1. Art and Diseño

‫النـــــور‬
AN-NOUR
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
January 2015 issue 157
‫اإلنكليزية الرائدة في الواليات المتحدة األميركية‬-‫الجريدة العربية‬
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157 ‫ العدد‬2015
‫ يناير‬- ‫كانون الثاني‬
‫ القصة الكاملة من داخل بوكا‬..”‫* هكذا تمت صناعة “داعش‬
‫* البابا يدعو قادة العالم االسالمي الى ادانة صريحة لإلرهاب‬
!‫* الخليج متخ ّوف من إتفاق غير معلن بين أميركا وإيران‬
‫* معاهدة دولية تمنع وصول االسلحة لمنتهكي حقوق اإلنسان‬
‫ لكن المعركة ما زالت مستمرة‬،‫* حرب أفغانستان انتهت‬
‫* ما الذي اكتسبه “حزب هللا” من الحرب في سوريا؟‬
Key Oil Producers Face Uncertain
Outlook in 2015
Analysts Say Plunging Oil Prices will
Spark More Global Geopolitical
Tensions in 2015.
Why 2015 Will Be
‘The Year of Never Again’
By: Caroline VARIN - LONDON
Gloomy outlook
The oil market faces an uncertain outlook
in 2015 as tumbling prices resulting from
global oversupply stoke geopolitical tensions in key producers of crude, analysts
say.
Oil prices have lost around half their value
since June, punished by abundant supplies,
a stronger dollar and weak demand in the
faltering world economy.
Losses accelerated in late November when
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) -- which pumps out onethird of the world's oil -- decided against
cutting its output despite the supply glut.
Prices subsequently hit a series of five-year
lows in London and New York, rocked also
by 2015 oil demand forecast downgrades
from both OPEC and the International
Energy Agency watchdog.
At the OPEC meeting on November 27,
kingpin Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies opposed a cut to the cartel's daily
output ceiling of 30 million barrels.
Analysts say they want lower prices, even
if it slashes incomes, to counter the rise of
US shale oil -- which is more expensive to
produce and eats into OPEC's market share.
However at the other end of the scale, oil
producers Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq
and Russia are desperate for prices to rise
so they can balance their books and salvage
their teetering economies.
Social, political turmoil -
In Venezuela, plunging crude oil prices have
already sparked social unrest and political
uncertainty.
Following the OPEC meeting, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered his
government to slash the budget of his oildependent and economically weak nation.
In Russia, the tumbling oil market -- combined with Western sanctions linked to the
Ukraine crisis -- has sparked a collapse in
the ruble.
The plunge in crude prices since June has hit
Russia particularly hard, as half of the country's revenues stem from energy exports.
Russia's central bank hiked its interest rate
for the second time in a week on Monday in
an attempt to halt the ruble's plunge, which
has sparked huge rises for consumer goods.
Norway, on the other hand, unexpectedly
cut interest rates on Thursday in an effort to
counteract the impact of plunging oil prices
and stimulate the Nordic nation's oil-dependent economy.
In the Middle East, Iraq -- which is battling
Islamic State (IS) militants -- will take a
major hit from the plunging cost of crude,
according to expert Richard Mallinson at
consultancy Energy Aspects.
"For now the Iraqi prime minister (Haider
al-Abadi) is managing to hold together
his political coalition and has halted IS
advances with various international support," Mallinson said.
Continued on page 9
U.N. asks Israel to Pay Lebanon $856 Million in
Compensation
In Nigeria and Pakistan, unforgivable attacks on schoolchildren have
made the world rise up in anger.
Unfortunately that's all it did.
By Leela Jacinto
It’s that time of year when we journalists
push out our year-in-reviews and annual top
10, 50, or 100 lists. Alas 2014, for me, is the
year we watched terrorists attack thousands
of kids in schools, made a huge stink about
it, allowed ourselves to dream that this time
things will change –and then nothing was
done about it. And nothing will be.
Months before the remarkable Malala
Yousafzai and Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace
Prize, Boko Haram militants swept down on
a school in Chibok in the remote northeastern
corner of Nigeria. More than 200 schoolgirls
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Continued on page 4
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were abducted, triggering howls of condemnation, a star-studded #BringBackOurGirls
campaign, and international summits where
regional and global leaders pledged their
help. All of which achieved … nothing. The
girls and their families have been left to rot
and nobody seems to have any idea where
they are; meanwhile there was speculation this summer that some had been used
as human bombs, though the government
dismissed such claims. Meanwhile, heaven
knows what all those foreign military advisors from the United States, Britain , France,
China, and Israel in Nigeria have managed
to achieve.
At last update, Nigeria had told the United
States to take your military aid and shove
it. Abuja is throwing a fit because Washington has refused –because of the Nigerian
military’s abysmal human rights and cor-
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Yes, Russia’s Military Is Getting More Aggressive
But are Moscow’s heavily armed fly-bys through European
airspace a nuisance -- or a warning of things to come in 2015?
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with no U.S. or NATO forces present in
Ukraine (and rarely in the Black Sea), the
flights particularly the Baltic fly-bys represent one of the few situations where NATO
and Russian forces could come into direct
contact and potentially conflict. The integrated flights of bombers and fighter aircraft
in the Baltic are visibly more aggressive than
the long patrols by larger aircraft. The flights
also intend to embarrass and intimidate. The
Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia
are the primary targets, but the traditionally
neutral and patient Swedes and Finns have
also been imposed upon by Russian intrusions.
Indeed, Swedish politicians have been provoked to such an extent that they are considering joining NATO.
Indeed, Swedish politicians have been provoked to such an extent that they are considering joining NATO.
And yet with all of these provocations, the
military balance in Europe has not appreciably changed since the Kosovo War. The
Russian flights show increased confidence in
the capabilities of Russia’s air force and its
slowly modernizing tactical aircraft inventory. The new Sukhoi Su-34 “Fullback” only
appeared in these flights beginning in late
October and represents Russia’s latest generation of tactical strike aircraft. But Russia
still has relatively few of these planes and —
along with the improved accuracies of other
air-delivered munitions that can be carried
by the older aircraft — they are only a small
down payment on the improved precision
capabilities envisioned in the new Russian
military doctrine.
Meanwhile, the United States and its NATO
allies have improved their capabilities to
use precision conventional weapons and
penetrate defenses against conventionally
organized ground forces. And despite all of
Moscow’s improvements, including reorganized brigades built around contract rather
than conscript soldiers and explorations of
“hybrid warfare” involving special forces
in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the core of
the Russian military remains conventionally
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organized. From 1960 to 2000, the NATO
supreme commander was always an American Army general, reflecting the centrality of the ground war in a possible NATOWarsaw Pact confrontation. In the time since
the Kosovo War, the supreme command
has included American Air Force generals
as well as American admirals reflecting a
change in the way NATO would use military
power in a confrontation with Russia. The
current supreme commander, U.S. Air Force
Gen. Philip Breedlove, personifies the important role air power in any new NATO-Russian
conflict.
Still, there are military dangers to the Russian
flights and the incursions. Russian fighters
routinely fly armed with air-to-air missiles,
as do the aircraft that intercept them. It’s not
difficult to imagine pilot with an itchy trigger
finger or an intimidating fly-by that gets too
close — at which point many things could go
wrong.
Perhaps more concerning is the casual,
almost careless, display of power in Putin’s
Russia. The Russian practice of flying military aircraft in the Baltic without filing flight
plans or using transponders — making the
aircraft both unexpected by and invisible to
civilian air traffic control — shows a reckless
disregard for human life. Indeed, these alarming events, such as the incidents with civilian
airliners in March 2014 and December 2014,
are not simply due to faulty procedures or the
actions of rogue or inadequately trained aviators. These kinds of near-misses will continue
as long as President Putin wants them to.
Russia’s own economic miseries put the next
round of potential U.S.-led sanctions in a different light. By signing the sanctions bill on
his desk, Obama can further signal his intention to ratchet up diplomatic pressure on
Russia, said Elizabeth Rosenberg, a former
Treasury official now at the Center for a New
American Security.
But Russia’s economic chaos could give
pause to European leaders more dependent
on bilateral trade with Russia who have been
worried all along about the economic fallout
from a tottering Moscow.
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ECONOMY
Can Israel Solve Europe’s
Energy Woes?
New natural gas finds in the eastern Mediterranean are fueling dreams that Israel can provide Brussels an energy alternative to Russia. Good luck with that.
By Keith JohnsonKeith Johnson
Israel has grand plans to ride to Europe’s
rescue by offering a ready supply of natural
gas to help the continent shake off its reliance on Russian energy. On paper, getting
gas from the eastern Mediterranean holds
plenty of appeal for the world’s most energyimport-dependent region, which was on the
prowl for alternative suppliers even before
Moscow’s incursion into Ukraine.
But building a pipeline from Israel to Greece,
where the gas would then be shipped overland to other European countries, would be
a hugely complicated and expensive way to
get relatively small volumes of natural gas
into Europe. The proposed pipeline would
carry about 8 billion to 12 billion cubic
meters of gas a year — a drop compared with
the European Union’s own gas consumption
in excess of 450 billion cubic meters a year
and the 160 billion cubic meters annually
supplied by Russia.
Instead, Israel’s growing energy reserves
would probably be better used fueling its
own domestic market and its next-door
neighbors like Jordan, if wary Arab politicians don’t torpedo the idea of doing deals
with Israel.
Israel had long been one of the few Middle
Eastern countries without abundant reserves
of energy. But in recent years — and even
recent days — big discoveries of offshore
natural gas fields have given Israel not just a
shot at energy independence, but the chance
to turn into a regional energy powerhouse.
This year, energy firms working the gas fields
announced plans to export gas to Jordan and
Egypt. Israel’s main offshore fields hold
an estimated 33 trillion cubic feet of natural gas; the latest find could add another 3
trillion cubic feet. Russia, the holder of the
world’s largest gas reserves, has 1,688 trillion cubic feet of gas.
In recent weeks, Israeli officials and some
Mediterranean neighbors such as Cyprus and
Greece have upped their ambitions. They’ve
been pressing Brussels to consider backing
a pipeline from Israel, through Cyprus, into
Greece, and finally into the rest of Europe
that would be explicitly designed to help
neuter the Russian energy bear.
Getting EU financial backing for the project, which Israelis figure could cost about $6
billion and which outside analysts estimate
at nearly twice that, is crucial to making the
economics work. That would likely require
some sort of European willingness to cough
up the cash to pay for the massive infrastructure investments needed to diversify
Europe’s own energy supplies.
