Female Buddha Condemns Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama: A Tibet Fate Even Worse Than the Chinese Rule!

Tibet’s only female living Buddha, Samding Dorje Phagmo, who is also a top regional official, accused the Dalai Lama of violating Buddhist teachings, referring to the riots in Lhasa last month.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

The twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo said Tibet’s incorporation into Communist China has transformed it from the backwards feudal society of largely illiterate serfs with little medical care.

“Old Tibet was dark and cruel, the serfs lived worse than horses and cattle,” she told the official Xinhua agency.

The 66-year old woman was chosen as the incarnation of the deity Vajravarahi. Head of the Samding monastery, she is also a vice-chairwoman of the standing committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Regional People’s Congress, or regional parliament.

“Watching on television a tiny number of unscrupulous people burning and smashing shops, schools and public property, brandishing knives and sticks to attack unfortunate passers-by I felt boundless surprise, deep heartache and indignant resentment,” she said.

The Dalai Lama receives a Congressional Gold Medal from George W. Bush in 2007. Robert Byrd and Nancy Pelosi complete the picture.

China has accused the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, of plotting the riots and unrest that spread across many ethnic Tibetan parts of the country, in a bid to overshadow the Olympic Games and push for independence.

“The sins of the Dalai Lama and his followers seriously violate the basic teachings and precepts of Buddhism and seriously damage traditional Tibetan Buddhism’s normal order and good reputation,” the Samding Dorje Phagmo was quoted as saying.

Chakrasamvara wth Vajravarahi

The Dalai Lama rejects China’s claims, saying he supports the Olympic Games and seeks only greater autonomy for Tibet. (Source)

Related Notes:

1. In October 1998, The Dalai Lama’s administration acknowledged that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the U.S. Government through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and also trained a resistance movement in Colorado (USA).

2. British journalist Christopher Hitchens criticised Dalai Lama in 1998, questioned his alleged support for India’s nuclear weapons testing, his statements about sexual misconduct, his suppression of Shugden worship, as well as his meeting Shoko Asahara, whose cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system. (Source)

Related Links:

• Dalai Lama on CIA Payroll?
• What’s CIA up to with Dalai Lama?
• Declassified documents shed new light on American support to Dalai Lama
• Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
• The Dalai Lama’s hidden past

• “Democratic Imperialism”: Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy
• Michael Parenti discusses the myth of friendly … (a must watch interview on YouTube-using young boys as sex objects in the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries … rather like the Catholic church and sex abuse scandal).

• Sinking to the Criminal Depth of Hypocrisy

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Australian Gestapo Raid Journalist Office

Police ransack journalist’s office over article criticising government

Police hoods raided the offices of The Sunday Times this afternoon seeking documents concerning an article written by staff reporter Paul Lampathakis in February in which he criticized the Perth Labor government.

Mr Lampathakis had reported that 16 million dollars of taxpayers’ money had been allocated to the government election campaign.

Mr Lampathakis called the raid “an astounding attack on free speech” and told reporters that he was disgusted by what has happened.

“I was astounded actually. I assumed I was living in a democracy. Obviously my definition of democracy and their definition of democracy are two different things.

“The article pertained to public funds, taxpayer funds being used for politically based advertising.

“It’s an incredible attack on free speech. I would think taxpayer dollars being used for politically based advertising would be reporting in the public interest.”

According to a Sunday Times journalist, Bruce Butler, police also interviewed editor Sam Weir for about an hour.

Chris Warren from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance said: “To use police in this way, to go into a newsroom; to search a newsroom; to harass journalists to try to identify a confidential source is I think just an outrageous abuse of state power.”

Warming Affects Poor Children Most

Climate enhanced diseases could claim 20 percent more deaths among poor children

“Those who have contributed least to climate change - the world’s poorest children - are suffering the most,” said the director of Unicef UK.

Bangladeshi Children and adults move through a flood stricken area.
[Photo Credit: University of Alabama]

UNICEF report “Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility” says that increases in floods, droughts and insect-borne disease are affecting health, education and welfare of children in poor countries.

