US is‘worst’ imperialist: archbishop

Taken from the Times, UK, November 25, 2007
By Abul Taher

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.

Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by “clearing the decks” with a “quick burst of violent action” had led to “the worst of all worlds”.

In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.

He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the “chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”.

Williams went beyond his previous critique of the conduct of the war on terror, saying the United States had lost the moral high ground since September 11. He urged it to launch a “generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence”.

He went on to suggest that the West was fundamentally adrift: “Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul.”

Williams suggested American leadership had broken down: “We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.”

He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.

“It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together — Iraq, for example.”

In the interview in Emel, a Muslim lifestyle magazine, Williams makes only mild criticisms of the Islamic world. He said the Muslim world must acknowledge that its “political solutions were not the most impressive”.

He commends the Muslim practice of praying five times a day, which he says allows the remembrance of God to be “built in deeply in their daily rhythm”.

State of human rights in US 'appalling'

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak slams America's 'violations of human rights,' Israeli justice minister's attempt to limit High Court's powers

Taken from the YnetNews, Israel, 24/11/07
by Aviram Zino

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak slammed the state of human rights in the United States Saturday, calling it 'appalling' and saying the Israeli High Court is doing a far better job of upholding rights laws.

Speaking at a forum on law at the Natanya College Barak said: "The Americans were caught with their pants down after 9/11... They are committing unspeakable acts and that kind of human rights violations could cost them dearly.

"Our High Court is ready to defend human rights in times of war as well as in times of peace."

Speaking of Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann attempts to reform the High Court's powers, Barak said "there is no democracy without the segregation of authorities; there is no democracy without the judicial authority and no democracy without human rights.

"I was horrified when the government impertinently asked Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish where exactly it was written that it was she who held power over all the courts… in that moment, the line between the judicial authority and the executive authority was crossed," said Barak.

As for the connection between the legislative and judicial authorities, Barak said he sees the two as irrevocably intertwined: "There is no democracy without the Knesset and our laws are built to protect the Knesset."

But not everything, said Barak, can be made the subject of legal arbitration: "The question of what you can and cannot bring before a court of law will forever be debated on. The High Court is not above criticism, nor is it above being questioning. Nothing is."

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Aharon Barak is correct is assessing the Human rights record of the United States, perhaps now he will also assess the Human Rights record of Israel. Both countries have an equal appalling and shameful record that needs to be addressed. Israel needs to address its issue of occupying a foreign land that goes gainst many UN resolutions and also when it occupied Lebanon in the eighties it abducted thousands of Lebanese currently held in prisons for no reason at all and without given any trail. That is the only reason Hizbullah exists - to get the freedom of these people. It is not only the Lebanese that are held in Israeli prisons but also innocent Palestians whose land is illegally occupied. Even elected Palestinians were held in Israeli jails for no apparent reasons. SO where is the justice there Mr barak? Also wht about the descrimination that takes place against Muslims and Christians that currently live in Israel - Job prospects, healthcare and education is restricted to non Jews.

Corruption, bribes and trafficking: a cancer that is engulfing Afghanistan

Taken from The Times, UK, November 24, 2007
By Anthony Loyd in Kabul

The general made an elementary mistake. Told by his superiors that his new posting as chief of police in a drug-rich northern province would cost him “one hundred and fifty thousand”, he assumed the bribe to be in Afghan currency.

He paid the money to a go-between at a rendezvous in Kabul’s Najib Zarab carpet market. For two days he was lorded in the office of General Azzam, then Chief of Staff to the Interior Minister, helping himself to chocolate and biscuits. “I must have eaten a pound of the stuff,” he recalled.

But on the third day he received a different welcome. “Get this mother****** out of my office,” Azzam screamed, said the general. Hustled outside, he quickly discovered his error. He should have paid $150,000 (£73,000) rather than a paltry 150,000 Afghanis for the bung.

Now living in disgruntled internal exile in northern Afghanistan, his verdict on his former employers is succinct.

“Everyone in the Ministry of Interior is corrupt,” he told The Times. “They wouldn’t sleep with their wives without wanting a backhander first.”

