Judge orders Philadelphia faith-healing couple held in son’s death

Posted by on May 25, 2013 No comment

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A Philadelphia couple charged with murder after their baby died without medical care must be held in jail whether or not they make bail, a judge ruled on Friday.

The couple, Herbert and Catherine Schaible, believe in faith healing, and those who share their beliefs might be willing to harbor them if they decide to flee, Judge Benjamin Lerner told a court hearing in Philadelphia.

The Schaibles were charged with third-degree murder on Wednesday after the April 18 death of their seven-month-old son Brandon from bacterial pneumonia, dehydration and strep.

The Schaibles were already on probation for involuntary manslaughter stemming from the death of another child, Kent, who died in 2009 at the age of two, also of bacterial pneumonia.

The judge ruled that while Herbert Schaible, 44, and his wife, who is 43, may not be wealthy enough to flee on their own, they might be able to find others around the country who do not think they did anything wrong.

“There is a community around the country that might be willing to harbor them,” the judge said.

The Schaibles are members of a Philadelphia church, the First Century Gospel Church, which, according to its website, is committed to relying on God alone for physical healing, with no drugs or human remedies.

Defense attorneys argued that neither Schaible was a flight risk, and attorney Mythri Jayaraman, representing Catherine Schaible, said her client had turned herself in.

The judge said the couple could face up to 50 years in prison if they are convicted.

The Schaibles have seven other children, all older than the two who died. They have been in foster care since Brandon’s death.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and David Brunnstrom)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-orders-philadelphia-faith-healing-couple-held-sons-204312047.html

the three stooges the bee gees woodward keratosis pilaris rock and roll hall of fame 2012 brandon rios oklahoma news

Obama?s Post-9/11 World

Posted by on May 25, 2013 No comment

President Barack Obama speaks about his administration's counterterrorism policy at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, May 23, 2013.

President Barack Obama speaks about his administration’s counterterrorism policy at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, May 23, 2013.

Photo by Larry Downing/Reuters

President Obama?s speech today on U.S. counterterrorism policy was actually two speeches in one. The first outlined a supposedly new, restrictive policy on drone strikes that was neither new nor restrictive. The second called for shutting down the Guant?namo detention center?not a new position for the president but the revival of a long-dormant one, unfurled in blazing colors along with a vision of a genuinely new way of approaching global terrorism.

In the days leading up to the speech, drones were assumed to be the main topic?specifically, whether and how to change the practice of using drones to kill terrorist suspects in countries outside formal war zones, namely, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. These strikes have aroused intense bitterness abroad and growing controversy at home.

Early on in his speech, Obama defended the use of drones, noting that they are often the only way to kill people who are planning attacks on the United States and that, while these weapons sometimes kill innocent civilians, they kill far fewer civilians than other forms of military power, such as conventional airstrikes or troop incursions on the ground.

But then, Obama conceded that these weapons had to be subjected to restrictions, lest they be used too casually. Specifically, it had to be determined that the person killed poses a ?continuing, imminent threat? against the United States; that capturing the person alive was infeasible; and that there was ?near certainty? that the strike would kill or injure no civilians.

This sounds reasonable, except that these same standards were outlined?with much of the exact same language?in an unclassified 16-page ?white paper? that the Justice Department released back in February. And the way that the paper defined those terms rendered the restrictions meaningless.

Key to this loophole was?and presumably still is?the definition of ?imminent threat.? As the white paper put it, ?The condition that an operational leader [of al-Qaida or an affiliated organization] presents an ?imminent? threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack ? will take place in the immediate future.?

So, ?imminent? doesn?t really mean imminent.

The paper?s logic was this. Al-Qaida is ?continually planning strikes? against the United States. ?By its nature, therefore,? an assessment of its threats ?demands a broad concept of imminence.? In other words, the threat of an attack is always imminent; it?s a condition, not a restriction.

Similarly, because the threat is always imminent, the Justice Department paper went on, ?the United States is likely to have only a limited window of opportunity? to mobilize a raid to capture the terrorist. Therefore, it is always ?infeasible? to capture rather than kill.

