JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Saudi Crown Prince Salman said on Tuesday that King Abdullah was “well and in good health”, more than 10 days after the monarch underwent back surgery, a message likely to reassure many states keen on the stability of the world’s biggest oil exporter.

No photographs have been released of the monarch, believed to be in his late 80s, since the 11-hour operation on November 17 at the National Guard’s King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh.

“Brothers, I convey to you greetings of … King Abdullah and I convey to you good news that he is well and in good health,” Prince Salman, who is also the defense minister, told counterparts from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council at a meeting in Riyadh, in comments aired on Saudi state television.

Saudi stability is of global concern. The pivotal U.S. ally in the Gulf holds more than a fifth of world petroleum reserves and is the birthplace of Islam, where millions of Muslims flock to perform the annual haj pilgrimage.

Top Saudi royals have repeatedly visited King Abdullah in hospital since the royal court announced the surgery to tighten a ligament in his upper back on November 18 a success, according to state media.

Saudi analysts said it was understandable that recovery would take time, given the king’s advanced age.

On Monday, Prince Salman “reassured” Saudis about the king’s health at a cabinet meeting, the state news agency SPA reported, but he gave no details on his condition or when he will be released from hospital.

The Saudi stock market index reversed a downward trend after the announcement on Monday, ending the day in positive territory. But on Tuesday, the index fell to a 10-month low to close 1.3 lower.
King Abdullah underwent a similar operation in October last year and had back surgery twice in the United States in 2010 for a herniated disc, after which he spent three months outside Saudi Arabia recuperating.

Two days after his back operation last year, Abdullah appeared on state television and was released from hospital within five days.

The crown has passed down a line of sons of the kingdom’s founder King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, who died in 1953.

King Abdullah – who took power in 2005 – named his brother Prince Salman, 13 years his junior, heir apparent in June after the death of Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz.

Salman, who deputizes for the king, was shown on television last week meeting visiting U.S. officials. He had chaired two cabinet two weekly cabinet meetings since the surgery.

(Reporting by Asma Alsharif, writing by Sami Aboudi, editing by Mark Heinrich)

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By Erika Solomon and Dominic Evans

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Rebel strikes against military bases across Syria have exposed President Bashar al-Assad’s weakening grip in the north and east of the country and left his power base in Damascus vulnerable to the increasingly potent opposition forces.

Rebel fighters, who have taken at least five army and air installations in the last 10 days, are still waging an asymmetrical war against a powerful army backed by devastating air power, and predict months of conflict still lie ahead.

Their tactics are gradually choking off Assad’s forces in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, as well as the eastern oil region of Deir al-Zor, while in Damascus “there is a sense that the flames are licking at the door”, a diplomat in the capital said.

The steady capture of military installations and arsenals is sapping the morale of Assad’s forces and also ensuring a modest supply of new weapons to relatively ill-equipped rebels whose calls for a no-fly zone — which proved crucial in the Libyan uprising — have been ignored.

Although they have yet to seize control of a single city, or translate their dominance in swathes of rural Syria into “liberated” territory free of air and artillery strikes, rebels say that their increasing prowess on the battlefield and growing armories have finally allowed them to take the initiative.

“The difference is that we’ve gone from being on the defensive to thinking and acting on the offensive. We actually have the ability to work offensively now, since we have seized enough weapons,” said a fighter with Islamist battalions in Damascus province, who used the nom de guerre of Abu al-Yaman.

As Syria’s 20-month uprising to overthrow Assad has dragged on, killing 40,000 people, rebel strategy has evolved from quick opportunistic attacks to slow but carefully planned campaigns of siege and attrition.

Exploiting the military expertise of military officers who have defected from Assad’s army, rebels have achieved significant successes by focusing on strategic roads and supply routes as well as military bases.

Gun Ships

The slow progress of the fighting can conceal rebel gains, especially when fighters are forced to retreat in the face of withering retaliation from Assad’s MiG warplanes and helicopter gun ships.
Fighting in the cities, however, is still a challenge.

“We have rebel sieges and army defections, and then military air raids. Then sieges and defections and raids again, in a loop,” said a wearied commander from Ahrar al-Sham brigade in Aleppo, where rebels have been battling Assad’s forces since late July and control about half of Syria’s biggest city.

“The countryside is somewhere where we can advance more, but inside the cities I still see the battle as long and difficult. I think we need several more months.”

