Malaysian Muslims warned against Valentine’s Day

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As couples around the world mark Valentine’s Day, Islamic officials in Malaysia have warned Muslims against celebrating something “synonymous with vice activities”.The warning follows plans announced last week by several Malaysian states who are planning a crackdown on “immoral acts” during Valentine’s Day as part of a campaign to encourage a sin-free lifestyle.

“In reality, as well as historically, the celebration of Valentine’s Day is synonymous with vice activities,” Mr Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz, head of the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (JAKIM), which oversees the country’s Islamic policies, told state media.
“Islam would reject anything, even from the Eastern culture, if it contravenes the Islamic teachings,” he added. Wan Mohamad said a fatwa (ruling) issued by the country’s top clerics six years ago noted the day “is associated with elements of Christianity,” and “we just cannot get involved with other religion’s worshipping rituals.”
Trap’ campaign
JAKIM officials will carry out a nationwide ‘Mind the Valentine’s Day Trap’ campaign, he said, aimed at preventing Muslims from celebrating the day.
Nasrudin Hasan Tantawi, head of the Islamic party PAS’s youth wing said Wednesday that authorities in the opposition-controlled northern states of Kedah, Penang and Kelantan as well as central Selangor state will also carry out “immorality checks” on February 14.
PAS is part of the opposition alliance that won control of the four states in 2008 elections.

Switzerland freezes any assets tied to Mubarak

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The Swiss government on Friday froze any assets belonging to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak or his family in Switzerland. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel said the order to block any bank accounts takes effect immediately but gave no details on the family’s assets.Swiss Finance Minister Widmer-Schlumpf was asked earlier this week by Swiss national TV station SF whether Mubarak or his family had any money in Switzerland.

”We don’t have any very clear indications that anything is here, but of course we’re in the process of clarifying this and we’ll act appropriately,” she said.

She said the Foreign Ministry was investigating the matter.

At the end of 2009, Egyptian deposits in Swiss bank accounts totaled 3.6 billion Swiss francs (about $3.5 billion), according to the Swiss National Bank.

PIA’s head resigns to end strike

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Employees of Pakistan’s state airline have called off a four-day strike that crippled air travel in the country after the resigna

tion of the top company official. The leader of the employee union for Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) said their major demand was the resignation of the company’s managing director. The managing director of the airline resigned Friday to end the strike, Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said.

“Managing director, PIA, Aijaz Haroon has resigned,” Mukhtar told a press conference in Islamabad, with Interior Minister Rehman Malik and union representatives alongside him.

The resignation prompted celebration among the strikers.

Union leader Sohail Baloch said they hope to have flights running again after midnight. The strike grounded more than 200 flights

Prize-winning art is kids' stuff

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LOOK closely in the bottom corners of Tim Johnson's painting Community base, which last night won the $50,000 Arthur Guy Memorial Guy Painting Prize, and you'll see two small stencils of choo-choo trains.These were applied by the Sydney artist's three-year-old twins, Leo and Dion, who the 63-year-old artist says are dragging him into new territory. Johnson, who also has two adult children, has explored a lot of artistic territory since he began painting in the early 1970s.

He has moved from the wild and wacky performance art of that explosive era, moved on to the more cerebral post-modernism of the '80s, and then delved into notions of ''cultural identity'' in the '90s as he explored Buddhism and various aspects of Asian and Native American art while also experimenting with photography and computer imagery.

''I was thinking about that question of what the 'next thing' might be on the way up on the bus to Bendigo,'' Johnson said yesterday at the Bendigo Art Gallery, which administers the biennial prize and is showing an exhibition of works by the 37 finalists from the 330 artists who entered this year's competition.

''But I don't think I can predict what the next thing will be until it happens. I don't think you can move on to the 'next' or 'new' thing but add to what you already know. And at the moment I think I'm probably adding my kids' perspective at how I look at things.''

Perspective is at the heart of Johnson's winning painting, which he painted in his Newtown studio over two weeks in preparation for a Sydney show, where it failed to sell.

Community base's aerial perspective is a view of Western Desert artists working alone or gathered at humpies in family groupings in the early 1980s when Johnson travelled to Papunya to work with its artists, who included the revered Clifford Possum and Charlie Tarawa. They are two of the 40 or so real people depicted in the painting and re-created on canvas from photographs Johnson took at the time.

So is Johnson also in the painting? ''No,'' he said. ''Hang on, I might be,'' he interrupted himself, pausing to looks at the 150-centimetre by 180-centimetre painting. ''No, I'm not because I was usually behind the camera.''

