U.S. Bangladeshis Track Climate Changes Back Home

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By New America Media, Ngoc Nguyen

Mohammed Khan was a child when the deadliest cyclone ever recorded struck Bangladesh (at the time East Pakistan) in 1970. The cyclone brought torrential rains and winds stronger than those seen during Hurricane Katrina. As many as half a million people were killed. Then river waters rose and claimed the land.

“My family lives on an island called Bhola,” Khan recalls. “They have some land, but a lot of the land was taken by the river during a great flood.”

Khan, 51, who now lives in Queens, N.Y., has a daughter and more than 200 family members in Bangladesh. He’s worried about how his large extended family will fare when the next cyclone strikes, and he fears climate change will worsen such disasters.

“As the water levels rise in the next few years, much of southern Bangladesh will go into the womb of the river,” he says.

Concern about climate change among the public has waned, but the issue is foremost among many Bangladeshi Americans, because of the vulnerability of Bangladesh to climate change. Some community members are organizing seminars to learn about how rising seas and extreme weather will play out in their home country, and they’re making their voices heard on the political front.

Bangladesh is often considered ground zero for climate change. Crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, much of the country is a massive flat delta, extremely vulnerable to sea-level rise. As global warming pushes sea levels higher, Bangladesh would have the most land inundated among its South Asian neighbors, according to the World Bank. If sea levels rise by one meter, as much as a fifth of the country could be submerged, displacing about 20 million people.

In the last few years, awareness about climate change has grown among Bangladeshi Americans.

Hasan Rahim, a software engineering consultant based in San Jose, says Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” was a wake-up call for him and many Bangladeshis in Silicon Valley. Rahim, who also teaches math and statistics at San Jose City College, says he organized screenings of the film in his community.

Rahim connected the film’s dire predictions about climate change to his homeland. “We live here, but we have roots there,” he says. “We are connected and we have got to become more aware of [climate change impacts].”

More than a dozen rivers, including the mighty Ganges, Brahmaputra, Jamuna and Meghna, flow across Bangladesh, emptying into the Bay of Bengal. The southern part of the country is a massive delta, with its fertile land known as the country’s rice bowl.

“It’s really a concern. We’re a small country with 150 million people, so lots of people would lose their houses, land, and become homeless,” says Abu Taher, editor of the newspaper Bangla Patrik, in New York. He says people want to know the future consequences of climate change on the country so they can tell family members to take precautions.

When he travels to Bangladesh, Khan says he notices changes in the environment. There used to be three crop seasons, he says, but now there’s one. “Normally, we would have floods during the rainy season, but now there is no one season for floods anymore,” Khan adds.

A construction worker, Khan also heads up a group made up of immigrants from Barisal, a southern province that is frequently hard hit by cyclones and flooding. The group has organized seminars to learn more about how climate change will affect Bangladesh. From the United States, Khan says he sometimes feels powerless to help his family back home.

“There’s nowhere for them to go. Bangladesh is a small country,” he says. “Where would they get the land? Who will give us the money? I can just advise them to use the deep tube wells to get clean water.”

Khan says his group wants to share the information with U.S. elected officials, and tell them they want the United States to curb its own pollution and help vulnerable nations.

“America as a leader should help all the poor and affected countries, including Bangladesh,” Khan says. “Affected families are dying without food, without a roof over their heads. We should provide financial assistance and even bring them here.”

In the last two decades, Bangladesh suffered the most deaths and greatest economic losses as a result of extreme weather events, according to Germanwatch’s Global Climate Risk Index 2010.

At the climate change summit in Copenhagen in December, the United States and other developed nations pledged $100 billion in aid to countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts.

“It would make all the difference in the world if the aid were used not to buy finished products like solar panels, but to develop local indigenous talent,” says Rahim.

Bangladeshis have already had to adapt to higher sea levels, Rahim says.

“People who raised chickens are now raising ducks,” he says, and farmers are experimenting with “floating seed beds” to save crops during floods.

Until more funds are directed to helping people adapt to climate change, more frequent and more intense storms and floods will create more environmental refugees.

Queens resident Sheikh Islam says refugees have already poured into the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, which the World Wildlife Federation ranked as the city most vulnerable to climate change impacts out of 11 Asian coastal cities.

Islam says there’s more recognition now that climate change is causing the refugee surge into the city.

“They thought the migrants who came to the city were just jobless and landless. Now, the government is mentioning that they are jobless and landless because of climate change,” he says.

Islam says there’s also a growing perception that Western developed countries bear more responsibility for the problem because they contribute the most to carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

“Now, people know about climate change and they are talking about it,” Islam says. “Three to five years ago they don’t talk about it. They thought it was our problem. Now they think it is a global problem.”

12-4

Could Pakistan’s NorthWest Frontier Province Become Afghania?

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By Dr. Mohammad Taqi, Pakistan Link

At this time in the constitutional history of Pakistan, there apparently is a lot in a name; a name for the NWFP, that is.

Two major political parties of Pakistan, viz. Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N), have nominated a five-member committee each, to meet, and hopefully agree, upon rechristening the NWFP.

In and of itself this may not be a major development for the rest of Pakistan, but on its resolution apparently hinges the forward movement in repealing the 17th Amendment to the 1973 Constitution. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is likely to bless the consensus developed by the ANP and PML-N.

The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) was so named, when in November 1901 the Viceroy of British India, Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, the First Marquess of Kedleston, carved out the Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Kohat and Hazara districts from the Punjab province and consolidated them into one administrative entity and appointed Sir Harold Deane as its first Chief Commissioner.

The chief commissionerate was abolished in 1932 and the NWFP became a Governor’s Province with the then Chief Commissioner Sir Ralph Griffith continuing as the first Governor. Sir Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum became the province’s first minister. The first general elections under the Government of Indian Act 1935 were held in 1937 and Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum was elected the first chief minister of the province.

Four of the districts originally incorporated into the NWFP had sizable non-Pashtun and/or non-Pashto speaking populations, Hazara being the most important such district. However, large proportions of the Hindko speakers of Hazara and Peshawar City trace their lineage to Pashto or Persian-speaking Afghans.

While the demographic makeup of the Peshawar city, Kohat and Dera Ismail Khan has changed favorably towards the Pashtun ethnicity and language over the last thirty years, the Hazara – now a division – remains very much a Hindko-speaking region.

Hazara has also been the bastion of various incarnations of the Pakistan Muslim League and remained so in the 2008 elections, returning six Muslim Leaguers to the National Assembly of Pakistan from its seven allocated seats; hence the PML-N’s intense focus on Hazara in the renaming process.

The ANP, on the other hand, has been consistently demanding a change in the province’s name since the party’s inception in 1986. The term Pukhtunkhwa was introduced in its current political context right around that time.

Pukhtunkhwa certainly is a term that has not only been used politically to describe the land of the Pashtuns but was also deployed frequently by the twentieth century Sufi poet Amir Hamza Shinwari and later by the more politically attuned poets like Ajmal Khattak, Qalandar Momand and Rehmat Shah Sael who gave it currency. It thus has significant cultural and popular history in contrast with the exonym NWFP.

The ANP had proposed this name as an alternative to the more political – and to some a secessionist – term Pashtunistan. Pashtunistan had its origin in the duel between the All-India Muslim League and the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement, where the latter proposed that the NWFP and FATA remain independent – under the Pashtunistan banner – than join Pakistan or India.

The Pashtun nationalist movement and its leaders remained ‘outsiders’, from 1947 through the mid-1980s, as far as the power politics of Pakistan go. The call for renaming the NWFP had then remained one of the rallying points for the ANP’s “National Democratic Revolution”, a neo-irredentist modification of the Leninist theory of the same name. Irredentism by definition being “a policy directed towards the incorporation, of irredentas – territories historically or ethnically related to one political unit but under the political control of another-back into their historically or ethnically related political unit”.

In due course the Pashtun nationalist movement, which in the NWFP essentially meant the ANP, was absorbed into the mainstream Pakistani politics, after forming a coalition with the PML of Nawaz Sharif in 1990, the party was formally initiated into the Islamabadian realpolitik and its leaders rehabilitated as “patriotic” Pakistanis from a hithertofore “traitor” status.

The issue of renaming the NWFP has, however, continued to be a point of contention between the ANP and the PML-N not least because of the different ethno-linguistic demographic that each draws its support from. Each side had its reservations entrenched in the irredentism – real or perceived – of the other.

