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Reporting on the Middle East, Science, and Education for August 31, 2009 - י"א אלול תשס"ט
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Sultan Al Qassemi, The National, August 29. 2009
Dr Elias Zerhouni’s story was not so different from many Arab youths, growing up as he did in 1960s Algeria at a time in which his country was struggling for independence from French colonialists. In 1975, at the age of 24, he made his way to the United States where he joined Johns Hopkins University as a resident trainee and worked his way up to the executive vice presidency of the university.
Last week I sat listening to his numerous achievements and scientific breakthroughs in the Ramadan Majlis of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
It was a rectangular tent, measuring approximately 100 by 50 metres. Six giant screens brought the speaker closer to the public along with details about the scientific terms he was using. The spacious room was decorated with pictures of Sheikh Zayed, the founder of the UAE, and other forefathers from whom Sheikh Mohammed draws inspiration.
Dr Zerhouni’s tale was no different from the many thousands of Arabs who left the region during the times of turbulent revolutions, emigrating to the West and attaining recognition and success. But they have not found a forum that embraces them and the wisdom they hold until now. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Islam, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts, Science on August 31, 2009 - י"א אלול תשס"ט at 4:53 pm
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What’s achieved by pretending there is progress and there will be success? Some very real and important things
By Barry Rubin * August 26, 2009
Here’s one of my favorite stories explaining how the Middle East works. It was told by Muhammad Hussanein Heikal, the famed Egyptian journalist. Like all Heikal’s stories, it may or may not be true, which is also part of the lesson being taught.
When Muammar Qadhafi first became Libya’s dictator, Heikal was dispatched to meet and evaluate him by Egypt’s ruler, Gamal Abdel Nasser. After returning to Cairo, Heikal was quickly ushered into the president’s office.
“Well,” said Egypt’s president, “what do you think of Qadhafi?”
“He’s a disaster! A catastrophe!”
“Why,” asked the president, “is he against us?”
“Oh no, far worse than that,” Heikal claims to have replied. “He’s for us and he really believes all the stuff we are saying!”
The point was that the Egyptian regime took the propaganda line out of self-interest that all Arabs should be united into one state under its leadership, all the Arab monarchies overthrown, Israel wiped off the map immediately, and Western influence expelled, but it knew itself incapable of achieving these goals and to try to do so would bring disaster. Indeed, when Nasser had tried to implement part of this program in 1967, he provoked Israel into attacking and suffered his worst disaster.
Come to think of it, Arab regimes are still playing this game of systematically purveying radicalism, hatred, and unachievable goals to distract their populace, excuse their own failings, focus antagonism against foreign scapegoats and seek regional ambitions. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 30, 2009 - י' אלול תשס"ט at 4:25 pm
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By Michelle Allison
Let’s start with this: I identify as fat because, well, I’m fat, and also because I don’t think being fat is necessarily a bad thing─it’s just a thing.
But calling myself a nutritionist feels like a fantastic act of audacity. I’m still technically a student, though I’ve completed the work core to my nutrition degree and am now taking a psychology minor.
I initially got interested in nutrition by going on a diet to lose weight when I was 21. I did it to feel better about myself, because I hated my body, hated being fat. What I told everyone, naturally, was that I was losing weight for the good of my health.
Except I didn’t get healthy. I was constantly injured from overexercising, and I came down with a virus that developed into really nasty pneumonia that I couldn’t seem to shake.
What kept me on the diet was the intoxicating sense that, for the first time in my life, I was following the rules. I was doing it right. I was compliant. I was a model eater and exerciser. My habits were above reproach.
In the end, I lost 30 pounds and gained a bunch of disorder behaviors. And I hated my body more intensely than before. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Mental Health, Recent Posts, Women's Health on August 30, 2009 - י' אלול תשס"ט at 5:48 am
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By Carrie Mulherin – Vice President, BioBehavioral Diagnostics
Health News Digest, Aug 26, 2009
What is ADHD?
(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common condition of the brain that makes it difficult to control behavior. Everybody knows someone with ADHD. It affects approximately 9.5 million school-aged boys and girls, adolescents and adults. People with ADHD have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors, and in some cases, are overly active. Three times more boys than girls are diagnosed with ADHD. Symptoms persist into adulthood in as many as 60 percent of cases. Although these characteristics are present to some extent in everyone, when the symptoms are developmentally extreme, pervasive and persistent, it might be ADHD.
Although individuals with ADHD can be very successful in life, without identification and proper treatment, ADHD may have serious consequences, including school failure, family stress and disruption, depression, problems with relationships, substance abuse, delinquency, risk for accidental injuries and job failure. Early identification and treatment are extremely important.
