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Source: http://www.facebook.com/guitarsintheclassroom/posts/10151464965110718
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
C?line Dion: The Twins Are Typical Toddlers
"We're doing a lot of activities inside. I even brought their swing inside," Dion says. "But at night we all go for a swim in our pool after the show to cool down. We're doing our best to keep cool."
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/2iwzp-evlOA/
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PFT: Prosecutor says all men in car with Lloyd in custody
APThe Bills hosted a road race with a finish on the 50-yard line at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
The Dolphins have adopted a quiet confidence in recent weeks.
The Jets want free labor for their training camp.
Roughly a dozen former Patriots will host a football clinic this weekend in Durham, New Hampshire.
The third suspect in the stabbing of Steelers OT Mike Adams, arrested earlier this month in Florida, has been extradited to Pennsylvania to face charges.
Here are some images from the Bengals? NFL Play 60 Character Camp at Paul Brown Stadium.
The Browns and the NFC rookies attending the 2013 Symposium partnered to present a youth football clinic for 150 children.
Could all the changes to the Ravens help them avoid a Super Bowl hangover?
The 911 calls placed from the location of a fight allegedly involving Jaguars RB Maurice Jones-Drew have been released; like the video surveillance from the incident, the audio reveals nothing.
A former Titans cheerleader accused of trying to seduce a 12-year-old boy rejected a plea deal and is scheduled to go to trial on November 12.
Colts S John Boyett still derives motivation from his late sister, who died in early 2011 after a 14-year battle with a brain tumor.
A pair of Texans finished in the top 10 of NFL Network?s player-determined Top 100 players.
Broncos president Joe Ellis justifies the new bag policy by calling the Boston Marathon bombing ?a game-changer.?
Raiders P Chris Kluwe will serve as the grand marshal of the Minneapolis Pride parade on Sunday.
The Chiefs, with only two wins in 2012, nevertheless have five of the NFL?s Top 100 players.
CB Shareece Wright is ready to step up for the Chargers.
An Arby?s in Richmond, Virginia has reserved a parking space for Redskins QB Robert Griffin III.
Giants LB Aaron Curry hopes the ?greatness? surrounding the franchise helps him fulfill his NFL potential.
The Eagles have posted a very early preview of the Week Five game against their division rivals from New York.
The omission of Tony Romo from NFL Network?s Top 100 list raised the most eyebrows this year.
The dorm the Vikings have used for training camp since the 1960s is being imploded.
Laingsburg High School will host one of the Lions? youth football camps.
Packers QB Aaron Rodgers and ESPN apparently have buried the hatchet.
Catching up with former Bears RB Raymont Harris.
Saints fans can win a pair of season tickets in a raffle that costs $100 per ticket.
Panthers QB Cam Newton is hosting a 7-on-7 high school football tournament; the winning team gets $2,500 in equipment.
Buccaneers CB Darrelle Revis continues to rehab his knee in Phoenix.
The Falcons rookies got an up-close look at the trophy the entire team aspires to finally clutch.
The stalled L.A. stadium project means that the Rams have less leverage in St. Louis.
The Honey Badger nickname could return for Cardinals S Tyrann Mathieu.
Not every football coach in California has an issue with Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.
An honest worker at the San Jose airport found former 49ers OL John Macaulay?s Super Bowl XIX ring in a restroom and turned it over to airport officials.
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
Report: Israel arrests unarmed Palestinians crossing Gaza border
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- An Israeli army unit arrested two unarmed Palestinians who crossed the Gaza Strip border fence near Kisufim, Israeli media reported Saturday.
Israel's Ynet news site said the soldiers fired in the air but did not injure the Palestinians.
It said they were taken for interrogation.
Source: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=609427
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Soaring golds buoy TSX; but BlackBerry gets pummeled
By John Tilak
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index hit a one-week high on Friday as gold-mining shares shot through the roof after bullion rallied, overshadowing a plunge in smartphone maker BlackBerry
The gold sector soared more than 8 percent to record its biggest single-day percentage jump in more than 3-1/2 years.
Despite its gain on the last trading day of the second quarter, the index posted its biggest quarterly decline in a year, falling 4.9 percent.
BlackBerry lost more than 26 percent of its market value after its quarterly report offered few signs of a long-promised turnaround. The company posted an unexpected operating loss and gave few details on sales of its make-or-break new line of smartphones, and did not signal a return to profit in the current quarter.
Giving the market support was data that showed Japan's consumer prices stopped falling in May, while labor demand reached its strongest level in five years.
While global markets were hit hard by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's hints last week of a tightening monetary policy, investors took heart from another Fed official's comments on Thursday that Fed asset purchases will be more aggressive than outlined last week if U.S. economic growth falters.
The market is starting to realize that the Fed is not likely to put a sharp end to its massive bond buying program, said Sadiq Adatia, chief investment officer at Sun Life Global Investments.
"Bernanke was talking about taking the foot off the pedal, rather than putting the brakes on," he added. "It's loosening the amount that is going in, rather than taking it all out."
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> closed up 123.33 points, or 1.03 percent, at 12,129.11. The benchmark Canadian index is down 2.4 percent this year.
"We'll probably see a sideways-moving market in Canada, probably lower, over the summer," said Adatia, who expects the weakness to result mainly from a slowdown in the country's housing industry and softer commodity prices.
Nine of the 10 main sectors on the index were higher on Friday.
The materials sector, which includes mining stocks, added 4.7 percent. Gold mining shares jumped 8.4 percent as the price of bullion climbed.
Financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, were up 0.4 percent. Toronto-Dominion Bank
BCE Inc
BlackBerry's drop to C$11.08 caused a 7.7 percent fall in the information technology sector, the only group to decline.
($1=$1.05 Canadian)
(Editing by Peter Galloway)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tsx-set-open-higher-blackberry-weigh-heavily-124034992.html
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With multiple missions, US military steps up Africa focus
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Striking Islamist militants with drones, supporting African forces in stabilizing Somalia and Mali and deploying dozens of training teams, the U.S. military has returned to Africa.
Its presence remains mostly low key, barely mentioned in the context of President Barack Obama's visit this week to Africa.
Nevertheless, with some 4,000-5,000 personnel on the ground at any given time, the United States now has more troops in Africa than at any point since its Somalia intervention two decades ago. That ended in humiliation and withdrawal after the 1993 "Blackhawk Down" debacle in which 18 U.S. soldiers died.
