Sudan Protects Women from Alien Influences
This is from today’s Daily Star
South Sudan arrests 20 women for wearing pants, short skirts
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
JUBA, Sudan: A Southern Sudan Cabinet minister said on Tuesday that more than 20 women were arrested and beaten for allegedly dressing inappropriately under a new edict against “bad behavior.” “Between 20 and 30 girls were picked up from different points, hurled into police lorries, arrested and taken to the police station and some of them were beaten,” said Mary Kiden Kimbo, the gender, social welfare and religious affairs minister in the semi-autonomous southern government.
“This is absolutely not acceptable: it is not the job of police to judge what is and what is not a correct way to dress in such a manner of blanket punishment,” she said.
The police crackdown on young women wearing trousers or short skirts follows an order from the commissioner of Juba county, the capital of Southern Sudan. Most of the women, said to be in their late teens and 20s, were rounded up as they left Catholic mass in Juba on Sunday, Kimbo said.
Others were picked up in market places.
The order bans “all bad behaviors, activities and imported illicit cultures,” according to a copy seen by AFP, signed by Juba’s commissioner, Albert Pitia Redantore.
Inappropriate behavior may include wearing tight trousers, short skirts or skimpy tops considered “Western” attire.
The order, dated October 2, said that it aimed to “preserve the cultural values, dignity and achievements of the people of southern Sudan, checking out the intrusion of foreign cultures into our societies, for the sake of bringing up [a] good generation.” Those deemed in contravention of the order are liable to three months imprisonment. Those convicted for a second time face another three-month sentence and a fine of 600 Sudanese pounds ($300).
Traditional values are important in largely Christian and animist Southern Sudan, which is recovering from decades of war against the mainly Muslim north. It was the imposition of Sharia law by the north that helped spark the southern rebellion, which was rooted in complaints of marginalization.
“This kind of thing looks like the old days of Sharia law, and it is dangerous because creating such a situation can encourage mob justice,” Kimbo told AFP.
The minister said that the principle of gender equality was enshrined in Southern Sudan and added that she was investigating the matter. – AFP
Running Red Lights (3)
I first blogged about this on April 14 and then again in July. I was on this road again yesterday, and oh look – nothing has changed, except the one remaining red light has become even dimmer in the 6 months. I have seen other lights changed – and cleaned (part of the problem here is the humidity and the sand gumming up the lights) but c’mon, this should be a part of nightly traffic maintenance! This is a disaster waiting to happen at a busy intersection:
Can you even see the red light? You have to know it is there, I think. It is the top right light. Now – can you see it?
Traffic department: These lights are at the intersection of the southern Gulf Road/ 7th Ring Road/ 209 and Highway 30. Please, clean up these lights and put in fresh bulbs!
Blog Action Day – October 15th
Last year, Kuwait bloggers were amazing in their support of Blog Action Day, which is October 15th. This year the theme is POVERTY. This is just a reminder, we still have time to think about our blog action day articles. Please go to their website (click on the blue type above) and sign up, indicating you will participate. So far, over 4,500 bloggers worldwide have committed to participate this year.
This is reprinted from their Blog Action Day 2008 page:
How to Make Blog Action Day 2008 Unforgettable
September 23rd, 2008 by Easton Ellsworth
1. Ponder.
Think about poverty.
Ponder the plight of the worldβs poor and your place in the grand scheme of things.
Consider the things you have that others have not.
Let the numbers appall you. Let the images disturb your sleep. Let the complexities of the causes and solutions vex you.
Let the depth and emotion of this sensitive subject rock you to your core.
2. Believe.
Do you really think that you can make a difference in the global conversation this October 15 just by blogging about poverty and doing something about it?
We believe you can.
Do you?
3. Dream.
There is no such thing as a lack of opportunity – only a lack of vision.
This is not a pointless exercise. This is a chance to grab the world by the ears for one day.
You have the power to rally hundreds of people around you in your family, friends and community to do something on October 15 that calls attention to the issue of poverty.
There is no limit to what you can do – unless you think there is.
So dream up a brave, original way to make the world a little richer, even if only in knowledge, through your participation in Blog Action Day 2008.
4. Act.
Make Blog Action Day not just a day of blogging, but also a day of action.
Our worldwide impact will be great if we all talk about this issue, but far greater if we do something about it and talk about what we are doing.
5. Share.
Let the world know your true thoughts and opinions about poverty on October 15.
Use your blog, your social media accounts, and any other means you can to spread your ideas.
Join with other Blog Action Day participants to generate a collective noise far louder than any you could could muster on your own.
