One World Government on the Horizon??

[Shammu]

World Court to U.S.: Halt Mexican executions
Order could stop lethal injection of alien who gang raped, murdered 2 teen girls
Posted: July 16, 2008
8:05 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The United States must stay executions of five Mexicans on Texas' death row until their cases can be reviewed, the U.N.'s highest court says.

Mexico requested that the court stop Texas from executing its citizens – at least one convicted of gang rape and murder of two teenage girls – claiming the U.S. is ignoring an International Court of Justice directive to evaluate the cases of 51 Mexicans on state death rows.

The court found that the inmates had been deprived of assistance from their consulate after their arrest, the Associated Press reported.

The U.N. court order issued today arrives only weeks before Texas' scheduled lethal injection of Jose Medellin, a Mexican convicted of gang raping and murdering two girls in Houston.

According to the news report, Mexico chief advocate Juan Manuel Gomez-Robledo complained to the court at last months hearings, saying the U.S. was "in breach of its international obligations."

U.S. legal adviser John Bellinger III disputed Gomez Robledo's assessment, saying the government has gone to "extraordinary lengths" to cooperate with state courts and the World Court order.

President Bush told states to adhere to the court directive and asked Texas to review Medellin's conviction before his Aug. 5 lethal injection.

Bellinger called the federal government actions "highly unusual."

"It almost never happens that the federal government enters an appearance in state court proceedings," he said.

Texas rejected the request, and the Supreme Court ruled President Bush does not have the power to force state courts to obey orders from the World Court in a 6-3 vote. According to the AP report, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has received letters from both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking him to review Medellin's case.

The World Court, the U.N.'s judicial arm for resolving disagreements between nations, holds no enforcement powers.

[Shammu]

“We are moving to a global village and yet we don’t have our global elders. The Elders can be a group who have the trust of the world, who can speak freely, be fiercely independent and respond fast and flexibly in conflict situations.”

The Elders have arrived on the world scene. Thus far, there are 12 self-appointed “apostles” of globalism to manage the “global village.” This group represents the cream of the globalist crop.

Nelson Mandela – Former president of South Africa
Desmond Tutu – Former general secre-tary of the South African Council of Churches
Ela Bhatt – Founder of SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) in India
Gro Brundtland – Former chair of the World Commission of Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), and driving force behind Sustain-able Development
Jimmy Carter – Former president of the United States
Muhammad Yunus – founder of Grameen Bank
Graca Machel – President of Foundation for Community Development in Mozambique
Kofi Annan – Former Secretary-General of the United Nations
Lakhdar Brahimi – Former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations
Fernando H. Cardoso – Former President of Brazil
Mary Robinson – Former President of Ireland; former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Aung San Suu Kyi – Freedom fighter and figurehead leader in Burma since 1988

Initial funding was secured from global players such as Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel, Humanity United, Tick Tarlow, the United Nations Foundations, and others.

The original idea behind The Elders came from British musical icon, Peter Gabriel.

The current Executive Director of The Elders is Dr. Robert A. Pastor (surprised?), who is also known as the “father of the North American Union” because of his tireless work to unite Mexico, Canada and the United States into a common block similar to the European Union.

Pastor has a very long association with Jimmy Carter dating back to the 1970’s, and with other members of the Trilateral Commission. For instance, he was the executive director of the infamous Linowitz Commission that produced the policy blueprint for Carter to give away the U.S.-owned Panama Canal during Carter’s presidency.

The Linowitz Commission consisted of eight members, seven of which were members of the Trilateral Commission. The temporary ambassador/negotiator to Panama was Commissioner Sol Linowitz.

Despite humanity's dark history of corruption and war, Elder Desmond Tutu not only disagrees but also believes that he is held in such high regard so as to qualify himself for global eldership...

“Despite all the ghastliness that is around, human beings are made for goodness. The ones who ought to be held in high regard are not the ones who are militarily powerful, nor even economically prosperous. They are the ones who have a commitment to try and make the world a better place. We - The Elders – will endeavor to support those people and do our best for humanity.”

Nelson Mandela

One of the world’s most revered statesmen, Nelson Mandela led the struggle to replace South Africa’s apartheid regime with a non-racial democracy. His anti-apartheid activities led to his sentencing in 1962 to five years in prison, and in 1964 he was jailed for life because of his involvement in underground armed resistance activities. He served 27 years in prison.

Nelson Mandela became the first democratically elected State President of South Africa on 10 May 1994. Since stepping down in 1999, he has become South Africa’s highest profile ambassador, and has campaigned tirelessly in the fight against HIV/AIDS. He was also active in peace negotiations in African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.

Fondly known in South Africa by his clan name ‘Madiba’, Nelson Mandela has received scores of awards and honours throughout the world.

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[Shammu]

Desmond Tutu

Anglican priest Desmond Mpilo Tutu became the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches in 1979. He spoke strongly and internationally, pushing for non-violent change and economic sanctions against South Africa. In reaction, the South African government revoked his passport.

