The Arab American News
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Western-backed Ben Ali’s regime on last legs
Embattled Tunisian leader: No more deadly force against protestors TUNIS – A TV announcement was made by Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on Thursday, Jan. 13, his third since unrest began, ordering his nation's security forces to stop firing on demonstrators as the country's economic turmoil has continued and protests...
Lebanese government collapses
January 12th, 20110 BEIRUT - Lebanon's unity government has collapsed after the Hizbullah movement and its political allies resigned from the cabinet over arguments stemming from a UN probe into the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister,on February 14, 2005. There has been growing political...Aoun says Saudi-Syrian efforts fail, March 8 ministers to meet in Rabiyeh
BEIRUT: Free Patriotic Movement (F.P.M.) leader M.P. Michel Aoun said Tuesday Hizbullah and Speaker Nabih Berri's Amal Movement have been informed of the failure of Syrian-Saudi efforts to break the deadlock over the U.N.-backed tribunal investigating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination. Aoun said a delegation of the...CAIR claims partial victory in case against Debbie Schlussel
This afternoon at a hearing at the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in downtown Detroit, local attorney and blogger Debbie Schlussel, known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric that many have deemed extremist in nature, announced through her attorney Andrew Kochanowski that she had changed the name of a website she created with the same name...
SPJ final decision over pulling Helen Thomas award delayed 10 days
January 10th, 20110 The Society of Professional Journalists Executive Committee voted on Saturday, Jan..8 to recommend removing its Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award, however, the recommendation must be looked over by SPJ’s full board before being approved. A final decision is expected to be announced in 10 days. The full board includes the...Vigil at Dearborn City Hall remembers victims of Gaza attacks
DEARBORN — A group of about 75 people gathered at the steps of Dearborn City Hall on Monday, December 27 in remembrance of the more than 1,400 victims, most of them civilians, of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza on the second anniversary of the attacks. Community members take part in a vigil to remember the more than 1,400...CAIR-Michigan sues Debbie Schlussel over trademark violations
SchlusselDETROIT - The Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan (CAIR-MI) filed a lawsuit Wednesday, Jan. 5 against extremist Southfield blogger and attorney Debbie Schlussel for trademark infringement violations. Schlussel created the website cairmichigan.com which may be confusing supporters of the group who wish to...Alexandria attack has nothing to do with religion
I strongly condemn the recent assault on the sanctity of Christian places of worship in Alexandria, Egypt. This heinous crime did not target only the Christian community, who are our partners in homeland, blood and history in our dear country. Rather, it is a wicked attack on our national unity and coexistence. It is an attack on the...Wikimania and the First Amendment
Thomas Blanton, the esteemed director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University described Washington's hyper-reaction to Wikileaks' transmission of information to some major media in various countries as "Wikimania." In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday, Blanton urged the Justice...Wikileaks cables: Israel exposed through Norwegian newspaper
Bribes charged at crossing for goods to Gaza A June 2006 diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks last Thursday by the Aftenposten daily newspaper in Norway said that American companies told U.S. officials that large bribes were demanded in order to get goods into the blockaded Gaza Strip at an important cargo crossing. One distributor...The U.S. media hit on Helen Thomas
In recent years, my faith in the power of dialogue in politics has been severely tested – as, no doubt has hers (Helen Thomas) – in an age where diatribes and calculated demonization chills debate and exchanges of opposing views. Once you are labeled and stereotyped, especially if you are denounced as an anti-Semite, you are...Tunisian unrest stirs Arab world
CAIRO (IPS) – As Western countries were busy celebrating Christmas and dealing with air traffic holiday delays because of snow blizzards, the tranquil North African country of Tunisia was going through events that would have been thought unthinkable just three weeks ago – public unrest that saw thousands demonstrate against the...Turks see U.S., Israel as top threats
ANKARA (Middle East Online) – The United States and Israel top the list of countries that Turks see as a threat, according to an opinion poll Wednesday. The survey, conducted by the Ankara-based Metropoll research company last month, found that 42.6 percent saw the United States as "the greatest external threat," with another 23.7...Woman who threw pie at Levin charged
BIG RAPIDS — An antiwar protester who hit Michigan Sen. Carl Levin in the face with an apple pie has been charged with assault. An indictment filed Thursday charges Ahlam Mohsen of Coldwater with two counts of assault against the Democrat while he was meeting with constituents in August in Big Rapids. Her friend Max Kantar of Big...Helen Thomas back in action
Helen Thomas is back at work--this time, with a column in a weekly Virginia newspaper. Thomas was forced to resign last summer from her job as a columnist for Hearst after the controversy over her comments about Israel. But she has now secured a home for her weekly column in the Falls Church News-Press, which is located in Falls Church,......