But EU officials aren’t ready to dive in with
both feet quite yet. Maros Sefcovic, the EU
vice president for energy union — a new
position in Brussels meant to unify European energy policies — proposed carrying
out a feasibility study next year on the pipeline’s proposed route; he cited in particular
the project’s technical challenges.
And they are considerable. Running a pipeline 750 miles across the floor of the Mediterranean from Israel to Cyprus — which is
itself roiled in a dispute with Turkey and its
own Cypriot neighbors over offshore gas
deposits — and then to Crete and the Greek
mainland would be daunting. Unlike the
shallow water pipes that run from Russia to
Germany across the Baltic, depths in some
parts of the Mediterranean can reach more
than 6,000 feet. And the relatively modest
size of the Mediterranean gas fields also
makes huge upfront investments less appealing.
Despite what Israeli officials say, it’s hard
to see how a new pipeline with smallish
amounts of natural gas could be competitive
against
long-established pipelines carrying large volumes
of Russian gas. And
price matters, because
even if parts of Europe
are desperately worried about relying too
much on Moscow for
their energy supplies,
paying to ensure an alternative is a different
matter entirely.
Europe won’t actually need that much
additional gas over the next 15 years or so.
Modest growth in natural gas consumption between now and 2030 will likely
return Europe to the consumption levels it
had before the 2008-2009 global financial
meltdown. That lack of explosive demand
growth depresses the price that gas can
fetch in Europe. So just as the prospect of
seaborne, liquefied natural gas exports from
the United States would do little to address
the most pressing
energy-security challenges in Europe, an
Israeli pipeline would
be a tough sell.
“The markets that
have
security-ofsupply problems are
mostly landlocked,
and most of them —
even if you could get
additional gas supplies there — can’t
afford
alternative
sources of gas,” said
Brenda Shaffer, an
expert on energy security at Georgetown
University.
Europe actually already has ready-made
alternatives to Russian gas — but doesn’t
fully use them. Europe’s coast has plenty
of capacity to import liquefied natural gas
(LNG) from the Middle East, North Africa,
and soon the United States. But Europe
currently uses less than one-quarter of its
LNG import capacity for a simple reason:
because liquefied gas shipped halfway
around the world costs more, as a rule, than
gas shipped through a pipeline.
What’s more, customers in Asia have been
willing to pay even more for LNG than
those in Europe, which means that most
LNG tankers head for the booming markets
of Japan, South Korea, and China rather
than the stagnant European market.
Shaffer says that Israeli politicians are
confusing geostrategic goals with the way
that the market actually works, much like
the politicians in the United States who
have pitched U.S. LNG as a way to rescue
Europe. Israeli and American firms working the gas fields — not the Israeli government — make decisions about where and
how to export the gas. “Shalom is selling a
horse he doesn’t own,” she said, referring to
the Israeli energy minister.
But if shipping the gas to Europe isn’t the
answer for Israel, what is? Perhaps staying
closer to home.
Israel’s strong economy and growing
wealth have helped create a robust domestic
market. Egypt, once a big gas producer and
exporter but now roiled by financial woes,
flat gas production, and rising domestic
demand, is looking to use imports of Israeli
gas to feed its own LNG export terminals
(which are aimed at Europe, anyway.) And
Jordan could use Israeli gas to help boost
energy access and improve the local economy, helping cement political stability at
the same time.
That isn’t to say that energy bonds create
geopolitical harmony among acrimonious
neighbors: Just ask Ukraine and Russia, or
the United States and Venezuela, or Cyprus
and Turkey. The prospect of natural gas
deals with Israel has been politically controversial in Egypt and Jordan, even though
they are the only two Arab countries with
which Israel has a peace treaty.
But a place like Jordan has long been
starved of reliable sources of energy. Current Jordanian demand is terribly modest,
certainly compared with European demand.
And Amman could find plenty of uses for
a relatively cheap, relatively clean fuel to
power everything from new factories to
desalination plants.
China Zombie Factories Kept Open to
Give Illusion of Prosperity
“If you cut down the big tree, all the small
trees around it will die,” says 69-year-old
Wang Peiqing, referring to the collapse of
Highsee Iron and Steel Group, which operated the foundries before its recent closure
devastated the economy of a once-prosperous corner of Shanxi province in central
China. “The entire region relied on the steel
mill; now the young people have to go and
look for work across China.”
Highsee stopped paying its 10,000 employees six months ago. Local officials estimate
the plant supported indirectly the livelihood of about a quarter of Wenxi county’s
population of 400,000. Highsee was the biggest privately owned steel mill in Shanxi,
accounting for 60 per cent of Wenxi’s tax
revenues. For those reasons, the local government was reluctant to allow the company
to go out of business, even though it had
been in serious financial difficulties for several years.
“By 2011 Highsee was already like a dead
centipede that hadn’t yet frozen stiff with
rigor mortis,” says one official who asks
not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to foreign reporters. “More
than half the plant shut down, but it was still
producing steel even though its suppliers
wouldn’t deliver anything without cash up
front and it was drowning in debt.”
Across the vast expanses of China, similar
experiences are playing out, with thousands
of companies in heavy industrial sectors
plagued by chronic overcapacity that should
be going bust instead being propped up by
local g­ overnments.
With enormous power over courts, stateowned banks and local administrative departments, Communist party officials across
China are prepared to go to great lengths to
support the biggest failing employers in their
jurisdictions.
It was only last month, four years after Highsee began to flounder, that the company was
finally allowed by the government to initiate
bankruptcy ­proceedings.
In the past month alone Chinese media have
reported on at least nine large steel mills that
appeared to be suspended in limbo after halting production but which are forbidden from
going formally bankrupt.
November 2014: China’s economy grew last
quarter at its slowest pace since the depths of
the global financial crisis, raising concerns
over global growth prospects
“There are large numbers of companies
across China that should go bankrupt but
haven’t done so,” says Han Chuanhua,
a bankruptcy lawyer at Zhongzi Law
Office, a Beijing legal practice. “The government doesn’t want to see bankruptcy
because as soon as companies go bust,
unemployment spikes and tax revenues
disappear. By stopping companies from
going bankrupt, officials are able to
maintain the illusion of local prosperity,
economic growth and stable taxes.”
The outstanding volume of non-performing
loans in the Chinese banking sector has
increased 50 per cent since the beginning of
2013, according to estimates from ANZ, the
Australian bank, but the sector-wide NPL
ratio remains extremely low, at just over 1.2
per cent.
In private, however, senior Chinese financial
officials admit the real ratio is almost certainly much higher, obscured by local governments trying to prop up companies.
China is on track for its slowest annual
growth this year since 1990, when it was still
under international sanctions in the wake
of the Tiananmen Square massacre. After
years of frenetic growth and construction,
the slump in China’s real estate sector has
created severe problems for upstream industries such as steel, glass and cement that are
already suffering from chronic overcapacity.
In the case of steel, Chinese production trebled between 2006 and 2013. The country
produced about a third of the world’s steel
output in 2006; by 2012 it had risen to about
50 per cent. Such overproduction, combined
with slower Chinese demand, meant the price
of iron ore, the crucial ingredient to making
steel, slumped 46 per cent between July 2011
and July 2014, according to the World Bank.
On current trends, China is likely this year to
experience its first full-year outright contraction in steel consumption since 1995.
While overcapacity and competition hit
Highsee hard, a local official also blamed
the company’s owner, Li Zhaohui. Mr Li
was just 22 when he took over the running
of the company in 2003 after his father
was killed by a gun fired by an enraged
business associate. Mr Li has gone missing in recent months and could not be
contacted by the Financial Times.
“The government’s plan is to sell off the
plant quickly and restart production just
like before, even though the steel market
is in such bad shape,” says an official who
asks not to be named.
“The problem is that it owes at least
Rmb10bn [$1.6bn] and probably much
more than that. We don’t know where
we’ll find someone who can pay all that
off.”
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Wo r l d N e w s
World In Brief
Palestinians will outnumber Israeli Jews in 2016.
Report published by Palestinian Bureau of Statistics says even as the average
Palestinian family decreases in size, number of Palestinians living in both Israel
and territories will exceed that of Jews beginning in 2016.
A Bad Business Model Is Taking Over
the World
Razor blades and iPhones are like addictive drugs. Here's why that's
bad for your wallet and the economy.
New Book: Terror Tunnels,
Alan Dershowitz states that the 2014 War in Gaza required Israeli ground forces
to gain access to the tunnels and shut them down. Israel was unable to determine
their routes and exit ramps because they were too deep underground and not
detectable from the air.
Is Saudi Arabia Trying to Cripple American Fracking?
Well, it’s said as much, but the real reason for the flood of new Saudi oil is more
complicated.
A court in Egypt has reduced to one year the three-year jail sentences
given to eight men for appearing in a video alleged to show a gay marriage.
China to step up free trade talks with Middle East
- China and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - started free trade talks in
2004, and a deal will help China cut costs on energy imports from the region.
Japan and South Korea are teaming up against North Korea.
For the first time, Japan and South Korea will share intelligence on North Korean
weapons programs. Intel will be shared via the United States.
German worries about the Islamic State outweigh privacy concerns. Germans have long been the most vocal critics of National Security
Agency spying, despite using intelligence collected by the agency and spying on
Turkey, a NATO ally.
Continued from page 1
Why 2015 Will Be
‘The Year of Never Again’
ruption track records — to supply it with the
Cobra attack helicopters and other sophisticated
military hardware the generals want. Now, with
barely two months to go until Nigeria’s critical
2015 general elections, politicians are playing
an old campaign stunt, telling voters they have
failed to deal with Boko Haram because a fickle
superpower is denying the country the necessary
military equipment.
Then, just as the year was slouching to a close,
Peshawar happened. As six Pakistani Taliban
militants tore through the Peshawar army school,
mowing down 132 students and more than 10
staffers, one question kept playing in a loop in
my mind — as I’m sure it did for many others:
How many schoolchildren must be killed, kidnapped, or intimidated for us to make this world
a safe enough place for kids to just get an education?
There’s little doubt the Tehreek-e-Taliban (the
official name of the Pakistani Taliban) made
a strategic error with this one. Their bloodlust has put off the likes of the Afghan Taliban
and Lashkar-e-Taiba — even al Qaeda. Jihadist groups squirming over the brutality of their
jihadist brothers always strikes me as rather rich:
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi hurt Osama bin Laden’s
sensitivities, the Islamic State is too bad for al
Qaeda, and now, the Afghan Taliban’s Zabihullah Mujahid and Lashkar’s Hafiz Saeed are
distraught about the havoc Brother Umar Khorasani of the Tehreek-e-Taliban has wrought.