Over the last several years, efforts have been made by many to arrive at a consensus name for the province. The proposed alternatives have ranged from Gandhara – the ancient name of the region, Khyber, Abaseen, Neelab, Peshawar and Afghania. Each of these names has had its supporters and critics.

Going back to Gandhara is considered by some to ignore centuries of sociological evolution that the people of this region have gone through. Khyber, Abaseen, Neelab and Peshawar represent a geographical nomenclature that is devoid of the ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural connotations.

While geographical renaming has been a common practice in the post-colonial nation-states, it is rather a reverse sociological evolution to use geographic landmarks to name regions where a peoples’ identity is also an issue. The Pakistani provinces like Punjab or Sindh did not gain their names in this fashion. The geographical landmarks developed their significance over the ages and people inhabiting those regions subsequently drew their name and identity from these landmarks and regions.

Within the last two weeks, the PML-N has proposed a slate of three names, i.e., Abaseen, Neelab and Pukhtunkhwa-Hazara whereas t he Chief of the ANP, Asfandyar Wali Khan has given a mandate to his committee to agree upon Pukhtunkhwa, Pashtunistan or Afghania.

Among all the names proposed by the two parties Afghania is one entity that has no political baggage attached to it. Indeed Afghania is the word represented by the letter ‘A’ in the acronym PAKISTAN as originally coined by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali in his 1933 pamphlet “Now or Never”.

In his later book “ Pakistan : the fatherland of the Pak nation”, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali calls the word NWFP an “official but nondescript” term used for the province of Afghania.

In addition to the ANP President’s standing offer to accept Afghania as the province’s new name, its central leader and key ideologue Senator Afrasiab Khattak had also written a well-argued article supporting this name.

There could potentially be a question about having a province named Afghania right at the border of Afghanistan and a few may balk at this. However, from Allama Iqbal and Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to the religious parties of Pakistan, everyone has acknowledged the strong ties of languages, culture, religion and trade between the two adjoining regions. If anything, Afghania would only strengthen and bolster these relations.

Afghania as the new name for the NWFP will not only be acceptable to all people of this region but will also bring to close a chapter of imperial history. It is in sync with the wishes of the founding fathers and the will of the people today. ANP and PML-N have the initiative in their hands; now or never, as Chaudhry Rehmat Ali would have said.

The author teaches and practices medicine at the University of Florida and can be reached at mazdaki@me.com.

12-4

India and Pakistan: Cold Start for the Hottest War?

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By J. Sri Raman, t r u t h o u t

We have all been witness to a long and continuing war of words between New Delhi and Islamabad ever since the Mumbai terrorist strike of November 2008 disrupted the India-Pakistan “peace process” and “composite dialogue” which had kept going until then despite smaller problems and provocations. These statements and counter-statements, however, do not constitute the exchange that should cause the most serious concern over peace in South Asia.

A larger and direr threat is what a strangely less-noticed debate between the military establishments of the two countries presents. The chiefs of the two armies and security experts on both sides, besides others in either distinguished uniform or defense-related positions of prominence, have been engaged in the debate where a nuclear war is treated in mind-numbingly matter-of-fact terms.

It all started with a statement on November 23, 2009, by India’s Chief of Army Staff Gen. Deepak Kapoor, which deserved a much wider notice than it received. He told a seminar in New Delhi: “The possibility of a limited war under a nuclear overhang is still a reality, at least in the Indian sub-continent.”

He followed this up with public observations on December 29, 2009, about a plan to “launch self-contained and highly-mobile ‘battle groups,’ adequately backed by air cover and artillery fire assaults, for rapid thrusts into enemy territory within 96 hours.” The reference was to the “cold start” military doctrine, reportedly first propounded by the Indian army in 2004 and fine-tuned subsequently. The doctrine for a “limited war” – something “short of a nuclear war” – has triggered a debate that actually raises again the prospect of the most dreaded of conflicts between the close neighbors.

Details of the doctrine make it clear that it is designed to promote war by countering Indian democracy and international peace initiatives. India’s security analyst Subhash K. Kapila – who describes the doctrine as “a blitzkrieg-type strategy” to be pursued through “integrated battle groups” drawn from all the three wings of the armed forces – puts these objectives in other words.

In a paper titled “India’s new ‘cold start’ doctrine strategically reviewed,” Kapila notes that the doctrine, which says goodbye to weeks-long “military mobilization,” will not only retain the surprise element in the offensive. It will also serve two other purposes.

In the first place, it will “compel the political leadership to give political approval ab initio and thereby free the armed forces to generate their full combat potential from the outset.” The government is required to give the army a blank check, so to speak. Long mobilization “gives the political leadership in India time to waver under pressure, and in the process deny Indian Army its due military victories.” Secondly, lengthy preparations also allow time for “Pakistan’s external patrons … to start exerting coercive pressures and mobilizing world opinion …”

The analysis makes it clear that the doctrine will demand a new degree of militarism of India’s political leadership. The strategy can succeed, Kapila points out, only if New Delhi has the “political will to use offensive military power” and “pre-emptive military strategies,” the “political sagacity to view strategic military objectives with clarity” and the “political determination to pursue military operations to their ultimate conclusion without succumbing to external pressures.”

Last, but certainly not the least, condition for the success of the strategy will be what Kapila calls the “political determination to cross [the] nuclear threshold if Pakistan seems so inclined.” The paper notes: “Pakistan has declared that it will go for nuclear strikes against India when a significant portion of its territory has been captured or likely to be captured, … when a significant destruction of the Pakistani military machine has taken place or when Pakistani strategic assets (read nuclear deterrents) are endangered.” Offensives under the doctrine will not allow “Pakistan to reach the above conclusions.”

What about the dreadful possibility that Pakistan does reach such a conclusion, even if by mistake, and responds with a nuclear strike? The analyst provides the answer implicit in the doctrine: “Pakistan cannot expect that India would sit idle and suffer a Pakistani nuclear strike without a massive nuclear retaliation.” As the paper elaborates, “Pakistan’s external strategic patrons can coerce or dissuade both sides to avoid a nuclear conflict, but once Pakistan uses a nuclear first strike no power can restrain India from going in for its nuclear retaliation and the consequences for Pakistan in that case stand well discussed in strategic circles. Pakistan would (be) wiped out.”

Pakistani responses have been prompt and even worse than predictable. General Deepak’s counterpart, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Ashfaq Pervez Kayani charged India with “charting a course of dangerous adventurism whose consequences can be both unintended and uncontrollable.” As Pakistan’s peace activist Zia Mian put it: “In other words, Pakistan was threatening to use nuclear weapons if India tried to carry out the kind of conventional attack it has been rehearsing.”

The civilian-military National Command Authority (NCA) of Pakistan, meeting under Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on January 13, took “serious note of recent Indian statements about conducting conventional military strikes under a nuclear umbrella” and said “such irresponsible statements reflected a hegemonic mindset, oblivious of dangerous implications of adventurism in a nuclearized context.”

The NCA added: “Massive inductions of advanced weapon systems, including installation of ABMs (anti-ballistic missiles), build-up of nuclear arsenal and delivery systems through ongoing and new programs, assisted by some external quarters, offensive doctrines like ‘Cold Start’ and similar accumulations in the conventional realm, tend to destabilize the regional balance.” Earlier, former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri took it upon himself to declare: “Pakistan’s defense establishment has taken serious notice of the Indian doctrine of ‘Cold Start’ and all necessary arrangements have been made for an appropriate and timely response in case of any Indian misadventure.”

It was left, again, to security experts to elaborate on the subject. Among these was Maleeha Lodhi, a journalist, an academic and a diplomat. A former high commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom, and a former ambassador to the US, she was recently reported to be under consideration as a possible replacement for Hussain Haqqani as the new Pakistani ambassador in Washington.

In an analysis published on January 5 in Pakistan’s News International, Lodhi talks of the notion of “limited war” contained in the doctrine, and says: “It overlooks the fact that in a crisis the nuclear threshold will be indeterminate. The threshold cannot be wished away by “speed in mobilization,” she said.

“In fact,” she added, “the shorter the duration needed for a mobilization the greater the risk of escalation and the likely lowering of Pakistan’s nuclear red lines. The long fuse in a crisis provided by the time required for assembly and deployment of forces has so far helped to avoid a catastrophic war.”

