اهداف جامعه ایرانی چیست؟ « ما چگونه فکر می کنیم» و آنچه که در ایران مهم انگاشته می شود.

۱۳۸۶ فروردین ۲۶, یکشنبه

Iran's leader a target at Ottawa Holocaust event

Sun. Apr. 15 2007 5:52

CTV.ca News Staff

Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Sunday said the world must stand up to terrorists and fanatics who advocate the destruction of Israel, as he honoured those who lost their lives during the Holocaust.

Speaking at a ceremony on Parliament Hill on Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Day, Harper spoke of how the hatred that gave rise to the "awful, incontrovertible truth" of the Holocaust lives on today.

He said the world must resist the mistake of viewing the Holocaust as a strictly historical event, because: "There are still people who would perpetrate another Holocaust if they could."

"It's not good enough for politicians to stand before you and say they remember and mourn what happened over six decades ago. They must stand up to those who advocate the destruction of Israel and its people today, and they must be unequivocal in their condemnation of anti-Semitic despots, terrorists and fanatics.''

Harper stopped short of naming Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly declared the Holocaust a "myth," threatened Israel with annihilation, and who has hosted an international conference in December in which the main focus was to question the Nazi genocide of the Jews during the Second World War.

Other speakers at Sunday's half-hour ceremony didn't hesitate to vilify the Iranian leader.

"The thought that a person, leader or government can decide to decimate an entire race of people . . . cannot be suffered again anywhere,'' said Alan Baker, Israel's ambassador to Canada.

"And any attempt to resurrect such designs, as we are presently witnessing emanating from the president of Iran and others, must be firmly dealt with by all responsible nations and peoples of the world."

Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler said the world is "witnessing, yet again, in our own day, in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, the toxic convergence of the incitement of the most horrific of crimes -- namely genocide -- embedded in the most virulent of hatreds -- namely, anti-Semitism.''

He warned that indifference and inaction are "complicit with evil (and) an invitation to aggression.''

Known to Jews as Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day was declared by an act of the Israeli parliament in 1959 and officially recognized by Ottawa on Oct. 21, 2003, through the Holocaust Memorial Day Act.

The date is determined each year by the Jewish lunar calendar and co-ordinated to mark the date of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising on April 19, 1943.

Len Rudner, community relations director for the Canadian Jewish Congress, said the day provides an opportunity to honour and remember those who suffered and died in the Holocaust -- but who have no graves, and whose dates of death are unknown.

"It is an opportunity for us to remember not only those who died in torment, but for those who fought against impossible odds to thrust back against a Nazi terror," Rudner told CTV Newsnet.

The Internationalization of Genocide


by Fidel Castro Ruz

Havana. April 4, 2007

The Camp David meeting has just ended. We all listened with interest to the press conference by the presidents of the United States and Brazil, as well as news about the meeting and opinions stated.

Confronted by the demands of his Brazilian visitor regarding import tariffs and subsidies that protect and support U.S. ethanol production, Bush did not make the slightest concession in Camp David.

President Lula attributed to this higher corn prices which, according to him, had gone up by more than 85 percent.

Previously, the Washington Post newspaper published an article by Brazil's top leader discussing the idea of converting food into fuel.

It is not my intention to hurt Brazil, or to meddle in the internal politics of that great country. It was precisely in Rio de Janeiro, where the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held exactly 15 years ago, where I vehemently condemned, in a 7-minute speech, the environmental dangers threatening the existence of our species.

At that meeting, Bush Sr. was present as president of the United States, and in a gesture of courtesy he applauded my words, just like all the other presidents.

Nobody at Camp David responded to the main question. Where and who is going to supply the more than 500 million tons of corn and other cereals that the United States, Europe and the rich countries need to produce the volume of gallons of ethanol that the big U.S. companies and those of other countries are demanding as compensation for their sizeable investments? Where and who is going to produce the soy beans, the sunflower and colza seeds, whose essential oils are going to be converted by those same rich countries into fuel?

