A Worrying Wish List from Washington

By SPIEGEL Staff

Berlin is being asked to take in nine Guantanamo inmates. So far the development is perceived as a first test of trans-Atlantic relations under President Barack Obama. In Germany, there are legitimate questions about the Uighur Chinese it is being asked to take in –but the Interior Ministry also appears to be buying time in an election year.

Yes, he travelled to Afghanistan. Yes, he learned to fire a semi-automatic weapon there. “But I only ever used the weapon once, I shot four or five bullets. And never at people. And never in combat situations.”

That’s what Hassan Anvar told his captors at Guantanamo about his time at a training camp in the mountainous Tora Bora region in Afghanistan. He also told them that he doesn’t hold a grudge against the United States of America or its allies. “I went to the camp to train to fight against the Chinese,” he said.

Yet these are the kinds of quotes — and stories — that have been exciting debate in Berlin and worrying the regional governments in states like Bavaria. Because if it was up to the Obama administration, individuals like Anvar would already be on a plane bound for Germany — most likely, with a one-way ticket and best wishes for the future. A future somewhere as far away as possible from the United States, that is.

Following the first visit by US Attorney General Eric Holder to Berlin the week before last, representatives of the German government also met with Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European affairs and the senior diplomat who has, among his responsibilities, the task of trying to resettle as many as 60 of the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo outside of the US.

Officially Holder said there were no specific requests being made of Germany — but then Fried quietly passed on a list of nine potential names. Hassan Anvar’s name was on that list as were eight others, all of whom have much in common with him.

Anvar, who is in his mid-30s, comes from the village of Tashkoruq in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. Anvar is from the Uighur ethnic group, mainly resident in eastern and central Asia. The Uighurs make up almost half of the population of the Xinjiang region, are mainly Muslim and have been the subject of brutal repression by the Chinese. Shortly after the September 11 attacks in the US, and under some pressure from the Chinese government, Washington moved to recognize the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) — to which Anvar and the other potentially Germany-bound Uighurs belong — as a terrorist organization. As a result more than 20 ETIM members were brought to Guantanamo as “enemy combatants.”

The Obama administration’s wish to grant Anvar and his fellow prisoners asylum of some sort in Europe has divided German politicians. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has used the opportunity to send a friendly message to Washington saying she is ready to offer her “help and support” in this matter.

During their weekend party conference, the Greens declared their willingness to accept the Uighurs. Obama’s planned closure of Guantanamo should not be hindered “by refusal, or by protracted consideration,” they said.

Meanwhile Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann — of the Christian Social Union, Bavaria’s sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats — called the request an “imposition” by the US. “We don’t need people like this in Germany,” he told the mass circulation tabloid Bild. “It would be extremely naive (of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier) to let these people into the country.” Steinmeier himself, though, has kept relatively quiet on the subject — though he has been consistent in his support of the Obama administration.

In addition to issues of security, however, Steinmeier is equally concerned with the issue’s foreign policy implications. Firstly, this is one of the initial tests of the new trans-Atlantic relationship between the central Europeans and the Americans since the change of administration in the White House. At the same time Steinmeier, who is also the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor, has to consider the damage it could do to at-times volatile German-Chinese relations. As soon as the Obama administration’s wishes with regard to the Uighur prisoners were made public, a varie ty of Chinese diplomats paid a visit to Steinmeier’s offices. What, they wondered, was the German position on this Uighur question? The Chinese were told that a final decision had not yet been made.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), for his part, is likely to resist accepting the Uighurs. His ministry is responsible for deciding whether the former Guantanamo prisioners will pose a security threat to Germany. And, after a first look at the information that Washington had supplied about the prisoners, the German reaction was curt. Some very important questions remain unanswered, August Hanning, a top official at the Interior Ministry wrote to Reinhard Silberberg, his colleague in the Foreign Ministry. There are at least four issues that need to be clarified, he said. The relatively thin dossiers on the prisoners indicated they had gone through a terrorist training camp and had spread propaganda for their organization ETIM. “So we can assume a potential for danger, at least in the abstract,” Hanning said.

