News, Prophecy and other

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Annan travels to Europe for first meeting of Human Rights Council; wide-ranging talks

16 June 2006 – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will be in Europe from Sunday for a host of discussions and meetings, including addressing the inaugural gathering of the new Human Rights Council on 19 June and discussing the troubled state of nuclear non-proliferation at a Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Mr. Annan will first address the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) bi-annual Global Meeting on Sunday in Copenhagen, before meeting Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and other members of the Government, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

“On Monday, he will be in Geneva to speak at the inaugural meeting of the new Human Rights Council. He will say that the eyes of the world, especially those whose human rights have been violated, are turned towards this new Council,” he said.

“He will call on the Council to make a clean break with past practices, while preserving the best features of the old system, such as independent special rapporteurs, and will encourage its members not be get caught up in political point-scoring and petty manoeuvres.”

From Denmark the Secretary-General will travel to France for a series of meetings on Tuesday with French government officials, including Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Defence Minister Michele Aliot Marie. In Paris, the Secretary-General will also attend the inauguration, with President Jacques Chirac, of France's Musée des Arts Premiers.

Mr. Annan will then go to Geneva to speak to the Conference on Disarmament about the state of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the challenges the Conference faces in breaking the impasse that has hindered its work and the Secretary-General will also meet UN staff working in the Swiss city. He will be back in New York on Friday.

Annan travels to Europe for first meeting of Human Rights Council; wide-ranging talks

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Statue attack fuels fears of an Islamist Egypt
By Harry de Quetteville in Cairo
(Filed: 18/06/2006)

A religiously motivated attack on statues at a museum in Cairo has sparked outcry in Egypt and fuelled fears that the country is veering towards an Islamic state.

The attack on three artworks, by a black-clad and veiled woman screaming, "Infidels, infidels!" followed a fatwa issued by the Grand Mufti of Cairo, Ali Gomaa, which banned all decorative statues of living beings.
 
Possible targets in future: Tutankhamen and Amenhotep

It led to furious criticism of the mufti from Egyptian liberals. In a televised debate with the mufti after the attack, one poet raged that "the prevalent religious discourse in the country encourages terror".

Although the ancient treasures of Egypt have been protected under Islam so far, an increasing extremism in the country could make statues such as the quartzite head of Nefertiti, the colossus of Amenhotep, and the golden death mask of Tutankhamen possible targets in future.

At the scene of the attack, in the villa and museum of the Egyptian sculptor, Hassan Heshmat, guards said they had been woken in the middle of the night by the woman's shouts and the sounds of destruction.

"It was a fully covered, religious woman," said Raisa Intesar, who looks after both the museum and Mr Heshmat, who is now 86. "She had jumped over the wall. We rushed out to stop her but by the time we had overpowered her, she had destroyed three statues."

The damaged works included Motherhood, a piece featuring three delicately carved heads, all of which had been snapped off. Also damaged was a smaller piece, The Victory Leap, Heshmat's tribute to Egyptian troops in the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

But the patriotic sentiment of the work was lost on the attacker, who was intent on following a religious imperative. "She had been listening to the mufti, and was following his orders," Ms Intesar said.

In Islam, representations of the human form and potential idolatry are particularly sensitive topics and helped to fuel the riots over the depiction of the Prophet earlier this year.

So, in Egypt, which has become markedly more conservative in recent years, artists such as Mr Heshmat now find that national pride is losing out to religious fervour.

The attack exemplifies the clash of secular and religious societies in Egypt where, on the streets of Cairo, beauties in low-cut tops mingle with veiled women who walk behind their husbands.

"We are seeing an increase of conservative, Islamist feeling," said Nabil Abdel Fatah, from the Al Ahram centre for Political and Strategic studies in Cairo.

"The Islamisation of Egyptian society is happening from the bottom up, and now it has reached the middle classes - the doctors, the lawyers.

"Over the next few years political Islam will grow and grow," he added. "The duality between secular and religious is very dangerous and will lead to a very serious conflict in Egyptian society.

We are already seeing terror attacks. And we will see new radical groups who will want to change the state in the most basic way - by suicide bombs and assassination."

Comfortably installed in the cafe at the top of Egypt's parliament building, 72-year-old Sheikh Said Askar smiled benignly at such ideas.

Sheikh Askar is one of 88 members of parliament for the Muslim Brotherhood, whose offshoots include Hamas, now in power in the Palestinian territories, and which seeks to impose Sharia law throughout Egypt.

Although he is also a long-serving scholar at Cairo's al Azhar mosque, from where the mufti issued his fatwa on statues, he said the Brotherhood will use its growing voice in parliament - not bombs - to effect change. "I want to see Egypt become an Islamic state," he said. "We are near to that."

As little as a year ago, such an idea would have been fanciful. Sheikh Askar was locked up ahead of last autumn's parliamentary elections, from which the Brotherhood was banned.

Running as independents, and despite widespread government interference, its members markedly exceeded expectations by winning enough seats to become the main opposition. Had it not been so restricted, some say, it could have won.

"I understand that an Islamic Egypt scares the West," said Sheikh Askar. "But the secular government has failed the people. Now our group will spread the glory of Islam."

