A variation of the ‘move my money’ scam. This is the first email I recall attempting to garner the sympathy vote by the sender writing he will die soon. This scam doesn’t get my sympathy.

—– Original Message —–

From:

To:

Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 5:51 PM

Subject: URGENT ASSISTANCE

>>

>> Dear sir,

>>

>> As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for

>> me, because, I believe everyone will die someday.

>>

>> My name is Saeed Ahmed a merchant in Dubai, in

>> the

>> U.A.E.I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer .

>>

>> It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and

>> right now I have only about a few months to live,

>> according to medical experts.

>>

>> I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I

>> never really cared for anyone(not even myself)but my

>> business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous,

>> I was always hostile to people and only focused on my

>> business as that was the only thing I cared for. But

>> now I regret all this as I now know that there is more

>> to life than just wanting to have

>> or make all the money in the world.

>>

>> I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to

>> this world I would live my life a different way from

>> how I have lived it. Now that God has called me, I

>> have willed and given most of my property and assets

>> to my immediate and extended family members as well as

>> a few close friends.

>>

>> I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so,

>> I have decided to give also to charity

>> organizations, as I want this to be one of the last

>> good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed

>> money to some charity organizations in the U.A.E,

>> Algeria and Malaysia. Now that my health has

>> deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself

>> anymore.

>>

>> I once asked members of my family to close

>> one of my accounts and distribute the money which I

>> have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and

>> Pakistan, they refused and kept the money to

>> themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as

>> they seem not to be contended with what I have left

>> for them.

>>

>> The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge

>> cash deposit of eighteen million dollars

>> $18,000,000,00 that I have with a finance/Security

>> Company abroad. I will want you to help me collect

>> this deposit and dispatched it to charity

>> organizations.

>>

>>

>> I have set aside 10% for you and for your time.

>>

>> God be with you.

>>

>> Saeed Ahmed.

>> E-Mail Address:MATGRA2005@NETSCAPE.NET

>>

>>

>>

>>

Loz, a friend and fellow UniSA AIESEC alumni is now on her way to Sweden to spend a year on the Swedish AIESEC national committee. Her blog, A Swedish Adventure, has just started. The only problem with the blog is one has to be a member of the actual blog to post a comment. Maybe that is a good thing…

A few weeks ago in Ankara, Betul had a wonderful idea to cook banana pancakes, inspired by her South East Asia trip. For the pancake base we ended up using ‘gozleme’, a large (about 60cm in diameter), round and very thin bread popular in Turkish cooking. The banana was wrapped in the gozleme and slow dry fried. In combination with either honey and lemon juice or peanut butter, the pancakes were delicious and well appreciated by the house residents except for two traditionalists, Beyza and Ozgur, who insisted on have white cheese (Turkish style) in the gozleme instead of the infidel banana.

In the past two days I have gone several steps further.

On Thursday night I made 3 different pancakes:

a) banana & chocolate

b) strawberry & Nutella, and

c) banana, strawberry, apricot, chocolate & Nutella.

Last night I devised a savoury version with barbequed chicken, yellow cheese, tomato and green chilli wrapped up in the gozleme. Dry (no oil or fat) frying in a saucepan is a great alternative for a kitchen with no oven or grill.

Gozleme pancakes will now be a regular addition to the menu at the Joe’s Ramblings bachelor pad.

NOTE: Sliced pitted black olives makes a great addition when added to above savoury version.

“…Gabriel Debbas was once the “prince of Beirut,” a powerful Lebanese banker who married a celebrated Hungarian ballerina. He founded Lebanon’s stock exchange and developed the world-famous Casino du Liban, a favorite haunt of Saudi Arabian royalty. He rubbed shoulders with presidents and prime ministers.”

Later in the article:

Debbas was born Dec. 31, 1909, in Mersin, Turkey, then the Ottoman Empire. The Debbas family was prominent, tracing its lineage to 800 A.D., with landholdings throughout the Middle East.

Read more at Prince and ballerina love story survived war, loss, move

Today, for the first time ever, Turkey’s official broadcaster, TRT, broadcast a television program in the main Kurdish dialect. This program is part of a series in minority languages, including Arabic and Bosnian. The Kurdish language broadcasting is the most important because the Kurds are by far the largest minority and ‘the Kurdish issue’ is arguably the biggest issue in modern Turkey. In 1998, if someone had claimed there would be Kurdish programming on Turkey’s national broadcaster they would’ve been laughed at (or thrown in prison for subversion).

