An important victory for two lone IVAW members in Texas, Bryan Hannah and Greg Foster, who were able to get Hays County, Texas commissioners to reconsider doing business with former Halliburton subsidiary KBR. See second article for the latest from CNN on the way KBR fulfills its federal contracts in Iraq, in case you have somehow missed it.

And here is a link to a longer and more detailed article from San Marcos, that includes some of their testimony: http://www.newstreamz.com/2009/03/25/county-delays-kbr-pact-after-vets-protest/

Good work, Bryan and Greg!

Jeri

Iraq vets may sink KBR contract in Texas county

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=AP&date=20090327&id=9736204
SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A small Texas county is rethinking a $617,000 contract with KBR Inc. to build a rural, mile-long road near the home of two anti-Iraq war veterans trying to stop the deal with the defense contractor.

KBR is the lone finalist for the Hays County project, but former soldiers Bryan Hannah, 22, and Gregory Foster, 28, helped put the approval in doubt after criticizing the company’s battered image at a commissioner’s court meeting in San Marcos this week.

That led a KBR official in attendance Tuesday to deny allegations of exposing U.S. soldiers to toxic chemicals and deadly showers in Iraq in order to save a contract for a small, four-lane road leading to a new suburban high school near Austin.

Commissioners say they’re now weighing KBR’s record and have delayed their decision until next month.

“I didn’t have a lot of faith going in,” Hannah said. “But I saw how genuinely open and concerned they were.”

Houston-based KBR, which oversees maintenance at most U.S. facilities in Iraq, has been criticized after soldiers there have been shocked or electrocuted while using showers or appliances. The family of one electrocuted soldier has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against KBR, which denies responsibility.

KBR, a popular target for opponents of the war, also faces a lawsuit from soldiers who allege the company knowingly exposed them to carcinogens while guarding an Iraqi water pumping plant.

Marit Babin, director of government relations for KBR, told the Democrat-controlled commissioner’s court the allegations were false.

“I would remind everyone that there are two sides to every story,” Babin said. “Just because you read something on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s true.”

Babin was partly addressing an article by a local news Web site, newstreamz.com, which had laid out allegations against KBR in a lengthy story about the county’s road project last month.

Hannah said he served with the 1st Calvary Division in Iraq for 15 months before his tour ended in January 2008. He is a self-described activist who proudly said he heckled John Ashcroft when the former U.S. attorney general spoke in Austin earlier this week. Hannah told commissioners he put his life on the line in Iraq to escort empty KBR trucks. Foster said the county shouldn’t give its money to KBR because of the way the company does business.

Commissioner Jeff Barton said the veterans made a powerful case.

“Firms should be held accountable,” Barton said. “I don’t want to prejudge, but I take very seriously the concerns that were raised.”

Commissioners probably will decide whether to award KBR the contract April 7. KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne said in an e-mail that the company is following up with the county and that KBR is “proud of the work it performs in Iraq.”

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Shoddy wiring ‘everywhere’ on Iraq bases, Army inspector says

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Thousands of buildings at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan have such poorly installed wiring that American troops face life-threatening risks, a top inspector for the Army says.

“It was horrible — some of the worst electrical work I’ve ever seen,” said Jim Childs, a master electrician and the top civilian expert in an Army safety survey. Childs told CNN that “with the buildings the way they are, we’re playing Russian roulette.”

Childs recently returned from Iraq, where he is taking part in a yearlong review aimed at correcting electrical hazards on U.S. bases. He told CNN that thousands of buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan are so badly wired that troops are at serious risk of death or injury.

He said problems are “everywhere” in Iraq, where 18 U.S. troops have died by electrocution since 2003. All deaths occurred in different circumstances and different locations, but many happened on U.S. bases being managed by various military contractors. The Army has has reopened investigations in at least five cases, according to Pentagon sources.