Another fighter, from the largely rebel-held province of Idlib on the Turkish border, said the battle to “liberate the northern frontier” was going well, while progress further south near the Jordanian border was more of a challenge.

“We still have a lot of work to do. We’re not about to take the country but yes, I see a lot of progress in the last month.”
Unlike the toppled leaders of North Africa who were dropped by their friends when trouble started, Assad still draws strength from Russia and China and from Iran, which is believed to be supporting him with arms and cash.

Divided by personal and ideological rivalries as well as geographical and military obstacles, the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels have also struggled to show common cause since they took up arms against Assad, who is from an Alawite minority linked to Shi’ite Islam.

An opposition coalition was formed earlier this month, aiming to bridge the rifts and bring the rebels under a unified structure – a first step towards overcoming Western reluctance to arm a rebel movement which includes radical Islamists.

Ali al-Ali, a fighter in the Ahrar al-Jabal al-Wustany brigade, said the rebels were slowly overcoming their splits.

“Our attacks are getting more coordinated locally,” he told Reuters by Skype from Idlib province. “On the ground we have the advantage, (Assad’s) power has deteriorated on the ground.”

Rebel Gains

The cumulative effect of the rebel gains has left Assad’s power concentrated in the south around Damascus and in the Mediterranean provinces of Tartous and Latakia – the heartlands of Syria’s Alawites.

The capital and the coastal regions are linked by the city of Homs, which bore the brunt of fighting earlier this year as Assad’s forces bombarded rebel neighborhoods to keep their grip on Syria’s third-biggest city. Homs itself has now been divided between rebels and Assad’s forces.

“In the north and the east (of Syria) the tide has turned against the regime,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Where the game is much closer is along the coast, around Homs and Damascus.”

The two main rebel gains of the last fortnight were the huge 46th Division army base, which sprawls over several square miles west of Aleppo, and the Mayadeen base in Deir al-Zor, which left rebels controlling 120 km (75 miles) of the Euphrates river north of the Iraqi border.

Around the capital itself, rebels have captured an air defense installation in the south of Damascus and a helicopter base situated among the eastern farmlands and towns which have been an opposition stronghold for months.

To the south-west the army has been bombarding rebels in the suburb of Daraya, determined to prevent them from holding another gateway into the capital.

The Damascus-based diplomat said Assad still had 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers stationed around the city and its outskirts. There are no clear figures for the size of the rebel brigades but they say they number tens of thousands nationwide.

In his rare televised appearances, the 47-year-old president does not look like a leader under siege. He appeared calm and relaxed in his latest meeting on Friday with the parliamentary speaker of his strongest regional ally, Iran.

Syria experts say Tehran has sent Revolutionary Guards and weapons to help Assad’s military campaign and financial support to help prop up an economy reeling from a collapse in revenues and tens of billions of dollars of war damage.

They also say Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah has dispatched militants to fight alongside Assad’s forces – a charge Hezbollah has denied even though it has held several funerals for fighters killed performing “jihadi duties”.

Train Crash

“People I have spoken to who are in touch with very senior Syrian officials report a sense of calm among generals and senior officials,” the envoy in Damascus said. “I can’t understand that, unless they are simply putting on a brave face”.

“Every ordinary Syrian I speak to is worried. They see the train crash coming.”

How soon the train crash comes is a matter of conjecture among military and political analysts who follow Syria.

The rebels themselves say their real test will come when fighters move on the capital for that final reckoning, an operation they are already planning. Some observers say the opposition may already have sleeper cells in Damascus while it tries to prepare a launch pad for attacks from outside the city.

There is no sign that rebels have the sophisticated equipment, weaponry and intelligence which would enable sleeper cells to overpower Assad’s die-hard battalions, and which proved a game changer in Libya when the support of Western special forces helped topple Gaddafi after months of apparent stalemate.

But the rebels have struck deep in the capital – killing four close Assad aides in a devastating July 18 bombing.

One analyst, who asked not to be named because he remains in contact with Syrian officials, said the Syria conflict had undergone a “dramatic change in dynamics” in the last few weeks.

“If you look at the map, it hasn’t changed so much. But the psychological situation is different.”

“This is a regime engaged in a fighting retreat … The more the opposition wins over regime bases, the more they acquire weapons. I think it’s self-sustaining,” he said, predicting a showdown within weeks.

