U.N. sustainable development summit shifts from climate change

Reuters, by Deborah Zabarenko and Nina Chestney, Tue Jan 24, 2012

A man sorts offcuts of fabric that will be sold to textile factories before

 being recycled, in the outskirts of Faisalabad, December 27, 2011.

(Credit: Reuters/Fayyaz Hussain)

(Reuters) - Representatives from around the world gather in Rio in June to try to hammer out goals for sustainable development at a U.N. conference designed to avoid being tripped up by the intractable issue of climate change.

But there is concern in the lead-up to the conference, known as Rio+20 or the Earth Summit, that it risks ending up as all talk and little action.

In an attempt to avoid too much confrontation, the conference will focus not on climate change but on sustainable development - making sure economies can grow now without endangering resources and the environment for future generations.

U.N. conferences over the past decade have begun with high hopes for agreements to compel nations to cut climate-warming emissions and help adapt to a hotter world, but they often ended with disappointingly modest results. That was the case last year in the global climate change summit in Durban, South Africa. Participants at that meeting agreed to forge a new deal by 2015 that would go into force by 2020.

The "sustainable" branding for this year's summit, rather than climate, is by design, said Ambassador Andre Correa do Lago, who headed Brazil's delegation to the U.N. climate talks in Durban and will be a chief negotiator for Brazil in Rio.

Sustainable development is an easier sell globally than climate change, even though sustainable development is a way of tackling global warming and other environmental issues, he said.

"Climate change is an (issue) that has very strong resistance from sectors that are going to be substantially altered, like the oil industry," do Lago said. "Sustainable development is something that is as simple as looking at how we would like to be in 10 or 20 years."

The time seems ripe. Natural resources are at a premium. The global human population tops 7 billion. Traditional economies are failing. And the planet is warming. Leaders may accept the premise that it makes sense to ensure rich and emerging nations can grow without further damaging the environment.

The focus of global meetings has been on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, but the world's biggest emitters, including China and the United States, have balked, arguing it would cripple economic development.

Climate change first claimed the world stage at the U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 20 years ago. That first Earth Summit in 1992 ultimately led to the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol and a treaty on biodiversity.

This summit offers a chance to renew political will to make the world's economies greener.

Since the 1992 summit, successive attempts to secure a new binding pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions have failed to produce concrete results, public interest in climate change has waned, and many world leaders are concentrating on upcoming elections and financial worries.

"A MISSED OPPORTUNITY"

There is concern that this new summit could fall short.

"The most it will manage is to set some voluntary goals with a vague timeline, but it will not be clear what the process is to achieve these goals," said Andrew Light of the Center for American Progress think tank in Washington. Without real goals and a way to reach them, Light said, Rio "will be a missed opportunity."

A U.N. draft document was released this month as a starting point for the June conference, outlining seven issues including jobs, energy, food, water and disasters.

"Without clearly defined goals, the summit will not provide the clarity and certainty that are needed to get the private sector to actively participate and potentially make the investments needed to achieve the goals," said Stephen Starbuck, expert on climate change and sustainability at Ernst & Young.

A narrower climate focus could also put off some countries, such as the United States, where opposition to carbon-capping legislation was so strong from Republicans and the oil industry that it overturned plans for a national emissions cap-and-trade arrangement.

In the past 20 years, the debate has changed as the world has changed, according to Tim Wirth, a former U.S. senator who attended the 1992 Rio meeting and will be at this year's conference as president of the non-profit U.N. Foundation.

"The debate's changed because of China, India, Brazil and South Africa, the very rapid and surprisingly powerful growth of the newly industrialized countries," he said.

In 1992 and in the Kyoto Protocol that grew from events at Rio, these developing countries and others were exempt from curbing carbon dioxide emissions, while rich countries like the United States would have had to cut back. In the end, the U.S. Senate never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005.

"Rio was really exploratory," Wirth said. "Nobody knew what this was going to be all about. ... I think Rio+20 becomes an opportunity to be very specific, especially about energy and development."

