The Arab American News back issues from May 2007:
Economic study shows contributions of Arab Americans to Michigan economy
May 05, 2007; ... As state economy falters, Arab Americans add significantly to the flow of money and services DETROIT - While Michigan's economy is in crisis and a national debate rages about the cost/benefit ratio of immigration to this country, the results of a study released by the League for Economic ...
Iran-U.S. thaw aborts at Iraq conference
May 05, 2007; ... SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt - Iran and the United States dashed hopes of a major breakthrough at an international conferenee convened to stabilize war-torn Iraq when they held only mid-level talks on Friday. The two-day meeting, however, wrapped up after a marked improvement in Washington's ...
One unexploded bomb per person
May 05, 2007; ... SRIFA, Southern Lebanon (IPS) Close to a million unexploded bombs are estimated to litter southern Lebanon, according to U.N. forces engaged in the hazardous task of removing them. The United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) was created by the security Council in 1978 to confirm ...
Tens of thousands urge Olmert to quit over Lebanon war report
May 05, 2007; ... TEL AVIV - Tens of thousands of Israelis called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign late Thursday in the first mass street protest since a government inquiry blasted his leadership of last year's Lebanon war. Organizers said about 100,000 people, left-wing activists and rightwing ...
If Israel can do it, why not the U.S.?
May 05, 2007; ... "The expressionless Israeli prime minister stared straight ahead as the chairman of a government investigation of last summer's war in Lebanon read the findings, which cited "a severe failure in the lack of judgment, responsibility and caution." That, according to the Associated Press, ...
Regional peace should accompany withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
May 05, 2007; ... Today, Al-Qaeda is fighting America in Iraq, as it fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, its home base in the 1980s. Ironically, Al-Qaeda then was in partnership with the U.S. fighting the Sovietization of Afghanistan. Now, an international coalition of Al-Qaeda has joined local Iraqi insurgents in ...
The Livni-Rice plan for the Middle East Real peace or real apartheid?
May 05, 2007; ... For years I have been one of the doomsayers, arguing that the two-state solution is dead and that apartheid has become the only realistic political outcome of the Israel-Palestine conflict - at least until a full-blown antiapartheid struggle arises that fundamentally changes the ...
Federal charges in hate crime against Philly woman
May 05, 2007; ... WASHINGTON - This week the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged a Philadelphia woman with committing a federal hate crime because she sent a violent and threatening letter to her supervisor at work. The DOJ and FBI investigated the incident as a ...
British plot has Canadian connection
May 05, 2007; ... On April 30, five Muslim men were found guilty of plotting fertilizer bomb attacks in London. Two others were acquitted. The five had been to Pakistan for training and had accumulated fertilizer as part of the plot. The head of the plot, Omar Khyam, had also been in contact with two of ...
Social activist, performer Najimy to visit area
May 05, 2007; ... Many actors and actresses take on roles as humanitarians and social activists, utilizing their fame to generate funding and awareness for various causes. But actress Kathy Najimy is an activist first, who happens to make a living through television, film and theater. An Arab ...
International, local performers to meet at event
May 05, 2007; ... A popular Syrian singer of traditional-style music will feature a unique young local talent when he makes a rare trip to Dearborn for a performance May 11. Moor Muhanna, who was a reciter of the Qur'an before becoming an acclaimed classic tarab singer, will visit eight states during his ...
Dearborn student wins regional Teen Chef competition
May 05, 2007; ... DEARBORN - Corned beef and cabbage may be the traditional St. Patrick's Day dish, but for Dearborn High senior Nicole Scherff, it was her outstanding preparation of shrimp cocktail and chicken rice pilaf that won her the top prize in the regional Teen Chef competition held in Chicago on March ...
Religious leaders gather, discuss civil rights
May 05, 2007; ... A week after Detroit City Council President Kenneth Cockrel Jr. proposed an ordinance against ethnic profiling and a day before 15,000 people marched through Detroit streets demanding fair immigration reform. Latin, Arab, Muslim, and Jewish religious leaders met in Detroit on May 1 for dialogue ...
