World News Roundup

ARAB TIMES, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2015

10INTERNATIONAL

Canada

America

Example set

‘Alert againstterror threats’OTTAWA, Dec 11, (Agencies):Canada is “vigilant” and “alert” toterrorist threats after warnings ofpossible plots against its majorcities linked to the Islamic Stateextremist group, the public safetyminister said Thursday.

But Ralph Goodale told reportersoutside parliament. “To thismoment there is nothing new or dif-ferent that would affect the securitysituation in Canada. There is nochange in the status of the alerts.

“There is no new informationreported to me that would changethe circumstances. If there is some-thing new we would obviously letCanadians know immediately and

we will takethe appropri-ate steps.”

It came afterauthorities inG e n e v alaunched amanhunt forseveral sus-p e c t e dj i h a d i s t sbelieved tohave links tothe Islamic

State group and who threatenedattacks there and in North America.

The cities of Geneva, Chicagoand Toronto were listed as possibletargets in a police document seenby Swiss journalists.

Canada’s security alert level hasremained at medium since anIslamist gunman shot dead a cere-monial guard in Ottawa and thenstormed parliament, and anothersolider was killed in rural Quebecin October 2014.

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Canada has set a humanitarianexample by swiftly taking in someof the desperate Syrian refugeeswho continue to arrive in Europe insignificant numbers in December,aid agencies said on Friday.

After months of promises andweeks of preparation, the firstCanadian government planeload ofSyrian refugees landed in Torontoon Thursday, aboard a military air-craft met by Prime Minister JustinTrudeau.

The 163 refugees will be fol-lowed by a second military airlift toMontreal on Saturday. Trudeau hassaid 10,000 will be resettled byyear-end and a further 15,000 bythe end of February, fulfilling hisgovernment’s pledge to accept25,000.

“Canada’s programmes are anexpression of support to Syrianrefugees but importantly for us theyare a demonstration too of solidari-ty to countries in the region hostingmore than 4 million Syrianrefugees,” UN refugee agencyspokesman Adrian Edwards told anews briefing in Geneva.

“We encourage other states toengage in these programmes.”

Leonard Doyle, spokesman ofthe International Organization forMigration (IOM), said Canada’sintake was “impressive by any stan-dards”. “The main point is that theprogramme is going to unfold veryrapidly. The Canadians areextremely welcoming.”

The IOM is providing transport,basic registration, medical screen-ing and logistical support for theoperation.

“The government of Canadainterviews the refugees, recordstheir biometrics and is responsiblefor security screening,” Doyle said.

The reception in Canada con-trasted sharply with that in theneighbouring United States, wherefear of Syrian refugees followingthe deadly Nov 13 Paris attacksspurred opposition to allowingthem entry. Some US governorssaid their states would not acceptSyrian refugees.

To date, some 30 countries havepledged more than 160,000 placesfor Syrians under resettlement andother forms of humanitarian admis-sions schemes, according to the UNHigh Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR). The registration andscreening process can take up totwo years.

President Barack Obama haspledged to bring into the UnitedStates as many as 10,000 Syrianrefugees fleeing civil war andIslamic State militants. The figure,announced in September, was forthe US fiscal year that began inOctober.

“The United States is the world’sleading resettlement country, it’s avery important actor in the searchfor solutions for refugees,”Edwards said.

“This is the biggest crisis in therefugee world of our times barnone. More refugees are Syrianthan any other nationality.”

So far 944,909 refugees andmigrants have crossed theMediterranean to reach Europe thisyear, according to the UNHCR.

“We are continuing to see asomewhat declining trend ofarrivals on a daily basis in the mainGreek islands, (with) still signifi-cant numbers arriving duringDecember,” Edwards said.

Neighbors watch as fire and hazmat crews arrive on the scene to investigate a suspicious letter delivered to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Dec 10, in Washington, DC. (Inset):Nihad Awad, the Executive Director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), speaks to the media as fire and hazmat crews arrive on the scene to investigate the suspi-

cious letter. (AFP)

Suehaila Amen, coordinator ofInternational Admissions andRecruitment at the University ofMichigan Dearborn, is seen on cam-pus on Dec 10, in Dearborn,Michigan. Amid the high level ofharassment, threats and vandalismdirected at American Muslims and atmosques, Muslim women areintensely debating the duty and risksrelated to wearing their head-cover

ings as usual. (AP)

Ex-POW wanted to be Bourne: TheUS soldier who was held five years byTaleban-linked insurgents says he walkedoff his base in Afghanistan in a stunt toprove he was like fictional CIA movie spyJason Bourne.

