Highlights
The Leaping Hope
Morality, Sexuality,
and Globalism
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The Foundation
for the Messiah
Sun-Myung Moon
Motto for 2005
Nur abdur Rashid
The Torque
of Remembrance
Features:
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The War On Terror
Institutionalized Terror
Historisists...
Israeli-Palestinian
North-South Koreans
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Completed Testament
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Sexual Indentity
Species-Race Identity
Let It Be
UN.ORG
Infonation
Jacob Lund Fisker
GENUINE PROGRESS INDICATOR-- GPI
Rosemary Horton
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World and U.S. Indices
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Previous Reports
Waseem Shehzad
Two years after 9/11
William Bunch
Why Don't We Have Answers to These 9/11 Questions?
Geobopological Survey
Assorted Secret Societies (true/false)
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Our World Today
the good and the bad...
General News
...
Some of the Good
Jan Krikke
Thinking the unthinkable, a Confucian union
Apr 7, 2005 -- JOMTIEN, Thailand -- In 10 to 15 years East Asia will form a political-economic union along the lines of the European Union. It will follow the reunification of the two Koreas, likely to occur around 2007. A "Confucian" union will integrate Japan into East Asia the way the EU integrated Germany into Europe. By about 2020, the East Asia Union will be the world's most powerful bloc, ahead of the EU and US-led North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA). And its core will be China.
Amazing? Credible? Incredible? Making these bold predictions is Lawrence Taub, an American futurist living in Tokyo, who recently visited Thailand. Taub has a long record of forecasting global trends in astonishing detail. In the 1970s, he predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall, Iran's Islamic Revolution, and the entry of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). His most recent book, which includes some of these futurist concepts, is The Spiritual Imperative: Sex, Age, and the Last Caste.
Severin Carrell
At last the truth about acupuncture:
it's as good as drugs for treating pain
Critics of the ancient Chinese therapy say it is no better than a placebo. But a new study using brain-mapping shows it has a similar effect to standard Western medicines
01 May 2005 -- Sceptics have long claimed that acupuncture is all in the mind. But a ground-breaking new study has found that the ancient Chinese practice is as effective as popular painkillers for treating disabling conditions such as arthritis.
Sun-Myung Moon
51st Anniversary of the Founding of HSA-UWC
May 1, 2005 - Blue Sea Garden, Yeosu
... A few days ago, I announced the "Association for Finding Our Original Roots. What is this association? It is a movement that seeks to establish the true love, true life, and true lineage of heaven because therein lies the fundamental root of humankind, who has lived as the false olive tree for tens of thousands of years. This movement is a revolution on a providential level through which humankind can be engrafted to the True Parents, who came as the true olive tree, through the blessing marriage, and receive the root of the true olive tree...
AsiaNews
Buddha’s birthday is a celebration
for all Koreans, says Archbishop of Seoul
Mgr Cheong Jin-suk hopes Catholics and Buddhists “can work together in solidarity” to defeat hatred, which is “against our two religions”
SOUTH KOREA, Seoul -- 6 May, 2005 -- Mgr Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, Archbishop of Seoul, sent a message of congratulations to the 13 million Korean Buddhists who are preparing to celebrate the birthday of the Buddha on May 15.
Tim Tanton
Nation of Islam leader
preaches Scripture to group of bishops
WASHINGTON -- May 4, 2005 (UMNS) -- A group of United Methodist bishops meeting with Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan say they received a strong affirmation of Jesus and set the stage for possible future dialogue.
"He preached," said Bishop Violet Fisher, who leads the denomination’s New York West Area. Farrakhan started with Genesis and preached all the way to Revelation, she said.
"The key to that is our obedience to God and living the word of Jesus Christ," Fisher said, summing up part of the Muslim cleric’s remarks to the group.
Rev. Michael Jenkins
Building Trust With Religious Leaders
in The Holy Land
January 2005 . . . We need each other. The people of God must come together as one to truly bring love and unity to families, communities, and societies. As we unite, the condition is set to cause the forces of evil to lose their power.
Yo-Han Lee
Who Washed Your Fallen Nature?
The life of faith exists in order to remove your fallen nature. It is not God or Jesus but the person of more sinfulness than you who removed your fallen nature. Existing churches believe that Jesus saves them. That is not true. The person who has more fallen nature than you only can wash your fallen nature. Then in this life the person whom you hate most and dislike most takes care of your fallen nature. The way to remove it is to connect yourself with God's position on one hand and be persecuted yourself by those people on the other. Unless you have God on one hand, you cannot bear it. . . .
Some of the Mid-lands
BBC
Galloway takes on US oil accusers
Wayne Madsen
Committee documents show Bush political friends
and family paid Oil-for-Food kickbacks to Hussein
The total sum in kickbacks from George W. Bush's cousin-in-laws to Saddam's bank accounts: $1,294,620.
