Near the corner of Westchester Avenue and Pugsley Street in Parkchester, just off the elevated tracks of the No. 6 train, Yaakov Wayne Baumann stood outside a graffiti-covered storefront on a chilly Saturday morning. Suited up in a black overcoat with a matching wide-brimmed black fedora, the thickly bearded 42-year-old chatted with elderly congregants as they entered the building for Shabbat service.

The only unusual detail: This synagogue is a mosque.

Or rather, it’s housed inside a mosque. That’s right: Members of the Chabad of East Bronx, an ultra-Orthodox synagogue, worship in the Islamic Cultural Center of North America, which is home to the Al-Iman mosque.

“People have a misconception that Muslims hate Jews,” said Baumann. “But here is an example of them working with us.”

(via goldman)

2:44 pm  •  27 January 2012  •  13 notes

israelfacts:

Iron shoes are pictured on the bank of the Danube on January 27, 2012, marking the Holocaust in Hungary. Hundreds of Hungarian Jews had to leave their shoes on the bank before they were shot into the river by Hungarian militaimen during the World War II. The United Nations declared in 2005 the Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27 to commemorate the 6 million Jews and other victims murdered by the Nazis. (Getty Images)

(via mohandasgandhi)

1:53 pm  •  27 January 2012  •  1,821 notes

I don’t eat here nearly often enough.

1:06 pm  •  27 January 2012  •  3 notes

Astoria, N.Y. (Taken with instagram)

1:01 pm  •  27 January 2012  •  6 notes

inothernews:

New York City.

Today is the day I chose to take off and get a physical. What a wonderful day it is outside.

10:46 am  •  27 January 2012  •  50 notes

“After two decades of New York’s forced engagement with radical Islamists, two opposing falsehoods face each other: the myth of the lone gunman and the toxic lie that they are all gunmen. At the fulcrum, where it is critical to find and strike a balance, is the Police Department. It cannot risk the distortions of more fictions, of deliberate dishonesty or honest confusion. The police have to make it their business to get it right and to do it in the sunshine so that the whole world knows.”

— Jim Dwyer | When the Police Say One Thing, the Facts Another | New York Times (via capitalnewyork)

10:40 am  •  27 January 2012  •  5 notes

“In the last decade, Apple has become one of the mightiest, richest and most successful companies in the world, in part by mastering global manufacturing. Apple and its high-technology peers — as well as dozens of other American industries — have achieved a pace of innovation nearly unmatched in modern history. However, the workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often labor in harsh conditions, according to employees inside those plants, worker advocates and documents published by companies themselves. Problems are as varied as onerous work environments and serious — sometimes deadly — safety problems. Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.”

— Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China - NYTimes.com

12:29 am  •  27 January 2012  •  8 notes

Businesses owned by militaries around the world pose unique corruption risks to the sectors in which they operate, a new report found.

The report, released Thursday by Transparency International’s U.K. Defence and Security Programme, looks at how military-owned businesses are structured, what the inherent corruption risks are for these firms, and why and how the countries have made reforms to their military-owned companies.

6:41 pm  •  26 January 2012  •  2 notes

A CIA operative’s unusual assignment inside the New York Police Department is being cut short after an internal investigation that criticized how the agency established its unprecedented collaboration with city police, The Associated Press has learned.

In its investigation, the CIA’s inspector general faulted the agency for sending an officer to New York with little oversight after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and then leaving him there too long, according to officials who have read or been briefed on the inquiry. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation. The CIA said last month that the inspector general cleared the agency of any wrongdoing.

The inspector general opened its investigation after a series of AP articles that revealed how the NYPD, working in close collaboration with the CIA, set up spying operations that put Muslim communities under scrutiny. Plainclothes officers known as “rakers” eavesdropped in businesses, and Muslims not suspected of any wrongdoing were put in intelligence databases.

The CIA officer cited by the inspector general for operating without sufficient supervision, Lawrence Sanchez, was the architect of spying programs that helped make the NYPD one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. The programs have drawn criticism from Muslims as well as New York and Washington lawmakers. Muslim activists organized a news conference Thursday to urge Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to resign.

3:26 pm  •  26 January 2012  •  1 note

South Africa’s Sasol Ltd. said it is trying to diversify away from Iranian oil as sanctions from the U.S. and Europe increase pressure on those doing business with Tehran, The Wall Street Journal reported.

asol, which is the world’s largest producer of motor fuels from coal, depends on Iranian oil imports for 20% of its crude, which calculates to 12,000 barrels a day, at its Natref refinery, the Journal report said.

