Afyaw Afyaw Ayfaw....

Those of you, Iraqis or else, who were in Iraq during the war... and watched local TV before the war broke out, will remember this hilarious video.

Important Updates, and PSA,

It's been so long since I last posted. In fact, it's been a while since I last got online. my Gmail inbox is about to get full, and I have received more than 400 emails in the past two weeks alone...

I had a great summer vacation - albeit short -, you can read about its details on my mom's blog because we went together along with Khalid. Naturally, my view and interests in that vacation was very different from mom's, but we all really needed it, and we all came back refreshed and ready to go back into the roller-coaster.

Ramadan entered this year with a very different and unique taste. I was very different in receiving this Ramadan... and it left very strong fingerprints in my soul and spirit.

Now we are back to normal classes, I'm glad that my timings this semester are neat and well scheduled. All my classes run on Mondays and Wednesdays (for about 10 hours contiuous), and I have rest of the week off. This semester I declared a minor in Physics, in addition to my major in Electronics Engineering. I have also enrolled in another university, The American Open University. Based in D.C. with a branching in Cairo, the AOU enables people to study under/post graduate degrees in Islamic and Arabic Studied, in either English or Arabic languages. I believe it has a very good program and I hope I can make the best out of it.

Anyway, beyond the endless nerdy academic life of mine, I have been elected to take the position of the production editor of the university's [The American University in Cairo, that is] official newspaper, which reminds me of the old days in the Al-Muajaha newspaper back in Iraq! Anyhow, it's all going well and I took a little column for myself to write a weekly skeptic/critical editorial about the university, which is fun.

One of the most exciting new updates in my life is that I have been appointed as the head of the Political Activism Committee [if you call it PAC, then i'll be PAC man. Ha ha.] at the Political Science Association. PSA is a socio-political student organization that works on and off campus to raise awareness about local, national, regional and international issues. Last week we had our first event, it was on the anniversary of the 6th of October war, 1973. The event contained mainly a lecture followed by a discussion panel to talk about the aftermath of the war, and its political consequences along with the Camp David Accord on Egypt, both nationally and regionally. There were many distinguished guests, from War Heroes, to War experts, to political science professors. It was a great success! Unfortunately I left my Camera in Amman, so I couldn't take pictures, but I'll try to get some pictures from one of the photographers who was there and post them inshaAllah...

We are currently building our list of contacts, so if you are interested in attending events, participating in our work, giving lectures in certain topics, or just keeping yourself updated with what we do, then please send us an email to my addie or to psa.auc@gmail.com, make sure you write "subscribe" in the subject field if you wanted to be informed about our events.

A Way to Help Iraqis

Hello,

This is an article by mom, titled "CRP [Collateral Repair Project], Why?" that describes her new voluntary work to help poor families of Iraqi refugees currently living in Jordan, mom says:

peace upon you.....Since the beginning of the war against Iraq 2003, I was in Baghdad with my family,Before the war, I was just a mother of three boys, and Civil Engineer, working as executive manager of our firm in Baghdad.Main things in my life , was my family and my carrier.After the invasion, my life was changed, as what happened to many people inside Iraq or outside.The destruction of the country, violence with bloodshed, continued to be a daily ritual in our days.Since that time I started to work with Iraqi women NGOs in Baghdad, my aim was to help poor families, especially who lost their providers, by funding micro projectfor each family, to keep them survived and independent.

But the Iraqi women I was working with them that time, refused my vision, they were from business women, who were seeking for projects to fund their own projects.After I have left Iraq due to bad security conditions, and kidnapping of my son Khalid, the family decided to leave and settle in Jordan in 2005,We kept working to send medical supplies and water units to Iraqi hospitals, then I started to visit poor Iraqi families here, my network started to be bigger and bigger by the passing of time.

First, I tried to visit rich Iraqi families asking them to help their poor brothers and sisters, but they refused, I was very sad and disappointed, but by the passing of time, I decided ....

to continue reading what mom wrote, please visit the site for The Collateral Repair Project.

