Blogger: Persecution of the Baha’is of Iran
Article: The Government of Iran Discriminates 800 Baha’i Students for their Religious Beliefs
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-28 13:55:00

The Amirkabir University of Technology newsletter (AUT News) that is supported by the Islamic Society, confirmed that the Iranian Government is discriminating Baha’i students simply because of their religious beliefs.

The authorities of the higher education sector have denied some 800 Baha’i students access to their results of national entrance examination for entering universities. To enrol in universities throughout Iran, students must provide their successful results of this examination to the university upon enrolment.

Following is the extract from AUT News:

دانش آموزانى که در کنکور سراسرى شرکت کرده اند ، مى توانند نتایج و رشته هایى که مجاز به ثبت نام هستند را در سایت رسمى سازمان سنجش و آموزش کشور (www.sanjesh.org) مشاهده کنند.حکومت از دو سال پیش به سمت سیستم الکترونیکى تغییر رویه داد و از آن به بعد ،هر داوطلب فقط به صورت فردى مى تواند با ورود به فایل خود از نتایج آزمون آگاه شود۰

http://www.autnews.info/archives/1386,06,0004771

Universities in Iran have just started the first semester for this academic year, yet the Baha’i students have not been given the opportunity to enrol and access higher education throughout the whole country. The Government of Iran is denying one of the most basic rights, education, to a significant proportion of the population - the Baha’is of Iran, yet again.

Blogger: Point of no return
Article: How Arab are ‘Arab’ Jews?
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-27 17:34:00

A young law student at Cornell recently had an article published in the university newspaper entitled Arab Jews - an oxymoron?

‘Many people in the West have never heard of Jews from Arab countries,” Judd Robert Rothstein writes. “They do not know that Jewish roots in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and other ‘Arab’ countries stretch back thousands of years. “

Indeed. It is as well to point out to the legions of well-meaning peace and interfaith groups around the world that Jews and Arabs need no instruction in how to live together: they have done so for hundreds of years.

Others do know that Jews lived in Arab and Muslim countries, but they might think they were ‘Jewish Arabs’. Anti-Zionists and Jewish communists add to the confusion. ( Ella Shohat and David Shasha talk about Arabs of the Jewish faith. They deny that the Jews are a separate people, and imply they are not entitled to a state of their own.)

In search of enlightenment I reached for my yellowing copy of Jews and Arabs by the late, eminent Princeton scholar SD Goitein (first published in 1955). Goitein made a speciality of studying those most genuine Jews living among the most genuine Arabs - in Yemen.

From Arabia in the 7th century the Arabs spread their language and religion - Arabic and Islam. But the Arabs did not necessarily always rule the areas they conquered, ceding that role to foreign soldiers from Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Was Israel just another Arabian tribe? After all, both peoples are said to be semitic. Goitein dismisses the myth of the semitic race: “The fact that negroes in the US talk and think exactly like other Americans does not prove they once formed a single race.”Among the affinities between Jews and Arabs was a certain primitive democracy, a similar concept of the ’slave’ and the existence of women in public life.

But the differences in values are considerable. The Jews grant more freedom to their women. The Arabs cling to appearances, and would be polite even if they felt like insulting you. Sabra Israelis can be rude, even if there is every reason to be polite.

Ancient Israel was an agricultural people to whom the desert, except for a short Biblical sojourn between Egypt and Canaan, was alien. Their calendar was agricultural. Yes, their social structure was tribal, but this does not mean that Israel was of Bedouin origin. Goitein points out there is a difference between sheep and cattle-raising semi-nomads - as the Patriarchs would have been - and camel-breeding Bedouins. The Israelite ideal was that each man should sit under his own vine or fig tree. This changed in Islamic times when the Jewish people, most of whom were living under Arab rule, transformed themselves into a nation of artisans and merchants.

The Jews tried to do everything to minimise the transfer of property, while to Arabs, everything was sellable. Their laws of inheritance differed. The Jews followed the law of ‘primogeniture’. The Jews passed as much as property as possible to as few as possible, whereas Arabs divided property among as many as possible. A daughter inherited half as much property as a son. The central unit to Jews was the family; to Arabs it was the clan.