Obama?s (and the white paper?s) third condition for launching a drone strike?a near certainty that no innocents are killed in the attack?is a real restriction, and the Obama administration does seem to be at least trying to abide by it. According to data gathered from open sources by three private research organizations?the New America Foundation, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and Long War Journal?the number of civilians killed by drone strikes in Pakistan has declined dramatically in the past few years. So far this year, the estimates of civilian deaths range from zero to 11. In part, this is due to the fact that there have been only 12 drone strikes in Pakistan in 2013?which means, by the way, that there might have been, on average, as many as one civilian killed in nearly every strike.

It is hard to gauge these estimates because the administration does not release figures about drone strikes in Pakistan or how many people they?ve killed?because all drone strikes outside war zones (that is, outside Afghanistan) are covert operations conducted not by the military but by the CIA. Everything about them, therefore, is classified.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4d6007f7ea3a4044e2655b14ba9c2998

fox news boston globe Cnn.com Chechen Boston bombers chechnya live news

Exclusive: Glencore, Trafigura deals with Iran may have skirted sanctions – U.N

Posted by on May 24, 2013 No comment

By Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Metals swap deals with Iran by Switzerland-based commodities giants Glencore Xstrata and Trafigura could have been a way of skirting international sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program, according to a confidential U.N. Panel of Experts report seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Reuters reported on March 1 that Glencore had supplied thousands of tons of alumina to an Iranian firm that has provided aluminum to Iran’s nuclear program, an allegation Glencore confirmed as accurate. Afterward, Trafigura acknowledged it had also traded with the same Iranian firm.

Swiss authorities said at the time that they saw no evidence of U.N. or Swiss sanctions violations by Glencore, but the U.N. experts, who monitor compliance with the Iran sanctions regime, raised the possibility that the swap deals were a means of flouting restrictions on trade with Iran.

“If confirmed, such transactions may reflect an avenue for procurement of a raw material in a manner that circumvents sanctions,” the 49-page report said in reference to the media reports on the swap deals. “The companies involved have stated that they have halted those transactions.”

Reuters has sought comment from both companies regarding the report, which was delivered to the U.N. Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee earlier this month.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that Glencore’s head of aluminum, Gary Fegel, is set to leave the company, the first high-profile departure since the commodity trading giant closed its purchase of miner Xstrata this month. The timing and reason for his exit after 12 years at Glencore are unclear.

The experts’ annual report said they have found evidence that Tehran routinely attempts to flout the sanctions applied against Iran over its nuclear program, which Western powers and their allies suspect is aimed at producing weapons but the Iranians say is for peaceful electricity generation.

“Iran continues to seek items for its prohibited activities from abroad by using multiple and increasingly complex procurement methods, including front companies, intermediaries, false documentation, and new routes,” the experts said.

“These require additional vigilance and expertise on the part of states in order to identify suspicious transactions,” it said.

IRANIAN REACTOR CONSTRUCTION

The panel listed 11 violations by Iran since June 2012 and said it has at least six ongoing investigations into possible sanctions violations, including the export of machine tools reported by Spain and the export of technical equipment for use in satellite technology reported by Germany.

The United States reported transfers and attempted transfers of items linked to Iran’s nuclear program, including vacuum equipment for test stands, pressure transducers, vacuum pumps and materials for fabrication of centrifuge machine components like magnetic tape, marching steel and aluminum alloys.

The United States also reported a violation involving the transfer of specialized metals to several entities in Iran associated with the ballistic missile program.

The report said recent Iran sanctions violations had also been reported by Sweden, Bahrain, France, Britain and an unidentified country listed as “State X”.

The experts said Iran had not demonstrated any significant new missile capabilities in the past year, but had continued to violate Security Council resolutions by launching missiles.

“Despite at least the partial success in making its ballistic missile program indigenous, Iran remains reliant on foreign suppliers for technology, some components and raw materials,” the panel said.

