Hot Pot

Homemade Hot Pot

While clashes continue to rock the borders and Palestinian Territories, here in Jerusalem things are very quiet. Life seems to go on as usual despite the added blockades. It's very inconvenient to have to make a long detour because of the blockades but no one is complaining. At least we have no riots here. But on the jewish front, there's a lot more problems. For a 3rd weekend running tens of thousands (literally) of Israelis marched through Tel Aviv to call for the impeachment of the PM and other officials for corruption. Same time a protest by would-be laid-off workers of the failing pharmaceutical giant Teva was joined by other public institutions including the airport, govt. offices, health centres, banks, the Port authorities, the Judiciary, even the Stock Exchange. The whole country  was reduced to its knees from 8am to 12pm. You can bet the financial collapse of Teva will sooner or later be linked to the corruption accusations laid on the govt.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Hundreds-of-thousands-of-Israelis-strike-over-massive-layoffs-518254

Well today the chinese-speaking religious in Jerusalem met for our monthly Mass and dinner. It was also a pre-Christmas celebration since during Christmas itself everyone will be too busy to meet up. The sisters prepared the traditional chinese winter favourite - hot pot (steamboat). It was appreciated by everyone especially in this cold ... though I eat take any. I preferred to have a bowl of soup noodles on my own.

This morning we heard the awful news that muslims attacked a Methodist Church in Pakistan and killed many people. It happens every year ... and in the same place - Qeuetta. It's so obvious the govt is not interested in providing security for christians. Utter shame on that muslim State ... the major refuge of extremists. Why aren't they taking in their Rohingya brothers? Why aren't they doing anything positive for their own impoverished citizens? https://www.timesofisrael.com/8-killed-in-pre-christmas-suicide-bomb-attack-on-pakistan-church/

In Iran 4 muslim converts to christianity were arrested yesterday. Another annual show of muslim persecution of christians a week before Christmas. As I see form the news, only jews, hindus and buddhists are able to respond to muslim extremism, http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Four-Iranian-converts-to-Christianity-arrested-weeks-before-Christmas-518246

I've been asking myself how come Europe is stuck under snow and Asia is stuck with floods and rains ... but we here remain in a drought. Not one drop of rain.