Highest ranking Arab American tenders resignation
May 05, 2007; ... WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lost yet another senior aide this week when Dina Habib Powell, the highest-ranking Arab-American in the U.S. government, announced her resignation to join a Wall Street investment bank. The departure of Powell, key architect of a Rice ...
Crestwood, Westwood will vote on school boards Tuesday
May 05, 2007; ... Residents of Dearborn Heights' 3,400-student Crestwood school district will vote on Tuesday, May 8 for school hoard members and for three bond proposals aimed at improving buildings, technology and athletic facilities. There are four open seals on the board. Candidates are incumbents ...
Major retail fraud ring uncovered in Dearborn
May 05, 2007; ... DEARBORN - Members of the Dearborn Police Department's plainclothes unit have conducted a seven-month investigation into the purchase of stolen merchandise by local businesses. On May 2, the Investigation Unit of the Dearborn Police Department executed five search warrants with the ...
Attorney General Gonzales meets with community leaders
May 12, 2007; ... Denies Arabs and Muslims being singled out for citizenship delays DETROIT - US. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales met with a group of Arab Americans in downtown Detroit this week before addressing the Detroit Economic Club in Dearborn on Tuesday. He said at both meetings that preserving ...
Michigan Muslim leaders sign pact
May 12, 2007; ... DEARBORN - Over two dozen local Muslim leaders met in Dearbom Heights this week to sign the "Muslim Code of Honor," widely touted as an unprecedented proactive staiement of unity between American Shi'a and Sunni Muslims. The signing and press conference were organized by the Council of Islamic ...
Lebanese Club awards scholarships
May 19, 2007; ... $60,000 given in aid to qualified students DEARBORN - At a gala banquet for its Arab American Scholarship Fund here at the Hyatt Regency this week, the Lebanese American Heritage Club distributed $60,000 in scholarship money to sixty students who were selected on the basis of academic ...
Surge strategy shows weaknesses
May 19, 2007; ... WASHINGTON (IPS) - More than three months into the implementation of U.S. President George W. Bush's "surge" strategy, skepticism over the likelihood of its success is still running high here. Except among neo-conservatives, who have been the strategy's most enthusiastic champions, most ...
It's a countdown to war on Iran
May 19, 2007; ... Silently, stealthily, unseen by cameras, the war on Iran has already begun. Many sources confirm that the United States, bent on destabilizing the Islamic Republic, has increased its aid to armed movements among the Azeri, Baluchi, Arab and Kurdish ethnic minorities that make up about 40% of the ...
Lobby argues that good Americans spy for Israel
May 19, 2007; ... Is there a First Amendment right to engage in espionage? Dorothy Rabinowitz seems to think so. Describing the actions of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two former top officials of AIPAC, the premier Israel lobbying group who passed purloined intelligence to Israeli government officials, the ...
Local school cancels Palestinian speakers
May 19, 2007; ... In mid February of 2007 two Palestinian, nonviolent human rights activists, Mohammad Khatib and Feryal Abu Haikal, were in the Detroit area as part of a national tour. The Roeper School, located in the Detroit suburbs of Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham, with a body of 630 gifted students ...
Senate agrees on immigration reform
May 19, 2007; ... Senate negotiators reached bipartisan agreement this week on badly needed reform to America's immigration system. It amounts to the broadest consensual program yet, though many of the details will be ironed out as the full Senate begins deliberations next week. After that, it would need to be ...
Fifty-nine years of dispossession
May 19, 2007; ... For Palestinians, May 15 represents the date when they lost 78 percent of their historic homeland and the date that turned them into the world's oldest and largest refugee population. Palestinians refer to May 15 as the al-Nakba, or catastrophe, to describe their dispossession when over 750,000 ...
Palestinians still lack effective PR
May 19, 2007; ... In Rotterdam, Holland's third largest city, thousands of Palestinians gathered on May 5 for the annual Palestinians in Europe conference. I too opted to participate, only to witness a PR disaster, which could not have possibly taken place at a more critical time. This article is another attempt ...
