An American comedian who spent 30 days visiting Mosques across the US is bringing his stand-up show about the trip to Germany. Aman Ali spoke to The Local.

Aman Ali, a New Yorker of Indian heritage, said stopping at a different Mosque on each day of 2010’s holy month of Ramadan had given him a broad outlook on how Muslims were living in America.

His current tour – he has just performed in Copenhagen and is heading for Germany next week – was showing him interesting things about the differences between Muslim life on either side of the Atlantic.

“The big difference is that the American culture is one of immigration, it is very easy to immigrate and integrate,” he told The Local ahead of bringing his show “30 Mosques in 30 Days” to Germany.
“In Europe national identity is different. You go to parts of Europe and identity is more defined, like in Germany, Denmark, Sweden or Norway.

“Although, I was in the UK recently, and people are very open – and the favourite national dish is chicken tikka masala.”

He said the biggest eye-opener was that the idea that people were against or scared of Muslims was mostly simply not true.

“There is this illusion that there is opposition to Muslims, and Muslims think that everyone hates us. But in reality most people don’t care,” he said.

“I see people living peacefully and working closely together with their neighbours. In Europe perhaps not so much, but this is not necessarily due to racism. I think it is more to do with ignorance – if everyone comes from the same kind of background, they can end up ignorant of other backgrounds.”

This can lead to Muslims not making much of an effort to integrate, he said. “They then want to create a mini Somalia or Morocco or something,” he said.

“There is no problem with holding onto your own culture, but why not build Mosques that are Muslim and German in style? It is frustrating, these cultural bubbles, that is what generates a lot of the tension.

“We have our share of problems too, there is a lot cynicism, the feeling that things are getting worse and everyone hates us.”

He is happy to describe his show as stand-up story-telling – emphatically not a lecture.

“I want to create an honest dialogue. I just tell stories that I have heard along the way.”

Berlin, where his show is scheduled for Monday, is a particular treat for him.

“One of the reasons I am excited about coming to Germany is the vibrant Muslim arts culture here. It is very refreshing to see such a vibrant Muslim art scene.”

Aman Ali’s show in Berlin is on Monday at the Babylon Theatre, and in Magdeburg at the einewelt haus.

The Local/hc
The Local (news@thelocal.de)

Muslim students urge prayer space at Eastern Michigan University

The Eastern Michigan University doesn’t have a dedicated prayer/reflection room where students can perform their prayers. The Muslim students have to resort to praying in a tight space underneath a library staircase. They have now requested the authorities to open a multi-faith prayer room.

Fatma Jaber, a student senator in the Student Government, has written an op-ed in the Eastern Echo urging the authorities to be accomadating of student needs. “A designated space for prayer, meditation and reflection is an essential aspect of any well recognized and highly regarded university. This room is intended not only for Muslim students, but for all members of EMU, and its purpose is to give everyone a safe place to pray, reflect inwardly and meditate,” she writes.

Atlanta conference on Islamophobia attracts hundreds

ATLANTA,GA- The Islamic World International Conference held over the weekend in Atlanta attracted hundreds of participants. It was dedicated to sessions on how to deal with Islamophobia and other misunderstandings.

Participant Maryam Abdul-Karim told the 90.1 FM Radio Station: “We all have a responsibility and our responsibility is just to convey a message to people that yes we’re Muslim and we’re not going to stop being Muslim, but here’s how we effect society; not negatively but positively. Look at our doctors, look at our students, look at our political aspirations as a people. There is something we can bring to the table even in an Islamophobic society”.

Afghan woman Dr. Sakina Yaqoobi wins $1 million Opus prize

FINALISTS FOR ONE OF the most prestigious faith-based humanitarian honors, the Opus Prize, received their awards at Georgetown after participating in a series of campus events and classes Nov. 12-13.

Sakena Yacoobi, founder and president of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), won the 2013 Opus Prize for operating the largest Afghan nongovernmental organization.  AIL runs 52 centers in Afghanistan that provide literacy programs, higher education, arts and culture, healthcare and income generating activities.

