Coptic Christian shop owners in the Egyptian town of Farshoot are refusing to reopen their stores until the government compensates them for damages in two days of rioting over the weekend. Up to 65 shops were reportedly damaged as thousands of Muslims attacked local Copts in the town some 300 miles south of Cairo. Damages to the burned and looted shops, including jewelry stores and pharmacies, is estimated at $1 million. "There will be no reconciliation before full financial compensation has been paid to the Coptic victims, and the criminals are brought to justice, so that safety and security can be restored to the district," said Bishop Kirollos of the Nag Hammadi Diocese.

After months of dialogue between the Interior Ministry, parliament and Kurdish leaders, the Turkish government announced a plan to help end the 25-year conflict with a Kurdish separatist movement that has cost more than 40,000 lives. The plan debated by Turkish Parliament for two days was hailed as a landmark, calling for lifting the ban on Kurdish political parties and officially acknowledging Kurdish ethnic identity and cultural rights. Kurds make up almost 15% of Turkey's population.

Saudi Arabia's air force attacked Yemeni rebels holding territory in the in Jabal al-Dokhan along the kingdom's southern border Nov. 5. The Defense Ministry in Sanaa denied local media reports that Saudi jets struck within Yemeni territory. The air-strikes followed a gun-battle in which a Saudi border guard was killed and 10 wounded when Houthi rebels from Yemen attacked. The Houthis issued a statement saying they seized the Jabal al-Dokhan because Saudi Arabia had allowed the Yemeni army to use the area for attacks on the rebels. (Bloomberg, Nov. 6; Arab News, NYT, Nov. 5)

In an Oct. 15 New York Times story, "Crossroads of Islam, Past and Present," Robert F. Worth reports from Tarim in Yemen's Hadramawt region, where a thriving Sufi school is attempting to reclaim the area's reputation from the media moniker of "the ancestral homeland" of Osama bin Laden. Is this a long-overdue corrective to demonized portrayals of Islam—or more propaganda in an imperial divide-and-conquer ploy to groom Sufis as domesticated "good Muslims"?

The Yemeni army entered into its fifth day of deadly fighting against Zaydi Shi'ite insurgents in the north of the country Aug. 16. Airstrikes and artillery fire were used in battles with Zaydi militants of the Houthi militia. Six government troops killed, an official from Amran province said. (AlJazeera, Aug. 16)

Yemeni security forces July 23 opened fire on thousands of protesters in Zinjibar, provincial capital of Abyan in the country's restive south, killing 12 and wounding scores of others. "Government forces have committed a massacre against unarmed civilians, firing live bullets and killing 10 people," said Ali Dehmes, an opposition leader in the south. Two more protesters apparently died in the hospital. (AP, July 23)

From the World Muslim Congress:

Obama, Hujurat and Islamic Calligraphy
President Obama quoted the verse 49:13 from Sura Hujurat in his speech in Cairo. "O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you." (Qur'aan 49:13).

President Barack Obama's historic speech to the Muslim world, delivered June 4 at Cairo's al-Azhar University, Islam's highest institution of learning, was—like much in the president's program—a meaningful step forward nonetheless compromised by tactical equivocation. This is illustrated by two historical invocations in his text: one a courageous repudiation of his predecessor's Christian crusader mentality—the other a dangerous omission that undermines his message of reconciliation...