Woes of the Pharisees

-wiki-

a list of criticisms by Jesus against Scribes and Pharisees and Lawyers that is present in the Gospel of Luke 11:37-54 and Gospel of Matthew 23:1-36. Seven are listed in Matthew, and hence Matthew's version is known as the seven woes, while only six are given in Luke, whose version is thus known as the six woes. They do not occur in the same point of the narrative, in Matthew they occur shortly before Jesus returns to Jerusalem for his last few days before being crucified, while in Luke they occur shortly after the Lord's prayer is given and the disciples are first sent out over the land.

1. They taught about God but did not love God - they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter. (Mat. 23:13-14)
2. They preached God but converted people to dead religion, thus making those converts twice as much 'sons of hell' as they themselves were. (Mat. 23:15)
3. They taught that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding, but that if sworn by the gold ornamentation of the temple, or by a sacrificial gift on the altar, it was binding. The gold and gifts, however, were not sacred in themselves as the temple and altar were, but derived a measure of lesser sacredness by being connected to the temple or altar. The teachers and Pharisees worshipped at the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar because they knew that the temple and altar were sacred. How then could they deny oath-binding value to what was truly sacred and accord it to objects of trivial and derived sacredness? (Mat. 23:16-22)
4. They taught the law but did not practise some of the most important parts of the law - justice, mercy, faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as titheing spices but not the real meat of the law. (Mat. 23:23-24)
5. They presented an appearance of being 'clean' (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), yet they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence. (Mat. 23:25-26)
6. They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law, but were in fact not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men's bones. (Mat. 23:27-28)
7. They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old, and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets, when in fact they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins. (Mat. 23:29-36)

Maitreya (Sanskrit) or Metteyya (Pāli) is a future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. In some Buddhist literature, such as the Amitabha Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, he is referred to as Ajita Bodhisattva.

In Hinduism, Kalki (Devanagari: कल्कि; also rendered by some as Kalkin and Kalaki) is the tenth and final Maha Avatara (great incarnation) of Vishnu who will come to end the present age of darkness and destruction known as Kali Yuga. The name Kalki is often a metaphor for eternity or time.

The Book of Malachi, Elijah's return is prophesied "before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord," making him a harbinger of the Messiah and the eschaton in various faiths that revere the Hebrew Bible. Many Christian denominations include the prophet Elijah in their Old Testament account including the Church of Latter-Day Saints. The Qu'ran sites the accounts of Elijah as a major prophetic step for Gods children.

Anicca (Sanskrit: anitya): That all things are impermanent.

Dukkha (Sanskrit: duḥkha): That all beings suffer from all situations due to unclear mind.

Anatta (Sanskrit: anātman): That the perception of a constant "self" is an illusion.

US AND COLOMBIAN ACTIVISTS TARGET "WORLD OF COCA-COLA"
Written by Matthew Cardinale
Tuesday, 24 November 2009

(IPS) Activists from the U.S. and Colombia are targeting the World of Coca-Cola museum, located near its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, accusing the company of "union busting", paying its workers "poverty wages", and engaging in environmentally destructive practices.

"We're an unofficial coalition with the India Resource Center, focusing on Coca-Cola overusing waters in drought areas. We're supporting Corporate Accountability International, that have been trying to stop the use of bottled water over tap water," Lew Friedman, of Killer Coke, told IPS.

"We're working on behalf of Sinaltrainal, the food workers in Colombia. They had eight union leaders murdered. We've been augmenting their legal suit," Friedman said.

"There's plenty of evidence that shows the plant managers were very cozy with the paramilitaries," he added.

Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola was filed in 2001 by the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of the Colombian trade union Sinaltrainal, several of its members, and the estate of Isidro Gil, one of its officers who was murdered.



Campaign to Stop Killer Coke Graphic, by Lorena

Coca-Cola bottlers "contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilize extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders", the lawsuit states.

In addition, Killer Coke claims that many of the Colombian paramilitary troops were trained at the controversial formerly-named School of the Americas, now called the U.S. Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Economic Cooperation, in Fort Benning, Georgia.

In 2003, the U.S. District Court removed Coca-Cola as a defendant in the case because the murders took place in Colombia, not in the U.S. However, two Coca-Cola bottlers remained as defendants in the case. In 2006, the judge dismissed the remaining claims.

When IPS asked Coca-Cola about Killer Coke's demonstration in Atlanta last week, the company replied in an email statement that it "was based on an uninformed and inaccurate portrayal of The Coca-Cola Company and independent Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia and based on allegations that are over ten years old".

"The unfounded allegations have been reviewed over the years by multiple courts in Colombia and most recently in the United States, as well as by the International Labor Organization, and outside law firms - all concluding that the Coca-Cola bottler employees in Colombia enjoy extensive, normal relations with multiple unions and are provided with safe working conditions there," Coca-Cola said.

While much of Killer Coke's focus seemed to be on the Colombian trade union issue, activists said other issues involved the alleged use of child labour in other countries and questions about the healthiness of Coca-Cola products in general.

"There are issues of health, the use of high fructose corn syrup," Friedman said.

As part of their campaign, Killer Coke has been successful at getting over 50 U.S. colleges and universities to stop selling Coke, and at getting the Service Employee Industrial Union (SEIU) and teachers' unions to stop carrying Coke in their offices.

Killer Coke decided to target Coca-Cola headquarters on its own turf, in Atlanta, in part by driving a mobile billboard around town that read, "Don't Drink Killer Coke Zero: Zero Ethics, Zero Justice, Zero Health." This is a pun on one of the company's products, Coke Zero, which is a near-zero calorie beverage.

"The World of Coke is basically one large advertisement for Coca-Cola. It's the centre of Coca-Cola, it's a mile away from their headquarters, it's basically their public image that's there," said Ian Hoffmann, a young activist from Minnesota.

"We've got people coming forward and saying it's an anti-union company. Coca-Cola usually says 'we're an Atlanta-based company. What happens in Colombia is out of our control, and more importantly, not our responsibility', even though they [the bottling plants] are bottling Coca-Cola products and helping the company with huge profits," Hoffmann said.

"We want some accountability. From my end, I'd like them to acknowledge what's going on there, explaining to us why after the union leader gets shot dead, that the next day no one signs a new contract with Sinaltrainal. How do they stand by that? How do you defend that?" Hoffmann said.

"If these are people that are working, bottling Coca-Cola products, how is it okay for this company to stand by and not take some kind of action?" Hoffmann said. "How could this be happening at Coca-Cola with management turning a blind eye?"

Hoffmann acknowledged it is difficult going up against a multinational corporation like Coca-Cola. "It's usually difficult because of the brand name. They have forced their way into every American fridge. The money they spend to get their name out and marketing to children. It's a Coke culture, you know, starting out with those ads with Santa Claus."

At a protest last week, activists chanted slogans and played a recording of a contemporary folk song called, "Coke is the Drink of the Death Squads".

They came from all over the U.S., including states like Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota, as well as Washington, DC. Groups like Witness for Peace and School of the Americas Watch were also represented.

Martha Giraldo, 31, of Colombia, charged Coca-Cola's bottling plants with "using temp [temporary] workers on contracts three months or less long, and they don't pay a just wage, exterminating labour leaders, violating our Constitutional right to be unionised. In Colombia, we're in a human rights crisis."

Giraldo and another speaker spoke to the mostly English-speaking audience through a translator.

