KARZAI FINDS WILLING DONORS IN TOKYO CONFERENCE, AS MORE WOMEN ARE SLAUGHTERED.

July 7, 2012

Representatives of a number of affluent nations, including the US, are meeting in Japan in order to discuss aid to Afghanistan. It is likely that tomorrow will see the the war-torn nation receive pledges of $4 billion dollars over the next few years, despite concerns over corruption.

Corruption aside, what about the countless women that are being abused in the name of Allah? Schools that dare offer education to girls, for instance, are under constant threat, while women are being publicly executed for adultery, to the cheers of murderous peasants, oblivious to the sacredness of life and the fact that it "takes two to tango".

Bamiyan:the smaller of the two sculptures, before its destruction

The ruins of the gigantic and magnificent 6th century Buddhas of Bamiyan, blown up on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in 2001 for being too pagan, are scars on the nation's administration, as is the blood of all these innocent victims of bigotry.

Bamiyan: the larger of the two Buddhas, while it was still standing

As long as President Hamid Karzai panders to these bigots, there will be no hope for Afghanistan.

Even more guilty are the religious leaders from every denomination who are always so reluctant to condemn violence. They must assert that religion is in no way compatible with the desecration of life and make it clear that using the name of any god as the pretext for murder is the greatest blasphemy imaginable.

GUARDED HOPE IN LIBYA AND EAST TIMOR

This weekend the people of Libya and East Timor will be going to the polls. They have a few things in common, but mostly hope and fear.

The half-island nation of East Timor has had a troubled history. It freed itself from Portuguese rule in 1975, only to be occupied by Indonesia soon after. The subsequent struggle cost the lives of approximately 200,000 people, over half due to direct conflict and the rest through malnutrition. The 1999 UN sponsored referendum, which resulted in a clear vote for independence, was followed by such vicious reprisals by militias backed by Indonesia, that first Australia and then the UN had to intervene. The situation was so volatile, that the UN stayed and administered the nation for three years.

Independence was formally declared on May 20, 2002 with Xanana Gusmão sworn in as the country's first President. The dire economic situation, however, led to further outbreaks of violence and further interventions from Australia and the UN. 1,200 UN police officers are still stationed there and are expected to leave as long as the situation does not deteriorate after the election.

The two main parties are the left-wing Fretilin Party who are running on a social platform and the centre left National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) which is currently in power, with Xanana Gusmão as Prime Minister.

East Timor could be rich thanks to its off-shore oil deposits and the only thing that is keeping prosperity at bay is greed, corruption and ineptitude.

Libya's story is similar. After an interim period following Italy's colonial rule, which saw France and Britain administer the nation from 1943 to 1951, Libya was formally declared an independent monarchy under King Idris. This former freedom fighter and grandson of Ali as-Senussi, the founder of the Senussi Muslim sufi order, was then overthrown by Muammar Gaddafi's 1969 coup. He in turn was ousted and killed in October 2011 by events following the "Arab Spring". We then had a transitional government, more internecine fighting and now an election. And we must not forget the oil.

Sabratha, Roman Theatre Libya

When Sartre said: "l'enfer c'est les autres" he had a point, but the inverse is also true. Whoever these new leaders may be, let them bring the prosperity that is within both nations' reach.

MALTESE WATERS AWASH WITH MIGRANTS

July 5, 2012

Coast guards have rescued 84 Somali "boat people" today as their dingy started to take in water. The patrol boat had been shadowing the overcrowded vessel and intervened once it became evident that the dingy had started to take in water. Only yesterday, another boat had been approached and three women and a baby were rescued, while the remaining 40 refugees chose to continue their perilous journey to Sicily. Last year alone, a total of 2,000 people are said to have drowned in the Mediterranean. Who knows how many others died without a trace!

The boat that picked up today's refugees

And the lucky ones? They probably wish they had drowned too.

Refugees, including children, are put into detention centres (prisons, really) and left to languish there for months on end. Children are abused and many people die within European borders. Is this civilisation?

Of course the problem is a difficult one. There are approximately 15,000,000 recognised refugees and a total on 42,500,000 internally displaced people in the world. In Europe the number of refugees rose by 15%, although in southern Europe the increase is closer to 90%!

Some would say: "If Europe were too welcoming, it too would sink! So what is the solution?

The very least would be to abide by the law. Malta has a decent enough Asylum Policy and yet people are detained there for up to a year. The situation in Cyprus, which has just taken over the European presidency, is even worse.

So could the Common Asylum System being worked on by the EU work?

It may not be looking very likely, but it has to. After that policymakers should start thinking creatively on how to give these people a decent chance. It would possibly be cheaper to buy a whole chunk of Somalia or Afghanistan, than pay for these people to be kept in these detention centres they loath. Why not create regenerative projects within these countries that would discourage them from making the journey in the first place? Where possible, work with national government.

Whatever you do, please don't let them drown in the Med's terrifying depths, or the murky depths of Europe's bureaucracy.


"Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them —

Ding-dong, bell."

THE DISCOVERY OF THE HIGGS BOSON HAILED AS ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS IN HISTORY

4th July 2012

I cried when I watched Peter Higgs on television this afternoon, standing there, just as the head of the CERN laboratory confirmed, with 99.999% certainty, that the Higgs Boson had been discovered. “I would have never thought it possible in my lifetime,” explained the 83-year-old physicist.