Statue attack fuels fears of an Islamist Egypt

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Fury in Egypt over Ghana's Israeli flag waver
CAIRO (AFP) - Ghana defender John Paintsil's waving of an Israeli flag to celebrate his team's World Cup goals drew a barrage of insults and furious reactions in Monday's Egyptian newspapers.

Paintsil, who plays for Israeli club Hapoel Tel Aviv, celebrated the two goals in Ghana's 2-0 win over the Czech Republic by pulling an Israeli flag out of his sock and waving it at the cameras.

"The ignorant and stupid Paintsil, who spent 20 days in Egypt during the last African Nations Cup, plays for Hapoel," sports commentator Alaa Sadek wrote in the daily Al-Akhbar, explaining to baffled Egyptian audiences Painstil's link to Israel.

"Egyptians supported the Ghanaian team all the way until the 82nd minute, and regretted it after the Israeli flag (waving)," screamed a bold red headline in the independent daily Al-Masry al-Yom.

"As soon as the referee blew his whistle to start the match, Egyptians were out enthusiastically, almost hysterically supporting Ghana, until defender John Paintsil took out the Israeli flag," read the paper's front page article.

The live commentator on the Arab satellite channel broadcasting all World Cup matches in the region abruptly cut short his trademark "goooaaaaaaal" when Paintsil brought out the flag.

"What are you doing, man?" the bewildered commentator said.

The main question on Egyptian lips after the match was "why?".

Some papers described Paintsil as a "Mossad agent", others said "an Israeli had paid him to do it" but the most elaborate theory was offered by the top-selling state-owned daily Al-Ahram.

"The real reason," sports analyst Hassan el-Mestekawi wrote, stems from the fact that many Ghanaian players go through football training camps set up by an Israeli coach who "discovered the treasure of African talent, and abused the poverty of the continent's children" with the ultimate goal of selling them off to European clubs.

"The training program for these children starts every morning with a salute to the Israeli flag," Mestekawi claimed.

FIFA said they had taken note of the flag-waving and that although there was nothing in the rules to prevent it, they hoped not to see a repetition.

Egyptian football fans who were out supporting Ghana on Saturday's match were equally rattled when the player took out the Israeli flag and dubbed him "the Israghani" (Israeli-Ghanaian).

"We were totally supporting Ghana and we were so excited by how well they were doing," Ashraf al-Berri, who watched the match with a dozen friends told AFP.

"We were screaming with joy, but the whole room went quiet when Paintsil took out the flag. We didn't really know how to react," he said.

"As an Egyptian I am very sensitive when it comes to Israel," Osama Mohy, who watched the match at a friend's house, told AFP.

"If Mido scores, would he wave the england flag? and if he did everyone would hate him for it," he said refering to Egyptian striker Mido (Ahmed Hossam) who plays for England's Tottenham Hotspurs.

African champions Egypt failed to qualify for the World Cup finals.

Fury in Egypt over Ghana's Israeli flag waver

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US law-enforcement group to study Israel's methods
By REBECCA ANNA STOIL

Hailing from districts with populations bigger than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined, and representing administrative areas almost as big as the State of Israel, 12 members of a top-level US law-enforcement delegation arrived in Tel Aviv Sunday night to share their experiences and to benefit from Israel's hard-earned knowledge.

During their six-day visit, the group will view security arrangements at Jerusalem's Malha Mall and Ben-Gurion International Airport, as well as observing "Mabat 2000," the NIS 20 million security project implemented in 1999 in Jerusalem's Old City, in which 400 surveillance cameras monitor public order 24 hours a day.

The US group includes police chiefs and representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the US government agency whose primary responsibilities are enforcing federal criminal laws and regulating the firearms and explosives industries. The officials come from states including Florida, California, Texas and Massachusetts, and reflect the varied tasks of America's law-enforcement challenges.

In addition to studying how Israeli law-enforcement officials perform security procedures at airports and border crossings, the group will also study how their Israeli counterparts treat mass casualties, perform rescue operations and establish command and control after terrorist attacks. Their hosts will include the Border Police, where they will observe counterterror procedures, and the IDF's Homefront Command, where they will discuss mass casualty events.

This week's visit is part of a program initiated by the Anti-Defamation League, which has also coordinated visits of top Israel Police commanders to the United States during the past year to share their expertise as part of ADL's law-enforcement training program.

US law-enforcement group to study Israel's methods

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EU official: Time to talk to reach long-lasting peace
By HERB KEINON

Kassam rocket fire on Sderot is another sign that the Israelis and Palestinians need to "sit down and talk and go for a long-lasting peace," European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

Responding to the oft-heard argument that any European country faced with a constant rocket barrage on one of its cities would respond with great military force, Ferrero-Waldner said that "at a certain moment everyone would understand that one has to sit down and talk and go for long lasting peace; this is the only argument that really counts." She said that if this were not done, "it would be horrible here and horrible there, and this is our European understanding. We would like to assist both of you as much as we can and be an objective partner."

When asked with whom Israel should sit and talk, she said, "absolutely with [Palestinian Authority] President Mahmoud Abbas." Ferrero-Waldner, who left Israel on Wednesday after two days of talks focused on the Quartet-backed "funding mechanism" designed to channel international aid into the PA while bypassing the Hamas-led government, met Abbas Tuesday and said he is "the elected president and also a man of peace. He has renounced violence, recognized Israel, and always speaks about the roadmap and about Oslo, and he wants to talk with Israel. I think this is the right moment to do it."