The painting uses Aboriginal dot patterns as well as what the artist describes as ''multiple vanishing effects''.

''And it has imagery from other sources - there's Asian bits and imagery from Chinese embroidery,'' he said, explaining that the multiplicity of motifs is a reflection of the world. ''Life is so much more complicated today and there's a lot of influences and imagery coming at us all the time and I tried to reflect that.''

The painting also provides Johnson's perspective on a life spent making art.

''They [the Western Desert artists] were a model to me of how you can work just living in their own community doing their own work and getting recognition from their community,'' he said.

It's a model Johnson has followed, which is probably why he is not as well known as many artists of his generation.

''I have never really promoted myself too much,'' he said, though he admitted that he had noticed an increase in attention since 2009 when a retrospective, Painting Ideas: Tim Johnson, organised by the Queensland Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, toured east-coast capitals and showed at Melbourne's Ian Potter Museum of Art.

''Sometimes good things happen when you don't need them and when you do need them they tend not to happen. I think the flow-on effect of the retrospective has helped me,'' said Johnson, whose paintings sell from $5000 for small works to about $60,000 for large multi-panelled works.

Bendigo Art Gallery director Karen Quinlan chose Johnson's work for the $50,000 cash prize ''unanimously'' with four other judges in a two-hour session on Thursday. She said that not even some of the judges had a thorough knowledge of Johnson's work but it was first on each of their list of favourites.

The Bendigo Art Gallery gets to keep the painting for its collection while the Guy family provides the $50,000 prize to the artist.

Given that artists who have won the previous three Arthur Guy Memorial Prizes can command more than $50,000 for large works, Ms Quinlan said it was time to consider increasing the prizemoney for the 2013 award

Copts and Muslims worship side by side

GROUPS of Egyptian Copts and Muslims conducted acts of http://almuslim.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=742:copts-and-muslims-worship-side-by-side&catid=69:current-affairsworship side by side in Tahrir Square in the centre of Cairo on Sunday. They were among the hundreds of thousands of mainly young people who have occupied the square as part of continuing calls for the immediate removal from power of President Hosni Mubarak. Cordoned off by troops, the Copts held a mass, while Muslims conducted their midday prayers. This brief display of harmony contrasts with the bigger political picture in Egypt,

 which is becoming increasingly chaotic and difficult to read. Demonstrations and mounting pressure from Washington have failed to force Mr Mubarak out of his palace.

Because of the general uncertainty, foreigners continue to leave. Among them was the Revd Paul-Gordon Chandler, of St John the Baptist’s, in the Maadi district of Cairo, who flew out at the request of the Episcopal Church in the USA.

Mr Chandler said that most expatriates have been evacuated. “Unpredictability right now is the only known, it seems.” The un­predictability stems from the fact that although the uprising was people-led and spontaneous, those opposing the Mubarak regime lack a unified ideology.

A large number of Egyptians want Mubarak to go, but they cannot agree about the timing and manner of his departure. While the protesters in Tahrir Square are refusing to hold a dialogue with the government as long as the President is still in office, others have begun such consultations.

For the population at large, the euphoria is increasingly offset by the difficulties of coping with everyday life while businesses remain closed. But opposition leaders fear that if life becomes too normal, the momentum of the protests will be lost.

The President-Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Most Revd Mouneer Anis, told the American Anglican Council last weekend that Western governments did not appreciate that, “if the president left suddenly, there would be a vacuum, like what happened in Iraq, and this will give an opportunity for extreme groups to fight and divide and play around.”

Preliminary talks between opposition leaders and the Vice-President, Omar Suleiman, made little headway. But the first meeting was historic for two reasons: there was no one present from the ruling National Democratic Party, which has had Egyptian politics in a strangle­hold for decades; and representatives from the banned Muslim Brother­hood attended. This group, although banned, has a huge public following.

The potential is there for a new political landscape. But the wheels of the revolution are turning slowly, so it could be weeks — or months — before we see who is given the task of leading the new Egypt.

Afridi eleven departs for World Cup show

http://almuslim.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=741:afridi-eleven-departs-for-world-cup-show&catid=70:sports&Itemid=27National cricket team, led by Shahid Khan Afridi, has flown for Bangladesh to partake in cricket World Cup. The mega event is scheduled to kick off on February 19, Geo News reported.Earlier, Afridi eleven arrived Lahore airport from National Cricket Academy where the boys flew for Bangladesh.A large number of

 cricket fans thronged Allama Iqbal airport to see team off in shadow of prays but players did not talk to media on the occasion.Earlier, skipper Pakistan team Afridi told a press conference that players had developed good winning-combination, which, according to his experience, would help Pakistan in mega event.

