Share & Thoughts

INDONESIAN GKI YASMIN CHURCH SERVICES DISRUPTED AGAIN BY RADICAL ISLAM

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

A crowd of Muslim hard-liners disrupted about 100 members of the GKI Yasmin congregation as they held divine services at a member's home in Bogor, West Java on Sunday.

"We were conducting our worship at one member's home before people from Forkami and Garis came to our place," GKI Yasmin spokeswoman Dwiati Novita Rini told The Jakarta Post over the telephone on Sunday.

Dwiati said she did not know why the groups - the Islamic Reform Movement (Garis) and the Muslim Communications Forum (Forkami) - were protesting.

The congregation resisted efforts by about 50 Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) officers to stop their service, Dwiati said.

"The Satpol PP came around 9 a.m. and were trying to stop our activity because they didn't want any clashes to happen. [House of Representatives member] Lily Wahid was negotiating with one of the Satpol PP officers and the congregation could continue worship," she said.

The congregation completed their service peacefully around 10 a.m. and the demonstrators from Forkami and Garis left the congregation member's home around 11 a.m, Dwiati added.

The Bogor City administration, citing permit application problems, has barred the congregation from from conducting religious services for more than two years, defying a 2010 Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing the congregation's right to hold services at its church building.

JAKPOST

CHRISTIANS WARNED BY ISLAMIST MILITANTS IN NIGERIA TO LEAVE NORTH WITHIN 3 DAYS

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:38:00 +0000

BOKO HARAM MEMBERS

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has issued an ultimatum giving Christians living in northern Nigeria three days to leave the area amid a rising tide of violence there.

CNN reports that Boko Haram spokesman, Abul Qaqa, also said late Sunday that Boko Haram fighters are ready to confront soldiers sent to the area under a state of emergency declared in parts of four states by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday.

“We will confront them squarely to protect our brothers,” Abul Qaqa said during a telephone call with local media. He also called on Muslims living in southern Nigeria to “come back to the north because we have evidence they will be attacked.”

CNN said that recent weeks have seen an escalation in clashes between Boko Haram and security forces in the north-eastern states of Borno and Yobe, as well as attacks on churches and assassinations. Nearly 30 people were killed on Christmas Day at a Catholic church near the federal capital, Abuja — a sign that Boko Haram is prepared to strike beyond its heartland.

Human rights activist Shehu Sani told CNN that the latest Boko Haram threat is credible, but many Christians born and raised in the north have nowhere else to go.

“The killings will continue,” he said, and Boko Haram may respond to the state of emergency by taking its campaign of violence to areas not yet affected.

Sani said the state of emergency and an enhanced presence of the security forces would not improve the situation, alleging that troops had already been involved in human rights abuses and had done little to reduce violence.

CNN explained that Nigeria has almost equal numbers of Christian and Muslims, with the south predominantly Christian. Boko Haram and other Islamic groups claim the north has been starved of resources and marginalized by the government of Jonathan, who is a Christian.

Boko Haram (which according to the group means “Western civilization is forbidden”) is demanding the imposition of Islamic sharia law across Nigeria.

CNN goes on to say that Christian leaders have demanded a stronger response to the attacks from the government and the Muslim community. Ayo Oritsejafor, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria, complained last week that the response of Islamic leaders had been “unacceptable and an abdication of their responsibilities.”

“The Christian community is fast losing confidence in government’s ability to protect our rights,” Oritsejafor said.

David Cook of Rice University, who has studied the rise of Boko Haram, said that “if radical Muslim violence on a systematic level were to take hold in Nigeria … it could eventually drive the country into a civil war.”

CNN said corruption, poverty and a lack of government services have helped Boko Haram gain support, especially among young Muslims out of work. So has a perception that the Muslim north has been marginalized by a political establishment drawn largely from the Christian south.

Cook says the group has been responsible for at least 45 major attacks, which have included assassinations — frequently using gunmen on motorbikes — and, more recently, suicide bombings beyond its northern heartland.

Beyond the security forces and Christian targets, it has assassinated Muslim clerics who oppose the group, and even killed a prominent Boko Haram member who had attended talks to explore a truce. Boko Haram’s presence in the city of Maiduguri has made it almost ungovernable, according to analysts.

Analysts say its ability to inflict mass casualties has grown fast. In August, a suicide bomber struck the U.N. building in Abuja, killing 23 people. In November, some 150 people were killed in a series of bombings and shootings in Damaturu, capital of Yobe state.

CNN also stated the commander of U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Carter Ham, has suggested Boko Haram may have developed links with other Islamic jihadist groups in the region, especially al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Sani agrees, and says Boko Haram’s leaders have established sanctuaries across the desert borders in Niger and Chad, out of reach of the Nigerian security forces.

CNN added that the former U.S. ambassador in Nigeria, John Campbell, says that Boko Haram is able to finance itself “through bank robberies and is arming itself by thefts from government armories and purchases — there is no shortage of weapons on the market.”

Less than two months ago, President Jonathan described attacks by Boko Haram as a temporary setback, which would soon be a thing of the past, CNN said.

CNN said Jonathan now appears to see the group as a lethal threat that demands the full attention of the security services. But since Yusuf’s death, Boko Haram has had no obvious leader or structure, and appears to act as loosely connected cells. And it is feeding on deep-seated grievances that the government seems unable to address.