Regarding whether she feels Abbas was now in a position to implement anything agreed upon in negotiations, she responded, "I think he can, and you have to give him the chance to show that." Ferrero-Waldner praised Abbas for his referendum idea on the so-called prisoners' document that calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines, with Jerusalem as its capital, and a "return of refugees" to their homes.

She said that although the EU doesn't agree with all 18 points of the document, "it is a step forward." She made clear, however, that even were Hamas to accept this document, it would not mean that they had accepted the international community's benchmarks for legitimacy: recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and accepting previous agreements with Israel.

She said that a Palestinian referendum on this issue, or acceptance of the document by Hamas, could lead to a new government in the PA that could then live up to the international benchmarks for acceptance. She said it was too early to say whether the EU would fund such a referendum.

Ferrero-Waldner reiterated that she viewed Prime Minster Ehud Olmert's realignment plan as "a bold and courageous step because it entailed removing settlers," but also added that a long lasting peace could only be reached through a negotiated settlement.

Asked whether she thought disengagement from Gaza was a wise move considering that now Hamas is in power, Gaza is on the verge of chaos, and there are concerns of a major military escalation because of the constant pounding of Sderot, Ferrero-Waldner replied, "If you ask your own people to withdraw from settlements and settle elsewhere this is brave, I must say. Now I think what you have to do is make peace out of it, and I think [former Quartet disengagement envoy] Jim Wolfensohn did a very good job, but many of these things are not yet implemented. Look at the Gaza-West Bank [link] for instance. There are quite a number of things that need to be done."

EU official: Time to talk to reach long-lasting peace

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Episcopalians reject ban on gay bishops

By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer 1 hour, 34 minutes ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Episcopal delegates Tuesday snubbed Anglican leaders' request to temporarily stop electing openly gay bishops, a vote that further frustrated conservatives in the American church and could hasten a break with Anglicans worldwide.
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The vote by the Episcopal House of Deputies came just hours before Presbyterians, at a separate meeting, approved a plan to let local congregations hire gay ministers if they wish.

In Columbus, wrenching debate over the moratorium on gay bishops stretched over two days in the House of Deputies, a legislative body of more than 800 clergy and lay leaders.

Top Anglican officials had asked the Episcopalians for a temporary ban to calm the outrage among conservatives over the election three years ago of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who lives with his longtime male partner.

In a complex balloting system, a majority of deputies voted against a measure that would have urged dioceses to refrain from electing gay bishops. Conservatives complained that the measure stopped short of a moratorium, but supporters argued it would have set a moral standard for the church and would have signaled that the American denomination understood the concerns of Anglican leaders.

The other policymaking body in the church, the House of Bishops, planned to take up that measure, but if it passed it would still need the approval of the deputies who have now rejected it.

Canon Martyn Minns, a conservative leader and rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., said the deputies' vote showed the impossibility of reconciling Anglicans with different views about the Bible and homosexuality.

"It's too hard. It's a gap too wide," he said. "Unhappily, this decision seems to show that the Episcopal Church has chosen to walk apart from the rest of the Anglican Communion."

But the Rev. Susan Russell of Integrity, the Episcopal gay and lesbian caucus, said she felt proud that the church was willing to affirm its commitment to fight injustice.

"The vote says we're not willing to make sacrificial lambs of our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers and that has to leave me feeling pretty grateful and very proud," she said.

The critical vote in the Episcopal Church happened on a day when another American Protestant denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), decided at a session in Birmingham, Ala., to allow gay clergy, lay elders and deacons to work with local congregations..

A measure approved 298-221 by a national assembly keeps in place a Presbyterian church law that says clergy and lay elders and deacons must limit sexual relations to man-woman marriage. But the new legislation says local congregations and regional presbyteries can exercise some flexibility when choosing clergy and lay officers of local congregations if sexual orientation or other issues arise.

Mainline Protestant groups, including the Methodists and the largest U.S. Lutheran branch, have been struggling for decades over the traditional Christian prohibition on gay sex as lesbians and gays push for full inclusion in their churches. The issue has frequently dominated debate at national Protestant assemblies.

The Episcopal Church is the U.S. arm of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, the fellowship of churches with roots that trace back to the Church of England.

While conservatives are a minority within the American denomination, the majority of overseas Anglican leaders oppose actively gay clergy. They have pressured Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the communion's spiritual leader, to take some action against Episcopalians if they fail to adhere to that view.

Many Anglican churches have already broken ties with the U.S. church over Robinson's elevation. And if overseas leaders dislike the outcome of this week's meeting, it greatly increases the chances that the association of 38 national churches will break apart.

Williams has repeatedly expressed concern that the feud over homosexuality would lead to a permanent rift.

"We cannot survive as a communion of churches without some common convictions about what it is to live and to make decisions as the Body of Christ," he wrote in a message to the General Convention when it began last week.

Episcopalians reject ban on gay bishops

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District pulls plug on speech

Foothill valedictorian criticizes decision to censor her proclamation of faith

By ANTONIO PLANAS

She knew her speech as valedictorian of Foothill High School would be cut short, but Brittany McComb was determined to tell her fellow graduates what was on her mind and in her heart.

