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Source: http://www.facebook.com/guitarsintheclassroom/posts/10151464965110718
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Obama Asks Russia For 15K Troops?
As insane as these times are and as many times as I have warned about this possibility, my mind is having trouble accepting that this might actually be happening.
Is this "eutimes" site credible or is it baloney? The world is so nutty anymore I now have significant difficulty telling fact from fantasy. But if this is indeed true, all I can say is hang on to your backsides because things are NOT good.
http://www.eutimes.net/2013/06/obama...ming-disaster/
An unsettling [COLOR=#CC0000 !important]report prepared by the Emergencies Ministry (EMERCOM) circulating in the Kremlin today on the just completed talks between Russia and the United States in[COLOR=#CC0000 !important]Washington[/COLOR] D.C. says that the Obama regime has requested at least 15,000 Russian troops trained in disaster relief and ?crowd functions? [i.e. riot control] be pre-positioned to respond to FEMA Region III during an unspecified ?upcoming? disaster.[/COLOR]
According to this report, this unprecedented request was made directly to Minister Vladimir Puchkov by US[COLOR=#CC0000 !important]Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Director Janet Napolitano who said these Russian troops would work ?directly and jointly? with her Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of whose mission is to secure the continuity of the US government in the event of natural disasters or war.[/COLOR]
Important to note, this report says, is that FEMA Region III, the area Russian troops are being requested for, includes Washington D.C. and the surrounding States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, ?strongly suggesting? that the Obama regime has lost confidence in its own military being able to secure its survival should it be called upon to do so.
In his public statements, yesterday, regarding these matters Minister Puchkov stated, ?We have decided that the US Federal Emergency Management Agency and Russia?s Emergencies Ministry will work together to develop systems to protect people and territory from cosmic impacts,? and further noted that his meeting with DHS Director Napolitano also covered other kinds of natural emergencies, such as recent years? extreme weather in both Russia and United States.
In this EMERCOM report, however, Minister Puchkov notes that the Russian troops being requested by the Obama regime would ?more than likely? be paired with US-DHS troops who last year purchased nearly 2 billion rounds of ammunition and just this past month placed and emergency order for riot gear.
As to what ?upcoming disaster? the US is preparing for, thisreport continues, appears to be ?strongly related? to last weeks assassination of American reporter Michael Hastings who was killed while attempting to reach the safety of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, and as we had reported on in our 20 June report Top US Journalist Attempting To Reach Israeli Consulate Assassinated.
Further to be noted about Hastings assassination by the Obama regime is the continued US mainstream propaganda news cover-up of it, though many freelance reporters continue to uncover the truth, such as Jim Stone whose investigation noted that the rear portion of Hastings car was blown open and shredded with the rest of the car nicely intact, which runs counter to the ?official? story that this [COLOR=#CC0000 !important]vehicle has hit a tree.[/COLOR]
Not mentioned in this EMERCOM report is any suggestion that Russia would comply with this request from the Obama regime, especially in light of the horrifying information being given to Russian intelligence analysts from Edward Snowden who has been labeled as the most wanted man in the world.
According to one [COLOR=#CC0000 !important]Federal Security Services (FSB) bulletin on their continued debriefing of Snowden, and analysis of the information he has provided Russian intelligence officers, his [COLOR=#CC0000 !important]father[/COLOR], Lonnie Snowden, was an officer in the US Coast Guard during the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States who had ?direct knowledge? of the true events that occurred and whom the real perpetrators were.[/COLOR]
Being directly affected by the events of 9/11, this FSB bulletin says, Snowden ?self initiated? a multi-year effort to gain access to America?s top secrets, a mission which when recently completed led him to contact various international reporters, including Hastings, whom he believed could be trusted with disseminating the information he had obtained.
Though known to us directly from our Kremlin sources as to the exact connections Snowden?s information proves regarding 9/11 and both the Bush and Obama regimes, and the even more horrific event soon to come, a June 2013Defence Advisory Notice (DA-Notice) prevents our being able to?at this time.
Likewise, and as the assassination of Hastings clearly [COLOR=#CC0000 !important]shows, the Obama regime claims a legal right to kill anyone it so chooses without charges or trial they believe may threaten US national security, and what Snowden?s information reveals definitely falls into that category.[/COLOR]
What can be said though, there is a critical reason billionaires all over the world have been dumping their stocks, and fast; and those who are not able to read between the lines will soon find themselves in the most dangerous situation they?ve ever encountered.
Forewarned IS forearmed.
Source: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?419778-Obama-Asks-Russia-For-15K-Troops&goto=newpost
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James Zogby: Egypt After June 30th
Regardless of how events develop in the days that will follow June 30th in Egypt, consideration must be given to the situation that now exists:
- Egypt is now facing a crisis more substantial than the one that led to the downfall of the Mubarak government. In the past few years: food and fuel prices have soared, unemployment has risen sharply, the crime rate has tripled, and in just the last year alone there have been almost 9,500 demonstrations and protests nationwide;
- A dangerous divide now exists in the country with most citizens having lost confidence in the government, fearing that it is using unconstitutional means to consolidate its grip on power. The rhetoric used by both sides has accelerated, reaching, at times, dangerous levels of incitement;
- Despite having a serious legitimacy problem, the president and his party have not taken steps toward national reconciliation, and instead have mounted an assault on their opponents and many institutions of civil society;
- The opposition political groupings, though representing a majority of Egyptians, are too new and too weak to compete with the well-established Muslim Brotherhood organization;
- The Egyptian military is in a quandary. It is the most trusted institution in the country. While fearful that the protests on June 30th could escalate into violence and mass disruptions, the military appears hesitant to squander the public's trust by forcefully inserting itself into the political arena. Instead they have issued an ultimatum to both sides (the government and the protesters) calling on them to engage in a national dialogue to resolve differences and find a way forward;
- In the midst of this crisis that is roiling Egypt, the U.S. has badly misjudged the situation. To many Egyptians the U.S. has appeared to side with the president and the Muslim Brotherhood, turning a blind eye to the public's deep discontent; and finally
- Whether or not the called for June 30th demonstrations materialize, whether or not they are sustained or produce violent clashes, whether the army enters the fray or remains on the sidelines -- one fact is clear: both sides to this fight have constituencies and political realities that cannot be ignored. The Muslim Brotherhood remains the best organized, most disciplined force in the country. But the opposition to the Brotherhood, though not yet an electoral force, is motivated by the real fears and grievances of a substantial majority and is a reality that cannot be ignored.