The new face of the Middle East
May 19, 2007; ... The Middle East, specialists have long argued, is among the most dangerous places on earth. There are the world's two principal nuclear powers (the United States and Russia) still politically engaged - their interests entwined in a volatile arc surrounding Iraq. To this day, the Middle East ...
It is not only God who will be Blair's judge
May 19, 2007; ... Tony Blair's opposition to an immediate ceasefire in the Lebanon war last summer precipitated his downfall. Now that he has announced the date of his departure from Downing Street, his entire Middle East record needs to be placed under an uncompromising lens. Blair came to office with no ...
A single state of Palestine-Israel
May 19, 2007; ... CHICAGO - As Israel celebrates 59 years of independence, Palestinians on May 14 commemorate the Nakba, the catastrophe of expulsion and decades of exile that continue to this day. When my mother was 9 years old, she and her family mounted the back of a pickup truck and left their village ...
Stop the war against Sudan
May 19, 2007; ... The article by David Rolde, which was published in this newspaper on April 28, 2007, was replete with errors and omissions. It is tempting to try to discern his motivation and to address all the errors. That probably is not the best way to reply. Instead this response seeks to present the broad ...
Growing Islamophobia spurs call for action
May 19, 2007; ... DEARBORN - The Muslim Public Affairs Council has issued an urgent advisory to all mosques and Muslim community centers across the nation to secure their facilities against possible threats of attack and vandalism. The advisory comes in direct response to revealed FBI investigations this week ...
Area banks close accounts without explanation
May 19, 2007; ... DEARBORN - The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committe (ADC) has received a number of complaints from community members here who have received written notices from various banking institutions, advising them that their personal and/or business accounts are being terminated. The notices sent ...
Ficano leads trade mission to the Gulf
May 19, 2007; ... DEARBORN - A trade delega tion organized by Wayne County and the American Arab Chamber of Commerce is in the Middle East. The delegation is led by Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano. The group will visit Doha, Qatar and ...
Pentagon moved to fix Iraqi media before invasion
May 12, 2007; ... WASHINGTON (IPS) - In the run-up to the March 2(X)3 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon planned to create a "Rapid Reaction Media Team" (RRMT) designed to ensure control over major Iraqi media while providing an Iraqi "face" for its efforts, according to a "White Paper" obtained by the independent ...
There's little Islamic threat to Europe
May 12, 2007; ... Some things interest the media, others don't. Since the fall of the USSR, the United States has sought another menace to designate as the ultimate evil, a world threat the Americans desperately need to take on. The 9/ 1 1 attacks gave them that enemy, and when the White House speaks. the media ...
Neo-cons leading Iran divestment drive
May 12, 2007; ... WASHINGTON (IPS) - Neoconservative hawks who championed the invasion of Iraq are leading a new campaign to persuade state and local governments, as well as other institutional investors, to "divest" their holdings in foreign companies and U.S. overseas subsidiaries doing business in ...
Britain protests illegal settlement
May 12, 2007; ... JERUSALEM - The British government has directly intervened in the controversy over Jewish colonization in Arab East Jerusalem after the formation of plans to build an illegal settlement within 50 meters of its consulate general in the city. British Ambassador Tom Phillips has raised ...
Thank you Detroit City Council
May 12, 2007; ... This week the Detroit City Council unanimously approved an ordinance that bans the profiling of residents by police or officials based on race, ethnicity, physical appearance, dress or immigration status. Detroit police and other city employees can no longer ask people about their ...
Haifa's in my heart
May 12, 2007; ... My parents lived in that house. No, it wasn't a house like any other, it was a home. A three story stone house with red roof, a garden, and an endless blue sea with laughing waves greeting it all day long. I never saw it but I can tell you about every comer of every room. I know the smell of the ...