Although Judaism and Islam have much in common, there are also differences: for example, the Jewish Sabbath is a Day of Rest. The Bedouin, being on the move and working irregularly during the week, had little use for a Day of Rest but retained it as a day of assembly and prayer.

Arab classical literature was written down in sedentary environments, but ‘its every page betrays the origin of its people in the Arabian desert. Nothing of that kind is to be found in the Bible’, says Goitein,’ where everything breathes the fragrance of the Palestinian soil and reflects the life of farmers and shepherds.’

Another big difference was the Arab attachment to language, and the emphasis on elegance and form. The Jews concentrated on ideas and paid very little attention to form. They readily gave up their own language, translating the Bible into other languages, including Arabic, while the Arabs clung tenaciously to theirs. Goitein describes Arab poetry as like an ornament, rigidly traditionalist. The fact that literary Arabic has not been allowed to evolve has led to spiritual stagnation. But Goitein also points out that without the influence of Arab Muslim language and literature, medieval Jewish philosophy, poetry and Hebrew grammar would not have developed in the way they did.

By adopting the Arabic language, however, the Jews did not become Arabs. They exchanged one language, Aramaic, for another, Arabic.

Can a Jew also be Arab? By Naim Kattan

Blogger: Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead
Article: Vatican Reaches Out to Muslims
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-29 18:19:39

The Vatican reaching out to Muslims to work for peace and understanding. Good job. But I thought one of the messages in the article deserves a little more examination. It also ties into one of the other posts…Terror in Schools.

Tauran urged Islamic leaders to educate their children in a way that “honors all human creatures.”

So, that doesn’t happen I take it?

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican on Friday urged Muslims to reject violence, work with Christians for peace and to teach their children to love and respect all people and not become “cultural or religious blocs opposed to one another.” The Vatican’s top official in charge of relations with Muslims, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, issued the traditional message to Muslims to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan. In it, he urged Muslims to enter into a dialogue with Christians to “help us to escape from the endless spiral of conflict and multiple tensions which mark our societies.” It was the most pointed appeal to Muslims from Tauran, who was named in June to head the newly reopened Vatican office that specializes in relations with Muslims, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Church relations with Muslims were badly strained last year after a speech by Pope Benedict XVI that linked Islam to violence. Benedict later said he regretted that Muslims were offended by his remarks. Tauran, the Vatican’s foreign affairs chief from 1990 to 2003, has pledged to back the moderate forces within Islam to improve dialogue and help defeat extremist groups that encourage terrorism. The French prelate said all religious believers had the duty to work together for peace and to “reject, denounce and refuse every recourse to violence which can never be motivated by religion, since it wounds the very image of God in man.” “We know that violence, especially terrorism, which strikes blindly and claims countless innocent victims, is incapable of resolving conflicts and leads only to a deadly chain of destructive hatred, to the detriment of mankind and societies,” Tauran wrote. He said he was appealing with all his heart for Muslims to enter a dialogue with Christians so they can work together for peace. Such dialogue, he said, would give the younger generations an example to follow.

Tauran urged Islamic leaders to educate their children in a way that “honors all human creatures.”

“Thus all forces can be mobilized in the service of mankind and humanity so that the younger generations do not become cultural or religious blocs opposed to one another, but genuine brothers and sisters in humanity,” he said.

NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

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Blogger: Point of no return
Article: Israeli reporter attends Damascus synagogue
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-28 08:27:00

Ynet News’s intrepid man in Syria, Ron Ben-Yishai, bribes his way into a Yom Kippur service at the last functioning synagogue in Damascus. This article is an appetiser: the full report is yet to come.

SYRIA - As I walk along one of the alleys in the poorer district of the city, where the ancient houses tilt and threaten to crumble, I spot, sitting there against the wall, a young mustached man. When he saw me approaching he rose and moved forward to block my path.

He was wearing civilian clothes, but the gun sticking out of the belt of his trousers was noticeable.

Synagogue in Damascus

I explained to him in English-laced Arabic what I was seeking. You cannot, he answered. After a brief negotiation and the handing over of several bills, the plainclothes officer – or was he a member of the al-Mukhabarat (Syrian intelligence) – was content and walked over to a narrow alley between two houses.