Save it for some security wonk who gets fired up
tracking splinter groups and tribes and factions.
Too many precious months and years have been
wasted chasing the vain “talking to the Taliban”
dream, plugged and pushed so effectively by
the talking to the Taliban industry of politicians,
middle men, and negotiators.
Still, many analysts rushed around proclaiming,
among other things, that Pakistan had just had its
“9/11” moment and that much-awaited change is
around the corner. I wish I could have what these
pundits are having. But I fear Pakistan, like Nigeria, will do precious little to address the groundwork that has enabled groups like Boko Haram
and the Tehreek-e-Taliban to attack school kids
on a mass scale. While the Nigerian political
and military elites centered in the oil-rich south
lack the will to address the Boko Haram menace
plaguing the remote northeast, in Pakistan, the
favored jihadists are too entrenched, powerful,
and vocal to be silenced.
The problem with this official talk of “no such
thing as a good or bad Taliban” is that it omits
any mention of the ever-mutating, multiheaded
hydra of jihadist groups that concentrate on
Indian-controlled Kashmir or on Pakistan’s
“Shiite problem.” They splinter and split, their
members swim from one group to another, but
the ideology remains. These are the groups that
were bred in the ISI petri-dish and fed on the
spy agency’s payrolls as “strategic assets” to
further Pakistan’s “strategic depth.” There’s
so much strategic goodwill between these
jihadist groups and the country’s intelligence
agency, you have to be a fool to think fundamental change is coming to Pakistan anytime
soon.
In the old days, the United States, the CIA,
India, and the Indian intelligence services
got the rap. Now, there’s a new bogeyman:
Afghanistan and the Afghan intelligence service. Pakistanis today accuse Afghanistan of
providing sanctuary to the Tehreek-e-Taliban. The cruel twist to all this, of course, is
that the Afghan Taliban was supported and
sustained under former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s reign to destabilize Afghanistan.
Now if the Pakistanis are to be believed, the
Afghans are playing a game conceived and
honed by their Pakistani brethren. Some
might say it’s comeuppance at last, which
would have been sweet if only it was not so
damn stupid and dangerous –for Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and all the school children.
Eight months after we took to Twitter,
demanding the authorities #BringBackOurGirls, we now know the girls are never
coming back home. They have been sold,
married, or dispersed. The Nigerian authorities lost precious time in the days and weeks
after the kidnappings as the Goodluck Jonathan administration hemmed and hawed,
underestimated the figures, lied and denied
until ordinary Nigerians got so fed up, they
organized an international campaign that
succeeded in drawing attention to the tragedy but failed to retrieve the girls. At some
point this year, we got trapped in confusing
narratives of the Nigerian government’s own
version of the “talking to the Taliban” drama,
with the military announcing it had signed a
truce deal with Boko Haram, a claim that
many Nigerians immediately — and rightly
— dismissed.
“Negotiating” with jihadist groups like Boko
Haram and the Taliban is not the same as
dealing with the likes of the IRA or FARC,
but try telling that to the select circle of
international mediators who think they can
replicate Northern Ireland in the Pashtun
badlands or northeastern Nigeria. And so,
Boko Haram — which means “Western education is forbidden” — won the round this
year. And with the much-promised 2014 U.S.
troop drawdown in Afghanistan finally upon
us and the Taliban waiting until the snow
melts in the high mountain passes to begin
the spring 2015 offensive, the schoolchildren
will be no safer next year than they were in
2014.
Imagine if you could only fill up your
car with one brand of gasoline. Once you
bought the car, you were trapped — try
any other brand, and your car wouldn’t
even start. It sounds crazy, but this same
business model is proliferating across
industries from coffee machines to cleaning brushes. Changes in the global economy are only helping it to spread, almost
always to the detriment of consumers.
The razor-and-blades model has costs for
society, too. Instead of buying one razor
that lasts for years, people discard countless blades with their plastic housing
and rubber bumpers every week. Printer
makers offer ink in tiny refills to ensure
that consumers never face a high up-front
cost, but they lose any economies of scale
in the raw materials used to manufacture
the containers. They pile up the waste just
to keep consumers buying.
And in some industries, the razor-andblades model may even replace public
goods. Consider those home water filters.
In the United States, their manufacturers
rack up hundreds of millions of dollars in
sales every year. Since laws require drinking
water to be safe, these filters may be catering
most to consumers’ tastes and peace of mind.
But in other countries, where drinking water
often isn’t safe, those pitchers and filters are
a distributed solution to a problem that ought
to be solved centrally. Instead of building the
infrastructure to supply clean drinking water
to millions of people, those who can afford
them throw away millions of used plastic filters ever year.
Innovation may also be a victim of the razorand-blades model. Companies that use the
model have little incentive to make their
products more efficient or durable, since
waste is an explicit part of their strategy. Nor
do they have much to gain from offering selfcontained, more costly products that permanently fulfill consumers’ needs — a printer
that never needs ink, a water purifier with no
filters to replace, or a razor that stays sharp
forever.
Unfortunately, changes in the global economy are only making the razor-and-blades
model more attractive. Lower oil prices will
lead to cheaper plastics, giving companies a
chance to drop prices or claim higher margins on disposable items. Tax cuts and austerity measures around the world will reduce
funding for public goods. And as consumers’
attention spans shorten, their tendency to
seek instant gratification from products will
low up-front prices may increase.
From Bikini to Jihad in Ceuta, Melilla Arrests of
Suspected Islamists Recruiting for Syria and Iraq
Fuel Jihad Fears in Spain's African Lands.
Aisha has lived all her life in one neighbourhood in Spain's African territory of
Ceuta, but now she is willing to move -even to the war zone of Syria.
Her home district of El Principe in this
European enclave of 87,000 people on
the tip of Morocco has a reputation for
hardship -- and a new, growing one for
Islamic radicalism.
Police raided a gang they suspect
recruited 12 women online and sent them
to join the violent extremist group calling itself Islamic State, which controls
parts of Syria and Iraq.
Ten years after Al-Qaeda-inspired bombings killed 191 people in Madrid, police
and security analysts say homegrown
jihadism, already familiar in Britain and
France, has started to hatch in Spain.
Security sources say up to 100 radicals
are thought to have been recruited in
Spain and send to Iraq and Syria.
- 'Bikini to hijab' -
Police detained two females -- a 19-yearold from Melilla and a girl of 14 from
Ceuta -- who were caught trying to cross
from Melilla into Morocco, suspected of
heading for Syria.
"My pupils have told me that many times
Syrian and Saudi elders have come to
give conferences here," said Veronica
Ribera, a teacher in El Principe's high
school.
"We see young girls switching in a fort-
night from the headscarf to the niqab," an
Islamic veil covering all but the eyes, she
said. "We know there is someone behind it,
radicalising them."
- 'No man's land' -
"There is no work. The younger generation
has no future. This is no man's land," said
Isma Mohamed, a neighbourhood leader.
"People here are fed up of being stigmatised. There are closed pockets, but not all
the district is radical, far from it."
Authorities fear that Ceuta and Melilla, with
their vulnerable populations and volatile
border crossings to Morocco, could offer
extremists a strategic base for attacks in
Europe."What we fear is not so much what
is happening in the mosques," said one security source. "It is the lone wolf who could
grab a car and drive it into a crowd."
Gulf Stock Markets Tumble Dubai Financial
Market Lead Gulf Bourses in Free Fall, Shedding
more than 7.0 percent Just After Start as Oil Prices
Resume Fall.
Dubai Financial Market led the way in a
free fall, shedding more than 7.0 percent
just after the start and appeared headed
towards the key 3,000-point psychological barrier.
Since OPEC decided to maintain its production unchanged and oil prices dived,
the DFM Index has shed more than 30
percent of its value and was currently
trading at a 12-month low.
Dubai bourse has been the most volatile
among the seven Gulf exchanges, possibly
because it is the most exposed to international markets and investors, traders said.
Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange dropped 4.0
percent
Qatar Exchange, the second largest in the
Gulf after Saudi Arabia, dipped 4.0 percent
below the 11,000-point level before recovering slightly.
Kuwait Stock Exchange dropped 1.5 percent
below the 6,200-point level while the small
Oil prices sank further to new multi-year
lows in Asia, with analysts weighing the possible political and economic fallout in oilproducing countries with little respite in the
selling.
P.5
An-Nour
January 2015
(770) 608-3343
[email protected]
www.An-Nournews.com
What is COPD?
Health / Social
Science & Technology
Symptoms of COPD
2014 Year of Space Technology
Benchmarks, Setbacks
COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is a lung disorder that makes it hard to
breathe. The first symptoms can be so mild that
people mistakenly chalk them up to “getting
old.” People with COPD may develop chronic
bronchitis, emphysema, or both. COPD tends
to get worse over time, but catching it early,
along with good care, can help many people
stay active and Inside the lungs.
COPD can clog the airways and damage the
tiny, balloon-like sacs (alveoli) that absorb
oxygen. These changes can cause the following symptoms: •Shortness of breath in everyday activities •Wheezing •Chest tightness
•Constant coughing •Producing a lot of mucus
(sputum) •Feeling tired •Frequent colds or flu
Severe COPD can make it difficult to walk,
cook, clean house, or even bathe. Coughing up
excess mucus and feeling short of breath
may worsen. Advanced illness can also
cause: •Swollen legs or feet from fluid
buildup •Weight loss •Less muscle strength
and endurance
Arab Middle Class Measurement and Role in Driving Change Economic and Social Commission for
Western Asia Economic and Social Commission
Report Sets out Measures that can
Drive the Arab Middle Class Forward
and Allow the Poor and Vulnerable to
become the Middle Class of Tomorrow.
This report argues that, although the Arab
region is suffering from instability, development and economic justice policies must be
discussed. The following economic policy
agenda is suggested for a regionally integrated
Arab developmental State: a. Developmentfriendly macroeconomic management aimed
at structural 142 transformation towards higher
valueadded goods and services sectors, which
provides quality employment opportunities
for the existing middle class; b. Emphasis on
social protection floors to ensure equal opportunities and expand the middle class base from
vulnerable and poor segments; c. A proactive
and expanding fiscal policy mix that identifies
resources to finance economic justice policies; d. An improved overreaching governance
fabric, laying the foundation for a developmental State. The choice of policies should not be
ideological but pragmatic, aimed at increasing
the pace of structural transformation and quality employment, and at allowing companies to
become more competitive. While trade protection is increasingly becoming an unviable
policy for most Arab countries, there are other
instruments that can be utilized to provide support for domestic productive sectors, such as
indirect and in-kind subsidies; financial instruments; land allocation; government procurement practices; publicprivate joint ventures;
State funded and managed quality control,
research and development, and technological
support; and a more business friendly environment. Part Five of this report shows that it is
also necessary to explore regional measures
to support national efforts aimed at enhancing
productivity and competitiveness; and ways
and means to turn Arab regional integration
into an effective mechanism for the development of industries. State economic leadership
in this respect is indispensible and its political role is salient. The crucial ingredient for
development-friendly growth, therefore,
is “a capable and largely developmentally
oriented State”.248 This, in turn, requires
a mix of market and State solutions and a
better understanding of the Arab region
within the global production hierarchy.
