Aug
22
Sharia banking may touch $1trn in 2 years
Filed Under Business, News, Pakistani News | Leave a Comment
Today, the Sharia finance and banking industry is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and is estimated to be worth more than US$1 trillion in the next 2 years, according to the UK-based Securities & Investment Institute.
Unaffected by the subprime crisis, projections suggest that this market will grow by 15 per cent per year over the next decade and will account for 60 per cent of the savings of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslim community, in that same period.
The Securities & Investment Institute (SII), the leading financial services educational body in the area of Islamic finance, first announced the development of its benchmark Islamic Finance Qualification (IFQ) in 2005.
This is said to have captivated global interest, and last year the IFQ was sat by 285 candidates around the world. SII has designated Singapore as its first choice for the regional launch of the IFQ. The Institute is also working with financial services regulators throughout the Middle East including all the Gulf Corporation Council countries (GCC).
IFQ is sold in 53 countries and has become a required qualification in a number of finance houses and government institutions around the globe. It has just become the first and only Islamic finance qualification on the UK list of recommended examinations.Singapore as a regional economic hub is said to be ideally located to reach to the developing countries of S.E. Asia to provide service and products to the rapid growth in the Islamic Finance industry.
The launch of the SII Islamic Finance Qualification from Singapore provides the perfect tool for consumers in the region to gain the prerequisite background to assess wholesale instruments, such as Sukuk, Islamic bonds or retail products such as Islamic mortgages.
Source
Aug
15
Sharia banking may touch $1trn in 2 years
Filed Under Business, Local News, News, Pakistani News | Leave a Comment
Today, the Sharia finance and banking industry is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and is estimated to be worth more than US$1 trillion in the next 2 years, according to the UK-based Securities & Investment Institute.
Unaffected by the subprime crisis, projections suggest that this market will grow by 15 per cent per year over the next decade and will account for 60 per cent of the savings of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslim community, in that same period.
The Securities & Investment Institute (SII), the leading financial services educational body in the area of Islamic finance, first announced the development of its benchmark Islamic Finance Qualification (IFQ) in 2005.
This is said to have captivated global interest, and last year the IFQ was sat by 285 candidates around the world. SII has designated Singapore as its first choice for the regional launch of the IFQ. The Institute is also working with financial services regulators throughout the Middle East including all the Gulf Corporation Council countries (GCC).
IFQ is sold in 53 countries and has become a required qualification in a number of finance houses and government institutions around the globe. It has just become the first and only Islamic finance qualification on the UK list of recommended examinations.Singapore as a regional economic hub is said to be ideally located to reach to the developing countries of S.E. Asia to provide service and products to the rapid growth in the Islamic Finance industry.
The launch of the SII Islamic Finance Qualification from Singapore provides the perfect tool for consumers in the region to gain the prerequisite background to assess wholesale instruments, such as Sukuk, Islamic bonds or retail products such as Islamic mortgages. Source
Jul
11
Bodies of 2 missing soldiers found in Iraq, families say
Filed Under CNN News, Most Pepular, News | Leave a Comment
DETROIT, Michigan (AP) — The bodies of two U.S. soldiers missing in Iraq for more than a year have been found, their families said Thursday night. The military would not immediately confirm the report.
Army Sgt. Alex Jimenez was kidnapped during an ambush in May 2007.
1 of 2 The father of Army Sgt. Alex Jimenez, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, said the remains of his son and another soldier, Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, of Waterford, Michigan, had been identified in Iraq.
Jimenez, 25, and Fouty, 19, were kidnapped along with a third member of the 2nd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division during an ambush in May 2007. The body of the third seized soldier, Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr. of Torrance, California, was found in the Euphrates River a year later.
Jimenez’s father, Ramon “Andy” Jimenez, said uniformed military officials came to his home in Lawrence on Thursday to tell him the body of his son and some of his son’s personal effects had been discovered. Fouty’s stepfather, Gordon Dibler, said military officials came to his Oxford home Thursday to break the news.