A regional security pact to calm the Middle East
May 12, 2007; ... The failure of the Bush Administration's Middle East policy is now so catastrophic as to pose a danger to international peace and security. It is high time the United States stepped aside and turned the region's problems over to local powers. What can be done? In my view, Saudi Arabia, ...
Cross-cultural fundamentalism impacts us all
May 12, 2007; ... In the brewing conflict between the U. S. and the Arab world, religious fanaticism plays a role. Religious zealots are on the military frontline in the Arab world and on policy boards in America. Cultural context has a role in the development of fanaticism. In America, people seek extreme ...
Why Israel is after me
May 12, 2007; ... Why then does the U.S. government continue to fully support a country whose very identity and institutions are based on ethnic and religious discrimination that victimize its own citizens? AMMAN - I am a Palestinian from Nazareth, a citizen of Israel and was, until last month, a member ...
TIME names Maher Arar one of 100 most influential
May 12, 2007; ... Time magazine has named Maher Arar as one of the KM) most influential people in die world. He was a victim of extraordi- nary rendition by the United States government, and was sent to Syria in 2002, where he was imprisoned and tortured. Time recognized him as a hero. In the Time ...
Darfur: An hourglass of blood
May 12, 2007; ... The Darfur crisis in Sudan is perhaps the most politically convoluted conflict in the world today. Its underpinnings involve local, regional and international players, all selfishly vying for power and economic interests. Alliances shift like quicksand, reminiscent of Lebanon. Neither the ...
ADC honors paper's editor at Mother's Day celebration
May 12, 2007; ... DEARBORN - The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Greater Detroit Chapter celebrated exemplary mothers from around the community during its First Annual Mother's Day Brunch on Saturday, May 5, 2007, at the Lebanese American Heritage Club in Dearborn. The event, organized ...
ACC opens new WIC office in Hamtramck
May 12, 2007; ... DETROIT - The Arab American & Chaldean Council will soon open their third WIC office, this one located in Hamtramck at 8740 Joseph Campau. Nutritionist Hana Tomah will be seeing clients Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. by appointment. With a growing Middle Eastern ...
Ford Motor Company, NAACP hold scholarship dinner
May 12, 2007; ... DETROIT - Ford Motor Company and the Detroit Branch NAACP hosted the 2007 Floyd Washington Jr. Career Day and Youth Summit on Saturday, April 28, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Cobo Conference and Exhibition Center. This half-day event, created to provide Detroit-area youth with an opportunity to ...
Kathy Najimy speaks to Planned Parenthood group
May 12, 2007; ... TROY - Well-known Arab American activist and actress Kathy Najimy was in the Detroit-area last week to speak at a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, a 90 year-old organization diat provides and advocates for reproductive health care services. Her visit came a mondi after the U.S. Supreme ...
Lebanese Club to give $55,000 in scholarships at annual dinner
May 12, 2007; ... DEARBORN - The Lebanese American Heritage Club will distribute $55,000 in scholarships at its upcoming 1 9th Annual Arab American Scholarship Foundation Dinner, scheduled to take place on May 17, 2007 at 6:00 pm at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dearborn. World renowned Lebanese vocalist and ...
Arab-American writers coming to Detroit
May 12, 2007; ... An organization made up of Arab and Arab-American writers is holding its national conference in Dearborn this coming weekend, starting May 1 7th. The Radius of Arab Writers, Inc. (RAWI) is calling their gathering "Writing While Arab: Politics, Hyphens, and Homelands." The event will take place ...
Dearborn event marks anniversary of the Nakba
May 12, 2007; ... DEARBORN - A group of young Dearborn students spent up to two hours a day after school for the last several weeks rehearsing for a play depicting the plight of displaced Palestinians. Their performance was part of an event held Friday at Dearborn's Ford Community and Performing Arts ...
Fraudulent email sent to voters in Dearborn Heights
May 12, 2007; ... DEARBORN - Voters from Dearborn Heights' Crestwood School District this week overwhelmingly rejected three bond proposals worth $55 million collectively, intended to enhance deteriorating facilities. This is the second straight election in which voters shot down costly attempts to ...