Policies should be implemented to assist
the upward social mobility of the poor and
vulnerable. This report suggests that this
can be achieved through economic justice,
including the introduction of a social protection floor, that provides basic health and
social services. Fortunately, in many Arab
economies, resources can be made available through taxation, military expenditure
and energy subsidy reform. Their effectiveness, however, will depend on building a
political coalition with the will to implement development policies outside the variants of conventional economic wisdom.
Lastly, a socially conscious developmental
State is not possible without radical reforms
to existing governance practices, so as to
guarantee security, the rule of law, a meritbased public sector and a competitive rulebased private sector. Such a system would
be a far cry from the old authoritarian
bargain, because it would be democratic,
developmental, just and free. However, it
would be strongly resisted by ruling elites
and would also have external enemies,
given that a successful merit-based open
system would lead to a new social contract
of mutual accountability, impeding the ability of rulers to listen to foreign demands as
opposed to those of their citizens. Nevertheless, the success of such socially conscious developmental States hinges upon
the direct and indirect support of the middle
class. For the Arab region to move forward
on this bright path, the middle class should
not only be up for the ride, but must also be
behind the wheel.
UN, Europe Aiding Execution of Drug
Offenders in Iran
One year after the Iranian presidential election of June 2013, and despite improvements
in relations with the West, the use of the death
penalty in Iran is higher now than in two
decades.
Iran executes more prisoners than any other
country except China, with 500 to 625 executed last year according to United Nations
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estimates. At least half of the condemned
were convicted of drug trafficking.
Under international law, Iran and other
countries with the death penalty are
required to impose it only for the “most
serious crimes,” which do not include drug
offenses.
In Iran 70-80% of executions are for drug
offences. National law stipulates that the
punishment can be handed down for possession of as little as 30g of narcotics.
Four Iranians hang limply from the nooses
during public execution in the southern
city of Shiraz, on 05 September 2007
For many years European nations have
seen Iran and Pakistan as important partners in the “war on drugs”, as both countries represent critical supply routes for
traffickers looking to transport heroin.
The report, European aid for executions,
found that millions of dollars worth of
funding – used to train and equip Iran’s
anti-narcotics police with body-scanners,
sniffer dogs, night-vision goggles, and
all-terrain vehicles – routinely comes with
targets encouraging arrests likely to result
in death sentences, despite commitments
from the UN and many donor nations to
encourage global abolition of the death
penalty.
Space technology last year reached some
important goals, culminating with the spectacular landing of a space probe on a comet,
millions of kilometers from Earth.
In August, after a decade-long flight, the
European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft
became the first man-made object to enter into
orbit around a comet, more than 400 million
kilometers away.
In November, Rosetta launched a probe,
named Philae, that made the first soft landing
on the comet.
Orbiting Mars
In September, the U.S. scientific satellite
MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) entered an orbit around Mars,
with the mission of learning what happened to
the Red Planet's atmosphere and water.
MAVEN principal investigator Bruce Jakosky
says scientists now know that Mars once had
a much denser atmosphere and that it has
changed significantly over the last few billion
years. What they still don’t know is how and
why that happened.
A few days later, MAVEN was joined by
India’s spacecraft Mangalyaan, making India
the first nation to reach Mars' orbit successfully in the first attempt. Its mission was to
develop technologies and experience for future
explorations.
NASA's Orion capsule
In December, using its largest rocket, the Delta
IV Heavy, NASA conducted a nearly perfect
first launch and retrieval of its new space capsule Orion, designed for manned deep space
explorations.
Orion program manager Mark Geyer said it
was hard to have a better day.
In the future, the Orion capsule will fly on top
of a more powerful rocket, the Space Launch
System.
NASA plans to send it to circumnavigate the
moon in 2018, while the first flight with astronauts is planned for 2021.
Setbacks for private space industry
The budding private space industry in the U.S.
suffered two setbacks this year. In October,
Orbital Sciences Corporation’s cargo rocket
Antares, bound for the International Space
Station, exploded soon after liftoff. Later that
month, Virgin Galactic’s experimental space
vehicle SpaceShip Two broke up in the middle
of a test flight, killing one of the two pilots.
Both companies said the mishaps will not
deter them from trying to develop reliable
spacecraft for near orbit flights.
Young People are ‘lost Generation’
who can no Longer Fix Gadgets, Warns
professor
Young people in Britain have become a lost
generation who can no longer mend gadgets
and appliances because they have grown up
in a disposable world, the professor giving
this year’s Royal Institution Christmas lectures has warned.
Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at the University of
Manchester, claims that the under 40s expect
everything to ‘just work’ and have no idea
what to do when things go wrong.
Unlike previous generations who would
‘make do and mend’ now young people will
just chuck out their faulty appliances and buy
new ones.
But Prof George claims that many broken
or outdated gadgets could be fixed or repurposed with only a brief knowledge of engineering and electronics.
This year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are entitled ‘Sparks will fly: How to
hack your home’ she is hoping it will inspire
people to think what else they can do with
common household objects.
War Takes its Toll on Syria Heritage:
Nearly 300 Sites Destroyed, Damaged and Looted
BEIRUT - Nearly 300 cultural heritage sites
have been destroyed, damaged and looted
in Syria since its conflict broke out in 2011
according to the UN.
Among the areas exposed to major damage
were UNESCO world heritage sites such
as Aleppo, where settlements have been in
place for 7,000 years, and the fabled desert
Greco-Roman oasis of Palmyra.
"Looting, destruction from aerial bombardment and other explosions, as well as infrastructure construction at cultural sites significantly threatens the heritage to future generations of these historic structures and objects,"
the UN said in a statement.
The report focused on 18 areas, of which six
are UNESCO-listed: the Old City of Aleppo;
Bosra; Damascus, the Dead Cities of northern
Syria; Crac des Chevaliers and Palmyra.
Detailed analysis of satellite imagery of 290
locations at these sites showed 24 of them
had been destroyed, 104 severely damaged,
85 moderately damaged and 77 possibly
damaged.
The United Nations said the report was
"alarming testimony of the ongoing damage
that is happening to Syria's vast cultural heritage" and called for efforts to scale up their
protection.
P.6
January 2015
An-Nour
www.An-Nournews.com
U.S. Fears New Iraqi Prime Minister
Isn’t Serious About Sunni Outreach
Abadi not only pressed Hagel to supply more
American weapons and increase the tempo of
U.S.-led airstrikes on the Islamic State taking
the Pentagon chief by surprise, but also
expressed doubts about normalizing relations
in the long term with Iraq’s Sunnis, according
to two senior American officials.
Leaders of the Sunni tribal groups in Anbar
province that the United States wants to organize and equip into national guard brigades
to take on the Islamic State are not trustworthy, Abadi, a Shiite, told Hagel in a Dec. 9
meeting in Baghdad, according to the two
U.S. officials and a European official whose
country is involved in the coalition against
the Islamic State.
Abadi and the Iraqi government understand
and “have made clear that Sunni tribal forces
are going to have to be a part of the effort
to defeat ISIL and for the security of their
provinces,” Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for
the White House National Security Council,
said in an email, using another acronym for
the Islamic State. During the Dec. 3 Counter-ISIL Coalition Ministerial in Brussels,
Abadi “once again acknowledged that military action alone will not defeat ISIL and that
positive steps toward governmental reform,
national reconciliation, and economic and
social reconstruction will be needed in this
fight. This process will take time but it is now
underway. The new government is working to
integrate tribal fighters into the Iraqi Security
Forces.”
The Pentagon remains “committed to our
advisory mission in Iraq, to include the
deployment of up to an additional 1,500
troops that will not only advise Iraqi commanders, but also help build partner capacity through a training regimen,” Pentagon
spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said.
The U.S. military advisors already in Iraq
are helping to train and reorganize the highly
fractured Iraqi army, which had dwindled to
nearly half its size from the 50 brigades it had
when the U.S. forces left in 2011, in preparation for a coming ground offensive against
the Islamic State. The fight to retake Mosul
could start as early as the spring of 2015. The
militants captured large parts of the country’s
west and northern provinces after Sunni residents threw their support to the group after the
Maliki government stopped paying the Sunni
tribal fighters who had earlier helped battled
the Islamic State’s precursor, al Qaeda in Iraq.
In 2011, Maliki also arrested several prominent
Sunni lawmakers and tried to arrest the country’s Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi,
after accusing him of running an anti-government death squad. Hashimi later fled to Iraqi
Kurdistan.
The U.S.-led coalition strategy rests on
training and equipping the Iraqi Army so
it can mount a counteroffensive against the
Islamic State. U.S. officials have been clear
that the fight against the militant group will
be Iraq’s to wage, even though Army Gen.
Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, has said he may recommend American troops taking a more active
role in the fight.
So slowing down the departure of additional
American trainers would mean a delay in getting
Iraqi troops ready and consequently the planned
offensive to retake Mosul.
The United States also wants to create as many as
three brigades of Iraqi national guard units drawn
from members of Sunni tribes in the Anbar province to fight the militants. Those tribal militias
were a vital part of the so-called Sunni awakening
that began in August 2006, during which Sunni
fighters turned against al Qaeda in Iraq and helped
American troops kill large numbers of militants,
pushing the group out of Anbar province, which
had been its longtime stronghold. The Islamic
State’s current offensive began in Anbar, and the
militants have been steadily consolidating their
control over the province.
The $1.6 billion request was part of the Obama
administration’s supplemental war request added
to the Pentagon’s 2015 budget proposal and was
just approved by Congress on Saturday. The
Obama administration also is asking Congress
for a new Authorization for the Use of Military
Force (AUMF) to counter the Islamic State, even
though officials have said U.S. troops will not
engage in direct combat against the group on the
ground.
