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.   

Around a quarter of a million children participate in the Games, which include sports as well as recreational and cultural activities. This is the fourth year that UNRWA has organized the programme in Gaza, whose 1.5 million Palestinian residents have been languishing under a three-year-old Israeli blockade.

“Like children anywhere in the world, children here must have a sense of normality,” said Mr. Ging. “Despite the abnormality they face in their daily lives, today’s achievement has lifted the spirits of the entire population here in Gaza.”

Reprinted from Sify News, July 29, 2010

A specific part of our brain processes information about human and animal faces and is responsible for how we recognize them and interpret facial expressions. Now, Israeli researchers are exploring what makes this highly specialized area of the brain unique.

In her “Face Lab” at Tel Aviv University, Dr. Galit Yovel of TAU’s Department of Psychology is trying to understand the mechanisms at work in the face area of the brain called the “fusiform gyrus” of the brain. She is combining cognitive psychology with techniques like brain imaging and electrophysiology to study how the brain processes information about faces. Her most recent research on the brain’s face-processing mechanisms appears in the Journal of Neuroscience and Human Brain Mapping.

The study of face recognition does more than provide an explanation for embarrassing memory lapses. For instance, it may help business executives better match names with faces, and more important can lead to better facial recognition software to identify terrorists or criminals. Similar to faces, bodies are also processed by distinct brain areas. How we perceive faces is not totally intuitive, she says, and therefore raises the question of how this information is combined in our brain to understand how separate face and body areas generate a whole body-image impression. 

In her research, Dr. Yovel has found that we are better able to recognize faces when we regularly see and interact with them in meaningful settings. It’s as though the face-processing sections of the brain – the fusiform face area being the most distinct – recognizes faces holistically. Additions to your face, such as a beard or glasses, are assimilated into or incorporated into the face recognition gestalt of the brain, unlike other elements that are irrelevant to facial recognition, such as the chair you’re sitting on. This may be why fashions in hairstyle and eyewear have become so important to personal appearance, she theorizes.

The inability to recognize faces is more common than most people think. Dr. Yovel says that two percent of all people are born with “face blindness,” scientifically known as prosopagnosia. She hopes her research will enable these people to train themselves, via software and other methods, to better differentiate one face from another – especially when the face is that of a loved one.

“Faces are important. We meet so many people every day, on the street or at work, and should know whether or not each face is important to us. In principle, faces are very similar to one another. That’s probably why we’ve evolved these complex and specialized face areas in the brain – so that we can more accurately discriminate among the countless faces we encounter throughout our lives,” says Dr. Yovel, who first began to study the neurological basis of face recognition as a post-doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Yovel hopes her studies will lead to new algorithms that can help computers do a better job of recognizing faces, as well as help people who somehow lack this critical social skill. She is currently collaborating with computer scientists at Tel Aviv University to explore new computational algorithms for facial recognition. (ANI)

Lack of critical thinking root of terrorism, says Muslim author

The Jakarta Post   |  Mon, 07/19/2010 4:28 PM (http://www.thejakartapost.com)

What money can’t buy: Third of a six-part series on the challenges facing the Israeli economy.

By Nathan Lipson, Haaretz, July 14, 2010

Joining the OECD was a feather in Israel’s cap. Yet with the opportunity to pat ourselves on the back for Israel’s economic achievements, there is another opportunity we must not cringe from grasping – to compare the state of our school system with that of the other members in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We do not fare well from the comparison.

Based on a chart published in The State of the Nation report by Dan Ben-David, professor of economics and executive director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, there are grounds for concern.

Ben-David collated data on the results of Israeli junior high school pupils who participated in two international tests: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS ) and OECD PISA – Program for International Student Assessment. The tests were conducted five times over the past 10 years.

Israelis scored much lower than the OECD average on all five exams. In all the tests but one, Israel’s pupils came in last place among a comparative sample of 25 OECD countries. In that one exception, they were nearly last.

Similar results are found when comparing Israel’s weakest students with the weakest students in the OECD nations, and the strongest with the strongest as well.

Does the problem lie in fewer teaching hours? Is it necessarily true that more instructional hours result in better achievement?

Evidence points to the contrary. The graph shows there is no direct relationship between the number of instructional hours and achievement across countries.

The graph shows each of the OECD nations in comparison with Israel. All but the bottom two, Italy and Greece, have fewer instructional hours than Israel. But all except Turkey have better achievements than Israel.

Sweden, for instance, provides much fewer instructional hours than Israel, yet its achievements are far higher. South Korea provides much the same amount of instruction as Israel, yet there, too, its pupils outstrip Sweden’s, let alone Israel’s.