The environmental changes will expand the range and spread of deadly diseases like malaria, which already claims the lives of 800,000 children, and may increase the number of victims by about 20 percent. (Source)

Fueling Food Shortages

Fueling Food Shortages
By Ralph Nader

Where is Harry Chapin when you need him? The popular folk singer (Cat’s in the Cradle), who lost his life in an auto crash 27 years ago, was an indefatigable force of nature against hunger—in this country and around the world.

To hear Harry speak out against the scourge of hunger in a world of plenty was to hear informed passion that was relentless whether on Capitol Hill, at poverty conferences or at his concerts.

Now the specter of world hunger is looming, with sharply rising basic food prices and unnecessary food shortages sparking food riots in places like Haiti and Egypt. Officials with the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) are alarmed. The WFP has put out an emergency appeal for more funds, saying another 100 million humans have been thrown into the desperate hunger pits.

Harry would have been all over the politicians in Congress and the White House who, with their bellies full, could not muster the empathy to do something.

Directly under Bush and the Congress is the authority to reduce the biggest single factor boosting food prices—reversing the tax-subsidized policy of growing ever more corn to turn into fuel at the expense of huge acreages that used to produce wheat, soy, rice and other edibles.

Corn ethanol is a multifaceted monstrosity—radiating damage in all directions of the compass. Reducing acreage for edible crops has sparked a surge in the price of bread and other foodstuffs. Congress and Bush continue to mandate larger amounts of subsidized corn ethanol.

Republican Representative Robert W. Goodlatte says: “The mandate basically says [corn] ethanol comes ahead of food on your table, comes ahead of feed for livestock, comes ahead of grains available for export.”

Corn growing farmers are happy with a bushel coming in at $5 to $6—a record.

A subsidy-laden, once-every-five-years farm bill is winding its way through Congress. The bill keeps the “good-to-fuel” mandates that are expanding corn acreage and contributing to a rise of global food prices.

Of course, more meat diets in China, futures market speculation, higher prices for oil and some bad weather and poor food reserve planning have also contributed to shortages and higher prices.

But subsidized corn ethanol gets the first prize for policy madness. It not only damages the environment, soaks up the water from mid-west aquifers, scuttles set asides for soil conservation, but its net energy equation qualifies for collective insanity on Capitol Hill. To produce a gallon of ethanol from corn requires almost as much energy (mostly coal burning) as it produces.

Designed to alleviate oil imports, hold down gasoline prices and diminish greenhouse gases, corn ethanol has flopped on all three scores.

Princeton scholar Lester Brown, an early sounder of the alarm of global food shortages and higher prices, writes in Science Magazine “that the net impact of the food-to-fuel push will be an increase in global carbon emissions—and thus a catalyst for climate change.”

Can Congress change course and drop its farm subsidy of corn ethanol this year? Observers say, despite the growing calamities and the real risk of severe malnutrition, even starvation in Africa, Congress will do nothing.

Farm subsidies, once installed, are carved in stone—unless there is enough outcry from food consumers, taxpayers and environmentalists. They are paying from the pocketbook, from their taxes and health. That should be enough motivation, unless they need to see the distended stomachs of African and Asian children on the forthcoming television news.

Unless we wake up, we will continue to be a country stuck in traffic—in more ways than one.

Don’t rely on the election year political debates to pay attention to destructive corn ethanol programs. For years I have been speaking out against this boondoggle, while championing the small farmer in America, but no one in positions of Congressional leadership has been listening.

They must be waiting for the situation to get worse before they absorb a fraction of Harry Chapin’s empathy and care.

END.
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Iraq: That Expensive Hellhole of Genocide

Gen. George, “One-Eyed” Monster, the Pious Bastard Blair, Iraqi Genocide, Human and Monetary Costs

The three trillion dollar war: The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts have grown to staggering proportions ~ Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes

“The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion (that’s $5 million million, or £2.5 million million). With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today’s dollars) was less than $100,000 in 2007 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of $400,000 per troop.”

Illustration by Edward Sorel. Vanity Fair (Image may be subject to copyright.) See RTSF Fair Use Notice.

