Highlights
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Motto for 2005
Nur abdur Rashid
The Torque
of Remembrance
Features:
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Institutionalized Terror
Historisists...
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Completed Testament
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Let It Be
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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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July-August 2005
Our World Today
the good and the bad...
General News
...
Some of the Good
United Press International
Ethnic Koreans in Japan to meet for peace
SEOUL, July 7 (UPI) -- Ethnic Koreans from pro-communist and anti-communist groups in Japan will meet at the inter-Korean border next week to call for peace, organizers said Thursday.
Some 1,100 ethnic Koreans from the pro-Seoul Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan) and the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) will gather at the border village of Imjingak on July 14 to call for peace and the reunification of the Korean peninsula.
"They will also pledge to move to break their Cold War hostility which has dominated the two ethnic Korean organizations," an organizer said.
The gathering will be organized by the Interreligious and International Peace Council established by Rev. Moon Sun-myung of the Unification Church, the founder of News World Communications Inc., which owns United Press International.
"We are holding this event to present a fundamental model for peaceful reunification of the nation and to restore the brotherhood of ethnic Koreans in Japan," said IIPC Chairman Kwak Chung-hwan.
Washington Times
Bering bridge idea to highlight rally
June 26, 2005 -- A group of religious figures representing Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations will rally in Washington today to "challenge America to heal racial, religious and international conflicts."
Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, will speak at 3 this afternoon at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in a speech described as a salute to the dead and the veterans of the Korean War, marking the 55th anniversary of the beginning of the war that claimed 58,000 American lives, as well as a challenge to work for peace. If the United States does not quickly respond to the challenge, he told a similar rally last week in New York City, God will choose another nation to follow divine will.
He will present a proposal to build a 51-mile bridge/tunnel across the Bering Strait to link Siberia and Alaska. "This bridge can help make the world a single community at last," he said. "Living for the sake of others will usher in the kingdom of peace." The link, which would presumably be financed by participating governments, would be intended to promote mutual prosperity and could open Siberia to tourism. "It would help Russia develop a partnership with America along democratic ideals.
Emira Woods
Mandela's Powerful Message,
"Africa's Time Has Come"
Cheong Pyeong, South Korea
A New Academy Opening in March, 2006
Cheongshim (International) Middle and High School
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.
Some of the Mid-lands
Mark LeVine
Why withdrawal is possible
... Are the only options in Iraq maintaining an unpopular and costly occupation, or handing the country over to "former members of Saddam Hussein's regime, criminal elements and foreign terrorists" (as Bush describes them)?
The answer is manifestly no, and the fact so few people within the corridors of power can imagine an alternative policy reveals a powerful yet fallacious line of reasoning at the heart of arguments to "stay the course" in Iraq: that a US troop withdrawal would automatically leave a security vacuum in its place.
But such an outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion; the problem is that few Americans, especially politicians, are willing to consider the alternative: apologize to the Iraqi people for an invasion and occupation that (whatever our intentions) has gone terribly wrong; ask the United Nations to take over the management of the country's security, lead negotiations to end the insurgency, and oversee redevelopment aid; and leave as soon as a sufficient number of replacement forces are in place...
Robert Weiner
Saddam's Secrets Could Make Trial Ugly
Dahr Jamail
Zarqawi: Everywhere and nowhere
Arnaud de Borchgrave
Hollow ring for democracy
The White House's crusade for democracy, as President Bush sees it, has produced "a critical mass of events taking that [Middle Eastern] region in a hopeful new direction." And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just toured the area, making clear at every stop whenever the United States has a choice between stability and democracy, the new ideological remedy would sacrifice stability.
Miss Rice proudly proclaims it is no longer a war against terrorism but a struggle for democracy. She is proud the Bush administration no longer pursues stability at the expense of democracy. But already the democracy crusade encounters not only speed bumps but roadblocks on a road to nowhere.
Those making the most out of U.S. pressure to democratize are organizations listed by the United States as "terrorist." Both Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon are now mining opportunities both above- and underground. Seventeen Islamic legislators in Jordan petitioned King Abdullah to allow Jordanian Hamas leaders, evicted six years ago, to come home. The king listened impassively.
