ChristiansUnite Forums

Religious Persecution Growing Worldwide, Group Says
Payton Hoegh
Correspondent

(CNSNews.com) - At a time when religious persecution prompts growing international concern, Christian advocates in the U.S. marked Religious Freedom Day Tuesday by drawing attention to those who do not have the freedoms enjoyed by Americans.

However, some voiced concern that a bill currently before Congress may dilute religious freedom at home too, by threatening free speech under the guise of outlawing "hate crimes."

Last week, President Bush declared Jan. 16 to be Religious Freedom Day, urging Americans to "continue to promote the importance of religious freedom at home and abroad."

Jan. 16 is the day in 1786 when Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom became law.

In a statement marking the day, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) called on Americans Tuesday to be vigilant.

"Too often in this post-9/11 world, human rights and religious freedom, are sacrificed on the altar of political correctness, diplomacy, and oversensitivity masquerading as tolerance," said IRD's Religious Liberty Director Faith McDonnell.

"In a world where darkness is increasingly being called light and evil called good, we must insure that this injustice is revealed," she said.

McDonnell said every day brought new reports of religious persecution from around the world.

"Millions are discriminated against, beaten and tortured, imprisoned, and killed because they follow Jesus Christ or are members of other minority religions," she said.

As Americans celebrate their own freedoms, McDonnell said, "we must ask God for mercy - and justice - for those who are persecuted for their faith."

According to a recent report by persecution watchdog Release International, 250 million Christians will be persecuted over the course of 2007.

The U.K.-based group said most persecution takes place in parts of the world under Islam, Communism, Hinduism and Buddhism, but that "persecution is growing fastest of all in the Islamic world."

"Governments in even moderate Muslim countries often fail to safeguard the rights of their Christian minorities," Release International said. "Abuses suffered by Christians include kidnapping, forced conversion, imprisonment, church destruction, torture, rape and execution."

The U.S. government does its part to fight religious persecution through the work of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Set up under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, the independent panel compiles a list of the most flagrant offenders of religious freedom.

Violators designated as "Countries of Particular Concern" (CPCs) are eligible for U.S. government sanctions or other action aimed at changing their behavior.

Currently, the CPC list comprises Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, Burma, North Korea, Sudan, Eritrea and Uzbekistan. The State Department removed Vietnam from the list late last year.

'Hate crimes' concerns

Some Christian advocacy groups worry that religious freedoms may also be at risk in the U.S.

Earlier this month Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) reintroduced a hate crimes bill that has failed to pass several times in the past.

Focus on the Family Action in a statement Tuesday linked the controversial measure to Religious Freedom Day.

"America was founded on religious freedom, and our future greatness as a nation depends on it," said Tom Minnery, the organization's senior vice president of government and public policy.

Minnery said the hate crimes bill "threatens that future by not aggressively prosecuting criminal acts, but by giving Washington the power to decide what constitutes criminal thought."

He said in some states similar legislation had been used "to punish peaceful demonstrators who have made politically incorrect statements." Minnery cited a 2004 case in Pennsylvania, when 11 Christians were arrested and five charged under a state hate crimes law after protesting against a homosexual event.

A spokeswoman for Jackson-Lee said Tuesday the lawmaker had not issued any statement on her bill.

According to the text, "the incidence of violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability of the victim poses a serious national problem."

It argues that violence of this type "disrupts the tranquility and safety of communities and is deeply divisive" and says "existing federal law is inadequate to address this problem."

Religious Persecution Growing Worldwide, Group Says (http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1463908.html?view=print)

Mubarak says Egypt proposed new Mideast peace plan
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST    Jan. 20, 2007

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Saturday that Egypt had presented a new solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent visit.

While Mubarak would not release details of the initiative, he said it had been formulated with a number of other Arab countries and submitted to US President George W. Bush, Israel Radio reported.

According to Mubarak, an Egyptian delegation plans to travel to Washington in February to discuss the plan.

Mubarak says Egypt proposed new Mideast peace plan (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467774911&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer)

Musharraf, Ahmadinejad discuss Mideast

Sat Jan 20, 1:50 AM ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's president discussed the "deteriorating situation" in the Middle East with his Iranian counterpart ahead of his tour of the region, the foreign ministry said Saturday.
ADVERTISEMENT

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday to inform him of his forthcoming visit to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Jordan, the ministry said in a statement.

Musharraf spoke of the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and "shared his deep concern with the Iranian president over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East," the statement said.

Ahmadinejad welcomed his initiative and supported his efforts, it said.

The statement did not say when Musharraf would leave for the Middle East, but government officials have said he many begin his tour Saturday.

Tehran is under pressure from the U.S. and some of its European allies to give up its nuclear program. Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror.

Musharraf, Ahmadinejad discuss Mideast  (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/pakistan_iran)

800,000 face food crisis in Burundi: UN

Sat Jan 20, 8:45 AM ET

BUJUMBURA (AFP) - Some 800,000 Burundians face a serious food crisis after devastating floods ravaged several regions of the tiny central African nation, the United Nations' food agency has said.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said Saturday the victims, many of them left homeless by weeks of torrential rains that also destroyed farmlands, could face food shortages in the coming six months.