Andy Jimenez told The Associated Press through a translator that the news “shattered all hope” the family had to “see Alex walk home on his own.”
“Every day that he’s been missing has been a day of `what could have been’ … but after hearing the news today … I’m still in shock,” Dibler said.
The soldiers’ families, who had become friends over the past year, were notified around the same time and had been in touch. The Pentagon generally waits 24 hours after notifying the next of kin before making a release public.
Lawrence Veterans Services Director Francisco Urena, who was at the Jimenez home Thursday and translated for the soldier’s father, said the family was given no details on the discovery of the bodies or the nature of the soldiers’ deaths. Dibler said Fouty’s body was found in the Iraqi village of Jurf as Sakhr.
Fouty was identified using dental records, Dibler said, adding that the bodies of both soldiers were taken to Dover, Delaware, where military officials are expected to perform further tests to positively identify both men and determine a cause of death.
“It’s a very sad relief,” he said. “But I know I have to go forward, not just for our family, but for the other men and women who are still doing their job over there.”
Urena said the Jimenez family expected to receive Alex Jimenez’s body in five days.
“He’s very thankful for everybody from the community in Lawrence and throughout the U.S. who have provided him support during the difficult time the family has been through during the past 14 months,” Urena said of Andy Jimenez.
The three soldiers, from the Fort Drum, New York-based 10th Mountain Division, disappeared May 12, 2007, after insurgents ambushed their combat team 20 miles outside Baghdad. An Iraqi soldier and four other Americans from the same unit were killed in the attack.
The soldiers were from Company D, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment — nicknamed the “Polar Bears.”
Jim Waring of the family support group New England Care for Our Military said he spoke to both families Thursday night.
“It’s going to be tough on them,” he said. “They really had hoped they were alive.”
Waring said his group had a banner for the missing soldiers: “Together they serve our nation and together they will come home.”
“They did come home together, just not the way we wanted,” Waring said.
Source
Jun
21
COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents 14 years ago was executed in the state’s electric chair Friday night after a last-ditch effort to halt the sentence was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.
James Earl Reed was pronounced dead at 11:27 p.m. Friday in the state’s death chamber in Columbia. He did not issue a final statement.
The execution, first scheduled for 6 p.m., had been put on hold as defense attorneys successfully obtained a stay from a federal judge, only to see it vacated by the 4th U.S. Circit Court of Appeals. Their attempt to get the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution was subsequently denied.
Reed, 49, was the first person executed by electric chair in the U.S. in nearly a year and South Carolina’s first since 2004. He had been on death row since 1996, after being convicted of murdering Joseph and Barbara Lafayette in their Charleston County home two years earlier. Prosecutors said he was looking for his ex-girlfriend.
In South Carolina, anyone sentenced to death may choose the electric chair or lethal injection. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, eight other states electrocute inmates.
During his trial, Reed fired his attorney and represented himself, denying the killings despite a confession and arguing that no physical evidence placed him at the scene. Jurors found him guilty and decided he should die.
In the request for the stay that was granted Friday, the defense attorneys cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision made the day before regarding defendants’ rights to represent themselves. The high court on Thursday said a defendant can be judged competent to stand trial, yet incapable of acting as his own lawyer. Source
Apr
18
Former Clinton cabinet member, 2 ex-senators endorse Obama
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BOSTON - Former Clinton Cabinet member Robert Reich on Friday endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Two other Democratic elder statesmen, former Sens. Sam Nunn of Georgia and David Boren of Oklahoma, also said they were supporting the Illinois senator.
Reich, who served as Labor secretary under Bill Clinton, said in a blog post that “although Hillary Clinton has offered solid and sensible policy proposals, Obama’s strike me as even more so.”
Reich also said Obama’s plans for reforming Social Security and health care have a better chance of succeeding, and his approach to the nation’s housing crisis and financial market failures are sounder than the New York senator’s.
