Precious gems of Afghanistan

In June of 2010 the United States Government 'discovered' vast amounts of minerals and precious gems in Afghanstan.

"The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe."        (Quote from NYTimes article)

Now let me introduce you to Inside Afghanistan.  A woman named Bonita Chamberlain who spent much time in Afghanistan under 5 different regimes, co-authored a book titled 'Gemstones of Afghanistan' in 1995.   Here is a quote from Bonita:

"Bonita Chamberlin has this rebuttal "I am quite surprised that the military is announcing this as some "new" and "surprising" discovery since we knew about it in 1982 and published the information in 1995. In “Gemstones of Afghanistan”, we identified 91 minerals, metals and gems at 1,407 potential mining sites. This included, among other minerals, copper, iron, lead, zinc, mercury, beryllium, lithium, rare earths and metals, plus oil and gas reserves.  Our findings were reported by the Los Angeles Times in 2001. Since the 1980s we have been traveling around the country speaking about this. Proposals were sent to the UNDP, USAID and other NGOs that the gem and mineral mine development would be a crop substitution to poppies as Afghanistan is sitting on this enormous wealth. This is NOT new. Perhaps this also hints at the real reason why we would be so intent on this war...."         (Quote from www.insideafghanistan.org)

Interesting, huh?  The US Government has been missing a big opportunity for *potentially* helping Afghanistan since the 80's! 

Please visit the site and learn about what they are doing.  They sell jewelry made and mined by people in the province of Nuristan.  I bought a beautiful blue topaz necklace and love it.  The money goes back to Afghanistan to help clear landmines and promote education, etc...

www.insideafghanistan.org

Afghansitan wants improvements, right?

Afghan blast 'kills 10' labourers in Kandahar province

 

You know what I find incredibly annoying and stupid?  I'd say the majority of Afghans want a normal life.  That would make sense right?  Normal people like infastructure, jobs, schools, trees, and having friends and family around.  But not the Taliban!  Their goal in life is to destroy infastructre, jobs, schools, trees, and families.  Right?  The Taliban seem to be ruining it for everyone else!  The Afghani people are so beautiful and interesting and actually have a great culture and history (in general).  Good thing they are preserving it in other countries.  Reminds me of the Cubans in Florida..... preserving their culture outside the country. 

At least 10 road workers were killed and 28 injured in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar when their truck hit a roadside bomb, hospital officials say.

No group has said it carried out the attack. Last week gunmen shot dead 35 highway workers in Paktia province.
Road workers are frequently targeted by Taliban militants.
The Taliban recently declared a "spring offensive" of attacks. This is the fourth attack in as many days.
The labourers, who worked for a local construction firm called Nisa, were on their way to work when the bomb went off in rural Panjwayi district of Kandahar province.
According to the health director of Kandahar, Abdul Qayum Khan, 18 of the 28 injured are in critical condition.
The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says attack comes only weeks after Nato forces conducted operations in the district, allowing for the reconstruction of roads and much-needed irrigation canals.
Only on Monday, our correspondent says, Nato commander Gen David Petraeus was in the district praising the reconstruction work and newfound security in the area.
Kandahar is considered to be the spiritual homeland of the Taliban. Earlier this month the city effectively came under siege as insurgents attempted to seize control of several government buildings.
There are also frequent attacks on security forces, both foreign and Afghan, operating across the province.
Over the last week there has been a dramatic escalation in the frequency of attacks nationwide.
On Saturday, a suicide blast at a hospital in Kabul killed six people and on Sunday gunmen stormed a government building in the city of Khost, also killing six. On Monday, a suicide blast killed four people in a crowded market place in eastern Laghman province.
A spokesman for Afghanistan's NDS intelligence agency told reporters on Monday that several insurgents had been arrested in connection with Saturday's attack.
One of those arrested is an Afghan National Army soldier working at the hospital. The spokesman said the soldier had provided the attacker with a uniform and valid ID card to help him get into the hospital.
Correspondents say that although Nato says it is making progress against the insurgents, the Taliban are still able to strike at will including at the heart of the Afghan government, often in its most heavily guarded bases.

India - no girls allowed!

So..... this article is just sad.  It happens in all countries, not just India.  I think it happens more in India simply because India has one of the highest birth rates in the world.  Children should be a blessing.  God loves all children.  

South Asia

22 May 2011

India's unwanted girls

India's 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven - activists fear eight million female foetuses may have been aborted in the past decade. The BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi explores what has led to this crisis.  Kulwant has three daughters aged 24, 23 and 20 and a son who is 16.

In the years between the birth of her third daughter and her son, Kulwant became pregnant three times.