Egyptian church bombing fuels sectarian rift
January 8th, 20110 An Egyptian Coptic Christian lights candles for victims of the January 1 attack on an Orthodox Coptic church in Alexandria, in Amman Januray 5, 2011.REUTERS/Ali JarekjiCAIRO (IPS) – It was a tragic year for Egypt's minority Coptic Christian community that began with a drive-by shooting at a church in southern Egypt, and ended in...SPJ board to discuss the fate of Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award
SPJ Director of Communications, Scott Leadingham said the group initially considered removing Thomas' name from the award following her comments last summer. He says the decision isn't being rushed and may be based on the discretion of both SPJ's headquarters staff and board of directors.The Society of Professional Journalists'......
CAIR: Indiana lawmakers asked not to consider anti-Islam bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization said today that it is calling on Indiana state legislators not to consider what it terms a "fear-mongering" anti-Islam bill when the lawmakers reconvene in Indianapolis tomorrow. In a joint letter mailed recently to all members of the Indiana General...Iran to launch two new satellites
(PressTV.ir) – Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says the country will launch two new domestically made satellites by March 2011. "Two satellites named 'Fajr' and 'Rasad' will be launched into space by the end of the year," Vahidi was quoted by Fars news agency as saying on Saturday. "Different satellites are...Arizona’s racist ethnic studies ban starts
Effective January 1, 2010, the instruction of ethnic studies in public schools grades K-12 is illegal thanks to HB 2281, another racist bill signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer.(AlterNet.org) – This week, children in Arizona will return to school after the winter break. But they'll be lacking one thing in their curriculum that...
Local Muslims condemn Alexandria attack
January 8th, 20110 WARREN, MI - Muslims around the world have condemned an incident that occurred in Alexandria's Sidi Bishr district where shortly after midnight, a bomb detonated in front of a Coptic church entrance. At least 23 people were killed and nearly 100 injured in the explosion, which mangled cars and scattered body parts.......
New study from Ann Arbor toxicologist links Fallujah birth defects to U.S. weapons
January 8th, 20110 A new study has shed light on the massive surge in post-war birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq, showing for the first time that an epidemic of reproductive abnormalities has likely been caused by the presence of metals in the environment, potentially from the residues of munitions used by American armed forces on the city in 2004. A...
Lebanon: hard days ahead
January 8th, 20110 In Lebanon, 2010 saw the fragile political balance teetering on the edge of breakdown while Israeli threats of renewed war continued, writes Omayma Abdel-Latif Contrary to its beginning, which witnessed a number of political and civil initiatives towards national reconciliation, 2010 was largely marked by events that put at risk the......
Breaking the Israel-Palestine deadlock
January 8th, 20110 While intensively engaged in illegal settlement expansion, the government of Israel is also seeking to deal with two problems: a global campaign of what it perceives as “delegitimation” – that is, objections to its crimes and withdrawal of participation in them – and a parallel campaign of legitimation of Palestine. The...
The Arab world’s tipping point
January 8th, 20110 Nothing much happened for the Arab world in 2010, and nothing much will happen in 2011, writes Ezzedine Choukri Fishere*. But business as usual cannot – and will not – go on indefinitely. 2010 will go down in history, as far as the Arab world is concerned, as the most boring year of the decade – the year when nothing happened.......