A number of countries produce and export their surplus food. The balance between exporters and consumers was already tense, making the prices of those foodstuffs shoot up. In the interest of brevity, I have no other alternative but to confine myself to pointing out the following:

The five top producers of the corn, barley, sorghum, rye, millet and oats that Bush wants to turn into raw materials for producing ethanol supply 679 million tons to the world market, according to recent data. In their turn, the five top consumers, some of which are also producers of these grains, currently need 604 million tons annually. The available surplus comes down to less than 80 million tons.

This colossal waste of cereals for producing fuel, without including oleaginous seeds, would serve only to save the rich countries less than 15 percent of what is annually consumed by their voracious automobiles.

In Camp David, Bush has stated his intention of applying this formula on a world scale, which means nothing else than the internationalization of genocide.

The president of Brazil, in his message published in the Washington Post, right before the Camp David meeting, affirmed that less than one percent of Brazil's arable land is dedicated to sugar cane for producing ethanol. That surface area is almost triple the size of that used in Cuba when almost 10 million tons of sugar were being produced, before the crisis of the USSR and climate change.

Our country has been producing and exporting sugar for a longer time, first based on the labor of slaves, who eventually totaled more than 300,000 in the early years of the 19th century and made the Spanish colony into the top exporter in the world. Almost 100 years later, in the early 20th century, in the pseudo-Republic, whose full independence was thwarted by U.S. intervention, only West Indian immigrants and illiterate Cubans carried the burden of the sugar cane cultivation and cutting. The tragedy of our people was the so-called dead time, due to the cyclical nature of this crop. The cane fields were the property of U.S. companies or large Cuban landowners. We have accumulated, therefore, more experience than anyone else on the social effects of that crop.

Last Sunday, April 1, CNN was reporting the opinion of Brazilian experts, who affirmed that much of the land dedicated to sugarcane cultivation has been purchased by rich individuals from the United States and Europe.

In my reflections published on March 29, I explained the effects of climate change in Cuba, compounded by other traditional characteristics of our climate.

On our island, poor and distant from consumerism, there would not even be sufficient personnel to withstand the harsh rigors of the crop and attention to the cane fields in the midst of the heat, rain or growing droughts. When hurricanes hit, not even the most perfect machines can harvest the tumbled, twisted sugar cane. For centuries, the custom was not to burn it, nor was the soil compacted under the weight of complex machinery and enormous trucks; nitrogenous, potassic and phosphoric fertilizers, now so expensive, did not even exist, and the dry and wet months alternated regularly. In modern agriculture, no high yields are possible without crop rotation.

On Sunday, April 1, the Agence France-Presse news agency published worrying news on climate change, which experts brought together by the United Nations believe to be something that is now inevitable, and with serious consequences in the coming decades.

Climate change will affect the American continent significantly, by generating more violent storms and heat waves, which in Latin America will cause droughts, with the extinction of species and even hunger, according to a UN report to be released next week in Brussels, the AFP reported.

At the end of this century, every hemisphere will suffer from water problems, and if governments do not take steps, higher temperatures could increase the risk of "mortality, pollution, natural disasters and infectious diseases," warns the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to the article.

In Latin America, global warming is already melting the Andes icecaps and threatening the forests of the Amazons, which could become grassland, the article says.

Because of the large numbers of people living near coasts, the United States is also exposed to extreme natural phenomena, as was demonstrated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the AFP notes.

This is the second in a series of three IPCC reports, which began in February with an initial scientific diagnosis establishing the certainty of climate change, the article continues.

This second, 1,400-page report, which analyzes the changes by industry and region, and a copy of which was obtained by the AFP, states that even if radical measures are taken to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, higher temperatures throughout the planet in the coming decades is now a certain fact, the AFP reported.

As could be expected, Dan Fisk, National Security advisor for the region, stated on the same day in the Camp David meeting that in the discussion on regional matters, the Cuba issue would be one of them, and not exactly to address the subject of ethanol -- about which the convalescing President Fidel Castro wrote an article on Thursday -- but instead about the hunger he has created among the Cuban people.