“Preventing supply of these items is critical for international efforts to slow Iran’s prohibited ballistic missiles activities,” it said.

The experts recommended the Security Council sanction one entity – Pentane Chemistry Industries “for the procurement of valves for use in the Arak Heavy Water reactor.” The company was blacklisted by the United States in 2012.

The reactor near the central Iranian town of Arak is under construction and nuclear analysts have said it could yield plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel is reprocessed, something Iran has said it has no intention of doing.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna said on Wednesday Iran was pressing ahead with construction of the Arak plant.

The panel also said it was aware of reports of weapons being transferred to Syria, in violation of the U.N. ban on Iranian arms exports, through Iraqi airspace, but that Iraqi authorities had said they checked two shipments and found no arms. The experts did not elaborate further on the allegations.

The eight-member panel of experts were split over whether a seizure of weapons on a ship named Jihan off the coast of Yemen was a violation or probable violation of the Iran arms embargo.

Yemen has said its coast guard seized missiles and rockets on January 23 believed to have been sent by Iran. Iran has denied any connection to the weapons, which were found aboard a vessel off the coast in an operation coordinated with the U.S. Navy.

“Five members of the panel found that all available information placed Iran at the center of the Jihan operation. The crew bypassed routine immigration and airport security procedures while in Iran. The voyage originated in Iranian territorial waters,” the experts’ report said.

“Three members of the panel noted that no information was found about the time and location that the arms and other items were loaded on the Jihan,” it said.

Highlighting the methods used to hide weapon shipments, the panel described one of the hiding places it found on board the Jihan when its members inspected the vessel.

“The seized items were concealed in four compartments hidden by diesel fuel tanks which could not be accessed from the deck,” the report said. “These hidden compartments could be accessed only after the diesel fuel tanks were emptied.”

Diplomatic sources familiar with the investigation of the ship have told Reuters that there were indications the ship’s ultimate destination may have been Somalia, but there was no mention of this in the Panel of Experts report.

(Additional reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Stacey Joyce and Paul Simao)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-glencore-trafigura-iran-deals-may-skirted-sanctions-212428970.html

guy fawkes gary johnson gary johnson where do i vote dixville notch Remember Remember The 5th Of November African painted dogs

How Do a Building’s Guts Help It Weather a Tornado?

Posted by on May 24, 2013 No comment

When a big funnel of destruction touches down, it puts everything that’s about ground in instant trouble. But exactly how much trouble actually depends a lot on construction, and not just things like structural reinforcement: pretty standard, inherent things like the size of the rooms.

Making admittedly unnecessary use of its fancy-schmancy holo-table, CNN explains wind limits of homes, schools, and hospitals in the path of deadly tornadoes, and how the gusts that each type of building can withstand inevitably tie back into how they’re all built. But one thing’s for sure: it’s better to not be near any tornado at all. [CNN]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/how-do-a-buildings-guts-help-it-weather-a-tornado-509508959

petrino clayton kershaw tyler perry face transplant fab melo google glasses kim kardashian and kanye west

Gordon's D-Zone: Goals of Inclusive Education (Newspaper Article)

Posted by on May 23, 2013 No comment

Do you agree that disabled children should be included in mainstream schools? My guess is that many of you have answered ?yes? to that question.
As a young disabled boy attending a mainstream Church school, I felt part of the school