"People are marginalised in large cities of our country. We're all suffering a humanitarian crisis. It's not true what [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton says when she says in Colombia we're safe and live in peace. It's only for some, large landowners and the paramilitary; the rest are marginalised for denouncing it. We are being accused of being guerrilla supporters," Giraldo said.

"In Colombia there are four million internally displaced people, who've been driven off their land because of terror campaigns of the paramilitary," Giraldo said. "In addition to fumigating coca crops and food crops and water sources we use to drink, approximately 30,000 people disappeared in Colombia. We don't know where they are. It's been years since they disappeared."

"We're here in front of one of the symbols of capitalism. This company represents one of the perverse ways of accumulating capital. We're here to demonstrate on behalf of our dead brothers," said Gerardo Caja Marca in a speech at the rally.

"They systematically violate human rights in Colombia. All workers have the right and obligation to defend their rights. Simply exercising those rights has cost the lives of workers in Colombia," Caja Marca said.

"Lastly we came here to demand justice. These are the men of war. These are the ones who put seven US military bases in Colombia. These are the ones who create paramilitaries. We accuse Coca-Cola of financing assassins. We want truth and reparations," Caja Marca said.

ANTARA THE LION: FATHER OF HEROES

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

Archaeologists have long shown that African people were the first people to occupy the Arabian Peninsula, and there has always been a substantial population in Arabia of people of African descent. Indeed, probably the most illustrious single figure in pre-Islamic Arabia was Antara the Lion--called the "father of heroes." Antara had an Arab father and an Ethiopian mother, and became in time Arabia's national hero. There was no individual equal to the valor and strength of Antara. He has been compared to King Arthur in the English tradition but was considerably more important because he was a more historical figure.

The name of Antarah ibn-Shaddad al Absi (ca. 525-615), evidently a Christian, has lived through the ages as the epitome of heroism and chivalry. Knight, poet, warrior and lover, Antara exemplified in his life those qualities greatly cherished by the sons of the desert. His acts of gallantry, as well as his love episodes with his lady, Ablah, whose name he immortalized in his famous Mu allaqah, have become a part of the literary legacy of the Arabic-speaking world.

Antara was the father of knighthood. He was the champion of the weak and oppressed and the protector of women. He was the impassioned lover and poet, and the irresistible and gallant knight. Antara's magnificent deeds spread across the Arabian Peninsula and throughout the world. In time these deeds, like the legends of Homer, were compiled in literary form. They are known today as the Romance of Antar, and have taken their place among the great national classics. The Romance of Antar, in its present form, probably preceded the romances of chivalry so common in twelfth century Italy and France.

SOURCES:
World's Great Men Of Color, Volume 1, by J.A. Rogers
African Presence In Early Asia, Edited by Runoko Rashidi & Ivan Van Sertima

China's Supreme Court said the trade in stolen children, carried out by organised gangs, was on the rise.....

bbc.co.uk
14:45 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009

In China two men have been executed after being convicted of abducting and trafficking 15 children. China's Supreme Court said the trade in stolen children, carried out by organised gangs, was on the rise. Parents, unable to have sons of their own, buy boys from the traffickers for around £3,000 each.

The BBC has obtained rare footage of Chinese police who are trying to curb the trade, but many thousands of children are being snatched off the streets to be sold every year and most are never recovered.

Damian Grammaticas reports

Notes and clips from World on Fire by Yale Prof. Chua

access to capital is so important to the economic success in a modernized global economy (42)

Democratization in countries whose markets are dominated by minorities at the expense of the majorities causes violent ethnic backlashes in developing worlds. (124-125)

No Asian Tiger (Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, China) has ever had a market dominate minority (178)

A turned-around life
Former neo-Nazi speaks against hate

By Stacey Kennelly


This article was published on 11.12.09.


Former skinhead TJ Leyden used to recruit kids into the white-supremacy movement. Now, as an anti-racism activist, he teaches children about tolerance.
PHOTO BY TJ LEYDEN
Combatting hate: TJ Leyden’s lecture was sponsored by the Paradise Center for Tolerance and Nonviolence. Visit www.pctn.org for info on upcoming events. He also spoke last week at Chico State.
To learn more about Leyden, visit www.strhatetalk.com.

One day, while watching a Nickelodeon show featuring black actors, TJ Leyden’s younger son haughtily walked up to the television. The boy pushed the power button and turned around to scold his father.

“Daddy, no nigger-watchin’ in the house,” the 3-year-old chided.

Leyden, who was then a member of the white-supremacy movement, at first reacted with a mix of humor and surprise. However, as he continued to mull what the toddler had said, he couldn’t help but think about his many stints in jail, the time he was stabbed at a party, and his cousin who is serving a life sentence at San Quentin State Prison for stabbing someone more than 60 times.

“If I didn’t want my boys to be that or be me, what was wrong with me?” Leyden recalled asking himself. “What was wrong with my beliefs?”

That startling confession is just a glimpse into Leyden’s transformation from violent bigot to anti-hate activist. Co-author of Skinhead Confessions: From Hate to Hope, the 43-year-old commanded the attention of more than 60 people for nearly two hours Sunday evening (Nov. 8) at the Paradise Elks Lodge during a community forum called “Turning Away From Hate.” His story was one of a violent adolescence and a shameful adulthood spent recruiting young men into the white-supremacy movement.

His foray into that world began in the late 1970s. Leyden, who grew up in the Southern California city of Fontana, was a punk-rock kid known for his extreme aggression. Back then, he explained that the scene focused on violence, anarchy and a “might makes right” attitude.

When Leyden’s parents divorced in 1980, he sought further refuge in this subculture. He began spending more and more time on the streets and at punk shows, where he turned increasingly violent. His behavior attracted attention of the worst kind—from older men who were skinheads.

“The older kids saw, and they liked my violence,” said the bespectacled Leyden, whose tattooed forearms showed below a short-sleeved plaid shirt.

Around the same time, skinheads began breaking into two factions: The SHARPs (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) and the neo-Nazis. Leyden and his white middle-class friends created one of the first neo-Nazi skinhead gangs in Southern California, and began terrorizing others in nearby Redlands—for reasons ranging from race to physical appearance.

Leyden described feeling “intolerance for anyone, even the white kids,” and engaged in beatings of anyone who rubbed him the wrong way. He rattled off a list of gruesome stories involving humiliation, degradation and mutilation of those who resisted recruitment into the gang or offended members in any way. The group used steel-toed boots and other weapons against their victims.

His described himself as “a hood ornament for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department” during that period of his life. On nearly 20 occasions he spent time in jail—a place that only perpetuated his separatist ideology and racism.

Leyden took all that he had learned with him when he joined the United States Marine Corps, which he claims permitted passive racism. He recalled passing out copies of The Turner Diaries to fellow soldiers, sharing with them the racist and anti-Semitic novel written by physicist and ’80s-era white separatist leader William L. Pearce.

“While I was passing out the book in my Marine uniform, someone else was passing out The Turner Diaries in an Army uniform—Timothy McVeigh,” Leyden said, eliciting a gasp from the audience.

His role in the military also allowed him to begin working with separatist groups. He affiliated with the organization The Order (also known as the Silent Brotherhood), a white nationalist revolutionary group that declared “war” on the U.S. government for being controlled by a group of conspiring Jews.

“Seriously, it’s not a game,” Leyden assured the audience. “They think of it as a war.”

