Well then, as said previously, it’s been an interesting few weeks, the whole month even, that I’ve been on the go and haven’t been able to write what I wanted to on the blog last time. So, anyway, I guess I’ll start now, as there’s been tonnes of stories I really wanna write down in this to remember.
So, to start off with, sis came down to Aussie-land a couple of weeks ago. She spent her time at my place, obviously, and, I do say with plenty of chargin, saying that she ‘pinked’ my whole place up, but I really appreciated her effort in cleaning and tidying up my place for me. It was great. We spent plenty of time together, shopping in Marion and Habor Town, and spent plenty of her 1, 1.5 week here looking for the ever elusive Ferrero Rodnior, the dark chocolate version of the popular Ferrero Rocher (or, as I’d always say, an improvement upon perfection). She also convinced me to buy and try a new stainless steel wok, cooked a few meals for me, and we shopped around for some skin care stuffs for Auntie Woo and ourselves.
Spent countless hours yapping as well, and tried to help her organize some time with her friends in Adelaide. We had dinner with Suzie and David and their kids, and O.M.G. nothing really tells you how much time flies as you watch kids grow. I can still remember little Anushka as a wonderful little newborn and now she’s old enough to call me uncle Jason (boohoo). Also had lunch with a group of her church friends, including Auntie Lai Wah, Hwee Ling and her daughters. Right. Daughters. I really do tend to forget our age gaps, sometimes, and when you take that into consideration and how diverse my sister’s friends are (cultural and age-wise), it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that some of them have kids around my age now, right? It’s almost as if I had a nephew that was born before I was. Haha. Ok not that bad, but I think that was the shocker for me when I first heard of Kristen Tee’s age. Lolz.
Took her to most of my coffee joints, elephant walk (where we drew stares as she completely dethroned me in bubblepop game on my iphone), cikolatte, cibo etc etc. Also wanted, but didn’t get the chance to take her to spatz, but she’s apparently been there before anyways, so there you go.
Sis then left for Melbourne for the weekend. Came back later with a scarf for yours truly. Also went and bought another scarf at Marion and we met someone who introduced herself as a Penangite. And from Tanjung Bunga. Scary how small the world is, sometimes.
Anyway, after about 2 weeks of great, but short time, together, sis went back to Penang to check in one final time with mom, dad and granny. And she’s now back in US.
I love you, sis.
There, I said it. ;)
Two protesters were shot and killed in eastern Logar province, a district official said, taking to three the death toll in protests staged since Friday.
The furore over pastor Terry Jones’s plans to burn copies of the Quran, a grave insult to Muslims who believe it to be the literal word of God, overshadowed the lead-up to commemorations for the September 11 hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.
Ceremonies in the United States yesterday marked the ninth anniversary of the attacks by al Qaeda, which led to the toppling of the Taliban by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001 because the hardline Islamists had harboured Osama bin Laden’s group.
Jones’s plan and proposals to build an Islamic cultural centre and mosque near the site of the toppled World Trade Center in New York highlighted a growing debate in the United States about religious tolerance.
Hundreds of people favouring and opposing the cultural centre and mosque gathered in New York for peaceful rallies hours after ceremonies in the city — and in Washington and Pennsylvania — to mark the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Word of the intention to burn the Quran had already triggered outrage in Afghanistan and across the Muslim world.
US President Barack Obama warned it could hurt the United States deeply abroad, endanger US troops in Afghanistan and risk attacks in US and European cities.
In Afghanistan, angry protesters chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Christians” clashed with security forces in Logar, south of the capital.
Seven demonstrators were wounded, one seriously, when Afghan security forces opened fire to disperse hundreds of protesters marching to Pul-e-Alam, the capital of Logar, officials said.
Mohammad Rahim Amin, chief of Baraki Barak district just west of Pul-e-Alam, said two of the wounded died later in hospital.
The protesters threatened to attack foreign military bases. There are almost 150,000 foreign troops fighting a growing Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, where violence is at its worst since the hardline Islamists were ousted.
“The governor must give us an assurance that the church is not going to burn the Quran, otherwise we will attack foreign troop bases in our thousands,” protester Mohammad Yahya said.
Major Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan’s east, said ISAF was aware of more protests in Logar today, but put the crowd at about 100, some wielding sticks and throwing stones.