“All this could be brought to a close, or it could lead to a multiplication of conflicts,” he said voicing a widespread fear that Assad’s overthrow, if it were to happen, might only be the close of the first chapter in a far longer sectarian war.

A regional security source said rebels were getting a steady flow of shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles from Saudi Arabia via Jordan.

But anxious to avoid a buildup of sophisticated weapons among militants, as happened in the 1980s in Afghanistan, the Gulf state was monitoring their use and limiting supplies.

“It’s not like the rebels are being flooded with weapons,” said Michael Stephens of the RUSI think-tank in Doha. “There is a gradual increase in weapons and capacity, and they are getting smarter.”

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Giles Elgood)

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

Pakistani cricketer Fawad Ahmed Khan was recently granted permanent residence status in Australia. He signed a professional contract with the Melbourne Renegades as a bowler, in Australia’s Big Bash League. His initial application for permanent residence had been declined before being subsequently approved.

Ahmed was born in Marghuz, North-West Frontier Province,in Pakistan. He began playing cricket for Swabi District in local competitions. Playing as a right-arm leg spinner, he made his first-class debut for Abbottabad in 2005, playing two matches before being dropped from the side. Ahmed resumed playing first-class cricket in 2009, playing for Pakistan Customs in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy and later that year also played three further matches for Abbottabad. His best bowling figures, 6/109, were taken for Pakistan Customs against the Karachi Whites in January 2009.

Ahmed left Pakistan in 2010, emigrating to Australia on a short-stay visa sponsored by the Yoogali Cricket Association. Soon after arrival, he applied for refugee status, claiming he was persecuted by religious extremists for playing and coaching cricket. He told Australia’s The Age, “I got death threats from them,’’ he says. ‘’They say I am promoting a Western culture and bringing kids out of their homes for recreational activity and if you continue this it might be really difficult for you. I quit coaching, but I got [picked] for [first-class] cricket and the matches were all around Pakistan. When I started performing, they said, ‘You are still involved with cricket and promoting Western culture. If you come back to home, or wherever you are, we will find you.’ I am happy that I am a good Muslim. I am doing nothing contrary to Islam. I am playing here the last two years and I am still praying and I never drank alcohol. There is nothing contradictory with Islam and playing cricket.”

Choosing to live in Melbourne, Victoria Ahmed took up playing with Hoppers Crossing in the Victorian Turf Cricket Association, and soon progressed to playing for Melbourne University in Victorian Premier Cricket, before signing with the Melbourne Renegades.

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By Ilyas Choudry, TMO

States now have until Dec. 14 to decide; Perry says Texas not setting up its own

Last Thursday was to have been the deadline for states to decide if they will set up health insurance exchanges as part of the Obama administration’s health reform law. However, the Obama administration, in response to a request in a letter from the Republican Governors Association (RGA), has once again extended the deadline. Now, according to the White House, that deadline will be Dec. 14.

The decision in Texas was made last June – and apparently hasn’t changed. The exchanges, which will offer more affordable health insurance plans for both individuals and small businesses as prescribed under the Affordable Care Act, are supposed to open for enrollment on Oct. 1, 2013. More than 20 million people are expected to use them.

Just days after President Barack Obama’s re-election, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notified states that they would have more time to file their health insurance exchange plans. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius originally set new deadlines for applications, saying states planning for a state-run exchange must send a letter of intent by today, Friday. Late Thursday that deadline was changed to Dec. 14.

Regardless of when the deadline is, don’t expect anyone from Gov. Rick Perry’s office to be rushing to the post office or clicking the “send” button on a computer at 11:59 p.m. on that date to beat a midnight deadline.

Perry sent a letter to Sebelius last July saying Texas would not create a state exchange. In the letter, the governor said that neither the proposed exchanges nor proposed Medicaid expansion “would result in better patient protection or in more affordable care.”

Sebelius got another letter from Perry yesterday before the second deadline extension, when the Texas governor told the HHS Secretary that the state of Texas would not participate. In his letter, Perry wrote that such an exchange would present “an unknown cost to Texas taxpayers.” He called the exchanges “a federally mandated exchange with rules dictated by Washington” and said it would not be “fiscally responsible to put hard-working Texans on the financial hook for an unknown amount of money to operate a system under rules that have not even been written.”

