Rapists in Iran's regime

Frankincense: Could it be a cure for cancer?

The gift given by the wise men to the baby Jesus probably came across the deserts from Oman. The BBC's Jeremy Howell visits the country to ask whether a commodity that was once worth its weight in gold could be reborn as a treatment for cancer.
Oman's Land of Frankincense is an 11-hour drive southwards from the capital, Muscat.
Most of the journey is through Arabia's Empty Quarter - hundreds of kilometres of flat, dun-coloured desert. Just when you are starting to think this is the only scenery you will ever see again, the Dhofar mountains appear in the distance.
On the other side are green valleys, with cows grazing in them. The Dhofar region catches the tail-end of India's summer monsoons, and they make this the most verdant place on the Arabian peninsula.
Warm winters and showery summers are the perfect conditions for the Boswellia sacra tree to produce the sap called frankincense. These trees grow wild in Dhofar. A tour guide, Mohammed Al-Shahri took me to Wadi Dawkah, a valley 20 km inland from the main city of Salalah, to see a forest of them.
"The records show that frankincense was produced here as far back as 7,000 BC," he says. He produces an army knife. He used to be a member of the Sultan's Special Forces. With a practised flick, he cuts a strip of bark from the trunk of one of the Boswellia sacra trees. Pinpricks of milky-white sap appear on the wood and, very slowly, start to ooze out.

Boswellia sacra produces the highest-quality frankincense

"This is the first cut. But you don't gather this sap," he says. "It releases whatever impurities are in the wood. The farmers return after two or three weeks and make a second, and a third, cut. Then the sap comes out yellow, or bright green, or brown or even black. They take this."
Shortly afterwards, a frankincense farmer arrives in a pick-up truck. He is white-bearded, wearing a brown thobe and the traditional Omani, paisley-patterned turban.
He is 67-year-old Salem Mohammed from the Gidad family. Most of the Boswellia sacra trees grow on public land, but custom dictates that each forest is given to one of the local families to farm, and Wadi Dawkah is his turf.

Camel train

He has an old, black, iron chisel with which he gouges out clumps of dried frankincense.
"We learnt about frankincense from our forefathers and they learnt it from theirs" he says. "The practice has been passed down through the generations. We exported the frankincense, and that's how the families in Dhofar made their livings."

Salem Mohammed: Young people prefer careers in oil or government

And what an export trade it was. Frankincense was sent by camel train to Egypt, and from there to Europe. It was shipped from the ancient port of Sumharan to Persia, India and China. Religions adopted frankincense as a burnt offering.
That is why, according to Matthew's Gospel in the Bible, the Wise Men brought it as a gift to the infant Jesus. Gold: for a king. Frankincense: for God. Myrrh: to embalm Jesus' body after death.
The Roman Empire coveted the frankincense trade. In the first century BCE, Augustus Caesar sent 10,000 troops to invade what the Romans called Arabia Felix to find the source of frankincense and to control its production. The legions, marching from Yemen, were driven back by the heat and the aridity of the desert. They never found their Eldorado.
Oman's frankincense trade went into decline three centuries ago, when Portugal fought Oman for dominance of the sea routes in the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.

Salalah's Haffa souk: The place to buy Omani brands such as Royal Hougari

Nowadays, hardly any Omani frankincense is exported. Partly, this is because bulk buyers, such as the Roman Catholic Church, buy cheaper Somalian varieties. Partly, it is because Omanis now produce so little.
"Years ago, 20 families farmed frankincense in this area," says Salem Mohammed Gidad. "But the younger generation can get well-paid jobs in the government and the oil companies, with pensions. Now, only three people still produce frankincense around here. The trade is really, really tiny!"

Cancer hope

But immunologist Mahmoud Suhail is hoping to open a new chapter in the history of frankincense.
Scientists have observed that there is some agent within frankincense which stops cancer spreading, and which induces cancerous cells to close themselves down. He is trying to find out what this is.

The Catholic church mostly buys Somalian frankincense

"Cancer starts when the DNA code within the cell's nucleus becomes corrupted," he says. "It seems frankincense has a re-set function. It can tell the cell what the right DNA code should be.
"Frankincense separates the 'brain' of the cancerous cell - the nucleus - from the 'body' - the cytoplasm, and closes down the nucleus to stop it reproducing corrupted DNA codes."
Working with frankincense could revolutionise the treatment of cancer. Currently, with chemotherapy, doctors blast the area around a tumour to kill the cancer, but that also kills healthy cells, and weakens the patient. Treatment with frankincense could eradicate the cancerous cells alone and let the others live.
The task now is to isolate the agent within frankincense which, apparently, works this wonder. Some ingredients of frankincense are allergenic, so you cannot give a patient the whole thing.

