Joining protests against US President George W. Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two American nuns finally found themselves on the country's terrorist watch list.

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"This term terrorist is a really serious accusation," Sister Ardeth Platte told The Washington Times on Friday, October 10.

Ardeth and Sister Carol Gilbert received letters from the Maryland State Police that they are placed on the terrorist watch list.

"There is no way that we ever want to be identified as terrorists," said Ardeth, a nun for 54 years.

"We are nonviolent. We are faith-based."

The two nuns are known for anti-war activities.

In 2002, they were jailed after breaking into an unmanned missile site in northeastern Colorado in protest over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

"We're Dominicans; our mission is 'veritas,' which is truth," said Sister Carol.

The Bush administration calls its watch list one of the most effective tools in its "war against terrorism."

The list was initially limited to criminals and drug traffickers, but an executive order by President George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks expanded it to include terror suspects.

The record, compiled and overseen by the FBI, can be used by a wide range of government agencies in security screening.

The names are put on "no-fly" or "selectee" lists in US airports that subject them to travel bans, arrest or additional screening.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the US watch list has ballooned to one million records.

Muzzling

The nuns were among 53 anti-war activists on the watch list, which activists believe is a broader effort to control Maryland's protest community.

"It is clear to us that the full extent of the MSP's improper activities have yet to be fully disclosed," said David Rocah, a staff attorney for ACLU, which represented the nuns in the effort to obtain information on the spying.

E-mails released by ACLU show that Baltimore police were coordinating with the National Security Agency in 2003 and 2004 to spy on the protest group Quakers, who routinely protested outside the security agency's headquarters.

A police spokesman declined to answer questions whether the spying was more expansive or involved many other groups, saying he was unsure why the nuns and other activists were on the list.

"The fact there was a record with their name is the reason we're in this situation that were in," said spokesman Greg Shipley.

The two nuns said that the O'Malley administration is brushing off questions about broader police surveillance.

"Think they just want to kind of pooh-pooh it away and say it's no big thing," said Sister Carol, a nun for 43 years.

The nuns said that the government wants to muzzle the anti-war activists.

"Democracy is built on these elements on being able to speak out to speak what we believe is truth," Sister Carol said.

TIME TURK 11.10.2008

Turkey, in the edge of innovations, welcomes a tremendous programme for the kids. Here the American origined Fastrackids programme that the Okyanus Colleges start to apply and a success story…

With the Fastrackids programmes Okyanus Colleges start a very new and successful system for the development of the kids between 3- 7 years both individually and mentally.
We had an interview with the General Manager of Okyanus Colleges, Mr. Nazim BODUROGLU, who closely watches the recent developments in the education area on the Fastrackids system and the secrets behind the success of his schools…

- Firstly would you please talk about yourself?

-  I was born in 1960 in Ankara, actually I am from Afyon. I graduated from University of Ankara, the Faculty Of Literature, Department of Geography. I served for the public schools for 17 years, worked as a teacher and manager for  the education centers. Since 2005 I have been working as the General Manager of  these schools. 
 
WE CARRIED OUR EDUCATION CENTER EXPERIENCE TO THE PRIVATE SCHOOL SECTOR

-  We see that Okyanus Colleges are promoting very fast. Where does this success come from?

- Okyanus College was opened in the beginning of the 2004-2005 season. This building was built in 11 months. Aiming to practise something different from the recent private school understanding in Turkey, we carried our experiences in running the education centers to the private school sector.

-  Something we noticed while walking in the school. It has an atmosphere of an education center more than a school…

- Yes, we tried to carry the atmosphere in the education centers that the students feel themselves much more relaxed and happy to the schools. But we never quit the school discipline.

“EDUCATION AND LIFE CENTER”

-  As far as we observe the Okyanus Colleges are growing very rapidly…

- In the beginning we had 400 students. Now we have almost 2600 students. In 2005 we opened a kindergarten. Later in 2006 we opened another college in Beylikduzu. In 2007 we opened a new school in Gunesli. Now in our current schools there are 500 people working. The number of the students is around 2600 and on the average a teacher has eight students. Our class population is 18-19 on the average. Instead of giving our students homework, and increasing their busy hours, we try to give them responsibilities in different activities and make them feel happy.

- What kind of service do you provide for your students besides the education?

- The slogan of the Okyanus Colleges is “ Education and Life Center”. Our schools both serve as the institutions of education and they have the high standarts of life centers.With the Gyms, workshops and labs our schools both serve our own students and the students and teachers of the nearby schools and the parents.
In our schools expecially the evening times we provide suitable places for the  hobbies of the parents about the sports and art. For example the students’ parents can hire our swimming pool and gyms. For example we have fitness center and they come and make use of  it.