But before she could get to the word in her speech that meant the most to her -- Christ -- her microphone went dead.
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The decision to cut short McComb's commencement speech Thursday at The Orleans drew jeers from the nearly 400 graduates and their families that went on for several minutes.

However, Clark County School District officials and an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that cutting McComb's mic was the right call. Graduation ceremonies are school-sponsored events, a stance supported by federal court rulings, and as such may include religious references but not proselytizing, they said.

They said McComb's speech amounted to proselytizing and that her commentary could have been perceived as school-sponsored.

Before she delivered her commencement speech, McComb met with Foothill administrators, who edited her remarks. It's standard district practice to have graduation speeches vetted before they are read publicly.

School officials removed from McComb's speech some biblical references and the only reference to Christ.

But even though administrators warned McComb that her speech would get cut short if she deviated from the language approved by the school, she said it all boiled down to her fundamental right to free speech.

That's why, for what she said was the first time in her life, the valedictorian who graduated with a 4.7 GPA rebelled against authority.

"I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech," McComb said. "God's the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my lord and savior."

In the 750-word unedited version of McComb's speech, she made two references to the lord, nine mentions of God and one mention of Christ.

In the version approved by school officials, six of those words were omitted along with two biblical references. Also deleted from her speech was a reference to God's love being so great that he gave his only son to suffer an excruciated death in order to cover everyone's shortcomings and forge a path to heaven.

Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the ACLU of Nevada, had read the unedited version of McComb's speech and said district officials did the right thing by cutting McComb's speech short because her commentary promoted religion.

"There should be no controversy here," Lichtenstein said. "It's important for people to understand that a student was given a school-sponsored forum by a school and therefore, in essence, it was a school-sponsored speech."

Lichtenstein said that position was supported by two decisions by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in 2000 and 2003.

Both cases involved graduation ceremonies and religious speeches given by commencement speakers. In the 2003 case, Lichtenstein said, the plaintiff even petitioned the Supreme Court to have the decision reversed, but the request was denied.

In 2003, the Clark County School Board amended district regulations on religious free speech, prohibiting district officials from organizing a prayer at graduation or selecting speakers for such events in a manner that favors religious speech or a prayer.

The remainder of the amendment allows for religious expression during school ceremonies.

Where students or other private graduation speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, however, that expression is not attributable to the school and, therefore, may not be restricted because of its religious (or anti-religious) content," it states.

"To avoid any mistaken perception that a school endorses student or other private speech that is not in fact attributable to the school, school officials may make appropriate neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech is not school sponsored."

District legal counsel Bill Hoffman said the regulation allows students to talk about religion, but speeches can't cross into the realm of preaching.

"We review the speeches and tell them they may not proselytize," Hoffman said. "We encourage people to talk about religion and the impact on their lives. But when that discussion crosses over to become proselytizing, then we to tell students they can't do that."

McComb, who will study journalism at Biola University, a private Christian school in La Mirada, Calif., doesn't believe she was preaching. She said although some people might not like the message of her speech, it was just that, her speech.

"People aren't stupid and they know we have freedom of speech and the district wasn't advocating my ideas," McComb said. "Those are my opinions.

"It's what I believe."

District pulls plug on speech

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National Education Association Set to Endorse Homosexual Marriage

Teacher's union begins plans to promote homosexual marriage in public schools

The National Education Association is set to endorse homosexual marriage at their convention coming up in Orlando June 29 through July 6.

The new NEA proposal essentially says schools should support and actively promote homosexual marriage and other forms of marriage (two men and one woman, three women, two women and three men, etc.) in their local schools.

The new proposal, expected to pass overwhelmingly, is found under the B-8 Diversity paragraph:

    The Association... believes in the importance of observances, programs and curricula that accurately portray and recognize the roles, contributions, cultures, and history of these diverse groups and individuals.

    The Association believes that legal rights and responsibilities with regard to medical decisions, taxes, inheritance, adoption, legal immigration, domestic partnerships, and civil unions and/or marriage belong to all these diverse groups and individuals.

Translated, that means the NEA will promote homosexual marriage in every avenue they have available, including textbooks, to all children at all age levels and without the permission or knowledge of parents. Their plans will include every public school in America.

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Presbyterians Study Gender-Inclusive Terms
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - Delegates of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are to tackle whether to adopt gender-inclusive language for worship of the divine Trinity along with the traditional "Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

A study panel said the classical language for the Trinity shouldn't be diminished, but advocated "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God" to "expand the church's vocabulary of praise and wonder."

One reason is that language limited to the Father and Son "has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women," the panel said.

Conservatives object that the church should stick close to the way God is named in the Bible.

Among the feminist-inspired, gender-inclusive options:

- "Mother, Child and Womb"

- "Lover, Beloved, Love"

- "Creator, Savior, Sanctifier"

- "Rock, Redeemer, Friend"

- "King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love."

Two professors at the Presbyterians' Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Andrew Purves and Charles Partee, said there is potential danger that "we not only lose the ground for our language for God, we in fact lose the Trinity. We lose God."

"We do not need a diluted, metaphorical Trinity; rather, we need our confidence in the Christian doctrine of God to be restored," they said.

Other critics noted that Jesus' most famous prayer begins by addressing "Our Father."