A month after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, Tutu was elected the first black Anglican bishop of Johannesburg. In 1986 he was elected Archbishop of Cape Town, the highest position in the Anglican Church in South Africa. In 1989 he led a march to a whites-only beach, where he and supporters were chased off with whips.

In 1994, after the end of Apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela, Tutu was appointed as Chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to investigate apartheid-era crimes. His policy of forgiveness and reconciliation has become an international example of conflict resolution, and a trusted method of post-conflict reconstruction. He continues to pursue an active international ministry for peace.

Ela Bhatt

Ela R. Bhatt is widely recognised as one of the world’s most remarkable pioneers and entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development. Known as the “gentle revolutionary” she has dedicated her life to improving the lives of India’s poorest and most oppressed women workers, with Gandhian thinking as her source of guidance.

In 1972, Ela Bhatt founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – a trade union which now has more than 1,000,000 members. Founder Chair of the Cooperative Bank of SEWA, she is also founder and chair of Sa-Dhan (the All India Association of Micro Finance Institutions in India) and founder-chair of the Indian School of Micro-finance for Women.

Gro Brundtland

Few people have had an impact on society as global as Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, a medical doctor and Master of Public Health (MPH). She spent 10 years as a physician and scientist in the Norwegian public health system and served 20 years in public office, including 10 years as Prime Minister of Norway.

In the 1980s she gained international recognition, championing the principle of sustainable development as the Chair of the World Commission of Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission).

Dr. Brundtland was aged just seven when she enrolled as a member of the Norwegian Labour Movement in its children's section. She has been a member ever since, and has led the Labour Party to electoral victory three times.

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States of America, was born in Plains, Georgia, in October 1924. He attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. In the Navy he became a submariner, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and rising to the rank of lieutenant, senior grade.

In July 1946, Jimmy Carter married Rosalynn Smith of Plains. When his father died in 1953, he resigned his naval commission and returned with his family to Georgia. Jimmy operated Carter's Warehouse, a general-purpose seed and farm supply company in Plains, until being elected to the Georgia Senate in 1962. In 1971 he became Georgia's 76th Governor.

Jimmy Carter announced his candidacy for President of the United States on December 12 1974. As the Democratic Party nominee, he was elected President on November 2 1976, serving from 1977 to 1981.

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[Shammu]

Muhammad Yunus

After receiving his PhD in Economics from Vanderbilt University in the United States, Muhammad Yunus returned to his home country of Bangladesh in 1972. There he founded the Grameen Bank Project in 1976, and transformed it into a formal bank in 1983.

Through the Grameen Bank Muhammad Yunus has given practical expression to his belief that the world’s poorest people can transform the conditions of their own lives if given appropriate financial support. From this belief came the idea of ‘micro-credit’ – bank loans offered to the poor without asking them for guarantees or security in return.

As Muhammad Yunus himself describes it: ‘The repayments are designed in such a way that they are tiny instalments. You can pay back your loan over a long period. So all of this together is micro-credit. Small loans for income-generating activity, addressed to the poorest, without collateral.’

Graca Machel

Graça Machel is a renowned international advocate for women’s and children’s rights, and has been a social and political activist for decades. She is President of the Foundation for Community Development (FDC), a not-for-profit Mozambican organisation she founded in 1994. The FDC makes grants to civil society organisations to strengthen communities, facilitate social and economic justice, and assist in the reconstruction and development of post-war Mozambique.

In 1994, the Secretary General of the United Nations appointed Graça Machel as an independent expert to carry out an assessment of the impact of armed conflict on children. Her groundbreaking report was presented in 1996 and established a new and innovative agenda for the comprehensive protection of children caught up in war, changing the policy and practice of governments, UN agencies, and international and national civil society.

Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan of Ghana emerged from the ranks of United Nations’ staff to become its seventh Secretary-General, and served from 1997 to 2006.

One of Kofi Annan's main priorities as Secretary-General was a comprehensive programme of reform aimed at revitalising the United Nations and making the international system more effective. He was a constant advocate for human rights, the rule of law, and the Millennium Development Goals in Africa, and sought to bring the organisation closer to the global public by forging ties with civil society, the private sector, and other partners. At his initiative, peacekeeping was strengthened in ways that enabled the United Nations to cope with a rapid rise in the number of operations and personnel.

Lakhdar Brahimi

Lakhdar Brahimi has spent 40 years helping to keep the peace across the world. Now at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, he lectures regularly in the US, Europe, Africa and the Arab world on international relations, conflict and conflict resolution.

Born in Algeria in 1934, he began his peace-keeping career as a student when he joined his country’s liberation struggle, and for five years he represented the National Liberation Front in Indonesia. Following independence, he served his country as an ambassador, first to Egypt and then to the United Kingdom.

