By Laura Fawaz, Contributing Reporter

Children ride the train.	Flowers on display.

Detroit, MI–Since 1976, every Sunday following Mother’s Day has hosted the Flower Festival at the Eastern Market in Downtown Detroit. 

This year was no different, with last Sunday marking the 47th annual.  As the wind and the temperatures soared, the shoppers still kept coming.  Pushing carts, wagons, and strollers, the estimated almost 200,000 Metro-Detroiters in attendance came to spruce up their yards and to buy them directly from the growers.  The Flower Festival, put on by the Metro Detroit Flower Growers Association, is all about tradition, said spokeswoman Dorothy Pirtle.  Some flock to the Eastern Market’s Flower Day just out of tradition; to see the sights and hear the sounds that they’ve grown accustom to. 

This ritual extends beyond the shoppers to include growers like Mark Kaltz, who is the president of Metro Detroit Flower Growers Association.  He is also a fourth-generation owner with N.W. Kaltz & Sons Farms in Columbus Township, MI, about 50 miles northeast of downtown Detroit.  His family dates back to selling at the Eastern Market over 100 years ago. 

Allen Park couple Michael Hall, 61, and his wife, Kathie, 58, have been coming for more than three decades and bought flowers, vegetables plants and herbs.  “It’s just a matter of tradition,” Kathie Hall said.

It wasn’t just shopping that was happening at the Flower Festival, but photography of all levels.  With amateurs taking pictures on their camera phones of the array of colors, and professional capturing every beat of the day.  This color display is not of just flowers, but of fresh fruit and vegetables too.

Driving towards Flower Day at Eastern Market in Detroit, you’ll barely see faces, but just bodies walking with handfuls of flowers trying to load their cars in the packed parking lots where new arrivers were still circling the lot in hopes of finding a silver to make a spot.  Some even asked those loading their cars if they were leaving so that they could take their parking spot; but the most common reply was that they were just unloading and going back for more.  The windy weather did not stop the people from coming out to buy their garden goods.  Even after some flower arrangements were blown over by the wind, the sellers would just fix them and go back to selling.  Many kids came out to enjoy the fun too, with the band playing and the train trailing around.

15-22

By Attorney Adil Daudi

There was a very interesting article I came across in the New York Times on April 27th, 2013. It was titled: “He Left a Fortune, to No One.” The article was about a 97-year old real estate developer who passed away last year leaving no heirs. His wife died in 1992 and they had no children.

You may be wondering why this man’s story is so interesting. The man, known as Roman Blum, died with a $40 million estate, but had no estate plan. Mr. Blum, who had no wife, no kids, and apparently through research left no family or relatives behind, will most likely have his entire estate distributed under the default rules of the State of New York – it all goes to the State.

The article further discusses the numerous times when Mr. Blum intended to start an estate plan, but just never got around to it. Thus, his failure to act made the State of New York, possibly, $40 million richer. I would imagine, fairly accurately, that making the State of New York the beneficiary of his estate was not what Mr. Blum intended.

Needless to say, this is the very reason why it is important to plan, plan, and plan. Nearly 2.5 million Americans passed away last year without having an estate plan in place. The risk of having the court decide how our assets are to be distributed may not be one we, as Muslims, would like to take. It is unfortunate, but Muslims living in the United States fail to put emphasis on an issue that has been mandated upon each one of us. Narrated by Ibn Umar, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) once said: “It is not right for any Muslim person who has something to bequeath to stay for two nights without having his last will and testament written and kept ready with him.”

Understanding that estate planning is not a fun and popular topic to discuss or contemplate, mainly because it discusses about life after death; however, that is the very reason it should not be ignored. Whether you have $100, $1000, $10,000 or $100,000 in your account, the importance of having a plan is far greater than passing away without one. Not only would you fail to fulfill the requirements prescribed upon you, but you may fail to secure the financial security of your spouse and children, thus leaving them vulnerable at a time when they need the most comfort and protection.

Adil Daudi is an Attorney at Joseph, Kroll & Yagalla, P.C., focusing primarily on Asset Protection for Physicians, Physician Contracts, Estate Planning, Shariah Estate Planning, Health Care Law, Business Litigation, and Corporate Formations. He can be contacted for any questions related to this article or other areas of law at adil@josephlaw.net or (517) 381-2663.

