Saturday, December 13, 2014

ISIS – Islamic State In Sri Lanka

By Muhammed Fazl -December 12, 2014

Muhammed Fazl

“Do not try to demolish a false set of beliefs except after building a correct set of beliefs [in the populace] – Imam Hassan Al-Banna

Quick to distance from, does the four letters ‘ISIS’ really spell danger for the Muslims or for them to be apologists and be all defensive just at the mere mention of it? While I am yet to understand the now-fashionable practice of Muslims being answerable to or compromising their faith and religious practices to suit misguided adherents of different faiths, instead of contributing towards an unjust society of immorality and lawlessness, I believe it is time the followers of Islam stood their ground and for the rest of the world to start learning that which was revealed over 14 centuries ago.

Unlike most philosophies and rituals-only beliefs in present times, Islam being a complete source of guidance and teaching a comprehensive set of laws, little wonder that it has become the fastest growing and the most popular religion in the world. One may mythicize the sheer number as a result of ‘conversion by the sword’, but would it be remotely possible for a religion of peace to be spread by the sword?

History has taught us that non-Muslims living under Islamic rule were always treated with respect. When Muslims ruled Spain for over 800 years, the non-Muslims living there flourished. When India was under Muslim rule for about a thousand years, had it been ruled by the sword, there wouldn’t be 85% non-Muslim population today either. No Muslim army has ever invaded Indonesia (where it now has the largest Muslim population in the world) or the Muslim majority Malaysia. Likewise, no Muslim army was ever sent to the East Coast of Africa either.Read More

Is The World Civilisation Really Progressing ?

Violence amongst people continue unabated all over the world

| by N.S.Venkataraman

( December 13, 2014, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Great strides and improvements have been made in the field of science and technology around the world during the last several decades. Such developments are taking place with amazing speed and depth.

The developments with regard to information technology, space and nuclear science and robotics and automation are all astounding. Now, any individual is able to communicate with other individual anywhere in the world immediately and we see the global events in television programme instantaneously . Such conditions could not have been anticipated a century back. Perhaps, even more amazing developments will take place in the coming years.

However, what has not changed is the mind set of the men and women around the world. Prejudices, enmity, violence and greed continue to haunt the humanity, whichever part of the world one may belong to.

While science and technology has seen changes for the better, the battle for the future in the mind of men and women are yet to be won and it appears that there is no likelihood for this to happen in the immediate future.

While great scriptures like Bhagavat Gita are there, great thinkers like Mahatma Gandhi, great religious leaders like Adi Sankara, Christ, Allah, Buddha all have lived in this world, the overall impact in improving the mind set of the people appear to be practically insignificant. Basic behavior of men and women have not changed to any visible extent over the last several centuries.

The recent report published by World Health Organisation (WHO ) highlight such negative traits in the mind set of human beings around the world. This status report has been prepared by WHO after collecting data from 133 countries, covering 6.1 billion people and representing 88% of the world’s population.

The report points out that around 4.75 lakh murders were reported in the world in 2012. About 60% of these victims were males aged between 15 and 44 years, which is the most productive phase of life.

The report of the WHO further says that over one third of murdered women across the world were killed by their male partners, indicating how women face greater threat to their lives from their trusted ones. When women are killed, it is often their partners who are responsible.

WHO report reveals more startling facts which should disturb anyone who think that the world civilization has progressed. The report points out that 25% of all adults have said that they have been physically abused as children. One in five women reports having been sexually abused as child.

The compilation of global data by WHO also reveals that approximately one in every two homicides is committed with a firearm, and one in four with a sharp instrument such as a knife, although the mechanism of homicide varies markedly across regions.

Obviously, the ethical and moral forces around the world have not been able to assert themselves adequately to defeat the baser elements in the minds and hearts of human beings. This also indicates that material affluence is no guarantee for spiritual betterment and quality life.

EU bans export of jet fuel used by Syrian air force

A warplane operated by forces of Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad carries out what activists said was an air raid around al-Tabqa military base at a government-controlled airport that is surrounded by militants, west of Raqqa city, August 21, 2014.

BRUSSELS Fri Dec 12, 2014

(Reuters) - European Union governments agreed on Friday to ban the export of jet fuel to Syria from Sunday, saying it was being used by the Syrian air force for indiscriminate attacks against civilians.