On Tuesday the assembly takes up another dispute that has the potential to ultimately split the denomination: a bill to give local congregations and regional "presbyteries" some leeway in deciding whether to ordain clergy and lay officers living in gay relationships.

Ten conservative Presbyterian groups have warned jointly that approval of what they call "local option" would "promote schism by permitting the disregard of clear standards of Scripture."

A separate floor committee voted 30-28 to keep on the books the national church law mandating that lay officers and clergy restrict sexual activity to heterosexual marriage.

Presbyterians have debated sexual morals since a 1970 assembly agreed by a tiny majority that "adultery, prostitution, fornication and/or the practice of homosexuality is sin."

In a 1997 referendum, 57 percent of regional presbyteries approved the existing ban as church law. Two bids to overturn it were defeated by 67 percent, then 73 percent of presbyteries.

Conservatives say the Tuesday proposal is an illicit bid to rewrite legal policy and circumvent presbytery voting. Liberal caucuses have also complained because the plan leaves what they regard as injustice in church law.

This month, the denomination reported a net loss of 48,474 members since last year, the 40th annual decline in a row, leaving 2.3 million active members.

Finances got a bit boost with Thursday's announcement that businessman Stanley W. Anderson, a Denver Presbyterian, contributed $150 million to aid struggling congregations and start new ones.

Presbyterians Study Gender-Inclusive Terms

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No end in sight for Africa's suffering masses

By Jeff Koinange
CNN Senior Africa Correspondent

Editor's note: CNN's Jeff Koinange has spent years covering events from Africa, including visiting war and disaster zones and following the lives of refugees forced from their homes. Here are his reflections on the U.N.'s World Refugee Day.

ENTEBBE, Uganda (CNN) -- Just imagine for a moment that everything you own -- from your hard-earned money to your home to your car to little mementos like pictures on the wall -- has just been taken from you by a group of people who don't like the way you look or the shade of your skin or the shape of your nose. Everything gone except, perhaps, the clothes on your back.

You've been forced to flee, probably separated from your family and end up on the run with a bunch of people you've never met, but with whom you now share a common goal -- staying alive.

Many hours or even days later, you arrive at a shelter run by an international nongovernmental organization.

You're tired, exhausted, sick to your stomach and scared to death. You end up sharing a tent with 40 to 60 other strangers where your bathroom, bedroom and kitchen combined have all been reduced to little more than the size of a normal bed.

And this will be your home for the next few months, perhaps years, and in some cases, decades. This is what it's like for a person fleeing persecution, war, civil strife, genocide.

Imagine living like this for years if not decades, raising your family in a refugee camp because you can't go home. Even if you do manage to go home, you learn someone else has taken over your land, your home, your life.

I've seen that person many times, that face that says, "I too once had it all but one day lost it all." Faces of refugees across the Africa I've been traversing for the past decade and a half, from Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa, from Congo to Tanzania in the center of the continent and from Somalia to Sudan in the East.

Their stories are as heartbreaking as they are gut wrenching, lives turned upside down in the blink of an eye.
Living in a stadium sharing a pit latrine

Like the time I ran into Marcus Sawyer, once a wealthy attorney in Liberia's capital, Monrovia. Sawyer owned holiday homes in South Africa, an apartment in the south of France, real estate in Dubai. You name it, he had it. He had some big clients in the country, including influential government officials.

One day rebels invaded the capital and Sawyer, his family and thousands of Liberians were forced to flee and seek refuge in the city's soccer stadium, the former home of the national team, The Lone Stars.

Suddenly it was home to more than 50,000 internally displaced people, or "IDPs," and would become Sawyer's new residence for the next six months.

"I never imagined in my wildest dreams I'd end up like this," he once told me, "sharing an outdoor pit latrine with a thousand people, sleeping in the same room with dozens of strangers. It takes some getting used to." (Watch Dr. Gupta's heartbreak as disease rips through squalid camps -- 2:50)

The last time I saw Sawyer he had become a shell of his old self -- dejected, depressed and despondent.

And then there was the time I was in Gulu, in northern Uganda, where I came face to face with a new kind of terror -- and a new kind of refugee. A town where for 20 years one man has caused untold suffering.

The man's name is Joseph Kony, a one-time altar boy who claimed to have a vision from God to wage war against the Ugandan government.

Human rights groups say his rebels kidnapped children, brainwashed them and turned them into killing machines responsible for thousands of deaths, their victims often raped and tortured.
Propping up firewood with human heads

I met 19-year-old Alice Abalo at a rehabilitation center run by the nongovernmental organization, World Vision, for those who escaped.

She was one of the lucky ones who had managed the impossible, fleeing with her 4-year old daughter, a product of rape. At first she didn't say much, but when she warmed up, she recounted tales of terror that could make anyone's skin crawl. (Watch Alice describe how she was forced to desecrate bodies -- 5:42)

"One day the group we were in had just killed about six people and proceeded to decapitate them," she said. "Then, I was asked to light a wood fire using the victims' heads as support, the same way one would use three stones. I still have nightmares of their burning hair and brains oozing out of the burning heads. It was horrible."

Alice bore some visible physical wounds of torture, bullet scars on her leg and shrapnel wounds on her chest. Aid workers said her physical wounds would eventually heal but her mental scars would no doubt last a lifetime.