15-22

Although the voter chose Sharif’s experience over Imran’s innocence, this election may have changed Pakistan in more ways than we realise

By Aijaz Zaka Syed

Nawaz Sharif, incoming PM of Pakistan. REUTERS/Mohsin Raza

Aijaz Zaka Syed

In the run up to what is being viewed as Pakistan’s truly historic elections, an old Pakistani reader of mine from Saudi Arabia wrote in, twice, to ask: “Not a word on Pakistan’s elections so far! Why?”
Missives like these, most humbling as they are, make up for all the dull hours spent plowing a lonely furrow. I wrote back to assure that my silence did not mean my disinterest and that like everyone else, I had been watching the most complex and riveting elections in Pakistan’s history with immense interest.

Besides, I confessed, I have a soft corner for Imran Khan and like millions of Pakistanis—and Indians—hope that the cricket legend will finally get a chance to build his ‘Naya Pakistan’ (new Pakistan). My friend was elated with my response. She said she was among those praying for the victory of Imran’s Tehreek-e-Insaf urging me to do the same.      

On Saturday night, as Pakistan Muslim League leader Nawaz Sharif claimed victory, I thought of Mrs Bhatti and millions like her who dreamed of a ‘new Pakistan.’ Had their prayers failed to reach heaven? Has Imran and the tsunami that he promised really failed? Have the voters rejected the idea of a fresh start for Pakistan? I wouldn’t think so.

Imran’s party has generated a people’s movement for empowerment with distinct echoes of revolutions that swept the Arab world two years ago. Thanks to the former cricket captain, who commands massive fan following across the cricket-crazy South Asia, Pakistan will never be the same again.

Look at the final electoral tally. Going from zero to emerging as the third largest party in National Assembly and wiping out the Awami National Party in its bastion of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the PTI has totally altered the profile and nature of Pakistani politics.

The Tehreek has introduced a welcome third factor in the largely binary, two-party national politics. Imran may not have become the Prime Minister, as he repeatedly vowed but he hasn’t failed either. It’s just that the country was not yet fully ready for the all-out change that he championed. Perhaps, as a Pathan cabbie in Sharjah explained, by taking on the powers that be and talking tough on America’s war in Pakistan’s skies, Imran had rattled the cage a tad too strongly for his own good.

The PTI leader will have to wait a bit longer to lead his team to victory, just as he did in the 1992 Cricket World Cup. But his is not a lost cause. Although power has eluded him, Pakistan has embraced his idea of change and a new dawn of hope. With 29 members in the National Assembly, he will not be playing an insignificant role in the nation’s affairs.

In a country where people under 25 make up for more than 60 per cent of the population, Imran managed to fire up the imagination of an entire nation.  The groundswell seen at his rallies across the country had never been witnessed in its eventful democratic history.

It’s unfortunate that it did not translate into a tsunami on the day of reckoning. In the end, Pakistanis apparently decided to go with the reassuring experience of a veteran, rather than the innocence of an untested dreamer.  But as someone said, although Imran may have lost this match, he will live to win the series. Inshaallah.

The return of Sharif, forced out of power twice, the last time into a long exile by his own Army chief, may look like the rerun of an old Punjabi film. But in the 14 years Sharif has been out of power, Pakistan has undergone a distinct transformation.

It’s not the same country that he had left behind in 1999 for exile in Saudi Arabia. In the interregnum a whole new generation of Pakistanis has grown up and is thirsting for change. Why, Sharif himself has changed and it goes beyond his coiffure.   

He has mellowed. Many say he has learnt from his mistakes—and those of others. During an interview with me some years back at his daughter’s home in Dubai, he had talked of a fresh start for democracy and restoring respect for institutions and civilian-military balance. He was far from bitter or cynical about what life had lately dealt him and came across as a man chastened by experience.    
Sharif managed to revive his party despite his long absence during General Pervez Musharraf’s years in power, smoothly settling down in the role of a responsible opposition. In the face of an incompetent Peoples’ Party government, the former premier resisted the temptation to do anything that could undermine it. Remaining committed to the Charter of Democracy he inked with the late Benazir Bhutto in London, the former PM has pushed for giving democracy a chance to take root and mature in Pakistan.

For someone who repeatedly clashed with the judiciary in his previous avatars, Sharif has also played a significant role in the restoration of judges while the PPP dragged its feet.  So one hopes that the born-again Sharif will prove himself wiser in his third innings as the leader of one of the leading Muslim nations in a volatile neighbourhood.