The ban also covers finance and insurance related to jet fuel exports to Syria.

However, fuel and additives exclusively used by non-Syrian civilian aircraft landing in Syria will be exempt, so these planes can continue their onward flights.

Europe is heavily dependent on jet fuel imports from the Middle East and it was not immediately clear how much fuel the 28-nation bloc actually exported to Syria.

The United Nations says at least 3.2 million people have fled Syria and 200,000 have been killed in the more than three-year-old civil war, which broke out after protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government.

EU ministers agreed in principle in October to ban jet fuel sales to Syria, but the details have only now been worked out.

"A significant number of innocent civilians ... have died because the Assad regime’s air force has deliberately dropped weapons, including barrel bombs," Britain's Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood said in a statement.

"This measure will ensure that no EU people or companies will be involved in jet fuel going to Syria. I urge all nations to ban jet fuel going to the Assad regime," he said.

Legal texts with a detailed list of fuel types and additives covered by the ban will be published in the EU's Official Journal on Saturday.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

Indonesian newspaper editor accused of blasphemy over anti-ISIS cartoon could face five years in prison

Ali Kotarumalos, Associated Press | December 12, 2014

The chief editor of the Jakarta Post, a leading English-language newspaper in Muslim-majority Indonesia, has been named a suspect in a blasphemy case after the publication of a cartoon about ISIS police said on Dec.12.

#Indonesia: Jakarta Post editor faces blasphemy charge for cartoon mocking #ISIS - Absurd.  http://bit.ly/1IJhcQH  

10:19 AM - 12 Dec 2014

Indonesia's Jakarta Post rejects blasphemy claim over ISIS cartoon http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30444002 … 

9:04 AM - 12 Dec 2014

Indonesian police accused the top editor of a leading English-language newspaper of blasphemy after the paper published a cartoon depicting the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham that allegedly insulted Islam.

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, editor-in-chief of the Jakarta Post, would be summoned for questioning next week, Jakarta police spokesman Col. Rikwanto said Thursday.

Police typically prepare the dossiers to be handed over to prosecutors, who will file the charges. If found guilty, he could face five years in prison, added Rikwanto, who like many Indonesians, uses a single name.

The cartoon published July 3 put a skull and crossbones in the black-and-white flag of ISIS and left sacred phrases in Arabic, including “Allah,” that appear on the flag inside the skull.

The paper has apologized and retracted the cartoon, but an Islamic group, Jakarta Mubalig Corps, filed a complaint to the police, arguing that the case should be brought to the court.

Meidyatama defended the publication as a “journalistic piece” criticizing ISIS, an extremist militant movement that has seized control of chunks of Iraq and Syria and has beheaded scores of people.

“We are amazed because the fact is we did not commit a criminal act as accused,” he said in a statement published by the paper Friday. Meidyatama said the case should be taken up instead by the Press Council, a government-sanctioned board dealing with press ethics.

It is the first case of blasphemy under the government of President Joko Widoodo, who took office in October.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Its constitution guarantees freedom of speech but in recent years blasphemy cases have been filed against those seen as offending Islam.

LATEST WORLD VIDEOS

Dozens killed in Afghanistan fighting as foreign troops head home

Afghan security forces inspect at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul December 13, 2014.

Afghan police stand guard at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul December 13, 2014.

BY HAMID SHALIZI AND MIRWAIS HAROONI-Sat Dec 13, 2014

(Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban killed a Supreme Court official, a dozen mine clearers and several national and foreign soldiers but also suffered heavy losses from intensifying violence ahead of the withdrawal of most international troops in the next two weeks.

In Kabul on Saturday, a bomb ripped through a bus carrying soldiers in Kabul, killing at least seven of them, mangling the vehicle and sending a column of black smoke over the capital.

"A suicide bomber on foot detonated his explosives at the door of a bus carrying army soldiers," said Hashmat Stanekzai, a spokesman for Kabul police chief.

Earlier gunmen shot dead senior Supreme Court official Atiqullah Raoufi as he left his home in the city.

The Taliban, ousted from power by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001, claimed responsibility, but did not say why it had killed him. The hardline Islamist insurgents run their own courts in parts of the country and consider the official judiciary to be corrupt.