The Muslim Brotherhood wasted a golden opportunity to be magnanimous in victory. After winning parliamentary elections, they should have reached out early on to include all of their opponents in a national dialogue. And they should not have broken their promise to skip the contest for the presidency. Then after winning that office, with a minority of the electorate, they should have realized that they had to secure the trust of those whom they had defeated. They should have insured that a broad cross-section of the society was involved in the drafting of the constitution -- so that all Egyptians would feel that they had an equal say in shaping the future of their country.
The Muslim Brotherhood did not do any of these things. Instead, after winning, they began to over-reach. They used an unrepresentative body stacked with supporters to write the constitution. They consolidated their hold over the reins of power, declared the president to be above judicial review, and embarked on a campaign attacking the judiciary, the press, and non-governmental organizations.
In the process, they have alienated a substantial majority of the public who have recoiled from what they see as the president's intention to establish a new authoritarian Islamic regime.
The president's opponents though large in number have not yet coalesced into a cohesive political force with broadly recognized credible leadership. Lacking in organization and structure, they have not been able to win elections and are fearful that before they develop that capacity, the Muslim Brotherhood will have irreversibly established their authority over all of the state's institutions.
Feeling powerless to make change through democratic processes, the opposition has felt they have no recourse but to demonstrate.
Through all of this unrest, the president has not only appeared unmoved, he has become hardened in his resolve to move forward without changing course.
The result is June 30th.
In the lead up to this day of reckoning, the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt delivered an address which was read by many Egyptians as chiding the demonstrators for not respecting the legitimacy of the government, while appearing to support the Morsi government. That may or may not have been the intention of the Ambassador, but by giving short shrift to the concerns of many Egyptians that the Morsi government was undercutting the very foundations of civil society and a democratic order, and by not calling out the many practices of the government that have eroded public trust in the future of a participatory democracy, the Ambassador put the U.S. in the uncomfortable position of being on one side (and in fact the minority side) of a deeply divided polity.
At this date, we don't know what will occur on the days that will follow June 30th. What we do know is that when the dust settles Egypt will still be divided, will still be facing enormous economic challenges, and will still be in need of a national dialogue that can chart a new course for the country. Whether the military can or will be the agent that facilitates this process is uncertain. But, at this point, that appears to be the best that can hoped for.
?
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Hands-on with leaked Android 4.3 ROM for the Google edition Galaxy S4 [Updated]
First glimpse of the next version of Android looks a lot like what's come before
There's a leaked Android 4.3 Jelly Bean ROM out in the wild this morning, in the form of a pre-release build for the 'Google Play edition' Galaxy S4. It's also been ported to the European LTE Galaxy S4 (GT-i9505) in the form of a custom ROM, courtesy of the original source of the leak, Samsung fansite SamMobile.
We've fired up that ROM on our European GS4 and shot a quick hands-on video, giving an early glimpse of the next version of Android. And, well, it looks an awful lot like the current version of Android, supporting earlier reports that 4.3's changes are mostly under-the-hood, rather than user-facing. That means for the most part, we're dealing with the same user experience found on the current Google Play edition GS4.
Check out our video after the break, along with a list of behind-the-scenes changes we've noticed.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/gBAl5QsrCck/story01.htm
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
Climate Change May Stop Invasive Ant Cold
An aggressive ant species so vicious that in groups it can eat bird hatchlings alive may see its territory decline in the coming decades as climate change takes its toll on its habitats.
Pheidole megacephala, more popularly known as the big-headed ant, has been classified as one of the world's 100 most invasive species, found in every continent except Antarctica. A recent model, however, predicts global warming will slow the ants' march significantly by 2080.
"Ants, because they are a cold-blooded species, they are supposed to be very sensitive to small changes in temperature," said Cleo Bertelsmeier, a Ph.D. student at the University of Paris South. So Bertelsmeier used a model to look at how the species' distribution might change at the predicted levels of global warming.
The results show the ant populations and territory beginning to decline as soon as 2020, and then losing as much as one-fifth of their potential roaming territory by 2080.
Ant invaders
Invasive species are among the top threats to global biodiversity, Bertelsmeier notes in her research paper. As trade and tourism reach more far-flung areas, accidental and deliberate introductions of species into new areas become more prevalent. The native species then get crowded out and, in many cases, go extinct. [Alien Invaders: Destructive Invasive Species]
Because ants are small and colonial by nature, they are one of the best-equipped animals to take over a new area ? making them one of the world's most invasive creatures, according to multiple studies.
The big-headed ant is a particularly troublesome one that likely originated in Africa. .
"It has a lot of negative impacts on many other species ? native ants, other invertebrates and even on birds," Bertelsmeier told LiveScience. She added that although big-headed ants often eat bird hatchlings when attacking in groups, they have an even larger impact on other ants and invertebrates.
But the ants' footprint extends even further. "They also eat seeds, so they can have an impact on plant populations and also agriculture," Bertelsmeier said. "They [cause] quite a crisis ? in an invading area, some people are afraid of them."
To examine how the ants might be affected by climate change, Bertelsmeier and her colleagues created a model that took into account information from maps of the ants' potential range and climate scenarios based on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Habitat decline
The range maps came from a New Zealand-based, publicly available database for ant distributions based on observational data sent in by students, private collectors, government agencies and biological researchers. Bertelsmeier's group further limited the data to remove instances where the ants were in greenhouses and other indoor areas.