But, Hanning continued, the dossiers from Guantanamo did not touch upon whether the prisoners could have become more radicalized during their years at Guantanamo. He also asked whether the Americans would ever allow the Uighurs onto American soil. And finally, Hanning wanted to know why the Uighurs could not be returned to Kirgizia or Kazakhstan, where they had lived before they were imprisoned. “It’s not really obvious to me why exactly the German Federal Republic should be taking these individuals in,” he said.

The letter can be read as a preliminary rejection by the Interior Ministry in addition to being a campaign ploy ahead of German general elections this autumn. Furthermore, Schäuble is aware that the Obama administration will be unable to answer the questions in full. It is a ploy for time and an attempt to push the problem back onto the Foreign Ministry and through them, back onto the Americans. Before the questions are answered in Washington, no final decisions can be made in Berlin, seems to be the message. Schäuble, of course, knows that he probably won’t be able to refuse indefinitely, but until then he wants to raise the price for his co-operation as high as possible.

In a reply to Schäuble, the Foreign Ministry suggests that a solid catalogue of questions be developed, which can then be forwarded to Washington through diplomatic channels. If, after this, questions still remain, “German security experts and medical personnel could be flown to Washington for further talks, and possibly even to Guantanamo to talk with the Uighurs themselves.”

Then again, even if the dossiers were more helpful, Schäuble would still have a dilemma on his hands. Because basically it would be almost impossible to come to a decision about the Uighur prisoners from the information the Germans have been given. After all, the incriminating evidence comes from a place where prisoners were regularly abused and where human and legal rights were often ignored. In fact, outside of=2 0the dossiers themselves, American judges have cleared the Uighur prisoners of any suspicion that they were “enemy combatants.” And even the US Administration has declared them not guilty.

Still, Schäuble’s security analysts have to take all details into account. The 29 year old Uighur, Adel Noori, for example, spat at his wardens. Arkin Mahmud, 44, made death threats against his guards and also against former US President George W. Bush; he’s also known to have thrown excrement. A particularly difficult case could be that of Ahmad Tourson, 38, who acknowledged he had worked for ETIM and received weapons training.

As for Abdul Razak, 30, his US captors said that he received military training and that he travelled to Tora Bora where Osama bin Laden also was. However Razak told his lawyers that the first time he had even heard about ETIM, let alone al-Qaida, was in the prison. Which is why the US lawyer Seema Saifee, who represents four of the nine former prisoners potentially bound for Germany, considers the dossiers simply absurd. “American judges have rejected these allegations yet now other countries are supposed to make a decision based upon them,” she complains.

Of all of the remaining Guantanamo prisoners, the Uighurs are the group “with the least risks”, argue high ranking US Officials. And there is also a high possibility of successful integration into the German community, mainly because of a large Uighur community in Munich. There are around 500 Uighurs living in the Bavarian st ate capital, making it one of the largest such exile communities in the world. They have their own fast food outlets and supermarkets, not to mention a common language and culture. One of the former prisoners, Noori, even has a cousin there, who’s been living in Munich for the past nine years.

Still after the lukewarm reception that US Attorney General Holder got during his European trip, Washington now seems to realize they too might have to take a couple of Uighurs in before European allies like Germany do the same — if for no other reason than to present a common front to the Chinese.

Former State Department legal advisor John Bellinger believes it is “very probable” that the Obama Administration will do this. You cannot expect the Europeans to do what you are not prepared to do yourselves, said another high ranking American official, who believes that Germany could eventually be asked to consider further prisoners of different nationalities.

When it comes to the Uighurs, time is running out for the Obama adminstration. A US judge ordered the release of all 17 of the remaining Uighur prisoners last October. A court of appeals upheld that ruling, but another lawsuit is pending. Obama has to hurry — otherwise American judges may force him to allow the former prisoners into America. Meanwhile his attorney general is looking on the bright side, in the hope that the matter can be resolved in good time. As Holder said in Berlin, “nowhere have I heard a definitive no.”

11-21

By Ian MacWilliam, BBC News, in Tashkent

The Uthman Qur`an is the oldest in the world

In an obscure corner of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, lies one of Islam’s most sacred relics – the world’s oldest Qur`an.

It is a reminder of the role which Central Asia once played in Muslim history – a fact often overlooked after seven decades of Soviet-imposed atheism.

The library where the Qur`an is kept is in an area of old Tashkent known as Hast-Imam, well off the beaten track for most visitors to this city.