A bridge over the Euphrates: the reporter is on the left

Ten minutes later a short man of about 50 came towards me, wrapped in a Jewish prayer shawl. “What can I do for you?” the Jewish man asked in French. I decided to avoid taking a risk and identified myself as a tourist, a geography professor. Albert Kamao mulled this over for a moment and then without asking any further questions, told me to come in two hours time, towards the end of the prayer.

“Yom Kippur is a holy day for us, the Jews,” he said, in English now. “We do not wish to be disturbed while we pray to the creator of the world and ask him for forgiveness.” I did as he instructed.

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Blogger: Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead
Article: Conversations with God
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-22 18:31:25

I had a lot of things to contemplate about this Yom Kippur morning. From silly thoughts that I voiced to my husband that I think the word “menopause” is really “men oppose” to more serious thoughts as the day dragged on about how very few people in the Holy Land were eating today being that Ramadan and Yom Kippur fall on the same day today. It seemed really special to me that we were doing the same thing - suffering (and praying of course)- together with our Moslem cousins.

My close friend moved to Israel recently and as I remember she was always the one who ran to synagogue every Sabbath from the moment services began at 7:30 am until 12:30 pm. I asked her about Rosh Hashana - the first New Year in the Holy Land for her. She told me she could hardly focus in synagogue this year. Another friend told me the same thing - she hardly went to synagogue this New Year.

Why?

These people believe in God, and are actually Orthodox Jews. What’s goin’ on here? I mean it’s been a few years since I’ve had this feeling that many formal synagogues are awful - routine, boring, the congregants usually running through the service like speed praying/reading. And that’s what led me on a search for alternative prayer sessions, which led me to both the Reform Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem and the monthly Jewish renewal services led by Rabbi Ruth Kagan. Both of these places uplift my soul and this wandering Jew has found her niche there. But I had no idea others were slowly feeling this way too.

I’m wondering whether landing in Israel makes your old spirit disappear and a new spirit of sorts comes to take hold of you. Do we need a new conversation with God?

I took the friend who just moved here to an interfaith evening at Eliyahu McLean’s place to celebrate Ramadan and Yom Kippur Thursday evening. A sufi sheikh from Nazareth spoke to us about Ramadan and we heard a mystical interpretation of Yom Kippur, plus there was Jewish meditation, and sufi flute music. There was the usual mix of Palestinians and Jews and his place was packed. More people came too because I made an email list of the people who always ask me “how do you know about these things?” and sent them an email about this event. She was never exposed to anything interfaith and stayed just short of the Ramadan explanation but said she’d like to continue going to these things.

Happy events like these make my spirit soar. I want to live in a country where there are gatherings like this all the time. And they keep getting bigger. People are thirsting for knowledge of each other and for different ways to talk to God.

My family didn’t go to synagogue on Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur eve my husband, son and I wandered around the neighborhood because everyone is out on the roads. The kids are bicyling on the streets because no cars are driving. We walked passed the packed synagogues. I didn’t feel like going in though. We walked passed another small makeshift synagogue held in a kindergarten building. It reminded me of the small synagogue in New Delhi. I told my husband and son that I feel like I want to stay, and listened to the service inside while remaining outside in the cool breeze in the garden. There was a bit of an overflow crowd in the garden and I felt that having the prayers surround me while I just took it into my soul was just as good as praying yourself.

We all fasted and didn’t even turn on the tv or computer which meant we were mostly in bed biding our time until we could eat. I was going to go to the local (boring) synagogue at 5:00 pm for the last part of the Yom Kippur service which I find very enjoyable as it is only for one hour and people find themselves adrenalized during this last hour of the fast.

But to backtrack - at 3:00 pm I noticed my daughter sitting by the window reciting Psalms. She had no idea I was watching her but I was. She wasn’t just mouthing the words in Hebrew. She was having this amazing conversation with God that astounded me. Her mouth moved as if she was speaking loudly to Him, even though there was no sound coming out of her mouth. I saw her getting emotional, and then finally crying to Him - really crying - and she put the book to her face and rocked back and forth and I felt such joy that my daughter had found her own way to converse with God.