Of the nearly 30,000 buildings the Army’s “Task Force Safe” has examined so far, Childs said more than half “failed miserably.” And 8,527 had such serious problems that inspectors gave them a “flash” warning, meaning repairs had to be completed in four hours or the facility evacuated.

He said the majority of those buildings were wired by contractor KBR, based in Houston, Texas. KBR has faced extensive criticism from Congress over its performance in the war zone. KBR has defended its performance and argued it was not to blame for any fatalities.

Military electrocutions became a national issue about a year ago, after the January 2008 death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A decorated member of the Army’s Green Berets, Maseth was electrocuted in his shower at a U.S. base in Baghdad that once served as one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.

His death was blamed on improper grounding and dangerous wiring on his living quarters. Soon after that, the Army asked Childs to help create “Task Force Safe,” a team of master electricians assigned to inspect Army posts for electrical dangers.

Childs said the “large majority” of the buildings the task force examined in Iraq had been wired by KBR, which he expected would follow American standards. But the results, he said, were “just horrible.”

In one building, “I had them pull a switch out of the wall to look at a switch, and when they pulled it out of the wall, the wires fell out of it,” Childs said. Thinking that was an exception, “We pulled the one next to it. They fell off,” he said. “It was just very, very poor quality work.”

Much of the work was done by crews from countries beyond Iraq, “with very little supervision by anybody.” And many of the problems involved improperly grounded systems that allowed plumbing to conduct electricity, which he said could lead to electric shocks such as the one that killed Maseth.

Childs said service orders on at least two occasions warned of the hazard in Maseth’s quarters, and “two simple electrical 101s” should have been checked out by electricians.

“A competent electrical contractor and electrician would have gone to that job site and tried to discover why pipes could have been energized,” he said. If they had been, “then Ryan Maseth would not have been electrocuted, in my opinion.”

Maseth’s family is suing KBR. An Army investigator has recommended that his cause of death be changed to “negligent homicide,” accusing the company of failing to properly supervise or inspect its work. The Army has yet to accept the recommendation.

KBR has repeatedly said it was not responsible for Maseth’s death or for any of the others and defended its work.

“KBR has worked diligently to address electrical issues when asked,” the company told CNN in a written statement. “What is important to remember is the challenging environment in which these issues exist.

“The electrical standards in Iraq are nowhere near those of Western or U.S. standards. Add to this the challenges that exist in a war zone. We have been and remain committed to fully cooperating with the government on this issue.”

But Childs said the majority of buildings on U.S. bases were built and wired by KBR since the U.S. invasion.

“They installed the housing units, they installed the electrical, they installed the wiring. They installed it all. And it’s wrong,” he said. “It’s all put in wrong.”

KBR was not alone, however. He said the Army survey found problems with every contractor whose work it inspected.

Task Force Safe has yet to inspect another 70,000 buildings in Iraq and has just begun its review of bases in Afghanistan, where contractors have raised similar concerns. In written answers to questions from CNN, Pentagon spokesman Chris Isleib said, “We are correcting hazardous conditions every day.”

“This is a huge undertaking but absolutely necessary for the life, health and safety of our service members and civilians,” he said. “When we find a defect, we put in an emergency work order and take action immediately to protect the people working or living in those facilities.”

But Childs told CNN he is surprised more Americans have not been hurt.

“All the potentials are there,” he said. “It just hasn’t happened.”

************************************************
I can remember my time in the Navy after ship overhaul in the yards, we’d head out to sea and turn on the water and pipes would go flying and the HT’s would be working all night reworking everything the yard birds (contractors) did. And this was common – does it ever change?

From my wife Lysara:

“Turkish prosecutors said Friday that they were investigating whether Israeli leaders should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity over the military offensive in the Gaza Strip.”

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/06/europe/EU-Turkey-Israel.php

NEVER FORGET: SENIOR ISRAELIS ***MUST*** BE PROSECUTED FOR WAR CRIMES.

CIRCULATE THEIR NAMES, IMAGES, AND THE EVIDENCE OF THEIR CRIMES (BELOW).

