Vatican City: Pope Benedict on Friday became one of the oldest people to have his own YouTube channel, and he cautioned the young to use new media wisely and to avoid on-line obsession that can isolate them from real-life.
The Vatican channel, www.youtube.com/vaticanit, will broadcast short video news clips on the 81-year-old pope's activities and Vatican and church events, with audio and text initially in English, Spanish, German and Italian.
The video news clips will be about two minutes long each day. They will be produced by the Vatican's television centre and journalists and web managers of Vatican Radio.
The launch of the channel was combined with the release of the pope's message for the Church's World Day of Communications, whose theme is "New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture Respect, Dialogue and Friendship."
Henrique de Castro, managing director of European sales and media solutions for Google, which owns YouTube, told a news conference Google would not make any money from the venture. "Our strategy is to get people to come to our sites," he said.
The YouTube channel will have no advertising and provide links to a number of Vatican and Catholic websites and video channels, including some run by churches around the world. The channel marked the Vatican's deepest plunge into new media. The Vatican's website, www.vatican.va, began in 1995.
Archbishop Claudio Celli, head of Vatican communications said the Vatican could not exclude that someday it would have its own space on Facebook, the social networking site.
In his welcome message to users of YouTube, the pope said he hoped the initiative would be put to "the service of the Truth." In his separate, written message for the Church's communications, he cautioned young people to seek quality and not quantity in their online relationships and not to forget human contact.
"It would be sad if your desire to sustain and develop on-line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation," the pope wrote.
"If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development," he said. The pope also said it would be "a tragedy for the future of humanity" if a so-called digital divide were allowed to widen to the point where it excluded disadvantaged areas of the world that are already economically and socially marginalized.
(original source: Reuters)
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
An atheist UK bus campaign which uses the slogan "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" was launched earlier this month following fund-raising by the British Humanist Association.
Featuring on 200 bendy buses in London and 600 other vehicles in England, Scotland and Wales, they were backed by high profile atheists, including Professor Richard Dawkins.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it would not be further investigating any complaints about the campaign, which was launched on British buses and the London Underground on the 6 January.
While some of the complaints claimed the adverts were offensive and denigrated people of faith, others challenged whether they were misleading because the advertiser would not be able to substantiate its claim that God "probably" did not exist.
Although the watchdog acknowledged the content of the campaign would be at odds with the beliefs of many, it concluded that it was unlikely to mislead or to cause "serious or widespread offence".
Last week, Christian bus driver Ron Heather, from Southampton, Hampshire, refused to drive one of the buses carrying the atheist slogan and walked out of his shift in protest.
The campaign made me think of how easier things would be if people would just chill. I think people in the Middle East in particular and the world in general are so boiled up about their own perception of God and his teachings (punishment, after life, God's promise land, etc.) that it has blinded them from truly experiencing their humanity.
If we look at the atrocities of Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Darfour, etc. only one thing is evident and that is 'intolerance'.
It is true.. Maybe it is easier to pretend there is no God and start living life as human beings regardless of religion. Can this solve all the problems we are facing in the Middle East and the rest of the world, well I'm not sure but at least we can try!
A CALL FOR SHOES
As part of my new installation in May, I am asking people to give me their shoes (old, new, etc.) that they would like to throw on someone or something.
For those who live in other countries, their contribution is essential and therefore I have set up this space on my blog (comments section) for your input. I would like you to send me the names of the person(s), thing, etc. you would like to throw the shoes on and I will use this information on shoes gathered.
Please help me to round up the names and thank you for your support.
Cheers
/Hibz
For those who live in other countries, their contribution is essential and therefore I have set up this space on my blog (comments section) for your input. I would like you to send me the names of the person(s), thing, etc. you would like to throw the shoes on and I will use this information on shoes gathered.
Please help me to round up the names and thank you for your support.
Cheers
/Hibz
China blocks 244 new websites in porn crackdown
Beijing: China has blocked 244 new pornographic websites over the last week, the official Xinhua news agency said, bringing teh total number of sites shut down in a campaign against 'vulgar' content to over 700. Many of the targeted websites were unregistered and broke laws about distribution of sexual content, the report said. China promised last week that the campaign, which Xinhua said is scheduled to last a month, will be no 'flash in the pan'. It has been extended to cover content in mobile phone games, online novels and radio programmes.
Google, Baidu and other major websites have also been given a public dressing down for not being quick enough to wipe out targeted content, and outspoken blogging portals shut down for posting 'politically harmful information'. The internet crackdown has been described by analysts as another step in the Communist Party's battle to stifle dissent in a year of sensitive anniversaries, including the 20th anniversary of the government's bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
Google, Baidu and other major websites have also been given a public dressing down for not being quick enough to wipe out targeted content, and outspoken blogging portals shut down for posting 'politically harmful information'. The internet crackdown has been described by analysts as another step in the Communist Party's battle to stifle dissent in a year of sensitive anniversaries, including the 20th anniversary of the government's bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
Iranian woman to be whipped not stoned for adultery
Tehran: Iran's judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi has commuted a sentence of stoning to death handed down to a woman convicted of adultery to 100lashes, a report said yesterday. The woman identified only as 48-year-old Kobra N, was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of her husband and engaging in an adulterous relationship, the daily Etemad Melli newspaper reported. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for the first crime and stoning to death for the second.
