May 18 2005

HOPELESS!

How do we expect to have peace and justice if there are people in the world who think like THAT?

It’s such a shame to know such people -blinded with hatred and racism- exist!

Via: Jad

May 18 2005

Nobel Laureates Gather in Petra-Jordan

Nobel laureates from across the globe gathered in the ancient Jordanian city of Petra on Wednesday with the lofty goal of seeking solutions to the world’s problems.
Over the course of 2 days, the 29 laureates and other leaders will examine and try to find solutions for problems in four main areas, including terror and peace, economic development and poverty, health and environment, and education and media.
Hollywood actor Richard Gere joined Peace Prize winner the Dalai Lama for the illustrious meeting of top thinkers which host King Abdullah II said was aimed at finding a new start for a planet wracked by conflict and poverty.
“The world is at a critical crossroad,” the Jordanian monarch said in his opening speech. “A process begins here – a process that all of you will shape – and by your effort, help shape our world.” Highlighting the conflict in the Middle East, he said the world needed to make a “new beginning” to create more freedom and opportunity, build peace and expand global cooperation, with a particular focus on youth.

[Source: Middle East Online, Al Ghad (AR)]

Isn’t this just great? I believe Petra is the perfect place for the gathering of great minds…

May 3 2005

World Press Freedom Day

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Every year, May 3rd is World Press Freedom Day, a day to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom; to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.
It serves as an occasion to inform citizens of violations of press freedom – a reminder that in dozens of countries around the world, publications are censored, fined, suspended and closed down, while journalists, editors and publishers are harassed, attacked, detained and even murdered.
This day is to encourage and develop initiatives in favour of press freedom, and to assess the state of press freedom worldwide, discussing issues of press freedom and professional ethics with media professionals.
A day to remind governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom. Just as importantly, World Press Freedom Day is a day of support for media which are targets for the restraint, or abolition, of press freedom. It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.

This year, World Press Freedom Day is dedicated to the theme “Media and Good Governance”. To celebrate the day, UNESCO organized a conference in Senegal’s capital Dakar, from 1 to 3 May 2005.

Unfortunately many Arab countries do not believe in press freedom, any kind of criticism is not welcome. Although I think Arab countries are experiencing great improvement in many fields of life, freedom of expression and press freedom have not yet reached a safe constructive level.
Today is a very important chance to call for the rights of journalists who are suffering, experiencing torture and being thrown in prison or receiving threats that include them and their families for simply expressing their opinion.
I’m sure that when granted their rights and their freedom, we’ll witness more positive developments in our countries; respect will replace fear, creativity will replace hesitance, and success will replace failure.

  • UNESCO Remembers Assassinated Journalists
  • World Press Freedom Prize 2005
  • May 2 2005

    Support The Right To Difference & Diversity

    In an attempt to support Europe’s diversity and protect the right to difference in all aspects of life in France and throughout the European Union a campaign was launched and a written declaration on religious rights and freedoms in France and throughout the European Union was tabled on 21st February by four British MEPs and one French MEP was increasing support across Europe.
    The Declaration was endorsed by 47 MEPs representing 14 different countries and has gained substantial support from across the political spectrum. However, the Written Declaration will lapse on May 21st 2005 unless at least half the current MEPs add their signatures thereto.

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    ProHijab.Net is collecting signatures of Members of the European Union (MEP’s) to reverse the hijab ban.
    You can take action and send this letter by email to the MEP’s on the addresses provided HERE (consider the usage of BCC rather than CC in case you’re sending to more than one member).

    April 27 2005

    Turn Off TV, Turn On Life…

    How am I spending my time these days? Ah, don’t remind me PLEASE!
    I work work work, go home, housework/cooking, and when the clock ticks 8 I’m too exhausted to do anything but throw myself on the couch get something tasty and watch TV till I drop asleep!
    Result: stressed lifestyle, laziness becoming my middle name, and well, routine. I was thinking the other day that one of the biggest obstacles in the way of having a healthier and more active lifestyle is being addicted to TV and movies. So I finally succeeded in convincing my husband to overcome his movie obsession and rent less movies. But TV remains a big problem, I can’t beat it, I truly LOVE watching TV. And just when I was about to lose hope in getting over my TV addiction, I found this:

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    A great link I got via Subzero Blue that is both informative and helpful.

