The Arab American News
Author's Posts
Iraq says all troops out by 2011
WASHINGTON (IPS) — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signaled last week that that all U.S. troops — including those with non-combat functions — must be out of the country by the end of 2011 under the agreement he is negotiating with the George W. Bush administration. That pronouncement, along with other moves indicating that...The Saudi Arabia of solar energy
In the wake of the first Gulf War, the U.S. Army assessed Saudi Arabia's solar energy resource potential in a classified effort to determine how oil fires had affected the region. The results were clear and surprising. In addition to being a vast petroleum repository, the desert nation was also the heart of the most potentially...Stretching the truth at the GOP
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth. Some examples: PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by...Syria sets basis for peace talks
Damascus has sent a proposal to Israel laying out the basis for direct peace talks, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has said. "We are awaiting Israel's response to six points that we have submitted through Turkey," he said on Thursday. "Our response would be positive, paving the way for direct talks after a new U.S....Muslim charities negotiate a minefield
NEW YORK (IPS) — As Muslims begin one of their most important holidays — the month of Ramadan — charitable organizations serving the American Muslim community are taking what some observers believe is a desperate last step to keep the U.S. government from shutting them down. Muslim Advocates (MA), a San Francisco-based national...
Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick pleads guilty, resigns
September 6th, 20080 DETROIT — Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to felony charges Thursday in a sex scandal and will step down after months of defiantly holding onto his job leading the nation's 11th-largest city. He was ordered jailed for four months and fined $1 million. The plea deal brings to an end a seven-months-long ordeal that led to...
ACC celebrates 29 years of service
September 6th, 20080 Detroit — The Arab American and Chaldean Council (ACC) will host its 29th Annual Civic and Humanitarian Awards Gala at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center, 100 Renaissance Center, at 6 p.m. Sept. 13. ACC is dedicating its annual fundraiser this year to honoring foundations that have joined ACC in the development of the...
Free Gaza boats challenge Israel’s siege
August 29th, 20080 An international group of peace activists took on Israel's crushing siege of the Gaza Strip. After two years of organizing two ships to sail to Gaza's shores, the ships made their journey in defiance of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. The ships left with several Palestinians in need of medical treatment and others...Joe Biden’s mixed up bag on the Middle East
Barack Obama's vice presidential pick, Joe Biden, is a self-avowed Zionist. As he explained to an American Jewish TV station last year, you don't have to be Jewish to be Zionist. Of course, this discovery is not uniquely his. It is shared by the likes of John Hagee of the Christian Zionists, whose power is courted by Israel but whose...Arrest warrant for Kadhafi over missing Imam
BEIRUT (AFP) Lebanon has issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi over the disappearance 30 years ago of a senior Shi'a Muslim cleric after a visit to Libya, officials said on Wednesday. Kadhafi was also indicted for allegedly "inciting the abduction" of Imam Mussa Sadr, the spiritual guide of Lebanon's Shi'a...
Dems rally behind Obama, Biden
August 29th, 20080 Election stirs hopes, fears in U.S. Iraqis WASHINGTON (IPS) — As the November election nears, Iraqis in the United States appear divided over their preferences for the next U.S. president, according to a series of interviews carried out by IPS. Some see in Sen. John McCain, the presumed Republican candidate who has opposed a...Local law enforcement of immigration rules debated
Washington — Over 200 scholars, government officials, community and law enforcement leaders gathered to discuss the impact of local law enforcement of immigration law, during a conference August 21-22, in Washington, D.C. The conference, entitled "The Role of Local Police: Striking a Balance between Immigration Enforcement and...
How does it feel to be part of the solution?
August 29th, 20080 Racism is as American as apple pie, H. Rap Brown/Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin once said, and any cursory observation of American history and culture would conclude that racial hatred and categorization is an integral and predictable fact of American life. From slavery and the dispossession of Native Americans to Jim Crow, from the...My response to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metropolitan Detroit
In a press release issued August 27, 2008, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metropolitan Detroit (JCRC) criticized my article "Detroit Jewish Federation: Celebrating racism and making money at it" as "despicable." The article was published in the August 9-15, 2008, edition of The Arab American News and is available on the...Troupe adds new twist to belly dancing
SOUTHFIELD — Samir Haddad has had plenty of guests on his "Arabian Candles" afternoon radio show before. But on Monday, August 26, he had perhaps his three most intimidating guests ever in studio. They were three fairly large corn snakes, which happen to be a big part of his other two guests' popular belly dancing show. The......
Fordson football ready to shine in 2008
August 29th, 20080 DEARBORN — At Dearborn Fordson, expectations for the football team are always high, and the 2008 season is no different. The Tractors return a ton of experienced seniors, especially on defense, and a handful of their players have even been contacted by college scouts. But to take the next step and advance past the second round of...Crossing the bridge: Poetry, hip-hop and the Palestinian experience
In 1948, my grandmother was expelled from Palestine. Like many of the 780,000 evicted that year, she never saw her birthplace again. But she always dreamed of a dignified return: to Yaffa, her home city, a place of warmth and beauty; to her house, which in her heart, towered higher than the hills of Lebanon; and to an unfettered...
Obama taps local woman for state outreach
August 29th, 20080 Michigan Arab American outreach coordinator for the Obama campaign Rashida Tlaib, R, with Obama supporters during a convention watch party at La Cigale restaurant in Dearborn on Thursday. Two weeks after accepting the resignation of its national Arab American outreach coordinator, the campaign of now-official Democratic presidential...Student photographers exhibit at AANM
Dearborn — Over the last 12 months, middle school students of diverse backgrounds from Dearborn and southwest Detroit learned digital photography skills as part of the Arab American National Museum's SURA Arts Academy, a program funded by The Skillman Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of State.......
The audacity of critique
African Americans should pressure Senator and Democratic presidential nominee Barak Obama to change U.S. policy toward the occupation of Palestine. Despite the warm response Obama enjoys from American Muslim and Arab American voters, we should stand for the right of our Muslim and Arab brothers and sisters to critique Obama. We should in...Iraqi tragedy outlined
AbdullahThabit Abdullah and his wife, Iraqis, were in Syria when the U.S. invaded in 2003. Yes, they were glad to see that Saddam Hussein was on the way out, but at the same time they had real concerns about U.S. intentions, concerns that were unfortunately prescient. This book is an account of recent Iraqi history and......
Imam al-Sadr commemoration scheduled
August 29th, 20080 The legacy of Imam Moussa Al-Sadr, a leading Shi'a Muslim figure in southern Lebanon during the 1960s and 1970s who disappeared in 1978 in Libya, has grown to hold special significance in the U.S. not only to Lebanese Americans, but to interfaith advocates of many faiths. A commemoration of the 30th anniversary of his disappearance...Arar case back in court
In June, a federal Appellate Court in New York tossed out Canadian engineer Maher Arar's suit against John Ashcroft and other officials for shipping him to Syria to be tortured. Technically, the court held, he was never in the U.S. He was taken into custody while transferring from an overseas flight en route to......