Although fast-developing economies are eager for this shift, Wirth said there may be resistance from big energy powers like the United States and some oil producers in the Middle East.

"These are the countries that say, 'Hey, this is our sandbox, you can't get into it,'" he said. "But I think that's passing by very quickly."

Rio+20 will have to give the private sector the clarity and incentives they need over the medium term, Starbuck said.

Any goals set in Rio would likely be for the next 20 years, which could be too far in the future for most chief executives whose time in office is more likely to last years, not decades.

Instead, interim goals set along the way to 2030 would make the private sector more likely to engage, Starbuck added.

(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko in Washington and Nina Chestney in London; Editing by Russell Blinch and Will Dunham)

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Matthew preparing us for the Golden Age. (Channelled by Suzy Ward)  - New !

NASA Produces and Promotes New LENR Video: Nuclear Power Coming Soon To Your Home

German village generates 321 percent more renewable energy than it needs, earns millions selling it back to national power grid

Durban? What a waste of time!

  (Photo: RNW)

GLOBAL WARMING / CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUE (THRU CHANNELING)

7. Let us give you another prime example of duality, the controversial issue you call global warming. Those who believe this is a natural occurrence cite Earth’s ice ages as proof that humankind has no hand in today’s record temperatures, the melting of glaciers and the harsh climate anomalies. They believe that there is no need to change manufacturing operations or turn to alternative energy sources because doing so would be cost-prohibitive. Then there are those who believe that science proves climate change is manmade. They point to industrial pollution and the use of biofuels as the cause, and they maintain that unless action is taken to end those practices, the cost will be total destruction of the environment. With the two sides at loggerheads, no large scale efforts are underway to change business as usual.


8. The truth is, both sides have validity even though neither knows that Earth herself is in the process of restoring the moderate climate of Eden times, when her body was pristine and healthy. And pollution, a product of humanity, must stop because it is harming the planet and all of its life forms. Eventually the two sides of the global warming issue will realize that protecting and repairing the environment is essential, and formerly extreme views will be reconciled into effective methods to remedy the present critical state. Read more ..... (Q&A - November 2010 (Matthew Channeling))

Incredible Ray of Light Emanating from the Kukulkan Pyramid at Chichen Itza Mexico 2009

Dutch pension fund ABP sues Goldman Sachs

RNW, 28 January 2012

(Photo:ANP)

Dutch pension fund ABP is suing US investment bank Goldman Sachs for knowingly selling it junk mortgages and providing misleading information.

The ABP pension fund for government and education employees is the largest pension fund in the Netherlands and among the three largest in the world. Prior to the 2008 US mortgage and bank crisis, ABP invested large sums in bonds linked to US mortgages.

ABP accuses Goldman Sachs of misinforming the pension fund as to the credit worthiness of the bonds, which proved to be far riskier than the bank had suggested. This eventually caused ABP to suffer significant losses. ABP will not disclose the exact amount of the losses it suffered, a spokesperson announced on Saturday.

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Ecuador police recruits abused – video

guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 January 2012

Controversial images showing mistreatment of police recruits have been leaked to the press in Ecuador. In them, cadets are exposed to teargas, put on beds of nails and electrocuted. Human rights expert Ricardo Camacho, who leaked the material, says such practices help to legitimise similar treatment of detainees in the eyes of recruits

Latin America confronts state atrocities of cold-war past

Ex-Guatemalan dictator Ríos Montt faces genocide charges as presidents in El Salvador and Colombia apologise for massacres

guardian.co.uk, Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent, Wednesday 25 January 2012

Efraín Ríos Montt, pictured in 2003, is due to appear in court in Guatemala
City on Thursday in a case which could lead to his prosecution for genocide.
Photograph: Tomas Bravo/EPA

Latin America is confronting past civil wars and dictatorships this week with a series of prosecutions and apologies which are shining a light on decades-old atrocities.