Each time, she says, she was forced to abort the foetus by her family after ultrasound tests confirmed that they were girls.  "My mother-in-law taunted me for giving birth to girls. She said her son would divorce me if I didn't bear a son."  Kulwant still has vivid memories of the first abortion. "The baby was nearly five months old. She was beautiful. I miss her, and the others we killed," she says, breaking down, wiping away her tears.

Until her son was born, Kulwant's daily life consisted of beatings and abuse from her husband, mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Once, she says, they even attempted to set her on fire.  "They were angry. They didn't want girls in the family. They wanted boys so they could get fat dowries," she says.  India outlawed dowries in 1961, but the practice remains rampant and the value of dowries is constantly growing, affecting rich and poor alike.  Kulwant's husband died three years after the birth of their son. "It was the curse of the daughters we killed. That's why he died so young," she says.

How girls are valued varies widely across India. Over the years, most states in the south and north-east have been kind to their girls, and sex ratios are above the national average.  In the matrilineal societies of Kerala and Karnataka in the south and Meghalaya in the north-east, women have enjoyed high status and commanded respect. But the latest census figures show the good news even in these areas could be turning bad. A minor decline in the number of girls has begun in the three states which, campaigners worry, might be indicative of a trend.  What is seen as most distressing is the steep decline in the number of girls under seven in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and in Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura in the north-east. Even though these states have registered numbers much higher than the national average, the decline is too substantial to ignore.  But all is not lost. Some states, such as Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh - which saw the gap between numbers of boys and girls widen in 2001 - have shown an improvement. That is cause for some cheer, campaigners say.  Her neighbour Rekha is mother of a chubby three-year-old girl.

Last September, when she became pregnant again, her mother-in-law forced her to undergo an abortion after an ultrasound showed that she was pregnant with twin girls.   "I said there's no difference between girls and boys. But here they think differently. There's no happiness when a girl is born. They say the son will carry forward our lineage, but the daughter will get married and go off to another family."  Kulwant and Rekha live in Sagarpur, a lower middle-class area in south-west Delhi.   Here, narrow minds live in homes separated by narrow lanes.  The women's story is common and repeated in millions of homes across India, and it has been getting worse.
In 1961, for every 1,000 boys under the age of seven, there were 976 girls. Today, the figure has dropped to a dismal 914 girls.  Although the number of women overall is improving (due to factors such as life expectancy), India's ratio of young girls to boys is one of the worst in the world after China.
Many factors come into play to explain this: infanticide, abuse and neglect of girl children.
But campaigners say the decline is largely due to the increased availability of antenatal sex screening, and they talk of a genocide.  The government has been forced to admit that its strategy has failed to put an end to female foeticide.  'National shame' "Whatever measures have been put in over the past 40 years have not had any impact on the child sex ratio," Home Secretary GK Pillai said when the census report was released.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described female foeticide and infanticide as a "national shame" and called for a "crusade" to save girl babies.  But Sabu George, India's best-known campaigner on the issue, says the government has so far shown little determination to stop the practices.

Campaigners say India's strategy to protect female babies is not working

Until 30 years ago, he says, India's sex ratio was "reasonable". Then in 1974, Delhi's prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences came out with a study which said sex-determination tests were a boon for Indian women.  It said they no longer needed to produce endless children to have the right number of sons, and it encouraged the determination and elimination of female foetuses as an effective tool of population control.  "By late 80s, every newspaper in Delhi was advertising for ultrasound sex determination," said Mr George.   "Clinics from Punjab were boasting that they had 10 years' experience in eliminating girl children and inviting parents to come to them."  In 1994, the Pre-Natal Determination Test (PNDT) Act outlawed sex-selective abortion. In 2004, it was amended to include gender selection even at the pre-conception stage.  Abortion is generally legal up to 12 weeks' gestation. Sex can be determined by a scan from about 14 weeks.  "What is needed is a strict implementation of the law," says Varsha Joshi, director of census operations for Delhi. "I find there's absolutely no will on the part of the government to stop this."
Today, there are 40,000 registered ultrasound clinics in the country, and many more exist without any record.
'Really sad' Ms Joshi, a former district commissioner of south-west Delhi, says there are dozens of ultrasound clinics in the area. It has the worst child sex ratio in the capital - 836 girls under seven for every 1,000 boys.

Delhi's overall ratio is not much better at 866 girls under seven for every 1,000 boys.

