Highlights
Pakistan
Earthquake Relief
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Friends of Dr. Pak
Save Bo Hi Pak ...
The Leaping Hope
Inclusive History,
The Good and the Bad
Exposition / Principle
The Second Coming
of Elijah
Sun-Myung Moon
Motto for 2005
Nur abdur Rashid
You Come Down Again,
Your Own Self...
Features:
General News
- Some of the Good
- Some of the Mid-lands
- Some of the Bad
War(s) On Terror
War(s) Of Terror
Institutionalized Terror
Historisists...
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Completed Testament
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Previous
Reports / Topics
The Leaping Hope
Morality, Sexuality, and Globalism
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World
Mohandas Gandhi
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)
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
September-October 2005
Our World Today
the good and the bad...
General News
...
Some of the Front and Center
Relief Web
Pakistan - Earthquake: Situation Report
Jennifer Cunningham
Thousands need shelter in bitter cold of Kashmir
Some of the Good
...
Reuters
Overcoming personal tragedies
to help others in Pakistan
Ioannis Gatsiounis
Promoting US values in Muslim lands
I've heard often during my travels through the Muslim world in recent years that America doesn't "get Islam". The opposite is equally true, that many Muslims don't grasp America (hence the $1.2 billion the US allocated to public diplomacy last year, double what it spent in 1980, with more on the way).
The difference is, America, not Islam, is doing the peddling. It is fighting the Islamists for no less than the soul of Islam, for the allegiance of the ostensibly undecided moderate middle. Why, then, does so much of the advisory discourse and literature on America's national security and public diplomacy, while acknowledging Islamic lands as the battlefront, make only passing reference to Islam?
I've heard often during my travels through the Muslim world in recent years that America doesn't "get Islam". The opposite is equally true, that many Muslims don't grasp America (hence the $1.2 billion the US allocated to public diplomacy last year, double what it spent in 1980, with more on the way).
The difference is, America, not Islam, is doing the peddling. It is fighting the Islamists for no less than the soul of Islam, for the allegiance of the ostensibly undecided moderate middle. Why, then, does so much of the advisory discourse and literature on America's national security and public diplomacy, while acknowledging Islamic lands as the battlefront, make only passing reference to Islam?
The Koran, for instance, the covenant by which Muslims are to live, is seldom cited; concepts central to Muslim existence, such as tawhid (oneness of Allah) and ijmah (consensus), are rarely mentioned, let alone considered. Part of the problem can be traced to the precepts of American politics. Christianity heavily influences discourse and policy on the right. Many left-leaning elites come from a secularist tradition. There is virtually a built-in resistance to getting to know Islam better...
William Hughes
Million More Movement Rally Strikes Unity Theme
The MMM leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam... had written about the rally's laudable purpose earlier this year. He struck a universal theme for it, with spiritual overtones, too, when he wrote: "Christians, Muslims, Hebrews, Jews, agnostics, nationalists, socialists, men, women and youth are coming together in agreement that the time is now for us to articulate our demands, and to accept our responsibility to change the condition and reality of our lives. Even though we petition the government, our covenant must first be with our Creator and with each other."
Leonard Pitts Jr.
Still a season of suffering, 10 years later
... Two things strike me about the Million Man March. The first is a sense that we black men and our fellow countrymen seemed to be talking about two marches. We heard we were going to support the notorious Jew-baiter Louis Farrakhan and to attack America for its mistreatment of us. We said we were going to attack our mistreatment of our families and ourselves, and that many of us joined the march not because of Farrakhan, but in spite of him.
The second thing that strikes me is the optimism we felt. We stood, generation be-bop, generation do-wop and generation hip-hop, gathered to slap backs and shake hands and be shoulder to shoulder and man to man. We were the show, standing on what felt like the pivot point of change...
Mona Charen
Opposing View: No more marches
Eugene Robinson
On the Mall: A Vision of Community
Official Web Page
The Millions More Movement
Daniel Mazliah
ActionAid searches for forgotten quake villages
William Rivers Pitt
The Story of Steve
Tuesday 13 September 2005 -- Paging Oprah Winfrey. You're going to want to sit up and take notice of this one.
