As a novelist and memoirist, Isabel Allende writes of passionate lives, including her own. Born into a Chilean family with political ties, she went into exile in the United States in the 1970s — an event that, she believes, created her as a writer. Her voice blends sweeping narrative with touches of magical realism; her stories are romantic, in the very best sense of the word. Her novels include The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna and The Stories of Eva Luna, and her latest, Ines of My Soul and La Suma de los Dias (The Sum of Our Days). And don’t forget her adventure trilogy for young readers — City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon and Forest of the Pygmies.

As a memoirist, she has written about her vision of her lost Chile, in My Invented Country, and movingly tells the story of her life to her own daughter, in Paula. Her book Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses memorably linked two sections of the bookstore that don’t see much crossover: Erotica and Cookbooks. Just as vital is her community work: The Isabel Allende Foundation works with nonprofits in the SF Bay Area and Chile to empower and protect women and girls — understanding that empowering women is the only true route to social and economic justice.

This video has been created by a Canadian muslim youth group led by Anas Ingar. I am proud to announce that Anas Ingar has been my student in a private islamic school based in Toronto for a short while. Now he is a student of Toronto University, which is one of the best universities of the world.

PART -1

With the population of 80 million and purchasing power of 1 trillion dollars, Turkey is a significant trade partner for Europe these days; is also a key energy hub with an oil pipeline connecting Central Asia to the Mediterranean. Turkey is experiencing the same economic difficulties as everyone else. Due to its own banking crisis back in 2001, country’s President Abdullah Gül says “It is better prepared for the current crisis.

ABDULLAH GÜL: We got lesson out of that. In fact, it costed us 20% of our total GDP. Then, we discovered that our banking system was not well designed, and the regulatory body was lacking, and the rules and laws were not strong enough. And later on, we created an independent, it is monitoring all the banks, new rules, new regulations. Now, the world is facing the larger scale of that crisis in fact. So therefore, we found our self in a better situation, when we compared with the other countries.

JOURNALIST: The G-20’s are getting a stronger role and you are a key player in this process. Will this influence the accession talks with the European Union?

ABDULLAH GÜL: We are the 17th largest economy in the world, that’s why we are in the G-20. And we are very well functioning free market economy. Our GDP is almost close 1 trillion dollars. So this shows that, our economy is important for EU. I am sure that the EU countries will realize that Turkey is not going to be a burden on them, Turkey is going to, in fact, going to make the cake bigger. And we are going to get our share from that cake.

JOURNALIST: As you know for the last few years, energy supplies had been cut off into Europe as the result of the dispute between Russia and Ukraine. Is Turkey is willing to step up to serve as an energy transport hub?

ABDULLAH GÜL: Well, Turkey has a unique role in energy transportation you see. We have to diversify the sources, if you have sources, you should have a secure transportation. So I think Turkey is playing an important role on the North, from the Caucuses to Central Asia. Than, other route is the south. Iraq has a huge reserves for both oil and gas. If we combine the Iraqi gas with our system, then we will easily feed the European gas pipelines. We have a committee between us, Turkey, United States and Iraq. Long time, we have been working all on these issues.

Prophet Salih (a)

The people of Thamud
lived in a valley
called al-Hajr
in the north of Arabia.
It was a good land
so everything grew very easily.
Cattle and sheep grazed
on the land.

Everyone
had plenty of everything.
When people have a lot
they sometimes forget
who provides everything,
they sometimes forget Allah.
When this happens
Allah sends a messenger
or a prophet
to try to help the people.

To the people of Thamud,
Allah sent Salih.
Salih told the people
to remember Allah
but a lot of people just
laughed
at him and would
not listen.

He did not give up.
He still tried to persuade
them to worship Allah
and soon people
began to listen.
They realised Salih was right.
The leaders of Thamud
were upset by this.

They did not want people
to listen to Salih.
They did not believe Salih
was sent by Allah.
They wanted him to prove it,
they wanted a sign.
They told Salih
to bring them a camel
but it had
to be a
special camel.

Salih prayed to Allah
and Allah sent
the special camel.
The camel gave lots and
lots of milk so all the poor
people had enough to drink,
and they were very happy.

The leaders of Thamud
became
angry again to see Salih
and his followers so happy.
They decided
to kill the camel.
Salih told them that Allah
would punish them.

Salih took all the good people
away from the valley.
A terrible earthquake came
and destroyed the valley
and all the bad people.
If they had listened to Salih
they would have been saved.