Friday, May 7, 2010

ISSUE NO 4: EDITORIAL

TAKING CARE OF
THE ENVIRONMENT

Our environment is very sensitive and for this reason we should take care of it. The question here is “how can you keep your environment away from danger?” The answer for this question is very simple; we can do that by tackling the problems that the environment is facing. We have a number of problems in respect of the environment such as Air pollution which is the most dangerous problem because it threatens human beings as well as other living beings. These problems are caused by the use of natural products by humans in a way that harms the atmosphere, for example the smoke of factories that contaminate the air and this affects human health and contributes to create what is called "global warming". The above-mentioned problems are threatening the whole world.


The second problem is water pollution; people consider water pollution the main factor participating in the dangerous disasters of the environment. This can happen simply by throwing poisoned substances into the water which affect water itself, fish, and human beings eventually.


Soil pollution is the third type of pollution that severely harms the environment. When humans (in this case, farmers) use chemical fertilizers that contribute to the growing of plants, the side effects of this process is going to appear on the ground, when a human being eats these plants (vegetables and fruit) that were treated by chemical fertilizers this will lead people to be sick. Our advice for all who work in the field of agriculture is to use natural fertilizers made by animals to keep our health safe.


Finally, our advice for everybody is: PLEASE DON'T THROW GARBAGE IN THE STREETS. YOU SHOULD BE CIVILIZED AND YOU SHOULD THROW IT IN THE CANS AND BASKETS ESPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR THIS PURPOSE IN ORDER TO BEAUTIFY OUR COUNTRY.


Ibrahim Al-Bayati

ISSUE NO 4: AN INTERVIEW WITH Dr. MEHDI F. AL-GHAZALLI

AN INTERVIEW WITH
Dr. MEHDI F. AL-GHAZALLI
- Who is Dr. MEHDI?
- I am Dr. MEHDI F. AL-GHAZALLI, born in Dayala in 1968.

- What is your wish in life?
- I hope to gain more knowledge in linguistics, translation and religion.

- Who urged you to be "Dr. MEHDI"?
- No one, but I have been always Knowledge-seeker and Allah has granted me this willingness to take the path of knowledge.

- Who is your model in life?
- Our prophet, Mohammed (peace be with him), his household and companions.

- What is your advice for the Translation Department students?
- I advise translation students to be very greedy in gaining knowledge about their field and listen to the BBC channel to improve their listening abilities.

- What are your recommendations for the TRANSMAG staff?
- I recommend the TRANSMAG staff to work harder to bring it to a better form.

- Could you tell us your impression towards those students who stand against uniform?
- Advanced Universities approve the uniform to make students distinguished from other sectors of society. My impression concerning those who violate regulations including the uniform is that they do don’t respect systems and I advice them to reconsider their viewpoints.

- How do you spend your leisure time?
- I spend most of my time reading, and then watch TV.

- When and where did you get your degrees?
- I got my degrees as follows:
* B.A in 1995 Baghdad university.
* M.A in 1997 Baghdad University \ in linguistics.
* PhD in 2006 Al-Mustansiryah University \ in linguistics and translation.

- What are your favourite team and favourite player?
- Al-Zawra'a club,and my favourite player is Falah Hassan.

- Anything you would like to say?
- I hope success to TRANSMAG and its staff.

Interviewed by: Ibrahim Al-Bayati

ISSUE NO 4: THE CULTURAL DAY OF TRANSLATION DEPARTMENT

THE CULTURAL DAY OF TRANSLATION DEPARTMENT

On Wednesday, the 24th of February, the Cultural Day of Translation Department took place as a part of the Cultural Week of the College of Arts. The event consisted of two parts.

The First Part: (Poetry Recitation)

This part of the event was a breakthrough as it is the second achievement in poetry recitation performed by the students of Translation Department (the first one was held in 2009). Our excellent students did their best this year to present their amazing performance in the recitation of some of the most beautiful English poems ever written.
The event started with a speech by Dr. Mehdi, the Chairman-Deputy of Translation Department. The hosts Mushriq Amjad and Hala Hekmet were undeniably brilliant in their presentation of the students who recited the poems. The first student to recite the wonderful poem of Shakespeare Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day in an amazing style was Aseel Kadim.

