Religious Freedom Versus Contraception
Coverage
The Damascus High Wire: Russia’s Ties to
Syria
The State Of The Union
Important News Headlines
Pfizer
Recalls A Million Birth Control Pill
Packets - February 02, 2012
Subzero
Weather Kills 89 In Eastern Europe -
February 01, 2012
Komen
for the Cure Defunds Planned Parenthood
- February 01, 2012Egyptian
Soccer Fans Slaughter Each Other -
Military and Police Blamed - November
30, 1999
Product Announcement
The latest releases from K-House
The
Hybrid Age
Tom Horn and Dr. Chuck Missler
***Coming Soon - 10 days ***
DVD
In
recent years, astonishing technological
developments have pushed the frontiers
of humanity toward a far-reaching
transformation that promises in the very
near future to redefine what it means to
be human.
As a result, new modes of perception
between things visible and invisible are
expected to challenge the Church in ways
that are unprecedented. The destiny of
each individual—as well as the future of
their family will depend on the
knowledge of this new paradigm and their
preparedness to face it head on.
The Hybrid Age
by Dr. Thomas R. Horn
In
recent
years,
astonishing
technological
developments
have
pushed
the
frontiers
of
humanity
toward
far-reaching
morphological
transformation
that
promises
in the
very
near
future
to
redefine
what it
means to
be
human.
What
science
has
already
done
with
genetically
modifying
plants
and
animals
will
soon
apply to
Homo
sapiens.
An
international,
intellectual,
and
fast-growing
cultural
movement
known as
transhumanism
supports
this
vision,
as does
a
flourishing
list of
U.S.
military
advisors,
bioethicists,
law
professors,
and
academics,
which
intend
the use
of
genetics,
robotics,
artificial
intelligence,
nanotechnology
and
synthetic
biology
(Grins
technologies)
as tools
that
will
radically
redesign
our
minds,
our
memories,
our
physiology,
our
offspring,
and even
perhaps—as
Joel
Garreau,
in his
bestselling
book
Radical
Evolution,
claims—our
very
souls.
I have
personally
debated
leading
transhumanist,
Dr.
James
Hughes,
concerning
this
inevitable
posthuman
future
on his
weekly
syndicated
talk
show,
Changesurfer
Radio.
Hughes
is
executive
director
of the
Institute
for
Ethics
and
Emerging
Technologies
and
teaches
at
Trinity
College
in
Hartford,
Connecticut.
He is
the
author
of
Citizen
Cyborg:
Why
Democratic
Societies
Must
Respond
to the
Redesigned
Human of
the
Future,
a sort
of bible
for
transhumanist
values.
Dr.
Hughes
joins a
growing
body of
academics,
bioethicists,
and
sociologists
who
support:
Large-scale
genetic
and
neurological
engineering
of
ourselves…[a]
new
chapter
in
evolution
[as] the
result
of
accelerating
developments
in the
fields
of
genomics,
stem-cell
research,
genetic
enhancement,
germ-line
engineering,
neuro-pharmacology,
artificial
intelligence,
robotics,
pattern
recognition
technologies,
and
nanotechnology…at
the
intersection
of
science
and
religion
[which
has
begun to
question]
what it
means to
be
human.1
Though
the
transformation
of man
to this
posthuman
condition
is in
its
fledgling
state,
complete
integration
of the
technology
necessary
to
replace
existing
Homo
sapiens
as the
dominant
life-form
on earth
is
approaching
an
exponential
curve
with
many
experts
predicting
the
first
substantive
steps in
Grins
human-enhancement
starting
any time
after
the year
2012.
National
Geographic
magazine
concurred
in 2007,
speculating
that
within
ten
years,
the
first
“human
non-humans”
would
walk the
earth,
and
retired
San
Diego
State
University
professor
and
computer
scientist
Vernor
Vinge
(who
delivered
the
now-famous
lecture,
“The
Coming
Technological
Singularity,”
at
Vision-21
Symposium
sponsored
by NASA
Lewis
Research
Center
and the
Ohio
Aerospace
Institute
in
1993),
agreed
recently
that we
are
entering
that
period
in
history
when
questions
like
“What is
the
meaning
of
life?”
will be
nothing
more
than an
engineering
question.
Most
readers
may be
surprised
to learn
that in
preparation
of this
posthuman
revolution,
the
United
States
government,
through
the
National
Institute
of
Health,
recently
granted
Case Law
School
in
Cleveland
$773,000
of
taxpayers’
money to
begin
developing
the
actual
guidelines
that
will be
used for
setting
government
policy
regarding
the next
step in
human
evolution—“genetic
enhancement.”
Maxwell
Mehlman,
Arthur
E.
Petersilge
Professor
of Law,
director
of the
Law-Medicine
Center
at the
Case
Western
Reserve
University
School
of Law
and
professor
of
bioethics
in the
Case
School
of
Medicine,
led the
team of
law
professors,
physicians,
and
bioethicists
over the
two-year
project
“to
develop
standards
for
tests on
human
subjects
in
research
that
involves
the use
of
genetic
technologies
to
enhance
‘normal’
individuals.”2
Following
the
initial
study,
Mehlman
began
traveling
the
United
States
and
offering
two
university
lectures:
“Directed
Evolution:
Public
Policy
and
Human
Enhancement”
and
“Transhumanism
and the
Future
of
Democracy,”
addressing
the need
for
society
to
comprehend
how
emerging
fields
of
science
will, in
approaching
years,
alter
what it
means to
be
human,
and what
this
means to
democracy,
individual
rights,
free
will,
eugenics,
and
equality.
At the
Brookings
Institute—the
#1 think
tank in
the
world
and the
#1
policy
think
tank in
the
United
States—a
new
series
titled
“The
Future
of the
Constitution”
is
likewise
examining
how the
U.S.
Constitution
and Bill
of
Rights
will
need to
be
amended
to
insure
rights
and
privileges
for new
forms of
humans
including
genetically
engineered
homosexual
entities.3
Law
schools,
including
Stanford
and
Oxford,
are
hosting
annual
“Human
Enhancement
and
Technology”
conferences
to
consider
the
ramifications
as well,
where
transhumanists,
futurists,
bioethicists,
and
legal
scholars
are
busying
themselves
with the
ethical,
legal,
and
inevitable
ramifications
of
posthumanity.
COMES
THE
ÜBERMENSCHEN
As the
director
of the
Future
of
Humanity
Institute
and a
professor
of
philosophy
at
Oxford
University,
Nick
Bostrom
(www.NickBostrom.com)
is a
leading
advocate
of
transhumanism
who, as
a young
man, was
heavily
influenced
by the
works of
Friedrich
Nietzsche
(from
whom the
phrase
“God is
dead”
derives)
and
Goethe,
the
author
of
Faust.