Divided from within and externally under siege, Pakistan finds itself at a critical point in its history and battles overwhelming challenges on multiple fronts. It looks for a leadership that can heal the bruised and besieged nation and guide it towards a new dawn and a brave new world. Sharif’s reaching out to Imran thus is a positive sign for the young democracy.

Doubtless, this was a vote for change and Sharif knows it. In his statements during and after the poll campaign, the incoming leader has demonstrated maturity on the challenges facing the nation and on issues like the prickly relations with the US and India.

He has pledged to pick up from where he left off in 1999 after Vajpayee’s groundbreaking bus trip to Lahore. Indeed, as far as improving relations with India is concerned, Sharif and Imran are on the same page.

No wonder Sharif’s return has been warmly welcomed in India although some chose to recall Kargil and nuclear explosions. In his interviews with Indian journalists, Sharif has vowed to visit India soon–invited or not, prompting an invitation from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Despite their eventful history and tricky nature of the relationship, this augurs well for multitudes on either side of the divide and for people like us in between, who have loved ones on both sides and yearn for healthier relations between the two countries.

After all, as Sharif emphasised at a campaign stop, the South Asian twins have so much in common—from culture, language, movies, music and art to food, faith and sports. It’s not just Pakistan that needs change; the ailing India-Pakistan relationship also needs to be revived with a dose of fresh, life-giving blood.

*Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Gulf based commentator. Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com

15-22

Cibola High School senior Sami Ahmed, 17, is a finalist in the National Achievement Scholarship Program, the Yuma Sun reported.

After being named a semifinalist in September, it was recently announced that Ahmed will be awarded $2,500 for his achievement and that he was one of 800 African-American high school seniors to receive the honor in the U.S.

More than 160,000 students nationally requested to be considered for the 2013 National Achievement Scholarship Program when they took the PSAT/NMSQT exam.

“I am extremely grateful of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for this recognition,” said Ahmed to the newspaer. “I am still in astonishment for being named a finalist out of a very extensive pool of potential winners, all of whom are very distinguished and capable to receive such an esteemed achievement.

He explained that after being recognized as a finalist, he was offered a $60,000 scholarship to the University of Arizona, one of the top schools on his list of campuses.

“The money that this scholarship offers is generous, and thanks to this organization, the amount of money is amplified through college acknowledgement,” said Ahmed. “The money is definitely a boon, and I’m sure that it made my parents that much happier.”

He was awarded the National Scholar Award from the UA, which pays for $15,000 per academic year of his undergraduate studies and where he plans to major in physiology.

15-22

By Ayub Khan, TMO

Editor’s note:  The following is the beginning of a study on worldwide Muslim refugees.  This is the first report, on internally displaced Muslim refugees.

When we talk about refugees we tend to focus mainly on those who have been forced out of their countries. But there is another category of refugees whose suffering is obfuscated as they are internally displaced. Their condition is similar to that of other refugees and according to latest data their numbers are increasing. A new report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre Centre (IDMC) found that in 2012, around 28.8 million people were internally displacement—the highest figure ever recorded by the organization. Even more alarmingly 6.5 million people were newly displaced, almost twice as many as the 3.5 million during 2011.

The increase in numbers was a result of the conflict in the several countries in Africa and the Middle East. The conflict in Syria alone was responsible for 2.4 million. This was a fivefold increase than the previous year.

In Myanmar an estimated 166,000 Rohingya Muslims were displaced in 2012. Their numbers continue to rise by the day. In the mainly Muslim Mindanao region of Philippines at least 178,000 people have fled as result of clashes between government forces and non-state armed groups. In India around 500,000 people were displaced in the north-eastern state of Assam due to clashes between the Bodo tribes and the Muslims. In addition, thousands of Muslims were displaced due to the Gujarat riots in 2002. How many of them continue to remain as IDPs is anyone’s guess but all available information shows that not many have been able to return to their original homes.

In Sri Lanka many Northern Muslims IDPs continue to live their places of displacement despite having been registered by the government to have returned to their original homes. Similarly, thousands of Malay Muslims have been displaced in Thailand as a result of conflict between the insurgents and the government. 