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl abandonedhis outpost in eastern Afghanistan in June2009. He was captured almost immediate-ly and released in May 2014 in a contro-versial swap for five Taleban detaineesheld at Guantanamo Bay.

He is currently an active soldier witha desk job in Texas while the militarydecides whether to put him on trial fordesertion and “misbehavior before theenemy” that could see him jailed forlife.

In telephone calls with Hollywoodscreenwriter Mark Boal, who wants tomake a movie about Bergdahl, he recalledthe horrors of captivity and what motivat-ed him to walk off base.

Excerpts of those calls have beenreleased in partnership with US hit pod-cast “Serial”, which returned Thursdaywith a second season devoted toBergdahl’s story — why he walked offbase and the consequences.

“Doing what I did was me saying I amlike Jason Bourne,” Bergdahl told Boal,referring to the CIA assassin played byMatt Damon in a string of Hollywood

Veiled

‘Your life is more important than your dress’

Muslim women debate safety of hijabNEW YORK, Dec 11, (AP): On thenight of the California shootings,Asifa Quraishi-Landes sat on hercouch, her face in her hands, andthought about what was ahead for herand other Muslim women who wear ascarf or veil in public.

The covering, or hijab, often drawsunwanted attention even in the best oftimes. But after the one-two punch ofthe Paris and San Bernardino attacksby Islamic militants, and amid an anti-Muslim furor stoked by comments ofRepublican presidential candidateDonald Trump, Quraishi-Landes, anIslamic law specialist at the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison, wanted tosend a message.

“To all my Muslim sisters who wearhijab,” she wrote on her Facebookpage. “If you feel your life or safety isthreatened in any way because of yourdress, you have an Islamic allowance(darura/necessity) to adjust your cloth-ing accordingly. Your life is moreimportant than your dress.”

Amid a reported spike in harass-ment, threats and vandalism directedat American Muslims and at mosques,Muslim women are intensely debatingthe duty and risks related to wearingtheir head-coverings as usual.

Sites for Muslim women have post-ed guidance on how to stay safe. HosaiMojaddidi, co-founder of the educa-

tional group MentalHealth4Muslims,drew nearly 4,000 likes for herFacebook post advising women to“pull out those hooded sweatshirts,beanies, hats and wraps for a whileuntil the dust settles.”

Muslimgirl.net posted a “CrisisSafety Manual for Muslim Women,”with tips such as wearing a turbaninstead of a longer more obviouslyreligious scarf and carrying a rapewhistle.

Muslim women in several cities areorganizing or taking self-defenseclasses. The ad for one such class inNew York features a drawing of a cov-ered woman in a karate stance.

“We’re getting so many calls,” saidRana Abdelhamid, 22, founder of theWomen’s Initiative for Self-Empowerment, which offers self-defense and empowerment classes inseveral cities for young Muslim andJewish women who face harassment.

KarateAbdelhamid, a New York native

attending the Harvard KennedySchool of Government, said she hadstudied karate since childhood andstarted offering self-defense classesfor women after a man tried to pull offher headscarf when she was 16 yearsold.

The question of whether to wear the

hijab is already deeply sensitive forMuslim women. Scholars have debat-ed for years whether women have areligious obligation to dress a particu-lar way. And Muslims disagree overwhether the hijab is a symbol of pietyor oppression.

MotivationsWomen who wear a scarf or veil say

they have many motivations for doingso, including demonstrating devotionto their faith and showing pride intheir religious heritage. Their decisionmakes them among the most visiblerepresentatives of Islam, in a way thatmen with beards aren’t. Well beforethe latest uproar, it was common forAmerican Muslim women wearing thehijab to be stared or cursed at, or havestrangers tug at their scarves.

Now, many Muslim women say thisis the exact moment when they need tomake their presence known by wear-ing the hijab without any modificationas an act of defiance.

Suehaila Amen, a communityactivist in Dearborn Heights,Michigan, said that was the reactionfrom women she knows aroundDetroit. Amen said she would nevertake off her headscarf, but said she hasthe advantage of living in an area withone of the largest concentrations ofArabs and Muslims in the country.

Still, she and her sister plan to take aself-defense class this weekendbecause of the furor.

Generally, Islamic law allows peo-ple who face persecution over theirfaith to alter their behavior or even“renounce faith itself” if necessary tosurvive, said Mohammad Fadel, anIslamic law specialist at theUniversity of Toronto. Each personcan determine what constitutes a cred-ible threat.

