Page 885 – Toward Freedom

Catholic seminary review points to gay purge

Super User September 21, 2005 Super User

ROME – As Catholics await a ruling on whether homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood, Vatican investigators have been ordered to review each of the 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States for "evidence of homosexuality" and faculty members who dissent from church teaching.

Word of the review, known as an apostolic visitation, leaked out when a priest gave a document prepared to guide the process to The New York Times. Edwin O’Brien, archbishop for the U.S. military and the man supervising the review, confirmed the basic thrust when he told The National Catholic Register that "anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity or has strong homosexual inclinations" should not be admitted to a seminary, a restriction that should apply even to those who have not been sexually active for a decade or more. read more

Few journalist killings fully investigated

Super User September 21, 2005 Super User

NEW YORK – U.S. troops have killed 13 journalists since the war in Iraq began in March 2003. At least 40 more have died covering the conflict. According to an analysis published by the Committee to Protest Journalists, several of the 13 deaths suggest indifference by U.S. soldiers to the presence of civilians, including members of the press. It also charges that the military has failed to fully investigate or implement its own recommendations to improve media safety.

In most cases, the U.S. military has either failed to investigate journalists’ deaths or has not made its inquiries public, says the CPJ. The findings from the few investigations that have been released have not credibly addressed questions of accountability for shooting deaths, and whether U.S. forces are taking necessary measures to differentiate between combatants and civilians in conflict areas, the report charged. read more

Australia deports nonviolent activist

Super User September 21, 2005 Super User

SYDNEY – Texan Scott Parkin was deported from Australia last week after being deemed a threat to national security, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The activist had participated in protests against the Forbes CEO Conference in Sydney last month and was due to deliver a workshop on nonviolent protests when he was detained.

Parkin rejected government assertions that he was involved in violent political activity. "I am a student of mass social movements in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and I think that these movements have shown us the way to achieve positive social change," he said. read more

Venezuelan President Chavez’s Speech to the United Nations

President Hugo Chavez September 21, 2005 President Hugo Chavez

Your Excellencies, friends, good afternoon. The original purpose of this meeting has been completely distorted. The imposed center of debate has been a so-called reform process that overshadows the most urgent issues, what the peoples of the world claim with urgency: the adoption of measures that deal with the real problems that block and sabotage the efforts made by our countries for real development and life. Five years after the Millennium Summit, the harsh reality is that the great majority of estimated goals - which were very modest indeed - will not be met. We pretended reducing by half the 842 million hungry people by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be achieved by the year 2215. Who in this audience will be there to celebrate it? That is only if the human race is able to survive the destruction that threats our natural environment. We had claimed the aspiration of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be reached after the year 2100. Let us prepare, then, to celebrate it.

America the Greatest?

Steven G. Herbert September 20, 2005 Steven G. Herbert

In a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2004, President Bush referred to the United States as "the greatest country in the world". Certainly this is a sentiment that many Americans share, but what kind of objective basis is there behind the statement? It's time to take a closer look. Do we make the pronouncement because we are the wealthiest nation in the world? Based on Gross Domestic Product per capita, in 2003 we were not first but fourth. Luxembourg at $43,940 was considerably ahead of the US ($36,000) by a 17% margin. Norway and Switzerland were in between. Most of us believe we have the highest standard of living in the world. But according to the UN Human Development Report of 2004, their list of the world's most livable countries show the US in eighth place, four places behind Canada, and trailing Norway and Sweden in first and second place.

Labor and the Iraq War

Charlotte Dennett September 19, 2005 Charlotte Dennett

There's an old adage among investigative journalists: if you want to know what's really going on, ask the workers.

If you want to know what's really going on in Iraq - to American soldiers, to their families back home, to Iraqi women - read this column, and learn what I did at the historic AFL-CIO convention held this summer in Chicago.