generalspeaking

Newsworthy

• Wal-Mart in U.S. lifts ban on "Christmas"; reacts to Christian anger over watered down "holiday": After facing a barrage of criticism from religious groups for neglecting to mention the Christian celebration in its U.S. stores or advertisements last year, the world's largest retailer announced it will rename its seasonal area "The Christmas Shop", instead of "The Holiday Shop", play Christmas carols in its stores and increase its overtly Christmas-themed displays by 60% this year. (Pretty stupid move to alienate and confuse traditional consumers in any event; what's so wrong with calling Christmas by its long-established and correct nomenclature? Profits may also rise by 60% this year...)
• Synagogue reopens 68 years later; ceremony held amid growing anti-Semitic sentiment: Sixty-eight years to the day afer a Nazi mob destroyed Munich's main synagogue, the growing Jewish community here opened a new central house of worship at a time of new fears about anti-Semitism in Germany. Built in the heart of Munich's old city, the new synagogue has a modern facade, designed to represent a combined temple/tent. A new survey conducted for the respected Friedrich Ebert Foundation run by the Social Democratic Party found high levels of anti-Semitism in German society. More than 15% of Germans in the prosperous west agreed with the statement, "Jews use dirty tricks more than other people," compared with 6% in the economically depressed east. Germany is now host to one of the fastest-growing Jewish communities in the world. (That the miserable spectre of anti-Semitism holds fast the minds and hearts of so many Germans is explicable given the past; that Jews continue to live and thrive there is barely explicable - why would they want to?)
• Masterpiece emerges from Queen's storeroom; Misattributed painting hidden away for decades: Britain's Queen Elizabeth holds one of the world's greatest art collections, an unrivalled set of hundreds of Leonardo drawings, almost 30 Canalettos and paintings by most of Western art's greatest figures, including Tintoretto, Vermeer, Holbein and Durer. Now, the Queen has been advised she has her first genuine Caravaggio, worth more than $100M. The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew, owned by the royal family for almost 400 years has lain unloved and seldom seen in a storeroom at Hampton Court Palace for decades. (If it's that much of an inconvenience to hang it in a prominent location, I'll accept it for my palace; we loooove Old Masters.)
• Alberta's beetles chew through 1.5M pine trees: Pine beetles are chewing through up to 1.5 million trees in northern Alberta. That's ten times the infestation level reported last month. It means Alberta Sustainable Resources will be ratcheting up their pine beetle attack in hopes of slowing the spread of the ravenous insect that has ravaged much of British Columbia's forests. The beetle has infested 8.7 million entire hectares of British Columbia forest. (These truly are miserable little invasive beasts - destroying a renewable resource to be sure, but it takes time to renew, to regrow, to regroup. Another fall-out of global warming; where previously the beetles' onslaught had been slowed by cold winters, more temperate weather is enabling them to prosper, and we to pay the piper.)
• Halifax's "microcredit" summit aims to help poor: "Microcredit" was just aother piece of arcane economic jargon until the Nobel Foundation thrust the world into the planet's spotlight, bestowing its famous Peace Prize on a little-known but hugely successful Bangladesh banker who pioneered the business of making loans to the poor. Muhammad Yunus is coming to Canada this weekend on the heels of his Nobel celebrity, along with more than two thousand other bankers, bureaucrats and economists from 107 countries to compare notes and set ambitious goals at the Global Microcredit Summit in Halifax. (And Canada, bless her generous heart, wants to get in on the good works, starting with a $40M pledge for microcredit, administered through CARE International, for women in Afghanistan.)
• "Family Honour" Murder defence rejected by Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Canada declined an invitation yuesterday to consider whether Muslim cultural and religous beliefs in "family honour" should be taken into account as justification for receiving a lighter sentence for killing an unfaithful wife. The court refused to hear the appeal of Adi Abdul Humaid, a devout Muslim from the United Arab Emirates, who admitted to stabbing Aysar Abbas to death with a steak knife on a visit to Ottawa in 1999. Mr. Humaid's lawyer argued Humaid was provoked by his wife's claim she cheated on him, an insult so severe in the Muslim faith it deprived him of self-control. (Should not Islam, one wonders, teach its devout that if men can be philanderers and womanizers, equality demands forgivability when women give tit for tat, and that murder under any circumstances is not to be mistaken for religious piety.)
