not only Obama OMG Clinton wearing Islamic head scarf too

look at her does not she looks nice with it

It is not just Obama wearing Islamic cloth..Laura Bush Wears an Islamic Scarf Too

The Clinton campaign has circulated an image of Obama wearing traditional Somali clothing, it seems as if it is a curse in US politics now a days if some one has ties to any thing Muslim or Arabic.

well look here at Laura Bush wearing a scarf during here visit to Al Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem:

US anti-war activist visits region

This a story i reported back in Thursday,August 10, 2006 to the Star Newspaper.

When the war against Iraq started in March 2003, a minority often labeled unpatriotic, sprouted throughout the US. But with the war stretching into its 4th year, the US public’s rejection of war and its support of anti-war activism have been on the rise, according to retired US Colonel Ann Wright.

“With the US death toll in Iraq in the raise and the raise of cost of the war –over $300 billion- the public in the US is with us” Said Wright in a press conference held in Amman last Saturday. She added “when the war started in the US media the voice of those who against the war was marginalized, despite the propaganda by the Bush administration, now the mood has changed in favor of ending the occupation.”

Geoffery Millard a US soldier who is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War a US organization said “ this was in Iraq is not popular with the American soldier, 8,000 from national Guard deserted, and 15,000 from active duty deserted,” according to him a pull done by Zoughbi institute showed that 70% of US soldiers in Iraq want the war to end before the end of the year.

Wright and Millard is part of a group of Americans representing anti war US NGOs who visited Jordan during their regional visit that also includes Syria and Lebanon, they met earlier with Iraqi delegation in Jordan including 7 Iraqi parliament representatives where they explored ways to end the occupation of Iraq.

Medea Benjamin a founding director of human rights organization Global Exchange said “we need to get a proposal for reconciliation in Iraq, which we need to push with the congress, and put a schedule for US to leave Iraq, with no US bases, and to make the US pay for reconstruction.”

The groups of anti war Americans met with Iraq delegations in Jordan not in Iraq because it is according to Benjamin “it is too dangerous in Iraq.”

Dr. Jabor Habeb Jaber Iraqi Parliament member from Al Etelaf board قائمة الأتلاف--said” we had meetings with anti war NGOs representative and some anti-war congressmen from the Democrat party where we discussed with them that all US soldiers need to go back home from Iraq, and we talked about the reconciliation that the government is doing.”

He added “ we are looking forward to end the foreign military presence in Iraq and to get back real national sovereignty, we want to transfer powers to the Iraqi state to withdraw the foreign forces from the cities, then minimize them and then for complete withdrawal. We are looking forward for schedule with a time table. And the money that is being spent on these forces should go to rebuild Iraq and in helping the Iraqi people and to build the Iraqi forces.”

He went on to say that all Iraqi parties are in agreement with the need for the US forces to leave Iraq.

Dr. Salam AlJameli Iraqi parliament member from Al Tawafouq board –Qaema قائمة التوافق – said “ we exchanged ideas with the US peace activist and we emphasized the need for all occupation forces to leave Iraq, we see that there is a voice coming from America against the occupation, and those are peace supporters…we told them we need to see a light at the end of the tunnel and the end of occupation.”

He added “ we also talked about the mechanism that can work to schedule the US withdrawal timed with the building of Iraqi security forces that will fill the gap that will happen when these forces leave, we also stressed the importance of making the US recognize the national resistant that is different than the terrorist groups. Resistant is a legitimate right for any country that falls under occupation, and the entrance to make reconciliation is to recognize the resistant and to have a dialog with them as a legitimate representative of groups who are against the occupation.”

Colonel Ann Wright who is also a former US diploma who resigned in 2003 as an opposition to the US war in Iraq said “ we came from all over America and we do represents a huge number of Americans…the parliamentarians were specific about what they want : get the US troops out, and Iraqis can handle their own affairs. US has to offer economic compensation to help rebuild Iraq, there is no fear that we will leave Iraqis defenseless without defense, we should give the country back to Iraqis.”

“Finally the Democratic party started to move in the track to withdrawal all US troops from Iraq.” She said.

Jeeni Criscenzo a candidate for the Democratic part in California, USA told The Star” I press every person running for office in the congress to join me to make commitment that the very first thing to do at the 11^th congress in January is to withdrawal troops from Iraq.” She added “this is an opportunity for the American public to vote for what they want.”

As for the group visit to Syria and Lebanon Benjamin said” our visit is to asses the damage done by the Israeli army and to hookup with local NGOs to aid and help.”

She added that the US government has not allowed an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon that means the US is responsible for the death and destruction that happens in Lebanon.

iPark incubates hi-tech entrepreneurs in Jordan

another article published on the Star by me back on Thurday,April 26, 2006

Based in Amman, (iPark) Jordan Technology Incubator is a business incubator specialized in Information Technology and telecommunication (ICT). It was established in 2003 by the Higher Council of Science and Technology (HCST) as a non-profit organization.