He said he was watching Pakistan team competing in semi-final in the mega event, adding that he was satisfied with the performance of his side.

“Pakistani team is capable of wining world cup,” wicket keeper Kamran Akmal said.

The fifteen-member squad include Shahid Afridi (Captain), Misbah-ul-Haq (Vice-Captain), Muhammad Hafeez, Kamran Akmal, Younis Khan, Asad Shafiq, Umer Akmal, Abdul Razzaq, Abdul Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Shoaib Akhtar, Umer Gul, Wahab Riaz, Junaid Khan and Ahmed Shehzad.

Charges Against Muslim Students Prompt Debate Over Free Speech

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When administrators at the University of California, Irvine, decided to suspend the Muslim Student Union for a quarter over the disruption of a speech last year by the Israeli ambassador to the United States, most thought the latest controversy on campus had ended.District Attorney Tony Rackauckas of Orange County, however, disagreed — and filed misdemeanor criminal charges last week against the 11 student protesters, accusing them of disturbing a public meeting and engaging in a conspiracy to do so.

The charges have not only reignited campus debate about the event but have also prompted a feisty argument about the role of free speech on a college campus, in this case one whose politics can seem as complicated as peace negotiations in the Middle East.

When the ambassador, Michael B. Oren, came to speak last February, several students stood up, one at a time, and interrupted him with shouted complaints about Israel. When the repeated outbursts continued deep into Mr. Oren’s speech, the ambassador huddled with his security aides to decide whether to continue speaking. He did, but by the time the speech was over, 11 Muslim students had been arrested. The group became known as the “Irvine 11,” although three were students from University of California, Riverside.

As students walked through campus one recent afternoon, most hardly batted an eye at the colorful fliers advertising some coming campus events. They may have missed the lecture “Islam the Misunderstood Religion.” But they could pick up a pamphlet about Islamic philosophy from a nearby table — where signs proclaimed “Free Egypt.”

During the fall quarter, while the suspension was in place, none of this kind of activity by the Muslim Student Union had been allowed.

Over the last decade, the university has become a symbol of what some Jewish groups say is a growing anti-Israel sentiment on campuses. But for others, the school is quickly becoming a symbol of problems Muslim students face when they are viewed as too outspoken.

“People are afraid to be seen as with us,” said Hamza Siddiqui, a senior and a leader of the Muslim Student Union. “It’s like they went after them, how do we know they aren’t going to come after us next? Everyone is afraid and looking over their shoulder.”

Mr. Siddiqui, 22, said even his parents have warned him to keep quiet and not involve himself too closely with the student group, worrying that he could get suspended or jeopardize his prospects for law school.

Because university officials are prohibited from asking about religion, it is impossible to know how many students are Jewish or Muslim. Many Muslim students come from the surrounding cities in Orange County, where there are vibrant Middle Eastern communities.

For years, Jewish and Israeli advocacy groups have said that the Muslim Student Union has fostered a hostile environment on campus. In 2007, the Office of Civil Rights of the federal Department of Education examined complaints from the Zionist Organization of America that the university was not doing enough to respond to the problem. The investigation cleared the campus administration of any wrongdoing. In 2009, the same organization complained that an event sponsored by the Muslim Student Union was used to raise money for an organization that helps Hamas, the Islamic militant group, in Gaza. The university asked the F.B.I. to investigate, but no charges were ever filed.

Much of the controversy on campus centers on Palestinian Awareness Week, which the Muslim Student Union has sponsored each spring. In the past, the week has included bloody Israeli flags and speeches delivered under signs that read “Holocaust in the Holy Land” and “Israel — the Fourth Reich.”

Many students came to dread the events, which some began to refer to as “hate week.” A few students have said they felt uncomfortable walking across campus wearing a Star of David or any other overtly Jewish symbol during the week. Some have had loud shouting matches, while others have chosen to stay home and avoid campus altogether.

By last winter, it seemed that the talk had been toned down and that much of the discomfort for Jewish students had subsided. But students said they caught wind of plans to interrupt Mr. Oren’s speech. The students who were arrested said that the protest had not been a Muslim Student Union activity, but an investigation by university officials concluded that that the group had coordinated the protest in an effort to shut down the event.

Similar outbursts have occurred during speeches by Israeli officials on other college campuses. But it appears that none prompted disciplinary actions from either the college or law enforcement officials.