“Dr. Sakena Yacoobi has demonstrated an inspiring commitment to the promotion of education and health services for women and children in Afghanistan,” Georgetown President John J. DeGioia said during the Nov. 13 award presentation. “She is an eminently deserving recipient of this faith-based humanitarian award – for her disproportionate contributions to the betterment of our global family.”

Yacoobi received $1 million with the honor, and the remaining two finalists each received a $75,000 prize.

Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association (CHA) in Washington, D.C., and theFahmina Institute, a nonprofit based in Cirebon, Indonesia, were among this year’s finalists.

15-49

By Adil James, TMO

Imam Suhaib Webb addresses the ISPU audience.

Livonia–November 23–The ISPU held an extremely successful fundraiser this past Saturday evening at Burton Manor.  Several hundred audience members were present for the fundraiser, enjoying speeches by “celebrity imam” Suhaib Webb and ISPU founders and management.

The ISPU event was conducted on the theme of “Unmosqued, Reimagining Muslim Spaces.”  The purpose of the fundraiser was to emphasize ISPU’s focus, going forward–the ISPU representatives who spoke through the night described the painful process of self-evaluation by which they discussed ISPU’s strengths and weaknesses with many critics.

Interim Executive Director and rising star Farhan Latif spoke at length about this difficult process, describing over 300 hours comprising over 100 interviews to analyze the performance of the institution.

He spoke of grants to ISPU from prominent institutions such as Google, Oracle, the Kellogg Foundation, Pillars Fund, and the Proteus Foundation, all building on the donations from “grass-roots” ordinary Muslims of any amounts whether small or large.

And so at this time ISPU has begun the process of examining mosques throughout the United States to see important flaws and strengths of the Muslims’ most important and most central institutions.
At issue are treatment of women, treatment of children, and treatment of different ethnicities, notably convert Muslims, at American mosques.  Also at issue are whether Muslim mosques address or fail to address vital community issues such as divorce and even Islamophobia.

The first study in relation to “reimagining Muslim spaces” was one by Dr. Ihsan Bagby, on mosques around the country.

In line with this vitally important issue of the comfort of Muslim women in mosques was Hind Makki, who spoke at length of the growing literal marginalization of her own position in her home mosque, which progressed as the mosque developed in strength of numbers, the women’s position in the mosque migrating from the center out and down to a basement portion.

This raises the vital question of whether our community will be viable into the future if we marginalize vitally important sections of our own community.

Dr. Iltefat Hamzavi, “ISPU’s biggest fan,” the original founder of ISPU, spoke happily of its development to its current position, under the guidance of the many who have provided their service and volunteer work to the organization.

He mentioned a vitally important statistic, that 15-45% of self-identifying Muslims do not go to the mosque.  He wisely mentioned that Muslims shall have to make their own way through these difficult issues, but that we can seek to benefit by analyzing what has happened in this regard to other communities, such as Baptists, Jews, Catholics, and others.

Imam Suhaib Webb spoke at length on his work and the biography of his own conversion to Islam.

He emphasized the vital importance of reaching out and maintaining openness to Muslims and non-Muslims who might not be perfect but who have love or interest in Islam.

He spoke of having conducted 500 conversions in Boston at his mosque, and described in some detail his own progression from the point of deciding to convert to Islam with full faith lighting his face (despite his being in a van and on drugs at the time) through his first encounter with people at a mosque, to his studies abroad at Al-Azhar and elsewhere, and then coming back to the United States to serve as an imam to the Muslim community.

15-49

By Valentin Mândrăşescu

Former Senator and one of the harshest critics of Federal Reserve, Ron Paul published a scathing critique of Janet Yellen, the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Chairman. Ron Paul describes the Fed as “a reverse Robin Hood” that steals from the poor.