There are two main reasons behind the build up: to counter al Qaeda and other militant groups, and to win influence in a continent that could become an increasingly important destination for American trade and investment as China's presence grows in Africa.
Obama's eight-day trip is heavily focused not on military issues but on trade and economic development in visits to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.
In the Horn of Africa, the vast majority of U.S. forces deployed in Africa are at a major French military base in Djibouti, a tiny country sandwiched between northern Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
While U.S. officials will not comment in detail on what happens at the base, experts say it has provided a staging post for occasional special forces deployments and drone and air attacks against Islamist militant targets in Somalia.
Dramatic as those actions are, smaller U.S. operations and outreach programs often with only a handful of troops are key to the strategy of winning influence in a continent where China has surpassed the United States as the No.1 trade partner and has huge mining, energy and infrastructure investments.
Such limited missions, U.S. officers say, have gone a long way to reducing initial African skepticism over Germany-based AFRICOM, set up in 2008 to bring all U.S. military activity in Africa under one unified command, rather than dividing responsibility between commanders in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
"We are focusing on building human capital," says Major General Charles Hooper, head of strategy and plans at AFRICOM. "The smaller missions can be some of the most effective when it comes to gaining trust."
In Angola, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere, U.S. engineers have helped train local counterparts in landmine clearance. In southern Africa, military medics have helped local armies tackle HIV infection while in Mauritania, the focus has been on veterinary aid to local ranchers.
U.S. warships combating piracy off both East and West Africa are increasingly frequent visitors to local ports.
One U.S. aim is to convince African militaries their interests are best served by remaining democratically accountable and not interfering in politics.
Some operations, however, have hit just that problem. The hunt in Central African Republic for Ugandan warlord and head of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army Joseph Kony has largely been suspended following a March coup in CAR.
The anti-LRA mission had been the only one in Africa in which combat troops were deployed, involving just over 100 U.S. special forces personnel. U.S. forces continue to train Ugandan and other armies as part of that operation.
KICKED OUT OF MOROCCO, ACTIVE IN SOMALIA
Critics in Africa complain Washington's approach to the continent has become increasingly militarized and focused on counterterrorism. Others worry U.S. military clout may ultimately be used to seize resources.
Administration officials disagree and point to Obama's visit as evidence of U.S. intentions.
"This trip ultimately disproves the notion that we're somehow securitizing the relationship with Africa," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told a conference call last week. "This trip is expressly devoted to trade and investment, democratic institution-building, young people and unleashing economic growth through some of our development priority."
In general, U.S. forces have only been able to operate when African governments - or sometimes France, which maintains a network of bases in former colonies - allow them to.
Permission can be quickly withdrawn for political reasons.
In April, Morocco canceled its annual Exercise African Lion with U.S. forces after a suggestion from Washington that U.N. monitors in the disputed Western Sahara region should extend their mandate to include human rights.
The United States still treads carefully in Somalia, the scene of a serious reverse in 1993 when militia fighters killed 18 Americans on a mission to capture a Somali warlord in support of a U.N. mission.
U.S. officials say there are often one or two U.S. liaison officers deployed inside Somalia helping African Union forces fight Islamist group al Shabaab - which is linked to al Qaeda - on behalf of Somalia's transitional government.
Most of the U.S. support for the African Union mission AMISOM remains outside the country, training forces in Kenya, Uganda and elsewhere.
It is a similar picture on the other side of the continent, where the U.S. military is also acting primarily in support of local nations and France.
The aftermath of the 2011 Libya war has seen a flood of weapons and militants across the Sahel, fueling the rise of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb which briefly captured much of northern Mali before a French offensive there earlier this year.
The U.S. Air Force provided much of the transport for both African and French reinforcements in Mali, while U.S. air tankers from RAF Mildenhall in England have flown long missions over the Sahara refueling French combat jets.
Some 100 U.S. personnel deployed to Niger to set up a drone base. Unlike in East Africa, however, the drones will be unarmed and used only for reconnaissance to track Islamist militants.
U.S. and African officials say Washington has long been reluctant to share its most sophisticated intelligence with African partners, in part over worries it might fall into the wrong hands.
African officers say that if they are to be truly effective at fighting militants in their own countries and as part of broader Mali-type missions, they need to know as much as possible about rebel movements, locations and plans.
"The Americans are our friends - but often they are friends who are not frank," says former Senegalese army chief Mansour Seck, also an ex-ambassador to Washington. "They have a tendency to ask you what you have but will not tell you what they have."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/multiple-missions-us-military-steps-africa-focus-063132636.html
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98% A Hijacking
All Critics (59) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (1)
To refuse to call A Hijacking a thriller is not to say it isn't thrilling, in a dryly cerebral way.
It's the second feature from the young writer-director Tobias Lindholm, and it showcases his gift for tightly focused stories told without an ounce of fat.
Lindholm doesn't present the film as a procedural for hostage negotiations because he knows too well that there are too many movable parts, too many things that can go wrong.
Methodical and tense ... has the feel of something based on real-life events ... boils down to an arresting portrait of two men, with different backgrounds and abilities, doing everything they can not to break.
We're impatient for action, any kind of action - but preferably the sort that involves a team of Navy SEALs, maybe led by Dwayne Johnson. Instead, we get something like a merger meeting.
Hand-held camerawork, so often a confounded nuisance, here makes the conditions on board the Rozen feel nauseatingly urgent.
When the gut-wrenching conclusion of A Hijacking comes in the form of a single, random act, it's only then you realize how far you've been pulled into its emotional core.
A Hijacking delivers all the thrills the title suggests, but in none of the places you'd expect them.
The danger never reaches the level of chaos, but the subtext and metaphor in the slow-moving humanistic commentary on the motivations and byproducts of capitalism make for an intriguing film.
A smart movie derived out of the small moments that collectively comprise the hostage experience, rather than grandiose gestures.
Lindholm's you-are-there docudrama works as a tense thriller, but themes of negotiation and the ability to empathize provide a rich subtext.
...slow, mostly talk, but tense and realistic...
The level of suspense in this riveting Danish thriller doesn't build in sweeping melodramatic fashion, but rather at a low-key simmer that emphasizes authentic character dynamics.
A Hijacking accomplishes a tricky task, generating tension through talk rather than action.