"There is a risk of a serious food crisis in Burundi for the next six months due to rains that pounded the country in the last weeks," said Guillaume Folliot, the agency's spokesman in Burundi.

"Losses occasioned by the rains and overflowing rivers are estimated at between 50 to 80 percent of normal production," Folliot told AFP.

Since the unusually heavy rains began last month, the government has declared seven of the country's 17 provinces disaster zones and launched a national help fund for the affected regions.

The WFP has began delivering supplies to some 400,000 people and appealed for an additional 26 million dollars (20 million euros) for victims.

At least 23,000 people have been displaced by the floods that officials said had made the situation catastrophic.

800,000 face food crisis in Burundi: UN (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070120/wl_africa_afp/burundifloodsun)

Outback storm floods Australia, bushfires burn

By Michael Perry Sat Jan 20, 5:01 AM ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia is living up to its iconic image as a sun burnt country of droughts and flooding rains, with a huge outback storm causing flooding in three states on Saturday as drought-fuelled bushfires continued burning.

Monsoon rains over the country's vast interior have caused the usually dry Todd River in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory to come to life and flooded outback South Australia state and parts of Victoria and New South Wales states.

The small rural town of Oodnadatta in South Australia was flooded and most major roads leading to it closed to traffic by rising waters, emergency service officials said.

Sister Joan Wilson at the Oodnadatta Hospital said medical supplies were running low.

"If we don't get the supplies through in the next couple of days, some people may be in a bit of pain," she told reporters.

The flooding prevented the Royal Flying Doctor service, the outback's medical lifeline, from reaching the town.

Many remote cattle properties in South Australia were also cut off, but farmers battling the worst drought in 100 years welcomed the rains.

"I am sure there will be a lot of pastoralists around here rubbing their hands together with glee," said Trevor McLeod, a local government officer in the opal mining center of Coober Pedy, another flooded South Australian town.

Cattle property owner Dean Rasheed said the rain was the heaviest to hit South Australia's Flinders Ranges in living memory and would bring his dry land back to life.

"I'm looking at the largest flood I've seen in my lifetime and I'm getting on in years, so it's very significant," Rasheed told Australian Associated Press news agency.

"The water is 200 meters wide and four meters deep."

As the outback storm moved east across Australia it caused flooding in Victoria, which has been battling bushfires for more than 50 days, and also the state of New South Wales.

Fires have struck five of Australia's six states since November, blackening more than 1.2 million hectares (4,600 square miles) of bushland, killing one and gutting dozens of homes.

MEGAFIRES

Some have been "megafires," created in part by global warming and a drought which has provided an abundance of fuel, stretching thousands of kilometers.

Rain in Victoria's north and east on Saturday eased bushfire threats, but failed to douse the large fires, and left the Victorian towns of Mildura and Stawell flooded, with rising waters inundating shops and stranding motorists.

Weather forecaster Ward Rooney said he could not remember when Victoria last reported such contrasting extreme weather conditions. "It's a large bundle of warnings altogether, a combination you wouldn't see too often," said Rooney.

Across the border in New South Wales, favorable weather conditions on Saturday saved the alpine resort of Thredbo from a nearby bushfire, with lower temperatures and rain from the outback storm expected on Sunday.

But in the far west of New South Wales, rain caused flooding in the mining town of Broken Hill, forcing residents to sandbag homes to stop water entering. Roads around the town were cut.

Australia's weather bureau said this month that the country appeared to be suffering from an accelerated climate change brought about by global warming.

While the heavily populated southeast experiences its worst drought for a generation, the tropics and remote northwest are receiving unseasonably heavy rains accounting for more than Australia's yearly total average.

Outback storm floods Australia, bushfires burn (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070120/wl_nm/australia_weather_dc)

Woman beaten on J'lem bus for refusing to move to rear seat
By Daphna Berman

A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" on a Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case and may be included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the legality of sex-segregated buses.

Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.

In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women. The bus driver, in response to a media inquiry, denied that violence was used against her, but Shear's account has been substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus who confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked "severe beating."

Shear, an American-Israeli woman who currently lives in Canada, says that on a recent five-week vacation to Israel, she rode the bus daily to the Old City to pray at sunrise. Though not defined by Egged as a sex-segregated "mehadrin" bus, women usually sit in the back, while men sit in the front, as a matter of custom.

"Every two or three days, someone would tell me to sit in the back, sometimes politely and sometimes not," she recalled this week in a telephone interview. "I was always polite and said 'No. This is not a synagogue. I am not going to sit in the back.'"

But Shear, a 50-year-old religious woman, says that on the morning of the 24th, a man got onto the bus and demanded her seat - even though there were a number of other seats available in the front of the bus.