Writing on his personal blog, the “godfather of American libertarians”, castigated Ms. Yellen for her intention to continue the Fed’s “quantitative easing” policies, despite its failure to bring significant improvements to the economy, plagued by high levels of debt and low employment. His criticism centers on a few key issues: quantitative easing helps the big banks, hurts the broader economy and does nothing for the average American. According to Ron Paul, “ QE is such a blatant example of crony capitalism that it makes Solyndra look like a shining example of a pure free market!” Money supply manipulation and interest rate rigging create an environment in which a few well connected banks and individuals receive the newly created money “before general price increases have spread through the economy” giving them endless opportunities to increase their wealth, while the general public has to deal with higher prices and lower purchasing power of stagnant wages. The former Texas Senator, points out that the asymmetric and unfair repartition of wealth has become a tradition for the Federal Reserve. Ran Paul sees the Fed as a perpetrator of currency debasement. He argues that “since the Federal Reserve opened its doors one hundred years ago, the dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power —that’s right, today you need $23.70 to buy what one dollar bought in 1913!”

Sadly, Dr. Paul is a lone voice in the desert of American politics. He rightly points out that the Fed’s quantitative easing allows the government and the Congress to spend more, while enriching the banks. By doing so, the Fed aligns the interests of the government to the interests of Wall Street, hurting the interests of the general public. It is easy to criticize Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen, but the problem is the system not the people who are running the system. Until the system that makes the Congress an accomplice of the private banks is broken, it doesn’t matter who is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. One hundred years of Federal Reserve history prove this.

15-49

A valued CIA proxy planned the Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed, and more than 300 injured

Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott Clark

Levy and Scott-Clark are investigative journalists and authors of ‘The Siege’

Five years on, this is what we now know. A valued CIA proxy, who infiltrated the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a banned Pakistani Islamist outfit, planned the Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed, and more than 300 injured. David Headley, an American citizen, conceived, scoped and ran supplies for the terrorist ‘swarm’ operation, so called because several independent units simultaneously hit their enemy in multiple locations, coming out of nowhere, multiplying fear and panic.

Headley selected Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, as the theatre of operations while acting as a ‘prized counter-terrorism asset’ for the United States, according to senior officers in the Joint Terrorism Task Force, who described his covert career as running for eleven years. When the LeT’s ten-man suicide squad sailed from a creek in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi, at dawn on 22 November 2008, they navigated towards a landing spot in Mumbai, marked on a GPS provided by the Washington DCborn maverick. Reaching the world’s fourth largest metropolis four nights later, LeT’s team fanned out, following routes plotted by Headley over an intense two-year period of surveillance . Shortly before 10pm, the gunmen shot dead tourists at the Leopold Cafe, massacred more than 60 Indian commuters at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station, and then laid siege to a Jewish centre and two five-star hotels, including the luxurious Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai’s most famous landmark. Ten men would keep the mega-city burning for more than three days.

This month sees the fifth anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, and the most complete survey to date of former and serving intelligence agents, diplomats, police, and survivors from 12 countries, reveals that the CIA repeatedly tipped off their counterparts in India to an imminent attack, using intelligence derived from their prize asset Headley. What they did not reveal was that their source, a public school educated Pakistani-American dilettante and entrepreneur, was allowed to remain in place even as the attack was realized. His continuing proximity to the terrorist outfit would eventually lead to a showdown between Washington and New Delhi.

Researching ‘The Siege’, we learned that Indian intelligence agents accused their US counterparts of protecting Headley and leaving him in the field, despite the imminent threat to Mumbai. Irate Indian officials claimed that Headley’s Mumbai plot was allowed to run on by his US controllers, as to spool it in would have jeopardized his involvement in another critical US operation . Having infiltrated the LeT, Headley also won access to al-Qaida, making him the only US citizen in the field who might be able to reach Osama bin Laden.Three years before America’s most wanted terrorist was finally run to ground in Abbottabad, this was an opportunity that some in the US intelligence community were not willing to give up.[sic]

Phone and email intercepts seen by us confirm how Headley had become trusted by Ilyas Kashmiri, a former LeT commander and senior al-Qaida operative, who led an al-Qaida military affiliate, known as Brigade 313. Based in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, Ilyas Kashmiri was, at one point, considered as a potential successor to Osama bin Laden until his death in June 2011.