This absorbing chronicle of a hijacking in the Indian Ocean has the strengths of the best procedural dramas -- it assumes a distanced and objective tone and packs an emotional wallop.
Moment by moment we find ourselves wondering what will happen next...
Auteur Tobias Lindholm does a striking job in grabbing your attention and running with it as he succinctly tells the story of "A Hijacking."
A Hijacking is an absorbing, highly moving film that's lingered heavily on the mind for a couple of days now.
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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_hijacking/
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Ancient, cow-sized knobby lizard discovered in Africa
The eccentric animal?presided over a lonely desert some 260 million years ago, when Earth was home to a single continent, Pangaea.
Artist's rendering of the pareiasaur Bunostegos, a cow-sized, plant-eating reptile that roamed the ancient central desert of Pangea over 250 million years ago. Credit: Illustration by Marc Boulay.
Marc Boulay/Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
EnlargeEven by paleontology standards, this newly discovered lizard was unusual-looking, an outcast in the ancient Earth?s nearly empty deserts.
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The cow-sized animal, called Bunostegos, or "knobby roof? for the quantity of huge bulbs that dot its face, looking like bubbling cooking oil, presided over a lonely desert some 260 million years ago, when Earth was home to a single continent, Pangaea.
Found in modern Niger?s north desert, the lizard belongs to the genus pareiasaur, herbivore animals that lumbered around the Earth in its Permian period. Most pareiasaurs had knobs protruding from their skulls, but Bunostegos?s bulbous ones are unusual even for that class of animals, as the largest ever seen.?
"Imagine a cow-sized, plant-eating reptile with a knobby skull and bony armor down its back," said lead author Linda Tsuji, of the University of Washington, in a statement.
Scientists have found that the knobbed lizard was more related to primitive lizards from which it had split off millions of years earlier than it was to its contemporaries. That supports the scientists? hypothesis that central Pangaea was home to a desert whose sheer inaccessibility kept its ecosystem bounded off from the rest of the continent. Few animals ventured into the place, and those that did call it home seldom left it. That meant life there, including the knobbed lizard, lived in evolutionary solitude, growing more and more unlike their cousins in Pangaea?s more hospitable corridors.
?The endemic tetrapod fauna of Niger supports the theory that central Pangea was biogeographically isolated from the rest of the supercontinent by desert-like conditions during Late Permian times,? the scientists wrote in the paper, published in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The knobs on the droopy-faced lizard?s head were likely scaly-skin covered bones, similar to those found on the heads of modern giraffes, but scientists are not sure what function the protrusions served. Rather than act as weapons, the horns could have helped the animals tell each other apart, avoiding awkward occasions of mistaken reptilian identity out there in the desert, scientists told BBC News.
The curious-looking animal was wiped out along with most of its contemporaries about 248 million years ago, when an unknown event, possibly an asteroid plunging into Earth, obliterated the ancient animal kingdom.
The scientists said that the lizard find could help in putting together a better portrait of the world that came before us.
"Research in these lesser-known basins is critically important for meaningful interpretation of the Permian fossil record,? said Paleontologist Gabe Bever, in a statement. ?Our understanding of the Permian and the mass extinction that ended it depends on discovery of more fossils like the beautifully bizarre Bunostegos."
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Thursday, June 27, 2013
Lost in time hospital
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A dark wizard found immortality to be lonely, so he took others and froze them in time in his lost in time mental hospital.
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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Lost in time hospital?. Anything posted here will also show up there.Topic Tags:
Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.First post: ? 1 post ? Page 1 of 1
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Facebook Updates Its Ad Manager Reports With More Customizable, Real-Time Data
Facebook's effort to simplify its ad products continues: Today it's announcing an update to Ad Manager Reports (a product whose name pretty much explains what it does ? helps advertisers track and manage their campaigns on Facebook). The goal of the changes, according to Product Manager David Baser, is to give advertisers tools that are "simpler, easier-to-use, and more flexible." A lot of that seems to involve giving those advertisers more control over the data that they receive.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/P0S0yBVQmvk/
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Kuwaitis campaign privately to arm Syrian rebels
By Sylvia Westall and Mahmoud Harby
KUWAIT (Reuters) - At a traditional evening meeting known as a "diwaniya", Kuwaiti men drop banknotes into a box, opening a campaign to arm up to 12,000 anti-government fighters in Syria. A new Mercedes is parked outside to be auctioned off for cash.
They are Sunni Muslim and mainly Islamist like many Syrian rebels who have been trying for two years to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect, a branch of Shi'ite Islam. Shi'ites are also a minority in Kuwait.
"The world has abandoned the Syrian people and the Syrian revolution so it is normal that people start to give money to people who are fighting," said Falah al-Sawagh, a former opposition member of Kuwait's parliament, surrounded by friends drinking sweet tea and eating cakes.
In just four hours the campaign collected 80,000 dinars ($282,500). The box moves to a new house each day for a week. Sawagh estimates this type of campaign in Kuwait, one of the world's richest countries per capita, raised several million dollars during the last Ramadan religious holiday.
The fighting in Syria has stoked Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in the region, with Iran and Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah backing Assad, and Sunni-ruled nations such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar backing the rebels.
Sunni-ruled Kuwait has denounced the Syrian army's actions and sent $300 million in humanitarian aid to help the millions displaced by the conflict in which more than 90,000 have died.
Arming the rebels is against government policy but U.S. ally Kuwait allows more public debate than other Gulf states and has tolerated campaigns in private houses or on social media that are difficult to control.
Kuwaiti authorities are nevertheless worried that the fundraising for Syria could stir sectarian tensions. Unofficial funding of Syria's opposition is also under scrutiny by the West in case it goes to al Qaeda militants among the rebels.
Some opposition Islamist politicians and Sunni clerics have openly campaigned to arm rebel fighters, using social media and posters with telephone hotlines in public places. Former MP Waleed al-Tabtabie, a conservative Salafi Islamist, posted pictures of himself on Twitter clad in combat gear in Syria.
Kuwait's minister for cabinet affairs, Sheikh Mohammad al-Mubarak al-Sabah, said what was happening in Syria was "heart-wrenching" and understood why Kuwaitis wanted to help.
"Human nature is such that you cannot control what people believe in and how they want to act," he said.