Then, the researchers used a database called WorldClim to obtain climate information on which areas are most hospitable to ants both now and in the future. This project used data from the widely cited "IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007," which projected how the climate could change in the coming decades.
The models showed that currently, the ants have favorable climactic conditions in 18.5 percent of the global landmass; the best spots are in South America, Australasia and Africa. But this range will shrink by about one-fifth by 2080, according to the consensus model generated by the researchers.
Bertelsmeier said she hopes the current data on favorable habitats will assist in protecting native species from the invasive ant.
One key limitation in the data, though, is that the researchers aren't taking into account how the ants interact with other species when hey arrive in a new area, Bertelsmeier said, adding that she's currently researching that interaction.
The research paper appeared online in the journal Biological Invasions in December 2012, and was released in print form in mid-June.
Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/climate-change-may-stop-invasive-ant-cold-141314629.html
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Ford recalls 13,100 Explorer, Taurus and MKS models
DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co. said Friday it is recalling more than 13,100 Ford Explorer, Taurus and Lincoln MKS models because the child safety locks on the rear doors may not work properly.
The recall affects 2013 models, and the malfunction could mean the child safety locks would turn off automatically, allowing the doors to be opened from the inside.
No accidents or injuries have been reported due to the malfunction, Ford said.
The affected vehicles were built at the automaker's Chicago Assembly Plant between November 29, 2012 and December 12, 2012. Most of the recalled vehicles are located in North America.
Ford said dealers will test and replace the rear child safety locks for no cost if necessary.
(Reporting By Joseph Lichterman; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ford-recalls-13-100-explorer-taurus-mks-models-150835937.html
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10-year-old vandals ravage dead woman's home - FOX23 News
Kids as young as 10 years old broke into an elderly woman's home, trashed it, spray-painted antiques, broke windows and set up camp.
The woman died a few months ago and the family was working to sort through her belongings in the home.
Tulsa police caught two 10-year-olds and a 13-year-old who lived down the street from the home in the 5300 block of South 36th West Avenue on Wednesday night.
FOX23 News spoke to the woman who lived next door to the home, who says she caught the kids in the act.
"I pulled up in my van and I could see the front door," said Tammie Owen.
She knew the kids didn't belong in the home.
"The kid come out and ran back out when he noticed me sitting in my van," said Owen.
She went to the fence and started questioning one of the kids, who told her a story she didn't believe.
"He said, ?Grandma gave me a key and said I could come over here,'" said Owen. "I'm like, ?Let?s call the cops and let the cops decide what to do.'"
She says the kids told her they didn't like that idea.
"'Oh there is no need for cops to be called,'" said Owen of the kids? reaction.
That's when the kids took off on their bicycles. When police arrived, the front doors were shattered and a boat in the yard was spray-painted.
"The house was just trashed,? said Owen.
FOX23 News spoke to a family member on the phone who said inside the home vulgar language was spray-painted on the washer, dryer, inside the freezer and antiques.
He said the kids dumped each drawer, made coffee and Kool-Aid and set up the television with the air conditioning blasting in the house.
He also said pills were smashed up.
"I wanted to beat them," said Owen.
She recognized the 10-year-olds, who lived at the end of the street.
Fox23 News knocked on their door to speak to the parents but no one answered.
"I wanted to teach them respect. You don't do people's houses like that way?anybody?s, I don't care whose it is," said Owen.
Police say the kids were not sent to juvenile detention but will have to go to juvenile court and face a judge, who will determine their punishment.
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Friday, June 28, 2013
PFT:?2nd man held in conjunction with Lloyd murder
Getty ImagesIn their zeal to defend the name Redskins against disorganized and scattered opposition that gradually is becoming more organized and less scattered, the NFL team bearing that name has had a tendency to seize in knee-jerk fashion upon anything that supports the position that the name isn?t offensive.
The two primary tactics having entailed citing the various high schools that still use the name (there are fewer all the time) and trumpeting the opinions of Native Americans who have no problem with the name, and who ostensibly would regard as a compliment the greeting, ?What?s up, redskin??
As explained by Dave McKenna in an item published earlier today by Deadspin (yeah, I know that one of the morons who works there recently called me a moron . . . again), a supposed Native American Chief whom the Redskins recently trotted out in support of the name isn?t a Chief, and may not even be a Native American.? But the Redskins, who apparently have chosen to dispense with steps like vetting a guest, put the guy on their in-house web show, described him as a Chief, and had him explain why he supports the name.
And, yes, the guy actually said that Native Americans on the ?reservation? actually great each other with, ?Hey, what?s up, redskin??
Complicating matters for the league is that Commissioner Roger Goodell recently pointed to the same non-Chief-possibly-non-Native-American in a letter to member of Congress defending the ongoing use of the name Redskins.
The full item is worth a read, even though it?s a little lengthy.? Also, it probably should include a disclaimer that the author once triggered a defamation lawsuit from owner Daniel Snyder, which gives McKenna a natural bias.
But the point has been made.? Yet again, the Redskins end up looking bad while trying to make their name look good.
If nothing else, we now know why they?ve hired Frank Luntz.? Then again, maybe they think he?s a Chief, too.
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Thursday, June 27, 2013
Key step in protein synthesis revealed
June 27, 2013 ? Scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have trapped the ribosome, a protein-building molecular machine essential to all life, in a key transitional state that has long eluded researchers. Now, for the first time, scientists can see how the ribosome performs the precise mechanical movements needed to translate genetic code into proteins without making mistakes.
"This is something that the whole field has been pursuing for the past decade," said Harry Noller, Sinsheimer Professor of Molecular Biology at UC Santa Cruz. "We've trapped the ribosome in the middle of its movement during translocation, which is the most interesting, profound, and complex thing the ribosome does."
Understanding ribosomes is important not only because of their crucial role as the protein factories of all living cells, but also because many antibiotics work by targeting bacterial ribosomes. Research on ribosomes by Noller and others has led to the development of novel antibiotics that hold promise for use against drug-resistant bacteria.
