When the anti-terrorism cop is Muslim

PARIS -- Like the other detectives in his anti-terrorism unit, Mustafa wears a mask during raids.

He calls it "the Spiderman thing." The mask protects his identity and adds to the intimidating effect as he bursts through doors behind SWAT officers aiming laser-sighted weapons at suspects.

During interrogations, the mask comes off. The suspects stare at a young man much like themselves: a son of North African immigrants, an Arabic-speaker, a practicing Muslim. They react with surprise or hate — never indifference.

"I am the worst enemy for them," Mustafa says. "I speak their language. I know how they think. I have gotten a lot of threats. They say: 'You are worse than the Americans. The Americans are Christians. They are fighting their crusade. But you are a Muslim traitor.' ... One guy told me: 'If I could get hold of one of your guns and it only had one bullet, it would be for you.' "

But occasionally, encounters with fellow officers leave Mustafa feeling caught in the middle.

"When I am on the street working plainclothes, police have stopped me," he says. "I take out my badge. I tell them I am working anti-terrorism. But they lock the door of their car and call headquarters to check me out. They don't have an image of someone like me as a policeman."

Mustafa — not his real name — is one of a rare breed of police officers who represent the future of European law enforcement. Despite Europe's large immigrant population, predominantly Muslim, police forces are struggling to integrate and to improve relations with minority communities.

"Diversity in the police is a factor of social justice," says French police Capt. Mohamed Douhane, 42, an official of the Synergie Officers union, which represents mid-level police commanders. "It gives greater credibility to institutions. It reduces tensions. Vis-a-vis young people, we are ambassadors."

Anti-terrorism agencies aggressively recruit investigators from Muslim backgrounds, eager to use their skills against an array of extremist networks. But the number of minorities in law enforcement, let alone elite units, remains small, especially compared with the presence of black and Latino officers in the United States. Though immigrants are central to the American identity, immigration began transforming Europe only in recent decades. Integration will take time.

And some Muslim investigators avoid the top-secret world of anti-terrorism, wary of risks and pressures that can make it a no man's land.

"They have chosen to distance themselves from their community, where there are people who now despise them, yet we do not always accept them," says Belgian federal police Supt. Alain Grignard, an anti-terrorism expert who speaks Arabic. "That doubles the pressure. I know officers who have had psychological problems because of this conflict."

On condition that his identity and the country where he works be kept secret, Mustafa agreed to give an inside view of his unique world.

He comes across as cheerful and, in a relaxed way, proud of what he does. He is 30, alert but not intense, solid but not brawny. When he is off duty, he has a stylish look. You can imagine him hanging out at a disco on a Mediterranean coast or playing pick-up soccer in a park.

Mustafa grew up in a devout, blue-collar family. He drinks an occasional glass of beer or wine, but attends mosque services and observes Ramadan. His relatives have made the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

"I was taught that being Muslim meant being nice, honest, kind — nothing about killing or hating," he says. "People are using Islam to hate other cultures. So I fight against that. That's my jihad."wow gold soccer table LOUIS VUITTON wow powerleveling

As a boy, Mustafa was fascinated by "Miami Vice" and other television police dramas. Although his father wanted him to learn a trade, he applied to a national police academy, becoming one of the few Muslim cadets. Along with the allure of action, he felt a certain patriotic duty. It stirs whenever he goes on missions to North Africa and contemplates the sprawling misery of the shantytowns there.world of warcraft gold china stationary

"My father was so poor when he emigrated that the village chipped in to buy him a suit so he would look presentable," Mustafa says. "He was very well-received here. Yes, there are racists. But my parents integrated well."China tour Import from china travel china GUCCI

Mustafa graduated near the top of his class. Religious discipline helped.

"Because I studied very hard," he says. "No girls, no drinking, no discos."

He started as a patrolman, but things moved quickly after an officer was killed by Moroccan gangsters. Detectives enlisted the rookie to analyze wiretaps in Arabic and gather intelligence.

Yahoo CEO has credibility problem

Jerry Yang isn't like Michael Dell, Steve Jobs and other high-profile executives who returned to rescue the companies they founded. Yang, Yahoo Inc.'s new chief executive, never left.

