Syria suspends fully veiled school teachers

 AL-Arabiya

DUBAI (Al Arabiya)

Hundreds of Syrian teachers wearing the face veil were dismissed from their schools as the Ministry of Education said they undermine the secularism of the state, according to press reports Tuesday.

Syrian Minister of Education Ali Saad said in a meeting with heads of Teachers Syndicate offices that the dismissal of 1,200 teachers who wear the face veil, also called the ‘niqab,' was necessary, the Lebanese daily As-Safir reported Tuesday.

"Other ministers are going to do the same thing shortly," he said.

" Education in Syrian schools follows an objective, secular methodology and this is undermined by wearing the face veil "

Syrian Education Minister Ali SaadSaad justified his decision by arguing that the face veil is not in line with the secular policies followed by the state as far as education is concerned.

"Education in Syrian schools follows an objective, secular methodology and this is undermined by wearing the face veil."

He also pointed out that the face veil disrupts the teaching process as it hinders eye contact, which is extremely important for the relationship between teacher and student. Therefore, information is not delivered properly to the students.

The ministry's decision affected teachers in various parts of Syria, especially the governorates Rif Dimashq in the south west and Aleppo in the north where teachers in nearly 300 schools in each were dismissed.

The number dwindled remarkably in the capital Damascus, while some governorates were not affected at all like Quneitra in the south.

The dismissed teachers, half of which have contracts with the ministry, were transferred to the Ministry of Local Administration, especially in the municipalities.

Several of the dismissed teachers submitted complaints which the minister promised will be thoroughly studies.

"We will look into their complaints and all they won't lose their rights," he said.

" Eliminating women's identity through covering their faces has nothing to do with religion, whether Islam or Christianity or any other faith "

Syrian Women Observatory
The ministry's decision was treated with enthusiasm by both the public and the intelligentsia and especially by feminists as concerns about the spread of extremism has been lately on the rise.

The feminist website Syrian Women Observatory said that the face veil is a sign of going back to the dark ages and constitutes a call for extremism and warned of its negative impact on students, especially children.

The niqab, the website added, also erases women's identity under the name of religion and that is why the ban should not only be confined to schools.

"Eliminating women's identity through covering their faces has nothing to do with religion, whether Islam or Christianity or any other faith."

The website compared the face veil to other edicts that are issued under the name of Islam like the controversial fatwa about adult breastfeeding and which stirred the indignation of Islamic scholars and secular intellectuals alike.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid).

US attack kills three Afghan civilians

 PressTV

At least three civilians have been killed in an ongoing US military operation in eastern Afghanistan as discontent grows over the civilian casualties in the country.

The civilians were killed in a US attack in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar on Tuesday.

The media office of the US forces in the region has confirmed the fatalities, adding that two more civilians have also been wounded in the incident.

The attack comes a day after foreign troops killed eight civilians inside their houses during an operation in Kandahar Province.

In a separate incident in the country, Afghan police forces clashed with angry protesters near Kabul after US forces attacked a religious school on the southern outskirts of the capital.

Some 600 Afghan and foreign troops are taking part in the operation against militants in Kunar Province.

The fresh wave of violence comes amid rising casualties of foreign troops in the country, which has made June the deadliest month for foreign forces stationed in Afghanistan with the death toll surpassing the 100 mark.

In addition to the foreign troops' casualties, thousands of civilians have also lost their lives either in US-led raids or in the Taliban-led militancy across the violence-wracked country.

According to official figures, more than 2,500 civilians were killed in NATO operations last year, undermining support for the presence of US-led forces in the country.

King Abdallah to press Obama on Israel

 Arabnews

WASHINGTON: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will press US President Barack Obama in Washington this week to take a stronger stance with Israel over stalled peace talks with the Palestinians, analysts and diplomats said.

The king will meet Obama on Tuesday after attending a G20 summit in Canada in the latest summit in the seven decades-old relationship between Washington and the world's top oil exporter and a key regional ally.

The Saudis say Obama has not put enough pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to impose a total freeze on Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land, an obstacle to the resumption of peace talks. Netanyahu meets Obama on July 6.

"The king wants to have from Obama the assurance that he is going to solve the (Middle East peace) issue," said Khaled Almaeena, editor in chief of Arab News.