    Founded in 1994, TV-Turnoff Network is dedicated to the belief that people have the power to determine the role that television plays in their own lives, and that they can succeed in turning off TV to have more time for their families, friends, and for themselves.
    Their 2 main programs are: TV-Turnoff Week, and More Reading, Less TV: a four week program that helps elementary school teachers motivate their students to put down their remote controls and pick up books instead.

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    Good luck trying to break freeeeeeeeeeeeeee of TV 😉

    April 26 2005

    Foetal Therapy!

    If you’re enjoying a meal, or on your way to prepare one, I truly advise you not to read this post unless you’re done eating/ cooking. It’s really disgusting.

    Thanks to BerlinBear from Pourquoi Pas, I knew yet another terrible action which proves how cheap humanity has become, revealing the sick mentalities and guilt-free criminal minds that are showing up in our time, the time when desires beat conscious, when people forget morals, and when humans are slaves for good looks and money.

    Every time I try to post this I feel really sick, but I believe more people should know this, who knows, maybe a serious act will be taken against these terrible violations of laws, these disgusting acts that hurt and destroy us all as humans with brains and emotions… it’s all summed up with one phrase: “foetal therapy”.

    Here you go the explanation, “enjoy”:
    “Aborted foetuses from girls and young women are being exported from Ukraine for use in illegal beauty treatments costing thousands of pounds. The foetuses are cryogenically frozen and sold to clinics offering ‘youth injections’, claiming to rejuvenate skin and cure a raft of diseases.
    It is thought that women in the former Soviet republic are being paid £100 a time to persuade them to have abortions and allow their foetuses to be used in treatments. Most of the foetuses are sold in Russia for up to £5,000 each. Some are paid extra to have abortions late in their pregnancy.
    Ukrainian law allows an aborted human foetus to be passed to research institutes if the woman involved consents and her anonymity is protected. But police say staff at state health institutions are selling them to private clinics offering illegal therapy.
    Beauty salons in Moscow that buy the aborted material to provide ‘foetal therapy’ are flourishing, despite a Russian ban on all commercial treatments using human cells other than bone marrow. The salons offer injections of stem cells, the undivided cells present in embryos that can adapt into any kind of tissue, although they are still at the trial stage worldwide.
    Abortions performed more than 12 weeks into a pregnancy are restricted in Ukraine. Older foetuses fetch extra because their curative powers are thought to be greater.
    The woman would be paid to wait until a late stage of her pregnancy, or might never even know she was duped. Her aborted foetus would be passed to a middle-man or institution, which would cut it into separate organs before placing these in storage. The material was then sold and taken abroad.
    Beauty courses of injections using blends of foetal cells are banned in Ukraine and Russia, but they are widely available in salons that charge up to £10,000. Wealthy clients are told the treatment can stop the ageing process, or eliminate such debilitating conditions as Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s. One fashionable Moscow clinic approached by The Observer promised to ‘take 10 years off your face’”.

    [Source: The Observer]

    So women have no problem aborting their babies, or even going through the risks of late abortion just for money. And rich airheads don’t mind getting foetal injections for their silly treatments. And beauty salons have absolutely no problem offering these illegal treatments as long as they’re getting paid a fortune!!
    What time are we living? This is so inhuman, so disgusting, and extremely SICK!

    April 22 2005

    Interview With An Israeli Activist

    Jonathan Pollak is an Israeli activist who grew up in Tel Aviv and lives in Jaffa. He has been involved in non-violent direct action in the West Bank for the last two-and-a-half years, participating in more than 200 protests with Palestinians in the West Bank with the Israeli non-violent direct action group Anarchists Against the Wall and with the International Solidarity Movement. On April 3, 2005 an Israeli soldier shot Jonathan in the head with a teargas canister from an M-16 from a distance of approximately thirty meters at a peaceful protest against the Wall.