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Blogger: Point of no return
Article: Film shows suppressed Jewish role in Iraqi music
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-24 09:31:00

An Australian film on Iraqi music in pre-Saddam Hussein days by an Iraqi Shi’a refugee, Majid Shokor, reveals the suppressed role of Jewish musicians, writes Arnold Zable in The Age.

“(..) With free access to the internet, Majid was also able to pursue his research on the fate of Iraqi-Jewish musicians. What he discovered reads both as a fable and a challenge to our divisive times: once upon a time, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived side by side in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They shared a culture, and common source of pleasure, in music, art, foods, Arabic language and literature.

“This culture flourished, especially in Baghdad from the 1920s onwards. Music could be heard everywhere, in coffee houses, homes, and on the radio. Iraqi-Jewish musicians and composers were highly esteemed and wrote many songs loved by all Iraqis, and popular throughout the Arab world.

“They made up the majority of the first Iraqi Radio Ensemble, recorded discs, and performed throughout the country. They included the legendary composers Saleh and Daoud Al’Kuwaiti and the much-loved singer Salima Pasha Murad.

“I realised it was an important part of my country’s history,” says Majid, “and I knew that something should be done about it, but I was not sure what.”

When Majid mentioned the idea in October 2004 to documentary filmmaker Marsha Emerman, she was immediately interested. It appealed to her as a story that explored music and culture as a means of uniting people. In 1991, in response to the first Gulf War, she had organised a Melbourne concert that brought together Jewish, Arabic and Kurdish performers.

(..) The filmmakers then flew to Israel for their long-awaited meeting with the ageing community of Iraqi-Jewish musicians.

“Wherever he went in Ramat Gan, Majid was greeted as a long-lost son. “Ramat Gan is a little Baghdad,” he says.

“It is in the markets. The restaurants. In the pickles, the popular songs, and traditional sweets. It is in the body language, the way people speak to each other, the way they use their hands to express their ideas. Everyone wanted to touch me. I felt I was in a safe environment.”

“Majid attended the weekly musicians’ gatherings he had first heard of in Beirut, and he met Elias Shasha, Abraham Salman, and Alber Elias, now in their 80s, who had performed in Baghdad in the 1940s. They invited Majid into their homes and told him stories that recreated the lost Iraqi world of their youth.

“When Majid asked Elias Shasha to close his eyes and remember his life in Baghdad, he said, “I remember the beautiful days, beautiful hours, beautiful places. The Tigris and the Euphrates, the boats, the fish, my friends. It’s very difficult. Love for the homeland is undeniable. I can’t ignore I was born in Baghdad, I am an Iraqi.”

“Majid also spent time with musician Yair Dalal. He is filmed performing, and teaching young Israelis who are enthralled by Arabic music. The son of Iraqi Jews, Yair is a celebrated performer on the world music circuit. A virtuoso oud player, violinist, singer, and composer, his music is a haunting blend of Jewish and Arabic influences.

“In recent times Yair has discovered the generation of older Iraqi Jewish musicians and brought them back into the spotlight. Passionate about peace initiatives, he was immediately pleased to participate in the film. As part of the project, Majid and Yair hope to stage a concert that brings together Jewish, Muslim and Christian musicians united in their mutual passion for Iraqi music.

“I have asked myself many times,” says Majid, “if I am doing the right thing. But meeting these people and listening to them, has strengthened my conviction. These musicians and composers gave us such beautiful music, and loved Iraq. When I met them in Ramat Gan, they were like people I knew. We shared a lot of history.

“There is a bond I feel with them that I feel with all exiled Iraqis. It is very moving the way they recall cities like Baghdad over half a century later. They were victims of politics. We were all victims.”

Majid was surprised by the extent of Arabic influence in Israeli culture. “It is in fact a Middle Eastern country,” he says.

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Blogger: Baha’i Faith in Egypt
Article: “Then They Came for the Baha’is”: Will it be “Never Again?”
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-24 18:54:00

Today, US Congressman Mark Steven Kirk wrote the following powerful blog-post on his website:

September 24, 2007

Then They Came for the Baha’is

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the stage today to address students at Columbia University, his government was working at his direction to find and expel students from Iranian universities—solely based on the religion they practice.