"I said, I'm not moving and he said, 'I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.' Then he spat in my face and at that point, I was in high adrenaline mode and called him a son-of-a-bitch, which I am not proud of. Then I spat back. At that point, he pushed me down and people on the bus were screaming that I was crazy. Four men surrounded me and slapped my face, punched me in the chest, pulled at my clothes, beat me, kicked me. My snood [hair covering] came off. I was fighting back and kicked one of the men in his privates. I will never forget the look on his face."

Shear says that when she bent down in the aisle to retrieve her hair covering, "one of the men kicked me in the face. Thank God he missed my eye. I got up and punched him. I said, 'I want my hair covering back' but he wouldn't give it to me, so I took his black hat and threw it in the aisle."

'Stupid American'

Throughout the encounter, Shear says the bus driver "did nothing." The other passengers, she says, blamed her for not moving to the back of the bus and called her a "stupid American with no sechel [common sense.] People blamed me for not knowing my place and not going to the back of the bus where I belong."

According to Yehoshua Meyer, the eyewitness to the incident, Shear's account is entirely accurate. "I saw everything," he said. "Someone got on the bus and demanded that she go to the back, but she didn't agree. She was badly beaten and her whole body sustained hits and kicks. She tried to fight back and no one would help her. I tried to help, but someone was stopping me from getting up. My phone's battery was dead, so I couldn't call the police. I yelled for the bus driver to stop. He stopped once, but he didn't do anything. When we finally got to the Kotel [Western Wall], she was beaten badly and I helped her go to the police."

Shear says that when she first started riding the No. 2 line, she did not even know that it was sometimes sex-segregated. She also says that sitting in the front is simply more comfortable. "I'm a 50-year-old woman and I don't like to sit in the back. I'm dressed appropriately and I was on a public bus."

"It is very dangerous for a group of people to take control over a public entity and enforce their will without going through due process," she said. "Even if they [Haredim who want a segregated bus] are a majority - and I don't think they are - they have options available. They can petition Egged or hire their own private line. But as long as it's a public bus, I don't care if there are 500 people telling me where to sit. I can sit wherever I want and so can anyone else."

Meyer says that throughout the incident, the other passengers blamed Shear for not sitting in the back. "They'll probably claim that she attacked them first, but that's totally untrue. She was abused terribly, and I've never seen anything like it."

Word of Shear's story traveled quickly after she forwarded an e-mail detailing her experience. She has been contacted by a number of groups, including Shatil, the New Israel Fund's Empowerment and Training Center for Social Change; Kolech, a religious women's forum; the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal advocacy arm of the local Reform movement; and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA).

In the coming month, IRAC will be submitting a petition to the High Court of Justice against the Transportation Ministry over the issue of segregated Egged buses. IRAC attorney Orly Erez-Likhovski is in touch with Shear and is considering including her in the petition.

Although the No. 2 Jerusalem bus where the incident occurred is not actually defined as a mehadrin line, Erez-Likhovski says that Shear's story is further proof that the issue requires legal clarification. About 30 Egged buses are designated as mehadrin, mostly on inter-city lines, but they are not marked to indicate this. "There's no way to identify a mehadrin bus, which in itself is a problem," she said.

"Theoretically, a person can sit wherever they want, even on a mehadrin line, but we're seeing that people are enforcing [the gender segregation] even on non-mehadrin lines and that's the part of the danger," she said.

On a mehadrin bus, women enter and exit through the rear door, and the seats from the rear door back are generally considered the "women's section." A child is usually sent forward to pay the driver.

The official responses

In a response from Egged, the bus driver denied that Shear was physically attacked in any way.

"In a thorough inquiry that we conducted, we found that the bus driver does not confirm that any violence was used against the complainant," Egged spokesman Ron Ratner wrote.

"According to the driver, once he saw that there was a crowd gathering around her, he stopped the bus and went to check what was going on. He clarified to the passengers that the bus was not a mehadrin line and that all passengers on the line are permitted to sit wherever they want on the bus. After making sure that the passengers returned to their seats, he continued driving."

The Egged response also noted that their drivers "are not able and are not authorized to supervise the behavior of the passengers in all situations."

Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Avner Ovadia said in response that the mehadrin lines are "the result of agreements reached between Egged and Haredi bodies" and are therefore unconnected to the ministry.

A spokesperson for the Jerusalem police said the case is still under investigation.

Woman beaten on J'lem bus for refusing to move to rear seat (http://haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=801449&contrassID=19)

Nanomorality
Technology based on tiny particles could lead to both miracle cures and pervasive crimes. How do we stay human in a nano world?
Interview with Nigel Cameron

Dr. Nigel Cameron is President of the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future and Director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society. Both are affiliates of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, where Cameron is Research Professor of Bioethics. He spoke with Beliefnet recently about nanotechnology and its moral implications.

Can you explain what nanotechnology is?

Nanotechnology is a term used for miniaturization in all areas of science. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and science--chemistry, engineering--is now pressing down to this level of manipulation. The future is there: it’s where we’ll have the most power to manipulate the natural order, and that’s why it’s so exciting, but it’s also why it raises such big questions.