The second student was Asma Muafak who recited Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and she was so good in her recitation. Then, Maha Ali Ryah, a third-grade student, recited a lovely poem by Alexander Pope entitled Solitude. After that, the audience listened to the wonderful Israa Abaas Ameen who recited Song to Celia, one of the most beautiful poems of the poet Ben Jonson.

The fifth student was Shahad Hadi who recited the poem Prayer before Birth by Louise MacNeice, she did her best in reciting this poem and it worked remarkably. The beautiful poem of W. B. Yeats The Second Coming was recited by the excellent student Sara Azhar. Edger Alan Poe was, and is still, a great poet and naturally one of his lovely poems, Alone, was recited by the intelligent student Ansam Mohammed, She recited her poem in an impressive way and impressed everybody without exception.

Afterwards, the audience enjoyed the fantastic performance of the third-grade student Sabbar Sadeq who recited T. S. Eliot’s poem Journey of the Magi. Ilham Qasim, a fourth-grade student, recited a poem by Ted Hughes entitled The Thought-Fox in an incredible way. Rusul Munir, who is a second-grade student in the evening classes, recited Beat! Beat! Drums!, an emotional poem by the American poet Walt Whitman. The poetry recitation event was concluded by the twelfth participant Mohammed Zghair (third-grade in the evening classes) who recited Ozymandias, a beautiful poem by Shelley.

Finally, the two hosts stated beautiful words to thank all the participants and the audience who attended this activity, not forgetting, of course, to thank Esraa Mohammed Salim, the student who gave a special flavor to the whole day with her brilliant piano playing. The TRANSMAG staff would also like to thank the photographer of this activity Alaa Hasan for the efforts he exerted in taking pictures.

The Second Part: (Delivery of papers)

The second part of the Cultural Day of Translation Department was for the delivery of papers by three of the teachers of the department.

Dr.Bayda A. Al-Obeidi initiated this activity by delivering her significant paper that dealt with "Collocation in Machine Translation" in a wonderful way.

The second paper was Dr. Mehdi F. Al-Ghazzali’s paper which was entitled "Directives in Translation". Dr. Mehdi was great in his presentation and his ability to clarify his paper.

Finally, Dr. Hana K. Ghani presented her research "Eugene O'Neill's web of Texts: Intertextuality in long Day's Journey into Night and she expressed her ideas in the best way.


Written by:
Ibrahim Al-Bayati

ISSUE NO 4: PROBLEM-SOLVING PHASES IN TRANSLATION

PROBLEM-SOLVING PHASES IN TRANSLATION

Dr. Ahmed Sulatn Al-Hameedawi

Out of their classroom observations and research, Davies and Scott-Tennent in their 2005 book offer a five-phase approach to solving a translation problem. Their approach comprises the following stages:

Phase One, General Approach: 
In this stage, the translator has to make his choice of specific macro- or micro-decisions regarding norms (whether to abide by or break the TL norms, for example he may opt for domestically (A) or foreignizingly (B) in translating words (such as ‘CPU’ and ‘control’) in the following sentence:

CPU is used to denote three units: the control unit, the arithmetic unit and the central memory.

(A)يستعمل مصطلح وحدة المعالجة المركزية للإشارة إلى ثلاث وحدات: وحدة السيطرة، وحدة الحساب، ووحدة الذاكرة المركزية.
(B) يستعمل مصطلح السي بي يو للإشارة إلى ثلاث وحدات: وحدة الكنترول، وحدة الحساب، ووحدة الذاكرة المركزية.

The translator’s subjectivity and ideology may reveal themselves in this phase if he chooses to do so (whether consciously or unconsciously); a female translator may decide to take a feminist stand rendering whatever ‘he’ into ‘she’, or ignore ‘he’ altogether. Consider the following example:

The translator has to consider the TT readers.

ينبغي على المترجمة أن تأخذ بعين الاعتبار قراء النص الهدف.
This sentence may be confusing in Arabic-speaking, Islamic countries where man is ideologically privileged over woman and the norm is to use masculine gender represented by ‘he’ to cover both males and females. Moreover, the stage may range to accommodate issues such as the translation assignment, time, sources, equipment, fees, and the translator’s expertise and personal or emotional situation.