It lies down a series of dusty lanes, near the grave of a 10th century scholar, Kaffel-Shashi.

The Mufti of Uzbekistan, the country’s highest religious leader, has his offices there, in the courtyard of an old madrassa.

Just across the road stands a non-descript mosque and the equally unremarkable Mui-Mubarak, or “Sacred Hair”, madrassa, which houses a rarely seen hair of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad (s), as well as one of Central Asia’s most important collections of historical works.

“There are approximately 20,000 books and 3000 manuscripts in this library,” said Ikram Akhmedov, a young assistant in the mufti’s office.

“They deal with mediaeval history, astronomy and medicine. There are also commentaries on the Qur`an and books of law. But the oldest book here is the Uthman Qur`an from the seventh century.”

Sacred verses

The Uthman Qur`an was compiled in Medina by Uthman, the third caliph or Muslim leader. Before him, the sacred verses which Muslims believe Allah gave to Muhammad (s) were memorized, or written on pieces of wood or camel bone.

The Mufti of Uzbekistan has his office in the area. To prevent disputes about which verses should be considered divinely inspired, Uthman had this definitive version compiled. It was completed in the year 651, only 19 years after Muhammad’s (s) passing.

This priceless Qur`an is kept in a special glass-fronted vault built into the wall of a tiny inner room.

About one-third of the original survives – about 250 pages – a huge volume written in a bold Arabic script.

“The Qur`an was written on deerskin,” said Mr Akhmedov. “It was written in Hejaz in Saudi Arabia, so the script is Hejazi, similar to Kufic script.”

It is said that Caliph Uthman made five copies of the original Qur`an. A partial Qur`an now in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul is said to be another of these original copies.

Historical text

Uthman was murdered by a rebellious mob while he was reading his book. A dark stain on its pages is thought to be the caliph’s blood. It was Uthman’s murder that precipitated the Shia-Sunni divide which has split the Muslim world ever since.

Later disputes over the succession led to a division between the mainstream Sunnis, and supporters of Uthman’s immediate successor, Ali, who became Shias.
The story of how the Uthman Qur`an came to Tashkent is a remarkable one.

After Uthman’s death it is believed it was taken by Caliph Ali to Kufa, in modern Iraq. Seven hundred years later, when the Central Asian conqueror, Tamerlane, laid waste to the region, he found the Qur`an and took it home to grace his splendid capital, Samarkand.

It stayed there for more than four centuries, until the Russians conquered Samarkand in the 1868. The Russian governor then sent the Uthman Qur`an to St Petersburg where it was kept in the Imperial Library.

But after the Bolshevik revolution, Lenin was anxious to win over the Muslims of Russia and Central Asia. Initially he sent the Qur`an to Ufa in modern Bashkortostan.

But finally, after repeated appeals from the Muslims of Tashkent, it was returned once more to Central Asia in 1924. It has remained in Tashkent ever since.

Visiting dignitaries from the Muslim world often turn up to see the Uthman Qur`an in the depths of old Tashkent, so it is odd that it is still kept in such an out of the way location.

But the authoritarian Uzbek government has inherited a Soviet-era distrust of Islam, and still views much of its own Islamic history with suspicion.

The mufti’s official religious establishment is closely watched and takes care not to attract too much attention to itself.

As a result, its greatest treasure, the world’s oldest Qur`an, continues to sit quietly in the medieval quarter of old Tashkent.

11-21

By Selig S. Harrison

An internally displaced girl, fleeing a military offensive in the Swat valley, holds a box of cookies while walking through a UNHCR camp in Swabi district, located in Pakistan’s NWFP, about 75 miles north west of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad May 12, 2009. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting.       REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

To American eyes the struggle raging in Pakistan with the Taliban is about religious fanaticism. But in Pakistan it is about an explosive fusion of Islamist zeal and simmering ethnic tensions that have been exacerbated by U.S. pressures for military action against the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies. Understanding the ethnic dimension of the conflict is the key to a successful strategy for separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda and stabilizing multiethnic Pakistan politically.