Several other Republican governors – from Florida, Louisiana, Kansas, South Carolina and Virginia – said they would not implement a state-based exchange either. Earlier this week deadlines were extended the first time by HHS. While Florida Gov. Rick Scott yesterday said he now wants to negotiate with the Obama administration over the law, Perry said of Texas’ refusal to set up an exchange, “Nothing changes from our perspective.”

The Republican Governor’s Association letter to President Barack Obama asked for a meeting to discuss his proposals for national health care. The letter, signed by RGA Chair Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, stated that the time frame and many of the provisions necessary to ensure a health care workforce and infrastructure “are simply unworkable.”

McDonnell also stated in the RGA letter to the President, “In the near term, we need to better understand how the federal government will implement a federal exchange as it is clear most states will not be ready on their own.” He also said there is concern about “future cost shifting to states.”

If Texas does not create its own exchange, the first exchange in the state will be a federal one. The state could, however, apply for its own exchange for up to two years after the deadline. Already, nearly three-dozen states and the District of Columbia have been awarded grants to help develop their exchanges – more than $2 billion over the last two years. Six states received more than $100 million each.

States that choose to participate in a state-federal partnership exchange have until Feb. 15 to submit their blueprints to the administration. Otherwise, states are opting for a federal-run exchange. Among the states that are creating their own exchanges are New York, Maryland and California. As late as yesterday, Texas was joined by Nebraska in refusing to set up an exchange, as Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman said “no” to the proposal.

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By Lawrence M. Ventline

A police officer sounded his siren, magnified his speaker voice and pulled over a driver just minutes before a crowd talked “turkey” about reducing crime, building bridges and the commonly-held mandate of Jewish, Christians, Muslims and Buddhists, among other faith traditions to “love God and neighbor.”

They came from West Bloomfield, Ferndale, Center Line and the entire Detroit area to give thanks and praise for “the first time in Hamtramck’s history when clergy  organized two years ago, called the Common Word Alliance,” according to leaders.

“What’s going on inside here?” asked a lad who stood by watching the patrol car across the street from a park where a handful of youngsters were playing before dark on the eve of Thanksgiving Day.
A healthy Hamtramck was on the minds of founder Arif Huskic, Dan and Sharon Buttry, Muhammed Razon, Imams Abdul Latif and Feljem Salkic, Jennifer Young, Sheikh Saleh al-Gahim and others in the crowd.

“The CWA anniversary celebration and Thanksgiving Day of prayer shows that the Hamtramck and surrounding communities can celebrate our commonalities, as well as our differences of diverse prayers for peace,” said Gail Katz of West Bloomfield.  “It is helping to turn hostility into hospitality.” Katz is chairperson of World Sabbath and co-founder of Women’s Interfaith Solutions for Dialog and Outreach in Metropolitan Detroit.

While giving thanks, original natives, colonists crime, the Civil War and other concerns surfaced Nov. 21 on the corner of Joseph Campau at Danforth.

Wampanoag Indians and Plymouth colonists were part of an autumn harvest feast in 1621. Two hundred years later, Thanksgiving was marked by singular colonies and states, but in 1863, an annual, national  celebration was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln.

Michigan’s most internationally diverse city, with about 22,423, residents was originally settled by German farmers and Polish factory workers at the  Dodge Brothers facility in 1914.
Today, however, the faces and faiths of Hamtramck have changed. Immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia, among others, celebrated Thanksgiving Wednesday with clergy leaders of the ecumenical Common Word Alliance in the People’s Community Services.

“God Almighty knows about us on our second anniversary of founding and the world needs to know that leaders came together to pray for global peace,” added Huskic, from Bosnia.
“The police department has been enhanced,” said an excited Buttry. He told of a “love of God and neighbor” initiative similar to neighbors on each block taking time to know and trust who lives next door. The initiative is a major thrust of the ecumenical All Faiths Festival “that aims to foster dialog among all faith traditions, strengthen families and marriage and, to stop the conflicts that begin in people’s hearts,” added AFF leader John Domenick of Center Line.

Ferndale resident Jennifer Young ticked off a list of public events hosted by the Detroit Interfaith Outreach Network (DION) that is steered by Rabbi Dorit Edut of Huntington Woods.
Participants praised citizens for local and national reports that show that U.S. crime has consistently dropped over the last 20 years, while crime, guns and limiting assault weapons was not reflected in the polls of voter’s concern Nov. 6.

