Wednesday, June 22, 2011

to export Egyptian gas "in the Mediterranean region and Europe"- exposed Egypt-Israel gas deal

The origins of the controversial natural gas deal between Egypt and Israel shows by Al Jazeera

The document (pdf) is printed on Egyptian petroleum ministry letterhead and dated January 26, 2004. It empowers East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) to export Egyptian gas "in the Mediterranean region and Europe." It specifically mentions the Israeli Electric Company as a customer.
The document is signed by Samih Fahmi, the former oil minister, who was jailed earlier this year while prosecutors investigate the pipeline deal.
EMG is a privately-owned company founded in 1999 by Hussein Salam, the Egyptian businessman and confidante of former president Hosni Mubarak who was arrested in Spain last week.
Salam, who will face corruption charges in Egypt, is accused of securing the deal through his connections to the president.
The most contentious part of the deal has been the price Egypt receives for its gas, a figure which the government has kept confidential.
Egyptian media have placed the price at between $0.70 and $1.50 per million British thermal units (BTU). Israeli media cite a higher price, between $2.50 and $4 per million BTUs.
Both are well below the global average of between $6 and $7.
The petroleum ministry document does not specify a price; that figure is believed to be stipulated in the agreement between the Egyptian and Israeli governments.
Jordan, which receives gas through the same pipeline - and previously paid $3 per million BTUs - agreed earlier this month to sign a new contract at prices closer to the global average.
Samir Radwan, the Egyptian finance minister, said earlier this year that all of the country's natural gas contracts - it also supplies France, Italy, Spain, Lebanon and Syria - will be reviewed.
Shipments were interrupted earlier this year following two explosions in the pipeline, one in early February, the other in late April. They resumed at test levels last week, and Egyptian officials say they will soon increase the supply.courtesy: Al Jazeera

How to save money fast

Development manager advises!: Wonder Woman - Who are you today?

Boost your metabolism with food: Wonder Woman - Who are you today?

17 years on:two men saved hundreds of Tutsis during the genocide in Rwanda

In 1994, against huge odds, Finally reunited, they recall the story of their first meeting gisimbawilkens

Rwanda heroes

in a park in London, two men greet each other as old friends. One is grey-haired and American, the other a tall Rwandan in a smart suit. They embrace. The American wipes tears from his eyes. The last time the two men met was in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, in 1994: the year of the genocide in which 800,000 people were killed in 100 days.

The two men, Jean-Francois Gisimba and Carl Wilkens, met a handful of times in that year but in the most extreme of circumstances. Together with Jean-Francois' brother, Damas, they saved more than 400 children and hundreds of adults from the Interahamwe, the Hutu militia intent on eradicating Tutsi "inyenzi" or "cockroaches".

Seventeen years later, the Aegis Trust, which campaigns against genocide, has brought Jean-Francois and Carl back together in the UK. At last, Jean-Francois has the chance to say: "You saved my life but I don't understand why."

Back in 1994, Jean-Francois, then 24, and Damas were running the orphanage their late parents had founded in Kigali in the 1980s. Of mixed Hutu and Tutsi parentage, they were caring for around 60 children of different ethnicities. "We were brought up not to see a difference," Jean-Francois says. Damas ran the orphanage full-time, while Jean-Francois also worked for Radio Rwanda.

On 6 April, a private jet carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down near Kigali airport, triggering the genocide. Government-controlled news organisations began reporting that the Hutu president had been assassinated by Tutsi rebels. Within hours, Kigali was surrounded by roadblocks and the systematic murder of Tutsi families by militia groups began.

Jean-Francois rushed home from the radio station to find hundreds of people gathered at the orphanage, seeking shelter. "They came not because they thought we could save them, but because they didn't want to die alone," he says.

People were hiding in the attic, in the basement and in locked rooms, sick with dysentery and starvation. The brothers kept them alive for months with the help of Red Cross parcels. Because of their father, they had Hutu identity cards, and Damas began to negotiate for the orphanage's survival.