In 2009, several months after the Mumbai atrocity, agents from the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s foreign intelligence agency, confronted the CIA with these claims, according to accounts seen by us. India is said to have accused the US of pursuing ‘a narrow self-interest’ and having some responsibility in the deaths in Mumbai.

However, the CIA stood firm, one senior agent claiming that ‘Indian incompetence’ was to blame for the attack. In 2006, the US had warned India that the LeT was forming a suicide squad to attack India from the sea. More than 25 increasingly detailed bulletins followed that named Mumbai as the prime objective, and identified several targets, including the Taj hotel. Additional bulletins suggested that a team of highly trained gunmen using AK47s and RDX, military-grade explosives, would seek to prolong the attack by taking hostages and establishing a stronghold, before a final shoot-out that they hoped would be broadcast live around the world on TV.

Some of these bulletins were eventually distilled into notices that reached the police patrolling Mumbai . However, the assessments were ‘ignored or downplayed’ until July 2008 when a senior police officer, a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) with responsibility for security in the district of South Mumbai where the Taj was located, took action . On 12 August 2008, DCP Vishwas Nangre Patil spent nine hours with the Taj’s security staff, writing a report to his seniors that concluded: ‘Overall, the [Taj] management has done very little to adapt the hotel to the changing security environment in the city.’ When a truck bomb devastated the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, on 20 September 2008, Patil drew up an urgent list of enhanced security measures for the Taj, including snipers on the roof, blast barriers on the driveway and armed guards on all doors. Although security was tightened as a result, most of these measures were withdrawn again after DCP Patil went on leave in the second week of October 2008.

David Headley was a bizarre mix of Eastern and Western cultures and made for a near-perfect mole. His mother was Serrill Headley, a socialite and adventuress from Maryland, whose great-aunt had funded women’s rights and Albert Einstein’s research . His father was Syed Gilani, a renowned radio broadcaster and diplomat from Lahore, who had been seconded to Voice of America. When Headley was born in Washington DC in 1960, he was initially named Daood Saleem Gilani. Within a year, the family had relocated to Pakistan, where Gilani was brought up as a Muslim and schooled at an exclusive military academy. After his parents divorced and Serrill returned to the US to open a bar in Philadelphia, named, suitably, the Khyber Pass, Gilani, aged 17, rejoined her. He lived with her in a flat above the Khyber Pass — and soon immersed himself in the American way of life. Later he moved to the Upper West Side in New York, where he opened a video rental shop, Fliks.

By 1984, Gilani was a six-foot-two American boy, with a fair complexion, broad shoulders and an impressive mop of curly blond hair. Only his distinctively mismatched eyes — one blue one brown —hinted at his mixed heritage and muddled ancestry. Dressed in crumpled Armani jeans, a leather jacket slung over his shoulder, and a £10,000 Rolex Submariner poking out of his cuff, he was already looking for more lucrative opportunities than video rental. That year, he used his dual identities to smuggle half a kilogram of heroin from Pakistan’s tribal areas to New York, selling it through the video store. When German customs officers caught him four years later at Frankfurt airport en-route to Philadelphia, with two kilograms of heroin, Gilani informed on his co-conspirators to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). While, his accomplices were jailed for between eight and ten years, he became a paid DEA informer, infiltrating Pakistan’s drug syndicates . Some US agents warned that Gilani was too volatile to be trusted, and in 1997, he was arrested again in New York for trafficking. He offered another deal, suggesting he infiltrate Islamist radicals who were starting to worry the CIA and FBI.

A letter put before the court reveals prosecutors conceded that while Gilani might have supplied up to fifteen kilograms of heroin worth £947,000, he had also been ‘reliable and forthcoming’ with the agency about ‘a range of issues’ . Sentenced to fifteen months in the low-security Fort Dix prison, New Jersey, while his co-conspirator received four years in a high-security jail, he was freed after only nine months. In August 1999, one year after hundreds had been killed in simultaneous Al-Qaeda bomb attacks on American embassies in Africa, he returned to Pakistan, his ticket paid for by the US government.