In a landmark speech in Cairo last year, Obama promised to turn a new page with the Islamic world after the United States' image took a battering due to the previous administration's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and solid backing for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.

"I think it's time for the Saudis and all Arabs to tell the Americans that the situation cannot go on forever with the so-called peace process," said Khaled Al-Dakhil, a Saudi political analyst.

Last year Obama revived a long-standing US request for Saudi Arabia to make gestures toward normalizing relations with Israel as an incentive to the Jewish state to take up serious negotiations over establishing a Palestinian state.

But Saudi Arabia said it would not make concessions beyond the 2002 Arab peace plan initiated by King Abdullah, which offers Israel recognition in return for vacating occupied territories and allowing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"There remains a Saudi view that if the US really pushed the Israelis, that is what would be necessary to get a peace deal," said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Diplomats and analysts say Iran will be high on the agenda of the talks in Washington, which will be King Abdullah's third meeting with Obama. Riyadh has said it does not want to see a regional conflict over Iran's nuclear program, which this year led to a new round of United Nations sanctions. The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action to stop Iran, which says it only wants nuclear power to generate electricity.

"They do not favor military action because they realize how devastating it will be," said Al-Dakhil.

The Kingdom's ties with Washington date back to King Abdul Aziz's grant of an oil concession to a US firm in 1933. The king's first trip abroad was to meet with President Franklin Roosevelt on a US destroyer in the Suez Canal in 1945.

CIA defends Blackwater contract worth $100m

BBC 

The head of CIA has defended awarding a large contract to the controversial security company formerly known as Blackwater.


The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, said the company's bid was US $26m less than its nearest rival.

The contract, worth $100m, is to provide security at US consulates in the cities of Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.

Blackwater guards allegedly opened fire on unarmed civilians in Baghdad in 2007 killing 17 people.

In the wake of the killings, the company rebranded itself Xe Services.

The company ended its operations in Iraq in 2009, in line with a ban by the government.

The US government said in January 2009 that it would not renew the company's task orders.

An Iraqi inquiry found Blackwater quards killed 17 civilians in 2007 The new contract with the company initialy runs for a year but could be extended to 18 months.

In a rare television interview with ABC News on Sunday, Leon Panetta said the CIA had come to rely on such companies to provide security for forward bases.

"[Xe] provided a bid that… underbid everyone else by about US $26m. And a panel that we had said that they can do the job, that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice but to accept that contract," Mr Panetta explained.

As Blackwater the company provided the US government with bodyguards both in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It hit the headlines when four of its bodyguards were ambushed in the Iraqi city of Fallujah and their bodies left hanging from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

Earlier this month the company was put up for sale

Let Jordan Enrich Its Own Uranium

 NYT

QUIETLY and with barely any public confrontation, Israel is creating a new enemy for itself: the Kingdom of Jordan. In the situation that we justifiably or unjustifiably find ourselves now — boycotted and isolated — we do not need to lose the only Arab state with which we have peace-like relations.

This is the story: Jordan is a poor country, lacking almost any natural resources, that spends billions of dollars each year to import 95 percent of its electricity. But in 2007, at least 65,000 tons of uranium ore was found in the Jordanian desert — the 11th-largest deposit of uranium in the world. Jordan is now taking international bids to build a 1,100-megawatt reactor, the first in a planned series of plants that would allow the country to produce a substantial part of the electricity it needs and, by 2030, to export power to its neighbors in the Middle East.

The Obama administration, however, is trying to dissuade Middle Eastern countries from producing their own atomic fuel; the fear is that any low-level uranium enrichment would inevitably lead to high-level enrichment of bomb-grade materials — and then to a regional arms race. As a result, American diplomats are trying to prevent Jordan from getting the necessary technology unless it agrees to purchase its nuclear fuel on the open markets rather than use its own uranium.

Jordan’s king, Abdullah II, is furious and, to make matters worse, he is convinced that the demands of the United States are the result of Israeli pressure. The last thing Israel needs today is a confrontation with Jordan on this subject.

Jordan is a stable, pro-Western Arab country, which signed a peace agreement with Israel — a peace that has survived grave challenges in recent years. What’s more, Jordan is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which explicitly allows participants to enrich uranium for peaceful power production. And the king has continuously affirmed his willingness for transparency on all matters relating to the production of nuclear power plants.