It took Europe 500 years to reach the political maturity witnessed by the recent collapse of the European Union's plans for a common constitution...
J.P. Devine
Is your kid's name on the Pentagon's list?
... The list, bought by the Pentagon, includes the names of 3.1 million graduating seniors, as well as 4.7 million college students.
It gets shadier when we learn that although it was started three years ago, military officials only filed a notice about it a month ago, which is apparently a violation of the federal Privacy Act.
Pentagon officials say they only discovered in May 2004 that no Privacy Act notice had been filed. Oops! So they "quickly" filed one ... last month ... in June 2005?
This plan comes under the office of David S.C. Chu, Bush's undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, who has an explanation for this intense interest in ... your kids.
"The database was a just a tool to send out general material from the Pentagon to those most likely to enlist. Congress wants to ensure the success of the volunteer force. ... Congress does not want conscription. ... if we don't want conscription, we have to give the military and Department of Defense an avenue to contact young people to tell them what is being offered..."
The government is so desperate they're offering bonuses of up to $40,000. That's a lot of money to drop-outs from inner-city schools, a favorite target for recruiters. It's a lot of money to Henry Beck. Beck and others like him don't need cash as an incentive to serve their country; all they need is the truth. When America is truly threatened, they'll do it for nothing...
Some of the Bad
UPI
Niger food crisis raises alarm
UPI
Severe child malnutrition growing in Niger
Matt Hutaff
What's Behind the London Attacks?
Was the bombing of the London Underground a false-flag operation designed to keep the West mired in war?
... Before today's attack, the Israeli Embassy in London was notified an attack was forthcoming. As a result, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remained in his hotel room rather than head towards a nearby hotel where he was to address an economic summit.
The embassy denies it had any prior knowledge, of course, but the story has changed dramatically in the process. If, as they say, Netanyahu was not warned, how did he know to stay in his room? How did he know the danger was so severe that he dare not venture out of the hotel?
Oops! The story's changed again ??here Netanyahu says that British police had warned the Israelis (but not the rest of the city?) of a pending attack. Scotland Yard denies this; Israel's reply was to say Netanyahu received his warning after the first blast. How? It was initially reported as a power surge for hours. What is being hidden here? And why isn't there an investigation into these obvious discrepancies?
Judi McLeod & David Hawkins
Same-time-as-attack
underground bombing exercise in London
a chilling coincidence?
"The host interviewed Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a `crisis management advice company?? better known to you and I as a PR firm.
"Power told the host that at the exact same time that the London bombings were taking place, his company was running a 1,000 person strong exercise which drilled the London Underground being bombed at the exact same locations, at the exact same times, as happened in real life.
"Peter Power was a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti Terrorist Branch."
Power told BBC that the drill focused around "simultaneous bombings". Originally the London bombings were thought to have been spread over an hour, but BBC reports today say that the bombings were in fact simultaneous.
VIDEO CONFIRMS TERROR "EXERCISE" AT SAME TIME AND PLACES AS REAL BOMBS IN LONDON
http://www.terrorize.dk/misc/london/london.terror.games.wmv
Eyeball Kid, Daily Kos
The London Bombshell that no one's hearing
letsroll911.org
Wargames / Operational Execution of 9/11
Robert Fisk
The reality of this barbaric bombing
When they die, it is "collateral damage"; when "we" die, it is "barbaric terrorism"... To go on pretending that Britain's enemies want to destroy "what we hold dear" encourages racism; what we are confronting here is a specific, direct, centralised attack on London as a result of a "war on terror" which Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara has locked us into. Just before the US presidential elections, Bin Laden asked: "Why do we not attack Sweden?"
Mike Marqusee
London Bombings:
A rapid response to this morning's events
.... On 15th February 2003, some two million people gathered in London to demonstrate against the imminent attack on Iraq. I remember speaking to a neighbour who told me proudly that he was going on the march--his first ever protest march--because he was damned if he was going to let Tony Blair endanger his children's lives by making London a prime target for attack...
