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Thread: Today's Top Islamic News (DAILY)

  1. #521
    Amid fierce controversy stirred up over the use of harsh interrogation techniques, the Central Intelligence Agency moves to warn against the disclosure of classified documents on the issue.

    In a 24-page missive to New York federal judge Alvin Hellerstein, CIA Director Leon Panetta said releasing the agency's cables would tell "our enemies of what we knew about them, and when, and in some instances, how we obtained the intelligence."

    "I have determined that the disclosure of intelligence about al Qaeda reasonably could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security," Panetta wrote in the letter on Monday.

    The CIA official's warning came in reaction to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has already uncovered Bush administration legal memos authorizing tough techniques, including waterboarding (simulated drowning) and slamming suspects into walls.

    Panetta acknowledged in the court papers that the CIA destroyed 92 videotapes of interrogations conducted in 2002. The elimination of the videotapes -- also among the issues cited in the ACLU's lawsuit -- has raised calls for a criminal investigation into why they were destroyed.

    The CIA has been making every effort to avoid the release of the documents, including dozens of agency cables.

    Panetta says the cables describe in full detail the methods used on detainees, the elicited information and what US officials still did not know at the time the suspects were being questioned.

    Earlier in May, the agency turned down a request by former vice president Dick Cheney to declassify secret memos which show whether the controversial harsh interrogation techniques yielded valuable intelligence.

    Cheney -- in an attempt to repel sharp criticism hurled at the administration of former president George W. Bush for its 'war on terror' and national security policies -- claimed that the documents will prove that the tactics used forestalled terrorist activities and saved lives.

    The ACLU's complaint has also called for the declassification of long-secret photos of abused detainees during the US-led war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    However, the Obama administration citing concerns that the pictures would "further inflame anti-American opinion" and endanger US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has announced a decision to block a court order for the release of the photos.
    Source: Press TV

  2. #522
    Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says the US' move to send 21,000 extra troops to war-ravaged Afghanistan could have serious implications for Pakistan.

    "Pakistan has talked through political and military ways at all levels to the stakeholders that transferring the problem from Afghanistan to Pakistan will not help resolve the issue," Qureshi said at a news conference with his Turkish counterpart in Islamabad on Tuesday.

    The Islamabad government is worried that the US President Barack Obama's move to boost its military presence in Afghanistan could further destabilize Pakistan by pushing more militants across the border.

    Increased US military activity may also spark an influx of refugees from insurgency-hit southern Afghanistan into border areas of Pakistan.

    The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 has prompted the Taliban militants to focus their attention across the border in Pakistan, turning the restive tribal belt between the two neighbors into the scene of deadly violence.

    Qureshi also added that the US military surge in the war-conflict Afghanistan might also have implications for Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan.

    Pakistan's Balochistan is already rocked by violence as Baloch rebel groups have for many years campaigned for greater autonomy and control of local resources.

    Qureshi urged Washington to pursue non-military solutions to conflict in the troubled Pakistan and Afghanistan. "There should be a civilian surge to promote reconciliatory efforts in Afghanistan to resolve the issue".

    Islamabad has repeatedly said that unwise White House policies were strengthening the Taliban and spreading extremism in the volatile region.

    Violence in Pakistan has claimed the lives of thousands of people, including civilians and soldiers, since the country joined US-led 'war on terror'.
    Source: Press TV

  3. #523
    As Barack Obama, the US president, seeks to mend the image of the US in the Muslim world, a new survey indicates almost half of Americans have a negative opinion about Muslim countries.

    The 46 per cent of respondents who held an unfavourable view of Islamic nations was up five per cent from 2002, while just 20 per cent said they held a positive opinion.

    In depth
    "It's pretty difficult to think much about folks that are seriously trying to kill us or kill anybody who doesn't believe the way they do; so, I am not very happy with those folks," Chuck Hauptman, a Billings, Montana resident, told Al Jazeera recently.

    Greg Smith, a researcher with the Pew Forum on Religion in Washington, says most Americans' views of Muslims are heavily influenced by what they see on television and read in newspapers.

    "The number one answer people give us when we ask them what's most important in shaping their views on Islam is the media," Smith says.

    "It's people who have a negative view of Muslims and Islam in particular who are most likely to say their opinion is shaped largely by what they see in the media."