"What is happening in Syria just inflames the emotions on both sides. That's why we are trying to steer a middle ground."
SUITCASES OF CASH
Syria is blocked from international bank transfers from Kuwait because of sanctions, so former MP Sawagh visited the Syrian town of Aleppo last month with cash in his luggage for rebel fighters. He did not say how much he took.
"Our only rule is to collect money and to deliver this money to our brothers which are helping the Syrian people," said Sawagh, a member of a local group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood which is in power in Egypt and is influential in other Arab states.
Sawagh and others in his campaign also travel to Turkey and Jordan to hand over money to intermediaries.
"They have absolute freedom to spend this money. If they can recruit mujahideen for defending themselves and their sanctity with this money, then this is their choice," he said, referring to fighters who engage in jihad or holy war.
Washington is worried the money may help strengthen fighters with links to al Qaeda who are hostile not just to Assad but also to the United States and U.S.-allied Gulf ruling families.
It wants Western and Arab allies to direct all aid to Syrian rebels through the Western-backed Supreme Military Council.
A fiery speech by Kuwaiti Sunni Muslim cleric Shafi al-Ajami raised alarm earlier this month with a call for more arms.
"The mujahideen, we are arming them from here, and from the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey," he said.
The speech was laced with references to the sectarian nature of the conflict and unnerved authorities in Kuwait where Shi'ites make up an estimated 15 to 20 percent minority of the population. Parliament, the cabinet and the ruling emir issued strong rebukes.
"I do not hide from your feelings of anxiety about what emerged recently ... manifestations and practices that carry the abhorrent breath of sectarianism which should be denounced," Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah said on state television. Such acts could "lure the fire of fanaticism and extremism," he said.
JIHAD
Ajami spoke following a call by prominent cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian based in Qatar, for jihad in Syria after fighters from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite militant group, intervened to help Assad's army.
The calls to holy war by several influential clerics in the region only encouraged more donations, Kuwaitis said.
"Women have also been donating their gold," said Bader al-Dahoum, a former Islamist opposition MP.
"After the fatwas (edicts), people are giving more."
The men at the diwaniya said one large Kuwaiti family planned to equip 28 mujahideen in Syria, estimating the cost at 700 dinars per fighter. Smaller families sponsor two or three, while a member of one of Kuwait's powerful merchant families donated 250,000 dinars.
Weapons supplied by Qatar and its allies include small arms such as AK-47 rifles, rocket propelled grenades, hand grenades and ammunition, according to a Qatari official. Qatar also provides instructions on battlefield techniques.
Campaigning for funds to arm the rebels makes certain politicians more popular in Kuwait, said Osama al-Munawer, a former opposition MP.
"I was a member of the National Assembly and people were blaming us - why don't you give them weapons?" he said.
"They said, food - they have it, but they need to defend themselves because the situation is very bad." ($1 = 0.2832 Kuwaiti dinars)
(Additional reporting by William Maclean and Ahmed Hagagy; editing by Anna Willard)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kuwaitis-campaign-privately-arm-syrian-rebels-095244987.html
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Supreme Court clears way for gay marriage in Calif
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court has cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California by holding that defenders of California's gay marriage ban did not have the right to appeal lower court rulings striking down the ban.
The court's 5-4 vote Wednesday leaves in place the initial trial court declaration that the ban is unconstitutional. California officials probably will rely on that ruling to allow the resumption of same-sex unions in about a month's time.
The high court itself said nothing about the validity of gay marriage bans in California and roughly three dozen other states.
The outcome was not along ideological lines.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia.
"We have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the 9th Circuit," Roberts said, referring to the federal appeals court that also struck down Proposition 8.
Four justices, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, said the court should have decided the constitutional question that was before it.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-clears-way-gay-marriage-calif-143302247.html
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
This Throne of Books Is Your Own Private Personal Library
There's an endless number of distractions that can prevent us from curling up with a good book. So the folks at the London-based design studio, Tilt, created the OpenBook chair. It's an oversized comfy seat wrapped in an empty library that you can fill with your favorite books and magazines, creating an oasis of reading in a sea of distracting electronics.
The upholstered wall, featuring racks for hanging newspapers and magazines on the outside, also provides a bit of extra privacy from noise, and of course a place to rest your head. And while the OpenBook chair is certainly a lovely spot to escape into your favorite book, it also provides the perfect place to show off your amazing taste in literature to friends and other guests. Just keep the Where's Waldos hidden in a back room. [Tilt via Dornob]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-throne-of-books-is-your-own-private-personal-libra-572872513
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Mexico restricts U.S. live hog imports due to piglet virus
By Adriana Barrera and P.J. Huffstutter
MEXICO CITY/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Mexico said on Tuesday it has restricted imports of live hogs from the United States because of the deadly piglet virus that has spread north of the border.
Imports of U.S. hogs would be reviewed on a case by case basis, said Mexico's Agriculture Ministry, which also said the virus has not been detected in Mexico.
The action does not affect shipments of U.S. pork to Mexico, it only affects live animals, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
"The Agriculture Ministry has taken several measures to protect the Mexican pork-rearing industry and to prevent this illness from entering the country," the Ministry said.
It added that pigs that had been imported from the United States prior to May 17 would be quarantined and closely observed. It is checking all lots of U.S. pigs imported in the past three months.
According to USDA data, the United States exported 26,793 live hogs to Mexico in 2012, a 206 percent increase from a year earlier. This year, U.S. livestock producers exported 3,758 hogs to Mexico in the first four months, down 34 percent from a year earlier.
Mexican economy ministry data shows Mexico imported 28,624 pure-breed hogs from the United States in 2012, worth $8.65 million.
Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV), a swine virus deadly to young pigs, and never before seen in North America, has spiked to 199 sites in 13 states in the United States.
Most often fatal to very young pigs, the virus causes diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration. It also sickens older hogs, though their survival rate tends to be high.
However, the virus does not pose a health risk to humans or other animals and the meat from infected pigs is safe for people to eat, according to federal officials in the United States and livestock economists.
U.S. livestock exporters learned of the restrictions last week after Mexico notified the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service it was changing its regulations over the import of U.S. swine, said Tony Clayton, president of the Livestock Exporters Association of the USA.
Now, U.S. hog producers will need a permit issued by Mexico in order to export live swine into the country, as there are no longer any regulatory guidelines for them to follow. However, no U.S. exporter has yet been denied a permit, Clayton said.