Nietzsche
was the
originator
of the
übermensch
or
“Overman”
that
Adolf
Hitler
dreamed
of
engineering,
and the
“entity”
that
man—who
is
nothing
more
than a
rope
“tied
between
beast
and
Overman,
a rope
over an
abyss”—according
to
Nietzsche,
will
eventually
evolve
into.
Bostrom
envisions
giving
life to
Nietzsche’s
Overman
(posthumans)
by
remanufacturing
men with
animals,
plants,
and
other
synthetic
life-forms
through
the use
of
modern
sciences
including
recombinant
dna
technology,
germ-line
engineering,
and
transgenics
(in
which
the
genetic
structure
of one
species
is
altered
by the
transfer
of genes
from
another).
The
former
chairman
of the
President’s
Council
on
Bioethics,
Dr. Leon
Kass
provided
a status
report
on how
real and
how
imminent
the
dangers
of such
Grins
technologies
could be
in the
hands of
transhumanists.
In the
introduction
to his
book,
Life,
Liberty
and the
Defense
of
Dignity:
The
Challenges
of
Bioethics,
Kass
warned:
Human
nature
itself
lies
on
the
operating
table,
ready
for
alteration,
for
eugenic
and
psychic
“enhancement,”
for
wholesale
redesign.
In
leading
laboratories,
academic
and
industrial,
new
creators
are
confidently
amassing
their
powers
and
quietly
honing
their
skills,
while
on
the
street
their
evangelists
[transhumanists]
are
zealously
prophesying
a
posthuman
future.
For
anyone
who
cares
about
preserving
our
humanity,
the
time
has
come
for
paying
attention.4
Notwithstanding
such
warnings,
the
problem
could be
unavoidable,
as Prof.
Gregory
Stock,
in his
well-researched
and
convincing
book,
Redesigning
Humans:
Our
Inevitable
Genetic
Future,
argues
that
stopping
what we
have
already
started
(genetic
enhancement
of
plants,
animals
and
humans)
is
impossible.
“We
simply
cannot
find the
brakes.”5
Verner
Vinge
agrees,
adding:
Even
if
all
the
governments
of
the
world
were
to
understand
the
“threat”
and
be
in
deadly
fear
of
it,
progress
toward
the
goal
would
continue.
In
fact,
the
competitive
advantage—economic,
military,
even
artistic—of
every
advance
in
automation
is
so
compelling
that
passing
laws,
or
having
customs,
that
forbid
such
things
merely
assures
that
someone
else
will
get
them
first.6
Academic
scientists
and
technical
consultants
to the
U.S.
Pentagon
have
advised
the
agency
that the
principal
argument
by Vinge
is
correct.
As such,
the
United
States
could be
forced
into
large-scale
species-altering
output,
including
human
enhancement
for
military
purposes.
This is
based on
solid
military
intelligence,
which
suggests
that
America’s
competitors
(and
potential
enemies)
are
privately
seeking
to
develop
the same
this
century
and use
it to
dominate
the U.S.
if they
can.
This
worrisome
“government
think
tank”
scenario
is even
shared
by the
Jasons—the
celebrated
scientists
on the
Pentagon’s
most
prestigious
scientific
advisory
panel
who now
perceive
“Mankind
2.0” as
the next
arms
race.
Just as
the old
Soviet
Union
and the
United
States
with
their
respective
allies
competed
for
supremacy
in
nuclear
arms
following
the
Second
World
War
through
the
1980s
(what is
now
commonly
known as
“the
nuclear
arms
race
during
the cold
war”),
the
Jasons
“are
worried
about
adversaries’
ability
to
exploit
advances
in Human
Performance
Modification,
and thus
create a
threat
to
national
security,”
wrote
military
analyst
Noah
Shachtman
in “Top
Pentagon
Scientists
Fear
Brain-Modified
Foes.”
This
special
for
Wired
magazine
was
based on
a leaked
military
report
in which
the
Jasons
admitted
concern
over
“neuro-pharmaceutical
performance
enhancement
and
brain-computer
interfaces”
technology
being
developed
by other
countries
ahead of
the
United
States.
The
Jasons
are
recommending
that the
American
military
push
ahead
with its
own
performance-enhancement
research—and
monitor
foreign
studies—to
make
sure
that the
U.S.’
enemies
don’t
suddenly
become
smarter,
faster,
or
better
able to
endure
the
harsh
realities
of war
than
American
troops...They
are
particularly
concerned
about
[new
technologies]
that
promote
“brain
plasticity”—rewiring
the
mind,
essentially,
by
helping
to
“permanently
establish
new
neural
pathways,
and thus
new
cognitive
capabilities.”
7
Though
it might
be
tempting
to
disregard
the
conclusions
by the
Jasons
as a
rush to
judgment
on the
emerging
threat
of
techno-sapiens,
it would
be a
serious
mistake
to do
so. As
Grins
technologies
continue
to race
toward
an
exponential
curve,
parallel
to these
advances
will be
the
increasingly
sophisticated
argument
that
societies
must
take
control
of human
biological
limitations
and move
the
species—or
at least
some of
its
members—into
new
forms of
existence.
Prof.
Nigel M.
de S.
Cameron,
director
for the
Council
for
Biotechnology
Policy
in
Washington
dc,
documents
this
move,
concluding
that the
genie is
out of
the
bottle
and that
“the
federal
government’s
National
Nanotechnology
Initiative’s
web site
already
gives
evidence
of this
kind of
future
vision,
in which
human
dignity
is
undermined
by
[being
transformed
into
posthumans].”8
Dr. C.
Christopher
Hook, a
member
of the
government
committee
on human
genetics
who has
given
testimony
before
the U.S.
Congress,
offered
similar
insight
on the
state of
the
situation:
[The
goal of
posthumanism]
is most
evident
in the
degree
to which
the U.S.
government
has
formally
embraced
transhumanist
ideals
and is
actively
supporting
the
development
of
transhumanist
technologies.
The U.S.
National
Science
Foundation,
together
with the
U.S.
Department
of
Commerce,
has
initiated
a major
program
(nbic)
for
converging
several
technologies
(including
those
from
which
the
acronym
is
derived—nanotechnology,
biotechnologies,
information
technologies
and
cognitive
technologies;
e.g.,
cybernetics
and
neurotechnologies)
for the
express
purpose
of
enhancing
human
performance.
The nbic
program
director,
Mihail
Roco,
declared
at the
second
public
meeting
of the
project…that
the
expenditure
of
financial
and
human
capital
to
pursue
the
needs of
reengineering
humanity
by the
U.S.
government
will be
second
in
equivalent
value
only to
the moon
landing
program.9
The
presentation
by
Mihail
Roco to
which
Dr. Hook
refers
is
contained
in the
482-page
report,
“Converging
Technologies
for
Improving
Human
Performance,”
commissioned
by the
U.S.