Much of the media will pump out the message that we are all under threat from faceless barbarians irrationally opposed to "our way of life". It will be up to the anti-war movement to articulate a different analysis, to remind people that this attack is a consequence of our role in dishing out brutality in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, and to insist that no amount of moralistic posturing by our leaders can substitute for a desperately needed change in policy.
BBC
Statement claiming London attacks
The BBC has located an Islamist website that has published a 200-word statement issued by an organisation saying it carried out the London bombings...
John Leonard
False flag over London
Tariq Ali
The price of occupation
Ever since 9/11, I have been arguing that the "war against terror" is immoral and counterproductive. It sanctions the use of state terror - bombing raids, torture, countless civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq - against Islamo-anarchists whose numbers are small, but whose reach is deadly. The solution then, as now, is political, not military. The British ruling elite understood this perfectly well in the case of Ireland. Security measures, anti-terror laws rushed through parliament, identity cards, a curtailment of civil liberties, will not solve the problem. If anything, they will push young Muslims in the direction of mindless violence.
The real solution lies in immediately ending the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. Just because these three wars are reported sporadically and mean little to the everyday lives of most Europeans does not mean the anger and bitterness they arouse in the Muslim world and its diaspora is insignificant. As long as western politicians wage their wars and their colleagues in the Muslim world watch in silence, young people will be attracted to the groups who carry out random acts of revenge.
At the beginning of the G8, Blair suggested that "poverty was the cause of terrorism". It is not so. The principal cause of this violence is the violence being inflicted on the people of the Muslim world. And unless this is recognised, the horrors will continue.
ABC News online
Britain 'concerned' at Iraqi police abuse reports
Lundy Langston
Colonizing Nations Owe Greater Debt To Africa
... African nations became, under colonization, nations existing to serve the needs of the colonizers. The lands were harvested to serve the customs of the colonizers, clothing designed to function within their (the colonizers') morals, and machinery to serve the colonizer's needs. When the colonizers packed up and left, for those who did leave (unlike in South Africa -- where the diamonds were deemed more valuable than complying with the international community's pressure to end colonization), they simply left without creating necessary infrastructure...
Duncan Campbell
Homeless and hopeless:
bulldozers carve out a bleak new reality for poor Zimbabweans
... This was home to hundreds of people in the suburb of Epworth until President Robert Mugabe announced last month that Operation Murambatsvina (Clear Out the Trash) was under way. He authorised the destruction of the homes of hundreds of thousands of people across the country...
The one country in the region with the power to influence events is South Africa, but its president, Thabo Mbeki, has reiterated the position of the African Union: Zimbabwe is a sovereign country and what it does within its borders is its own affair. Mr Mbeki has also echoed Mr Mugabe's view that the west is only concerned about Zimbabwe because of its old colonial interests. This week, however, Mr Mbeki has held talks for the first time with the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who yesterday called on G8 leaders to intervene in Zimbabwe.
Ewen MacAskill
African Union defends Mugabe
The African Union yesterday rejected calls by Britain and the US to intervene in Zimbabwe, where the president, Robert Mugabe, is conducting a slum clearance programme that has left hundreds of thousands homeless.
Desmond Orjiako, a spokesman for the AU, which represents 53 African states, said: "It is painful that the poor people in Zimbabwe are being displaced. But if it is in the interests to prevent crime, or improve sanitation, or ensure the health of the people, or ensure Harare does not turn into a slum, I do not see how the AU should take over the internal legislation for action the government says they have taken to improve the livelihoods of their people."
Linda Ensor
Ministers Back Mugabe in Clean-Up Campaign
In Kenya's experience, slum dwellers would move only when they saw a government bulldozer, the minister said.
Kimunya said Kenya had adopted a different approach in trying to reverse the urbanisation trend, and was investing in his country's rural areas.
Kimunya's "bulldozer" comment drew an angry response from the audience at the seminar, which was organised by the housing department for developing countries in Africa to share their experiences and housing policies with their counterparts in Brazil and India.