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[Shammu]

Fernando H. Cardoso

Fernando Henrique Cardoso was Senator, Minister of Foreign Relations, Minister of Finance and President of Brazil for two successive terms from 1995 to 2002, winning both elections in the first round by an absolute majority.

Ph.D. in Sociology and professor at University of São Paulo, Cardoso was president of the International Sociological Association (1982-1986) and visiting professor at the universities of California, Berkeley, Collège de France, Paris, Stanford, Cambridge, Paris-Nanterre, FLACSO, ILPES and CEPAL at Santiago, Chile.

Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997) and more recently United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), has been a human rights advocate for most of her life. She is currently founder and president of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. Born Mary Bourke in Ballina, County Mayo (1944), the daughter of two physicians, she was educated at the University of Dublin (Trinity College), King’s Inns Dublin and Harvard Law School, to which she won a fellowship in 1967.

As an academic (Trinity College Law Faculty 1968-1990), legislator (Senator 1969-1989) and barrister (1967-1990; Senior Counsel 1980, English Bar 1973), Mary Robinson has always sought to use law as an instrument for social change, arguing landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights as well as in the Irish courts and the European Court in Luxembourg. A committed European, she has also served on expert European Community and Irish parliamentary committees.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Daw Aung Sawn Sue Chee) served as the figurehead for Burma's struggle for democracy since 1988, and is one of the world's most renowned freedom fighters and advocates of non-violence. Born on June 19 1945 to Burma's independence hero, Aung San, Suu Kyi was educated in Burma, India, and the United Kingdom. Her father was assassinated when she was only two years old.

In 1988, she returned to Burma to nurse her dying mother, and was plunged into the nationwide uprising that had just begun. Joining the newly-forming National League for Democracy political party, Suu Kyi gave numerous speeches calling for freedom and democracy. The military regime responded to the uprising with brute force, shooting and killing up to 10,000 demonstrators – including students, women, and children – in a matter of months. Unable to maintain its grip on power, the regime was forced to call for a general election in 1990.

Meet the elders

The Global Elders

The Elders apparently assume that most, if not all, of the world they serve will be under Marxist control because their entire membership is decidedly pro-Marxist.

When a Marxist tells you that they are going to do what’s good for humanity, that’s reason enough for you to fortify your home and build a perimeter. After all, well over 100 million people died in the last century because they didn’t go along with what their Marxist leaders conjured up for them.

Indeed, Jimmy Carter and Robert Pastor both show their true colors by their association with The Elders. Globalist ego seems to know no bounds.

[Shammu]

Brown reveals global moral vision

Gordon Brown has been setting out his vision for a global society governed by a shared "moral sense".

The prime minister was addressing the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh.

It is 20 years since Margaret Thatcher gave her "Sermon on the Mound" at the Assembly, arguing a theological basis for her free market thinking.

Mr Brown, whose father was a Kirk minister, said he shared the church's "enduring vision of the good society".

The prime minister said he had never forgotten the lessons he learned in the Kirkcaldy parish manse where he grew up.

He added: "He also brought us up to believe that the size of your wealth mattered less than the strength of your character; that a life of joy and fulfilment could be lived in the service of others."

He told the General Assembly there was a "a consistent ethical core" in all the world's great religions, from which billions of people derived inspiration, "showing that we are not moral strangers but there is a shared moral sense common to us all".

Mr Brown argued that the joining together of the information revolution and the human urge to co-operate for justice made it possible for the first time in history for the dream of a truly global society to be realised.

He called for people everywhere to discover their shared values, communicate with each other and join together with people in other countries in a "single moral universe to bring about change".

'Mighty stream'

"This is the irrepressible revolution of our time - a billion voices for change. And I'd like to think that acting together we can become the generation to address climate change," he said.

"Acting together, the first generation in the history of mankind to abolish illiteracy and give every child the right to education; acting together, the first generation to eradicate tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, malaria, on the way to eradicating HIV/Aids.

"And to honour the dream of the scriptures: that justice will roll like water and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Mrs Thatcher won few converts in Scotland when, at a time when industry was being hard hit, she quoted St Paul saying: "If a man will not work he shall not eat."

When she had finished, the then moderator presented her with Kirk reports on housing and poverty, interpreted by many as a polite rebuke.

Mr Brown's spokesman said that nothing should be read into the fact that the prime minister's speech came 20 years after Lady Thatcher's famous address.

The General Assembly runs until 21 May.

Brown reveals global moral vision

[HisDaughter]

Company develops Ink-based RFID Tags - first step to a RFID enabled Tattoo?

rfidnews.org

California-based Kovio Inc. has unveiled a silicon ink-based RFID tag and an accompanying RFID platform. The first products based on the patented technology are printed silicon HF integrated circuits (PICs) with 128 bits of printed read-only memory, which will serve as the foundation for a low-cost HF RFID tag family.