We will be able to miniaturize everything. For example, those tags you have on groceries in the store, which are radio frequency identifiers, are going to get smaller and almost free—so small you can’t see them. This is great for inventory control in Wal-Mart—every product you ever buy could be tracked forever. But issues of privacy and confidentiality are raised in profound ways.

Could someone put the small thing that’s normally on a CD in Wal-Mart into my sandwich? If I eat it, can I be tracked?

Indeed so, unless you have a mechanism that requires these things to be deactivated at point of sale or in some other way. And of course you could still get criminals using them.

Most of the sunscreen now sold in the U.S. contains nano-sized particles. I have no reason to believe they are not safe, but there are huge debates about how we deal with particles that are so small they can cross the blood-brain barrier. We have very little evidence of their long-term impact and the whole toxicology issue is enormously complicated.

In terms of tracking people, what problematic scenarios can you envision?

Well, you don’t have to be a sci-fi writer or conspiracy theorist to see this as the end of privacy. If you have a government or commercial industries who want to know where everybody is, a surveillance society becomes much more practicable. Already you can put chips in your dog to find it if it strays.

At the other end of the scale, there’s talk about using a nano-device to create clean water.

You’d be able to drop some little particles in dirty water, and…?

--and it would just clean it all up, little machines that would replicate and eat up all the impurities. It sounds wonderful. On the other hand, you say what is the context for this? Maybe someone comes along and patents it and says, “You can’t use this unless you pay.”

This all feeds into the need for a policy discussion based on a notion of human values.

What health applications of nanotechnology can you envision?

Well, the National Cancer Institute on its website says that by 2015, cancer will be cured or be controllable as a chronic condition using nano-delivery devices as a way of getting drugs into cells.

I think it’s a somewhat irresponsible claim, because I’m sure it won’t happen by 2015. But some of the hopes for these technologies are incredible, and we have to enthuse and support the technology, even while, at the same time, having a conversation about its responsible use.

Some people think we should permanently incorporate tiny machines into our bodies to fix things.

There are people called transhumanists. Some of them are very engaging people, sort of sci-fi cultists, but now becoming part of the mainstream discussion. They’re scaring both people who like being human and people in the business community. What they want to do is use machines to turn us into cyborgs, half-human, half-machine things.

Nanomorality (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/202/story_20218_1.html)

Turkish-Armenian editor shot dead in Istanbul

By Paul de Bendern and Thomas Grove Fri Jan 19, 2:47 PM ET

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A high-profile Turkish-Armenian editor, who had been convicted of insulting Turkey's identity, was shot dead in Istanbul on Friday in an attack bound to raise political tensions in an election year.

Hrant Dink, a frequent target of nationalist anger for his comments on the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One, was shot in the head as he left his weekly newspaper Agos around 1300 GMT in the center of the city.

"A bullet has been fired at democracy and freedom of expression. I condemn the traitorous hands behind this disgraceful murder," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said.

"This was an attack on our peace and stability."

Turkey's main stock market index fell sharply on the news.

And the attack is likely to up the political temperature in would-be EU member Turkey, where parties have been courting the nationalist vote ahead of presidential elections in May and parliamentary polls due by November.

"Hrant was a perfect target for those who want to obstruct Turkey's democratization and its path toward the European Union," Agos writer Aydin Engin told Reuters.

In Dink's last article in Agos he lamented he had not received police protection despite numerous threats.

"Are these threats genuine or not? To be honest it is impossible to know. For me ... what is really unbearable is the psychological torture I am experiencing," he said in an article published on the day he died.

PROTEST MARCH

Several thousand people marched in Istanbul to protest at the killing, waving peace banners and portraits of Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent.

It comes less than a year after one of Turkey's most senior judges was shot dead by an Islamist lawyer, a killing which also raised tensions between secularists and Islamists.

Turkish political and military leaders condemned the attack, several blaming it on foreign elements. They did not elaborate.

Two people were detained but later released without charge, Turkish TV said.

"This was a well-calculated provocation. It is significant that it happened when the so-called Armenian genocide is being discussed in some countries," Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said.

Turkey denies allegations that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic genocide during World War One. It says both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks were killed in a partisan conflict that raged on Ottoman territory.

The French National Assembly's decision last year to criminalize the denial of an Armenian genocide has again raised pressure on Turkey to address its past.

Turkey, which is predominantly Muslim, shares a border with Armenia but has no formal diplomatic relations with the country.

Armenian Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan declared 15 days of mourning for the small Armenian community in Turkey.

POLITICAL ISLAM

Last year Turkey's appeals court upheld a six-month suspended jail sentence against Dink for an article exploring the issue of Armenian and Turkish identity. The ruling was criticised by the EU.

Germany, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said it was "shocked" by murder, but had "no doubt that Turkey will continue its road toward achieving freedom of opinion."

Dozens of writers, including Nobel Prize literature laureate Orhan Pamuk, have been charged by nationalist-minded prosecutors under article 301 of the revised penal code.