And that's part of his credibility problem — not just with outside investors hoping for a more radical management shake-up than they got this week, but also with current and former employees who have felt frustrated as they've watched rivals start to eat Yahoo's lunch.

Several ex-Yahooers said that an aversion to risk and a quarter-to-quarter mentality had crept in as the company super-sized itself in recent years. As archrival Google Inc. grew to dominate the Internet-advertising business, Yahoo appeared to hesitate. As others pulled the trigger on acquisitions of dynamic Web companies — Google bought YouTube, and News Corp. bought MySpace — Yahoo seemed to deliberate too long. Whether or not Yang was running the company, such people said, it has happened on his watch.

Under heavy criticism from disappointed investors, Yahoo announced Monday that Yang, 38, had taken over as CEO from Terry Semel, 64, the veteran Hollywood executive who arrived in 2001 and helped refocus the company in the aftermath of the dot-com stock collapse. In Yang's first move, he tapped former chief financial officer and rising star Susan L. Decker as president to help him restore confidence among Wall Street, advertisers and employees.

Investors initially embraced the changes, bidding up Yahoo shares in after-hours trading Monday, soon after the announcement. But on Tuesday the stock dropped 49 cents to $27.63, partly because of analysts' cool reaction and partly because of the company's statement that it wanted to stay independent. Some investors had been hoping that Yahoo's turmoil might lead it to put itself up for auction.

"Jerry Yang is widely acknowledged as a visionary — he built something out of nothing," Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Kessler said Tuesday. "But he's not really a manager and never has been, so there's a level of skepticism about this news."

Yang has long carried the title "chief Yahoo" and has been responsible for long-term strategy, not management, at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company. In fact, other than an administrative assistant, he has had no subordinates reporting to him, said a former executive who, like other ex-employees interviewed for this story, declined to be identified because they retained some personal or business ties to the company.

To lead the charge against Google and other competitors, Kessler said, Yang will have to "rally the troops and get people excited."

As CEO, he also will be the public face of Yahoo, mainly responsible for articulating its vision — a role he has left to others in the past. A former Yahoo executive who admires Yang said that unlike some other Silicon Valley executives, Yang and co-founder David Filo "have not been that interested in being in the media."

Yang was not available for an interview Tuesday, a Yahoo spokeswoman said.

"Jerry has been in the trenches at Yahoo since day one, and his tremendous passion and work ethic has continued throughout his 12 years here," the company said in a statement, adding that Yang "has played a key role in forming the company strategy and driving our business forward."

Few people who know Yang doubt his competitive fire, least of all friends such as former Yahoo President Jeff Mallett, who has seen Yang transform himself from an utter hacker into a golfer who shoots in the low 80s.

"If Jerry doesn't know how to do something, he throws himself into it," said Mallett, chairman of Snocap, a tech company. "He doesn't want to catch up to you — he wants to beat you."

That kind of determination, in Mallett's view, makes Yang the right person for the top job now.

Google's explosive growth has set "a wickedly high benchmark" for Yahoo, Mallett said, but the pace of change in the industry means that no advantage is insurmountable. It was only in 2006 that Google's annual profit outpaced Yahoo's.smoke alarm 日本アニメ export from yiwu gsm alarm china handbag

To some observers, Yahoo's main challenges are to narrow its focus and speed up development of new products and services. Kessler told the Associated Press that the large Santa Monica office that houses Yahoo's media operations might be a target for closure. But a Yahoo spokeswoman said that was not the case. gas detector gas detector china toys

Yahoo's new Panama search-advertising technology shows promise, Kessler said. But rather than going head-to-head with Google on search, he said the company might devote more energy to becoming "the anti-Google" by further developing content-sharing partnerships with companies such as Viacom Inc. that have been angered by what they regard as Google's somewhat cavalier attitude toward intellectual property.

"There's no shortage of ideas there, but sometimes a lack of ability to see them through," said a former executive who left Yahoo recently and was still rooting for the company to succeed. "They move like molasses sometimes."

Another ex-Yahooer said that what some people mistake for excessive caution on Yang's part is actually discipline.Import from china yiwu purchase agent

"Is it a cool technology, or is it a business?" the person asked, adding that Yang, to his credit, has a good record of being able to distinguish between the two.