Kovio’s new product was announced during a presentation by the company’s CEO, Amir Mashkoori, at an EPC Connection 2008 event. “The platform will enable new opportunities for advertisers, retailers, consumer packaged good manufacturers, and system integrators to provide instantaneous and contextual experiences to everyone who interacts, uses and purchases everyday consumer goods,” said Mashkoori. The company believes the silicon ink-based products, which are the first of their kind, will enable the development of affordable item-level RFID intelligence solutions for various developing RFID markets.

Kovio’s technology platform is based on combining silicon inks and graphics printing technology. This enables the fabrication of silicon devices over large areas and on flexible substrates at a lower cost than conventional silicon technology. Kovio also claims its additive printed silicon technology is significantly cleaner and more resource-efficient than conventional silicon technology. The printed silicon platform facilitates item-level intelligence beyond identification through the integration of printed sensors and displays.

[Soldier4Christ]

How global governance emerged

October 24 was U.N. day, celebrated by many as the birthday of the United Nations.  In its 63 years of operation, it has spent untold billions of dollars in its quest to create global governance.  Its goal is almost in its grasp.  European leaders are pushing for a summit meeting with President Bush to create a new global “central bank,” with the authority to control global monetary policy in much the same way U.S. monetary policy is controlled by the Federal Reserve.

The U.N. has failed miserably at most of its major projects.  Its first task, to create a two-state solution in Palestine in 1948, was a disaster.  Other projects have been even worse.  The genocide in Rwanda; the Oil-for-food scam with Saddam Hussein; and the on-going sex abuse by U.N. Peacekeepers are but a few examples.

In recent years, however, the U.N. has been extremely effective in influencing U.S. domestic policy, more than people realize.  Few people know that current U.S. land use policy is deeply rooted in, and reflective of the policies set forth in a 1976 document adopted by the U.N.Conference on Human Settlements.  U.S. wetland policy is the result of the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.  U.S. law relating to endangered species is the direct result of the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The Human Rights Commissions of the 1960s were created to comply with a variety of Human Rights treaties adopted by the U.N.

Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights gave rise to the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act which was expanded in 1995, to essentially require banks to make housing loans to unqualified people.  This is the root cause of the current chaos in financial markets.

The concept of “Sustainable Development” came from a 1987 U.N. Conference on the Environment, headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, former vice president of the International Socialist Party.  The concept was codified in another U.N. policy document, Agenda 21, adopted in 1992 at another U.N. Conference on Environment and Development. This conference also produced the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.  These are only a few of the U.N. policy documents and international treaties that so heavily influence the laws, rules, regulations, and policies that govern every U.S. citizen.

Those who champion individual freedom, private property, and free markets find little to celebrate about the United Nations, and even less about global governance.

Too few people realize that many of the people and organizations that created the League of Nations in 1921 are the same people and organizations that created the United Nations in 1945.  The League of Nations was created by Edward Mandel House’s “Inquiry” and Woodrow Wilson’s Democrat administration, with help from Alfred Milner’s “Chatham House Group” in Europe.  Republicans killed the League of Nations in the U.S. Senate.  House’s “Inquiry,” met with Milner’s “Chatham House Group” at the Majestic Hotel in Versailles in 1919, and decided to formalize their organizations.  The Milner group became the Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs in Europe, and House’s group became the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States.

Plans for a new United Nations were well under way even before the Second World War.  Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a committee to plan for a post-war world.  Ten of the 14 members were members of the Council on Foreign Relations.  Since Roosevelt, virtually every administration, both Democrat and Republican, has been filled with members of the Council on Foreign Relations.  The vast majority of cabinet secretaries have been members of the CFR.  These are the people who appoint the delegates to represent the United States at the various U.N. meetings.

It is little wonder that the U.N. has had such influence over domestic policy when the very people who make the policy at the U.N. are members of, or are appointed by members of the Council on Foreign Relations, who work for the government, and are empowered to implement the U.N. policies they create.

When Barack Obama spoke to his audience in Berlin, he declared that he was a citizen of the world, and that he, as president, would comply with the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.  He has sponsored a bill to increase international aid to the tune of more than $800 billion, to comply with the recommendations set forth in the U.N. Millennium Declaration.  There is every reason to believe that U.N. influence will continue, and even expand in the years ahead.  U.N. policies are socialist policies.  As U.N. influence expands, freedom diminishes.

Perhaps October 24 should become a day of national protest – not celebration.  Global governance pursued by the United Nations must first erase the principles of freedom enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.  Every U.N. policy adopted by the United States erases a little more freedom.  Thanks to U.N. influence, there is not much freedom left to erase.

