The Combination is a powerful and deeply affecting story of a contemporary Lebanese family in urban Australia.
 

John Morkos is released from prison intent on a new life, free of his old ways.

But he finds his younger brother Charlie being lured by the local underworld.

John’s demands to stay clear of crime fall on deaf ears – Charlie has no respect for the former crim.

In the thrall of gang leader Zeus, Charlie’s life oscillates between the schoolyard punch-ups and the gangland streets of his neighbourhood.

When John meets Sydney, a beautiful Aussie girl, and finds a job at the local boxing gym his life is challenged in unexpected ways.

But Charlie’s unrelenting decent into the world of crime places his whole family in harms way, forcing John to risk everything to right his brothers wrongs.

The Cast includes George Basha, Clare Bowen, Firass Dirani, Ali Haidar, Doris Younane.

Trailer

Now showing at AMC Cinemas
 

At the Muslim Business Network Annual General Meeting held on Wednesday at the Runcorn Tavern four new members are appointed onto the Executive Board as Directors.

They were Dr. Daud Batchelor, Dr. Shafiq Allahwalla, Mr. Bilal Rauf and Mr. Iqbal Lambat.

Mr. Shummis Rane was re-appointed for another term and the four existing Exco members Mr. Farouk Adam, Mr. Sultan Deen, Mr. Ebrahim Paruk and Mr. Naseem Abdul make up the new 9-man team.

A meeting of the committee will be held during the week to elect the new Management Committee.

The YMCA Queensland is seeking passionate young Muslims to nominate to represent their community in the 2009 Queensland Youth Parliament.

Nominations are now open and will close at 5pm on the 6th March 2009.

The YMCA Queensland Youth Parliament is a civics education and youth engagement forum which brings together a Youth Member, aged 15-25 years old, from each of the 89 electorates in Queensland’s Parliament.

Nominations are needed for all current 89 state electorates in Queensland.

Co-ordinator of the YMCA Queensland Youth Parliament, Louis Paul Franks, wants to encourage participation from the Muslim community.

“Youth Parliament is about engaging Queensland’s diverse communities and recognising the unique experiences and perspectives individuals bring,” he says.

Last year Queensland’s Youth Parliamentarians were amazed by the insight Omar Issadeen, Abdul Obied and Yassmin Abdel-Magied provided information about the Muslim community. Yassmin was also later elected the first Muslim woman to ever take on the title of Premier in Queensland’s Youth Parliament.

For more information or to nominate, check out the website www.ymcaqyp.org.
 

Every now and then CCN will interview a local personality and ask the hard questions.

This week CCN turns the spotlights on Mr. Hussin Goss - organizer, entrepreneur, auctioneer and entertainer extraordinaire.

Hussin Goss might be known for his exuberant personality on stage, but today we will look at the man behind the microphone.

Hussin is the owner of Goss Bros. a cold storage and transport business, and his family was the first Muslim family on the Gold Coast. 

Not only has he been at the fore front of establishing the current Mosque but he is a well known identity in his own right. His effervescence is either infectious or tiring, but he is always entertaining..

3.         I know all the words to.. Elvis Presley’s Falling in love (and he goes spontaneously into the first verse…Wise men say only fools rush in But I cant help falling in love with you).

4.         I really am not good .. at writing, I am good with figures, I can fix figures, give me some figures and I can do something with them.

Prince Charles, Heir to the British Monarchy, in a recent public speech at Oxford University stated:

"If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure, which stems, I think, from the straight-jacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history."

The new MuslimHeritage.com website is a community and non-profit initiative aimed at providing an educational forum to present and discuss the contribution of Muslim Heritage to present day Science, Technology and Civilisation.
 

You can begin your journey into 100 years of missing history here.

AN ANCIENT religious enmity is at the centre of a new conflict in the Sydney bikie scene, with a new gang comprised mainly of Sunni Muslims warring with a group of bikies with a Shiite Muslim background.

