Relative quiet

Metal detector installed at
5th Station yesterday

After a relatively quiet day, the City was rocked by an attempted stabbing at Damascus Gate and a stabbing at Central Bus Station. The 19 yr old arab assailant at Damascus Gate was shot dead immediately but not before a tourist was also shot in the melee. At Central Bus Station, a jewish lady was stabbed before the assailant was shot dead. The govt has ordered the closure of several arab villages around Jerusalem. More road blocks are set up and jews are permitted to carry firearms for protection.

Meantime there was much more violent clashes in the Palestinian Territories. Bethlehem saw one of the worst clashes this week. Tomorrow begins the Muslim New Year ... let's hope the muslims will decide to celebrate instead of demonstrating and rioting.

And ironically, jews have been making revenge attacks on arabs. The ironical part is the jewish assailants mistook the victims to be arabs ... they were actually dark-skinned jews.

However despite the violence, pilgrims continue to come. They're mostly asian groups.

The family of mynahs

Walking to work nowadays is a risk. You never know if you're caught up in a stabbing ... I've had 4 close calls by now. One day my luck will run out. But walking up to work means passing by the Dmascus Gate park which is very quiet because of people's fears to venture out. That means a lot of birds are feeding in the trees and grass which they normally avoid when people are around. Yesterday I saw a family of Indian Mynahs. There were 2 mynahs last year and now they're almost 7. It's a good sign because it means the crow population is reduced ... the crows eat the eggs of indigenous birds thus wiping out many species during the past 10 years. However mynahs are considered a pest and foreign species that can be equally destructive on local species. We'll have to watch how prolific they'll become.