[Shammu]

The World Hopes for Its First President
By Stryker McGuire | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 1, 2008

The world has never watched any vote, in any nation, so closely. In country after country, polls show record-high fascination with the outcome of the U.S. elections this Tuesday. In Japan, according to one poll, there's more interest in the election than there is in the United States. The Voice of America, which broadcasts in 45 languages to a worldwide audience of 134 million, is seeing "unprecedented interest." In Pakistan there was so much interest in the first presidential debate, the VOA changed its initial plans and broadcast the next two as well. Indonesians and Kenyans, are of course fascinated and somewhat astonished by the fact that Barack Obama, a man with ties to both places, should be the front runner, and in Vietnam, there is much discussion over John McCain, a man who returned home from Hanoi in 1973 a wounded man and spent the rest of his life in dedicated service to the United States.

Europe is thrilled by the prospect that whatever happens this week it will mean the end of George W. Bush, and enraptured by the sheer spectacle of it all. James Dickmeyer, the director of the Foreign Press Centers, which helps international press cover U.S. political campaigns, says foreign journalists swarmed not only the Iowa caucuses but even the Iowa State Fair's Straw Poll, which they had never covered before. Bob Worcester, the American-born founder of the London-based polling and research firm Mori, has worked in more than 40 countries, and says he has "never ever seen any election in which so many people in so many places have been so interested."

It's very clear who they are interested in: Barack Obama. John McCain and Sarah Palin are by all accounts still in the race, but McCain has become a political cipher in a world that has of late tuned into Obama 24/7. (Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, is an afterthought to the international audience). Obama went into Election Day with a steady lead in U.S. polls, averaging about 50 percent to 44 percent for McCain, but he was headed for a landslide around the world, topping polls in virtually every nation often by strong margins: 70 percent in Germany, 75 percent in China and so on. Somewhere along the road to the White House, Obama became the world's candidate—a reminder that for all the talk of America's decline, for all the visceral hatred of Bush, the rest of the world still looks upon the United States as a land of hope and opportunity. "The Obama adventure is what makes America magical," French State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Rama Yade, a Senegalese immigrant who is the only black member of Nicolas Sarkozy's government, recently told Le Parisien.

By the final days, it was as if the world and America were talking about two different elections. In the United States, the pundits framed campaign '08 much as they framed the last election, and the one before. It was a small, almost local obsession with the horse race, with battleground states—not just Ohio but southern Ohio—voter-registration drives, fundraising, ad buys and, of course, that hardy American provincial staple, negative campaigning. Even the discussion of the "race card" echoed, despite the fact that Obama's race changes everything. Republican attempts to play the card against Obama drew comparisons with the Republicans' 1988 attempt to link Michael Dukakis to a black convict. To a large degree, Obama had become just another Democratic candidate, in the chain linking Dukakis to Clinton to Gore to Kerry.

Outside of the United States, the election played large and transformational: a 21st-century man with whom the whole world can identify versus an old cold-warrior out of synch with the complex political and economic crises of our age. The election, it seemed, had morphed into a meta-election. If at home, especially as the election neared its end, Obama seemed to be playing down his blackness, his intellect, his eliteness and his progressive ideas, these were the qualities that more and more drew the rest of the world to him. The world loved the idea that a man named Barack Hussein Obama could become America's 44th president after a 200-year string of white guys named Washington and Jefferson, Clinton and Bush. Asia was trying to claim Obama for his Indonesian childhood, Africa for his Kenyan father, and the Middle East for his middle name, says Ahmed Benchemsi, who edits both of Morocco's leading newsweeklies, one in French, one in Arabic.

Once upon a time, McCain, too, was seen as part of the post-Bush American reformation. He was the worldly wise maverick ex-POW with a reputation abroad for hurling bricks at the Republican Party establishment. He was a fixture at European foreign-policy talking shops, and all the more appealing for asserting in 2000, when he ran for president for the first time, that he wouldn't "pander" to the "agents of intolerance" of the religious right, whose grip on U.S. politics has long perplexed and worried outsiders. When in late August McCain chose Palin to be his running mate in a bid for support from conservative evangelicals, his global luster quickly faded.

Now, to the rest of the world America's election is about change but not just at home. Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for The Guardian in London, says the past seven years have been a long, painful public education for the world in the importance of decisions made by the United States. "Two wars and a global financial crisis—those events, at least to some extent, had their origins in decisions taken in Washington." What's more, the connection between the world and the occupant of the Oval Office has become deeply personal, says Constanze Stelzenmüller, director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. "In a globalized world," she says, "America's president can shape lives worldwide. He is our president, too."

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[Shammu]

That would be true, up to a point, of any occupant of the highest office in the United States at a time of American pre-eminence in the world. But with Obama, supported as he is by overwhelming majorities abroad, the connection is stronger than it would be with any other incoming president, the affection more deeply personal and the significance of his election much more intense. "The American president always claims to be the 'leader of the world,' and we always hate that arrogance," says Benchemsi. "Obama can say that, and we have no problem with it."

Around the globe, in a way that no one else has for half a century, says Oxford University professor of government Vernon Bogdanor, Obama has raised "hopes of a progressive leader who can restore America's moral leadership." U.K. Minister of State for Higher Education David Lammy, who has known Obama since 2005 when they met at a Harvard event for black alumni, says "Obama's movement for change is one that has the potential to go beyond America's borders, giving him a reach that could be unprecedented for a world leader."

