax security, appar-ently referring to increased crime, and a rise in activity by armed groups in the Sinai Peninsula.El-Watan, which published the in-terview on Sunday, said its reporter broke through security lines to speak to Mubarak, who is facing a retrial over charges of complicity in the death of protesters killed in the pop-ular uprising that swept him from office.Mubarak said: “History will judge and I am still certain that the coming generations will view me fairly.”The former leader, who was presi-dent for almost 30 years, said he was saddened by what he described as the difficult conditions facing the poor and the Egyptian economy.

Hammered by political instability, the economy is in the doldrums and the government is in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to secure a bailout loan.“This is the secret of my sadness: to see the poor in this condition,” said Mubarak, who was toppled by an uprising fuelled in part by economic hardship.‘Fear for the country’Mubarak said he was worried by the prospect of Egypt concluding an agreement with the IMF on a $4.8bn loan seen as vital to supporting the economy. The loan would bring aus-terity measures that could remove subsidy spending.Economists fault the Mubarak-era subsidy government for failing to target state support at the most needy. The Morsi administration says it wants to better direct the subsidies.Mubarak said the poor were at the heart of his decision-making, es-pecially when it came to subsidy spending on staples.“I fear for the country because of the IMF loan,” he said.“Its terms are very difficult, and rep-resent a great danger to the Egyptian economy later on. This will then hit the poor citizen, and the low-income bracket,” he said.With parliamentary elections ap-proaching later this year, the Morsi administration has yet to conclude an IMF deal.

US senator McCain enters Syria to meet rebels

Deadly violence continues in northern Lebanon

Fresh clashes between Tripoli residents backing rival factions in Syria›s conflict

bring death toll since Sunday to 20

Egypt paper publishes ‘Mubarak interview’

El-Watan newspaper says its reporter broke through security lines to speak to

former Egyptian president

Hundreds flee deadly gunbattles in Somalia

Demonstration at Libya Shield brigade headquarters in Benghazi leaves at least 11

dead and 58 wounded.

Almashreq/Agencies Edi-torial Staff: Islamist-domi-nated Shura Council and panel that drafted constitution ruled invalid by Supreme Constitu-tional Court.

Egypt’s top court has ruled that the Islamist-dominated Senate and the panel which drew up the country’s constitution are invalid.

The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) on Sunday de-livered its judgment on the le-gitimacy of the Shura Council, historically a powerless upper house which was given leg-islative powers last year after parliament was dissolved.

However, judicial sources told Reuters that the Shura Council would not be dissolved until a

new parliament was in place.

A date has yet to be set for the elections. President Mohamed Morsi had said they could be-gin in October.

The court also ruled against the Islamist-dominated panel that drafted the constitution adopted by a popular referen-dum in December.

The case against the Shura Council is based on several challenges by lawyers of the law that governed the election of its members.

Both the upper and lower houses were elected under the same electoral law, which the SCC last year deemed in-valid, prompting the dissolu-tion of parliament.

Egypt upper house election declared illegal by highest court

Almashreq/Agencies Editorial Staff: Ministry says cell working for group planned attacks with remote-controlled planes in Iraq, Europe and North America.Iraq’s defense ministry has said that it has intercepted an al-Qaeda cell working to produce poisonous gas for attacks within the country as well as in Europe and North America.The group of five men built two facilities in Baghdad to produce sarin and mustard gas, using instructions from another al-Qaeda group, spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said on Saturday.The members of the cell were preparing to launch attacks domestically, and also had a network to smuggle the toxins to neigh-bouring countries and to Europe, Canada and the US, Askari said.He said that the men were planning to spray chemical weapons during the Shia commemoration of the death of Imam Kadhum at a shrine later this week, by us-

ing remote controlled toy aeroplanes.He added that the arrest of the cell members was possible because of co-operation between Iraqi and foreign intelligence services.In neighbouring Syria, rebel fighters and govern-ment forces have accused each other of using nerve gas during the two-year long civil war. Iraq and Syria share a 600km border, and of-ficials have warned that al-Qaeda-linked Sunni fighters opposed to President Bashar al-Assad and the Shia-led gov-ernment in Baghdad have set up camp in Iraq’s western desert region.The Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaeda’s backed group, is still active in the country,

launching regular attacks on government and civilian targets.So far, the group has largely refrained from waging violence outside Iraq, but earlier this year it publicly said it was linked to Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusra, a rebel group fighting the Assad regime.

Iraq claims foiling al-Qaeda nerve-gas plot

June 2013


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