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / May-June 2005
War(s) On Terror
...
Pete McCloskey
In Iraq, we are the new Hessians
... As in Vietnam, we might consider the possibility that trying to insert American values and processes at the barrel of a gun may simply not be possible. The most terrible weaponry in history may not be able to overcome the historic desire of a people to be free of foreign domination. Iraq should be for the Iraqis, whatever they may try to resolve from the chaos we have created there.
Pete McCloskey, a farmer in Yolo County, was a Marine Reserve lieutenant colonel in 1967, the year he was elected to Congress from San Mateo County as the first Republican opposing the Vietnam War. During the Korean War, he was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star and two Purple Hearts.
Irwin Arieff--Reuters
39,000 Iraqis killed in fighting, new study finds
UNITED NATIONS, July 11 (Reuters) - Some 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the U.S.-led invasion, a figure considerably higher than previous estimates, a Swiss institute reported on Monday.
The public database Iraqi Body Count, by comparison, estimates that between 22,787 and 25,814 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion, based on reports from at least two media sources.
It builds on a study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, last October, which concluded there had been 100,000 "excess deaths" in Iraq from all causes since March 2003. That figure was derived by conducting surveys of Iraqi mortality data during the war and comparing the results to similar data collected before the war.
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / May-June 2005
War(s) of Terror -- Africa Again?
?
Brian Steidle
In Darfur, My Camera Was Not Nearly Enough
Riek Machar
Colonial Britain 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 / May-June 2005
What is Institutionalised Terror
?
Peter Beaumont
Revealed: grim world of new Iraqi torture camps
An arm appears to have been broken and one of the higher vertebrae is pushed inwards. There is a cluster of small, neat circular wounds on both sides of his left knee. At some stage an-Ni'ami seems to have been efficiently knee-capped. It was not done with a gun - the exit wounds are identical in size to the entry wounds, which would not happen with a bullet. Instead it appears to have been done with something like a drill.
Ashraf Fahim
The perils of colonial justice in Iraq
Among its more vociferous opponents, the American project in Iraq is characterized as a classic colonial adventure, indistinguishable in nature or intent from the deepest, darkest chapters in Northern oppression of the South: America is to Iraq as Britain was to India or Belgium to the Congo. Proponents, on the other hand, argue the inherent benevolence of American empire - the export of democracy and egalitarianism in contrast to the transparent racist imperialism of yore.
One possible way to arbitrate this dispute is by observing the dispensation of justice with regard to American servicemen accused of the "unlawful killing" (in military parlance) of Iraqi civilians...
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. . . .
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / May-June 2005
Historisists... Ain't that odd
?
Warren Hedges
New Historicism Explained
Cedric Muhammad
Dick Gregory, A Valuable Man
... What made Mr. Gregory's presence on our show last week so important was the reality that he was closely connected to the two major stories we were covering that day--the U.S. Senate vote to apologize for not passing anti-lynching legislation, and the rendering of a jury verdict in the Michael Jackson trial...
"In 2003, a group of activists formed "The Committee for A Public Apology" to press the Senate. It includes about 20 people, including comedian Dick Gregory, congressman and civil rights veteran John Lewis, D-Ga., and descendants of lynching victims. The committee sent letters to all 100 senators asking them to act, and Landrieu and Allen took up the cause..."
I asked Dick Gregory about this "Committee For a Public Apology" and how it was established and he said, in blunt and humorous fashion, "there was no committee," explaining that he simply wrote a letter to Senator Allen and copies of the riveting photobook, "Without Sanctuary" were mailed.
As for the matter of the Michael Jackson case and what lies behind it, Dick Gregory - a family friend of the Jacksons - in past appearances with us, and last week explained how the desire on the part of several powerful people to obtain - from Michael Jackson - the ownership of the Beatles and Sony music catalog was a factor driving the allegations...
Amazon.Com
Without Sanctuary:
Lynching Photography in America
by Hilton Als, Jon Lewis, Leon F. Litwack,
James Allen (Editor)
Reviewer: David Sheriff (Anaheim, California)
The bulk of the terror took place in the South, but the photographs show mob killings everywhere, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Indiana, California, everywhere.