Obama, whose life story allows him readily to be seen as the personification of change, racks up landslide-scale support in global surveys. Recent polling by the London-based firm YouGov had Obama garnering more than 70 percent support in Nordic countries and well more than 50 percent in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They show him rising in the polls since May, ever so slightly in Germany, and by 13 points in Britain, to 62 percent in October. In France, friends-of-Obama committees have proliferated; the French Support Committee for Barack Obama sells "France for Obama" T shirts online. The Portuguese-language version of the social networking Web site Orkut, dominated by Brazilians, has 293 "communities" dedicated to Obamania, including Eu Amo Obama. In Brazil, flattery knows no bounds: at least eight candidates in recent elections simply borrowed Barack Obama's name and put it on the ballot instead of their own.

More than celebrity worship, the Obama phenomenon has already had a very real impact abroad, raising questions, for example, about the lack of progress by racial minorities in Europe. Europe's parliamentary democracies have done quite well by women in recent decades, but blacks and Asians have been left behind. "Searching for the French Barack Obama" was a headline in Le Monde last week. As part of that report, the Togolese-born former state secretary for social affairs and integration Kofi Yamgnane told the paper, "We have to admit that the American model works better than the French model." "We love Obama," wrote the columnist Claude Weill in Nouvel Observateur, because "we hate slavery, racial segregation, discrimination in all its forms—America's original sins." He concludes on a pessimistic note: "We are the country of human rights, no? But are we really listening to Obama?"

As the election neared, Obama looked very likely to win. If he does, judging from the tenor of the campaign's final days, America will have elected a new leader of the world for entirely local reasons. In no small part it will be because of McCain's apparent lack of focus on the economy in an era of financial distress. It will also be a reaction to Palin, a political newcomer and a seeming lightweight a heartbeat away from the presidency, as they say.

If Obama loses, the reaction in America will likely play out along the same old divides. Democrats will interpret the loss in the framework of recent election defeats: we could not elect Al Gore or John Kerry, and now Obama, even in the midst of crisis. Their talk will turn to a new third way. Republicans will look at their implausible victory as a reason to suspend or at least dial down the soul-searching they are undergoing now, over whether they drifted too far right—or not far enough. Conservatives will crow. Liberals will weep. African-Americans will gnash their teeth. (And the media, it must be said, will be shamed for its poll-driven reporting that showed virtually no path to a McCain victory.)

The rest of the world, for its part, will see something different. America, already said to be on the decline, will look all the smaller for having failed to redeem itself with the election of a young black man with African and South Asian roots and a Middle Eastern middle name. And it will look smaller still for having had the opportunity to do so, yet failing to see the opportunity, let alone capitalize on it and breaking a line that goes back more than 200 years in the United States. To the rest of the world, in electing another Republican America will have appeared not only to extend the agonies of the Bush years, but to have missed a historical chance for which it's hard to find a precedent or parallel in any country: the ultimate triumph of a long-oppressed minority.

The world has already cast its vote, in poll after poll, and what it wants, and may not get even if Obama is elected, is an American Gandhi, a Gandhi who not only speaks for the oppressed minority but was one of them. The world caught a glimpse of their man on a sunny afternoon last July in Berlin. He stood at the base of Berlin's Siegessäule, or Victory Column, in the Tiergarten. Some 200,000 people fanned out before him, a crowd much larger than any he had drawn at home during 18 months on the stump. He took the opportunity to address a much larger audience. "People of the world," Barack Obama said, "look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." That may be too much for any president to deliver. Indeed the world may be setting itself up for a rather rude awakening when an elected Obama proves far more pragmatic, less progressive, than expected. But taking their cue from the title of his second book, the people of the world he addressed that day have invested in him the audacity of their hope.

The World Hopes for Its First President

[Shammu]

When was the last time a candidate, anywhere in the world garnered this much "messianic" attention??

Believe it or not, that was Hitler............

There are plenty of websites making the comparison between the two. From the state of the economy at the time, and how the people of Germany got caught up in "the euphoria of the moment", and other logical comparisons. All dictators seek to be worshiped, and they all kill people who do not submit to their demands.

[Shammu]

World hopes for a 'less arrogant America'
By WILLIAM J. KOLE and MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writers William J. Kole And Matt Moore, Associated Press Writers
Nov 4, 7:21 am ET

BERLIN – A world weary of eight years of George W. Bush was riveted Tuesday by the drama unfolding in the United States. Many were inspired by Barack Obama's focus on hope, or simply relieved that — whoever wins — the current administration is coming to an end.

From Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to the small town of Obama, Japan, the world gears up to celebrate a fresh start for America.