FAMILIES ARE AT SCHOOL

- So you continue the student- parents unity at school as well…

- Yes. Apart from that we provide “hobby courses” at the weekends like art and music.Parents have that chance to have time for their hobbies. By doing so families are also bound to the school. Our good relations with the families can increase our control on the students. So the children own the school and have more discipline.

-  I guess the parents can follow their children via the webcams…

- In the morning times generally the working families want to see their children. Because of this we put cameras in our kindergarten schools,gyms, play grounds. The parents can online watch their children at work. According to the state of their children tell call and take information. They know that their kids are in a secure place.
 

- How is the education understanding of Okyanus Colleges?

- We have a different view of education. In our school we have a Scientific Research and Development Center, that we call BARGEM. It helps the studens between the 7th grade of the primary school to 12th grade to develop the spirit to research  and develop. We help the students for creative thinking and problem solving techniques. In connection with their levels.

- How is the rate of success of the students in Okyanus Colleges compared with the Turkey’s general average?

- Our students achieved great success in the exams they took as a conclusion of the training they had. In many important tests in Turkey our students have degrees, 8th and 19th places in OKS ( test of high schools), 2006 OSS ( university entrance exam 8th place in Turkey, 2nd place in İstanbul and the test for the military schools, our student got the first place in Turkey.

- Does your connection with the students go on the times the schools are closed?

- Of course . We have summer schools. In these schools the sports, training and art activities go on.

- Which fields for example?

-  In sports swimming, football, basketball, table tennis, nature sports, cycling, dart, dancing and gymnastics. Also computer, chess, art, ceramics, statue, marbling courses go on.

FASTRACKIDS… A DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDING IN EDUCATION

- You have a programme called Fastrackids. What does the programme include?

- Fastrackids, is a programme that develops the mentality and individuality of the kids between 3-7. This programme continues for two years. It aims to increase the knowledge of the children and leads them to think. At the same time their skills to speak in front of the group, communication and leadership developes. This is an American origined programme. We bought its license and we plan to sell the license in Turkey. We have a team for that and we are in touch with 80 schools.

- What is the aim of this programme?

- The FasTracKids educational goals are to : Prepare children for school and life, develop creative thinking and problem solving, build communication and speaking skills,teach the application and transfer of knowledge, promote leadership and personal growth, encourage a lifelong love of learning
There are astronomy, biology, communication,creative literature,creativity,earth sciences,economics,goals & life lessons, mathematics, natural science, sppech, drama & art and technology.

- Will the Okyanus Colleges develop more soon?

- Yes, in a short time possibly in 2009-2010 season we will open our branch in Kemerburgaz. As our other schools this school will be technologically equipped and be in a green area.

- Thanks for giving your time to us.

-  I thank you

Gökhan Şahin / TIMETURK 11.10.2008

As violence continues between Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas, Artsworld meets a Gazan cartoonist trying to make a difference through her drawings.
 

Joha's cartoon on the first day of Ramadan [Omayya Joha]One of the most recognisable symbols of Palestinian society is Handala, a ragged ten-year-old Palestinian refugee who is always viewed from behind and always observing the world.
 
Handala is a cartoon and his creator, Naji al Ali, was assassinated in London in 1987.
Known for his political criticism of both Israel and Arab regimes al Ali’s body was riddled with bullets and his killer has yet to be found.
Yet his legacy continues to inspire a new generation of Palestinian illustrators, not least Omayya Joha, arguably the most well-known female cartoonist in the Arab world.

"Even though he has been dead for many years now, may his [Al Ali] soul rest in peace, his pen is alive and his work addresses many of our contemporary issues," she says.
Joha's work is a fusion of art politics and journalism and her cartoons reflect the harsh realities of refugee life and the Palestinian struggle. They are realities she knows all too well.

"I was born in the city of Gaza in 1972, but I am part of a family of refugees from al Muharaka, one of Palestinian villages that was attacked by the invading Zionists in 1948," she says.

"Our family was dispersed," she says. "My father was far away, and my mother was overburdened with responsibilities."
"I captured this unpleasant life with my quill even before I went to school."
Sole woman

Omayya has one daughter, Noor, from her first husband, a Hamas fighter who was killed during an incursion by the Israeli army and she says despite their serious message many children appreciate art and understand her cartoons.
"During my secondary schooling. I began reading newspapers, and of course the cartoons on the back page of Al Quds, which was the newspaper I read everyday," she says.

