Monday, December 26, 2011

Iraqi Christians

Prashant Rao (AFP) reports on Iraqi Christians and speaks with Bishop Shlemon Warduni who states, "They feel there is no peace, no security, so they go where they can live in peace. We don't agree, we don't want them (to go) but they say, 'If we don't go, can you ensure my life, can you ensure my job, can you ensure the future?'" Rao also notes that, for a change, Christmas morning did not find the mosque across from Our Lady of Salvation Church "blast[ing] Koranic recitations over loudspeakers during the mass." Our Lady of Salvation Church was attacked October 31, 2010. Jamal Hashim (Xinhua) also speaks with Iraqi Christians. Muna Alfred states, "We can't guarantee our lives, and the government seems incapable of providing better security situation after the U.S. pullout." She states she will continue to remain in Iraq but doesn't blame those who left for safety.

Meanwhile Al Mada reports that the Christian Endowment, led by Ra'ad Emmanuel, is calling for Iraqi Christians to return to Iraq noting that there are an estimated 400,000 scattered within Iraq today compared to the over one million at the start of 2003. The population has dwindled due to the inability to protect the population. There has been on increase in protection or even any of Nouri's false claims that he's going to address the issue (which he never does). In such an environment, no one should be calling for those who left for their own safety to now return. The move is questionable as is the motive. The same ones declairng Iraqi Christians need to return are the ones who have pushed for an Iraqi province and been shot down because, among other reasons, the population isn't large enough to justify such a push.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur speaks with Archbishop Louis Saku who explains that prayer services had to be held on the morning of Christmas Day due to the fear of violence and that Christmas itself was celebrated individually and privately in homes, "In the past, we used to hold mass celebrations at clubs and social centres." That's the climate those who've left the country are being asked to return to. Aswat al-Iraq notes, "The usual Christmas and New Year celebrations have disappeared from Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, where Christians expressed solidarity with Muslims, whose the Shiite sad Muharram anniversary took place recently, along with the bloody explosions that took place last Thursday, killing and wounding dozens of innocent civilians."

The following community sites -- plus Law and Disorder Radio, Antiwar.com and Cindy Sheehan -- updated yesterday:





We'll close with this from Sherwood Ross' "SOUND PRECAUTION TO BAN GAS 'FRACKING' UNTIL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE SAYS IT’S SAFE" (Scoop):



ExxonMobil Chairman/CEO Rex Tillerson sounded very confident when he told a congressional hearing last year that extracting natural gas by the “hydraulically fractured” process has not led to even one “reported case of a freshwater aquifer having ever been contaminated.”
But drinking water supplies in Pavillion, Wyo., and Dimock, Pa., are suspected of contamination from such drilling and a study by Duke University researchers showed that methane can leak into drinking water near active fracking sites.
The oil companies are backing up their story with an effective ad campaign. Example: ExxonMobil's ad in the Sept. 19th “New Yorker” claims existing gas buried deep beneath our water supplies could “meet our needs for over 100 years.”
Besides having “thousands of feet of protective rock between the natural gas deposit and any groundwater” drillers' install “multiple layers of steel and cement” in shale gas wells to keep the gas “safely within the well,” the ad said. The slurry is made up of sand, water, and chemicals---but drillers don't have to identify the chemicals.





The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.










































Posted by at