In Germany, where more than 200,000 flocked to see Obama this summer as he moved to burnish his foreign policy credentials during a trip to the Middle East and Europe, the election dominated television ticker crawls, newspaper headlines and Web sites.

Hundreds of thousands prepared to party through the night to watch the outcome of an election having an impact far beyond America's shores. Among the more irreverent festivities planned in Paris: a "Goodbye George" party to bid farewell to Bush.

"Like many French people, I would like Obama to win because it would really be a sign of change," said Vanessa Doubine, shopping Tuesday on the Champs-Elysees. "I deeply hope for America's image that it will be Obama."

Obama-mania was evident not only across Europe, where millions geared up for all-night vigils, but even in much of the Islamic world, where Muslims expressed hope that the Democrat would seek compromise rather than confrontation.

The Bush administration alienated Muslims by mistreating prisoners at its detention center for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison — human rights violations also condemned worldwide.

"I hope Obama wins (because) of the need of the world to see the U.S. represent a more cosmopolitan or universal political attitude," said Rais Yatim, the foreign minister of mostly Muslim Malaysia.

"The new president will have an impact on the economic and political situation in my country," said Muhammad al-Thaheri, 48, a civil servant in Saudi Arabia. Like so many around the world, he was rooting for Obama "because he will change the path the U.S. is on under Bush."

Nizar al-Kortas, a columnist for Kuwait's Al-Anbaa newspaper, saw an Obama victory as "a historic step to change the image of the arrogant American administration to one that is more acceptable in the world."

Yet John McCain was backed by some in countries such as Israel, where he is perceived as tougher on Iran.

Israeli leaders, who consider the U.S. their closest and most important ally, have not openly declared a preference. But privately, they have expressed concern about Obama, who has alarmed some by saying he would be ready to hold a dialogue with Tehran.

Taking a cigarette break on a Jerusalem street corner, bank employee Leah Nizri, 53, said Obama represented potentially frightening change and voiced concern about his Muslim ancestry.

"I think he'll be pleasant to Israel, but he will make changes," she said. "He's too young. I think that especially in a situation of a world recession, where things are so unclear in the world, McCain would be better than Obama."

Even in Europe, McCain got some grudging respect: Germany's mass-circulation daily Bild lionized the Republican as "the War Hero" and running mate Sarah Palin as "the Beautiful Unknown."

In Berlin, Republicans Abroad organized a "November Surprise Election Party" to watch live "how the Republican ticket McCain/Palin comes from behind and leaves the 'liberal elite media' in Europe and the United States puzzled."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown clung to convention by refusing to say which candidate he wants to see win. Regardless of the outcome, he told Al-Arabiya television while on a tour of the Gulf, "history has been made in this campaign."

In Baghdad, a jaded Mohammed al-Tamimi said he didn't think U.S. policy on Iraq would change. Even so, "we hope that the new American president will open a new page with our country."

Kenyans made their allegiance clear: Scores packed churches on Tuesday to pray for Obama, whose late father was born in the East African nation, and hailed the candidate — himself born in Hawaii — as a "son of the soil."

"Tonight we are not going to sleep," said Valentine Wambi, 23, a student at the University of Nairobi. "It will be celebrations throughout."

Kenyans believe an Obama victory would not change their lives much but that hasn't stopped them from splashing his picture on minibuses and selling T-shirts with his name and likeness. Kenyans were planning to gather around radios and TV sets starting Tuesday night as the results come in.

"We will feast if Obama wins," said Robert Rutaro, a university president in neighboring Uganda. "We will celebrate by marching on the streets of Kampala and hold a big party later on."

In the sleepy Japanese coastal town of Obama — which translates as "little beach" — images of him adorned banners along a main shopping street, and preparations for an election day victory party were in full swing.

Election fever also ran high in Vietnam, where McCain was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years after being shot down in Hanoi during a 1967 bombing run.

"He's patriotic," said Le Lan Anh, a Vietnamese novelist and real estate tycoon. "As a soldier, he came here to destroy my country, but I admire his dignity."

World hopes for a 'less arrogant America'

[Soldier4Christ]

Brown to Call for New Global Financial System

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown will push for a new international financial system that updates the Bretton Woods agreement in a speech to be delivered Monday evening.

Brown will call for the reforms at the G20 summit to be held in Washington next weekend.

"The British Government ... will begin to begin a new Bretton Woods with a new IMF that offers, by its surveillance of every economy, an early warning system and a crisis prevention mechanism for the whole world," Brown will say at his speech at the annual Lord Mayor's banquet in London.

Brown will also say the U.S and Europe must provide the leadership for the creation for a new international order.

"The trans-Atlantic relationship has been the engine of effective multi-lateralism for the past 50 years. I believe the whole of Europe can work closely with America to meet the great challenges which will test our resolution and illuminate our convictions," he will say.

Brown's calls for a reformed IMF will echo calls by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University. Stiglitz told a U.N. General Assembly panel on the global financial crisis last month that the system created at the 1944 conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, which established the international monetary protocols governing trade, banking and other financial relations among nations, needs to be updated.