Given the necessity of responding to this gentleman, I feel obliged to remind him that the infant mortality rate in Cuba is lower than that of the United States. He can rest assured that not a single citizen lacks free medical care. Everybody is studying, and nobody lacks the possibility of useful work, despite almost half a century of economic blockade and the attempt by U.S. governments to bring the Cuban people to its knees through hunger and economic asphyxiation.

China would never use even one ton of cereal or legumes to produce ethanol. This is a nation with a prospering economy that has beaten growth records, in which all its citizens receive the income necessary for essential consumer goods, despite the fact that 48% of its population, in excess of 1.3 billion inhabitants, work in the agricultural sector. On the contrary, it has been proposed to save considerable energy by eliminating thousands of factories that consume unacceptable levels of energy and hydrocarbons. Many of the foodstuffs mentioned are imported by China from all corners of the world after being transported thousands of kilometers.

Scores of countries do not produce hydrocarbons and cannot cultivate corn and other grains, or produce oleaginous seeds, because they do not have enough water even to meet their most elemental needs.

In a meeting convened in Buenos Aires by the Oil Industry Chamber and the Exporters Center on the production of ethanol, Dutchman Loek Boonekamp, director of Markets and Agricultural Trade for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, informed the press:

"Governments got very enthusiastic; but they should take a good look as to whether there should be such robust support for ethanol.

"Ethanol production is only viable in the United States; not in any other country, except when subsidies are applied.

"This is not manna from heaven and we don't have to blindly commit ourselves," the cable continues.

"These days, developed countries are pushing for fossil fuels to be mixed with bio-fuels at close to 5% and that is already putting pressure on agricultural prices. If that mixture is raised to 10%, it would need 30% of the sown surface of the United States and 50% of Europe's. That is why I am asking if this is sustainable. An increase in the demand for crops for ethanol would produce higher and more unstable prices."

Protectionist measures have risen today to 54 cents per gallon and real subsidies are much higher.

By applying the simple math that we learn in high school, as I stated in my previous reflections, it can be confirmed that the simple replacement of incandescent light bulbs by fluorescent ones would contribute a saving of investment and energy recourses equivalent to trillions of dollars without using a single hectare of agricultural land.

Meanwhile, news coming from Washington is affirmed textually by the AP:

"The mysterious disappearance of millions of bees across the whole of the United States has beekeepers on the verge of a nervous breakdown and is even worrying Congress, which this Thursday is to debate the critical situation of a key insect for the agricultural sector.

"The first serious signs of this enigma emerged shortly after Christmas in the state of Florida, when beekeepers discovered that the bees had vanished.

"Since then, the syndrome that experts have christened Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has reduced the country's swarms by 25%.

"'We have lost more than half a million colonies, with a population of around 50,000 bees each,' said Daniel Weaver, president of the American Beekeeping Federation, noting that the disease is affecting 30 of the country's 50 states. The curious part of the phenomenon is that in many cases no mortal remains have been found.

"The hardworking insects pollinate crops valued at $12-14 billion, according to a study from Cornell University.

"Scientists are considering all sorts of hypotheses, including one that a certain pesticide has provoked neurological damage in the bees and altered their sense of direction. Others blame the drought, and even cell-phone waves, but what is certain is that nobody knows for sure what the real trigger is."

The worst could be still to come: a new war to ensure supplies of gas and oil, which would place the human species on the brink of a total holocaust.

There are Russian news agencies that, citing intelligence sources, have reported that the war on Iran has been prepared in all its details for more than three years, from the day that the United States decided to totally occupy Iraq, thus unleashing an interminable and odious civil war.

Meanwhile, the United States government is directing hundreds of billions to the development of highly sophisticated technological weapons, such as those utilizing microelectronic systems, or new nuclear weapons that could be over their targets one hour after receiving the order.

The United States is totally ignoring the fact that world opinion is against any type of nuclear weapons.

Demolishing every single Iranian factory is a relatively easy technical task for a power like that of the United States. The difficult part could come afterwards, if another war is launched against another Muslim belief, which merits all our respect, as well as the other religions of the peoples of the Near, Middle and Far East, before or after Christianity.