There were 351 violent crimes committed in Hamtramck in 2010. With 22,423 residents, the city’s population is similar to Harrison Township near Mt. Clemens, according to the latest statistics available. Only one crime of murder or (non-negligent) manslaughter was listed, amid 152 crimes of robbery, 186 crimes of aggravated assault, and 300 crimes of motor vehicle theft. Some categories were not reported, however, while  “crime is as commonly accepted as blowing one’s nose,” admitted a volunteer who was mopping the hallway floor.

Organizers praised a community garden that residents on Goodson Street  harvested with CWA this summer.

“We have to reduce crime in Hamtramck,” concluded Huskic. Buttry, however, a minister and a long-time leader in interfaith relations in Detroit, was optimistic and said “crime is down.”

Hamtramck Mayor Karen Majewski greeted the guests and gave “thanks to you for whom I’m grateful,” the long-time leader said while wiping away tears.

“Neighbors need to know God and one another,” said  Rev. Bogdan Milosz, a pastor at Our Lady Queen of Apostles Church on Conant near Caniff in Hamtramck.

Reach Reach Rev. Lawrence M. Ventline, D.Min., a pastor, a board certified professional counselor and a former first executive director of the ecumenical Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, head of All Faiths Festival, at 313- 530-2777. Visit www.religionrootsrelationships.blogspot.com. He is a native of Detroit who resides in Harrison Township.

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By Jason Hirthler

Jason Hirthler is a writer, strategist, and 15-year veteran of the corporate communications industry. He lives and works in New York City. He can be reached at jasonhirthler@gmail.com.

Slip into their shoes for a minute. No, not into a traditional Iranian galesh or Pakistani khussa or Palestinian sheepskins. Step into the western sneakers they wear today: Nike and Adidas and Converse. Then run for cover as you hear the whistling warning of an incoming missile, drone, or helicopter.

First, you are a Gazan, wondering why your Mediterranean stretch of land hasn’t been turned into the seaside paradise it could be—with a vigorous fishing trade, sustainable agriculture, holiday tourists frolicking on the beautiful beaches, and a healthy Palestinian state partly funded by abundant natural gas supplies beneath the Gazan soil. Why instead it feels like a high-security prison camp, garroted by Arab-hating Israelis to the North and disinterested Egyptians to the South? Fulminant crews of IDF praetorians are prepared to confiscate your water and food and electricity at the slightest offense. Your people are a perpetual pariah on the global stage, like a troublesome relative at the holiday dinner, prone to revealing family secrets nobody wants to hear. And now this. The leader of Hamas, negotiating an extended ceasefire with Israel, is assassinated by…Israel. You find the level of hypocrisy staggering. Then you hear that supposed friend of the Middle East, Barack Obama, tell the world that he supports Israel’s right to defend itself. Evidently your people have no such right. Palestinians barely cross the President’s lips, except to imply that they should stop firing pointless rockets over the border.

Were you were a Gazan, would you abandon violence as a means of resistance? Would you renounce retaliatory attacks? Would you concede Israel’s illegal settlements are here to stay and forfeit your right to pre-1967 borders, despite your legal right to them? Would you simply bow your head and ask the fierce-eyed hawks atop Israel’s militarized state to show a little mercy?

Next, you are an Iranian, a member of the country’s expansive pro-Western middle class, once hopeful that Washington and Tehran might forge a bond of mutual understanding and shelve the animosity that has animated the relationship for years. After all, wasn’t it Iran that helped pave America’s path into Afghanistan by mediating with the Northern Alliance? Wasn’t it Iran who helped stabilize the Iraqi government on America’s behalf? Wasn’t it Iran who has been reasonably disposed to negotiating its nuclear goals with the West?

All of this despite the history of American aggression within your borders and on your doorstep. First there was the American-supported coup in Tehran in 1953, setting up a corrupt American puppet regime which plausibly led to the fanaticism of the Islamic revolution. Then U.S. support for Saddam Hussein’s brutal war with Iran in the eighties, followed by America’s own attacks on Iraq in 1991, Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq again in 2003—wars that must have completely unnerved the mullahs. And now, here is America again, brandishing the leash that restrains a rabid Netanyahu while rattling its own saber at Tehran.