She was to stay at this center for 45 days and then make her way back to her home in a village 20 miles away -- that was if her home had survived the rebel onslaught.
Trying to annihilate a generation of newborns

And just when it seemed things couldn't get more depressing on a continent where misery and hardship are an every day occurrence, I landed in a refugee camp in the town of Bukavu in eastern Congo. I walked into a hospital filled with victims of rape and mutilation and broke down.

The women here had been forced to flee their villages by marauding soldiers who weren't satisfied with just raping them -- they wanted to annihilate a generation of newborns -- mutilating their mothers by inserting knives, machetes and even pistols and rifles into their private parts after gang-raping them for days.

I have never seen such inhumanity in all my years as a reporter. And to add insult to injury, when some of these women returned to their villages, they were either shunned by their families for "allowing" themselves to be violated, or they were gang-raped again by some of the same men in uniform.

If I've ever felt helpless as a reporter, it was in Bukavu -- for these women had nowhere to run, nowhere to call home, and a bleak future that will deprive them of the ability to feel like women again.

In all of my journalistic travels, I can't help but see the images of Africa's helpless and hopeless, and I can't help but think about what is it that drives man's inhumanity.

What makes us revert to our basic, animalistic instinct? What makes one ethnic group want to destroy another? After all, this is the 21st century. Are we not yet civilized?

Questions I'll be asking myself for a long time. There seems no end in sight for the agony of Africa's suffering masses.

No end in sight for Africa's suffering masses

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U.S. weighs shootdown of N. Korea missile

By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 49 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is weighing responses to a possible North Korean missile test that include attempting to shoot it down in flight over the Pacific, defense officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Because North Korea is secretive about its missile operations, U.S. officials say they must consider the possibility that an anticipated test would turn out to be something else, such as a space launch or even an attack. Thus, the Pentagon is considering the possibility of attempting an interception, two defense officials said, even though it would be unprecedented and is not considered the likeliest scenario.

The officials agreed to discuss the matter only on condition of anonymity because of its political sensitivity.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he could not say whether the unproven multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile defense system might be used in the event of a North Korean missile launch. That system, which includes a handful of missiles that could be fired from Alaska and California, has had a spotty record in tests.

Although shooting down a North Korean missile is a possibility, the Pentagon also must consider factors that would argue against such a response, including the risk of shooting and missing and of escalating tensions further with the communist nation.

Even if there were no attempt to shoot down a North Korean missile, it would be tracked by early warning satellites and radars, including radars based on ships near Japan and ground-based radars in Alaska and California.

Robert Einhorn, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said a U.S. shootdown of a North Korean missile on a test flight or a space launch would draw "very strong international reaction" against the United States. He saw only a small chance that the U.S. would attempt a shootdown.

Signs of North Korean preparations to launch a long-range ballistic missile, possibly with sufficient range to reach U.S. territory, have grown in recent weeks, although it is unclear whether the missile has been fully fueled. U.S. officials said Monday the missile was apparently fully assembled and fueled, but others have since expressed some uncertainty.

Bush administration officials have urged the North Koreans publicly and privately not to conduct the missile test, which would end a moratorium in place since 1999. That ban was adopted after Japan and other nations expressed outrage over an August 1998 launch in which a North Korean missile flew over northern Japan.

At the time of the 1998 launch, the United States had no means of shooting down a long-range missile in flight. Since then, the Pentagon has developed a rudimentary system that it says is capable of defending against a limited number of missiles in an emergency — with a North Korean attack particularly in mind.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, says the Pentagon has spent $91 billion on missile defense over the past two decades.

The 1998 event turned out to be a space launch rather than a missile test; U.S. officials said the satellite failed to reach orbit.

U.S. and international concern about North Korea's missile capability is heightened by its claims to have developed nuclear weapons. It is not known whether they have mastered the complex art of building a nuclear warhead small enough to fit a long-range missile, although in April 2005 the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, told Congress that North Korea was capable of arming a missile with a nuclear warhead. U.S. officials have since called it a "theoretical capability."

No administration official has publicly raised the possibility of bombing the North Korean missile before it can be launched. Jan Lodel, a senior Pentagon policy official during the Clinton administration, said in an interview Tuesday that he would not rule out a pre-emptive strike. He said it would be the surest away of eliminating the threat of being surprised by the launch of a Taepodong-2, an intercontinental ballistic missile that some believe has enough range to reach U.S. territory.

David Wright, a senior scientist at the private Union of Concerned Scientists, said he strongly doubts that the Bush administration could back up its claims of having the capability to shoot down a North Korean missile.

"I consider it to be rhetorical posturing," Wright said. "It currently has no demonstrated capability."

The last time the Pentagon registered a successful test in intercepting a mock warhead in flight was in October 2002. Since then, there have been three unsuccessful attempted intercepts, most recently in February 2005.

Rick Lehner, chief spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said the next intercept test is scheduled for the August-September period, to be followed by another before the end of the year. Lehner said that beginning about a year ago, the system has periodically been placed in "operational status."

Baker Spring, a Heritage Foundation analyst and strong advocate of U.S. missile defenses, said he believes that "in theoretical terms" the U.S. system is a capable of defeating a North Korean missile. And he thinks that if the North Koreans launched on a flight pattern that appeared threatening to the United States, the administration "would be well within its rights" under international law to shoot down the missile.