A small contingent of the American military
advisors already have set up camp in Iraq’s Anbar
province to train Sunni tribes. But the larger
question of creating a standing national guard has
met with opposition from among the country’s
politicians, who fear that in the long run such an
armed force of Sunni tribes could threaten the
government in Baghdad.
The Abadi government is still in its nascent stages
and the United States and its coalition members
must “resist making major assumptions about the
trajectory of the situation in Iraq based on anecdotal information or a few data points.”
The U.S.-led coalition includes major Western nations such as the U.K., France, Germany,
Australia, Italy, and Canada, as well as several
Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan,
Egypt, and Turkey.
Arab partners in the coalition are keen to see that
Abadi doesn’t end up being another Maliki who
alienates Iraq’s Sunni population, which led to
the rise of the Islamic State. And for that reason
the Arab coalition members many of whom fear
the spread of the Islamic State’s power and reach
could undermine their own governments are
weighing and watching their support for Iraq’s
government.
If the United States waits to deploy additional
forces “or if we look like we are starting to
wobble in our commitment to Iraq we’ll pay for
that inside the coalition and we’ll pay for that
with our Arab partners,” the U.S. official said.
ISIS Executed 100 Foreign Fighters
Who Tried to Quit
Some fighters have grown disillusioned
with the realities of fighting in Syria,
according to reports
The Islamic State group has executed
100 of its own foreign fighters who tried
to flee their headquarters in the Syrian
city of Raqqa.
An activist opposed to both IS and the
government of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad told the daily that he had "verified 100 executions" of foreign IS fighters trying to leave the group's de-facto
capital.
IS fighters in Raqqa said the group has
created a military police to clamp down
on foreign fighters who do not report for
duty. Dozens of homes have been raided
and many fighters have been arrested.
Some fighters have become disillusioned with the realities of fighting in
Syria, reports have said.
According to the British press in October, five Britons, three French, two Germans and two Belgians wanted to return
home after complaining that they ended
up fighting against other rebel groups
rather than the Syrian army. They were
being held prisoner by IS.
In total, between 30 and 50 Britons want
to return but fear they face jail, according to researchers at the International
Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at
King's College London, which had been
contacted by one of the fighters speaking on their behalf.
Reports emerged earlier this month of
an Indian fighter who returned home
to Mumbai after IS fighters made him
clean toilets and do other menial jobs
As many as 100 people may have been
arrested after police shut down the protest
in favour of secular education
Police moved in on the protest, reportedly
organised by teacher's union Egitim-Is, in
the Kizilay district of Ankara with protesters forced to take cover from the jets of
water and pepper spray.
Some reports said as many as 100 people
may have been arrested, including the
head of the Egitim-Is education union Veli
Demir.
like fetching water.
Engineering student Areeb Majeed, 23, who
travelled to Iraq with his three friends to
join IS in May, was arrested and charged by
India's National Investigation Agency with
terror-related offences when he returned,
according to the Press Trust of India news
agency.
Since a US-led coalition began a campaign
of air strikes against IS in August, the group
has lost ground to local forces and seen the
number of its fighters killed rise significantly.
In recent weeks, there have been a string of
apparent setbacks for IS.
Iraqi Kurds claimed Thursday to have
broken a siege on a mountain where Yazidi
civilians and fighters have long been
trapped.
The Kurdish advances came during a twoday blitz in the Sinjar region involving
8,000 Peshmerga fighters and some of the
heaviest air strikes since a US-led coalition
started an air campaign four months ago.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon said several IS
leaders had been killed in US air strikes.
Iran Flexes Muscles with Massive
Gulf Military Drills
Iran kicks off extensive
military drills in show
of strength stretching several hundred
kilometres from Strait
of Hormuz to Gulf of
Aden.
TEHRAN - Iran launched
extensive military drills,
local media reported, in a
show of strength stretching
several hundred kilometres
from the Strait of Hormuz
to the Gulf of Aden.
The exercises are set to last six days and involve ballistic missile and drone testing,
according to military officials.
to 13,000 personnel will take part in the drills, which will be the first time Iran has organised military manuevers so far from its coastline.
Senior Iranian Officer Killed in Iraq
while Advising Fight Against ISIS
Dozens Arrested as Police Disperse
Ankara Education Protest
Many activists have been
angered by the interventions of the Islamic-rooted
Justice and Development
Party (AKP) in the Turkish
education system which
they allege have undermined the country's secularity.
Mehmet Balik, head of Egitim-Is' Antalya branch who
was reportedly being held
in police custody, told Hurriyet Daily News that the
police turned water cannons on the demonstration without warning
"They soaked down the group, which also
included children and the elderly," Balik said.
“We stood up for the rights of our teachers and
civil servants, but we were the victims of a
police attack without any warning,” he added.
The government lifted a ban on female students wearing the Islamic headscarf in high
schools and has encouraged the opening of
Imam Hatip schools which mix religious education with a modern curriculum.
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Brigadier General Hamid Taghavi was
advising Iraqi troops, Cleric says Iran
has sent more than 1,000 military advisers to Iraq.
A senior Iranian military officer has been
killed in Iraq, the Revolutionary Guard
said in a statement, according to French
news agency AFP.
Brigadier General Hamid Taghavi was
advising Iraqi troops fighting the Islamic
State in the city of Samarra, north of
Baghdad, the statement said.
Iranian military involvement in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq has
increased dramatically over the past year,
the Washington Post reported.
A senior Iranian cleric
told the Post that Iran
has sent more than
1,000 military advisers to Iraq since the
Islamist group captured large parts of
northern Iraq in June.
The cleric said Iran
has also conducted
airstrikes and spent
more than $1 billion
on military aid in the
fight against Islamic
State.
“The areas that have been liberated from
Daesh have been thanks to Iran’s advice,
command, leaders and support,” the cleric
told the Washington Post, using the Arabic
acronym for the group.
The United States is not coordinating the
battle against the Islamic State with Iran, but
"the two nations’ arms-length alliance against
the Islamic State is an uncomfortable reality,"
the Post reports.
The Obama administration plans to deploy
up to 3,000 troops to retrain Iraqi forces, the
paper reported, adding that as yet there has
not been hostility between Americans and
Iranians in Iraq.
The views expressed in all the articles are those of the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect
the official policy or position of AN-NOUR Newspaper
P.7
An-Nour
January 2015
www.An-Nournews.com
Outrage in Algeria Over Islamist Call
for Algerian Author's Death
Salafist activist has called on his Facebook page for authorities to impose
death penalty against Daoud for criticising relationship between Muslims
and their religion.
Daoud has filed a lawsuit in Oran
against what he termed a death threat
(770) 608-3343
[email protected]
ALGIERS - An Islamist call for author Kamel
Daoud to be condemned to death for alleged
apostasy has stirred outrage in Algeria, reviving dark memories of the country's brutal civil
war.
Salafist activist Abdelfatah Hamadache
Ziraoui has called on his Facebook page for
authorities to impose the death penalty against
the author and to execute him in public.
The call came after Daoud, in an appearance
on French television, criticised the relationship between Muslims and their religion.
Ziraoui, who campaigns for bans on alcohol
and bathing costumes on the beach, accused
the author of apostasy for "waging war on
Allah, his prophet, the Koran and the values
sacred to Islam".
The case has stirred outrage on social media,
with a petition calling for Algerian authorities to take action against "such murder calls
which bring back the worst days" of the country's Islamist insurgency of the 1990s when
dozens of intellectuals were assassinated.
Buddhist Militancy Triggers
International Concern
Sri Lankan police extended a curfew in a
popular tourist region after at least 80 people
were injured and dozens of Muslim-owned
shops and homes torched when a Buddhist
mob went on the rampage. Authorities said
the curfew would stay in place in the neighbouring resorts of Alutgama and Beruwala
as community leaders accused police of
doing little to contain the violence. "At least
80 people have been wounded and among
them are some police officers too.
Shahabadeen Sahira had a traumatic firsthand view of a new wave of militant Buddhist nationalist groups, whose rise across
parts of Asia has triggered growing international alarm.
Wearing a black headscarf, the elderly
Muslim former schoolteacher recalls her
ordeal in June, when a gang burst into her
home near the southern Sri Lankan coastal
town of Aluthgama, during the worst religiously-inspired violence to hit the tropical
island nation in three decades.
those who view themselves as guardians of
the Theravada doctrine of Buddhism, which
claims at least 100m followers and dominates
the faith in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, as
well as Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
Matt Schissler, a community activist in Myanmar, says these new links reflect fears of an
“existential threat” among some Buddhist
thinkers.
“It is a very long arc of history that people are
looking at, and they are looking at it globally,”
he says. “There is an affinity between Buddhist communities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka,
so they would be natural allies in defending
against this perceived global threat.”
Many of the grievances expressed by these
groups stem from purely domestic factors.
Radical monks in Myanmar tap into local anxieties over poverty, for instance, or perceived
anti-Buddhist discrimination. In Sri Lanka,
many link the rise to the end of the bloody civil
war against Tamil separatists in 2009.
Yet their increasing prominence has an inter-
15,000 March Against Country’s ‘Islamisation’ in
Eastern Germany Growing Far-Right Populist
Movement PEGIDA Leads Protest Against Asylum
Cheats", Country's "Islamisation" in Dresden.
By Frank ZELLER - DRESDEN
'Escalation of agitation against immigrants and refugees'
A record 15,000 people marched Monday
in eastern Germany against "asylum cheats"
and the country's "Islamisation" in the latest
show of strength of a growing far-right populist movement.
Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier cautioned
Germans against falling prey to xenophobic "rabble-rousing", reacting to the nascent
movement called "Patriotic Europeans
Against the Islamisation of the Occident" or
PEGIDA.
"The people are with us!," the group's
founder Lutz Bachmann shouted at the
crowd, celebrating a 50-percent rise in attendance since their last "Monday demonstration" in a series of rallies that started only
in October.
"Everywhere now, in every news rag, on
every senseless talkshow, they are debating,
and the most important thing is: the politicians can no longer ignore us!" Bachmann
told the mass of people, many waving the
black-red-gold national flag.
"We have shown by taking another 'little
stroll', and by growing in numbers, that
we're on the right path, and that slowly, very
slowly, something is beginning to change in
this country," Bachmann bellowed to loud
cheers.
- 'We are the people' -
Since the protests have rapidly grown in size
and spawned smaller clones in half a dozen
cities, a debate about immigration and refugees has gripped Germany, a country whose
Nazi past makes expressions of xenophobia
especially troubling.
Politicians have been stunned by the emergence in the city of Dresden of the nationalists who march against what they consider a
broken immigration and asylum system and
who vent deep anger at the political class
and mainstream media.