He never, though, expressed surprise. Governmental corruption in Afghanistan has become endemic and bribes to secure police and administrative positions along provincial drug routes is an established procedure.

“The British public would be up in arms if they knew that the district appointments in the south for which British soldiers are dying are there just to protect drug routes,” said one analyst.

Western and Afghan officials are also alarmed at how narco-kleptocracy has extended its grip around President Karzai, a figure regarded by some as increasingly isolated by a cadre of corrupt officials.

“The people around him tell him of a cuckoo land,” said Shukria Barakzai, a Pashtun MP who is both a friend and critic of Karzai. “He circles within a small mafia ring who are supporting the destruction of the system. At the beginning there were only 10 to 15 of them but since then they have spread like a cancer in Afghanistan.”

The Ministry of Interior, key to establishing security in the country, remains the worst offender. Disaffected police officers have named, to The Times, General Azzam, recently appointed Chief of Operations after his stint as Chief of Staff, and his deputy General Reshad as the prime recipients of bribes.

The lawmen say they categorise Afghanistan’s 34 provinces as A, B or C states. ‘A’ denotes those with the highest potential profits for drug-running; ‘C’ states are the least remunerative.

The bribes to buy a position in an A-grade province can be vast, up to $300,000. The rewards are even bigger. One border police commander in eastern Afghanistan was estimated by counter-narcotic officials to take home $400,000 a month from heroin smuggling.

This summer a border police vehicle was stopped outside Kabul and found to have 123.5kg of heroin, with a value of nearly $300,000, bagged in the back. The five men inside, an officer, three policemen and a secretary, were under the command of Haji Zahir, formerly Border Police commander of Nangarhar province. Haji Zahir was questioned and removed from his post. He was never charged.

Even the lowlier posts in provinces free of poppy traffic have a price. “To buy a position as a detective in any province you pay $10,000,” explained one police colonel, now on indefinite leave because he refused to pay a bribe. “Then you pay your superior a cut of the money you make through bribes or trafficking.”

One former governor told The Times that every judge in his province had been corrupt. He claimed there were cases of the police handing detainees to the Taleban, or helping to transport Taleban commanders from one province to another.

“The Government has essentially collapsed,” he said. “It has lost its meaning in the provinces, it has lost the security situation and lost its grip on civil servants. Corruption is playing havoc with the country.”

The international community has played its own part in contributing to the crisis. One analyst in Kabul said: “It’s not Afghan culture. It’s a culture of impunity. We created it. We came in in 2001 with cases of cash and made certain people untouchables.”

The dozens of drug-funded villas — “narcotechture” in expat parlance — that have sprung up around foreign embassies in Kabul’s Sherpur district are a testament to the untouchable status of former warlords.

Corruption among police and local authorities is worst in southern Afghanistan, where drug profits are highest. Despite his repeated public denials, President Karzai’s half-brother Wali, head of Kandahar’s provincial council, continues to be accused by senior government sources, as well as foreign analysts and officials, as having a key role in orchestrating the movement of heroin from Kandahar eastward through Helmand and out across the Iranian border.

Britain has been keen for Kabul to begin arresting top drug smugglers in its ranks. Yet diplomats fear the country’s judicial system is so weak that the men would quickly be released or escape. Meanwhile, America has been lacklustre in lobbying for high-level arrests, fearing such detentions would further destabilise matters.

The Afghan Government fears that if corrupt officials in the south were replaced by staunch law enforcers, the huge profits from heroin trafficking would end up with the Taleban.

Kabul has, though, made efforts. A new agency, the directorate of local government (IDLG), was supposed to give the President rather than the Ministry of Interior more say over the appointment of provincial governors, a system notorious for its corrupt procedures. However, many of the IDLG staff were simply transferred from the Interior Ministry, tainting its potential from the start. Afghan anti-corruption agencies similarly lack cohesion and clout.

Izzatullah Wasifi, director of Afghanistan’s GIAAC anti-corrution force, said he had been unable to brief President Karzai even once during the past 11 months.