"Any time we lose a market, we are concerned," he said.
VIRUS SPREADING IN U.S.
The pig virus is spreading rapidly across the United States and is proving harder to control than previously believed.
Swine veterinarians, investigators with the U.S. Agriculture Department and others are trying to determine how the virus is spreading from farm to farm and state to state. Currently the focus is on the nation's livestock transportation system.
PEDV is spread most commonly by pigs ingesting contaminated feces. Investigators are studying physical transmission, such as truck trailers marred with contaminated feces, or a person wearing dirty boots or with dirty nails.
While the virus has not tended to kill older pigs, mortality among very young pigs infected in U.S. farms is commonly 50 percent, and can be as high at 100 percent, say veterinarians and scientists who are studying the outbreak.
The strain of the PEDV virus that is making its way across the nation's hog farms and slaughterhouses is 99.4 percent similar in genetic structure to the PEDV that hit China's herds last year, according to the U.S. researchers.
After PEDV was first diagnosed in China in 2010, it overran southern China and killed more than 1 million piglets, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal.
No direct connection has been found between the U.S. outbreak and previously identified outbreaks in Asia and Europe, say scientists and researchers.
The value of total U.S. exports of live swine, which are typically exported for breeding and improved genetics, was about $32.3 million in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service.
China has been the biggest importer of such live breeding swine, buying around $17.1 million worth, followed by Mexico and Russia.
The demand for such live animals, whether young hogs or baby chicks, is part of a bid by emerging markets to snap up millions of live animals raised by U.S. farmers as breeding stock - and capitalize on decades of cutting edge agricultural research in America.
(Reporting by Adriana Barrera in Mexico City and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Writing by Simon Gardner; Editing by Diane Craft and Bob Burgdorfer)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-restricts-u-live-pork-imports-due-piglet-205823466.html
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Obama hit by Snowden setbacks with China, Russia
Aeroflot flight SU150 sits at the tarmac of the Jose Marti international airport after arriving from Moscow to Havana, Cuba, Monday, June 24, 2013. Confusion over the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden grew on Monday after SU150 Aeroflot flight filled with journalists trying to track him down flew from Moscow to Cuba with the empty seat booked in his name.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Aeroflot flight SU150 sits at the tarmac of the Jose Marti international airport after arriving from Moscow to Havana, Cuba, Monday, June 24, 2013. Confusion over the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden grew on Monday after SU150 Aeroflot flight filled with journalists trying to track him down flew from Moscow to Cuba with the empty seat booked in his name.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Aeroflot flight SU150 sits at the tarmac of the Jose Marti international airport after arriving from Moscow to Havana, Cuba, Monday, June 24, 2013. Confusion over the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden grew on Monday after SU150 Aeroflot flight filled with journalists trying to track him down flew from Moscow to Cuba with the empty seat booked in his name. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
White House press secretary Jay Carney pauses during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Monday, June 24, 2013. Carney said the U.S. assumes that Edward Snowden is now in Russia and that the White House now expects Russian authorities to look at all the options available to them to expel Snowden to face charges in the U.S. for releasing secret surveillance information . (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Graphic shows the geographical career path and recent travels of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden; 3c x 5 inches; 146 mm x 127 mm;
WASHINGTON (AP) ? For President Barack Obama, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden's globe-trotting evasion of U.S. authorities has dealt a startling setback to efforts to strengthen ties with China and raised the prospect of worsening tensions with Russia.
Indeed, Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday called U.S. demands for Snowden's extradition "ungrounded and unacceptable."
Relations with both China and Russia have been at the forefront of Obama's foreign policy agenda this month, underscoring the intertwined interests among these uneasy partners. Obama met just last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland and held an unusual two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California earlier this month.
Obama has made no known phone calls to Xi since Snowden surfaced in Hong Kong earlier this month, nor has he talked to Putin since Snowden arrived in Russia.
Former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said it wasn't clear that Obama's "charm offensive" with Xi and Putin would matter much on this issue. The U.S. has "very little leverage," she said, given the broad array of issues on which the Obama administration needs Chinese and Russian cooperation.
"This isn't happening in a vacuum, and obviously China and Russia know that," said Harman, who now runs the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
Both the U.S. and China had hailed the Obama-Xi summit as a fresh start to a complex relationship, with the leaders building personal bonds during an hour-long walk through the grounds of the Sunnylands estate. But any easing of tensions appeared to vanish Monday following China's apparent flouting of U.S. demands that Snowden be returned from semi-autonomous Hong Kong to face espionage charges.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, in unusually harsh language, said China had "unquestionably" damaged its relationship with Washington.
"The Chinese have emphasized the importance of building mutual trust," Carney said. "We think that they have dealt that effort a serious setback. If we cannot count on them to honor their legal extradition obligations, then there is a problem."
A similar problem may be looming with Russia, where Snowden arrived Sunday. He had been expected to leave Moscow for a third country, but the White House said Monday it believed the former government contractor was still in Russia.
While the U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, the White House publicly prodded the Kremlin to send Snowden back to the U.S., while officials privately negotiated with their Russian counterparts.
"We are expecting the Russians to examine the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden for his return to the United States," Carney said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday bluntly rejected the U.S. request, saying Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border, and angrily lashed out at the U.S. for warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply.
"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said.
The U.S. has deep economic ties with China and needs the Asian power's help in persuading North Korea to end its nuclear provocations. The Obama administration also needs Russia's cooperation in ending the bloodshed in Syria and reducing nuclear stockpiles held by the former Cold War foes.
Members of Congress so far have focused their anger on China and Russia, not on Obama's inability to get either country to abide by U.S. demands. However, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said in an interview with CNN on Monday that he was starting to wonder why the president hasn't been "more forceful in dealing with foreign leaders."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton echoed the White House's frustration with China. "That kind of action is not only detrimental to the U.S.-China relationship but it sets a bad precedent that could unravel the intricate international agreements about how countries respect the laws ? and particularly the extradition treaties," the possible 2016 presidential contender told an audience in Los Angeles.
Snowden fled to Hong Kong after seizing highly classified documents disclosing U.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of U.S. phone and Internet records. He shared the information with The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers. He also told the South China Morning Post that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." SMS, or short messaging service, generally means text messaging.
Snowden still has perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend.