National
Science
Foundation
and
Department
of
Commerce.
Among
other
things,
the
report
discusses
planned
applications
of human
enhancement
technologies
in the
military
(and in
rationalization
of the
human-machine
interface
in
industrial
settings)
wherein
Darpa is
devising
“Nano,
Bio,
Info,
and
Cogno”
scenarios
“focused
on
enhancing
human
performance.”
The plan
echoes a
Mephistophelian
bargain
(a deal
with the
devil)
in which
“a
golden
age”
merges
technological
and
human
cognition
into “a
single,
distributed
and
interconnected
brain.”10
The
“Converging
Technologies
for
Improving
Human
Performance”
document
mentioned
above
was
published
nearly a
decade
ago and
predicted
the time
frame
around
2012 as
the date
after
which a
new form
of
humanity
would
begin
emerging
as a
result
of Grins
alteration.
Numerous
other
national
and
public
reports
have
likewise
focused
on 2012
as an
event
horizon.
Is there
a spirit
behind
this
effort
to
create a
new form
of man,
a modern
Nephilim
following
2012? Is
it the
same
influence
that
caused
so many
ancient
occult
societies—the
Maya,
Aztec,
Hindu,
Cherokee,
the
Cumaean
Sibyl
(not to
mention
prophecies
in the
Zohar
and
elsewhere)—to
predict
the end
of their
calendars
during
2012
followed
by the
emergence
of a new
form of
man? If
so, are
we
witnessing
the
fulfillment
of
Matthew
24:37—“But
as the
days of
Noah
were, so
shall
also the
coming
of the
Son of
man be”?
South Africa and Palestine signed a
cultural agreement in Pretoria
today.
Palestinian Arts Minister Siham
Barghouty says South Africa bares
testimony to the fact that arts and
culture can be used broadly even in
the fight against injustice and
inequality.
Artists in apartheid South Africa
used the arts to reflect the times
and many were exiled because of it.
The minister says today's agreement
will help in their own fight for
independence.
She says that culture is enhancing
the national identity and part of
the national struggle. What they are
facing through their conflict is
that the Israelites want to show
that they have the right to be in
Palestine against the real effects
of history.
2011 Strategic Perspectives
VI Conference Coeur d' Alene
Idaho
Description
5 DVD Set
Run Time 9.5 Hours
•John Loeffler -
Critical Thinking in
a World of Deceit.
•James Puplava - The
Impending Financial
Implosion
•Steve Elwart -
Behind the Curtain:
Geopolitics at the
End Times.
•Willian Welty -
When Life
Isn't
Linear.
•Chuck Missler -
America's Challenge.
•Tom Horn -
Pandemonium's
Engine.
•Jerome Corsi -
Obama and the
Deception.
•Joseph Farah - The
Age of Lawlessness.
•Walid Shoebat -
Turkey and the Arab
Spring.
"Luke Volume II," often called
"The Acts of the Apostles,"
completes
the "Pentateuch of the New
Testament." The traditional
title of this book is, in some
respects, a misnomer: it
primarily deals with the "acts"
of Peter and Paul. It really
should be called "The Acts of
the Holy Spirit." This review
will explore the continuing
mysteries of Hag Shavuot in Acts
2; the surprises in the history
lesson Stephen gives the
Sanhedrin in Acts 7; the
controversies dealt with in the
Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15;
the seamanship details which
permitted the discovery of the
anchors cut loose in Acts 27, as
well as the adventures of Paul
and his companions during his
missionary journeys.
DVD:
•8 DVD Set
•1 CD-Rom with 16 MP3 files and
1 PDF Notes file
•Color, Fullscreen 16:9, Dolby
Digital 2.0 stereo,This DVD will
be viewable in other countries
WITH the proper DVD player and
television set.)
We have started
posting some video
clips on our new
YouTube channel.
There are already
over 50 videos, and
we upload a new one
every weekday. Some
popular videos so
far are:
What Old Testament Bible Study is mentioned
twelve times in one book of the Bible, is given
by seven different people and is almost never
given today?
That Jesus is the Messiah of Israel! How certain
can we be that Jesus is the Messiah?
Review some of the major passages in the Tanakh
(the Old Testament) which predict and describe
the Scriptural expectations to be fulfilled by
the Messiah of Israel. This study will also take
a mathematical analysis of a small sampling from
the more than 300 predictions concerning the
Jewish Messiah.
This classic study was redone by Chuck at the
end of 2011.
In this segment, Chuck Missler discusses how to present Jesus from the Old Testament. This segment comes from the
"Footprints of The Messiah"
brief...
588 views
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**ARTICLES AND COMMENTARY**
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM VERSUS CONTRACEPTION COVERAGE - (Print)
The Obama administration shocked the Catholic Church last Friday by requiring that religious organizations offer their employees contraceptive services, including sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, as part of their health plans. While churches themselves are exempt, religiously based businesses, including colleges and hospitals, will be required to violate their beliefs in obedience to the new law. In response, Catholic churches across America read a letter on Sunday in protest.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in January that church-linked groups will be required to abide by new health insurance requirements that mandate coverage for contraception, sterilization, and drugs that induce abortions – not only to cover them, but to offer them without out-of-pocket costs. Religious organizations have one year to get on board.
This is equivalent to requiring all health food stores, even those run by vegans, to offer a dairy section because it's healthy and people might want eggs and milk. It's like demanding all delis, even kosher ones, to offer bacon because non-Jews might come shopping, and to offer that bacon for free. The Catholic Church is up in arms at the government's interference and disregard for the strongly held religious beliefs of millions of Americans.
In a letter of protest, Catholic churches in parishes across the country read variations of a letter which declared in part: "[T]he Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty… We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America's cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights…"
The decision is not just a disappointment to Catholics. The National Association of Evangelicals had also lobbied against the requirement on religious grounds. Tom McClusky of Family Research Council Action condemned the law in a statement, saying, "Despite the fact that certain drugs and devices approved by the FDA can work after conception to destroy a newly developed baby, the Obama Administration mandate still forces all insurance plans to carry these drugs and devices even if employers are morally opposed."
By directly and specifically mandating that religious groups put aside their moral beliefs, the government has placed the opinions of its agents over the values of the people and has therefore violated the First Amendment. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…"
The rule does exempt churches themselves, but church-affiliated universities, schools, and hospitals are not exempted, even though the same belief systems apply. On Friday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gave religious institutions a half-hearted boon by offering a year grace period, as though giving religious groups a year to violate their consciences was a good compromise.
