In one Syrian town, full-throated cries of defiance. Binnish, Syria (CNN) -- Hundreds of men and boys kneeled on the floor of a packed mosque for Friday prayers, but the solemn religious rite quickly turned into a furious rain-soaked rally denouncing Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad. Before completing their prayers, the congregation murmured words of condolences for a resident of this small opposition-held village, Muhamed Hasmus. Activists say Hasmus was killed Friday morning by a sniper in the nearby city of Idlib, an account CNN could not independently confirm. The remembrance of their neighbor caused the faithful to jump to their feet and erupt with the chant "Allahu Akbar," which means God is great. They repeated their full-throated chants as they marched from the mosque to the village square in a pounding, freezing rainstorm. They unfurled banners, waved the opposition green, black and white flag, and conducted a ritual of defiance that has been repeated weekly in this opposition enclave for months. "Our first demonstration was on April 1st," Ibrahim Qobani told CNN. "I have never missed a single demonstration since." The 19-year-old Qobani led the latest demonstration in Binnish, which has been experimenting with self-rule. He stood on a rooftop with a microphone, dressed in a scarf and fingerless gloves knit with the colors of the opposition flag, and sang verses insulting the Syrian president. "This is a tool for us to show the world that we need support," he said. "During the week when I'm talking to the guys (opposition activists) over the internet, I think about what to chant on Friday." This week, Qobani introduced new lyrics to protest songs. He replaced the word "hurriye," which means freedom, which made up the chorus of a popular Syrian protest song, with the word "harbiye," which means 'war.' "We were peaceful for ten months But now there is no other solution. We will fight, even with knives," said 21-year-old university student who only wanted his first name Hussam published, for security reasons. Wearing an opposition scarf around his forehead, Hussam had little positive to say about the U.N. General Assembly's non-binding resolution endorsing an Arab League plan for al-Assad to step down. "We didn't watch real action from the United Nations and all the world actually. They are just speeches, they do not help us," he said. One of the protest organizers had kinder words for the U.N. resolution. "It sends a strong message to Damascus and to Russia and China that the world is against the Assad regime," said Ala Edien Hamdoun, who leads the local opposition council's public relations committee. Hamdoun said he was well aware that the latest diplomatic broadside against Damascus would do little protect this small, defiant community should the Syrian military mount an all-out assault. Just a few kilometers away, within sight of Binnish, the Syrian government flag flies in the heart of the city of Idlib, the capital of Idlib province. Opposition fighters have raised the rebel flag just a few hundred yards from the government banner, which is also visible in the city center. Heavy machine gun fire from Idlib periodically echoes across the countryside, and tracer bullets can be seen arcing out of the city at night. Binnish residents say the Syrian army maintains a base about five minutes away from their village's central square. Leaders of the rebellion in Binnish say the army doubled the number of tanks at that base over the last 24 hours. That deployment raised fears of a possible imminent attack on this opposition enclave.
Human nature is such that anyone who is given power will almost certainly fall prey to its temptation and begin to abuse it. A good example of this would be Muhammar Gaddhafi, the former leader of Libya. Once he became the ruler of Libya, he began to abuse the trust of the people and he began cruelly oppressing all those who had dared to oppose him. He is a good example of how no amount of power will ever satiate human nature.
The following article is related to Human Nature, taking the stand of which humans are born good, born compassionate.
From iTODAY:More Singaporean youths volunteer overseas: National Youth Council
SINGAPORE - More young Singaporeans - most of them students - are going overseas for volunteer work, and the National Youth Council wants to get more young working adults on the bandwagon.
It is doing so by making its grant programme more flexible in terms of volunteers' time commitment, and by creating more value-added project opportunities that fit better with working adults' skills and interests.
Some of the work volunteers do overseas include helping to repaint village schools and set up facilities such as libraries.
That was what a multi-cultural group of 22 volunteers did in Punjab, India.
But the group learnt early on that things don't always go according to plan.
Project leader Jaspal Singh said: "The paint did not arrive for, I think two days. Every time we called the person, strangely, (he'd say) ... he's one hour away."
So for team leaders, managing volunteers' expectations was one of the toughest challenges.
The trip was one of more than 200 Youth Expedition Projects (YEPs) that took place last year.
That involved some 4,500 young Singaporeans, up from 3,976 in 2010, and 3,306 in 2009.
The YEP is administered by the National Youth Council and funded by the People's Association.
Under the programme, volunteers aged between 15 and 35 years old get a subsidy of up to 50 per cent of their participation costs.
Since 2001, more than 26,000 youths have gone on over 1,300 expeditions to ASEAN countries as well as India and China for international Service-Learning projects.
As more young Singaporeans go overseas for voluntary service, the sustainability of such efforts has become a key issue.
Volunteer Seema Saigal said: "I know a lot of projects go there, maybe give them money, or provide certain clothing but there's no lasting impact.
"Even with this project, I know once we leave, maybe in a year, two years' time, even if they forget that we ever came, forget that we repainted their school, that library is still there for them. It's a long-lasting thing."
The impact on the children in Punjab remains to be seen.
But the experience has clearly left a deep imprint on the volunteers.
Volunteer Sheila Zainal said: "The smallest thing, actually, is the smile on their faces that really makes you feel accomplished, satisfied with what you've done."
Whether it's a widening of horizons, or connecting with people despite language barriers, the volunteers agree their trip has taught them the joy of giving back, and helping others in need. CHANNEL NEWSASIA
One of the examples i would give is to show that although human may get power or money, they will want more and never have a stop to their desire for more.
One of the recent example was Yaw Shin Leong. He is already an MP of Hougang and although he have the power and wealth, yet he did not treasure it and now he is at the risk of being fired
SINGAPORE : Singapore's opposition Workers' Party has expelled its Member of Parliament (MP) for Hougang, Yaw Shin Leong, with immediate effect, amid allegations of an extramarital affair.
Mr Yaw had secured a win in the last General Election, where the WP had its best showing.
The decision paves the way for a by-election in Hougang, just nine months after the May elections.
Party Chairman Sylvia Lim said at a media conference on Wednesday that the party believes strongly in transparency and accountability, and expects no less from party members, especially an MP.
She said Mr Yaw has been accused of several indiscretions in his private life.
Ms Lim said Mr Yaw was asked many times to come forward and explain himself to the party but he remained silent.
She said by continuing not to account to the party and the people, especially the residents of Hougang, he has broken the faith, trust and expectations of the party and the people.
There are many examples depicting the darker side of human nature and the good side of it too. As for the darker side, we can use the example of our selfish actions during an emergency. During an evacuation or the rush to safety, many people neglect the fact that there are others around them who might need help in escaping. They basically ignore them and even worst, push others out of their way just to save themselves. This inevitably will lead to stampedes where many small children and old folks would be trampled upon by people who only thought of themselves in the route to safety. These situations best illustrates that we humans only care about ourselves. This forms one of our human nature.