The ruling AK Party government has repeatedly promised to revise the much criticised article. Improving freedom of speech in Turkey is a priority in Ankara's efforts to join the 27-member European Union.

Despite threats against his life, Dink, one of the most prominent Armenian voices in Turkey, refused to stay silent.

"I will not leave this country. If I go I would feel I was leaving alone the people struggling for democracy ... It would be a betrayal of them," he told Reuters last July.

Tensions have been growing ahead of presidential elections.

Turkey's powerful secularist establishment fears the AK Party, which controls parliament and has roots in political Islam, will elect Erdogan as president.

Secularists fear Erdogan would try to erode Turkey's strict division between state and religion if elected president.

Erdogan denies he or his party have an Islamist agenda.

Turkish-Armenian editor shot dead in Istanbul (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070119/wl_nm/turkey_author_shot_dc)

Thumb-Print Banking Takes India
Jan, 19, 2007

CHENNAI, India -- Banks and ATM machines are an unfamiliar sight in the rural countryside here, but the government hopes to change that with new technology that could ease the transition from cash to computers.

A pilot program will put 15 biometric ATMs at village kiosks in five districts across southern India. The machines are expected to serve about 100,000 workers who will use fingerprint scanners, rather than ATM cards and PINs, to obtain their funds.

Biometric ATMs are already in use in Colombia and a few locations in Japan, but haven't caught on in much of the rest of the world. As a result, biometrics companies are watching the experiment closely as a potential watershed for the industry.

Nagaraj Mylandla, managing director of Financial Software and Systems, which helped design security protocol for the new system, said there are 35,000 non-biometric ATMs in India today. In three years the number of machines is expected to triple to more than 100,000, leaving a window of opportunity for suppliers to make the new technology standard issue for all new machines.

The increase will mean that just about every rural village and outpost will have access to the world's financial backbone and, if the pilot program is successful, fingerprint identification could become standard, even for private bank transactions.

"Many banks here are keen on this idea of doing away with ATM cards," said Sunil Udupa, CEO of AGS Infotech, the company supplying the first batch of ATMs to the five districts in India. "Whether it is practically possible is a very different question, but the interest is huge."

Officials hope the plan will bring billions of rupees currently being held in private hands into the banking mainstream, and that it might even shelter the country's poor from the ravages of inflation, theft and widespread corruption.

For example, some believe e-banking will help eliminate several layers of middlemen who manage, and often siphon off, government-allocated funds earmarked for low-income workers.

Under the current system, money gets sent from the government coffers and passes through the desks of dozens of bureaucrats and private contractors. Each tends to take a cut along the way so the money that reaches workers is usually only a fraction of what was allocated. Electronic banking will eliminate the middlemen, and provide a real increase in rural wages.

"This is really meant to cut down on corruption," said Mylandla. "The whole structure is designed so that only the people at the end get the money. No one in between can steal it along the way."

The program is not without its critics, however.

For example, privacy issues may arise in switching from user-generated numeric codes to bio-data. According to Mylandla and Udupi, law-enforcement agencies have already expressed interest in having access to the data for fraud prevention and to track known criminals through fingerprint transactions. It is unknown what other agencies might be able to see the data.

Another concern is that in some of the more crime-ridden areas of the country, fingerprint IDs could give rise to a new sort of crime where bandits chop off digits in order to withdraw cash from ATMs. Without a PIN code, a robber would be able to enter an account using a severed thumb.

In the last several years there have been several incidents of bandits chopping off hands to retrieve gold bangles from women's wrists, and last year in Malaysia bandits cut off the thumb of a man driving a sports car in order to activate the biometric thumbprint ignition.

Those implementing the biometric machines in India scoff at the idea that this could become a problem.

"I have heard of instances where people get held up and gunpoint and told to enter their ATM pins with ordinary cards," said Gopal Shekar, director of corporate communications at FSS. "The danger of violence is the same with biometric cards. Besides, the most anyone can withdraw in a day is 10,000 rupees ($230). Who would kill someone for so little?"

Whether that proves true or not, bringing poor farmers into the banking fold won't be easy. The project will have to overcome communication barriers posed by the thousands of dialects in the country, not to mention illiteracy and unfamiliarity with computers.

The first prototype ATMs used PIN codes and written instructions, and failed miserably.

"The main problem is that most farmers are illiterate and only speak local dialects," said Udupa. "The farmers couldn't remember their PIN codes and didn't understand the on-screen instructions. So we developed a fingerprint interface with audio and visual instructions that they could understand."

Udupa thinks farmers are comfortable with fingerprint technology because they have already been introduced to other government projects that use biometrics. Bhoomi, a widely accepted land-record program in the state of Karnataka, uses fingerprints to verify owners of land records.

Thumb-Print Banking Takes India (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72284-0.html?tw=wn_index_1)

Brown: I'll get Muslims to take pride in Britain
Last updated at 12:36pm on 19th January 2007

Gordon Brown today signalled that his first task as Prime Minister would be to get Muslims to rally around a "Churchillian" pride in Britain.

