Archive
Reuters blog archive
from Oddly Enough Blog:
Decorating with a brain and a crane…
Blog Guy, several months ago you analyzed the Libyan conflict by comparing the furniture styles of the Gaddafi supporters and the rebels. I believe you called it "Divan intervention in Libya?" What else can we learn by looking at protesters and their furniture?
Good question. Check these demonstrators in Israel in the top photo. They've done a fine job of turning their protest site into a cozy living room.
They've combined a contemporary sofa with traditional rugs to create a relaxed mood. I admire their use of a push broom as what we decorators call an "objet..."
Judging from the fact that one of those guys looks like he's picking his nose, they've succeeded in creating a very homey feel.
from Photographers Blog:
Seven months atop a crane
With almost seven months atop a crane, a 51-year old woman trade unionist is staging a solo protest to end layoffs at a shipyard in South Korea.
Kim Jin-Suk, 51, climbed the 35-meter tall crane in the Yeongdo shipyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (HHIC) in Busan, the hub of South Korea's shipbuilding industry on January 6 this year and has been there ever since to protest against what she says are "mass layoffs" at the country's former biggest shipbuilder.
from FaithWorld:
Catholic area riots after Protestant marches in Northern Ireland
(Nationalist youths and police in riot gear clash in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast July 12, 2011/Cathal McNaughton)
Police fired plastic bullets and water cannon at Catholic youths in Northern Ireland's provincial capital Belfast on Tuesday after rioting erupted when a Protestant parade passed their estate. Sporadic violence erupted across the British-ruled province on the culmination of a season of parades by pro-British Protestants to mark a 17th-century military victory, a tradition many Catholics say is provocative.
from FaithWorld:
Bangladesh Islamists stage strike against dropping Allah from constitution
(Members of Islami Andolan Bangladesh, a radical Islamist group set tires on fire as they barricade a highway during a daylong strike in Kachpur near Dhaka July 10, 2011/Andrew Biraj)
Police in Bangladesh Sunday fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse Islamist activists trying to enforce a nationwide strike over the removal of a Muslim phrase in the constitution, and witnesses said around 50 people were injured. The clashes erupted when thousands of bludgeon-carrying Islamists cut off a stretch of highway leading to the capital's eastern suburbs with barricades. The protesters also damaged several cargo trucks before the police crackdown, and some 100 people were detained.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
The place with the mostage postage is…
Blog Guy, can you please settle a bet with my dermatologist's sommelier?
Really? On a summer weekend I'm still settling bets for unlikely professionals?
Yes. I say all postage stamps are the same size, but he says the ones in Syria are gigantic.
Pay the man. He's right. Look at this photo above, showing a roll of Syrian first class postage stamps with President Bashar al-Assad's face on them.
from Oddly Enough Blog:
Look at the scythe of that knife!
Honey, I'm goin' shoppin' downtown. You want anything?
I sure do, Earl. We need skim milk, tuna fish, Hostess Ding Dongs, and darn, there was something else...
Oh yeah, daggers! We've got some birthdays coming up and daggers make great gifts.
from FaithWorld:
“Neither God, nor Master” film angers Tunisian Islamists
(A Tunisian flag at a peaceful demonstration in Tunis January 15, 2011/Zohra Bensemra)
Six months after Tunisia's uprising, religious tension is rising over the limits of freedom of expression, as Islamists challenge the dominance of liberals in what was once a citadel of Arab secularism. Last week several dozen men attacked a cinema in Tunis that had advertised a film publicly titled in French 'Ni Dieu, Ni Maitre' (No God, No Master) by Tunisian-French director Nadia El-Fani, an outspoken critic of political Islam.
from FaithWorld:
Daniel-in-lion’s-den moment for new Catholic archbishop of free-wheeling Berlin
(St. Hedwig's Catholic Cathedral in Berlin, 20 June 2009/Beek100)
Like Daniel in the lion's den, Berlin's new Catholic archbishop met the media on Tuesday to face accusations he was homophobic and far too conservative for such a prominent post in the free-wheeling German capital. Rainer Maria Woelki, a surprise choice for the high-profile post, professed respect for gays, denied membership in the staunchly conservative Opus Dei group and said he did not come to Berlin to point a censuring finger at non-Catholics.
Berlin's gay community and liberal media reacted with dismay to his appointment last week, saying the Cologne-based prelate was "backwards-minded" and the wrong man for the job. But interest in the new prelate was so strong that the Catholic Church, a minority of about 390,000 in a 3.5 million population mostly indifferent or hostile to religion, had to switch the news conference to a larger hall at the last minute to accomodate over 100 journalists who turned out.
from FaithWorld:
Israel targets top rabbis for anti-Arab incitement backing “King’s Doctrine”
(Israeli policemen, mounted on horses, try to control a group of right-wing Israeli protesters during clashes at a protest in Jerusalem June 27, 2011, against the arrest earlier on Monday of their Rabbi Dov Lior/Ronen Zvulun )
Israeli police briefly detained a leading rabbi Sunday as part of a widening probe into a treatise suspected of inciting the murder of Arabs. The investigation has pitted authorities in the Jewish state against far-right West Bank settlers and has led to scuffles outside government institutions in Jerusalem and a sit-down protest that choked off the main highway to Tel Aviv.
from FaithWorld:
Hizb ut-Tahrir urges Pakistanis to take to the streets for Islamic rule
(A protester pokes his head through a banner during a demonstration by members of Hizb ut-Tahrir outside the Syrian embassy in central London, May 7, 2011/Andrew Winning)
Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamist party banned in many Muslim states, said on Friday Pakistanis should take to the streets to call for Islamic rule and join a campaign to end subservience to Washington that was advancing "from Indonesia to Tunisia". The party, which says it is non-violent but is accused by some analysts of seeking a coup in Islamabad, added that "powerful factions" in Pakistani society including the military should also take part, but violence had no place in its work.
