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13. november 2005
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Another example that the Jehovah's Witnesses tear families apart:
Jason and Johel Woodliff came back from Iraq with their comrades in a Marine Corps battalion that lost 48 members, greeted by a mile-long parade attended by thousands of strangers.
But not by their family.
Thomas and Mia Woodliff, who are devout Jehovah's Witnesses, were so upset by their sons' decisions to join the Marine Reserves that they did not meet them at the airport upon their return last month.
"I begged my mother to come, but I knew she wouldn't," Johel Woodliff, 20, told The (Canton) Repository for a story Saturday.
The parents say they respect their sons' choices but can't reconcile them with their beliefs.
That is not respect.
The parents are behaving according to the doctrines of their faith, said a spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses headquarters in New York.
"As Christians, we're neutral with respect to the conflicts that nations have," said J.R. Brown, director of public information for the Watchtower Bible Tract Society. "Our neutrality is just in regards to conflicts of men. This doesn't mean we're adversaries. We try to (convey) that to the person as best we can, but because they're usually partisan, they think we're against them."
Jehovah's Witnesses who volunteer for military service have essentially opted to leave the church and abandon neutrality, Brown said. Such a move can mean the end of their relationships with other church members, even family, he said.
Jason Woodliff, 23, said he was kicked out of the house for telling his parents he wanted to join the Marines.
"I was 18 years old, living by myself in a trailer," he said. "I haven't had a conversation with my dad in five years. For him, it's 100 percent about the religion."
Johel Woodliff said his parents reacted similarly when he announced plans to turn down a college scholarship and enlist.
The Jehovah's Witnesses practice what is known as disfellowshipping, and more specifically shunning of those who have left or been thrown out of the movement. It is not merely a matter of excommunication, it means that current members are not allowed to talk to, eat with or even greet a former member on the street. Some minor exceptions are granted only for necessary family or business ties. A JW who has joined the military doesn't even have to renounce his faith; the act of enlisting is considered 'disassocating himself' (this is a legalese trick to dodge the accusation that the sect undermines the military, which is a crime in many countries). A short message to that effect is read from the platform in the local congregation, and from that day on, the outsider is treated as non-existant.
The Woodliff brothers probably knew this when they enlisted, but I bet it still hurts.
10:47:26 PM 
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 Al-Qaeda's claims of responsibility for the Amman bombings said a husband and wife team were among the suicide bombers. It caused initial confusion, as Jordanian security services denied there had been any female suicide bombers.
This information nevertheless tipped them off to search for a failed bomber, and on Sunday Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi was arrested in a not-so-safe house in Amman that had been rented by her husband Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, who blew himself up at the Radisson SAS hotel. She confessed on Jordanian TV.
Looking nervous and wringing her hands, Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, described how she failed to blow herself up during a wedding reception at the Radisson SAS hotel on Wednesday night after struggling with the cord on her explosives belt.
"My husband wore an (explosives-packed) belt and put one on me. He taught me how to use it," al-Rishawi said, wearing a white head scarf, a black gown and a disabled bomb belt tied around her waist.
"My husband detonated (his bomb) and I tried to explode my belt but it wouldn't," she said. "People fled running and I left running with them."
Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said the belt she wore in the broadcast was the same one she tried to use in the attack. "The vest was caught with her," he told CNN.
The woman is the sister of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's right-hand man Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, who was killed by US forces in Fallujah.
That's family values, Jihadi style!
This should confirm pretty conclusively that al-Qaeda in Iraq was behind the Amman bombings, as widely believed immediately after the blasts. We also learn that the targeting of a Jordanian wedding ceremony at the hotel was not a coincidence: the terrorists dressed appropriately for the occasion and mixed with the guests at the hotel for the exact purpose of killing as many of them as possible (including fathers of the bride and groom). The civilian, Muslim, Arab, Jordanian victims were not in any way 'collateral damage' of an attack on a western target; these were explicitly and deliberately targeted and murdered.
The family ties also shows that Salafi-Jihadism spreads in exactly the same way as all other sects we know: through already existing social networks of friends and family. That knowledge will of course be very helpful for counter-terrorism officials working to break these sinister networks.
8:02:51 PM
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From Vietnam, possibly bad news about bird flu:
Scientists in Vietnam, where bird flu has killed 42 people, said the deadly H5N1 influenza virus had mutated into a more dangerous form that could breed more effectively in mammals, state media reported on Sunday.
The online newspaper Vnexpress quoted Cao Bao Van, director of the Molecule Biology Department of the Pasteur Institute, Vietnam's centre of bird flu research, as saying the decoding of 24 samples of the virus taken from poultry and humans showed significant antigen variation.
An antigen is any foreign substance that stimulates the body's immune system to produce antibodies.
Van said the study had showed an antigenic shift involving major antigenic changes of the influenza surface proteins, the HA and NA molecules. These changes can result in the appearance of pandemic viruses. [...]
While the study came to no conclusion on the virus's ability to move easily between people, it said the virus had developed resistance to anti-flu agents Amatadine and Rimantadine.
Note "could" and "can". This is not necessarily the "killer" mutation everybody has been fearing, so don't panic.
Update: From China, it is reported that pigs have become infected.
Chinese officials revealed that pigs have tested positive for bird flu in Xiangtan County, Hunan Province, where a bird epidemic is raging and one human death, possibly from bird flu, has already occurred, reported Phoenix TV on November 10. Hunan Province Bureau of Agriculture officials tested samples of pig oral secretions to assess the possibility that bird flu was responsible for the death of a 12-year old girl on October 17th. The girl was cremated the same day that she died, and her ill brother is still in quarantine.
Obviously, if the virus should be able to spread in the pig population, which is not confirmed to have happened yet, the leap to humans will be much shorter. Pig genes are very similar to human genes.
3:38:33 PM
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The French at least has a metric on their domestic war on riots:
In the 17th night of urban violence, 374 vehicles were burned nationwide, down from 502 the night before. Police took 212 people into custody overnight.
National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said Sunday there had been a "major lull."
If it continues, "things could return to normal very quickly," he said at a news conference.
'Only' 374 vehicles burned.
3:22:52 PM
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Most Jordanians blame and curse al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda for the recent bloodshed, but a sizable group clings to idea that Israel was somehow behind the bombing.
While most Arabs have long viewed Israel as their enemy, the extent to which Israel weighs on the regional psyche and diverts attention away from social, political, religious and economic issues that cannot be ignored, many social and political analysts say. Blaming Israel is not just a knee jerk, they say; for many Arabs, it is their reality.
There is no such thing as "their" reality. There is reality, and there is fantasy. So, yes, it is knee jerk.
The suspicion of some here over the hotel killings mirrors the unfounded rumor that thousands of Jews did not show up for work at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, because Israel was behind those attacks.
In Egypt, Israel was also widely blamed for the bombing attacks in Taba and Sharm el Sheik over the last year, and for the recent sectarian violence between Coptic Christians and Muslims in Alexandria. In Syria, officials at the highest levels of the government have blamed Israel for killing Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.
While it appears that most Jordanians have accepted that Mr. Zarqawi was involved - with many saying they are sickened by his actions - there is little criticism for those who scapegoat Israel.
They have a long way to go yet.
5:03:27 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.12.2005; 01:34:16.
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