Store owner turns around life of would-be thief
December 12th, 20090 Mohammad Sohail, alongside New York Post clippings that told his story in May, shows the letter and $50 he got from the would-be robber he sent out of his deli with $40, bread and a blessing. PHOTO: NY Post A New York store owner who showed compassion to a would-be...Obama launches Freedom of Information initiative
NEW YORK (IPS) — Advocates for greater freedom of information are expressing approval of the Obama administration's new "Open Government Directive" — but some are sounding cautionary notes that executive agencies are still hiding behind "national security" to conceal government misconduct. Jameel Jaffer, Director of the...
Report shows jump in anti-Muslim bias incidents
December 5th, 20090 WASHINGTON — An annual report released this week by a prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization shows an increase in the total number of bias-related incidents, but a decrease in anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2008. The report by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), titled "Seeking...VIDEO: Comedy Central spotlights Palestinian rights activism
Rights activists Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian leader, and Anna Baltzer, an American Jew, appeared on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" last month, where host Jon Stewart immediately asked them to fight. "We're part of a pretty large group, actually, of Palestinians and Jews working together," Baltzer said about the nonviolent...
Fort Hood shootings: U.S. Muslims feel new heat
November 21st, 20090 SAN FRANCISCO — In the hours after officials identified Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Virginian of Palestinian ancestry, as the shooter at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, U.S. Muslim groups quickly condemned the attack. Religious and community leaders were eager to assure the nation that Muslims were appalled by the day's violence. "It's...FBI file reveals Israeli crimes in U.S.
WASHINGTON (BUSINESS WIRE) — An FBI file reveals the Israeli embassy passed stolen classified U.S. government information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In 1984 Israel and AIPAC jointly lobbied Congress to secure preferential Israeli access to the U.S. market against widespread American industry...
U.N. investigator probes U.S. housing crisis
November 19th, 20090 UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. body responsible for monitoring human rights violations is investigating why hundreds of thousands — and possibly millions — of people in the United States are condemned to live on the streets. Last month, the U.N. Geneva-based Human Rights Council sent one of its top experts on human rights to find...Feds seize four mosques, New York skyscraper
Federal authorities said Thursday's move to seize the assets of the New York-based Alavi Foundation over alleged Iranian ties should not effect the activities of the organization's many tenants, which include mosques in Maryland, New York, Texas, and California. The forfeiture action, however, is raising concerns about religious...Right calls Ft. Hood killings “Islamic terror”
WASHINGTON (IPS) — Senior military and Barack Obama administration officials have been on a full-court press to preempt an anti-Muslim backlash since the shooting spree by a Muslim soldier at Fort Hood, Texas, but right-wing pundits have wasted no time in characterizing Major Nidal Malik Hasan's actions as an act of terrorism by a...Innocent post 9/11 detainees get $1.26 million
-Press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights NEW YORK — The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has announced that five men who had been living in New York and were ultimately deported won a $1.26 million settlement from the United States government in a case challenging post-9/11 racial profiling, illegal...Obama’s outreach to Muslim World teetering
WASHINGTON (IPS) — U.S. President Barack Obama's extraordinary efforts since his first days in office to reassure Muslims in the Greater Middle East about U.S. intentions in the region have suffered a series of setbacks that threaten to reverse whatever gains he has made over the past 10 months in restoring Washington's badly...Loosening of F.B.I. rules stir privacy concerns
WASHINGTON — After a Somali-American teenager from Minneapolis committed a suicide bombing in Africa in October 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating whether a Somali Islamist group had recruited him on United States soil. Instead of collecting information only on people about whom they had a tip or links to...
Arabs and Muslims condemn Fort Hood attack
November 7th, 20090 An Army officer identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at a Texas military base Thursday, killing 13 and wounding 31, according to several news agencies. Major Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army doctor identified as a suspect in the shooting at the U.S. Army post in Fort Hood, Texas, is seen in this undated handout photo from...VIDEO: TV news commentator bashes Islamophobic lawmakers
MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow took aim on Monday at four Republican members of U.S. Congress who announced they would demand an investigation into the Council of American-Islamic Relations during an Oct. 14 press conference, as they promoted a book entitled "Muslim Mafia." They accused CAIR of attempting to infiltrate Congress – by...Charity officials press for federal antiterrorism restrictions to be relaxed
After years of raising concerns that the federal government's antiterrorism rules constrain charities from performing humanitarian work overseas and dissuade Americans from giving, nonprofit officials are growing slightly more hopeful that some of those policies might be modified. A group of charity leaders has been gathering with......
Pro-Israel group’s money trail veers hard right
WASHINGTON (IPS) — StandWithUs — an organization that "ensures that Israel's side of the story is told" — has become increasingly aggressive in challenging the "pro-Israel" credentials of moderate Jewish-American groups, going so far as to suggest that receiving money from Arab donors and supporters of Human Rights Watch undermines...
Can Detroit go green?
October 17th, 20090 DETROIT — Just as the auto industry was ripe for change in 1903 when Henry Ford set up Ford Motor Company in Detroit, carmakers again seem on the cusp of revolution. Hybrid and pure electric vehicles threaten to overthrow the dynasty of the old internal-combustion engine even as proposed greenhouse-gas legislation would undermine......
Foreign policy hawks launch new campaign against Obama
WASHINGTON (IPS) — Just days after the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded Barack Obama its coveted peace prize, two of Washington's most prominent foreign policy hawks launched a new group and ad campaign designed to depict the president as weak and defend the more aggressive policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush....U.S. berated for shielding Israel on Gaza killings
UNITED NATIONS — A U.S. decision to stall Security Council action against Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for war crimes during the 22-day conflict in Gaza last December has come under heavy fire both from inside and outside the United Nations. Addressing the Security Council Wednesday, the chair of the 118-member...UM-Dearborn marks 50th Anniversary
Since being founded in 1959 on the original estate of automotive pioneer Henry Ford after a gift of land from Ford Motor Company, the University of Michigan-Dearborn has grown into one of the most distinguished and respected colleges of its kind. Students celebrate UM-Dearborn's 50th anniversary at the Henry Ford Estate on...
White House may silence Goldstone Report?
September 30th, 20090 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration sought to backtrack at presstime from news reports that it would silence a United Nations report critical of Israel's conduct in its Gaza War earlier this year. The mother of Rabia Tawil mourns at their house in the village of Tsur Baher, in East Jerusalem September 22, 2009. Troops shot......
Religious leaders support Mideast push
WASHINGTON — More than 30 of the nation's most prominent and diverse religious leaders this week signed onto a public letter in support of "strong U.S. leadership to achieve a negotiated sustainable resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." In the letter, which was coordinated by Churches for Middle East Peace, the leaders...
St. Jude’s/ALSAC mourns the loss of former CEO Richard C. Shadyac Sr.
September 19th, 20090 Memphis, Tenn. — Richard C. Shadyac Sr., who served 13 years as CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising organization of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, passed away Wednesday evening after battling a lengthy illness. Richard C. Shadyac Sr. PHOTO: St. Jude Children's Research......
Washington Children’s Hospital receives $150 million from United Arab Emirates
The Children’s National Medical Center in Washington received $150 million last week from the United Arab Emirates. The donation, one of the biggest a charity in the United States has received from a foreign source, comes at a time when most wealthy American donors are pulling back. Only two other gifts of $100-million or more...D.C. rally gets little mainstream news coverage
Thousands of people marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.on On Septe. 12, to protest government spending, before stopping at the U.S. Capitol Building for demonstrations. Thousands of demonstrators gather on the plaza near the U.S. Capitol to participate in a "Taxpayer March on DC" protest against President......