Phase Two: Problem-spotting:
This phase brings in the translator’s awareness that he is facing a translation problem. The principal criterion in this respect is that he is in front of a case of (a) a solution he cannot locate or (b) more than one solution where he has to decide on one. Such awareness is a function of different factors including, basically, the translator’s translation-notions knowledge (declarative knowledge defined simply as knowing what) and the cognitive ability he exercises to identify that problem (operative knowledge minimally described as knowing how, strategies). In the example below, the translator should be sensitive to the problem he encounters and translationally knowledgeable about its identity and impact. The source of the problem should be identified as two terms, the heart muscle and myocardium for one concept the heart in the TL where the SL deploys only two structural variants عضلة القلب/العضلة القلبية which cannot function synonymously as their SL counterparts.

The heart muscle, or myocardium, receives its oxygenated blood from the main artery.

Phase Three: Brainstorming & Choosing Steps:
As the word (brainstorming) reveals, the translator accesses mental or emotional actions to solve the translation problems. On detecting a translation or interpretation problem, the mind activates certain steps within the framework of a global strategy to solve it and explores available internal or external information to that effect. These steps may take the form of mental and emotional associations, logical thinking, classifying, selecting, drawing mind maps, playing with words, paraphrasing, accessing semantic fields, consulting dictionaries, reference books, peers, internet, teachers, subject-matter experts, published translations etc.
If the example above is reconsidered in the light of what has been elaborated on in this phase, the translator, reading the ST context of situation, particularly in terms of field and tenor, and consulting the relevant reference books or dictionaries, will, first, make a comparison of the list of terms used in TT to match that of the ST two terms, then, to discover that the two languages are incompatible with regard to the range of lexis language users put to function in the respective social context. This will help him arrive at the appropriate solution of this problem by help of some kind of logical reasoning of the problem.

Phase Four: Brainstorming and Choosing a Strategy:
Involving a range of fit-to-norms acceptable translation strategies which take also into account the target readership’s expectations and language specifics in the light of the translation brief; these strategies may embrace, footnotes, calques, loans, derivation, compounding Arabic words, definition (explicitation), domestication and foreignization, adaptation, reformulations (paraphrasing), substitutions, omissions, additions. To continue with the previoes example, the translator has to generate alternatives, i.e. solutions. Possible solutions in this case may encompass loan translation with omission and loan translation with transliteration; they will respectively look like the following:

(A) تستلم عضلة القلب حصتها من الدم المشبع بالأوكسجين عبر الشريان التاجي.
Or,
(B) تستلم عضلة القلب، المايكرو دم، حصتها من الدم المشبع بالأوكسجين عبر الشريان التاجي.

Phase Five: Choosing a Final Solution:
In this phase, the translation solution is justified or evaluated in keeping with the translation context and risk-taking. The translator eventually has to decide on his best candidate solution of the above problem. To reach such a decision, he has to weigh his alternatives against one another in terms of different interactive factors potentially having an impact on the way his TT received and perceived by the TL readership and on the way it is to function therein. In the context of Arabic readership, the second solution will be ruled out in favor of the first for reasons of being tautological and potentially causing terminological confusion, violating Arabic morphology norms (no morphological pattern fitting the word ‘المايكرو دم’), and because TL respective community is well familiar with the term ‘القلب rather than with ‘المايكرو دم‘. As it has been vividly clear, the translator has to justify his choices before deciding to make them his final solutions.

ISSUE NO 4: MUHAMMED (SAW)

MUHAMMED:
The Greatest Figure Upon Whom The Light Of History Has Shone 

LINEAGE: 
The oldest and noblest tribe in the whole of Arabia was Banu Hashim. They were the descendants of the prophet Ibrahim through his son Isma'il. The Arabs respected and loved them for their goodness, knowledge and bravery.
Abd al-Muttalib was the chieftain of Banu Hashim and he was also the Guardian of the Ka'bah. Among his ten sons, Abdullah was the father of the Holy Prophet. In Mecca, baby boy Muhammad was born on 17th Rabi' al-Awwal, 570 AD. His father Abdullah, son of Abd al-Muttalib, died before he was born and when he was six, he lost his loving mother Aminah bint Wahab. His Grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, took the responsibility of bringing up the orphan. At the age of ten, he was bereft of his venerable grandfather. On his deathbed, he appointed his son Abu Talib as the guardian of Muhammad. Gentle, soft-spoken, tall and handsome boy, Muhammad, accompanied the trading caravans of Abu Talib, across the deserts, giving him deep insight into nature and man.