While detectives continue to investigate the February 4 bombing of a Hells Angels clubhouse in Crystal Street, Petersham, police and other sources are indicating that the city chapter of the Comanchero is involved in an escalating feud with a new club, Notorious.

The president of Notorious is a Lebanese-Australian with a long-standing association with a bikie from a colourful Sydney Sunni Lebanese family. The two are among Sydney's original "Nike" bikies - sporting white sneakers, fashionable T-shirts and clean-shaven instead of the traditional boots, dirty vests and bushy beards - and both are from Sunni families from Sydney's west.

Notorious is considered by gang squad detectives to be the prime suspect in the Crystal Street bombing. One of its mottos is "Only the dead see the end of war" and its "colours", or coat of arms, is a turbaned skeleton holding twin pistols with "Original Gangster" beneath it. Today is the first time the club's colours have been revealed publicly.

On the other side of the conflict is the president of the Comanchero City Crew, a Beirut-born Shiite who grew up in the St George area. Comanchero has been one of the motorcycle gangs that have embraced the new breed of "Nike" bikie, and have been recruiting from the Lebanese and Islander communities for several years.

Traditionally, Lebanese Muslim migrants to Sydney have been geographically and religiously divided. The Sunni majority live in Sydney's west and south-west, mainly around Auburn and Bankstown, while the Shiite minority live in the St George area. "The two groups have no love lost between them," a senior police source told the Herald.

They have been fighting since the Sunni bikie, one of Sydney's most well-known gangsters, became president of the Nomads Parramatta chapter in the late 1990s.

In 2006, he was jailed over a Newcastle shooting. The following year, the Parramatta chapter's Granville headquarters was bombed, allegedly by the Comanchero, and the chapter subsequently disbanded.

A few of its members formed Notorious, probably at the request of the Sunni bikie.

"[The Sunni bikie] left the Nomads while he was on remand," said an investigator who has watched the two groups for years. "He was telling people he was planning to start up his own club. Around about the same time, Notorious appeared."

Unlike the Sunni bikie and the Notorious president, the Comanchero City Crew president was born in Beirut and grew up in Sydney's southern suburbs. He appeared on television in 2005 following the Cronulla riot and Maroubra reprisal violence, when he met members of the Bra Boys to calm tensions.

When the Herald asked the president of the Hells Angels city chapter about the bombing, he was succinct: "I've got nothing to say, thank you."

But bikie sources said the Angels believe Notorious may be responsible for the attack, which closed down Crystal Street for a day and damaged seven neighbouring businesses.

Neither police nor the Hells Angels have established why Notorious may have attacked the club, though the senior police source offered a simple answer: "They're just bloody crazy."

In the latest violence, a Comanchero member was shot in the leg when he was confronted by five Hells Angels at a park in Silverwater on February 7.
 

The Sydney Morning Herald

Dateline traveled to the remote tribal regions of north-west Pakistan, to see how the new civilian government is coping with the Taliban insurgency.

If you missed The Battle for Pakistan on SBS Dateline last week you can view it here.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The "Slumdog Millionaire" child actors from the slums of Mumbai will be joining hundreds of movie stars on the red carpet at Sunday's Oscar ceremony in Hollywood, the studio behind the film said on Friday .

Fox Searchlight said it was paying the bill for visas, travel and accommodations for nine children to fly to Los Angeles for the Oscars, where the rags-to-riches story is favourite for a best picture Oscar.

The studio said the children, who play the younger and teen versions of the characters portrayed by adults Dev Patel, Freida Pinto and Madhur Mittal, will appear on the red carpet and attend the February 22 awards ceremony at the Kodak Theatre.

The film makers were accused last month of exploiting the children. British director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson have rejected the charge, saying the children were paid above local Indian wages for their work and that the film's makers were also paying for their education.

"Slumdog Millionaire" is nominated for 10 Oscars -- the industry's highest honors -- including best picture and best director. It already has won at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild , and the British BAFTA awards.

Source

  Muslims Support National Day of Mourning

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