The problem with Israel’s pupils does not lie, therefore, in the number of instructional hours. They get more than almost all the other pupils in OECD nations. Therefore, the problem must lie in content. Israeli pupils spend less instructional time learning science and reading. In mathematics, Israel also lags, but by less.

The root of the problem is clearly not budget – the hours are there. It is what the hours are spent on. In other words, the root cause is priorities. Clearly the achievement gap can be narrowed without adding extra budgets. It is a question of what and how our children are taught.

VOA News, 07 July 2010

Afghan officials say a NATO airstrike has mistakenly killed at least five Afghan soldiers.

Officials said Wednesday the troops were on patrol in the eastern province of Ghazni, when a NATO aircraft began shooting at them.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said two Afghan soldiers were also wounded in the “friendly fire” attack.  The spokesman condemned the incident, saying this is not the first time NATO troops have mistakenly killed Afghan soldiers.

NATO spokesman General Josef Blotz expressed regret for the deaths and promised a joint investigation of the incident.  He said the botched strike was likely caused by a coordination issue.

In other Afghanistan news, British troops are set to withdraw from one of the deadliest areas in southern Afghanistan, handing over control of the district to the United States. Reports say Britain will soon withdraw its 1,000 soldiers from the Sangin district of Helmand province. They will be replaced by U.S. forces, who now outnumber British troops in the region.   

About one third of the 312 British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since the operation began in 2001 were killed in the Sangin district.

The British Ministry of Defense has not commented on the move, but British Defense Secretary Liam Fox is expected to make an announcement on changes for the country’s troops in Afghanistan later Wednesday.

On Tuesday, NATO said four service members were killed in attacks in Afghanistan.  A NATO statement said three troops were killed in the volatile south, and the fourth in the east.

Some information for this report was provided by AP.
Find this article at:

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/NATO-Airstrike-Accidentally-Kills-5-Afghan-Troops-97925944.html

Football, otherwise known as Soccer, can change the way friends, neighbors, especially people of different political opinion, ethnic nationality and race think about one another. Although other sports have the capability of bringing people together the number of countries and people involved in these sports: basketball, handball misnamed football and long tennis or volley ball and tracks among others are small compared to the number of people who play, watch and act as soccer fans.

The enthusiasm in soccer is also wonderful! Its massive involvement, the large number of countries that register penultimate a soccer tournament especially FIFA World Cup series puts soccer ahead as the most watched, most loved sports on earth. It’s also the most skillful and its stars are the most physically fit or agile in sports on earth. It’s this embrace, love, skills, fitness and agility that offers soccer as the sports that can heal the world if properly planned. These skills and agility can be transformed into workable skills the world needs to triumph as one group in respect, unity, justice and peace.

If participants are enlightened and given the tools to knowing that each of them represent each corner, political belief, nation and continent of the world, etc. The success soccer stars would bring to humanity in terms of a mass movement and community efforts will be at best imagined than described. Imagine the efforts in Haiti. I’m convinced a soccer movement will topple the love shown by people of goodwill around the world there. Of course, there should be honest competition in touching a soul or healing distressed people.

We’ve seen how former Pres. Nelson Mandela used Rugby to unite the once bitterly divided people of South Africa. When Mandela was released from prison in 1990, it’s under the apartheid rulership of former Pres. Fredrick W. Declerk. He became the first black majority and democratic president of South Africa. Mandela was faced with lots of challenges.     

One of the greatest challenges was the deeply divided white and black population. In the movie “Invectus” which means never give up; not conquered or defeated in Latin, Mandela declared, those who were Africanas and have oppressed us are no longer our enemies. They’re now our friends. He inherited a country he fought for and gave his all, but without economic, military and police control. These were still in the hands of whites according to Invectus, which Freeman Morgan played as Mandela.

Unity was therefore Mandela’s pressing objective. How to achieve that wasn’t quite easy. In his wisdom, spirit of humility and humanity, he found answer to the problem. Forgiveness for all previous wrongs by whites was the first key. Then he used Rugby, which was mostly a white sports to bring all South Africans together as one people.

Before this time, while whites were cheering white Rugby players of South Africa, blacks were cheering and supporting England or other visiting teams to the country. Mandela wasn’t satisfied so he asked, “How do we inspire ourselves to greatness while nothing else we do?” And, he also asked, how do we inspire everyone around us to do the impossible? He then answered the questions by calling the captain of Springboks (the Rugby team), Francois Pienaar to his office. He made him understand that he’d a great task for the country. This task was to work hard with him and his government to unite all the citizens behind the Rugby team.

