VATICAN CITY — An Austrian pastor who has been quoted as calling Hurricane Katrina God’s punishment for sin in New Orleans is being promoted to the rank of bishop.
The Vatican announced Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI has tapped the Rev. Gerhard Wagner, 54, to be auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria. It made no mention of the reported remarks about Hurricane Katrina.
Wagner has served since 1988 as pastor of a church in the Austrian town of Windischgarsten and received a doctorate in theology from the prestigious Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome, the Vatican said.
In 2005, Wagner was quoted in a parish newsletter as saying that he was convinced that the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina earlier that year was “divine retribution” for New Orleans’ tolerance of homosexuals and laid-back sexual attitudes.
Kath.Net, a Catholic news agency in Austria, released in 2005 excerpts of what it said were comments Wagner made in a parish newsletter in Linz about Katrina.
It said the newsletter quoted Wagner as saying that Katrina destroyed not only nightclubs and brothels in New Orleans, but also abortion clinics.
“The conditions of immorality in this city are indescribable,” Wagner was quoted as saying.
Fatin al-Nassiri says Iraqi police told her the statue had to be removed from the orphanage in Tikrit because government property should not be used for something with a political bias.
She says the sofa-sized statue of a shoe was taken down on Saturday after being unveiled on Thursday.
Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi threw his shoes during a Dec. 14 news conference in Baghdad. Throwing shoes at someone is a sign of extreme contempt in Arab culture.
When the sculpture was unveiled, artist Laith al-Amari insisted it was not a political work, but a “source of pride for all Iraqis”. …
Mr Zaidi shot to fame as a result of his action, which signalled extreme contempt in the Arab world, and inspired rallies across the Middle East and beyond.
Since his arrest, the TV journalist has reportedly been beaten in custody, suffering a broken arm, broken ribs and internal bleeding.
He has been charged with aggression against a foreign head of state, and faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted. His family denies he has done anything wrong.
More than 100 people have been killed in civil unrest in Madagascar this week, the worst violence for years on the politically volatile Indian Ocean island, the US ambassador said yesterday.
Police had previously confirmed 44 deaths, with most of those in a store that was burnt during looting on Monday when an anti-government protest degenerated into violence.
“More than 100 are dead. I do not have exact figures,” Niels Marquardt, the ambassador, said. The Mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, has been spearheading a week of demonstrations and strikes against President Marc Ravalomanana’s government, which he accuses of turning Madagascar into a dictatorship.
The world’s fourth largest island, with a population of 20 million, has a history of instability. Its latest crisis will hurt efforts to attract tourists and foreign investors.
Supporters of Mr Rajoelina were planning another mass rally today. Analysts say the 34-year-old firebrand politician has galvanised popular frustration, and Mr Ravalomanana is facing a serious threat to his grip on power.
Mr Rajoelina has said he is ready to lead the country, and opposition parties backed him yesterday. The African Union, the United States and former ruler France have called for calm and talks between the feuding sides.
Mr Rajoelina said he would hold talks with the President if they focused on creating a new government. “I have been asked that they take place on Saturday and I have accepted,” he said.
Mr Ravalomanana, a 59-year-old self-made millionaire who started out hawking yoghurt on the capital’s streets, has said, however, that talks should be unconditional.
After a general strike on Thursday, a degree of normalcy returned to the capital yesterday.
Also on Thursday, the President fired without explanation the national police chief General Lucien Raharijaona.
“It is not impossible that the head of state is looking for someone who will obey him and oppose Rajoelina’s movement,” said one gendarme officer on condition of anonymity.
Ties between Mr Ravalomanana and Mr Rajoelina deteriorated when the government shut the mayor’s privately owned TV station in December.
Mr Ravalomanana has overseen a period of economic growth since coming to power in 2002. But many say he has not alleviated poverty.
Critics of Mr Ravalomanana accuse him of running the country like a private company, earning him the nickname “CEO of the Republic”.
SOLDIERS in a large military camp outside the Madagascan capital of Antananarivo mutinied on Sunday, after announcing that they would no longer take orders from the embattled government: here.
MADAGASCAR’S new leader scrapped a deal on Thursday under which South Korean corporation Daewoo was to lease over a million hectares of land on the island: here.
To jeer President Nicolas Sarkozy has become a serious offence, punishable by the sacking of any official who allows the boos to reach the presidential ears. The police chief and the most senior national government official in the Manche département (county) of lower Normandy have been fired in successive days, to the fury of local politicians, including members of M. Sarkozy’s own party.