Omar Suleiman, resident scholar atthe Valley Ranch Islamic Center inIrving, Texas, posted a YouTube videolast Sunday underscoring thatMuslims can take steps to protectthemselves, such as wearing a hatinstead of a hijab or not praying pub-lic. But he cautioned against assumingthere’s a risk without examining thecircumstances.

Suleiman said he posted the videoin response to a Muslim woman hesaid came to him crying because shetook off her veil for the first time outof concern for her safety, and was wor-ried that God would punish her.

The video has been viewed nearly39,000 times.

The Council on American-IslamicRelations, the civil rights group thatmost closely tracks bias againstMuslims, said it does not have a break-down of harassment by gender.

action thrillers.“I had this fantastic idea that I was

going to prove to the world that I was thereal thing, that I could be what it is that

all those guys out there who go to themovies and watch those movies, theywant to be that.”

“Serial,” a mix of investigative journal-

ism and first-person narrative, has inter-viewed former soldiers deployed withBergdahl and promises that the secondepisode will present the Taleban’s version

of events. (AFP)

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Commandos say no to women:

Surrounded by local politicians and supporters, Sarker Haque speaks during anews conference in New York on Dec 10. Haque, who is a Muslim, wasattacked in his store and the police are investigating the incident as a hatecrime. Advocacy groups believe there has been a spike in anti-Muslim incidentsacross the United States in recent weeks that can be linked to last week’s massshooting in California and the inflammatory rhetoric of Donald Trump and otherRepublican presidential candidates. And they say that Muslims are fearful the

backlash could lead to further harassment and violence. (AP)

20-yr-old man ‘admits’conspiring to back ISNEWARK, New Jersey, Dec 11,

(AP): A 20-year-old New Jerseyman admitted to planning to travelto Syria so he could join theIslamic State group and to dis-cussing homemade bombs that hewould detonate in New York.

Nader Saadeh pleaded guiltyThursday in US District Court toconspiring with others to providematerial support to ISIS. Heremains detained without bail.

Saadeh is the last of three NewJersey defendants to admit guilt inthe case, which came to light inAugust when he was arrested bythe FBI.

He acknowledged a co-defen-dant showed him diagrams formaking bombs and discussed plansto use them in Times Square, theWorld Trade Center and VaughnCollege of Aeronautics andTechnology in Queens.

The men in the US military’s most dan-gerous jobs care little about political cor-rectness or gender equality. And they havea message for their political leadership.

When they are fighting in the shadowsor bleeding on the battlefield, womenhave no place on their teams.

In blunt and, at times, profanity-lacedanswers to a voluntary survey conductedby the Rand Corp., more than 7,600 ofAmerica’s special operations forces spokewith nearly one voice. Allowing women toserve in Navy SEAL, Army Delta or othercommando units could hurt their effective-ness and lower the standards, and it maydrive men away from the dangerous posts.

An overwhelming majority of thosewho agreed to respond to the RAND sur-vey said they believe women don’t havethe physical strength or mental toughnessto do the grueling jobs.

Some of the broader conclusions of thesurvey, taken from May through July2014, were disclosed by The AssociatedPress earlier this year, but the detailedresults and comments written by respon-dents had not been released.

The Pentagon released the summer sur-vey and other documents when DefenseSecretary Ash Carter announced lastweek that he was opening all combat jobsto women. (AP)

Trudeau

Bergdahl Carter

Muslim group evacuates US HQ after getting white powder in mailA Muslim advocacy group evacuated

its national headquarters on CapitolHill on Thursday after receiving a lettercontaining white powder, but staffwere later allowed to re-enter afterauthorities conducted preliminary testsand deemed the substance harmless.

The letter received by the Councilon American-Islamic Relations(CAIR) also contained a note thatread, “Die a painful death, Muslims,”according to CAIR staff attorneyMaha Sayed.

“Our fear is at a pretty high level at

this time, given the anti-Muslim rhet-oric going on,” said Sayed.

In California, a CAIR branch officein the Bay Area city of Santa Clara,was also evacuated on Thursdayafter receiving an envelope with anunknown powder inside, CAIR

spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.Further details were not availablebecause local authorities could notimmediately be reached.

Law enforcement authorities andMuslim communities around theUnited States have braced for a rise

in anti-Muslim sentiment after twoMuslims shot dead 14 people inCalifornia last week.

The Federal Bureau ofInvestigation is investigating theshooting as an act of terrorism.(RTRS)