Elsewhere in the world as well there has been an increase in the Muslim IDPs. Many a times, as is obviously the case in Syria, people have been forced into becoming IDPs due to the actions of fellow Muslims.  So for example, the increased violence perpetrated by the radical group Boko Haram in Nigeria has resulted in the displacement of thousands of Muslims. In Pakistan’s federally administered tribal Areas at least 412,000 people had fled due to fighting between governments and NSAGs. In East Java in Indonesia around 165 Shiah Muslims were driven from their homes by armed mobs. They have reportedly asked to convert to Sunni Islam or relocate. They continue to live in a sports centre.

15-22

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

28 year old Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson and only male descendant of Malcolm X, who reportedly embraced Shia Islam recently and was becoming known as a political activist engaged with and serving to unite many different causes and communities, was murdered in Mexico on May 9, 2013.

“As the son of Qubilah Shabazz, Malcolm Shabazz was apparently in the process of putting his life on a positive and productive path, attending the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and writing his memoirs. But now the family has to deal with yet another devastating setback,” writes Herb Boyd in the Daily Beast.

Shabazz had made recent headlines in March 2013 when he was arrested after applying for a visa to travel to Iran to be a participant of the International Fajr Film Festival, in order to give a lecture addressing the issues of Hollywood and violence; in particular he was to address the use of film to promote modern violence & terrorism, and provoking clashes between religions & populations. He had already been featured from January 15th through 18th, 2013 as a featured interviewee for the Press TV documentary “The Façade of the American Dream.”

Soon after his arrest, he appeared live on Iran’s Press TV reporting from New York under a headline reading, “They drew guns on my mother and me.” He also issued a public statement to former US Representative and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney that she posted on her Facebook page:

“Given the storm of lies, and half-truths that come with being associated with being the descendant of El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, also known as Minister Malcolm X, any and everything that I do; great or small, good or not so good, real or imagined is subject to controversy. However, in this missive I will take this opportunity to properly & fully disclose what transpired. In the beginning of 2012 I had been informed that I was under investigation by the F.B.I.’s Counter Terrorism Task Force Unit located in Goshen, N.Y.”

Shabazz goes on to describe various incidents of police harassment that had transpired recently, including the questioning of his neighbors. “They seek to neutralize my networking abilities… The formula for a public assassination is: the character assassination before the physical assassination; so one has to be made killable before the eyes of the public in order for their eventual murder to then deemed justifiable,” he wrote to McKinney last March. He also had this to say:

“I was not arrested by federal agents. I was taken in by a squad from the City of Middletown, N.Y.’s Police Department. I was not being held in an “undisclosed location” so to speak. I was actually being held in the Orange County Jail in Goshen, N.Y. However, from the time that I was booked at the precinct, to standing before a Judge the next day who told me to come back in 7 more, to being processed at the Orange County Jail and up until 7 days later I was not permitted to make any calls to notify anyone of my status; as though I had just been kidnapped from of the street.”

Dave Zirin writes in the Nation: “Malcolm Shabazz had everything going for him. He was 28 years old, handsome as hell and a remarkably charismatic public speaker. He was an activist, an organizer and a proud father… He wanted to wield Malcolm’s memory to fight for a better world.”

Malcolm Shabazz was the guest of a Mexican labor organizer, Miguel Suarez, who had recently been deported from the US, when he was reportedly thrown off the roof of the Palace Bar in Mexico while resisting robbery at 3am. Speculation abounds, about whether this Suarez, who was allegedly affiliated with narcotics trafficking, had lured him into a trap, or if he was just a new friend with a very stupid idea of fun.

Herb Boyd writes in the Daily Beast: “With the confirmation of Malcolm Lateef Shabazz’s death, it marks the third generation in which the family has lost a member violently. Malcolm X’s father, Earl Little, was killed by the Black Legion or the Ku Klux Klan in 1931. As Malcolm X recalled in his autobiography, “Negroes in Lansing have always whispered that he was attacked, and then laid across some tracks for a streetcar to run over him. His body was cut almost in half.” Three of his father’s brothers were also killed by white men in Georgia, which prompted his father to leave the state. Malcolm Sr. was shot by assassins on February 21, 1965, as he prepared to address an audience at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. Along with the tragic deaths in the family’s patrilineal line, Betty Shabazz was killed in 1997 by a fire in which her grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, was accused and convicted of setting.”

His grandmother, Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, was killed in a fire he started 11 years ago. He was 12 years old. He had been shuttled in and out of correctional institutions until his release from Attica Prison in February 2007. Malcolm Shabazz at age 24 declared to media that he was on a mission: to clear his name, stay out of jail and rise from the ashes of his past. In an extensive interview with NewsOne in 2004, Shabazz explained the terrible event that led to his imprisonment as a youth.