THE PROPHET:
Lover of nature and quite worried about human sufferings, Muhammad very often retired to Mount Hira’ for meditations. One night, Laylat al-Qadr (the Night of Majesty), a voice addressing him, commanded "Recite in the name of thy Lord." Deeply excited by the phenomena of Divine Visitation, Muhammad hurried home to his wife, Khadijah (AS), who listened to him attentively and said "I bear witness that you are the Apostle of God." After an interval, the voice from heaven spoke again "O thou shrouded in thy mantle, arise, and warn, and glorify thy Lord." This was a signal for him to start preaching the gospel of truth of One God. In the beginning Muhammad invited only those near to him to the new Faith. The first to embrace Islam among women was Khadijah and among men was his cousin Ali (AS) and Zayd ibn al-Harithah.
For three long years, he laboured quietly to wean his people from the worship of idols and drew only thirty followers. Muhammad then appealed publicly to Quraysh to give up idol worship and to embrace Islam. The new Faith, is simple, practical and useful for everyday life. It commands to believe and do good, keep up prayer and pay the poor rate; four principles of a successful way of life. Almost ten years of hard work and preaching, in spite of all persecution, produced over a hundred followers, physical cruelties and social boycott made life unbearable in Mecca. The Holy Prophet of Islam advised his followers to seek refuge in the neighbouring country of Ethiopia. They sailed to the hospitable shores of the Negus, under the leadership of Ja'far at-Tayyar (brother of Ali) and the cousin of the Holy Prophet. Several times the chieftains came to Abu Talib saying, "We respect your age and rank, but we have no further patience with your nephew. Stop him or we shall fight you." Abu Talib asked Muhammad for his decision. With tears in his eyes, the Apostle firmly replied, "O my uncle! If they place the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left, to force me to renounce my mission, I will not desist until God manifests His cause or I perish in the attempt."


THE ISLAMIC ERA:
With the death of the old patriarch Abu Talib, the Meccans planned to assassinate the prophet. Under Divine guidance, he asked Ali to sleep in his bed and Muhammad put his green garment on Ali. While the murders mistook Ali for Muhammad, the Holy Prophet of Islam escaped to Medina. The Muslim era of Hijrah (emigration) is named after this incident and dated from 17th Rabi' al-Awwal, 622 AD. In Medina, He was the King of men, the ruler of human hearts, chief law-giver and supreme judge. The Preacher who went without bread but was mightier than the mightiest sovereigns of the earth. No emperor with his crown was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own clothing.
In The 8th year AH, the idolaters violated the peace of Hudaybiyyah by attacking the Muslims. The enemies were defeated and Mecca was conquered. The Prophet who fled from Mecca as a fugitive, now returned home as a mighty conqueror. The Rahmatun lil 'Alamin (mercy unto all beings, i.e., the Prophet) entered the city with his head bowed low in thankfulness to the Almighty (Allah) and ordered a general amnesty, instead of the mass massacre of those who persecuted him and his followers.


THE LAST PILGRIMAGE:
Under the Divine intuition of his approaching end, Muhammad prepared to make the farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. Before completing all the ceremonies of Hajj, he addressed a huge multitude from the top of Mount Arafat on the 8th of Dhi al-Hijjah, 11 AH, in words which shall ever ring and live in the Islamic atmosphere. The Master inspired all who came into contact with him. He shared his scanty food; he began his meals in the Name of Allah and finished them uttering thanks; he loved the poor and respected them; he would visit the sick and comfort the heart-broken; he treated his bitterest enemies with clemency and forbearance, but the offenders against society were administered justice; his intellectual mind was remarkably progressive.
There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Apostle of God, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his descendants.

Sayings of the Holy Prophet of Islam (SAW)
- Acquire knowledge, because he who acquires it in the way of the Lord, performs an act of piety; who speaks of it praises the Lord; who seeks it adores God, who dispenses instruction in it bestows alms, and who imparts it to its fitting objects, performs an act of devotion to God.
- He is not strong and powerful, who throws people down, but he is strong who withholds himself from anger.
- Deal gently with people, and be not harsh; cheer them and condemn not
- Much silence and a good disposition; there are no two deeds better than these.
- He, who keeps his mind focused entirely upon himself, cannot grow large, strong and beautiful in character.