So there's this guy named Steve, who grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts. Steve is what you would describe as an average guy, works construction, went to a tech/voc high school, a townie with oak leaf clusters. A solid citizen. A good man.
Michael Jenkins
ACLC/IRFF/HSA-UWC Katrina Relief
... One of the people saw us praying with Sister Brooks and
approached Rev. Mark Hernandez, asking him to pray with her. She had
been so frustrated. For two days she was looking for her relatives
and couldn't find them. When you are there in the Astrodome, you can
understand why. People can't just stay on their cots 24 hours per
day. There is a whole city milling around looking for family and
trying to figure out what happened to their lives. She had been
looking and looking for her daughter and her grandchildren.
She asked Rev. Hernandez to pray with her. He gave his sincere prayer
to find her daughter and grandchildren. As they were praying, she
screamed out. Her daughter and grandchildren walked up right at that
moment...
Newsweek
Islam: A New Welcoming Spirit in the Mosque
A younger generation finds its shared faith is erasing the old boundaries that separated their immigrant parents.
USNewswire.com
Moon's Peace Initiative Garners
Unexpected Support; 100-City Tour Visits District
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.
Reverend Sun-Myung Moon
God's Ideal Family - the Model for World Peace:
Inaugural Convocation of
the Universal Peace Federation
Keynote Address -- Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon
September 12, 2005 - Lincoln Center, New York, New York
... The science and technology of the 21st century render it possible to construct a tunnel under the Bering Strait. The construction costs are also not a problem. Think of how much money the world is wasting on war. Humanity needs to realize that we are committing fearful sins in the presence of history and our descendants. Let us take one example. How much money has the United States spent on the war in Iraq during the past three years? It is approaching $200 billion. That budget would be more than enough to complete the Bering Strait project.
Black-Electorate.Com
Jude Wanniski "Lived"
Jude Wanniski, Were You Only A "Supply-Sider"?
by Cedric Muhammad -- Wednesday, September 07, 2005
... Last Saturday at Jude's funeral in Morristown, New Jersey, Jude's younger brother, Terry shared with those in attendance more details of something that many of us already knew to a degree. Terry mentioned that Jude's favorite book was, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. He said that he asked Jude why that was his favorite book, and Jude told him he would have to read it. Terry did and told his brother that he still did not understand why it was his favorite book. Jude asked him to summarize what the book was about. And Terry told him, concluding with the recognition that the story is about a person who wasted his life. And Jude, he said, responded by telling him that is exactly why the book mattered so much to him when he read it at the age of 17. He never wanted to waste his life. And he didn't. He is one of a handful of people that I know who every time I interacted with them, they were working as if this day was their last. Terry Wanniski, in tears, repeated for all in attendance what his Brother believed and lived by - "Don't waste your life."
Washington Times
Today's Editorial Op-Ed on: Jude Wanniski
... Most significantly, Mr. Wanniski is credited with convincing presidential candidate and then-California Governor Reagan to build his economic policy around supply-side economics. His influential editorials and his immodestly titled "The Way the World Works: How Economies Fail -- and Succeed" explained supply-side theory in layman's terms. In no small way did it reverberate throughout the English-speaking world, helping produce the downfall of the Soviet bloc and the revitalization of the American economy. Experiments around the world -- notably in Eastern Europe -- owe much to Mr. Wanniski.
LewRockwell.com
Jude Wanniski Archives
Some of the Mid-lands
...
The Island
Hussein/Ivan Show Trial Appears to be Fig Leaf
Science Frontiers
Oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup
continually manufactured by the earth?