I think that this article below shows a good example of the good and selfless side of human nature:
UPPER NYACK-Even now, five years after his death, Alison Crowther is still hearing tales from Sept. 11 survivors of the heroism demonstrated by her son as the World Trade Center crumbled.
Those accounts of the man with the red bandanna fill her with pride and admiration for her son's courage and selflessness. But they also leave her with a sense of sadness that Welles Crowther, 24, saved so many others, but not himself.
Several months ago, Crowther had lunch with Tania Head, of New York City, who was in the sky tower on the 78th floor of the south tower when it was struck.
After the first plane hit the north tower, Head was making her way down the tower from her 96th-floor office when the second plane hit. The impact threw her to the floor, she recalled in a recent telephone interview.
When she regained consciousness, she realized someone was hitting her on the shoulders.
"It was a man with a red scarf around his face," Head said. "He was putting the flames out on my shoulders."
As she struggled to orient herself amid the burning rubble, the man began giving directions, she recalled.
"His voice was so calming," Head, 33, said. "He said, 'If you can walk, please follow me. I found the exit.' "
She and others trapped in the burning building followed his directions and made it out of the building before it collapsed.
The man in the red bandanna was Crowther's son, Welles, an equities trader who worked on the 104th floor of the south tower. He used his training as a volunteer firefighter to help guide survivors to safety after they were trapped high in the tower, far from the reach of emergency service workers.
Other survivors who made it out of the tower before it collapsed later identified Crowther, who always carried a red bandanna with him, as the civilian who made countless trips up and down a staircase in the burning building, bringing injured and terrified office workers to safety before he went back into the inferno, where he met his own death.
Alison and Jefferson Crowther and their two daughters, Paige and Honor, created the Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust to honor the selflessness Welles showed as he chose to save others rather than himself.
The Upper Nyack family's goal is both to keep alive the memory of Welles' life and to use his ultimate sacrifice to inspire others.
This shows the good side of human nature, that there are people like Simon in this world too. This guy is called Butch. Over the past 16 years, though sometimes he felt disappointed about the street kids, he never gave up on them. He held on to his own beliefs of helping the street kids. Even if it means searching for them in the middle of the night, spending six months to one year on a single street kid and nothing comes out of it - as long as eventually he could help them leave the ills of street life, he would be satisfied. He never thought that what he did was anything special and he would continue to take care of them as long as he is still around. He was even offered an administrative post and the chance to move out of the slums and live more luxuriously, but he held on to his hopes of helping the street kids of the Philippine. And that's why now, although he's living in a self-built wooden "house", if you could even call it a house, beside a sewer, he's happy.
Recently, there was a case regarding a petition by residents of Woodlands Blocks 860 and 861 to not build an elder-care centre at their void decks. They are worried that building an elder-care centre at their void decks may mean more deaths in the area, and also drive the property prices in the area down. Meanwhile residents in Toh Yi Drive were unhappy over the proposed plans to build a studio apartment block for the elderly near their homes.
This seemingly simple case actually shows the reality of human nature. This case shows the selfish instincts of human nature, that even in a civilised society, people would rather care for the price of their apartments rather than the welfare of an increasing elderly population.
LILLE, France: Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to be quizzed as a suspect over alleged involvement in an 'illegal prostitution ring', a source familiar with the case said Saturday.
He has been summoned for questioning on Tuesday in connection with a police probe into the organisation of sex parties in restaurants and swingers' clubs in Paris, Washington, Madrid, Vienna and Ghent, Belgium.
Strauss-Kahn could face charges if magistrates deem he was aware the women who took part were prostitutes and the funds to pay them were fraudulently obtained, as is being alleged against other suspects, the source said.
While theoretically he could be held for up to 96 hours the interrogation is not expected to last more than 48 and he can be accompanied by a lawyer.
A police source said it was not ruled out that Strauss-Kahn would be charged then taken before a judge to decide whether he should be remanded in custody.
Sixty-two-year-old Strauss-Kahn resigned as director of the International Monetary Fund in May after he was accused of raping a chambermaid in a New York hotel. He returned to France in August after the US case collapsed, only to face new allegations.
First, a 32-year-old writer accused him of attempting to rape her in 2003 but, while prosecutors said there was prima facie evidence of sexual assault, the case was too old to pursue.
Then he was implicated in an entirely separate investigation into the alleged prostitution ring said to have operated out of luxury hotels in the northern French city of Lille.
Magistrates have already charged several leading local figures with organising the ring and there are suspicions that a construction company executive used his firm's money to entertain guests at sex parties.
Strauss-Kahn is also expected to be asked if he gave anything in return for the parties organised and funded by businessmen Fabrice Paszkowski and David Roquet, who have already been charged.
Lawyers for Paskowski, head of a medical equipment firm, and Roquet, former director of a subsidiary of public works group Eiffage, have denied any quid pro quo.
Others charged in the case include three hotel bosses, a lawyer and a local police chief.
Strauss-Kahn had demanded to be questioned by judges leading the inquiry, hoping to halt what his lawyers brand a "media lynching."
A book published in December quoted him as admitting to having an uninhibited sex life, including attending swingers' parties, but he denied knowing that any of the participants were prostitutes.
The last party he attended took place from May 11-13 in Washington, just before the incident with chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo in New York.
Once seen as the favourite to oust Nicolas Sarkozy and win April's French presidential election, Strauss-Kahn is now an embarrassment to his Socialist Party, shunned by the campaign and former close allies.
He still faces a civil suit from the New York hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo.
Strauss-Kahn's 63-year-old journalist wife Anne Sinclair, who stood by the disgraced former IMF chief during the New York scandal, was named editor of the French edition of the Huffington Post Internet newspaper last month.
(1/2) (CNN) -- The recent smartphone video of Marines urinating on the bodies of slain Taliban should trouble all Americans.
It is troubling even if allowances are made for young men -- recently released from the high pressures of combat and in the euphoria of being successful and still being alive -- doing dumb things. It should trouble us even allowing for the inevitable dehumanization of the enemy that often accompanies conflict.
Keeping the human aspect of an enemy in mind is more than just a moral imperative, though. It makes good operational and strategic sense. And in this, intelligence has a special role.
Michael HaydenOne of the first briefings I gave President George W. Bush as deputy director of national intelligence was on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the fiendishly brutal head of al Qaeda in Iraq.
I began with Zarqawi's upbringing: "Raised on the mean streets of Zarqa, jailed as a teenager, he turned to religion in prison ..."
Taliban: Won't talk peace with Karzai
US to end Afghan combat mission in 2013 I was less trying to humanize him than to understand him, but the effect was largely the same. And even duly "humanized," Zarqawi remained our highest priority target in Iraq until we killed him the next year.
Recognizing this human aspect of an enemy takes on even greater significance when a belligerent decides that it's time to negotiate with an adversary, when it's decided (or reluctantly accepted) that you will not be able to simply impose your will on him.