His own force is already under suspicion from rival anti-corruption players in the offices of the Attorney-General and the Ministry of Finance, who in turn face allegations of embezzlement and bribery. Wasifi did time in an American penitentiary 20 years ago for dealing heroin. “You expect my guys to be clean working for $200 a month versus the millions in drug bribes?” he asked. “I don’t see any serious measures being taken to solve the problem.”

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What do you expect when the UK and US install a Puppet government to run the country? Why cannot we destroy the poppy fields and help in providing alternative cash crops for the farmers and land owners? No wonder the Northern Allience wanted to get rid of the Taliban so that they could rebuild the drug trade. Why didn't the US (now NATO) get rid of the Northern Allience? Can they both be partners in crime?

This is a comment left on the talkback...

US military presence has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade. The Taliban government was instrumental in implementing a successful drug eradication program, with the support of the UN. The Taliban's drug eradication program in 2000 led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production fell to 185 tons. After the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the 2006 harvest was around 6,100 tonnes, 33 times its production levels in 2001 under the Taliban (3200 % increase in 5 years). Cultivation in 2006 reached a record 165,000 hectares compared with 104,000 in 2005 and 7,606 in 2001 under the Taliban. UN figures show Afghanistan supplied in 2006 some 92 percent of the world's supply of opium, which makes heroin. 3 billion USD in revenue, 95% of this goes to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institution. - by mohsen, malaga, spain

Another War-monger bites the dust!

With Blair out of office and now Howard gone the count down to Bush's days in office has finally begun....

The article below is taken from Sydney Morning Herald, November 25, 2007
By Jason Koutsoukis

Rudd romps to historic win

As a triumphant Kevin Rudd last night led Labor to an historic landslide victory with a national swing of 5.7% giving him a likely majority of 24 seats, ousted prime minister John Howard suffered an ignominious end to his 33-year political career with the apparent loss of his seat of Bennelong.

Labor's victory means that for the first time in Australian history Labor now holds government in every state, territory and at Commonwealth level.

It also means that for the first time a woman, Julia Gillard, will hold the second-highest public office in the land.

John Howard conceded defeat at 10.35pm, admitting that Labor had won an emphatic victory and congratulated Mr Rudd on assuming the nation's top job.

"I want to say that there is no prouder job that anybody can occupy than the prime minister of this country," Mr Howard said.

"I wish him well in the task that he will undertake and I want to say on behalf of the Coalition that has governed this country for the last 111/2 years that we bequeath to him a nation that is stronger and prouder and more prosperous than it was."

Mr Rudd is only the third Labor leader in 60 years to win government from Opposition, and becomes Australia's 26th prime minister and Labor's 11th.

With a record 53.8% of the two-party preferred vote, Mr Rudd can claim an even greater victory than that of Bob Hawke, who won in 1983 with 53.2%.

He immediately declared his government would address with "great urgency" the pressing challenges of climate change and water, and would focus on creating fairness and flexibility in the workplace.

"We should celebrate and honour the way in which we conduct this great Australian democracy of ours and it's been on display again tonight," Mr Rudd told a cheering crowd in his home town of Brisbane.

He thanked Mr Howard for his immense contribution to public service over his political career.

By late last night it was apparent that Mr Howard had lost his seat of Bennelong to Labor's star recruit, former ABC journalist Maxine McKew, with a swing of almost 5%.

However, both Mr Howard and Ms McKew described the seat as being on a knife-edge.

Mr Howard will suffer the humiliation of becoming only the second sitting prime minister in history to lose his seat if Bennelong falls. But with a large number of postal votes set to favour Mr Howard, strategists on both sides agreed Bennelong remained too close to call.

Mr Howard, who said he took full responsibility for the Liberals' defeat, endorsed former treasurer Peter Costello as the party's next leader.

Taking the stage at Sydney's Wentworth Hotel, where he has celebrated his previous four election wins since 1996, Mr Howard paid tribute to his family, and the Liberal Party.

"I owe more to the Liberal Party than the Liberal Party owes to me," Mr Howard said.