Noller's lab is known for its pioneering work to elucidate the atomic structure of the ribosome, which is made of long chains of RNA and proteins interlaced together in complicated foldings. Using x-ray crystallography, his group has shown the ribosome in different conformations as it interacts with other molecules. The new study, led by postdoctoral researcher Jie Zhou, is published in the June 28 issue of Science.
To make a new protein, the genetic instructions are first copied from the DNA sequence of a gene to a messenger RNA molecule. The ribosome then "reads" the sequence on the messenger RNA, matching each three-letter "codon" of genetic code with a specific protein building block, one of 20 amino acids. In this way, the ribosome builds a protein molecule with the exact sequence of amino acids specified by the gene. The matching of codons to amino acids is done via transfer RNA molecules, each of which carries a specific amino acid to the ribosome and lines it up with the matching codon on the messenger RNA.
"The big question has been to understand how messenger RNA and transfer RNA are moved synchronously through the ribosome as the messenger RNA is translated into protein," Noller said. "The transfer RNAs are large macromolecules, and the ribosome has moving parts that enable it to move them through quickly and accurately at a rate of 20 per second."
The key step, called translocation, occurs after the bond is formed joining a new amino acid to the growing protein chain. The transfer RNA then leaves that amino acid behind and moves to the next site on the ribosome, along with a synchronous movement of the messenger RNA to bring the next codon and its associated amino acid into position for bond formation. The new study shows the ribosome in the midst of a key step in this process.
"This gives us snapshots of the intermediate state in the movement," Noller said. "We can now see how the ribosome does this with a rotational movement of the small subunit, and we can see what look to be the 'pawls' of a ratcheting mechanism that prevents slippage of the translational reading frame."
Many antibiotics interfere with the function of the bacterial ribosome by preventing or retarding this translocational movement. Understanding the structural and dynamic details of this movement could help researchers design new antibiotics.
Translocation involves two steps (as Noller's lab showed back in 1989). Step one is the movement of the tRNA's "acceptor end" (where it carried the amino acid). This leads to a hybrid state, with the two ends of the tRNA in two different sites on the ribosome: the "anticodon end" is still lined up with the matching mRNA codon in one site, while the acceptor end has moved on to the next site. Step two is the movement of the tRNA's anticodon end together with the messenger RNA, which advances by one codon. Step two requires a catalyst called elongation factor G (EF-G). The new study shows the ribosome in the middle of step two, with EF-G bound to it and the tRNA halfway between the hybrid state and the final state.
Noller has spent decades working to understand how the ribosome works. Being able to see how it moves, he said, is an exciting moment.
"This is one of the most fundamental movements in all of biology, at the root of the whole mechanism for translation of the genetic code, and we now understand it all the way down to the molecular level," Noller said. "This mechanism had to be in place around the origin of life as we know it."
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/Y04EglBUTL8/130627142400.htm
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know (Updating)
Microsoft rolls out the next version of windows, 8.1, at its annual Build developers conference today. It's a big deal. Windows 8 was a crazy ambitious step, what follows is just as important. This is what Microsoft's taken from your months of feedback (or just, yelling).
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Power struggle underway in rebel-held Syrian town
FILE - In this Tuesday, March 5, 2013 file photo, citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian man sitting on a fallen statue of former Syrian President Hafez Assad in a central square in Raqqa, Syria. The Arabic words on the fallen statue read: "tomorrow will be better." A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)
FILE - In this Tuesday, March 5, 2013 file photo, citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian man sitting on a fallen statue of former Syrian President Hafez Assad in a central square in Raqqa, Syria. The Arabic words on the fallen statue read: "tomorrow will be better." A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)
FILE - In this Monday, March 4, 2013 file image taken from video obtained from Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a statue of former Syrian President Hafez Assad is pulled down in a central square in Raqqa, Syria. A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video, File)
FILE - In this Monday, March 4, 2013 file image taken from video obtained from Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a statue of former Syrian President Hafez Assad is pulled down in a central square in Raqqa, Syria. A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video, File)
FILE - In this Monday, March 4, 2013 file photo citizen journalism image provided by Coordination Committee in Kafr Susa which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows people tearing down a huge poster of President Bashar Assad and hitting it with their shoes, in Raqqa, Syria. A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Coordination Committee In Kafr Susa, File)
FILE - In this Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012 file image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Free Syrian Army soldiers sit at a check point in Ain al-Arous town in Raqqa, Syria. A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video, File)
BEIRUT (AP) ? A slogan painted in small letters on a school wall reads, "We the people want Syria to be a civil, democratic state." Scrawled next to it in bigger letters is the response from an unknown Islamic hard-liner: "The laws of the civil state contradict the Islamic caliphate."
A quiet power struggle is taking place in the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa ever since a Muslim extremist faction of the rebels swept in and wrested the town from the regime nearly four months ago.
Armed men wearing Afghan-style outfits patrol the streets, raising black Islamic banners at checkpoints instead of the rebellion's three-star flags. But moderates are trying to counter the extremists' tight grip, establishing dozens of newspapers, magazines and civil society forums in an effort to educate the roughly 500,000 residents about democracy and their right to vote.
Raqqa, the first and only provincial capital to fall into rebel hands, is now a test case for the opposition, which has wrestled with how to govern territories it has captured amid Western concerns that Islamic groups will hijack power if President Bashar Assad is ousted.
The tensions reflect a wider struggle going on in the rebel movement across Syria, where alliances of Islamic extremist brigades have filled the void left behind whenever Assad's forces retreat, while moderate and secular rebels have failed to coalesce into effective fighters and the opposition's political leadership has failed to unify its ranks.
The rebel capture of Raqqa on March 5 consolidated opposition gains in a string of towns along the Euphrates River, which runs across the desert from the Turkish border in the north to the Iraqi border in the southeast.
Even so, the momentum on the battlefield over the past few months has been with regime, aided by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. More than 93,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, according to the U.N. ? though a count by activists puts the death toll at over 100,000.
