A story I helped to produce for al-Jazeera Arabic on the upcoming 2012 Presidential Elections in Pennsylvania. Translations are my own.

A story I recently produced on the growing role of Halal food culture in New York City, where thousands of food carts have branded and marketed “Halal” (Islamic dietary practices) as a uniquely New York cultural phenomenon. Link to video

The citizens of New York have are welcoming Halal food in a big way, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. Thousands of food carts are spreading throughout the city, specializing in selling Halal food.

MORAD: In New York ethnicities and cultures from every part of the world meet and compete to announce their presence in many different areas, including food. In the midst of this variety and richness, Halal food has been able to gain a foothold over the last decade.

MORAD: More than 5000 food carts are spread around New York selling Halal food, welcomed by New Yorkers due to its taste, the variety of its ingredients, its inexpensive price, and its quick preparation; accompanying the fast rhythm of New York life.

SAMEER SARMAST, PRESIDENT OF “SAMEER’S EATS”: Yes I believe Halal food has become NYC culture. I’ll tell you why. It started initially when immigrants came form the Middle East, opened up [...]

Bashar al-Assad gave a written statement (from an undisclosed location) for Armed Forces Day, as Syrian troops bombard and attack Aleppo. These are his words to the armed forces. Arabic taken from here.

Our battle with the enemy is a battle of many obvious forms, goals, and markers… a battle upon which rests the destiny of our people; past, present and future. For our enemy has come into our midst, making domestic collaborators into a crossing and steed for them to strike the stability of our nation, shake the security of the citizens an continue to drain our economic capability and our technical capacity, and by extension weaken us and prevent us from drawing our future and joining the ranks of developed societies capable of keeping up with the times and confronting its dangers and challenges … They wanted to deprive our people of their national resolve and force them into being prostrate in their arms…

But it stunned them to see this noble people in the heart of a single man confronting their schemes and resisting and defeating them. So they strove to search for an exit from their defeats to concoct more scehemes to target [...]

The BBC has a version of his statement taken from the original report by ISNA, which is here

“ما به سوريه سلاح هايى كه عليه غير نظاميان استفاده شود نمى فروشيم، بر خلاف آمريكايى ها كه به طور مكرر به منطقه خليج فارس اسلحه می‌فروشند، از جمله محموله اخيرى كه به منطقه فرستادند.”

Translation by me: “We are not selling weapons to Syria that are being used against civilians, as opposed to America which has repeatedly sold weapons to the Gulf region, including the latest shipments that have been sent to the region.”

This contrasts with the quote being carried on news agencies:

Lavrov told a news conference during a brief visit to Iran on Wednesday that Russia was supplying “anti-air defence systems” to Damascus in a deal that “in no way violates international laws”.

“That contrasts with what the United States is doing with the opposition, which is providing arms to the Syrian opposition which are being used against the Syrian government,” he said.

There is no mention of the “opposition” in the BBC article. I don’t know where they got it from but I’d love to know, as it is difficult to follow the chain [...]