Jerusalem to the Arctic wilderness

Grounds for divorce

Conflicting signs continue to come out of Iran.

This week the Parliament, home to the reformers, gave its approval to a bill that grants women rights to divorce that are equal to those of men. Women have not enjoyed that right since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The approval of the bill is seen as a victory for reformers, women or men. In part, it requires men to cough up for health care of their sick wives, and, if necessary, provide a maid or nurse. At present, men who refuse to pay for the health care of their spouses are excused by the courts.

The civil code, adopted after the 1979 revolution, states that “a man can divorce his wife whenever he wishes.” The new bill grants equal rights between the sexes, as well as making it harder for both to divorce than the ‘on a whim’ nature of the present rule.

But to become law, the bill needs to be approved by the hard-line Guardian Council, not known for its progressive record on women’s rights. “The literature of the bill is not in accordance with the norms of our society,” wrote Taha Hashemi, student of supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, in the daily Entekhab.

Those “norms” are becoming increasingly hard to identify.

(Source: NYT)

East meets west?

War talk on Iraq has shifted the world’s focus away from Israel-Palestine. Disaster and tragedy make the news. The small but significant acts tend to go unnoticed.

This week saw one of those. Teddy Kolleck, former Mayor of Jerusalem, said that in order to bring peace, Israel must give Palestinians control over parts of the city, including Muslim holy sites.

Kolleck is 91 and was Mayor of Jerusalem for twenty-seven years, leaving office in 1993. “I think we have to reach a deal,” he said on Israeli Army Radio. “As part of the arrangement, something must be given to them. We will not achieve calm without giving them some of what they want to have control over of, viewing it as Arab land.”

The timing was important. His words came the day after Israel announced the arrest of four East Jerusalem Arabs (members of Hamas) who it accused of mounting attacks that killed thirty-five people, five of whom were American. The press was reflecting the concern that East Jerusalem was being used as a base for the attacks on Israeli citizens.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, annexed it, and considers the city its united capital. As Reuters points out, the city was a major factor in the breakdown of peace talks in 2000, since when at least 1,507 Palestinians and 589 Israelis have lost their lives.

Crooner the dread

“If only I could find a man like Putin.”

So sounds the chorus of A Man Like Putin, a song by mysterious Russian pop band Singing Together, in which a love-beaten female vocalist tells how she longs for a fella as strong and true as the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin. Her current boyfriend does little more than drink and fight, qualities she has had enough of.

The song is all over the Russian airwaves. But, oddly, no-one seems to know where it came from. It is unavailable in the shops. Singing Together are pop-world debutantes. The radio stations that play the tune cannot account for its source, but insist it is proving a real hit with the voters… sorry, listeners.

Suspicions have been raised that the record is the product of Putin’s ambitious spin doctors, aiming to raise the Russian leader’s profile. His approval rating is around 70%. There are already Putin watches, Putin kebabs, and the forthcoming Putin tomato. Now there are women pining for him in ballads.

Stalin had nothing on this.

(Source: BBC)

Silvio sings

So what is it with leaders and the food of love? When it’s not Clinton and his sax appeal, its Vajpayee and his records of musical poetry. And Putin isn’t the only new addition to the lists of politico pop idols.

Italian media mogul, and sometime Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi is set to release an album of twelve self-penned Neapolitan ballads at Christmas. While on summer holiday, the billionaire has been composing the songs with the help of Mariano Apicella in the dining room of his Sardinian villa. The album will be called A Song is Better (better than what? politics?). Mr Apicella treated the Italian public to a taster, playing a couple of songs on TV last week.

Before building his empire, Berlusconi was a crooner on a cruise-ship in the 1950s. Apicella, a musician picked up in a bar last year by an infatuated Berlusconi, described the PM as “a romantic who loves music as he loves nature.”

As coincidence would have it, Berlusconi’s Sardinian villa (Villa Certosa, which boasts forty hectares, a private beach, a fitness centre, tennis court and private cinema) has also played host this summer to Masha and Katya Putin, teenage daughters of Silvio’s pal Vladimir.

One wonders what a Russo-Neapolitan duet might sound like?