The Pakistani army is composed mostly of Punjabis. The Taliban is entirely Pashtun. For centuries, Pashtuns living in the mountainous borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan have fought to keep out invading Punjabi plainsmen. So sending Punjabi soldiers into Pashtun territory to fight jihadists pushes the country ever closer to an ethnically defined civil war, strengthening Pashtun sentiment for an independent “Pashtunistan” that would embrace 41 million people in big chunks of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This is one of the main reasons the army initially favored a peace deal with a Taliban offshoot in the Swat Valley and has resisted U.S. pressure to go all out against jihadist advances into neighboring districts. While army leaders fear the long-term dangers of a Taliban link-up with Islamist forces in the heartland of Pakistan, they are more worried about what they see as the looming danger of Pashtun separatism.

Historically, the Pashtuns were politically unified before the British Raj. The Pashtun kings who founded Afghanistan ruled over 40,000 square miles of what is now Pakistan, an area containing more than half of the Pashtun population, until British forces defeated them in 1847, pushed up to the Khyber Pass and imposed a disputed boundary, the Durand Line, that Afghanistan has never accepted. Over Pashtun nationalist protests, the British gave these conquered areas to the new, Punjabi-dominated government of Pakistan created in the 1947 partition of India.

At various times since, Afghan governments have challenged Pakistan’s right to rule over its Pashtun areas, alternatively pushing for an autonomous state to be created within Pakistan, an independent “Pashtunistan” or a “Greater Afghanistan” that would directly annex the lost territories.

Fears of Pashtunistan led Pakistan to support jihadist surrogates in the Afghan resistance during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and, later, to build up the Taliban. Ironically, during its rule in Kabul the Taliban refused to endorse the Durand Line despite pressure from Islamabad. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also resisted, calling it “a line of hatred that raised a wall between the two brothers.”

The British got the most rebellious Pashtun tribes to acquiesce to their rule only by giving them formal autonomous status in their own “Federally Administered Tribal Areas” (FATA). This autonomy was respected by successive Pakistani governments until the Bush administration pressured former president Pervez Musharraf into sending his army into those areas in 2002, displacing 50,000 people. Since then, Predator strikes have killed more than 700 Pashtun civilians.

So how should the Obama administration proceed?

Militarily, the United States should lower its profile by ending airstrikes. By arousing a Pashtun sense of victimization at the hands of outside forces, the conduct of the “war on terror” in FATA, where al-Qaeda is based, has strengthened the jihadist groups the U.S. seeks to defeat.

Politically, U.S. policy should be revised to demonstrate that America supports the Pashtun desire for a stronger position in relation to the Punjabi-dominated government in Islamabad.

The Pashtuns in FATA treasure their long-standing autonomy and do not like to be ruled by Islamabad. As a March 13 International Crisis Group report recognized, what they want is integration into the Pashtun Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP).

The United States should support Pashtun demands to merge the NWFP and FATA, followed by the consolidation of those areas and Pashtun enclaves in Baluchistan and the Punjab into a single unified “Pashtunkhwa” province that enjoys the autonomy envisaged in the inoperative 1973 Pakistan constitution.

In the meantime, instead of permitting Islamabad to administer the huge sums of US aid going into FATA, the Obama administration should condition the aid’s continuance on most of it being dispensed in conjunction with the NWFP provincial government.

Al-Qaeda and its “foreign fighters,” who are mostly Arab, depend on local support from the Taliban for their FATA sanctuary. Unlike al-Qaeda, with its global terrorist agenda, most of the Taliban factions focus on local objectives in Afghanistan and FATA; they do not pose a direct threat to the United States. U.S. policy should therefore welcome any new peace initiatives by the secular Pashtun leaders of the Awami National Party, now ruling the NWFP, designed to separate Taliban and Taliban-allied Islamist factions from al-Qaeda. As in Swat, military force should be a last resort.

In the conventional wisdom, either Islamist or Pashtun identity will eventually triumph, but it is equally plausible that the result could be what Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani has called an “Islamic Pashtunistan. “ On March 1, 2007, Haqqani’s Pashtun predecessor as ambassador, the retired Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, said at a seminar at the Pakistan Embassy, “I hope the Taliban and Pashtun nationalism don’t merge. If that happens, we’ve had it, and we’re on the verge of that.”

Selig S. Harrison is the author of the report “Pakistan: The State of the Union,” based on a six-month study of ethnic tensions in Pakistan issued last week by the Center for International Policy. A former Post bureau chief in South Asia, he has written five books on the region.