This, by the way, is different than concluding that someone with whom you are still engaged in combat is no longer your enemy, as Vice President Joe Biden recently did when describing the Taliban.
But it does mean that you are willing to recognize that he has legitimate political interests and you are willing to talk about them.
Under any circumstance, talks with the Taliban will be a difficult task. For one thing, the pressure we can bring to bear on our negotiating partner diminishes daily as American troops leave Afghanistan based on an accelerated timetable rather than on battlefield conditions. A recent survey of national security wonks like myself had a full three-quarters of respondents either opposing these talks or saying they are likely to fail.
So this is going to be tough and, as in many difficult undertakings, intelligence will be expected to play an important role.
Taliban has met with U.S. officials, won't negotiate with Karzai
At the most basic level, intelligence will be asked what are the Taliban's interests or more precisely what is it they think they are.
Intelligence will work to steal secrets: What are their demands, their going-in positions, their true red lines? In this case, negotiators will also want to know whether their Taliban interlocutors actually speak for the whole. Can they deliver on an agreement?
I recall during the Bush administration, in one of our periodic crises with Syria, being asked by the president: "What does Assad want?" It was a question that went to the nature of the man.
I responded with the often true but rarely useful, "I don't know." And I little helped the situation by meekly adding that I doubted that he did either.
We did better during later negotiations with North Korea where, despite whatever negotiating strategy was being proposed, we stuck to the line that we saw little chance that Kim Jong Il would ever give up his nuclear weapons. We'll need the intelligence agencies to be equally accurate and equally firm in their judgments when it comes to the Taliban talks.
Intelligence may be able to help in other ways since it has been routine for American intelligence officials to meet with and come to agreement with foreign counterparts, many of whom share little of our world view, our values or even our interests.
(2/2)A good thing, too, since one of the continuities between Presidents Bush and Obama has been the willingness to work with some unsavory partners such as President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen or several recent incarnations of Pakistan's ISI.
I can recall many a meeting with counterparts where the common space where we might find agreement was challengingly small.
In some of those sessions, my counterpart would depart the seemingly fact-based dialogue we had been sharing and launch into a series of conclusions based more on his culture's creation mythology than on any shared reality I could identify.
For a time, I thought it sufficient to simply avoid signaling any agreement at these moments and patiently tolerate the excursion. Only later did I begin to ask myself what of my commentary had my counterpart judged to be American mythology rather than hard realism.
Distinguishing and dealing with the differences will be important in the upcoming negotiations.
Steve Kappes, who has served as deputy director of CIA for me and Leon Panetta, had to do as much when he earlier negotiated the end of Libya's WMD program with a regime as vile and erratic as the Taliban.
This is not to suggest that intelligence officials will actually conduct negotiations in this instance. Marc Grossman, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, brings as much talent, hard work and knowledge to the problem as anyone could.
But I am suggesting that if these talks go forward, we will need a very deep understanding of the people across the table from us, people who when last in power imposed a hellish regime on their countrymen and who today have the blood of innocents on their hands.
Much of this will be distasteful, but even if the Taliban aren't simply contemporary manifestations of J.R.R. Tolkien's darkest characters, is there enough common ground to get us to a conclusion we might not ideally desire but is at least what David Petraeus has described in other circumstances as "Afghan good enough?"
Frankly, I don't think there is, and intelligence agencies will have to have the courage to say so if this is the case.
But we have decided to try and, if we are to have any chance of success, deep understanding of the human beings across the table from us, understanding anchored on near exquisite intelligence, will be essential.
In 2004 the tiny island of Pitcairn in the Pacific was rocked by a court case that revealed a raft of incidents of sexual abuse. Four years on, how has the island coped with the fallout of the case?
It is Friday night at Big Fence, home of the former Pitcairn Island mayor, Steve Christian, and several dozen people are tucking into hamburgers and fish and chips.
The laughter and banter convey an impression of neighbourly harmony - unexpected in a community that only a few years ago was torn apart by widespread allegations of child abuse.
HISTORY OF PITCAIRN
First settled by Polynesians
1767: Island sighted by British ship
1789: Mutiny on the Bounty
1790: Mutineers arrive on Pitcairn
1800: Murders and illness leave only one man, nine women and a number of children alive
1808: Contact resumed with outside world
1838: Pitcairn becomes part of British Empire
Among diners at the cafe run by Steve and his wife, Olive, are some of the men convicted of child sex offences and their victims. Others seated at the tables, amid whitewashed walls and coconut frond lightshades, consider themselves sworn enemies. Yet somehow they manage to live side by side, and even to socialise, on a two mile-square rock in the middle of the Pacific.
Pitcairn, a British overseas territory settled by Fletcher Christian and his band of Bounty mutineers in 1790, is home to just 50 or so people, most of them related.
At trials on the island in 2004, six men were convicted of sexual abuse of young girls dating back 40 years. Three others were found guilty at court cases in New Zealand in 2006, with six in total receiving prison sentences.
The case opened up deep rifts in the tiny, close-knit community, where every family contained an offender or a victim, often both. The fall-out has been prolonged and agonising. Some of the women who testified have been ostracised by their families and other islanders.
Millions spent
Despite continuing splits, the community is moving on, and daily life has changed radically. This is partly a result of investment by Britain, which - having left Pitcairn alone for nearly two centuries - is belatedly focusing attention on the territory.
There is hope that eco-tourism can be successful
Millions of pounds have been spent on updating infrastructure and communications. The jetty and slipway have been rebuilt, and the Hill of Difficulty, a steep track leading from the landing stage up to the village, Adamstown, has been concreted. There are plans for a breakwater, which would create a safe harbour, and for a wind turbine scheme providing 24-hour electricity. Power, supplied by diesel generators, is currently rationed to ten hours a day.
A new school has been built, and the islanders have television for the first time. For the first time, too, they have an affordable telephone system, and, consequently, feel less isolated. They are still waiting for a regular boat service connecting Pitcairn with the nearest airport, 300 miles away in French Polynesia.
Britain, meanwhile, is trying to reinvigorate the economy, by promoting the island as an eco-tourism destination. It hopes that new jobs, together with better transport links, will lure expatriates home from New Zealand, thereby boosting the population. A few have already returned, including one victim, Jacqui Christian, who has given media interviews.
Life on the island requires a great deal of hard work
Among outsiders on the island are a British diplomat, a New Zealand police officer, several prison officers and two social workers. The latter are monitoring the eight or so children, as well as offenders who received community service orders or have completed their jail sentences.
Life has changed in other ways. Before the court case, key jobs - including driving the longboats and operating heavy machinery - were reserved for Steve Christian's relatives and allies. Now anyone can request training for such jobs, and Jacqui Christian crews on the longboats.
Small businesses, such as Steve and Olive's cafe, have sprung up, aided by British loans. Olive's brother, Dave Brown, has set up a bakery, while another islander, Carol Warren, offers takeaway meals including fish balls and boiled goat meat.