The mystery of eugene island 330
Eugene Island is a submerged mountain in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast. The landscape of Eugene Island is riven with deep fissures and faults from which spew spontaneous belches of gas and oil. Up on the surface, a platform designated Eugene Island 330 began producing about 15,000 barrels of oil per day in the early 1970s. By 1989, the flow had dwindled to 4,000 barrels per day. Then, suddenly, production zoomed to 13,000 barrels. In addition, estimated reserves rocketed from 60 to 400 million barrels. Even more anomalous is the discovery that the geological age of today's oil is quite different from that recovered 10 years ago. What's going on under the Gulf of Mexico?
Col Larry Wilkerson
"It's hard to sell [you know what]."
... In remarks quoted by the Washington Post, Col Wilkerson said: "If you're unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you're declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you're doing a host of things that the world doesn't agree with you on and you're doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you've got to pay the consequences."
Sepp Hasslberger
'Bird Flu', SARS - Biowarfare or a Pandemic of Propaganda?
FAIR
Disappearing Anti-War Protests
Tuesday 27 September 2005 -- Media shrug off mass movement against war.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans around the country protested the Iraq War on the weekend of September 24-25, with the largest demonstration bringing between 100,000 and 300,000 to Washington, D.C. on Saturday.
Carlton Johnson
Left and Right; Anarchy and Transcendency
Hugh Miles
The eye of the storm: Al-Jazeera (Taysir Alluni)
... When, after September 11, 2001 the network began broadcasting messages from the al-Qaeda leadership, western governments lined up to denounce the network as the "Osama bin Laden Broadcasting Corporation", while western TV networks lined up to buy Al-Jazeera's pictures.
Miles gives a balanced account of these controversies. But if there is a fault in his book, it is that sometimes he does not press hard enough. This is particularly true of a strange incident in late 2001, when Al-Jazeera and CNN were asked to submit lists of questions to Bin Laden, on the understanding that both channels would air the results.
Al-Jazeera initially denied that any interview took place, but its correspondent Taysir Alluni did meet Bin Laden - and although the station refused to air the interview, it surfaced by a mysterious route on CNN. The CNN view was that at that point, Bin Laden reading out the contents of the Kabul telephone directory would have been newsworthy...
Robert Fisk
On finding Osama
Only one Western journalist has gained access to the inner sanctum of al-Qa'ida. In this extraordinary account from his new book - serialised all next week in 'The Independent' - Robert Fisk recalls meeting the world's most wanted man
Arnaud de Borchgrave
A ride on the wild side
Musharraf loyalists do not believe in the durability of a close alliance with the U.S. past the capture or killing of bin Laden. Hence, the reluctance to conduct a manhunt in the jagged mountain range that forms the unmarked frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mr. Musharraf's proposal for a barbed-wire fence along an unmarked, 1,200-mile border has little practical value. Six of the world's highest mountains are in the region. Pashtu tribes that straddle both sides of the border 20 miles deep would tear down such a fence as soon as any part went up. These warrior tribes fought the British in the 1930s under a red flag with "Allahu Akbar" ("God is the greatest") written on it.
Osama bin Laden sees himself as a world figure, rather a global liberator of the oppressed. ISI may see a vital Pakistani interest in getting the U.S. and NATO out of Afghanistan, and restoring the status quo ante of a Pakistani protectorate. But bin Laden is more interested in a Islamist caliphate whose cornerstones would be a post-Musharraf Pakistan and a post-monarchial Saudi Arabia controlling a third of world's oil supplies...
John Nichols
Galloway's Frankness Invigorates, Shocks Americans
Jonathan Finer and Omar Fekeiki
Iraqi police accused British soldiers of planting bombs.
British Soldiers Clash With Iraqi Police in Basra
Governor's House Attacked by Shiite Militiamen
Juan Cole
Sistani: No Civil War even if Half of Shiites are Killed
... Sistani has a great deal of moral authority, but you really worry whether he might be a level three levee facing a level five hurricane.
Some of the Bad
...
Charlene Fassa
Human Trafficking / "What Then Must We Do?"
