corrente

3 to read:

ONE

BRAZIL:
An Energy Source Both Cheap and Eco-Friendly
Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 18 (IPS) - Very low-cost electricity that is not just clean but potentially beneficial for the environment, and comes from a flexible source that can be set up on any river without altering its course is the promise a Canadian company made in Brazil this week.

Presented as "revolutionary" technology, the most important means of generating power "in the near future" is a floating turbine, developed in Brazil by Eco Hydro Energy Ltd., a company based in Vancouver, Canada.

TWO

POLITICS-US:
Bush Seeks His Enemies' Help in Iraq
Analysis by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (IPS) - To avoid failure of its mission in Iraq, the George W. Bush administration has been driven to seek the help of two major enemies -- the Sunni insurgents and the government of Iran -- but both initiatives have failed to make progress because officials were not given any real negotiating authority.

[...]

Administration policymakers have apparently recognised that, without the help of Iran and the Sunni insurgent leaders, it faces the likelihood of spiraling sectarian violence, undiminished Sunni armed resistance, al Qaeda terrorist havens and predominant Iranian political influence.

THREE
Read this Mel Seeholtz op-ed in full (You won't be sorry):

Op-Ed: Humor and the Christian Right, in all Seriousness
By Mel Seeholtz
Counterbias.com
January 18, 2006

[...]

The pathology of Pastor Storms' perverted notion of "God" was the subject of a recent BBC series - "The God Delusion," "The Root of All Evil," "The Virus of Faith" - by Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and internationally renown biologist.

Dr. Dawkins has repeatedly warned that U.S. evangelicals represent "Christian fascism" and "an American Taliban" that seeks to emulate and enforce "The God of the Old Testament [who] has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist." Fear of this curmudgeonly "God" is then embedded into children's psyche: beware the bogeyman who watches everything you do and just looks for ways to punish you in the most horrific ways.

In the New Testament, Dawkins noted that "St Paul's nasty, sado-masochistic doctrine of atonement for original sin" is, essentially, psychological and emotional child abuse: "Innocent children are being saddled with demonstrable falsehoods. ... It's time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation."

Recall the words of evangelical Christian Nathan Powers in defending the spirituality of his nudist lifestyle: "I am how God made me." Organized religions' dogma, rites and rituals are filled with man-made perversions of "God's" creative wishes, as the Right Reverend John Shelby Spong, a leading spokesman for progressive Christianity, noted in relation to circumcision:

[...]

4 In Addition - Free Jill Carroll:

Hostage video ignites wide call to free Carroll

Wednesday, the umbrella group for a number of leading Sunni clerics condemned the Jan. 7 kidnapping

By Peter Grier and Gregory Lamb | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Calls for the release of kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll poured in from around the world on Wednesday following the broadcast of a brief video showing her in captivity.

Those calling upon her abductors in Iraq to show mercy included senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, and some of Iraq's most influential Sunni Arab leaders, including Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front.

[...]

In Cairo the Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement saying that Carroll - as well as other journalists - should not be targeted by insurgents.

"We call upon the brothers in the Iraqi resistance not to target media workers," said the statement. "This contradicts the principles of our religion and doesn't help the cause of liberating the country".

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is the most powerful Islamist opposition group in the Arab world, and it has affiliations with Islamic political parties and organizations throughout the region.

[...]

Also condemning the kidnapping and threats against Jill was Muthana Harith al-Dari, a leader of Iraq's Muslim Scholars Association, an umbrella group for a number of leading Sunni clerics, or Ulama.

Mr. Dari said kidnapping is always wrong and called for Jill's immediate release.

"All kidnappings and assassinations are completely rejected... especially when kidnapping a journalist. Journalists are here to tell the world about the occupation so kidnapping a journalist is going to hide the truth," Dari, who acts as the association's spokesman, told Al Sharqiya television in Iraq.

Full story: CS Monitor

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