Reich is a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He ran for governor in Massachusetts in 2002 and now is a professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
A number of other former Clinton cabinet members have endorsed Obama. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was U.N. ambassador and energy secretary under Clinton, endorsed former rival Obama in March despite heavy wooing by the former president. Former Denver Mayor Federico Pena, who headed the transportation and energy departments under Clinton, became a co-chair of Obama’s campaign last September. Former Clinton Commerce secretaries Norman Mineta and William Daley also have endorsed Obama.
Nunn and Boren will serve as advisers to Obama’s National Security Foreign Policy Team.
Nunn served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1987-95, while Boren was the longest-serving chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Both fall into the moderate-conservative end of the Democratic party’s ideological spectrum and gave Bill Clinton trouble during his presidency, trying to tug him to the right on issues while most congressional Democrats were leaning to the left.
Nunn, who recently flirted with his own possible White House bid, said Obama has “a rare ability to restore America’s credibility and moral authority and to get others to join us in tackling serious global problems.”
Boren, who recently played host to a forum on electoral alternatives, including third-party runs, said: “Our most urgent task is to end the divisions in our country, to stop the political bickering, and to unite our talents and efforts. Americans of all persuasions are pleading with our political leaders to bring us together. I believe Senator Obama is sincerely committed to that effort.”
Apr
2
Only 1 of 2 students graduate high school in US cities: study
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WASHINGTON (AFP) - Three out of 10 US public school students do not graduate from high school, and major city school districts only graduate one out of two students, according to a study released Tuesday.
In a report on graduation rates around the country, the EPE Research Center and the America Promise Alliance also showed that the high school graduation rate — finishing 12 grades of school — in big cities falls to as low as just 34.6 percent in Baltimore, Maryland, and barely over 40 percent for the troubled Ohio cities of Columbus and Cleveland.
And it said that black and native American student’s have effectively a one-in-two chance of getting a high school diploma.
“Our analysis finds that graduating from high school in America’s largest cities amounts, essentially, to a coin toss,” the study said.
“Only about one-half (52 percent) of students in the principal school systems of the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma.”
Based on 2003-2004 data, the report said that across the country the graduation average for public school students is 69.9 percent, with the best success rate in suburbs — 74.9 percent — and rural districts — 73.2 percent.
Asian-Americans score the highest graduation rate, at 80 percent, with whites at 76.2 percent and Hispanics at 57.8 percent.
Women graduate at a much higher rate than men, 73.6 percent to 66.0 percent.
In the country’s city schools, the study found that in urban areas generally, just 60.4 percent graduate, and in the principal school districts of the top 50 cities, barely half graduate.
Detroit, Michigan’s main school district scored a graduation rate of 24.9 percent.
New York, the country’s largest city, has a graduation rate for its main school district of 45.2 percent, and Los Angeles, the second largest, of 45.3 percent.
Only five of the principal school districts topped the national average.
Mar
30
Bolton 2-3 Arsenal
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Arsenal hung on in the title race by coming from 2-0 down to beat Bolton despite Abou Diaby’s sending off.
Matthew Taylor headed Bolton in front from a cross by Gretar Steinsson, who was later clattered by Diaby and the referee produced a straight red.
Taylor’s deflected drive doubled the lead before William Gallas volleyed home to cut the deficit.
Robin Van Persie made it 2-2 with a penalty and Arsenal won it when Jlloyd Samuel put through his own net late on.
It was a remarkable turnaround, as for large spells Arsenal failed to cope with the driving rain, slippery pitch and Bolton’s greater desire.
Kolo Toure, playing at right-back because Bacary Sagna is out injured, looked a shadow of his normal self - and even Cesc Fabregas looked shockingly out of sorts in midfield.
Bolton, by contrast, were focused on their task and punished some slack defending when Taylor rose unchallenged to thump home a header from Steinsson’s excellent delivery out on the right touchline.
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That sort of tenacity is what Arsenal are all about
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Further evidence of Arsenal’s lack of concentration came when Diaby produced a foul throw, but if that was comedy of sorts, there was nothing funny about the Frenchman’s challenge on Steinsson which followed.