Muhammad Najeeb
Pakistan quake: aid workers, survivors battle elements
Islamabad: The Pakistan government and
international relief workers are racing against time to
provide aid to the ailing and hungry survivors of the
earthquake that has killed over 25,000 people and rendered
more than 2.5 million homeless.
David Crary
After Katrina, tsunami, earthquake donations lag
Thursday, October 13, 2005 -- Associated Press -- New York - American donors, overwhelmingly generous after the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, are responding much more slowly to the devastating earthquake in Pakistan.
Though no overall figures have been compiled yet, aid
agencies including the American Red Cross and the World
Food Program say earthquake contributions have lagged well
behind the pace of donations for the tsunami last
December.
Atlanta-based CARE said Wednesday that its quake donations
so far have been roughly $200,000, compared with $1.5
million at the same stage after the tsunami.
Jon Christian Ryter
Government Betrays the Indians Again
In the 9-year legal battle over missing Blackfoot Indian royalties, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth has been a perennial thorn in the side to the Justice and Interior Departments of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The case, filed in Lamberth's court in 1996 is being fought over $137 billion in missing oil, timber, and grazing royalties and other lease payments due, not to the tribes but individually, to the Native American members of what is generically referred to as the Six Nations (now viewed as a composite of all of the known Indian tribes) on over 54 million acres of land...
Greg Mitchell
Charmaine Neville's New Orleans Story:
Horror and Heroism
(September 07, 2005) -- Every time you think you've heard it all
about the horrors of New Orleans in the past week, something like
Charmaine Neville's experience comes around the bend, or the blog,
and smacks you over the head like a club. It's a story of dead babies
in the water, alligators eating people, heroism (she commandeered a
bus to save dozens) and despair (she was raped).
EMSNetwork News
Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences
By Parmedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky
(Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were
attending the EMS conference in New Orleans.)
... As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line
across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak,
they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd
fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated,
a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs
in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police
commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us
there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to
move.
We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially
as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that
the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be
no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor
and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not
getting out of New Orleans.
Newsweek
The Other America
An Enduring Shame:
Katrina reminded us, but the problem is not new. Why a rising tide of people live in poverty, who they are -- and what we can do about it.
Raiders News Update
Babies -- Bought, Sold and Traded
LONDON, SEPT. 17, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Abortion advocates' decades-long push to deny or downplay the humanity of the unborn child is bearing fruit. Unborn children are increasingly being treated like consumer products, if recent news stories are an indication...
Return To
Previous Reports in this Category / July-August 2005
War(s) On Terror
...
Nat Hentoff
John McCain v. Bush: Defying the president,
the senate condemns torturing anyone in American custody anywhere.
Friday 14 October 2005 -- For 17 months, I tried to determine what specific standards governed the treatment of detainees by consulting my chain of command.... I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder ... and degrading treatment. I and troops under my command witnessed some of these abuses in both Afghanistan and Iraq. -- 26-year-old U.S. Army Captain Ian Fishback in a September 16 letter to Senator John McCain
Pamela Hess (UPI)
U.S. 'Lacks Moral Authority' In Iraq
UPI Pentagon Correspondent -- Baghdad 10/5/05
"I don't know if I have the moral authority to send troops into combat anymore," a senior American general recently told United Press International. He knows what his power means -- that on his word hundreds or thousands of young men would step into danger...
A senior military official said the United States needs "expeditionary diplomats, treasury planners, etc, if our goal is to win the peace, to create a better peace."
"When we do things -- like initiating war with Saddam -- and haven't the managerial integrity to have the international and interagency blocks incorporated and integrated into the planning and execution, we end up with a mess paid for in lives of innocent Iraqis and U.S. servicemen and women."
The only way to be sure Iraq does not become the threat it was posited to be before the war, a safe haven for terrorists, is to raise the standard of living and the expectations of the people, creating a country of "haves" who don't tolerate terrorists and thugs, and who have confidence their government and security force will back them up.
Ramtanu Maitra
Western-trained, Western-armed, enemies
From Iraq to Afghanistan to the Central Asian republics, Western militaries are finding it is one thing to train a local army, quite another to obtain its loyalty.