Lodhi warns: “If operationalized, the ‘cold start’ doctrine will force Pakistan to re-evaluate its policy of keeping its nuclear arsenal in ‘separated’ form and move towards placing its strategic capability in a higher state of readiness, including mating warheads to delivery systems. The action-reaction cycle will move the subcontinent to a perilous state of hair-trigger alert.”

The same scary prospect is raised in an article by security columnist Farzana Shah in the Asian Tribune of January 14. She writes: “(The) Indian military establishment is relying much more on President (Asif Ali) Zardari’s announcement that Pakistan will not use its nuclear weapon as first strike. In reality, it is Pakistan army who will decide which weapon is to be used when and where.”

The deciding authority, Shah suggests, only makes the danger more real. She adds: “Another problem, which India is going to face during any execution of Cold Start, is the gauge of nuclear threshold of Pakistan, a point where Pakistan would decide to go for unconventional warfare. This is where Army Chief Asfaq Pervez Kayani (has) hinted that the consequences of any misadventure in a nuclear overhang can be suicidal for India.”

Anyone with any doubt about the alternative to a peace-oriented India-Pakistan dialogue needs only to listen to even a little of the debate over the cold start doctrine and its nuclear dimension.

12-4

Israel and Egypt Continue to Squeeze Gaza

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By Ann Wright, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Two weeks ago, almost 2,000 internationals came to Egypt and Gaza in a massive show of civil society’s support for the people of Gaza. Nearly 1,400 persons representing 44 countries in the Gaza Freedom March and over 500 persons with the Viva Palestina Convoy let the people of Gaza know of their concern for the tragic consequences of their governments’ support of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade.

Yet, two weeks later, with the apparent approval of governments (United States, European Community and Canada) that support the quarantine, blockade and siege of Gaza, Israel and Egypt have tightened the squeeze to wring the lifeblood out of the people of Gaza.

US Military Team Visits Underground Wall Construction

The US government continues to assist Egypt in building an underground wall to cut off tunnels under the border of Gaza and Egypt. According to Reuters, on January 14, 2010, three US military personnel from the US embassy in Cairo visited Rafah to follow up on the barrier project. According to security sources in Rafah, visits by US military have been taking place monthly.

In a press conference this week in Washington, US State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said, “What we’d like to see is for Hamas to stop using the border crossings as methods for smuggling in weapons and let’s get the weapons smuggling stopped.” Duguid did not address the use of the tunnels to get life-saving food and materials prohibited by Israel.

In December 2009, three Palestinians were killed after a tunnel collapsed beneath the Egypt-Gaza border. The three were reported missing, and later found by rescue workers.

Deadliest Week Since Last Year’s Israeli Attack

Last week, January 6-12, was the deadliest week for the Gaza Strip in the past year since the January 18, 2009, ceasefire that ended Israel’s “Cast Lead” offensive.

According to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israeli air force bombing attacks killed seven Palestinians in Gaza, including three civilians. The attacks came in response to an increase in the number of mortar shells and rockets fired by Palestinian factions from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel that caused no injuries or property damage.

Since the ceasefire a year ago, a total of 84 Palestinians, including at least 27 civilians, and one Israeli (a soldier) have been killed. Another 160 Palestinians and seven Israelis were injured in Gaza and southern Israel.

On January 8, 2010, US aircraft flown by Israeli air force personnel bombed tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, killing three Palestinians, including a 15 year-old boy, and wounding another two. Another Palestinian was hurt in a separate airstrike. In two other incidents, on January 6 and 10, Israeli aircraft targeted and killed four Palestinian militants, three of them in one airstrike. Five additional airstrikes, resulting in no casualties, were carried out during the week. Also this week, on four separate occasions, Israeli forces drove tanks into Gaza and conducted land-leveling operations.

Israelis Increase Border Zone Into Gaza

On January 7 this year, the Israeli air force dropped leaflets into areas next to the border fence with Gaza, warning residents to keep a distance of at least 300 meters from the border with Israel and to avoid cooperating with “smugglers” in the tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. This doubled the buffer zone along the border from 150 meters to 300 meters, but Israeli forces have opened “warning” fire at farmers as far as 1,000 meters (3,200 feet) from the border.

A parallel ban for Gaza fishermen is applied to sea areas beyond three nautical miles from the coast, though often this distance is less in practice. This week, in nine separate incidents, Israeli naval forces opened “warning” fire at Palestinian fishing boats along Gaza’s coast, forcing them to return to shore.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that on January 6 and 9 this year, unknown persons detonated bombs in a pharmacy and two coffee shops in Gaza City; no one was hurt, but property damage was reported.

Two Killed in January in Tunnels and Seven Youths Burned in Tunnel Fire

In January 2010, two Palestinians died in two separate incidents involving the collapse of a tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border while they were working inside it. At least 70 people have died and 123 others have been injured in the tunnels since the end of the “Cast Lead” Israeli attack on Gaza.

On January 16 this year, seven Palestinians from Gaza were burned in a fire that broke out in one of the tunnels connecting the border towns of Rafah, Gaza and Rafah, Egypt. The seven burned tunnel workers were treated at An-Nasser and Ash-Shifa hospitals in Gaza City.

Digging tunnels and working in them is one of the few jobs available for Palestinian youth in Gaza. Tunnel workers reportedly earn $25 per day, a huge sum in the current Palestinian economy. However, they are subjected to daily bombings by US F-16 aircraft flown by the Israeli Air Force, plus tunnel collapses and fires.

Accidents in the tunnels are frequent. According to the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Mezan, 120 people have been killed working in the tunnel trade in the past three years.

According to OCHA, no commercial gasoline or diesel fuel entered Gaza via Kerem Shalom during last week. Egyptian gasoline and diesel, which is transferred through the tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, remains available on the open market, with nearly 100,000 liters of diesel and 100,000 liters of gasoline transferred into Gaza per day.

Israeli Tanks Shell Beit Hanoun

Israeli tanks operating near the northern Gaza border near Beit Hanoun targeted civilian properties with heavy artillery fire on January 15, 2010. Tank shells hit civilian homes on the outskirts of the town, causing material damages but no injuries.

Egypt Builds Anchorage for Border Patrol Boats

Egypt is continuing fortification of its borders with Gaza, this time by sea. According to Reuters, Egypt is constructing a port for patrol boats that will block sea routes into Gaza for merchandise, food and weapons.

The border patrol boats will keep Palestinian fishing boats in Gazan coastal waters. Egypt has said it believes the boats are being used to carry out smuggling operations, though there have never been reports of such incidents. “It is to secure the area. It will be used to direct fishing boats in the area to ensure they do not cross the Israeli sea border and risk getting fired at,” the security sources told Reuters.

As Egypt completes the 14-kilometer underground wall along the Rafah border, Egyptian surveillance of the Mediterranean Sea increases the strangling of Gaza. The tunnels are the only way Gazans can bring goods into the Strip. Israel has maintained a tight blockade of the area, letting in only 36 types of goods for the past three years.

Future Aid Missions Must Go Through Red Crescent

On January 6, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrators, protesting Egypt’s delay in allowing the aid convoy Viva Palestina into Gaza, as well as Egypt’s plans to build the underground steel wall, clashed with Egyptian forces at the Gaza-Egypt border. As a result, an Egyptian soldier was shot dead and 13 Palestinians were injured, including six who suffered gunshot wounds. Eventually, the convoy entered on the same day, carrying food and medical supplies.

However, in response to the clashes, Egypt introduced a new mechanism, through which future aid convoys into Gaza will go through the Egyptian Red Crescent.

No Internationals Allowed Into Gaza

During December, no internationals were allowed into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, until 92 persons from the Gaza Freedom March were allowed in for 48 hours on December 30. During January, only the Viva Palestina convoy personnel were allowed in for 24 hours. Many international persons have letters of invitation from non-governmental organizations to assist in a variety of ways. Only one other international has been allowed into Gaza in January. Egypt has denied the requests for all other internationals. The ability of citizens of the world to assist Gaza when their governments will not is tragically being strangled.