Governments and courts in Guatemala, Argentina, Colombia and El Salvador moved to acknowledge and possibly punish state-sanctioned violence during cold war-era campaigns against leftwing insurgents.

Human rights campaigners welcomed the initiatives but warned that the current violence of the drug war in central America overshadowed the prospect of overdue justice and accountability.

Guatemala's former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt is due to appear in court on Thursday in a case which could lead to his prosecution for genocide during his 17-month military rule between 1982 and 1983.

The former army general, who seized power in a coup, presided over a US-backed campaign against guerrillas which unleashed army massacres and scorched earth policies against indigenous communities in the Maya highlands.

It was one of the bloodiest periods in a 36-year civil war which claimed 200,000 lives and ended in 1996. The UN said the slaughter of indigenous villagers suspected of sympathising with guerrillas amounted to genocide.

Survivors' decade-long quest for justice bore fruit last year when prosecutors opened cases against two other retired generals. Ríos Montt, 85, was immune from prosecution since his election to congress in 2000 but his term expired earlier this month.

A judge, Carol Flores, will decide whether to charge him with genocide, the prosecutor Manuel Vasquez told AP. "We have sufficient evidence for charges of genocide and crimes against humanity."

Ríos Montt's lawyer told the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre his client would appear in court, adding: "We are sure that there is no responsibility since he was never on the battlefield."

As president the general, who was also an evangelical minister, vowed to fight communism with the Bible and a machine-gun. In a 1982 visit to Guatemala City Ronald Reagan praised the US ally as a man of great personal integrity.

Ríos Montt's fate will be politically sensitive for Guatemala's new president, Otto Pérez Molina, also a former general, who was inaugurated on 14 January after promising voters an iron fist against the bloodshed of the drugs trade which exceeds civil war death rates. Pérez Molina, a mid-ranking commander in a highland region during Ríos Montt's rule, has denied any wrongdoing during that time.

The president promised to back the justice system's pursuit of civil war-era human rights abuses but at the same time ordered the army back into the field – not to hunt Marxist guerrillas, but to "neutralise organised crime" that has made central America the world's deadliest region.

The government said Mexican drug cartels, notably the Zetas, had infiltrated Guatemala's police force and that only the military could re-establish control. Critics of the move said Mexico and Honduras had deployed troops against the gangs only to see violence worsen.

Last Saturday six gunmen killed eight people and wounded 20 in an attack on a nightclub near Guatemala City.

Across the region, attempts to recognise state crimes gathered pace this week. On Monday President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador, which endured its own brutal civil war, wept and apologised for a 1981 army massacre of almost 1,000 men, women and children in El Mozote. The leftwing president, speaking on the 20th anniversary of his country's peace accords, told the military not to honour or promote those suspected of atrocities.

But days later human rights groups criticised Funes for appointing an army general to head the police force, a common government tactic in the region to signal a crackdown on crime.

Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos, sought forgiveness for the state's role in a rightwing paramilitary massacre of around 50 people in El Tigre during a 1999 offensive against leftwing guerrillas. The paramilitaries are officially disbanded but the conflict continues.

In Argentina, where the government and courts have been bolder in confronting its "dirty war" legacy, prosecutors for the first time charged a businessman with collaborating in dictatorship abuses.

Marco Levin, the owner of a private bus company, allegedly helped state agents abduct 12 drivers and other employees whom were subsequently tortured and questioned over trade union activities. A court hearing was scheduled for next month.

Related Article:

South America and the New Energy ("The End of History")

.... South America is starting to consider the same thing. My partner was just there and I allowed him to see the energy of the potential future in that land.

I would like to paint history for you regarding South America. There was a time when every single country had a dictator. Less than 15 years ago, they had failing economies and currencies that were worthless. Trouble and strife and killings were the norm. Marauding drug lords openly killed in the streets and corruption was everywhere. Even the politicians created fear and many disappeared overnight, never to be seen again. Today it isn't that way. Today, there is an ongoing stability as one country after another brings a new, positive, stable energy to their cultures. So, without a concentrated effort by any kind of multi-national leadership or direction, how could this have changed in only 15 years?