The US and British militaries have suspended their training programs for Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan after more than 800 troops from these countries deserted, and many reportedly joined militant groups, such as al-Qaeda and Chechen rebel forces.
Francis Harris in Washington
Bush will veto anti-torture law after Senate revolt
Louis Farrakhan
Dec 1, 2001 letter to President George W. Bush
Louis Farrakhan
Second letter to President Bush / Oct 30, 2002
Salem Arif
U.S. attacks Tal Affar
plunging country into deeper crisis
Azzaman, September 10, 2005 -- After weeks of heavy bombardment and sporadic skirmishes, U.S. troops stormed Tal Affar early on Saturday.
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 / July-August 2005
What is Institutionalised Terror
?
Amnesty International
CASE SHEET 12 -- Ethiopian national/UK resident:
Benyam Mohammed al Habashi
Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi remains in Guantanamo Bay, held without charge or trial by the US military. Before his arrival he was a victim of the US government's practice of "extraordinary rendition" -- he was forcibly transferred from one country to another, in his case three times, without reference to a court. In each country he was tortured or ill-treated. There are also concerns about the role of the UK authorities in his arrest, interrogation, transfers and torture.
"The Americans are getting ready to carry out the torture. They're going to electrocute you, beat you and rape you." An interrogator to Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi in Morocco
Neil Mackay
One victim's story
Wikipedia
Johan Galtung's Notion of "Structural Violence"
Adam Curie
Structural Violence and
Making Peace: Building a new belief network
SINCE the end of World War II there have been about 150 wars -- mostly in developing countries -- in which 30 million people have died. About 40 of these wars are continuing today. British troops alone have been involved in over 70 military operations in about 45 countries. This is symptomatic of a global war hysteria that is causing Third World military spending to rise even more sharply than that of the rich countries. Every nation proclaims its commitment to peace, but wars keep raging.
Yet peace is not simply the opposite of war. There are conditions of social injustice, economic exploitation and political oppression which, while they are not war itself, are by no means peaceful and often lead to war. This "structural violence" is built into social structures and deprives its victims of jobs, food, health, education, political liberties and human dignity.
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 / July-August 2005
Historisists... Ain't that odd
?
Warren Hedges
New Historicism Explained
Nkechi Taifa
Crack, Congress, and The Million Movement March
... One receives the same five year mandatory sentence for 5 grams of crack as for 500 grams of powder. But because powder cocaine can very easily be converted to crack, to punish crack cocaine offenses at a quantity ratio 100 times greater than its original powder form, is irrational.
Despite prevalent stereotypes, the majority of documented crack users are white. The “war on drugs,” however, has been primarily fought in inner-city black communities. This law enforcement policy has caused a disproportional number of low-level black drug abusers to be herded to prison under the crack laws, serving unreasonably harsh sentences...
Russell Simmons
Response to Abraham Foxman about the Millions More Movement
NEW YORK--May 9, 2005--Hip-Hop Summit Action Network
Hip Hop Summit Action Network Chairman, Russell Simmons released the following response to ADL Director, Abraham Foxman's letter urging prominent Black leaders to reconsider their support for the upcoming Millions More Movement
Tavis Smiley
Transcript: Minister Louis Farrakhan Interview :
Robert Pear and Holli Chmela
U.S. march seeks more for blacks
Cornel West
Exiles From a City and From a Nation
It takes something as big as Hurricane Katrina and the misery we saw among the poor black people of New Orleans to get America to focus on race and poverty. It happens about once every 30 or 40 years...
Jude Wanniski
Ibn Khaldun on the Origins of Society
I'd first heard of Ibn Khaldun, a 14th century philosopher, from Ronald Reagan, who loved to quote Khaldun's observation that at the beginning of great empires tax rates were low, and at the end they were high. I began to take a closer look when I learned that Arnold Toynbee, one of the 20th century's leading historians, believed that Ibn Khaldun had produced the greatest work on social science to come from the mind of man. After reading through a small piece of Khaldun's work, I have to admit I am awed by the man's genius. How could I have spent so much of my life in politics without being led to him before?
