SAUDI WOMEN IN DEFIANCE/Syria Real News/Egyptian Teen Girl Inventor/Israel's Richest Rabbis/How Does The Media Report On Elephant Human Conflict?
Enrique Ferro
Women World: Saudi Female Film Director Defies Saudi Prejudice
By Countercurrents.org
04 September, 2012
Countercurrents.org
Brave women around the world are fighting back authoritarian rule in all walks of life. Haifaa al-Mansour is the first Saudi Arabian woman to direct a feature film – Wadjda – entirely filmed in Saudi Arabia. Now, the film is in Venice film festival.
A guardian.co.uk report on August 31, 2012 said:
Haifaa al-Mansour is either a pioneer or a pariah, depending on your point of view or what side of the street you live on. In some areas of her native Riyadh, she felt able to shoot unimpeded. In others she was forced to hide in a production van, directing her male crew members via walkie-talkie for fear of sparking protests.
"Saudi Arabia is a very traditional, conservative and tribal society," she explained as her finished film, Wadjda, debuted to warm applause at the Venice film festival. "Men and women cannot be on the streets together, particularly if the woman is seen to be directing the men. People would come and tell us to stop filming. It was a challenging experience, to say the least."
Bankrolled by German money and overseen by the producers of Paradise Now and Waltz With Bashir, Mansour's film lifts the lid on the role of women in Saudi society. The title character is Wadjda, a rebellious 11-year-old girl who enters a local Qur'an-reading competition, planning to use the prize money to buy herself a bicycle.
Wadjda hurries through the dusty streets, scandalizing the faithful with her Chuck Taylor trainers and indigo laces. She wants to race the boys and prove she's the best. Her mother, however, is horrified. "Girls don't ride bikes," she says. "You won't be able to have a child if you ride bikes."
Mansour admits that the film was inspired, in part, by her own early years. "I wanted to make a film that was close to my world," she said. "I was fortunate enough to be raised by liberal parents who gave me and my siblings plenty of space to be creative.
"Many of my school friends were not so lucky. They had so much potential but no opportunity. I suppose I wanted to make a film that would inspire them."
Wadjda is both a heartfelt coming-of-age story and a damning critique of Saudi culture.
Wadjda's father claims to love his wife, but is nonetheless off scouting a second wife who might bear him a son. Inside the school grounds, the girls are forbidden from touching the Qur'an if they are having their period and are summarily banned from laughing in the yard. "Do you not remember?" the teacher scolds them. "A woman's voice is her nakedness."
Mansour admits she is viewed back home as a "polarizing figure", but insists that the country is on the brink of change. "Yes, Saudi Arabia is a difficult place for women.
"Women have to stick together and believe in themselves and push towards what makes them happy. We just need to push a little bit harder against tradition. We need to do things and make things and tell the stories that we want to tell. And I think the world is ready to listen."
Early evidence supports her view. Mansour's film has already been snapped up for distribution in Germany, Switzerland and France, with further purchases expected in Venice this week. The one place where it is unlikely to play is in Saudi Arabia itself: the kingdom currently does not contain a single movie theatre. "Cinema is illegal in Saudi Arabia," Mansour explains. "We are hoping this will change."
A defiant princess
Months ago, news of Sara bint Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a Saudi princess and niece of Saudi Arabia's ruler, seeking political asylum in the UK surfaced.
A BBC report on July 8, 2012 said:
Princess Sara sought political asylum in the UK for herself and her children
Princess Sara claimed she faced persecution by members of her family and also some of Saudi Arabia's authorities.
The mother-of-four said she had applied to the Home Office for political asylum. She moved to the UK in 2007. Since then, she was living in London.
The Home Office was not willing to comment on individual cases.
She said in a statement that after she and her children's leave to remain in the UK expired, they applied to continue their stay in this country. However, this was refused by the Home Office in 2011.
She added: "So, with deep regret, and as I have been left with no other choice, I have written to the UK Home Office to indicate that I, and my children, wish to be granted political asylum.