There is a little-told story from Iran—a story we thought would forever stay buried in the darkness of 1930s Europe. This story is about a religion founded in Iran in the mid-1800s that has become Iran’s largest religious minority with over 250,000 members.

As the representative in Congress for the Baha’i Temple of North America, I know that the Baha’i faith preaches peace, tolerance and diversity of thought—values we embrace on the North Shore. But in an oppressive Islamic dictatorship like Iran, Baha’i values pose a clear and present danger to the regime.

In March of 2006, just a few months into Ahmadinejad’s presidency, the Command Headquarters of Iran’s Armed Forces ordered the police, Revolutionary Guard and Ministry of Information to identify all Baha’is and collect information on their activities.

Two months later, the Iranian Association of Chambers of Commerce began compiling a list of Baha’is serving in every business sector.

In May of last year, 54 Baha’is were arrested in Shiraz and held for several days without trial—the largest roundup of Baha’is since the 1980s. Then in August, Iran’s feared Ministry of the Interior ordered provincial officials to “cautiously and carefully monitor and manage” all Baha’i social activities. The Central Security Office of Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology ordered 81 Iranian universities to expel any student discovered to be a Baha’i. A letter issued in November from one university stated that it is Iranian policy to prevent Baha’is from enrolling in universities and to expel Baha’is upon discovery.

This year, the safety of Iranian Baha’is continued to deteriorate. This year, 104 Baha’is were expelled from Iranian universities. In February, police in Tehran and surrounding towns entered Baha’i homes and businesses to collect details on family members. The First Branch of the Falard Public Court refused to hear a lawsuit “due to the plaintiffs’ belonging to the Bahaist sect.”

In April, the Iranian Public Intelligence and Security Force ordered 25 industries to deny business licenses to Baha’is. The Ministry of Information threatened to shut down one company unless it fired all Baha’i employees. Banks are closing Baha’i accounts and refusing loans to Baha’i applicants. Just last week, the Iranian government bulldozed a Baha’i cemetery, erasing the memory of thousands of Iranian citizens.

The U.S. State Department’s 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom paints an even darker picture.

“Broad restrictions on Bahá’ís severely undermined their ability to function as a community. The Government repeatedly offers Bahá’ís relief from mistreatment in exchange for recanting their faith.

“Bahá’ís may not teach or practice their faith or maintain links with coreligionists abroad. Bahá’ís are often officially charged with “espionage on behalf of Zionism”…

“Since late 2005 Bahá’ís have faced an increasing number of public attacks…Radio and television broadcasts have also increasingly condemned the Bahá’ís and their religion…

“Public and private universities continued either to deny admittance to or expel Bahá’í students.”

We have seen this movie before—the opening scenes of one of the most horrific episodes in human history. What happened to our solemn promise of ‘never again’ made in 1945?

Never again would the international community stay silent about laws banning one group from attending school. Never again would we ignore orders to register with the government and report on your family’s whereabouts. Never again would we welcome a leader who has ordered a religious minority to be subject to secret police monitors and nightly round-ups.

When President Ahmadinejad rose to address the student body at Columbia—a school extolling the virtues of tolerance and diversity—why was there no mention of Baha’i student expulsion in Iran?

This is a defining moment for our new century. The lessons of the 20th century gave us all the warning signs of what will come if we do not speak out. The Iranian President has spoken – will we?

“Then they came for…” the Baha’is — we pray the poem ends differently this time.

Another post, regarding the same subject, on AmbivaBlog says so much in this very brief paragraph:

Ahmadinejad’s Kristallnacht

The “Jews” this time are the Baha’i; they number perhaps a quarter million out of Iran’s 65 million. (There were half a million Jews in Hitler’s Germany out of a population of 67 million.) It is not their race that makes the Baha’i targets, but their apostasy and heterodoxy: their faith “preaches peace, tolerance and diversity of thought.” But the tactics being used against them are so chillingly familiar it makes you do a double take.

My brother sent me this; it’s written by his congressman, Mark Kirk.

The AmbivaBlog post continues with Congressman Kirk’s full text of his post.

