Monthly Archives: March 2013

Uncategorized

Diary of Aak, week13: The Kaboos

Nervana

Bassem Youssef

TV host Bassem Youssef arrives at high court on Sunday  (Photo: Ahram)

Main Headlines

Monday

Tuesday

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environment, Feminism, planetkillers

Peta’s Ingrid Newkirk: making the fury fly | World news | The Observer

Is it Peta’s strategy to upset everyone, I ask Newkirk. “No,” she says. “Our mission is to provoke thought. People have been taught to disregard what happens to pigs or chickens, to not think about the suffering they go through. Our job is to make them think. We’re not out to be popular.”

via Peta’s Ingrid Newkirk: making the fury fly | World news | The Observer.

Palestine

Abbas, King Abdullah sign Jerusalem agreement | Maan News Agency

The agreement confirmed Jordan’s historic role in protecting sacred sites in Jerusalem, Habash said. It also confirmed Palestinian sovereignty over all of Palestine, including its capital East Jerusalem, the minister added.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.

Earlier Sunday, Abbas’ spokesman condemned a visit to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Jewish extremists.

Nabil Abu Rdeina said the visit provoked tensions and threatened any chances of peace.

Witnesses told Ma’an that dozens of Jewish settlers visited the compound on Sunday. An Israeli settler drank wine, considered a desecration of the holy site in Islam, and another allowed her daughter to urinate near an olive tree, they said.

During clashes in the compound, Israeli police attacked Muslim worshipers with electric shock batons, witnesses added.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Ma’an that forces arrested six Palestinians in the compound for throwing stones at groups of Jewish and Christian visitors.

The compound is the third holiest site in Islam. It is known as the Temple Mount to Jews and is Judaism’s most sacred site.

via Abbas, King Abdullah sign Jerusalem agreement | Maan News Agency.

Uncategorized

George Osborne blames pesticides for disappearance of UK’s AAA status

Pride's Purge

(satire – I think)

Scientists say pesticides possible reason for rapid loss of George Osborne’s ability to find new excuses for tanking economy.

Two new studies showthat widely used pesticides – more specifically neoliberalinoids – are damaging the brain of George Osborne, reducing his capability to learn and remember, and thus making him less effective at finding excuses for the badly-tanking economy.

Scientists have found that two types of chemicals called neoliberalinoids and imarightcuntacides are interfering with the chancellor’s ability to find anything else other than his own incompetence to blame for his woeful handling of the economy.

Experiments revealed that exposure to pesticides was also lowering Mr Osborne’s brain activity and reducing the size of his brain, making him even more narrow-minded than usual.

However, some scientists are sceptical about the role of pesticides in the rapid disappearance of the UK’s AAA status. One expert explained the reason for the…

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environment, Feminism

Mapping Lebanon | USAID Impact

Grace Abou-Jaoude Estephan, Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at the Lebanese American University.

Your work entails putting together a hazard map of Lebanon for earthquake-induced landslides. Why is this work important?

Grace Abou-Jaoude Estephan, Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at the Lebanese American University. Photo credit: Grace Abou-Jaoude

Lebanon is a country that is located in a relatively active seismic zone. Its rugged topography makes it vulnerable to earthquake and landslide hazards. Astonishingly, records from 303AD describe the destruction of houses, cities, and monuments. Although Lebanon has not experienced any major earthquake since 1956, the recent discovery of an active thrusting fault close to its coastline has significantly raised its risk of being hit by a high magnitude earthquake. Unfortunately, no effort has been done to assess the impact of a seismic event on the risks of triggering landslide hazards in the country.

The goal of my project is to produce an earthquake-induced landslide hazard map of Lebanon that clearly shows the critical areas prone to earthquake-induced landslides. The map will be used as a reference for anyone concerned with public safety, urban planning, and disaster management.

via Mapping Lebanon | USAID Impact.

environment, pandemic

Livestock-to-Human MRSA Transmission Confirmed | Food Safety News

While previous research has suggested that MRSA transfers from animals to humans, including a U.S. study last year that looked at “pig-MRSA,” the study published this week in EMBO Molecular Medicine provides the strongest evidence to date that this phenomenon is occurring and provides fodder to those advocating for greater limits on antibiotics in agriculture.

For this particular study, scientists at various research institutions in the UK and Denmark, including the University of Cambridge, looked at two Danish cases – a 53-year-old woman (Patient A) whose blood and nasal passage was positive for mecC-MRSA and a 69-year-old woman (Patient B) with a wound infected with mecC-MRSA. Both lived on farms – Patient A had two cows, two horses and a dog, and Patient B had a flock of ten sheep.

via Livestock-to-Human MRSA Transmission Confirmed | Food Safety News.

Afghanistan Women Poets

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Very Simply

Very Simply

March 21, 2013 2 Comments

Very simply

The people judged me

Without knowing me

Laughed at my cries

Without feeling me

Very simply

They chose my way

Threw their beliefs in my mind

Shut my mouth

Called me a Muslim girl

Very simply

They left me behind in a world of pain

Without a door

Acted like strangers

Pretended they’d never seen me

Who cares… who was I?

Who knows… who am I?

Finally

I listened to my heartbeat

Felt a strong power within

And found myself

Very simply

By Kamilah

via Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Very Simply.