"The Liberal Party has been unbelievably generous and loyal and forgiving and understanding to me over the 33 years that I've been in parliament, the 15 or more years that I've led it and the 111/2 years that I have been prime minister."

The routing leaves the Liberal Party depleted at every level of government across the nation - Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman now holds the Liberals' highest public office.

But Peter Costello, the man tipped to be charged with rebuilding the shattered party, declined to speculate on his future last night. Mr Costello, who comfortably retained the safe Melbourne seat of Higgins, said the party would "be very very proud of what it has achieved in government".

Late last night Labor looked to have won 82 seats, the Liberals 58, eight seats were in doubt and two went to other parties.

The battle between the Coalition and the Greens for the balance of power in the Senate was too close to call last night.

Pedophile allowed to work in kindergarten

Taken from Yahoo News, 15 Nov 07
By Reuters

BERLIN - A convicted pedophile sentenced to do community service in a German kindergarten will return to court next week to face charges of abusing two children there, a regional prosecutor's office said Thursday.

The man was allowed to work as a janitor at the Evangelical Kindergarten St Petri in Melle, near the northern city of Osnabrueck, because a court worker missed three prior pedophilia convictions on his record, said Alexander Retemeyer, spokesman for the Osnabrueck prosecutor's office.

The man, identified only as A.B., had been sentenced to 720 hours of community service earlier this year for working on the sly while collecting welfare payments.

"The colleague didn't pay attention and didn't see he had a sexual conviction, so she allowed him to serve in a kindergarten," Retemeyer said. "She didn't read the file."

The prior convictions date from 1988-1990, when the man was living in the former East Germany, Retemeyer said. Though the convictions are listed in the man's criminal record, the details are unclear because prosecutors cannot access his East German police file.

Police arrested the man in April after the head of the kindergarten reported he had fondled himself in front of two children.

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What kind of society do we live in when we cannot stop Paedophiles from operating within our schools? The Kindergarten should have done the necessary paperwork properly and lazyness in no excuse when protecting our children from societys nasty people. Where was the local MP or why didn't Angela Merkel Step in and take action?

100 arrests hit world paedophile ring

Taken from the Guardian, UK, November 5, 2007
By David Batty and agencies

More than 100 people in 19 countries have been arrested in an operation to dismantle a major international paedophile network, police said today.

The arrests follow an investigation into an Italian-based website that produced "tailor-made" child abuse images for 2,500 customers, according to the European police agency Europol.

In the past five months 46 people in the UK have been arrested in the operation, codenamed Koala, according to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop).

There have also been 21 arrests in France, 11 in Spain and eight in Sweden.

"We have identified 2,500 customers from around the world. School teachers, swimming instructors, lawyers, IT executives," said Europol investigator Menno Hagemeijer. Some customers even travelled to the studio to watch and record the abuse and make their own videos.

"These [videos] were tailor-made orders. We want this girl in this pose in this lingerie," said Belgian prosecutor Michele Coninsx.

Europol and the EU prosecution body Eurojust launched the operation last year following the arrest of Marzola Sergio, 42, who ran the website.

He produced most of his videos in Ukraine, where police have identified 21 victims so far.

One of the videos showed a father sexually abusing his daughters aged nine and 11, according to Ceop.

Jim Gamble, chief executive of Ceop, said there were likely to be further arrests from the global investigation.

He said: "Yet again we see the technology used by paedophiles to facilitate child abuse now turned against them as a result of co-ordinated and effective international law enforcement cooperation.

"Operation Koala uncovered the true meaning of 'online child abuse': in this case, the exchanging of images in which real children were subjected to horrific sexual abuse, often to order."

America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans

Taken from the Times, UK, November 15, 2007
By Tom Baldwin in Washington

More American military veterans have been committing suicide than US soldiers have been dying in Iraq, it was claimed yesterday.

At least 6,256 US veterans took their lives in 2005, at an average of 17 a day, according to figures broadcast last night. Former servicemen are more than twice as likely than the rest of the population to commit suicide.

Such statistics compare to the total of 3,863 American military deaths in Iraq since the invasion in 2003 - an average of 2.4 a day, according to the website ICasualties.org.