"It's really sad. We are the capital of the country and we have such a poor ratio," Ms Joshi says.
The south-west district shares its boundary with Punjab and Haryana, the two Indian states with the worst sex ratios.  Since the last census, Punjab and Haryana have shown a slight improvement. But Delhi has registered a decline.  "Something's really wrong here and something has to be done to put things right," Ms Joshi says.  Almost all the ultrasound clinics in the area have the mandatory board outside, proclaiming that they do not carry out illegal sex-determination tests.  But the women in Sagarpur say most people here know where to go when they need an ultrasound or an abortion.  They say anyone who wants to get a foetal ultrasound done, gets it done. In the five-star clinics of south Delhi it costs 10,000-plus rupees ($222; £135), In the remote peripheral areas of Delhi's border, it costs a few hundred rupees.  Similarly, the costs vary for those wanting an illegal abortion.
Delhi is not alone in its anti-girl bias. Sex ratios have declined in 17 states in the past decade, with the biggest falls registered in Jammu and Kashmir.  Ms Joshi says most offenders are members of the growing middle-class and affluent Indians - they are aware that the technology exists and have the means to pay to find out the sex of their baby and abort if they choose.  "We have to take effective steps to control the promotion of sex determination by the medical community. And file cases against doctors who do it," Mr George says.
"Otherwise by 2021, we are frightened to think what it will be like."

New Italian Boy Band - Il Volo!

I think I just found the new Backstreet Boys, Italian style!  I think they're pretty good!  They're only about 17 years old and sound great.  The only issue I have with this video is that the camera angle or shot changes every one or two seconds.

OK.  Now compare to the greatest opera singer who ever lived.  (Yes I am biased)     :)

It's like comparing apples and oranges, because both videos are good in their own way.  But nothing beats Pavarotti! 

US man charged with Chihuahua death faces life in jail

20 May 2011

A man in the US state of California faces a possible life sentence for allegedly killing his wife's Chihuahua.

Bud Wally Ruiz, 53, gave the puppy to his wife as a Mother's Day gift, but now he is charged with animal cruelty.  Ruiz has a criminal history stretching back 30 years, with four convictions for assault with a deadly weapon.  Under California's "three strikes" law, the courts are bound to consider a 25-year sentence for criminals convicted of multiple violent felonies.  However, they do have discretion to impose a lesser sentence if they decide the new offence is less serious.  Police responded to a late night emergency call on 12 May, and arrived at the couple's home in Gilroy, south east of San Jose in Silicon Valley, to find the puppy dead and the suspect gone.  Prosecutors allege an argument flared up after Ruiz got home drunk.

When his wife, Marcella, asked him to leave, Ruiz threw a travel bag containing the dog across the room, say police.  Marcella Ruiz accused her husband of assault, though she later retracted the allegation.

She subsequently told the local newspaper, Mercury News: "He was devastated. He's not a monster."

The Santa Clara County district attorney's office has charged Ruiz with two counts of cruelty to animals and one count of battery on a spouse.  "The courts weigh animal cruelty as a very serious offence," said Sgt Justin Matsuhara of the Santa Clara police department.  Ruiz is due to appear in court to enter a plea next week.

Wow - on the one hand i'd say this is REDICULOUS!  A life sentance for killing a dog??  Really?   I know it is wrong to kill animals, but that's a little harsh.   On the other hand, he has a history of being a felon for the past 30 years.  Should that be taken into consideration?  Let's see.... a man who has been a 'criminal' for the past 30 years comes home drunk, gets mad, and kills the dog by throwing it across the room.  Yes, he should be punished or penalized, but I don't think this specific crime deserves a life sentance. 

Saudi woman seeks to put women in the driving seat

By Michael Buchanan BBC News, Jeddah

18 May 2011 Last updated at 04:07 ET

 

Najla Hariri says there is no law against women driving, only society's convention

A Saudi woman has taken to the road in a direct challenge to the country's ban on female drivers.

Najla Hariri started driving around Jeddah last week. She is believed to be the only woman regularly driving in a Saudi city.

The 45-year-old says she was inspired by the protests taking place elsewhere in the Middle East.

"Enough is enough", she told the BBC as she drove around the city. "I have the right to [drive]."

Ms Hariri holds a driving licence from both Egypt and Lebanon from her time living abroad, and also has an international licence that she uses when she drives in Europe.

"There is no law against women driving. It's society's [convention] that says women are not allowed to drive."

'Not scared'

The mother of five has the support of her husband and says her daughters and their friends are very proud of her.

She knows, however, that she could be stopped at any moment by the police.

"In this society I am a little bit brave. I am not scared," she says.

Najla Hariri says she was inspired by the Arab Spring protests

In some desert areas of Saudi Arabia, women are understood to drive occasionally, but it is virtually unheard of for a woman to take to the road in a major city.

Opponents of women driving argue that it's safer for females to have a male in the car with them, and that they are honouring their women by sparing them the strain of driving.