Of course, this is a good thing. It indicates that attitudes towards disabled people have changed since the time when a majority of disabled people were provided education in ?special? schools. Yet, do we really understand what ?inclusive education? actually means?
A common misconception about inclusive education is that it?s simply a matter of placing a disabled child in a mainstream class. However, while this may enable a few disabled children to get a proper education and develop the skills to function in an adult world, it expects the disabled child to fit in the educational system without taking into account the fact that the child has an impairment. In contrast, inclusion sets out to place the student at the centre of the educational process and thus enable children to attain their maximum educational potential.
As a young disabled boy attending a mainstream Church school, I felt part of the school. While I?m grateful for the teachers and staff who supported me during that time, things would have been different if it wasn?t for the fact that I could keep up with my peers, wasn?t disruptive to the class and my physical impairment permitted me to be more physically active than I am today.
On the other hand, if I had a more severe physical impairment, a profound intellectual impairment or exhibited challenging behaviour, I would have probably been sent off to a special school or denied an education to begin with.
In my case, I survived an education based on the principle of integration where it was a matter of sink or swim. If I hadn?t adapted to the system, my future would have been very different.
On the contrary, a truly inclusive educational system would have taken my impairment into account and made it possible for me to be more included in school events that required, say, physical stamina and strength.
In this sense, inclusion is about providing a disabled student with the support he or she needs depending on the impairment. This may range from making sure the school is physically accessible, providing educational resources in alternative formats and supporting the student with a Learning Support Assistant ? as well as providing adequate professional involvement if required.
Inclusive education is planning an education that responds to the child?s needs through the development of an Individual Education Plan (IEP) which also involves the child.
Indeed, real inclusion requires that we rethink our approach to education and go beyond the old idea that education is simply a way to prepare children for the world of work.
While preparing our children to contribute to our society through work remains an important function of education, what we gain from the educational process is much greater than that.
We learn to mak friends, learn about new people, solve problems and form relationships.
Indeed, education helps us to explore life beyond the confines of our family circle. As a disabled child myself, school helped me meet people whom I might never have met as my impairment often placed limits on how far from home I could go before I got tired.
Indeed, the goal of inclusion is also to provide children with an opportunity to learn about other children and how to live in a society where everyone is different. It provides an opportunity for disabled and non-disabled children to learn about each other and become aware of the fact that while there are differences, they have much in common.
Finally, inclusion helps reduce fear and stigma that existed in the past. It also helps all of us to become aware of our diversity and to appreciate the value of every human being and their right to belong in society.
Unfortunately, as adults, we tend to prefer to include those disabled children who are more easily included or when the support required is minimal, and exclude other disabled children who may need more support and who challenge us when it comes to their inclusion.
Unfortunately, one finds that children who may have a severe intellectual impairment or complex dependency needs and those with severe challenging behaviour are often left out when we discuss the issue of inclusion. These children remain the most excluded groups of children from mainstream education.
Granted, some of these children pose unique challenges when it comes to their inclusion. However, if a proper Individual Education Plan (IEP) is designed, proper support could be identified. And giving the child the right support in daily life can do a lot in addressing the particular challenges encountered. One cannot assume that just because a child appears to be getting nothing from the mainstream, s/he is a waste of time and resources.
In addition, proper inclusive educational planning engages with the child as a whole person, involving a multi-disciplinary approach to identifying the child?s needs and aspirations. In no way does inclusion expect teachers to provide an inclusive education on their own.
Rather, it encourages all the school staff to adopt an attitude based on inclusion, where every child is valued.
Inclusive education must be seen both as a project and as a process. While legislation offers us the direction to follow, inclusion is a process that society needs to support.
Indeed, a proper inclusive education can only be successful if there is investment that improves schools? access to the environment, educational resources and flexibility.
Inclusion also invites us to rethink our approach to education from one focused exclusively on academic achievement to one that fosters social values.
However, crucial to the success of inclusion is the willingness of all key stakeholders to cooperate together in the realisation of inclusive education.
As a disabled adult, I firmly believe this is the only way forward!

This article originally appeared on the Tuesday 22 edition of The Times of Malta newspaper. Full reference above.

REFERENCE
Cardona, G. C. (21/5/2013) ?Goals of Inclusive Education?, The Times of Malta. Allied Publications: Malta. Also available at: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130521/opinion/Goals-of-inclusive-education.470587 (Accessed: 23 May, 2013)

Source: http://gdzone.gordongd.com/2013/05/goals-of-inclusive-education-newspaper.html

steve jobs meningitis bobby valentine bobby valentine miguel cabrera Karrueche Tran dodd frank

Huge tornado hits Oklahoma City suburb, kills 51

Posted by on May 23, 2013 No comment

MOORE, Okla. (AP) ? A monstrous tornado at least a half-mile wide roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds up to 200 mph. At least 51 people were killed, including at least 20 children, and officials said the death toll was expected to rise.