Warning: the video links below are graphic. You don’t have to watch them, but if you oppose genocide, you do have an obligation to circulate this message.

#1: Brigadier-General Eyal Eisenberg, mastermind of the Gaza operation that massacred hundreds of civilians.
Here’s what he looks like.
http://www.kawther.info/ga2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=34937g2_GALLERYSID=TMP_SESSION_ID_DI_NOISSES_PMT
HERE IS PROOF THAT HE COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY:
http://gazawarszawasghetto2009.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/war-crimes-by-israeli-forces-in-gaza-video-warning/

#2: Commander Yigal Slovik, who led the 401st Armored Corps Brigade convoy in a systematic assault on civilian targets, resulting in the murders of infants like the one in the video below.
Here’s what he looks like.
http://www.kawther.info/ga2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=33375g2_GALLERYSID=TMP_SESSION_ID_DI_NOISSES_PMT
HERE IS PROOF THAT HE COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=gaza+war+crimes+guardian&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#q=gaza+war+crimes&hl=en&emb=0

#3: Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, Commander of Israeli air forces, who dropped white phosphorus on civilian areas in blatant violation of international law.
Here’s what he looks like.
http://www.kawther.info/wpr/wp-content/uploads/maj-gen-ido-nehushtan-approved-as-new-iaf-commander.jpg
HERE IS PROOF THAT HE COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=gaza+war+crimes+guardian&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

Circulate the names and images of these senior Israeli officers NOW.

Sign this petition demanding that the perpetrators be brought to justice:

http://www.petitiononline.com/sr8c1952/petition.html

FORWARD THIS MESSAGE.

Yusuf Toropov

From Jeri

You can access this report on line at this link: http://www.sigir.mil/hardlessons/default.aspx
There is a button to buy as a book, but you can read it free on line by clicking the pdf links, or try this link:
http://www.sigir.mil/hardlessons/pdfs/Hard_Lessons_Report.pdf

Jeri

Iraq Auditor Warns of Waste, Fraud In Afghanistan

By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 2, 2009; A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/01/AR2009020102225.html

After five years of investigations and 250,000 pages of audits, Stuart W. Bowen Jr. wishes he could say that the $50 billion cost of the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq was money accounted for and well spent.

“But that’s just not happened,” Bowen said.

Instead, the largest single-country relief and reconstruction project in U.S. history — most of it done by private U.S. contractors — was full of wasted funds, fraud and a lack of accountability under what Bowen, the congressionally mandated special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, calls an “ad hoc-racy” of lax or nonexistent government planning and supervision.

And despite the Iraq experience, he said, the United States is making many of the same mistakes again in Afghanistan, where U.S. reconstruction expenditures stand at more than $30 billion and counting.

“It’s too late to do the structural part and make it quickly applicable to Afghanistan,” Bowen said in an interview last week. None of the substantive changes in oversight, contracting and reconstruction planning or personnel assignments that Congress, auditors and outside experts proposed as the Iraq debacle unfolded has been implemented in Afghanistan.

But President Obama could take several steps to mitigate future damage, Bowen said. They include devoting more attention to military and civilian personnel and to reconstruction and relief assignments, and taking advantage of the expertise developed through hard-won experience in Iraq. Instead of the “multiple versions” of the federal acquisition regulations adopted and amended by “multiple agencies” operating in Iraq, Obama “could just issue a FAR regulation applicable to Afghanistan that everyone will follow” in issuing and supervising contracts, he said.

“To bring this all together,” Bowen said, “the president should order a Red Cell,” a high-level group drawing from the departments of State and Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development that would turn Obama’s orders into action.

Bowen’s office, known as SIGIR, is releasing a book today that recounts the Iraq experience and suggests how to avoid future mistakes. “Hard Lessons” is being published as the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting holds its first public hearing. Created by Congress last year, the commission will examine expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan and propose solutions for “systemic” problems that waste taxpayer dollars.