Brown has already discussed IMF reforms with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and has called on countries such as China and the oil-rich Persian Gulf states to fund the bulk of an increase in the International Monetary Fund's bailout pot.

Brown will also say the world faces five major challenges — to promote democracy, fight terrorism, strengthen the global economy, tackle climate change and resolve conflict.

[Shammu]

World leaders pledge action plan to fight crisis
Sat Nov 15, 2008
By Gernot Heller and Matt Falloon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of the world's biggest economies sought on Saturday to settle their remaining differences over an emergency plan to blunt the bite of the worst financial crisis in decades.

Presidents and prime ministers from the powers of the 20th Century joined the heads of new economic heavyweights such as export colossus China and oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

They sat down with their finance ministers for a five-hour meeting in a Washington museum, gathered around a large map of the world symbolizing the global nature of their attempted economic rescue plan.

Signs are mounting of a painful economic slump in many regions, with the euro zone slipping into recession according to data last week, unemployment climbing in the United States and elsewhere and emerging economies slowing.

As the meeting got under way, the International Monetary Fund agreed to a loan worth at least $7.6 billion as part of a bigger plan for Pakistan where foreign currency reserves have dwindled and the risk of a default on its debts has grown.

With U.S. President George W. Bush only two months away from leaving the White House and his successor Barack Obama choosing to stay away from the Washington summit, talk of a top-to-bottom overhaul of global finance has been tempered.

But leaders said they were close to agreeing on the need for changes including more regulation for the financial sector, where huge risk-taking on house prices, especially in the United States, backfired last year and triggered the downturn.

Bush, who opposes calls from some countries for sweeping new regulations in the financial industry, said summit leaders were looking for "a way forward to make sure that such a crisis is unlikely to occur again."

"I am pleased that the leaders reaffirmed the principles behind open markets and free trade," he told reporters before the talks. "One of the dangers during a crisis such as this is that people will start implementing protectionist policies."

"This crisis has not ended. There's some progress being made but there's still a lot more work to be done."

Saturday's meeting is expected to pave the way for more work in coming months and another summit in the early months of 2009 when a newly installed President Obama could consider potentially far-reaching changes to the financial system.

As well as new regulation, leaders are considering ways to open up global institutions such as the IMF to emerging economies whose export-funded reserve cashpiles have made them important economic players.

The leaders are also likely to spell out what kind of measures their countries intend to take to counter the economic downturn, such as more public spending.

"DIFFICULT" TALKS

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said expectations of low inflation created room for lower interest rates and fiscal stimulus measures.

"These are tough talks because countries are coming from very different positions and we have to bring them together," Brown told reporters before heading to the talks.

"It's obviously important to move people to decisions today about what can be done."

He has been urging the G20 group of leading developed and developing economies to act together to stimulate economic activity via fiscal and monetary policy means.

After leaders met first for dinner Friday, their finance officials worked late into the night on a summit communique to be put to the leaders Saturday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the document would say no financial market, institution or region should escape regulation or supervision, and the action plan will have around 50 measures to be implemented by the end of March.

"This is a new start," Merkel said.

A German official said the plan would ask hedge funds to be more transparent about their operations.

Emerging countries have warned that time is running out to stem the economic damage from the credit market turmoil.

"If we don't take quick action we run the risk of falling into a depression," Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Friday, adding both regulatory reform and concerted government spending were needed.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a top Indian economic policy-maker, piled on the pressure for developed countries to inject large amounts of government money into their economies.

"If we are facing the most serious crisis in the world economy since the Great Depression then we need to take a lot of possibly unorthodox and special steps," he said.

World leaders pledge action plan to fight crisis

[Shammu]

World asked to help craft online charter for religious harmony     
Nov 14 2008

A website launched Friday with the backing of technology industry and Hollywood elite urges people worldwide to help craft a framework for harmony between all religions.

The Charter for Compassion project on the Internet at www.********.org springs from a "wish" granted this year to religious scholar Karen Armstrong at a premier Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in California.

"Tedizens" include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin along with other Internet icons as well as celebrities such as Forest Whittaker and Cameron Diaz.

Wishes granted at TED envision ways to better the world and come with a promise that Tedizens will lend their clout and capabilities to making them come true.

Armstrong's wish is to combine universal principles of respect and compassion into a charter based on a "golden rule" she believes is at the core of every major religion.

The Golden Rule essentially calls on people to do unto others as they would have done unto them.

"The chief task of our time is to build a global society where people of all persuasions can live together in peace and harmony," Armstrong said.

"If we do not achieve this, it seems unlikely that we will have a viable world to hand on to the next generation."

Charter for Compassion invites people from "all faiths, nationalities, languages and backgrounds" to help draft statements of principles and actions that should be taken.

World asked to help craft online charter for religious harmony