The storm laid waste to scores of buildings in Moore, a community of 41,000 people about 10 miles south of the city. Block after block lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside.

The National Weather Service issued an initial finding that the tornado was an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale, the second most-powerful type of twister.

More than 120 people were being treated at hospitals, including about 50 children. Search-and-rescue efforts were to continue throughout the night.

Tiffany Thronesberry said she heard from her mother, Barbara Jarrell, shortly after the tornado.

“I got a phone call from her screaming, ‘Help! Help! I can’t breathe. My house is on top of me!’” Thronesberry said.

Thronesberry hurried to her mother’s house, where first responders had already pulled her out. Her mother was hospitalized for treatment of cuts and bruises.

Rescuers launched a desperate rescue effort at the school, pulling children from heaps of debris and carrying them to a triage center.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin deployed 80 National Guard members to assist with rescue operations and activated extra highway patrol officers.

Fallin also spoke with President Barack Obama, who declared a major disaster and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

Many land lines to stricken areas were down, and cellphone networks were congested. The storm was so massive that it will take time to establish communications between rescuers and state officials, the governor said.

In video of the storm, the dark funnel cloud could be seen marching slowly across the green landscape. As it churned through the community, the twister scattered shards of wood, awnings and glass all over the streets.

The tornado also destroyed the community hospital and some retail stores. Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis watched it pass through from his jewelry shop.

“All of my employees were in the vault,” Lewis said.

Chris Calvert saw the menacing cloud approaching from about a mile away.

“I was close enough to hear it,” he said. “It was just a low roar, and you could see the debris, like pieces of shingles and insulation and stuff like that, rotating around it.”

Even though his subdivision is a mile from the tornado’s path, it was still covered with debris. He found a picture of a small girl on Santa Claus’ lap in his yard.

Volunteers and first responders raced to search the debris for survivors.

At Plaza Towers Elementary School, the storm tore off the roof, knocked down walls and turned the playground into a mass of twisted plastic and metal.

Children from the school were among the dead, but several students were pulled alive from the rubble. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain to the triage center in the parking lot.

James Rushing, who lives across the street from the school, heard reports of the approaching twister and ran to the school, where his 5-year-old foster son, Aiden, attends classes. Rushing believed he would be safer there.

“About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart,” he said.

The students were sent into the restroom.

A man with a megaphone stood Monday evening near St. Andrews United Methodist Church and called out the names of surviving children. Parents waited nearby, hoping to hear their sons’ and daughters’ names.

Don Denton hadn’t heard from his two sons since the tornado hit the town, but the man who has endured six back surgeries and walks with a severe limp said he walked about two miles as he searched for them.

As reports of the storm came in, Denton’s 16-year-old texted him, telling him to call.

“I was trying to call him, and I couldn’t get through,” Denton said.

Eventually, Denton said, his sons spotted him in the crowd. They were fine, but upset to hear that their grandparents’ home was destroyed.

As dusk began to fall, heavy equipment was rolled up to the school, and emergency workers wearing yellow crawled among the ruins, searching for survivors.

Because the ground was muddy, bulldozers and front-end loaders were getting stuck. Crews used jackhammers and sledgehammers to tear away concrete, and chunks were being thrown to the side as the workers dug.

Douglas Sherman drove two blocks from his home to help.

“Just having those kids trapped in that school, that really turns the table on a lot of things,” he said.

A map provided by the National Weather Service showed that the storm began west of Newcastle and crossed the Canadian River into Oklahoma City’s rural far southwestern side about 3 p.m. When it reached Moore, the twister cut a path through the center of town before lifting back into the sky at Lake Stanley Draper.