According to CNN, Cook warns that “as more and more territories become ungovernable, such as Maiduguri, then Muslims more and more will want to join Boko Haram, if only because it represents the one group that can actually project power and hold out the illusion of security to the people.”

ASSIST News Service

ANTI-CHRISTIAN INCIDENTS NEARLY DOUBLED IN INDONESIA IN 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:19:00 +0000

SUNDAY WORSHIP AT STREET NEAR CHURCH BECAUSE CHURCH IS SEALED BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Acts of violence and intolerance against Christians in Indonesia almost doubled in 2011, with an Islamist campaign to close down churches symbolizing the plight of the religious minority.

The Indonesian Protestant Church Union, locally known as PGI, counted 54 acts of violence and other violations against Christians in 2011, up from 30 in 2010.

The number of such incidents against religious minorities in general also grew, from 198 in 2010 to 276 in 2011, but the worst is perhaps yet to come if authorities continue to overlook the threat of extremism, said a representative from the Jakarta-based Wahid Institute, a Muslim organization that promotes tolerance.

Rumadi, who goes by a single name, said his Wahid Institute also observed an attempt to institutionalize intolerance in this archipelago of about 238 million people, of whom about 88 percent Muslim. At least 36 regulations to ban religious practices deemed deviant from Islam were drafted or implemented in the country in 2011.

A Jakarta-based civil rights group, the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, noted that both the government and groups in society were responsible for the incidents, with the main violators including religious extremist organizations such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).

Indonesia’s hot-bed of extremism is West Java, the most populous province that includes the nation’s capital city of Jakarta. This province alone witnessed 160 incidents against religious minorities. In the 1950s, West Java was the base of an Islamist group, Darul Islam, whose splinter groups are still active, fighting the “secular” government and religious minorities.

Church Closures
Churches in West Java, which has about 520,000 Christians, also suffered the most last year. On Christmas Day, two churches in West Java’s Bogor city bore the brunt of growing extremism.

“Islamist vigilantes screamed and yelled at us and threatened us, as we sought to hold a Christmas service,” a leader of the Gereja Kristen Indonesia, also known as the GKI or the Yasmin Church, told Compass in an email.

“We could not hold Christmas service in our own church for a second year,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

The city administration, allegedly under pressure from local extremist groups, sealed off the half-constructed building of the church, situated in the Taman Yasmin housing complex on a street named H. Abdullah Bin Nuh, in 2010. Before Christmas that year, the Supreme Court ordered the city mayor, Diani Budiarto, to unseal the church building, and later an ombudsman also recommended the same, but the official refused to oblige. The church has held worship services on a sidewalk, with police cordoning off the compound, since April 2010.

On Dec. 25, church members insisted they wanted to celebrate Christmas in the building, which is legally theirs, but police prevented them from even going near the structure, the source said. The congregation met in a church member’s home.

Showing solidarity with the church were members of Ansor, youth wing of one of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU); interfaith activists, including the sister and youngest daughter of former president Abdurrahman Wahid; and members of the Asian Muslim Action Network. But they could do little to help.

“The police first allowed the vigilantes to stand next to us, and then moved them just about three meters away,” the church leader said. “The vigilantes issued threats to us, but the police did not arrest them.”

Having overseen the sealing of the Yasmin church, Muslim extremists are now targeting a 2,000-member Catholic church in Bogor city’s Parung area. The Santo Joannes Baptista (St. John the Baptist) church was able to hold its mass on Christmas Eve, followed by a Christmas Day service, although authorities had formally ordered the church to stop all activities.

The church building was constructed six years ago, but days before Christmas the head of Bogor district, Rachmat Yasin, issued the cessation order arguing that its construction violated planning rules due to its proximity to a residential area. Soon after the order, a group called the Muslim Community of Parung Bogor placed a banner near the church, stating that it was in support of Rachmat’s move to ban church activities, according to The Jakarta Globe.

“The site is not for a church, but it was a house turned into a house of worship. It is a violation,” Rachmat told the daily. “Moreover, they worship on a regular basis. It is a mistake.”

The head of the Indonesian Bishops Conference, Benny Susetyo, said there had been no conflict between the church and the people living in its vicinity for six years.

“The problem arose when a group of people started to disturb the calm in the region around the house of worship,” he told The Jakarta Globe.

Susetyo added that district authorities had repeatedly rejected demands made by the church for a permit, without giving any reason.

“This is despite us having clearly followed the procedure for the construction of houses of worship.”

Islamist groups have demanded a similar action against five other churches in Pracimantoro town in Central Java province, the source added. These churches – Pentecostal Church of Indonesia in the Ngalu Wetan area, Church of all Nations and Bethel Tabernacle Church in the Gebangharjo area, Javanese Christian Church in the Godang area, and Nazarene Christian Church in the Lebak area – have operational permits to hold church services. They had applied for building permits, but authorities never responded.

Central Java is also a hub of Islamist extremists. Last Sept. 25, a suicide bomber said to be an Islamist terrorist blew himself up at the gate of the Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (Bethel Full Gospel Church) in Solo city, injuring about 20 people.

Sealing of church buildings and the refusal to grant building permits top the list of major violations of Christians’ religious rights in Indonesia, according to the Setara Institute. A 2006 joint ministerial decree requires signatures from congregations and residents living nearby, as well as approval from the local administration, to build a house of worship.