Legislation to create the commission was introduced by Democratic Sens. James Webb (Va.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and was inspired by the “Truman Committee,” which conducted hundreds of hearings and investigations into government waste during and after World War II.

“Hard Lessons,” a draft of which was leaked to the news media in December, concludes that the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq was a failure, largely because there was no overall strategy behind it. Goals shifted from “liberation” and an early military exit to massive, ill-conceived and expensive building projects under the Coalition Provisional Authority of 2003 and 2004. Many of those projects — over budget, poorly executed or, often, barely begun — were abandoned as security worsened.

In a preface to the 456-page book, Bowen writes that he knew the reconstruction was in trouble when he first visited Iraq in January 2004 and saw duffel bags full of cash being carried out of the Republican Palace, which housed the U.S. occupation government.

Security was a constant problem, not only for military and civilian officials serving in Iraq but also for SIGIR. Auditor Paul Converse was killed in March during a rocket attack in Baghdad, following a year in which five other SIGIR employees were wounded.

The book recounts, in colorful detail based on SIGIR interviews with nearly all the principals, the deep divisions during the same period between the Pentagon, under Donald H. Rumsfeld; the State Department under Colin L. Powell; and the White House office of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage recounts an argument between Rumsfeld and Rice in the fall of 2003 during which each said the other was in charge of supervising the Coalition Provisional Authority.

The book also includes numerous demonstrations of the Bush administration’s lack of preparation to run Iraq after the March 2003 invasion. In one previously publicized case recounted in “Hard Lessons,” Bowen’s auditors discovered a cash disbursement of $57.8 million by the CPA to the U.S. comptroller for south-central Iraq. “Pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills” were removed from the CPA vault in Baghdad and driven to the regional office in two unarmored SUVs. There, the local acting comptroller, Robert J. Stein Jr., who later was convicted for money laundering and fraud, had himself photographed with mountains of cash.

Overall, SIGIR and other law enforcement agencies have obtained 35 convictions, including two major bribery schemes involving $14 million solicited by U.S. military officers who ran Kuwait-based units contracting for the billions of dollars in supplies sent to Iraq.

SIGIR also reported on the inability of Iraqi firms to compete with U.S. contractors, due in part to the complicated U.S. bidding system: “Online contracting, which frequently entailed bids of more than a hundred pages, bewildered Iraqi contractors who were used to sealing a business deal with just a handshake.”

When he took the job five years ago, Bowen said, “I didn’t know that we didn’t have a system to protect our interests abroad in post-conflict or contingency operations. . . . It would have been a much funner job to issue 250 reports on how well our rebuilding program went . . . and that the money was well accounted for and that we’re leaving Iraq a peaceful and democratic place and nonviolent country.”

Given that $4 billion in appropriated U.S. reconstruction funds remain unspent in Iraq, Bowen’s work is not likely to end anytime soon.

From Valerie

America has a rich tradition putting our most honored leaders on its currencies.

George Washington, our nation’s first president and leader of the American Revolution.

Abe Lincoln, our most honorable leader pull our nation through its darkest time.

Alexander Hamilton, founding father, first secretary of the treasury and leader of the constitutional convention.

Andrew Jackson, “Old Hickory” fought the British in New Orleans .

Ulysses Grant, Union army general, lead the North through the Civil War.

Ben Franklin, Genius inventor, political theorist and leading author of the constitution.

Finally, we have someone to put on the food stamp!!!!!!!