12-4

Islam’s Challenge to Capitalism

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Turkey’s “Passive Revolution”

By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS

Berkeley–Although Chihan Tugal is based here in Berkeley, he was asked to talk about his research entitled Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism, published by Stanford University. It is written from his observations of a district in the above Asia Minor country which is amongst the poorest and most radical on the outskirts of Istanbul.  What is so interesting about this quarter is that it is dominated politically by Islamists even though the Central administration’s Constitution is that of a Secularist Republic.

Amid the Turkish population, the Islamists have scant support.  These Muslims favor a relatively radical type of Islam for a democratic State, and are against the exacting Secularization that Ataturk set in motion during the 1920s.  The majority of these people had supported the Fazilet (Virtue) Partisi (Party) and to a lesser extent other Islamist Parties such as Welfare.  Their thinking had led them to reject contemporary Capitalism; therefore, the anti-American stance of social and economic-introverted gazing.  Turkish Islamism is logical, but a short time ago, 2001, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Partisi) was formed out of a schism between traditionalists – such as ruled this area — and reformers within the Virtue Party by the current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Endrogan.  On the other hand, the AKP (Justice and Development) program stresses not only democratic reforms but Islamic moral renewal) as well.  (Incidentally many of these  Muslims came from the radical marginal ethnic groups within Turkiye.)  Ethnology is a competent device to comprehend this societal phenomenon. 

These individuals became disenchanted when it became apparent that an Islamist State was beyond their reach.  Many former adherents of the local Islamist groups, who had become disillusioned, defected to the Neo-Liberal (i.e., Neo-Ricardian) Justice and Development Party which is more broadly Islamic than Islamist, and, hence, more accepting of contemporaneous Capitalism — although they still held onto their antagonism to their former completive Islamist, as well, Welfare Party after they switched their positions outside their former religious ideological political stance. 

Those remaining inside the Islamic political organizations are nevertheless not so much anti-capitalistic as anti- markets.  (Your critic here considers, of all things, that many of these Islamist groups actually have affinities with European Christian Democrats!  Both put their spiritual commitments and moral principles in the forefront of their politics.)  Further, those who have stepped over to the Justice and Development Party have accepted some Keynesian theoretics, thus, they have resemblances to the Social Democrats in Europe. 

The Islamists of Turkiye Cumhurieyeti are a virtual compilation of the Subaltern (a range of the lower and lower middle classes).  Shopkeepers and students are against Capitalism in Istanbul, but the proletariat have sympathy for Corporate Capital, strangely enough, (for they see commerce a source for jobs).

Although the State has become more Islamic, their influence have diminished while that of the bourgeois has risen.  This has guaranteed the position of Secularism within the State.  The traditional patronage alliance between State actors within the Republic has been restored as has the alliance with the West — although the Secular elite can be Islamized, if a large scale Islamic revival is generated in the event the European Union denies Ankara’s entrance into the EU.  This (could) lead to a financial emergency that, may perhaps, lead to an economic meltdown in this NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) ally.  

12-4

Sodium Bicarbonate

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ibn tufail 1-18-10

Sodium bicarbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate is the chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. Sodium bicarbonate is a white solid that is crystalline but often appears as a fine powder. It can be used to experiment and is not very dangerous. It has a slight alkaline taste resembling that of washing soda (sodium carbonate). It is a component of the mineral natron and is found dissolved in many mineral springs. The natural mineral form is known as nahcolite. It is found in its dissolved form in bile, where it serves to neutralize the acidity of the hydrochloric acid produced by the stomach, and is excreted into the duodenum of the small intestine via the bile duct. It is also produced artificially.

Since it has long been known and is widely used, the salt has many related names such as baking soda, bread soda, cooking soda, bicarbonate of soda. Colloquially, its name is shortened to sodium bicarb, bicarb soda, or simply bicarb. The word saleratus, from Latin sal æratus meaning “aerated salt”, was widely used in the 19th century for both sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate. The term has now fallen out of common usage.

The ancient Egyptians used natural deposits of natron, a mixture consisting mostly of sodium carbonate decahydrate and sodium bicarbonate. The natron was used as a cleansing agent like soap.

In 1791, a French chemist, Nicolas Leblanc, produced sodium bicarbonate as we know it today. In 1846 two New York bakers, John Dwight and Austin Church, established the first factory to develop baking soda from sodium carbonate and carbon dioxide.

12-4

Cloning Virtual Box Machines

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By Adil James, MMNS

ScreenShot084

Virtual Box is probably the best program, currently, for making virtual machines.  I haven’t tried the others, but I did Google the issue and by reputation it’s by far the fastest, and it’s free.  It’s made by Sun, so with the backing of such a major tech company you know it has to be pretty good.

I have had two virtual XP installations running at the same time on a dual core machine with 2.5 gigs of RAM.  I had a full load of other programs running as I recall, including Firefox (which sometimes eats a lot of memory).  They ran okay but did crash the machine (grinding everything to a standstill, which had never happened before)—still I am amazed at how well the whole thing functioned.

We happen to have several XP Pro licenses because we bought several machines brand new, some of which are now running other OSs.

An issue with Virtual Box machines is cloning, however.  It should actually be pretty easy to clone a machine, but actually it takes some doing.  So I am going to give you the solution that I came to after some effort and lessons learned.

Of course it’s a good idea to get the copy of the virtual machine into good shape (i.e.  activated if applicable, with the programs that you want, whatever settings you want, and all the updates run).  These instructions assume you have Virtual Box running on a Windows machine (here Windows 7 RC [sorry, I made a mistake, this is really windows XP running with a facelift (using Seven Remix) to look like W7… but I would think these basic principles still apply to W7 although I have not tested these directions under W7]), and in this case the Virtual Box machine I am cloning is also Windows (here XP).  This method uses a “non-documented” internal command of Virtual Box that could be turned off at any time by Sun but as of yesterday (January 19, 2010) and today too, it worked fine.  There is another way using a documented command (clonehd) but I used the non-documented command because I had already made a copy of the drive I wanted and the easiest thing seemed to be to just make it usable—and this way worked for me and made sense to me. 

Although we did this on a Windows machine it should be pretty similar and about as easy in another OS, for example in Linux it is pretty routine to work on the command line so should be easier I guess.  Most of the instructions on the web seemed like they were aimed at Linux/Ubuntu users so that is why I did this instruction set for Windows.  Should make it easier to follow the paths and figure out where the necessary files are.

I don’t know what will happen if you have snapshots of the drive you want to clone—I didn’t have any snapshots of mine.  In many directions the first step is to get rid of all snapshots.

Be careful because these virtual machines will eat a hard drive very quickly.  I have about four virtual machines and my C drive went from being healthy and half empty to being nearly filled to capacity in just a couple of days.

Sorry, you have to go to the command line to do this.

Here is step by step how to do it:

Before you begin you must make sure the virtual machine to be cloned is turned off.

 

1) Make a copy of the .vdi file for the machine you want to clone.  The path is:

C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\.VirtualBox\HardDisks\*.vdi

Just right click the file you want and copy it, giving the new file an easy-to-remember name, like for example “XP.vdi” is the original file and “XPCopy.vdi” is the new copy of it.  Paste the copy into the same folder.

 

2) Reset the user id of the copy. This is the part of the procedure that uses an undocumented command, namely “sethduuid” (here are the instructions I used but I will summarize below):

Open a command window:  Start – Run – type “cmd” in the box to open a black command window.

Type the following commands (filling in your user name in the [user] box) in the command window:

cd C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\.VirtualBox\HardDisks

“C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe” internalcommands sethduuid XPCopy.vdi

In above command make sure the path is right on your machine, and don’t forget the quotation marks around the path to VBoxManage.exe.  Of course you will have to put the correct name of your copied hard disk image, in this example I used XPCopy.vdi (and in the actual demo below I used “XPCopy2.vdi”) but yours is likely different.

cleaned-83 copy 

 

 

3) Now you have to make a new Virtual Box machine and link it to your clone:

Open Sun Virtual Box … New … Next … [type the name of your clone machine and change the OS and version as necessary] … Next … [i just use the defaults] … Next … click “use existing hard disk” and click the folder button, click “Add” and browse to the new .vdi file (in my example mine is XPCopy.vdi) … click “Open” … Select … Next … Finish

Ha.  You’re all done.  Start that new clone up and you’re in business.  I just followed these steps myself and it all worked but in case I left out a step or something please leave a comment on this article, which will eventually come to my attention.