Within the entire continent, there's only one dictator left. What's happening? If you think that's amazing, there is a move afoot that you're not going to hear about yet. But they're discussing it right now, so let me tell you what they're thinking. "What would happen if we took these countries and eliminated the borders?" Sound familiar? They're talking about it. In back rooms where nobody is reporting it, they're saying, "What about a plan of eventually having one currency from the top of Columbia to the bottom of Chile? And we would be strong and we would be unified." And dear ones, I'm here to tell you, that it's going to work, and it might not take 50 years. Soon the one dictator will be gone, and the unification can begin.... Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)


"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

Cuba tourism boom driven by Arab spring

Communist state having one of its best seasons as the Arab spring and changes in US policy drive tourism rush

guardian.co.uk, Reuters, Tuesday 24 January 2012

Cuba is experiencing a huge tourist boom driven by the Arab Spring, US foreign
 policy and economic reforms in the communist state. Photograph: Public domain

The Arab spring, changes in US policy and economic reforms in Cuba are driving a tourism rush that is giving the communist-run state one of its best seasons ever and stretching its ability to meet demand.

Hotels are full to the brim and Old Havana, the capital's historic centre, is teeming with tourists from around the world, soaking up the warm winter sun in outdoor cafes and strolling through narrow colonial streets.

Along the Malecon, Havana's seaside boulevard, 25 buses were lined up on a recent sunny day, waiting to carry visitors to various destinations.

At the Bodeguita del Medio, where Ernest Hemingway supposedly drank mojitos and tourists now go to emulate him, almost as many people stood on the stone-paved street waiting to get into the jam-packed bar as were squeezed inside.

"We are at capacity," said the manager of a foreign hotel company. "The beach resorts, Havana city are totally full. In the interior of the country, there is nowhere to find a room, nowhere."

Cuba just completed its best year for tourism with 2.7 million visitors in 2011, and experts say bookings suggest it will almost certainly beat that number this year. "I think 2012 will be a very good year and I see real difficulties in how to organise and manage all this in 2013 and 2014," said the head of a European travel agency's Havana office.

Tourism brought revenues of about $2.3bn in 2011. Travel experts say there is continued growth in the number of visitors from Canada, by far the biggest market for Cuba, and rising numbers from countries such as Russia and Argentina.

This high season has also seen a resurgence in visitors from Europe, whose numbers had fallen off. Many people who usually go to north Africa for a winter vacation are now looking elsewhere because of security concerns following the Arab Spring uprisings.

The number of US visitors is also climbing after Barack Obama changed regulations in 2011, making it easier for non-Cuban Americans tovisit a country that a US trade embargo put off-limits in the past 50 years.

Related Article:

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

Australia set to recognise Aborigines as first people of continent

Julia Gillard says 'time is right to say yes to an understanding of our past' as report recommends end to state discrimination

guardian.co.uk, Alison Rourke, Friday 20 January 2012

Australia's Aborigines can be discriminated against under sections 25
and 51 of the constitution. Photograph: Gary Calton

Australia is poised to make historic changes to its constitution, recognising Aborigines as the country's original inhabitants and removing the last clauses of state-sanctioned racial discrimination.

The amendments could be put to the Australian people in a referendum before the next general election in 2013, after the prime minister, Julia Gillard, endorsed the unanimous findings of a panel of 19 experts.

Section 25 of the constitution recognises that states can disqualify people, such as Aborigines, from voting. Section 51 says federal parliament can make laws based upon a person's race. Both were put in the constitution in 1901 to prevent certain races from living in areas reserved for white people or from taking up certain occupations.