"My reputation has been besmirched in the media by a baseless and malicious smear campaign.
"For years I have endured all this in silence, while trying to resolve my situation with dignity through the normal channels, without fanfare or publicity.
"But my pleas to the Saudi authorities in the Kingdom have been obstructed and denied, and the Saudi embassy in London has turned its back on me."
Princess Sara went on to say that she has "nothing but respect for my uncle King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and the people of Saudi Arabia".
"All I have ever sought is my legitimate rights, so that my children and I can resume our lives with dignity and I can resume my civil society and development work."
According to the Sunday Telegraph, a Saudi embassy diplomat said: "The embassy has been involved in settling her visa issue and residency issue in the UK. We have tried to settle this issue.
"This matter is of a personal nature so there is only so much the government can do. It's not a political matter."
.
A Daily Mail Reporter said on July 8, 2012:
A Saudi Arabian princess has caused a potential diplomatic row by
seeking political asylum in the UK because she fears for her safety in
her home country.
Princess Sara has accused senior Saudi officials of plotting to kidnap her and get her back to Riyadh, following 'baseless' claims she has sided with Saudi Arabia's political opponents.
She said she wants to stay in the UK as she has been assaulted, threatened and persecuted by her family and members of the Saudi authorities
The 38-year-old also says there have been abduction attempts made against her children, all for political reasons.
Sara is in the UK since 2007, after falling out with her 80-year-old father, Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud.
She has also been locked in a long-running inheritance battle with her brother, Prince Turki bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, over their dead mother’s £325 million fortune.
Princess Sara said in a statement:
'All I have ever sought is my legitimate rights, so that my children and I can resume our lives with dignity and I can resume my civil society and development work.'
Princess Sara told the Sunday Telegraph the incident which saw her fall out with her father 'shook her world', but would not reveal more details about it.
Describing their relationship, she said: 'Everything
goes back to a certain aspect that I don’t discuss in public. Something
happened with my father and he didn’t take it lightly.
'He retaliated against me and wanted to crush me. I had been his closest; I had been his favorite.'
http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/russia-syria-rebels-airport-threat-unacceptable/
http://en.ria.ru/world/20120903/175753957.html
Russia: Syria Rebels’ Airport Threat ‘Unacceptable’
Russia: Syria Rebels’ Airport Threat ‘Unacceptable’
MOSCOW, September 3 (RIA Novosti)
Russia said on Monday it would work with other countries to ensure that the rebel Free Syria Army stops making “unacceptable” threats, following the announcement on Friday that the FSA now views Syria’s two biggest civil airports as “military targets,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said on its website.
“These kinds of threats are absolutely unacceptable,” the Foreign Ministry commentary said.
“They are a gross violation of international law, first and foremost the Chicago Convention of 1944 governing international civil aviation,” it said, and called on countries that have influence with the FSA to put an end to the threats.
The FSA earlier warned airlines to suspend service to Damascus and Aleppo, saying rebel forces could begin attacking airports in the two cities as early as Tuesday, the London-based daily Asharq Alawsat reported on Friday, citing the FSA's high command.
“The civil airports of Damascus and Aleppo may become targets of FSA attacks beginning on Tuesday next week, since they are being used by the criminal regime for military aviation to carry out strikes against Syrian rebels,” the report said.
The Syrian air force was forced to begin using civil airports due to a string of successful rebel attacks on military bases, including one on an airfield near Idlib that destroyed 10 military planes, it said.
But the Russian Foreign Ministry said the rebels are approaching a “red line, beyond which lie actions that in no way differ from the crimes of Al-Qaeda.”
Full responsibility for such “terror attacks” would be borne by the FSA and “its enablers,” the commentary said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov wrote on his Twitter account on Saturday that the FSA’s threat was the product of “irresponsible” deliveries of portable surface-to-air missiles to rebel forces.