Through such activities, small bridges have been built. Olive, a staunch opponent of the legal process, has welcomed Jacqui's mother, Betty, a prosecution witness, at her new beauty salon. Islanders divided by the abuse case are working together on a committee reviewing Pitcairn's system of government.
Comfortable prison
Yet relations remain strained, and sensitivities are such that locals are reluctant to talk to the media. They still feel bitter about trials conducted under an international media spotlight, and they resent the fact that their community is now indelibly associated with sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, for Randy Christian and Brian Young, the remaining inmates of Her Majesty's Prison Pitcairn, daily life begins at 7am, when they are unlocked and, after cleaning their cells, are escorted out to undertake maintenance work around the island.
The prison - a comfortable, modern building with spacious cells and a wraparound veranda - was originally occupied by five men. Randy's father, Steve, and younger brother, Shawn, are out on probation, while Brian's brother, Terry, was recently released into home detention. Olive's father, Len Brown, who is elderly, served his two-year sentence at home.
Many families had a victim and an offender involved in the case
Randy and Brian are expected to be free by Christmas, after spending barely two years behind bars. Like the others, they received lenient sentences.
It is perhaps not surprising that some of their victims wonder whether the long and expensive legal process was worthwhile.
But, there is little doubt that the case has changed Pitcairn forever.
Kathy Marks is The Independent's Asia-Pacific correspondent, and the author of Trouble in Paradise: Uncovering Decades of Sexual Abuse on Britain's Most Remote Island, published by Harper Perennial.
here is a comment：
I will never understand why all kinds of sexual abuse, or any other acts of cruelty towards children for that matter, are punished so leniently. In my opinion, deliberate harming of children is always done for personal gratification - in one form or another - and against all that is good and natural in human nature. Any kind of cruelty towards children should be punished severely - and where sexual abuse is concerned, prolonged terms of punishment should be the accepted norm in ALL societies. The punishments dealt out on Pitcairn are a shameful, disgusting affront to the concept of human decency and - yet again - a betrayal of children everywhere. Jean Booth, Hague, Netherlands
I feel that the article below depicts the darker side of human nature. The woman suspected to be performing witchcraft was burned alive by a mob, even though there was no concrete evidence of her doing so.
From The Straits Times Nepal villagers burn witchcraft suspect alive
KATHMANDU (AFP) - A mob burned alive a 40-year-old woman on Friday after accusing her of casting black magic spells in a remote village in southern Nepal, police said.
Dengani Mahato died after she was severely beaten, doused in kerosene and set alight for allegedly practising witchcraft, Gopal Bhandari, a superintendent of police in Chitwan district, told AFP.
'Nine people started to beat her after a local shaman pointed the finger at her over the death of a boy a year ago,' the officer said. 'They accused her of having hands in the death of the boy, who had drowned in a river.'
TEHRAN: Iranian warships entered the Mediterranean Sea after crossing the Suez Canal on Saturday to show Tehran's "might" to regional countries, the navy commander said, amid simmering tensions with Israel.
"The strategic navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has passed through the Suez Canal for the second time since the (1979) Islamic Revolution," Admiral Habibollah Sayari said in remarks quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
He did not say how many vessels had crossed the canal, or what missions they were planning to carry out in the Mediterranean, but said the flotilla had previously docked in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.
Two Iranian ships, the destroyer Shahid Qandi and supply vessel Kharg, had docked in the Red Sea port on February 4, according to Iranian media.
Sayari said the naval deployment to the Mediterranean would show "the might" of the Islamic republic to regional countries, and also convey Tehran's "message of peace and friendship."
The announcement comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and Israel, fuelled by the longstanding dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme and rising speculation that Israel might launch pre-emptive strikes against Iranian facilities.
Israeli officials are also accusing Tehran of orchestrating anti-Israeli bombings in India and Georgia as well as blasts in Thailand. Iran denies the allegations.
The first Iranian presence in the Mediterranean in February 2011 provoked strong reactions from Israel and the United States, with the Jewish state putting its navy on alert.
During the 2011 deployment, two Iranian vessels, a destroyer and a supply ship, sailed past the coast of Israel and docked at the Syrian port of Latakia before returning to Iran via the Red Sea.
Israeli leaders denounced the move as a "provocation" and a "powerplay."
Iran's navy has been boosting its presence in international waters in the past two years, deploying vessels to the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden on missions to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates.
And Iran sent submarines to the Red Sea last June to "collect data," its first such mission in distant waters, while its naval commanders say they plan on deploying ships close to US territorial waters in the future.
Iranian naval forces are composed of small units, including speedboats equipped with missiles, which operate in the Gulf and are under the command of the Revolutionary Guards.
The navy, using small frigates, destroyers, and three Russian-made Kilo class submarines, oversees high seas missions in the Gulf of Oman and Gulf of Aden.
It now permanently has at least two vessels in those areas to escort merchant ships, and has been involved in more than 100 confrontations with armed pirates, according to the navy commander in December.
In what appears to be the ultimate act of selfishness, a woman swiftly dumped her boyfriend after learning he had been diagnosed with cancer. The even more twisted part of the story, however, is that she still wants the Super Bowl tickets he bought for Christmas. Jason Elia, a Television writer currently living in Nashville, Tenn., appeared on ESPN 97.5 in Houston to discuss his story. Apparently, Elia had bought the tickets for him and his girlfriend. He planned on proposing to his then-girlfriend, and traveling to Indianapolis with her for the big game on Feb. 5. However, after telling her that he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer, she promptly dumped him. Though Elia's ex-girlfriend believes she should still have access to the tickets because he purchased them with her in mind, Elia is entertaining no such ideas. Instead, he is auctioning off the tickets on Twitter. He will be giving the tickets to the person who gets him the most followers by the end of the Pro Bowl.
Josef Fritzl Case: Father who raped, murdered his daughter.
According to the Guardian, "Austrian pensioner imprisoned his daughter in a cellar and fathered seven children with her has been charged with the murder of one of them who died shortly after birth...
Josef Fritzl, 73, has also been charged with rape, deprivation of liberty, coercion, enslavement and incest..."
Josef Fritzl raped his daughter more than 3000 times and confined her in a basement. Can you imagine a father raping and destroying his own flesh and blood? Where's human's capacity to love? There were at times, Josef Fritzl refused to give food to his daughter and the children she gave birth to, leaving them starving. Furthermore, his daughter, Elisabeth was being "imprisoned" in a small capacity with the children she gave birth to. Sadly, his daughter never had any glimpse of the outside world, didn't had friends, did not know what a smile was, all she had was abuse by her father. Her dignity lost.
Josef Fritzl even said that he was "born to rape".
In one Syrian town, full-throated cries of defiance.
ReplyDeleteBinnish, Syria (CNN) -- Hundreds of men and boys kneeled on the floor of a packed mosque for Friday prayers, but the solemn religious rite quickly turned into a furious rain-soaked rally denouncing Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad.