On the other hand, family planning groups were pleased with the decision. "This is good news for millions of women whose access to contraceptive services under this new benefit was being questioned," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
The issue is not whether millions of women will be forced to bear children when they would rather not. Contraceptive services are still available across the country. The issue is that those religious groups that believe certain forms of contraception are wrong should not have to pay for them.
Michael Walsh ranted about the matter on National Review Online, pummeling the Catholic Church for not considering its options to be more than "either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees." He wants the Catholic Church to say that they refuse to recognize the law's moral authority and simply ignore its provisiont. Referring to Poe's short story, "The Cask of Amontillado," Walsh chides, "Once Montresor's got you inebriated and chained to the wall, and is just about to cement the last brick in place, it's way too late to figure out that you're in big trouble. And here you thought he was your friend and neighbor…"
Yet, it is not the end of religious freedom as we have known it. The Supreme Court just recently ruled in favor of religious institutions in the case of Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2011), in which the justices unanimously gave religious groups the freedom to hire and fire whomever they wanted without the same danger of discrimination cases feared by other employers.
"The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in a sweeping, broad decision. "But so, too, is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith and carry out their mission." It isn't the government's job to interfere in such matters, the justices said.
On one hand, the very purpose of most religious institutions is to care for people, to provide for them and give them assistance and provision as sources of help and comfort in an often hostile world. When the government dictates to religious groups how to accomplish these goals, contrary to their moral codes, the job of the people is to tell the government, "You've overstepped your bounds. You need to step back."
THE DAMASCUS HIGH WIRE: RUSSIA’S TIES TO SYRIA - (Print)
Since before the fall of the old Soviet regime, Russia has been a looming force in Middle East geopolitics. While the U.S. has remained an ardent supporter of Israel, Russia (formerly as part of the U.S.S.R) has backed the Palestinians - not through any particular economic need or even ideological alliance, but rather as a counter balance - to stop the spread of "Western influence" in the region. Key ingredients to Russia's power and influence in the region has been its economic and military ties to Syria, ties that are still strong to this day.
Moscow's friendly relationship with Damascus has gotten a bit more tricky of late, however. On one hand, Assad's heavy-handed mess in Syria is not the stuff to win international popularity polls, not even throughout the Middle East. Russia's continued support for the wildly unpopular Shiite regime in Syria could destroy its credibility with the rest of the Arab League. On the other hand, losing Syria as an ally would greatly hamper (if not make practically impossible) a strong military presence in the region.
The Cold War may be over, but Russia still enjoys its role of countering U.S. influence. Keeping its hand strong in Syria also means retaining an ability to back Palestine at the negotiating tables as an effective mediator. In an 2004 interview, shortly before he died, Muhammed Abbas, leader of the terrorist group Palestinian Liberation Front, was clearly bitter when he said Russia has "not declined but has come to an end," and that Russia no longer played any meaningful role in the region. According to Abbas, "Russia is not carrying out the duties of a mediator on a par with the U.S. Even if Russia does accomplish something, it does it shyly, as if by accident."
Yet Russian military and economic ties to Syria are anything but "shy." According to some reports, recent Russian arms sales to Syria are worth $4 billion, including fighter jets and advanced missiles. Russian business investments in Syria encompass infrastructure, energy and tourism, amounting to nearly $20 billion. A Russian engineering company, Stroytransgaz, is constructing a natural gas processing plant about 200 kilometers east of Homs. The Syrian regime also provides Russia with a key strategic asset: a deep warm-water port at Tartus.
Tartus presently garrisons Moscow's growing Mediterranean fleet, and is therefore worth defending to the Kremlin. The recent shipment of arms delivered to the port underscored Russia's commitment to its multibillion-dollar arms deal while ignoring an E.U. arms embargo. The port is being upgraded to accommodate larger vessels, and Assad declared the port would eventually be home to some of Moscow's nuclear-armed warships. The importance of the port may not be as great as it was in Soviet times, but unfettered access to the high seas remains a driving force for Russian strategic thinking as Russia's main ports are either ice-locked for much of the year or land-locked by straits controlled by other powers.
Ignoring The World:
Normally, financial investment is trumped in the face of international criticism, especially for a country attempting to maintain its influence as a mediating force in foreign affairs. For instance, The United States had billions invested in the Mubarak regime in Egypt, yet halted its support as the people rioted. Yet this seems to be less of a concern for Russia, which, as the world's largest oil producer and second largest exporter, is in no need of oil supplies from the Arab world. Moscow also reaps the benefits of controlling regional energy markets. Russia therefore has no need to appease the predominately Sunni Arab bloc, which is currently acting in tandem with the West in opposing the Assad regime. Instead, Russia has major geopolitical and strategic considerations that dictate supporting Damascus, and for this reason, it appears more important for Russia to demonstrate a confident and sovereign foreign policy in defiance of the West.
In the end, Russia's bold declarations and actions in support of the Assad regime may be, as The New York Times notes, "cold calculations meant to revive its position as a global superpower." This may be true, however, there is an ideological interest in Russian support for Assad's minority regime. Russia has had its share of problems with Islamic dissident groups (c.f. Chechnya), and thus has an interest in "sending a message" to prevent rebellions within its own territory.
For whatever the ideological or strategic reasons, Russia has chosen to back Assad against the U.S., U.N., and Arab League resolutions calling for his abdication, and a re-chartering of Syrian government. The final ramifications of this decision remain to be seen, but one thing is clear: Russia may be forced to choose between a strengthening of its military and economic presence in the Middle East versus its presence as a source of anti-Western influence.
President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech last week presented a struggling but succeeding America, a country successfully climbing from its financial hole and taking strides to fix its problems. His speech presented an America with hope. The President had a great deal to say that could appeal to both sides of the political aisle, from giving tax breaks to new businesses to keeping college education costs down. As is often the case, however, the reality is much harsher and grandiose plans much more difficult to accomplish than are expressed in a few pleasant words on a January evening.
There's a lot to be said about giving a man hope. Hope encourages and inspires. It spurs people to attempt what appears to be the impossible. President Obama has long been good at presenting the future as one of hope. Unfortunately, thus far his ability to paint lovely pictures has proved much more deft than his ability to make those pictures a reality.
President Obama promoted a number of healthy ideas for America in his speech. He called for policies that would encourage manufacturers to return their factories from abroad to the shores of the United States. He called for cleaning up Congress and for keeping taxes low for the middle class. He praised America's military and reminded us that the hunt for Osama bin Laden is over.
He also said some things worth looking at twice.