"My brother would go for a beer with the killers," Jean-Francois remembers. "He would say: don't come, don't panic the kids, but he was also protecting the adults inside. He was pretending to be with them."

As the killings continued, the militia members became restless. Armed men began turning up drunk at the orphanage. On one visit they tortured and killed eight people they found hiding on the roof. Then the brothers heard from friends that they planned to kill everyone at the orphanage.

"The day you came was the day the massacre was going to happen," Jean-Francois tells Carl. "There was a knock at the door and I thought: this is it. A boy said, there is a muzungu – a white man – at the door looking for you."

Jean-Francois looks at the man sitting next to him. "It was you in your white Toyota Corolla."

Carl was then the 36-year-old head of Adrai, an Adventist relief organisation working in Rwanda. On 10 April, the UN had evacuated all foreigners from the country, including Carl's wife, parents and three young children.

Carl was the only American who stayed through the genocide. By negotiating with key militia figures including Colonel Tharsisse Renzaho, the prefect of Kigali, he managed to get supplies of water and food through to people in dire need. Renzaho had told him there was an orphanage that needed help.

"I came out and you started telling me: 'I'm bringing water,'" Jean-Francois says. "I wanted you to stop talking. I had the feeling that you did not know what was going on. You just wanted to deliver water and go to the next place. I dragged you to Damas's office.

"I said to you: they are coming in five or 10 minutes to kill all of us. I just wanted you to stay there and witness – so that later you could tell people what had happened."

Carl wanted to leave immediately to fetch help. "I remember standing in the parking lot by my Corolla. You kept on telling me: don't go."

Jean-Francois shakes his head. "We went together slowly up to the car. You were trying to start it. You looked in the mirror and I remember you putting your hands through your hair. You got out again and got on your radio."

As the men stood by the car, dozens of Interahamwe militia began surrounding the orphanage. "The leader said: 'I am coming to take all the Tutsis who are here.'"

"Carl was still on his radio. Then I heard them say: 'We were going to carry out our mission, but the American is there.' The boss said in Kinyarwanda: 'Leave the place, don't do it in front of that man.'"

With Jean-Francois still begging him to stay, Carl left to raise the alarm. When he reached Renzaho's office he found that the prime minister, Jean Kambanda – who would later plead guilty to genocide – was visiting.

"He was one of three people orchestrating the genocide," Carl says. "But what choice did I have? I said: 'There's a massacre about to happen at Gisimba.'

"He talked to his men and said: 'We're aware of this.' He promised me that the orphans would be OK. He shook hands with me."

At the orphanage, Jean-Francois waited. "For three days nothing happened," he says. "Then an army major arrived. Many Interahamwe came behind him. One of the biggest killers – who had killed thousands – was there. 'Inyenzi' he called us – cockroaches."

The major took Jean-Francois aside. "He said to me, 'I am not a killer, I am with you, but you need to tell me the truth.' I decided to trust him. I said, well, the truth is we are hiding many people – more than 400 children, and a big number of adults, widows. I don't even know the number myself.

"He said: 'Be ready to be evacuated.'"

By the next day, more militia had surrounded the orphanage. The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the Tutsi rebel army fighting their way back into Rwanda, were now close to the capital. "Bombs were landing like rain from the hills," Jean-Francois says. "I thought: now we are going to die.

"The major returned with 12 bodyguards. He said to his men, 'Whoever tries to shoot, you shoot all of them.' If only more soldiers had been like him.

"I thought these were my last moments. There was shooting. They took us to the road. He packed all of us into buses. He had a revolver in his hand and a Kalashnikov on his shoulder. They took us all up to St Michel Cathedral. Two to three days later the RPF took the area and we were safe."

More than 17 years later, Carl and Jean-Francois have met again because the Gisimba orphanage (still run by Jean-Francois and Damas) needs money. Next week is the 25th anniversary of the orphanage's foundation. "We want it to have a future," Jean-Francois says.

In London, the American turns to the Rwandan and says: "I never knew if it was the right decision to leave you at the orphanage."