By 2006, Daood had joined the inner circle of Lashkar-e-Toiba, which had been proscribed by the UN five years earlier. Coming up with the plan to attack Mumbai and launch LeT onto the international stage, he changed his name to David Headley and applied for a new US passport. He would use it to travel incognito to India on seven surveillance trips, selecting targets in Mumbai which he photographed using a camera he borrowed from his mother-in-law .

Headley was chaotic and his Mumbai plan was almost undermined by his private life. By 2008, he was married to three women, none of who knew of the others’ existence, two living apart in Pakistan and one in New York. The wife in the US, however, grew suspicious after he championed the 9/11 attackers, reporting him to the authorities. Shortly before the Mumbai operation, his cousin Alex Headley, a soldier in the US Army also considered reporting him after Headley announced that he was naming his newborn son Osama and described him as ‘my little terrorist’. His Pakistani half-brother Danyal Gilani, who worked as a press officer for the Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, disowned him.

Eventually, Headley’s mother informed on him to the FBI. Her son was only ever interested in himself, she warned, arguing that his selfishness was born out of his lack of a sense of self. None of the complainants heard anything back, with Serrill Headley, who died ten months before Mumbai, confiding in a friend that her son ‘must have worked for the US government’ .

Five years on, with American officials continuing to remain silent over Headley (and the conflict of interest that enabled him to run amok in the field), and with New Delhi still prevented from accessing him, the full truth about Washington’s culpability in 26/11 remains muddied. In India, where no postmortem of any depth has been carried out into Mumbai, the scale of the intelligence failings — the inability of IB and RAW to develop the leads passed them by the CIA and others — will also never be fully exposed.

Times of India

15-49

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

Tarek Mahenna in court, artist’s rendering.

Observers at Tarek Mehanna’s appeal hearing heard from a panel of three judges on November 13, 2013. They filled the courthouse and two overflow rooms.

Judge Bruce Selya began the session with a disturbing comment reminiscent of Nazi German descriptions of its Jewish population as a disease: “Terrorism is the modern-day equivalent of the bubonic plague: it is an existential threat.”

Mehanna, a Massachusetts College of Pharmacy graduate and former teacher at Alhuda Academy in Worcester, was convicted in 2012 of conspiring to kill American soldiers and supporting Al Qaeda. Mehanna’s lawyers insist that he gave no tangible support to al-Qaida, and his online activities were protected free speech. This case has drawn widespread interest because of its implications on protected vs. unprotected speech in its connection to terrorism related charges.

In arguments before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Mehanna’s lawyer, Sabin Willett, said prosecutors repeatedly showed images of the World Trade Center in flames, videos of beheadings, and repeatedly made references to Osama bin Laden in an attempt to prejudice the jury against Mehanna.

‘’The purpose of this evidence was to frighten the jury,’’ Willett said, ‘’and it worked.’’

Judges Howard, Selya and Thompson upheld Mehanna’s conviction and sentence of 17 1/2 years.

Prosecutors said during Mehanna’s trial that he traveled to Yemen in 2004 to for terrorist training with plans to attack American soldiers in Iraq, but that the plan failed.

Mehanna’s lawyers argued that he traveled to Yemen to pursue religious studies.

Prosecutors relied heavily on the well-known fraud “expert witness” Evan Kohlmann.

What is not being discussed is that in the past, especially while the US was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, CIA-run “terror camps” were popular tourist attractions, similar to how nowadays Israel attracts Jewish tourists with the promise of rifle training. Mehanna reportedly expressed disappointment that such training camps no longer exist in Yemen.

Benjamin Wittes comments on Lawfare Blog. “The court of appeals held that the general guilty verdict could be sustained, even assuming for the sake of argument that the evidence of coordination with al Qaeda on Mehanna’s Internet activities had been inadequate to support that verdict–that is to say, even if Mehanna’s translation and advocacy were constitutionally protected… By eliminating Mehanna’s Internet activities altogether from the issues on appeal, the court thereby ensured that Mehanna will not be the important First Amendment precedent that many had thought it might be.”

US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose staff prosecuted Mehanna, hailed the ruling.