Molly Ivins
Don't blame Newsweek
Despite sloppiness,
Newsweek didn't fabricate Koran story
Sidney Blumenthal
The good soldier's revenge
In Colin Powell's battle to block Bush's nominee to the UN, far more is at stake than John Bolton's unsuitability
Thursday April 28, 2005 -- From the redoubt of his retirement, former secretary of state Colin Powell is beginning to exact revenge. His sterling reputation was soiled, having lost most of the important battles within the administration during the first term. While he lamented that he had been "deceived" into presenting false information before the United Nations to justify the Iraq war, he acted as the good soldier to the end, giving every sign of desiring to fade away.
Article continues
But now he has re-emerged to conduct a campaign to defeat President Bush's nomination of conservative hardliner and former undersecretary of state John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN.
In seeking to prevent the bullying and duplicitous ideologue from representing the US before the international organisation, Powell is engaging in hand-to-hand combat with his successor. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's first true test has not arrived from abroad. Caught by Powell's flanking movement, she is trapped in a crisis of credibility, which she herself is deepening...
Scott Ritter
Snapshot in time
05/01/05... "I told the marines we were there to begin a process and turn it over to other marines," Lopez said of his time in al-Qaim. "Ours was a snapshot in time."
Another marine battalion now occupies al-Qaim. Far from the optimistic mission of "nation building" the marines of 3/7 had embarked on in April 2004, the marines of the third battalion, second marines are more concerned with security and stability operations.
In early April 2005, these marines withstood a massive assault on their positions by more than 100 enemy fighters, equipped with mortars and explosive-laden vehicles.
The marines repelled the attack, suffering no significant losses, through a combination of skill, bravery and good fortune.
The "snapshot in time" Lopez spoke of is a much different one for the marines of 3/2. And it is a far cry from any viable notion of victory that could be imagined when listening to General Myers' speak of "winning" the war in Iraq.
Go tell it to the marines, General Meyers. You might be surprised by the answer you get.
Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, and a former major in the US marines, having served for 12 years, including in the first Gulf War in 1991. Author of Iraq Confidential, to be published by IB Tauris (London) in the Summer of 2005.
Some of the Bad
Tim Golden
Dilawar was chained by his wrists
to the top of his cell in Bagram for several days
before he died and his legs had been pummelled by guards.
A CONFIDENTIAL report by the United States army has found that a young taxi driver who died at the Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan had been tortured for days by American soldiers.
Spiegel
The West's Role in Uzbekistan Violence
Nat Hentoff
Uzbekistan teaches interrogators how to
boil suspected terrorists to death
... "drowning and suffocation, rape was used . . . and also immersion of limbs in boiling liquid" and "[t]wo nights later on ABC's World News Tonight, Craig Murray told of photos he received of an Uzbek interrogation that ended with the prisoner actually being boiled to death!"
Solomon Moore
In Brothers, Two Faces of the Iraq Insurgency
Ali was driven by Islam and Khalid by revenge. Their family has paid a price for their choices.
Derrick Z. Jackson
The insular American
April 29, 2005 -- NOBEL LAUREATE Wole Soyinka used to ask people not to exaggerate the insularity of Americans by saying things like: ''Can you imagine the Americans? Nobody else plays baseball and yet they call their series the World Series." He used to say, ''C'mon, that's not the issue. That's superficial."
He does not defend us anymore. ''I'm sorry," he says, chuckling. ''I've come around to the conclusion that it's not superficial at all, that it is an index we better be aware of."
Soyinka, who turned 70 last year, is in Cambridge to be honored by Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute. In an interview yesterday, Soyinka, who has braved death many times in his native, turbulent Nigeria, says that for all of our technology, Americans are now among the most insular and least curious people in the world.
He says it remains common for him to hear people wonder whether Africa is still colonized by the British, and conflate world events to where ''they think the Yugoslav war was taking place in Asia against Chinese Communists." He says Americans' lack of curiosity is stunning.
''It doesn't matter whether it's blacks, it doesn't matter the class, it doesn't matter the level of education," Soyinka says. ''Some of the most brilliant of my colleagues in universities here are so insular that it hurts. I find it very difficult...
Marguerite Laurent
Yvon Neptune forced into exile
05/01/05 "ICH" - - If Prime Minister Yvon Neptune is flown out of Haiti, without his liberation orders and unconditional released having been signed by a Haitian judge, he wants the world to know he did not leave Haiti willingly - that he was forced into exile. It was simply another kidnapping...
If, Neptune is flown to the Dominican Republic, or anywhere else, as reported by AP, for any purposes whatsoever, and a liberation order acknowledging his wrongful incarceration has not been signed, then Prime Minister Neptune, through his family, wants the world to know, he was forced to leave, that he was kidnapped out of Haiti against his will and sent to exile in the same fashion as President Aristide...
Agence France Presse
State of US Incarcerations:
1 in every 138 Americans is behind bars
TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2005 -- WASHINGTON: The US prison population, already the largest in the world, reached a new high of more than 2.1 million last year, with one in every 138 residents of the country now behind bars, according to new government statistics.
The data, made public by the Bureau of Justice Statistics on Sunday, put the US far ahead of countries like China and Russia, whose combined population is about five times that of America....
The rate of incarceration reached a record of 726 inmates per 100,000 residents — up from 716 a year earlier. By comparison, the current incarceration rate in Britain is 142 per 100,000 citizens, in China 118, in France 91, and in Japan 58, according to the Justice Policy Institute.