He slid in and clearly planted studs on Steinsson’s standing leg at ankle height, and was given his marching orders by referee Chris Foy.
Down to 10 men, Arsenal needed to hit back quickly and almost snatched an equaliser when Toure’s shot deflected off Gallas and skidded narrowly wide.
The Gunners were rocked when Matthieu Flamini hesitated on the edge of the box, the ball found its way to Taylor and his side-foot shot arrowed into the corner via Gallas’s ankle.
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Interview: Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger
Game over, it seemed - and the end of Arsenal’s fading title hopes, but then everything changed as on the hour mark Arsenal woke up, and Bolton went to sleep.
From Fabregas’s corner, Gallas stole in completely unmarked at the far post to volley in and hand Arsenal a lifeline they had barely deserved.
They were level six minutes later, however, when Van Persie crashed in from the penalty spot after Gary Cahill brought down Hleb.
Van Persie had a chance to win it for Arsenal after substitute Theo Walcott cut the ball back to him but the Dutchman fired high and wide from 12 yards.
But he was not to rue his miss as Arsenal managed to scramble a victory when Fabregas’s shot was deflected twice, the final touch off the unfortunate Samuel, and keeper Ali Al Habsi could not keep it out.
Source:BBC.Com
Mar
30
Mosque bombing in Nepal kills 2
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KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) – At least two people were killed and two wounded when a bomb exploded in a mosque during evening prayers in southeastern Nepal, police said Sunday morning.
The attack took place during evening prayers Saturday in Biratnagar, about 400 km (250 miles) southeast of Kathmandu.
“Two bombs were hurled at a roadside mosque, of which one exploded and the other didn’t,” Yogendra Katuwal, a senior police official, told CNN. A curfew has been imposed on the area as a precautionary measure.
Both the dead and wounded were Muslims, who make up about 4 percent of the predominantly Hindu nation’s 26 million people. The Nepal Defence Army, a small, armed Hindu group that wants Nepal to remain a Hindu kingdom, claimed responsibility for the blast.
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Nepal was declared a secular nation in 2006 after weeks of street protests forced Hindu King Gyanendra to give up direct rule. Saturday’s bombing comes as Nepal prepares for an April 10 election, after which the monarchy will be abolished and Nepal will be declared a secular republic.
At least five people, including an electoral candidate, had been killed in earlier pre-election violence in different parts of the country
Mar
18
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Internal Revenue Service said on Monday it would begin sending the first of more than 130 million economic stimulus payments on May 2 and expects to complete the first round of payments by early July.
The IRS said the payments — tax rebates of about $600 for most middle-income individuals and $1,200 for middle-income couples — will be sent in the order of the last two digits of the taxpayer’s Social Security number. Taxpayers must file a 2007 tax return to receive a payment.
The payments are part of a $152 billion economic stimulus package signed into law last month by President George W. Bush to try to stave off recession amid a deepening housing and credit market crisis.
The IRS said it expects to make about 34 million payment within the first three weeks after it starts distribution on May 2.
Choosing the direct deposit option for their normal federal tax refund will speed the stimulus payments to taxpayers. Those who choose this option on their tax returns can expect to receive their payments between May 2 and May 16 provided their returns were received and processed by April 15.
For taxpayers who did not choose direct deposit on their tax return but whose returns were processed by April 15, paper checks will be put in the mail starting on May 16, with initial mailings completed by around July 11.
Because the payments phase out above incomes of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for couples, the IRS has created an online payment calculator to help taxpayers determine if they are eligible, at http://www.irs.gov/app/espc/.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Neil Stempleman
Mar
16
NEW YORK - Call it “Tristan und Isolde - und Isolde.”
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On a night full of surprises and considerable musical rewards, the Metropolitan Opera’s revival of Wagner’s epic drama about doomed lovers with a serious death wish came perilously close to being doomed itself.
The original cast looked, on paper, like a dream - heldentenor Ben Heppner repeating his acclaimed interpretation of Tristan and soprano Deborah Voigt singing Isolde for the first time at the Met.