"It was the right decision," Jean-Francois replies. "But what about my question – why did you help us?"

Carl talks about not abandoning his Rwandan staff and friends, but Jean-Francois is shaking his head. "You were on the other side of the city so why cross through all those roadblocks, bombs and bullets to get to the orphanage?"

Carl looks at him as if he should know. Jean-Francois, after all, is a man who let hundreds shelter in the orphanage knowing it meant almost certain death. "Why did you help those people?" he asks.

Jean-Francois looks at him with incredulity. "How would we turn people away? We were taught by our parents that we should respect other people's lives. If you tell people to get away you are an animal not a human being."

For further information on the Gisimba Orphanage, and details about how to support it, go to www.aegistrust.
Courtesy: The Guardian

US Security Forces Do not Want to be Caught on Tape

Facing prison for filming US police - Focus - Al Jazeera English

Obama's broken promises - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Human Eye has been shown to act as a "compass"

The cryptochrome protein comes in more than one type - and the human one can perform as the fly's

A light-sensitive protein in the human eye has been shown to act as a "compass" in a magnetic field, when it is present in flies' eyes.

The study in Nature Communicationsshowed that without their natural "magnetoreception" protein, the flies did not respond to a magnetic field - but replacing the protein with the human version restored the ability.

Despite much controversy, no conclusive evidence exists that humans can sense the Earth's magnetic field, and the find may revive interest in the idea.

Although humans, like migratory birds, are known to have cryptochrome in their eyes, the idea of human magnetoreception has remained largely unexplored since pioneering experiments by Robin Baker of the University of Manchester in the 1980s.

Dr Baker used a long series of experiments on thousands of volunteers that suggested humans could indirectly sense magnetic fields, though he never definitively identified the mechanism. In subsequent years, several groups attempted to repeat those experiments, claiming opposing results.

Time, flies

At the heart of the current study is a molecule called cryptochrome - an ancient protein present, in one of its two major forms, in every animal on Earth.

The protein is implicated in the regulation of circadian rhythms - the "body clocks" of humans and other animals - and in the navigational skills of several species including migratory birds, monarch butterflies, and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

The exact mechanism behind animals' navigational abilities remains a mystery, however, and an active area of research.I would be very surprised if we don't have this sense... the issue is to figure out how we use it”

Steven ReppertUniversity of Massachusetts Medical School

Steven Reppert of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and his colleagues have been following the roles that cryptochrome plays in some of these species for a number of years.

D. melanogaster flies can be genetically engineered to produce cryptochrome-2, the version of the protein present in monarch butterflies and in vertebrate animals including humans. Last year, Dr Reppert's team showed in a Nature paper that flies without either cryptochrome were unable to align themselves with magnetic fields, but that the magnetoreception ability was recovered when the flies produced the non-native cryptochrome-2.

"We developed a system to study the real mechanism of magnetosensing in fruit flies... we can put these proteins from other animals into the fly and ask, 'do these proteins in their different forms actually function as magnetoreceptors?'," Dr Reppert told BBC News.

"Of all the vertebrates, the one that seemed to make the most sense was trying to put in the cryptochrome from humans."

The results mirrored the experiments with monarch butterflies. D. melanogaster flies with no cryptochrome showed no evidence of magnetoreception, but when genetically engineered to produce the human version, they recovered their abilities.

Dr Reppert said that the difficulty in unpicking the nature of human magnetosensing - if it exists - was that, like the circadian rhythms that cryptochromes are also implicated in, we react to it without knowing that we are.

"I would be very surprised if we don't have this sense; it's used in a variety of other animals. I think that the issue is to figure out how we use it."Dr Baker, who maintains his results proving human magnetoreception were "overwhelming", hopes that the find re-invigorates the pursuit of a final word on the matter.I think one of the things that put people off accepting the reality of human magnetoreception 20 years ago was the lack of an obvious receptor," he told BBC News. "So these new results might actually be enough to tip the balance of credibility. I shall be fascinated to see." Courtesy- BBC

1971 Liberation War period’s 2 cannons Handed Over By Indian Gov

The Indian government handed over to Bangladesh two cannons used by the "Mujib Battery" during the 1971 Liberation War as a gesture of goodwill. The cannons entered Bangladesh through Benapole land port Tuesday afternoon 21^st June.