Robert Galliher
A SPOKESMAN-REVIEW INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
Letter from Robert Galliher -- Sent 1/15/2004
SPOKANE, Washington -- May 5, 2005 -- The following is a letter Rob Galliher wrote in January 2004 and sent to Mic Hunter, a St. Paul, Minn., psychologist and author of "Abused Boys," a book on sex abuse. Galliher said he was looking for help from Hunter when he wrote the letter, which accuses Jim West [Mayor of Spokane] of sexual abuse. Excerpts from a Spokesman-Review interview with Robert Galliher are published here, as well...
Tom Flocco
Witness says abducted children--23 now dead--abused by 20-30 pedophile members of congress at child sex parties
Cherryl Aldave
The Margie Schoedinger Case
Woman Who Filed Sex Based Lawsuit
Against President George W. Bush
Found Dead -- November/01/2004
TBR News
The Real Jeff Gannon?
Alistair Foster
Fears of trade in children as 300 boys disappear
Bo-Hi Pak
Watergate: Tragic Failures
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
War(s) On Terror
...
Agence France Presse
Can there be good terrorism and bad terrorism?
Terror suspect Posada Carriles
charged with illegal entry into US
Nat Hentoff
A deal with the devil
Washington Times Editorials Op-Ed
Isn't this liaison between the CIA and the Mukhabarat a necessary, vital act of self-defense by the United States against those who now murder our soldiers in Iraq, and may still yet come here?
But does it matter that the head of the Mukhabarat, intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Salah Abdallah Gosh, who used to have regular contacts with Osama bin Laden in Sudan and is now in contact with CIA boss Porter Goss, has been accused by members of Congress of planning military attacks on black African civilians in Darfur? By being involved with and indebted to Bashir and Gosh, what is our responsibility for the rising death toll in Darfur?
Jude Wanniski
Conservative Warns Lugar:
Bolton Is a True Force of Darkness
Memo To: Richard Lugar,
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: An Anti-Diplomat at the U.N.?
Dear Senator, you've known me for more than 30 years, from your days as Mayor of Indianapolis and my days as associate editor of The Wall Street Journal. When I tell you John Bolton is a true force of darkness, you can be sure I do not do so lightly. "Darkness" in this sense is the absence of light and Bolton is a protégé of Richard Perle, who has been known for decades in Washington as "The Prince of Darkness..."
Robyn E. Blumner
"Striking a Blow for Dissent"
The St. Petersburg Times -- Sunday 01 May 2005
Joseph Mayer, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, fought as a soldier for this nation but then was denied its freedoms because of a police department that viewed political protest as something to be squashed...
Raiders News Update
Eighty-eight members of Congress call on
Bush for answers on secret Iraq plan
Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
In a letter, Conyers and other members say they are disappointed the mainstream media has not touched the revelations.
"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."
Ben Stocking
Vietnam War's Painful Legacy:
Mines, other explosives still kill and maim.
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
War(s) of Terror -- Africa Again?
JAMES RON
U.S. doing the right thing in Sudan
Riek Machar
COLONIAL BRITIAN HANDS OVER
SOUTH SUDAN TO THE NORTH
Olivier Barlet
The modernity of genocide
A burning question remains : why the horror ?
. . . What is behind the genocides of the twentieth century if it is not the egocentrism and insecurity accompanying the affirmation of the individual's autonomy which characterizes modernity ? The temptation to project onto the other what is ours is strong. And a Rwandan proverb tells us : "Nta wiyanga nk'uwanga undi (Nobody hates himself more than he who hates others)".
In their quest to surpass, artists open themselves up to all influences and facilitate the removal of projections. They thus explore a fraternity in which the identities of each and everyone are no longer the centre of human identities : not a fraternity of blood, but a fraternity of sharing.
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
What is Institutionalised Terror
?
Juan Cole
Guantanamo Controversies:
The Bible and the Koran
William H. Tucker
The Funding of Scientific Racism
Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund
Aljazeera
No end to destruction in Falluja
United Press International
Some detainees were degraded by forcible enemas
Yorum Gat
The Year in Torture
The following are forms of maltreatment visited upon prisoners by U.S. personnel during 2004. The list was compiled from articles detailing information in official U.S. documents. Allegations by prisoners that were not supported by official documents were not included...
Andrew Buncombe and Kim Sengupta
Secret U.S. Jails Hold 10,000
Professor Manning Marable
9/11: Racism in a Time of Terror
I think that as Americans, we must also make a clear distinction between "guilt" and "responsibility." The Al Qaeda group is indeed guilty of committing mass murder. But the United States government is largely responsible for creating the conditions for reactionary Islamic fundamentalism to flourish. During Reagan's administration, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) provided over three billion dollars to finance the mujahadeen's guerilla war against the Soviet Union's military presence in Afghanistan. The CIA used Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, or secret police, to equip and train tens of thousands of Islamic fundamentalists in the tactics of guerilla warfare. . . .