(Source: The Independent)

A professional liaison

“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realise that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.” So said Ronald Reagan.

Well now, Barry Haase, conservative Australian MP, is about to find out first hand just how close the two professions are. Haase, a member of the Liberal Party, has been “bought” in a Rotary club charity auction by Mary-Anne Kenworthy, the madam of Langtree’s brothel in Kalgoorlie. She paid $1,000 for him, and intends “to have a lot of fun”.

Haase is set to be a “slave” in the brothel.

“I am going to put a frilly apron on him and start him cleaning at ten in the morning to show him our brothel is spotlessly clean and not all brothels are dirty,” Madam Kenworthy explained. She aims to educate him in the ways of the brothel, so that he can make informed political decision based on his experiences.

“You can’t be half-hearted about fundraising for significant charities,” Haase said, adding, somewhat boastfully in the circumstances, “and I think I’m big enough to play the game.”

What a baaargain!

Wired.com reported this week on the business methods of EthioGift, Ethiopia’s leading e-commerce website, where customers can send flowers, chocolates or sheep as a thank you gift.

EthioGift discovered that despite the impact of modern technology, the old gifts were still favoured by their customers. So for two years, the site has included animals in its gift selection. They come in three sizes: small, big or very big. Fattened rams are popular at the moment. They are "perfect for a holiday feast."

“Most Ethiopians are not used to giving flowers as a gift, while sheep is a very common gift,” Dawit Bekele, the Ethiopian-born site founder told Wired news. “It’s true that with globalisation, people are starting to become more and more similar. But there are differences that we have to take into account.”

Last December, a UN report on e-commerce in the developing world cited EthioGift as an example of how entrepreneurs were using the internet in ways that contribute to the local economies of the developing world. Apparently, special-occasion gift packages can include such a selection as a medium sheep and a chocolate cake.

To order your flowers, chocolate, or livestock, go to , EthioGift

Goosing around

And finally, to Cornwallis Island in Canada’s Arctic wilderness, where the search for a goose ended at the freezer of an Eskimo hunter.

Kerry, an Irish light-bellied brent goose, was fitted with a £3,000 electronic transmitter by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, England. They were tracking his migration route, which lasted for a whole 4,500 miles, before suddenly coming to an end. The scientists tracked the bleeping to a Eskimo’s home. They knocked on the door and were taken to his freezer, where Kerry lay, shot, the bleeper still transmitting.

“The hunter was somewhat surprised,” Dr. James Robinson, senior researcher at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust said. “He did not know what the device on the goose’s back was. He was a bit reluctant to co-operate to start with, but when the project was explained to him, he was happy to help.”

There were six wired-up geese in all. Another, Arnthor, is also thought to have been shot. His bleeping ceased somewhere above Disko Island on the west coast of Greenland. They found a third, Oscar, dead on a small Icelandic island. He had been got by a bird of prey.

But the three others – Austin, Hugh and Major Ruttledge – are busy mating on Ellesmere Island, Amund Island and Graham Island.

For a mere £75 sterling, members of the public can adopt a goose. They are then sent regular emails and text messages, charting their adoptee’s progress. To stop an outcry, Kerry’s fifteen adopters have been granted adoption rights over one of the three luckier birds.

(Source: BBC)

Quotes (and Bushisms) of the week

“It is as though we are determined to regress to the most primitive condition of existence in the animal world, of the survival of the fittest. It is as though we have decided to spurn what the human intellect tells us, that the survival of the fittest only presages the destruction of humanity.” President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, opening the UN summit conference on sustainable development in Johannesburg.

“In a democracy it’s vital to have the support of the public.” Ari Fleischer, spokesman of President Bush.

“He’s a – he understands that we’ve got to keep Al-Qaida on the run, and that by keeping him on the run, it’s more likely we will bring him to justice. And I appreciate his strong support.” President Bush’s controversial and confusing response to the news that the unelected President Musharraf of Pakistan had altered the constitution to increase his own power.

“Obviously, to the extent that our friends promote democracy, it’s important.” President Bush, ibid.

