Community Magazine August 2006

 ”  70 Community Magazine UN Shows Worse Israel Bias than Saudi Arabia As a three page statement by the United Nations placed the blame squarely on Israel for the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, a Saudi Arabian cabinet statement cited responsibility for the violence on “some elements and groups” – referring to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbullah in Lebanon – that “have got loose and slipped into taking decisions on their own.” Saudi Arabia, which continues to refuse diplomatic relations with Israel, seldom misses an opportunity to criticize the Jewish State and regularly incorporates virulent anti-Semitic materials into official curriculums in its schools. That even the Saudi Kingdom took a (very brief) refrain from its regular course of Israel bashing, while the UN continued its illogical pattern of blaming the only democracy in the region, underscores how extremely biased this supposedly impartial world body is against Israel. Among the specific issues listed, the statement said children in Gaza “are living in an environment of extraordinary violence…” However the statement made no mention of the decades-long indoctrination of Gaza’s children towards violence against Israel and Jews by PA sponsored television shows, radio programming as well as officially sanctioned classroom incitement. North Korean Missile Threat Still Serious Amidst the violence in the Middle East, Japan’s call for “swift, strong” U.N. action in response to North Korea’s mis- sile tests, have taken a back seat. Still, the U.S. is very concerned over the developments in the Far East and officials cited “unprec- edented” international unity on the issue. The chief U.S. negotiator, Christopher Hill, warned the tests would not give North Korea a better bargaining position over its nuclear program, which is the focus of stalled six-party talks involving the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States. Pyongyang said it was prepared to deal with any U.S. challenge to its security, hours after its test-firing of seven mis- siles ignited international concern. Washington and North Korea’s neighbors have been trying to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program since 2002. US Population Grows – Europe’s Shrinks As the U.S. population speeds toward 300 million, Europe and Japan are on the verge of such big population losses that several countries are practically begging women to have babies. In the annals of modern history, countries have lost people because of wars, disease and natural disasters, but never because women stopped having enough children. The U.S. is the fastest growing industrialized nation in the world, adding about 2.8 million people a year. That’s a little less than 1 percent, but enough to mitigate the kinds of problems facing Japan and many European countries. Europe, with 728 million people, saw its population shrink by 74,000 since the beginning of the decade, according to the United Nations. By 2050, it is projected to lose a total of 75 million people. Experts warn that it could cause labor shortages while straining retirement and health programs, ultimately threatening economic competitiveness. The problem is that birth rates are so low, there are not enough young people entering the work force to support an aging population. Russian President Vladimir Putin is so concerned, he recently proposed paying women to have chil- dren. Last year, France increased monthly stipends to parents who take time off work to care for a third child. Arab Cyber-Terrorists Hack Israeli Sites As Israeli troops invaded southern Gaza after the abduction of an Israeli soldier, Moroccan-based Arab computer hackers shut down hundreds of Israeli Web sites, an Israeli newspaper reported. The Jerusalem Post said about 700 Web sites were shut down in the campaign. Their home pages were replaced by the message, “Hacked by Team-Evil Arab hackers u KILL palestin people we KILL Israeli servers,” sic. All the Web sites mentioned in the report were back in service. Among the sites mentioned were Israel’s largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, as well as a hospital in Haifa, BMW Israel, Subaru Israel and Citroen Israel. The paper reported that the hacker team, with at least six members, began attacking U.S. government Web sites in 2004. the international community