There is a clear link between 9/11 and the shameful political maneuvering committed by the U.S. at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, only days before the terrorist attacks. There the U.S. government opposed the definition of slavery as "a crime against humanity." It refused to acknowledge the historic and contemporary effects of colonialism and racial segregation on the underdevelopment and oppression of the non-European world. The majority of dark humanity is saying to the United States that racism and militarism are not the solutions to the world's major problems. Transnational capitalism and the repressive neoliberal policies of structural adjustment represent a dead end for the developing world. We can only end the threat of terrorism by addressing constructively the routine violence of poverty, hunger, and exploitation that characterize the daily existence of several billion people on this planet. Racism is, in the final analysis, only another form of violence. . . .
Thom Hartmann
The Genetically Modified Bomb
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
Historisists... Ain't that odd
?
Warren Hedges
New Historicism Explained
Pallava Bagla
Out of Africa,
India first stop for first human’s long march?
Onge, Great Andamanese tribes help Hyderabad scientists show that India was first stop in human migration
Mario Seiglie
DNA: The Tiny Code That's Toppling Evolution
Karina Longworth
Matrix Controversy: What We Know
Cinematical.com -- Apr 7, 2005 -- Here's a breakdown of everything we know about the Sophia Stewart/Matrix/Possible Big Media Cover-up at this time:
* Sophia Stewart (who sometimes goes by the pseudonym Zenia Kavala) wrote a six-page sci-fi treatment in May of 1981 which she titled The Third Eye. Two years later, she completed a 45-page manuscript by the same title. She copyrighted the treatment in February of 1983, and the manuscript in February of 1984.
* Legal documents assert that Stewart delivered her six-page treatment into the hands of Susan Merzback, then VP of Creative Affairs at Twentieth Century Fox, in May 1981. Beginning in November 1983, Stewart and her agent at the time, Ester Duffie, spent a year and a half trying to get the manuscript into the hands of various staffers at that studio. They were told that the studio could not accept the submission of her manuscript unless it was forwarded by an agent in cahoots with the WGA.
* In 1986, Stewart saw an ad in a magazine soliciting submissions of science-fiction material. She subsequently sent both her manuscript and her treatment to Larry and Andy Wachowski. She never heard back from them, and they did not return her writings.
* All was quiet until Spring of 1999, when Stewart became aware of the impending release of a film and comic book titled The Matrix. After seeing the film, Stewart became convinced that her intellectual property had been appropriated, and began a communication with Warner Brothers that went on well into 2001.
radioislam.com
Talk Radio: Live Streaming
Host: Frederick Al-Deen
Guest: Sophia Stewart, Author of "The Third Eye"
Topic: Interview with "The Mother of the "Matrix"
January 24th--Stewart is plaintiff in a law suit alleging the Wachowsky brothers violated Stewart's copyright by fashioning the movie, "The Matrix."
David Icke
Was Hitler a Rothschild?
Remember.Org
More "Hitler, Jewish?" Resources
Charlotte Hsu
UCLA physicists have world on a string theory
String theorists at UCLA gather Wednesday mornings to talk about the world as they see it, a place so bizarre it tears common intuition to shreds.
There are 11 dimensions – one of time and 10 of space – instead of the conventional four.
The smallest particles that make up matter, like electrons and the quarks that constitute protons and neutrons in atoms, are not points, as previously thought. Instead, each elementary particle is a tiny, tense loop of string, like a one-dimensional rubber band, whose length is usually 10-33 centimeters.
The strings' vibrations at varying energies give elementary particles their characteristics, which include their spins and masses. A similar concept explains how string instruments work: The note a guitar string produces depends on how hard a musician plucks it...
Lawrence Pintak
"Something Has To Change":
Blacks In American Buddhism
Mark Steyn
Renaissance Platonism
The reality is a bit different: the philosophical instinct in the Italian Renaissance was to synthesize thought systems, to find a common, universal philosophy that encompasses a broad range of human thought. The greatest of these synthesizers was the Neoplatonic philosopher, Pico della Mirandola, who attempted to synthesize Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Hebrew thought, Jewish mysticism, Arabic philosophy, and a whole host of others into a single philosophical system.
Asghar Ali Engineer
ISLAM AND SECULARISM
... Now the question is whether Islam as a religion is compatible with
secularism? Does it aim at setting up an Islamic state and nothing
less? Can there be a Muslim country with a secular state? These are
some of the crucial questions one has to answer in order to deal with
the subject of Islam and secularism. Of course, we should remember
that there cannot be uncontested answers. Every answer that we attempt
would be, and could be, contested by those with differing viewpoint.
Ours is a liberal and inclusive approach and we will, of course,
attempt answer from this viewpoint...
Anthony Judge
Patterns of the Past
Christian Complicity in Global Disorder
Exposition of the Principle
The Foundation for the Messiah
... In conclusion, Jacob was victorious in taking responsibility for
the indemnity course to pay for Abraham's mistake. By using his wisdom
for the sake of God's Will, Jacob triumphed as an individual in his
struggle with Esau to win the birthright. He entered Haran and, as a
family, triumphed in a twenty-one-year struggle with his uncle Laban
to win the birthright. On his way back from Haran to Canaan, Jacob was
victorious in the fight with the angel. He was the first fallen man to
fulfill the indemnity condition to restore dominion over the angel.