The demonstrations have flared at a time
when Germany, Europe's biggest economy,
has become the continent's top destination
for asylum seekers, and the world's number
two destination for migrants after the United
States.
The influx of refugees from Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan and several African and Balkan
countries has strained local governments,
which have scrambled to house the newcomers in old schools, office blocks and
army barracks.
One demonstrator, Michael Stuerzenberger,
said he does not oppose asylum for refugees
but asserted that "70 percent of people claiming political asylum here are economic refugees. We don't want to stay silent about this
anymore."
"We don't want a flood of asylum seekers, we
don't want Islamisation. We want to keep our
country with our values. Is that so terrible?
Does that make us Nazis? Is it a crime to be
A Sri Lankan resident rides a bicycle along a road as Special Task Force (STF)
a patriot?"
soldiers
patrol following clashes between Muslims and an extremist Buddhist
While several known neo-Nazis have been
spotted in the PEGIDA crowds, the rallies group in the town of Alutgama
have been dominated not by jackbooted men
with shorn heads but by disenchanted citizens “They came and took everything I had,” she national dimensions too, notably the sense that
recalls of the men from the country’s largely Buddhists around the region – including those
who voice a string of grievances.
"We are the people," they chanted, co-opting Buddhist Sinhalese majority, who burning in Thailand, and minorities in countries such
the phrase famously shouted a quarter-century dozens of homes in two day of clashes with as Bangladesh – are under threat from sinister
ago by East German pro-democracy protest- local Muslims, resulting in three deaths. outside forces.
ers here in the lead-up to the fall of the Berlin “My house was ruined, all my money, all September’s BBS/969 deal warned of “incurmy jewellery, was gone,” she says. “If I sions taking place under the guise of secular,
Wall.
could meet those responsible, I would ask: multicultural and other liberal notions, that are
- 'Repugnant and abhorrent' ‘Sir, does your Lord Buddha teach this?’”
directly impacting on the Buddhist ethos and
Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the marches
The bloodshed was sparked by a street-cor- space”. The perceived threat from Islam looms
"bring shame" on the country, and that Gerner disagreement between a Buddhist monk large in both groups’ rhetoric as well, despite
many is experiencing an "escalation of agiand a young Muslim. But Alan Keenan, ana- little evidence that Jihadist groups have made
tation against immigrants and refugees", a
lyst at the International Crisis Group think- inroads in either country.
trend he labelled "repugnant and abhorrent".
tank, says it is part of a wider trend: the rise Asia’s changing geopolitics has also played a
The leader of the Central Council of Musof a new generation of militant anti-Muslim role, with analysts noting a sense of civilisalims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, warned
Buddhist organisations, the most promi- tional encirclement among the smaller nations
that PEGIDA could split German society and
nent in Sri Lanka being the Bodu Bala Sena where Theravada Buddhism dominates, all of
that their use of the chant "we are the people"
(BBS), or Buddhist Power Force.
which are located close to one or both of the
sought to divide "you, the bad Muslims, and
In addition to its increasingly high-profile region’s great powers: Hindu-dominated India
us, the good Germans".
role in Sri Lankan politics, the BBS has and China, with its officially communist ideolHe also blamed politicians and the media
also forged ties with other extreme Buddhist ogy.
for mainly speaking
groups in Asia – notably in Myanmar.
Such links are not entirely new: missionaries
about Islam and MusThere the so-called 969 nationalist movement have for centuries flowed between Sri Lanka,
lims "in the context
– the three digits denote nine special quali- Myanmar and their Buddhist-majority neighof security, threats
ties of Buddha, six of his teachings and nine bours. But, aided by vibrant and often incenand danger" in recent
of the monkhood – has also been accused of diary discussions on social media, these newer
years.
inciting anti-Muslim sentiment.
ties between Asia’s extreme Buddhist organisaMore than 1,200
If I could meet those responsible, I would tions have already had an effect, says Matthew
police kept a close
ask: ‘Sir, does your Lord Buddha teach this?’ Walton, a Myanmar expert at the University of
watch on the nonAshin Wirathu, a prominent 969 leader, trav- Oxford.
violent crowd and on
elled to Sri Lanka in September to sign a pact Religion is playing an increasingly prominent
about 6,000 counterwith the BBS, ostensibly aimed at protecting role in Myanmar’s social and legal systems,
protesters
nearby
global Buddhism, while Galagoda Gnana- with draft laws floated to outlaw interfaith marmarching
under
sara, a BBS co-founder, also visited Myan- riage, as well as a sharp growth in “Sunday
the banners "Dresmar.
schools” promoting a Buddhist-based curricuden Nazi-free" and
The exchanges helped deepen ties between lum.
"Dresden for All",
organised by civic,
political and church
groups.
Most protesters claimed they are not neoNazis, just patriots.
"To call these people sick with fear, Islamophobic, is outrageous," said an Austrian protester, Lana Gabriel, in her 40s. "They are
not far-right. They just love the country and
its traditions."
Several conservative politicians have argued
the government must "listen" to the people's
concerns about immigration, while the small
anti-euro AfD party has openly sympathised
with PEGIDA, saying its message has struck
a chord.
Polls suggest the eurosceptic party has found
a new campaign issue.
A survey for news website Zeit Online
showed that nearly half of all Germans -49 percent -- sympathised with PEGIDA's
stated concerns and 30 percent indicated
they "fully" backed the protests' aims.
Almost three in four -- 73 percent -- said
they worried that "radical Islam" was gaining ground and 59 percent said Germany
accepted too many asylum seekers.
Turkish Actress Insulted for
Translating for Pope
ISTANBUL - A leading Turkish actress said
she has been subjected to a welter of insults
on social media since she acted as a translator for Pope Francis during his visit to
Turkey in November.
Serra Yilmaz said she was "accused of being
a Christian" by Islamist trolls, who were
angry at the renowned actress agreeing to
interpret for Francis.
"I was accused of being a Christian just
because I acted as the translator of Pope
Francis," Yilmaz told university students
in the western port city of Izmir, Milliyet
newspaper reported."It is ridiculous to judge
people by their beliefs.
The 60-year-old stage and screen star, who
is fluent in Italian, said she had been hired
by Turkish foreign ministry to work as a
translator during the pope's three-day visit
to Ankara and Istanbul in late November.
Yilmaz, best known overseas for her roles
in Italy-based Turkish filmmaker Ferzan
Ozpetek's
films,
regularly works as
a translator for
Italian-speaking dignitaries
and politicians
visiting Turkey.
She had also
worked as a
translator for Pope Benedict XVI, Francis'
predecessor, when he visited Turkey in 2006.
Yilmaz had drawn the ire of conservatives
in Turkey -- run by an Islamist-rooted government for more than a decade -- when she
famously said in 2012 that girls with headscarves scare her and they look like "monsters".
While Turkey is run on strictly secular lines,
the vast majority of its 76-million inhabitants
are Muslim. Turkey's Christian community is
no more than 120,000-strong, most of them
Greek Orthodox or Armenian.
P.8
An-Nour
January 2015
Jokes
www.An-Nournews.com
The purpose of placing jokes in this section is to put a smile on your
face.
Jokes are NOT intended to humiliate anyone. Certain groups of people
located in a particular geographical area are distinguished due to their
trait and reputation.
BEAUTIFUL?
Next A lawyer was just waking up
from anesthesia after surgery, and his
wife was sitting by his side. His eyes
fluttered open and he said, "You're
beautiful!" and then he fell asleep
again. His wife had never heard him
say that so she stayed by his side. A
couple of minutes later, his eyes fluttered open and he said, "You're cute!"
Well, the wife was dissapointed
because instead of "beautiful," it was
"cute." She asked, "What happened to
'beautiful'?" His reply was "The drugs
are wearing off!"
***************
Doctor: I have good news and bad
news. Patient: Go with the good news
first. Doctor: You have 24 hours to
live. Patient: What!?! How about the
bad news? Doctor: Um... I forgot to
tell you yesterday.
**************
There was a lady, who had a dog
that she loved, and he followed her
everywhere. One morning she woke
up, went to the bathroom, came out,
and realized that her dog wasn't at her
feet. She found him in his bed ''sleeping''. So she took him to the vet. So
he looked at her dog and said, ''Your
dog is dead''. She asked the doctor to
perform another test to be sure. The
doctor went into another room, and
came back with a cage. In it there
was a cat. He let the cat out, and she
walked arund the dog, sniffed, and
went back in her cage. “'Your dog is
dead''. She was like ''Ok, how much
do I owe you?'' The doctor said ''$300''
She said, ''What!?!? How could it cost
that much??'' He said ''$15 for me to
say he was dead. Then $285 for the
cat scan''
One day Bill complained to his friend
that his elbow really hurt. His friend suggested that he go to a computer at the drug
store that can diagnose anything quicker
and cheaper than a doctor. ''Simply put in
a sample of your urine and the computer
will diagnose your problem and tell you
what you can do about it. It only costs
$10." Bill figured he had nothing to lose,
so he filled a jar with a urine sample and
went to the drug store. Finding the computer, The computer started making some
noise and various lights started flashing.
After a brief pause out popped a small
slip of paper on which was printed: "You
have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm
water. Avoid heavy lifting. It will be better
in two weeks." Later that evening while
thinking how amazing this new technology was and how it would change medical science forever, he began to wonder if
this machine could be fooled. He mixed
together some tap water, a stool sample
from his dog and urine samples from his
wife and daughter. He went back to the
drug store, located the machine, poured
in the sample and deposited the $10. The
computer again made the usual noise and
printed out the following message: "Your
tap water is too hard. Get a water softener. Your dog has worms. Get him vitamins. Your daughter is using cocaine. Put
her in a rehabilitation clinic. Your wife
is pregnant with twin girls. They aren't
yours. Get a lawyer.
**************
Two old men in a retirement village were
sitting in the reading room and one said
to the other, ''How do you really feel? I
mean, you're 72 years old, how do you
honestly feel?'' ''Honestly, I feel like a
new born baby. I've got no hair, no teeth,
and I just wet myself.''
**************
Wife: "How would you describe me?"
Husband: "ABCDEFGHIJK."
Wife:
"What does that mean?" Husband:
"Adorable, beautiful, cute, delightful,
A man working with an electric saw elegant, fashionable, gorgeous, and hot."
accidentally cuts off all of his fingers. Wife: "Aw, thank you, but what about
At the emergency room, his doctor IJK?" Husband: "I'm just kidding!"
says, "Give me the fingers, and I'll
see what I can do." The injured man
Teacher: "Kids,what does the chicken
repies, "But I don't have the fingive you?" Student: "Meat!" Teacher:
gers!" "Why didn't you bring them?"