The prime minister, Julia Gillard, welcomed the report. "We are big enough and it is the right time to say yes to an understanding of our past, to say yes to constitutional change, and to say yes to a future more united and more reconciled than we have ever been before," she said.

The panel's report followed public consultation with more than 4,500 people and more than 250 public meetings. The panel's co-chair, Aboriginal elder Professor Patrick Dodson, urged bipartisan support for the proposals.

"This is a time when truth and respect for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples needs to be achieved through the recognition in our constitution," he said. "Strong leadership and our national interest are critical for our nation to go forward."

When Australia became a federation in 1901 there were only two references to Aborigines in the constitution: one denied federal parliament the power to make laws with respect to Aboriginal people in any state, while another excluded what it termed "Aboriginal natives" from the census. Both of those sections were scrapped in a 1967 referendum (by a majority of 90%), leaving a constitution that made no mention whatsoever of indigenous people.

Referendums in Australia have historically been hard to pass. Only eight out of 44 have succeeded since 1906, partly because any alteration to the constitution must be approved by a "double majority". This demands that, as well as a majority yes vote being required nationally, a majority must also be reached in four of the six states.

The opposition leader, Tony Abbott, has said he will study the document. "We have some reservations about anything that might turn out to be a one-clause bill of rights but we accept that millions of Australians' hopes and dreams are resting on constitutional recognition of indigenous people," he said.

The report also called for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages to be recognised as the country's first languages. It calls for continuing respect for these cultures, languages and heritage.

The government aims to hold the referendum at or before a general election, due in 2013.

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Guatemalans climb volcano in protest against violence

BBC News, 22 January 2012

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More than 600 women were murdered in
the small Central American country last
year

Around 12,000 Guatemalans have climbed an extinct volcano in a protest against domestic violence.

The activists formed what they hope was the world's longest human chain all the way to the peak of the 3,765m (12,352 feet) Volcan de Agua.

Among those taking part in the "Walk for Life" was Guatemala's new President, Otto Perez Molina.

Guatemala has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and domestic violence is a particular problem.

The Volcan de Agua or "Water Volcano" - also known as Hunahpu by the indigenous Maya - towers above the colonial city of Antigua, 45km (28 miles) southeast of Guatemala City.

"We want violence to end in this country, we don't want Guatemala to be one of the most violent countries in the world," President Perez Molina said as he joined the crowds hiking to the top.

Mr Perez Molina - a former army general - took office last week promising tough action against violent crime.

'Generational change'

Also taking part in the climb was British ambassador Julie Chappell whose embassy helped fund and organise the event.

"We're trying to get young leaders to start a generational change in attitudes where people say - until now we've sort of accepted that there is this culture of violence, but no more", Ms Chappell said.

The Guatemalan authorities receive tens of thousands of reports of domestic violence each year, and last year 550 women were murdered.

The Central American country has one of the highest murder rates in the world, but less than 4% of cases end in a successful conviction.

The violence is partly seen as a legacy of the 1960-96 civil war between the state and left-wing guerrillas, in which more than 200,000 people were killed, most of them by the army.

Life Spotted on Venus - Russian Scientist

RIA Novosti, MOSCOW, January 20 2012

Venus (Leonid Ksanfomaliti/ Solar System Research)

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An article published in the Solar System Research magazine reported Several objects resembling living beings were detected on photos made by a Russian landing probe in 1982 during a Venus mission.

Leonid Ksanfomaliti pictured at 

Russia's Space Research Institute

Leonid Ksanfomaliti of the Space Research Institute of Russia’s Academy of Sciences published research that analyzed the photos from the Venus mission made by a Soviet landing probe, Venus-13, in 1982.

The photos feature several objects, which Ksanfomaliti said, resembled “a disk,” “a black flap” and “a scorpion.” All of them “emerge, fluctuate and disappear,” the scientist said, referring to their changing location on different photos and traces on the ground.

"What if we forget about the current theories about the nonexistence of life on Venus, let’s boldly suggest that the objects’ morphological features would allow us to say that they are living,” Solar System Research quoted Ksanfomaliti as saying.

