Ambassador Joao Manuel Guerra Salgueiro, President of the European Union, says member states of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly voted to adopt a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty in part because of their concerns about human rights. The Ambassador rejected claims that the resolution sought to impose values [Although that is the entire purpose of it. - Photi] on all member states and noted the broad support for the resolution. Now that the third committee -- which addresses social, humanitarian and cultural issues -- has approved the resolution, the matter can be discussed in the full General Assembly sometime after mid-December.
As progressive religious leaders, we call on other religious leaders and policy makers to overcome the fears, taboos and stigmas associated with sexuality and reproduction, to accept that these matters are part of the legitimate scope of human rights and public policy and include these important human rights more explicitly in the struggle to end poverty. We call on the world’s leaders—religious, governmental, nongovernmental and those in multilateral and UN agencies—to incorporate the ICPD agenda and goals to ensure that all the world’s people have available to them the reproductive health services [read "abortion" - Photi] that will enable them to live healthy, dignified and financially secure lives.
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - The king of Spain told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to "shut up" Saturday during a heated exchange at a summit of leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal.
Chavez, who called President Bush the "devil" on the floor of the United Nations last year, triggered the exchange by repeatedly referring to former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar as a "fascist."
Aznar, a conservative who was an ally of Bush as prime minister, "is a fascist," Chavez said in a speech at the Ibero-American summit in Santiago, Chile. "Fascists are not human. A snake is more human."
Spain's current socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, responded during his own allotted time by urging Chavez to be more diplomatic in his words and respect other leaders despite political differences.
"Former President Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people," he said, eliciting applause from the gathered heads of state.
Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, but his microphone was off.
Spanish King Juan Carlos, seated next to Zapatero, angrily turned to Chavez and said, "Why don't you shut up?"
In Flanders Fields By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army
IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
I know that we have now replaced Armistice Day, a remembrance of the men who fought and died during the human disaster that was WWI, and replaced it with Veteran's Day to remember all of America's veterans. I feel a little self-conscious about Veteran's Day and I remember seeing WWI veterans when I was growing up. That terrible conflict does not get enough attention now and, since it was the first major war of a warfare-filled century and really the war from which all of the others grew, I choose to remember it and the men who fought it. These men gave enormously to put the United States in a place where we could later defeat the Nazis and the Communists. That series of wars did not end until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
That is not to say that I don't respect Veteran's Day and all of America's veterans, but being one, I'll let others write about that, and I thank them very much for their kind words.
The anniversary of Armistice Day should stir us to great exaltation of spirit because of the proud recollection that it was our day, a day above those early days of that never-to-be-forgotten November which lifted the world to the high levels of vision and achievement upon which the great war for democracy and right was fought and won; although the stimulating memories of that happy time of triumph are forever marred and embittered for us by the shameful fact that when the victory was won-won, be it remembered-chiefly by the indomitable spirit and ungrudging sacrifices of our incomparable soldiers-we turned our backs upon our associates and refused to bear any responsible part in the administration of peace, or the firm and permanent establishment of the results of the war-won at so terrible a cost of life and treasure-and withdrew into a sullen and selfish isolation which is deeply ignoble because manifestly cowardly and dishonorable.
This must always be a source of deep mortification to us and we shall inevitably be forced by the moral obligations of freedom and honor to retrieve that fatal error and assume once more the role of courage, self-respect and helpfulness which every true American must wish to regard as our natural part in the affairs of the world.
That we should have thus done a great wrong to civilization at one of the most critical turning points in the history of the world is the more to be deplored because every anxious year that has followed has made the exceeding need for such services as we might have rendered more and more evident and more and more pressing, as demoralizing circumstances which we might have controlled have gone from bad to worse.
And now, as if to furnish a sort of sinister climax, France and Italy between them have made waste paper of the Treaty of Versailles and the whole field of international relationship is in perilous confusion.
The affairs of the world can be set straight only by the firmest and most determined exhibition of the will to lead and make the right prevail.
Happily, the present situation in the world of affairs affords us the opportunity to retrieve the past and to render mankind the inestimable service of proving that there is at least one great and powerful nation which can turn away from programs of self-interest and devote itself to practicing and establishing the highest ideals of disinterested service and the consistent maintenance of exalted standards of conscience and of right.
The only way in which we can worthily give proof of our appreciation of the high significance of Armistice Day is by resolving to put self-interest away and once more formulate and act upon the highest ideals and purposes of international policy. Thus, and only thus, can we return to the true traditions of America.
The report's recommendations are probably the most radical that have been made so far by a body with real political influence for the destruction of Britain's Christian identity and historic culture.
However, the thrust of its recommendations are really nothing new, and are squarely in line with concerted and unremitting political/culture-war attacks on Christianity and Britain's historic identity which have been going on for at least a decade, not at the level of national Parliamentary government, where an electorate might show its displeasure, but in a shadowy, Gramscian way at quasi-govnmental (sic) level and in localized areas with entrenched Labour/left control of councils, Parliamentary seats and other institutions.
Not all of the British are happy about it. The Telegraph asks the question, Should integration work both ways? Fortunately at least a few Brits still wish to retain their culture against their government's wishes.
Described as a "committed Islamic extremist", Malik, a shop assistant at Heathrow, hoarded an extensive collection of terrorism manuals, the Old Bailey heard.