 

I love your comments so whether you want to say thanks or want to say this doesn’t work for you or something please add a comment.

 

Errors:

1) I renamed a copy then stored the copy on an external drive then brought the .vdi copy back to the VirtualBox/HardDisks folder, and when I tried to reset the user id and got the error message “VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND”. 

I kept getting this error, but not now…

I suspect I was not in the “HardDisks” subdirectory and this is why I was getting this error.  You must be in the correct directory where you have the copy before this sethduuid command will work.

2) The whole reason I realized the importance of resetting the user id was because I got the error “Cannot register the hard disk…” “UUID … already exists in the media registry”  when I tried to link to a .vdi image from a new machine, but without first going through the procedure of resetting the user id.  The user id is attached to each virtual box image by Sun, not Microsoft.  You cannot just copy another virtual machine’s hard disk and then start a new virtual machine and link to it, you’ll get the user id error.

Omar Khan, Football Executive

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3D23 Omar Khan is the Business & Football Administration Coordinator of Pittsburgh’s Steelers. A well respected executive he is currently being interviewed by the Seahawks for the general manager vacancy.

Khan has the title of Business and Football Administration Coordinator and handles the salary cap and negotiations for the Steelers.

Khan, 32, is the child of immigrant parents. His father was born in India and his mother in Honduras.  A keen sports enthusiast from his high school days Khan earned a degree in Sports Management with a minor in Business Administration from Tulane University.

As a student, Khan worked in the Tulane football office filming practices and games and making travel arrangements. He filled a similar capacity during an internship with the New Orleans Saintswhile he was still in school. Once he graduated in 1998, he was brought on in a full-time role by the Saints. He worked his way up the ladder in New Orleans by doing anything that was asked of him.

In 2001 he was hired by the Steelers and has served as their chief contract negotiator and capologist, replacing Dan Ferens.  In that role he has helped to assemble two Super Bowl winners.

12-3

Israel Apologizes to Turkey

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By Zerin Elci and Allyn Fisher-Ilan

2010-01-11T102005Z_118425324_GM1E61B1EY301_RTRMADP_3_TURKEY

Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan arrives at a welcoming ceremony in Ankara January 11, 2010.

REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ANKARA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel apologized to Turkey on Wednesday for publicly dressing down Ankara’s ambassador in a dispute that has strained the once good ties between the Jewish state and the Muslim regional power.

Turkey had demanded a formal apology for Ambassador Oguz Celikkol’s treatment on Monday and threatened to recall him.

But after receiving the letter of apology on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan threw a new barb at Israel, saying it should do more for peace in the region.

Turkey, as a Muslim country, is an important ally of Israel and in the past has helped forge contacts between the Jewish state and the Arab world.

But relations have deteriorated following criticism by Erdogan of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip last year.

The latest row broke out after Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Celikkol on Monday to protest against a Turkish television drama that portrayed Israeli diplomats as masterminds of a child abduction ring.

Ayalon invited media crews to the beginning of the meeting in Jerusalem and pointed out there was no Turkish flag on the table. He also said he was deliberately avoiding a handshake with the ambassador.

In television images broadcast in Turkey, Celikkol was seen seated on a low couch, accentuating the sense of a slight.

Ayalon later conceded his behavior toward the envoy had been inappropriate. But Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who is scheduled to host Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday, said that was insufficient and demanded a full apology.

Israel sent a formal letter of apology to Celikkol on Thursday.

“I had no intention to humiliate you personally and apologize for the way the demarche was handled and perceived, Ayalon said in the letter, released by the Israeli government.

“Please convey this to the Turkish people for whom we have great respect. I hope that both Israel and Turkey will seek diplomatic and courteous channels to convey messages as two allies should.”

In response, Erdogan said the Turkish foreign ministry had received “the expected, desired answer.”

But he added more criticism of Israel, telling a news conference: “Israel must put itself in order and it must be more just and more on the side of peace in the region.”

Ayalon had said earlier that his protest against the Turkish criticism of Israel remained valid. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu also said thought the protest was correct but handled badly, according to his office.

As a predominantly Muslim nation, albeit with a secular constitution, as well as a NATO military power, Turkey is a key ally for Israel in the Middle East. As well as providing security cooperation, Ankara has offered Israel diplomatic help in the past, notably mediating with Syria in 2008.

But ties have become frosty since Israel’s war in the Palestinian Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip a year ago, which drew frequent public censure from Erdogan, whose AK Party’s roots lie in political Islam.

Netanyahu has said Turkey was aligning itself with Muslim countries hostile to Israel like Iran since before the Gaza war.

There was similar outrage last year over a Turkish series which featured Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian children.

On Tuesday in London, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu renewed his country’s criticism of Israel over Gaza.

He said its 2008 invasion of the territory had marked the turning point in Turkish-Israeli relations.

Despite the row, a Turkish delegation is currently in Israel to wrap up the purchase of 10 Heron drones in a deal worth $180 million, Turkish defense officials said.

Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Darren Butler in Ankara, and Michele Kambas in Nicosia; Editing by Angus MacSwan

12-3

France May Ban Niqab

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niqab2 PARIS (AP) — A top lawmaker from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative party filed legislation on Tuesday to bar Muslim women in France from appearing in public wearing veils that hide their faces.

The bill by lawmaker Jean-Francois Cope, who heads the UMP party in the National Assembly, or lower house, has sparked criticism from some of his political allies. The speaker of the lower house, Bernard Accoyer, called Cope’s move “premature.”

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A panel of lawmakers has held hearings for six months on the all-encompassing veils that cover all but a woman’s eyes. It is to advise parliament by month’s end whether it believes a law banning such garments is needed.

In further criticism from within Cope’s own party, Labor Minister Laurent Wauquiez accused the lawmaker of using the debate over veils for self-promotion because he failed to await the conclusions of the parliamentary mission.

Sarkozy opened the debate on such veils in June, saying they aren’t welcome in France — but without specifying whether he wants a law against them.

A 2004 law bans Muslim headscarves and other “ostentatious” religious symbols from classrooms. Only a tiny minority of Muslim women in France wear the more extreme covering — which is not required by Islam. However, Islam is the No. 2 religion in France after Roman Catholicism, and authorities worry that such dress may be a gateway to extremism. They also say it amounts to an insult to women and to France’s secular foundations.

There has been concern over how any law banning the full veil could be presented without infringing on constitutional rights.

Cope’s approach is based on public order and safety. Article 1 of his proposal stipulates that “no one, in places open to the public or on streets, may wear an outfit or an accessory whose effect is to hide the face” except those with legitimate motives formally recognized. This was an apparent reference to certain cultural events and carnivals such as Mardi Gras, which Cope said last week would be exempt from his legislation.

Women failing to abide by the law, were it passed, would be subject to fines that could reach euro750 ($1,070), according to a summary by Cope last week.

He also introduced on Tuesday a parallel resolution — which does not carry the weight of law — stressing the importance of respecting the nation’s values “in the face of the development of radical practices which harm them.” The resolution states that all-enveloping veils harm “dignity and equality between men and women” and are contrary to French values.

12-3

Piercing the Skies

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By Sumayyah Meehan, MMNS Middle East Correspondent

rty

In a flurry of fireworks, more blinding than beautiful, and without even a shred of the financial turmoil that has been brewing for the past few weeks showing, the city of Dubai opened the doors this week to the world’s tallest building. Formerly known as ‘Burj Dubai’, the building was renamed ‘Burj Khalifa’ to honor the President of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan. Although, some critics say the renaming of the structure had everything to do with the recent $10 billion bailout that the President handed out to Dubai more than prestige.

Standing at a vertigo-inducing 828 meters, the Burj Khalifa is the crowning jewel in a region that has been marred by war and controversy for decades. Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum unveiled the radiant monstrosity of steel and glass with as much hoopla as a Hollywood premiere. “Today the United Arab Emirates achieves the tallest building ever created by the hand of man… and this great project deserves to carry the name of a great man. Today I inaugurate Burj Khalifa,” said Sheikh al-Maktoum to rounds of furious applause.

And then the real celebration began. Several parachute artists jumped out of airplanes high above dressed in the UAE flag colors of black, green and red. Once they landed, an enormous portrait of Sheikh Khalifa was projected on one side of the burgeoning building. Then fireworks exploded from every crevice of the structure and were soon followed by a dazzling laser show that lit up the sky in a rainbow of colors.