But all that is non-history. The historical plotline is clear: You must abandon nuclear power for the safety of the free world. Your Islamic leadership can’t be trusted with a bomb. They may be terrorists like other radicalized Muslims in the Middle East. They may be intent on global jihad and anxious for self-immolation (a certainty if they were to fire a nuke at the Holy Land). Each time you refuse to end your program of civilian nuclear power, you move further up that long list of rogue states.

You wish you could remind the West that Iran is fully within its Non-Proliferation Treaty rights. Within its IAEA rights. You would remind them there isn’t a shred of evidence that you are enriching uranium in an effort to confect a bomb. Despite having not attacked a country in decades, you are the unstable threat in the Middle East. Not hyper-aggressive Israel. Not India and Pakistan, whose Kashmir competition is an odds on favorite to spark the first nuclear war. No, the real threat sits, curiously, at the chokepoint of Middle Eastern oil. But, you ask, what makes a man like Netanyahu fit to oversee hundreds of nuclear weapons and an Iranian leader like Ahmadinejad not fit to oversee one? You stare in wonder at Americans on television reflexively defending Israel’s right to hold a monopoly of nuclear violence in the Middle East.

If you were Iranian, would you want a bomb? Would you be skittish at the prospect of an avaricious imperial superpower sitting on your doorstep—with a giant militarized fortress in Baghdad, destroyer patrols crisscrossing the Strait of Hormuz, and drones selectively zapping shadowy figures Obama picks from a PowerPoint show? You gaze up at the blue sky above you and wonder if this is what it’s really come to: your fate determined by a stiff in a suit in some distant corporate conference room.

Finally, you are a humble Pakistani living in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, on the edges of the now-infamous Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) and the cloud-capped Hindu Kush mountains. When you read a dog-eared copy of George Orwell’s 1984 in your teens, you thought the story was a piece of clever fiction, a warning of the perils of propaganda. Now you feel like you are living it. The random bombs that blitzed the “proles” in 1984 are now reigned down on your village by American drones. You can hear them buzzing in the sky, heard but unseen, a kinetic threat that occasionally delivers a lethal payload against an unsuspecting neighbor. You understand your government’s hesitance to attack its own people at America’s behest. You understand the comic futility of trying to police the Afpak border, despite U.S. insistence that your country do so. And you wonder, now that they’ve got bin Laden, why don’t they just go away?

If you were a Pakistani, would you condone the drone? Would you support the War on Terror, that state-led violence against stateless actors hiding in remote hamlets? Shouldn’t this be police work, you wonder. Isn’t there a more effective means of capturing civilian criminals than aerial assaults managed remotely by brainwashed conscripts in air-conditioned bunkers deep in the American desert—the gamification of warfare has finally arrived. But you recognize the political dynamic in play: To the West, the lives of American soldiers have higher value than the lives of anonymous Arabs and Persians in some far-flung dystopia. The American President must limit American casualties even as he corrals the metastasizing army of madman in yet another failed state.

These questions are surprisingly easy to answer when you put yourself in their shoes. You discover that, quite possibly, these people are lot like like you. They want peace, they want prosperity, they want to feed their families and have weekends free. One characteristic of people everywhere is a desire not to be bombed. Another is and that, pushed into a corner, they will defend their own. Shouldn’t these basic observations be central to our understanding of the world, instead of the incessant drone of media punditry that tries to dehumanize the weak and poor and voiceless?

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By Almas Akhtar, TMO

Famous for his somewhat sarcastic writing style along with deep and clear perception of the social problems, Mr Cowasjee was one of the best known personalities of Pakistan. He was a widely recognized journalist.

Ardeshir Cowasjee died on November 24th, 2012 in Karachi, Pakistan. He was born in 1926 to a wealthy Parsi family, studied at BVS School and later DJ College, Karachi. He later joined his family business. He married Nancy Dinshaw and had two children Ava and Rustom.

Mr. Cowasjee created the Cowasjee Foundation which provided many scholarships to deserving students who wanted to pursue higher education.

Ardeshir Cowasjee was not only a journalist, he was an outspoken critic of injustice and corruption in Pakistan. He wrote articles for over two decades in the Daily Dawn the oldest newspaper in the country. He was rightfully regarded as the “Conscience of a Nation.” Mr. Cowasjee started with writing letters to the editor which later led to writing a regular column in the newspaper. He never hesitated to express his concerns about corruption or social injustice. Mr Cowasjee was a relentless social activist who said what was “right” not what was “politically correct.” He was a philanthropist who cared deeply for his country and specially his birth city of Karachi. His Sunday Dawn columns echoed the frustrations of an educated “baby boomer” generation watching their country’s decline at the hands of crooked politicians.