The arrest of British troops in Iran's jurisdictional waters would seem to be a provocation exactly like that of the so-called Brothers to the Rescue when, in violation of President Clinton's orders, they advanced over waters in our jurisdiction, and the defensive action of Cuba, absolutely legitimate, served as a pretext for the government of the United States to promulgate the infamous Helms-Burton Act, which violates the sovereignty of other countries. The powerful mass media have buried that episode in oblivion. More than a few people are attributing the price of oil, reaching close to $70 per barrel on Monday, to fears of an attack on Iran.

Where are the poor nations of the Third World going to find the minimal resources for survival?

I am not exaggerating or using untempered words; I am going by facts.

As can be seen, the polyhedron has many dark sides

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees

By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross

Published: 15 April 2007

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees.

Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am convinced the possibility is real."

The case against handsets

Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer, take decades to show up.

Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.

Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.

Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically, doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from constant texting.

Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety recommendations, largely ignored by minister

Iran to build 2 more nuclear power plants

TEHERAN, Iran - Iran said Sunday it is seeking bids to build two more nuclear power plants even as the launch of its first plant is stalled amid a bitter dispute with Russia over its funding.

Ahmad Fayyazbakhsh, the deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization in charge of power plants, told reporters the plants would be light-water reactors, each with the capacity to generate up to 1,600 megawatts of electricity.

Each plant would cost up to US$1.7 billion (Ð1.26 billion) and take up to 11 years to construct, he said.

The announcement comes as Iran has been struggling with Russia over the funding of the country’s first plant near the southern city of Bushehr.

Russia delayed the launch of the plant, which had been set for September and is already eight years behind schedule, and refused to ship uranium fuel for the reactor last month as earlier planned, citing Iran’s payment arrears.

Iranian officials denied any payment delays under the US$1 billion (Ð0.74 billion) contract, and accused Russia of caving in to Western pressure.

Due to have opened first in 1999, the Bushehr light-water reactor stands 95 percent complete, Iranian officials say. The facility, with its cream-colored reactor dome, overlooks the Persian Gulf and is heavily guarded, ringed with anti-aircraft guns and radar stations. Troops block roads leading to the site.

Construction began in 1974 with help from then-West Germany. Work was then interrupted during the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought hard-line clerics to power. Iraq also bombed the plant during its 1980-88 war with Iran.

When Iran tried to resume the project after the war, the Germans refused to help. Iran turned to Russia, signing a US$1 billion (Ð0.74 billion) contract to build the 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant in 1995.

Iran has also been focusing on developing its own domestic technology, building a 40-megawatt heavy-water reactor in Arak, central Iran. It is also preparing to build a 360-megawatt nuclear power plant in Darkhovin, in southwestern Iran.

Fayyazbakhsh said the two new plants would be built near Bushehr, and he planned to travel to Russia next week to try to ease tensions and get the first Bushehr plant back on track.

The bids for the two plants, which will expire in early August, have been published on the nuclear organization’s Web site. Iran has already negotiated with several foreign companies that have expressed interest in the new project, Fayyazbakhsh said. He declined to name the companies.

Under Iranian law, the nuclear organization has been tasked with providing 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear power plants during the next 20 years.

The US and some of its allies accuse Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons _ a charge Iran denies.

Iran has insisted it has a right to develop enrichment and has pushed ahead with the process at a separate facility outside the central town of Natanz.

The UN Security Council last month voted to impose new sanctions on Iran as part of a second set of penalties in three months against Teheran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

The enrichment process can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or _ if taken to a higher degree _ the material for atomic bombs.

Unlike Natanz, the Bushehr plant is not part of the dispute with the UN Security Council because the reactor itself has no potential military use.

Iran said Monday it has begun operating 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz facility_ nearly 10 times the previously known number _ in defiance of the UN demands. The U.S., Britain, France and others criticized the announcement.

But the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, has discounted Teheran’s claims, saying only several hundred centrifuges were operating at Natanz.

ElBaradei on Sunday urged Iran to be transparent’ in its nuclear program and other countries not to resort to military action over Teheran’s nuclear standoff.