Government Inaction
The Setara Institute criticized President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for inaction. The president urged people to be tolerant in at least 19 of his speeches in 2011, but he has not backed his words with action, it noted in a recent report.

Intolerance has steadily been increasing in Indonesia, whose constitution is based on the doctrine of Pancasila – five principles upholding the nation’s belief in the one and only God and social justice, humanity, unity and democracy for all.

The Setara report cited a February incident in which a mob of about 1,500 Muslim extremists brutally killed three members of the Ahmadiyya community, which is seen as heretical by mainstream Muslims, in the province of Banten near West Java.

“Cases of intolerance have intensified this year, numbering more than last year, and at the core of the problem is poor law enforcement by the government,” Setara deputy chairman Bonar Tigor Naipospos told The Jakarta Globe.

COMPASSDIRECT

Breaking News : 'US deploys troops in Israel for Iran war'

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:35:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

The US military is preparing a massive military campaign against Iran, sending thousands of American troops, warships and weaponry to Israel.

An unnamed source said the military deployment of US anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel will occur in January and later this spring, Global Research reported.

Commander of the US Third Air Force based in Germany Lt.-Gen Frank Gorenc said it is not just an "exercise," but a "deployment," The Jerusalem Post said.

Washington and Tel Aviv have planned to hold what they call the largest-ever joint military exercise this spring.

The US commander visited Israel two weeks ago to confirm details for “the deployment of several thousand American soldiers to Israel.”

The US General also visited one of Israel's three Iron Dome anti-missile outposts. The Israeli Air Force has announced plans to deploy a fourth Iron Dome system in coming months.

While US troops will be stationed in Israel for an unspecified amount of time, Israeli military personnel will be added to United States European Command (EUCOM) in Germany.

This is while the US is reportedly bringing its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and ship-based Aegis ballistic missile systems to Israel.

The White House has resumed its anti-Iran war rhetoric after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report in November, in which Tehran was accused of conducting activities related to developing nuclear weapons. Iran strongly dismissed the allegations.

US analyst Robert Parry said the documentary evidence showed that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano was installed with the support of the US and that he privately indicated to US and Israeli officials that he would help advance their goals regarding Iran.

In December, Iran's Navy launched massive 10-day military drills in the strategic Strait of Hormuz to show that the country is ready to defend itself against any attack.

"We wanted to send this message to certain powers that Iran is always prepared to defend itself against foreign aggression," Iran's Navy Deputy Commander Admiral Amir Rastegari told Press TV.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama on Saturday signed into law fresh economic sanctions, targeting Iran's Central Bank and financial sector.

Anti-Iran measures provoked by the US and Israel are aimed to deny Iran's right of having peaceful nuclear program.

Tehran, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, has repeatedly stated that its nuclear activities are solely for civilian purposes.

Presstv

CHURCH BOMBINGS ARE DECLARATION OF WAR, SAY NIGERIAN CHRISTIANS

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:19:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Head of Christian group criticises Muslim leaders and government for failing to intervene after series of deadly attacks

Christian leaders in Nigeria have accused Muslims of making a "declaration of war" after a series of fatal attacks, raising fears of sectarian conflict.

Islamist militants targeted churches in a series of explosions on Christmas Day, leaving more than 40 people dead and dozens wounded. On Tuesday a Christian couple and their one-year-old baby were shot dead.

Stirring tensions further, on the same day unknown attackers lobbed a crude homemade bomb into an Islamic school in Delta state, wounding seven people including six children in an Arabic class.

Nigeria is largely divided into a Muslim north and Christian south, although members of the two faiths live everywhere across the country, do business together and intermarry.

With the shadowy Islamist sect Boko Haram stepping up deadly attacks in recent months, Christian leaders have warned that they will take action to protect themselves.

At a meeting with the president, Goodluck Jonathan, on Wednesday, Ayo Oritsejafor, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella group for all denominations, said Christians had become victims of "Islamic jihad".

"It is considered as a declaration of war on Christians and Nigeria as an entity," Oritsejafor said. He did not want to encourage acts of revenge, he said, but "Christians should protect themselves … in any way they can".

Oritsejafor criticised Muslim leaders and the government for failing to intervene. "CAN has found the responses of … Islamic bodies on this matter to be unacceptable and an abdication of their responsibilities. The Christian community is fast losing confidence in the government's ability to protect our rights," he said.

"The consensus is that the Christian community nationwide will be left with no other option than to respond appropriately if there are any further attacks on our members, churches and property."

Jonathan, a Christian, promised to do more to combat the threat of Islamists and hinted at a reshuffle in his security services.

"We will restructure … and make sure we get a team that will meet with the challenge we are facing today," he said. "I will plead with religious leaders, both Muslim and Christian leaders, to work together."

On Tuesday, Nigeria's main Muslim cleric, the sultan of Sokoto, denounced the Christmas Day attacks and called for calm. "I want to assure all Nigerians that there is no conflict between Muslims and Christians, between Islam and Christianity," he said.

But tensions are running high in the nation's so-called middle belt, where north and south meet. On Tuesday night in a village near the city of Jos, in Plateau state, a Christian couple and their one-year-old child were murdered in an attack blamed on Muslim herdsmen.