“In view of recent developments regarding trade restrictions and possible oil sanctions against Iran, Sasol Oil is diversifying its crude oil sourcing,” a company spokeswoman said to the Journal, declining to give further details.

4:26 pm  •  25 January 2012

“The power held by singers as political agents and voices for movements is perhaps most evident not in the popularity of their lyrics, or the number of hits their videos receive on YouTube, but by the response of the political establishment to their work. After the eighteen-day uprising in Egypt, Ramy Essam, author and singer of the anthemic “Irhal! (Leave!),” was detained and severely beaten by the army. El Général was censored, prevented from performing, spied on and detained for three days by Ben Ali’s forces after releasing “Tunis Bladna (Tunis, Our Country).” Moroccan rapper Mouad Belrhouate, who raps under El-Haked (The Indignant), was imprisoned in September on fabricated charges of assault and only recently released, broke taboos with his lyrical challenges to royal power. Syrian Ibrahim Qashoush, described by some as a former cement-layer, by others as a fireman, turned his amateur passions for poetry toward creating Syria’s most popular piece of protest music, “Yalla Irhal Ya Bashar (Go On, Leave, Bashar),” which has been sung loudly by rallying crowds in his home city of Hama, was killed by Syrian security forces, his vocal cords cut out and his body left floating in a nearby river. The symbolism of the way in which he was murdered is inescapable. The crackdown on musicians is a tactic that seems to backfire on regimes. El Général’s arrest not only launched him to greater fame, but also enraged protesting Tunisians and demonstrated the Ben Ali regime’s growing fear in the face of an increasingly bold population. Moroccan El Haked’s imprisonment similarly served to highlight the ways in which the monarchy operates and to anger people who agree with his messages.”

— I have piece up at Guernica Magazine called “Troubadours of the Revolution,” out conveniently in time for marking the January 25 anniversary of the start of the Egyptian uprising. In it I discuss the important role that protest musicians like Ramy Essam, Ibrahim Qashoush and El Haked (among many, many others) have played in the Middle Eastern and North African revolutions of 2011.  (via thepoliticalnotebook)

2:39 pm  •  25 January 2012  •  70 notes

goldman:

The U.S. came in 47th on Reporters Without Borders’ 2011-12 Press Freedom Index, a drop of 27 spots from last year. According to RWB, the U.S. owed its drop “to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.”

2:13 pm  •  25 January 2012  •  1 note

melanielisa:

flavorpill:

Mind-Blowing Photos of Exploding Food

Um, this is really, really cool.

11:42 am  •  25 January 2012  •  17,873 notes

reuters:

EXCLUSIVE: HSBC Holdings PLC is under investigation by a U.S. Senate panel in a money-laundering inquiry, the latest step in a long-running U.S. effort to halt shadowy money flows through global banks, according to people familiar with the situation and a company securities filing.

The intensifying scrutiny of HSBC is the latest in a series if investigations by U.S. officials into how global banks have processed — and in some cases, intentionally hidden — financial transactions on behalf of countries which allegedly support terrorism, corrupt foreign officials, drug gangs and criminals. 

Read more: Senate investigating HSBC for money laundering

(via producermatthew)

10:18 am  •  25 January 2012  •  28 notes

thepoliticalnotebook:

Remembering #Jan25: Days of Rage and Dignity.  The Egyptian revolution really isn’t over, but the eighteen days of rallying and demonstrating across Egypt starting on 25 January 2011 that ultimately ousted longtime dictator Mubarak deserve an incredible amount of celebration.

Here is a photographic retrospective of those eighteen days, shot by some of the best. I will never fail to be blown away by the images of the demonstrations in Tahrir.

• Yannis Behrakis/Reuters. 1/30/2011.
• Nasser Nasser/AP. 1/25/2011.
• Peter Macdiarmid/Getty. 2/1/2011. 
• Lefteris Pitarakis/AP. 2/1/2011.
• Ed Ou/NYT. 2/1/2011.
• Hannibal Hanschke/EPA. 2/2/2011.
• Moises Saman/NYT. 2/11/2011.
• Felipe Trueba/EPA. 2/11/2011.

8:19 am  •  25 January 2012  •  960 notes