Ibn Khaldun is not an Arab neo-platonist, as his world view subsumes theirs and is an original one not previously expressed in the world. This singular breakthrough is not only awesome, but practically evidence of divine inspiration...
Ward Churchill
Deconstructing the Columbus Myth
Was the "Great Discoverer"
Italian or Spanish, Nazi or Jewish?
Ed Pompeian
George Washington's Slave Child?
PlanetQuest
The History of Astronomy: Angkor Wat
The Memory Bank
Teaching Social Anthropology
Web's Biggest
The World's Top Anthropology Web Sites
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
...
Haaretz
IDF launches air strikes in Gaza in response to attack
Aljazeera
Ahmadinejad: Wipe Israel off map
Polyconomics.com
The key to peace in the Middle East
This is the quite lengthy conclusion to the March 1998 interview of Min. Farrakhan by Jeffrey Goldberg, a free-lance journalist whose work has appeared regularly in the Jewish weekly Forward and the Sunday NYTimes Magazine. It is, I think [writes Jude Wanniski], the best exchange/dialog between Min. Farrakhan and a Jewish intellectual that I�ve seen. As I came to believe in my discussions with Min. Farrakhan, he may be the key to peace in the Middle East, if he could ever persuade the American Jewish political community to dialog with him over their differences in perspective. I timed the transcription of that interview -- never before published -- to coincide with today�s "Million Family March" in Washington, D.C., on the fifth anniversary of the Million Man March of 1995. The other coincidence is the summit in Egypt, where political leaders attempt to work out at least a ceasefire in the outbreak of war between Israel and its neighbors.
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 / July-August 2005
North and South Korean Re-unification
...
Lee Jin-Woo / Korean Times
Uri Criticizes GNP for Inflaming Ideology Issues
Ruling Uri Party (Liberal) chairman Moon Hee-sang Tuesday strongly attacked the opposition Grand National Party (Conservative) for taking advantage of an ideological dispute resulting from a sociology professor's pro-North Korean remarks...
"The GNP (Conservative) seems to have confused anti-communist policies during the Cold War era with liberal democracy," presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo (Liberal) said. "On the morning of April 9, 1975, eight intellectuals, who were falsely charged as North Korean spies, were executed within 20 hours of the Supreme Court’s ruling..."
Korean Herald
President warns against 'great power politics'
Roh to return home tomorrow after 10-day tour
NEW YORK - President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday stressed the world must eradicate the legacies of imperialism and avoid "great power politics" in international affairs during his speech before the U.N. World Summit in New York. He called for the multinational body to undergo reform underscoring the importance of it regaining moral authority.
An Sang-Nam
Why North Korea isn't talking
The View from Pyongyang
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 / July-August 2005
African Re-unification
...
Craig S. Smith The New York Times
Migrants reported found in desert
The New York Times
Veronica Nmoma
The Civil War and the Refugee Crisis in Liberia
American Historical Review
Autobiography of Omar ibn Said,
Slave in North Carolina, 1831 (b. 1770?)
UNC.edu
Portrait of Omar ibn Said
Molefi Kete Asante
Afrocentricity: Toward a New Understanding
of African Thought in this Millennium
James Dunn
Imhotep, Doctor, Architect,
High Priest, Scribe and Vizier to King Djoser
Tour Egypt
Netjenkhet Djoser, (reigned 2630-2611 BC)
the 2nd King of Egypt's 3rd Dynasty
Wikipedia
The Land of Punt
(in Egyptian called "Ta Netjeru", meaning "Land of the Gods"), was a fabled and exotic site in eastern Africa, which carried on extensive trade with Ancient Egypt, China and Arabia. It was also the land to which the ancient Egyptians traced their origin.