11-21

We cannot expect Pakistan to do what America could not

By Abdul Malik Mujahid

As Pakistan begins an all-out air and land assault on its own people and its president asks America for drones, we must ask: Can Pakistan succeed in defeating the Taliban when America has not?

We must consider that if America, with its military might, satellites and well-equipped soldiers has not been able to stop the Taliban from crisscrossing the Afghan-Pakistan border in the last seven years, we cannot expect Pakistan to be able to accomplish that for us.

As a child living in southern Pakistan, hundreds of miles away from Afghanistan, I used to watch the camel caravans of Afghans as they descended on our town at the beginning of winter. One or two families with children would be riding on a few camels as the men walked along. The rest of the camels would be carrying firewood to sell to the locals. Although that was forty years ago, the cultural ties between the two people are still essentially the same.

There is literally no border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, or, for that matter, between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Yes, there are soldiers on a couple of roads entering each country, but overall, these are open borders.

People living on both sides of Afghanistan’s border are tribally and linguistically the same. They have crossed between the countries freely for centuries.

And America knows this.

America used this knowledge to its advantage when it trained, financed, equipped and guided Afghans to defeat the occupying Soviet Union in the 1980s. These Mujahideen -  then allies in America’s war against communism by proxy – were Afghan refugees trained in Pakistan by the CIA. That began thirty years ago, not after 9/11.

This is why we cannot plead ignorance. We knew the region well enough. However, that knowledge did not help us stop Osama bin Laden and his friends from getting away during the Battle of Tora Bora.

Tora Bora is a cave complex in eastern Afghanistan originally built with the assistance of the CIA during the Mujahideen’s resistance against Soviet occupation. Osama bin Laden and the CIA both being allies at one point, knew it well.

The U.S. believed that bin Laden and his allies were hiding in Tora Bora, but despite overrunning it, we failed to kill or capture him or his supporters. It is amazing that after seven years of using our cutting edge technology and spies, and a $50 million dollar bounty, we still don’t know where he is and whether he is even dead or alive.

So if knowledge of the area is not the problem, then why did we succeed in defeating the Soviets but not the Taliban?

The answer lies in the support of the region’s people and the advantage the terrain provides to them.

In the war against the Soviets, people on both sides of the Afghan border were in favor of it. This time they are not. Consider that in the 1980s, we did not have to enter the country to fight the Soviets. The local support meant we could “outsource” the actual fighting to those who shared our ideals and knew the territory best.

Fast forward to today: not only do we lack this acceptance for our goals in the region, but we are actually fighting in its rugged, high terrain that is ideal for guerrilla warfare, unlike the flat plains of Iraq.

If America cannot stop the Taliban from crossing the borders it controls, there is no chance Pakistan will be able to do the same.

We are making a deadly and costly mistake by trying to coerce Pakistan to achieve what we have failed to do. President Barack Obama has been reaching out to the Muslim world, seeking diplomacy over militarism. It must do the same in Afghanistan instead of Afganizing Pakistan.

Abdul Malik Mujahid is a Pak-American Imam in Chicago, President of Sound Vision, and serves as the vice chair for a Council for a Parliament of World Religions.

11-21

By Bob Wood, MMNS

Articles about investing in the markets are always interesting to read, yet I sometimes wonder how many readers fail to comprehend their frequent desired end result: someone – possibly the writer — will profit when readers react to recommendations and put their life savings at risk. This is an end game with a set of goals that many investors ignore while chasing quick profits or “the perfect stock” that could be the huge winner we all dream about.

I sometimes wonder if this short-sighted chasing of performance is largely responsible for the miserable track record many investors experience in all market cycles, up or down. Do they forget the primary objectives of investing? Why do they ignore the other proven ways to protect their income and savings?

If you have ever worked with a financial planner, you undoubtedly know where I am headed with these questions. Yes, we all want to retire early with enough money to maintain our desired standard of living. In the meantime, we may still need to accumulate college tuition for our children, pay off a mortgage or finally buy the sleek new car that has, so far, proven unaffordable. Whatever our goals, investing in risky assets is often touted as the best way to achieve them.

However, most financial planners demonstrate that, for most of us, small average annual gains will get the job done. A steady 7 to 8% annual gain is the stuff of investor dreams for achieving our most common goals. For many of us, though, the urge is strong to search for something more than that, and that’s where we can falter and miss out on what is most important.