• 'Blue Dog Democrats' pose challenge for party; we need a voice as well: "You have this new breed of Democrats coming in who were recruited by the party because they were more centrist," said Mark Rozell, political science professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "But the Democratic leadership is far more progressive. It will be a surprise if they don't clash." (Well, how about that, angry voters eager to ditch the Republicans have gifted the Democratic party with their own mini-Republicans; will we see intra-secular violence ensue?)
• Former Iranian president sought in 1994 bombing of Argentine Jews; Hezbollah suspected in attack that killed 85 people at charity: A judge issued an international arrest warrant yesterday for Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran, and other top Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charity in Argentina that killed 85 people. Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Coral said he had asked the government of Iran as well as Interpol to hand over the former president on a warrant issued for crimes against humanity in the bombing attack on the office of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association, aJewish charities' federation, which also injured 300 people. (Hey, isn't that the same Rafsanjani who just recently wound up a tour in North America, speaking gently of misunderstandings? In the annals of Lost Opportunities...)
• French angered by 'hostile' Israeli warplanes in Lebanon: French peacekeeping troops with the UN mission in Lebanon recently came within two seconds of firing missiles at Israeli fighter jets that approached as if to attack them. Speaking to the lower house of parliament on Wednesday night, the French defence minister said it was the latest in a string of incidents in which Israeli warplanes had "adopted a hostile attitude" to French and German forces, and added it was "not tolerable". Daniel Shek, Israel's ambassador in Paris said the flights were reconnaissance operations designed to counter Hezbollah efforts to re-arm and re-establish itself in southern Lebanon and denied the jets had targeted French troops. (These are the same French/German UN peacekeeping troops who fear to tread outside their little bunkers at night to ensure that cover-of-dark re-arming doesn't continue; which, of course it does, handily overlooked by those same peacekeepers who were enjoined by the UN ceasefire treaty to ensure no such re-arming and re-grouping of Hezbollah would occur.)
• British Muslim convicted of stirring up racial hatred: A British Muslim who called for 9/11-style attacks across Europe during a protest outside the Danish embassy in London was convicted yesterday of stirring up racial hatred. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on a separate charge of soliciting murder after he was said to have called for the "indiscriminate killing" of British troops in Iraq. (Bending over backward to give slack to a poor enraged man whose perception of insult to the Prophet Muhammed through the publication of Danish cartoons was simply too much to bear.)
• Klebnikov verdict overturned: Russia's top court has overturned the acquittal in May of all three suspects in the murder of Paul Klebnikov, a U.S. journalist who was shot dead in Moscow two years ago. The 41-year-old editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine was gunned down outside his Moscow office in July 2004, one of the highest-profile killings of a journalist in Russia before the assassination of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya in October. (Would be nice to know that justice will be done; now move on to Ms. Politkovskaya's turn at justice...)
• Zimbabwean officials, whites line up for 99-year farm leases: Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean ipresident, doled out long-term leases yesterday on land confiscated from white farmers, warning the former owners not to expect government compensation. Senior government officials and five white farmers were among those receiving 120 99-year leases. Zimbabwe launched its controversial land reforms seven years ago, seizing at least four thousand properties owned by white farmers to redistribute to landless blacks. The move precipitated a collapse in agricultural production, once the mainstay of Zimbabwe's economy, and has produced extensive food shortages. (Well, how about that? the confiscated land wasn't turned over to poor blacks, after all. How about that? It's the country's 'officials' who get to keep the land, and now what will they do with it, allowed to lie fallow while the country's poor is starving? And what can you say about those white who "lined up" for leases as well? Blind faith? Gross stupidity.)
  

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, November 12, 2006