Last week Boko Haram was involved in heavy gun battles with government forces in the north-eastern city of Damaturu. The clashes displaced 90,000 people and the entire district of Pompomari emptied as residents fled, an official said.

Boko Haram, dubbed the Nigerian Taliban, is seeking to implement strict sharia law across Nigeria. The group has caused bloodshed two Christmases in a row and is responsible for at least 504 killings this year alone, according to a count by the Associated Press.

Boko Haram claimed three bomb attacks on churches this Christmas, including one that killed 27 worshippers in a Catholic church near the capital, Abuja, and one in Jos. Abu Qaqa, a spokesman for the group, was quoted in the local press on Wednesday as saying the bombs were revenge for attacks in Jos by Christian youths on Muslims during an Islamic holiday in August.

In Jos, Reuters reported, local Muslims are wary of a possible Christian backlash. "We are just beginning to live in peace, so we hope our Christian brothers can help us keep that peace," said Mohammed Kabir, who like many Nigerian Muslims resents being associated with violent extremism. "Boko Haram is not all Islam."

Last year the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi proposed that Nigeria be divided into two countries to avoid religious conflict. The idea was dismissed with contempt at the time: all northern states have substantial Christian minorities and up to half of Nigeria's south-western Yoruba ethnic group are thought to be Muslim.

But now Gaddafi's radical solution resonates with some Christians. Papa Jimba, 46, leader of the Christian community in a Jos neighborhood, told Reuters: "Let us divide Nigeria. The Muslims go to their side and the Christians stay on our side. Then peace can come back. I'm even praying for that."

The Rev Philip Mwelbish, head of CAN for Plateau state, said: "People thought Gaddafi was mad, but I've started to see the sense in what he said. If we can't exist together with our Muslim brothers, then they can build their houses over there, and we build ours here.

"We have a proverb in Nigeria: if you push a goat to the wall, he will bite you. They've pushed us to the wall."

GUARDIAN

IRAN TO 'POWERFULLY' RESPOND TO A US ATTACK

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:17:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Iran will respond “powerfully” to any attack by the US and Israel, said Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said Thursday.

“The enemies, especially the United States and the Zionist regime (of Israel) should know that Iran does not aggress any country, but will respond to any aggression (on the Islamic Republic) and even to any threats (to the country) powerfully,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Khamenei as saying while addressing Iranian army students.

“Anybody who may think of aggression on the Islamic republic should make itself ready to receive strong slaps and iron fists from the Iranian Army, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, (the voluntary forces of) Basij and in one word, from the great Iranian nation,” he said, Xinhua reported.

Khamenei called on Iran’s armed forces to be prepared to defend the country.

Khamenei’s remarks came amid reports that the western countries and Israel may launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities after the IAEA’s latest report accused Tehran of engaging in activities related to the development of nuclear weapons.

According to the IAEA report, Iran continued its nuclear weapons research and technology development evven after 2003, when it declared a halt in its nuclear programme. It states that Iran had temporarily frozen nuclear activities, but that there was evidence the programme continued to be carried out at a more modest pace.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called IAEA head Yukiya Amano a US puppet.

THAINDIAN

KEEP SMILING TO LOOK YOUNG

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:16:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

While many women may feel a face-lift or anti-ageing creams are the only ways to look young, a study has suggested it is the smile that holds the key to looking younger than one’s actual age.

According to German researchers, the simple act of smiling takes years off a person’s age. It is likely we consider people who are happy as being attractive in other ways - including being younger than they actually are, Daily Mail reported.

Temporary wrinkles caused due to grinning also make it more difficult to judge a person’s age and so may lead to those doing the guessing to err on the side of caution.

Manuel Voelkle, of the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, asked over 150 men and women of different ages to judge the ages of the faces in more than 1,000 photographs.

He concluded: “Facial expressions have a substantial impact on accuracy.

“Relative to other facial expressions, the age of neutral faces was estimated most accurately, while the ages of those displaying happy expressions was most likely under-estimated.”

The study also revealed that the older faces are more difficult to judge than the younger ones.

The age of those doing the judging was also important. In general, elderly people overestimated the age of those photographed, while younger people shaved a year or two off.

Women also fared better, with older female faces estimated on average to be three years younger than their male equivalents, the journal Psychology and Aging reports.

THAINDIAN

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT GAINS 1 MILLION ONLINE FANS IN 24 HOURS

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:14:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s account at the country’s largest social networking site Vkontakte has gained one million followers in the 24 hours or so since it was set up.

Medvedev created his profile at Vkontakte Wednesday, several hours prior to an informal meeting with Russian bloggers.

The president’s profile says his interests are: “work, family, sports, internet” and favourite music is “hard-rock, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, classical.”

Medvedev has created two photo albums - one with images of landscapes he captured with his professional camera and another with photographs, featuring his everyday life as president.

His latest post, saying: “Thank you for your attention and gifts! Getting used to Vkontakte’s style. Good night, everybody!” gathered more than 17,000 ‘likes’ in less than one day.

Vkontakte, Russia’s most popular website, which has over 100 million userbase, is famous for its pirate music and video content, available for downloading.

Medvedev, who styles himself as a technologically savvy leader, is registered on Twitter, has a blog on LiveJournal and an account on YouTube and Facebook.