Steady gains are not enough; we must plan for the situations that disrupt them, as well. Let’s say your stock market portfolio is humming along, beating the market year after year, but suddenly you get sick or hurt in an accident and can’t work? Those finding themselves in such situations realize too late that they did not protect their income with a disability insurance policy; they can see their hard-won gains eaten away in short order as they dip into savings to pay current living expenses.

Also, many investors have bought into the idea that tax-deferred investing is a smart idea. (Personally, I have exactly zero dollars invested in tax-deferred accounts!) Yet they will see diminution of their holdings after paying Uncle Sam his portion of required withdrawals, and most had not anticipated replenishing these tax bites.

So building a source of funds in taxable accounts makes sense, since during retirement, taxable accounts provide a source of income not subject to income taxation. This becomes a great way to control the retirement tax burden, which anyone experiencing required distributions at age 71 may describe as a “helpless feeling of savings depletion.”

In addition, investors who earn impressive average annual gains in their investment accounts could still see a large portion of those gains swept away by our spendthrift government. With a shocking $2 trillion deficit this fiscal year, the Federal Government will probably consider raising tax rates on those with substantial savings.

And what about the growing number of workers faced with a sudden job loss? What shocks me is hearing about the 50-year-old worker who loses his job of 25 years, having saved only enough to last a few months. What happened to all that discretionary income he made along the way?

What has happened to our nation of savers? A recent poll by Discover shows that fully half of us calculates the ability to pay expenses after losing our job — and before financial insecurity sets in – at one month! One month? That high-flying mutual fund in a laid-off worker’s 401(k) account will probably offer little solace then, right?

But maybe the worst and most commonly made investing mistake happens with younger investors, though it, no doubt, affects older investors, as well. While chasing past performance might be the most commonly made investing error, investing even one dollar in stocks without first assessing the need for life insurance is likely the most frequent and damaging mistake made today.

Too few seem to appreciate that life insurance insures your future income as much as it insures your life. If you were to meet your fate tomorrow, perhaps finding yourself in the proverbial wrong place at the wrong time, what good would your rocking IRA account do for your family? Is it large enough to spin out a monthly check — for about what you take home now?

Before checking Morningstar to see if your mutual fund still sports a five-star rating, calculate instead what your family would have in the event of your sudden death. Would your spouse be able to replace your current earnings by taking a job? Could the mortgage be paid regularly without your income? Would college still be affordable with what you leave behind? Without holding a large insurance policy on your life’s future income, you have no business investing in stocks!

Lastly, let’s look at the hugely successful investor who amasses a small fortune over a lifetime of solid investing — and dies without a written estate plan. This person has left surviving family members with not only a multi-year debacle known as the probate process but also with a potentially large share of his hard-won gains at the mercy of state and local governments — as they demonstrate their “efficient” ability to settle his affairs. Does that sound likely to you?

You can anticipate all these potential financial pitfalls with a carefully crafted financial plan. By avoiding the most common mistakes and consequences of poor planning, investors can tailor their investing methods with the true end goal in mind. Financial planning is not just about beating the market every year, making more in the stock market than your best friend, or hitting winning-stock home runs in short order.

Financial success has little to do with the steady stream of nonsense we hear daily in the financial media with programs that promise ‘’mad money’’ or ‘’fast money’’ or primers on option strategies. It has to do with what really matters, and that’s achieving our financial goals with the highest degree of certainty!

One important caveat to remember about your shiny new financial plan is this: as initially written, it is likely about as good as having someone read tarot cards to perceive your future. And I speak as someone who has written award-winning financial plans — only to realize later that they were now just short of worthless!

The problem with a financial plan, even a very good one, lies in the set of assumptions used to calculate future investment returns, inflation and tax rates. Plans I wrote a decade ago assumed my clients would earn an average annual stock market return of about 8%, which to many seemed to conservative. Just how well does that fit with today’s reality? Yeah, not very good!

Do your most important investing now. Sit down with a financial planner and get yourself a good plan. But have your planner review, if not re-write it every year to account for what is current about investment performance, changes in employer benefits or new family members, which could increase your future financial obligations. Only in this way will your plan provide a useful map for where you want to go and how best to get there.