Thereupon, he received the name "Israel,"75(Gen. 32:28)RS|KJ|NI
signifying that he set the pattern and laid the groundwork upon which
the chosen people would be established. After returning to Canaan with
these victories, Jacob won Esau's heart, and together they fulfilled
the indemnity condition to remove the fallen nature.
Jacob thus victoriously completed the model course to bring Satan to
submission. Moses, Jesus, and even the people of Israel would walk
this course after the pattern set by Jacob. The history of Israel can
serve as a good historical source for understanding the course to
bring Satan to submission on the national level. For this reason, it
is central to the study of the providence of restoration.
Shamsul A. B.
Malaysia's International Role Post-September 11
Shamsul A. B. is Professor of Social Anthropology and currently
Director, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization (ATMA),
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
Rudolph Steiner
Ahriman
Robert S. Mason
Baconian and Goethean Science
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
Israeli-Palestinian Re-unification
...
Jude Wanniski
Israel guns for Iran
Tuesday 19 April 2005 -- When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited President George Bush at the White House on 11-12 April, the news coming out of the meetings should have been dominated by the president's displeasure with Sharon permitting the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
Instead, the New York Times headline on 13 April was Sharon Asks US to
Pressure Iran on Nuclear Arms.
In other words, the best defence is a good offence. Sharon, of course,
knew his decision to permit expansion of a West Bank settlement, near
Jerusalem, by 3500 units would be seen in Washington as a
contravention of the road map in the peace process.
Washington diplomats were stunned, seeing it as a move practically
calculated to undermine the authority of Palestinian President Mahmud
Abbas, who is trying as hard as he can to believe that Sharon is
acting in good faith.
Zvi Bar'el
The pretext behind `confiscating weapons'
It is difficult to understand the new excuse Israel is presenting for postponing implementation of the road map. Ostensibly, it is a logical and reasonable issue, which is even contained in the terms of the road map: confiscation of illegal weapons and waging war against "the infrastructure of terror." In fact, this is a vague condition that functions well as a barrier that can be easily deployed again and again, in an attempt at blocking any diplomatic progress.
Sami Moubayed
The waxing of the Shi'ite crescent
... Shi'ite resurgence?
Two years after the fall of Saddam's regime in Iraq, it is safe to ask: Who were the real victors in this bloody war of the Middle East in 2003? At first glance, the only victors were George W Bush and the neo-conservatives at the White House. A closer look would show, however, that Iran as well, ironically, has a lot to gain from the new Middle East...
Reuters
German neo-Nazi march halted
on WW2 anniversary
BERLIN - A neo-Nazi march in Berlin was stopped by thousands of anti-fascist demonstrators on Sunday after a tense standoff that overshadowed Germany's ceremonies marking the end of World War Two in Europe 60 years ago.
Berlin police said 6,000 demonstrators opposed to the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) crowded into streets around Alexanderplatz square where 3,300 right-wing extremists gathered to protest what they called a German "cult of guilt".
Amira Howeidy
Poetry is politics
Arabic is Arabic, a girl is a girl and the land is, well, the land: Tamim Al-Barghouthi tells Amira Howeidy about the poetics of Arab identity
"When Baghdad fell, I suddenly shed the fear deportation had instilled in me. I felt it wasn't so much my relationship with Egypt as everything, even God, that was under threat. It is the greatest Arab calamity in the last 1,000 years of Arab history, more terrible that losing Palestine in 1948 and 1967, more terrible than and every single Arab defeat since the first fall of Baghdad under the Moguls and the end of the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq. It was as if every conscious Arab lost an arm, an eye, a leg or a head on the same day."
Jude Wanniski
Is Iran Building a Nuke?
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
North and South Korean Re-unification
...
Jude Wanniski
Our North Korean Mess
Memo To: Nicholas Kristof, NYTimes
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Just for the Fun of It
... What's going on? In 1994, it was the United States that persuaded North Korea to stop work on the nuclear power plant it was building, which could produce plutonium that could find its way into a nuke. Instead, we would help it build cold-water reactors that would give them the electric power they need and not produce the fissile material that would be suitable for nukes. But you have to realize we never intended to fulfill our part of the deal. I wrote about this here on November 6, 2003 in A Little Joke We Played on Pyongyang...
Han S. Park
North Korea: The Politics of
Unconventional Wisdom
Synopsis:
Despite isolation, an impoverished economy, mass starvation, and the challenge of leadership succession, North Korea's socialist state continues to survive. Han Park explores the reasons for this resilience, concentrating on the implications of mass beliefs and political ideology for the country's political life. Park begins with an examination of Juche, or self-reliance, the ideology that so pervasively penetrates the entire spectrum of North Korean society and guides political behavior at all levels. Drawing on personal interviews and on-site observations, he finds a belief system that is comparable to a theology, and a society that exhibits many characteristics of a religious community. In this context, he discusses regime legitimacy, the economy, foreign and defense policy, and the politics of reunification, as well as the regime's reaction to the market forces of globalization. It is Juche, Park concludes, that is the locus of North Korea's political culture, central to understanding its politics and policies. Though far from proposing a single-factor explanation of the North Korean system, he demonstrates convincingly that an understanding of the country's doctrine of self-reliance is essential to an understanding of the country itself.