Two extremist factions, Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, led the push into Raqqa, which fell relatively quickly after a campaign that lasted less than a month. Most of the Jabhat al-Nusra fighters in the city are foreign jihadis, while the Ahrar al-Sham fighters are Syrians with a jihadist ideology.
Other opponents of the Assad regime in the city have been put off by what they see as the extremists' unnecessary brutality. In the days after seizing the city, the Muslim brigades brought captured security forces into public squares, killed them and drove their bodies through the streets.
Then in May, fighters affiliated with al-Qaida killed three men described as Shiite Muslims in the city's main Clock Square, shooting them in the back of the head. In a speech to a crowd that had gathered, a fighter said the killing was in retaliation for the massacres of Sunni Muslims in the town of Banias and the city of Homs, both in western Syria, according to online video of the scene. The statement was made in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a merger of Jabhat al-Nusra and Iraq's al-Qaida arm announced in April.
Armed gunmen with their faces covered in masks shot pistols and rifles wildly in the air in celebration after the three men were killed. They wore clothing favored by Afghanistan's Taliban and Arab mujahedeen who fought in that country ? a sign that they belonged to Jabhat al-Nusra.
The Shiites "were executed in front of everyone, young and old," said Mohammad Shoeib, an activist, recalling how for several hours, nobody dared approach the bodies to take them for burial until a nurse did. The nurse, Mohammad Saado, was assassinated by unknown gunmen the next day, Shoeib said. Other activists corroborated his account.
"Executing people in this manner in a public square and killing Saado was unacceptable and turned many people against them," Shoeib said. "Our revolution was against oppression and we don't accept such actions under any circumstance."
Activists set up a mourning tent in the same spot where the three were executed, receiving mourners for three days in a sign of their anger. "They didn't like it," he said of Jabhat al-Nusra, "but people demonstrated their right to an opinion and they should respect that."
Shoeib, 28, is one of the directors of "Haqquna," Arabic for "It's Our Right," an organization founded about three weeks after Raqqa fell that aims to educate people about democracy. The group's logo is a victory sign with the index finger bearing an ink mark, signifying the right to vote. The logo can be seen on walls in the city and on leaflets distributed by the group.
More than 40 publications have popped up in Raqqa, including newspapers and magazines as well as online publications, many of them run by young activists.
Many recall with pride the day rebels overran their city, about 120 miles (195 kilometers) east of the commercial capital of Aleppo, after capturing the country's largest dam and storming its central prison.
On March 5, cheering rebels and Raqqa residents brought down the bronze statue of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad after tying a rope around its neck. Others tore down a huge portrait of his son, the current president.
It was a striking scene in a city once considered so loyal to the regime that in November 2011 ? early in the 2-year-old uprising ? Assad prayed at Raqqa's al-Nour mosque for the Muslim holiday of Eid in an apparent attempt to show that the regime was fully in control there.
Activists like to compare Raqqa with Benghazi, the first major city in Libya to revolt against Moammar Gadhafi and fall into rebel hands.
But unlike Benghazi, which then became the rebel capital and the heartland for the militias of the months-long civil war in Libya, Raqqa feels sequestered and insecure. Regime warplanes still swoop down at random, shattering the calm with punishing airstrikes on opposition-held buildings.
Schools have closed and government employees have not been paid their salaries in months as a form of punishment.
Residents complain that the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, has paid no attention to the needs of Raqqa.
"The opposition groups are too busy fighting each other," said one owner of a sweets shop in the center of Raqqa. "They have not sent anyone to ask about our needs, nor is there any contact with any of them."
In March, the Coalition elected an interim prime minister, Ghassan Hitto, tasked with forming an interim government that would help administer rebel-held territories in northern and eastern Syria. But the opposition has been plagued with infighting, and Hitto has been effectively sidelined.
Khalid Salah, spokesman for the Coalition, insisted the opposition was trying to support Raqqa despite a lack of funds and other resources. He said the city was receiving aid from the Coalition but that it was unmarked so many people are unaware of its origin.
"We are trying to step up aid and make up for some shortcomings in the next weeks," he said, adding that regime airstrikes around the city made the work more difficult.
Rebel groups, particularly Ahrar al-Sham, administer daily life in Raqqa, setting up bakeries, keeping electricity and water going as much as possible and distributing aid they receive from international supporters. They have set up courts that impose Islamic law, mostly dealing with financial disputes and criminal cases such as kidnappings and theft.
Many residents are grateful, saying the Islamic brigades are simply making up for the shortcomings of the opposition in exile.
Mouaz al-Howeidi, a 40-year-old programmer and Web designer-turned activist, said it's promising that the power struggle has itself not turned violent.
But he said civil groups were at a disadvantage because the rebels have more means at their disposal to get their message across, through mosques and by controlling the city's resources.
"They control everything in Raqqa," he said. "And they have weapons and money ? this makes everything easier."
The owner of the sweets shop, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, said Islamic groups were the flip side of the regime.
"Raqqa has not been liberated. It has been re-occupied by the Islamists."
___
A Syrian journalist contributed from Raqqa.
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Device Shipments Up 6% To 2.4B In 2013, Driven By Android Smartphones, Tablets Amid More PC Decline
Gartner today has released its latest figures charting its overall predictions for how IT devices -- from PCs to mobile handsets -- are going to perform this year and in 2014. As in years before, numbers will continue to climb: in 2013, total shipments will rise 5.9% to 2.35 billion, and will rise again in 2014 to 2.5 billion units, driven by portable, often less expensive, but just as powerful mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android will account for just over one-third of all devices this year, and nearly half in 2014.?It's an Android world after all.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/C20iQ56uBu4/
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Star is crowded by super-Earths
25 June 2013
Last updated at 09:18 ET
Scientists have identified three new planets around a star they already suspected of hosting a trio of worlds.
It means this relatively nearby star, Gliese 667C, now has three so-called super-Earths orbiting in its "habitable zone".
This is the region where temperatures ought to allow for the possibility of liquid water, although no-one can say for sure what conditions are really like on these planets.