Why should his country be denied the right to use its own uranium to produce energy? Why suspect his country of doing exactly what it has said it won’t do? Why deny Jordan nuclear technology out of fear of some “worst-case scenario” whereby his regime collapses and is replaced by one that attempts to develop a bomb? This could occur in many other places.

Indeed, the United Arab Emirates recently agreed to a deal with the United States like the one Washington wants Amman to sign — the emirates, having agreed to purchase uranium on the international market, are planning to build a $20 billion nuclear reactor. Similar deals are being worked out with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. But none of those states have uranium deposits, and Jordan does.

King Abdullah is a great believer in peace in our region. For example, a few years ago, he expressed his unreserved support for the peace plan presented by the Geneva Initiative, of which I am the head, in a public appearance before a joint session of Congress. Other Arab leaders merely expressed their support behind closed doors.

There is a certain risk in allowing Jordan to enrich uranium so close to Israel’s border, but the risk in denying the king’s request is far greater. Indeed, there is much more at stake here than Jordan’s desire to establish power plants for electricity. This is about how Israel treats its pragmatic neighbors, like President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and King Abdullah. Do we strengthen those who want peace and stability in the region or, with the help of the American government, do we turn our backs on them?

We must remember that extremists are always there, lurking behind the shoulders of pragmatists in anticipation of their downfall.

Yossi Beilin

Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli minister of justice, is the head of the Geneva Initiative, an independent peace organization.

Spain's Senate Votes to Ban Burqa

 NYT

MADRID — In a significant escalation of Spain’s debate over how to handle radical Islam, the Senate on Wednesday narrowly and unexpectedly approved a motion to ban Muslim women from wearing in public the burqa or other garments that cover the whole body. The vote, 131 to 129, was another setback for the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which had favored more-limited restrictions on Islamic clothing and has instead been pushing to curtail religious fundamentalism through better education.

The Spanish vote comes amid several national initiatives across Europe to restrict the spread of radical Islam and defend liberal values.

In Belgium, the lower house of Parliament has already approved a measure that, if unamended by the upper house, would make it a crime to wear in public “clothing that hides the face.”

France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, has also been inching toward such a ban on the burqa. The measure has the backing of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently condemned the garment as “a sign of subservience” rather than one of religion.

In Switzerland last year, a referendum banned the construction of minarets.

While national politicians may be urging a clampdown on the burqa, such moves are still expected to run into legal obstacles. In March, France’s top administrative body, the Council of State, warned the government that a full ban would be unconstitutional. A commission of the Council of Europe, the European institution dealing with human rights issues, also recently warned governments against imposing a complete ban that would violate women’s individual rights.

Before the Spanish Senate’s vote, some of the country’s local authorities had already moved to introduce restrictions on the burqa. The issue was especially heated in the region of Catalonia, where the debate over Islam and immigration has become entangled in early campaigning ahead of regional elections later this year. The pending elections may have proved crucial in the Wednesday vote, as senators from the CiU, a Catalan party, surprisingly switched their earlier stance to vote in favor of a burqa ban.

The motion adopted by the senators calls on Spain to outlaw “any usage, custom or discriminatory practice that limits the freedom of women.” It was drafted and led by politicians from the main center-right opposition People's Party.

Justifying the vote, one of the senators from the CiU, Montserrat Candini, said that “we cannot tolerate that nobody understands that we are not in favor of banning the burqa.”

The Senate’s position also came as a surprise because although Spain has become a major European entry point for Muslim migrants from North Africa, few of those immigrants wear either the burqa or the niqab, which does not cover the eyes. A similar argument has also been made by opponents of a burqa ban in countries like France, where only an estimated 2,000 women wear the burqa out of a Muslim population of about 5 million. France, however, already passed a law in 2004 to ban head scarves or any other “conspicuous” religious symbol from state schools in order to preserve their secularism.

The Spanish government is supposed to follow the Senate’s motion. However, given that Socialist senators opposed the ban, the governing party is likely to seek ways to circumvent the vote.

Anna Terrón, the secretary of state for immigration, said the Senate vote had “more to do with the election campaign in which the CiU is involved than with a real discussion” on the burqa.