Leyden said he was never approached by military officials about the blatant “A” (for Aryan) tattoos, swastikas and other neo-Nazi symbols that littered his body, including an obvious symbol tatted on the side of his neck. He had “earned” many of these adornments through race altercations and hate crimes. Eventually, the military sent him to rehabilitation and then discharged him a year early due to violent behavior and drinking.

He married a white-supremacist woman and had his first child after leaving the military. He also hit the streets in an effort to attract young men to the skinhead lifestyle. His recruitment tactics were manipulative and methodical; he focused on boys who showed signs of violent behavior, exploiting their vulnerabilities and malleable senses of self-identity and belonging. Leyden explained how he attended parties filled with young people, where alcohol-fueled violence and a “tear-down-and-rebuild” technique of humiliation and affirmation drew in youngsters afraid of being victimized by skinhead violence.

Leyden remained in the movement for 15 years. The turning point was the day his 3-year-old uttered that racial slur. He left the movement a year and a half later.

His reformation took place with the help of his mother, who lived out of state. Leyden turned over all his racist propaganda to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and debriefed officials about his past. He also reluctantly met with rabbis—with his mother at his side for support—who eventually encouraged him to speak out against his friends in the white-power movement. The decision has made him a target for retaliation.

Leyden made his first appearance at a Bakersfield middle school in 1996, and has since spoken in front of more than 850,000 school kids about tolerance and is active in efforts to remove racist Web sites from the Internet and create stricter hate-crime laws. California ranks No. 1 in the nation for the most hate groups, with 88 active.

He and his second wife, Julia, founded StrHATE Talk Consulting, an organization that fights against intolerance and discrimination through education. Leyden called on the audience to “fight with their minds” to become active anti-racists, and not to engage in the perpetuation of stereotypes in local communities. He noted the positive impact volunteering with organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club has on young people, and how mentors can deter children from adopting a lifestyle of hate.

“Help this world stop creating people like me,” he pleaded.

Rabban Bar Sauma -(c. 1220–1294) Turkic/Mongol monk - wiki - turned diplomat of the Nestorian Christian faith. He is known for embarking on a pilgrimage from Mongol-controlled China to Jerusalem with one of his students, Rabban Markos. Due to military unrest along the way, they never reached their destination, but instead spent many years in Mongol-controlled Baghdad. Markos was eventually chosen as Nestorian Patriarch, and later suggested his teacher Rabban Bar Sauma be sent on another mission, as Mongol ambassador to Europe. The elderly monk met with many of the European monarchs, as well as the Pope, in attempts to arrange a Franco-Mongol alliance. The mission bore no fruit, but in his later years in Baghdad, Rabban Bar Sauma documented his lifetime of travel. He began in Pekin, China and traveled as far as Normandy during the reign of Edward I and Phillip the Fair.

Yemen conflict raises Gulf tensions

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2009
19:58 MECCA TIME, 16:58 GMT

Saudi Arabia is continuing to attack a Shia rebel stronghold in northern Yemen by air, while Saudi troops and Houthi rebels have been engaged in bloody clashes for more than a week. At least two Saudi soldiers have been killed in the latest fighting, and the conflict is further raising tensions in the region, with Iran warning Saudi Arabia not to interfere in Yemen's internal affairs. Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, said on Sunday: "The intervention of Saudi government in Yemen and repeated bombardment of unprotected Yemeni Muslims by Tornado and F-15 fighters is astounding.

"How has his Excellency, the servant of the two honourable shrines, allowed Muslims' blood be split in Yemen by means of its military devices? The news proves that the US government has been the accomplice and assistance in such suppressive measures." The Iranian parliament also called on the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to intervene to stop the killing of Yemeni Muslims. Hashem Ahelbarra reports from Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, where he's been gauging the fallout from this ongoing battle.

Source: Al Jazeera.net

H.S. and the Brown Buffalo -o- Villa and Zapata

Zimbabwe: Cape to Cairo - Right to Know Under Attack
From Wikileaks
Financial Gazette (Harare): Zimbabwe: Cape to Cairo - Right to Know Under Attack
Zimbabwe:_Cape_to_Cairo_-_Right_to_Know_Under_Attack
Zimbabwe
September 7, 2007
By
Mavis Makuni

Current events indicate that newspaper editors are under siege from Cape to Cairo for defending the people's right to know in the face of state attempts to muzzle the media. In South Africa, the young editor of the Sunday Times, Mondli Makhanya, has stirred a hornet's nest by making a bold decision to expose scandalous incidents involving the country's health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

At the other end of the continent, in Cairo, the editor of an independent daily newspaper is to be prosecuted for publishing reports on the state of the health of Egypt's 78-year president, Hosni Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981. In East Africa another editor, albeit of a foreign newspaper, is to be taken to court for reporting on the theft of US$2 billion from state coffers during the 24-year rule of Daniel Arap Moi.

The former Kenyan president's eldest son, Gideon Moi, is reported by the Sunday Times to have threatened to sue the British newspaper, The Guardian, which reported how a risk consultancy firm, Kroll, had exposed "a web of shell companies, hidden trusts and frontmen "used by the Moi dynasty to "funnel vast sums of money abroad". The Guardian reported that the stolen funds were used to buy opulent properties in New York, London and South Africa and that "hundreds of millions" were stashed in foreign bank accounts.

Reacting angrily to the report, Gideon Moi is quoted in the press as saying, "None of us has seen this so-called report but the allegations contained there are untrue and highly libelous. To accuse someone of corruption, which the report purports to do, at this time is very damaging and I intend to take action." The reference to the time of the year is an allusion to the general elections to be held in Kenya in December ahead of which Daniel Arap Moi has endorsed his successor, Mwai Kibaki, whose government has continued to be mired in rampant corruption. But despite Gideon Moi's rage against the British newspaper, he and his younger brother are reported to be worth a combined 930 million pounds sterling, an obscene level of wealth by the standard of any African country where the majority live below the poverty datum line.

Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the daily newspaper Al-Destur is reported to have offended Mubarak by publishing reports about the president's health. This followed persistent speculation in the country that Mubarak had been hospitalised and had travelled abroad for treatment. The editor, whose paper was once banned for five years, has had previous run-ins with the presidency. He is reported to have been convicted last year for insulting Mubarak in an article published in his, newspaper.

His current troubles will re-ignite debate on whether details about the health of Africa's long-serving but still mortal presidents should be a state secret to be kept away from the people they govern. At 78, Mubarak is not a young man and in addition to the natural and inevitable march of time, 26 years at the helm will also have taken their toll. It should not be a punishable offence to report on these realities.

The Sunday Times and its editor Mondli Makhaya were taken to court for publishing details of Tshabalala-Msimang's alcoholism and criminal record involving a theft case for which she had been convicted in Botswana while serving as a medical superintendent. Msimang-Tshabalala underwent surgery for a liver transplant a few months ago. Her liver needed to be replaced allegedly because it had been damaged by years of heavy drinking.

The Sunday Times claimed that under normal circumstances the 66-year old minister would not have qualified to get a donated organ but had used her influence to jump the queue ahead of more deserving cases. The paper believed that it was immoral for the minister to continue drinking after getting this new lease of life and that it was hypocritical for her to campaign against alcohol abuse in her official capacity as the steward of the nation's health when she could not practice what she preached.