“I didn’t mean for my grandmother to get hurt. I wasn’t thinking anything like that would happen. [I thought] she would go to the fire escape [but] she walked through the fire to get to me. I didn’t think she would walk through a fire for me.”

The death of Malcolm Shabazz at 28 makes him the youngest in the family to have his life end so violently. His grandfather was 39, still in the prime of his life, and on the road to even greater success after meaningful contacts with world leaders in Africa and the Middle East.

15-21

A touchscreen, also known as “surface” computing, is a virtual display complete with a sensitive screen that recognizes touch by the finger or hand. Touchscreens are able to complete commands based on the position of a touch. Touchscreen technology took off after the release of the iPhone in July 2008.      

In the late 1960s, research in touchscreen technology  began. Samuel Hurst first developed the touch sensor in 1971. In 1972, an assisted learning center came out as a part of the Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations (PLATO) project, and touchscreen technology was introduced; this was the first computer-assisted instruction system. The HP-150, the first touchscreen computer, reached stores in 1983.

There are three types of touchscreen systems. The first is a resistive system, based on using two metallic layers. When the screen is pressed, a closed circuit is formed. The computer determines whether a touch was made and reacts accordingly. The resistive system is the most widely used system in touchscreen technology due to its simple structure and lower production cost.

The capacitive system uses a “charged” screen: When a user applies pressure to the screen, a charge is transmitted to his body. The transmission of this charge allows the computer to recognize the touch and compute the command.

The surface acoustic wave system uses sound waves to determine whether the screen has been touched. Transducers, reflectors and sensors are used in the surface acoustic wave system. The transducers determine whether or not a wave was disturbed to “figure

Touchscreens are fast and easy to use, as there’s no text interface: All the user has to do is point at what he wants. Without a mouse and keyboard, touchpads are smaller and more compact. Today’s touchscreens are protected from electrical surges and changes in temperature. Touchscreens are easy to clean because of their slick, smooth surface.

With a touchscreen, it’s nearly impossible to tell where the keys are, so you have to look at the screen to make a command. Pressing a button on a touchscreen is a lot different from pressing a regular button on an electronic device: When a user pushes a regular button, she knows she’s pressed it. With a touchscreen, it’s hard to tell whether or not the button was pressed (unless the action is accompanied by a sound). Positioning is not always precise on a touchscreen; often, fingers are too large and may press more than one button at a time. Touchscreens often get dirty due to fingerprints, so they require constant cleaning.

Touchscreen technology has been evolving since its introduction in the late 1960s. Today, touchscreen technology can be found virtually everywhere in America, including in ATMs, cellular phones , PDAs, retail and grocery stores, and airports.

15-21

By Noah Browning

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday during demonstrations to mark 65 years since what they call the Nakba (Catastrophe) when the creation of Israel’s caused many to lose their homes and become refugees.

A shell fired from Gaza, which is ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas, exploded in an open area of Israel but caused no injuries, according to an Israeli military spokesman. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to return to the region on Tuesday in another bid to revive peace talks frozen since 2010.

But a resolution remains elusive and many Palestinians want refugees and their descendants to return to lands now in Israel – an idea Israel rejects, saying it would spell the end of the Jewish state.
Protesters skirmished with Israeli forces outside a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Hebron and at a prison near Ramallah. Several Palestinians were injured.
Israeli police in Jerusalem scuffled with Palestinian protesters, tossing stun grenades and making several arrests.

Thousands also rallied in the main square of Ramallah, the Palestinians’ de facto capital while Jerusalem remains under Israeli control, holding up placards with the names of villages depopulated in 1948 and old keys, symbols of lost homes.

“For the sake of my future and to return to my family’s land, I don’t want any more useless negotiations but the path of resistance and the rifle,” said Ahmed al-Bedu, a gangly 15-year-old Palestinian who holds Jordanian citizenship.

Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948 on the eve of the end of British rule over Palestine, and neighboring Arab armies invaded in a sharp escalation of fighting already raging between Jews and local Arabs. Five months earlier, the United Nations had adopted a plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, a blueprint rejected by Arabs.

Many Arab residents fled or were expelled by force from their homes and prevented from returning. Only Jordan, which now has a peace treaty with Israel, gave the refugees citizenship.