Mullen to Karzai: New general won't alter war plan

 AP

KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. military's top officer assured Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday that the new NATO commander will pursue the same war strategy crafted by Gen. Stanley McChrystal — the ousted general whom Karzai warmly praised for training Afghan security forces and reducing civilian casualties. Adm. Mike Mullen visited Afghanistan three days after President Barack Obama accepted the resignation of McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces. Afghan leaders and U.S. allies in the war worried his firing could disrupt the counterinsurgency strategy at a critical juncture in the war, but were relieved to learn that his replacement would be Gen. David Petraeus, McChrystal's boss who help author the plan.

During their meeting, Karzai lauded McChrystal, saying he was able to "reduce civilian casualties, create good cooperation between the Afghan and international forces and strengthen and develop the Afghan forces," according to a statement from the Afghan presidential palace.

Karzai welcomed Obama's decision to appoint Petraeus, a man he said had a wealth of experience and knowledge about the situation in Afghanistan, the statement said. Mullen, who later traveled to neighboring Pakistan, assured Karzai that Petraeus would also do his best to reduce civilian casualties, bolster cooperation among the forces and train Afghan police and soldiers.

On the battlefield, three international service members, including at least one American, were killed Saturday in two separate roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan, NATO said. That brought to 87 the number of international troops killed so far in June — already the deadliest month of the nearly 9-year-old war. The figure includes at least 51 Americans.

In a speech earlier in the day marking International Narcotics Day, Karzai acknowledged that curbing Afghanistan's huge drug trade remains a major challenge, despite success in reducing or eradicating opium poppy cultivation in 22 of the country's 34 provinces.

"We will work strongly against poppies and other narcotics for our national interest, honor, the welfare of Afghan people and development," he said. But he said the problem will not be solved until other countries crack down on smugglers within their own borders who profit from the traffic in Afghan poppies and heroin.

He said Afghanistan is a "poor and weak country that cannot control its borders" and asked its neighbors "why can't you control your borders?"

Karzai did not cite countries by name but U.N. experts have pointed to Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan as major transit points for Afghan drugs smuggled into Russia and Western Europe.

The drug trade also fuels corruption, which the U.S. and its international partners believe has helped contribute to the return of the Taliban after it was ousted from power in a 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Critics have faulted Karzai for not doing enough to combat corruption.

In his remarks, Karzai said there was nothing wrong with relatives of politicians and government officials investing in the Afghan economy, as long as the businesses operate legally.

"I would ask the anti-corruption department to monitor their incomes, starting with the president's family, then the vice presidents, ministers, governors and lawmakers," he said. "There will be accountability in the country."

Karzai also complained that international missions in Afghanistan were spending too much money on private security companies, describing them as little more than armed militias.

"I request of the U.S., Britain and other countries and their militaries not to support private security guards," he said. "Those companies that are blocking the road, they are creating problems for the people and even support terrorists. They should not waste their money on these private security companies."

Use of private security companies to guard convoys transporting food, water, ammunition and fuel frees up soldiers for the battlefield.

However, U.S. lawmakers criticized the military during a congressional hearing in Washington on Tuesday for failing to heed warnings that those companies were paying warlords millions of dollars to ensure safe passage through dangerous areas. Some of the money may go to the Taliban, lawmakers said.

Afghan authorities have also complained that security guards protecting such convoys fire on civilians without provocation in high-risk areas.

Also Saturday, NATO said a senior Taliban commander disguised as a woman was killed the night before after opening fire with a pistol at Afghan and international troops who had come to arrest him.

Intelligence sources tracked Ghulam Sakhi to a compound in Logar province, south of the capital. Afghan forces used a loudspeaker to call for women and children to leave the building.

"As they were exiting, Sakhi came out with the group disguised in women's attire and pulled out a pistol and a grenade and shot at the security force," the coalition said in a statement. "When Afghan and coalition forces shot him, he dropped the grenade and it detonated, wounding a woman and two children."

NATO said Sakhi, who is known by several aliases, was involved in roadside bombings and ambushes throughout the province, and had kidnapped and killed an Afghan government intelligence chief there.

In Kabul, a small explosion occurred in an area that houses foreign embassies and government offices but caused no casualties.

Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, head of the criminal investigation unit of the Kabul police, said the blast was caused by a small bomb placed on the engine of a government vehicle.

The driver of the car, used by the Afghan National Army, was arrested. The front of the vehicle was damaged, but no one was wounded, he said.