There are three sub-types of ADHD.
These symptoms are present in everyone at some level. If symptoms are extreme, consider making an appointment for a full evaluation. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Health Sciences, Recent Posts, Special Education on August 28, 2009 - ח' אלול תשס"ט at 7:14 am
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If it succeeds, it will reduce the amount of brine volume in sea water to 33-50 percent of that currently generated by desalination.
The project is supported through grants provided to the team at the beginning of the year by the Middle East Desalination Research Center and the NATO Science for Peace project. A pilot unit is already under construction at Sde Boker, and is slated for completion by 2010. The team will also be working in Jordan towards the end of next year, or possibly at the beginning of 2011.
Ben-Gurion University’s technology transfer company, BGN Technologies, has established a new company ROTEC (Reverse Osmoses Technologies) to bring the technology to the commercial market. Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, has invested its own research and development funds in ROTEC to promote the technology as well. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on August 26, 2009 - ו' אלול תשס"ט at 11:36 am
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Shielding my eyes from the glare of the morning sun, I look toward the horizon and the small mountain that is my destination: Herodium, site of the fortified palace of King Herod the Great. I’m about seven miles south of Jerusalem, not far from the birthplace of the biblical prophet Amos, who declared: "Let justice stream forth like water." Herod’s reign over Judea from 37 to 4 B.C. is not remembered for justice but for its indiscriminate cruelty. His most notorious act was the murder of all male infants in Bethlehem to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy heralding the birth of the Messiah. There is no record of the decree other than the Gospel of Matthew, and biblical scholars debate whether it actually took place, but the story is in keeping with a man who arranged the murders of, among others, three of his own sons and a beloved wife.
Long an object of scholarly as well as popular fascination, Herodium, also called Herodion, was first positively identified in 1838 by the American scholar Edward Robinson, who had a knack for locating biblical landmarks. After scaling the mountain and comparing his observations with those of the first century Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, Robinson concluded that "all these particulars…leave scarcely a doubt, that this was Herodium, where the [Judean] tyrant sought his last repose." Robinson’s observation was confirmed later that century by Conrad Schick, the famous German architect and archaeologist who conducted extensive surveys of Jerusalem and its nearby sites.
But where precisely was the king entombed? At the summit of Herodium? At the base? Inside the mountain itself? Josephus didn’t say. By the late 1800s, Herod’s tomb had become one of biblical archaeology’s most sought-after prizes. And for more than a century archaeologists scoured the site. Finally, in 2007, Ehud Netzer of Hebrew University announced that after 35 years of archaeological work he had found Herod’s resting place. The news made headlines worldwide—"A New Discovery May Solve the Mystery of the Bible’s Bloodiest Tyrant," trumpeted the London Daily Mail.
"In terms of size, quality of decoration and prominence of its position, it’s hard to reach any other conclusion," says Jodi Magness, an archaeologist in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has excavated at other sites where Herod oversaw construction projects. Ken Holum, a University of Maryland archaeologist and historian who served as a curator for the traveling Smithsonian exhibition "King Herod’s Dream," cautions that "it is always wise to be less than certain when there is no identifying inscription or other explicit identification." But he says he personally believes Netzer has indeed discovered Herod’s tomb.
Netzer, 75, is one of Israel’s best-known archaeologists and a renowned authority on Herod. Trained as an architect, he worked as an assistant to the archaeologist Yigael Yadin, who from 1963 to 1965 led an exhaustive dig at Masada, the fortified plateau near the Dead Sea where Herod built two palaces. In 1976, Netzer led a team that discovered the site of one of Herod’s infamous misdeeds: the murder of his young brother-in-law, Aristobulus, whom Herod ordered to be drowned in a pool at his winter palace complex near Jericho. Yet the discovery of Herod’s tomb would be Netzer’s most celebrated find. And as is often the case with such discoveries, Netzer found it where, for years, he least expected it.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on August 25, 2009 - ה' אלול תשס"ט at 3:25 pm
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Arabs, Jews in Israel can learn some lessons from Martin Luther King. Once Jews and Arabs join forces, they will get to know each other better, and the connection created will be much more meaningful that the ties created in an occasional session of some kind of co-existence project.
By Reda Mansour, YNet News, August 20, 2009
Israel’s consulate in Atlanta, Dr. Martin Luther King’s hometown, recently unveiled a new project, The Rabin-King Initiative, in an effort to bring the Jewish community and Israel closer to the African-American community. The venture’s launch was preceded by two years of dialogue and study of the history of relations between Jews in America and Israel to the African-American community.