The rate of suicides among veterans prompted claims that the US was suffering from a “mental health epidemic” – often linked to post-traumatic stress.

CBS News claimed that the figures represented the first attempt to conduct a nationwide count of veteran suicides. The tally was reached by collating suicide data from individual states for both veterans and the general population from 1995.

The suicide rate among Americans as a whole was 8.9 per 100,000, but the level among veterans was at least 18.7. That figure rose to a minimum of 22.9 among veterans aged 20 to 24 – almost four times the nonveteran average for people of the same age.

There are 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.6 million of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Not everyone comes home from the war wounded, but the bottom line is nobody comes home unchanged,” said Paul Rieckhoff, a former Marine and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America.

CBS quoted the father of a 23-year-old soldier who shot himself in 2005 as suggesting that the military was covering up the scale of the problem. “Nobody wants to tally it up in the form of a government total,” Mike Bowman said. “They don’t want the true numbers of casualties to really be known.”

Mr Bowman’s son, Tim, was an army reservist who patrolled one of the most dangerous places in Baghdad, known as Airport Road. “His eyes when he came back were just dead. The light wasn’t there anymore,” said his mother, Kim Bowman. Eight months later, on Thanksgiving Day, Tim committed suicide.

A separate study published last week shows that US military veterans make up one in four homeless people in America, even though they represent just 11 per cent of the general adult population, and younger soldiers are already trickling into shelters and soup kitchens after completing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While it took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless, at least 1,500 ex-servicemen from the present wars have already been identified.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. Data from 2005 estimated that 194,254 homeless people on any given night were veterans.

Daniel Akaka, the chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said: “For too many veterans, returning home from battle does not bring an end to conflict. There is no question that action is needed.”

The plight of US veterans is a matter of acute sensitivity for the Bush Administration which has set great store by standing up for – and support from – US troops. This year General Kevin Kiley, the US Army’s Surgeon General, was among senior military officials dismissed for his role in the mistreatment of wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Newspaper revelations about conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington became a lightning rod for criticism of the war in general. The outpatient clinic was described as squalid and rat-infested; a maze of red tape left many outpatients – often with severe brain injuries – wandering the corridors without help.

Thatcher honours Commonwealth war dead

Today is Remembrance Sunday - when we read about the second world war, we usually hear about how Britain stood up and fought against Nazi Germany (and quite rightly so) and how after a while the Yanks would join in to save the butts of the British. We never get to read anything about the volunteers from other countries (such as India & Pakistan) who made great contibution in the fight against the Nazis in the media let alone from the British Monarch or her Government - so I was surprised to read this in the times online...

Taken from the Times, UK, November 9, 2007
By Jack Malvern

Baroness Thatcher attended a wreath-laying ceremony today to honour Commonwealth soldiers killed fighting for Britain.

Lady Thatcher was a guest alongside the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres and foreign dignitaries at the event held ahead of Remembrance Sunday at the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill, London.




The Gates were completed five years ago, in remembrance of the five million volunteers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Africa and the Caribbean, who fought and died in the two world wars.



Dr Chartres and Lord Bilimoria, the chairman of the Memorial Gates Commemorative Trust, spoke to the assembled crowd of dignitaries and veterans before a two-minute silence.

The Bishop said: “This morning we particularly remember the men of the Commonwealth, and we remember and give thanks to those who spent themselves defending others.”

Baroness Thatcher, who helped raise money to build the Memorial Gates, did not make a speech at the event, but she laid a wreath of poppies at the foot of the gates.

Lord Bilimoria said: “Lady Thatcher played an instrumental role in helping to raise the money for these gates. To have her backing and for her to be here is just so special, I could see she was genuinely moved by the ceremony.”

Children from Westminster School were invited to watch the event, and organisers were keen to encourage younger people to learn about the events of the first and second world wars.

Peter Cleminson, national chairman of the Royal British Legion, said: “I think inevitably the public sometimes forgets the role that volunteers from other countries played. But we do our best to remind them, and an occasion like this helps to remind people of the great contribution made by the Sikhs, the the Nepalese, the Ghurkas, the Indian army and by Africans and Caribbeans in both world wars.”