Predictably, Makhanya was crucified by the administration of Thabo Mbeki,which accused him of conducting a vendetta against Tshabalala-Msimang and tarnishing the image of the government. Encouragingly, however, in a law suit instituted by the minister against Makhanya and the Sunday Times, the editor was vindicated. In an outcome hailed as a victory for the freedom of the press, High Court Judge Mahomed Jajbhay upheld the public's right to know and the paper's right to publish, although Tshabala-Msimang's lawyers had argued that the Sunday Times had obtained the information illegally.

"The information, although unlawfully obtained, went simply beyond being interesting to the public; there was in fact a pressing need for the public to be informed about the information contained in the medical records", said Jajbhay. "The publiction of the unlawfully obtained controversial information was capable of contributing to a debate in our democratic society relating to a politician in the exercise of her functions.

The Sunday Times lawyers had argued that there was debate in South Africa on whether or not Tshabalala-Msimang was fit for high office. There were many reasons for questioning the minister's fitness for office and ordinary South Africans were entitled to any information bearing on that aspect. The minister had publicly crusaded against alcohol abuse and pointed out its social and economic costs. "In order for this important message to resonate with the appropriate authority and persuasiveness, the first applicant (the minister) must both live her life consistently with the message and be seen to do so. Anything less would suggest both hypocrisy and seriously undermine the message..."

The judge upheld these arguments, declaring; "This is a case where the need for the truth is, in fact, overwhelming. Indeed in this matter the personality involved as well as her status establishes her newsworthiness." One of the bizarre aspects of the case was the "dog-eat-dog" reaction of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to the controversy. Describing the press as "the enemy of the people", SABC chief executive officer, Dali Mpofu complained, "We cannot remain quiet when our mothers and democratically chosen leaders are stripped naked for the sole reason of selling newspapers."

Black Seminoles- the best site to track the migration of a peoples who were oppressed yet stood resilient in the beliefs of their unalienable rights

African-Native Americans- A web page dedicated to the Freedmen of Indian Territory--now Oklahoma, who were the former slaves and also the Free Persons of Color in the Five Civilized Tribes. Within these nations-the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole Nations -- genealogists will find thousands of records documenting the history of those African people living within the Indian nations. More than 20,000 Africans were adopted into these nations before the end of the 19th century. The Treaty of 1866 brought about the abolishment of Slavery in Indian Territory, and the adoption of the former slaves into 4 of the 5 nations. Although many of the nations have now chosen to ignore this critical treaty, the history stands as the major official connection of these Oklahoma nations have to their African brethren that cannot be disputed historically.

Black Indians- A wonderful essay on the union of Indigenous Americans with African-American written by William Loren Katz. "Though often unmentioned except in family circles, this biological legacy has been shared by such figures as Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes, Lena Horne, Alice Walker, Jesse Jackson, Michael Jackson and L.L. Cool J. Today virtually every African American family tree boasts an Indian branch."

Art T. Burton in the essay titled the Cherokee Slave Revolt of 1842 notes the social issue of slavery amongst some tribes during the legal era of slavery in the United States. Fay A. Yarbough in the book Race and the Cherokee Nation also broaches on the topic that members of the "Five Civilized Tribes" held slaves as well. In fact Yarbough cites some rough statistics "(in the late 1800's slaves were)18 percent of the Cherokee pop. 14 percent of Choctaw, 18 percent of Chickasaw, and 10 percent of Creek." Yarbough also notes the myth that natives were held to a lesser degree than the legally enslaved African-Americans. The reality of the U.S. Government treating many tribes as inependant nations well into the Antebellum periods prior to the Civil War, allowed for a great degree of social autonomy for the Native American compared to their enslaved counterpart in the American of African decent.

Black Seminoles -wiki- In eighteenth-century Spanish Florida, Black Seminoles became a distinct group, as escaped slaves were welcomed by the Spanish government. Spain gave land to some Muskogee (Creek) Indians. Over time the Creeks were joined by other groups of Indians, such as the Miccosukee and the Apalachicola, and formed communities. By 1822, they had formed a new nation and took the name of Seminole.

The Spanish strategy for defending Florida was based, at first, on organizing the indigenous Indians into a mission system with the mission Indians serving as militia to protect the colony from English incursions from the north. But a combination of raids by South Carolina colonists and new European diseases to which they did not have immunity decimated Florida's native population. After the local Indians had all but died out, Spanish authorities encouraged renegade Indians and runaway slaves from England's North American colonies to move south. The Spanish were hoping that these traditional enemies of the English would prove effective in holding off English expansion.

Dangerous Liaisons: Congressmen to Join Nativist Hate Group Today
Posted in Anti-Immigrant by Heidi Beirich on November 6, 2009 ----

courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center blog HATEWATCH


At noon today, five members of the U.S. House of Representatives will hold a press conference at the House Triangle with Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR has been listed as an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center since 2007.

Stein will discuss “loopholes” in pending health care legislation that he claims will allow benefits to go to “illegal aliens.”

All five House members meeting with FAIR — Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Sam Johnson (R-Tex.) and Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) — are members of the hard-line House Immigration Reform Caucus (IRC). The IRC is headed by U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), who is a former lobbyist for FAIR. In 2002, Bilbray told a group of anti-immigrant activists, “We are creating a slave class that criminal elements breed in.” He also warned, “We could have a terrorist coming in on a Latin name.”

FAIR has a decades-long history of anti-immigrant hatred. The group has employed key staff members with ties to white supremacist groups, accepted more than $1 million from a racist foundation dedicated to the study of racial differences in intelligence, and promoted racist conspiracy theories about Mexico’s secretly coveting the American Southwest. In 2006, a top official of FAIR in met with former members of a Belgian political party banned by that country’s highest court for “racism and xenophobia.” For more on FAIR’s long track record of hate, read here.

The group’s animus toward immigrants reaches all the way back to its founding in 1979. FAIR’s founder, current board member and intellectual leader, John Tanton, has repeatedly described contemporary immigrants as inferior. He has questioned the “educability” of Latinos and written that “for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” In a letter to Roy Beck, head of NumbersUSA, Tanton wondered “whether the minorities who are going to inherit California … can run an advanced society?”

Stein recently defended Tanton, telling The Washington Post that Tanton is a “Renaissance man” of wide-ranging “intellect.”

It is unclear whether these elected officials are aware of FAIR’s racist track record. In October, another Republican congressman, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, came under fire by immigrants-rights advocates in his home district for participating in a September event put on by FAIR that featured live broadcasts by talk radio hosts. Ryan quickly issued a statement saying he did not endorse or support FAIR and had only granted a radio interview to discuss “health care reform and the Green Bay Packers.” According to Ryan’s statement, he had his name removed from FAIR’s website where it had been noted that Ryan took part in the FAIR’s event.

Mohism

First published Mon Oct 21, 2002; substantive revision Thu Jul 16, 2009
courtesy of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Mohism was an influential philosophical, social, and religious movement that flourished during the Warring States era (479–221 BCE) in ancient China. Mohism originates in the teachings of Mo Di, or “Mozi” (“Master Mo,” fl. ca. 430 BCE), from whom it takes its name. Mozi and his followers initiated philosophical argumentation and debate in China. They were the first in the tradition to engage, like Socrates in ancient Greece, in an explicit, reflective search for objective moral standards and to give step-by-step, tightly reasoned arguments for their views, though their reasoning is sometimes simplistic or rests on doubtful assumptions. They formulated China's first explicit ethical and political theories and advanced the world's earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare. The Mohists applied a pragmatic, non-representational theory of language and knowledge and developed a rudimentary theory of analogical argumentation. They played a key role in articulating and shaping many of the central concepts, assumptions, and issues of classical Chinese philosophical discourse.