6. Change.
Decide to care a little more about poverty from now on. When it comes up in conversation, take it seriously. Changing the conversation is the first step toward changing the people in it.
Please join us in making Blog Action Day 2008 an unforgettable experience for thousands – maybe millions – of people across the world.
Your Turn
What other ideas do you have? How can Blog Action Day 2008 actually make a real difference to the world of tomorrow?
photo by Franco Folini
Kuwait Blocks YouTube?????
Kuwait blocks Youtube
Published Date: September 22, 2008
By Jamie Etheridge
KUWAIT: The Ministry of Communication has issued a memo to all internet service providers in Kuwait asking them to block YouTube access. The popular video website came under fire from the ministry due to content considered offensive to Muslims, a source within the industry told Kuwait Times. The Ministry pointed to content including a video of a man signing verses from the Holy Quran while playing the oud and another video showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
A Fasttelco source confirmed receipt of the memo. “It’s supposed to be blocked right now. But due to technical preparations the blocking may take until tomorrow [Monday],” said the source. The site was still accessible yesterday evening. The Ministry of Communication regularly issues memos to ISPs asking them to block certain websites, including those containing pornographic photos or ones like Skype that can be used to make international phone calls over the Internet.
YouTube is widely used in Kuwait. A search of the word ‘Kuwait’ turned up 59,000 videos, including everything from videos of car crashes on Fahaheel Expressway and Jessica Simpson’s concert for US troops in Kuwait to protests in front of Abdullah Al-Salem hall in the run up to the 2006 parliamentary elections.
You can read the entire article at Kuwait Times.
Peter Bowen and Nails
Three men trundle a naked woman through the desert to a remote place, where she was placed in a container, 6 x 6 x 6 with only a candle, a cot, water and a holy book, until she could come to her senses and behave.
Four girls were strangled, one each day, for refusing the sexual advances of their father and his brother. The two youngest girls, their older sisters dead, complied.
Women with inconvenient views, women who start having thoughts of their own disappear. Many in this tribe are home-birthed and home-schooled, so there aren’t records of their existence, and when they disappear, no-one is the wiser.
Saudi Arabia, you ask? Pakistan? Afghanistan? Where on earth are women treated this vilely?
Peter Bowen, in Nails, gives vent to his frustration of minor fundamentalist Christian cults roaming the American West, many of them ending up in Montana where they believe they will have the privacy to practice their beliefs without interference, and where those who are well-funded can influence poverty-stricken school districts to toss out Science classes and incorporate Intelligent Design. Bowen has utter contempt for their studied ignorance, their need to be the sole authority on what the scriptures say, and their insistence on the utter submission of women.
His worst scorn is for their treatment of women – he attributes it to their fears about their own sexuality. Women are often the victims, Bowen states, when men worry about their size, worry about how to keep women faithful, tractable, and docile. (And let’s face it, who can successfully control a woman? π )
This is the latest Gabriel du Pre novel, or at least the latest I have read. Gabriel du Pre is a retired brand inspector (he goes back every now and then when needed, when the brand inspector is overstretched, insuring that the cows sold are from the herds they are being sold from), Metis (French and Indian mix), a renowned fiddler, and a deputy sheriff when the sheriff – or the FBI – needs help solving a particularly tricky murder. It takes a while to get your ear used to his dialect, and he spends a lot of time in bars, but the man has a real knack for figuring things out.
Gabriel du Pre is everything a straight-living woman like myself shouldn’t like. He drinks, morning to night, keeps his flask of whisky under the driver’s seat in his car. He drives way over the speed limit. He doesn’t go to church, he goes to an ancient Indian spiritualist / medicine man when he needs guidance. He isn’t married to the wry, very smart woman with whom he lives. He breaks the rules, he goes outside the boundaries.
For all his flaws, du Pre has a deep down, rock solid core of decency, and a way of looking at life and situations that is practical and . . . forgiving. He is charitable toward his brothers and sisters. He detests cruelty, especially when the strong take advantage of the weak or the arrogant walk all over the humble. There is something about this flawed hero that keeps the reader coming back for more.
His Gabriel du Pre novels are not heavy reading. You can toss one off in about half a day, but they are not so simple as they appear. You find yourself thinking about the issues he raises, and you find yourself looking to see when the next Gabriel du Pre mystery will appear.