"Very good! Now what does the pig
the doctor asks. The injured man
give you?" Student: "Bacon!" Teacher:
responds, "Doc, I couldn't pick them
"Great! And what does the fat cow give
up."
you?" Student: "Homework!"
***************
***************
300 Poets from 29 Countries to be
Interviewed for Prince of Poets
The 6th season of the Prince of Poets
competition comes to confirm the strong
interest in eloquent poetry on the map of
Arab creativity and on the agenda of the
Cultural Programs and Heritage Festivals
Committee – Abu Dhabi, as an organising body. The 6th season also illustrates
the high quality of the presented production, the diversity of poetic experiences
and the expansion of participation to
ABU DHABI – The Emirati capital, Abu
include poets from the Arab region and
Dhabi, is preparing to host 300 poets from
foreign
countries.
29 countries for direct interviews with the
members of the jury in January, 2015, as
it was announced by the Director of the
Poetry Academy at the Cultural Programs
and Heritage Festivals Committee - Abu
Dhabi, Sultan Al Amimi.
The qualified candidates who were
selected for direct interviews with members of the jury come from different
Arab and foreign countries, namely: The
United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Syria, Iraq,
Palestine, Jordan, Algeria, Sudan, Yemen,
Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Kuwait,
Bahrain, Oman, Mauritania, Eritrea,
Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Libya, Mali,
India, Senegal, Belgium, Guinea, Niger,
Chad, and Kazakhstan.
(770) 608-3343
[email protected]
PRIZES:
In addition to the Burda, the gown which
represents the Arab historical heritage
and the ring which stands for the title
of the Emirate, the cash value of the
top prize received by the winner of the
Prince of Poets title is AED 1 million.
The holder of the second position gets
AED 500,000, the third AED 300,000,
the fourth AED 200,000 and the fifth
AED 100,000. The Organising Committee of the Competition also sponsors the
publishing of printed and audio poetry
collections authored by winning poets.
KIDZ CORNER
Hard Decision
There was a Siberian husky,
her name was Siberia. She
had two friends. One was a
Chihuahua, her name was
Chichi. Her other friend
was a Golden Retriever, her
name was Goldie. She had
fun with her friend
One day Siberia and Goldie
were going for a walk
Chichi came by. She saw
them walking together Chichi doesn’t like
that. Chichi pushed Goldie in the bush. Siberia barked, “stop.” Goldie liked Chichi as a
friend, but Chichi doesn’t. Goldie was injured
in the bush.
S i b e r i a
asked, “Why
did you push
Goldie.”
Chichi said,
“I don’t like
Goldie she is mean to me so I don’t want you
to hang out with her.”
Siberia said, “She is very
kind to me.”
They ran off to the
arcade. Siberia wasn’t
having much fun she
was having a hard
decision. Goldie was
mad at Chichi for
trying to take her
friend. Siberia thought
if she got them to be
friends she wouldn’t
have to choose. She
had a plan. Siberia
would invite them over to her house
but they wouldn’t know that the other
person is coming.
The next day Siberia invited them
over. One came in the back door and
the other in the front. Siberia sat them
down. Chichi said, “What is Goldie
doing here.”
“I invited you both over” said Siberia.
They keep on fighting and fighting.
2 hours later
Siberia was surprised that they got
along with each other. So they went on
lots of trips together and never fought
again. They were friends forever.
“Fine,” said Chichi and
ran off.
Goldie
said,
“You
shouldn’t hang out with
her.” “You have to pick
her or me.”
“Now,” replied Siberia.
“No,” said Goldie.
Arabic Proverbs
(a'uul toor, yi'uul iHlibuuh.) I say it's a bull, he says milk
it. (Used when you're talking at crosspurposes with someone who won't see
reason.)
‫ يقول احلبوه‬،‫أقول تور‬.
(il-3ein mate3laaš
3al-Haagib.) The eye doesn't go higher
than the brow. (No one can go above
their status in life.)
‫العين ماتعالش عالحاجب‬.
(il-mat3uus mat3uus walaw rakibu 3ala raasu
fanuus.) The miserable person will be
miserable even if you hang a lantern on
his head. (You can't escape your luck.)
‫المتعوس متعوس ولو ركبه على راسه فانوس‬.
ّ
‫لقيني وال اتغ ّديني‬.
(la''iini wallitġaddini)
Better a warm welcome than being
invited to lunch. (Welcoming people
warmly is important.)
‫طبّاخ الس ّم بيدوقه‬. (Tabbaax is-simm biyduu'u.)
One who cooks poison tastes it. (What
goes around comes around.)
(illi ylaa'i
lli yuTbuxlu leih yiHra' Sawab3u?)
Why should one who finds someone to
cook for him burn his fingers? (Don't
do your own dirty work if you can find
someone to do it for you.)
‫اللي يالقي اللي يطبخ له لية يحرق صوابعه؟‬
ّ
‫يتعشى بيك‬
‫اتغ ّدى بيه قبل ما‬. (itġadda biih 'abl ma
yit3ašša biik.) Eat him for lunch before
he eats you for dinner. (Kill him before
he kills you; get your blow in first.)
‫القط مايحبش اال خناقه‬. (il-'uTT
mayHebbiš illa
xannaa'u.) The cat only likes its strangler. (People only respond to harsh
treatment.)
(il-ġaawi yna''aT biTa'iytu.) The fan will donate his skullcap. (An enthusiast will give away
everything he has for what he loves.)
‫الغاوي ينقط بطاقيته‬.
(il-Haraka baraka.) Movement is a blessing. (do something better
than nothing.)
‫الحركة بركة‬.
ّ ‫زن على خراب‬
ّ ‫دبّور‬.
‫عشه‬
(dabbuur zann 3ala
xraab 3eššu.) A wasp that brought about
the destruction of its own nest through
its buzzing. (He asked for it, it was his
own fault.)
(tiDrab il'idra 3ala fummaha, tiTla3 il-bint liummaha.) Like mother, like daughter.
‫تضرب القدرة على فمها تطلع البنت ألمها‬.
‫هاك الشبل من ذاك األسد‬. (haak iš-šiblu min zaak
il-asad.) Similar to the above, used to
desribe someone's similarity to one of
their parents. Lit. "this cub (is) from
that lion."
(xosaara qariiba aHsan min maksab ba3iid.) A loss
soon is better than a victory much later.
(It's better to cut your losses and admit
defeat quickly rather than stick it out
and eventually win a victory that cost
you a lot.)
‫خسارة قريبة أحسن من مكسب بعيد‬.
"In The Late Hours
of The Night"
By Grace de Koekkoek
In the late
Late hours
Of the night
Your face
Lingers
In my mind
Thoughts
won't let you go
Stay with me
Tonight
I'll love you
Unconditionally
Whisper to me
It's just a dream
you can say
Anything
In the late
Hours
Of the night
P.9
An-Nour
January 2015
www.An-Nournews.com
(770) 608-3343
[email protected]
Community Events
Yasmine Hamdan’s Oscar Nomination
Lebanese songwriter,
composer and singer
Yasmine
Hamdan
has been nominated
for an Oscar for Best
Original Song in a
motion picture at
the 87th Academy
Awards,
scheduled
to take place on 22
February 2015 at the
Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Her song "Hal," which
featured in American filmmaker Jim
Jarmusch’s vampire
comedy "Only Lovers
Left Alive," starring Tom Hiddleston and
Tilda Swinton, appeared on the list of
Oscar contenders released. Soon after, fans
began sharing the news on social media
outlets and congratulated Hamdan by posting comments on her official Facebook
page.
Hamdan, 38, is a Lebanese singer currently based in Paris, France. She is known
for fusing classical Arabic music with
modern electro-pop. She rose to promi-
China is World’s Worst Jailer
of the Press; Global tally
Second Worst on Record
In Iran, where President Hassan Rouhani
has also failed to meet expectations for liberal reform, 30 journalists are in prison. The
list of the top 10 worst jailers of journalists
is rounded out by Eritrea, Ethiopia, Vietnam,
Syria, Egypt, Burma, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.
All told, CPJ identified 220 journalists in jail
around the world in 2014, the second-highest
number since CPJ began taking an annual
census in 1990. In 2013, 211 were jailed,
while 2012 saw the record high of 232.
From China to Iran and from Egypt to Burma,
hopes for reform have been dashed as authoritarian governments suppress critical speech
at a terrible cost to journalists.
Turkey, which was the world’s worst jailer in
2012 and 2013, released dozens of journalists in 2014, bringing to seven the number of
journalists behind bars on the date of CPJ’s
census.
The number of journalists in Chinese jails
is the largest CPJ has ever documented in
that country. Almost half of those jailed are
Tibetan or Uighur, including academic and
blogger Ilham Tohti and seven students who
worked on his website.
The number jailed also more than doubled in
Egypt to 12, including three journalists from
the international network Al-Jazeera. Burma
had 10 journalists in jail, the first on CPJ’s
census since 2011.
Worldwide, 132 journalists, or 60 percent,
were jailed on anti-state charges such as
subversion or terrorism­. Online journalists
accounted for more than half, or 119, of the
total imprisoned, while roughly one-third
were freelancers.
nence in 1998 when
she teamed up with
Lebanese artist Zeid
Hamdan to form the
popular pop band
Soap Kills. She has
since released a
number of successful collaborations
as well as her first
solo album in 2009,
entitled
“Arabology.” In 2012, she
released a second,
self-titled
album,
“Yasmine Hamdan.”
Her second album,
famous for echoing
Arabic music from the 1950s and 1960s
backed by underground electronic beats,
drew international acclaim and she is currently being promoted as a “crossover star”
in Britain, France and the United States.
During a concert to promote the film, Jarmusch declared his admiration for the Lebanese singer, describing her as “a gift to [him]
and the whole world.”
The official nominations will be announced
live on January 15.
An-Nour Newspaper congratulate Sally
Yates, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia on her forthcoming nomination as Deputy Attorney
General, succeeding James M. Cole, in
which she will most certainly excel.
In the past, Ms. Yates, as a prosecutor,
handled a wide range of complex and
high profile criminal cases in Atlanta
with remarkable skill and outstanding
professionalism.
“As Deputy Attorney General, Ms. Yates
will play a critical role in serving justice
for the nation.