A later branch of the school (see the entry on Mohist Canons) formulated a sophisticated semantic theory, epistemology, utilitarian ethics, theory of analogical reasoning, and mereological ontology and undertook inquiries in such diverse fields as geometry, mechanics, optics, and economics. They addressed technical problems raised by their semantics and utilitarian ethics and produced a collection of terse, rigorous arguments that develop Mohist doctrines, defend them against criticisms, and rebut opponents' views.

Central elements of Mohist thought include advocacy of a unified ethical and political order grounded in a utilitarian ethic emphasizing impartial concern for all; active opposition to military aggression and injury to others; devotion to utility and frugality and condemnation of waste and luxury; support for a centralized, authoritarian state led by a virtuous, benevolent sovereign and managed by a hierarchical, merit-based bureaucracy; and reverence for and obedience to Heaven (Tian, literally the sky) and the ghosts worshiped in traditional folk religion. Mohist ethics and epistemology are characterized by a concern with finding objective standards that will guide judgment and action reliably and impartially so as to produce beneficial, morally right consequences. The Mohists assume that people are naturally motivated to do what they believe is right, and thus with proper moral education will generally tend to conform to the correct ethical norms. They believe strongly in the power of discussion and persuasion to solve ethical problems and motivate action, and they are confident that moral and political questions have objective answers that can be discovered and defended by inquiry.

Forty Eighters
-wiki-

The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In Germany, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the country, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights. Disappointed at the failure of the revolution to bring about the reform of the system of government in Germany or the Austro-Hungarian Empire and sometimes on the government's wanted list because of their involvement in the revolution, they gave up their old lives to try again abroad. Many emigrated to the United States, Canada, and Australia after the revolutions failed. Many fought in the American Civil War and Latin American Wars of Independence. They included Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, and others. Many were respected, wealthy, and well-educated; as such, they were not typical migrants. A large number went on to be very successful in their new countries.

House Passes Sweeping Healthcare Overhaul

November 8, 2009

By REUTERS
Filed at 12:13 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives approved a sweeping healthcare reform bill on Saturday, backing the biggest health policy changes in four decades and handing President Barack Obama a crucial victory. On a narrow 220-215 vote, including the support of one Republican, the House endorsed a bill that would expand coverage to nearly all Americans and bar insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

Most Republicans criticized its $1 trillion price tag, new taxes on the wealthy and what they said was excessive government interference in the private health sector. Democrats cheered and hugged when the 218th vote was recorded, and again when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pounded the gavel and announced the results. The battle over Obama's top domestic priority now moves to the Senate, where work on its own version has stalled for weeks as Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid searches for an approach that can win the 60 votes he needs. Any differences between the Senate and House bills ultimately will have to be reconciled, and a final bill passed again by both before going to Obama for his signature. "Thanks to the hard work of the House, we are just two steps away from achieving health insurance reform in America. Now the United States Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation," Obama said in a statement after the vote.

"I am absolutely confident it will, and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year," he said. The overhaul would spark the biggest changes in the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system, which accounts for one sixth of the U.S. economy, since the creation of the Medicare government health program for the elderly in 1965.

ABORTION DEAL

The vote followed days of heavy lobbying of undecided Democrats by Obama, his top aides and House leaders. The narrow victory was clinched early on Saturday by a deal designed to mollify about 40 Democratic opponents of abortion rights. Democrats had a cushion of 40 of their 258 House members they could lose and still pass the bill. In the end, 39 Democrats sided with Republicans against it. The lone Republican to vote in favor of it was first-term Representative Anh Cao of Louisiana. "It was a bipartisan vote," Democratic leader Steny Hoyer said to laughter among fellow Democrats afterward. The landmark vote was a huge step for Obama, who has staked much of his political capital on the healthcare battle. A loss in the House would have ended the fight, impaired the rest of his legislative agenda and left Democrats vulnerable to big losses in next year's congressional elections.

Obama traveled to Capitol Hill on Saturday morning to meet with House Democrats and emphasize the vital need for the healthcare reform bill. Republicans and Democrats battled in sometimes testy debate through the day and into the night on Saturday over the bill, which would require individuals to have insurance and all but the smallest employers to offer health coverage to workers. It would set up exchanges where people could choose to purchase private plans or a government-run insurance option bitterly opposed by the insurance industry, and it would offer subsidies to help low-income Americans buy insurance. Congressional budget analysts say the bill would extend coverage to 36 million uninsured people living in the United States, covering about 96 percent of the population, and would reduce the budget deficit by about $100 billion over 10 years. "We can't afford this bill," said Republican Representative Roy Blunt. "It's a 2,000-page road map to a government takeover of healthcare."

REPUBLICAN PLAN REJECTED

Democrats rejected on a 258-176 vote the much smaller Republican healthcare plan, which focused on cost controls and curbing medical malpractice lawsuits but did not include many of the insurance reforms of the Democratic plan. The House also approved on a 240-194 vote an amendment that would impose tighter restrictions on using federal funds to pay for abortions. House Democratic leaders agreed to allow a vote on the amendment to mollify about 40 moderate House Democrats who threatened to oppose the overhaul without changes to ensure federal subsidies in the bill for insurance purchases were not used on abortion. The move enraged Democratic abortions rights supporters, but they largely voted in favor of the bill in hopes they can remove the language later in the legislative process.

(Editing by Arshad Mohammed and Todd Eastham)

the pixies where is my mind

On June 2, 1967, Ohnesorg participated in a protest held near the Deutsche Oper, aimed against the state visit of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,(see Iranian Revolution) who was attending a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Deutsche Oper that night. It was the first political demonstration Ohnesorg had ever taken part in. The protest turned violent after provocations by the Shah's agents and the police's overreacting. Demonstrators were then dispersed into the side streets. In the confusion in the courtyard of Krumme Strasse 66, Ohnesorg was then shot by plain-clothes police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras. Ohnesorg died before he could be operated on in the hospital. Kurras was cleared of all charges in two separate trials.

-wiki-

The photo is from the works of the great Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. The Chechenya Gorge.

Putin and his watchdogs in Caucasus are advertising every day through mass media, how they introduce order, how they bring peace to Caucasian peoples. In two previous recordings on the internet, at the same [site] where this recording will be [posted], you will watch how three long-range bombers drop bombs on outskirts of our villages. After that you will also watch the destructions, that were inflicted by their bombardment. And after that, our Mujahideen are sent by me into those places, in order to collect these remains of their "gifts".

These are ball bombs, they are banned everywhere in the world. This is a ball bomb, it is left after every bombardment, it is Putin's "gift" for the Chechen people. This was collected in the territory of Nokhchicho (AKA Chechnya/Ichkeria), therefore I am elaborating, saying "Chechen people". This is a "gift", which he sends through his watchdog Kafyrov (Kadyrov) to this Chechen people.

These remains of their "gifts" explode instantly upon contact with a human or with hoofs of livestock, and people die and suffer because of it, especially during this time, during this season. Many from the poorest, the lowest section of the Chechen people, who gather ramsons, many times they have been blown up [by these things], and many times they have been suffering from these things. These bombs by themselves are banned by all civilized states in the world.

