Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Iraqi Christians suffering in and outside of Iraq

Yesterday, the targeting of Iraqi Christians continued with two more killed in Mosul home invasions. Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) reminds, "Attacks in October 2008 on Christians in Mosul prompted a mass exodus from that city of 1.8 million. Many Christian families in Iraq who spoke to CNN said they feared for their safety and wanted to leave the country, but didn't have the means to do so." That was 2008, only one of the many waves of attacks on Iraqi Christians, and Nouri did nothing then to protect Iraqi Christians either. Nouri's 'leadership' this go-round includes castigating France and Italy for offering medical treatment to the victims and asylum to victims and their families who deisre it. The latest wave of attacks garnered international attention when Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad was seized October 31st and over fifty-eight people were killed -- including two priests.

The assault has led to international protests. Xinhua reports approximately 500 people protested the assaults in Sydney, Australia today, "A sea of Syrian and Iraqi flags waved through Martin Place in Sydney Central Business District on Tuesday, as about 500 protesters chanted 'stop the violence, stop the killing'." AAP quotes Raymond Elishapour stating, "There are many people there that are not only being wiped out but who want to seek asylum on Australian shores that are being subjected to long bureaucratic processes. They're being caught up in violence that they can't escape. Australia is liable because they were involved in causing the destabilisation (in Iraq) that has aggravated the circumstances for these people."

Meanwhile Ahmad Al Akabi apparently took his own life last night. Australia's ABC reports that he was among many immigrants at Sydney's Villawood detention center and that he had been attempting to receive asylum in Australia and that efforts were being made to expel him from Australia and send him back to Iraq: "Mr Al Akabi came to Australia by boat 12 months ago. He was a teacher and a truck driver in Karbala in southern Iraq. His fellow asylum seekers say his bid to stay in Australia was based on claims of persecution from the Shia Mahdi Army." AFP adds, "Human rights supporters said the man who had hanged himself in a bathroom on Tuesday was an Iraqi in his 40s who had left a wife and four children behind in Iraq, and arrived in Australia on a boat about a year ago."

The following community sites updated last night and this morning:






And we'll close with this from Page Gardner of Women's Voices, Women Vote:

I wanted to make sure you had the latest data from our post-election research. It includes important information from two surveys conducted November 1 and 2: one is a national survey of voters and the other looks at our program participants.
Research shows that reaching out to and increasing the participation of members of the Rising American Electorate-unmarried women, people of color and youth voters-is critical to ensuring everyone has a voice in our democracy. Indeed, the marriage gap was shown to be a major factor this year: at 30 points, it was more than double the 13 point gender gap, however, it was narrower than in years past. Further, the marriage gap nearly doubled among our program participants compared to the general pool of voters.
There were other bright spots in the research about our programs: only 3% of the electorate this year was made up of new voters, but 27% of our program participants were new voters. Further, there was a very high recall rate of our mail-62% of program participants recalled mail from WVWV's Voter Participation Center urging them to register or vote this year.
You can view these and other results here: http://www.wvwv.org/assets/2010/11/15/wvwvpostelectionsurvey.pdf.
We look forward to doing a thorough evaluation of all of our programs this year and will report the results as soon as we have them.



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thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends
























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