Meanwhile, the insurers Lloyd’s of London held its annual wreath-laying ceremony this morning in the underwriting room of its City of London offices.

John Stuttard, the Lord Mayor of London and representatives from the Admiralty and the British Legion took part in the event, which included a two-minute silence and the annual ringing of the Lutine Bell, which is only otherwise tolled to mark disasters.

Living as a veteran of the streets after 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial. Thousands of Veterans Join in March to Mark the Anniversary Of the Wall's Dedication and to Honor Those Named on It. The Wall bears the names of those killed or missing during the war. It was dedicated Nov. 13, 1982, with ceremonies and an emotional parade of tens of thousands of veterans from across the country. There were initially 57,939 names inscribed on the memorial. But 317 names have been added for various reasons, and the total now is 58,256, according to the memorial fund.

But what about the Veterans today? We hear in the media, on films, in songs how upon their return they were mistreated by their communities and Governments - so it was sad to read thier fates in this newspiece...

This is an interesting article taken from the BBC, Friday, 9 November 2007

One in four homeless people in the US is a military veteran, a report has found, even though veterans make up only 11% of the adult population. One former soldier told his story to the BBC's Vincent Dowd in Washington.

Only a year ago, Ben Israel could have been forgiven for thinking nothing would ever go right with his life again.

He had been mainly homeless since his early 30s, living either on the streets of the richest nation in the world or in a selection of public shelters. Sometimes he lived in his car.

Ben was born on an army base in the US state of North Carolina, where his father was a soldier.
When he was 18 months old he swallowed - or maybe was given - furniture polish. He was in a coma for days.


A disproportionate number of the homeless are military veterans

He blames this for his occasionally hesitant speech and some of the problems he has had throughout life. "It caused me issues," he says simply.

Yet today you only need to spend a few minutes with him to recognise a keen intelligence too.

Soup kitchens

In 1973, conscription ended in America - but that year Ben volunteered for the US Army artillery corps anyway.

He was just 17 and says he feared winding up in prison otherwise, because there was so little money around.

He just missed Vietnam but saw service, less dramatically, in Panama. He was only in the army for three years.

I ask if he has ever married. "Not officially," he says.

After the US Army, mainly he travelled and worked and he studied a little. From the late 1980s to November 2006 he was usually homeless - although there were brief periods here and there with a roof over his head.

He tries to recall the cities whose soup kitchens he got to know too well: "Dallas, Texas. Miami, Florida. Atlanta, Georgia - twice. Fayetteville, North Carolina. Portland, Oregon..."

He acknowledges there were others he may have forgotten. "What I would mainly do was move."

Charity salvation

Ben, at 51, is honest enough to acknowledge that some problems of his thirties and forties were of his own making.

But he also believes his middle years showed how badly America's Department of Veterans Affairs - the VA - has sometimes focused its resources.

"They are a giant cash-cow but they are spending their money in the wrong areas. If they put more emphasis on housing their charges that would solve most of their issues out on the street."
Ben's life has improved - more than he ever expected it might. But ultimately salvation came from a charity, not the VA.

He was in line at one more soup kitchen when he was approached by someone from Pathways to Housing.

It is a New York-based charity which, for 17 years, has helped the homeless who have psychiatric problems.

Important for Ben was that, as Pathway's mission statement makes clear, they do not require treatment or sobriety as a pre-condition of getting someone into an apartment.

Their philosophy is that the path to recovery starts with getting off the street and under a roof.

Watching squirrels

Ben's apartment in Marshall Heights in Washington DC is not big but it is clean and well kept.

Ben intends to find a job again and get off Social Security Disability Insurance. He dreams of being an electrician. "But I want a career - not a job," he says.

We get in a cab and travel to Franklin Square, in downtown Washington.

It's where a lot of still homeless veterans hang out during the day - some of Ben Israel's age, some a little younger. There is not much to do but watch the squirrels.

Ben passes on the phone number of the people who after almost two decades helped him escape his wasted life.

He is a middle-aged man who found a sort of salvation when all hope seemed gone. He wants others to share in the same good fortune.