Simultaneously with the threat of attacks on civil airports, the Foreign Ministry advised Russians not to travel to Syria and advised Russians already in Syria to find the safest available routes out of the country.
Al Jazeera News network website hacked by "Pro-Assad" hackers
The official website of one of the biggest Arabic-language
news network Al Jazeera got hacked just now by pro-Assad hackers called
"Al-Rashedon". If you miss the deface page, please have a look to mirror
of it here.
Deface page designed with dark as shown in image and has some message in
Arabic language, in English it is “In response to your attitude against
Syria (Syrian people and Government) and your support to the Terrorist
& Armed Groups, and shari ... (click link to read full article)
Al Jazeera #AJE #BreakingNews Has Been Hacked #photo
If
you gather all of the fabricated images claiming to be in, on, about,
for Syria, you'll be surprised that it'll be very difficult to get the
real ones.
By the way, this Palestinian girl on the left turned
into a Syrian with the French mandate days flag was posted on the
profile of the guy who made a speech in a summit in France and met with
the French president Khaled Abu Salah, Al Jazeera's most infamous
fabricator of news from Homs, the one who blew the oil pipeline in Baba
Amro, Homs with the help of the CNN team there to make a news that the
Syrian govt is blowing up its infrastructure (http://democratic-syria.blogspot.com/2012/03/cnn-knew-about-september-11-attacks-16.html)
مازال مسلسل الكذب والفبركة مستمرا ..
Syria Real News - September 4 roundup
UK contacts with Syria rebels confirmed
British Foreign Secretary William Hague has revealed that his government
authorized and facilitated “limited contacts” between the UK agents and
representatives of the so-called Free Syrian Army. The contacts were
part of a conspiracy hatched by Britain’s spying apparatus and the U.S.
spying agencies to topple the popular government of President Bashar
al-Assad. “The UK’s own Special Representative to the Syrian Oppos ...
(click link to read full article)
Song: Hands off Syria
Remembering the great Al Fatah Revolution at the manifestation pro Bashar al Assad pro Syria against war in Frankfurt Germany "Antikriegstag" ("Antiwarday" September 1th, 2012)
Text on the left poster: We remember on the Great Al-Fatah Revolution. On the first day of September 1969 the world witnessed a momentous event, that had clear effectuation throughout the history. On this particular day, th
Grüne Revolution Deutschland
Ultraconservative Salafists Destroy Sufi Landmarks in Libya
TRIPOLI—Salafists—ultraconservative
Muslims—behind the recent wave of sectarian bombings and the
destruction of historic mosques and shrines—say they aim to rid Libya of
all Sufi landmarks by the end of the year. Now they are turning their
attention to women, posting flyers at universities and private schools,
insisting male and female students be segregated.
The flyers and
Salafist websites—some headquartered in Saudi Arabia—chillingly warn
female students on Libyan campuses to avoid tight-fitting clothes,
insisting that they must cover up and wear the hijab. The surging
attacks on Libya’s Sufi mosques and libraries—the most brazen came on
Aug. 25 when a well-known Tripoli mosque was bulldozed—have been
encouraged by a prominent Saudi imam. Sheik Muhammad Al-Madkhalee has
issued a fatwa praising the desecration of Sufi graves and urging Libyan
Salafists to do more to clear the North African country of any taint of
Sufi worship.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/04/ultraconservative-salafists-destroy-sufi-landmarks-in-libya.html
This brings to the fore that Muslims, and Muslim women particularly, are as talented as anybody else, but that that their institutional and social life prevents them from developing their talent, and ultimately forces them to emigrate. If Egypt turns into a religious establishment, science and research may well vanish as a priority in the near future...