Excerpt:
"During the 600 years of the Yi Dynasty, there was a strong effort on the part of the elite to Confucianize the society. One distinct feature of Korean Confucianism was its emphasis on familial structure. In its teachings to children, the inward and familial relationships were emphasized far more than the outward relationships between friends and the ruler or the nation. thus Korean children were taught Confucian familialism almost solely, and the nationalistic or patriotic elements of confucianims were deemphasized. The Korean texts ranked the importance of the five Confucian relationships in the following order: father-son, husband-wife, old-young, friend-friend, and ruler-subject...
"During the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 until 1945. Japanese influences affected the form and structure of Korean Confucianism... The primary difference between between Japanese Confucianism and Korean Confucianism is the rank order of importance of the five Confucian relationships. In contrast to the Korean version, the Japanese version places the greatest emphasis on the ruler-subject relationship and much less emphasis on the father-son relationship. Thus the generation born after 1919 confronted a confusing mix of Confucianism..." (Han S. Park, pp.11-12)
This 'confusion of the mix of Confucianism' is powerfully portrayed in a stirring Korean, blockbuster film. "Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War" (where "Taegukgi" is the nickname for the South Korean flag--Like "The Stars and Stripes" or "Old Glory" for the U.S. flag; in fact the movie is rather reminiscent of the U.S. Civil War epic, "Glory").
IMDb.com
Taegukgi - Hwinalrimyeo (2004)
Directed and Written by Kang, Je-Gyu
Plot Outline: A drama about the fate of brothers forced to fight in the Korean War. (Follow the link above for many good reviews and discussions.)
Lee Joo-hee
Korea, China concerned over
Washington-N.K. word war
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing yesterday shared deep concern over the spate of invective exchanged recently between the United States and North Korea...
"The (two ministers) agreed the exchange of antagonistic words between the United States and North Korea only worsens the current situations and that such a move will not help solve the nuclear quagmire," he said in a news briefing on the Korea-China ministerial talks in Kyoto...
TruthOfDokdo.Or.Kr
History of Dokdo (Korean Perspective)
Ichiro Ue / Yomiuri Shimbun
An island dispute with a past (Japanese Perspective)
Takeshima/Tokdo - March 30, 2005
Mark S. Lovmo
The 1948 Bombing of Dokdo Island
Analysis of the Evidence
Jung Sung-ki
Roh Urges Japan to Take Actions
``What the South Korean government and people want is not new apologies from Japan, but concrete reparations suitable to the apologies already made,’’ Roh said. He said there will not be an official demand for a new apology from Tokyo at the government level.
``Another apology without action will instead cause public unease with the Japanese government,’’ the president said...
Krista Kim
Korea still hot in Japan despite political chill
TOKYO - Many would have predicted the demise of the Korean Wave after the recent anti-Japanese protests in Seoul, but Japanese fans are still fueling the K-pop industry, including magazine sales. Korean entertainment magazines are a hot industry in Japan, with new mastheads sprouting every month, filling "Korean Wave" bookstore shelves throughout the country.
Korea and Japan may seem to be at odds in the headlines, but many Japanese feel closer to Koreans than ever. As a Korean born in Japan, Song Shin-young, editor-in-chief of "Hot Chili Paper," a popular bi-monthly Korean entertainment magazine, understands this paradox first hand.
Park Soo-Mee
The glowing allure of Buddha's birthday
April 29, 2005 ㅡ If light is a symbol of God's presence for Christians, a glowing lantern is the equivalent for Buddhists seeking nirvana.
The oldest reference to lighted lanterns in Buddhism comes from an Indian legend where a young Buddha prays in a room splashed with flower petals and offers his lantern to God.
Moon Sun-Myung
North and South, East and West; Proclaiming "God's Fatherland and the Era of the Peace Kingdom" in 2004
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
African Re-unification
...
Nat Hentoff
An Ally from Hell
CIA's close relationship with Sudan's government
enables genocide there to continue.
OXFAM
The situation in Darfur remains desperate.
While the country celebrates peace in the North South conflict that has raged for 21 years, another conflict – that in Darfur – continues.
More than 2 million people have already been forced to flee their homes, many having seen their families killed, abducted, abused or raped. The UN estimates that at least 70,000 people have died since the start of the conflict.
Despite being hampered by insecurity and poor roads, and the sheer scale of the crisis, Oxfam is helping over 700,000 people in Darfur and Chad, working with communities to fight the spread of disease and save lives. We are providing vital clean water, building latrines, installing washing facilities, and distributing essential items such as buckets and jerry cans for carrying water, soap, sanitary cloths, clean clothes, ground sheets, blankets and plastic sheeting for building shelters. Oxfam works closely with communities, and in particular with women’s groups, to understand their needs and priorities.
Thalif Deen
African Force Too Weak to Stop Darfur Killings
- Armed with a mandate to stop the widespread atrocities in the violence-prone western region of Darfur in Sudan, a militarily weak African Union (AU) monitoring force is finding itself weighed down by a shortage of troops, funds, logistical support and communications equipment... -- UNITED NATIONS, Mar 1 (IPS)
The AU needs logistical support for a region that has few paved roads; aerial operations to prevent the unending government bombardments; transport and logistics to accommodate a full force; as well as satellite and other technical support to protect civilians.