Oklahoma City Police Capt. Dexter Nelson said downed power lines and open gas lines posed a risk in the aftermath of the system.

Monday’s powerful tornado loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the region in May 1999.

The weather service estimated that Monday’s tornado was at least a half-mile wide. The 1999 storm had winds clocked at 300 mph.

Kelsey Angle, a weather service meteorologist in Kansas City, Mo., said it’s unusual for two such powerful tornadoes to track roughly the same path.

It was the fourth tornado to hit Moore since 1998. A twister also struck in 2003.

Lewis, who was also mayor during the 1999 storm, said the city was already at work on the recovery.

“We’ve already started printing the street signs. It took 61 days to clean up after the 1999 tornado. We had a lot of help then. We’ve got a lot of help now.”

Monday’s devastation in Oklahoma came almost exactly two years after an enormous twister ripped through the city of Joplin, Mo., killing 158 people and injuring hundreds more.

That May 22, 2011, tornado was the deadliest in the United States since modern tornado record keeping began in 1950, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Before Joplin, the deadliest modern tornado was June 1953 in Flint, Mich., when 116 people died.

___

Associated Press writers Sean Murphy, Nomaan Merchant and Sue Ogrocki contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/huge-tornado-hits-oklahoma-city-suburb-kills-51-011531187.html

Pressure Cooker MIT Shooting NFL schedule 2013 Boston Explosion West Texas American Airlines Carlos Arredondo

Burmese optimistic after historic White House visit

Posted by on May 22, 2013 No comment

Burmese are celebrating an end to their long international isolation with the first state visit to the US by a Myanmar president in almost 50 years.

By Simon Roughneen,?Correspondent / May 21, 2013

US President Obama gestures toward Myanmar’s President Thein Sein during their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday. Thein Sein is the first Myanmar president to be welcomed to the White House in almost 50 years.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Enlarge

Myanmar President Thein Sein’s historic Monday meeting with US President Obama has been well-received at home, with Burmese seemingly happy that the country is gaining some positive recognition on the world stage after decades of isolation.

Skip to next paragraph

‘ + google_ads[0].line2 + ‘
‘ + google_ads[0].line3 + ‘

‘; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ”; } } document.getElementById(“ad_unit”).innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = “pub-6743622525202572″; google_ad_output = ‘js’; google_max_num_ads = ’1′; google_feedback = “on”; google_ad_type = “text”; // google_adtest = “on”; google_image_size = ’230×105′; google_skip = ’0′; // –>

Myanmar and the United States signed a new trade and investment promotion agreement on Tuesday, which they hope will boost the currently-miniscule commerce between the two countries, currently valued at $90 million.?

?We are happy that our country is changing to democracy,? says Kyaw Moe Tha, an artist from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city. ?And it is important for us that America and other Western countries increase contact with us.?

The last time Myanmar’s top leader made a state visit to the United States, the country was called “Burma” and Lyndon Johnson was in the White House. That was in 1966. Myanmar was four years into what became five decades of military dictatorship. As repression worsened, particularly after student protests in 1988, Myanmar was deemed an ?outpost of tyranny,? prompting the US and other Western countries to impose sanctions on exports and investment.?

Now, two years into political and economic reforms that won praise from President Obama, Myanmar is seeking increased American investment and official aid, which it hopes will kick-start the country’s economy and create jobs.?Though?Myanmar is rich in natural resources, only some 25 percent of the 60 million population?have regular electricity. Tens of millions of rural Burmese depend on subsistence agriculture.

Zaw Zaw, a high-profile Myanmar businessman who has faced US sanctions because of his close ties to Myanmar’s former military regime, says that Mr. Thein Sein’s visit to Washington is going down well at home.

?This is a very good thing for our country and I hope for both countries,? says Mr. Zaw Zaw, whose wide-ranging business interests include construction, hotels, timber, and gems.

After a transfer of power to a nominally civilian government in 2011, and reforms that included freeing hundreds of political prisoners and loosening restrictions on freedom of speech, the US responded by removing many sanctions.