G.W. Bush – Started a bogus war, ruined the economy, lowered our status in the world – but he’s cute

FROM: yusuf.toropov

An Amnesty International official says, “Those [Israelis] giving the orders (in Gaza), and even those pulling the trigger, should not plan on taking any overseas holidays” … because of the increasingly inevitable possibility that they will face criminal charges in foreign courts. (SOURCE: TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090131.wgazacrimes31/BNStory/International/home

I get a lot of email (not just junk mail – we all get that, gmail is very good about filtering that out).? I spend hours daily going thru my mail and am never able to read it all.? Most recently I have started to receive email from people wishing to convert me to Christian (once they discover I am not) and Muslim.? I even get email from one individual who wants us all to believe that the Catholic Church is really evil.? While he does offer a lot of factual news articles, well, I’m sorry.? While it may be true that one church might be better or worse than others, or one religion worse or better than others, it is not my place to judge this and I won’t go there, I find such things a waste of my productive time and because he has no option to unsubscribe from his list, I will have to add him to my spam list.

To you who are religious like myself but might belong to a religion unlike me, feel free to share, it’s ok, I’m curious, I like to learn, and even to evangelize may be apart of your religion and that’s ok too, I don’t mind, but be careful not to try to convince me that you have the corner on truth, I assure you, YOU DON’T.

****

I have read the bible, I have also read all the Gnostic scriptures, the teachings of Confucius, the Hopi legends, Jewish Apocrypha not included in the bible and about half of the Koran.? Next I plan to tackle the book of the dead, Egyptian scriptures. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof , for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

**** – You should not say that my testimony or beliefs cannot be found in the bible.? I can remember being told that the Catholic’s teaching about purgatory was not scriptural and that’s what I told a Catholic Priest one day who was happy to show it to me in the bible.

The KKK uses scriptures to justify their actions and the early settlers actually quoted scriptures as they were throwing Indians into the fire.? Hitler was scriptural too and so was Bush in his decision in attacking Iraq.

You see, you can make that bible say almost anything you want, you just have to find the right scriptures.

But I’m not going to waste my time or yours throwing scriptures back and forth trying to prove something.? Because the real word of God is in the heart not on a piece of paper.

You ask your heart, was we all born on this earth to die and go to hell unless we are saved?? If you tell me that your heart agrees with that, then I think you’re lying to me or you have manipulated you’re own heart to accept beliefs that it could not.

With all due respect, that usually
happens when a person follows hearsay, what was heard
in church rather than what was read in God’s word.

****, you didn’t read my testimony.? But I’ll tell you what, I’ll shorten it for you.

For the longest time I searched for salvation, I joined several churches, been baptized a couple times. I was looking for truth or true salvation.? I spent many years, Pentecostal, Bible Churches, Catholic and the last was Mormon.? One day I woke up and asked myself, who condemned me?? Who made me believe that if I wasn’t saved I would go to hell, that’s nuts. What kind of God would create something just to send it to hell?? So I discarded all of my beliefs and started over and I studied all the major religions and decided that Gnosticism was the most true and it was then that I had this dream:

THE DREAM

With out question, thought or prayer
For no reason what-so-ever I had this dream one night
I saw nothing, but only heard a voice
A?voice that was both male and female.
“It is true that the body is made by the false god
But the false god also creates the soul
This continues to happen
But God takes you and makes you unto himself
As if you were a ball of clay
And makes you His own
This process takes time.”
I woke up

**** – To understand this dream a little more you’d have to have an understanding of Gnosticism.? But no matter, because this dream is actually saying that Gnosticism is wrong.? And you know what, I don’t know a single religion that believes what’s in that dream, and you know something else, I don’t know of any religion that teaches that we came from heaven (that’s in my testimony) except Mormonism.? But they teach that you can’t remember, but I do remember.

So I have my beliefs that I didn’t just make up nor did anybody teach them to me and I’m all alone without a church or religion, but you know what, I don’t care.? And I’m not going to try to prove to you or anybody else my beliefs, because I don’t have to, I don’t doubt what I believe.

Like you, my father believed I was being deceived and I disowned him because of it and he died shortly after and I felt a little bad about it.? But you know my dad did a lot of bad things in his lifetime.? You know what, he never said he was sorry.? Two words “I’m sorry.”? would have fixed a whole lot of hurt, but he believed he didn’t have to because conveniently Jesus died for his sins so he didn’t have to.? I think he will discover that he was mistaken.? I figure he will be sent down here again to try it again to see if he gets it right, and that don’t mean to live a perfect life, but say “I’m sorry.”