Rabbis warn Bush: Annapolis will bring destruction to US

Taken from YnetNews, Israel, 06.11.07
By Neta Sela

Group of right-wing rabbis writes open letter to US president demanding he cancel Annapolis summit or risk provoking 'wrath of the almighty.' Rabbis assert Katrina disaster a result of America's support of 2005 disengagement, say California fires a warning

A fringe group of prominent ultranationalist rabbis issued a harshly-worded letter to United States President George W. Bush earlier this week, warning him that the upcoming Annapolis peace conference would bring destruction upon America.

The rabbis evoke their previous prediction in 2005, when they published an open letter to Bush in the New York Times, demanding the US rescind its support of the disengagement plan.

"We wrote to President Bush, a man who believes in the Bible, to warn him against the terrible danger to which he is exposing his country by hosting such a conference," said Rabbi Meir Druckman, one of signatories to the letter.

"The land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. God punishes anyone who coerces Israel to give up its land," he said.

"There is no doubt the New Orleans flood from the Katrina hurricane was God's punishment for evicting the settlements," said Druckman, "with hundreds of thousands left homeless, hundreds killed or wounded and billions of dollars sent down the drain – can we really ignore God's hand collecting an eye for an eye?"

The disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank was completed August 23rd, 2005 – which was also the date Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas.

"Despite those consequences, yet again we find ourselves facing an initiative to expel Jews from Judea and Samaria and cede their cities to terror organizations. And once again the patrons of the event are President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"This time the Almighty is warning the US in advance: if the plague of water was not enough now he shall send flames. While hundreds of thousands of families have already fled the terrible fires in California, and we ask you, will you really forge ahead with this malevolent plan?" added Druckman.

The letter was authored by SOS Israel, a right-wing movement which earlier this year distributed citations to IDF soldiers who disobeyed orders and refused to take part in the disengagement.

The rabbis urged Bush's administration to back down from the current direction of the peace process, saying that not an inch of Israeli land should be ceded. "Be merciful to yourselves and the beloved America and its citizens. Lay down the hand you have raised against the Creator in war. Help the people of Israel fight without compromise against the terrorists who rise against it, and then, with a pure heart, you will truly be able to pray: May God bless America," the rabbis said.

Among the rabbis who signed the letter are several leading religious figures, including Rabbis Dov Wolfa, Yekutiel Rap, Gedalia Axelrod as well as the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and Hebron, Dov Lior and the son of former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Yaakov Yosef.

AFP contributed to this article

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This is facism at its worst. Who would of thought that Rabbies would be quoting the bible to advise the president of the United States on this Christian duties to do unChristian acts? Has ne not done enough damage?

As someone said in a talkback on the Ynetwebsite: Why dont the God of this lunatic rabbis punish the actual people that harm Israel and the Jews, ie the arabs If your God is so good, why then dont he bring hurricane to the Palestinians or fire to Hizbalaah or flooding to the Syrians or whatever to the Iranians, why does you cleaver God punishes the Americans? Your way of thinking is so stupid it is beyond belief, especially rabbi Gedalia and rabbi Yekutiel . By Avi , Israel (11.06.07)

US accused of using aid to sway votes in UN security council

This is an old article that I completely forgot to post but is very relevant on how the United States operates at the United Nations...

Taken from The Observer, UK, Sunday December 17, 2006
Heather Stewart, economics correspondent

The US uses its aid budget to bribe those countries which have a vote in the United Nations security council, giving them 59 per cent more cash in years when they have a seat, according to research by economists.

Kofi Annan, the outgoing UN Secretary-General, expressed his frustration at the power the US wields over the UN in his parting speech last week. In a detailed analysis of 50 years of data, Harvard University's Ilyana Kuziemko and Eric Werker provide the clearest evidence yet that money is used by the council's richest member to grease the wheels of diplomacy.

Anti-poverty campaigners reacted angrily to the findings. 'Aid should go to the people who need it, not as a political sweetener,' said Duncan Green of Oxfam. 'In recent years most rich countries have been making progress on this, but showering bribes on developing countries just because they sit on the UN security council is clearly a step backwards.'