Before completing their prayers, the congregation murmured words of condolences for a resident of this small opposition-held village, Muhamed Hasmus.
Activists say Hasmus was killed Friday morning by a sniper in the nearby city of Idlib, an account CNN could not independently confirm.
The remembrance of their neighbor caused the faithful to jump to their feet and erupt with the chant "Allahu Akbar," which means God is great.
They repeated their full-throated chants as they marched from the mosque to the village square in a pounding, freezing rainstorm.
They unfurled banners, waved the opposition green, black and white flag, and conducted a ritual of defiance that has been repeated weekly in this opposition enclave for months.
"Our first demonstration was on April 1st," Ibrahim Qobani told CNN. "I have never missed a single demonstration since."
The 19-year-old Qobani led the latest demonstration in Binnish, which has been experimenting with self-rule.
He stood on a rooftop with a microphone, dressed in a scarf and fingerless gloves knit with the colors of the opposition flag, and sang verses insulting the Syrian president.
"This is a tool for us to show the world that we need support," he said. "During the week when I'm talking to the guys (opposition activists) over the internet, I think about what to chant on Friday."
This week, Qobani introduced new lyrics to protest songs.
He replaced the word "hurriye," which means freedom, which made up the chorus of a popular Syrian protest song, with the word "harbiye," which means 'war.'
"We were peaceful for ten months But now there is no other solution. We will fight, even with knives," said 21-year-old university student who only wanted his first name Hussam published, for security reasons.
Wearing an opposition scarf around his forehead, Hussam had little positive to say about the U.N. General Assembly's non-binding resolution endorsing an Arab League plan for al-Assad to step down.
"We didn't watch real action from the United Nations and all the world actually. They are just speeches, they do not help us," he said.
One of the protest organizers had kinder words for the U.N. resolution.
"It sends a strong message to Damascus and to Russia and China that the world is against the Assad regime," said Ala Edien Hamdoun, who leads the local opposition council's public relations committee.
Hamdoun said he was well aware that the latest diplomatic broadside against Damascus would do little protect this small, defiant community should the Syrian military mount an all-out assault.
Just a few kilometers away, within sight of Binnish, the Syrian government flag flies in the heart of the city of Idlib, the capital of Idlib province.
Opposition fighters have raised the rebel flag just a few hundred yards from the government banner, which is also visible in the city center.
Heavy machine gun fire from Idlib periodically echoes across the countryside, and tracer bullets can be seen arcing out of the city at night.
Binnish residents say the Syrian army maintains a base about five minutes away from their village's central square.
Leaders of the rebellion in Binnish say the army doubled the number of tanks at that base over the last 24 hours. That deployment raised fears of a possible imminent attack on this opposition enclave.
Human nature is such that anyone who is given power will almost certainly fall prey to its temptation and begin to abuse it. A good example of this would be Muhammar Gaddhafi, the former leader of Libya. Once he became the ruler of Libya, he began to abuse the trust of the people and he began cruelly oppressing all those who had dared to oppose him. He is a good example of how no amount of power will ever satiate human nature.
ReplyDeleteThe following article is related to Human Nature, taking the stand of which humans are born good, born compassionate.
ReplyDeleteFrom iTODAY:More Singaporean youths volunteer overseas: National Youth Council
SINGAPORE - More young Singaporeans - most of them students - are going overseas for volunteer work, and the National Youth Council wants to get more young working adults on the bandwagon.
It is doing so by making its grant programme more flexible in terms of volunteers' time commitment, and by creating more value-added project opportunities that fit better with working adults' skills and interests.
Some of the work volunteers do overseas include helping to repaint village schools and set up facilities such as libraries.
That was what a multi-cultural group of 22 volunteers did in Punjab, India.
But the group learnt early on that things don't always go according to plan.
Project leader Jaspal Singh said: "The paint did not arrive for, I think two days. Every time we called the person, strangely, (he'd say) ... he's one hour away."
So for team leaders, managing volunteers' expectations was one of the toughest challenges.
The trip was one of more than 200 Youth Expedition Projects (YEPs) that took place last year.
That involved some 4,500 young Singaporeans, up from 3,976 in 2010, and 3,306 in 2009.
The YEP is administered by the National Youth Council and funded by the People's Association.
Under the programme, volunteers aged between 15 and 35 years old get a subsidy of up to 50 per cent of their participation costs.
Since 2001, more than 26,000 youths have gone on over 1,300 expeditions to ASEAN countries as well as India and China for international Service-Learning projects.
As more young Singaporeans go overseas for voluntary service, the sustainability of such efforts has become a key issue.
Volunteer Seema Saigal said: "I know a lot of projects go there, maybe give them money, or provide certain clothing but there's no lasting impact.
"Even with this project, I know once we leave, maybe in a year, two years' time, even if they forget that we ever came, forget that we repainted their school, that library is still there for them. It's a long-lasting thing."
The impact on the children in Punjab remains to be seen.
But the experience has clearly left a deep imprint on the volunteers.
Volunteer Sheila Zainal said: "The smallest thing, actually, is the smile on their faces that really makes you feel accomplished, satisfied with what you've done."
Whether it's a widening of horizons, or connecting with people despite language barriers, the volunteers agree their trip has taught them the joy of giving back, and helping others in need. CHANNEL NEWSASIA
One of the examples i would give is to show that although human may get power or money, they will want more and never have a stop to their desire for more.
ReplyDeleteOne of the recent example was Yaw Shin Leong. He is already an MP of Hougang and although he have the power and wealth, yet he did not treasure it and now he is at the risk of being fired
SINGAPORE : Singapore's opposition Workers' Party has expelled its Member of Parliament (MP) for Hougang, Yaw Shin Leong, with immediate effect, amid allegations of an extramarital affair.
ReplyDeleteMr Yaw had secured a win in the last General Election, where the WP had its best showing.
The decision paves the way for a by-election in Hougang, just nine months after the May elections.
Party Chairman Sylvia Lim said at a media conference on Wednesday that the party believes strongly in transparency and accountability, and expects no less from party members, especially an MP.
She said Mr Yaw has been accused of several indiscretions in his private life.
Ms Lim said Mr Yaw was asked many times to come forward and explain himself to the party but he remained silent.
She said by continuing not to account to the party and the people, especially the residents of Hougang, he has broken the faith, trust and expectations of the party and the people.
There are many examples depicting the darker side of human nature and the good side of it too.
ReplyDeleteAs for the darker side, we can use the example of our selfish actions during an emergency. During an evacuation or the rush to safety, many people neglect the fact that there are others around them who might need help in escaping. They basically ignore them and even worst, push others out of their way just to save themselves.
This inevitably will lead to stampedes where many small children and old folks would be trampled upon by people who only thought of themselves in the route to safety. These situations best illustrates that we humans only care about ourselves. This forms one of our human nature.
