Today's Top Islamic News (DAILY)

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JP Morgan posts $3.3 billion profit
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:00:03 GMT

The last three months have bode very well for the JP Morgan Chase, as the Wall Street bank has collected $3.3bn (£2bn) during the period.

The announced profits compare with the $702m reported the previous year, when Wall Street was suffering from the financial crisis at its height.

Jamie Dimon, the financial company's chairman and chief executive, expressed pleasure on Friday over the better-than-expected profits gained by the bank, but said it could perform better.

"Though these results showed improvement, we acknowledge that they fell short of both an adequate return on capital and the firm's earnings potential," he told CNN.

Other major US financial companies, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, are due to make public the profits they have earned Monday.

The move by the banks comes on the heels of an announcement by US President Barack Obama on Thursday saying that the government was planning to get back around $120 billion from US banks to pay back bank bail-out costs.

"If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers," the BBC quoted President Obama as saying.

JP Morgan received $25 billion of funds from the government's rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program and repaid it in full in June last year.

RB/HGH/MD

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US dollar to remain main global currency, says IMF
Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:35:37 GMT

The IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn
The chief of the International Monetary Fund believes the US dollar will maintain its dominance in the currency world despite speculations that it will be soon substituted by the euro or Chinese yuan.

"The US currency is going to remain the main currency in my opinion for a long period of time, even if it's challenged by some others," Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the Hong Kong Trade Development Council on Wednesday, AFP reported.

Strauss-Kahn called on China to raise the value of its currency, to ease criticisms alleging that Beijing keeps its unit artificially low.

Meanwhile, the IMF managing director noted that the international economy would not face a so-called "double-dip" recession, though he described the pace of recovery as sluggish.

"Our view is not one of a double-dip," Strauss-Kahn said.

"It doesn't mean the probability is zero or that it cannot happen, but it's not our preferred scenario and I don't believe that will be the case."

Strauss-Kahn is due to make a keynote address at the Asian Financial Forum next week.

RB/HGH/MMN

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CAIR-Chicago Asks Citibank to Apologize for Hijab Incident
16/01/2010 02:08:06 AM GMT

(CHICAGO, IL, 12/8/09) -- The Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago) today called on Citibank to apologize to a Muslim woman who was allegedly verbally abused by a security guard at a Gresham, Ill., branch because she wears a religious head scarf, or hijab.


According to the Muslim woman, the guard said it was against Citibank's policy for customers to transact business wearing head coverings. While another Citibank employee did allow the woman to complete her business, that employee insisted on personally escorting her to the counter and watched over her shoulder as she conducted her transactions.

The guard also reportedly objected to the woman receiving service because it would encourage more of "them" to come into the bank. Throughout the process, which the Muslim customer described as "humiliating," the guard allegedly made anti-Muslim remarks.

CAIR-Chicago is calling for the apology, a review of Citibank policies related to religious head coverings and for diversity training of bank staff.

“Denying someone the right to enjoy equal treatment in places of public accommodation is illegal and violates our most deeply held values of fairness and respect for others,� said Kevin Vodak, staff attorney at CAIR-Chicago.

“It appears that this security guard was purposefully trying to deter Muslims from patronizing the bank by harassing them. If this is the case, the bank needs to make sure this kind of discriminatory behavior is addressed,� said Christina Abraham, civil rights director at CAIR-Chicago. “It’s illegal and it’s bad business.�

CAIR helped resolve a number of similar incidents nationwide in which Muslim customers wearing hijab have been harassed or denied service because of “no hats� policies being implemented in banks nationwide.

The Washington-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization offers a booklet called "An Employer's Guide to Islamic Religious Practices" to help corporate managers gain a better understanding of Islam and Muslims.

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

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MD: Muslims ‘Shocked' by Move to Seize Islamic Center
16/01/2010 02:07:06 AM GMT

County residents who attend services at the Islamic Education Center in Potomac are worried their mosque could be shut down after federal prosecutors started a court process seeking forfeiture of the center's property, which is owned by the New York-based Alavi Foundation, which is alleged to have ties to the Iranian government.

Worshippers at the Islamic Education Center in Potomac fear their mosque may be forced to close its doors now that federal prosecutors have moved for the property's forfeiture.

The prosecutors are claiming that the owners of the center's Montrose Road building have ties to the Iranian government, but local Muslims say the potential seizure raises civil liberties concerns. (More)

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Source: CAIR

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Ban on burqa: Some questions
Iman Kurdi | Arab News


There is a man in Britain who is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison yet could walk free if he agreed to do something we all do every day. Stephen Gough is known as the naked rambler. Twice he has walked from Land’s End to John O’Groats — the two extremities of Britain — wearing nothing but socks and a pair of boots. And on both occasions and on numerous occasions since, he has been arrested and thrown in jail for appearing naked in public. Every time he leaves jail, he is told he can be free if he puts some clothes on. But no sooner is he out of the gates of the jail than he strips naked again and is arrested for doing so. The result is that he has spent most of the last seven years in prison and might spend the rest of his life in prison unless he changes his mind and starts to wear clothes.