Finally admitting that he expected to take over from Tony Blair this year, the Chancellor said that he wanted to promote a "modern patriotism" as an alternative to Islamic extremism. Mr Brown said: "I believe we can do more to separate some Muslims from the dark forces that they can be susceptible to."

Speaking on the last day of his tour of India, which has been overshadowed by the Big Brother racism row, he revealed for the first time that he was more "relaxed" about roving from his Treasury brief.

Mr Brown has repeatedly refused in the past to speculate about his chances of moving into No10 and has always stuck to his formula that it is a matter for the Labour Party and Mr Blair.

But today he spoke candidly of how he is "excited" at the prospect of taking over as Prime Minister.

With the handover approaching this summer, and it looking increasingly likely he will be unopposed for the top job, Mr Brown brushed aside his previous reticence to talk instead of "how I will deal with the challenges" facing Britain in the world.

He said: "When you're looking at the next set of challenges that the country faces I'm very excited. There's a chance for a huge breakthrough on the environment, on security and the economy. And I'm optimistic about that and it's going to be good for Britain in the world.

"I think that's what keeps me going, that's what makes me tick."

Brown: I'll get Muslims to take pride in Britain (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=429996&in_page_id=1770)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wouldn't want to bet on that Mr. Brown.

Russia Urges Quick Settlement of Political Standoff

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has urged an early settlement of the Lebanese crisis and stressed that his country supports an independent Lebanon, the Russian foreign ministry announced.
Lavrov, in a telephone conversation with Premier Fouad Saniora, said Friday that Russia wants to see an early solution to the country's political crisis and reiterated its support for Lebanon's independence.

"The Russian side reiterated its position in support of Lebanon's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as efforts to achieve an early settlement of internal Lebanese problems through consensus among all of the country's political forces," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It also said that Lavrov and Saniora discussed on the phone preparations for the Paris III donors' conference due to take place on January 25.

Lavrov said earlier that Russia is deeply concerned over growing tensions in Lebanon, but it does not intend to mediate to solve the political impasse between the Hizbullah-led opposition and the Saniora government.

Russia Urges Quick Settlement of Political Standoff (http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/Lebanon/9297F5A0C04F0485C2257269002D4238?OpenDocument)

Jordan: Lebanon's Summer War 'Just a Taste' of Worse to Come Unless Peace Process Moves Quickly

King Abdullah II of Jordan has declared that his country wants to develop its own nuclear program and said he believed that unless the peace process moved forward quickly, the summer confrontation in Lebanon "is just a taste of a lot of worse things to come."

In an interview with the daily Haaretz, Abdullah said Jordan, which borders Israel and has a peace agreement with it, wanted nuclear power "for peaceful purposes" and was already discussing its plans with western countries.

"The rules governing the nuclear issue have changed in the entire region," Abdullah told Haaretz, noting that Egypt and several Gulf states have declared their desire for a nuclear program. Though Jordan would rather see a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, he said, "every desire we had on this issue has changed."

It was the first time Abdullah spoke openly about desires for a Jordanian nuclear program for peaceful purposes.

On the peace process, Abdullah said: "I can say that on behalf of the U.S. president and the secretary of state, and I've talked to both, that they're very serious and very committed to moving the peace process forward, because they realize the dynamics of the region at the moment.

"And this is the opportunity to reach out to the Palestinians and the Israelis and say, look, this is the golden chance and to an extent, maybe the last possibility.

"We had a conflict this summer," Abdullah said in reference to the July-August war between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon.

"The frequency of conflict in this region is extremely alarming, and the perception, I believe, among Arabs, and partly among Israelis, is that in the summer Israel lost this round... And that creates a very difficult and a very dangerous precedence for radical thinking in the area. The stakes are getting higher and higher.

"So this is an opportunity to reach out to each other and make sure that the crisis of this summer doesn't happen again. If we don't move the peace process forward, it's only a matter of time until there is a conflict between Israel and somebody else in the region. And I think it's coming sooner rather than later.

"We all need to work together, because solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem allows us to tackle the other issues around us. All of us are looking at Iraq with concern. We don't know what's going to happen in Lebanon, although we hope that they're moving in the right direction... Whether people like it or not, the linchpin is always the Israeli-Palestinian problem."

Abdullah stressed that the peace process should start with the Palestinians and then move on to the Syrian-Lebanese track.

"Syria seems to be of tremendous interest in the Israeli public opinion, but I think that the priority, if you want to get the guarantees that Israel wants for a stable future, the core issue takes the priority. We have to launch the Palestinian process and then hope that things will go easier with the other players.

"You have to start with the Palestinian first and look at the other ones as a close second … and we don't know how much of a smokescreen the other tracks would be and if we don't get the right nuances for what we need on the ground for the next year, then the future for us looks extremely dismal, for all of us in the region, if we don't move the process along.

"What happened this summer is just a taste of a lot of worse things to come if we don't change the direction of this discord.