During his educational journey, I was surprised to discover the great role played by Jews in the movement for civil equality led by King and his comrades. Since the movement’s inception, Jewish volunteers from across American enlisted themselves to the cause. Jewish students traveled to the US south to assist with the voter registration of Afro-Americans and were not deterred even when some of them were abducted and murdered by white supremacists. Meanwhile, many Jews were among the bus drivers who drove whites and blacks together deliberately in a bid to end racial segregation in public.
Elsewhere, Jewish accountants voluntarily led large part of the movement’s fundraising effort, while Jewish lawyers volunteered to advance equality lawsuits at courts. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 23, 2009 - ג' אלול תשס"ט at 12:38 am
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There is a clear need to go beyond government negotiation and political tradition, and to increase support for people-to-people efforts on the individual level.
by Kobi Skolnick, CG News, 20 August 2009
NEW YORK – According to a poll conducted by Dr. Colin Irwin from the Institute of Irish Studies and the One Voice movement, 74 percent of Palestinians and 78 percent of Israelis would be willing to accept a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So, where are these people?
For decades there has been a profound lack of support for peace-building efforts aimed at the grassroots level and for strategic engagement of the public sphere in the peace process. This has led to a great discrepancy between the general desire for peace and the belief that it is possible and practical. Although the polls show willingness to accept peace, for many Israelis, a Palestinian is someone who would kill them if he had the chance. For many Palestinians, a Jewish-Israeli is either a settler with a gun or a soldier at a checkpoint.
Fears and paranoia, while grounded in real experience, have created a vicious cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies and violence. What both societies need are open dialogues, where people truly listen to each other, to counter these fears.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 21, 2009 - א' אלול תשס"ט at 3:37 pm
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TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ — Nucleix, Ltd., an emerging life science company specializing in forensic DNA analysis, announced that company researchers have proven DNA evidence found at crime scenes can easily be falsified using basic equipment, know-how and access to DNA or a DNA database. Recognizing the need to safeguard the accuracy and credibility of DNA samples in the field of forensics, Nucleix scientists have developed a novel assay termed "DNA authentication" for combating this form of "biological identity theft" by distinguishing between in-vivo (real) and in-vitro (fake) DNA. These findings and new technology have also been published online in the forensic industry’s leading peer-reviewed scientific journal, Forensic Science International: Genetics. In a paper entitled, "Authentication of Forensic DNA Samples" (1) (http://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(09)00099-4/abstract), Nucleix scientists demonstrate that while DNA fingerprinting is considered one of the leading forensic tools in many criminal investigations, DNA evidence can easily be falsified and planted at crime scenes prior to collection by law enforcement officers. The company has developed a state-of-the-art and scientifically-validated technology that can integrate DNA authentication into standard forensic procedure.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East, Recent Posts, Science, Science and Technology on August 18, 2009 - כ"ח אב תשס"ט at 7:00 am
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Photo: ICRC 
The ICRC and Yemen Red Crescent Society prepare the distribution of food and essential items to conflict-displaced civilians in Saada Province
SANAA , 16 August 2009 (IRIN) – Nearly 120,000 people from various districts in Yemen’s northern province of Saada fled their homes to safer areas on the border with Saudi Arabia as renewed clashes between the army and Houthi rebels escalated over the past four days, according to Mohammed Abdussalam, spokesman for the office of rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi.
“Some of these displaced families – from the most war-affected districts, such as Al Salem Saqain, Ghamr, Haidan, Shada, Malahidh, Majaz and Qataber – are now living with host families and others in camps or outdoors,” Abdussalam told IRIN on 16 August.
The government does not comment on numbers displaced in Saada while aid agencies could not confirm the figures either because of their restricted movement.
“For the time being, we have no accurate data on the number of IDPs [internally displaced persons] as the movement of our teams is restricted to within Saada city because of intermittent clashes,” Rabab Al-Rifai, communication delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yemen, told IRIN.
More on Saada conflict
Number of IDPs in north increases – agencies
Over 3,000 displaced as clashes flare up in north
Government funds reconstruction efforts in Saada
Child soldiers getting killed in north
The conflict in Saada Governorate – analysis
“We provided 100 tents to some IDPs in one of the four camps and clean water is supplied on a daily basis in the camps,” she said, adding that access to clean water was the biggest challenge facing IDPs there.
Al-Rifai said that over the past three months, around 7,600 IDPs in camps had been registered with ICRC and another 4,000 living with host families.
Aid workers kidnapped, restricted
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East, News Articles, Recent Posts on August 17, 2009 - כ"ז אב תשס"ט at 12:03 am
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