“We are gratified that the Court of Appeals carefully reviewed the case, found the evidence of the defendant’s guilt was more than sufficient to convict the defendant, and held that it was ‘confident’ that, in the court’s words, [Mehanna] ‘was fairly tried, justly convicted and lawfully sentenced,’ ” Ortiz said,citing the technical legality of the harsh conviction of the non-violent offender.
Judge Selya wrote in rejection of the appeal that Mehanna’s co-conspirators had “testified that the defendant persistently stated his belief that engaging in jihad was “a duty upon a Muslim if he’s capable of performing it,” and that this duty included committing violence.

Following United States intervention in Iraq, the defendant concluded “that America was at war with Islam,” and saw American “soldiers as being valid targets” by the attacked people. Mehanna took the position that “there was an obligation for Muslims to stand up and fight against invasion of Iraq.

“The fundamental problem with the [appellate] ruling is that it allows the government to prosecute unpopular political speech,” said Alex Abdo, staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Security Project.
Yet, beyond Mehanna’s religious belief in the concept of Jihad, or Just Warfare, he also claimed adherence to the doctrine of “aman,” which he describes as “a covenant to obey the law within a country that permits practice of the faith.” His adherence to aman would prohibit him personally from targeting American troops.

“The defendant’s position can be stated without much ceremony. He suggests… that although he may have sympathized with al-Qa’ida and spoken glowingly of the virtues of jihad, he nonetheless avoided crossing the line into criminal activity,” admits Selya.

However, Selya insists that: “Even if the government’s translation-as-material-support theory were factually insufficient, we would not reverse.”

Selya emotionally referred to the defendant’s flippant attitude regarding the “Texas BBQ” video — a phrase describing American soldiers being bombed in a widespread online video. Yet, this type of light-hearted style of murderous political commentary is very common among many Americans. One can only conclude that Mehanna is guilty of acting too American; too self-confident as a Muslim American, that he could joke about war.

Judge Selya concludes:

“We do not pretend to understand why the defendant chose to go down such a treacherous path. Nevertheless, the jury found that he knowingly and intentionally made that choice, and that finding is both supported by the clear weight of the evidence and untainted by legal error.”

It is truly unfortunate that an educated person such as Selya cannot even pretend to understand, let alone attempt to understand, why a Muslim American might sympathize with other Muslims globally, who are on the receiving end of drone attacks and worse. The court proceedings drew upon anti-Muslim prejudice not only in regards to the free speech issues but also regarding the question of who is allowed to travel abroad and for what reason.

In a world where armed, violent terrorists are trained by the US government – in Massachusetts – to send into other countries to influence political outcomes; in a world where youngsters go to Israeli terror camps to be trained in genocidal “fun,” I cannot think of anything more alarming than a judge who cannot “pretend to understand” the idea that any Muslim American might strive for freedom and equality – American style. Mehanna acted independently through free speech and free travel, without ever picking up a gun.

“The court’s likening of terrorism to ‘the modern-day equivalent of the bubonic plague’ is an example of the kind of sensational language that ensured a biased trial against Dr. Mehanna in the first place,” stated the Tarek Mehanna Support Committee. “The appeals court decision is outrageous, but we will continue to stand by Dr. Mehanna.”
“Tarek remains strong and unwavering in his iman,” reports Mehanna’s Facebook support page.

15-49

By Stephanie Nebehay

Abu Saleh, a 48-year-old man, walks as he holds a shovel in a cemetery in Deir al-Zor, eastern Syria, November 25, 2013. Abu Saleh left his job in the field of construction and became a grave digger. This grave is located in a garden that has been turned into a cemetery for the victims of the war and is now known as the “garden of the martyrs”. Picture taken November 25, 2013. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations says its aid convoys cannot reach around 250,000 people in areas besieged by Syrian government forces or rebels, despite “growing needs and intensifying conflict”.

The detailed assessment was included in a confidential paper that Valerie Amos, U.N. emergency relief coordinator, presented to a private, unannounced U.N. meeting in Geneva on Tuesday.

“The response is continuing but falling short, especially in besieged and hard-to-reach areas,” said the report, obtained by Reuters. “Besieged communities continue to be cut off.”