Why? Why would anyone choose to walk around naked? To most of us his lifestyle choice seems not only bizarre but insane. Gough claims he is making a stand for individual freedom. He should have the right to wear clothes or not; it is a matter of individual choice. The law disagrees. It is an offense to appear naked in public.

At the other end of the scale, it may soon become an offense to walk down the street entirely covered from head to toe. Not in Britain, but in neighboring France. The covering could be any kind of clothing but is likely to be the black cloth that covers head, body and face known as the burqa. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made it clear that some kind of legislation will be implemented and has stated that the burqa “is not welcome in France�. And why is it not welcome? Because it runs “contrary to French values and contrary to French ideas of a woman’s dignity.�

This last word, “dignity�, is the key. Politicians and commentators use it again and again on this matter. Take for instance Fadela Amara, the French secretary of state for urban policies, a Muslim woman and a veteran feminist campaigner. She has stated that she is against the burqa because it diminishes the dignity of women. For her it is not a religious issue but a gender equality issue. It is in order to protect the rights of women that the burqa is to be banned.

WHY would any woman choose to walk around covered from head to toe? To most Europeans, this lifestyle choice seems bizarre and though not necessarily insane, somewhat perverted and extreme. There is also the widespread belief that women do not do it out of free choice but out of coercion. Add to that the niqab is in many ways the physical embodiment of a view of Muslim women as oppressed and subjugated and it is easy to see why it could be considered incompatible with French republican values. But banning it?

There are two immediate issues. The first concerns religious freedom. The second concerns implementation.

Is stopping a woman from wearing a form of religious dress not an infringement of her right to practice her religion freely? For that to be the case wearing the burqa must be seen to be a religious requirement. If you consider a face veil to be part of a woman’s religious duty then yes. If you do not think that Islam requires women to cover their faces then no. The parliamentary inquiry charged with examining the issue of the burqa in France is due to report next week.

You can bet two things. The first is that it will report that conventional Muslim thinking does not recognize the covering of the face as part of a Muslim woman’s religious duty. The second is that wearing the burqa goes against French republican values and must, therefore, be banned.

BUT how do you implement such a ban? Is a woman who walks down the street wearing a burqa going to be thrown in jail for doing so? The first proposal, put forward by Jean-François Copé, the leader of the ruling parliamentary party, proposes a fine of 750 euros for anyone who appears totally covered in a public place. Copé’s proposal is not only unworkable but also likely to be easily challenged either by the French constitutional court or by European human rights legislators. In any case, the proposal is a political stance by Copé, eager to make a name for himself, and is unlikely to become law in its present form. What we are likely to see is first a parliamentary resolution stating that the burqa is incompatible with French values. This resolution would not have any legal binding, but it would pave the way for ensuing legislation banning the burqa in specific instances and specific settings.

People should be free to dress as they please. It should have no importance to others whether a person chooses to wear a skirt or a pair of trousers, whether they choose to cover their hair with a scarf or a hat and their face with a veil or a mask Ã* la Michael Jackson.

But do you remember how Michael Jackson was branded a “whacko� for hiding his face in public? Clothing is one thing, hiding your face is another. By doing so you withhold your identity and you place a screen between yourself and others.

Why is a naked man so offensive? He may be free to do as he wishes except that in doing so he exposes us, the public, to his nudity, a sight that offends us.

Conversely a woman may choose to cover herself up entirely as she walks down a French street, but her choice, if free choice it is, may be offensive to those who behold her. She may think she is upholding her dignity by covering her flesh from prying eyes. Indeed personal dignity may be the very reason she chooses this form of dress, but to Western eyes it is the very opposite. Covering up her identity is equivalent to saying, “I wish to be a blank, I do not want you to know anything about me except that I am a woman and I am a Muslim.� It is a refusal to engage with others as well as a refusal to blend in with the prevailing culture.

I don’t like the burqa and I would rather not see French Muslim women wearing it, but banning it is wrong. Whatever politicians say, it is an attack on Muslims. When Sarkozy says the burqa is not welcome in France, he is saying that a certain visible minority of Muslims are not welcome in France, and that is religious discrimination. Banning it will also encourage the further politicization of a subject that should be left alone. It is giving ammunition to the extremists on both sides. Besides, at the end of the day, is a piece of black cloth really that offensive?