This planning will cost money, of course, but the cost is much less than “winging it” in the stock market!

Have a great week.
Bob

Bob Wood ChFC, CLU Yusuf Kadiwala. Registered Investment Advisors, KMA, Inc., invest@muslimobserver.com.

11-21

Lansing, MI – At the general meeting of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission on April 27, 2009, new officers were elected as follows:  Commissioner Matt Wesaw (Holt) will continue to serve as Chair. Wesaw succeeded former Chair Kelvin W. Scott who was appointed Director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. Commissioner J. Michael Zelley (Grand Blanc) was elected to serve as Vice-Chair. Commissioner Lisa Peeples-Hurst (Benton Harbor) was elected as Secretary. Commissioner Nabih H. Ayad (Canton) was elected to serve as Treasurer.

The Commission also set a tentative meeting schedule for the remainder of 2009. Details on dates and locations, as well as speakers and topics, will be released at a later time.

The meeting schedule is as follows:  June 22 – Benton Harbor or Kalamazoo; August 24 – Northern Lower Peninsula or Upper Peninsula; October 26 – Lansing; December 14 – TBD.

For more information on the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, please call 1/800-482-3604 or visit http://michigan.gov/mdcr. (517) 335-3164.

Quratulain Ali wins journalism scholarship

CARBONDALE — Southern Illinois University Carbondale presented scholarships and awards to 41 outstanding journalism students in the School of Journalism.
More than 45 scholarships worth more than $63,000, along with several recognition awards, were presented at the annual awards banquet April 23, at Blue Sky Vineyards in Makanda.

Quratulain H. Ali, sophomore, advertising/integrated marketing communications received the Southern Illinois Editorial Association Scholarship of $600.

Muslim Republicans feel humiliated

DALLAS, TX– Muslim members of the Republican Party in North Texas have expressed their offense at a program that’s attracting crowds at Republican clubs. The program initiated by a Republican precinct judge Dorrie O’Brien has been travelling across the country saying that Muslims want to undermine the United States.
Jamal Qaddura, a Republican precinct chair, condemned such outrageous messages which are based falsehood.

“I was humiliated and degraded,” he said of O’Brien’s message.  Qaddura said the messages prey on fears, which have a way of spreading and doing a lot of harm.
“This is a good community,” he said. “We are Texans, and Texans don’t put up with that stuff.”

Muslim technologist claims lost job because pilgrimage trip

PITTSBURGH,PA– A Muslim nuclear medicine technologist claims he lost his job after he angered a supervisor by going on Hajj. The sixty one year old in a lawsuit claims that the UPMC Mercy hospital’s states reason for firing him was for falsifying records.

He claims he wasn’t allowed time off for the pilgrimage to Mecca over the Christmas holidays in 2006. He says he was really fired because a supervisor became irate when a higher ranking employee let him take the trip beginning in late 2007.

Siraj Virani to be honored from National Restaurant Association

The National Restaurant Association is honoring Siraj Virani, owner of 13 Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in the Chicago area, as the recipient of its Faces of Diversity American Dream Award at a ceremony to be held during the Association’s upcoming 2009 Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago. The Association’s Faces of Diversity awards celebrate diversity and inclusion in the restaurant-and-foodservice industry and among the industry’s 13 million employees. Four winners in two categories—the American Dream Award for individuals and the Inspiration Award for restaurant companies—are being recognized for inspirational success stories and exceptional efforts to embrace diversity.

“Siraj Virani has an amazing story to tell,” said Dawn Sweeney, President and CEO of the Association. “It’s one of hope, hardship, perseverance, and triumph. His story truly embodies the American Dream and the opportunities within the restaurant industry. We are so pleased to present Mr. Virani with the Faces of Diversity American Dream Award.”

In 1971, Siraj Virani lived in Bengal, now known as Bangladesh, when the Indo-Pakistani War broke out. Virani and his father stayed in Bengal while his mother and four siblings went to Pakistan. Several months later, Virani and his father embarked on a five month journey by boat, camel, and foot across a war zone, to join the rest of their family in Karachi, Pakistan.

While working as a typist and bookkeeper in Karachi, Virani won a scholarship to the United States, where he studied to be an accountant. He worked as a server at a restaurant to earn extra money. After obtaining an associate’s degree from the Central YMCA College in Chicago, he studied accounting and finance at Roosevelt University. When he was laid off from a pharmaceutical company, Virani began to consider franchising opportunities.