So now that you know a little bit more about what I believe, you can believe it to or disbelieve it, that’s up to you.? But you are not going to make me disbelieve what I believe even if I’m the only person in the world who believes it.

Sincerely,

Roger

*******************************

So what do I know. I know that salvation is a process and that I’m not going to hell and that’s all I know.

So what is the true God and the false god and does the life and death of Jesus have anything to do with this process, I DON’T KNOW!

So I don’t know a lot and have lots of questions, I do have some ideas and let me explain here and now, religion is faith in things unseen, things that cannot be proven, or unproven, so all you people who spend your days trying to disprove or prove religion, it disappoints me that I live in a world that is so ignorant – but good luck with that, you who have so little faith that you must defend it and you who have no faith and must justify it.? You both have much to learn.? Learn to be confident in your own beliefs rather than steal your confidence from the destruction of others, this is disappointing.

But I will share this one idea I do have, as I believe it does have the backing of logic. I believe that the God that created the earth, the birds, trees, flowers, the fish and the bees and all other living things on this earth is not the same god who created us. And this is why I believe this. All other life is a part of a natural order that sustains each other on this earth maintaining this earth for a very long time. However, we are different. We go against the natural order on this earth and may very well be someday it’s destruction. We create great things like no other animal on this earth and some scriptures actually refer to us as gods. Some have argued with me that we are just like all the other animals on this earth and while I think that is a very nice idea, they miss the obvious and do not recognize how we are so much different than all the other animals on this earth. That being said, that’s what I believe and if you wish to discuss this with me further, you are more than welcome.

PROTEST AGAINST MACHINE, OTHER SHORTAGES

No More Stolen Elections! has been carefully monitoring the potential ballot and capacity shortages that voters will encounter when they arrive at the polls on November 4th.? TrueVote.us, one of our coalition partners, is working with us to allow you to simply go to their site and quickly send a message to the election officials of states where we already know this will be a problem.

In 2004 tens of thousands of voters were denied their right to vote in Ohio when election officials provided inadequate voting machines in African American communities.? Some people waited in line to vote for longer than 12 hours.? Many thousands of others gave up and did not vote.? This alone may have been enough to change the outcome of the 2004 election.

Well, it’s happening again. A recent report indicated that college-age and African American precincts in Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia will not have sufficient numbers of voting machines or election staff to handle the number of voters expected on Election Day.

What you can do:

Help us to let these officials know that tens of thousands of people are watching their actions and documenting what occurs on Election Day. Some of us have already written to them (click here to read about it). Even if you do not live in these states it is important for these officials to hear from you.?They need to know they will be held accountable for their actions.

Click and send a letter to the governor, congressional delegation (House and Senate), the secretary of state as well as election administrators where questions have been raised about the adequacy of the number of voting machines and staff.

Click here to take action now.

From The Mailbox – Salina sends:

Islamic Finance appeal growing in face of credit crisis

The global credit crisis presents the $1 trillion Islamic finance industry with an opportunity to expand its appeal beyond Muslim investors, as a haven from speculative excess.

The message may have particular resonance in the West after the crumbling of the U.S. mortgage market left banks holding hundreds of billions of dollars of nearly worthless credit instruments tied to home loans by a web of complex structures.

While conventional banks worldwide are nursing losses of more than $400 billion from the credit crisis, Islamic banks are virtually unscathed. And they are playing up the contrast to scalded shareholders, bondholders and borrowers and fearful depositors.

“It’s very much a return to old-fashioned conservative lending,” said David Testa, chief executive of Gatehouse Bank, which began operations in April as the fifth Islamic bank in Britain.

“The current global market condition has given Islamic finance a great opportunity to show what it can do – help to fill the liquidity gap,” he said.