Teen girl from Egypt has just reinvented space travel
5/31/2012Egyptian Aisha Mustafa, 19, has dazzled the physics world with a new invention that could launch spacecraft off the Earth's surface and soaring through space without any fuel. Space is filled with a billowing sea of quantum particles that jump in and out of existence, and Aisha Mustafa proposes using thin silicon panels, spaced closely together, to trap these particles and then move against them, creating a propelling force. This innovation would make space exploration lighter, safer and cheaper than the traditional "blast off" method. Mustafa still has some design work to do, but unfortunately her research is currently limited by lack of state funding for space science departments at the university level, though her school's science club did help fund her application for a patent.
http://now.msn.com/teen-girl-from-egypt-has-just-reinvented-space-travel
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4255009,00.html
Israel's richest rabbis become savvy businessmen Associated Press
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One summer night, on the outskirts of a sleepy desert town, a who's who of Israel's elite gathered for an annual feast to honor a rabbi whose gaze is said to pierce the soul.
He's Rabbi Yaacov Israel Ifargan. But he is better known as, simply, the X-ray.
Over the past few decades, he and dozens of other rabbis have carefully positioned themselves at the fulcrum of Israeli power and influence. They have attracted throngs of adherents most notably some of the country's top business moguls, who pay top shekel for an audience with their rabbi to solicit blessings and discuss business matters.
Family franchise
These magnates have helped fuel the rise of a rabbinic aristocracy whose members have channeled the donations they receive into multi-million-dollar empires.
After gaining experience dishing out advice to Israeli tycoons, the rabbis have become shrewd businessmen themselves, managing hefty investments in stocks and real estate at home and abroad with much of their earnings allegedly kept far from the watchful eyes of Israeli tax collectors.
Their chief critic calls then swindlers and frauds, and some fellow rabbis are critical of their practices.
The Israeli edition of Forbes magazine published a first-of-its-kind ranking last month of Israel's 13 richest rabbis. In the number one spot was 36-year-old Rabbi Pinchas from Beersheba, a blue-collar southern desert city, whose wealth is estimated at $335 million. The X-ray rabbi placed sixth, with an estimated net worth of $23 million.
"Every single shekel brings about true peace," announced the X-ray rabbi's half-brother, Rabbi Hayim Amram Ifargan, from the dais at the recent gathering, in a gentle nudge to the crowd of VIPs to continue their support.
He, too, is a part of the Ifargan family franchise. His spiritual adherents call him "The MRI." In the women's section behind a laced divider sat "The Arbitrator" or "The CT," Ifargan's millionaire sister Bruria Zvuluni, a go-to spiritual counselor who claims to have mediated feuds between Israeli crime kingpins. Though she is not a rabbi, she made it to the bottom of Forbes' list.
Cozying up at Ifargan's long table were lawmakers, one of Israel's top lawyers, and two of Israel's wealthiest businessmen: Menahem Gurevitch, chairman of a leading Israeli insurance company, and billionaire Nochi Dankner, head of Israel's largest holding company and a close confidant of Ifargan for the last 14 years. The Israeli army's chief rabbi and a top police commander were there, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent his blessings in a recorded video message.
Rabbis who make fortunes for themselves and encourage others to make money with their blessings draw the wrath of some fellow Jewish clerics.
Blessings for cash
"It's disappointing when religion descends to this," said Rabbi Donniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman institute, a modern Orthodox Jewish learning center in Jerusalem. "It's not some channel of divine power for personal wealth accumulation. That's small religion."
Most rabbis in Israel are not raking in millions. They are instead salaried government employees, assigned by Israel's official rabbinate to perform religious rites for the Jewish public such as marriages and burials, or to enforce Jewish dietary laws in restaurants and hotels.
They are nowhere near the level of the high-flying spiritual gurus like the X-ray.
Such gurus set up public office hours in their homes to receive Israelis on all rungs of the social ladder, as long as they come with cash. In exchange, adherents receive amulets and little pieces of paper containing the rabbi's personalized blessing. The most successful rabbis have founded charitable institutions and small religious seminaries, which act as conduits for the incoming cash flow.
Menachem Friedman, an expert on Orthodox Judaism and professor emeritus at Bar Ilan University, says religious Jewish businessmen since the 19th century have solicited rabbis' blessings for cash to ensure their success though today the sums have reached unprecedented amounts.