FRANKINCENSE FACTS Boswellia sacra grows in Oman, Yemen and Somalia Other Boswellia species grow in Africa and India The tree may have been named after John Boswell, the uncle of Samuel Johnson's biographer In ancient Egypt frankincense was thought to be sweat of the gods Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal

Dr Suhail (who is originally from Iraq) has teamed up with medical scientists from the University of Oklahoma for the task.
In his laboratory in Salalah, he extracts the essential oil from locally produced frankincense. Then, he separates the oil into its constituent agents, such as Boswellic acid.
"There are 17 active agents in frankincense essential oil," says Dr Suhail. "We are using a process of elimination. We have cancer sufferers - for example, a horse in South Africa - and we are giving them tiny doses of each agent until we find the one which works."
"Some scientists think Boswellic acid is the key ingredient. But I think this is wrong. Many other essential oils - like oil from sandalwood - contain Boswellic acid, but they don't have this effect on cancer cells. So we are starting afresh."
The trials will take months to conduct and whatever results come out of them will take longer still to be verified. But this is a blink of the eye in the history of frankincense.
Nine thousand years ago, Omanis gathered it and burnt it for its curative and cleansing properties. It could be a key to the medical science of tomorrow.

@'BBC'

Anonymous film of Iranian Neda's death earns Polk Award

The unnamed people who captured on video and made public the shooting death of an Iranian protester have been chosen to receive a George Polk Award, the first time the journalism prize has honored work produced anonymously. 

(Thanx Stan!)

Peter Gabriel reveals communication breakdown with Thom Yorke

Peter Gabriel has revealed he is struggling to get Radiohead's Thom Yorke to commit to recording a cover of his song 'Wallflower'.
Gabriel has asked a host of musicians including Yorke to take part in his 'song swap' scheme, which has seen him complete an album – 'Scratch My Back' – of covers by the likes of David Bowie ('Heroes'), Arcade Fire ('My Body Is A Cage') and Radiohead ('Street Spirit (Fade Out)'. In return, Gabriel wants those artists featured to record their own interpretations of his songs.
According to Gabriel, Yorke was all-set to record a version of 'Wallflower' for the project – though he hasn't been in contact in recent months.
"I still haven't had a response from Thom Yorke," Gabriel told The Sun's Something For The Weekend.
He added that he's still keen for the Radiohead frontman to be involved, but said that he thinks Yorke might not be a fan of his version of 'Street Spirit'.
"[Yorke] originally wrote to say he wanted to do a version of 'Wallflower', but I haven't heard what he thinks of my version of ['Street Spirit']. Not everyone likes it and I've no real idea whether he likes it or hates it. We have a little clue, though," he said.
"We gave out codes for the artists to listen to their songs on a stream and we could see how many times they've heard them. I think he's only streamed 'Street Spirit' once, which isn't a good sign, but who knows?"

@'Uncut'

Questioning the "Special Relationship" with Israel by Stephanie Westbrook

A"regional economic power." That's how ANIMA, the Euro-Mediterranean Network of Investment Promotion Agencies encompassing 70 governmental agencies and international networks, described Israel in its January 2010 Mediterranean Investment Map. The report analyzed the economies of the 27 European Union countries as well as 9 "partner countries."

And who can argue. Touting an annual GDP growth rate around 5% for the years 2004 to 2008, Israel was also ranked 27 out of 132 countries in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report last fall. It ranked 9th for innovative capacity.

In the 2008 World Competitiveness Yearbook by IMD, Israel comes in 2nd for the number of scientists and engineers in the workforce. No other country in the world spends more on research and development as a percentage of GDP than Israel. Since the year 2000 it has hovered around 4.5%, or twice the average of OECD member countries.

I am not an economist, but I have to wonder why US taxpayers are doling out $3 billion a year in direct military aid to a "regional economic power." In August 2007, a Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Israel was signed committing the US to give, not loan, $30 billion to Israel over 10 years. US taxpayers are directly funding close to 20% of Israel's annual defense budget. No wonder Israel is able to invest in R&D!

To help put these figures into perspective, a new web site was launched last week that illustrates how your state is contributing to the Israeli defense budget, and what could have instead been done with the money. At www.aidtoisrael.org I learned that my home state of Texas will give more than $2.5 billion over the ten year period. For the same amount, over 2 million people could have been provided with primary health care.

At the 2007 signing ceremony for the $30 billion giveaway, then Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, stated, "We consider this 30 billion dollars in assistance to Israel to be an investment in peace." But peace isn't exactly what we've gotten for our money.