She was a member of an extremist group linked to Omar Bakri Mohammed, a hate preacher who fled to Lebanon from Britain two years ago.
Yesterday a jury found her guilty of possessing documents likely to be used for terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, by a majority of ten to one, after deliberating for 19 hours.
Malik, who wore a black head scarf, wept as the verdict was read out.
She is happy to see other, innocent, people murdered in a horrific way. She loves watching the videos of people being beheaded while alive. These are a few of her favorite things. But, to have to answer for it, well that is another matter.
She also wrote of how she enjoyed video messages from Osama Bin Laden and "videos that showed massacres of the kuffars", or non-Muslims.
In one poem, called The Living Martyrs, she called for Muslims to rise up against the infidels.
In another, How To Behead, she warned that the victim should be bound and blindfolded.
Malik, who worked as a shop assistant airside in a branch of WHSmith at the airport, also owned an Al Qaeda encyclopaedia of Jihad, a Mujahideen poison handbook and a 'terrorist handbook' which explained how to make bombs.
On the hard drive of her computer police found a copy of a sniper rifle manual, a firearms manual, anti-tank weaponry, a document entitled How To Win Hand To Hand Fighting, and pictures of weapons.
Outside the court, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said: "Malik held violent extremist views which she shared with other like-minded people over the internet.
"She also tried to donate money to a terrorist group. She had the ideology, ability and determination to access and download material which could have been useful to terrorists.
"Merely possessing this material is a serious criminal offence."
But she weeps for herself. Her hatred and self-obsession speaks for itself.
UPDATE: A news clip. It seems that she just wanted to be "cool".
Every so often we will discuss demographics in the context of fertility. European fertility is down, Muslim nations have much higher fertility, and the Palestinians so called "right of return" is a political use of fertility in the continuing effort to destroy Israel.
"LOOK AT IT THIS WAY," Gunnar Heinsohn said. "Your family is in a shooting war with a family across the street. Your forces consist of a father, mother and one child, perhaps two. The other family has a father, mother and seven children, perhaps eight or nine. For your family, the loss of one person would be devastating. The larger family can take casualties and continue fighting."
How important is this?
"My point," Heinsohn continued, "is that the strength of a nation's military is affected by the size of a nation's families. Falling birth rates in Western countries mean that even light casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan bring cries of pain in Europe and America. But Iraq and Afghanistan are growing rapidly. Their populations are swollen by youth bulges. Their average family has five or six children. They are in what I call 'extreme demographic armament.'"
Some of the points that he makes;
* The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue because "Western aid has enabled Palestine--where nearly every newborn is considered a refugee and provided with food and medical care by international agencies--to defeat Israel demographically." The population of Gaza jumped from 240,000 in 1950 to almost 1,500,000 in 2007. In 2006 there were 640,000 Jewish boys under 15 in Israel, against 1,120,000 Arab boys under 15 in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. The last cohort with a Jewish majority is the 30-44 age bracket--540,000 Jews vs. 410,000 Arabs--which is now past prime military age. And yet despite 60 years of fighting and violence, the overall Israeli-Arab death toll is relatively low. It ranks 49th on Heinsohn's list of fatalities in conflicts worldwide since 1948. The Israeli-Palestinian conflicts rank 67th.
* Colombia's return to peace and public safety was not brought about by tough controls imposed by the Uribe government. Peace is a result of the "ageing out" of Colombia's last big youth bulge, combined with falling birth rates, "which have simply dried up the recruitment pool for violent gangs." Similar drops in violence and political extremism have been seen throughout South America as youth bulges disappear into middle age.
* Turkey may become a more reliable partner of the West. Turkey's youth bulges have run their course and total fertility has fallen below the U.S. birth rate. This means Turkey can no longer afford to push its young people abroad to find jobs. It must encourage them to stay, "and feels reluctant to sacrifice them in war."
* Low birth rates in Russia and China place both countries in demographic capitulation.
* Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's top lieutenant, miscalculated when he encouraged Somalia to fight its war with Ethiopia by doing to the Ethiopian army what al Quaeda is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan--inflicting casualties that cause protest and dissension in Coalition countries. In 1993 U.S. forces fled Somalia after suffering 18 killed and 73 wounded. But unlike America and the UK, Heinsohn noted, Ethiopia is in strong demographic armament. It is unlikely we'll see peace marches in the streets of Addis Ababa or that Ethiopia will be deterred by losses on the battlefield.
* To compensate for falling birth rates and "to slow the ageing of its own populations, the Anglo-World--the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand--is trying to attract immigrants from a handful of European countries. But these European providers of manpower, such as Poland, Ukraine, and Austria, are in demographic capitulation and are desperately trying to attract immigrants themselves. By 2050, the total demand for foreign talent in the developed world will reach 150 million. The United States alone will realize growth by pulling in the best and brightest from everywhere else. For this reason, friends and allies may opt out of alliances with the U.S., not out of anti-Americanism but because they don't want to be demographically neutered."
As always, read the whole thing. There are numerous interesting and even surprising cnclusions here.
This is a great read covering very important material.
I am a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer and a freelance performing 'cellist who brews his own beer. I am an Orthodox Christian. I am NOT a professional journalist, therefore nothing prevents me from writing what is true. I am now working as an Engineering Technician at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