The Washington Times reported Tuesday that the Pentagon has placed its missile defense system in an active status for potential use.

U.S. weighs shootdown of N. Korea missile

[Shammu]

U.S. activates missile defense system
North Korea seems headed 'towards a launch'

Tuesday, June 20, 2006; Posted: 2:50 p.m. EDT (18:50 GMT)

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- The United States has moved its ground-based interceptor missile defense system from test mode to operational amid concerns over an expected North Korean missile launch, a U.S. defense official said Tuesday.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday that North Korea had put its long-range Taepodong-2 missile on a launching pad, but it was unclear if the missile was fully fueled.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang said it would not be bound by a 2002 treaty prohibiting launches of ballistic missiles.

"They seem to be moving forward towards a launch, but the intelligence is not conclusive at this point," White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters traveling with President Bush to Austria aboard Air Force One.

The U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a Washington Times report that the Pentagon has activated its missile defense system, which has been in the developmental stage for years.

"It's good to be ready," the official said.

U.S. officials say evidence such as satellite pictures suggests Pyongyang may have finished fueling the Taepodong-2 missile, which some experts said could reach as far as Alaska. (Watch what satellite images reveal -- 1:58)

"There's real caution in how to characterize it so as to not be provocative in our own approach," the defense official said of the move to activate the system.

Asked whether the United States would try to shoot down a North Korean missile, Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff declined to answer directly.

"We have a limited missile defense system," Ruff said. "We don't discuss the alert status or the specific capabilities."

The Pentagon and U.S. State Department have said a North Korean missile launch would be seen as "provocative."

The United States has built up a complex of interceptor missiles, advanced radar stations and data relays designed to detect and shoot down an enemy missile, but tests of the system have had mixed results.

The system is based on the concept of using one missile to shoot down another before it can reach its target.

Meanwhile, South Korea's Ban called on Pyongyang to scrap test plans while saying the missile was on the pad.

"It is not sure that they have put the fuel in the rockets, but it seems to be sure that they have assembled these missiles in the launching pad," Ban told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.

According to Japan's Kyodo news agency, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday any long-range missile test will not be bound by the Pyongyang Declaration. (Watch how Japan plans to respond to a test launch -- 1:11)

Under that 2002 agreement with Japan, North Korea pledged to uphold all international treaties on nuclear issues, extend a moratorium on ballistic missile launches and resolve issues related to the "lives and security" of Japanese nationals.

Meanwhile, China, the North's closest ally, said it had no details of any test-flight preparations and called for calm.

South Korea's weather agency forecast overcast skies and storms on Tuesday in North Hamgyong province, where North Korea has a launch site, and said this should be the pattern for the rest of the week as a storm front moves through.

Analysts say clouds and storms would make it difficult for North Korea to track a missile once in flight, decreasing the likelihood of a launch.

"You don't want to test launch a missile into a storm," said Peter Beck, a Korea analyst in Seoul for the International Crisis Group.

Reports of test preparations coincide with a stalemate in six-party talks on unwinding Pyongyang's nuclear arms programs.

Some analysts believe that North Korea is piqued world attention has shifted to concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions and angered at a U.S. crackdown that has frozen hard currency income from alleged illegal activities such as money laundering.

Beck said that by raising the prospect of a missile test, the Stalinist state had successfully grabbed global attention and rattled security concerns, but he was not sure if Pyongyang would scrap the launch in the face of pressure or go ahead.

"If they are really playing a finesse game they will back away but ... they are not known for their finesse game," he said.

Alexander Vershbow, U.S. ambassador to Seoul, said Tuesday any work on a potential delivery system, such as a missile, for a nuclear weapon creates a serious security threat.

Proliferation experts have said it is not likely North Korea has the technology to miniaturize a nuclear weapon so that it can be mounted on a missile.

North Korea shocked the world in 1998 when it fired a missile, part of which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. Pyongyang trumpeted that as a satellite launch.

"A missile launch is North Korea's second-biggest 'card' after a nuclear test, and they would have to seriously consider the timing," said Masao Okonogi, a Korea expert at Keio University in Tokyo.

"I think this is a bluff," he said.

U.S. activates missile defense system

[Shammu]

Bodies of 2 missing GIs recovered in Iraq

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military recovered the bodies Tuesday of two missing soldiers from an area it said was rigged with explosives. An Iraqi official said the Americans were tortured and killed in a "barbaric" way.


An insurgent group claimed the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq executed the men personally, but it offered no evidence. The U.S. military did not confirm whether the soldiers died from wounds suffered in an attack Friday or were kidnapped and later killed.

The discovery of the bodies dealt a new setback to U.S. efforts to seize the momentum against al-Qaida in Iraq after killing its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a June 7 airstrike. Violence was unabated Tuesday, with at least 18 people killed in attacks nationwide, including a suicide bombing of a home for the elderly in the southern city of Basra.

Coalition forces spotted the American soldiers' bodies late Monday, three days after the men disappeared following an attack on their checkpoint south of the capital, the military said. But troops delayed retrieving the remains until an explosives team cleared the area after an Iraqi civilian warned them to be alert for explosive devices.