His Facebook fan page has already gained over 300,000 followers.

Medvedev initially opened his Twitter account in June 2010 during a visit to Silicon Valley. More than 660,000 people are currently following him at MedvedevRussia on the micro-blogging site, while the English version, MedvedevRussiaE, has almost 134,000 followers.

Medvedev’s twittering has, however, been mercilessly parodied at the @KermlinRussia Twitter account.

THAINDIAN

JACKSON'S 'DEATHBED' UP FOR AUCTION

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:27:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Late pop legend Michael Jackson’s deathbed will be auctioned next month.

The king-size bed where the late singer took his final breath is one of the items up for auction from his rented Los Angeles home, located in the city’s Beverly Hills area where Michael had lived since 2008.

The auction will happen Dec 17 in Los Angeles

The 50-year-old died June 25, 2009 when he was preparing for his comeback series of 50 sold-out London concerts.

The auctions will also sell various artworks, antiques and furnishings from the house.

“We want to preserve the history of these items,” dailymail.co.uk quoted Darren Julien, president of Julien’s Auctions, as saying.

THAINDIAN

BRAIN'S RESPONSE TO STRESS CAN PREDICT DEMENTIA

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:25:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

A memory stress test could make it easier to predict who has greater chances of developing dementia.

Researchers from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR), with the Brain and Ageing Research Program, University of New South Wales, have shown how the brain’s response to increasing mental stress can predict cognitive decline.

“Accurate detection of those at risk before they show clinical signs of dementia would allow for early, targeted preventive interventions,” said Michael Breakspear, professor and coordinator of QIMR’s Mental Health and Complex Disorders programme, who led the study.

Some of dementia symptoms are forgetting names, appointments and losing things, difficulty in driving, cooking a meal, household chores, managing personal finances, becoming quiet and withdrawn, according to a Queensland statement.

Breakspear studied people aged between 70 and 85 years with mild cognitive impairment, a known risk factor for dementia.

They were given a series of memory tasks of increasing difficulty and their brain activity was monitored. For instance, think of a heart stress test but instead of running on a treadmill we make you think to the point of mental exhaustion and measure your brain activity.

“By using a brain imaging scanner, we were able to detect subtle changes in brain activity. We studied the patients again after two years and found that their initial response to the stress test predicted whether their everyday functioning was stable or declined.

“What is also interesting is we found that the level of accuracy when the brain is under stress is also a good indicator of future mental decline,” concluded Breakspear.

THAINDIAN

18 BUILDINGS COLLAPSE IN TURKEY QUAKE

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:24:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

At least 18 buildings, including two hotels, collapsed in Turkey’s Van province after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck Wednesday night, officials said.

The quake jolted the province at 9.23 p.m., according to Turkey’s Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute.

Many people were trapped under the collapsed buildings and rescue workers were still searching through the rubble, Xinhua reported citing Turkish private NTV news channel.

The six-storeyed Bayram Hotel collapsed in the in the centre of Van city in the province, and 11 people have been pulled out of the rubble, it said.

On Oct 23, a 7.2-magnitude quake shook Van province, killing at least 605 people and injuring over 4,150 others.

On Aug 17, 1999, two powerful earthquakes, measuring 6.7 and 7.4 on the Richter scale, jolted northwestern and western Turkey, killing around 18,000 people.

THAINDIAN

SARKOZY CALLS ISRAELI PM NETANYAHU A LIAR

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:02:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

French President Nikolas Sarkozy doesn’t seem to trust Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that much. In a private conversation with President Barack Obama during the G20 summit, Sarkozy told the US president that Netanyahu is a liar and he (Sarkozy) cannot bear him.

Sarkozy never realized that his microphone was on when he made the comment. The comment was heard by the entire pressmen at the meeting in the various translations. President Obama’s reply to the comments of the French leader suggested that he agreed with him.

Unaware that their microphones were still active, Sarkozy said that, “I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar.”

President Obama replied “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.”

This will undoubtedly be an embarrassing moment for all the leaders involved. The United States has been the biggest friend of Israel for several years but suspicion has crept into the relationship between the two nations since Obama became the president.

The United States is meditating talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis in a bid to bring a lasting peace to the Middle East. Palestine recently presented a petition to the United Nations to be admitted as a full member.

THAINDIAN

GAGA, BIEBER TO CELEBRATE NEW YEAR'S EVE IN NEW YORK

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:01:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Singers Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber will join revellers in New York City’s Times Square Dec 31 to bid farewell to 2011 and welcome 2012, an official said.

Approximately one million people are expected to gather at Times Square to enjoy performances by Lady Gaga and Bieber and watch the famous New Year’s Eve Ball descend from One Times Square, Xinhua reported.

“On the last day of each year, Times Square — the ‘Crossroads of the World’ — becomes the focal point for millions of viewers across the globe,” said George Fertitta, chief executive officer of the NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism and partnership organisation for New York City.

More than one billion people worldwide are expected to watch on television the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball Drop, a 104-year-old tradition.

THAINDIAN

IRAN WORKING ON ATOMIC BOMB: IAEA

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:57:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

United Nations weapons inspectors have suggested that Iran “carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device” and that the project may still be under way, the New York Times reported quoting a report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The long-awaited report, released by IAEA Tuesday, laid out the case that Iran had moved far beyond the blackboard to create computer models of nuclear explosions in 2008 and 2009 and conducted experiments on nuclear triggers, the daily said.