Pienaar, whom Matt Damon played as Mathew McConaughey in Invectus took up the challenge. He gathered his all-white team to take Rugby into black neighborhoods where little black boys became interested in the sport. They’re trained and friendship established. With this effort South Africa emerged as the 1995 winner of Rugby against New Zealand. This victory came with the support of white and black for Springboks. The joy brought by the unity hence victory made Pienaar declare in an interview that, “I was proud to be South African.”

Mandela’s wisdom pulled together South Africans hence the world cup showing the perseverance and greatness of the once battered people. It’s time we come together and work to bringing results that will make us say we’re proud citizens of the world.

Meanwhile, inviting South Africans to support Rugby was said to be, “A political calculation.” It’s also “A human calculation,” Mandela said. It’s therefore this human calculation that informs the propensity that soccer will bring healing and make the world joyous.

Let’s take the world stage as a soccer pitch. And all the 22 players play their heart with a mindset to win. The seriousness with which players, the two lines men and referee put into the 90 minutes game, if translated into the world stage where every sound adult play a role in the healing of the world would cause a change we can be proud of and believe in.

The fans and officials of the different teams (about 32 teams, countries in the 2010 world cup) will also actively put their hands on deck to making whatever cause players initiate come to fruition. We must understand that people make great strides to bring about the change and development the world has experienced thus far. Things don’t just happen.

Human imagination, initiatives, hard work, collaboration, integrity and honesty to mention just a few have brought us this far. Imagine if all those playing soccer in South Africa, those watching at the stadia and those watching from home all over the world should come together for a common cause. The success would be like nothing we’ve ever experienced anywhere on earth.

Soccer even brought people within Palestine and Israeli border to watch the world cup together as was shown on CNN (June 29, 2010). We can do many great things with soccer, like other sports. With this powerful sport the world can move unhindered! Endless possibilities abound with a soccer movement. We saw Rugby did it for South Africa. The time is now, therefore, that we create a soccer movement and march from the world cup stage to all the seats of government in the world to chat a new cause for our common good.

The joy a soccer goal rocks when scored shall be the world’s joy when this movement is moved from theory to practical. The movement to save and heal the world through soccer should have similar motto Pienaar said the Rugby team used. One dream one world should be the motto instead of South Africa’s “One team one country.” And it should come sooner than later for the freedom, equality, justice and peace we seek!

Source: Ben Wuloo Ikari.

Some 350 Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian children get together in annual one-day event. ‘The mixed game gave me a feeling that we can begin to make peace and enjoy life through football,’ one of participants says

By Tamar Zmora, YNet News, June 13, 2010

Some 350 Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian students aged 10 to 14 participated in a soccer tournament last week on the Wolfson-Chodorov soccer field in Holon.

The annual one-day event serves as a celebratory culmination to a year of activities and curriculum, Gal Peleg, Development Manager of Mifalot, told Ynetnews in a phone interview.

“The whole idea is for them to get to know each other, to break down stereotypes, and to informally get to know that the other side are not demons as it sometimes seems in the news,” Peleg said.

Through the “Know Your Neighbor” project, the children work in pairs with different communities and meet altogether at the end of the year for the tournament. There are pairings of Israelis and Palestinians from east and west Jerusalem, Israelis and Jordanians, and Arab and Jewish Israelis.

These pairs meet four or five times throughout the year and go on outings together to the beach, theater, and water park among other activities. “They are no different from us,” said Ofir, an Israeli youth who played in the soccer game last week. “I am glad we got to meet like this.”

‘They are no different from us’ (Photo: Nir Keidar)

The tournament began five years ago as part of a larger initiative. Founded in 1997 by the owners of soccer team Hapoel Tel-Aviv, Mifalot is an organization that utilizes soccer to build more cohesive communities by trying to bridge the social, political, religious and ethnic divides within the Middle East.

“Mifalot peace programs foster new friendships between Jewish-Israelis, Arab-Israelis, Palestinians, Bedouins, Druze, Christians, Refugees, Ethiopian Immigrants and Kibbutz children. They all come together and play as mixed football teams with no boundaries or borders,” reads a mission statement from the organizations website.

Getting Jordanian relatives involved

This year was the first year the tournament included Jordanian students. The ability to expand the project resulted from the family relations of the Arab Israeli participants, who helped expand the program because they have relatives in Jordan who were eager to get their friends and relatives involved.

Guests on hand to cheer on the teams included Vice Premier and Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom, Head of the European Union’s mission in Israel Andrew Stanley, Mifalot Chairman Avraham Burg, Captain of the national champion soccer team Hapoel Tel-Aviv Walid Badir, and assistant coach of Hapoel Tel-Aviv Yossi Abukasis.