Wikipedia
Khoisan
Khoisan is the name for several ethnic groups of southern Africa, where they seem to have appeared many tens of thousands of years ago, and that share some specific physical and linguistic characteristics. They were the original inhabitants of much of southern Africa before the Bantu migrations southward and later European people.
Physically, however, the Khoisan, with their short frames, yellow-brown skin, epicanthic eye folds and small arms and feet, were quite distinct from the darker-skinned Africans who constitute the majority of Africa's population. The physical features of the Khoisan are slightly similar to the Mongoloids (who live primarily in East Asia).
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 / July-August 2005
Completed Testament
...
Good News / bad news
Frontlines / Spiritual-Physical Resurrection
...
Reverend Sun-Myung Moon
God's Ideal Family - the Model for World Peace:
Inaugural Convocation of the Universal Peace Federation
Keynote Address -- Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon
September 12, 2005 - Lincoln Center, New York, New York
... The science and technology of the 21st century render it possible to construct a tunnel under the Bering Strait. The construction costs are also not a problem. Think of how much money the world is wasting on war. Humanity needs to realize that we are committing fearful sins in the presence of history and our descendants. Let us take one example. How much money has the United States spent on the war in Iraq during the past three years? It is approaching $200 billion. That budget would be more than enough to complete the Bering Strait project.
Why must we continue this insane barbarism, pouring countless dollars into wars that do not accomplish anything more than death? Now is the time, as the prophet Isaiah taught, to beat our swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. Humankind should end the perverse cycle of sacrificing our children�s lives and squandering astronomical sums of money to fight wars only for the sake of war. The time has come for the countries of the world to pool their resources and advance toward the world of peace desired by God, the Master of this great universe...
Today we are participating in the inauguration of the Universal Peace Federation. It represents God�s victory, the fruit of the True Parents� blood, sweat and tears, and the world�s cherished hope. It will carry out the role of an Abel-type United Nations in relation to the existing United Nations. Under the banner of the Universal Peace Federation, we will serve as peace police and peace army to safeguard global peace. I hope that you will put on new armor in this new age and be wise and brave activists in this worldwide peace force, for the sake of humanity�s future.
Friends of Dr. Pak
Background of Bo Hi Pak's Trial
and Incarceration in Korea
For the past several years Dr. Pak has been working on some projects to raise a large endowment fund for the continued operation of the Korean Cultural Foundation, the Little Angels and the Universal Ballet. In addition he was trying to set up a new foundation called �The Korean Peoples Unification Foundation� in order to promote and realize the dream of the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula. He had many other ideas and programs that he wanted to realize for the spiritual and ethical revitalization of the Korean people. As anyone who is acquainted with Dr. Pak knows he is an irrepressible man of action to whom retirement or idleness is an impossibility.
For these reasons he was desperately pursuing some ill advised and ill-fated fundraising schemes introduced to him by some church members. To make a long story short Dr. Pak became a victim of international criminal scam artists who defrauded him of all of his money with the promise of huge financial support to the foundations.
Bo Hi Pak
Excerpt from "Messiah" -- On Reverend Moon's
Meeting with President Nixon, Regarding Watergate
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 / July-August 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:
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 / July-August 2005
Frontlines / Species-Race Identity
...
Bill Sardi
The Deadliest Flu Virus in the World: Made in USA
Shahar Ilan
Does a clone have a soul?
"In my opinion," says Rabbi Moshe Botschko, head of the Heichal Eliyahu hesder yeshiva, "a creature born through genetic duplication is not considered human - It is clear beyond all doubt that the life form created in some scientific institution will be an animal that walks on two feet, no more." According to Botschko, a highly respected rabbi in the French-speaking community, the reason for this is that the Creator only gives man a soul at the moment when sperm meets ovum. But the cloning process involves no sperm. The implications of Botschko's conclusion are far-reaching: "Anyone who kills a creature of this type will not be indicted, because he has not killed a man," he says.
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 / July-August 2005
Words of Wisdom -- Let it be
...
Peace in Corporate Life
Nur abdur Rashid
Longings of the Soul
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 / July-August 2005
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