According to official Palestinian figures published this week, 5.3 million Palestinians – almost half of their total number in the world – are registered by the United Nations as refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza.

Many of them live in the concrete warrens of overcrowded camps, with poor access to employment and basic services.

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and himself a refugee from a town now in northern Israel, stoked Palestinian outrage last year by telling an Israeli news channel he did not seek to return home.

Saeb Erekat, Abbas’s top negotiator with Israel, said on Wednesday that sectarian conflicts in Syria and Iraq endangered Palestinians there and that Israel’s “refusal to assume responsibility for the refugee question” and to agree on a “just solution” for them was harming prospects for peace.

The Palestinian Authority seeks an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital – all lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel deems Jerusalem its “eternal and indivisible” capital.

Hamas rejects Israel’s existence and refuses to renounce violence against it, saying a return of refugees can be attained only through armed force.

“Any initiatives and solutions that do not secure the return of our full rights will be rejected by our people. Our holy land is not for sale or bargain,” the group said in a statement.

15-21

By Ulf Laessing

KHARTOUM, May 15 (Reuters) – In a cramped government office in Khartoum, engineer Ahmed Taha and dozens of other Sudanese, lured by local newspaper adverts for jobs in the Gulf, sit waiting to get a permit to leave the country and work abroad.

“I’ve had enough of Sudan and will go to Saudi Arabia,” said Taha. “I am so tired of this country, the (economic) crisis, the corruption.”

Taha, who has been working in an office accounts department for two years because he could not find a professional post, has just been hired as an engineer by a construction firm in Saudi Arabia – a move that will increase his salary sevenfold to 2,500 Saudi riyals ($670) a month.

“I also want to find my wife a job as a teacher in Saudi Arabia because she makes only 600 (Sudanese) pounds ($95) a month here. We cannot live on our salaries.”

Like thousands of other Sudanese, Taha is escaping a country gripped by economic crisis since losing 75 percent of its oil production, its lifeline, when South Sudan seceded in July 2011.

Analysts estimate unemployment is running at between 20 and 30 percent, although there is no official data.

Annual inflation topped 41 percent in April and the Sudanese pound has more than halved in value against the dollar since South Sudan’s independence, making life unbearable for many.

Nearly 95,000 Sudanese, from labourers to teachers, nurses and engineers, left the country last year compared to only 10,032 in 2008, according to official data. Some analysts say the number is even higher because travel movements are hard to monitor.

Net migration contrasts with some other African countries, including South Sudan, that are seeing skilled professionals return home as the continent’s economic development and increasing foreign investment create career opportunities.

For Sudan, struggling with a high budget deficit and a shortage of foreign currency needed to pay for imports, migration has economic benefits.

The World Bank estimates migrant workers remitted $1.13 billion to Sudan last year, up from $442 million in 2011. That helped to offset the country’s goods and services trade deficit, estimated at $6.7 billion by the International Monetary Fund.

The exodus of workers should also help reduce unemployment. A prolonged “brain drain” of professionals, however, would put further pressure on the country’s deteriorating public services, adding to the country’s economic problems.

“We are suffering under the economic hardship,” said Omar El Fadli, who left Sudan in 1974 to study in Britain and then worked in France and the United States before coming back in 2005 to buy a restaurant in central Khartoum.

“To be honest with you we have been trying to sell (the restaurant) for over two years … It’s not profitable anymore.”

At the visa office in Khartoum, women in dark blue robes, representatives from government-approved employment agencies, are on hand to help applicants fill in the required paperwork.

“We sort out the paperwork for doctors going to the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia which is requesting a large number of Sudanese doctors to work there,” says Hamda Kassem, one of the employment agency staff.

While the Sudanese government allows labour agencies to arrange work contracts for doctors heading to the Gulf, a government-commissioned study published in January also expressed concern about the exodus of healthcare professionals.

DOCTORS LEAVING

More than 6,000 Sudanese doctors left for Saudi Arabia alone between 2009 and 2012, according to the government study, commissioned to assess the reasons for migration. Around another 1,000 doctors have gone to Libya since the ousting of ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, it says.

That is leaving health services in Sudan vulnerable as countries in the Gulf and elsewhere snap up the country’s leading specialists. Newspaper reports of patients dying in Sudan hospitals after being misdiagnosed by ill-qualified doctors are not uncommon.