    Linked with violence

    US views on the Muslim world

    US opinion of the Muslim world:

    Favourable: 20%
    Unfavourable: 46%

    Believe that Islam encourages violence:

    Agree: 45%
    Disagree: 39%

    Source: CNN/Opinion Research, Pew Forum on Religion
    About 60 per cent of Americans feel that the Muslim world considers itself at war with the US, and there is a widespread impression that Islam encourages violence - 45 per cent of respondents in a 2007 poll associated the religion with violent attacks.

    "A lot of people, because of 9/11 and the terrorist era we seem to be in, have generalised all Middle Eastern people as devils," comments Marty Connolly of the Billings research institute.

    On the other side, surveys of Muslim countries show only about 25 per cent of people approve of US leadership.

    Smith says negative views are most common among Americans who are older, do not have college degrees, and who have never met a Muslim.

    "People who say they personally know a Muslim are much more likely to express favourable views of Muslims," he says.

    Entrenched attitudes

    While Obama has made dialogue with Muslim countries a priority for his foreign policy, polls indicate many Americans do not particularly care what Muslims think of the US, or they feel that Muslim opinions do not matter.

    A recent trip to the US state of Montana appeared to confirm some of these entrenched attitudes towards Muslims.

    "I don't care about co-existence," Montana resident Carroll Broch told Al Jazeera.

    "I don't want to co-exist with them. They either accept us or they don't accept us."

  4. #524
    A security guard at Washington's Holocaust museum has died after being shot by a gunman during an attack, police say.

    "Yes, he's dead," a spokesman for the Washington metropolitan police said, adding "The shooter is still in critical condition."

    The guard was identified as Stephen Tyrone Johns. A statement from the Holocaust museum said Johns had worked at the museum for six years, and "had died in the line of duty."

    The gunman had walked into the museum in the heart of Washington on Wednesday and opened fire wounding the guard, before two other security men returned fire, wounding the shooter.

    The gunman has been named by television networks as James von Brunn, 88, who allegedly has known links to white hate groups and anti-government organizations. Officials, however, have not yet confirmed his identity.

  5. #525
    The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says the country could get rid of its nuclear weapons if other nuclear powers are ready to abandon them too.

    "What do we need nuclear arms for?" Putin said during talks with visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

    "Was it us that invented and ever used it?" he said in a reference to the United States, which became the world's first nuclear power when it bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

    "If those who made the atomic bomb and used it are ready to abandon it, along with -- I hope other nuclear powers that officially or unofficially possess it; we will of course welcome and facilitate this process in every possible way."

    US President Barack Obama is due in Moscow next month for talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on a successor to a Cold War-era disarmament pact, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), set to expire in December.

    Speaking on a visit to Ulan-Bator last month, Putin said he would meet Obama in Moscow "with pleasure."

    The world's other declared and presumed nuclear powers include, China, Britain, France, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea.

    SG/SME/RE

  6. #526
    Lebanese Security Forces have arrested two Israeli women over their participation in Lebanon's general elections earlier this week.

    Two sisters, Josephine, 67, and Georgette Mussa, 69, who entered the country ahead of the June 7 elections, were arrested in Beirut Airport before leaving the country, Al-Manar reported on Wednesday.

    According to the report, Georgette confessed that she took part in the elections in Beirut. Josephine, who carries an American passport in addition to her Israeli and Lebanese ones, however denied participating in the vote.

    The sisters who are residents of Israel were being interrogated by the Lebanese security forces, the report added.

    The Western-backed March 14 bloc led by Saad Hariri won the general elections

  7. #527
    Major world powers have agreed to toughen the sanctions against North Korea for its recent controversial nuclear test.

    The draft UN sanctions resolution brought forward by the US and endorsed by the four other permanent members of the Security Council, as well as Japan and South Korea, was discussed at a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation world body on Wednesday.

    Delegations will send the draft, which includes tougher cargo inspections and tighter arms embargo, to their capitals to see if it is acceptable. A vote on the measure is expected on Friday.

    The news comes as the North hints that a US pledge to extend its nuclear umbrella to Japan and South Korea would be considered as 'declaration of a nuclear war' in the troubled peninsula.

    The US currently maintains a nuclear umbrella over South Korea. The security measure was taken after the Korean War ended in 1953. However, there has never been a written agreement over the umbrella.