"Coalition forces had to carefully maneuver their way through numerous improvised explosive devices leading up to and around the site," the military said in a statement. "Insurgents attempting to inflict additional casualties had placed IEDs around the bodies."

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the bodies were found together in the vicinity of an electrical plant, which would be just a few miles from where the initial attack took place near the town of Youssifiyah in the volatile Sunni Triangle south of Baghdad.

Caldwell said the remains were believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. The bodies will be flown from Kuwait to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for positive identification through autopsies and DNA testing.

Menchaca's cousin Sylvia Grice said the soldier visited relatives in Texas last month but didn't talk much about the war.

"He wanted to go out and visit his friends," she said. "He wanted to eat a hamburger. He didn't want to sit down and talk about what was going on. But he was very proud of serving his country and he believed in what he was doing."

The director of the Iraqi Defense Ministry's operation room, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured. "With great regret, they were killed in a barbaric way," he said.

The two soldiers disappeared after an insurgent attack at a checkpoint by a Euphrates River canal, 12 miles south of Baghdad. Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the attack. The three men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Ky.

Caldwell said only a single vehicle carrying the three U.S. soldiers was attacked. A witness has said two other Humvees were in the area and went after the assailants, while seven masked gunmen ambushed the third Humvee.

Some 8,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops searched for the missing soldiers. One U.S. soldier died and 12 were wounded during the search, Caldwell said, adding that coalition troops killed two insurgents and detained 78. The troops received 66 tips, 18 of which were considered worthy of follow up.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of five insurgent groups led by al-Qaida in Iraq, posted an Internet statement Monday claiming it was holding the American soldiers captive and that "we shall give you more details about the incident in the next few days, God willing."

On Tuesday, after Iraqi officials disclosed that the bodies were found, the Shura Council posted another Web statement, saying al-Zarqawi's successor had "slaughtered" the soldiers. The language in the statement, which could not be authenticated, suggested the group was saying the men were beheaded.

"With God Almighty's blessing, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer carried out the verdict of the Islamic court" calling for the soldiers' slaying, the statement said.

The U.S. military has identified al-Muhajer as an Egyptian associate of al-Zarqawi also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri. If confirmed, the killings would be the first acts of violence attributed to al-Muhajer since he was named the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq in a June 12 Web message by the group.

Al-Zarqawi made al-Qaida in Iraq notorious for beheadings and was believed to have killed two American captives himself — Nicholas Berg in April 2004 and Eugene Armstrong in September 2004. A dozen Americans are still missing in Iraq, Caldwell said.

Just hours before Tucker and Menchaca disappeared Friday, a U.S. airstrike killed a key al-Qaida in Iraq leader described as the group's "religious emir," Caldwell said.

Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, died along with two foreign fighters in the same area where the soldiers' bodies were found. The three were trying to flee in a vehicle.

Al-Mashhadani, identified as an Iraqi in his late 30s, was "a key leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, with excellent religious, military and leadership credentials" and tied to the senior leadership, including al-Zarqawi and his alleged replacement, Caldwell said.

U.S. forces captured Mansour in July 2004 because of his ties to the militant groups Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunna, but the military let him go because he was not deemed an important terror figure at the time.

Tuesday's violence across Iraq included at least three bombs striking Baghdad despite a security crackdown launched nearly a week ago.

In the bombing of the home for the elderly, an 18-year-old Sunni wearing an explosives belt blew himself up as senior citizens were lined up to collect monthly pensions. Two elderly women were killed and three people were wounded.

Police said the motive was unclear, but sectarian tensions have been worsening in the predominantly Shiite city of Basra.

Bodies of 2 missing GIs recovered in Iraq

[nChrist]

Dreamweaver Said:

But the Rev. Susan Russell of Integrity, the Episcopal gay and lesbian caucus, said she felt proud that the church was willing to affirm its commitment to fight injustice.

"The vote says we're not willing to make sacrificial lambs of our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers and that has to leave me feeling pretty grateful and very proud," she said.

Dreamweaver,

Brother, I wish these news stories would call this what it really is:  defiance of GOD, mockery of the Holy Bible, and becoming servants of the devil. It really is just as simple as that. They need to advertise their assemblies as abominations to GOD and state that the flesh and darkness are their masters. On top of everything else, they are proud of their open filth while still trying to use the HOLY NAME OF GOD! It would have been much better for them to have never heard the NAME OF GOD than to associate HIS NAME with evil.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Proverbs 16:3 NASB  Commit your works to the LORD And your plans will be established.

[Shammu]

Dreamweaver,

Brother, I wish these news stories would call this what it really is:  defiance of GOD, mockery of the Holy Bible, and becoming servants of the devil. It really is just as simple as that. They need to advertise their assemblies as abominations to GOD and state that the flesh and darkness are their masters. On top of everything else, they are proud of their open filth while still trying to use the HOLY NAME OF GOD! It would have been much better for them to have never heard the NAME OF GOD than to associate HIS NAME with evil.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Proverbs 16:3 NASB  Commit your works to the LORD And your plans will be established.

Brother, as the Bible says, there will be a great falling away, 2 Thessalonians 2:3. We are seeing that happening right now, in these cults.

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the apostasy comes first [unless the predicted great falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come], and the man of lawlessness (sin) is revealed, who is the son of doom (of perdition),