International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi announced on Monday that peace talks would be held on January 22, the first direct talks between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and opposition forces seeking to topple him.

The U.N. document entitled “Humanitarian Situation and Response in Syria” painted a grim picture, saying there were 900 armed clashes in Syria in October compared with 500 in May.

It describes a “dangerous and difficult environment for humanitarian workers” and says 12 U.N. staff and 32 volunteers or staff of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent have been killed since the conflict began in March 2011. Another 21 U.N. staff members remain in detention, it said, without giving details.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, said on Tuesday that staffer Mohammad Suheil Yousef Awwad had been killed along with three passengers on November 24 when a mortar shell struck his vehicle in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.

The war has driven 6.5 million people from their homes in Syria and prompted another 2.2 million to flee abroad. The United Nations has not updated its estimated death toll since July when it said the conflict had killed 100,000.

Some 9.3 million Syrians inside the country need assistance, half of them children, the document said. An estimated 575,000 people are wounded or need life-saving care.

It said the government has denied permission in the past month for U.N. convoys or missions to areas besieged by Assad’s forces – including 7,000 people living in Mouadamiya and 160,000 in Eastern Ghouta, both outside Damascus, and 4,000 in Homs Old City. Some 25,000 are trapped by both sides in Yarmouk and 9,000 in Daraya, two areas just outside the capital.

Nor has access been permitted to Nubl and Zahra, two villages with a total of 45,000 people besieged by various rebel forces in the northern province of Aleppo, the document said.

In all, nine convoys were approved in November, including seven to Homs, up from a monthly three or four in recent months. “Approval procedure remains the same but changes promised,” the report said, referring to the lengthy quest for government permission to send relief convoys.

TURKEY IS “RED LINE”

The United Nations is only authorized to use official Syrian channels and border crossings agreed with Damascus to import relief goods, the U.N. paper said. These include the Latakia and Tartous sea ports in northern Syria and specified border crossings with Lebanon and Jordan.

“Turkey is a red line,” it said, referring to Syria’s northern neighbor used as a base by some Syrian rebels.

Disclosing a new aid crossing on Syria’s northeastern border with Iraq, it said: “The government of Syria (on November 20) approved transfer of supplies via Yarubiya crossing from Iraq with 48 hours notice.”

Overall, red tape has hampered aid flows, with lengthy waits for Syrian approval of visas for foreign aid workers, 25 of which have been pending for more than three months, it said.

Opposition activists say Assad’s forces are using siege and starvation as a military tactic in rebel-held areas around Damascus such as Mouadamiya and Ghouta, leading to cases of malnutrition and widespread hunger. Syria has accused rebels of using civilians in those areas as human shields.

In a rare show of unity, world powers called on Syria last month to allow cross-border aid deliveries and urged all combatants to agree humanitarian pauses in the fighting.

A Western diplomat, referring to the presidential statement adopted by the U.N. Security Council on October 2, said on Friday: “It was pretty specific, it did call on the regime to allow cross-border access. They are not doing that, particularly from Turkey.”

“On Mouadamiya, the key issue is permission from the regime to access it. The U.N. has convoys ready to deliver aid there.”

The Syrian government is obliged under international humanitarian law to facilitate humanitarian access, the diplomat said, speaking on condition he was not identified. The rebel siege of Nubl and Zahra, two pro-Assad Shi’ite villages in Aleppo province, also violates humanitarian law, he said.

A spokesman for Amos would confirm only that the unannounced talks were being held at the United Nations in Geneva and would not say which countries were attending what he called an internal meeting, or even whether Syrian officials were there.

“Valerie Amos is holding a meeting with some key member states on the humanitarian situation in Syria,” Jens Laerke, spokesman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in reply to a query.

(Editing by Alistair Lyon/Mark Heinrich)

15-49

Referendum On Constitution In December

By Asma Alsharif

Constituent Assembly spokesman Mohamed Salmawy speaks at news conference at the Shura Council in Cairo 9/22/13.     REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt will hold a referendum on an amended constitution in December, the group drafting it said on Tuesday, an important step in an army-backed roadmap meant to lead to elections.