Gliese 667C is 22 light-years away.
Astronomers can see it on the sky in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).
Previous studies of Gliese 667C had established there were very likely three planets around it, with its habitable zone occupied by one super-Earth - an object slightly bigger than our home world, but probably still with a rocky surface.
Now, a team of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escude of the University of G?ttingen, Germany, and Mikko Tuomi, of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, has re-examined the system and raised the star's complement of planets.
The researchers used a suite of telescopes including the 3.6m telescope at the Silla Observatory in Chile. This incorporates the high-precision Harps instrument. Harps employs an indirect method of detection that infers the existence of orbiting planets from the way their gravity makes a parent star appear to twitch in its motion across the sky.
Full to burstingThe planets' presence needs to be disentangled from this complex signal but the Harps instrument is recognised as having tremendous success in identifying smaller worlds.
Gliese 667C is a low-luminosity "M-dwarf" star just over one-third the mass of our Sun.
This means its habitable zone can be much closer in before temperatures make liquid water impossible. The team is now confident that three rocky worlds occupy this region at Gilese 667C.
"Their estimated masses range from 2.7 to 3.8 that of the Earth's," Mikko Tuomi told BBC News.
"However, we can only estimate the physical sizes by assuming certain compositions that is, well, only educated guessing.
"Their orbital periods are 28, 39, and 62 days, which means that they all orbit the star closer to its surface than Mercury in our own system. Yet, the estimated surface temperatures enable the existence of liquid water on them because of the low luminosity and low mass of the star."
These planets are said to completely fill the habitable zone. There are no more stable orbits in which to fit another planet.
That said, the team has found tantalising evidence for what may be another rocky world on the inner-edge of the zone. This would be a seventh planet in the system.
Fruitful targetsThe planets would need an atmosphere to sustain liquid water on their surfaces, but at a distance of more than 200 trillion km, there are no means currently to determine what the precise conditions are like or whether life would have any chance of establishing itself.
Nonetheless, Dr Tuomi believes M-dwarf stars are good candidates to go hunting for potentially habitable worlds.
They are small enough that close-in rocky planets will show up well in the Harps Doppler spectroscopy data, but they are also dim enough that those close-orbiting worlds will not be roasted.
"This discovery single-handedly demonstrates that low-mass stars can be hosts of several potentially habitable planets," explained Dr Tuomi.
"In practice, it means that we might have to double or treble our estimates for the occurrence rate of habitable-zone planets around M-dwarf stars.
"There might, in fact, be more habitable-zone planets in the Universe than there are stars, which makes it much easier for the future space missions to obtain images of these planets.
"So, although only a rather simple discovery, its implications might force us to re-think how common habitable-zone planets are in the Universe."
The research has been written up for the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23032467#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Hatreds between Sunnis, Shiites abound in Mideast
In this Friday, June 7, 2013 photo, Iraqi worshippers attend a joint Sunni-Shiite Friday prayer in Baghdad, Iraq. Hatreds between Shiites and Sunnis are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's brutal civil war. Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
In this Friday, June 7, 2013 photo, Iraqi worshippers attend a joint Sunni-Shiite Friday prayer in Baghdad, Iraq. Hatreds between Shiites and Sunnis are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's brutal civil war. Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
FILE - This April 22, 2009 file photo, shows Iraqi women at the al-Sayda Zeinab shrine in southern Damascus, Syria. Hatreds between Shiites and Sunnis are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's brutal civil war. Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect. (AP Photo/Ola Rifai, File)
FILE - This June 14, 2012, file photo shows Syrian security forces at the site where a car bomb exploded near the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, visible in the background, in a suburb of Damascus, Syria. Hatreds between Shiites and Sunnis are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's brutal civil war. Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, Muslim pilgrims visit the Hiraa cave, at the top of Noor Mountain on the outskirts of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. As Muslims from all over the world congregate for the annual hajj pilgrimage, some are defying the edicts of Saudi Arabia?s strict Wahhabi school of Islam by climbing al-Nour mountain in the hope of attaining spiritual favor. Hatreds between Shiites and Sunnis are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's brutal civil war. Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
In this Tuesday, June 4, 2013 photo, Shiite women pray at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine at Kazimiyah district of Baghdad, Iraq. Hatreds between Shiites and Sunnis are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's brutal civil war. Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect. (AP Photo/ Karim Kadim)
CAIRO (AP) ? It's not hard to find stereotypes, caricatures and outright bigotry when talk in the Middle East turns to the tensions between Islam's two main sects.
Shiites are described as devious, power-hungry corruptors of Islam. Sunnis are called extremist, intolerant oppressors.
Hatreds between the two are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's civil war. On Sunday, officials said four Shiites in a village west of Cairo were beaten to death by Sunnis in a sectarian clash unusual for Egypt.
Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides in the region have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect.
But among the public, views are complex. Some sincerely see the other side as wrong ? whether on matters of faith or politics. Others see the divisions as purely political, created for cynical aims. Even some who view the other sect negatively fear sectarian flames are burning dangerously out of control. There are those who wish for a return to the days, only a decade or two ago, when the differences did not seem so important and the sects got along better, even intermarried.
And some are simply frustrated that there is so much turmoil over a dispute that dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century.
"Fourteen centuries after the death of the prophet, in a region full of destruction, killing, occupation, ignorance and disease, you are telling me about Sunnis and Shiites?" scoffs Ismail al-Hamami, a 67-year-old Sunni Palestinian refugee in Gaza. "We are all Muslims. ... You can't ignore the fact that (Shiites) are Muslims."
Associated Press correspondents spoke to Shiites and Sunnis across the region. Amid the variety of viewpoints, they found a public struggling with anger that is increasingly curdling into hatred.
___
BACKGROUND
The Sunni-Shiite split is rooted in the question of who should succeed Muhammad in leading Muslims after his death in 632. Shiites say the prophet's cousin and son-in-law Ali was his rightful successor but was cheated when authority went to those the Sunnis call the four "Rightfully Guided Caliphs" ? Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman and, finally, Ali.