Four demonstrators were wounded in Logar on Saturday, a day after a protester was shot dead when an angry crowd attacked a German-run ISAF base in Faizabad in northeastern Badakhshan province, one of many protests across the country.
Protests had eased later today.
While Jones abandoned his plan, there were at least two incidents of abuse of the Quran in Lower Manhattan in New York yesterday. Two evangelical preachers not affiliated with any mainstream church burned two copies of the Quran in Tennessee.
Protests over perceived desecration of Muslim symbols have led to dozens of deaths in Afghanistan in recent years, including after a Danish newspaper published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad in 2005.
On Thursday, the United Nations’ top diplomat in Afghanistan said the protests risked delaying Afghanistan’s September 18 parliamentary election.
Poor security is already a major concern ahead of the poll, with more than 1,000 polling centres out of a planned 6,835 to remain closed. Today, ISAF said a Taliban commander who had been plotting rocket attacks on polling stations had been killed in eastern Nangarghar yesterday.
The election is seen as a key test of stability in Afghanistan before Obama conducts a strategy review of the increasingly unpopular war in December.
Obama, who has sought to improve ties with the Muslim world frayed by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since the September 11 attacks, stressed religious tolerance in remarks at a memorial service in Washington yesterday. — Reuters
and
NEW YORK, Sept 12 — Tensions over a threat to burn the Quran in Florida and a proposed Islamic center near New York's Ground Zero marked the ninth anniversary yesterday of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Shortly before the start of ceremonies in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania to remember the day nearly 3,000 people lost their lives, Florida preacher Terry Jones confirmed he had backed off his plan to burn the Islamic holy book.
"We have decided to cancel the burning," Jones, the head of the tiny Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, told NBC's "Today" show.
But news of the plan had outraged Muslims around the world and triggered outbreaks of violence in Afghanistan in which one protester was shot dead. Thousands of Afghans demonstrated in the northeast of the country for a second day on Saturday.
President Barack Obama and US officials had warned that the burning of the Quran could harm America's image abroad, endanger lives and act as a recruiting tool for al Qaeda.
He told a memorial service in Washington that those who attacked the country with hijacked planes on September 11, 2001, tried to deprive Americans of their ideals.
"They may seek to spark conflict between different faiths, but as Americans we are not and will never be at war with Islam. It was not a religion that attacked us that September day, it was al Qaeda — a sorry band of men which perverts religion," he said.
As Obama spoke at the Pentagon, family and friends of those who died in the New York attacks placed flowers in a pool at the site. The names of the 2,752 World Trade Center victims were read out loud in alphabetical order during the somber ceremony.
Jones, who had arrived in New York from Florida on Friday night, said he came with the hope of meeting Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is involved in the proposed Islamic center and mosque near the Manhattan site of the attacks.
The 58-year-old preacher, who says he received 100 death threats, admitted "there is no meeting" with Rauf.
Back in Florida, convenience store clerk Paula Smith expressed relief that Jones had called off the event.
"We've been put in the spotlight because of one man with a church of a few dozen people," she said. "I hope it hasn't drawn too much attention away from 9/11, the victims and what happened that day."
Protests and placards
In lower Manhattan, hundreds of supporters of the Islamic center, which organizers say is intended to build bridges between communities, called for religious tolerance and brandished placards saying "Your bigotry and hatred is a national security risk" or "the attack on Islam is racism."
"The imam is a total moderate," said Jules Moore, 28, a music writer, referring to Rauf.
A block away, other groups were gathering to rally against the proposed Islamic center, which they say is insensitive to the families of the victims of the 2001 attacks.
Obama said on Friday he recognised "the extraordinary sensitivities" surrounding the September 11 attacks. But he said it should be possible to erect a mosque near the attack site, or a building representing any other kind of religion.
More violence erupted in Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province yesterday, where a day earlier a protester was killed outside a German-run Nato base, provincial police chief Aqa Noor Kentuz said.
On Friday the former heads of the 9/11 Commission that studied the 2001 attacks presented a report they called a wake-up call about the radicalisation of Muslims in the United States and the changing strategy of al Qaeda and its allies.
"The US is arguably now little different from Europe in terms of having a domestic terrorist problem involving immigrant and indigenous Muslims as well as converts to Islam," said the report by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. — Reuters