Location of the Large Hadron Collider which straddles Switzerland and France

The subatomic particle had been predicted by Higgs and other colleagues in the 1960s and it is considered crucial to the explanation of mass in the universe, in line with the Standard Model. This generally accepted model, which defines matter, needed this missing link for its cohesion. The discovery depended on the Large Hadron Collider, a circular 27 kilometre underground tube, built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva. By using this particle accelerator to smash two protons together at velocities close to the speed of light, scientists are supposed to create conditions comparable to the immediate aftermath of the big bang, where particles would have been more independent. The particle discovered has the mass of about 130 protons.

The particle had been nicknamed "the God Particle" because of its role in giving substance to everything that exists. Of course the particle represents quantity, rather than quality which would certainly have been closer to any definition of God. Nevertheless, this fairy-dust, does possess a certain magic, being so close to the unfolding of reality as we know it. I look forward to buying some as soon as it is available in the shops.

TOM CRUISE CELEBRATES 50 TODAY WITH THE NEWS THAT HE IS THE HIGHEST PAID ACTOR IN HOLLYWOOD

3rd July 2012

And let's face it: he looks great. Shame about the divorce announcement, could she not have at least waited until his birthday was over? "When you gotta go, you gotta go" and that goes for divorce too, or at least separation, but perhaps they have already been through that bit. Anyway, there you have it: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are divorcing after five years of marriage and Katie wants sole custody of their six-year-old girl: Suri.

So much to gossip about and yet all the papers seem to be obsessed with is Tom Cruise's religion. Even Rupert Murdoch Tweeted that followers of Scientology were "creepy" and maybe even "evil". Was that the Rupert Murdoch? Oh well, he ought to consider it.

Surely Scientology is not that much stranger than any other religion? Look at the Abrahamic faiths: they believe in some pretty heavy stuff. Religions speak to us in many ways, and often they use symbolism and allegory, a bit like modern art. If it can speak to our souls in ways that make us better human beings, let it. At the end of the day, as Jesus said: "A tree will be judged by its fruits." Scientology has a long way to go before it get even close to the atrocities inflicted in the names of so many other religions.

GLAXOSMITHKLINE PRESCRIBES ITSELF A HEADACHE
2nd July 2012

A US court has fined the giant pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)a record $3bn for a string of offences, including bribery and falsifying information. The case focused on three drugs: Paxil, Wellbutrin (Bupropion) and Avandia. The former two, which are antidepressants, were being promoted inappropriately to adolescents and even children, while at the same time doctors were being offered hefty bribes in order to carry out the practice. GSK admitted the charges and also conceded having misinformed the public with regards to the drug Avandia, which is used to ease diabetes.

Perhaps she should not have taken those drugs!
GSK, which is a constituent of the FTSE Index and one of the top earning companies on the London Stock Exchange, is not new to court cases. In 2007, for instance, it was charged for falsely depicting its blackcurrant drink brand, Ribena, as being rich in vitamin C, only to be exposed by a couple of teenage girls working on a school project in New Zealand. It emerged that, once diluted, Ribena had no discernible vitamin C at all.

The company is also at the centre of a controversy regarding animal welfare, because it uses the Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) animal-testing organisation, whose practices are challenged by animal rights organisations, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) who had secretly filmed their mistreatment of animals in the late 1990s. Of course it has not all been bad: GSK has not only been at the cutting edge of research into finding ways of curing various diseases, it has also worked strategically to eradicate some of them, in particular the parasitic disease lymphatic filariasis. As well as this, GSK has a glowing reputation with regards to equality and diversity. So is it just another Jekyll and Hyde company, or are there opposing forces, pulling in different directions? If it is the latter, then this court case should offer a welcome opportunity for GSK to clean up its act. if the former: then let it be a wake up call.

SHAMIR DIES LEAVING ISRAEL NO NEARER TO PEACE

1st July 2012

Yitzhak Shamir, who was the Israeli Prime minister from 1983 to 1984 and from 1986 to 1992, has died today, aged 96. Shamir was Polish by birth and had moved to Palestine in 1935. His tenure was marked by a Palestinian uprising and the 1991 Gulf War. He had a deep distrust of his Arab neighbours who he maintained “will always dream to destroy” Israel and he resisted any concessions to the Palestinians. 1n 1998 he resigned from the Likud Party to pursue his right wing inclinations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to Shamir and praised his deep loyalty to the nation.

Pearly gates

Shamir’s brand of intransigence may be more dependent on the Israeli-Palestinian issue than his character. Apart from the historical problem concerning the dispossession of the Palestinians, a Jewish State would automatically exclude the possibility of democracy, because the likelihood is that Arabs will, in the not too distant future, outnumber the Jews. That is why successive Israeli governments have insisted on the Palestinians accepting the existence of Israel as a Jewish State and why the Arabs continue to refuse to do so. Even if the 1948 Palestinian refugees were never allowed to return, the higher birth rates of Palestinians would soon put a Jewish State, that depended on a demographic advantage, in jeopardy. Yasir Arafat understood this when he declared that the “Palestinian womb” was their best weapon and when, prior to the Oslo accords in 1993, he recognised the State of Israel’s right “to exist in peace and security”, without mentioning "a Jewish State for a Jewish people".

Not so pearly gates

It is too late to undo the history, so are we left with two nations (even though one of them is not generally recognised as such) fighting for their political and material survival and both thinking that time is on their side. With such stakes and perceptions it would be difficult to imagine a solution soon. Not until ethnicity is put to the service of humanity and religion to spirituality.

Shamir was a man of his time. Let us move on now to more creative ones.