Charities often complain that the US uses its aid as a political tool, and this new evidence of what the authors call 'vote-buying' will raise fears about whether the surge of aid money that was promised at last year's Gleneagles G8 summit will be fairly spent.

Ten of the 15 seats on the security council are filled for two years at a time, by rotation.

Kuziemko and Werker found that, in years when they have a seat, countries get an average of more than £8m extra in foreign aid from the US.

'I don't think it's surprising this goes on; but I wonder whether countries being aware that it goes on might have some salutary effect,' Kuziemko said.

Countries with a security council seat also receive an average of £500m extra from the UN itself, most of it channelled through its children's fund, Unicef, over which the US traditionally has been able to exert control. President George Bush recently provoked controversy by appointing a close political ally, former Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Unicef's chief.

When there is a controversial vote in prospect, the premium for countries with a security council seat is even higher. US aid surges by as much as 170 per cent, bringing in a £23m windfall, while the UN spends an extra £4m.

'Some countries serve on the security council during relatively calm years, whereas others, by chance, are fortunate enough to serve during a year in which a key resolution is debated and their vote becomes more valuable,' the authors say. They highlight controversial resolutions over issues including the Korean War, Suez, the Falklands and Kosovo - though the period they study does not include the notorious 'second resolution' over the invasion of Iraq, which never came to a vote.

David Woodward, of the New Economics Foundation, who is writing about the paper for a forthcoming edition of the Lancet, said the findings suggest the UN should be radically reformed.
'As long as one country wields such influence, there will always have a degree of control over what goes on, and they will be likely to abuse that.'

'The biggest obstacle, in both the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the UN, is that the countries that now have power can use that power to block reform - and they do.'

Only Christian TV station in Holy Land closes

Taken from The Guardian, UKm Friday November 2, 2007
By Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem

The only Christian television station in the Holy Land has closed after 11 years because of a lack of funding.

Nativity television, or al-Mahed as it was known in Arabic, broadcast a mix of church services, films and discussion programmes 24 hours a day from a small studio in Bethlehem, not far from the Church of the Nativity.

Samir Qumsieh, the Greek Orthodox owner and director of the channel, said it had lost around $800,000, half of which were his own personal debts. "I have hundreds of letters thanking me and gratitude shields thanking us from all the churches but nobody translated this into financial support," he said. The station closed yesterday.

"I reached the point where I couldn't continue any more," he said.

The channel broadcast mostly in Arabic, and Mr Qumsieh said he sometimes had Muslims and Jews phoning in to talk on discussion programmes.

Mr Qumsieh has been an often outspoken advocate for the shrinking Christian community in Bethlehem.

He said Christians were leaving the city in large part because of the sharp economic slowdown brought about by the Israeli occupation and the effect of the concrete West Bank wall that runs nearby.

Some Christians have also said they feel under pressure from conservative Islamist groups which are on the rise across the Palestinian territories.

"Emigration is our great nightmare," Mr Qumsieh said. He believes the Christian community was likely to shrink drastically within the next two decades and he said he too would now be looking for work abroad. He said his family was typical of Bethlehem's Christians, with four grown-up brothers who live and work abroad.

Unemployment runs as high as 65% in Bethlehem and farmers complain that large areas of their land have been taken up by the West Bank barrier and the several Jewish settlements that have been built nearby. The Christian population of the town of Bethlehem is thought to be around 40% today, down from around 90% in the 1940s.

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The occupation of Palestine by the Zionists have made it difficult for Christian Arabs as well as Muslims. The worst thing of all is that almost every Christian majority country throughout the world continues to support the Zionist regime whilst Christains suffer. Some Christian organisations from these countries even advocate assisting in financial aid for settlers, whilst fellow Christians suffer. No one wants to leave thier homeland but the Zionist are winning thier battle by making it difficult for the Palestinians (Christain and Muslim) by keeping them oppressed in thier homeland. It has been noted that US visas have in the past been provided to Christain Arabs but most of the Christains refuse these bribes and want to live in Palestine.