“There is a very bad effect on medical services,” the government study says. “The emigration to Saudi Arabia will result in the loss of specialists which will be felt directly … in the provinces.”

Sudanese medical colleges pump out up to 4,000 doctors annually but some colleges use textbooks that are more than 10 years old and have no surgical equipment.

The study forecasts that emigration from Sudan will continue to increase in the next few years due to economic, social, security and political reasons.

Sudan has for been plagued by insurgencies. Long confined to remote regions such as Darfur, rebels struck a central region last month, triggering fears they might attack Khartoum again like in 2008.

Few Western engineering firms operate in Sudan due to a U.S. embargo in place since 1997, making the country reliant on mostly Chinese companies to build infrastructure and they tend to import their own workers.

Sudanese government efforts to combat unemployment by hiring more young people for public sector jobs and starting infrastructure projects have been hampered by the budget crisis.

Young people complain that corruption also makes it hard to find work – jobs in the public sector, the biggest employer, often go to people with the right connections, known as wasta, they say.

“You cannot find a job without wasta,” said Hisham Hassan, who graduated in civil engineering from the Sudanese university of Atbara in 2008 but has yet to find work.

“I can’t afford to get married or anything,” he said after receiving his exit permit at the visa office.

He has landed a job at a Saudi builder paying him a monthly salary of 3,000 riyals – in Qassim, one of the most conservative regions of Saudi Arabia. “It will be fine. I have no choice anyway,” he said.

Concerns about personal freedom in Sudan are also encouraging emigration. Security agents have cracked down hard on small street protests organized mainly by students dreaming of an “Arab spring”. Divisions in the weak opposition and the army’s support for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir mean Sudan has avoided the uprisings seen in Egypt or Tunisia.

SUDANESE SKILLS

Sudanese professionals have a tradition of going overseas to gain experience and make money. In the 1960s and 70s, they flocked to the Gulf as those economies took off.

Opportunities dried up after the 1991 Gulf war when President Bashir failed to back the U.N.-led military operation to end Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait. In retaliation, Gulf countries deported thousands of Sudanese once Kuwait was liberated.

With governments in the Gulf spending billions of dollars on roads, schools and universities again, Sudanese are back in demand although prospects in Saudi are dampened by a crackdown on illegal workers and policies to replace foreigners with locals.

Sudanese are also looking further afield. At the Goethe Institute in Khartoum, run by the German government, there’s a waiting list of up to three months to enrol in German classes.

Ahmed Shamun is making a living from the rise in migration. Having worked in Abu Dhabi as an English translator for 13 years, he returned in 1993 and now runs an employment agency in Khartoum, fixing up Sudanese with jobs in the Gulf. Yet, he still laments the trend.

“It’s not just doctors or engineers leaving, most of them are workers,” he said, sitting in his small office next to a travel agent selling air tickets to Saudi Arabia.

“I don’t like it but what else can young people do? There are no jobs here.”

15-21

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

Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa was named Asian Football Confederation’s new president, replacing Mohamed Bin Hammam of Qatar. The Bahraini won 33 of the 46 votes in Malaysia to finish ahead of Yousuf Al Serkal of the United Arab Emirates and Worawi Makudi of Thailand. In the process, Sheikh Salman also claimed a vacant seat on FIFA’s executive committee. Al-Khalifa currently is a FIFA 2014 World Cup committee member, and most recently served as General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Youth and Sports, as well as serving as the Bahrain Olympic Committee vice-president. He has been involved in football administration since the late 1990’s.

The 47-year-old al-Khalifa saw off the challenge of Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organizing chief Hassan Al Thawadi. Most involved in the process had to see the need to distance themselves from the turmoil that came from Qatari Bin Hammam’s term. Bin Hammam was banned for life by FIFA in 2011 amid allegations of trying to buy votes. The former FIFA presidential candidate eventually retired from football last July after having his suspension annulled. Al-Khalifa takes over the last 20 months of Bin Hammam’s term as AFC president, with the next election in January 2015. “We need complete reforms,” al-Khalifa said. “What we need is an AFC where decision makers are accountable.”

Before voting began, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said Asian football still had to work to heal its divisions and rebuild its reputation. “I would identify this restart as an intermediary restart,” he said. “Because then the right start will be in two years in 2015 and now you will have two more years to put your house in such an order.” The 2022 World Cup is still scheduled to take place in Qatar despite the controversies.

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