Instead our tax dollars continue to pay for advanced weaponry used to maintain an illegal occupation, culminating a year ago in the Israeli attack on Gaza with US-made F-16 fighter jets, US-made Apache helicopter gunships, US-made naval combat ships, US-made hellfire missiles, US-made tanks and armored personnel carriers, and US-made white phosphorus shells.

Every cent we give Israel is in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act, which specifically prohibits aid to countries that "engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." Sales of US weaponry made to Israel are in violation of the Arms Export Control Act, which restrict their use to legitimate self-defense.

But weapons we do continue to sell, and aid we do continue to give. And if that weren't enough, we also provide Israel with special conditions. Unlike all other countries receiving military aid from the US, Israel receives its entire bundle in a lump sum during the first 30 days of the fiscal year. The money sits in an interest bearing account at the Federal Reserve, the interest going to Israel, of course, until 74% of it is funneled back to US weapons manufacturers in the way of purchases for the Israeli Defense ministry. Israel is free to use the remaining 24% to purchase "in house" weapons systems, an arrangement afforded to no other recipient of US military aid.

While we may here some calls to freeze (or limit or curb) settlement construction, and as of late, for an end to the siege of Gaza, one subject no one on Capitol Hill dares to touch is this massive military aid package given to Israel. The new self-proclaimed "pro-peace pro-Israel" lobby, J-street, has said the subject is not up for discussion.

But some are starting to question our "special relationship" with Israel.

On February 9, Intelligence Squared, the British debate forum, held a debate in New York City - home to the country's largest Jewish community - asking if the "US should step back from its special relationship with Israel." Prior to the start of the debate, audience members cast their votes electronically, with 39% in favor, 42% against and 25% undecided.

Arguing for the motion were British author and New York Times columnist Roger Cohen and Colombia professor and author Rashid Khalidi. Former US ambassador to the EU Stuart Eizenstat and former Israeli ambassador to the US Itamar Rabinovich argued against. Cohen spoke of US aid to Israel:

"What also makes the relationship special is the incredible largess that the United States shows towards Israel, over the past decade, $28.9 billion in economic aid. And on top of that, another $30 billion in military aid, that's almost $60 billion. That's 10 times the GNP of Haiti that is being gifted to a small country. Now, I ask you, to what end is this money being used. Ladies and gentlemen, we would submit that it ends often inimical to the American interest."

Following the debate, the audience once again voted on the resolution, this time with a slight majority in favor, 49% for, 47% against and 4% undecided.

The "special relationship" is hereby up for discussion. Pass the word.

@'Counterpunch'

The financial power of Iran's Revolutionary Guards

The extent of the Revolutionary Guards' control over the Iranian economy is ­apparent as soon as you enter the country. They run the main international airport, and the manner in which they acquired it was a bruising demonstration of the way big business is now done in Iran.

The contract for managing Imam Khomeini airport, south of Tehran, was given to a Turkish-Austrian consortium in 2004, but on 8 May, the day it was supposed to open, guardsmen took it over, blocking the runways with their vehicles, and closing it down. Inbound flights had to be hastily diverted.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared that the involvement of foreigners posed a security risk because of an alleged link to Israel, but it was clear that the foreign consortium's biggest mistake was to try to cut the IRGC out of its business model.

Ever since, excluding the guards has been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, from Iran's economy...

Continue reading

@'The Guardian'

Scorsese/De Niro remake of 'Taxi Driver' w/ Lars von Trier?

In what is surely the most bizarre rumour to emerge from this year's Berlin film festival, it is whispered that Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro are preparing a remake of Taxi Driver, their 1970s tale of a man who stood up, saw clearly and shaved his hair into a mohawk. Only this time, it transpires, they may have a fresh passenger on board – Lars von Trier could be riding shotgun.