Sunnis are the majority across the Islamic world. In the Middle East, Shiites have strong majorities in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain, with significant communities in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other parts of the Gulf.
Both consider the Quran the word of God. But there are distinctions in theology and religious practice between the two sects.
Some are minor: Shiites pray with their hands by their sides, Sunnis with their hands crossed at their chest or stomach.
Others are significant. Shiites, for example, believe Ali and a string of his descendants, the Imams, had not only rightful political authority after Muhammad but also held a special religious wisdom. Most Shiites believe there were 12 Imams ? many of them "martyred" by Sunnis ? and the 12th vanished, to one day return and restore justice. Sunnis accuse the Shiites of elevating Ali to the level of Muhammad himself ? incorrectly, since Shiites agree that Muhammad was the last of the prophets, a central tenet of Islam.
The bitter disputes of early Islam still resonate. Even secular-minded Shiite parents would never name their child after the resented Abu Bakr, Omar or Othman ? or Aisha, a wife of Muhammad, who helped raise a revolt against Ali during his Caliphate. When outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Egypt earlier this year, the sheik of Al-Azhar, the bastion of Sunni theology, told him sharply that if the sects are to get along, Shiites must stop "insulting" the "companions of the prophet."
But only the most hard-core would say those differences are reason enough to hate each other. For that, politics is needed.
___
IRAQ
If Syria's war has raised the region's sectarian hatreds, the war in Iraq played a big role in unleashing them. After the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the long-oppressed Shiite majority there saw a chance to take power. Sunnis feared the repression would flip onto them. The result was vicious sectarian fighting that lasted until 2008: Sunni extremists pulled Shiite pilgrims from buses and gunned them down; Shiite militiamen kidnapped Sunnis, dumping their tortured bodies later.
ABDUL-SATTAR ABDUL-JABAR, 56, is a Sunni cleric who occasionally preaches at the prominent Abu Hanifa mosque in the Sunni-dominated Azamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad. Two of his sons were killed by Shiite militiamen. He blames the United States and Iran for Iraq's strife.
"Right from the beginning, the Americans were trying to create sectarian rifts," he said. "Iran is a country of regional ambitions. It isn't a Shiite country. It's a country with specific schemes and agendas."
Now he fears the strife is returning, and he blames the Shiite-dominated government.
"We feel the government does not consider us part of the Iraqi nation," he said. "There is no magical solution for this. If the Shiites are convinced to change their politicians, that would be a big help."
AHMED SALEH AHMED, 40, a Sunni, runs a construction company in Baghdad mainly employing Shiites. He is married to a Shiite woman. They live in the Azamiyah neighborhood and raise their two daughters and son as Sunnis.
Still, his wife prays with the small clay stone that Shiites ? but not Sunnis ? set in front of their prayer rugs. She often visits a Shiite shrine in another Baghdad district. Ahmed sometimes helps his wife's family prepare food for Shiite pilgrims during religious ceremonies. But he admits that there sometimes is tension between the families.
"We were able to contain it and solve it in a civilized way," Ahmed said.
Iraqis like to talk politics, he said, and "when things get heated, we tend to change the subject."
When their children ask about sectarian differences, "we do our best to make these ideas as clear as we can for them so they don't get confused," he said. "We try to avoid discussing sectarian issues in front of the children."
Ahmed believes sectarian tensions have been strained because people have abused the democratic ideas emerging from the Arab Spring.
Democracy "needs open-mindedness, forgiveness and an ability to understand the other," he said. "No human being is born believing in democracy. It's like going to school ? you have to study first. Democracy should be for people who want to do good things, not for those who are out for revenge."
HUSSEIN AL-RUBAIE, 46, a Shiite, was jailed for two years under Saddam. His Shiite-majority Sadriya district in Baghdad saw considerable bloodshed during the worst of the strife, and he fears it's returning.
"The whole region is in flames and we are all about to be burnt," he said. "We have a lot of people who are ignorant and easily driven by sectarian feelings."
He sees it among his friends, who include Sunnis. "My friends only whisper about sectarian things because they think it is a shame to talk about such matters," al-Rubaie said, "but I am afraid that the day might come when this soft talking would turn to fighting in the street."
___
LEBANON
Among some of Lebanon's Shiites, it's fashionable to wear a necklace with a medallion in the shape of the fabled double-bladed sword of Ali. It's a mark of community pride at a time when the Shiite group Hezbollah says the sect is endangered by Sunni extremists in the Syrian uprising.
During Lebanon's 1974-2000 civil war, the main fight was between Christians and Muslims. But in the past decade, the most dangerous divide has been between Shiites and Sunnis.
For much of Lebanon's existence, Shiites, who make up about a third of the population, were an impoverished underclass beneath the Christians and Sunnis, each roughly a third also. The Shiite resentment helped the rise of the guerrilla force Hezbollah, on whose might the community won greater power. Now, many Sunnis resent Hezbollah's political domination of the government. The 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a Sunni, increased Sunni anger after Hezbollah members were blamed. Since then, both sides have clashed in the streets.
Syria's civil war has fueled those tensions. Lebanon's Sunnis largely back the mainly Sunni rebellion, while Shiites support President Bashar Assad's regime, which is dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism. Hezbollah sent fighters to help Assad fight the rebels, enraging Sunnis region-wide.
RANIA, 51, is a Shiite Lebanese banking executive, married to a Sunni and living in Ras Beirut, one of the capital's few mixed neighborhoods.
When she married, at age 22, "I didn't even know what the difference between Sunnis and Shiites is."
Now she's inclined to support Hezbollah. While not a fan of the hard-line group, she believes that Hezbollah and Syria are targeted because of their stances against Israel. She said her husband is anti-Hezbollah and supports Syria's rebels.
Rania, who gave only her first name because she doesn't want to be stigmatized about her social, religious or marital status, said she doesn't talk politics with her husband to avoid arguments.
"I support one (political) side and he supports the other, but we've found a way to live with it," added Rania, who has a 22-year-old daughter.