“The incubator aims at helping entrepreneurs to establish their own companies, in the most critical stage: The first two years,” said Omar Hamarneh, director of iPark, adding, “start-ups fail in their early stages not because their ideas are not innovative but because the founders fail to think and act as businessmen instead of thinking as engineers.”

Incubator firms in the West, provide qualifying new start-up businesses with a set of facilities—physical space, shared services, business, marketing and legal advice, and financial inputs—to facilitate their creation and assist them until “graduation”, when they have the capacity to “survive” in the outside competitive environment.

On the other hand Venture Capital (VC) firms raise funds to finance ICT companies in early, mid and/or late stages, in exchange for convertible preferred stock. That type of funding is interest free, which makes it consistent with Shar’ia (Islamic law). Usually VCs’ main focus is on investing in emerging and promising young companies.

iPark dose not acquire a share in the startup; it provides all its services from office space to furniture and IT infrastructure to managerial and marketing advise for only JD160 monthly.

“Unlike western-based incubators, iPark does not provide funding but tries to arrange funding from different sources: National Fund For Enterprise Support (NAFES) to help small- and medium-sized businesses of HCST; individual or corporate investors,” Hamarneh said.

According to Hamarneh start-ups in Jordan struggle to get funding. “We do not have enough seed funding in Jordan; for example if you have an established company that needs funding of JD2 million, VCs would oblige. but if the company was a startup which need seed funding for JD 30,000 it will not find”. He said. Adding that “startups that need seed funding are small, so the probability of their failure is higher, that means higher risk for the VC”.

To get qualified to iPark an entrepreneur needs a business plan that is evaluated by iPark; if it was not available, then iPark will provide free consulting to prepare it. iPark has contracted a lawyer and an accountant, who offer their services to the incubatees for a minimal charge.

“We examine the founders and their drive, iPark interviews them from 4 to 5 times, before accepting or refusing them”. Hamraneh said, to accept applicants, iPark looks at the business opportunity, the competitive advantage, financial maters, and the size of the market, “the size of Jordan’s market is small, so we also look at the ability of the founder at least to enter neighboring markets”. Hamarna said.

There are 18 companies working today in the incubator, and two more companies will be entering soon. “No company has failed all of them are successful” said Hamarna.

Four companies has graduated from the incubator: Dimensions Consulting Inc (DCI) specialized in chip design, Electric Pharmaceutical Services (EPS) a business to business pharmaceutical procurement company, Jeeran.com the first Arab web hosting community and RAZORView Advisors strategic consultants.

DCI has graduated after 8 months because it expanded and it needed more office space, “the incubator is a brilliant idea, but they need to expand and host 100 companies instead of its current capacity of 22, in order to provide a scale for extra services,” said Muhannad Al-Saman, technical manager at DCI.

Saman had high expectations prior to enrolling in iPark as his business was lacking support. “The benefits derived from being part of iPark are the ability to launch right away the business with the availability of equipment and office space, and being in one place with other IT startups who share the same motivation and ambition,” Saman said.

Lu’ai Tawfeeq, general manager of EPS who graduated in October 2005, named the benefits in terms of affordable rental of office space which is equipped with high speed Internet, telephone, fax, copiers, printers, PC and office furniture.”

He added, “we benefited also from iPark database of customers contacts, legal offices and VCs. iPark referred us to Jordan-US Business Partnership (JUSBP) which covered 80 percent of the cost of documenting our software, plus paying a new employee’s monthly salary of JD100; iPark also referred us to NAFES fund which covered 80 percent of the cost of developing our business plan.” EPS was the first company to join iPark; it started with 3 employees and now employs five.

“The availability of the IT infrastructure at iPark enabled us to focus on our core business—community web hosting,” said Omar Qoudsi, president and co-founder of Jeeran.com, adding, “while we were part of the incubator, iPark launched a finance and accounting workshop, for free, which was very beneficial for us.” Like Saman, Qoudis, complained about the limitation of fiscal space, and demanded the incubator to offer more consulting services in accounting and finance, and to carry out checks on its member companies and how they are progressing.

Jeeran started with 2 personnel and now it has a staff of nine, according to Qoudis who declared that jeeran.com is profitable, with 550,000 registered users from all over the Arab world and 400,000 web sites.

“The incubation offers a good environment that hosts many companies under one roof; it gives you an insight into the market, and enables you to exchange expertise with other companies,” said Majed Qasem, managing director and founder of RAZORview, which joined the incubation in 2003, and graduated in 2005. It grew from an initial staff of one to the present seven employees.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog, i am a Muslim and an Arab man from Jordan who lived in the east and the west, I work as a freelance journalist and i work in business management. i will talk here about my experience in life that I graped from the east and the west; things that matter to east and west. This include: life matters, religion, politics, technology, relationships, business, web 2.0, mobile 2.0, telecom, media, new media, marketing, e-marketing.

I will post some of my reporting to the press also.