The officials’ offence was to fail to shield the President from the boos and whistles of protesters when he made a speech in the town of Saint-Lô earlier this month. Their dismissal has fuelled a debate about President Sarkozy’s increasingly autocratic behaviour. Two high-profile ministers from ethnic minorities, appointed by M. Sarkozy to much fanfare in 2007, have been placed in the political deep-freeze by the President in recent weeks. Last year he ordered the firing of a successful Corsican police chief after nationalist protesters had invaded the garden of his friend, the actor Christian Clavier.
The latest victims of presidential pique are two recently-appointed officials who had overall responsibility for public order when M. Sarkozy visited lower Normandy to speak on education reform on 12 January. About 3,000 demonstrators protested. M. Sarkozy was furious the demonstrators had been allowed to come so near that he could hear them faintly.
nterview: JIM PAGE talks politics before he sets off on his latest tour.
When a singer-songwriter is described by leading US political folk singer David Rovics as “the greatest songwriter in the English language” and praised by the great Christy Moore as “a singer who gives me a glimmer of hope,” you know you’re dealing with a very special talent.
Jim Page was born and raised in California but is now settled in Seattle. He has been playing the guitar and writing songs since he was 15 years old, with over 35 years of performing and a string of over 19 releases behind him. …
One thing that exercises Page is the inability of many of his countrymen to see the effects of their actions and political choices on the outside world. His Collateral Damage CD, released in 2002, followed the tragic events of September 11 2001.
Page thinks that the US will not come to terms with what happened on that day until it takes responsibility for its actions. He has a clear, logical view of past crimes and mistakes and of the challenges ahead.
“We are always pretending to be the innocents,” he says.
“Our history is filled with conquest and expansion into other people’s homelands. Everybody knows that what is now the US was all Indian land. We killed them and took their stuff. Sometimes, they got really mad and we blamed them when they fought back. We used it as an excuse to take more land and kill more Indians. It’s the same thing here.
“That’s the tradition that George W Bush comes from. What we did after September 11 2001 was to get angry and go for blood. Bush got on his boots and his cowboy hat and led the charge. They killed a whole lot of people and redrew the political lines in that part of the world. …
“I think that, if we take this opportunity - the election of Barack Obama, that is - to think about who we are and what our effect in the world is, we could begin to get somewhere. It’ll be a long road, though.”
This video is called Hasta Siempre Comandante Che Guevara.
From British daily The Morning Star:
Latin leaders take the stage at forum
(Friday 30 January 2009)
SOUTH America’s leading socialists got a heroes’ welcome from 100,000 activists at the World Social Forum in the Amazon on Thursday as they demanded a humane alternative to global capitalism.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that the time has come for the world’s progressive forces to “leave the trenches,” propose solutions and “launch a political ideological offensive everywhere.”
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was showered with boisterous cheers as leaders took the stage in a cavernous convention centre for an evening rally that lasted more than six hours.
Mr da Silva said that the election of US President Barack Obama showed that the left was making progress.
“It is impossible to imagine that a country that 40 years ago shot Martin Luther King would today elect a black president,” he said, adding: “This means things are changing - not with the speed we want, but they are changing.”
Mr da Silva blasted former US president George W Bush, saying that the Iraq war would be his legacy and that his presidency served as a negative example for mankind.
“The world cannot elect any more presidents that do not listen to social movements, that do not listen to the people,” he said.
Earlier in the day, advocates for landless Brazilians gathered in a sweltering gymnasium and roared in approval as Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa belted out the Cuban classic Comandante Che Guevara.
ARGENTINA’S president issued a summons to the US ambassador on Thursday over CIA speculation that the global recession could destabilise progressive regional governments: here.
January 2009. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) of New York has released images from the first large-scale census of jaguars in the Amazon region of Ecuador-one of the world’s most biologically rich regions.
The ongoing census, which began in 2007, is working to establish baseline population numbers as oil exploration and subsequent development puts growing pressure on wildlife in Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park and adjacent Waorani Ethnic Reserve. Together, these two protected areas make up some 6,500 square miles (16,800 square kilometres) of wilderness.
Camera traps
The research is being carried out by a team led by WCS research fellow Santiago Espinosa. Espinosa’s team, which includes several members of the Waorani indigenous group, set up a complex system of “camera traps,” that photograph animals remotely when they trip a sensor that detects body heat. His work is being funded by WCS, WWF, and the University of Florida.
Other rare wildlife
So far the team has taken 75 pictures of jaguars, which can be individually identified through their unique pattern of spots. Other images show jaguar prey species, such as white-lipped peccaries, and other rarely seen species, including two pictures of a short-eared dog, a relative of foxes and wolves.
