Mezquitan i Córdoba (The Cordoba Mosque)

Stora hallen i mezquitan.
 
Kaianders Sempler, NyTeknik, 25 januari 2012  

Södra Spanien finns ett av världens märkligaste arkitektoniska verk.

  

Den kallas La Mezquita och är något så märkligt som en blandning av en moské och en katolsk katedral. Den tar upp ett gigantiskt kvarter i centrala Córdoba, murarna inhägnar ett område på 178 × 125 meter. Entrén sker via en förgård med springbrunn och en skog av apelsinträd. I muren reser sig vad som förr var minaret och nu är klocktorn.

Interiören består huvudsakligen av en enda hall, stor som en flygterminal. Taket bärs upp av över tusen röd-vitrandiga dubbla valvbågar på smäckra pelare. I mitten av den 23 000 m2 stora hallen har man byggt in ett katolsk kyrkorum med en upphöjd kupol i taket, guldöverlastat altarskåp, dubbla orgelläktare och rum för helgonbilder.

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Joseph E. Stiglitz: Whose World Bank?

 05 April 2012 14:33 By Joseph E Stiglitz, Project Syndicate| truthout

New York – US President Barack Obama’s nomination of Jim Yong Kim for the presidency of the World Bank has been well received – and rightly so, especially given some of the other names that were bandied about. In Kim, a public-health professor who is now President of Dartmouth University and previously led the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, the United States has put forward a good candidate. But the candidate’s nationality, and the nominating country – whether small and poor or large and rich – should play no role in determining who gets the job.

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Threat of US-Israel War on Iran: The Myth of Limited Warfare

James Petras, The Palestine Chronicle, April 5, 2012

The mounting threat of a US-Israeli military attack against Iran is based on several factors including: (1) the recent military history of both countries in the region, (2) public pronouncements by US and Israeli political leaders, (3) recent and on-going attacks on Lebanon and Syria, prominent allies of Iran, (4) armed attacks and assassinations of Iranian scientists and security officials by proxy and/or terrorist groups under US or Mossad control, (5) the failure of economic sanctions and diplomatic coercion, (6) escalating hysteria and extreme demands for Iran to end legal, civilian use-related uranium enrichment, (7) provocative military ‘exercises’ on Iran’s borders and war games designed for intimidation and a dress rehearsal for a preemptive attack, (8) powerful pro-war pressure groups in both Washington and Tel Aviv including the major Israeli political parties and the powerful AIPAC in the US, (9) and lastly the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (Obama’s Orwellian Emergency Decree, March 16, 2012).

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Tags: defense authorization act, israeli political parties, James Petras, knowledgeable academics, provocative military exercises

Assassination by Drones Violates International Law

By David Model, opednews.com, April 5, 2012

 

In my first article examining the legality of assassinating known or suspected terrorists through the use of unmanned armed vehicles (UAVs), I argued that the first step is to decide whether such killings could be classified as part of an armed conflict.   If they are considered as part of an armed conflict, according to international law, the rules of armed conflict would apply; otherwise the laws of self-defence would be relevant.

According to the Geneva Conventions and customary humanitarian law, armed conflict only applies when two or more States are involved.   When the United States defines its campaign against terrorists as a global conflict, this designation is not based on the correct definition of war as characterized by international law but on America’s own interpretation of its effort to eradicate terrorism.   Only two or more States can legally, in the strictest terms, engage in war, not a State against individuals scattered around the globe.

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Rev. Howard Bess: Misunderstanding Jesus’s Execution April 5, 2012

Consortium News, April 5, 2012

 

From the Archive: Over the centuries as Christianity bent to the interests of the rich and powerful, the story of Jesus’s fateful week in Jerusalem was reshaped to minimize perhaps its central event, his overturning of the money tables at the temple, a challenge to the merging of religious and political power, says Rev. Howard Bess.

By the Rev. Howard Bess (Originally published April 23, 2011)

Christians have special celebrations for the key events of Holy Week, but they often overlook one of the most important.
Palm Sunday celebrates the entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. Maunday Thursday is a solemn replay of his last meal with his disciples. Good Friday takes us through his mock trial and his death of horror on a Roman Cross. Easter is the Christians’ triumphant celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead.


A 14th Century depiction of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem by Pietro Lorenzetti

But there is a missing piece. The incident that gives sense to the week’s climactic events is Jesus’s overturning of the money tables at the temple.

Tradition says that the incident was a ceremonial cleansing of the temple of its commercial enterprises because those in charge of the temple had turned a house of worship into a commercial enterprise. Jesus disrupted the commercial operation by upsetting the tables where the temple lackeys sold required animals for sacrifice.

However, modern scholarship is putting an emphasis on understanding this historical incident in context. The first piece of the puzzle is the temple itself.

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For the information of our readers

By Nasir Khan, Feb 18, 2012

Because of some physical difficulties, I will not be posting any articles on my blogs or write any comments on any internet articles in the coming weeks. But I hope to resume posting when the present condition improves.

Chomsky: The imperial way - American decline in perspective, part 2

The US’s presumed right to impose its will on the world, by force if necessary, has not changed. But its capacity to do so has

• 
• • Noam Chomsky for TomDispatch, part of the Guardian Comment Network
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 February 2012

An Iranian female student during a demonstration marking the 32nd anniversary of US Embassy in Tehran, 2011. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

 

In the years of conscious, self-inflicted decline at home, “losses” continued to mount elsewhere. In the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination, another serious loss. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanized elites, tiny islands of extreme wealth in a sea of misery. They have also rid themselves of all US military bases and of IMF controls. A newly formed organization, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the US and Canada. If it actually functions, that would be another step in American decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as “the backyard”.

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