I am clearly demonstrating you how planes bombed, destruction in forests that is left after their bombardment, entire glades, and how we, Mujahideen, protect our people. These bomblets, remains, are collected by Mujahideen, brought [here], and here are some good specialists, insha'Allah, Allah will grant them Paradise for it, they defuse it, and then we bury it completely, so that it would not harm neither animals, nor [other] fauna, nobody.

Here are all those "gifts", that come to our lands, and all those praises, that are directed to us through television, you can see it. For example, these several bomb[let]s can cause irreparable harm. This single bomb[let] is capable of killing ten people. So let the people, the society, the so called society, see, with which gifts they have come to these lands and how they are doing it.

Excerpt from a 2009 May internet broadcast of the leader of a Chechen separatist organization. Dokka Abu Usman is the Arabized pronunciation, Doka Umarov is the traditional spelling.

The C.I.A. and later, the Reagan administration used the war in Afghanistan as a tool for the eventual collapse of the Soviet Empire. The effects of the Western powers meddling (primarily the U.S. and Britain) have continued to send aftershocks throughout the modern world. The network that the Reagan administration would ensure the creation of, remains largely intact to this day. Al-Qaeda, and its leader Osama Bin Laden are among a million individuals and organizations that owe much of their success to the love and support of the U.S. Government, especially the Reagan administration and the C.I.A during the entire decade of the 1980s on into the 1990s, and still to this very day. The following in an excerpt from a timeline constructed to track the majors points of "Charlie Wilsons War".


courtesy of historycommons.org
1985-1986: CIA Becomes Unhappy with Afghan Fighters, Begins Supporting Islamist Volunteers from Other Countries

The Central Intelligence Agency, which has been supporting indigenous Afghan groups fighting occupying Soviet forces, becomes unhappy with them due to infighting, and searches for alternative anti-Soviet allies. MSNBC will later comment: “[T]he CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan made famous by Rudyard Kipling, found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to ‘read’ than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So [Osama] bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the ‘reliable’ partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.” The CIA does not usually deal with the Afghan Arabs directly, but through an intermediary, Pakistan’s ISI, which helps the Arabs through the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) run by Abdullah Azzam. [MSNBC, 8/24/1998] The agreement is sealed during a secret visit to Pakistan, where CIA Director William Casey commits the agency to support the ISI program of recruiting radical Muslims for the Afghan war from other Muslim countries around the world. In addition to the Gulf States, these include Turkey, the Philippines, and China. The ISI started their recruitment of radicals from other countries in 1982 (see 1982). This CIA cooperation is part of a joint CIA-ISI plan begun the year before to expand the “Jihad” beyond Afghanistan (see 1984-March 1985). [RASHID, 2001, PP. 128-129] Thousands of militant Arabs are trained under this program (see 1986-1992).

Much of the conflict in Iran is based out of neighboring Pakistan, more specifically Balochistan Autonomous Region of Pakistan. Jundallah is the name of the current organization for the establishment of an independent Balochistan nation. The following is an excerpt from the Balochistan Online Entertainment company...

Who Are the Baloch?

To the neighboring Pushtun tribes, who live in fertile riverine valleys, Baluchistan is "the dump where Allah shot the rubbish of creation. But for the Baluch, their sense of identity is closely linked to the austere land where they have lived for at least a thousand years. According to the Daptar Sha'ar {Chronicle of Genealogies), an ancient ballad popular among all seventeen major Baluch tribes, the Baluch and the Kurds were kindred branches of a tribe that migrated eastwards from Aleppo, in what now is Syria, shortly before the time of Christ in search of fresh pasturelands and water sources.



One school nationalist historians attempts to link this tribe ethnically with the Semitic Chaldean rulers of Babylon, another with the early Arabs, still others with Aryan tribes originally from Asia Minor. In any case, there is agreement among these historians that the Kurds headed toward Iraq, Turkey, and northwest Persia, while the Baluch moved In to the coastal areas along the southern shores of the Caspian sea, later migrating into what are now Iranian Baluchistan and Pakistani Baluchistan between the sixth and fourteenth centuries.


Western historians dismiss the Daptar Sha'ar as nothing more than myth and legend, totally unsubstantiated by verifiable evidence, and it remains for future scholars to probe into the murky origins of the Baluch. These legends are cited here not because they have serious historiographic value but because they are widely believed and are thus politically important today. For the most part, Aleppo is a unifying symbol of a common identity in the historical memories shared by all Baluch. In recent years, however, Arab attempts to attribute Arab ethnic origins to the Baluch have become a divisive factor in the nationalist movement.


Whatever the authenticity of the Aleppo legends, scholars in Baluchistan and in the West generally agree that the Baluch were living along the southern shores of the Caspian at the time of Christ. This consensus is based largely on linguistic evidence showing that the Baluchi language is descended from a lost language linked with the Parthian or Median civilizations, which flourished in the Caspian and adjacent areas in the pre-Christian era. As one of the oldest living languages, Baluchi is a subject of endless fascination and controversy for linguists. It is classified as a member of the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family, which includes Farsi (Persian), Pushtu, Baluchi, and Kurdish. Baluchi is closely related to only one of the members of the Iranian group; Kurdish. In its modern form, it has incorporated borrowings from Persian, Sindhi, Arabic, and other languages, nonetheless retaining striking peculiarities that can be traced back to its pre-Christian origins. Until150 years ago, the Baluch, like most nomadic societies, did not have a recorded literature. Initially, Baluch savants used the Persian and Urdu scripts to render Baluchi in written form. In recent decades, Baluch nationalist intellectuals have evolved a Baluchi script known as Nastaliq, a variant of the Arabic script.


Ethnically, the Baluch are no longer homogeneous, since the original nucleus that migrated from the Caspian has absorbed a variety of disparate groups along the way. Among these "new" Baluch were displaced tribes from Central Asia, driven southward by the Turkish and Mongol invasions from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries, and fugitive Arab factions defeated in intra-Arab warfare. Nevertheless, in cultural terms, the Baluch have been remarkably successful in preserving a distinctive identity in the face of continual pressures from strong cultures in neighboring areas. Despite the isolation of the scattered pastoral communities in Baluchistan, the Baluchi language and a relatively uniform Baluch folklore tradition and value system have provided a common denominator for the diverse Baluch tribal groupings scattered over the vast area from the Indus River in the east to the Iranian province of Kerman in the west.

To a great extent, it is the vitality of this ancient cultural heritage that explains the tenacity of the present demand for the political recognition of Baluch identity. But the strength of Baluch nationalism is also rooted in proud historical memories of determined resistance against the would-be conquerors who perennially attempted, without success, to annex all or part of Baluchistan to their adjacent empires.


Reliving their past endlessly in books, magazines, and folk ballads, the Baluch accentuate the positive. They revel in the gory details of ancient battles against Persians, Turks, Arabs, Tartars, Hindus, and other adversaries, focusing on how valiantly their generals fought rather than on whether the Baluch won or lost. They point to the heroes who struggled to throw off the yoke of more powerful oppressors and minimize the role of the quislings who sold out the Baluch cause.