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Is al-Qaeda winning? -----**// US Fighting against World Super Power? **// -----
By Marwan Bishara in
on January 14th, 2010

What does it say about Washington's ''war on terror'' that dozen and a half people with paper cutters forced hundreds of thousands of Western troops into the battlefields of the "greater Middle East" region;

That 100,000 foreign soldiers are bogged down in occupied Afghanistan wondering how many dozens of al-Qaeda operatives have remained, if any;

That the most liberal democracy enacted new controversial illiberal laws and unpatriotic practices under its "Patriot Act";

That one shoe-bomber has forced millions of people to take off their shoes every time they take a flight;

That one underpants-bomber will expose every other traveler in most humiliating of ways;

That after US loss of deterrence and prestige as well as trillions of dollars of military and other expenditures, al-Qaeda's top leadership remains at large; its bases/cells proliferate globally; that volunteers continue to flock into its ranks and young supporters to its websites… !!! And above all that it continues to terrorize America and Americans.

So much that one gets the impression that America is fighting a world superpower despite the incredible disparities in capacity, numbers and support.

Is al-Qaeda winning? Has the United States lost?

Hitting the Jackpot
A dozen years ago, a demoralized group with nowhere to go but the hills of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda began targeting America instead of the region's authoritarian regimes hoping to destabilize the region, bloody America's nose and gain popularity.

Its strategy was simple: Draw the US into direct confrontation against and within the Muslim world. Like sheep to the slaughter house, America walked right into its trap.

Al-Qaeda was lucky. With a 'cowboy' and so-called "chicken-hawks" (militarists who ever served in the military) dominating the White House and the Pentagon… military escalation was only a question of time and intensity.
The Bush administration decided to "take the war to the enemy so as not to fight it at home". This is exactly what al-Qaeda hoped for considering it wasn't applying for Green cards for its members.

It all went as smooth as a scripted movie. After the 9/11 attacks at the pillars of its world status, the Pentagon and Wall Street, the wounded superpower went on a rampage. Like a bull in a china shop, it responded with little or no thinking of the consequences of its military actions.

Warmongers took advantage of the threat to US national security to advance their military agenda in foreign policy and the radical American Right exploited what they termed as the threat to "our way of life" to transform America's way of life towards the Right.

Washington called for a "crusade", then changed it into a "war" on terror and under its guise, went on to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq and support Israel's bloody wars in Lebanon andPalestine. It also intervened in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan and put direct pressure on its allies to confront their Islamist movements.

In no time, the US was preoccupied by its draining occupation and costly military operations. And as expected, the terrible human cost only added petrol to the flames of hatred.

Paradoxically, anti-Americanism has been more rampant under "friendly regimes" like in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey etc. than others.

America's unfortunate and disproportionate use of military force to defeat a segmented, mobile and polycentric movement of several hundred core groups of fighters didn't make it any more secure or dissuasive.

As the Obama administration asks for $33 bn extra budget above the already approved $660 bn for 2010, I remember what Richard Meyers, the former head of the US joint chiefs of staff, told me several weeks ago how a decade later, the US still doesn’t have a strategy to deal with "the global insurgency" facing America.

Beyond military
Popular opposition and world denunciations of US military campaign has fallen on deaf ears in Washington. Instead of seriously reversing its military expansion, the Obama administration has accelerated it in the Afghan-Pakistan area and it seems adamant to repeat more of the same in Yemen.

Needless to say, no serious strategic analyst would advise abandoning military power all together. However, Washington's dependency on, even addiction to, firepower has neutralized or nullified all other efforts towards defusing support for al-Qaeda and truly winning hearts.

Good-will gestures provided by President Obama and his attempts to reconnect to the Arab and Islamic world on the basis of "mutual interest and mutual respect" can hardly be heard considering the echoes of drone fired missiles, speeding F-15 jets and rolling tanks.

The more Washington used its military force, the less it won the minds of those it needs most to defeat al-Qaeda: Americans, Arabs and Muslims.

Likewise, US military actions are harming its intelligence and law enforcement work that over the last decade have dealt the greatest blow to al-Qaeda's leadership and organisation.

Zero Sum strategy
As military adventures kill, maim and destroy lives, they create, nurture and build animosities and "alliances" among most unlikely allies, such as a young rich Nigerian that studies in London, a Jordanian doctor that studies in Turkey and an Arab-American soldier trained by the Pentagon, all whom were ready to die to hurt America.

And likewise, counter terror tactics and intelligence work has made it ever more difficult for public diplomacy to "win hearts and minds". Instead of listening to people of the region, it has been spying on them and instead of reading them their rights, it has tortured them in far-away prisons.