"They are lying to themselves," replies Ms Hariri forcefully. "It is safer for women to drive themselves. We have four million foreign drivers [in the country] and we'd like to get rid of them and drive ourselves."

Ms Hariri admits she did not want to be at the vanguard of efforts to give women more freedoms.

She returned to Saudi Arabia two years ago and was tempted to start driving immediately.

She found herself stuck at home with two cars but no driver, as her husband and eldest son were both away. "But I waited for the right time; I waited for other ladies to [go first]," she says.  As no one stepped forward, she has decidd that now is the moment. 

"Before in Saudi, you never heard about protests," she says.

"[But] after what has happened in the Middle East, we started to accept a group of people going outside and saying what they want in a loud voice, and this has had an impact on me."

Facebook campaign

Najla Hariri's challenge to Saudi society is part of a wider effort for greater female participation in the whole of society.

A Facebook page is encouraging women to come out and drive on 17 June.

Other women are pushing for the right to vote in municipal elections scheduled for September, while there are also calls for women to get permission to sign legal documents.

Aalia, a 19-year-old university student, is co-ordinating some of the online reform efforts.

"We are focusing on spreading the word, raising public awareness," she says. "Women here don't know their rights."

Well - it's about time!!!

i'm not normally political but.....

You know, I normally like to completely avoid talking about politics, but I just feel like this is a stupid situation of Muslims bullying Christians and both groups are to blame, but I'd say the instigators (seeming to be Muslim) are MORE to blame.  I'm going to highlight important phrases throughout the article.  

Church burning deepens tumult of Egypt transition

Published May 08, 2011

| Associated Press

CAIRO –  Relations between Egypt's Muslims and Christians degenerated to a new low Sunday after riots overnight left 12 people dead and a church burned, adding to the disorder of the country's post-revolution transition to democracy.

The attack on the church was the latest sign of assertiveness by an extreme, ultraconservative movement of Muslims known as Salafis, whose increasing hostility toward Egypt's Coptic Christians over the past few months has met with little interference from the country's military rulers.

Salafis have been blamed for other recent attacks on Christians and others they don't approve of. In one attack, a Christian man had an ear cut off for renting an apartment to a Muslim woman suspected of involvement in prostitution.

The latest violence, which erupted in fresh clashes Sunday between Muslims and Christians who pelted each other with stones in another part of Cairo, also pointed to what many see as reluctance of the armed forces council to act. The council took temporary control of the country after President Hosni Mubarak was deposed on Feb. 11.

After the overnight clashes in the slum of Imbaba, residents turned their anger toward the military. Some said they and the police did almost nothing to intervene in the five-hour frenzy of violence.

Analysts warned of signs of Coptic violence, especially with reports that some Christians have opened fire at Muslims.

"The Coptic volcano is exploding," Coptic expert Youssef Sedhom said. "How would Copts respond if they find their back to the wall facing guns? They would have no option but self defense," adding, "don't blame Copts for what they do."

Six Muslims were among the dead, according to Egypt's state-run news agency. 

 (How may Christians?  Or do only Muslims matter?)

The bloodshed began Saturday around sundown when word spread around the neighborhood that a Christian woman who married a Muslim had been abducted and was being kept in the Virgin Mary Church against her will.

Islamic extremists declared the crowded district a state within a state in 1990s, calling it "the Islamic Republic of Imbaba," one of the country's hottest spots of Islamic militancy.

The report of the kidnapping, which was never confirmed by local religious figures, sent a large mob of Muslims toward the church. Christians created a human barricade around the building and clashes erupted. Gunfire sounded across the neighborhood, and witnesses said people on rooftops were firing into the crowd.

The two sides accused each other of firing first.

Crowds of hundreds of Muslims from the neighborhood lobbed firebombs at homes, shops and the church. Residents say Christians were hiding inside. Muslims chanted: "With our blood and soul, we defend you, Islam."

Rimon Girgis, a 24-year-old with a tattoo of a Coptic saint on his arm, was among the Christians who formed a human shield around the church.

"They were around 40 bearded men chanting slogans like 'There is no God but Allah.' After rallying Muslim residents, they opened fire," he said. "We Copts had to respond, so we hurled stones and pieces of broken marble."

Some of the wounded were carried to the nearby St. Menas Church, where floors were still stained with blood hours later.

"Every five minutes, an injured person was rushed into the church," said Father Arshedis. "We couldn't reach ambulances by phone. We called and no one answered. We tried to treat the injured. We used the girls' hair clips to extract the bullets."

"The army is responsible because they took no action," he said.