Also, there you can see the projects they have done so far, and the projects they are working on. You can help by telling your friends and family about it, or you can help by donating or sponsoring a family.

Modification: Link is fixed, you can visit the site from here.

UNRWA CALLS FOR URGENT AID FOR GAZA

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, has called for urgent aid for Gaza as fears about a humanitarian crisis mount. The call came during a meeting, in Cairo, between the UNRWA Commissioner General, Karen AbuZayd and the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Musa.

“We have identified nearly thirty million dollars worth of emergency projects for which we need urgent funding and I make a special appeal to Arab donors to contribute”, said AbuZayd. Nearly half the funds will be spent on job creation schemes while the remainder will fund cash assistance programmes and shelter repair and reconstruction. “The violence in Gaza, coupled with the tight closures imposed by
Israel has led to a desperate humanitarian situation.’ said AbuZayd. “The economic
deterioration manifests itself amongst the population in Gaza in the form of
unemployment, which is running at around thirty six percent and poverty, which is
already affecting an estimated two thirds of households – to give just two examples.”
To alleviate the current poverty and economic hardships temporarily, UNRWA will
provide employment opportunities to the most needy refugee families throughout the
Gaza Strip. These employment projects will create some 640,000 days of work for
unemployed refugees. They will offer employment in UNRWA facilities and installations
as well as with community based organizations and the private sector.

UNRWA also appealed for nearly eight million dollars for emergency cash assistance,
as a means of enabling refugees to meet basic needs and as a complement to food
aid. In addition, the UN Agency called on donors to fund nearly nine million dollars
for shelter repair and reconstruction. “People are living in dire conditions”, said
AbuZayd. “The recent violence has damaged or destroyed thousands of buildings and
there is an urgent need to have these repaired.”

you can donate by clicking here:

http://www.un.org/unrwa/emergency/donation/emergency_activities.html

More Violations of Occupation,

Two videos that show US troops destroying Iraq.

The first is filmed by American soldiers as they watch two missiles destroy a mosque completely while cheering. Then one of them comments "and these guys still wanna f*** with us"



You are damn right they will f*** you up big time after you destroy their mosque.

The other, I wasn't able to check its validity, but it shows a US hammer stopping, and few US troops go down and start planting roadside bombs, the video was filmed by one of the American troops from a distance. Accidentally, one of the mines explodes and destroys the hammer and kills everyone.



These are the links to the two videos, I downloaded both in case they were removed from the site. (I uploaded the second one myself)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=948_1180021171 (US Army Destroys a Mosque)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpwcKszJR04 (US troops planting roadside bombs)

UPDATE: the second video was removed from both liveleak and youtube, luckily I had downloaded it already. I uploaded it for the third time here.
[direct downloading link is http://www.zshare.net/video/201666427b303c/]

Apologize Mr. Bush!

America has to send more of her sons to kill and get killed in order to live in security...
She has to believe in Bush, and not to question him, because Mr. Bush said "it is unacceptable to think".
Americans must hate anyone that Mr. Bush tags as a terrorist; they need not know who they are or what they want...

hmm...

If this still doesn't ring any bells, a little quote from George Orwell's 1984 might help:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Those were the three slogans of the party that ruled Ociana [the name for USA and UK in the novel], and they - to a scary point - sound like Bush's speeches.

New Features: Blog Search

I have added a new feature to the blog (/^\ top of this page /^\ ) , now you can search in previous posts on this blog, mom's blog , introducing islam blog, as well as searching anything in the entire World Wide Web...

Now you can use the new feature to search the internet and try to figure out why doesn't Bush want to save American blood and refuses to put a time table for withdrawal from Iraq.

Jarrars Invading the News!

Watch Raed Jarrar giving a speech in Portland, on the twentieth of March 2007 in the FOURTH anniversary of the War on Iraq.