And instead of hearing out their concerns and fears, Washington has underlined its own above all others.

In that limited and limiting spirit, for example, mostly impoverished Yemenis that suffer from war in the north, intensive conflict in the south and three decade autocratic regime, must now worry about US fears, and cater to US interests above their own.

Which brings us back to our initial question: al- Qaeda is winning only as far as Washington is running a self-defeating war.

However, one needs to remember that in the self-defeating war on terror, winner and loser is one and the same.

As long as America puts its security preoccupations and political interests about those under its military and strategic domination, the Pentagon and al-Qaeda will feed into one another and the Americans, Arabs and Muslims will continue to be the ultimate losers.

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Top US bankers admit fault in economic woes
Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:39:03 GMT

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Chairman Phil Angelides, center, rebukes top US bankers for initiating an economic downturn.
As American bank CEOs enjoy record bonuses, top executives of the US financial institutions admit to mistakes that led to the global financial crisis.

Speaking before a congressional commission on the US financial crisis on Wednesday, heads of the nation's leading creditors acknowledged having failed Americans with their poor oversight on public debts and other risky financial transactions.

Leaders of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and the former director of Morgan Stanley testified before the commission and agreed on the banking sector's collective mistakes for creating risky economic instruments, such as second-hand mortgage securities, unsecured debts and liabilities and failing to improve risk management.

"Over the course of the crisis, we, as an industry, caused a lot of damage. Never has it been clearer how the poor business judgments we have made have affected Main Street," Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan told the panel director Phil Angelides.

"People are angry,� said Angelides, quoted by ABC News. “They have a right to be. The fact is that Wall Street is enjoying record profits and bonuses in the wake of receiving trillions of dollars in government assistance while so many families are struggling to stay afloat."

The congressional probe comes amid reports indicating larger bonuses and benefits for top US bankers in 2009, as the country's six largest banks set aside $112 billion to compensate for their crash- - an amount bound to exceed the compensation levels of pre-recession period of 2007.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission will also grill federal officials on banking regulations on Thursday.

GHN/MTM/MB

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US army to double weapons stockpiled in Israel
Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:48:58 GMT

The US military plans to double the amount of military equipment it has stockpiled in Israel under a recent agreement with Tel Aviv.

"The deal will double the value of military equipment kept on Israeli soil from 400 million to 800 million dollars," a Pentagon spokesman, Major Shawn Turner told AFP.

He ruled out the notion that Iran's nuclear issue was a major factor for the agreement and said that the US Congress initially authorized the expansion in 2007.

"This is not in any way related to Iran or the current situation as the authorization was from 2007," he stated.

Washington's staunch ally Israel could have access to the weaponry in a military emergency.

US missiles, armored vehicles, aerial ammunition and artillery ordnance are already stockpiled in Israel. The United States began by stockpiling $100 million worth of military equipment in Israel in 1990.

In December, US President Barack Obama granted $ 2.775 billion in security aid to Israel. The aid is accompanied by special additions to the Israeli military industries for the development of technologies, particularly in the missile field.

MP/ SAR/RE

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US drone attack kills 15 in Pakistan
Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:38:53 GMT

At least 15 people have been killed in the latest American drone attack in the volatile region of North Waziristan in Pakistan.

The attack targeted a compound in Pasalkot village on Thursday, according to Pakistan's security forces.

Some reports say that Pakistan's Tehrik-e-Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud was targeted in the attack.

"Local people are saying he was there at the time. We don't know if he was hit or not, if he's dead or alive," a senior Pakistani security official said.

However, Taliban Spokesman Azam Tariq denied the reports of Hakimullah's death.

"He is safe. These are just rumors. He was not there when the attack took place," Tariq told Reuters by telephone.

It was not the first time Hakimullah had been reported killed. The government said in August he had been killed after his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud's death.

The United States has stepped up its drone strikes in Pakistan since seven CIA agents were killed in neighboring Afghanistan.

Hundreds of people, many of them civilians, have been killed since 2006 in CIA-operated drone strikes in Pakistan.

AGB/MB

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US drone attacks kill 5 in Pakistan
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:16:46 GMT

US drones targeted Pakistan's North Waziristan in the northwest on Friday, killing at least five people, reports said.

The area has witnessed a spike in the attacks as the entire tribal belt. Washington has stepped up its drone strikes in Pakistan since seven CIA agents were killed in neighboring Afghanistan.

The Long War Journal, a US website tracking the strikes, claims the assaults kill mostly civilians and fail to target top militant leaders.

The raids reportedly killed more than 700 civilians in Pakistan in 2009.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari earlier criticized the US war on terror, saying war efforts in the region had partially paralyzed the country's economy.

HN/MD