She said education plays a big role. "I find that the people who make comments about it are the people who are just ignorant, and ignorance feeds hatred and stereotyping," she added.
KHALED CHALLAH is a 28-year-old Syrian Sunni businessman who has lived for years in Lebanon. He comes from a conservative, religious family but only occasionally goes to mosque. He said the only way he would be able to tell the difference between a Sunni mosque and a Shiite one would be if the cleric talked about Syria in the sermon.
"A Shiite imam would speak against the rebels, and call to resist them, and a Sunni sheik would talk against the government in Syria," he said.
He said he still doesn't understand the Shiites' emotional fervor over the battle of Karbala, in which Ali's son, Hussein, was killed by the armies of the Sunni Ummayad dynasty in the 7th century. Hussein's martyrdom is a defining trauma of their faith, deepening their feeling of oppression. Every year, Shiites around the world mark the battle with processions that turn into festivals of mourning, with men lashing or cutting themselves.
"It means much more to Shiites, this battle's memory, than to Sunnis," Challah said.
He said Sunnis "behave sometimes like they are the only Muslims."
Challah called this "very silly. Sunnis and Shiites come from the same root, they worship the same God."
___
IRAN
The Shiite powerhouse of the Middle East is home to a government led by Shiite clerics with oil wealth and a powerful Revolutionary Guard. Tehran has extended its influence in the Arab world, mainly through its alliance with Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Iran has presented that alliance not as sectarian but as the center of "resistance" against Israel.
Sunni Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies have been trying to stem Iran's influence, in part by warning of the spread of Shiism. Saudi Arabia's hard-line Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam views Shiism as heresy.
REZA TAJABADI, a Shiite cleric in Tehran, blames the Wahhabis ? and the related ultra-conservative Salafi movement in Sunni Islam ? for stoking sectarian hatred.
"If Wahabis withdrew from creating differences, then Shiites and Sunnis will be able to put aside their minor differences, which are not considerable."
ABOLFATAH DAVATI, another Shiite cleric, points to the historical difference between the two sects. Since Sunnis have been dominant through history, Sunni clerics became subordinate to the rulers. The Shiite clergy, he said, has been independent of power.
"Sunni clerics backed rulers and justified their policies, like the killing of Imam Hussein. Even now, they put their rulers' decision at the top of their agenda," he said.
"In contrast, Shiites have not depended on government, so Sunnis cannot tolerate this and issue religious edicts against them. This increases rifts."
___
EGYPT
In a country where the Muslim population is overwhelmingly Sunni, many Egyptians know little about Shiites. The Shiite population is tiny and largely hidden ? so secretive that its numbers are not really known. But ultraconservative Salafis, many of whom view Shiites as infidels, have become more politically powerful and more vocal since the 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. They often preach against Shiism, warning it will spread to Egypt.
MONA MOHAMMED FOUAD is a rarity in Egypt: Her mother is an Iranian Shiite, her father an Egyptian Sunni. She considers herself Sunni.
"People are always surprised and shocked" when they find out her mother is Shiite, said Fouad, 23, who works for a digital marketing company. "But usually as soon as they know, they are very interested and they ask me many questions."
Fouad said her sister has heard work colleagues criticizing Shiites. In her fiance's office they distributed leaflets "telling people to beware of Shiite indoctrination," she added.
"People should read about Shiism. We make fun of foreigners who believe all Muslims are terrorists and we say they are ignorant, but we do the same thing to ourselves," Fouad said. "There is a difference in interpretation, a difference in opinion, but at the end of the day, we believe in the same things."
She told her Sunni fiance from the start that her mother is Shiite. "I told him to tell his family, so if they have any problem with that, we end it immediately."
ANAS AQEEL, a 23-year-old Salafi, spent the first 18 years of his life in Saudi Arabia, where he would sometimes encounter Shiites. "We didn't ever argue over faith. But they alienated me," he said.
"I once saw a Shiite in Saudi Arabia speaking ill of one of the companions of the prophet near his tomb. That one I had to clash with and expel him from the place," Aqeel said.
He worries about Shiites spreading their faith. While he said not all Shiites are alike, he added that "some of them deviate in the Quran and speak badly of the prophet's companions. If someone is wrong and ... he insists on his wrong concept, then we cannot call him a Muslim."
___
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
Palestinian Muslims are also almost all Sunnis. Their main connection to the Shiite world has Hamas' alliance with Iran. But those ties were strained when Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, broke its connections with Syria because of the civil war.
AHMED MESLEH, a 28-year-old blogger from the West Bank town of Ramallah, says he met Shiites on a trip to Lebanon and encounters them via Facebook. But some have de-friended him because of his online comments.
"If we take Shiites from a religious point of view, then we can describe Shiites as a sect that has gone astray from the true doctrine of Islam. I consider them a bigger threat to Muslims and Islam than Jews and Israel," Mesleh said.
He cited the Shiites' processions mourning Hussein's death, saying: "The way they whip themselves, it's irrational."
The Middle East conflict "is in its core a religious conflict. The Shiites want to destroy Islam. In Lebanon, they are the ones controlling the situation, and the ones who are causing the sectarian conflict."
ISMAIL AL-HAMAMI, a 67-year-old Palestinian refugee in Gaza's Shati camp, said politics not religion is driving sectarian tensions.
"In Gaza, Iran used to support the resistance with weapons. Now they support Assad. ... In Iraq, they (Shiites) executed Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, and they took over the country with the help of the Americans. Now they are working against America in Iran and Syria."
"So is that related to religion? It's all about politics."
The beneficiaries of sectarianism, he said, are "those who want to sell arms to both sides ... those who want to keep Arab and Muslim countries living in the dark. The beneficiaries are the occupation (Israel) and the people who sell us religious slogans."
"God knows who is right or wrong."
___
AP correspondents Adam Schreck and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Barbara Surk and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Dalia Nammari in Ramallah and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Tony G. Gabriel and Mariam Rizk in Cairo and Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.
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