It said the simulations focused on how shock waves from conventional explosives could compress the spherical fuel at the core of a nuclear device, which starts the chain reaction that ends in nuclear explosion.

The report also said that Iran went beyond such theoretical studies to build a large containment vessel at its Parchin military base, starting in 2000, for testing the feasibility of such explosive compression. It called such tests “strong indicators of possible weapon development”.

According to the Times, the inspectors agreed with a much-debated classified United States National Intelligence Estimate issued in 2007 that Iran had dismantled a highly focused effort to build a bomb in late 2003, but found significant recent work, though conducted in a less coordinated manner.

The report does not claim that Iran has mastered all the necessary technologies, or estimate how long it would take for Iran to be able to produce a nuclear weapon.

Inspectors do not point to a single weapons lab, or provide evidence of a fully constructed nuclear weapon.

Instead, the report describes roughly a dozen different projects that countries that have built nuclear weapons - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India and Pakistan - all had to grapple with, in some form.

An IAEA report last May listed five fewer categories of such technical information, the Times said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Yukiya Amano, the IAEA’s head, a US puppet, saying that “they (the US officials) have appointed a man as the chief of the IAEA who has no authority”, reported RIA Novosti.

UN nuclear watchdog’s new report has triggered a new wave of threats from Israel since the senior members of the Israeli government backed the possibility of launching strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israeli President Shimon Peres reiterated Sunday that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely.

Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said Iranian armed forces were in “full combat readiness and will give a crushing response to those daring to attack the country”, Irna reported.

Earlier Tuesday, the Russian foreign ministry expressed dismay that the IAEA report has become a source of increased tension surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme.

It also questioned whether the IAEA was able ensure the appropriate confidentiality for its work, adding that the IAEA should be guided by the principle: “Do no harm.”

Iranian President Ahmadinejad called on the IAEA to issue a report on the atomic arsenal of the US, the Fars news agency reported.

The IAEA should release reports on the US atomic bombs concealed in 1,000 of its military bases, said Ahmadinejad.

The agency should report on the US atomic weapons instead of releasing “unreal” reports on the civilian nuclear programme of “independent” countries like Iran, he said.

Ahmadinejad said the IAEA was a tool at the hands of a number of countries who want to control the world, according to Xinhua.

He said that “unfortunately” IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano has “violated the agency’s rules” by repeating the words of the US, said Fars.

The IAEA director-general has urged Iran to cooperate with the agency to prove that its nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes.

Iranian leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami has also said the US was using the IAEA as a “tool against Iran”.

“The US is using international organisations, including the IAEA, as tools to pressure Iran over its nuclear programme,” Khatami was quoted as saying.

Recent tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear programme has raised concerns that the US and Israel may consider a possible military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

THAINDIAN

RUSSIA PLACES BOXES FOR MOTHERS TO DROP OFF UNWANTED BABIES

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:37:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Russian hospitals have begun to introduce so-called baby boxes where new mothers will be able to place their unwanted newborns, officials said on Monday.

According to the RIA Novosti news agency, Russian health officials said mothers will be able to anonymously drop off their unwanted babies in order to provide safe conditions for the newborns as many of them are commonly left in garbage containers.

The baby-boxes have an estimated cost of 10,000 euros ($13,750), and five of them have already been allocated in Krasnodar Territory, located in southern Russia. The project is expected to expand to other areas, including the Siberian cities of Perm, Tomsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk and the European Russian town of Kirov.

Krasnodar health department official Tamara Perepelkina said no babies have been dropped off yet, underlining that women will not be prosecuted for leaving their babies in the boxes. “Our goal is to save the child’s life,” she told the media outlet. “We set up the baby boxes in places remote from video cameras and security officers.”

Between January and September of this year, at least six Russian women in the region have been charged with murdering their unwanted babies or leaving their child in danger. Officials hope the new boxes will stop this practice.

THAINDIAN

GIANT ASTEROID TO PASS BETWEEN EARTH, MOON

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:35:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

A 400-metre-wide asteroid will Tuesday fly past earth, closer to it than the moon’s orbit.

The asteroid will pose no threat to Earth, NASA says. It will not be visible without a telescope.

NASA scientists have been tracking the asteroid, named 2005 YU55, since Friday.

“The asteroid 2005 YU55 cannot hit Earth, at least over the interval that we can compute the motion reliably - which extends for several hundred years,” said Lance Benner, the asteroid’s principal researcher at NASA.

The aircraft carrier-sized asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at 23:28 GMT, at a distance of 325,000 km. It is the closest this space rock has come in 200 years.

NASA’s Goldstone Observatory in California and the Arecibo Planetary Radar facility in Puerto Rico will scan the asteroid during the close pass in a bid to identify its path and substance, and where it may go in the future.

THAINDIAN

WHERE ARE EXTRATERRESTRIALS HIDING?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:33:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

If extraterrestrials really exist then where are they hiding?The Pioneer and Voyager probes, having travelled hundreds of millions of miles into space, are still looking for signs of life, even of the most rudimentary kind. But may be we haven’t searched enough.