Trimming The Fat:
Late into his speech, President Obama said, "I've asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people." His offer to streamline the government with Congress' authority appeals to those who want a smaller, less behemoth government. He did not give examples, so it's not certain what his "leaner" government would look like. Regardless, if the President truly wants to trim the fat in government, he already has the authority to do so right now. Remember when Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981? They were replaced, but the President does have the authority to get rid of people. Obama could go on a spree of firing government workers in the Executive Branch, and America would applaud. (If he wanted to get serious, the President could eliminate the Department of Education, for example, and leave education decision making to the state and local governments. After all, the federal government's involvement hasn't helped much to improve the U.S. education system since 1980, and Obama noted in his speech that the schools should have more flexibility to make decisions.)
Instead, however, President Obama informed the American people that he is in fact creating more government. For instance, he is forming The President Trade Enforcement Unit to investigate unfair trade practices in countries "like China." He is creating a special unit of federal prosecutors and state attorneys to investigate risky mortgage lending practices. Whether or not these prove useful, they also don't fall into the category of trimming government.
Bad Mortgages:
Regarding the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that contributed to the current financial crisis, President Obama said, "mortgages had been sold to people who couldn't afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people's money." On one hand, the President wants to investigate risky lending practices, and he rebuked banks for selling mortgages to people who shouldn't have taken out those loans. On the other hand, he said, "I'm sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks."
It is not the responsible loan-seekers who are getting turned down for refinancing; those of questionable responsibility are the ones having a harder time getting new loans – especially right now. The banks were badly burned when streams of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages, leaving behind houses worth much less than their loan amounts, and banks don't want to risk new loans on people who aren't quite so responsible. If America refuses to offer any more bailouts, as the President warned in his speech, the government shouldn't force the banks to offer loans to people considered reasonable risks.
Oil and Clean Energy:
On the subject of energy, President Obama took a whatever-we-can-get approach. America is hungry for energy, and the President recognized that fact. He said America would expand offshore drilling, and he encouraged the tapping of natural gas resources. He pressed for the United States to be competitive in developing renewable energy.
He also said he wanted to "help" manufacturers and businesses to waste less energy by upgrading their buildings. It remains to be seen what that "help" means. Offering tax incentives would certainly help. Burdening companies with heavy "energy-saving" requirements, on the other hand, might just weigh down already struggling businesses.
The President did not mention the Keystone Pipeline, which, considering the massive controversy surrounding it, was probably politically wise of him. In January, Obama rejected a move by Republicans to approve the pipeline, which would have created thousands of jobs and brought oil from Alberta's Athabasca Oil Sands to several locations in the United States. Serious environmental concerns have brought the project to a halt, but not without frustration from those who see the oil and job production as worth the trouble, especially while millions of Americans are desperately looking for work.
Seeing Red:
Then there's deficit spending. Anything great that the Executive Branch wants to do must take into account the fact that America is having financial problems along with most of the world. The Congressional Budget Office projects the federal budget deficit as $1.1 trillion for fiscal year 2012 if current laws remain unchanged. That's an "improvement", down from $1.3 trillion last year and $1.4 trillion in 2009, but fantastically higher than the 2008 deficit of $248 billion and surpluses at the turn of the century. There are a number of factors involved in these record high deficits - from attempts to infuse the economy with massive federal "stimulus" packages, to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the fact that tax revenues drop during a recession.
The harsh reality is that the federal government is in a serious hole of debt, and it gets deeper every minute that goes by. When the President says things like, we should, "give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years," while keeping interest rates on student loans from doubling, the prudent question is then, "Okay. How are we going to pay for that?"
Mark Kantrowitz notes in The New York Times that 700,000 additional federal work-study jobs would come with a $1 billion-a-year price tag, on top of the $7 billion it would cost to continue offering students Stafford loans at a low 3.4 percent interest rate. It's true that subsidizing student loans and work study jobs are widely helpful to financially strapped students, and yet, the federal government has already had to cut back on Pell Grants to low-income students, dropping the income threshold for those can receive a full Pell Grant from $32,000 to $23,000. If the government is cutting back on Pell Grants, it doesn't have money to add more work study jobs while at the same time extending a 3.4 interest rate for subsidized Stafford loans to 7.4 million students. It's not a matter of what would be nice to do, it's a matter of what is practical.
The same goes for infrastructure projects. The President spoke of crumbling infrastructure and said, "In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nationbuilding right here at home."
The problem is that much of our war spending has been deficit spending. We've spent a good $2.3-2.7 trillion in rooting out al Qaeda for 10 years in Afghanistan. That's about $250 billion per year – less than the average deficit during the Bush (43) years. If we want to cut the deficit, we cannot divert the money we were using on wars to other projects because we were borrowing that money in the first place. The stimulus packages were already supposed to have provided money for fixing infrastructure, but every state has its extensive wish list, and the possibilities are endless. Would a high-speed rail line from New York to Washington be useful? Certainly. Would it be nice to have high speed internet in the Appalachians? Yes. Is it the right time for the federal government to spend billions of dollars on these projects? Not if we are digging ourselves into an ever deepening hole.
Taxing The Rich:
The President's answer to our money problems is to tax the super wealthy at a mandatory 30 percent rate. Warren Buffet, Obama declared, uses loopholes to pay a lower rate than his secretary. It would definitely behoove America to simplify the tax code, and if we want to talk "fair", a word the President used repeatedly through his speech, it is certainly more fair to tax everybody, rich and poor, at the same rate. The President doesn't actually want fair, though. The President simply wants the rich to take a bigger chunk of the tax burden. (Not that the middle or lower classes should be taxed more. Who wants somebody pushing by on $25,000 or even $50,000 per year to pay 30 percent of their income in taxes? Have a mercy and let them keep as much of their money as possible.) It may indeed hurt the multi-millionaire less than the blue collar worker to pay a larger portion of his income, but fairness really is not the issue.
In the end, though, even if the law said rich folks should hand over 50 percent of their income each year, that would not guarantee those tax revenues would land in the government's coffers. As Thomas Sowell noted last November, "[T]he genuinely rich are likely to be the least harmed by high tax rates in the top brackets. People who are looking for jobs are likely to be the most harmed, because they cannot equally easily transfer themselves overseas to take the jobs that are being created there by American investments that are fleeing high tax rates at home. Small businesses — hardware stores, gas stations, restaurants — are likewise unable to transfer themselves overseas. So they are far more likely to be unable to escape the higher tax rates that are supposedly being imposed on “millionaires and billionaires,” as President Obama calls them. Moreover, small businesses are what create most of the new jobs."
What's more, the Buffet Rule does not really deal with the innate problems in the tax code. "They're using a baseball bat, rather than a scalpel" by applying the 30 percent minimum rate, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. "By proposing the Buffett Rule, they're saying: 'We don't like how the tax code is working. We're worried that there are some very wealthy people who aren't paying a fair share,' " he said. "But instead of eliminating deductions and simplifying the tax code, they're just introducing more bells and whistles."
