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Kites fly high over Gaza as children at UN summer camp soar to new world record
from UN News Centre
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35473&Cr=&Cr1=
29 July 2010 –More than 6,200 children attending a summer camp in the Gaza Strip run by the United Nations agency assisting Palestinian refugees have broken their own world record for the number of kites flown at the same time.
The feat comes exactly one week after more than 7,200 children bounced basketballs simultaneously for five minutes, doubling a 2007 record set in the United States.
“We still have to await final confirmation from the Guinness Book of World Records, but according to our figures the kids have done it. What an amazing achievement – two world records in a week,” said John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Both record-breaking events were part of the Summer Games programme organized by UNRWA in nearly 150 locations across Gaza over a period of six weeks, beginning on 12 June. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 29, 2010 - י"ח אב תש"ע at 4:41 pm
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Playing politics: summer camp for Gaza’s children
UN vies with Islamic Jihad and Hamas to keep hundreds of thousands entertained in summer
By Harriet Sherwood, Guardian UK, July 29, 2010
Palestinian girls at an UN Relief and Works Agency day camp on the beach in Gaza City. Boys have more options and many attend summer camps run by militant groups. Photograph: Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP The boys sitting in the shade of an awning erected on a
Gaza beach are only half listening to the man addressing them through a megaphone.
After all, school’s out for the summer and there is football to be played and the sea to be swum in. Some of the 100 or so boys whisper among themselves, others are busy burying their own or a friend’s legs in the hot sand.
But when the man asks, “What is our slogan?” they snap to attention, responding in unison: “Resistance!”
This is summer in Gaza, Islamic Jihad-style. These boys are among 10,000 or so children that the militant organisation estimates attends its 50 camps. Hamas, the Islamic party which runs Gaza, claims another 100,000 children are attending 500 camps it organises; both are dwarfed by the 250,000 taking part in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s Summer Games across the Gaza Strip. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 29, 2010 - י"ח אב תש"ע at 10:10 am
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The Palestinian Right to Israel
by Dr. Alex Grobman / Reviewed by: INN Staff
Systematically and methodically exposes the myths and lies about the Arab right to the land of Israel.
The Palestinian Right to Israelby Dr. Alex Grobman
- Publisher: Balfour Press
- Pages: 328
- Format: Hardcover
- Price: $19.99
- Available At: Balfour Store
[Note: Readers who purchase through www.balfourstore.com will get a discount and an extra 10% discount on the price of the book, so it will cost $16. Please use the following password:INN2010 when purchasing]
The Arab/Israeli conflict is among the most intractable disputes in the world today. In this meticulously researched and well-written work, Dr. Alex Grobman, a renowned historian trained at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, systematically and methodically exposes the myths and lies about the Arab right to the land of Israel.
Grobman traces the historical, religious and spiritual connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel after the end of Jewish sovereignty in 70 CE; dispels the Arab claim that Palestine is a “twice promised land,” because the British pledged it to both the Arabs and the Jews; examines the Arab reaction to the Balfour Declaration and Jewish immigration to Palestine that established a precedent for dealing with Arabs that continues to this day; and examines Arab activities during WWII to thwart an Allied victory.
Grobman shows that the Arabs have never accepted the right of Jews to re-establish their sovereignty in the land of Israel, and how they continually try to refute the Jewish connection to Israel, especially the city of Jerusalem: by destroying Temple Mount artifacts to eliminate any evidence of a Jewish past, by accusing Israeli archeologists of manipulating authentic archeological evidence to justify the Jewish people’s right to Israel and by charging that the Jews are not a people at all, and are consequently not entitled to a country of their own. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Opinion, Recent Posts on July 25, 2010 - י"ד אב תש"ע at 8:10 am
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From this week’s Jewish Journal
Shepherd on a Mission
By David Suissa
If ever there were an Israeli who could lead Israel to peace with its Arab neighbors, it might be the Israeli diplomat I met the other day in the lobby of the Century Plaza Hotel. This is your classic Zionist. He stands tall and proud of his country, doesn’t ignore its faults, has a deep understanding of the issues from all sides and craves peace.
Of course, it helps that he’s a Muslim. Not just a Muslim, but a Bedouin Muslim.