He helped build many educational and medical institutes through the Cowasjee Foundation. He was called the “old guardian” of the city of Karachi.

Karachi is going to miss its oldest and most recognized citizen. The TCF school in Lyari ( a suburb of Karachi) is named after him.

He did enjoy a friendly relationship up till some time with Prime Minister Zulfiqar Bhutto who appointed him as the Managing Director of Pakistan Tourism and Development Corporation in the year 1973. Later on he was jailed by Bhutto after Mr Cowasjee became a harsh critic of his policies.

He tried his best in his long journalistic career to improve the socio-economic condition of his beloved country. He wrote a regular column in the Daily Dawn from 1988 to 2011.

“Now, old at 85, tired, and disillusioned with a country that just cannot pull itself together in any way and get on with life in this day and age, I have decided to call it a day,” he wrote in December 2011 for Dawn. He did write two more articles in the newspaper after that in the year 2012.

His vibrant personality and sharp wit will be greatly missed.

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WASHINGTON- Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) released the following statement in anticipation of the United Nations General Assembly vote to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority at the United Nations to non-member observer state:

“This vote should be seen as an opportunity, not an obstacle, for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We have seen in just the last few weeks how the absence of a serious peace process continues to harm both sides. President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party has renounced violence, recognized Israel, and is pursuing statehood diplomatically. Opposing Fatah’s non-violent efforts to achieve statehood sends the wrong message to the Palestinian people.

“It would be a mistake for the United States to punish the Palestinian Authority. Punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority will strengthen extremists and diminish U.S. influence in the region. As former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, ‘The Palestinian request from the United Nations is congruent with the basic concept of the two-state solution. Therefore, I see no reason to oppose it…It is time to give a hand to, and encourage, the moderate forces amongst the Palestinians.’ This view is bolstered by people like former Israeli deputy foreign minister Yossi Beilin.

“The United States should use this opportunity to begin a new negotiations process toward a two-state solution. Only good-faith negotiations with both Palestinians and Israelis at the table will stop theviolence and finally end this decades-old conflict. I hope all parties will use this opportunity to renew a quest for peace.”

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By Tamim Elyan and Yasmine Saleh

CAIRO (Reuters) – The assembly writing Egypt’s constitution said it could wrap up a final draft later on Wednesday, a move the Muslim Brotherhood sees as a way out of a crisis over a decree by President Mohamed Mursi that protesters say gives him dictatorial powers.

But as Mursi’s opponents staged a sixth day of protests in Tahrir Square, critics said the Islamist-dominated assembly’s bid to finish the constitution quickly could make matters worse.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in countrywide protest set off by Mursi’s decree.

The Brotherhood hopes to end the crisis by replacing Mursi’s controversial decree with an entirely new constitution that would need to be approved in a popular referendum, a Brotherhood official told Reuters.

It is a gamble based on the Islamists’ belief that they can mobilize enough voters to win the referendum: they have won all elections held since Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power.

But the move seemed likely to deepen divisions that are being exposed in the street.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies called for protests on Saturday in Tahrir Square, setting the stage for more confrontation with their opponents, who staged a mass rally there on Tuesday.
The constitution is one of the main reasons Mursi is at loggerheads with non-Islamist opponents. They are boycotting the 100-member constitutional assembly, saying the Islamists have tried to impose their vision for Egypt’s future.

The assembly’s legal legitimacy has been called into question by a series of court cases demanding its dissolution. Its popular legitimacy has been hit by the withdrawal of members including church representatives and liberals.

“We will start now and finish today, God willing,” Hossam el-Gheriyani, the assembly speaker, said at the start of its latest session in Cairo, saying Thursday would be “a great day”.
“If you are upset by the decree, nothing will stop it except a new constitution issued immediately,” he said. Three other members of the assembly told Reuters there were plans to put the document to a vote on Thursday.

ENTRENCHING AUTHORITARIANISM

Just down the road from the meeting convened at the Shura Council, protesters were again clashing with riot police in Tahrir Square. Members of the assembly watched on television as they waited to go into session.

“The constitution is in its last phases and will be put to a referendum soon and God willing it will solve a lot of the problems in the street,” said Talaat Marzouk, an assembly member from the Salafi Nour Party, as he watched the images.