I think that this article below shows a good example of the good and selfless side of human nature:
ReplyDeleteUPPER NYACK-Even now, five years after his death, Alison Crowther is still hearing tales from Sept. 11 survivors of the heroism demonstrated by her son as the World Trade Center crumbled.
Those accounts of the man with the red bandanna fill her with pride and admiration for her son's courage and selflessness. But they also leave her with a sense of sadness that Welles Crowther, 24, saved so many others, but not himself.
Several months ago, Crowther had lunch with Tania Head, of New York City, who was in the sky tower on the 78th floor of the south tower when it was struck.
After the first plane hit the north tower, Head was making her way down the tower from her 96th-floor office when the second plane hit. The impact threw her to the floor, she recalled in a recent telephone interview.
When she regained consciousness, she realized someone was hitting her on the shoulders.
"It was a man with a red scarf around his face," Head said. "He was putting the flames out on my shoulders."
As she struggled to orient herself amid the burning rubble, the man began giving directions, she recalled.
"His voice was so calming," Head, 33, said. "He said, 'If you can walk, please follow me. I found the exit.' "
She and others trapped in the burning building followed his directions and made it out of the building before it collapsed.
The man in the red bandanna was Crowther's son, Welles, an equities trader who worked on the 104th floor of the south tower. He used his training as a volunteer firefighter to help guide survivors to safety after they were trapped high in the tower, far from the reach of emergency service workers.
Other survivors who made it out of the tower before it collapsed later identified Crowther, who always carried a red bandanna with him, as the civilian who made countless trips up and down a staircase in the burning building, bringing injured and terrified office workers to safety before he went back into the inferno, where he met his own death.
Alison and Jefferson Crowther and their two daughters, Paige and Honor, created the Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust to honor the selflessness Welles showed as he chose to save others rather than himself.
The Upper Nyack family's goal is both to keep alive the memory of Welles' life and to use his ultimate sacrifice to inspire others.
This shows the good side of human nature, that there are people like Simon in this world too.
ReplyDeleteThis guy is called Butch. Over the past 16 years, though sometimes he felt disappointed about the street kids, he never gave up on them. He held on to his own beliefs of helping the street kids. Even if it means searching for them in the middle of the night, spending six months to one year on a single street kid and nothing comes out of it - as long as eventually he could help them leave the ills of street life, he would be satisfied. He never thought that what he did was anything special and he would continue to take care of them as long as he is still around. He was even offered an administrative post and the chance to move out of the slums and live more luxuriously, but he held on to his hopes of helping the street kids of the Philippine. And that's why now, although he's living in a self-built wooden "house", if you could even call it a house, beside a sewer, he's happy.
Recently, there was a case regarding a petition by residents of Woodlands Blocks 860 and 861 to not build an elder-care centre at their void decks. They are worried that building an elder-care centre at their void decks may mean more deaths in the area, and also drive the property prices in the area down. Meanwhile residents in Toh Yi Drive were unhappy over the proposed plans to build a studio apartment block for the elderly near their homes.
ReplyDeleteThis seemingly simple case actually shows the reality of human nature. This case shows the selfish instincts of human nature, that even in a civilised society, people would rather care for the price of their apartments rather than the welfare of an increasing elderly population.
LILLE, France: Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to be quizzed as a suspect over alleged involvement in an 'illegal prostitution ring', a source familiar with the case said Saturday.
ReplyDeleteHe has been summoned for questioning on Tuesday in connection with a police probe into the organisation of sex parties in restaurants and swingers' clubs in Paris, Washington, Madrid, Vienna and Ghent, Belgium.
Strauss-Kahn could face charges if magistrates deem he was aware the women who took part were prostitutes and the funds to pay them were fraudulently obtained, as is being alleged against other suspects, the source said.
While theoretically he could be held for up to 96 hours the interrogation is not expected to last more than 48 and he can be accompanied by a lawyer.
A police source said it was not ruled out that Strauss-Kahn would be charged then taken before a judge to decide whether he should be remanded in custody.
Sixty-two-year-old Strauss-Kahn resigned as director of the International Monetary Fund in May after he was accused of raping a chambermaid in a New York hotel. He returned to France in August after the US case collapsed, only to face new allegations.
First, a 32-year-old writer accused him of attempting to rape her in 2003 but, while prosecutors said there was prima facie evidence of sexual assault, the case was too old to pursue.
Then he was implicated in an entirely separate investigation into the alleged prostitution ring said to have operated out of luxury hotels in the northern French city of Lille.
Magistrates have already charged several leading local figures with organising the ring and there are suspicions that a construction company executive used his firm's money to entertain guests at sex parties.
Strauss-Kahn is also expected to be asked if he gave anything in return for the parties organised and funded by businessmen Fabrice Paszkowski and David Roquet, who have already been charged.
Lawyers for Paskowski, head of a medical equipment firm, and Roquet, former director of a subsidiary of public works group Eiffage, have denied any quid pro quo.
Others charged in the case include three hotel bosses, a lawyer and a local police chief.
Strauss-Kahn had demanded to be questioned by judges leading the inquiry, hoping to halt what his lawyers brand a "media lynching."
A book published in December quoted him as admitting to having an uninhibited sex life, including attending swingers' parties, but he denied knowing that any of the participants were prostitutes.
The last party he attended took place from May 11-13 in Washington, just before the incident with chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo in New York.
Once seen as the favourite to oust Nicolas Sarkozy and win April's French presidential election, Strauss-Kahn is now an embarrassment to his Socialist Party, shunned by the campaign and former close allies.
He still faces a civil suit from the New York hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo.
Strauss-Kahn's 63-year-old journalist wife Anne Sinclair, who stood by the disgraced former IMF chief during the New York scandal, was named editor of the French edition of the Huffington Post Internet newspaper last month.
- AFP/wk
(1/2)
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- The recent smartphone video of Marines urinating on the bodies of slain Taliban should trouble all Americans.
It is troubling even if allowances are made for young men -- recently released from the high pressures of combat and in the euphoria of being successful and still being alive -- doing dumb things. It should trouble us even allowing for the inevitable dehumanization of the enemy that often accompanies conflict.
Keeping the human aspect of an enemy in mind is more than just a moral imperative, though. It makes good operational and strategic sense. And in this, intelligence has a special role.
Michael HaydenOne of the first briefings I gave President George W. Bush as deputy director of national intelligence was on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the fiendishly brutal head of al Qaeda in Iraq.
I began with Zarqawi's upbringing: "Raised on the mean streets of Zarqa, jailed as a teenager, he turned to religion in prison ..."
Taliban: Won't talk peace with Karzai
US to end Afghan combat mission in 2013 I was less trying to humanize him than to understand him, but the effect was largely the same. And even duly "humanized," Zarqawi remained our highest priority target in Iraq until we killed him the next year.
Recognizing this human aspect of an enemy takes on even greater significance when a belligerent decides that it's time to negotiate with an adversary, when it's decided (or reluctantly accepted) that you will not be able to simply impose your will on him.