Ishmael Khaldi’s official position is policy advisor to the Israeli foreign minister, but he’s a lot more than that. He has become a one-man hasbara machine for the Jewish state, traveling around the world to make the case for the country he loves. When he encounters anti-Israel hecklers who spout slanderous words like “apartheid state,” he has an easy answer:
“If Israel was a racist state, a Muslim like me would never have made it this far.”
This notion of going far came early for Khaldi. Until he was 8, he walked four miles to school from his tiny Bedouin village of Khawalid in the western Galilee, then the same distance to get home again. He has fond memories of the family tent, where he lived with his parents and 10 siblings. He calls the tent an “extraordinary thing,” because it was made of goat hair, which he says keeps you “warm and dry in the winters, and cool in the hot summers.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 23, 2010 - י"ב אב תש"ע at 10:06 am
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87 states join forces to fight antisemitism and Holocaust denial
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 21 Jul 2010
The cooperation agreement between the ITF and the ODIHR gives an enormous boost to Holocaust remembrance and the fight against antisemitism.
DFM Ayalon and ODIHR Director Lenarcic sign agreement (Photo: MFA)
(Communicated by the Deputy Foreign Minister’s Bureau)
This morning (21 July 2010), a cooperation agreement between the ITF (Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research) and the ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) was signed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, in the presence of Deputy FM Daniel Ayalon. The ODIHR is an operative branch of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe)
This year, Israel was chosen for the first time to head the ITF. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an agreement was signed today that boosts the strength of the forces in the global arena fighting against antisemitism and Holocaust denial. The agreement will bring about cooperation among 87 countries.
ITF Chairman Dan Tichon and ODIHR Director Janez Lenarcic signed the memorandum of understanding. DFM Ayalon welcomed the signing of the agreement and said that it gives an enormous boost to the fight against the delegitimization of Israel and antisemitism in the world, bringing 87 states for the first time into cooperation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has acted, and will continue to act, against these manifestations of hate and will promote any initiative whose purpose is to eliminate them. Ayalon added that there are elements that deny the Holocaust and are preparing the next one. We must preserve the memory of the Holocaust so that similar horrors and hatred will never be repeated and the world will become a safer place.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 23, 2010 - י"ב אב תש"ע at 8:25 am
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Cleaning Up Intersection of Ancient and Modern
Israel Museum gets major renovation
By ETHAN BRONNER, NY Times, July 20, 2010
JERUSALEM — The director of the Israel Museum was leading a visitor to see a provocative contemporary sculpture of a naked African youth when, stepping over protective cloths and around an exhibit of late Canaanite sarcophagi, he nearly ran into four workmen carrying the million-year-old horns of a wild bull.
The horns are the oldest items in the museum’s collection, and something about the juxtaposition of contemporary social consciousness, ancient ceremony and prehistoric beast summed up the museum’s refocused mission as it completes a three-year, $100 million renewal. As described by the director, James S. Snyder, the museum offers a series of unexpected aesthetic links across cultures and their histories, like the way 2,000-year-old carved ritual cups that are on view in the museum near the Dead Sea Scrolls are somehow evocative of Brancusi.
For the last 45 years, the Israel Museum has been both the crown jewel of this country’s cultural heritage and a bit of a mess. It has the most extensive holdings of land-of-Israel archaeology anywhere (including a heel bone pierced by an iron nail with wood fragments, the world’s only physical evidence of crucifixion), an encyclopedic collection of Judaica and an exceptional group of Modernist artworks. It sits on a 20-acre campus atop a hill at Jerusalem’s western entrance, holding pride of place along with the architectural and national landmarks that surround it, including the Knesset, or parliament, and the Supreme Court.
But as any past visitor can attest, finding one’s way around the museum’s art and archaeology has not been easy. Visits have begun with an uphill trek from a parking lot exposed to the hot sun and, inside the galleries, a feeling of being overwhelmed by quantity and mildly perplexed about substance. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 21, 2010 - י' אב תש"ע at 10:50 am
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A different view of Gaza — not so poor after all
Western coverage of the situation there seldom mentions the aid convoys and never mentions the new air-conditioned mall, resort hotels, spas, restaurants and busy markets.