But Wael Ghonim, a prominent activist whose online blogging helped ignite the anti-Mubarak uprising, said a constitution passed in such circumstances would “entrench authoritarianism”.
The constitution is supposed to be the cornerstone of a new, democratic Egypt following Mubarak’s three decades of autocratic rule. The assembly has been at work for six months. Mursi had extended its December 12 deadline by two months – extra time that Gheriyani said was not needed.

The constitution will determine the powers of the president and parliament and define the roles of the judiciary and a military establishment that had been at the heart of power for decades until Mubarak was toppled. It will also set out the role of Islamic law, or sharia.

The effort to conclude the text quickly marked an escalation, said Nathan Brown, a professor of political science at George Washington University in the United States.

“It may be regarded with hostility by a lot of state actors too, including the judiciary,” he said.

Leading opposition and former Arab League chief figure Amr Moussa slammed the move. He walked out of the assembly earlier this month. “This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn’t be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly,” he told Reuters.

Once drafted, the constitution will go to Mursi for approval, and he must then put it to a referendum within 15 days, which could mean the vote would be held by mid-December.

COURTS DECLARE STRIKE

Deepening the crisis further on Wednesday, Egypt’s Cassation and Appeals courts said they would suspend their work until the constitutional court rules on the decree.

The judiciary, largely unreformed since the popular uprising that unseated Mubarak, was seen as a major target in the decree issued last Thursday, which extended his powers and put his decisions temporarily beyond legal challenge.

“The president wants to create a new dictatorship,” said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, an unemployed man, in Tahrir.

Showing the depth of distrust of Mursi in parts of the judiciary, a spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which earlier this year declared void the Islamist-led parliament, said it felt under attack by the president.

In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.

“The really sad thing that has pained the members of this court is when the president of the republic joined, in a painful surprise, the campaign of continuous attack on the Constitutional Court,” said the spokesman Maher Samy.

Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers.

Mursi’s administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.

The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length.

Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi said elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of “sovereign” importance, a compromise suggested by the judges.

A constitution must be in place before a new parliament can be elected, and until that time Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. An election could take place in early 2013.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)

Huffington Post

Supporters of an “anti-sharia” bill that’s been sitting in Michigan’s State House Judiciary Committee for over a year are pushing state lawmakers to put the measure to a vote.

If adopted, the bill he introduced would “limit the application and enforcement by a court, arbitrator, or administrative body of foreign laws that would impair constitutional rights.”

House Bill 4769 was introduced by State Rep. Dave Agema (R-Grandville) in June of 2011. Agema, who was chosen to be Michigan’s Republican National Committeeman earlier this year, has a history of making controversial statements about Islam. He has gone on record claiming President Obama is a Muslim and has also linked the faith to violent behavior.

“I disagree that Islam is a religion of peace,” he told Michigan Radio. “Just about every terrorist is a Muslim.”

“I think that’s really undemocratic to bottle it up like that. One should put it on the floor. Let the legislators have a stand up Yes or No vote. And if it fails, it fails,” Irving Ginsburg, a supporter of the bill, told Michigan Radio.

The bill has been opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and the Council on American-Islamic of Michigan (CAIR-MI).

“HB 4769 does nothing to protect our legal institutions but only contributes to the growing climate of fear-mongering against the American Muslim community which marginalizes and cast suspicion upon loyal Americans,” Dawud Walid, Executive Director of CAIR-MI said on his blog.

Sharia is a term meaning Islamic religious law. It’s a moral and legal code that governs things like marriage, business, eating habits and other aspects of life for a devout Muslim.
In the last several years, “anti-sharia” laws have been passed in Arizona, Kansas, Louisana, South Dakota, Tennessee and Oklahoma.

Oklahoma voters passed a state proposal a law similar to Michigan’s House Bill 4769 in 2010. However, that measure was struck down by a federal appeals court because it made a specific reference to sharia law — and would have violated the U.S. Constitution by targeting a particular religion.

Last year Tennessee passed an anti-terrorism law that made the “material support” of Islamic law a crime that could be punished by 15 years in prison. An amended version of the law later removed references to Islam.

In May of this year Kansas governor Sam Brownback signed a law that prevents state courts and agencies from applying foreign laws in their decision-making. That law makes no specific mention of sharia or Islamic law, USA Today reports.

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