Then Heppner came down with a virus and canceled the first four of six performances. At Monday’s opening, his “cover,” or understudy, John Mac Master, struggled to make it through the five-hour-long performance. So for Friday night’s second outing, the Met turned to the second cover, Gary Lehman, a former baritone who had never sung the role onstage before.
But Lehman came with some good advance buzz - he had drawn favorable attention in 2005 when he stepped in at a moment’s notice for Placido Domingo in the title role of Wagner’s “Parsifal” at the Los Angeles Opera.
And from the moment he appeared on the Met stage, he took control of the role, with a strong presence - enhanced by his tall, relatively trim figure - and a sturdy tenor that projected well into the vast auditorium.
Still, Act 1 is not a true test for Tristan, since he has relatively little to sing. So the audience was waiting eagerly to see how he would fare in the 40-minute love duet that comprises the core of Act 2 and has brought many a tenor to grief.
And that’s when the night’s biggest shock arrived.
Voigt, who had struggled with both pitch and breath support during Act 1, suddenly rushed offstage just as the lovers were supposed to be settling in for a night of rapture.
James Levine kept conducting the orchestra for a minute or so even after the curtain slowly came down, and Lehman could be heard faintly singing his next lines. Then the music stopped, and a Met official came out to announce that Voigt had been taken ill but that her cover, Janice Baird, was literally waiting in the wings and would be out shortly.
Sure enough, after about 15 minutes the curtain rose again, and the audience warmly applauded the two lovers onstage together.
For opera fans with a sense of history, it was an amazing sight - two singers making unplanned Met debuts together in the lead roles of one of the most daunting operas in the repertory.
And it inevitably brought to mind another “Tristan” performance, from Dec. 28, 1959, when soprano Birgit Nilsson sang Isolde opposite three different tenors (Ramon Vinay, Karl Liebl, and Albert da Costa) - one for each act.
Both of Friday’s substitutes made it through the rest of the evening with aplomb. Lehman was particularly gripping in the long soliloquies of Act 3, when the dying Tristan ruminates about his troubled life and has delirious visions of Isolde. He did transpose a few exposed high notes downward and clipped off one or two others abruptly as he tired toward the end, but for the most part he sang the role as written - no mean feat.
Baird is harder to judge because she didn’t sing Act 1, when Isolde whips herself into a frenzy of outrage for her Narrative and Curse. She has a voice of considerable power, but its pieces don’t always fit together. In the lower register, you can hear remnants of a former mezzo-soprano, and her high notes are gleaming and dead-on. In between she tends to sing flat, especially at lower volume. That problem marred the opening measures of the Liebestod, Isolde’s rhapsodic solo that ends the opera. It flared again on her final note, at the end of the phrase “hoechste Lust” (”utmost rapture”) as she expires over Tristan’s corpse.
Like Lehman, she cuts a glamorous figure, and together they made the most romantic-looking couple seen onstage here in “Tristan und Isolde” in many a year. The audience rewarded them with a standing ovation and seemed in no rush to head for the aisles despite the late hour of 12:30 a.m.
The rest of the cast in the eccentric, abstract Dieter Dorn production remained intact from opening night: mezzo Michelle DeYoung sympathetic but sometimes underpowered as Brangaene, Isolde’s servant; baritone Eike Wilm Schulte virtually ideal as Kurwenal, Tristan’s trusted companion; and bass Matti Salminen, nearly as imposing as the cuckolded King Marke as when he made his Met debut in the role 27 years ago.
Levine and the orchestra rose to even greater heights than usual to support the night’s newcomers, with a sumptuous and stirring interpretation of the score.
It turns out, according to Met general manager Peter Gelb, that Voigt had been feeling queasy all day but wanted to go on to support Lehman. She is expected to be back for Tuesday’s performance. Her Tristan is still listed as TBA.
There was yet another Met debut Saturday night, when soprano Ruth Ann Swenson came down with the flu and was replaced by Ermonela Jaho as Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata.”
Source: Yahoo News