Yahoo may be involved in too many projects to successfully run all of them, Mallett said, but he added that it was a cyclical problem for all big companies in a fast-changing industry.

"Every five years, you probably need to shoot the weak ones and focus on the strong ones," Mallett said. "It's pruning, and it's a natural process."

Racial, economic rift opens at Arts High School

Whose school is it, anyway?

Is the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts the province of accomplished young dancers, actors, artists and musicians aimed at professional arts careers — or is it a place for talented but untutored youngsters, whose promise might unfold in its conservatory atmosphere?

The question has transformed a parochial dispute over a teacher's competence into a bitter public feud that touches on questions of race, privilege and opportunity.

In the process, it has unmasked agonizing racial and economic divisions on a campus struggling to balance a vision of pure artistic excellence with the value of ethnic diversity.

In the conflict's wake are bewildered students, angry parents and embarrassed county officials, worried about the future of the public arts school, which has operated for more than 20 years on the campus of Cal State Los Angeles.

At its center is Lois Hunter, head of the school's dance and theater departments. Her backers say the longtime educator is a passionate advocate for underprivileged kids. Her detractors consider her an arrogant pawn of a tone-deaf county bureaucracy.

Hunter's critics say her mismanagement of the two departments has driven out good teachers, jeopardized students' futures and alienated the school's visiting corps of professional actors and dancers. For months leading up to last weekend's graduation ceremonies, they pilloried Hunter in public, circulating a thick dossier of complaints and criticizing her at meetings of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Their allegations run the gamut: Classes are overcrowded and unorganized. Dance classrooms have no first-aid kits or icepacks to treat injuries. Rehearsal schedules change without notice. Student discipline has been arbitrary and inconsistent. Favored students were given choice roles. Prestigious theater competitions were ignored.

Hunter is "horribly under-qualified ... consistently arrogant, dismissive [and] rude to visiting professionals," theater parent Steven Whitney wrote in the 500-page file assembled by leaders of the parent fundraising group, Friends of Arts High, which donates more than $100,000 to the school each year. They say school officials ignored their complaints for months.

"We called. We wrote letters. We sent e-mails. And got nothing back," said parent Pat Lentz. "They want to take our money and they want us to shut up."

As the conflict escalated, it became a clash of egos and agendas so intense, it strained student friendships, spawned ugly rumors and conspiracy theories and split parents into opposing factions: "concerned" parents lobbying for Hunter's ouster, and "supportive" parents rallying to her defense.wow powerleveling yiwu china wow power leveling china gifts

At meetings, parents were "like a screaming mob," said "concerned" parent Jackie Monkarsh. "I've never seen something so disturbing.... Children were yelled at. Parents started to cry. It was horrible."

Hunter declined to be interviewed for this story, but in an e-mailed statement she attributed the complaints to a small corps of parents unhappy with her efforts to promote diversity. "Change is always difficult for a few people when their focus is on narrow, outdated thinking and actions that attempt to maintain the status quo," she said.

That Hunter is black and most of her detractors white has injected race into the messy debate. Her supporters call the campaign a "lynching" and accuse complaining parents of opposing Hunter because she won't kowtow to their demands.The biggest wholesale market in china china auto accessory

"This is all against Ms. Hunter because she is black," said Aurora Reyes, whose daughter is a dance student. "These are rich parents of privileged kids who want to run the school like a private school."

Parents from the "concerned" camp bristle at the accusations. Several in their group are black.

"It gets tricky," Monkarsh said. "Once you start saying 'racism,' white people can't come out looking good.... This is not a race thing. This is about incompetence."

But parents, teachers, students and administrators all agree that the controversy has forced them to confront uncomfortable divisions at the school, which draws its 550 students from school districts across the county.China factory go to yiwu Beijing tour Imitation jewelry

Many parents are arts professionals wealthy enough to tap outside networks to instruct and advise their children. "Kids go to their agents to check out what their teachers say and find out the teachers have it wrong," said "concerned" parent Susan Galeas, co-president of fundraising group.

Some less-advantaged parents say they are treated condescendingly. Reyes said that when she took chicken with black beans — a family favorite — to the group's potluck last year, "they wouldn't even eat my food."