Arab American veterans to march Memorial Day
May 12, 2007; ... DEARBORN - In association with Representative Gira) Polidori and Dearborn Councilwoman Suzanne Sareini, the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military (APAAM) will be die first national Arab American veterans organization to march in the Dearbom Memorial Day Parade. They are ...
ACO to host home improvement day
May 12, 2007; ... DEARBORN - A sixty-year-old hardware chain here is holding its hands out to Arab Americans. ACO Hardware on Michigan Avenue in West Dearborn is inviting the Arab community to attend its special home improvement day. On Saturday, May 19, ACO will be having a home improvement show from 10 ...
Festival announces main stage vocalists
May 19, 2007; ... DEARBORN - Lebanese music icons Dominique Hourani, Rabih Al Asmar, and Ayman Zbib will perform on the main stage of this summer's Arab International Festival, among many other diverse and interesting acts. More than a half mile of Schaefer Road will turn into the 12th Annual Arab ...
Imam appointed to religious commission
May 19, 2007; ... WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush this week appointed Dr. Imam Talal Y. Eid to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan federal agency. His term will run from May 15, 2007 to May 14, 2009. "We welcome these new appointments, ...
Michigan Peace Team receives award
May 19, 2007; ... LANSING - The Michigan Peace Team (MPT) has received the prestigious Certificate of Appreciation at the Second Bil'in International Conference on Popular Resistance held in the West Bank village of Bil'in, April 18-20, from the Palestinian National Authority, the government of the Palestinian ...
American Muslims observe al Nakba
May 19, 2007; ... DEARBORN - On the 59th anniversary of al Nakba or the Palestinian catastrophe in 1948, the Michign chapter of American Muslims For Palestine (AMP) hosted a spectacular evening dubbed "Palestine: We Will Return." Over 1,500 were in attendance, mostly Palestinian refugees and their families from ...
Wearing hijab can be an asset to a car salesperson here
May 19, 2007; ... DEARBORN - In 2004, journalist Naima Afridi wrote in an essay on wearing hijab as a professional: "Among the insecurities that attack in the time between a (job) interview and the walk to it, one unique to all muhajabat has inevitably to do with the reaction to what we look like. Hijab ...
High profile physician encourages activism
May 19, 2007; ... Syrian-born doctor builds - and believes in - the American dream Radiologist Dr. Yahya Basha is a busy man. Visit his office and you'll find Hhim surrounded by assistants and swimming in phone calls, people constantly clamoring for his opinions on medicine and community ...
Palestinian Pinochet making his move?
May 26, 2007; ... ANALYSIS There's something a little misleading in the media reports that routinely describe the fighting in Gaza as pitting Hamas against Fatah forces or security personnel "loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas." That characterization suggests somehow that this catastrophic civil war that ...
Canadian ISNA convention held in Ottawa
May 26, 2007; ... There were a number of things said at the 33rd annual convention of the Canadian branch of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), held on May 1 9 and 20 in Ottawa. Those looking for incendiary declarations to sell newspapers would, however, have been disappointed. Some of the noteworthy ...
March for Palestinian rights
May 26, 2007; ... Every day, a few more acres of Palestinian land are confiscated, a few more apartheid laws intnxluced to make life more unbearable for non-Jews, a few more "checkpoints" and walls are added or strengthened to keep Palestinians from their jobs, from hospitals, from schools, from their fields, and ...
What's right and what's wrong with Pew's recent survey
May 26, 2007; ... A recently released study by the Pew Research Center on the American Muslim community, which does contain several positive findings about the community, is laced with some problematic and troubling statistics. Pew's study states that the overwhelming majority of the American Muslim ...
Don't sacrifice unity of immigrant families
May 26, 2007; ... New legislative proposals to drastically restrict family-based immigration practically ignore the social and economic benefits of the family-based admissions system for both immigrants and the native-born. As Congress deliberates a new comprehensive immigration-reform bill, lawmakers are ...