Above all, they seek to magnify the achievements of their more successful rulers, contending that the Baluch were on the verge of consolidating political unity when the British arrived on the scene and applied their policy of divide and rule. This claim is difficult to sustain with much certainty on the basis of the available evidence. Nevertheless, the Baluch did make several significant attempts to draw together politically, and their failure to establish an enduring polity in past centuries does not prove that they would fail under the very different circumstances prevailing today. As Baluch writers argue, given the technologies of modern transportation and communication, the contemporary Baluch nationalist has new opportunities for cementing Baluch political unity that were not open to his forebears.


From the book

In Afghanistan’s Shadow:

Baloch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations

By Selig S. Harrison

A Glance At Patani
(from the Patani Malay Human Rights Organization)

The nearly 2 million inhabitants of the presently Southern five Malay speaking provinces of southern Thailand, embraced Islam during the region's changing of ages leaving behind the their former ancient Hindu-Buddhist sphere of Langkasuka empire since the first century AD to form a new nation called 'Malay Kingdom of Patani' during 1350 AD with Islam as new faith

As Islam began to establish under Patani's second king, Patani gradually flourished especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But during its political decline in the eighteenth century, Patani was subdued by Siam (later called Thailand) in 1786 after it had won a war against Burma. Patani became a Siamese tributary state with their state affairs run by an ethnic Thai-Buddhist nation, the ethnic Malays of Patani again flourished their Islamic identity and, until the 19th century, it was well-known as the cradle of Islam in Southeast Asia.

But the situation begun to worsen as Siam incorporated Patani as part of its kingdom 1902, the Patani has since then been relentlessly struggling against Siamese imperialism to the present day. Siam brutalises Patani in all forms, politically, culturally and economically.

Disrespectfully towards the Islamic Malay tolerant way of life of Patani people, Siam forcefully promulgated its colonial policy aiming to assimilate the Patanis and abandon their own origin. From 1921 onwards the Patanis were obliged to attend Siamese schools in learning Thai language and history, culture and kingship. Without doubt, Buddhist influence was part of the campaign. It was unsuccessful though, as no matter how harshly the policies were imposed upon them, the Islamic Malay culture remained at an all-time high among the Patanis. But after 1932, a period in which Siam itself changed from an absolute monarchy system to a constitutional one and Siam was renamed as Thailand, from loosely controlled units to a powerful centralised one, the Patanis were since then victimised even further as the national government became mostly controlled by the military, promoting Thai nationalism, especially after World War II. Due to these situations, a prominent religious leader named Haji Sulong proposed a seven-point self-rule plan to safeguard Patani rights and identity, but the Thais responded to his sincere intention with crushing and killing. This made the Patanis stage uprisings from time to time since 1948 that led to the forming of armed struggle groups in 1960s as a defensive matter.

With suffering in silence on the one hand and preserving Malay Islamic culture on the other, the Patanis continue to fight on. With the end of the cold war and the emergence of the globalisation era during the 1980s and 1990s the Thai elites engaged in immorally political capitalism which was, in fact, what brought a downturn to their nation as can be seen to the present day. The Patanis prefer the sustainable and economical Islamic way of life. This led the Thais to wrongly come to the conclusion that the Patanis were against prosperity. Therefore the new anti Thai sentiment among the Patanis grows gradually and peacefully but are again brutalised by the all-time violent mentality of the Thais.

Why Ugandans want to work in Iraq

By Joshua Mmali
BBC News, Kampala

At the Watertight security training ground in Uganda, a group of men and women are doing target practice with their AK47s.
Nearby, another group are listening to a lecture under the shelter of a tree. Watertight Security Services has been sending Ugandan security guards to Iraq since 2007. So far, more than 10,000 Ugandans have gone to work in the country. Moses Matsiko worked in Iraq for more than three years before returning to Uganda to set up the company. "Since we do security, we start by screening the criminal background of people, hand in hand with Interpol," he told the BBC World Service.
"Then we do a medical screening to make sure that the people we are sending are medically fit. From there we start a training programme which entails weapon handling, shooting range drills and first aid." Applicants outnumber available places by more than 1,000.

Land of opportunity

Seth Katerema Mwesigye, an instructor at Watertight, says the money has made him wealthy by Ugandan standards.
"I was a student at Makerere university, but when I left, I did not have land. When I came back, I bought land and cows. All that money came from Iraq." Mr Masiko says that Iraq has proved to be a lucrative opportunity for security firms and their Ugandan recruits. But he says the company now needs to stay ahead of the increasing competition in the security sector and look for opportunities in new places. "More companies are coming in and they are ready to recruit for much less than we are offering which is $700 or $1,000 (£600) per month," he says. "Also you realise that other countries are coming into the market on the other side. "Originally Kenyans were not doing security work but today, there are more than 500 of them in Iraq and they work for as little as $400 per month. "So we are facing competition.

"But all eyes are now on Afghanistan. We hope that as it opens we are going to get more business there," he says.
But the picture is not all rosy. As well as the obvious danger of going to Iraq, there have been numerous stories recently in the Ugandan media about disaffected workers with complaints about conditions and pay. Some of them want to return home. Labour, Gender and Social Affairs Minister Gabriel Opiyo admits that not all of these companies have been treating their workers fairly.

"They must conform to the regulations which they signed up to when they got their licence, otherwise we will withdraw their licence," he says. "We are in the process of developing employment policies which will include a minimum wage."
It is obvious that the recruits at Watertight Security Services are desperate to escape from the poverty and unemployment that define their lives in Uganda. With hope, soon they will be marching into a future that will bring them rich rewards.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8341003.stm

Published: 2009/11/06 00:35:31 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Ft. Hood shooting suspect endured work pressure and ethnic taunts, his uncle says

The uncle says Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a sensitive man haunted by the wartime disabilities of soldiers he treated. The Army psychiatrist was not political, his relatives in the West Bank say.
By Richard Boudreaux

November 7, 2009 7:47 a.m.
-latimes.com-

Reporting from Al Birah, West Bank - When Rafik Ismail Hamad last traveled from the West Bank to visit relatives in America, he was struck by the pressures one of his nephews was facing. The younger man, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, spoke to his uncle of ethnic taunts by Army colleagues. He was haunted by the wartime disabilities of soldiers he treated as an Army psychiatrist, Hamad recalled, and was overwhelmed by a growing caseload he felt unable to manage. On top of that, the uncle said, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had drifted apart from his family; he was a sensitive, solitary man bearing his burdens alone. Late Thursday, Hamad was home in the West Bank town of Al Birah when he heard the news on television: A shooting spree at Ft. Hood, Texas, had left 13 people dead, and Hasan, wounded and in a coma, was being accused of the killings.

"The whole family is in a state of denial," Hamad said today. "We don't believe he is capable of doing something like that. I was amazed and shocked, because it's not him. He's very quiet, gentle."

"Maybe it built up together -- the harassment, too many patients, the workload, the tragedies his patients brought to him," said the 65-year-old retired real estate broker. "Whatever it was, it must have been big pressure, something terrible he couldn't handle."