Choosing Our Own Light Bulbs:
The U.S. government has gotten increasingly bulky and has become patient with owing vast amounts of money. The U.S. paid off its debts after the Revolutionary War and again after the Civil War. The American government hasn't paid back what it's borrowed since the 1930s and WWII, and the prospects are not getting prettier. America is still breathing and so hope remains, but there are extremely serious matters that the United States needs to squarely face before it gets too much later.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels responded to the President's speech, saying, "The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse: the percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades…In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!"
We need to take responsibility for ourselves and for each other, and demand that the federal government cut its spending and its overwhelming need to be involved in every aspect of our lives. When talking about the auto industry, President Obama spoke of depending on Americans. "We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity," he said. For the state of the union to improve, the U.S. government needs to really take those words to heart, to depend on Americans without having to constantly look over their shoulders. More importantly, we the American people need to take charge of ourselves, work hard, use ingenuity, and not depend on Washington to feed us. If we want to free ourselves from debt, if we want to live in a country of liberty rather than slavery, we need to be a wise and self-governed people. If we manage ourselves well, there will be no need for a burdensome and expensive nanny-state government, regardless of who sits in the White House.
A manufacturing mix-up by Pfizer Inc. is leaving women at risk of unwanted pregnancies. The world's largest drug maker, led to some packets being distributed with the pills out of order. That means a patient could have unknowingly skipped a dose and raised her risk of an accidental pregnancy. Pfizer has recalled about 1 million packets of Lo/Ovral-28 and its generic equivalent, but the company estimates that only about 30 packets were flawed. The pills were made and shipped last year. Each packet contains 28 days' worth of the prescription, with 21 pills containing the active ingredient that prevents pregnancy and seven placebo pills. The pills are normally color-coded to note the difference. Fox News
Record-low temperatures in parts of Eastern Europe pushed the death toll from Arctic conditions to at least 89 people on Wednesday. In Ukraine, 43 people have died in the past five days. Overnight temperatures sank as low as -27F and hundreds of heated tents have been put up to shelter the homeless. European weather alert network Meteoalarm warned of "extremely dangerous" conditions in several parts of eastern Europe, including Serbia, where a fourth person was found dead overnight in the southwestern Suvobor mountains. Thermometers in parts of Bulgaria plunged to record lows freezing ATM cash machines in Sofia, the daily newspaper Trud reported. Eight people in Bulgaria and 14 in neighboring Romania have now died in the cold snap. Meanwhile in Slovenia, winds of up to 180 kph (112 mph) blew off roofs and prompted authorities to close some schools, authorities said. Arab News
The breast cancer awareness organization Susan Komen for the Cure is defending its decision to revoke funding for the Planned Parenthood. The key in the Komen decision is the grant criteria it uses to make grants. Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms at any of its centers across the United States, and Komen says it is implementing "more stringent eligibility standards to safeguard donor dollars." Its new guidelines also prevent it from funding any group under congressional investigation, but the breast screening issue reportedly has the effect of ending Planned Parenthood's funding even if the current Congressional probe finds Planned Parenthood free of any wrongdoing. Life News
Egyptian Soccer Fans Slaughter Each Other - Military and Police Blamed - November 30, 1999
Horrified eyewitnesses described how Egyptian police officers stood by as violent clashes between rival fans at a soccer match in northeastern Egypt left scores dead. When the referee blew the final whistle, thousands of Al-Masry home team fans stormed the pitch despite their team's hard-fought 3-1 victory. Amr Khamis, an Ahly supporter told CNN at the train station in Cairo after returning from the match, "Officers refused to open the gates of the stadium so we could not escape and had to face thousands of Al-Masry hooligans attacking with rocks, knives, swords and anything else you can imagine." Egypt has recently experienced a breakdown in security, with several armed robberies, kidnappings and random killings taking place across the country in the past week alone. CNN
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The
WEEK
IN
HISTORY
MEMORY VERSE OF THE WEEK
For I determined not to
know any thing among
you, save Jesus Christ,
and him crucified. And I
was with you in
weakness, and in fear,
and in much trembling.
And my speech and my
preaching was not with
enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in
demonstration of the
Spirit and of power:
That your faith should
not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power
of God.
1 Corinthians 2:2-5
KJV
The
siege was continued for some
months longer, but in the
spring of 1783 a preliminary
peace agreement brought the
cessation of hostilities.
Finally, in February 1783
the siege was lifted. The
French and Spanish troops
retired disheartened and
defeated, after three years
and seven months' conflict.
February 7, 1812,
0945 UTC (4:45 a.m.); (M
~7.4–8.0) epicenter near
New Madrid, Missouri.
New Madrid was
destroyed. At
St. Louis, Missouri,
many houses were
severely damaged, and
their chimneys were
toppled. This shock was
definitively attributed
to the Reelfoot Fault by
Johnston and Schweig.
Uplift along a segment
of this
reverse fault
created temporary
waterfalls on the
Mississippi at
Kentucky Bend,
created waves that
propagated upstream, and
caused the formation of
Reelfoot Lake by
obstructing streams in
what is now
Lake County,
Tennessee.
Susan Hough, a seismologist
of the
United States Geological
Survey (USGS), has
recently estimated the
earthquakes' magnitudes as
"right around magnitude 7.
Possibly a bit below,
possibly a bit above, but
not as big as 7.5."
France's
Roman Catholic daily
paper,
La Croix,
apologized for its
antisemitic
editorials during the
Dreyfus Affair. As Zola
was a leading French
thinker, his letter
formed a major
turning-point in the
affair.
Zola was brought to
trial for criminal libel
on 7 February 1898 and
was convicted on 23
February and removed
from the
Legion of Honor.
Rather than go to jail,
Zola fled to England.
Without even having had
the time to pack a few
clothes, he arrived at
Victoria Station on
19 July. After his brief
and unhappy residence in
London, from October
1898 to June 1899, he
was allowed to return in
time to see the
government fall.
The government offered
Dreyfus a pardon (rather
than exoneration), which
he could accept and go
free and so admit that
he was guilty or face a
re-trial in which he was
sure to be convicted
again. Although he was
clearly not guilty, he
chose to accept the
pardon. Emile Zola said,
"The truth is on the
march, and nothing shall
stop it."[4]
In 1906, Dreyfus was
completely exonerated by
the Supreme Court.
The 1898 article by
Émile Zola is widely
marked in France as the
most prominent
manifestation of the new
power of the
intellectuals
(writers, artists,
academicians) in shaping
public opinion, the
media and the state.