Words of Lee Bollinger, Columbia University President (New York)

Blogger: Point of no return
Article: Algeria takes a step backward for religious freedom
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-19 22:44:00

Some five thousand non-Muslim citizens live in Algeria, according to the International Religious Freedom Report 2007 released by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor on September 14, according to the Algerian Echouroukonline.

“There are three thousand members of evangelical churches in Algeria (mostly in the Kabylia region) and three hundred Catholics, said the report. As for Jews, there was no active Jewish community although a very small number of Jews continue to live in Algiers.

“According to the report, Christians concentrated in the large cities of Algiers, Annaba, and Oran in the mid-1990s for security reasons. Evangelical proselytizing led to increases in the size of the Christian community in the eastern Berber region of Kabylia.

“Stringent measures have been taken by the Algerian government to punish any one who incites, constrains, or utilizes means of seduction tending to convert a Muslim to another religion, according to the same report.

“The report pointed out the Ordinance 06-03 that gives the Government the power to regulate the locations of all non-Muslim worship and monitor participation. It enables the Government to shut down informal Christian religious services that take place in private homes or in secluded outdoor settings.

“On the other hand, the Government argues that the new requirement that non-Muslim religious services be conducted only in registered facilities puts the treatment of all religions on an equal basis before the law, said the report.

“Although Ordinance 06-03 marked a step backward for religious freedom there were no reported instances of the law’s implementation.”

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Blogger: Point of no return
Article: 1,000s of Yemenite Jews have converted to Islam
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-11 12:55:00

Sympathetic portrayal of the Jews of Yemen by Mohamed Bin Sallam in The Yemen Times. Bin Sallam is brave enough to point out that Jews are deprived of formal state education, although the state has built a school recently for refugees from the war in Sa’ada. He claims that 350,000 Jews have converted to Islam since 1948, an alarming thought - although this number, along with other figures he quotes throughout the article, appears exaggerated.

“Yemeni Jews are natives of Yemen as they had been here for centuries before Christ and Islam. They had maintained their religion throughout the years and lived in communities within Yemeni society until they migrated to the “Promised Land” in Jerusalem.

“Yet Yemen also contains some religious sites visited by Jews from all placed. Salem Yousef Al-Shebzi (Shabazi), was a Jewish religious cleric, who lived in Taiz in the 16th Century after he moved from a nearby village. He was a well-respected Yemeni Jew, and Jews from Yemen and all around the world come to visit his grave, known as the “Shebzi Grave”. Although the exact location of the grave is not known, Jews flock to a site near Al-Qaherah Fort in Taiz city, and camp there for several hours. They take blessin

Yemeni dance from the South performed by Yemeni Jews in Israel. The group of 200 artistes tours the world presenting Jewish arts.

gs from a small water stream in that area.

“Between 1949 and 1950 the majority of Yemeni Jews migrated. The migration operation was termed ‘The Magic Carpet’, when more than 48,000 Yemeni Jews migrated to Israel. Thousands of the Yemeni Jews remained in Yemen, some held to their religion, while others converted to Islam whether by force or by choice. Some 350,000 Yemeni Jews have been converted to Islam since 1948.

“Today, the Jewish remnant in Yemen doesn’t exceed one thousand living in small communities in Sana’a, Amran, and Sa’ada. They freely exercise their religious rituals and have several religious occasions, which they mark every year such as Eid Al-Gufran or Eid Naisan, Khudhaira, Mudhalat or the Return.

“However, they are not integrated completely in all aspects of the public life such as the education system. True, they share the difficult living conditions with all Yemenis, yet their children are generally deprived of formal education in public schools. Yemeni Jewish children go to religious teaching sessions established by the elders of their community members. Recently a small school containing 25 students was constructed by the state for the Jews displaced from their homes because of war in Sa’ada, north of Yemen.

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Blogger: Chaldean Thoughts
Article: The West Bank Oktoberfest
Originaly Posted On: 2007-09-11 18:56:00

Source: BBC News

Taybeh beer comes in a variety of different guises, from Dark to Gold, with a green-labelled non-alcoholic version in development.

The media is blamed for mostly reporting the bad news. So, when the media reports pleasant news for a change, especially from the Middle East, I have to give them credit. The BBC News reports:

Probably one of the things one least expects to come