It is yet to be seen whether this weekly broadcast will remain a token 30-minute effort to please the European Union or if it is the start of a major philosophical change.

Personally, I would like to see all Turkish people learn Kurdish, Arabic or another minority language as a second language at school, similar to the system in Switzerland. Every school student learning Kurdish (or another second language) would help demystify ‘the issue’, give greater recognition to all people in Turkey and assist in removing any basis for the PKK or similar terrorist groups. This would be a revolutionary change and I doubt it will happen for many years.

Some news reports concerning the Kurdish broadcast on TRT:

Associated Press

BBC

BBC again

Al Jazeera

AFP via EU Business

Addendum [12 June 2004]: An interesting Economist article on the broader Kurdish debate is here.

We are into the 2nd week of June and the summer weather has not yet arrived!

The children are on school holidays but the maximum temperature each day is still in the late 20’s to early 30’s centigrade. Many afternoons the stiff sea breeze often pushes open the door at work. With the high humidity the comfort factor is not a perfect 10, but I’m very happy to accept 8+1/2 every day!

Summer, with its 35-40 degree centigrade days, has usually reared its ugly head by now. Hooray for good weather!

Don’t worry, I will write when summer does come!

Click on the “Mersin’s Weather” link on the right hand side to find out the latest forecast.

On Friday night I bought my first ice cream from Ali’s and Derya’ shop. Every summer they set up in the same location. A cone topped by 6 different flavours of ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, melon, pistachio, strawberry + 1 other) and dipped in desiccated coconut is still 500,000 TL. This is the same price as 2003, possibly even 2002, amazing for Turkey, given the country’s tradition of rising prices. As well as devouring an ice cream myself, I gave one to Huseyin abi, my shopkeeper friend.

Saturday evening I spent at Hanifi amca’s place. Along with my neighbour was his nephew from Nizip, Gaziantep and two other visitors. It was a good night of meze and accompanying alcoholic beverages. One of the visitors had spent 8 years in Chechnya. To shoe for tis time, he spoke Russian and had two bullet-hole scars- one on his inner forearm, the other on his torso.

Yesterday, after a Turkish breakfast, again at Hanifi’s, I walked upstream along the river. To my joy, I ‘discovered’ another weekly bazaar. At a few places along the river boys were playing in the water. I guess the boys have a good immune system. The river water at the start of summer (when the level is low) and this far downstream can’t be very healthy.

I brought my bazaar-purchased plastic containers, tea holder, tomatoes, eggplant, strawberries and melon back along the river home. By the time I came home I was thirsty. I made a delicious soda-ayran yoghurt drink in my 1 litre Efes Pilsen beer mug. Directions: Shake up 400 gm yoghurt, water, ice and a few shakes of salt. Pour into the glass. Add 300 ml soda water. Enjoy! The soda water creates frothy bubbles and gives the ayran a zing.

Yesterday evening I strolled to the yacht harbour in the beautiful late afternoon light. Near ‘Luna Park’ there are three tea gardens: the Luna Park cafe and two further gardens. I drank tea and wrote about my aims and goals for the present and future. This is something I should do more often. When almost home, I smelt marijuana in the night breeze. It probbaly came from a nearby tea house. Unless my memory is hazy, this is the first ever time I have smelt (or noticed) marijuana in Turkey. I know it exists, but I never want to get mixed up in it.

Today I received a non-spam email sent to my previous Yahoo! account. It was from Mattias, a Swede I met in Dogubeyazit, far Eastern Turkey in December 2002 and coincidentally, again in Damascus 1 month later.

In Dogubeyazit, Mattias was coming from Iran on his way through Syria to meet up with a group in Jordan for a tour of Iraq. Prior to Dogubeyazit he travelled through Russia to China and back west through the Central Asian Republics. By the time I met him he was sick of travel and required something special to excite him. The Iraq tour, only 4 months before the US/UK (plus token allies) invasion, was that something special. When I bumped into him again, after the tour, in Damascus, his friend showed me photos of Iraq.

Pre-invasion photos of Iraq and many, many other countries are displayed on his fantastic photography website: www.mattiasgustafsson.com. I hope you enjoy them!