You can find this on Amazon.com for $16. new or from $3.07 used, plus shipping of course. (Yes, I own stock in Amazon.com.) π
Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children
I received this e-mail this morning:
Hi there,
My organization, International Medical Corps, has the ability to save the lives
of malnourished children around the world and we just received some very
exciting news. We have been nominated to be one of the Top 25 in American
Express’ Projects, “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.” Our project was
chosen out of 1,190 projects and is now eligible to receive up to $1.5 million
to help feed hungry children. Because your blog, here there and Everywhere, has
a loyal following, I thought this would be an issue you would want to share with
your readers. I’ve put together this microsite explaining everything.
http://internationalmedicalcorps.smnr.us/
If you could post about this on your blog it would really help to spread the
message and potentially could save many lives. At the minimum, please vote for
“Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.” Please let me know either way.
Thanks.
Chessia
—
Chessia Kelley, International Medical Corps
ckelley@imcworldwide.org
http://imcworldwide.org
I googled the organization and it is legitimate. Here is what Wikipedia has to say:
International Medical Corps (known also as IMC) is a global humanitarian nonprofit organization established by volunteer doctors and nurses. The organization provides disaster relief, delivers health care to underserved regions, builds clinics, and trains local health care workers with the goal of creating self-reliant, self-sustaining medical services and infrastructure in places where that had previously been lacking.
IMC’s focuses include primary and secondary health care, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases such as malaria, cholera, dysentery, and HIV/AIDS, supplemental food for malnourished children, clean water and hygiene education, mental health and psychosocial care, and microfinance programs that allow people to earn their own income.
International Medical Corps is a founding member of the ONE Campaign and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.
Sharks and Underwear
Two things happened yesterday that caught my attention – and I wonder if everyone knows about these things except for me, or if others are also caught by surprise.
First, on the way to go shopping, my good friend told me that shark is no longer available in the fish souks. We don’t eat a lot of shark, but we often buy it to fill in a good bouillabaisse (if you are superstitious and believe there must be seven different fish in your bouillabaisse) or to cook up to feed the feral cats in the neighborhood. Even the heads make a big hit with the local cats. π
“No, a recent religious decision says that shark is ‘haram’, ” she said, as I gaped in disbelief. “Their skin has no scales.”
“But the Kuwaitis eat shrimp!” I responded, “and shrimp are also haram according to some Muslims. Who is going to tell Kuwaitis not to eat shrimp?”
“I don’t make the rules,” she responded. “I am just letting you know. The fishman said that because sharks have no scales and something about the male sexual organ, I don’t know, but now they can’t sell shark anymore.”
She paused, thoughtfully.
“What will the poor people do?” she asked. “Most of the people who buy shark can’t afford anything better.”
Later, our marketing accomplished, our goods safely in cupboards and refrigerators, I read the news. This is from yesterday’s Kuwait Times:
Shops Banned from Displaying Lingerie
Kuwait: The Minister of Commerce and Trade and Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs Ahmad Baqer last week issued decision No. 430/2008 which bans any display of women’s underwear in shop windows or at the front of shops.
It is permissible, however, to display such garments inside outlets.
The decision also banned any unclothed display of mannequins used for modeling underwear in order to protect the moral well being of passersby, with legal penalties to be taken against shops which violate the new regulations.
I’m sorry if this offends you, but it just made me laugh. Even Saudi Arabia, the most traditional of the traditional, allows underwear to be displayed. Even Qatar, more conservative than Kuwait, allows underwear to be displayed. Some of my very favorite images are those of abaya’d, veiled, ladies looking at a particularly luscious set of fabulous under-garments.
Changes are occurring in Kuwait, small changes, incremental changes, and little by little, as they aggregate, the face of Kuwait is changing.
Building 7 Collapse Solved, No Mystery
Feds Say They’ve Solved 9/11 Mystery
By DEVLIN BARRETT, AP
GAITHERSBURG, Md. (Aug. 21) – Federal investigators said Thursday they have solved a mystery of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: the collapse of World Trade Center building 7, a source of long-running conspiracy theories.
The 47-story trapezoid-shaped building sat north of the World Trade Center towers, across Vesey Street in lower Manhattan. On Sept. 11, it was set on fire by falling debris from the burning towers, but skeptics have long argued that fire and debris alone should not have brought down such a big steel-and-concrete structure.
Federal investigators said Thursday they have resolved a lingering question from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks: What caused World Trade Center 7 to collapse? They determined the building, which sat north of the World Trade Center towers, was brought down by fire started by debris from the twin towers.
Scientists with the National Institute of Standards and Technology say their three-year investigation of the collapse determined the demise of WTC 7 was actually the first time in the world a fire caused the total failure of a skyscraper.
“The reason for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 is no longer a mystery,” said Dr. Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator on the NIST team.
Investigators also concluded that the collapse of the nearby towers broke the city water main, leaving the sprinkler system in the bottom half of the building without water.
