Mind Soup

It has been a while since I last blogged on this platform and I do miss blogging about what's going on in my life. Truth be told, for the last couple of years, I have been extremely busy, not only when it comes to my professional career as a communications consultant, but also working on social impact issues with several local and international organizations such as Junior Chamber International (JCI) which is a 101-year-old UN-partner organization that aims to make positive impact through youth empowerment as well as the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers program which empowers successful individuals in 436 different hubs to positively impact their communities. Hopefully I will be writing more about these organizations in the future. In this post, I am going to be talking about the two activities that I took part of this month in Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul is one of my favorite cities. Having been traveled to dozens of cities in the last couple of years, Istanbul has my ...

I have, of course, been outraged at armed men boarding ships in international waters, killing passengers on board who attempt to resist and then forcing their ship to the hijackers' home port. I am, of course, talking about the Somali pirates who are preying on Western ships in the Indian Ocean. How dare those terrorists dare to touch our unarmed vessels on the high seas? And how right we are to have our warships there to prevent such terrorist acts. But whoops! At least the Israelis have not demanded ransom. They just want to get journalists to win the propaganda war for them. Scarcely had the week begun when Israel's warrior "commandos" stormed a Turkish boat bringing aid to Gaza and shot nine of the passengers dead. Yet by week's end, the protesters had become "armed peace activists", vicious anti-Semites "professing pacifism, seething with hate, pounding away at another human being with a metal pole". I liked the last bit. The fact that ...

On behalf of the Mind Soup team I would like to wish you a happy thanksgiving and Adha Moubarak :)

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot. Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country. We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a...

Ramadan 2009 around the world - Photo Gallery On August 21st, hundreds of millions of Muslims started fasting for a month. They started to abstain from eating or drinking from dawn to dusk. They stand for hours in prayers each night to remember their Lord and express their gratitude to Him, seek His forgiveness and aspire to come closer to Him.On September 20th, the month of Ramadan ended welcoming Eid el Fitr. Vendors selling food for breaking fast wait for their customers during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in Jakarta August 31, 2009. Muslims around the world abstain from eating, drinking and sexual relations from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. (Reuters, Enny Nuraheni) A Muslim man rests inside a mosque as he wait for iftar (breaking fast) in Dhaka August 29, 2009. Muslims around the world abstain from eating, drinking and sexual relations from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. (Re...

London, United Kingdom , September 6, 2009-- Paddlers ply the River Thames, which was recently turned into a giant bathtub for the annual Great British Duck Race. Organizers released 205,000 blue rubber ducks—each sponsored by a donor—into the river, breaking the race's previous world record of 175,000 ducks. The first ducks to cross the finish line win their sponsors cash and other prizes. This year the event supported the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Kierdijk, Netherlands , September 7, 2009-- Winds of change blew through the historic mill complex at Kinderdijk this week. For the first time, energy-efficient LED bulbs powered the popular Dutch tourist attraction's annual illumination. Part of a UN World Heritage site, the windmills help pump water in and out of low-lying areas called polders. Centuries before the mills were built around 1740, a cat was spotted balancing atop a baby in a cradle during a flood, hence the name Kinderdijk (...