Prepared by: Maha Ali
http://www.ziaraat.org 
http://www.imamreza.net

ISSUE NO 4: DOES TIME HEAL WOUNDS?

DOES TIME HEAL WOUNDS?

When I look at each and every face I see in my daily life I see hidden passions as if they are telling me something. I see hidden pains under these fake smiles. I undergo their Anger Worry, Hope, Sadness and Happiness under these worn masks; everybody is trying to be himself but they just can’t help it. Their wounds are so clear as if they are bleeding deep inside.


Why is that? Why is there so much broken hearts? Broken because of Love, Loss, Death, and Hopelessness and of course Helplessness. Instead they keep on smiling pretending to be someone who is not who they really are and in spite of that they linger positively and say "Time Heals Wounds", "Nothing Stands Still"… is that true?

Alternatively, they are just trying to be patient, they are just anesthetizing their wounds?... NO… Time never heals broken hearts. You are still carrying this burden on your shoulder, there will still be unanswered questions where you want to know the reason why, unsettled matters that you wish that you can go back in time and undo them.

These are the Sound of Regret, the Sound of Pain, the Sound of Desolation and they will always be with you till the day your soul to heaven rises unless you go and make things right. Believe me, the Sound of Ease will Heal every wound… every wound…

Written by: Hala Hikmet

ISSUE NO 4:FRIENDS OF THE MONTH

4th GRADE
Omar is the gentleman of the class and our big brother. Although he is married and has a lot of responsibilities, he is always there for us.
 ------------------------------------------------------------- 
3rd GRADE
 
Sara Hadi (Um Durrar) has a strong personality, cleverness, courage, and she is always nice to talk to. She is everybody’s friend and she helps whoever needs help.
-----------------------------------------------------------
2nd GRADE
Nawras is one of the kindest and loveliest girls; she has a very big and warm heart. We chose her as the friend of this month but, hopefully, she is our friend forever.
  -----------------------------------------------------
1st GRADE
Saleem Dhafir is a smart student. He is known as a hard-working fellow as he write stories and enjoys reading books and he is very nice with his friends and colleagues.

ISSUE NO 4: ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

One day, I was going to my college as usual and suddenly I was stopped by a person saying "Excuse me please, I am the producer of Life's program at the World's channel and we are preparing this show about the most significant sayings of Shakespeare, so if you don't mind I’d like to start with you.”



I welcomed the idea, so he asked me, "One of the most beautiful sayings of Shakespeare is ‘All the world's stage, and all men and women merely players.’ So, do you agree with that? Why? And do you think that people’s ability to play on life's stage will end one day?" I answered him by welcoming the channel and the saying “of course I agree with Shakespeare because life is really a stage; you climb it from the first moment your eyes see the light. But, at first you could not play on that stage because you don't know how to walk, speak or realize any thing. You are just like a viewer with no opinion, but step by step you will grow up and you will gain the tools which enables you to play. Then, you will learn the rules of playing on this stage, you will also understand the way that leads you to win or lose and you must choose. Your ability will never end even when you will be an elder and lose the tools and qualities you first gained when you were a young man because you finished a role in this game and now you have another role with its own tools and qualities. Your role at that time will be an adviser, a grandfather, a master for others and may be a creator of new rules for the playing on that stage.

"He smiled asking me "And after death, he would also still have the ability to continue playing?" I said "The full power of his ability would appear just in that time, because you will see the fruits of all his life’s work and how many of them are still alive." He was surprised by my answers and said "Many thanks to you; you are really a wise young lady."

So, ask yourself the same question and see what your answers would be?

Written by:
Raghad H. Iskandar

ISSUE NO 4: SPRING

SPRING
The spring is a favorite season for many people, and it is certainly easy to understand why this is so. The spring is when the earth comes back to life after a long cold winter, and it is in the spring when the first flowers begin to bloom and the green world begins to return after its winter slumber.