The city of Dubai is pinning all of its future aspirations on the giant tower to repair its heavily damaged reputation as the financial hub of the Middle East. A series of poor business judgments and debt repayment complications on the part of some Dubai financial houses have made most of the world’s biggest corporations think twice about doing business in Dubai. With a $1.5 billion price tag, the ‘vertical city’ of Burj Khalifa is expected to turn around the crisis before the paint even dries on its walls. Out of the 200 floors, only 160 will be residential while the remaining floors will be devoted to prime office space. Burj Khalifa also houses a Giorgio Armani hotel amongst other posh additions sure to woo foreign visitors and hopefully an investor or two.

The opening of Burj Khalifa also coincided with the 4 year anniversary of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum’s ascension to power. Sheikh al-Maktoum has been the visionary behind the construction boom that has made Dubai one of the world’s most beautiful concrete creations. However, the unprecedented rate of growth has proven to be the city’s potential unraveling as it has always relied on foreign investments which have been hard hit ever since the global credit crunch sunk in.

Hundreds of building projects in Dubai have been indefinitely halted as the emirate tries to pull itself up by its bootstraps and regain its former self. And even if that feat is possible, it will be a long time before Dubai will be able to stand tall in the global financial arena as critics and pundits alike question the rationale of gambling the future on a tall building.

12-3

AFMI’s Educational Mission: A Success

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(A Press Note with photographs and a few comments of AFMI delegates)

By Nilofar Suhrawardy, MMNS India Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Delegates of American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (AFMI) wrapped up their India-visit last week (January 10) on a satisfactory note. AFMI has been engaged for more than two decades in promoting literacy among Indian Muslims by establishing and/or aiding the existing educational institutions. As a part of its aim to achieve 100 percent literacy rate, the AFMI delegates hold an international convention every year in a different city of the country. This is followed by zonal conventions in several areas. Since the early 1990s, the AFMI has awarded medals (gold, silver & bronze), certificates and cash prizes to students having scored high percentage in Class 10th and 12th board examinations. While recipients of the awards are selected from across the country for the international convention, the zonal convention includes students of that particular zone.

Expressing satisfaction with increase in literacy rate of Indian Muslims, its key founder member, Dr. A.S. Nakadar said: “AFMI has made a difference.” Literacy among Muslims has increased by 60%, with 2008 being witness to greater upward trend than earlier, he said. He drew attention to increasing number of Muslim students scoring above 90%. Besides, Nakadar pointed to Muslim applicants to “higher educational institutions being higher than before.” He supported this point by referring to 50% quota in Muslim-minority educational institutions being now filled by Muslim students, which “earlier was not the case.” Nakadar, a retired cardiologist in Detroit, Michigan, visits India regularly to pursue AFMI’s literacy mission.

A key recipient of AFMI’s aid is Mijwan Welfare Society run by actor Shabana Azmi in the town called Mijwan (Uttar Pradesh), from where her father- renowned poet late Kaifi Azmi hailed. Azmi showed AFMI delegates the areas in which the students of this institution are engaged in. She expressed the need to further expand this organization with possible aid from AFMI, which is under consideration. The AFMI delegates were here last Thursday (January 8). AFMI delegates addressed the Zonal Educational Conference at Shibli National Inter-College, Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh the same afternoon.

The two-day international convention was held (January 2-3) at Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Among Indian dignitaries who addressed AFMI’s 18th annual convention were Union Minister of State for Corporate and Minority Affairs (Independent Charge) Salman Khursheed, Justice MSA Siddiqui, Chairman National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, Mayor of Indore Krishna Murari Moghe and others. It was the first international conference to be held in Indore this century. It was also the first one, where people from diverse political backgrounds, spoke only on importance of enhancing the literary rate of India’s largest minority community- the Muslims.

The Indore convention was followed by a tour of several towns and villages of Uttar Pradesh, with Amroha being the first to be visited by AFMI delegates (January 5). They addressed the Zonal Educational Conference at the institution run by Hakeem Sirajuddin Hashmi. AFMI delegates addressed a similar conference at Hira Public School at Hanswar (January 6).

Summing up his opinion, AFMI President Dr. Iqbal Ahmed expressed that though “Indian Muslims have developed the awareness about importance of education,” “poverty remains a major hindrance in achieving education.” He cited instances of people who had approached him in Indore about their children having secured admission to B. Tech but were dropped as their loan application was rejected by banks. “Rich segments of Muslims, Wakf boards and other Muslim groups must come forward and share the responsibility,” he said. Ahmed is a medical doctor (gastro-enetrology) in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr. Shakir Mukhi, also a medical doctor (New York) said that AFMI delegates were “impressed” by increase in involvement of Muslims in pursuing higher education. Describing AFMI awards for bright students as providing the needed “incentive” to students to move forward, he said that AFMI plans to come forward with more incentives to help students and educational institutions pursue higher goals.    

Reflecting on AFMI’s achievements in UP alone, Ali Quraishi said: “We strengthened about 25 schools and built two new ones. It is not easy to complete this job.” Nevertheless, expressing confidence, he said: “AFMI’s aim is to promote education among Muslims so that no child is left behind. Our aim is to specially educate female students to help educate a whole family.” Quraishi, runs a business in Albuquerque, New Mexico and has built a number of educational institutions in Pune, Mumbai and elsewhere.

Psychiatrist Dr. Razia Ahmed (Cleveland, Ohio) said: “I am proud of AFMI which has definitely contributed to increasing awareness of importance of education among the Muslim community.” Laying emphasis on the need of involvement of other organizations to help in progress of Indian Muslims, she said: “I wish everyone joins us (AFMI) for this cause.”

During their India-visit, the AFMI delegates also met several leaders, including Ahmed Patel (Congress). They voiced their concern about “plight” of Muslim community in Gujarat. In a letter addressed to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, AFMI stated: “The Muslim community in Gujarat feels that opportunities that ideally should be available to all communities are denied to it because of its religious identity. Obstacles are created in its way to establish new educational institutions. State grant is not available to deserving institutions and meritorious students are discriminated in scholarship. In fact, the state government has failed to disburse the full Federal scholarship and grant money to deserving students which they were promised.” The letter also states: “The delegates of AFMI strongly feel that implementation of Mishra Commission as well as Sachar Commission” reports “would pave the way for ensuring rights of minorities in Gujarat in all walks of life.”

The signatories to the letter addressed to Congress chief include the AFMI delegates visiting India. These include Dr A.S. Nakadar (AFMI-Trustee), Dr. Aslam Abdullah (Trustee), Dr. Iqbal Ahmed (AFMI President), Dr. Shakir Mukhi (former AFMI President), Sheikh Muhammed Quraishi (former President) and AFMI members from various parts of USA and Canada. These are: Rizwana Quraishi (New Mexico), Dr. Razia Ahmed (Ohio), Dr. Khalid Khan (Nevada), Dr. Abdul Aziz (Florida), Dr. S. Ashraf (Washington DC), Dr. W. Baig (Ohio), Dr. Shahida Akhtar (Florida0, Dr Abdur Razzak (Massachusetts) and Mr & Mrs Gahffar Shaikh from Canada.

AFMI’s next international convention is scheduled to be held this December in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

12-3

Harun Yahya – Unawareness—A Sly Threat

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Satan’s Efforts to Drag Believers into Unawareness

One of satan’s major goals is to divert people from the Way of Allah and lead them to Hell. He busies their minds with false apprehensions in an attempt to confuse them and prevent sound thought.

All sincere believers have an open mind and thus are aware of reality and can consider all of the details necessary to reach a sound decision. Their moral character, which is reflected in their behavior, comes from their faith, fear, and respect of Allah. But sometimes satan can take advantage of their momentary forgetfulness, carelessness, or lack of knowledge to draw them into unawareness.

Allah warns believers about this danger: “Do not let satan bar your way. He truly is an outright enemy to you.” (Surat al-Zukhruf: 62) and “Those who believe fight in the Way of Allah. Those who disbelieve fight in the way of false deities. So fight the friends of satan! Satan’s scheming is always feeble”(Surat an-Nisa’: 76). He announces that satan’s devious plans will not affect sincere believers. Satan knows this and, when he vows to lead people astray, does not include Allah’s sincere servants:

He (satan) said: “By Your might, I will mislead all of them, except for Your chosen servants among them.”