Hamad said he had not seen or spoken to his nephew since that visit early last year, when Hasan was stationed in Washington. But the West Bank branch of the family had kept up with him through relatives in the United States. The uncle and another West Bank relative, Mohammed Munif Hasan, said they learned recently that Maj. Hasan had consulted a lawyer about securing a discharge from the Army. Nidal Hasan is the oldest of three brothers. Their Palestinian-born parents ran a restaurant and bar and owned a small grocery store in Roanoke, Va. Family members said the father died in 1999 and all three sons lived at home until their mother died about a year later. Eventually, Annas and Eyad moved out and got married, leaving Nidal on his own. Eyad lives in Virginia; Annas, a lawyer, moved to Al Birah in 2007 with his wife and their daughter. (Annas left his home after the shooting, apparently to avoid reporters; no one answered the door today.) The major's octogenarian maternal grandparents, Salha and Ismail Hamad, live in Al Birah with Rafik Hamad, their son. Rafik Hamad, a heavyset man with a trim white beard, spoke in an interview outside their three-story apartment building. He declined to make his parents available to reporters, explaining that the family was shielding them from the truth about what happened at Ft. Hood.

"They know there was an incident at the base and their grandson was injured," he said. "We didn't tell them there's lots of killing. Because you know old people. They get shocked. And even if we told them, they wouldn't believe it."

Hamad described his nephew as a gentle soul who once, as a young adult, mourned for three months after rolling over during a nap and crushing his pet parakeet. During medical school, the uncle said, Hasan switched his major to psychiatry after fainting at the sight of blood while delivering a baby. The young man became more religious after the death of his parents, who were Muslims but not observant, Hamad said. He noticed the change during the visit last year, when his nephew urged him to accompany him to pray at a mosque. His turn to religion had nothing to do with political identity, Hamad and other West Bank relatives said. He never traveled outside America except for two brief visits to the West Bank, the last one more than a decade ago, they said.

"He never knew anything about politics," Hamad said. "He didn't know who is the president or the king of any Arab country. He's American. . . . He once told me, 'The chances I have in the United States I couldn't have in any other country in the world, so I appreciate what this country has done for me.' "

Hamad said that although his nephew complained last year about ethnic slurs, he appeared to be handling them well. Fellow soldiers once handed him a diaper and told him to wear it around his head, the uncle said; another time they sketched a camel on a piece of paper and left it on his car with a note that said, "Here's your ride."

"He told me, 'They're ignorant. I'm more American than they are. I help my country more than they do. And I don't care what they say.' He felt sorry for them. He didn't feel grudges; he felt sympathy."

Hamad said that during their time together last year the major seemed more afflicted by his caseload of disabled and traumatized war veterans.

"He didn't have time even to breathe," Hamad said. "Too much pressure, too many patients, not enough staff. He would say, 'I don't know how to treat them or what to tell them,' because he didn't have enough time. They just kept coming one after the other.

"Sometimes he cried because of what happened to them. How young they are, what's going to happen to the rest of their lives. They're going to be handicapped; they're going to be crazy. He was very, very sensitive."

Mohammed Hasan, 24, a cousin of the major, said he heard the same story from relatives in America. Nidal Hasan brought his caseload home, he said, seeing patients at his house when the clinic was not open.

"He was a good doctor, and he liked working with soldiers and helping them," Mohammed Hasan said as he absorbed the news of the shooting. "We're the first to wonder how he could have done something like this. It's baffling."

The uncle said, "I think he snapped. Something big happened and he snapped."

With Hasan in a coma, his West Bank relatives said they were uncertain whether they would travel to Texas.

"I'd like to go visit the families [of the shooting victims] and apologize to them and give them my sympathies," Hamad said.

"But for him, I don't know what I can do. If he wakes up, I want to ask him, 'Did you do it and why?' I want to know. Otherwise, I have nothing to say to him."

boudreaux@latimes.com
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Chinese Agencies Struggle Over Video Game
By MICHAEL WINES
-nytimes.com-
Published: November 6, 2009


BEIJING — It could almost be a snippet from a World of Warcraft game session — two competing titans, plotting against each other, swapping punches, embarked on a quest for a single prize that only the stronger of them will claim.

But this is not virtual reality. The titans are two agencies of the Chinese government. And their quest, during which they have traded a few blows in the past week, is for a comparatively mundane prize: the power to regulate the real World of Warcraft, among the most popular online games in China.

Last Monday, the Chinese General Administration of Press and Publication ordered the Shanghai-based operator of World of Warcraft, NetEase, to shut down its servers for the game, saying it had rejected the company’s application to be the host of the game’s four million Chinese players.

But by Wednesday, the Ministry of Culture had struck back. “In regards to the World of Warcraft incident, the General Administration of Press and Publication has clearly overstepped its authority,” a ministry official, Li Xiong, was quoted as saying in the Economic Information Daily, a newspaper in Beijing. “They do not have the authority to penalize online gaming.”

The ministry said it had that authority. And it said NetEase was perfectly free to offer the game on computers in China. The matter now appears destined for settlement by the State Council, the Chinese government’s cabinet. Such bureaucratic hair-pulling might seem petty, were so much not at stake.

The online gaming industry in China is already huge, and growing fast. About 50 million people crowd the Internet cafes of China on a regular basis to play. Revenues in 2008 rose about 50 percent to at least 20 billion yuan, or $2.9 billion, according to Alicia Yap, a Hong Kong analyst for Citi Investment Research & Analysis. That is 10 times the revenue of just five years ago. IDC, a research company, has predicted that annual revenue will reach $6 billion by 2013.

In that context, the question of who decides what games go online — and how they decide — looms large. It is perhaps especially important for game makers outside China, who have had trouble cracking the vast Chinese market.

Of the 10 most popular Chinese games ranked by MMLC Group, a Beijing intellectual-property consulting firm, only World of Warcraft, by Blizzard Entertainment, is American-made; two are South Korean, and the rest were developed in China.

The press and publication administration has taken a hard line against outside involvement in the industry, stating flatly last month that foreign investment in Chinese online gaming operations, whether by joint ventures, cooperatives or other means, was forbidden.

The agency did not directly address the origin of the actual games, although it did bar foreigners from providing technical support to Chinese companies and declared its authority over foreign “service packs” and other improvements to existing online games.

In practice, some experts say, at least some of those bans could be easily sidestepped. The proclamation may be part of a larger feud within the government, and perhaps in the business world as well, over parceling out regulation of the booming industry.

Historically, the publication administration has had the power to censor and ban virtually anything published, whether a book, a DVD or an online game. The Ministry of Culture has policed film and other performing arts, including literary and audiovisual works.

The State Council sought to redefine this overlap in 2008, essentially giving the publication agency the power to approve online games before they are made public, and assigning the Culture Ministry to police them once they appear on the Internet.

World of Warcraft fell between the cracks. Long popular among Chinese gamers, the role-playing game hit a snag in June, when Blizzard dropped the previous operator of the game’s Chinese franchise in favor of NetEase. NetEase shut the game down while it reapplied for permission from the Ministry of Culture and the publication agency.

The Culture Ministry swiftly approved the game, while the publications agency lagged. In September, after the State Council issued a statement reaffirming the Culture Ministry’s authority over games already online, NetEase restarted World of Warcraft — and drew the publication agency’s wrath.

Which agency will win the regulatory battle remains unclear, although the Culture Ministry, with allies among other ministerial-level offices, is said to enjoy an edge. Regardless, there appears to be much for both offices to do. The government this summer proclaimed its desire to clean up the Internet, ridding it of pornography, gambling, violence and seditious material.

The Culture Ministry dived further into that Herculean task in the past week, announcing sanctions against 188 companies that it said were running unlicensed, vulgar or overly violent online games. NetEase and World of Warcraft were conspicuously absent from the list.

Li Bibo and Xiyun Yang in Beijing contributed research.