Ozan Kose / AFP - Getty Images
Ghassan Hitto, speaking to reporters after his March 18 election as Syria's interim prime minister.
By Ayman Mohyeldin and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News
He is a ?straight shooter? from Texas who worked as a telecoms executive until November. But Ghassan Hitto now finds himself the presumptive caretaker-leader of Syria as world powers plot the end of Bashar Assad?s crumbling regime.
The American citizen, born in Syria, is the new prime minister of the opposition?s interim government ? the apparatus that the international community hopes will seal the end of Assad?s rule.
Friends describe Hitto, 50, as ?sincere? and ?practical,? but the charismatic technocrat will need all the charm he can muster to unify Syria?s fragmented opposition.
His rapid rise has prompted questions about how the deadly conflict should end and has cast a light on infighting, fueled by regional countries purportedly supporting certain opposition figures.
The Free Syrian Army, one of the key rebel groups fighting Assad?s forces on the ground inside Syria, responded to Hitto?s appointment in Istanbul on March 18 by refusing to recognize his authority.
?The situation there is so dire, I?m afraid for him,? said Mustafa Carroll,?who worked alongside Hitto in Texas as a volunteer at Muslim advocacy groups. ?It?s a big responsibility and it?s very complicated.?
?He?s a straight shooter, very sincere, very well-regarded and a very active community person,? said Carroll, who is director of the Houston chapter of the Council for American-Islamic Relations.
Seen as Muslim Brotherhood's pick
Hitto, a father of four, lived in the U.S. for three decades, most recently on the outskirts of Dallas working as director of operations for telecoms supplier Inovar, where co-worker?Arshad Syed remembers him as "honest" and "personable."
He left Syria in the early 1980s and received an MBA at Indiana Wesleyan University on top of a degree in computer science and mathematics from Purdue University in Indianapolis.
Strongly active in community groups, he was a member of the board of directors at the private Islamic school Bright Horizons Academy, in Garland, Texas, where his wife Suzanne still teaches English.
In November, he made the decision to get involved in the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces -- the international grouping that seeks to end Syria?s civil war on the condition that Assad is removed from power.
/
A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.
?Like a lot of people living away, he just wanted to help his homeland,? said Carroll.
Hitto?s wife did not return calls, but the academy issued a statement describing him as ?a practical man with great management experience.?
It said: ?He was always open minded and open to debate. He conducted himself with the highest honesty and integrity. His talent for bringing people together for the common good will be missed in our community.?
Hitto, a respected technocrat but an inexperienced politician, won the overwhelming number of votes from those who cast a ballot -- other possible candidates that included a former Syrian regime official -- but some members of the Coalition boycotted the vote in protest at the process.
Not everyone was convinced the opposition needed an interim government, seeing it as yet another organization that could compete for control of a post-Assad Syria.
Official spokesman Walid al-Bunni walked out of the vote in protest and Moaz al-Khatib, president of the Coalition, resigned and had to be persuaded back on board just in time for the Arab Summit in Doha, which began Tuesday.
?Hitto?s whole role has been undermined from the start,? said Christopher Phillips, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at U.K. think tank, Chatham House.
?He?s very much the Muslim Brotherhood?s man, and is seen as such. There was a lot of pressure to get an interim opposition leader in place ahead of the Doha talks, but the way in which it was done, and the choice of very much the man that Qatar and Turkey wanted, has infuriated and alienated just about every key player in the process.?
Represents 'the some of the some'
Salman Shaik, director of the Brookings Center in Doha, said many Syrians "still regard the appointment of Hitto with suspicion." Even if Assad is toppled from power, Hitto is by no means certain of the authority he needs to implement free and fair elections.
?The huge elephant in the room is that there is no guarantee that, if and when the Assad regime falls, that any of the groups fighting in Syria will gather around this official opposition,? said Phillips. ?There are huge uncertainties in all of this.?
Abdulrahman al-Rashed, commentator and general manager of the Al Arabiya news channel, wrote: ?I am confident that Mr. Hitto is a respectable person and that he cares about Syria. But during this difficult time, we want a person who represents everyone and not only some Syrians. Some members of the Syrian coalition decided to choose Hitto but the coalition itself only represents some Syrians. Therefore, Hitto represents the some of the some!?
Yasser Tabarra, the Chicago-based legal adviser to the Coalition, says the interim government will focus on managing the 60 to 70 percent of the country that is liberated and controlled by opposition rebels.
The government would coordinate local management efforts, including establishing law and order, and delivering basic goods and services, Tabarra said.
Two key stumbling blocks remain: whether the Coalition should enter into any form of negotiations with the regime while Assad is still in power, and whether Hitto, an ethnic Kurd viewed as the Muslim Brotherhood's favored candidate, can unite the ideological differences between its liberal and Islamist members.
In his task, Hitto at least has the backing of the U.S.
?This is an individual who, out of concern for the Syrian people, left a very successful life in Texas to go and work on humanitarian relief for the people of his home country,? said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland after Hitto?s election.
?We?re very hopeful that his election will foster unity and cohesion among the opposition.?
NBC News' Becky Bratu contributed to this report.
?
nfl 2012 schedule gmail down tim lincecum ryan oneal file taxes online tupac shakur sledge hammer
Last October, Google introduced the new email compose window as an option for Gmail users and starting today, this will become the default. The new compose experience, which is essentially a pop-up window that appears on the right side of the screen, is easier to use, faster and makes it easier for Gmail users to multitask, Google says. In return, however, it’s now a bit harder to find text formatting options like underline, indent, numbered and unnumbered lists, etc. (you can, of course, also still use the same keyboard shortcuts as before). The new compose experience will roll out over the next few days. It looks like Google will still allow users to switch back to the old compose windows for a while, but it’s not clear for how long. A Google spokesperson told me that the company has not set a timeline for this. The new experience breaks the integration with Rapportive?(recently acquired by LinkedIn)?and similar services (though Boomerang apparently works just fine with it) which previously lived in the right-hand sidebar of the compose screen. You can still use Rapportive while you are reading emails, of course, but the new compose windows have no sidebar (and hence also no ads), so it’s not clear where these tools would present their information while you are composing emails. Thankfully, it looks like the old compose window will still be around for a bit longer, but we’ll have to see for how long. On the positive side, though, the new compose window makes it easier to multitask, as you can open multiple compose windows next to each other, though things get rather confusing once you open more than two. The new compose window is also close integrated with Google Drive and makes it very easy to attach documents from Google’s cloud storage service.
Good morning, AdLand. Here's what you need to know today:
Apple is in court again in China, defending another of its products from attack based on pre-existing claims from a Chinese company. This time around it's Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, that has landed it in Chinese legal trouble, after last year another company took issue with the iPad trademark resulting in a $60 million settlement deal.
To make up for pesky competition from the Internet, the owner of an Australian retail store is 
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t__qopZDvqngFA6_pMjQ0OoueBpOju2GTkRRJ9HpeHhqLaV4zd65fWWNvCfjibg8yb8SyZqGGpcS7LVbecrUVF3njuGTBRm6I72pJUCqo=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 25-Mar-2013
Share ] 
UFC featherweight Chan Sung Jung has a fight with Ricardo Lamas coming up in July. The fight will likely have title implications, and will give "The Korean Zombie" a chance to prove he belongs at the top of the UFC's 145-lb. class. But the upcoming fight didn't keep Jung from speaking up to one of the UFC's biggest stars.
Since you're influenced by Japanese Martial Arts, your wearing a headband designed after Japanese flag is understandable. But again, that huge 'Rising Sun' on your Gi means something else.