We hope that Iran will cooperate with us, using enough transparency, so that we can assert that it’s nuclear program is dedicated for peaceful purposes,’ ElBaradei said during a stop in Jordan.

The U.N.’s latest sanctions included the banning of Iranian arms exports and freezing of assets of 28 people and organizations involved in Iran’s nuclear missile programs.

Iran has rejected the sanctions and announced a partial suspension of cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Association.

Saudi king describes Iran's nuclear program as new regional crisis

Pakistan Times

RIYADH: Iran's nuclear program has added one more crisis to the region that needs to be contained, along with the sectarian conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon, King Abdullah said Saturday.


Saudi Arabia is also seeking to ensure "fair" oil prices and increase its oil production capacity so that it can meet its domestic and international commitments.


In his annual address to the unelected Consultative Council, the closest thing Saudi Arabia has to a parliament, the king also called for national unity and pledged to continue the fight against terrorism until the militants either "come to their senses or are uprooted from Saudi society."

The king delivered a summary of his speech, but the full text was distributed to the media at the council.

Abdullah's speech came amid Arab fears that the sectarian turmoil in Iraq, tension in Lebanon and Iran's contentious nuclear program could lead to chaos that would engulf the whole region.

Riyadh has embarked on an aggressive push to resolve the crises, sending envoys to Iran, talking to Shiite and Sunni Iraqis and urging Lebanon's feuding leaders to sit together and talk.●

Surah Ghashiyah

Sureh Balad

Sureh Fateha

Qari Basit - Surah Shams

Qari Basit - Surah Balad + Qadr

Bush Repeats Call for War Funding Bill Without Conditions

President Bush meets with opposition leaders who control Congress Wednesday over differences blocking additional funding for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearns reports, Democrats want a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

President Bush says he will veto legislation passed by Democrats in the House and Senate because he says it undercuts American troops.

"They passed bills that would impose restrictions on our military commanders and set an arbitrary date for withdrawal from Iraq, giving our enemies the victory they desperately want," he said.

Both votes were close, making it highly unlikely Democrats will find the two-thirds majority needed to override the promised veto.

President Bush says Democrats are trying to score political points, so they should send him the bill quickly so he can veto it and get legislators back to working on a new bill without timetables for troop withdrawals.

Democrats say it is President Bush who is politicizing the war by accusing them of under funding troops when their legislation approves all the money he is asking for. Democrats say that when voters elected Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate last year, it was a mandate to push for a new direction in Iraq.

President Bush says he is changing course with a surge of additional U.S. troops, but that the strategy needs time to work. The Bush administration broadened its campaign for additional funding this past week with Washington appearances by both the Iraqi Ambassador and the Iraqi government spokesman.

White House officials say Wednesday's meeting with Congressional Democrats is not a negotiation because the president will never accept a timetable for troop withdrawal.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says Democrats welcome a discussion with the president on Iraq that has no preconditions. But in a written statement, Hoyer said Democrats will not rubber-stamp what he calls the president's "failing, stay-the-course strategy" in Iraq.

Volkswagen Believed to Belong to Pope Benedict XVI Before Papacy Doesn't Sell on EBay

SAN FRANCISCO Apr 14, 2007 (AP)— A 1999 metallic gray Volkswagen Golf believed to once belong to the pope went up for sale on eBay, but the auction ended Saturday without a winner.

For the second time in two years, eBay hosted an auction for a car said to be Pope Benedict XVI's old hatchback. Though bids surpassed $204,000, a reserve price wasn't met.

The car's owner, a Texas-based online casino, GoldenPalace.com, bought the car in 2005 on eBay from a German man. The casino had posted two German automobile registration documents that list "Josef Kardinal Ratzinger" as the vehicle's previous owner.

A spokeswoman for eBay, Catherine Fisher, said she did not know what the seller's minimum price was. A message left with GoldenPalace.com was not immediately returned Saturday evening.

The online auction site said it had verified the car was owned by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he ascended to the papacy. The seller said it would give 40 percent of the proceeds of the sale to charity