The spring is an important season for many hobbies, including of course gardening. For the gardener, the spring is one of the most pleasant times in the garden, it is the time when the bulbs that were carefully planted in the fall begin to grow and blossom, and the spring is when the first seedlings are carefully nestled in the garden. There is no doubt that the spring is one of the most beautiful, and most colorful, of all seasons for the gardener.
The spring is also a favorite time for home improvement projects that could not go forward while the weather was too cold. Whether it is a small project like installing new downspouts or a large project like building a new garage or storage shed, the spring is one of the best times to work at improving the value and livability of the home. In the spring, the weather is neither too hot nor too cold, and the homeowner has plenty of daylight in which to work. It is no wonder that the spring season is one of the busiest for home improvement stores and warehouses

For the outdoor sports enthusiast, there is nothing like the coming of the spring season. For the fisherman, the coming of spring means the first day of trout season. For the avid hiker, spring means that those favorite trails are no longer impassable due to snow, and for the horseback rider spring means being able to take a ride without first bundling up.
In Iraq, the coming of spring is celebrated at the 21st of March of every year. This is a very special day for all the Iraqis, especially for the Kurds who call it Nowruz. May this spring, be the beginning of a wonderful and harmonious year to come?


Happy Nowruz!

Prepared by: E. Dhiab

ISSUE NO 4: UEFA Champions League for Football

UEFA Champions League for Football


European Champions League is regarded one of the biggest championships in Europe and the world, because it features a wonderful performance by the European clubs. Furthermore, it takes place in different cities of that continent annually.

This championship was established by two French journalists who worked at Likep newspaper for sport in France, Gabriel Hanno was the one who suggested to establish “The Cup of Europe for Clubs” in 1954. This proposition encountered a lot of positive reflections. Finally, on the 3rd of February 1955, the newspaper published a list of clubs to compete on the first championship.

Spain has the record for the number of this championship’s titles, its clubs were able to gain 12 titles since 1955. Then comes Italy and England who both occupy the second rank with 11 titles. Meanwhile, Germany and Netherlands come to occupy the third rank with 6 titles. Portugal comes fourth after its clubs had won 4 titles. As for the bottom rank, France, Romania, Scotland and Yugoslavia come with one title for each.



Best Strikers since the establishment of the championship in 1955:
Player
Nationality
Team
Scores
Raul Gonzalez
Spain
Real Madrid
64
Van Nistelrooy
Holland
Real Madrid
60
Shevchenko
Ukraine
AC Milan
56
T. Henry
France
Barcelona
51
De Stefano
Spain-Argentina

49
Ozebio
Portugal

47
F. Inzaghi
Italy
AC Milan
46
Del Piero
Italy
Juventus
44

List of all winners of Champions League since its establishment:
Team
Number of Titles
Real Madrid
9
AC Milan
7
Liverpool
5
Bayern Munich, Ajax
4
Barcelona, Man.United
3
Juventus, Benfica, Inter Milan, Nottingham, Porto
2
Marseille ,Celtic, Feyenoord , Hamburg, Stewa Bucharest, Aston villa, PSV Eindhoven, the Red Star, B. Dortmund
1

Prepared by: Mushriq A. Jaber

ISSUE NO 4: Real Madrid

Real Madrid

Real Madrid is considered the most prominent club in the world, because of its mythical achievements whether in Spain or in Europe. In addition, it has the record for Spanish La Liga and European Champions League titles (31 titles of La Liga and 9 titles of the continental championship for clubs).
 
The Spanish team was founded on the 6th of March 1902. In its early years, real Madrid won many of the local cups and won La Liga in 1932 for the first time. On the other hand, Real Madrid (or the Royal Team as the some people call it) emerged prominently in the 1950s when it formed a golden team headed by two legendary players; De Stefano and Bochkash. Then, the president of the club was Santiago Bernabeu, a very enfluential character that will never be repeated in the history of football. It is well-known that the stadium of that club was named Santiago Bernabeu after the name of its previous president.

At that time, Real Madrid had captured the first five titles of the European Champions League. In 1956, Real Madrid won against Stad Remis club from France in the final match (3-4), Real Madrid also gained the title of the second championship after it had won against Italian Fiorentina club (0-2) in 1957. In 1958, the club also won the final match against AC Milan (2-3) and in the next year, it won against Rieem (0-2). In the end of 1950s, the Spanish team won achieved many victories including a big wining against German Frankfort club (3-7) in the final match of the Champions League. The sixth title went to Belgrade (1-2) in the final match, due to the retirement of Bochkash and De Stefano.