Hong Kong, a former British colony with a degree of autonomy from mainland China, has an extradition treaty with the U.S. Officials in Hong Kong said a formal U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with its laws, a claim the Justice Department disputes.
The White House made clear it believes the final decision to let Snowden leave for Russia was made by Chinese officials in Beijing.
Russia's ultimate response to U.S. pressure remains unclear. Putin could still agree to return Snowden to the U.S. But he may also let him stay in Russia or head elsewhere, perhaps to Ecuador or Venezuela ? both options certain to earn the ire of the White House.
Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said she expected Putin to take advantage of a "golden opportunity" to publicly defy the White House.
"This is one of those opportunities to score points against the United States that I would be surprised if Russia passed up," Hill said.
___
Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
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Monday, June 24, 2013
Meatless Monday: Portobello and cumin spiced eggplant burgers
Mushrooms instead of bread as a 'bun' for your burger? It may sound crazy, but mushrooms work great as a gluten-free alternative, and the possibilities for fillings and topping are endless.
Maybe you've heard of using mushrooms instead of meat as a 'burger,' but what about using mushrooms as the bun? Try filling your 'bun' with eggplant, another grilled veggie, or even a beef or lamb patty.
Beyond the Peel
EnlargeHow does a person make up for a week of mac and cheese, popcorn for dinner, and brownies??With veggies of course. Lots and lots of veggies.
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Cookbook author, France Morissette, and her husband Joshua Sprague believe that healthy food should be uncompromising when it comes to flavor. They creatively explore the world of natural, whole foods, leaving no stone unturned in their quest to create mouth watering, flavor packed, whole food meals. Through stories, photos, recipes and their online show Beyond The Peel TV, they're on a mission to help you eat healthy and enjoy every last bite in the process.
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A year ago I saw this idea to use portobello mushrooms as a burger bun as a gluten free way to enjoy a good ol? beef burger. So I decided to try it. I was amazed at how well it actually works. It was super juicy and surprisingly satisfying. I also recently saw a great idea in a?Denis?Cotter?cookbook?to use thick slices of eggplant as an interesting burger bun option. So I decide to mash those two ideas together. As it turns out it ? it's great!
I love this whole ?thinking outside the box??thing. Mushrooms as bread? Crazy right??Until you?ve tried it of course!
Everything goes in the oven at 450 degrees F. on one cookie sheet. Twenty minutes later the burgers are quickly assembled and dinner is ready. Serve it with your favorite salad and voil?, a healthy alternative to typical barbecue night. And if you?re not an eggplant fan, no big deal. You can still use this concept with whatever filling you like.
Now I?m thinking about eggs benedict with a portobello mushroom instead of that tired old English muffin. I?ve also seen these bad boys of the mushroom world used as the base for a pizza. Such a fabulous idea. Really there are so many possibilities. Fried egg sandwich, tuna melt sandwich ? the list goes on.
Just so we?re clear, I?m talking about a grilled or cooked portobello mushroom. I don?t want you trying this with a raw mushroom. That wouldn?t be as tasty.
Try this idea with:
- Roasted peppers and brie
- Grilled zucchini, feta and olive tapenade
- Your favorite burger patty: veggie, fish, beef, or lamb
- Mashed avocado, cilantro, and sliced tomato
- Gooey melted buffalo mozzarella, tomato, and fresh basil
Note: In the photos I used one baby eggplant. Use three mini slices of roasted eggplant per person. One baby eggplant?serves two?people. Cut eggplant spice recipe in half if only roasting one baby eggplant.
Portobello and cumin spiced eggplant burgers
Makes 4 burgers
8 portobello mushroom caps
1 large eggplant
Olive oil
Eggplant spice (see below)
Roasted Red Pepper Sauce?or a very flavorful sauce of your choice like roasted tomato jam or chutney
1. Set the oven to 450 degrees F. Using a paper towel, wipe clean the mushroom caps. Remove the stem.?Brush?the mushroom caps on both sides with olive oil and season the underside with salt and pepper. Set them on a baking sheet with tops facing down.
2. Slice the eggplant into 3/4-inch to 1-inch slices.?Brush?the eggplant slices with olive oil and toss them with the spice mixture and place them on a cookie sheet.
3. Bake the mushrooms and eggplant for 20 minutes, flipping the eggplant halfway through.
4. To assemble, top 4 portobello mushroom caps with 1 to 2 slices of roasted eggplant, roasted red pepper jam, and fresh cilantro. Cover with second mushroom cap and serve. Bring a big napkin. These are juicy.
*Alternately, this can be done on the grill. The mushroom caps only take about 8 minutes per side. Eggplant will be approximately the same.
Eggplant spice
For each large eggplant:
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix the 3 seasonings together and toss with eggplant before roasting.
Additional topping suggestions:
- Guacamole or Avocado Aioli
- Salsa and cheddar
- Grilled Haloumi and Mint Pesto
- A whole roasted pepper (seeds and skin removed) and feta
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of food bloggers. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by The Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own and they are responsible for the content of their blogs and their recipes. All readers are free to make ingredient substitutions to satisfy their dietary preferences, including not using wine (or substituting cooking wine) when a recipe calls for it. To contact us about a blogger, click here.
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Hatreds between Sunnis, Shiites abound in Mideast
CAIRO (AP) ? It's not hard to find stereotypes, caricatures and outright bigotry when talk in the Middle East turns to the tensions between Islam's two main sects.
Shiites are described as devious, power-hungry corruptors of Islam. Sunnis are called extremist, intolerant oppressors.
Hatreds between the two are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's civil war. On Sunday, officials said four Shiites in a village west of Cairo were beaten to death by Sunnis in a sectarian clash unusual for Egypt.
Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides in the region have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect.
But among the public, views are complex. Some sincerely see the other side as wrong ? whether on matters of faith or politics. Others see the divisions as purely political, created for cynical aims. Even some who view the other sect negatively fear sectarian flames are burning dangerously out of control. There are those who wish for a return to the days, only a decade or two ago, when the differences did not seem so important and the sects got along better, even intermarried.
And some are simply frustrated that there is so much turmoil over a dispute that dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century.
"Fourteen centuries after the death of the prophet, in a region full of destruction, killing, occupation, ignorance and disease, you are telling me about Sunnis and Shiites?" scoffs Ismail al-Hamami, a 67-year-old Sunni Palestinian refugee in Gaza. "We are all Muslims. ... You can't ignore the fact that (Shiites) are Muslims."