Sad: 82-83

Despite this knowledge, satan nevertheless tries to confuse their minds during times of difficulty, illness, or some other personal hardship, if only for a moment, to prevent them from earning an even greater reward and rising to an even higher place in Allah’s Sight. For example, if someone is about to do a good deed, satan may insert thoughts about postponing it until later so that, hopefully, the person will forget all about it. Or, as we read in Surat an-Nisa’ 95: “Those believers who stay behind–other than those forced to by necessity–are not the same as those who strive in the Way of Allah, sacrificing their wealth and themselves. Allah has given those who strive with their wealth and themselves a higher rank than those who stay behind. Allah has promised the best to both, but has preferred those who strive over those who stay behind by an immense reward.” Satan wants to prevent believers from striving in His Way and from earning greater dignity in His Sight.

Satan makes intimations to believers during difficult times of sickness or in the heat of battle in order to take advantage of a momentary weakness.

Of course, Allah tests individuals with periods of difficulty, pressure, and distress so that they will reveal their true natures. Such testing is very important. For example, during the time of our Prophet (saas), some individuals who were constantly by his side on the battlefield became unaware in the heat of battle:

… when they came at you from above you and below you, when your eyes rolled and your hearts rose to your throats, and you thought unworthy thoughts about Allah.

Al-Ahzab: 10

Allah gives the good news that sincere believers who fall into momentary unawareness will be forgiven if they repent. Repentance is thus one of His great gifts. In fact, He tells us in the Qur’an how He forgave three sincere believers who regretted their failure to fight:

And (He turned) also toward the three who were left behind, so that when Earth became narrow for them, for all its great breadth, and their own selves became constricted for them and they realized that there was no refuge from Allah except in Him, He turned to them so that they might turn to Him. Allah is the Ever-Returning, the Most Merciful.

At-Tawba: 118

Satan can whisper to people until they become immersed in despair, thinking that everything is lost and that the situation is irremediable. But believers know that such thoughts are no more than satanic deceptions, and so ignore them. They immediately turn to Allah, repent, and take refuge from unawareness in Him:

As for those who guard against evil, when they are bothered by suggestions from satan, they remember and immediately see clearly.

Al-A‘raf: 201

Taking refuge in Allah from the empty apprehensions that can lead them into unawareness, they are careful to remember Him at all times, read and ponder the Qur’an, and pray constantly. So, by His will, they are saved from even a moment of unawareness.

A warning to unaware people

… so that you may warn a people whose ancestors were not warned and who are therefore unaware.

Ya Sin: 6

Throughout history, Allah chose prophets and messengers, upon whom He bestowed light and understanding, to warn all people who, for whatever reason, had rejected or had lost their earlier awareness of true Islam. Allah chose our Prophet, Muhammad (s), to warn his own people, to bring the true religion to them, and to instill in them fear and respect due to Allah:

Warn them of the Day of Bitter Regret, when the affair will be resolved. But they take no notice. They have no faith.

Maryam: 39

These prophets and messengers told their people about Allah, His infinite power, and the Hereafter; showed proofs on Earth and in the heavens of His existence; and, through various means, called their people to faith in Allah and obedience to Him. But most people, in spite of the wondrous order in all that they could see, did not appreciate His power properly and so continued to turn their backs on Him:

When Our Signs came to them in all their clarity, they exclaimed: “This is downright magic!” And they repudiated them wrongly and haughtily, despite their own certainty about them. See the final fate of the corrupters.

An-Naml: 13-14

Allah warns people in different ways. This book, a believer’s words, a person’s own conscience, or even an informative report in the press or some other publication can all serve to warn people. Everything a person sees and hears actually occurs through Allah’s choosing and, if evaluated in the knowledge that they come from Him, can be understood as warnings to turn to Him. Allah has sent us various warnings and reminders, and in the Qur’an He commands us to correct their behaviors and find the right path.

12-3

Renewal of Yourself First

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By Imam Abdullah El-Amin, MMNS

The tenets of the religion of Al-Islam emphasize constant renewal in our lives.  If we could just do something once and be done with it, our practice of the religion would cease to exist.  For instance, we are directed to fast every year in Ramadan.  This is because one time just won’t do it.  We will forget and/or lapse into other activities to divert our attention from the remembrance of ALLAH, so He orders us to fast each year.

There are many other signs from ALLAH for us to reflect on.  We breathe, eat and drink everyday to replenish our bodies.  If we did not…well you know the answer to that.  There is also constant renewal in education.  Our brains need activity to grow and be useful.

Similarly, our relationships must also be constantly renewed.  How many of us have heard the expression “What you did to get her, you must also do to keep her?”
But before we get to that; before reaching out to our spouses, we must reach out to ourselves.  In order to spread cheer to our families, spouses, and others, it must first come from a cheerful body and mind.  How is this accomplished?

Each day upon rising we must begin to renew ourselves by recognizing the great masterful work of art ALLAH formed when He created you.  You must look in the mirror and say to yourself how good you look.  Arm your mind with positive thoughts and keep the evil ones (Shatan) from convincing you that you are otherwise.

After recognition of your greatness, resolve to be grateful to ALLAH by taking care of this great creation – you.  Make sure you bathe and keep yourself clean.  Shampoo your hair and use conditioner to enhance its appearance and health.  Try to eat sensibly to reduce stress on your body.  Exercise at least moderately to keep your temple in the best shape.

Above all, try to live as uneventful a life as possible.  We learn in science that the brain responds to stress by secreting a hormone called cortisol.  This chemical balances the stress levels in your body and helps you to cope with the ups and downs of your life.  We know everybody has stress but it’s smart to keep it to a minimum because too much secretion of this cortisol is harmful to your body.  It causes excess plaque build-up in the blood vessels and contributes to heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and many other ailments.  These are things that could be prevented by living a moderate life as dictated by your Creator, Almighty ALLAH.

So when you concentrate on this constant renewal of yourself, it will make you grateful and put you in the best possible position to reach out to others.  We will be able to love and see the benefit and beauty of our spouse and help them see the benefit and beauty of themselves.  This is very important because then everybody wins and ALLAH is pleased because you are carrying out His desires for creating you in the first place.  And if ALLAH is pleased with you, you can ask for no better reward.

12-3

Don’t Panic. Fear Is Al-Qaeda’s Real Goal

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By Fareed Zakaria

In responding to the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day, Sen. Dianne Feinstein voiced the feelings of many when she said that to prevent such situations, “I’d rather overreact than underreact.” This appears to be the consensus view in Washington, but it is quite wrong. The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized, then the attack didn’t work. Alas, this one worked very well.

The attempted bombing says more about al-Qaeda’s weakened state than its strength. In the eight years before Sept. 11, al-Qaeda was able to launch large-scale terrorist attacks on several continents. It targeted important symbols of American power — embassies in Africa; a naval destroyer, the USS Cole; and, of course, the World Trade Center. The operations were complex — a simultaneous bombing of two embassies in different countries — and involved dozens of people of different nationalities who trained around the world, moved significant sums of money and coordinated their efforts over months, sometimes years.

On Christmas an al-Qaeda affiliate launched an operation using one person, with no special target, and a failed technique tried eight years ago by “shoe bomber” Richard Reid. The plot seems to have been an opportunity that the group seized rather than the result of a well-considered strategic plan. A Nigerian fanatic with (what appeared to be) a clean background volunteered for service; he was wired up with a makeshift explosive and put on a plane. His mission failed entirely, killing not a single person. The suicide bomber was not even able to commit suicide. But al-Qaeda succeeded in its real aim, which was to throw the American system into turmoil. That’s why the terror group proudly boasted about the success of its mission.

Is there some sensible reaction between panic and passivity? Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and later a senior State Department official in the Bush administration, suggests that we should try to analyze failures in homeland security the way we do airplane catastrophes. When an airliner suffers an accident, major or minor, the National Transportation Safety Board convenes a group of nonpartisan experts who methodically examine what went wrong and then issue recommendations to improve the situation. “We approach airline security with the understanding that it’s a complex problem, that we have a pretty good system, but that there will be failures — caused by human beings, technology, or other factors. The point is to constantly fix what’s broken and keep improving the design and execution,” says Zelikow.