"We're all on the same boat. The security and the future of Jordan is hand-in-hand with the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis. ... So, a failure for us is a failure for you, and vice versa."

In response to a question on whether there is a link between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iranian nuclear threat, Abdullah said:

"Through Hamas, Iran has been able to buy itself a seat on the table in talking about the Palestinian issue. And, as a result, through Hamas it does play a role in the issue of the Palestinians, as strange as that should sound.

"If we start moving the process forward, then there's less reason for engagement on the Palestinian issue.

"The Egyptians are looking for a nuclear program. The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) are looking at one, and we are actually looking at nuclear power for peaceful and energy purposes. We've been discussing it with the West.

"I personally believe that any country that has a nuclear program should conform to international regulations and should have international regulatory bodies that check to make sure that any nuclear program moves in the right direction."

Jordan: Lebanon's Summer War 'Just a Taste' of Worse to Come Unless Peace Process Moves Quickly  (http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/Lebanon/1B3EDF1CD79FF096C2257269006B977F?OpenDocument)

Israel to Nasrallah: Don't Test us

A member of Israel's security cabinet warned Hizbullah Saturday not to "test" the Jewish State, after Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah hailed the resignation of Israel's military chief of staff. "Israel will know how to draw its conclusions about this war, and I advise Nasrallah not try to put Israel to the test again," Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer told army radio.

Lieutenant General Dan Halutz stepped down Tuesday, shouldering the blame for Israel's failure to achieve its objectives in a 34-day war against Hizbullah in the summer.

"When I heard the news, I was happy," Hizbullah's Secretary General said in an interview with al-Manar TV station Friday night.

Nasrallah predicted that Israeli Defense Minister Amir Petetz would also resign his post over the outcome of the July-August war.

Responding to Nasrallah, Israeli Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon said Halutz had "succeeded in restoring calm on our northern border (with Lebanon) and of allowing an international force to be deployed in southern Lebanon."

He added that "Nasrallah is hiding under ground and he will continue to do so for a long time to come."

For his part, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres dismissed Nasrallah as not understanding democracy, adding that "Israel will come out of the current crisis stronger than ever."

Israel to Nasrallah: Don't Test us (http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/Lebanon/52F5DE8C9538E08CC22572690049B2A0?OpenDocument)

Canadian City Councillor Fined $1000 for Saying Homosexuality “not Normal or Natural”
Catholic Councillor had his business door vandalized with graffiti - “Homophobia Die”

By John-Henry Westen and Gudrun Schultz

John DiCeccoKAMLOOPS, BC, January 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Catholic city councillor in Kamloops, British Columbia, who was himself the victim of the crime of vandalism due to his faith, has been forced to apologize and pay a homosexual activist couple $1000. The couple filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal which was accepted and was to go to the hearing stage.

Strangely, it was councillor  who was shown true discrimination worthy of a human rights complaint. In June, the councillor opposed a homosexual pride proclamation, after which his barber shop was vandalized with "Homophobia Die" scrawled on the door of his business.

At the time LifeSiteNews.com interviewed John DeCicco, an active Catholic and member of the Knights of Columbus. DeCicco, an Italian immigrant who came to Canada at the young age of 15 and is fiercely proud of the country he now calls home, told LifeSiteNews.com at the time, "In this great nation of ours we can express our opinions and when you can't there's something wrong."

In August, homosexual activist couple John Olynick and Greg Koll filed a complaint against DeCicco with the human rights commission over remarks he made at the council meeting and repeated in media interviews. In line with Catholic teaching on the matter, he described homosexual acts as "not normal and not natural.''

In the June interview with LifeSiteNews.com he explained, "I'm not against lesbian and gay people, but I don't agree that I should have to endorse it." He also said that people can do what they like in the privacy of their own homes, but, he said in reference to gay pride parades, they shouldn't "go out and flaunt it, in front of people who don't necessarily agree."

While DeCicco already apologized for the incident once back in October, that apology was not considered part of the settlement. In addition to paying $1,000 to Olynick and Koll, DeCicco will provide a statement saying his comments were "inappropriate and hurtful to some." The settlement will allow the councillor to avoid a Human Rights Truibunal hearing. The city of Kamloops will pay DeCicco's legal fees, according to a report by Kamloops Daily News.

DeCicco has said the settlement will not changes his opposition to gay pride week. "I'm not going to change my view of my stand," he said. "My public comments have to be a little more refined."

Canadian City Councillor Fined $1000 for Saying Homosexuality “not Normal or Natural” (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07011902.html)

 Musharraf begins Mideast tour on resolving Palestinian dispute

ISLAMABAD, Jan 20 (KUNA) -- Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf Saturday left for Saudi Arabia on the first leg of a four-day visit to five Arab countries to explore possibilities of launching initiatives for resolving the inter-Palestinian dispute.

The President, while talking to newsmen before departure, said he would hold talks with Arab leaders on means of "restoring harmony in the Muslim world," alluding to diverse crises prevailing across the Islamic world, such as the Iraq crisis and the Palestinian-Palestinian dispute.