After the second word war, historians tried to explain what was so different about Nazi Germany. What was so rotten in one of most advanced cultures that produced the Holocaust? If we could explain why Germany was uniquely cursed, then we would understand why such things could never happen here. Now the remarkable thing is how ordinary the Germans were. This is not to diminish the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust. But I think, whether as victims, oppressors or guilty bystanders, horrible things can overtake all of us everywhere...
It wasn't open civil war as in Pol Pot's Cambodia, present day Kosovo, or one of the other outrages in the news. But it was here, and it was us, and the attitudes that produced the lynchings aren't very far below the surface of in awful lot of ordinary, upstanding Americans today.
Leon F. Litwak in "Without Sanctuary:"
This was not the outburst of crazed men or uncontrolled barbarians but the triumph of a belief system that defined one people as less human than another. For the men and women who comprised these mobs, as for those who remained silent and indifferent or who provided scholarly or scientific explanations, this was the highest idealism in the service of their race.
Bongkil Chung
Won Buddhism: A Synthesis of The Moral Systems of Confucianiam And Buddhism
The moral issue is whether the Buddha dharma can be followed
without jettisoning one's filial duty to one's parents.
Buddhist monks were subjected to harsh criticism from
Neo-Confucian philosophers. Thus Chu Hsi(d) (1130-1200)
wrote:
The mere fact that they discard the Three Bonds
(between ruler and minister, father and son, and
husband and wife) and the Five Constant Virtues
(righteousness on the part of the father, deep love on
the part of the mother, friendliness on the part of the
elder brother, respect on the part of the younger
brother, and filial piety on the part of the son) is
already a crime of the greatest magnitude. Nothing more
need be said about the rest.
[Soe Tae-San replies]
... "Be Aware of Grace and Requite It", requires one to realize one's indebtedness to what Sot'aesan calls the "Four Graces," namely, Heaven and Earth, Parents, Brethren, and Law; one is also required to requite them by modeling oneself on the way of indebtedness to them. A life of resentment can thus be transformed into a life of gratitude even in situations where one can justifiably find an object of resentment (K.58).Theidea of "the requital of grace" is not new with Sot'aesan as it can be found in the traditional Buddhist texts.(13)
Ganesha Gate
Soe Tae-San, 1891-1946
(Founder of "Won" Buddhism in Korea)
The Memory Bank
Teaching Social Anthropology
Web's Biggest
The World's Top Anthropology Web Sites
Greg Szymanski
WTC Basement Blast And Injured Burn Victim
Blows 'Official 9/11 Story' Sky High
Eye Witness Testimony Is Conclusive That North Tower Collapsed From Controlled Demolition
WTC janitor pulls burn victim to safety after basement explosion rocks north tower seconds before jetliner hit top floors. Also, two other men trapped and drowning in a basement elevator shaft, were also pulled to safety from underground explosion.. (June 24, 2005)
Mario Seiglie
DNA: The Tiny Code That's Toppling Evolution
Karina Longworth
Matrix Controversy: What We Know
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."
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)
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.
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / May-June 2005
Israeli-Palestinian Re-unification
...
Observer Worldview
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'
Online document: the full text of Osama bin Laden's "letter to the American people", reported in today's Observer (November 24, 2002). The letter first appeared on the internet in Arabic and has since been translated and circulated by Islamists in Britain.
Jude Wanniski
Israel guns for Iran
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...
Jude Wanniski
Is Iran Building a Nuke?
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / May-June 2005
North and South Korean Re-unification
...
An Sang-Nam
Why North Korea isn't talking
The View from Pyongyang
United Press International
Ethnic Koreans in Japan to meet for peace
United Press International
S. Korea's Roh calls for summit with North
SEOUL, July 7 (UPI) -- South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said Thursday he is ready to meet with his North Korean counterpart and asked that Kim Jong Il make a return visit to Seoul...