Imagine if that were the process after a lapse in homeland security. The public would know that any attack, successful or not, would trigger an automatic, serious process to analyze the problem and fix it. Politicians might find it harder to use every such event for political advantage. The people on the front lines of homeland security would not get demoralized as they watched politicians and the media bash them and grandstand with little knowledge.

Overreacting to terrorist attacks plays into al-Qaeda’s hands. It also provokes responses that are likely to be large-scale, expensive, ineffective and possibly counterproductive. More screening for every passenger makes no sense. When searching for needles in haystacks, adding hay doesn’t help. What’s needed is a larger, more robust watch list that is instantly available to all relevant government agencies. Almost 2 million people travel on planes in the United States every day. We need to isolate the tiny percentage of suspicious characters and search them, not cause needless fear in everyone else.

As for the calls to treat the would-be bomber as an enemy combatant, torture him and toss him into Guantanamo, God knows he deserves it. But keep in mind that the crucial intelligence we received was from the boy’s father. If that father had believed that the United States was a rogue superpower that would torture and abuse his child without any sense of decency, would he have turned him in? To keep this country safe, we need many more fathers, uncles, friends and colleagues to have enough trust in America that they, too, would turn in the terrorist next door.

Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International. His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.

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Oldest Swiss Bank Tells Clients to Sell U.S. Assets or Leave

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Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) — Wegelin & Co.,Switzerland’s oldest bank, is telling wealthy clients to sell their U.S. assets, or switch banks, because of concerns new rules will saddle investors with tax obligations in the world’s biggest economy.

U.S. proposals to extend reporting requirements for banks whose clients buy American stocks and bonds coupled with estate tax liabilities that may be inherited by the heirs of people who have such holdings prompted the advice from the St. Gallen, Switzerland-based bank, said Managing Partner Konrad Hummler.

“We came to the conclusion that it’s a threat to our clients,” Hummler, who is also president of the Swiss Private Bankers Association, said in an interview yesterday during a conference in Zurich. “It’s also a threat to us as a bank because as a custodian we are an executor to the estate. We find this aspect discomforting, so we recommend selling all American securities whatsoever.”

Hummler said he plans to raise the subject today at a meeting of the Private Bankers Association, which counts Pictet & Cie., Lombard Odier & Cie. and Mirabaud & Cie. among its members. Swiss banks, which manage $2 trillion, or 27 percent, of the world’s privately held offshore wealth, are struggling to protect bank secrecy after the government agreed to hand over the names of 4,450 UBS AG clients to U.S. tax authorities.

Hummler said he wouldn’t ask other association members to follow Wegelin’s lead. Wegelin, founded in 1741, manages more than 20 billion Swiss francs ($18.7 billion) in client assets.

“Every member is free to decide and act on their own,” he said.

HSBC Studies Alexandre Zeller,head of HSBC Holdings Plc’s private bank in Switzerland, said his company is still studying the new rules for qualified intermediaries and will do everything it can to comply with them.

“Often in these agreements you have to understand how this will be applied, and it would be premature, especially for an international bank, to take such a decision,” he said today, referring to Wegelin’s position. “It’s not on the agenda for the moment.”

The U.S. has proposed increasing reporting and oversight requirements for so-called qualified intermediaries — foreign banks that withhold taxes on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service. In addition, new rules may mean that people who spend limited periods oftime in the U.S. acquire tax obligations, including estate taxes,creating an unacceptable risk for Wegelin’s clients, Hummler said.

If a client decides to keep his U.S. investments, “then finally he has to change banks,” Hummler said.

“We’re talking about probabilities,” Hummler said. “My responsibility toward clients has to include any kind of probability,and if I see a real threat then we have to act.”

Wegelin is finding alternative ways of investing in the U.S. that won’t impose reporting requirements on the bank or tax liabilities on clients, Hummler said.

“The good thing is that in today’s world you can build up U.S.exposure in equities and as well in bonds through derivatives and index funds and so on, so we are switching to a European-made American exposure.”

Germany and France have also sought to weaken Swiss secrecy laws as they crack down on tax evaders.

The French government, which signed a double-taxation treaty with Switzerland on Aug. 27, obtained the names of 3,000 people suspected of tax fraud and holding accounts at three Swiss banks, French Budget Minister Eric Woerth, said Aug. 30 in an interview with the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

“It’s not credible,” Hummler said. “The U.S. had a hard time getting these 4,450 names, then the French come and say we have 3,000? I cannot believe it, but they’re trying it on.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Warren Giles in Zurich at wgiles@bloomberg.net

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Hojjaj Party at Bloomfield Muslim Unity Center (BMUC)

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By Adil James, MMNS

P1108645 Bloomfield–January 10–Many Muslims made the hajj pilgrimage this year from the Southeast Michigan region, and so the Bloomfield Muslim Unity Center had a party this past Sunday night to celebrate their noble accomplishment.

About 150 people were present at the function which was in mood more spiritual than most of the other functions at the center.  The marks of hajj were in fact visible on some of the attendees, many of whom had shaved their heads at the end of the hajj and were still growing back their hair.

Imam Musa explained to TMO that “This year there were less people because of swine flu.”

BMUC presented small token gifts to about 10 people who recently came back from hajj, and a slide show played through the event, showing familiar faces and familiar places that one might not have seen together before, like Imam Musa on Arafat for example.

The Hojjaj party gave a chance for each of the hojjaj to present a few brief words either of advice, of admiration for having made hajj, or of lessons learned from making the hajj.

P1108646 One piece of advice was to make the hajj while one is still young because in fact it is a demanding exercise.

Many of the returning hojjaj remarked that they didn’t feel the exhaustion from the trip until after their return to home, because of having been so overwhelmed with fascination during their trip.

“Don’t stay away too long from this place,” advised one returnee.  “Come back in a year or two.”

One man said, “It is very hard to explain the feeling of seeing the Kaaba for the first time–it is something that comes from the heart.”

One returnee was moved to tears, and said “I was amazed what Prophet (s) did for all of us.”

The Unity Center will have an umra trip early this April.

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Community News (V12-I3)

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Dupage County denies permit for Islamic facility

WHEATON, IL (News Agencies)–The Irshad Learning Center, an Islamic educational institute, suffered a setback after it was denied permission to build a facility near Naperville. The DuPage County board voted 10-7 this Tuesday to deny a conditional-use permit. The board members said they were concerned about operation of the facility in a residential neighborhood and the accompanying problems.

They suggested it was time the board re-examine a special zoning proposal for religious institutions.

Officials from Irshad were upset by the decision and suggested legal actions against the county could be on the horizon.

Mahmood Ghassemi, chairman of the center’s board of trustees, said he didn’t feel the county decision was in keeping with the rule of law.

Muslim cabbie returns $21,000 left in taxi

NEW YORK, NY–A New York City Muslim cab driver is being praised for returning $21,000 left behind a tourist from Europe.
Italian Felicia Lettieri, 72, left her purse in a Manhattan taxi on Christmas Eve. It contained travelling money for her and six relatives.

Police told them not to get their hopes up about finding it.

But the cabbie, Mohammad “Mukal” Asadujjaman, drove about 50 miles, to a Long Island address he found in the purse. No-one was home, so he left his phone number and later returned with the money.

The 28-year-old driver, from Bangladesh, said that as an observant Muslim he could not accept a reward offered by the grateful passenger.

Free Admission To Ali Center On Champ’s Birthday

LOUISVILLE, KY–Muhammad Ali turns 68 years old on Jan. 17.To celebrate this occasion, the Muhammad Ali Center invites the community to tour the center’s award-winning exhibits for free and to participate in the day’s activities. The Center is also expanding its Sunday hours for this festive occasion; doors will open at 10 a.m. and close at 5 p.m.

Leading off the special events for the day will be a short program at 1 p.m. in the Ali Center’s Main Lobby. At 2:30 p.m., in the Auditorium, will be a showing of “Facing Ali,” an Academy Award contender this year for Best Documentary. Producer Derik Murray will be in attendance to introduce the film and answer questions about the production of this compelling film.

Other special activities for the day include a trivia contest, prizes, drawings, light refreshments, and an opportunity for kids to design birthday cards for Ali. Special Muhammad birthday merchandise will be available to purchase in the center’s retail store.

This event will also kick off a year of significant historical events for Ali: the 50th anniversary of his first professional fight (in Louisville) and his 1960 Olympic Gold Medal received in Rome.

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