No data proving the existence of life on Venus, where the ground temperature is 464 degrees Celsius (867 degrees Fahrenheit), has ever been found.

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Memo FBI: Aliens landed in Roswell

A copy of the 1950 memo that 
recounts the discovery of flying saucers
 and aliens in New Mexico. The memo has
been published on the FBI website

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

NASA Produces and Promotes New LENR Video: Nuclear Power Coming Soon To Your Home

MNISPEL, By Dr. Mark D. Nispel, January 12, 2012

NASA is all in and claiming to “be working on another way of producing energy with efficient nuclear power.”  NASA as an organization apparently suddenly wants to be seen as in the forefront of this new thing they see coming.  Pretty cool actually.

NASA has produced and featured a video presenting LENR as a technology.  The video features Dr. Joseph Zawodny, Senior Research Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center.  The video highlights the potential of having a LENR nuclear power generation device in your home to provide all the power needs of your home as the “easiest” implementation, even though it could potentially be used even for transportation and infrastructure.  The technology is “clean” producing no ionizing radiation or waste.

See the video highlight on the right of the NASA technology gateway page here.

The video directly is here.

In the meantime, A. Rossi continues to move apace claiming he is working on putting his e-cat LENR  device into production.  He is working with National Instruments to complete his design.  He claims that the first small home units that generate electricity and can heat / cool the home will be in production by the end of 2012 for around $1500 and he plans on producing a million the first year after they get going.  See here and here.

Two interesting notes:

1. The NASA video avoids using the term “cold fusion.”

2. The NASA video interestingly right toward the end uses an image to represent LENR 
somewhat abstractly which it attributes to the US Navy SPAWAR within the video (see lower left).

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

El Salvador head apologises for 1981 El Mozote massacre

BBC News, 17 January 2012

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An emotional President Funes recalled
the terror perpetrated in El Mozote

El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes has sought forgiveness for what he called "the worst massacre of civilians in contemporary Latin American history".

In 1981, soldiers killed some 1,000 people, nearly half of them children, in the town of El Mozote.

They had been accused of collaborating with left-wing guerrillas.

Mr Funes made his emotional apology on the 20th anniversary of peace accords that ended the nation's civil war.

The president travelled to El Mozote, some 200km (120 miles) from the capital, San Salvador, near the border with Honduras.

"For this massacre, for the abhorrent violations of human rights and the abuses perpetrated in the name of the Salvadoran state, I ask forgiveness of the families of the victims," he said on Monday.

Breaking at times into tears, Mr Funes said: "In three days and three nights, the biggest massacre of civilians was committed in contemporary Latin American history".

No trial

Between 11-13 December, 1981, soldiers from a now-banned battalion, the Atlacatl, shot dead residents of El Mozote suspected of sympathising with left-wing rebels.

It was the bloodiest single episode of El Salvador's 12-year civil war that that left some 75,000 dead. 

Those responsible were not put on trial as the authorities agreed a general amnesty in 1992, as part of negotiations to end the civil war.

President Funes said the country's armed forces, 20 years on from the peace accords, were very different, "democratic and obedient to civilian power".

He called on the army to revise its history to avoid honouring those responsible for human rights abuses.

Mr Funes made the first apology for civil war-era atrocities in 2009 and last December the government asked for forgiveness for the massacre of El Mozote.

He was elected president in 2009, the first leftist leader in El Salvador for 20 years.

His party, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) was founded by Marxist guerrillas who fought the US-backed government in the 1980s.

Chavez 'would accept' Venezuela election defeat

BBC News, 13 January 2012

Mr Chavez defended his decision to repatriate Venezuela's gold reserves

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has told opposition leaders that he will relinquish power if he loses elections due in October.

In his annual address to Congress, Mr Chavez said the opposition should also accept the result if he wins.

The left-wing leader - who has governed Venezuela for 13 years - is seeking another six-year term in office.