    In an interview by telephone on 7 April 2005, Jonathan Pollak said :
    “Palestinians are protesting, and others with them, against the theft of their land, against the steps the Israeli government and Israeli army are taking to make their lives impossible — basically to commit a quiet ethnic cleansing. They are making life so impossible that people have to leave and the border areas near the Green Line are being emptied of Palestinians. The Israeli government is constructing the Wall in a way that is making enclaves of the West Bank and rendering a Palestinian state impossible. — Jonathan Pollak

    [Via: Je Blog]

    April 15 2005

    Draw A Smile With “Garbage”

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    I’m one of the people who hate throwing away things that can still be used. I suck at selling them, although some are really in good shape and can get me good money. So I end up giving them to those who are in need. Which is, in my opinion, better than all the money in the world. Helping poor people with things you don’t need anymore brings such a joy and happiness that can’t be brought with money. It’s such a bless!

    But many people have difficulties finding people -whether poor or not- who might need their used stuff, and for this reason the Internet has provided a great way to get rid of old stuff in form of help for others.
    Instead of simply throwing away stuff you don’t need, you might change the world by giving your stuff to FreeCycle, as long as your stuff is legal and put there for free and not for financial interest.
    According to FreeCycle, sometimes people give away valuable things such as fridges and TV’s. And when there is more than one person who needs your stuff, it’s up to you to decide who should get it.

    I think this is really great, you get rid of stuff you don’t need, give it to someone who needs it, at the same time you help reduce waste, which is better for the environment, so everybody’s happy. It’s just like you’re giving them gifts, I really love the idea 🙂

    Via: Environment News(AR)

    April 7 2005

    Jede Mutter und jedes Kind zählt…

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    “Make every mother and child count”, lautet das englisch-sprachige Motto des Weltgesundheitstages 2005, “Jede Mutter und jedes Kind zählt”.
    Mütter- und Kindersterblichkeit ist das zentrale Thema beim diesjährigen Internationalen Weltgesundheitstag.
    In vielen Entwicklungsländern ist Schwangerschaft und Geburt das erste Gesundheitsrisiko.
    Mehr als eine halbe Million Frauen sterben jährlich an den Folgen von Schwangerschaft und Entbindung. Elf Millionen Kinder sterben jährlich bevor sie das fünfte Lebensjahr erreichen!
    Eins der Millenniums-Ziele, die von 150 Staats- und Regierungschefs beim Millenniumsgipfel der Vereinten Nationen im September 2000 in New York unterschrieben wurden, ist die Mütter- und Kindersterblichkeitsrate bis 2015 auf ein Viertel zu senken, was Joy Phumaphi, stellvertretende Generaldirektorin der Weltgesundheitsorganisation für Familie und Gesundheit, für erreichbar hält.

    Natürlich sind Armut und Bildung Hauptfaktore bei den meisten Krankheiten und Todesursachen. Wenn diese zwei Faktoren bekämpft würden, können wir diese Zahlen vermeiden und viele Leben retten.
    “Ein gesundes Kind ist die Zukunft der Menschheit. Es entwickelt sich besser, ist lernfähiger in der Schule und kann sich zu einem produktiven Mitglied unserer Gesellschaft entwickeln. Ein gesundes Kind von heute ist morgen vielleicht Minister, Arzt, Ingenieur oder Menschenrechtler, der sich für eine sichere Zukunft einsetzt. Wenn wir heute Müttern und Kindern das Leben retten, so sichern wir damit auch unsere eigene Zukunft.”, meinte Joy Phumaphi.

    Quelle: DW

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    [photo by WHO, Liba Taylor]

    • English for the curious 🙂
      “Make every mother and child count” is the motto of the World Health Day 2005.
      For many developing countries, pregnancy and birth are still number 1 threat to the lives of both mothers and babies.
      Almost 11 million children under five years of age will die from causes that are largely preventable. More than half a million women will die in pregnancy, childbirth or soon after.
      And since poverty and illiteracy are among the main factors of these high death rates, the report says that reducing this toll in line with the Millennium Development Goals depends largely on every mother and every child having the right to access to health care from pregnancy through childbirth, the neonatal period and childhood.
      Check out the World Health report 2005 here.
    April 4 2005

    Mourning The Pope!

    My condolences to all Christians of the world for the loss of Pope John Paul II.

    I know what a great figure he was to Christians, and I know how great he was to us Muslims, visiting Arab countries and supporting peace in the region. His relationship with Muslims was a great and impressive one we all appreciate…

  • Related: Mourning John Paul II in the Muslim World.