Investors traumatized by the credit crisis could seek comfort from the stricter rules imposed on lending by Islamic law, which bans some of the structures and financing methods that quickly unraveled during the U.S. mortgage crisis.

Testa said that Islamic finance practices were more fiscally conservative, with direct participation by investors in plans that do not involve parking assets in off-balance-sheet vehicles.

Islamic finance is based on Shariah, or Islamic law. It requires that gains be derived from ethical and socially responsible investments and discourages interest-based banking and investments in sectors like pork, gambling and pornography.

The Asian Development Bank estimates that Islamic assets globally have a combined value of about $1 trillion, with annual growth of 10 percent to 15 percent a year. Al-Rajhi Bank of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait Finance House are the two biggest Islamic banks in the Gulf region. In Malaysia, the largest Islamic lender is Maybank Islamic, a subsidiary of Malayan Banking.

The jump in popularity of Islamic finance is drawing the interest of companies outside the Middle East.

City Developments, one of the largest developers in Southeast Asia, said last week that it could issue Islamic debt and sell hotels to enhance its ability to make acquisitions.

The Islamic finance industry, which was nearly nonexistent 30 years ago, has certain distinguishing features that make it less risky, analysts say.

Islamic bonds, or sukuk, replace coupons with payments backed by the performance of tangible assets. Islamic law prohibits the payment of interest and requires transactions to be linked to assets, thus deterring the kind of complexities prevalent in conventional financing operations.

Debashis Dey, the Dubai-based head of capital markets at the law firm Clifford Chance, said that although the Islamic finance industry was adapting conventional products to make them compliant with Shariah, it was a long way from sophisticated products like collateralized debt obligations.

But while Islamic products are coming into favor, analysts say market commentators and intermediaries may be too zealous in promoting the merits of Islamic finance as a safe product.

Mohamed Damak of Standard & Poor’s cited the case of the boom in real estate financing in the Gulf mainly by Islamic banks in the past three years, amid soaring property prices.

“A correction of the real estate sector would impact Islamic banks involved in this business line. Islamic finance is not immune from risk,” he said.

Even as experts are weighing the degree of insularity that Islamic financing provides, there are differences in the way accounts are prepared and in how Shariah law is interpreted.

Banks in Britain differ in their accounting operations from banks in Bahrain, for example, which in turn differ from banks in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Dey, at Clifford Chance, said the lack of standardization posed a hurdle to growth, but others said that a cookie-cutter approach was not desirable and that regional differences would remain.

“Complete standardization may not happen – there will always be variants,” said Raj Maiden, managing director at Five Pillars in Singapore, who added that it was more important to tailor products according to the needs of each market.

While the debate rages on whether Islamic finance provides a safer bet or is merely a potential source of irrational exuberance, most agree the industry should make the most of the attention it is now receiving.

“If Islamic banks step up to the mark, then they will gain traction,” said Testa, of Gatehouse.

Source: International Herald Tribune

http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IH0810-3694

********************************
My Two Cents:
http://forum.khurram.ca/viewtopic.php?t=489
Posted: Mon 12 Jun 2006 1:04 pm Post subject: The Answer is Buried Under The Ice of Antarctica

I had a dream last night that I was a part of a crew employed by the government to uncover a structure under the ice of Antarctica that would contain the answer, led by a recently discovered prophesy that led the government and policy.

There is prophesy if Isreal excepted Jesus and there is prophesy if Isreal did not except Jesus and that was the key that led us to believe in this prophesy that took us to Antarctica, thus the reason for global warming.

The law required that you submit to the doctors treatment (I’m guessing we were ill from the global warming).

The alarm went off before I could find out what the answer was we were trying to uncover.

Strange dream. Last meeting I had with the mormon missionarys, I was explaining that I felt that the church had cracks in it (one major crack was its silence on global warming).

Is this dream in response to that, or just a creation of my mind to find peace with this – don’t really know. But because I remember this dream so vividly, it must be important.