LONDON, England — U.S. President George W. Bush has alienated Muslims around the world by using absolutist Christian rhetoric to discuss foreign policy issues, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says. ‘I worked for two presidents who were men of faith, and they did not make their religious views part of American policy,’ she said, referring to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both Democrats and Christians. ‘President Bush’s certitude about what he believes in, and the division between good and evil, is, I think, different,’ said Albright, who has just published a book on religion and world affairs. ‘The absolute truth is what makes Bush so worrying to some of us.’ Bush, a Republican, has openly acknowledged his Christian faith informs his decisions as president. He says, for example, that he prayed to God for guidance before invading Iraq. Some Muslims have accused him of waging a crusade against Islam, comparable with those of the Middle Ages. The White House says it has nothing against Islam, but against those who commit terrorist atrocities in its name. But Albright says Bush’s religious absolutism has made U.S. foreign policy ‘more rigid and more difficult for other countries […]
In a pool of cold water in west Cumbria sit hundreds of metal flasks, silently oozing heat. Each contains enriched uranium removed from the reactors of nuclear power stations after use. It remains highly radioactive. Exposure to the contents of one flask would be followed quickly by death. There are 2,000 cubic metres of high-radiation nuclear waste in Britain, some kept in cooling pools near reactors but most stored at Sellafield. A terrorist attack here would be a disaster to dwarf the meltdown at Chernobyl two decades ago, says the campaign group Greenpeace. Two million people could die. Some people say this deadly waste should be fired into space. Others say bury it deep underground and wait tens of thousands of years for its radioactive strength to decay. But the people who matter, the ones who stop it from leaking and killing people, are waiting for the Government to tell them what to do. Or they were, before the rules changed. The Prime Minister surprised the nuclear industry last week by saying that its form of energy – underfunded for years, feared by many – was ‘back on the agenda with a vengeance’. Suddenly it is assumed […]
A surge in the number of volunteers fanning out across Arizona’s southern deserts to aid illegal immigrants is expected this summer. The increase comes despite the ongoing prosecution of two volunteers arrested last summer on federal charges they intentionally conspired to transport illegal entrants, leaders of illegal immigrant aid groups said. Shanti A. Sellz and Daniel M. Strauss, both 24, were arrested as they drove illegal entrants to a clinic on July 9 and face trial in October. Leaders of two faith-based groups, No More Deaths and Samaritan Patrol, say they’ve signed up hundreds of volunteers to deliver food, water and medical aid to migrants illegally walking into the country from Mexico. No More Deaths alone has 500 registered volunteers, up from 300 last summer. A third group, Humane Borders, puts water tanks in areas frequented by illegal migrants. The groups are trying to reach an agreement with the U.S. Border Patrol spelling out legal ways they can provide humanitarian aid to illegal migrants. The biggest issue is what to do when volunteers come across migrants they believe need immediate medical attention, the same situation that Sellz and Strauss contend led to their arrests. […]
If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn’t be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn’t have been allowed on the force. Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies ‘xenophobic,’ Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory. In the United States, only two posts – the presidency and vice presidency – are reserved for the native born. In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens. Foreign-born Mexicans can’t hold seats in either house of the congress. They’re also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico’s Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for ‘native-born Mexicans.’ Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs […]
WASHINGTON — The current migration of Mexicans and Central Americans to the United States is one of the largest diasporas in modern history, experts say. Roughly 10 percent of Mexico’s population of about 107 million is now living in the United States, estimates show. About 15 percent of Mexico’s labor force is working in the United States. One in every 7 Mexican workers migrates to the United States. Mass migration from Mexico began more than a century ago. It is deeply embedded in the history, culture and economies of both nations. The current wave began with Mexico’s economic crisis in 1982, accelerated sharply in the 1990s with the U.S. economic boom, and today has reached record dimensions. It is unlikely to ebb anytime soon. ‘There is no scenario outside of catastrophic attack on the United States that would make immigration stop,’ said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. The fierce immigration debate now under way in Congress focuses almost exclusively on the U.S. side of the equation. Senate legislation attempts to reduce the flow by hardening the border, sanctioning employers who hire illegal migrants, and expanding avenues for legal […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