Heavily fortified Kabul has seen multiple attacks in recent weeks, including several on army buses and a suicide bomb that killed a German citizen in a French cultural centre during a performance of a play that denounced suicide attacks.

Fatalities and injuries among Afghan security forces and civilians peaked this year to the highest point since the U.S.-led war began in 2001, as foreign forces rapidly withdrew most of their troops from the interior of mountainous nation.

About 5,000 Afghan police and soldiers have been killed, and more than 1,500 civilians were killed in the first half of the year. A rump of about 13,000 foreign soldiers will remain in Afghanistan next year, down from a peak of more than 130,000.

Fighting has extended long beyond the traditional summer season, with the Afghan government also inflicting heavy casualties on the Taliban. The army and police say they killed more than 50 militants nationwide in the past 48 hours.

The Taliban have been fighting a guerrilla war ever since their 5-year regime was toppled. They now have a strong presence in most of the provinces surrounding Kabul.

BAGRAM BLAST

Just outside the city and close to the U.S.-run Bagram airfield, the Taliban detonated a roadside bomb on Friday night, hitting a convoy of foreign troops and killing two American soldiers.

The blast left a 3-metre(10-foot)-long blackened fissure in the road, a Reuters witness said. Helicopters buzzed overhead on Saturday morning.

"Two International Security Assistance Force service members died as a result of an enemy forces attack in eastern Afghanistan on Dec. 12, 2014," a coalition press release said on Saturday.

The coalition, as per its policy, declined to give the soldiers' nationality but a U.S. defense official in Washington confirmed the two soldiers killed were American.

The Bagram attack came two days after the United States closed a prison that held foreign detainees on the airfield, which is in Parwan province, the only province adjacent to the capital that is usually relatively peaceful.

It also followed a NATO air strike on Thursday that killed five people in the same province. Afghan officials said the casualties were civilians. The coalition said it was investigating the allegations, but that they were identified from the air as militants before the "precision" strike.

(Additional reporting by Jessica Donati in Bagram, Mohammad Stanekzai in Lashkar Gah and Sandra Maler in Washington; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Pro-ISIS Twitter Account Owner Arrested In India

Dec 13, 2014

The owner of one of ISIS’s most prolific Twitter accounts has been arrested in India.

“And one of the most influential masters of this cyber war, is this Tweeter, known as Shami Witness," anchor Simon Israel said during the Channel 4 exposé.

On Thursday evening, the UK's Channel 4 ran a segment unmasking the Shami Witness Twitter account, which at that time had nearly 18,000 followers and tens of thousands of pro-ISIS tweets.

It turned out the owner was not an armed jihadist, but rather an Indian businessman named Mehdi from Bangalore, India. While Channel 4 did not release his full identity, Bangalore police soon tracked him down and arrested him.

Indian newspaper The Hindu reports 24-year-old Mehdi Masroor Biswas was arrested early Saturday morning after confessing to running the pro-ISIS Twitter account.

According to The Indian Express, Biswas worked as a manufacturing executive at a packaged foods company. In his free time, he would spend hours aggregating ISIS news for his Twitter account. (Video viaYouTube / ولاية الرقة)

During its investigation, Channel 4 noted that while Biswas didn’t have any direct ties to ISIS, he did speak to some British jihadists and considered joining.

“If I had a chance to leave everything and join them, I might have,” Biwas said during the Channel 4 exposé.

The director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London told The New York Times accounts such as Biswas’s serve as “cheerleaders” for jihadists, helping spread their ideology. (Video via YouTube / Foukoul Hani Rif)

If you’re wondering why Twitter doesn’t just suspend accounts like Shami Witness and proactively block propaganda, well, it’s difficult.

Although there have been some notable suspensions of ISIS-affiliated Twitter profiles, including when an ISIS account threatened Twitter employees, the problem is, even when Twitter does shut those accounts down, the owners can just create new ones.

A Twitter official told Mother Jones anonymously in November the social media giant simply isn’t interested getting itself into an online war with ISIS, saying “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

And speaking with Buzzfeed, a director with the Electronic Frontier Foundation said she was skeptical tech companies like Twitter should even be policing speech.

In an email, she wrote, “Corporations are simply not equipped to make these decisions, nor does the public have a voice in what corporations do.”

