BAGHDAD — Under Saddam Hussein, women in government got a year’s maternity leave; that is now cut to six months. Under the Personal Status Law in force since Jul. 14, 1958, when Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women had most of the rights that Western women do. Now they have Article 2 of the Constitution: ‘Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation.’ Sub-head A says ‘No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.’ Under this Article the interpretation of women’s rights is left to religious leaders – and many of them are under Iranian influence. ‘The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women’s rights,’ Yanar Mohammed who campaigns for women’s rights in Iraq says. ‘Political Islamic groups have taken southern Iraq, are fully in power there, and are using the financial support of Iran to recruit troops and allies. The financial and political support from Iran is why the Iraqis in the south accept this, not because the Iraqi people want Islamic law.’ With the new law has come the new lawlessness. Nora Hamaid, 30, a graduate from Baghdad University, has now […]
What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon, or make excuses for an international criminal conspiracy to protect child-rapists? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite – religion. In the past week we have seen two examples of how people can begin to behave in bizarre ways when they decide it is a good thing to abandon any commitment to fact and instead act on faith. It has led some to regard people accused of the attempted murders of the Mohamed cartoonists as victims, and to demand ‘respect’ for the Pope, when he should be in a police station being quizzed about his role in covering up and thereby enabling the rape of children. In 2005, 12 men in a small secular European democracy decided to draw a quasi-mythical figure who has been dead for 1400 years. They were trying to make a point. They knew that in many Muslim cultures, it is considered offensive to draw Mohamed. But they have a culture too – a European […]
Wind-generated electricity is growing rapidly in the United States but the pace still lags far behind that in China, the organizer of an industry conference in North Carolina said. ‘With the right policies in place, we can see explosive growth…It’s a global footrace,’ said Jeff Anthony, business development director of the American Wind Energy Association. Although the United States has the largest amount of installed wind power capacity in the world, the wind power industry is ‘fighting to get on a level playing field’ with other government-subsidized power providers, Anthony told a conference of parts manufacturers, suppliers, wind project developers, and economic development officers from around the southeastern United States. ‘What the wind industry looks like in the U.S. in 10 years depends a lot on what comes out of Washington….Policy does drive the industry,’ he told the conference in Greensboro, N.C. A little more than 1.5 percent of power supplied in the United States is generated by wind, Anthony said. Offshore wind turbine ‘It’s an important part of how we generate electricity in the U.S. today. It’s still relatively small in terms of percentages, but it’s growing rapidly…Only in the last seven or eight […]
Last summer, Saudi Arabia put the final bolt in its largest oil expansion project ever, opening a new field capable of pumping 1.2 million barrels a day – more than the entire production of Texas. The field, called Khurais, was part of an ambitious $60 billion program to increase the kingdom’s production to meet growing energy needs. It turns out the timing could not have been worse for Saudi Arabia. Only two years ago, consumers were clamoring for more supplies, OPEC producers were straining to increase their output, and prices were rising to record levels. But now, for the first time in more than a decade, the world has more oil than it needs. As demand slumped because of the global recession, Saudi Arabia was forced to shut about a quarter of its production. After raising its capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day, Saudi Arabia is now pumping about 8.5 million barrels a day, its lowest level since the early 1990s. ‘2009 was painful for us as it was for everybody else, said Khalid A. al-Falih, the president and chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s state-owned oil giant, and a company veteran who was […]
XI’AN, China — For years, many of China’s best and brightest left for the United States, where high-tech industry was more cutting-edge. But Mark R. Pinto is moving in the opposite direction. Mr. Pinto is the first chief technology officer of a major American tech company to move to China. The company, Applied Materials, is one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent firms. It supplied equipment used to perfect the first computer chips. Today, it is the world’s biggest supplier of the equipment used to make semiconductors, solar panels and flat-panel displays. In addition to moving Mr. Pinto and his family to Beijing in January, Applied Materials, whose headquarters are in Santa Clara, Calif., has just built its newest and largest research labs here. Last week, it even held its annual shareholders’ meeting in Xi’an. It is hardly alone. Companies – and their engineers – are being drawn here more and more as China develops a high-tech economy that increasingly competes directly with the United States. A few American companies are even making deals with Chinese companies to license Chinese technology. The Chinese market is surging for electricity, cars and much more, and companies are concluding […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