"If the market is dangerous and shaky, the millionaires who benefit from that market have less confidence. They need these rabbis to give them that security," Friedman said.
The country's richest rabbinic dynasty is the Abuhatzeira family, scions of the revered Baba Sali who left Morocco for Israel in 1963, gaining a following among Israel's large Moroccan and Middle Eastern Jewish immigrant population. The Baba Sali died in 1984, but his portrait _ a shriveled face wrapped in a white shawl still graces the walls of Israeli homes, businesses and falafel stands.
His grandson, Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, became the richest of them all, building himself a three-story villa said to include an events hall, deluxe guest rooms for important donors and an underground tunnel allowing him safe passage to his synagogue and office across the street, according to journalist Yossi Bar-Moha, who says he obtained the house plans from the Beersheba municipality.
Bar-Moha published a series of exposes in Israeli dailies accusing the rabbi of cheating his followers into believing he had no money in the bank, and violently threatening some to pay up.
Tax fraud investigations
The Israeli police's national fraud squad opened an investigation in the late 1990s, discovering $125 million in his personal account. He reportedly reached a settlement with Israel's tax authorities to pay a fraction of what he owed them.
Last year, a desperate adherent whose donations to the rabbi hadn't improved his lot stabbed Rabbi Abuhatzeira to death. His son, Rabbi Pinchas Abuhatzeira, inherited his wealth and his spot at the top of Israel's affluent rabbinic aristocracy.
"These rabbis are charlatans, swindlers and cheaters. They have no real knowledge. And people eat it up," said reporter Bar-Moha, who heads Tel Aviv's journalists' association.
An Israeli tax official, speaking anonymously because of the issue's sensitivity, said in the past two years tax authorities have approached some 20 religious figures, requesting earnings reports. Some rabbis have been investigated for tax fraud. No convictions are known, but some have reportedly reached settlements with Israeli tax authorities.
Reached for comment, advisers of some of the rabbis profiled by Forbes either would not comment on the income estimates, or said they were wrong but would not provide other figures. A spokesman for Rabbi Ifargan said his charitable institutions and received donations are above board.
At the end of the feast, adherents followed Rabbi Ifargan up a hill to pray at the hulking stone pyramid that houses his father's grave. Ifargan emerged from the tomb surrounded by paparazzi, bodyguards and a host of followers shouting out requests for the rabbi to pray for their health and for their children to find a good match.
When an Associated Press reporter asked the rabbi the secret to his success, Ifargan stopped. The 46-year-old rabbi with a pointed jet-black beard and brimmed hat fixed his gaze for a few moments, cocked his head up toward the heavens and shrugged.
Then his bodyguards whisked him into a black Mercedes-Benz, and they sped off.
How Does The Media Report On Elephant Human Conflict?
By Marianne de Nazareth
04 September, 2012
Countercurrents.org
We
see often an inconsistency in reporting on wildlife in newspapers. On
some days we see responsible stories, and on other days, even the same
newspaper has an inaccurate or sensational story. The media is not
sensitized sufficiently enough on why the man/elephant conflict is
occuring and as a result, the stories which come out in the press are
mostly one sided, skewed in favour of man and the elephant is demonized.
If the media is sufficiently sensitized on the issue, they will write
balanced articles which will help control the conflict and not fuel it
to escalate still further.
At a recent launch of Dr. R. Sukumar's latest book “The Story of Asia's Elephants” in Bangalore in February 2012 what was noticeable was another lack of media coverage of the event. . The environment and issues on wildlife do not interest most broadsheet media, so attendance by other journalists was thin. Girish Karnad the celebrity chief guest was the only point of interest, considering Professor Sukumar is one of Asia 's foremost authorities on Elephants.
Continued: http://www.countercurrents.org/nazareth040912.htm--
“They have succeeded in dominating us more
through ignorance, than through force”.
Simon Bolivar
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed" - Steve Biko