"I would see the drawings of the artist, Naji al Ali and Mahmoud Khail, and be fascinated by them although I was very young."
Editorial cartoonists are revered as journalists and artists, throughout the Arab world.
Joha is the sole woman in club of at least 12 cartoonists whose works are published newspapers read across the West Bank and Gaza.
"A cartoon is about a single event or moment. Many people will be drawing this moment, but in completely different ways," she says.

Joha is the only female newspaper cartoonist in Gaza [Omayya Joha]
"The successful cartoonist is a person who is sensitive to people and realities around them. Their work ultimately becomes a reflection of life.
"This is the beauty of the cartoon, it is a kind of competition between artists over who has the most brilliant ideas and execution and who is able to sway the public and win them over."

Palestine's leading cartoonist and elder statesman is Baha Boukhari whose character Abu al Abed appears in the daily Al Ayyam published in Ramallah. He says cartoons should speak for the masses of ordinary citizens.

Violent repurcussions
 
"Cartoons should be speaking about the people," he says. "Not from a political point, not this is Hamas or Fatah, no, the ordinary people."
However little in life is free from the realm of politics in Gaza and the West Bank and on at least one occasion one of Joha's cartoons is believed to have prompted a violent backlash.
 
After an Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2004, she depicted Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon boasting, oblivious to the dead and decapitated Israeli soldiers standing behind him.
The cartoon was printed in the Islamist newspaper Al Risala, whose offices were subsequently targeted the very next day by the Israelis.

Joha's work has had political repurcussions
Although their offices were badly damaged the paper did resume printing and Joha continues to be their featured cartoonist and continues to draw hard-hitting and provocative sketches.

For the first day of this year’s holy month of Ramadan she commented on the violent rift between Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah split by drawing a Palestinian mother, on her balcony praying to heaven that her children, the Palestinians, might eat their Ramadan meal at the same table together again.
"Unfortunately, we are living in a time when our people are divided and splintered," Joha says.
"It is a good time for a cartoonist to become both a commentator and observer and to use ones influence."
Joha is now happily remarried but the situation in Gaza continues to worsen. The fighting between hamas and Fatah means she is never short of subject matter.

"The Palestinian division created a schism in every Palestinian home and God willing, we will overcome those divisions," she says.
"My hope is that I can leave my imprint in the drawing of cartoons in the Arab world."

AlJazeera 13.09.2008

Afghan police have arrested three men alleged to have provided "wrong information" which led to the deaths of scores of civilians in a US air raid.

More than 90 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the village of Azizabad in western Herat's Shindand district on August 22, according to the Afghan government.

Police began an investigation into the incident on September 4 after villagers said US-led forces in Afghanistan had been fed false information about the presence of Taliban members in Azizabad following a tribal dispute, the interior ministry said.
A statement said:

"After examining all the police reports and direct claims made by people in the area, three suspects who are said to be key people in giving false information regarding the bombardment of Azizabad, have been arrested in a police operation."
The three were on a list of people provided to Hamid Karzai, the president, by the villagers. Karzai visited relatives of the victims earlier this month and pledged to punish those responsible.

Karzai has already sacked two senior army commanders over the incident.

Tribal dispute

Locals told Al Jazeera that the air raid hit a memorial service at a compound belonging to Reza Khan, a tribal leader who had been in dispute with Nader Tawakal, another local leader.
"We were holding a prayer ceremony when the bombs started to fall ... it was heavy bombardment. The whole village was on fire and about 90 were killed," Abdul Rasheed, the brother of one of the dead, said.

Karzai told villagers that those responsible would be punished [EPA]
Villagers have denied that the gathering was a meeting of the Taliban, which has been fighting Afghan and international forces since being forced from power in 2001. They said that Khan, who died in the raid, was a businessman with security contracts at a nearby US base.

"Nader gave the US special forces wrong information," Gullah Ahmed, one villager, said.

"But instead of surrounding the village they just started bombing."

Nader was not among those arrested on Friday.

The US military maintains that between 30 and 35 Taliban fighters were killed, but has agreed to reopen the investigation after a mobile phone video emerged showing bodies of people said to have been killed in the attack.

It says the original investigation found that a senior Taliban commander was among the dead in the air raid, which was called in after Afghan army US-led ground forces came under intense fire.

Civilian casualties

One resident of Azizabad said that US forces raided his house after the bombing and demanded to be shown the bodies of the dead Taliban fighters.
"I said there were no Taliban here," he told Al Jazeera. "I saw their facial expressions when they realised that civilians had been killed."

More than 500 civilians have been killed during military operations by foreign and Afghan forces so far this year, according to the Afghan government and some aid groups.