In the end of the 1990s, Real Madrid (which then included the most famous players in the world such as Raul, Morientas, Heirro and Roberto Carlos won against Juventus (0-1) thus achieving the seventh title.
Last but not least, Real Madrid achieved the last two titles in 2000 & 2002 under the leadership of Coach Del Bosque. The first match was against Valencia and the second against Bayern Leverkusen.

Prepared by: Mushriq A. Jaber

ISSUE NO 4: The International Women's Day!

The International Women's Day!
The International Women's Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.

I know for sure that right now there are a couple of ideas in your mind about women’s rights or women’s equality to men, etc, but I am sorry to disappoint you when I say that this is not the message I want to send you. I can’t call this kind of “days” anything but a cliché; I mean what are all these things about? What’s wrong with people? I mean “women’s day”, and they call themselves women’s rights activists, are they serious? How come we’ve never heard about “men’s day” or whatever they want to call it? I get speechless just thinking about it. People should understand that asking for “women’s rights” is as bad as degrading their dignity; you are like making all women around the world get stuck with the idea that tells them that “you were less in value than men, you are not equal to men, not smart enough, you have to struggle and you always have to ask to get something that is your right”!!!And ask whom? Oh dear God what a surprise: men!!! How smart!!! go away people of “women’s rights organizations” the only thing you are doing is being a tool in the women’s oppressors hands to create generations of low self-esteem women, or as I like to call them “Mona Lisa smile women”. Don’t you get it; she’s smiling but, is she happy, sad, satisfied. Does it matter; she’s a painting. As long as she’s pretty, cute, lovely, brainless then she’s a woman .trust me, I’m not against them. I do want what they want but they are making it worse for us women, and even for men. The impact of unsatisfied, low self-esteem, unhappy, cruel women is showing on men, they are the other half, remember!!
You know what, I’m not being ungrateful for these women who made it possible for me to write this article and speak my mind freely. But, it is time to stop this ideology and start to really consider women as equals to you, not because someone tells you or asks you or forces you by law to do it, but as a kind of your nice self image. I am just asking you to have this as an instinct in you, to make it come to you by nature because no one asks a mother to love her baby and sacrifice for him. So, why can’t one show the same respect to his own mankind, I’m only asking men (and even woman) who don’t agree with me to think forward into the future and see what the coming generations are going to see when they study the image of women today; they will see them living in a spiral, they look like they have it all and that they have been equal to men, but in fact they are only (and you might think that am harsh) puppets in the hands of men. Again, I’m not taking women’s (neither men’s) side, but I’m saying the truth and the truth hurts. As my article cones to an end, I just want to say that I consider it disrespectful to refer to any human being as “woman” or “man” ; we are all humans and we have good and bad in us. All you have to do is live with it as simple as it can be.
Written by: Israa A. Ameen

ISSUE NO 4: I AM A WOMAN (POEM)

I AM A WOMAN


I am a woman.
No!
You hear that no?
That’s the thing you don’t like me to show.
No, I am no maid following you,
I’m never walking behind,
I’m to lead you through.
I am a woman.
You hear that?
I am a woman.
You can cover my body,
You can cover my face,
But you still can hear my voice
Out into space
No, I can’t be shackled.
No, I can’t be chained.
Don’t treat me like a child
Playing with your games
I am a woman.
I am a goddess. I am fire and snow.
Not a little slave working for you.
I am a girl. I am a wife and sister.
I am a mother.
I wonder what you show off for,
Since you are one thing and ain’t another
You can oppress me down,
You can slay my throat,
I am still the queen
Sitting on my throne.
I am a woman
You ignorant.
I am a woman
You fool.
I am no puppet you can control
I am beautiful, charming and pretty
I wonder what you have and so  
    happy about
I am successful; independent, number one
I know I am not going to count on you
Or on any one
I have me and me is the one
I am a woman
And history told you so;
I can lead nations on my own
No, I don’t need no muscles,
I was born to struggle.
I am up to fight to win
And make your head spin.
I am also smart and cunning
I hold all the strength in the world within.
I am a woman;
Great glorious
Legend.
I am a woman.

Written by:
Aseel K. Mahmood