Henri Charrière and
Sylvain
Henri Charrière's
bestselling book
Papillon
describes a successful
escape by him from
Devil's Island, with a
companion, Sylvain,
using two sacks filled
with coconuts. According
to Charrière, the two
men leapt into heavy
seas from a cliff and
drifted to the mainland
over a period of three
days. Sylvain died in
quicksand a short
distance from the shore.
The
Boers around Ladysmith were
also growing weak from lack
of forage. With little
action, many fighters took
unauthorised leave or
brought their families into
the siege encampments.
Eventually, with the Tugela
in flood, preventing Buller
from giving any support,[4]
some younger leaders
persuaded Joubert to order a
storming attempt on the
night of 5 January 1900,
before another relief
attempt could be made.
The
British line south of
Ladysmith ran along a ridge
known as the Platrand. The
occupying British troops had
named its features Wagon
Point, Wagon Ridge and
Caesar's Camp (after
features near
Aldershot, well known to
much of the British army).
Under Ian Hamilton, they had
constructed a line of forts,
sangars and
entrenchments on the reverse
slope of the Platrand, of
which the Boers were
unaware.
In
the early hours of 6
January, Boer storming
parties under General C.J.
de Villiers began climbing
Wagon Ridge and Caesar's
Camp. They were spotted and
engaged by British working
parties who were emplacing
some guns. The Boers
captured the edge of both
features, but could not
advance further. British
counter-attacks also failed.
At
noon, de Villiers made
another attack on Wagon
Point. Some exhausted
defenders panicked and fled,
but Hamilton led reserves to
the spot and recaptured some
empty gun pits. Late in the
afternoon, a terrific
rainstorm broke, and the
Boers withdrew under cover
of it.
The
British suffered 175 killed
and 249 wounded. 52 dead
Boers were left in the
British positions, but their
total casualties were not
recorded.
The
Maastricht Treaty (formally,
the Treaty on European Union
or TEU) was signed on 7
February 1992 by the members
of the
European Community in
Maastricht,
Netherlands.[1]
On 9–10 December 1991, the
same city hosted the
European Council which
drafted the treaty.[2]
Upon its entry into force on
1 November 1993 during the
Delors Commission,[3]
it created the
European Union and led
to the creation of the
single European currency,
the
euro. The Maastricht
Treaty has been amended to a
degree by later treaties.
For details of the content
of the treaty, as well as
later amendments by the
treaties of
Amsterdam,
Nice and
Lisbon, see the
treaties of the European
Union article.
He was
tried in New York City in
the
U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New
York and along with two
co-conspirators was
convicted of planning the
Bojinka plot. Yousef stated:
"Yes, I am a terrorist, and
proud of it as long as it is
against the U.S. government
and against Israel, because
you are more than
terrorists; you are the one
who invented terrorism and
using it every day. You are
butchers, liars and
hypocrites."[
He was sentenced to two life
sentences for his part in
the World Trade Center
bombing and Bojinka plot.
James
II & VII (14 October 1633O.S.
– 16 September 1701) was
King of
England and
King of
Ireland as James II and
King of
Scotland as James VII,[1]
from 6 February 1685. He was
the last
Catholic monarch to
reign over the Kingdoms of
England,
Scotland, and
Ireland. Members of
Britain's political and
religious elite increasingly
opposed him for being
pro-French and pro-Catholic,
and for his designs on
becoming an absolute
monarch. When he produced
a Catholic heir, the
tension exploded, and
leading nobles called on
William III of Orange
(his son-in-law and nephew)
to land an invasion army
from the Netherlands, which
he did. James fled England
(and thus was held to have
abdicated) in the
Glorious Revolution of
1688.[3]
He was replaced by William
of Orange who became king as
William III, ruling
jointly with his wife
(James's daughter)
Mary II. Thus
William and Mary, both
Protestants, became joint
rulers in 1689. James made
one serious attempt to
recover his crowns, when he
landed in Ireland in 1689
but, after the defeat of the
Jacobite forces by the
Williamite forces at the
Battle of the Boyne in
the summer of 1690, James
returned to France. He lived
out the rest of his life as
a
pretender at a court
sponsored by his cousin and
ally,
King Louis XIV.
Treetops Hotel (2006)
Cover of Eric Walker's book about
the famous Treetops Hotel which he
founded and ran
In 1932, he opened the
adjunct
Treetops Hotel as a
night-viewing station for
wildlife. These business
ventures may well have been
based on profits made during
his bootlegging days in
America.
He was host to Princess
Elizabeth and her husband,
the
Duke of Edinburgh,
during their February 1952
visit to Kenya. The couple
had accepted an invitation
to spend a night at
Treetops, and arrived there
on the afternoon of 5
February 1952. During the
night, unknowingly, the
Princess succeeded to the
throne of England. Her
father, King George VI, died
in his sleep at
Sandringham in England
in the early hours of 6
February, and the Princess
received the news later that
day, after leaving Treetops,
at the Royal Lodge,
Sagana.
Walker was again employed on
military duties during the
Mau Mau Uprising in the
early 1950s. Treetops was
offered as a lookout point
for the
King's African Rifles,
but it was burned down by
Mau Mau fighters on 27
May 1954. Walker built a
bigger hotel at the same
location in 1957, and
business prospered -
encouraged by public
interest in the accession of
Elizabeth II some years
earlier. His hotel business
was even featured in
National Geographic Magazine,
and famous celebrities like
Charles Chaplin and
Paul McCartney visited
the hotel. Walker also wrote
a book about his life in
Kenya and Treetops, named
Treetops Hotel.
His
former employer Lord
Baden-Powell retired to the
Outspan Hotel (Baden-Powell
once remarked "closer to
Nyeri, closer to bliss"),
bought a share of Walker's
hotel business to pay for
his cottage (named Paxtu
and now home to a Scouting
museum) in the hotel
grounds, and died there in
1941. The famous hunter
Jim Corbett moved to
Kenya after the
Independence of India,
took up residence at the
Outspan, and became a
resident hunter at Treetops.
A house on the Walkers' farm
was used during the shooting
of the film version of
Born Free.
An
avid hunter during his
younger days, Walker, like
many others, became an
advocate of
wildlife conservation in
his final years in
Kenya.
He
retired to live in
Majorca,
Spain, and died there at
his home, Cás Fidavé,
on 13 May 1976.
The 62
Pompeii earthquake occurred
on 5 February. It had an
estimated magnitude of
between 5 and 6 and a
maximum intensity of XI or X
on the
Mercalli intensity scale.