The Middle East and the Muslim Ummah (nation) were in turmoil over the past months, he said.

The Palestinian issue is the core dispute in the Middle East and with joint efforts by the Muslim Ummah, it could be resolved, Musharraf said.

The President said his visit to five Arab countries, neighbouring Palestine, was to exchange views with their leaders for strategy on the way forward to address the danger, confronting the Muslim nation.

On Friday night, the President discussed his Arab tour with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and also backed Iranian nuclear ambitions for peaceful purposes.

The President will be meeting King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and also have discussions with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah of Jordan and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Musharraf, accompanied by Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri and Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani, will also visit the United Arab Emirates.

 Musharraf begins Mideast tour on resolving Palestinian dispute (http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=944092)

Syria prefers alliance with Israel over Iran, Liel says
Tovah Lazaroff, THE JERUSALEM POST    Jan. 20, 2007

Syria is more interested in creating an alliance with Western countries, including Israel, than it is with its current relationship with Iran, according to former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel.

"Their alliance with Iran is not a natural one for the Syrians. They are not happy about it," said Liel. But the country is so isolated at this time that it would be foolish for it to give up that relationship unless it had forged a new one with Western countries, he said.

As part of that bid, Syria was interested in seeking peace with Israel, Liel told reporters at a conference at the Netanya Academic College.

It was the first time he had spoken publicly about the series of private secondary level talks, known as Track-2, that he had held with the Syrian officials for two-and-a-half years in hopes of brokering an understanding between the two enemy countries.

The last meeting, he said, was held during the war last summer when the Syrians wanted to come to Europe to meet representatives from the Israeli government to talk about peace, even though Syria was allied both with Hizbullah and Iran.

"A Syrian party suggested we should have a high-level meeting since it was an emergency situation," said Liel. "I talked to several people [in the government] and the answer was no."

"This was mainly because of the Americans. The Israelis do not want to embarrass the Americans," he later told The Jerusalem Post. It was a response similar to the one he received in January 2004 when he first told the government that Syrian President Bashar Assad was interested in talking with Israel.

Since the story of the private meetings Liel held with Syrian officials first broke in Haaretz earlier in the week, both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Syrian government have denied the story.

On Thursday, however, Liel said that he kept the government abreast in writing of every meeting. What happened to the reports is for the government to worry about, said Liel. He added that as a veteran government official, he knew whom to contact when he wanted to present information.

Liel described how the first Syrian overture to him occurred with the help of a Turkish diplomat who got in touch with him while Liel was on a private visit to Istanbul. He said that Assad had asked Turkey to mediate because it had good relations with both governments.

"The message was passed to our Prime Minister's Office by the Turks directly and by myself," said Liel.

The response was, "the Americans do not want us to do it," said Liel. For several months both he and Turkey tried to pressure Israel to change its mind, said Liel. When the government would not budge, Liel said, he came up with the idea of holding a series of Track 2 meetings rather than Track-1, which would have included high-level officials on both sides.

At no time was he officially representing the Israeli government, he said, although he added he hoped his work would lead to a more formal understanding between the two countries.

Liel insisted that he did inform the government of the meetings that occurred between him, a number of other Israelis, Syrian officials and some private individuals, including Syrian-American Ibrahim Suleiman.

Similarly, the Syrian and Turkish governments were also kept in the loop, Liel said. A European government was involved, but Liel refused to identify which country had helped them.

"What is important is that for two-and-a-half years we carried the message to the Israeli administration - not to one, not to two, not to three, and not to four officials; it was more - that Assad wants to talk and he is serious," said Liel.

Initially Liel said he told the Syrians that the Israeli reluctance was the result of the Gaza withdrawal.

"We explained to them that Israel cannot do Gaza and the Golan Heights together," said Liel. Then Israel left Gaza and they explained that it was because of further planned withdrawals under convergence.

But now, Liel said, Olmert has dropped the convergence plan and on top of that, because of internal difficulties within the Palestinian Authority, it was not possible to hold talks with the Palestinians.

So he thinks it is time that the Israeli public understands that it is possible to pursue peace with Syria. Unlike the Palestinians, Assad was capable of concluding peace talks with Israel, said Liel.

"It is very clear to us that Assad wants to talk. This doesn't guarantee an agreement, but he is interested in launching negotiations with us," said Liel.

In their talks with the Syrians, Liel said, he and others came up with an informal plan that he believed could solve the issue of the Golan Heights which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 during the Six Day War.

The two groups also discussed confidence building measures including the return of the bones of Eli Cohen, an Israeli who was killed by the Syrians for spying for Israel in the 1960s.

As part of the understanding Liel helped draw up, Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights back to the 1967 lines within a time frame of five to 15 years. A park, covering most of the Golan Heights, would be set up as a buffer zone with free access to Israelis.

Israel would continue to control water use in the Jordan River and the Kinneret.

Syria would end its support for Hizbullah and Hamas as well as agree to distance itself from Iran.

Syria prefers alliance with Israel over Iran, Liel says (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467776738&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)