The report said the woman served the eight-year jail sentence and was kept in prison for another five years awaiting the sentence of stoning to be carried out. It added that her husband, a drug addict, had forced her into prostitution. The murderer, identified as Habib A, has been freed after serving a 10-year jail term.
According to the newspaper, Ayatollah Shahrudi's decision to spare the woman leaves nine other people, seven women and two men, in Iranian prisons awaiting execution by stoning.
Iran's judiciary last week confirmed two men had been stoned to death for adultery in the northeastern city of Mashhad in December while a third struggled from teh stoning hole and escaped with his life. Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning which involves the public hurling stones at the convict buried up to her shoulders. Convicts are spared if they can free themselves. Aside from December's stonings in Mashad, five Iranians have reportedly been stoned to death in the past four years despite a 2002 directive by Ayatollah Shahrudi imposing a moratorium on such executions.
In August, the judiciary said it had scrapped the punishment in Iran's new Islamic penal code, whose outlines have been adopted by parliament but whose details are yet to be debated by MP's before final approval.
How can someone react to such piece of information? Do we say oh thanks God, good for them its whipping and not stoning? Or maybe thank you Mr. Shahrudi for sparing the women the stoning? Or maybe thank you to that editor from Etemad Daily that reported the adultery in the first place?
I don't get this. We live in the 21st century and there are still people, regimes, laws that think they are the one true reality and somehow try to substitute God on Earth. What is the goal behind such laws, regimes, etc.? Is it trying to clean up humanity from its flaws or maybe vacuuming all the dirt from our societies? Who gave them the right and what happened to the non-blind folded people of this earth?
(original source AFP)
The report said the woman served the eight-year jail sentence and was kept in prison for another five years awaiting the sentence of stoning to be carried out. It added that her husband, a drug addict, had forced her into prostitution. The murderer, identified as Habib A, has been freed after serving a 10-year jail term.
According to the newspaper, Ayatollah Shahrudi's decision to spare the woman leaves nine other people, seven women and two men, in Iranian prisons awaiting execution by stoning.
Iran's judiciary last week confirmed two men had been stoned to death for adultery in the northeastern city of Mashhad in December while a third struggled from teh stoning hole and escaped with his life. Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning which involves the public hurling stones at the convict buried up to her shoulders. Convicts are spared if they can free themselves. Aside from December's stonings in Mashad, five Iranians have reportedly been stoned to death in the past four years despite a 2002 directive by Ayatollah Shahrudi imposing a moratorium on such executions.
In August, the judiciary said it had scrapped the punishment in Iran's new Islamic penal code, whose outlines have been adopted by parliament but whose details are yet to be debated by MP's before final approval.
How can someone react to such piece of information? Do we say oh thanks God, good for them its whipping and not stoning? Or maybe thank you Mr. Shahrudi for sparing the women the stoning? Or maybe thank you to that editor from Etemad Daily that reported the adultery in the first place?
I don't get this. We live in the 21st century and there are still people, regimes, laws that think they are the one true reality and somehow try to substitute God on Earth. What is the goal behind such laws, regimes, etc.? Is it trying to clean up humanity from its flaws or maybe vacuuming all the dirt from our societies? Who gave them the right and what happened to the non-blind folded people of this earth?
(original source AFP)
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Gaza: 'No Comment'
As President-Elect Barack Obama vacationed in Hawaii on December 26, stopping off to watch a dolphin show with his family at Sea Life Park, an Israeli air raid besieged the impoverished Gaza Strip, killing at least 285 people and injuring over 800 more.
It was the single deadliest attack on Gaza in over 20 years and Obama’s initial reaction on what could be his first real test as president was “no comment.” Meanwhile, Israel has readied itself for a land invasion, amassing tanks along the border and calling up 6,500 reserve troops.
It was the single deadliest attack on Gaza in over 20 years and Obama’s initial reaction on what could be his first real test as president was “no comment.” Meanwhile, Israel has readied itself for a land invasion, amassing tanks along the border and calling up 6,500 reserve troops.
Another Manic Monday (Dec. 29, 2008)
Monday morning, I leave my flat in the city, jump into my 4x4, put on my Dior shades and drive to work. On my way, my thoughts wander. I think of the up and coming New Year’s party and wonder what I might wear for that. My thoughts of lunch mixed with a bit of Suzy from BBC radio winging about ways to make this credit crisis tolerable were suddenly interrupted by news from Gaza- News that somehow broke the vain mundane and created a parallel reality.
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