The opposition coalition will hold a primary election next month to choose a unity candidate to stand against him.

Some of Mr Chavez's strongest critics have suggested he might cling on to power at all costs if he were defeated at the polls.

But he told the National Assembly in Caracas that he would accept the election result whatever it was.

"If any of you win the elections I will be the first to recognise it, and I ask the same of you," he told opposition leaders.

"We are going to show our democratic maturity."

Crucial year

Mr Chavez, 57, said he expected 2012 to be a "year of tests" for Venezuela, but he was confident that peace and respect for national institutions would be maintained.

The Venezuelan leader reiterated that he had recovered his health after having surgery and chemotherapy for cancer last year.

Recent opinion polls suggest he still has the support of just over 50% of the population, making him the favourite to win the election.

Heavy spending on housing and welfare - funded by Venezuela's oil wealth - has helped sustain his traditional support base among the poor.

The opposition Democratic Unity coalition is hoping that dissatisfaction with rising violent crime and inflation will help it to unseat him.

Six candidates are standing for a primary election due on 12 February that will chose a unity candidate to challenge Mr Chavez.

Miami shutdown

In his speech, Mr Chavez also announced that he intended to close Venezuela's consulate in Miami after the US expelled a diplomat.

Venezuela's consul in Miami, Livia Acosta Noguera, was ordered to leave the US last week following allegations that she discussed a possible cyber attack on the US while based in Mexico.

Mr Chavez called the accusations against her "unjust" but indicated he would not be expelling a US diplomat in response.

German priest admits to 280 instances of child sex abuse

Deutsche Welle, 12 January 2012 

Germany has been rocked by
several clerical abuse scandals

Germany's Catholic Church has been hit by another case of clerical sexual abuse, with a priest admitting to abusing three boys between the ages of 9 and 15 some 280 times since 2004.

A Catholic priest admitted to a German court on Thursday that he sexually abused three boys over several years, amounting to a total of 280 cases.

The priest, identified as 46-year-old Andreas L. from the city of Salzgitter in Lower Saxony, confessed to charges of sexually abusing the boys, who ranged from nine to 15 years old. The abuse began in 2004, he said.

Instances of abuse occurred at a parsonage, on ski vacations, at the parents' home, on a trip to Disneyland in Paris and at a church shortly before Mass.

The priest told the regional court in Braunschweig that while working as a chaplain in the same city in 2004, he began a close relationship with a widowed woman. When he was moved to Salzgitter, the woman's nine-year-old son often spent weekends with the man, who would take him on short trips away. The abuse occurred on several occasions, often three times per weekend.

The suspect said it was not his intention to get close to the boy sexually, and that it never occurred to him that he was harming them. 

"I did not have the impression that he didn't want it," he said.

Pope Benedict XVI expressed 'deep regret'
 at a meeting with sex abuse victims in
Germany

When the mother began to suspect her son's interactions with the priest were inappropriately close, she approached the diocese of Hildesheim, the priest's employer, which forbid further contact with the boy.

Victims two and three

The two other boys named as victims by the priest were brothers, and the abuse began under similar circumstances. When contact with them was also forbidden, the priest approached his first victim, then 17, who in turn told his mother about the abuse.

The mother then went to the authorities, and the suspect was arrested last summer. The court set the maximum sentence for the priest at six and a half years.

A long series of sexual abuse scandals involving Catholic priests in Germany is believed to have contributed to Germans leaving the Church in record numbers. Some 180,000 Germans renounced their Catholicism in 2010, up 40 percent from the previous year.

Pope Benedict XVI met with victims of clerical sexual abuse during a visit to his native Germany in September, expressing his deep regret. The German Catholic Church faces some 600 claims for compensation because of abuse, and Berlin has set up a fund of 100 million euros ($128 million) to pay for the victims' therapy.

Author: Andrew Bowen (Reuters, dpa)

Editor: Andreas Illmer

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