The towns of
Pompeii and
Herculaneum were
severely damaged. The
earthquake may have been a
precursor to the
eruption of Mount Vesuvius
in AD 79 that destroyed the
same two towns. The
contemporary philosopher and
dramatist
Seneca the Younger,
wrote an account of the
earthquake in the sixth book
of his
Naturales quaestiones
entitled De Terrae Motu
(Concerning Earthquakes).
The damage caused by
the mainshock and
the subsequent
series of tremors
was at least partly
repaired by the time
of the AD 79
eruption in both
Pompeii and
Herculaneum. A pair
of
bas-reliefs,
probably from the
Lararium, in the
house of
Lucius Caecilius
Iucundus in
Pompeii are
interpreted to
depict the effects
of the earthquake on
buildings including
the
Temple of Jupiter
and the
Vesuvius Gate.
As
a
Huguenot, Henry was
involved in the
Wars of Religion before
ascending the throne in
1589. Before his coronation
as King of France at
Chartres, he
changed his faith
from
Calvinism to Catholicism
and, in 1598, he enacted the
Edict of Nantes,
which guaranteed religious
liberties to the
Protestants, thereby
effectively ending the civil
war. One of the most popular
French kings, both during
and after his reign, Henry
showed great care for the
welfare of his subjects and
displayed an unusual
religious tolerance for the
time. He was
assassinated by
François
Ravaillac,
a
fanatical Catholic.
Kirishitan
(吉利支丹,
切支丹, キリシタン?),
from
Portuguesecristão,
referred to
Roman Catholic
Christians in
Japanese and is used as
a historiographic term for
Roman Catholics in
Japan in the 16th and
17th centuries. Christian
missionaries were known as
bateren (from the
Portuguese word padre,
"father") or iruman
(from the Portuguese
irmão, "brother"). Both
the transcriptions 切支丹 and
鬼利死丹 came into use during
the Edo Period when
Christianity was a forbidden
religion. The Kanji used for
the transcriptions have
negative connotations.
The Virgin Mary disguised as
Kannon, Kirishitan cult,
17th century Japan. Salle
des Martyrs, Paris Foreign
Missions Society.
At its height,
Japan is estimated to have had
around 300,000 Christians.
Catholicism was subsequently
repressed in several parts of the
country and ceased to exist publicly
in the 17th century.
In contrast to
the Jesuits, the Dominicans,
Franciscans, and Augustinians were
openly preaching to the common
peoples; this caused Hideyoshi to
become concerned that commoners with
divided loyalties might lead to
dangerous rebels like the
Ikkō-ikki sect of earlier years
this led to Hideyoshi putting the
26 Martyrs of Japan followers to
death in 1597 on his order. After
Hideyoshi died in 1598, amidst the
chaos of succession there was less
of a focus on persecuting
Christians.
The
1783 Calabrian earthquakes
were a sequence of five
strong
earthquakes that hit the
region of
Calabria in southern
Italy (then part of the
Kingdom of Two Sicilies),
the first two of which
produced significant
tsunamis. The
epicenters form a clear
alignment extending nearly
100 km from the
Straits of Messina to
about 18 km SSW of
Catanzaro. The
earthquakes occurred over a
period of nearly two months,
all with estimated
magnitudes of 5.9 or
greater. Estimates of the
total number of deaths lie
in the range
32,000 to 50,000.
The
Siege of Cádiz was a siege
of the large
Spanish naval base of
Cádiz by a
French army from
February 5, 1810 to August
24, 1812 during the
Peninsular War.
Following the occupation of
Madrid on March 23,
1808,
Cádiz became the Spanish
seat of power,and was
targeted by 60,000 French
troops under the command of
Marshal
Claude Victor for one of
the most important sieges of
the war Defending the city
were 2,000 Spanish troops
who, as the siege
progressed, received aid
from 10,000 Spanish
reinforcements as well as
British and
Portuguese troops.
The first economic focus
of the colony was ivory,
but this did not yield
the expected levels of
revenue. When the global
demand for rubber
exploded, attention
shifted to the labor-intensive
collection of sap from
rubber plants.
Abandoning the promises
of the Berlin Conference
in the late 1890s, the
Free State government
restricted foreign
access and extorted
forced labor
from the natives.
The abuses suffered were
horrific,
especially in the
rubber industry, and
included the effective
enslavement of the
native population,
savage beatings,
widespread killing, and
frequent
mutilation when the
unrealistic quotas were
not met. Missionary John
Harris of
Baringa, for
example, was so shocked
by what he had come
across that he wrote to
Leopold's chief agent in
the Congo saying: "I
have just returned from
a journey inland to the
village of Insongo Mboyo.
The abject misery and
utter abandon is
positively
indescribable. I was so
moved, Your Excellency,
by the people's stories
that I took the liberty
of promising them that
in future you will only
kill them for crimes
they commit.
Estimates of the death
toll range from two
million to fifteen
million.
Determining precisely
how many people died is
next to impossible as
accurate records were
not kept. Louis and
Stengers state that
population figures at
the start of Leopold's
control are only "wild
guesses", while E.D.
Morel's attempt and
others at coming to a
figure for population
losses were "but
figments of the
imagination"
The
Battle of Keren (Cheren)
was fought as part of the
East African Campaign
during
World War II. The Battle
of Keren was fought from 5
February to 1 April 1941
between the colonial Italian
army defending its colonial
possession of
Eritrea and the invading
British and Commonwealth
forces. In 1941,
Keren was a town located
in the
Italian colony of Eritrea.
Keren was of strategic
importance to both the
Italian and the British
forces. The road and railway
routes through Keren were
the key to access the city
of
Asmara (colonial capital
of Eritrea) and the
Red Sea port of
Massawa.
Manuel
Antonio Noriega Moreno (
born February 11, 1934) is a
former
Panamanian politician
and soldier. He was
military governor of
Panama from 1983 to 1989
In the
1989
invasion of Panama by
the United States he was
removed from power,
captured, detained as a
prisoner of war, and
flown to the United States.
Noriega was
tried on eight counts of
drug trafficking,
racketeering, and
money laundering in
April 1992. Noriega's U.S.
prison sentence ended in
September 2007]
pending the outcome of
extradition requests by
both Panama and France, for
convictions
in absentia for
murder in 1995 and money
laundering in 1999. France
was granted its extradition
request in April 2010. He
arrived in Paris on April
27, 2010, and after a
re-trial as a condition of
the extradition, he was
found guilty and sentenced
to seven years in jail in
July 2010 A conditional
release was granted on
September 23, 2011 for
Noriega to be extradited to
serve 20 years in Panama. He
arrived in Panama on
December 11, 2011
1994 – During
the
war in Bosnia and Herzegovina
more than 60 people are killed
and some 200 wounded as a mortar
shell slams into a downtown
marketplace in
Sarajevo.
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