On the soccer field, participants reflected on their experience in the project. Tarek from Umm al-Hir summed up the game by saying that “the mixed game gave me a feeling that we can begin to make peace and enjoy life through football.”

G. Murphy Donovan, Faithfreedom.org, June 4, 2010

“By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.” - Edmund Burke

Arabs and Persians make common cause when it comes to Israel and now the Turks have joined the anti-Semitic axis on a sea-going front. These “freedom” flotillas have a lot more to do with intimidating Israel than they have to do with assisting Gaza.

Turkey has long been held up as an exemplar of a model Islamic state; secular, moderate, democratic, and collegial. Nonetheless, the inherent contradictions of an “Islamic republic” may be coming home to roost in Anatolia – putting the lie to secular, moderate, and collegial.

Ankara, a NATO “partner”, has been backsliding for some time now; indeed, ever since the Islamists achieved power in democratic elections. The so-called “freedom flotilla” which attempted to run the blockade to Gaza a few days ago is the latest symptom of the march backwards. The convoy,masquerading as humanitarian relief, originated in Turkey with a political cargo of 700 pro-Hamas activists – spoiling for confrontation. The agitators got the fight they were looking for, and predictably, Israel is now vilified for defending its borders against hard core Islamist Turks and a small mixed bag of “progressive” nitwits.

Lest there be any doubt about Turkey/Hamas nexus in this contrived confrontation at sea, it should be noted that the unrealized port of debarkation in Gaza was festooned with Turkish flags and a gargantuan portrait of Recep Tuyyip Erdogan, Turkish Prime Minister.

We might also note that Hamas is the radical step-child of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (al Ikhwan). The Brotherhood is illegal in Egypt where it has been responsible for countless assassination attempts and gratuitous acts of terror for nearly a century. Nonetheless, Hamas is held up as the people’s representative in Gaza. Never mind that the Hamas insurgency split the Palestinians into two irreconcilable factions. Yet, somehow Israel is supposed negotiate a two state solution with two groups of Arab fanatics, who can’t share the same tent, no less a country.

Caroline Glick’s 15 Oct piece in the Jerusalem Post called”How Turkey was Lost”, sounded an early alarm about the Turkish malignancy, a cautionary tale about confusing elections with democracy. She described Ankara’s backsliding since the election of Erdogan, head of the formerly outlawed Islamist AKP. Since Erdogan came to power in 2002, Turkey has given Hamas a reception usually reserved for heads of state, eliminated the visa requirements for Syrian travelers to Turkey, and now cancelled air exercises with Israel and begun joint military maneuvers with Syria. Glick seems to believe that the Turks have cast their lot with the ShiiteCrescent. If what she suggests is true; we now have an Islamist fox in the NATO henhouse – and Turkey’s campaign for membership in the European Union has hit the hard rocks of reality.

The irony of elections in a country with a Muslim majority is that it often represents the camel’s nose under the tent; opening the door for religious opportunists to hold the one election that could be the last. On this score, Algeria evokes hot flashes of déjà vu. Islamists might be fanatics, but they’re not morons; they will use Western institutions to undo apostates and infidels. Such are the vicissitudes of democracy. And such is the dilemma also in Afghanistan; where the choice is between the corruptible Karzai and the incorruptible Taliban, Mullah Omar. Not too many good options in this neighborhood. If Omar ever ran in a UN supervised election; he might win in a landslide.

The big problem with Afghanistan, like Iraq before, is its potential for distraction. The only accomplishment of elections in Iraq was to reverse the sectarian poles – and assist Iraq in becoming the second Shiite nation in the Crescent, another potential ally for theocratic Tehran. Over time, American good intentions have managed to do to Iraq what the ayatollahs could not.  

Land-locked Afghanistan is not an immediate, or should we say proximate, threat to America or Israel. Afghanistan has six neighbors; five of which are Muslim states, all with a vested interest in neutering the Taliban and al Qaeda.  As Bernard Lewis has reminded us so many times; Islamic fundamentalism is more of a threat to Dar al Islam (the Muslim world) than it is to the West.

Elections in Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan could be meaningless. And another UN supervised circus proves nothing. Nation building might better be done by the natives. If we can’t influence electoral probity in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or the Emirates; why do we think we can do it in Kabul?   With Turkey now backsliding, the European Union pandering, and the White House apologizing; someone might ask why another American kid should die in any Muslim backwater to underwrite another election.  Indeed, the larger question should be: why does the West need to save Islam from itself?