Starting in 2012, Twitter has released a biannual transparency report detailing just what kind of take-down requests the company gets from countries around the world. In the first half of 2014, the company

They’re Here, They’re Queer, They’re Arrested

Rgypt’s new regime is cracking down on the gay community — with a little help from the media.

CAIRO — Men dressed in checkered towels walk around a Cairo bathhouse changing room as dramatic cop-show music kicks in.

The trailer cuts to a darkened studio, where Egyptian TV presenter Mona Iraqi announces that, for the first time “in the history of Egyptian and Arab media,” she will lead the local morality police “to storm the biggest den for male group sex” in the heart of the capital.

They’Re Here, They’Re Queer, They’Re Arrested by Thavam Ratna

Russia says will react if U.S. imposes new sanctions

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov addresses a news conference in Damascus June 28, 2014.

MOSCOW Sat Dec 13, 2014

(Reuters) - Russia will take counter measures if Washington imposes new sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Saturday.

The U.S. Congress has readied new sanctions on Russian weapons companies and investors in the country's high-tech oil projects, but U.S. President Barack Obama has yet to sign a corresponding bill into law.

"We will not be able to leave that without an answer," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying. He did not say what form of counter-measure Moscow might take.

Relations between Russia and the United States are at their lowest since the Cold War because of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March and its support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The West says it has firm evidence that Russia has armed the rebels - an accusation that Moscow rejects - and has, together with the European Union, imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Russian individuals and large companies.

Russia retaliated to the earlier sanctions by restricting food imports from a range of Western countries.

Russia on Friday criticised the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, which foresees further sanctions, saying Washington was doing its utmost to "destroy the carcass of cooperation" between the two countries.

(Reporting by Alexander Winning; editing by Ralph Boulton)

China’s water diversion project starts to flow to Beijing

China south-north water project — A canal of the South-North Water Diversion project in Henan province. Photograph: Zhao Peng/Xinhua Press/Corbis

A canal of the South-North Water Diversion project in Henan province. Photograph: Zhao Peng/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Jonathan Kaiman in Pingdingshan-Friday 12 December 2014

£48bn scheme may provide relief to the parched north, but at what cost to the drought-ridden south and its displaced farmers?

On Friday afternoon, China quietly inaugurated one of the biggest engineering projects of all time: the South-North Water Diversion, a £48bn, 2,400km network of canals and tunnels, designed to divert 44.8bn cubic metres of water annually from China’s humid south to its parched, industrialised north.

China’s Water Diversion Project Starts to Flow to Beijing by Thavam Ratna

இந்தியாவில் மருத்துவ கல்வியை தொடர மறுத்த நந்தினிக்கு சீனா பல்கலையில் அனுமதி

[ வியாழக்கிழமை, 11 டிசெம்பர் 2014, 09:40.31 AM GMT ]

இந்தியாவில் மருத்துவ கல்வியை தொடர தடை விதிக்கப்பட்ட ஈழ அகதி நந்தினிக்கு சீனா பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் அனுமதி கிடைத்துள்ளது.

1990ம் ஆண்டு யாழ்ப்பாணத்தில் இருந்து தமிழகத்துக்கு அகதியாக குடும்பத்துடன் சென்ற இவர் அரச்சலூர் நவரசம் மெட்ரிக் பாடசாலையில் சென்ற வருடம் உயர்தரப் பரீட்சையில் சித்தியெய்தி மருத்துவ கல்விக்கு தெரிவானார்.

இருப்பினும் இந்திய மருத்துவ சபையின் சட்டத்திட்டபடி அகதியாக வருபவர்கள் மருத்துவ கல்வி கறக்க முடியாது. என்பதனால் பொறியியல் கல்வியை கறக்க முடியுமென கூறப்பட்டது. ஆனால் அதற்கு நந்தினி மறுப்பு தெரிவித்துவிட்டார்.

இந்த நிலையில் இலங்கையை சேர்ந்த தனியார் அறக்கட்டளை நந்தினியின் நிலைமையை இணைய தளம் மூலம் அறிந்து கொண்டு. அவர்களை குடும்பத்துடன் இலங்கைக்கு திருப்பி அழைத்தனர்.

அதனை தொடர்ந்து சீனா நாட்டில் சென்னியாங் நகரில் உள்ள தனியார் மருத்துவ கல்லூரியில் குறித்த நிறுவனத்தின் உதவியுடன் மருத்துவ கல்வியை கற்று வருகின்றார்.