Daoud Sultanzoy, an Afghan MP, said that such incidents were destroying people's faith in the Afghan government and international forces in the country.
"The weak Afghan government and weak leadership is trying to take advantage of this and trying to deflect attention from their own problems that are the root cause of these kind of things," he told Al Jazeera.

"Lack of co-ordination of our intelligence, lack of co-ordination of our security forces and lack of co-ordination of our leadership have led to these kind of problems ... if we are not careful we will cross a threshold and alienate the civilian population."
 Agencies

TİME TURK 13.09.2008
 

Kocaeli Garrison Commander Lt. Gen. Galip Mendi paid a visit yesterday to retired generals Şener Eruygur and Hurşit Tolon, both terror suspects in the

Ergenekon case. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) yesterday sent an envoy to meet with two suspects in the Ergenekon terrorist organization case, retired Gen. Şener Eruygur and retired Gen. Hurşit Tolon, a statement on the General Staff Web site has said.

According to the statement, Kocaeli Garrison Commander Lt. Gen. Galip Mendi paid a visit yesterday to Kandıra prison inmates Eruygur and Tolon, who have been under arrest since July for alleged involvement in the Ergenekon terrorist organization, which is accused of orchestrating various murders and attacks with the intention of creating chaos that would trigger a coup. The Ergenekon case will start in October and its indictment was presented to the court, although Tolon and Eruygur were not mentioned in it since they were arrested months after the first arrests. It is expected that an additional indictment will be presented for Tolon and Eruygur as well as other suspects.

"This visit, paid to two retired generals who had served in the TSK for a long time, was made on behalf of the TSK," said the statement, issued just minutes after Gen. Mendi's meeting with the two terror suspects. "As is known, today, as in the past, the TSK fully respects and trusts the judiciary," the statement claimed.

PM Erdoğan said yesterday, upon a question from reporters, that the visit was a humane one.

The TSK’s visit to the two terrorism suspects took place just a few hours before the meeting between Prime Minister Erdoğan and newly appointed Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ.

The Ergenekon terrorist organization was allegedly planning to instigate a coup in 2009, during which Gen. Başbuğ would be the chief of general staff. Ergenekon suspects, according to various documents seized during the operation, thought that former Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt was not warm to the idea of a coup.

Some circles were critical of Büyükanıt because he was not taking sides in connection with the Ergenekon operation, although some former members of the army were under arrest. Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal indirectly accused the General Staff of not lending support to the Ergenekon suspects during Büyükanıt’s term.

The CHP’s general accountant, Mustafa Özyürek, after the TSK’s visit to the terrorism suspects, noted that until now the TSK had not supported its former members and this situation created disappointment within the TSK and the public.

“It is now clear that Başbuğ’s order has reversed this mistake,” Özyürek claimed.

Professor Ali Nihat Özcan, familiar with how the TSK works, also said the visit indicates the difference in attitude between former and present TSK administrations.

“This statement is trying to say two things; first, this is not the personal initiative of the Kocaeli garrison commander but an institutional decision. Secondly, we cannot leave someone outside the system just because they have retired. This is not an intervention in the judiciary but a show of institutional adherence and we have to do it,” Özcan says.

However, many experts, including public law professor Mithat Sancar, term this visit interference with the judiciary and a move that leads to the suspicion that the new command of the TSK is conducting a psychological operation, especially when the recent statement of the new commander of the air force is taken into consideration.

The day before, while answering a question from reporters regarding the arrest of an air force officer by a military court for alleged involvement in Ergenekon, the new commander of the air force, Gen. Aydoğan Babaoğlu, said it is not clear what the Ergenekon case is.

The officer is accused of leaking a top-secret document that was found during the investigation into Ergenekon. The document was prepared three years ago by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) for a select few top air forces officers and detailed an illegal organization within the air force.

According to Sancar, this visit is “tragicomic” and cannot have any reasonable explanation. “The TSK is not a community but an institution. This visit is like the Health Ministry sending an envoy to a doctor in prison who was arrested for corruption. Obviously, there is an intention of sending a message,” Sancar said. Like Sancar, Yusuf Alataş, a lawyer and the former chairman of the Human Rights Association (İHD), underlined the “institutional” aspect of the TSK’s visit.

“The directives of the Ministry of Justice clearly define the rules about visits to inmates and it is impossible to visit an inmate on behalf of an official institution. This is the first time in Turkish history such a thing has happened and it is impossible to say that this visit was paid purely for humanitarian reasons. This is a message to the judiciary and this is pressure on the judiciary,” he said.

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