In Lebanon, Seaside Garden Blooms on
Towering ‘Mountain' of Trash
Deadly 2014 for International
Journalists Committee to
Protect Journalists Reports
NEW YORK - The gruesome murders of
foreign journalists by the Islamic State group
contributed to 2014 being a particularly
deadly year for international correspondents,
an annual review by the Committee to Protect Journalists reported.
The CPJ study
found that an
"unusually
high proportion" of the
60
journalists who died
reporting from
the
world's
trouble-spots
in 2014 were
international journalists.
Among the grim toll were American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, whose
horrific beheadings by IS jihadists were
published by the group in online videos in
August and September.
The CPJ cited the case of Syria, the deadliest country for journalists in 2014 for a third
straight year with 17 deaths, as an example
of the risks faced by local reporters.
In total, some 79 reporters have been killed
in Syria since the country's bloody civil war
erupted in 2011.
Syria has now passed the Philippines as the
second deadliest place for reporters since the
CPJ began keeping its tally of journalist killings in 1992. Iraq is the deadliest.
The CPJ said around half of the journalists killed in 2014 died in the Middle East,
with 39 percent of them losing their lives in
combat or crossfire.
Continued from page 1
Key Oil Producers Face Uncertain Outlook in 2015
programme, which could continue to weigh
on the nation's own oil exports.
Rebalancing?
"Iraqi politicians will find it difficult to cut
spending in the current context and so the
country is potentially facing a serious economic crisis in the next year or two."
Added to the picture, Iran -- the second biggest oil producer in the 12-nation OPEC
cartel after kingpin Saudi Arabia -- is gaining
increasing power within Iraq.
"Iran is getting even more influential in Iraq,
and those two countries together could start to
challenge the level of Saudi crude oil exports
in coming years," said Petromatrix analyst
Olivier Jakob.
At the same time however, US lawmakers
could decide next year to impose fresh sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear energy
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S INTENT TO NOMINATE
US ATTORNEY SALLY YATES TO BE DEPUTY
ATTORNEY GENERAL
Some analysts, however, predict that low oil
prices could stimulate demand and global
economic growth, which would help soak
up excess supplies.
A 25 percent drop in world oil prices in the
short term would help boost global demand
for crude by 0.50 percent, or 460,000 barrels
per day, according to IMF data cited by British bank Barclays.
However, it could take quite some time for
the benefits of low oil prices to boost world
economic growth.
OPEC faces tough new competition from
cheaper oil from US shale fields -- but this
involves a costly extraction process that
needs high oil prices to make it worthwhile.
Oil output is booming in the United States
thanks to fracking, which involves blasting a high-pressure blend of water, sand
and chemicals deep underground in order
to release hydrocarbons trapped between
layers of shale rock.
New project is putting end to towering nightmare, transforming it into seaside park that
local officials hope will inspire others.
In 2015, 33,000 square metres of land will
open as a public park
Lebanon's southern city of Sidon is best known
for its Crusader castle and ancient market, but
a more modern landmark has marred its Mediterranean shoreline for decades -- a towering
"mountain" of trash.
In the summer, reeking fumes hung over the
city, and fires broke out at the dump. Rubbish washed out to sea reaching Cyprus, 260
kilometres (160 miles) away in the Mediterranean, and was pushed across the city by winter
storms.
But now an ambitious project is putting an end
to the towering nightmare, transforming it into
a seaside park that local officials hope will
inspire others dealing with Lebanon's many
dumps.
The project began with the installation of a seawall around the eyesore site and the coastline
to the south, preventing waves from impeding
work or taking rubbish out to sea.
Then the site was closed to
further deliveries, with the
city's waste going to a new
processing facility further
south.
The mountain started life
as a dump for rubble about
10 years into the country's
1975-1990 civil war, and
tests showed around 60 percent of the heap was material
from destroyed buildings.
This year, 33,000 square
metres of that land will open
as a public park, planted
with hundred-year-old olive
trees and featuring a small amphitheatre.
The rest of the dump was ploughed into a
sanitary landfill, lined and covered with protective plastic membranes.
Pipes running through it will filter gas and
remove effluent, and grass will be planted
on top, but the landfill will be off limits to
the public for eight years while the material
underneath decomposes.
"In eight years time, the landfill site will be
joined with the green park that we are constructing now, and Sidon will enjoy 100,000
square metres of green park," he said.
But not everyone is impressed.
Mohamed Sarji, president of the Lebanese
Union of Professional Divers and founder of
the Bahr Lubnan (Sea of Lebanon) NGO, is
angry that the land reclamation has covered
over a long stretch of Sidon's sandy beach.
The landfill and park occupy 96,000 square
metres of the 550,000 square metres of
reclaimed land, and Sarji questioned who
would benefit from the rest of the newly
created and potentially lucrative beachfront
real estate.
U.N. Asks Israel to Pay Lebanon $856 Million in
Compensation
BEIRUT: The U.N. General Assembly asked
Israel to pay Lebanon $856.4 million as compensation for the oil slick the Jewish state
caused during the July 2006 war.
The U.N. has previously requested that Israel
compensate Lebanon for the slick, but this was
the first time that a monetary figure was set by
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Addressing the General Assembly, Lebanon’s
ambassador to the U.N. Nawaf Salam said the
decision was a victory for the concept of justice.
“For the first time since Israel’s aggression on
Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted today by
majority of 170 out of 179, Resolution No.
69/212 acknowledging a compensation in the
amount of $856.4 million up to date, which
Israel has to pay for the damages inflicted on
Lebanon in the immediate aftermath of the
Jiyyeh attack,” Salam said in a statement.
Israel has repeatedly refused to compensate
Lebanon, despite the many calls by the General Assembly.
Salam said Lebanon considered the resolution
to be major progress, especially as a figure has
been put forward as a basis for compensation
using a clear and legal method of calculation
that takes into account the value of direct and
indirect damage.
“The resolution also paves the way for further
compensation into other areas of damages,
such as health, ecosystem services as habitat, potential ground water examination and
marine diversity,” the ambassador said.
Salam pledged that Lebanon would continue to mobilize all resources and resort to
all legal measures to see that the resolution
is fully implemented, and that specific compensation is paid promptly.
“Furthermore, its adoption asserts the will
of the overwhelming majority of the international community to hold countries responsible for their wrongful international acts,
a clear manifestation of which is Israel’s
attacks on the Jiyyeh electric power plant in
2006,” he added.
But there is doubt that Israel will comply
with the U.N. resolution, especially since
it is not binding. Only the Security Council
resolutions are binding for all members of
the U.N.
P.10
An-Nour
January 2015
(770) 608-3343
[email protected]
www.An-Nournews.com
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Dunwoody, Georgia 30338.
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Phone: 770.730.8908
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General Surgeon
770-438-9191
Bakkal Int’l Foods
5690 Roswell Rd., Sandy Springs,
Ga30342
Cayce Foods, Inc.
1680 Roswell St., Smyrna, GA 30080
Commerce International
Wholesale grocery
407-426-7098
Global International Food Market 1
11235 Alpharetta Hwy., Suite 110,
Roswell, Georgia
770- 442-5117
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770-663-8823
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Marietta, GA 30060
Phone: 770-428-2222 ~ 770-499-4444
Khaled Nass, M.D., Kidney Center
678-297-5014
Maan Jokhadar, M.D.
Cardiovascular Disease
404-686-1000
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2650 Holcomb Bridge Rd,Suite 750
Alpharetta, Ga 30022
678-381-1184
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Medical, Chiropractic, PT
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REAL ESTATE
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678-294-3838
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Basilico
408 S. Atlanta St., Roswell, GA 30075
(770) 642-6500
Hashemite’s
3370 Venture Pkwy, Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 622-1866
1001 Nights Persian Cuisine
10305 Medlock Bridge Rd.
Johns Creek, GA 30097
Istanblue
262 Pharr Rd. Atlanta, GA 30305
404-214-5404
Mediterranean Bakery & Sandwich
3362 Chamblee Tucker Road, Suite B
Atlanta, Georgia 30341
770-220-0706
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Internal Medicine
770-831-3018
Mediterranean Grill
3 Locations Decatur- Midtown-Marietta
Leon International
4000-A Pleasantdale Rd.Atlanta, GA
Ph:(770) 416-6620
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Suwanee, Georgia
770-622-1177
Shish Kabob
962 Roswell St., Marietta, GA 30060
Mediterranean Bakery
3362 Chamblee Tucker Rd,
Atlanta, GA 30341 Ph: 770-220-0706
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Gyn & Fertility Specialists
5673 Peachtree Dunwoody, Suite 750
Atlanta, Ga 30342
404-851-9300
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585 Franklin Road, Marietta, Ga 30067
770-262-4886
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678-338-4396 / www.aefinancial.biz
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Ph: (404) 299-1551
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770- 394-8500
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404- 395-1160
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404-321-6111
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770-934-6832
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404- 216-4470
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Toll Free: 1-877-359-4562
List Your Business for
$120 for the entire year
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January 2015
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January is National Mentorship Month, a month in which people across the country celebrate and promote mentorship
in their communities. We are celebrating this occasion by hosting our 2nd annual UBeyond Event​“Empowering YOU to reach your full potential”​ on January 31st.
The conference will be a great networking opportunity for everyone who is interested in advancing their future and careers.
As part of the conference we are honored to have this year our Guest speaker will be Tony Charaf
Tony will share with attendees his secrets on success and leadership.
Tony is a dynamic speaker and you wouldn't want to miss his valuable insights.
Tony Charaf, President, Delta TechOps leads the maintenance, engineering, and the MRO business for Delta Air Lines worldwide
and has been in the aviation industry since 1977.
As part of our 2nd Annual Conference, we are offering two workshop sessions:
We all face defining moments that require courage to make decision.
Henna Inam will conduct a workshop session on how we can rewire our brains to enable us to take prudent risk
and courage in all obstacles that face us.
Henna will preview her upcoming book that she is publishing on the subject for the 1st time in our conference.
This is a session that will make you rethink your approach to risk taking and courage.
You don’t want to miss Henna’s valuable advice and council.
The other Session will be on the importance of networking in everyone’s success.
This session will be presented by Bob Littell,
Bob is highly recognized nationally and internationally as “Chief Netweaver”.
His method and concept is based on the movie” Pay It Forward”.
Details on the conference are as follows:
Date: Saturday, January 31, 2015
Time: 10:30 AM to 3:30 PM
Location:
AT&T Lenox Campus
1025 Lenox Park Blvd, NE Atlanta, GA 30329
To purchase your tickets, go to the website below.
http://ubeyond2ndannualevent.eventbrite.com
P.12
January 2015
An-Nour
www.An-Nournews.com
(770) 608-3343
[email protected]