Lime Juice Could Save 100’s Of Thousands Of Lives Each Year

December 11, 2014 | By Sayer Ji | Natural Medicine

While billions of dollars are poured into research and development for pharmaceutical drugs, the humble lime has been proven to mitigate and even cure diseases that cause millions to suffer and hundreds of thousands to die each year worldwide.
The lime is best know for its role in key lime pie and margaritas, but did you know it possesses remarkable healing properties as well?
An impressive array of research on lime juice from the National Library of Medicine indicates that it could either cure or greatly accelerate healing time from a variety of life-threatening illnesses including:

Sickle cell anemia (SCA): According to the CDC, SCA afflicts about 95,000 Americans and is diagnosed in 1 in every 500,000 African-American births. A hereditary blood disorder, SCA is characterized by an abnormality in the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin molecule in red blood cells. A clinical trial on lime juice was recently found to reduce painful episodes (50.0% lime juice intervention versus 92.7% control); febrile illness (46.6% lime juice intervention versus 87.3% control) and hospital admission rate (3.4% lime juice intervention versus 34.5% control) for sickle cell anemia in children.
Malaria: Malaria is a mosquito-borne parasitic disease, which the WHO estimates causes 219 million of illness resulting in 660,000 deaths each year. A wide range of highly toxic drugs are used to treat the disease, but a recent study found that lime juice greatly increased malarial clearance when combined with standard drug therapy.[1] They concluded: “lime juice when used with the appropriate antimalarial may enhance malaria parasite clearance especially in those with uncomplicated malaria.”
Bacterial Agents In Food: A recent study found that the popular food known as ceviche, naturally containing pathogenic agents from fish, could be completely sanitized with lime juice. Both Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Salmonella enterica (two common causes of food poisoning) were all reduced to below detection limits through the addition of lime extract.[2]
Disinfecting water: Lime has been found to enhance the disinfection of water, by both killing norovirus as well as Escherichia coli.[3] Lime has also been found to kill the cholera pathogen, which is believed to affect 3–5 million people and causes 100,000–130,000 deaths a year as of 2010.[4]
Killing pancreatic cancer: Pancreatic cancer is a notoriously difficult to treat type of cancer. Lime juice was found to induce programmed cell death in pancreatic cancer cells.[5]
Stopping Smoking: Likely the most preventable cause of death on this planet, a clinical trial comparing nicotine gum to lime juice extract found “Fresh lime can be used effectively as a smoking cessation aid.”[6

References

[1] S A Adegoke, O A Oyelami, O S Olatunya, L A Adeyemi. Effects of lime juice on malaria parasite clearance. Phytother Res. 2011 Oct ;25(10):1547-50. Epub 2011 Mar 17. PMID:21413089

[2] Prateek Mathurand, Donald W Schaffner. Effect of lime juice on Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Salmonella enterica inactivation during the preparation of the raw fish dish ceviche. J Food Prot. 2013 Jun ;76(6):1027-30. PMID: 23726199

[3] Prateek Mathurand, Donald W Schaffner. Effect of lime juice on Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Salmonella enterica inactivation during the preparation of the raw fish dish ceviche. J Food Prot. 2013 Jun ;76(6):1027-30. PMID: 23726199

[4] A Rodrigues, A Sandström, T Cá, H Steinsland, H Jensen, P Aaby. Protection from cholera by adding lime juice to food – results from community and laboratory studies in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. Trop Med Int Health. 2000 Jun;5(6):418-22. PMID: 10929141

[5] Jaiprakash R Patil, K N Chidambara Murthy, G K Jayaprakasha, Mahadev B Chetti, Bhimanagouda S Patil. Bioactive compounds from Mexican lime ( Citrus aurantifolia ) juice induce apoptosis in human pancreatic cells. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2005 Feb 15;21(4):435-44.PMID: 19919125

[6] Suthat Rungruanghiranya, Chatchai Ekpanyaskul, Chanin Sakulisariyaporn, Prapada Watcharanat, Kunyanit Akkalakulawas. Efficacy of fresh lime for smoking cessation. J Med Assoc Thai.2012 Dec ;95 Suppl 12:S76-82. PMID: 23513469