Associated Press correspondents spoke to Shiites and Sunnis across the region. Amid the variety of viewpoints, they found a public struggling with anger that is increasingly curdling into hatred.
___
BACKGROUND
The Sunni-Shiite split is rooted in the question of who should succeed Muhammad in leading Muslims after his death in 632. Shiites say the prophet's cousin and son-in-law Ali was his rightful successor but was cheated when authority went to those the Sunnis call the four "Rightfully Guided Caliphs" ? Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman and, finally, Ali.
Sunnis are the majority across the Islamic world. In the Middle East, Shiites have strong majorities in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain, with significant communities in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other parts of the Gulf.
Both consider the Quran the word of God. But there are distinctions in theology and religious practice between the two sects.
Some are minor: Shiites pray with their hands by their sides, Sunnis with their hands crossed at their chest or stomach.
Others are significant. Shiites, for example, believe Ali and a string of his descendants, the Imams, had not only rightful political authority after Muhammad but also held a special religious wisdom. Most Shiites believe there were 12 Imams ? many of them "martyred" by Sunnis ? and the 12th vanished, to one day return and restore justice. Sunnis accuse the Shiites of elevating Ali to the level of Muhammad himself ? incorrectly, since Shiites agree that Muhammad was the last of the prophets, a central tenet of Islam.
The bitter disputes of early Islam still resonate. Even secular-minded Shiite parents would never name their child after the resented Abu Bakr, Omar or Othman ? or Aisha, a wife of Muhammad, who helped raise a revolt against Ali during his Caliphate. When outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Egypt earlier this year, the sheik of Al-Azhar, the bastion of Sunni theology, told him sharply that if the sects are to get along, Shiites must stop "insulting" the "companions of the prophet."
But only the most hard-core would say those differences are reason enough to hate each other. For that, politics is needed.
___
IRAQ
If Syria's war has raised the region's sectarian hatreds, the war in Iraq played a big role in unleashing them. After the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the long-oppressed Shiite majority there saw a chance to take power. Sunnis feared the repression would flip onto them. The result was vicious sectarian fighting that lasted until 2008: Sunni extremists pulled Shiite pilgrims from buses and gunned them down; Shiite militiamen kidnapped Sunnis, dumping their tortured bodies later.
ABDUL-SATTAR ABDUL-JABAR, 56, is a Sunni cleric who occasionally preaches at the prominent Abu Hanifa mosque in the Sunni-dominated Azamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad. Two of his sons were killed by Shiite militiamen. He blames the United States and Iran for Iraq's strife.
"Right from the beginning, the Americans were trying to create sectarian rifts," he said. "Iran is a country of regional ambitions. It isn't a Shiite country. It's a country with specific schemes and agendas."
Now he fears the strife is returning, and he blames the Shiite-dominated government.
"We feel the government does not consider us part of the Iraqi nation," he said. "There is no magical solution for this. If the Shiites are convinced to change their politicians, that would be a big help."
AHMED SALEH AHMED, 40, a Sunni, runs a construction company in Baghdad mainly employing Shiites. He is married to a Shiite woman. They live in the Azamiyah neighborhood and raise their two daughters and son as Sunnis.
Still, his wife prays with the small clay stone that Shiites ? but not Sunnis ? set in front of their prayer rugs. She often visits a Shiite shrine in another Baghdad district. Ahmed sometimes helps his wife's family prepare food for Shiite pilgrims during religious ceremonies. But he admits that there sometimes is tension between the families.
"We were able to contain it and solve it in a civilized way," Ahmed said.
Iraqis like to talk politics, he said, and "when things get heated, we tend to change the subject."
When their children ask about sectarian differences, "we do our best to make these ideas as clear as we can for them so they don't get confused," he said. "We try to avoid discussing sectarian issues in front of the children."
Ahmed believes sectarian tensions have been strained because people have abused the democratic ideas emerging from the Arab Spring.
Democracy "needs open-mindedness, forgiveness and an ability to understand the other," he said. "No human being is born believing in democracy. It's like going to school ? you have to study first. Democracy should be for people who want to do good things, not for those who are out for revenge."
HUSSEIN AL-RUBAIE, 46, a Shiite, was jailed for two years under Saddam. His Shiite-majority Sadriya district in Baghdad saw considerable bloodshed during the worst of the strife, and he fears it's returning.
"The whole region is in flames and we are all about to be burnt," he said. "We have a lot of people who are ignorant and easily driven by sectarian feelings."
He sees it among his friends, who include Sunnis. "My friends only whisper about sectarian things because they think it is a shame to talk about such matters," al-Rubaie said, "but I am afraid that the day might come when this soft talking would turn to fighting in the street."
___
LEBANON
Among some of Lebanon's Shiites, it's fashionable to wear a necklace with a medallion in the shape of the fabled double-bladed sword of Ali. It's a mark of community pride at a time when the Shiite group Hezbollah says the sect is endangered by Sunni extremists in the Syrian uprising.
During Lebanon's 1974-2000 civil war, the main fight was between Christians and Muslims. But in the past decade, the most dangerous divide has been between Shiites and Sunnis.
For much of Lebanon's existence, Shiites, who make up about a third of the population, were an impoverished underclass beneath the Christians and Sunnis, each roughly a third also. The Shiite resentment helped the rise of the guerrilla force Hezbollah, on whose might the community won greater power. Now, many Sunnis resent Hezbollah's political domination of the government. The 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a Sunni, increased Sunni anger after Hezbollah members were blamed. Since then, both sides have clashed in the streets.
Syria's civil war has fueled those tensions. Lebanon's Sunnis largely back the mainly Sunni rebellion, while Shiites support President Bashar Assad's regime, which is dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism. Hezbollah sent fighters to help Assad fight the rebels, enraging Sunnis region-wide.
RANIA, 51, is a Shiite Lebanese banking executive, married to a Sunni and living in Ras Beirut, one of the capital's few mixed neighborhoods.
When she married, at age 22, "I didn't even know what the difference between Sunnis and Shiites is."
Now she's inclined to support Hezbollah. While not a fan of the hard-line group, she believes that Hezbollah and Syria are targeted because of their stances against Israel. She said her husband is anti-Hezbollah and supports Syria's rebels.