    North Korea launched a long-range missile in April, sparking reaction from the UN Security Council.

    Pyongyang then went on to announce on May 25 that it had staged a second nuclear weapons test.

    RZS/SME/RE

  8. #528
    UK 'terrorism suspects' win appeal
    Alan Johnson, Britain's interior minister, said control orders 'will remain in force' [EPA]

    Britain's highest court has ruled against the government over the use of secret evidence to justify imposing home curfews on people accused of "terrorism".

    Nine judges unanimously upheld an appeal by three men on Wednesday, who argued it was against their human rights to be subject to "control orders" - a form of house arrest based on secret evidence they are not privy to and cannot challenge in court.

    The cases of the three men, two foreign nationals and a joint British-Libyan national, will now return to the country's high court, a lower court than the House of Lords which made the ruling, for further consideration.

    The decision does not overturn the use of control orders, introduced by the government in 2005 and which allow "terrorism" suspects to be kept under curfew for up to 16 hours a day, but it does call into question a central element of the policy.

    'Severe restrictions'

    Speaking to Al Jazeera, James Welch, legal director of Liberty, a British legal charity, said: "The system of control orders makes people suspected of terrorism subject to very severe sanctions.

    "They [the sanctions] are the sort of penalties you can get for many types of criminal offence, without them [the suspects] being given the privilege of a proper criminal trial before a criminal court.

    "This is a means of getting around the criminal law, making people subject to very severe restrictions on their liberty without giving them the benefit of a trial.

    "They [the suspects] have restrictions which can include an 18-hour curfew each day, restrictions on who they can visit, restrictions on where they can go, very, very severe restrictions on their liberty."

    Presumed guilt

    Eric Metcalfe of Justice, a British legal and human rights organisation, said: "One thing is clear from this judgment, it's going to be much more difficult for the government to sustain the use of control orders when they have to disclose the evidence to the suspects.

    "Parliament and government have to decide whether they are going to limp on with using secret evidence in control orders or whether they can actually take the bold step of getting rid of it once and for all."

    The orders have been used to restrict the movements of individuals the authorities suspect of involvement in "terrorism", but against whom they lack sufficient evidence to mount a trial.

    Human rights and justice organisations say they violate fundamental rights and freedoms, running the risk of turning Britain into a police state, with suspects placed under tight surveillance without knowing what they have done wrong.

    Because the orders rely on secret information collected by the security services that cannot be made public, they also presume guilt without evidence being presented and without it being able to be challenged in court.

    'Protecting public'

    It is the second time the House of Lords has ruled against elements of control orders, 17 of which are now in force in Britain.

    Alan Johnson, Britain's interior minister, said: "All control orders will remain in force for the time being and we will continue to seek to uphold them in the courts.

    "Protecting the public is my top priority and this judgment makes that task harder.

    "We introduced control orders to limit the risk posed by suspected terrorists whom we can neither prosecute nor deport."

    Since their introduction, a total of 38 people have been subjected to them, seven of whom absconded while under watch.

    Rights campaigners said the judges' decision could mark a turning point in the use of secret evidence in control orders.

  9. #529
    COMMENT: MONEY MATTERS
    Why America is a bank-owned state

    Samah El-Shahat, Al Jazeera's resident economist, will be writing a regular column analysing key elements that have contributed to the global financial downturn and its impact across the world.

    America: A bank-owned state

    In my last column I introduced the idea that America's handling of the financial crisis, and in particular the way it has refused to deal with the banks, is more in keeping with how an "emerging" economy might behave and act.

    So this week, I will say that America has become a bank-owned state, allowing its banking oligarchs to suffocate the economy so they can survive at any price.

    As a development economist, what always made developing and poorer countries stand out was the level of inequality between individuals.

    That is, the difference between how a small percentage, usually the country's capitalists, oligarchs and those close to people in power, were overdosing on wealth as the rest struggled to make ends meet, or even survive.

    Read more columns
    Money and power makes for a toxic bond
    Everyone in the country knew it, from the poorest farmer on the street to the richest oligarch. It was in your face, unashamed, unabated and highly discomforting.

    Discomforting because it made all of us who witnessed it feel crippled at the power of the status quo, ruing the unfairness of life when merit always comes last, relative to who you know and who you are.

