Bethlehem (AsiaNews) – Death threats are getting nastier for Samir Qumsieh. He is the director and owner of the only private Christian TV station in Palestine. Concerned about his family and his business, he has repeatedly called on the authorities to intervene to the little avail.
In 1996 Mr Qumsieh founded Al-Mahed (the Nativity) TV in Bethlehem. He told AsiaNews that he is forced to live with the constant threats against his life and might have to shut down his TV station, which has been well-receivfed by Christian leaders in the Holy Land. In the past, Mr Qumsieh denounced several times the violence inflicted on Christians in the Holy Land.
A few days ago he called on Bethlehem governor, Salah Al-Ta’mari, to investigate a serious incident. After midnight last Thursday unidentified people threw cocktail Molotov into the garden of his house.
“We avoided the worst by a miracle. One of the bottles fell on wet grass causing little damage; the other did not explode,” he said. Never the less, the incident is but the latest in a long string of similar episodes.
Qumsieh said that “in the past defamatory and indimidatory leaflets about him were circulated”. But what is worse ...   more »

WASHINGTON • Muslim circles have expressed alarm and disgust at the publication of a redrawn map of the Islamic world in a journal closely linked to the US armed forces.
The Armed Forces Journal, which has published the redrawn map of the world of Islam along with a long explanatory article, is published by the Army Times Publishing Company, a part of Gannett Company, Inc, the world’s largest publisher of professional military and defence periodicals.
The proposed scheme places Pakistan on the chopping block. According to the plan, “Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Balochistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today’s Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia.
“Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.
“What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan’s North-west Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren Pakistan, another unnatural state, ...   more »

Mel Gibson's apology for making drunken anti-Semitic remarks isn't enough to redeem him, actor-producer Rob Reiner said. The actor also must acknowledge that "his work reflects anti-Semitism," particularly the 2004 hit movie "The Passion of the Christ," Reiner told Associated Press Radio.  
"When he comes to the understanding that he has done that, and can come out and say, you know, `My views have been reflected in my work and I feel bad that I've done that,' then that will be the beginning of some reconciliation for him," Reiner said.  
Some critics attacked Gibson's movie as portraying Jews as evil. Supporters said the movie was merely being faithful to Gospel accounts of Jesus' arrest and crucifixion.  A call to Gibson's publicist seeking comment was not immediately returned Friday.   
Gibson publicly apologized for an anti-Semitic tirade he unleashed when he was arrested for drunken driving in Malibu on July 28. He has called the remarks "despicable."  Earlier this month, Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge in a deal that calls for alcohol rehabilitation, fines and probation.
Reiner, however, said Gibson also must do some "major soul-searching."  "It's not a matter of just apologizing for some words ...   more »

JAKARTA, Indonesia
A World Health Organization investigation showed that the H5N1 virus mutated slightly in an Indonesian family cluster on Sumatra island, but bird flu experts insisted Friday it did not increase the possibility of a human pandemic.
The virus that infected eight members of a family last month _ killing seven of them _ appears to have slightly mutated in a 10-year-old boy, who is then suspected of passing the virus to his father, the WHO investigative report said.
It is the first evidence indicating that a person caught the virus from a human and then passed it on to another person, said Tim Uyeki, an epidemiologist from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the H5N1 virus died with the father and did not pass outside the family.
"It stopped. It was dead end at that point," he said, stressing that viruses are always slightly changing and there was no reason to raise alarm.
Dr. William Schaffner, a bird flu expert at the Vanderbilt University, called the mutation "noteworthy but not worrisome." Generally it takes a series of mutations in a bird flu virus to raise the danger of a pandemic in humans, he said ...   more »

Iran on Sunday test-fired a sub-to-surface missile in the Persian Gulf during large-scale military exercises, state-run television reported.
"The army successfully test-fired a top speed long-range sub-to-surface missile off the Persian Gulf," the Army's Navy commander, Gen. Sajjad Kouchaki, said on state television.
A brief video clip showed the missile, fired from a submarine, hitting a target on the surface of the water within less than a mile.
The test came as part of large-scale military exercises under way throughout the country. Iran has routinely held war games over the past two decades to improve its combat readiness and to test equipment including missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers.
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