Later the same night, the Muslim crowd moved to a Christian-owned apartment building nearby and set it on fire. Piles of charred furniture, garbage and wood were mixed with remains of clothes, food and shoes. Shops on the ground floor of the buildings were destroyed.

Some soldiers and police did fire tear gas, but failed to clear the streets for hours.

By daybreak, the military had deployed armored vehicles and dozens of troop carriers to cordon off a main street leading to the area. They stopped traffic and turned away pedestrians. Men, women and children watching from balconies took photos with mobile phones and cheered the troops.

Across the Nile river, in downtown Cairo, clashes broke out on Sunday afternoon. Muslim youths attacked Coptic Christian protesters, said Christian activist Bishoy Tamri.

TV images showed both sides furiously throwing stones, including one Christian who held a large wooden cross in one hand while flinging rocks with the other.

Scores were injured, but an army unit securing the TV building did nothing to stop the violence, Tamri said.

Late Sunday thousands of Copts decided to camp out in front of the TV building overnight to press demands to bring the arsonists to justice and to make religious instigation a criminal offense.

Islamic clerics denounced the violence, sounding alarm bells at the escalating tension during the transitional period following Mubarak's Feb. 11 ouster by a popular uprising.

"These events do not benefit either Muslim or Copts," Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the sheik of al-Azhar, told the daily Al-Ahram.

During the 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak, there was a rare spirit of brotherhood between Muslims and Christians. Each group protected the other during prayer sessions in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution.

But in the months that followed, there has been a sharp rise in sectarian tensions, as the once quiescent Salafis have become more forceful in trying to spread their version of an Islamic way of life. In particular, they have focused their wrath on Egypt's Christians, who make up 10 percent of the country's 80 million people.

On Friday, a few hundred Salafis marched through Cairo to praise al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and condemning the U.S. operation that killed him.

Critics say Egyptian military authorities have done too little to stem the religious violence. But authorities arrested 190 people after the church attack, sending them to military prosecutions and threatening the maximum penalty against anyone attacking houses of worship.

Copts complain of widespread discrimination, including tight restrictions on building or repairing churches, while Muslim places of worship do not face such limits.

In one of the worst attacks against them, a suicide bomber killed 21 people outside a church in the port city of Alexandria on Jan. 1, setting off days of protests. Egypt made some arrests but never charged anyone with the attack.

Tensions have been building for the past year as Salafis protested the alleged abduction by the Coptic Church of a priest's wife, Camilla Shehata. The Salafis claim she converted to Islam to escape an unhappy marriage — a phenomenon they maintain is common.

Because divorce is banned in the Coptic Church, with rare exceptions such as conversion, some Christian women resort to conversion to Islam or another Christian denomination to get out of a marriage.

Shehata's case was even used by Iraq's branch of al-Qaida as a justification for an attack on a Baghdad church that killed 68 people and other threats by the group against Christians.

On Saturday just before the violence erupted in Imbaba, Shehata appeared with her husband and child on a Christian TV station broadcast from outside of Egypt and asserted that she was still a Christian and had never converted.

"Let the protesters leave the Church alone and turn their attention to Egypt's future," she said from an undisclosed location.

In the Egyptian Sinai desert, hundreds of Bedouins forced authorities to set free a prisoner after laying siege to the main courthouse, firing gunshots in the air and burning tires, witnesses said.

Here' a summary of what i've highlighted:

12 people dead and a church burned, 

attack on the church  

increasing hostility toward Egypt's Coptic Christians over the past few months has met with little interference from the country's military rulers.

recent attacks on Christians  

Christian man had an ear cut off  

clashes Sunday between Muslims and Christians who pelted each other with stones

Coptic violence, some Christians have opened fire at Muslims.

Six Muslims were among the dead, 

 large mob of Muslims toward the church. Christians created a human barricade around the building and clashes erupted. Gunfire sounded across the neighborhood, and witnesses said people on rooftops were firing into the crowd.

The two sides accused each other of firing first.

Crowds of hundreds of Muslims from the neighborhood lobbed firebombs at homes, shops and the church. Residents say Christians were hiding inside. Muslims chanted: "With our blood and soul, we defend you, Islam."

the Muslim crowd moved to a Christian-owned apartment building nearby and set it on fire.

Muslim youths attacked Coptic Christian protesters,

both sides furiously throwing stones, including one Christian who held a large wooden cross in one hand while flinging rocks with the other.

Islamic clerics denounced the violence, "These events do not benefit either Muslim or Copts,"

rare spirit of brotherhood between Muslims and Christians. Each group protected the other during prayer sessions in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution.

a suicide bomber killed 21 people outside a church in the port city of Alexandria on Jan. 1,