The building has been the subject of a wide range of conspiracy theories for the last seven years, partly because the collapse occurred about seven hours after the twin towers came down. That fueled suspicion that someone intentionally blew up the building in a controlled demolition.
Critics like Mike Berger of the group 9/11 Truth said he wasn’t buying the government’s explanation.
“Their explanation simply isn’t sufficient. We’re being lied to,” he said, arguing that there is other evidence suggesting explosives were used on the building.
Sunder said his team investigated the possibility that an explosion inside the building brought it down, but found there was no large boom or other noise that would have occurred with such a detonation. Investigators also created a giant computer model of the collapse, based partly on news footage from CBS News, that they say shows internal column failure brought down the building.
Investigators also ruled out the possibility that the collapse was caused by fires from a substantial amount of diesel fuel that was stored in the building, most of it for generators for the city’s emergency operations command center.
The 77-page report concluded that the fatal blow to the building came when the 13th floor collapsed, weakening a critical steel support column that led to catastrophic failure.
“When this critical column buckled due to lack of floor supports, it was the first domino in the chain,” said Sunder.
The NIST investigators issued more than a dozen building recommendations as a result of their inquiry, most of which repeat earlier recommendations from their investigation into the collapse of the two large towers.
In both instances, investigators concluded that extreme heat caused some steel beams to lose strength, causing further failures throughout the buildings until the entire structure succumbed.
The recommendations include building skyscrapers with stronger connections and framing systems to resist the effects of thermal expansion, and structural systems designed to prevent damage to one part of a building from spreading to other parts.
A spokeswoman for the leaseholder of the World Trade Center, developer Larry Silverstein, praised the government’s work.
“Hopefully this thorough report puts to rest the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, which dishonor the men and women who lost their lives on that terrible day,” said Silverstein spokeswoman Dara McQuillen.
In discussing the findings, the investigator Sunder acknowledged that some may still not be convinced, but insisted the science behind their findings is “incredibly conclusive.”
“The public should really recognize the science is really behind what we have said,” he said, adding: “The obvious stares you in the face.”
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
Safat Down?
I was just checking the Kuwait Blogs and I got a message that Safat is corrupted. Is anyone else getting the same view?
We take their service for granted, don’t we, these guys who volunteer their own time to keep Safat running. We are so lucky to have an aggregator in Kuwait so comprehensive and reliable.
Superlative Day: Gone Fishing
I’ve had some great and memorable days in my life, and this is one of them. My good friend said “Hey, you want to go fishing Friday?” and I said “Yes!” I had to go get a one-day fishing license, and I could add crab for a mere 50 cents, so I did.
We met up at 6:30 a.m. and were on the water by 7 a.m. on one of the hottest day’s in Seattle’s summer. As we left the marina, we passed an Eagle. (We thought of you, AdventureMan!)
AdventureMan must have heard us talking about him, because as the sun rises, he calls from Kuwait, eating Felafel sandwiches and ice cream as we watch the sun rise:
And set the crab traps – this is what an empty crab trap looks like. We put turkey legs and old fish heads in the bait box to attract the crabs:
It is a gorgeous morning. As my friends dig out the fishing polls, I admire the mountains and the sparkles on the waters of Puget Sound:
My friend has baited my hook and hands the rod to me. I lower the weight to the bottom, pull it up just a little and – an immediate nibble:
He’s a good size and he’s a keeper. My friend grabs my camera to take my photo with my first fish of the day, I hold the fish up – and just as she is snapping the shot, the fish does a little flip right off the hook and back into the water!
It doesn’t matter – the fish are biting and we are hauling them in. Some are too small; we take them off the hooks and throw them back, telling them to have a good life, grow big and we will see them again, we hope!
After about an hour of superlative fishing, we go back to check the crab pots. They are HEAVY with crab!
You can’t keep any female crab, or any male under a certain size, so any crab you think you might want to keep, you have to measure. You get a HUGE fine if you are caught with undersize crab. As we bring in the crab and the fish, my friend notes them down on our licence records, which have to be sent in to the state at the end of the season, listing fish we have caught, crab we have caught, and how many we threw back.
We catch a couple rock crab – those you don’t have to measure, and you can keep. Most of what we catch is the sweet and delectable Dungeness Crab – my very favorite after Alaska King Crab.
We had just decided to quit for the day – it was getting really, really HOT for Seattle, like 90Β°F/33Β°C (and there is an advisory for hot weather, and air stagnation) and we have nearly our limit for crab, and a respectable amount of fish, and we are happy, happy fisherpeople! Just as I am about to raise my line, I get a big bite, and catch the last fish!
Here is our bucket, full of fish. The cooler is full of crab. What a great day to be alive.
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