    We took some relief from believing that this only happens because these countries were authoritarian, and not so accountable to their electorate.

    Yet, if we look closer at the leading capitalist economies such as those of America and the UK, we will find that inequity raises its ugly head equally, and as starkly, when you look at the numbers.

    Kept in the dark

    Here too, a small percentage have the lion's share of national income in their hands, while the rest of the population experience stagnant incomes, all within a democratic, rather than an authoritarian, political regime.

    Yet the real difference here is that, away from the numbers, the wider population and the electorate were mostly kept in the dark about this.

    In 2006, the top one per cent of American households' share of all disposable income amounted to almost a quarter of all households' disposable income, according to Robert Hunter Wade, professor of political economy at the London School of Economics.

    Signs that the crisis would become a great recession were apparent for a long time [EPA]
    In crude terms, one per cent of the population have a quarter of all the wealth.

    Moreover, Wade found the average income of the bottom 90 per cent of the population remained almost stagnant after 1980, although consumption kept rising thanks to the build-up of private debt.

    This means that 90 per cent of the American economy were financing their American dream on debt.

    In the UK, Wade found the pay gap between the highest and average earners had widened alarmingly.

    Back in 1989, chief executives pocketed 17 times more than average earners.

    By 2007, those same "captains of industry" were earning 75 times more than the average worker.

    That is one enormous leap and I wouldn't mind that happening to my salary!

    What's good for Wall Street ...

    Warning signs that the financial crisis would become the great recession were there for all to see for a long time.

    But where were the alarms in the system itself to say that these countries and the individuals in them were pursuing an unsustainable way of life?

    Where were the signs that things were going to end disastrously and, worse still, that the most vulnerable might end up paying the heftiest and most disproportionate price than anyone else?

    I believe the status quo was allowed to go unquestioned because banks were benefiting obscenely from the interest on our debt, and governments were in cahoots with these banks.

    "... this warped and unjust way of operating was not questioned because the electorate was kept in the dark in the most subtle way possible"
    Let's not forget that governments conveniently moved away from the provision of affordable healthcare, free university education and affordable housing while the banks entered our lives, aggressively, to fill that void.

    In addition, I think that this warped and unjust way of operating was not questioned because the electorate was kept in the dark in the most subtle way possible.

    The whole issue was made invisible. It was kept off the radar screens of electoral politics.

    The American electorate were made accomplice to this because they were convinced that what was good for Wall Street, was good for America as a whole.

    It was a political sleight of hand of the highest order. And this explains the bipartisan agreement to the ill-designed deregulation of the finance sector that we have seen over the years.

    America has become a bank-owned state.

    Ann Pettifor, a fellow development economist who works for the New Economics Foundation, says the US administration has been hijacked, and democracy has been pushed aside in favour of what is good for the bankers, by what Abraham Lincoln called "the money power".

    And how right she is. The way the banks are being bailed out is a clear example of this political edifice.

    Sucking the life out of tax-payers

    The fact some of these failing banks have been thrown a lifeline is a testament to the hold they have over Barack Obama's administration.

    Some of the banks should be allowed to die because they are so insolvent and holding so much in toxic assets that they will forever need to be on taxpayer-funded life support.

    The problem is, this life support is sucking the life out of the taxpayer in the process, as it weighs them down with ever-increasing debt.

    On top of that, the money could be used to restructure the economy in a way that is less reliant on the financial sector.

    Underlying this refusal to kill those banks in poor health is a faulty and, dare I say, convenient assumption, that is not backed up by reality or fact, that the banks are facing a liquidity crisis as opposed to them facing a solvency crisis.

    A liquidity crisis means the banks are facing a credit shortage, and once that is sorted, all will be well.

    Geithner's 'stress tests' were meant to tell which banks would not be able to survive [EPA]
    A solvency crisis means that the assets of many banks, firms and households are worth less than their debt.

    And this means that these banks have to be completely nationalised.

    Which leads us to Timothy Geithner, the US treasury secretary, and his "stress tests".

    The tests were meant to give a clear and final assessment of these banks' balance sheets, telling us which were healthy and which would not be able to survive and would need more cash if the recession deepens.

    As in any induced test, like the ones we undergo when we have our hearts tested, the "stress tests" were meant to simulate worse-case scenarios. Well, that was the promise at least.