This, by the way, is different than concluding that someone with whom you are still engaged in combat is no longer your enemy, as Vice President Joe Biden recently did when describing the Taliban.
But it does mean that you are willing to recognize that he has legitimate political interests and you are willing to talk about them.
Under any circumstance, talks with the Taliban will be a difficult task. For one thing, the pressure we can bring to bear on our negotiating partner diminishes daily as American troops leave Afghanistan based on an accelerated timetable rather than on battlefield conditions. A recent survey of national security wonks like myself had a full three-quarters of respondents either opposing these talks or saying they are likely to fail.
So this is going to be tough and, as in many difficult undertakings, intelligence will be expected to play an important role.
Taliban has met with U.S. officials, won't negotiate with Karzai
At the most basic level, intelligence will be asked what are the Taliban's interests or more precisely what is it they think they are.
Intelligence will work to steal secrets: What are their demands, their going-in positions, their true red lines? In this case, negotiators will also want to know whether their Taliban interlocutors actually speak for the whole. Can they deliver on an agreement?
I recall during the Bush administration, in one of our periodic crises with Syria, being asked by the president: "What does Assad want?" It was a question that went to the nature of the man.
I responded with the often true but rarely useful, "I don't know." And I little helped the situation by meekly adding that I doubted that he did either.
We did better during later negotiations with North Korea where, despite whatever negotiating strategy was being proposed, we stuck to the line that we saw little chance that Kim Jong Il would ever give up his nuclear weapons. We'll need the intelligence agencies to be equally accurate and equally firm in their judgments when it comes to the Taliban talks.
Intelligence may be able to help in other ways since it has been routine for American intelligence officials to meet with and come to agreement with foreign counterparts, many of whom share little of our world view, our values or even our interests.
(2/2)A good thing, too, since one of the continuities between Presidents Bush and Obama has been the willingness to work with some unsavory partners such as President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen or several recent incarnations of Pakistan's ISI.
ReplyDeleteI can recall many a meeting with counterparts where the common space where we might find agreement was challengingly small.
In some of those sessions, my counterpart would depart the seemingly fact-based dialogue we had been sharing and launch into a series of conclusions based more on his culture's creation mythology than on any shared reality I could identify.
For a time, I thought it sufficient to simply avoid signaling any agreement at these moments and patiently tolerate the excursion. Only later did I begin to ask myself what of my commentary had my counterpart judged to be American mythology rather than hard realism.
Distinguishing and dealing with the differences will be important in the upcoming negotiations.
Steve Kappes, who has served as deputy director of CIA for me and Leon Panetta, had to do as much when he earlier negotiated the end of Libya's WMD program with a regime as vile and erratic as the Taliban.
This is not to suggest that intelligence officials will actually conduct negotiations in this instance. Marc Grossman, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, brings as much talent, hard work and knowledge to the problem as anyone could.
But I am suggesting that if these talks go forward, we will need a very deep understanding of the people across the table from us, people who when last in power imposed a hellish regime on their countrymen and who today have the blood of innocents on their hands.
Much of this will be distasteful, but even if the Taliban aren't simply contemporary manifestations of J.R.R. Tolkien's darkest characters, is there enough common ground to get us to a conclusion we might not ideally desire but is at least what David Petraeus has described in other circumstances as "Afghan good enough?"
Frankly, I don't think there is, and intelligence agencies will have to have the courage to say so if this is the case.
But we have decided to try and, if we are to have any chance of success, deep understanding of the human beings across the table from us, understanding anchored on near exquisite intelligence, will be essential.
(1/2)BBC news: Island of shame
ReplyDeleteIn 2004 the tiny island of Pitcairn in the Pacific was rocked by a court case that revealed a raft of incidents of sexual abuse. Four years on, how has the island coped with the fallout of the case?
It is Friday night at Big Fence, home of the former Pitcairn Island mayor, Steve Christian, and several dozen people are tucking into hamburgers and fish and chips.
The laughter and banter convey an impression of neighbourly harmony - unexpected in a community that only a few years ago was torn apart by widespread allegations of child abuse.
HISTORY OF PITCAIRN
First settled by Polynesians
1767: Island sighted by British ship
1789: Mutiny on the Bounty
1790: Mutineers arrive on Pitcairn
1800: Murders and illness leave only one man, nine women and a number of children alive
1808: Contact resumed with outside world
1838: Pitcairn becomes part of British Empire
Among diners at the cafe run by Steve and his wife, Olive, are some of the men convicted of child sex offences and their victims. Others seated at the tables, amid whitewashed walls and coconut frond lightshades, consider themselves sworn enemies. Yet somehow they manage to live side by side, and even to socialise, on a two mile-square rock in the middle of the Pacific.
Pitcairn, a British overseas territory settled by Fletcher Christian and his band of Bounty mutineers in 1790, is home to just 50 or so people, most of them related.
At trials on the island in 2004, six men were convicted of sexual abuse of young girls dating back 40 years. Three others were found guilty at court cases in New Zealand in 2006, with six in total receiving prison sentences.
The case opened up deep rifts in the tiny, close-knit community, where every family contained an offender or a victim, often both. The fall-out has been prolonged and agonising. Some of the women who testified have been ostracised by their families and other islanders.
Millions spent
Despite continuing splits, the community is moving on, and daily life has changed radically. This is partly a result of investment by Britain, which - having left Pitcairn alone for nearly two centuries - is belatedly focusing attention on the territory.
There is hope that eco-tourism can be successful
Millions of pounds have been spent on updating infrastructure and communications. The jetty and slipway have been rebuilt, and the Hill of Difficulty, a steep track leading from the landing stage up to the village, Adamstown, has been concreted. There are plans for a breakwater, which would create a safe harbour, and for a wind turbine scheme providing 24-hour electricity. Power, supplied by diesel generators, is currently rationed to ten hours a day.
A new school has been built, and the islanders have television for the first time. For the first time, too, they have an affordable telephone system, and, consequently, feel less isolated. They are still waiting for a regular boat service connecting Pitcairn with the nearest airport, 300 miles away in French Polynesia.
(2/2)Changing life
ReplyDeleteBritain, meanwhile, is trying to reinvigorate the economy, by promoting the island as an eco-tourism destination. It hopes that new jobs, together with better transport links, will lure expatriates home from New Zealand, thereby boosting the population. A few have already returned, including one victim, Jacqui Christian, who has given media interviews.
Life on the island requires a great deal of hard work
Among outsiders on the island are a British diplomat, a New Zealand police officer, several prison officers and two social workers. The latter are monitoring the eight or so children, as well as offenders who received community service orders or have completed their jail sentences.
Life has changed in other ways. Before the court case, key jobs - including driving the longboats and operating heavy machinery - were reserved for Steve Christian's relatives and allies. Now anyone can request training for such jobs, and Jacqui Christian crews on the longboats.