Rania, who gave only her first name because she doesn't want to be stigmatized about her social, religious or marital status, said she doesn't talk politics with her husband to avoid arguments.
"I support one (political) side and he supports the other, but we've found a way to live with it," added Rania, who has a 22-year-old daughter.
She said education plays a big role. "I find that the people who make comments about it are the people who are just ignorant, and ignorance feeds hatred and stereotyping," she added.
KHALED CHALLAH is a 28-year-old Syrian Sunni businessman who has lived for years in Lebanon. He comes from a conservative, religious family but only occasionally goes to mosque. He said the only way he would be able to tell the difference between a Sunni mosque and a Shiite one would be if the cleric talked about Syria in the sermon.
"A Shiite imam would speak against the rebels, and call to resist them, and a Sunni sheik would talk against the government in Syria," he said.
He said he still doesn't understand the Shiites' emotional fervor over the battle of Karbala, in which Ali's son, Hussein, was killed by the armies of the Sunni Ummayad dynasty in the 7th century. Hussein's martyrdom is a defining trauma of their faith, deepening their feeling of oppression. Every year, Shiites around the world mark the battle with processions that turn into festivals of mourning, with men lashing or cutting themselves.
"It means much more to Shiites, this battle's memory, than to Sunnis," Challah said.
He said Sunnis "behave sometimes like they are the only Muslims."
Challah called this "very silly. Sunnis and Shiites come from the same root, they worship the same God."
___
IRAN
The Shiite powerhouse of the Middle East is home to a government led by Shiite clerics with oil wealth and a powerful Revolutionary Guard. Tehran has extended its influence in the Arab world, mainly through its alliance with Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Iran has presented that alliance not as sectarian but as the center of "resistance" against Israel.
Sunni Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies have been trying to stem Iran's influence, in part by warning of the spread of Shiism. Saudi Arabia's hard-line Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam views Shiism as heresy.
REZA TAJABADI, a Shiite cleric in Tehran, blames the Wahhabis ? and the related ultra-conservative Salafi movement in Sunni Islam ? for stoking sectarian hatred.
"If Wahabis withdrew from creating differences, then Shiites and Sunnis will be able to put aside their minor differences, which are not considerable."
ABOLFATAH DAVATI, another Shiite cleric, points to the historical difference between the two sects. Since Sunnis have been dominant through history, Sunni clerics became subordinate to the rulers. The Shiite clergy, he said, has been independent of power.
"Sunni clerics backed rulers and justified their policies, like the killing of Imam Hussein. Even now, they put their rulers' decision at the top of their agenda," he said.
"In contrast, Shiites have not depended on government, so Sunnis cannot tolerate this and issue religious edicts against them. This increases rifts."
___
EGYPT
In a country where the Muslim population is overwhelmingly Sunni, many Egyptians know little about Shiites. The Shiite population is tiny and largely hidden ? so secretive that its numbers are not really known. But ultraconservative Salafis, many of whom view Shiites as infidels, have become more politically powerful and more vocal since the 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. They often preach against Shiism, warning it will spread to Egypt.
MONA MOHAMMED FOUAD is a rarity in Egypt: Her mother is an Iranian Shiite, her father an Egyptian Sunni. She considers herself Sunni.
"People are always surprised and shocked" when they find out her mother is Shiite, said Fouad, 23, who works for a digital marketing company. "But usually as soon as they know, they are very interested and they ask me many questions."
Fouad said her sister has heard work colleagues criticizing Shiites. In her fiance's office they distributed leaflets "telling people to beware of Shiite indoctrination," she added.
"People should read about Shiism. We make fun of foreigners who believe all Muslims are terrorists and we say they are ignorant, but we do the same thing to ourselves," Fouad said. "There is a difference in interpretation, a difference in opinion, but at the end of the day, we believe in the same things."
She told her Sunni fiance from the start that her mother is Shiite. "I told him to tell his family, so if they have any problem with that, we end it immediately."
ANAS AQEEL, a 23-year-old Salafi, spent the first 18 years of his life in Saudi Arabia, where he would sometimes encounter Shiites. "We didn't ever argue over faith. But they alienated me," he said.
"I once saw a Shiite in Saudi Arabia speaking ill of one of the companions of the prophet near his tomb. That one I had to clash with and expel him from the place," Aqeel said.
He worries about Shiites spreading their faith. While he said not all Shiites are alike, he added that "some of them deviate in the Quran and speak badly of the prophet's companions. If someone is wrong and ... he insists on his wrong concept, then we cannot call him a Muslim."
___
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
Palestinian Muslims are also almost all Sunnis. Their main connection to the Shiite world has Hamas' alliance with Iran. But those ties were strained when Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, broke its connections with Syria because of the civil war.
AHMED MESLEH, a 28-year-old blogger from the West Bank town of Ramallah, says he met Shiites on a trip to Lebanon and encounters them via Facebook. But some have de-friended him because of his online comments.
"If we take Shiites from a religious point of view, then we can describe Shiites as a sect that has gone astray from the true doctrine of Islam. I consider them a bigger threat to Muslims and Islam than Jews and Israel," Mesleh said.
He cited the Shiites' processions mourning Hussein's death, saying: "The way they whip themselves, it's irrational."
The Middle East conflict "is in its core a religious conflict. The Shiites want to destroy Islam. In Lebanon, they are the ones controlling the situation, and the ones who are causing the sectarian conflict."
ISMAIL AL-HAMAMI, a 67-year-old Palestinian refugee in Gaza's Shati camp, said politics not religion is driving sectarian tensions.
"In Gaza, Iran used to support the resistance with weapons. Now they support Assad. ... In Iraq, they (Shiites) executed Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, and they took over the country with the help of the Americans. Now they are working against America in Iran and Syria."
"So is that related to religion? It's all about politics."
The beneficiaries of sectarianism, he said, are "those who want to sell arms to both sides ... those who want to keep Arab and Muslim countries living in the dark. The beneficiaries are the occupation (Israel) and the people who sell us religious slogans."
"God knows who is right or wrong."
___
AP correspondents Adam Schreck and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Barbara Surk and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Dalia Nammari in Ramallah and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Tony G. Gabriel and Mariam Rizk in Cairo and Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hatreds-between-sunnis-shiites-abound-mideast-220325815.html
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