”The international community seems unwilling to deliver these key resources,” Woods said. She also said that the AU mission must eventually be handed to a U.N. force that is able to establish a more permanent presence in Darfur, as it soon will in southern Sudan.
Last week, Annan told the Security Council that the proposed 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Sudan, which will monitor a peace agreement that followed a 21-year-old civil war, will cost about one billion dollars in the first year of operation.
But this force will not be involved in any peacekeeping mission in Darfur in western Sudan.
Meanwhile, in a report released last month, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that that eyewitnesses in south Darfur asserted that government-backed Janjaweed militias attacked villages and singled out young women and girls for rape.
Male relatives who protested were beaten, stripped naked, tied to trees and forced to watch the rape of the women and girls. In some cases, HRW said, the men were then branded with a hot knife as a mark of their humiliation.
Todd Bensman
The Herero say the 20th century's bleak
history of genocide started with them
in this small, dusty farming burg in Namibia, once the German colony of South-West Africa.
From 1904 to 1915, the Kaiser's troops systematically exterminated as many as 80,000 Herero, a scarcely known slaughter of Teutonic efficiency that produced forced labor camps, sex slaves and the first academic "studies" of supposed Aryan superiority...
It may be that the history itself stands in opposition to Herero claims. The tribe is hardly the only victim of European colonial atrocities in Africa. Belgians under King Leopold II slaughtered native Congolese wholesale during the last century. The French brutalized natives in Equatorial Africa. The British killed natives throughout the continent.
But African history specialists say the German campaign against the Herero was unique.
"This is not tribal conquest. This is actual genocide," said Dr. Atieno Odhiambo, professor of 20th century African history at Rice University. "In terms of scale of destruction, there's really nothing to compare in sub-Saharan Africa. This was deliberate policy."
Still, MIT's Ms. Wildenthal said one reason no European power seems eager to take up the Herero cause is fear that a payoff would invite multitudes of similar claims for colonial-era crimes.
"Imagine what Britain would owe," she said. "I don't think any former colonial power will go anywhere near this."
Maxine Waters
Congresswoman Waters urges
Democratic Senators to investigate
John Bolton's role in improper arms shipments to Haiti -- March 02, 2005
Wikipedia
Togo : President Eyadéma, who ruled Togo under a one-party system for nearly 25 of his 37 years in power, died February 5, 2005.
Yvon Neptune
Haiti : Letter From Prime Minister
Yvon Neptune -- March 04, 2005
Ellen Knickmeyer
Ivory Coast:
Why the One-Time "Paris of Africa"
Is Sliding Into War, and Why It Matters
An AP News Analysis
Salih Booker & Ann-Louise Colgan
Africa Policy Outlook 2004
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
Completed Testament
...
Good News / bad news
Frontlines / Spiritual-Physical Resurrection
...
Reverend Sun-Myung Moon
Rally to Advance the Realization of
the Settlement of Cheon-il Guk:
The Restoration of Our True God's Homeland
March 4, 2005 -- Cheong-Pyung, South Korea
... God must fulfill the purpose of His providence on this earth, without fail. Then what will be the result of the fulfillment of His will? It will be that God can save all the people in this world and have dominion over them as His children. The will of providence has indeed been yearning for this to happen.
If you die without restoring a nation on this earth during your lifetime, you will be unable to have the value of a true person who belongs to the heavenly kingdom. You must go to the spirit world on the basis of having been under the reign of God's dominion on earth. That is the original standard of God's creation.
Dear members, throughout my entire life to this day, I have lived without any interest in worldly things. My lifelong desire is encapsulated in the following statements: "Should I not die in that nation that God can protect? Wouldn't my entire life be miserable if I failed to live in that way? Thus, I must seek that kingdom and live there, even if it is for just one day, before I die."
Rev. Michael Jenkins
Building Trust With Religious Leaders
in The Holy Land
American Clergy Leadership Conference
Exchanging the Cross for the Crown
Christian Leaders to Carry Cross,
Then Take It Down in Effort for
Peace and Reconciliation
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
Frontlines / Sexual Identity
...
Matt C. Abbott
My priest sources tell me that
the archdiocese is about 70 to 90 percent gay
Dennis Prager
Judaism’s Sexual Revolution:
Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected Homosexuality
When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.
This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.
It is probably impossible for us, who live thousands of years after Judaism began this process, to perceive the extent to which undisciplined sex can dominate man's life and the life of society. Throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society.
Henry Makow, PhD
Let's Reserve Sex for Marriage
... Gay or straight, we are all becoming homosexual because we cannot achieve the spiritual union or permanent intimacy that we really crave.
Sex is mistaken for love and replaces it, thereby assuming a deceptive importance. We are obsessed with it. Because it cannot satisfy our real need, we continue to up the ante and become kinkier.
We judge people strictly by their sex appeal and are cruelly indifferent to those who are not physically attractive. Women develop eating disorders. The aged naturally are treated with contempt.