Copenhagen film magazine Ekko reports that Scorsese is currently discussing the possibility of a rebooted Taxi Driver with the Danish director in tow. It remains to be seen whether this will be a remake or a sequel, or so much hot air of the kind that has a tendency to swirl around the mischievous Von Trier. Speaking to the magazine, Peter Aalbæk, Von Trier's producing partner at Zentropa studios, would "neither confirm nor deny" the rumour, but said that an announcement would be made shortly.
De Niro starred in eight films by Scorsese, beginning with Mean Streets in 1973 and continuing through to 1995's Casino. Speaking at the Berlin film festival this weekend, the director admitted that they had plans to renew their collaboration, hinting at a return to the crime stories that forged their respective reputations. "Bob De Niro and I are talking about something that has to do with that world," Scorsese said. "There's no doubt about that. We're working on something like that. But it's from the vantage point of older men looking back. None of this running around stuff."
Shot back in 1976, the original Taxi Driver charted the downward spiral of Travis Bickle, a New York cabbie turned gun-toting vigilante. The film was hailed by critics as a bleak satire on the cult of celebrity and the role of the American loner. The film ends with Bickle being celebrated by the press as a have-a-go-hero after he rescues a child prostitute from the clutches of her pimp.
The idea of a Taxi Driver sequel was first floated a few years ago by Paul Schrader, who wrote the original script. "I was talking with Martin Scorsese about doing a sequel to Taxi Driver, where [Bickle] is older," Schrader told the New York Post.
Scorsese is in Berlin to promote his latest film, Shutter Island, a thriller based on the bestselling book by Dennis Lehane. Von Trier's previous picture, Antichrist, was one of the most controversial releases of last year, sparking a smattering of boos when it debuted at the Cannes film festival. He is currently reported to be in pre-production on the science-fiction drama Melancholia.

@'The Guardian' 

Meanwhile...

A message to Stephen Conroy

We, the Australian Library and Information Association, Google, Inspire Foundation and Yahoo! agree that Australia needs to take effective action to ensure that internet users, and particularly children, have a safe experience online.

In December 2009, Minister Stephen Conroy announced the details of the government's proposals for mandatory filtering by ISPs of online content in the Refused Classification (RC) category. We welcome the Minister's invitation for consultations on the proposed policy.  

Mandatory filtering of RC material is a significant Australian public policy proposal that should matter to every parent, young person, school and business. A discussion designed to achieve the balance between protecting children, preserving the benefits of internet access and treating adults like adults is welcome.

As a large proportion of child sexual abuse content is not found on public websites, but in chat-rooms or peer-to-peer networks, we know the proposed filtering regime will not effectively protect children from this objectionable material.  

In fact, the policy may give parents a 'false sense of security' encouraging them to reduce their supervision.

We are concerned that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide. Filtering all RC material could block content with a strong social or educational value.

The implementation of mandatory filtering is a massive technical and logistical undertaking. We note with concern that the ISP filtering pilot/trials, and the related report from Enex Testlabs, both of which were relied on in the formulation of the filtering policy, by the government did not follow the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy's own 2008 Technical Testing Framework.  

The Enex report, and a separate report from Telstra, acknowledged that filtering systems would struggle to handle the filtering of high volume sites, with the Enex report stating:  ".... in situations where there is a potential for very high traffic sites, such as YouTube, to have pages on the filtering list, this could result in significantly higher traffic rates passing through the filter, even though the specific pages being accessed are not those on the blacklist. This could cause additional load on the filtering infrastructure and subsequent performance bottlenecks".  

According to a large body of peer-reviewed research on the matter the most effective way to protect our children on the internet is achieved by adopting a strategy containing the following three Core Principles:

Education: Properly funding a national comprehensive cyber-safety education program for children and parents on how to avoid inappropriate material and stay safe online. If any element of online safety is to be mandatory, it should be education. 

Policing: Significantly increasing and funding the level of oversight by the government and federal police focused on the locations, such peer-to-peer, where child sexual abuse materials are disseminated.

Technical Measures: If the government and the broader political system are determined to implement technical measures as part of online safety efforts, then we believe Australia can learn from the approaches adopted in peer countries, particularly in Europe. The strong consensus internationally is for ISPs, police and government to work together in partnership targeting a clearly defined and narrow band of child sexual abuse material. Under this filtering regime:

• there would be little to no impact on the internet's performance or greatly increased costs to users;
• there would be an environment in which adults are able to choose whether to have their service filtered or not.

We urge further adjustments to the government's proposal in the interest improving online safety for young people and look forward to working with the government to that end.

Kilburn & The High Roads -- Rough Kids

Google Buzz - A stalker's best friend?

Still think that Google Buzz presents no real threat to privacy? Think again. According to the Guardian, it appears that trusting Buzz is a big mistake. As one young woman discovered, your most frequently used contacts suddenly gain access to just about everything you do as it relates to your Gmail account. 

What does this mean to you?

As the article points out, there is a great disconnect between the way Google Buzz does things and the way people expect it to work for them. Anything that is designed to share things without letting the user know, by default, is complete bunk. Seriously, Google needs to rethink their position on this and stop acting like Facebook with everything turned on by default.


How to turn Buzz off... 
(It is very simple!)

While Australia gets less freedom...

Sleet Street 2.0
HERE

WikiLeaks editor: why I'm excited about Iceland's plans for journalism

Massive Attack - United Snakes

While Australia gets less freedom...

HERE

Einstein by Ryan Harvey (AKA Harvey Artifex)