By Lorne Gunter, National Post, July 21, 2010
A shopping mall opened in Gaza City last weekend. It is called, appropriately enough, Gaza Mall and even has a website complete with a catchy logo, and ads for “Israeli men’s trousers at an attractive price” and shirts from the United States.
There’s nothing remarkable about this, you say. New malls open all the time all around the world.
But think about it: One of the main complaints international organizations have against the Israeli blockade of Gaza is that construction materials, supposedly, are not getting through. Gazans are allegedly forced to live in dilapidated apartments and houses because big, bad Israel will not let cement mix and rebar pass its lines.
So just where did the materials come from to build Gaza Mall?
Admittedly, online descriptions of the mall as a “luxury” shopping centre are a bit over the top, although I suppose such descriptions are relative. (The first suburban shopping centres in Canada in the 1950s, while dwarfed by today’s mega-malls, must have seemed like palaces of commerce compared with the downtown department stores of the day.)
You can see photos of the Gaza Mall grand opening at the Palestinian Authority’s Safa website (safa. ps) or the website of photojournalist Tom Gross — tomgrossmedia. com. Note the tinsel streamers, balloons and mascots. If you look closely at the photos, you see a simple, two-storey collection of brightly lit but plain shops, apparently run by local merchants rather than the large chain stores that populate North American and European (and Israeli) malls. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 21, 2010 - י' אב תש"ע at 10:39 am
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Disappearing Jewish world
Project aiming to preserve remnants of Jewish life around globe under threat due to budget cuts
By Tzofia Hirschfeld, YNet News, July 21, 2010
The Jewish people’s personal belongings are scattered all over the world: It has synagogues, prayer books, tombstones and cemeteries in various countries. Jews no longer reside in some of these places, and all they left behind is slowly disintegrating.
The “Journey to Jewish Heritage” project, initiated by Beit Avi Chai and the Zalman Shazar Center, aims to locate and document the remnants of Jewish life. Budgetary constraints now threaten the project’s existence, and if it is shut down, an entire world will be lost with it.
“We may be losing out last chance to document important evidence of Jewish existence in the Diaspora,” said Hannah Holland, the project’s director. “We are talking about disappearing communities – some of them diminished because of the Holocaust, some of them because of emigration. When we visit these places, we are met with remains of a splendid past and try to salvage last pieces of evidence of what once was, but now is gone. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Judaism, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 21, 2010 - י' אב תש"ע at 10:21 am
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Indian States Worse Than Africa, A New Poverty Index Finds
The Link, July 17, 2010
http://www.thelinkpaper.ca/?p=1612
LONDON – More people are mired in poverty in eight Indian states than in the 26 poorest African countries, according to a new UN-backed measure of poverty. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) looks beyond income at a wider range of household-level deprivation, including services, which could then be used to help target development resources. Its findings throw up stark statistics compared to regular poverty measures.
The study found that half of the world’s MPI poor people live in South Asia, and just over a quarter in Africa.
There are 421 million MPI poor people in eight Indian states alone — Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal — and 410 million in the 26 poorest African countries combined. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 20, 2010 - ט' אב תש"ע at 5:48 pm
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Fifty-one percent of Pakistan’s population is MPI poor, 58 percent in Bangladesh, 55 percent in India, and 65 percent in Nepal.
Hindustan Times, July 15, 2010
Amidst acute poverty across South Asia, the five states of Delhi, Kerala, Goa, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have the least number of poor people in India, according to a new measure of global poverty developed at the University of Oxford for the UNDP.
The new measure, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), has been developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
It will be featured in the 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report.
An analysis using MPI reveals South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have comparable intensities of poverty, according to an OPHI paper, Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries.
In terms of human lives, South Asia has the world’s highest levels of poverty.
Fifty-one percent of Pakistan’s population is MPI poor, 58 percent in Bangladesh, 55 percent in India, and 65 percent in Nepal.
The analysis states: “Delhi has an MPI equivalent to Iraq (which ranks 45), whereas Bihar’s MPI is similar to Guinea’s (the 8th poorest country in the ranking). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 20, 2010 - ט' אב תש"ע at 5:28 pm
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