    The hope was that some would be declared so bad, they would have to go under once and for all.

    Unfortunately, the tests turned out peculiarly lacking in stress.

    Nouriel Roubini, professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, says: "The government used assumptions for the macro variables in 2009 and 2010 that are so optimistic that the actual data for 2009 are already worse than the adverse scenario.

    "As for some crucial variables, such as the unemployment rate – key to proper estimates of default and recovery rates for residential mortages ... and other bank loans – the current trend shows that by the end of 2009 the unemployment rate will be higher than the average unemployment rate assumed in the more adverse scenario for 2010, not for 2009."

    The unemployment rate used in the worse-case scenario was assumed to average 8.9 per cent in 2009 and 10.3 per cent in 2010. But unemployment has already reached 9.4 per cent this year, and looks likely to overtake 10.3 per cent by next year.

    So, there is nothing really challenging about these worse case scenarios at all.

    Next week, I'll write about Timothy Geithner's plan to wipe toxic assets off the banks' balance sheets without getting rid of one single bank ... and how long before we say ENOUGH and really do something about it.

    Samah El-Shahat also presents Al Jazeera's People & Power programme.

    The views expressed in this column are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera editorial policy.

  10. #530
    CAIRO — Muslims and non-Muslims alike in a city in the westernmost of Canada are aspiring for the construction of the city’s first mosque to breathe a new life in their society and help the Muslim community feel that they are part of the society.

    "[It is a] win-win for the city and [the Muslim] community," Brian Skakun, councilor of the city of Prince George in Canada’s British Columbia province, told the Globe & Mail on Wednesday, June 10.

    "I see this as a component in diversifying the economy and diversifying our population."

    For years, the city officials’ endeavor to diversify its forestry-dominated economy has failed in attracting highly skilled Muslim professionals to settle.

    Prince George is located nearly 800 kilometers, a day's drive away, northeast of Vancouver, where the closest mosque is located.

    Best applicants of Muslim doctors, professors, engineers, plastic and orthopedic surgeons have all overturned many offers because of the absence of a mosque.

    The city of 70,000 is already suffering from the lack of professionals, starting from unemployment to its university’s problems recruiting academics, and the rarity of medical professionals.

    Six year ago, the solution was proposed by the British Columbia Muslim Association.

    Muslims proposed to the city to purchase a land plot to build a mosque, contending that a mosque would lure desired Muslim professionals to head to the city.

    Acknowledging the fact that the lack of mosque has become a hindrance to the city development, officials approved the request unanimously.

    With a budget estimated between 1.5$ and 2$ million dollars, a Vancouver architect was hired to build the three-phase project.

    About $500,000 has been raised from private donors across the province

    "If you want to attract some of these professionals, and there isn't a place of worship for them, they're going to go to another community that's bigger or does have a place of worship," Skakun said.

    Muslims make around 1.9 percent of Canada's 32.8 million population, and Islam is the number one non-Christian faith in the Roman Catholic country.

    A recent survey showed that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are proud to be Canadian, and that they are more educated than the general population.

    * Home

    For the city's 200 Muslim families, the mosque is a dream come true.

    They say that it would finally give them a sense of being at home in their city, especially after attracting more Muslims.

    "Most of them said they would like it, but their family would not like it," Ibrahim Karidio, the Muslim Association secretary, told the paper.

    "Spouses, children, they would not want to stay in a place where they would not be able to practice their faith in a setting that was appropriate for them."

    When moving to Canada from Niger 16 year ago, Karidio and his wife were among first Muslims in Prince George where they had to pray in their basement.

    But even as the years passed by, the situation got direr as the muslim population was growing and faced the very same problem of finding a place in which they can gather to pray.

    Muslims have worshipped in basements, empty college classrooms and even in a Christian church.

    Now, their dream mosque, which construction began last Sunday, will contain in addition to the place to pray classrooms for their children.

    In the second and third phase of building the mosque, a library, a recreational centre and a daycare, which non-Muslims will be encouraged to use, are going to be added.

    By encouraging non-Muslims to visit the mosque, Muslims hope the project would inspire tolerance across their community.

    "This can be a showcase for where Muslims, non-Muslims, and all creeds … can bridge the gap," Karidio said. "We are fully contributing to society and we want to be a part of society.

    "We don't want to live in isolation."
    Source: IslamOnline

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