The first artillery unit of Bangladesh Army was formed on July 22, 1971 in Konaban of India with six cannons (3.7 inch Howitzers) including the two presented by India. The newly formed artillery was named after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.The Mujib Battery took part in the Liberation War under the "K Force" in Sector-2 and used the cannons in the battlefield. Visiting Indian Chief of Army Staff Gen Vijay Kumar Singh is likely to present the cannons formally to his Bangladesh counterpart Gen Mohammad Abdul Mubeen at a convenient time.Commissioned in the Rajput Regiment in 1971, General Singh had taken part in Bangladesh's War of Liberation and was part of operations in several areas including Feni and Cox's Bazar

A 15-member team headed by captain of the artillery unit of Jessore Cantonment Major Morshed received the cannons from a 12-member Indian Army delegation led by Major Ariar, captain of the artillery force.Two trucks of Bangladesh Army carrying the cannons had already left Benapole for Dhaka. Courtesy- The Daily Star

Rumana weeps, tells how she forgave husband upon numerous tortures;

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid ensured the family members that her assaulter will be brought to justice

“I don't know what will happen with my eyes. Now everything depends on Allah,” a crying Rumana said yesterday. Recalling the torture by her husband, Rumana broke down into tears.

“He assaulted me before my five-year-old daughter and left the room leaving me in a pool of blood.

She was talking to journalists at capital's LabAid Hospital, where she was readmitted on Monday 20^th June after her return from India. She demanded punishment of her assaulter husband Hasan Sayeed Sumon.

“My daughter was crying. I could not see anything at that moment. My head was hit against some furniture when I tried to get out of the room with my daughter,” she said.

An assistant professor of International Relations Department at DU, Rumana sustained severe injuries as Sumon pushed his fingers into her eyes at their Dhanmondi residence in the city on June 5.
After doctors in Bangladesh and India have failed to restore Rumana Manzur's eyesight, the Dhaka University teacher now has just one option open: waiting for a miracle. Ophthalmologists there confirmed that her left eye has gone blind permanently while the retina of the other one is not responding to her brain.

“Only some miracles can bring back the vision of my daughter,” her father Manzur Hossain said quoting Indian doctors.

After initial treatment at LabAid, she was taken to Sankara Nethralaya, an eye hospital in Chennai in India, on June 14. Later she was shifted to Arvind Eye Centre in Pondicherry .And came back from India last 20^th June .
Also a postgraduate student at the University of British Columbia in Canada, she said Sumon started torturing her within days after their marriage. But she forgave him time and again thinking of their only daughter, Anusheh.
“Please, press for his punishment.”Asked about the allegation of a romantic relation with an Iranian man during her stay in Canada, she said: “Please don't believe such fabricated allegation. Ask those I stayed with in Dhaka and Canada. Nobody can make such allegation.”
Earlier, her friends at the university in Canada and the Bangladeshi community there said the accusation of infidelity is “nonsense,” and is an attempt to damage her reputation.
Rumana's lawyer Elina Khan, who was present at the press briefing, fears that one of Sumon's lawyer uncles might influence the case against Sumon. Police arrested him on June 15.
A Dhaka court yesterday placed him on a two-day fresh remand in a case filed for an attempt to murder Rumana. He was earlier remanded for three days in two phases.Bahauddin Faruki, sub-inspector of Detective Branch, in his remand prayer said Sumon needs to be quizzed before Rumana.
Also yesterday, 45 academics, writers, lawyers, human rights activists and media personalities in a statement expressed concern that Rumana is being subjected to character assassination by a section of the media and some individuals on social media.They condemned any attempt to justify the cruel attack on Rumana.Meanwhile, DU teachers of international relations department in a press release demanded shifting of the case against Sumon to a Speedy Trial Tribunal.

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