The difference between the Bush and Obama brands of Islamic illusions are negligible. The Turkish slide to the theocratic side drops one of the last veils covering the “moderation” myth. Turkey, on a larger scale, is similar to Algeria; Islamists will use elections to come to power, but their objective is not pluralism, moderation, or any notion of democracy as we know it.

The exposure of Islamic irredentism in Turkey may be a blessing. Turkey was long thought to be a progressive influence in the Muslim world, a bulwark against the worst instincts of Islam. Indeed, Turkey was thought also to be a friend and ally of Israel. The Turkish attempt to break the Gaza blockade is a signal event; non-state Sunni actors in the terror campaign against Israel are giving way to Turk and Persian state sponsors. Ankara and Tehran may now take the lead in the jihad against Israel and the West.

Indeed, the Turkish flotilla fiasco opens a fourth front against Israel. Shiite and Sunni terror groups torment Israel from three directions on land; and now an unapologetic Muslim state sponsor agitates on the high seas. Arabs and Persians make common cause when it comes to Israel and now the Turks have joined the anti-Semitic axis on a sea-going front. These “freedom” flotillas have a lot more to do with intimidating Israel than they have to do with assisting Gaza.

The seismic signals from Turkey may provide some incentive for America and its allies to reexamine alliance membership and strategy – in the war “we are not having with Islam.” Ankara’s NATO participation was long thought to be a reward for modern democratic institutions. Now, other questions need to be answered; did we let a Muslim democracy into NATO or has the Western alliance been suborned by a theocratic 5^th column? More importantly, if and when the Israeli navy meets another “freedom” flotilla off Gaza, this time with a Turkish naval escort; what’s the NATO battle plan?

G. Murphy Donovan is a former Intelligence officer, former senior research fellow at RAND Corp, and former Director Research and Russian Studies, ACS/I, HQ USAF. His work has appeared in numerous strategic and Intelligence journals. He frequently writes about journalistic agnotology at Jenkins Hill on Blogspot. He is a veteran with 25 years of military service.

Source: Faith Freedom

Aljazeera.net, June 4, 2010

Civilians have borne the brunt of the fighting between government forces and al-Shabab fighters [AFP]

At least 17 civilians have been killed after Somali government forces, supported by African Union peacekeepers, launched attacks against fighters from al-Shabab, the armed anti-government group, in Mogadishu.

Among the dead are six women and a family of five whose home was destroyed by shelling, Ali Muse, the head of the city’s ambulance service, said on Thursday.

He said at least 61 other civilians were wounded in the heavy shelling and gun-battles that started early on Thursday in northern Mogadishu.

Most of the victims lived in the Somali capital’s Kaaran district, the scene of heavy exchanges of shellfire between the two sides.

Residents said the government soldiers were backed by AU peacekeepers in armoured vehicles. 

Some of the shelling, mainly fired from government positions and AU bases, randomly hit southern and northern parts of the war-scared city, Muse said.

Areas captured

A senior Somali military official claimed victory and said government forces will hold on to the areas they captured.

“We have driven insurgents from a large swath of the capital and we will not withdraw from those conquered areas like we used to do before,” General Ali Araye, the infantry commander, said.

IN DEPTH

Timeline: Somalia Restoring Somalia A long road to stability Al-Shabab: Somali fighters undeterred Somalia at a crossroads Somaliland: Africa’s isolated state What next for Somalia? Profile: Sharif Ahmed Who are al-Shabab? Riz Khan: The vanishing Somalis

He also said there will be further offensives against the fighters.

Araye, however, said this is not the start of the government’s long-awaited offensive to drive out fighters from Mogadishu.

Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, al-Shabab’s spokesman, denied that his group’s fighters were defeated during Thursday’s attack, saying that they had inflicted casualties on government forces.

Al-Shabab fighters are trying to hold on to the city’s north, which puts the presidential palace, known as Villa Somalia, within easy range of their crude mortar rockets.

Last month, al-Shabab claimed its forces would soon seize the palace.

Tensions also remained high in the Galgadud region of central Somalia where clashes betweenal-Shabab and the Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca group, a pro-government militia, killed 24 people on Wednesday.

Thursday’s shelling disrupted businesses in the city’s largest trading centre, Bakara market.

Bustling market

The market is usually bustling with business despite tensions in the capital.

The area it is in, however, is controlled by al-Shabab and its allied group, Hizbul Islam.

Over the past three years the market has seen near-daily shelling between fighters, and the AU and Somali soldiers.

Somalia has had no effective government for 19 years and Western nations and neighbours say the country is used as a shelter by fighters planning attacks in East Africa and further afield.

More than 21,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the violence.