“I am just grateful he is alive. God worked a miracle.” Anna Sims, mother of George Sims, 46, who has been reported missing since 11 September 2001 but was found alive in a New York hospital. Sims is suffering from amnesia and schizophrenia. No-one knows what he was doing on 9/11 or how he came to be in the hospital. His identification nearly a year on from the attacks has been seen as proof that the exact death toll of that day will never be known.

“It is really sad and rather ironic that it is Dickens’ book of goodwill to all men.” Andrew Xavier, curator of the Dickens House Museum in London, from where robbers stole three first editions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol this week. The books are worth up to £30,000 each.

Readers’ Responses

David Beatty is working at the Water-Dome in the Johannesberg Summit to increase people’s understanding of this basic service, globally. Despite everything, he has high, very high, expectations of the summit. Meet the man: catch the vibes, and write to him, if you wish.

Dear openDemocracy,

Squeezed in the usual complexity countdown to the departure date tomorrow evening.

I’m 59 (just!)…a Canadian…graduate of the 60’s…25 years of independent enterprise, with large dollops of academic positions thrown in. Overwhelmed by the number of detailed maps of how things don’t work, and the number of detailed maps about how natural systems do work. Looking for the bridge between the immensity within and the immensity without. E-mail reaches me at djb@ihe.nl

A series of work-centred activities led to the decision that being at the Water Dome event would be a logical jumping-off point for the next 3 years. The Water Dome is a 5 day meeting centre for those who want to show the world their commitment to water issues. The main objective of the Water Dome is to create water awareness by organising a dialogue between stakeholders at the Dome, located in Northgate, Johannesburg. It begins on August 29, close on the heels of the Summit deliberations. So for those of you who are nearby, COME ON DOWN. For others, see www.waterdome.net

Through a series of ‘coincidences’, I am currently an organisational learning facilitator, specialising in launching Communities-of-purpose in multi-plexed systems. Or something. For information about core competencies, see www.Reflection-Action.com and www.icodrome.nl.

I have projects with Delft Cluster, which is a five organisation investment by the Dutch government, within the EU framework, to create a world knowledge centre focusing on the sustainable infrastructure of densely populated delta areas. Or something.

One of the partners, IHE, the Institute for Hydraulic & Environmental Engineering, is making a leap from being a national institute to being a global centre for Water Education and Research, as part of the UNESCO family. Or something.

The Netherlands Water Partnership has a philosophy and track record of partnering, and I was commissioned as a lead facilitator for a 110 multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary learning system for 60 days, to come up with innovative contributions for Water and Human (In)Security issues. The participants did GREAT WORK, and two of their inventions - a game, and an ‘Endless Water Tale’ are featured at the NWP pavilion in the Dome. (see http://nwp.nl/community)

So, I will have a back-up role at this Pavilion part of this Dome at this Summit in this Millennium Opening Moment. And now the challenge of orienting and entering!

World events offer us a chance to strengthen global consciousness about who we must choose to be if we are going to survive as a species on this planet. This is a non-trivial opportunity.

I am a fully-convinced Fullerite, and I believe the Fuller Challenge is a good doorway to re-thinking what we are doing together. I am a charter member of the Dawn Project, and heartily recommend a visit to www.equitechllc.com and to www.cesj.org. If you dare big.

I believe that the only way through is to be open to the Whole Way. I hope the Dome is a huge magnet that draws us all closer to reversing directions Now, in this Moment. This belief draws my attention to the polarity between the control of purpose, and the openness of the heart. My personal goal is to be in balance among the many dimensions, relationships and unfolding events that will fill this Moment. I believed in the Millennium Opening Moment (M.O.M.) and still do. Global events focused on the best we can be - do generate momentum.

My professional goal is to find communities, networks, task teams, etc. who are ready to move forward in building a viable planet, and are looking for a way to make it happen sooner and better. I will be satisfied if I come back with 3 agreements with others on how to make a contribution in the next six months. Sorry - I don’t think I’m going to be in on-line dialogue during the event. I do hope to make some ‘on-the-scene’ notes of interest to you whoever you are, and will beam in my report on September 4.

Hopefully, we’ll emerge at the other end, ready for a rich conversation. Feedback appreciated and acknowledged.