Still, some remain in place,?including financial and trade restrictions on figures close to the Myanmar military ? such as Zaw Zaw.?

The Myanmar government wants the slate wiped clean, however.?Speaking in Washington on Monday, Thein Sein told students at Johns Hopkins University?s School of Advanced International Studies, ?we are trying hard to end Myanmar?s isolation, see the removal of all sanctions, and make the contributions we can to both regional and global security and development.?

Critics point out that the Myanmar government has stalled on reforms in recent months. They want the US to keep restrictive measures against the country intact ? until there?s an end to ethnic fighting and sectarian discrimination in the country.

In Washington on Monday Thein Sein pledged to work for peace — though on the same day the US State Department published its annual review of religious freedom around the world. Buddhist-majority Myanmar appeared with eight countries where discrimination against minorities is among the worst.

In June 2011, as Myanmar undertook reforms that earned Thein Sein his White House visit this week, the military resumed a decades-old war with ethnic Kachin fighters in a mountainous, resource-rich region in the country’s north.

More than 100,000 mostly Christian Kachin have been driven from their homes by the fighting, while a similar number of Muslims ? many of them from a stateless group known as the Rohingya ? sit in makeshift camps on the country’s west coast, close to the border with Bangladesh.

Also in recent weeks, Buddhist mobs have attacked Muslims in the center of Myanmar.

Maung Zarni, a fellow at the London School of Economics from Burma, says the US is playing a wider strategic game in Myanmar, which has in recent decades fallen under increasing Chinese influence, something he believes the US hopes to push back against.

?The USA is pursuing what it considers its ‘core interests’ in and around Burma at the expense of the Rohingya, the Kachin,? he says.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/tiimqMGa_gE/Burmese-optimistic-after-historic-White-House-visit

gran torino gloria steinem war of the worlds rock and roll hall of fame severe weather wichita brian wilson

In tragedy, consolation only goes so far

Posted by on May 22, 2013 No comment

By Jeff Greenfield

When John Kennedy Jr., son of the former president, died with his wife and sister-in-law in a plane crash in 1999, I heard a well-known televangelist assured us that ?this is all part of God?s plan.?

A few days later, I was part of CNN?s coverage of the funeral mass. We?d asked a young priest from the New York archdiocese to join us in explaining the ritual, and during a commercial break I asked him, ?do you think what happened is all part of God?s plan??

?Oh, no,? he said emphatically. ?This sucks.?

Every time a disaster like Monday?s tornado in Moore, Okla., strikes, I find myself wishing I had asked the priest that question on the air?and that he?d answered it in just that way.

When an act of nature?or for that matter, an act of evil, like the murder of twenty 6-year-olds in their elementary school–chills the soul, the search for consolation and some piece of wisdom or comfort is understandable. A victim pulled alive from the rubble of a massive earthquake is proclaimed ?a miracle!? At the funeral of a slain child, a mourner will say, ?God must have wanted another little angel.?

If such thoughts provide comfort to someone who has lost a loved one to the savagery of nature or man, well and good. For me–to borrow from novelist Joseph Heller?s ?Catch-22?– this is not the God I would like to believe in.

The Supreme Being I would sign up for would not prove his omnipotence by saving one life while ending dozens, or hundreds, or thousands. Nor would he summon an angel to heaven by ending a first grader?s life at the hands of a gunman or sadist.? Yes, I know that theologians have spent centuries pondering such questions, but most of the serious conversations have moved beyond the simplistic reassurance that ?everything happens for a reason.?

This is true in one sense. Tornado conditions are caused when different temperatures and humidity meet to form thunderclouds. Earthquakes occur when a sudden release of energy in the Earth?s crust crates seismic waves. Among human beings, forces ranging from mental illness to greed to fear to a remorseless taste for imposing suffering on others can cause people to do terrible things to one another.

This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love.