Small businesses, such as Steve and Olive's cafe, have sprung up, aided by British loans. Olive's brother, Dave Brown, has set up a bakery, while another islander, Carol Warren, offers takeaway meals including fish balls and boiled goat meat.
Through such activities, small bridges have been built. Olive, a staunch opponent of the legal process, has welcomed Jacqui's mother, Betty, a prosecution witness, at her new beauty salon. Islanders divided by the abuse case are working together on a committee reviewing Pitcairn's system of government.
Comfortable prison
Yet relations remain strained, and sensitivities are such that locals are reluctant to talk to the media. They still feel bitter about trials conducted under an international media spotlight, and they resent the fact that their community is now indelibly associated with sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, for Randy Christian and Brian Young, the remaining inmates of Her Majesty's Prison Pitcairn, daily life begins at 7am, when they are unlocked and, after cleaning their cells, are escorted out to undertake maintenance work around the island.
The prison - a comfortable, modern building with spacious cells and a wraparound veranda - was originally occupied by five men. Randy's father, Steve, and younger brother, Shawn, are out on probation, while Brian's brother, Terry, was recently released into home detention. Olive's father, Len Brown, who is elderly, served his two-year sentence at home.
Many families had a victim and an offender involved in the case
Randy and Brian are expected to be free by Christmas, after spending barely two years behind bars. Like the others, they received lenient sentences.
It is perhaps not surprising that some of their victims wonder whether the long and expensive legal process was worthwhile.
But, there is little doubt that the case has changed Pitcairn forever.
Kathy Marks is The Independent's Asia-Pacific correspondent, and the author of Trouble in Paradise: Uncovering Decades of Sexual Abuse on Britain's Most Remote Island, published by Harper Perennial.
here is a comment：
I will never understand why all kinds of sexual abuse, or any other acts of cruelty towards children for that matter, are punished so leniently. In my opinion, deliberate harming of children is always done for personal gratification - in one form or another - and against all that is good and natural in human nature. Any kind of cruelty towards children should be punished severely - and where sexual abuse is concerned, prolonged terms of punishment should be the accepted norm in ALL societies. The punishments dealt out on Pitcairn are a shameful, disgusting affront to the concept of human decency and - yet again - a betrayal of children everywhere.
Jean Booth, Hague, Netherlands
I feel that the article below depicts the darker side of human nature. The woman suspected to be performing witchcraft was burned alive by a mob, even though there was no concrete evidence of her doing so.
ReplyDeleteFrom The Straits Times
Nepal villagers burn witchcraft suspect alive
KATHMANDU (AFP) - A mob burned alive a 40-year-old woman on Friday after accusing her of casting black magic spells in a remote village in southern Nepal, police said.
Dengani Mahato died after she was severely beaten, doused in kerosene and set alight for allegedly practising witchcraft, Gopal Bhandari, a superintendent of police in Chitwan district, told AFP.
'Nine people started to beat her after a local shaman pointed the finger at her over the death of a boy a year ago,' the officer said.
'They accused her of having hands in the death of the boy, who had drowned in a river.'
Iran uses warships "to show might"
ReplyDeleteTEHRAN: Iranian warships entered the Mediterranean Sea after crossing the Suez Canal on Saturday to show Tehran's "might" to regional countries, the navy commander said, amid simmering tensions with Israel.
"The strategic navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has passed through the Suez Canal for the second time since the (1979) Islamic Revolution," Admiral Habibollah Sayari said in remarks quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
He did not say how many vessels had crossed the canal, or what missions they were planning to carry out in the Mediterranean, but said the flotilla had previously docked in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.
Two Iranian ships, the destroyer Shahid Qandi and supply vessel Kharg, had docked in the Red Sea port on February 4, according to Iranian media.
Sayari said the naval deployment to the Mediterranean would show "the might" of the Islamic republic to regional countries, and also convey Tehran's "message of peace and friendship."
The announcement comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and Israel, fuelled by the longstanding dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme and rising speculation that Israel might launch pre-emptive strikes against Iranian facilities.
Israeli officials are also accusing Tehran of orchestrating anti-Israeli bombings in India and Georgia as well as blasts in Thailand. Iran denies the allegations.
The first Iranian presence in the Mediterranean in February 2011 provoked strong reactions from Israel and the United States, with the Jewish state putting its navy on alert.
During the 2011 deployment, two Iranian vessels, a destroyer and a supply ship, sailed past the coast of Israel and docked at the Syrian port of Latakia before returning to Iran via the Red Sea.
Israeli leaders denounced the move as a "provocation" and a "powerplay."
Iran's navy has been boosting its presence in international waters in the past two years, deploying vessels to the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden on missions to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates.
And Iran sent submarines to the Red Sea last June to "collect data," its first such mission in distant waters, while its naval commanders say they plan on deploying ships close to US territorial waters in the future.
Iranian naval forces are composed of small units, including speedboats equipped with missiles, which operate in the Gulf and are under the command of the Revolutionary Guards.
The navy, using small frigates, destroyers, and three Russian-made Kilo class submarines, oversees high seas missions in the Gulf of Oman and Gulf of Aden.
It now permanently has at least two vessels in those areas to escort merchant ships, and has been involved in more than 100 confrontations with armed pirates, according to the navy commander in December.
- AFP/wk
In what appears to be the ultimate act of selfishness, a woman swiftly dumped her boyfriend after learning he had been diagnosed with cancer. The even more twisted part of the story, however, is that she still wants the Super Bowl tickets he bought for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteJason Elia, a Television writer currently living in Nashville, Tenn., appeared on ESPN 97.5 in Houston to discuss his story.
Apparently, Elia had bought the tickets for him and his girlfriend. He planned on proposing to his then-girlfriend, and traveling to Indianapolis with her for the big game on Feb. 5. However, after telling her that he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer, she promptly dumped him.
Though Elia's ex-girlfriend believes she should still have access to the tickets because he purchased them with her in mind, Elia is entertaining no such ideas. Instead, he is auctioning off the tickets on Twitter. He will be giving the tickets to the person who gets him the most followers by the end of the Pro Bowl.
Josef Fritzl Case: Father who raped, murdered his daughter.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Guardian, "Austrian pensioner imprisoned his daughter in a cellar and fathered seven children with her has been charged with the murder of one of them who died shortly after birth...
Josef Fritzl, 73, has also been charged with rape, deprivation of liberty, coercion, enslavement and incest..."
Josef Fritzl raped his daughter more than 3000 times and confined her in a basement. Can you imagine a father raping and destroying his own flesh and blood? Where's human's capacity to love? There were at times, Josef Fritzl refused to give food to his daughter and the children she gave birth to, leaving them starving. Furthermore, his daughter, Elisabeth was being "imprisoned" in a small capacity with the children she gave birth to. Sadly, his daughter never had any glimpse of the outside world, didn't had friends, did not know what a smile was, all she had was abuse by her father. Her dignity lost.
Josef Fritzl even said that he was "born to rape".