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)
The Brotherhood of War (English Title)
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
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
Krista Kim
Korea still hot in Japan despite political chill
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 / May-June 2005
African Re-unification
...
UPI
Niger food crisis raises alarm
UPI
Severe child malnutrition growing in Niger
Emira Woods
Mandela's Powerful Message,
"Africa's Time Has Come"
The fifth and final step is affirming Africa's resource rights.
Ninety percent of all U.S. engagement with Africa is in the extractive industries--oil, mining, timber, and minerals. Countries like Nigeria are perhaps the most egregious. In spite of the rich oil flowing onshore and off, the average Nigerian has the same standard of living as his or her grandparents did in 1960, before any oil was drilled. Firestone in Liberia signed 99-year leases to extract rubber for 3 cents per hectare. This rape of Africa is unconscionable. Africa's resources must benefit its own people. Demands of accountability, transparency, and ethics must be made not only on African governments but also on U.S. companies.
Life Site
UNICEF Nigerian Polio Vaccine Contaminated
with Sterilizing Agents Scientist Finds
Scientist says things discovered in vaccines
are "harmful, toxic"
KADUNA, Nigeria, March 11, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A UNICEF campaign to vaccinate Nigeria's youth against polio may have been a front for sterilizing the nation. Dr. Haruna Kaita, a pharmaceutical scientist and Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, took samples of the vaccine to labs in India for analysis...
African-Union.Org
African Union in a Nutshell
The advent of the African Union (AU) can be described as an event of great magnitude in the institutional evolution of the continent. On 9.9.1999, the Heads of State and Government of the Organisation of African Unity issued a Declaration (the Sirte Declaration) calling for the establishment of an African Union, with a view, inter alia, to accelerating the process of integration in the continent, to enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy while addressing multifaceted social, economic, and political problems--compounded as they are by certain negative aspects of globalisation...
African Front
In 2002 the Secretariat of
the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was
transformed into the Commission of the African Union (AU)
LEADERS of the AFRICAN UNION (AU)
The AU was the culmination of a 100-year-long process of political and economic integration. The AU retains the privileges and rights of a federated sovereignty, with the mandate to defend its territory, secure the unity of Africans, and protect the people's lives. The AU is also product of the amalgamation of the Organization of African Unity (formed in 1963) with the African Community (formed in 1991). The General Secretariat of the OAU served as the secretariat of the African Community until the formation of the AU. In 2002 the Secretariat of the OAU was transformed into the Commission of the African Union with the mandate to serve as the secretariat of the Pan African Parliament, and to share responsibilities with the NEPAD Secretariat and coordinate some of the work of the other institutions and organs of the African Union.
AU Head of State (President of the Pan African Parliament)
Gertrude Ibengwe Mongella - January 2004 to Present ...
African Front
Brief Overview of the HIstory of the African Union
Towards African National Sovereignty
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.
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...
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
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / May-June 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 / May-June 2005
Frontlines / Sexual Identity
...
Pamela White
Suffer the Children
The child sex trade is a global nightmare, but a former Interpol agent and a Boulder nonprofit are doing something about it.
Sharon Hughes
A New Face for Gay Pride The Gay Culture II
In "The Overhauling of Straight America: Waging Peace Part Two" written in 1987, it outlines the recommended steps to be taken in order for America to accept homosexuality as normal... "To desensitize the public is to help it view homosexuality with indifference instead of with keen emotion...if you can only get them to think that it is just another thing, with a shrug of their shoulders then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won..."
To bring a balance of resource sites I recommend visiting Changing Worldviews' Issues Library under Dr. Christopher Wolfe's and Dr. Warren Throckmorton's interviews with us for links such as People Can Change, and Is Homosexuality Genetic?
See
http://www.changingworldviews.com/IssuesLibrary.htm#homosexuality
Changing World Views
Resources on the issue of Homosexuality
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
BigEye.com
Sex Education
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / May-June 2005
Frontlines / Species-Race Identity
...
Robert Kennedy, Jr
Autism, mercury, and politics
Nick Buchan
'Human-brained' monkeys
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 / May-June 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?
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 / May-June 2005
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