A pair of postdoctoral researchers at Penn State University, approaching the problem mathematically, shows that we have not looked in enough places to ensure that no extraterrestrial artefacts exist in our solar system.

“The vastness of space, combined with our limited searches to date, implies that any remote unpiloted exploratory probes of extraterrestrial origin would likely remain unnoticed,” report Jacob Haqq-Misra, of the Rock Ethics Institute and Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, of Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, according to the journal Acta Astronautica.

So far, we have not found any non-terrestrial artefacts in our solar system. The Fermi paradox, originally formulated by Enrico Fermi, asks, if intelligent life is common, why have no technological civilisations been observed, they said, according to a Rock Ethics statement.

Even without actual contact, like us, other civilisations could be sending unpiloted probes to quietly peek at our civilization.

These probes, like ours, would be small and might be hidden in a variety of places. In the asteroid belt they would probably go unnoticed, especially if these nonterrestrial objects are only three to 33 feet in size, weighing little more than a tonne, said the authors.

“Extraterrestrial artefacts may exist in the solar system without our knowledge simply because we have not yet searched sufficiently,” said Haqq-Misra and Kopparapu. “Few if any of the attempts would be capable of detecting a one to 10 metre probe.”

THAINDIAN

'BOKO HARAM' ATTACKS LEAVE MORE THAN 80 PEOPLE KILLED IN NORTHERN NIGERIA

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:24:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

A series of bomb and shooting attacks targeting police stations, mosques and churches in northeastern Nigeria has left more than 80 people killed, officials said on Sunday. Dozens more have been injured.

The attacks began on Friday evening in the city of Damaturu in Yobe state when a car bomb exploded outside a three-story building which was being used as a military office. The attackers then went on a rampage, attacking a bank, police stations, mosques and churches.

Several buildings and a number of vehicles were completely burned down, witnesses said. At least 82 people were believed to have been killed in the Damaturu attacks, while several others were killed in the nearby village of Potiskum where residents were also attacked.

Few details about the fatalities were available as of Sunday, but local media reported that a part of the victims are believed to be police officers and members of the security forces. An unknown number of people, believed to be more than 100, has also been injured during the three-hour rampage.

Reports said the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, which operates in the area, has claimed responsibility for the devastating attacks, which happened just before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The Boko Haram group has been blamed by Nigerian officials for most of the region’s terrorist attacks and seeks the imposition of an extremist stance of the Shariah law, which is a Muslim code of conduct. The group’s name, ‘Boko Haram’ in the local language of Hausa, roughly translates as ‘Western religion is sacrilegious’ or ‘non-Islamic religion is a sin.’

THAINDIAN

EATING NUTS ELEVATED MOOD, LOWER HEART DISEASE RISKS

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:22:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Eating nuts helps lowers heart disease risk in people with metabolic syndrome (MetS) or those with excess abdominal fat, high blood sugar and high blood pressure, say researchers.

MetS symptoms increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease, the Journal of Proteome Research reported, citing a statement from the University of Barcelona.

Cristina Andres-Lacueva and colleagues from the varsity with the Human Nutrition Unit of the Rovira i Virgili University explain that the rise in obesity worldwide means more and more patients have MetS.

To check the benefits of nut consumption, researchers put 22 MetS patients on a nut-enriched diet for 12 weeks and compared them to another group of 20 patients who avoided nuts.

The scientists analyzed the compounds excreted in patients’ urine and found evidence of several healthful changes, including a boost in patients’ levels of serotonin metabolites.

Serotonin, a chemical, helps decrease feelings of hunger, makes people feel happier and improves heart health, the researchers said.

THAINDIAN

MISSING NURSE HAD AFFAIRS WITH OTHER MINISTERS TOO?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:21:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

The CBI has uncovered clues suggesting that a missing nurse may have had relations with three other Rajasthan ministers besides sacked minister Mahipal Maderna, informed sources said Sunday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has discovered that Bhanwari Devi had amassed wealth although she drew a salary of only Rs.8,000 a month, the sources said.

The CBI is investigating her source of income too.

The nurse, the sources said, may have had relations with three other Rajasthan ministers and three senior officials in the state government.

Bhanwari Devi went missing from Jodhpur’s Bilara area Sep 1.

Maderna was sacked from the cabinet Oct 16 over allegations that he had a role in her disappearance after she allegedly started blackmailing him on the basis of a CD showing them in a compromising position.

“The CBI has got clues that Bhanwari had relations with not only Maderana but with some other prominent and powerful people in the state including three ministers and three IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officers,” a senior police officer who did not want to be named told IANS.

However, the officer refused to divulge the name of these politicians and bureaucrats.

Informed sources said the CBI had recently recovered CDs from the house of Sohan Lal Vishnoi, a key suspect in Bhanwari Devi’s kidnapping case.

“It is possible that Bhanwari was blackmailing not only Maderna but other people also,” said the officer.

In one of the two audio clips which surfaced Thursday and Friday, Bhanwari Devi mentions about a CD hidden in a bank locker in Ajmer.

THAINDIAN

MAN ATTEMPTS TO THROW SHOE AT MUSHARRAF

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 10:32:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

A man tried to hurl his shoe at Pervez Musharraf when he was addressing a gathering in London, the second such attempt on the former Pakistan president.

