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The visit of Pope Benedict XVI has been used by his opponents to demonstrate against him. Who are they? They are a mixture between militant secularists and radical humanists. BBC has published their profile and can be read at BBC News - Papal visit: Pope Benedict XVI's opponents . The only group not mentioned in this profile is the radical Islamic group, which also demonstrated against the Pope.

The visit to the lion's nest has proved to be not harmful to the Pope Benedict XVI, who visited the UK 16-19 September 2010. The Pope team said even that the success has gone beyond their expectation. This is the resume of BBC: Pope's visit is deemed to challenge stereotypes .

Today I missed Germany a lot. Therefore I sat down and browsed German Newspapers. Die Welt wrote an article about " As a culture Islam will vanish ". In that article Die Welt published an interview with the Egyptian writer and scientist Hamad Abdel-Samad , who is also an expert in political science. At 23 he went to Germany to study. He was known as anti-Semitic and anti Western world. But now Hamad Abdel-Samad wants to reform Islam as a culture. It is really worth to read the interview . I just recommend it.

Today I visited the website of  guardian.co.uk . The article on the newest conflict between Lebanon and Israel attracted my attention. " Soldiers dead in Lebanon-Israel border clash ," wrote guardian.co.uk . I've heard and read a lot about the conflict between Arab and Israel, but I always have the feeling that I know very little. Sometimes I'm confused reading the news or articles on that topic, because very often they are bias and I don't know any more, what is true or false. This brief history from  guardian.co.uk  helped me to understand better.

One of the houses built as part of the rehabilitation and reconstruction projects in Nias, after the 2005 Nias earthquake (Photo: Private archive) Although emergency response after a big disaster is a challenging work, according to my experience the reconstruction and rehabilitation is the more challenging one. Basically to do emergency response is not more than distributing basic needs of the beneficiaries. The only challenge is to set up an prestigious distribution method, so that more beneficiaries can be reached in a rapid way. Reconstruction and rehabilitation presents itself more complicated than it seems in the first sight. Especially in the NGO way of work, i.e. to put a high value on participation and empowerment of the beneficiaries, this challenge will appear to be real. Working together with the beneficiaries to build a resilient community seems to be easy but in reality could be difficult and complicated. No wonder that many NGOs, even the big ones, t...

One of many coordination meetings with different groups and partners during my time as Programme Manager of Padang earthquake emergency response Can you spot me in that photo? (Photo: Private archive) I have been lucky to be part of emergency response in two (or three) emergencies: Aceh-Nias tsunami Dec 26th, 2004, Nias earthquake Mar 28th, 2005, and now Padang earthquake Sep 30th, 2009. In Nias tsunami relief I took only a very limited role. But after Nias earthquake I had to play a key role for 4 years in all aspects. February this year I started a totally new "life" in the sense without dealing with project management and all related matters. Half a year later Padang earthquake took me back. Although in Padang emergency response I don't play the key role, but I could be a witness of some critical issues need to be learnt. I want to write some lesson learnt from my experience in that three emergencies. For now I want to concentrate on scale of disaster. B...

When Dec 2004 the tsunami and then Mar 2005 the earthquake hit Nias Island, the Diocese of Sibolga decided to institute the Diocesan Caritas of Sibolga. Since the March 2005 earthquake Caritas Sibolga has provided emergency and reconstruction relief in communities throughout Nias, with the accompaniment of Caritas Italy and the support of Caritas Austria and CRS.