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LY DY © oF VEN? ‘60 MINUTES’ FALSIFIED HAMAS LEADER'S COMMENTS with the Islamic Center of Southern California, said he discovered the error and was alarmed at how differ- ent the translation was from Abu Wardeh's statements. "The worst-case scenario is that there is a deliberate spinning of the news. It is very fashionable now to present Muslims as particularly sus- ceptible to being crazy or blowing themselves up.” He said Islam's teachings have nothing to do with myths about vir- gins and martyrdom. "There is nothing in the Koran or in Islamic teachings about 70 vir- gins or sex in paradise. This is ridiculous, and any true Muslim knows that," said Hathout. (Source: Knight Ridder Newspapers, Washington, DC, August 23, 2001, www.krwashington.com) Mo leaders in America are ~ outraged over an alleged fab- ricated quote—attributed to a Palestinian who recruits suicide bombers—in a documentary aired on Sunday August 19 on CBS's 60 Minutes. The documentary, presented by reporter Bob Simon, examined the militant Islamic organisation Hamas which has claimed respon- sibility for dozens of suicide bomb- ings against Israel. Muslim leaders charge that the report presented false stereotypes of Muslims and defamed their religion. In the documentary, a man iden- tified as Mohammed Abu Wardeh was filmed speaking in Arabic to Simon, with a simultaneous translation dubbed over his remarks. At one point the translator quotes Abu Wardeh, saying: "God would compensate the martyr for sacrificing his life for his land. If you become a martyr, God will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives and everlast- ing happiness." According to Mehdi Brey, a spokesman for the Washington, DC, office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, native Arabic speakers listened carefully to the tape and could find nothing even remotely resembling that translation. Instead, they say, Abu Wardeh said: "As long as I love the land [of Palestine] and as long as it is under occupation, I have no hesitation in doing what I am doing." Brey said his organisation has asked the show to explain how completely different words were attributed to the person inter- viewed, but CBS has not responded. Officials at 60 Minutes could not explain to Knight Ridder how the discrepancies in the translation occurred, but said they were investigating. Dr Maher Hathout, a Muslim scholar PENTAGON'S MISSILE TEST RIGGED WITH ON-BOARD GPS r Jeff Patterson, the UW physician who has spent a great deal of his life trying to educate us all about the perils of nuclear weapons, is more than worried, like a lot of other people, that the Bush administration will stop at nothing to get the proposed missile defence shield system underway during its term in office. Evidence of this is in an article by nationally syndicated columnist Joe Conason, which the doctor sent along to the online magazine, "Salon". It contends that the Pentagon rigged last month's mis- sile defence test. "Precisely according to plan, the target was instantly vaporized on impact and, along with it, or so the Pentagon's uni- formed salesmen hoped, the perennial con- cern that missile defense won't work," Conason wrote. "With the cooperation of major news organizations and conservative pundits, that test provided an enormous propaganda boost to the Bush proposal, which conve- niently enough had been brought up to Capitol Hill by Defense Department offi- cials just two days earlier. "There was only one thing that all the happy salesmen forgot to mention about their latest test drive," he continued. "The rocket fired from Vandenberg was carry- ing a GPS [global positioning system] bea- con that guided the kill vehicle toward it. In other words, it would be fair to say that Whoa...back up a sec. We haven't wiped ourselves out yet! 6 = NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2001