We compensate for failure to find permanent love by making a public display of our promiscuity. This is supposed to affirm our freedom and identity. TV and movies testify to this perverse trend. In many cases homosexuals now are defining heterosexual norms. ("Sex and the City"; "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"; "Kinsey: Let's Talk About Sex")
We are in constant denial about our malaise and the forces that enslave us. . (See my "Is this Gay Behavior Sick? http://www.savethemales.ca/201101.html )
In contrast, heterosexuality is monogamous, exclusive and private. It is concerned with procreation, nurturing and personal development.
Russell D. Moore
Homosexuality, Racism, and
the Eclipse of the Gospel
Carlton Johnson
Cultural diversity and Moral diversity are
two different constructs...
Steve Chin
Marriage is multicultural
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
Frontlines / Species-Race Identity
...
Mike Bush
Blind woman reclaims vision with bionics
Cable News Network
Cloning success hailed, feared
A breakthrough in human embryonic stem cell research by scientists in South Korea has been hailed as ground-breaking, with the potential to fight a host of ailments, but some people have raised ethical concerns.
Kim Tae-gyu
Pig Organ Transplants to Apes Likely This Year
Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-suk is likely to surprise the world once again, this time by transplanting organs of miniature pigs to monkeys by the end of the year.
CNN.com
Creating 'human-animals' for research
Ethics report endorses mingling human cells with lesser beings
RENO, Nevada (AP) -- Saturday, April 30, 2005 -- On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.
The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab.
He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two months ago.
James P. Tucker Jr.
DU Death Toll Tops 11,000
Nationwide Media Blackout Keeps U.S. Public Ignorant About This Important Story
The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component known as depleted
uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers and the growing scandal may be the reason behind Anthony Principi’s departure as secretary of the Veterans
Affairs Department...
Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are now dead, he said. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. More than a decade later, more than half (56 percent) who served in Gulf War I have permanent medical problems. The disability rate for veterans of the world wars of the last century was 5 percent, rising to 10 percent in Vietnam.
The Leaping Hope
Brave New World: Future and Now
A bibliography
Minjok Han
Mounting Evidence
Becky McCall
Brain fingerprints under scrutiny
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
Words of Wisdom -- Let it be
...
Peace in Corporate Life
Agence France Presse
Three out of four Iraqis say
Islam should be source of law: poll
BAGHDAD -- Fri May 6 - Three out of four Iraqis believe Islam should be the main or only source of law and legislation in their country, according to a poll of 2,700 Iraqis.
While just over 74 percent thought Islam should be the sole or main source of legislation, only two percent said religion should play no role in law-making, the poll said.
Paul Dekar
Thich Nhat Hanh
An introduction
Santideva
The Bodhicaryavatara -- Chapter 1
"Praise of the Awakening Mind"
Excerpts that speaks beautifully to the heart that "transcends" the
worship of Buddha: Desire the welfare of others...
[18] From the moment one takes on that Mind (Original Heart and Zeal)
to release the limitless realm of beings, with a resolve that cannot
be turned back;
[19] From that moment on, though he may doze off or be distracted many
times, uninterrupted streams of merit like the bursing sky
continuously pour forth.
[21] Immeasurable merit took hold of the well-intentioned person who
thought 'Let me dispel the headaches of beings'.
[22] What then of the person who longs to remove the unequalled agony
of every single being and make their virtue infinite?
[23] Whose mother of father ever has such a desire for their welfare
as this, what deities or sages or Brahmas have it?
[24] Those beings did not conceive this desire before, even for their
own sake, even in a dream. How could they have it for the sake of others?
[25] Such a being, unprecedented, an excellent jewel, in whom there is
born a concern for the welfare of others such as others have not even
for themselves, how is he born?
[26] That jewel, the Mind [the Awakening, Original Mind], which is the
seed of pure happiness in the world and the remedy for the suffering
of the world, how at all can its merit be measured?
[27] Worship of the Buddha is surpassed merely by the desire for the
welfare of others; how much more so by the persistent effort for the
complete happiness of every being?...
[32] People honor some one who gives alms to a few people, saying, "He
does good', because he contemptuously supports their life for half a
day with a moment's gift of more food.
[32] What then of the one who offers to a limitless number of beings,
throughout limitless time, the fulfimlment of all desires, unending
until the end of the sky and those beings?
Yusuf al-Khabbaz
Developing alternatives to
the Western pattern of "modern" education
NON-WESTERN EDUCATIONAL TRADITIONS: ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT AND PRACTICE, by Timothy Reagan. New Jersey and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000. 2nd ed.: pp. 263; pbk. $23.
Peace in Family Life
Steve Chin
Marriage is multicultural
As an evangelical Christian, I believe and affirm the biblical model of the family. But as an Asian-American, it is clear to me that the traditional family is not just a Western construct. The traditional family is an Asian construct as well-because it's universal.
"It is by the great rite of marriage that mankind subsists the myriad generations," the philosopher Confucius said, around the year 500 B.C.
Nur abdur Rashid
The Torque of Remembrance
Buddhist Perspectives
Filial Piety
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / March-April 2005
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