That is a harsh reality; so are many others. There are good people who are dealt a bad hand by fate, and bad people who live long, comfortable, privileged lives.? A small twist of fate can save or end a life; random chance is a permanent, powerful player in each of our lives, and in human history as well.

Does this mean there can be no consolation when a disaster like the Oklahoma tornado strikes? Of course not. We should celebrate every rescue; take heart from the heroism of a teacher who shielded half a dozen children with her body; honor the first responders and the volunteers who spend days and nights searching for survivors; and learn from such disasters to limit the death and destruction from the inevitable future disasters.

That?s what President Kennedy meant when he ended his 1961 inaugural address by reminding us that ?here on earth, God?s work must truly be our own.? The consolation we seek will be found not in the wishful thinking that everything happens for a reason, but in the hardheaded determination to do what we can in an uncertain world.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/in-tragedy–consolation-only-goes-so-far–172524045.html

guy fawkes gary johnson gary johnson where do i vote dixville notch Remember Remember The 5th Of November African painted dogs

Pope warns Church against closing in on itself

Posted by on May 21, 2013 No comment

By Catherine Hornby

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis warned the Catholic Church to not close in on itself at a Mass to mark Pentecost Sunday attended by more than 200,000 people, urging the faithful to be open and present in a new and changing world.

The Church should ask itself daily whether it is resisting new challenges and remaining “barricaded in transient structures which have lost their capacity for openness to what is new,” he said.

“Newness always makes us a bit fearful, because we feel more secure if we have everything under control,” Francis said in his homily in front of a packed St. Peter’s Square, adding that change can bring fulfillment.

The Pentecost Mass marks the day the Church says the Holy Spirit descended on Christ’s apostles, or disciples, and is regarded as the birthday of the Church.

Francis warned of the threat of an institution which is “self-referential, closed in on herself,” and spoke of the courage to “take to the streets of the world” and reach “the very outskirts of existence”.

Later he toured the square in an open-top white vehicle, greeting cheering crowds and kissing young children.

Since his election in March as the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Francis has been urging Church leaders to go out into their communities and help the poor and suffering, rather than focusing on internal politics.

Morale among the faithful has been hit by a widespread child sex abuse scandal involving Catholic priests and in-fighting and careerism in the Church government or curia.

The 76-year-old former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires has given clear signs he will bring a new broom to the papacy, favoring humility and simplicity over pomp and grandeur.

He has set up an advisory board of cardinals from around the world to help him reform a Vatican administration which has been held responsible for some of the mishaps and scandals that plagued the eight-year reign of his predecessor Benedict.

At a vigil on Saturday evening, Francis said Catholics must become courageous and seek out the people who need help the most rather than sitting around, dissecting theology.

(Reporting by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-warns-church-against-closing-itself-133121705.html

Snooki Baby terrell owens terrell owens neil armstrong little league world series us open tennis us open tennis

Huge tornado touches down near Oklahoma City

Posted by on May 21, 2013 No comment

Tornado damage seen in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. (KFOR-TV)

A devastating, mile-wide tornado touched down near Oklahoma City on Monday, leveling homes, businesses and schools in the suburb of Moore. There were no immediate reports of fatalities or injuries.

The funnel cloud could be seen for miles, creating a debris field several miles wide. Weather officials estimated the strength of the tornado to be an F4 or F5.

The Oklahoma House of Representatives canceled its afternoon sessions so lawmakers and staffers could take shelter, the Associated Press said.

The tornado comes a day after powerful storms ripped through the center of the country, spawning at least a dozen tornadoes, killing two people and causing extensive damage from Georgia to Minnesota.

According to the Oklahoma state medical examiner, the two victims in Sunday’s storms?Glen Irish, 79, and Billy Hutchinson, 76?were from hard-hit Shawnee. At least 39 other people were injured on Sunday, Oklahoma emergency management director Albert Ashwood said.

Watch live coverage of Monday’s tornado via Oklahoma City’s News 9:

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/tornado-oklahoma-city-moore-205548879.html

george clooney arrested ravi leigh espn greg oden st patricks day st. bonaventure