Iraqi churches cancel Christmas festivities

by Yahya Barzanji
and Sameer N. Yacoub

KIRKUK, Iraq – No decorations, no midnight Mass. Even an appearance by Santa Claus has been nixed after Iraq's Christian leaders called off Christmas celebrations amid new al-Qaida threats on the tiny community still terrified from a bloody siege on a Baghdad church.

Christians across Iraq have been living in fear since the assault on Our Lady of Salvation Church as its Catholic congregation was celebrating Sunday Mass. Sixty-eight people were killed. Days later Islamic insurgents bombed Christian homes and neighborhoods across the capital.

On Tuesday, al-Qaida insurgents threatened more attacks on Iraq's beleaguered Christians, many of whom have fled their homes or the country since the church attack. A council representing Christian denominations across Iraq advised its followers to cancel public celebrations of Christmas out of concern for their lives and as a show of mourning for the victims.

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About that environmental disaster in the Gulf? Never mind.

The Gulf of Mexico suffered remarkably little damage. Why were so many so willing to believe otherwise?

by Robert H. Nelson

...the ecosystem of the Gulf itself turns out to have suffered remarkably little damage from the continuous gushing of oil into the water from April 20 till July 15, when the leaking well was capped. One group of scientists rated the health of the Gulf’s ecology at 71 on a scale of 100 before the spill and 65 in October. By mid-August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was having trouble finding spilled oil. This squared with the finding of researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California that the half-life of much of the leaking oil was about three days. At that rate, more than 90 percent would have disappeared in 12 days.

NOAA explained one reason for this in a report in August: “It is well known that bacteria that break down the dispersed and weathered surface oil are abundant in the Gulf of Mexico in large part because of the warm water, the favorable nutrient and oxygen levels, and the fact that oil regularly enters the Gulf of Mexico through natural seeps.” In other words, the organisms that normally live off the Gulf’s large natural seepage of oil into the water multiplied extremely rapidly and went on a feeding frenzy. Another 25 percent of the spilled oil—the lightest and most toxic part—simply evaporated at the surface or dissolved quickly.

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Hamas video: Allah, kill Christians and Jews "to the last one"

"Allah, oh our Lord, vanquish Your enemies, enemies of the religion
[Islam] in all places.
Allah, strike the Jews and their sympathizers,
the Christians and their supporters,
the Communists and their adherents.
Allah, count them and kill them to the last one, and don't leave even one."

Man jumps off balcony in Romanian Parliament

by Michael Sheridan

A man protesting government cuts dived off a balcony in the Romanian parliament on Thursday as the nation’s prime minister and other politicians looked on in horror.

Prime Minister Emil Boc had just begun addressing legislators in Bucharest when the man, identified as a state-TV engineer Adrian Sobaru, stood on the railing some 22 feet above the main floor.

“Boc, you’ve taken away the rights of our children,” he was heard yelling as he fell, according to London’s Telegraph.

Sky News reports the 40-year-old wore a T-shirt that stated, in Romanian, “You’ve pierced us. You’ve killed our children’s future. Freedom.”

The man, who according to reports has a son who is autistic, was distraught over losing health benefits due to government cuts.

Sobaru suffered several injuries, including fractured bones in his face, but is expected to survive. He was conscious when medical personnel removed him from the parliament, during which time he chanted, “Freedom.”



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Obama 'Ignorant' on Gitmo