Hours before the timing of the referendum was announced, protesters took to the streets in defiance of a law passed on Sunday requiring police approval for gatherings of more than 10 people. Police detained 28 people, the Interior Ministry said.

Egypt’s democratic credentials have been called into question since the military toppled the country’s first freely elected president, Islamist Mohamed Mursi, in July, following mass protests against his rule.

A committee of 50 members, with few Islamists, began work in September on amending the constitution that was approved in a referendum last year after being drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly.

“The referendum will be held before the end of (December),” Mohamed Salmawy, spokesman of the constituent assembly, said. That contradicts comments made by Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi who said on Sunday the referendum would be held in the second half of January.

The new constitution will guarantee the right to protest and ensure that demonstrations can be held if protesters notify authorities, rather than wait to be granted permission, Salmawy said, in an apparent effort to ease tension over a new law restricting demonstrations.

Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted Mursi, has promised the roadmap will lead to free and fair elections.

But the plan has not stabilized Egypt, where protests and attacks by Islamist militants based in the unruly Sinai Peninsula have hammered investment and tourism.
Egypt has stumbled on its path to democracy since a popular uprising ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, with the army ousting Mursi and security forces mounting one of the fiercest crackdowns on Islamists in decades.

Hundreds have been killed and the Brotherhood’s leadership has been arrested.

Khaled Dawoud, a prominent liberal political figure, criticized the government.

“They are making more enemies than friends especially among the young revolutionary Egyptian people who have been in the streets for the past three years,” he said.

Underscoring differences over the new law, ten members of the body have suspended their work in protest against the detentions, MENA reported. Beblawi promised to follow the results of the prosecutor’s investigations into the detentions, according to an emailed statement from the cabinet.

Human rights groups have condemned the law as a major blow to freedom in Egypt, the most populous Arab state and a U.S. ally that has experienced near relentless upheaval since autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak was toppled by a revolt in 2011.

“(The) new protest law gives security forces free rein,” Amnesty International said.

Skirmishes broke out between security forces and protesters in downtown Cairo and police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse the demonstrations. They were marking the death of a liberal activist killed in clashes with police two years ago and expressed anger against the protest law.

“DOWN WITH MILITARY RULE”

Hundreds assembled at the Press Syndicate and parliament. “Down, down with military rule,” they chanted.

In Cairo, female students at Al-Azhar University for Islamic learning, which follows the government line, stormed into a dean’s office and destroyed her desk.

The United States, which has partially frozen aid to Egypt, on Monday expressed concern over the new law and said it agreed with groups that argued it did not meet international standards and hampered the country’s move toward democracy.

A security official said Tuesday’s crowd had not obtained permission to protest and had ignored warnings to disperse.

The army-backed government has said it is not against peaceful protests but wants to restore order in the streets. It has also complained that protests often disrupt traffic. Some Egyptians cheered police as they broke up protests on Tuesday.

“We are implementing the new protest law that requires protesters to seek permission from the Interior Ministry three days before the protest,” a police official said.

The protest law will further squeeze members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who have said they will continue demonstrating against what they say is a military coup.

(Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla and Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ralph Boulton)

15-49

Ahmed Malik (left) receives MMA cadet of the month award.

HARLINGEN, Texas — Marine Military Academy (MMA), a college preparatory boarding school, has  named post-graduate Ahmed Malik of Missouri City, Texas, the Cadet of the Month for Fox Company for October 2013.

The cadet who receives this esteemed award is nominated by his drill instructor for his exemplary attitude, conduct, academic performance and involvement at MMA.

In addition to the recognition he received on Nov. 1 in front of the MMA Corps of Cadets, Malik will be treated to a special dinner on Nov. 8 hosted by the MMA superintendent and his wife.

After he graduates from MMA, Malik plans to attend Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He intends on becoming a commercial pilot. He is the son of Lubna and Pervaiz Malik.

Marine Military Academy is a college-preparatory boarding school for young men in Grades 8-12 with an optional post-graduate year.

15-49