The attempt was made when Musharraf was addressing the Kashmiri community in Luton, reported Geo News. Security personnel promptly caught hold of the man and took him out of the venue.

Another man raised slogans against Musharraf.

This is not the first time that an attempt was made to throw a shoe at Musharraf.

In February this year, a man threw a shoe at Musharraf when he was addressing a gathering in Britain. The shoe didn’t hit the former military dictator.

Musharraf ruled Pakistan for nine years after taking power in a bloodless coup in 1999. He stepped down in 2008 and left Pakistan. He now lives in London.

An Iraqi journalist, Muntazar al Zaidi, threw his shoes at US president George Bush in 2008, sparking a string of copy-cat attacks.

Among other personalities to have shoes tossed at them are Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

THAINDIAN

WOMAN ARRESTED FOR STEALING 2398 JARS OF COFFEE

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 10:30:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

A woman has been charged with stealing 2,398 jars of coffee from a store in the German city of Munich. 60-year-old Olga H. was arrested and charged with stealing the drink from a discount shop. She often concealed the drinks and left the shop without paying for them.

The store says Olga did not steal the coffees at a go but did it on several occasions. When she was apprehended, Olga confessed that she committed the crimes and claimed that she did so on numerous occasions. She allegedly told officers that she used the proceeds from selling the coffee to buy drugs for her addict sons.

Olga was arrested when a security man at the store caught the 60-year-old stealing the drink. She reportedly took 10 of the jars at a time and placed them on her leggings and covered them with their skirt. It is believed that at some times Olga stole more than the 10 jars that she confessed to.

Authorities say Olga sold the coffee at several markets in neighboring Czech Republic. It is estimated that she made about $26,193 from selling the stolen coffee.

THAINDIAN

ASTEROID LONGER THAN AIRCRAFT TO WHIZ PAST EARTH

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 10:28:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

If you have an eight-inch telescope, you can catch it! A 55-million tonne asteroid, jet black in appearance and longer than an aircraft carrier, will fly past the earth, getting closer even than the moon Nov 9.

The asteroid 2005 YU55, discovered Dec 28, 2005 and a 400-metre piece of rock, will fly by the Earth at 5.15 a.m. Its closest distance from the earth will be around 3,25,000 km, which is lesser than the average earth-moon distance of 3,84,000 km, says Debiprosad Duari, director, Research and Academic, M.P. Birla Planetarium, Kolkata.

He said scientists all over the world have been busy in calculating its possible path, as it zooms past the earth. The asteroid can be observed through an eight inch telescope.

“Although classified as a potentially hazardous object, 2005 YU55 poses no threat of an earth collision over at least the next 100 years. However, this will be the closest approach to date by an object this large that we know about in advance,” Duari said in a statement.

The next time a known asteroid this large will come this close to earth will be in 2028 when (153814) 2001 WN5 passes at a distance of 2,48,000 km from the earth.

According to astronomers who are observing the approaching piece of rock, the 55 million tonne weight asteroid is jet black in appearance, spherical in shape, is 1,300 feet long and makes a full rotation in roughly 18 hours.

It goes round the sun once in 1.22 years.

“On its approach towards the earth, the gravitational influence of the asteroid will have no detectable effect on anything on earth, including our planet’s tides or tectonic plates,” he said.

Scientists are planning to make detailed observations of the approaching member of the solar system. During tracking, scientists will use the radio antennae at Goldstone and Arecibo to bounce radio waves off the space rock.

NASA scientists hope to obtain images of the asteroid as fine as about 7 feet (2 meters) per pixel. This should reveal a wealth of details about the asteroid’s surface features, shape, dimensions and other physical properties, Duari said.

THAINDIAN

IRAN TO DISCLOSE DOCUMENTS ON US AS 'TERRORISM SPONSOR'

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 07:54:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Tehran will release 100 documents to reveal Washington’s role in sponsoring terrorist activities in Iran and the entire Middle East region, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Wednesday, according to the Fars news agency.

“We have a hundred irrefutable documents on the US role in directing terror and terrorists in Iran and the region,” Ayatollah Khamenei said ahead of Nov 4 marking the anniversary of the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

“By releasing these documents, we will dishonour the U.S. and those who claim to be the advocates of human rights and the campaign against terrorism,” he said.

His remarks follow the US allegations that Tehran plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, hiring assassins from a Mexican drug cartel for $1.5 million.

Iran has denied any involvement.

THAINDIAN

BIEBER DENIES FATHERING CHILD WITH FAN

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Home Biz) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 07:53:00 +0000

Greetings! Please Share & Subcribe.

Pop sensation Justin Bieber has denied claims by a Californian woman that he fathered a child with her after a brief sexual encounter.

Mariah Yeater, 20, has filed legal papers stating she had sex with 17-year-old Bieber Oct 25 last year following the singer’s performance at Los Angeles’ Staples Center.

She said he was the dad of her four-month-old son Tristyn Anthony Markhouse Yeater, who was born July 6.

Bieber’s representative called the allegations “malicious and false”.

The statement issued on website RadarOnline.com said: “While we haven’t yet seen the lawsuit, it’s sad someone would fabricate malicious, defamatory and demonstrably false claims. We will vigorously pursue all available legal remedies to defend and protect Justin.”

A court hearing has been scheduled for Dec 15.

THAINDIAN