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By Nilofar Suhrawardy, MMNS India Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Suspense begins with announcement of results for the 15th Lok Sabha after counting of votes on May 16. While it will take a little while for the picture to be clearer on who would the key power holders in the new government, there also prevails diplomatic suspense over its approach towards United States. Will the new government yield to pressure from Washington on signing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or not? Signals coming from Washington suggest that New Delhi is likely to face pressure from United States on signing NPT, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and agree to a freeze on production of fissile material. Speaking here at an interaction session, last week (May 5), on “US-India Relations,” former US envoy and senior fellow and senior advisor to President Rand Corporation, Robert D. Blackwill referred to prospects of a shift in US approach towards India under President Barack Obama. His predecessor George W. Bush gave importance to “transformation of US-India relations” as a “key factor in balancing the rise of Chinese power,” which in Blackwill’s opinion was the primary factor responsible for negotiating the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. “Without this China factor at the fore in Washington, in my view the Bush Administration would not have negotiated the Civil Nuclear Agreement and the Congress would not have approved it,” Blackwill said.

“There are preliminary indications that the Obama Administration has a different policy orientation towards India,” Blackwill pointed out. “It will take very hard work and skillful diplomacy from both governments to keep the US-India relationship on its current plateau and to avoid a steady decline in our bilateral ties,” Blackwill said.

Describing the Indo-US nuclear reprocessing and the civil nuclear cooperation as a “tough negotiation,” Blackwill said: “I am skeptical that it would have been successfully concluded under current conditions by this American Administration and Congress.” “It seems likely that Washington and New Delhi will begin a reprocessing agreement this calendar year which would promote the sale of US nuclear reactors to India. Were that negotiation to break down, recriminations would surely fly from both capitals,” he said.

With Washington “now naturally focused on US-China economic relations,” Blackwill pointed out: “So, China today appears, at least to me, to be on a substantially higher plane in US diplomacy than India which seems to have been downgraded in Administration strategic calculations.”

Referring to US stand on Indian nuclear policy, Blackwill stated: “The Obama team endorses both the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and a freeze on the production of fissile material. Neither of these appears to be acceptable to the Indian Government today.” “It is not clear at least to me how the Obama team basically regards India’s nuclear weapons – as a destabilizing factor in South Asia; as a fact of life to grudgingly tolerate; or as a natural development from a close democratic collaborator and rising great power,” Blackwill said.

As Blackwill outlined United States’ stand on India’s nuclear policy here, similar points were made by US assistant secretary of state Rose Gottemoeller in her opening remarks at the Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 NPT Review Conference being held at UN headquarters in New York. “Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea remains a fundamental objective of the United States,” she said. Later, while praising India’s willingness to pursue CTBT and also pursue Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) in cooperation with United States, Gottemoeller said: “So I would say that India is coming closer to the non-proliferation regime, and that too is an important goal of the US foreign policy.”

India has repeatedly asserted that it will not sign the CTBT or NPT, despite it having inked the civilian nuclear deal with United States. Earlier this year, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said: “We will not sign CTBT or NPT and we have made it absolutely clear to the US that we are bound by the bilateral agreement with it and India-specific safeguards with the IAEA.”

At present, in addition to political and diplomatic suspense, fate of India’s nuclear policy also appears to be at stake. Will the next Indian government continue the much-publicized Indo-US nuclear deal, even if it leads to it inking the NPT and CTBT? Undeniably, “nuclear” signals coming from Washington have placed Delhi in a more complicated situation than before regarding its stand on NPT. Though even Bush administration had pursued the nuclear deal, expecting India to move towards the NPT, the Obama team, as Blackwill indicated, seems keen on India actually inking the treaty it has always opposed. This hard reality will certainly take a little while to sink in to the new Indian government’s diplomatic approach towards US. It would also have to take stock of the diplomatic fact that India has been “downgraded,” with China being given greater importance in Washington’s policy. Thus, soon after suspense about post-poll scenario in India is over, concerned authorities are likely to begin talking about nuclear dilemma being faced by the new government: to yield to Washington’s pressures on non-proliferation, with or without the nuclear deal in place, or not!

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