“As the fifth year of the war draws to a close, operating costs (spending on the war itself, what you might call “running expenses”) for 2008 are projected to exceed $12.5 billion a month for Iraq alone, up from $4.4 billion in 2003, and with Afghanistan the total is $16 billion a month. Sixteen billion dollars is equal to the annual budget of the United Nations, or of all but 13 of the US states. Even so, it does not include the $500 billion we already spend per year on the regular expenses of the Defense Department. Nor does it include other hidden expenditures, such as intelligence gathering, or funds mixed in with the budgets of other departments.” (Source)

War On Iraq: The Costs

• Number of Iraqis Committed to Genocide Since the U.S. Invasion in 2003: 1,201,597 (April 23, 2008 )

• Number of Iraqis wounded: UNKNOWN

• Number of U.S. Military Personnel Used as Cannon Fodder (Officially acknowledged) In America’s War On Iraq: 4,050
• As above, but in Afghanistan : 494

• Other Coalition Troops deaths: 309

• Number of foreign mercenaries killed and wounded in Iraq: UNKNOWN

• Total US Iraq War Casualties Plus Soldiers Evacuated: 65,137 ( as of 2/29/08 )
  

• Number of US troops suffering brain injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan wars: 320,000

• Direct Cost of the War And Occupation Of Iraq: $513,962,467,113
  See the cost in your community

• Total Cost of US War On Iraq: $3,000,000,000,000 (three million million dollars)

Related Links:

• The three trillion dollar war
• Pelosi Wants ‘Rwanda-Like Genocide’ in Iraq, Expert Says
• 2 million+ deaths in Iraqi Holocaust, Genocide
• Another genocidal murderer in the making: Hillary Clinton threatens to obliterate Iran
• The Three Trillion Dollar War (Video report)

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I feel your pain, Pope tells abuse victims [but the charade must go on!]

Pope: Sinful shepherds have brought suffering to their faithful flocks [of sheeple]

Pope acknowledged in a Mass at Washington’s just-opened Nationals Park baseball stadium that pedophile priests had brought “pain and harm” to many parishes.

“No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention,” he said. “Nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the church.”

Thousands of pedophile priests have molested minors in the US since 1950, and the church has paid more than $2 billion in damages.

Below: Wolfgang und der Teufel (”Saint Wolfgang and the Devil”) panel of Pacher’s Kirchenväteraltar (”Fathers of the Church” altarpiece, c. 1483), on display at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Your church is now ready, Wolfgang. Here are the rules, again:

1. Smite everyone who has a different religion because we don’t want the flocks going around wondering why there are so many shepherds!
2. Slay all the indigenous people in the world because that’s how we can suppress spirituality, eliminate sustainable lifestyles and ensure “end times!” Besides, wee need their lands.
3. Torture and burn all of their intellectuals at stake because we don’t like anyone asking questions or sowing the seeds of doubt in the sheeple’s mind!
4. Forbid the flocks to plan their family and encourage them to f*ck like rabbits. The more children the merrier!
5. Sodomize all of their children because that’s the only way we can ensure there would be enough new recruits in every generation to perpetuate the lie.

Oh, and don’t worry about paying off damages. I’ll provide an endless supply of money . . .

Mass Murder in Gaza Strip Continues

At least 20 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian fatalities included at least five children and a Reuters cameraman. Three Israel soldiers were also killed.

Reuters said that their cameramen, Fadel Shana, was killed by a direct hit from an Israeli tank shell. the Footage from Shana’s camera showed an Israeli tank firing a shell in his direction, before the image went blank.
territories
Reuters report concerning the cause of Shana’s death was confirmed by an autopsy which determined Shana suffered fatal injuries consistent with the darts scattered by “flechette” tank shells from an Israeli tank.

Another Race Murder in New Zealand?

Why do foreigners have the annoying habit of getting themselves killed in New Zealand?

The man whose body was found in the Waikato River is identified by New Zealand police.

He was 17-year-old Tianye LU, a Chinese national.

As expected, New Zealand police said, “there were no suspicious circumstances linked to Mr Lu’s death.” Report

Does it matter to the Chinese Government that its citizens are being killed ['found dead'] in new Zealand rivers and on NZ roads, or do they have more important business to take care of?

Related Links:

• About New Zealand

• Racist killings in New Zealand

• NZ Tourism Claims More Victims

BAE Systems Al Yamamah Arms Bribery

Update: May 19, 2008 - BAE chief subpoenaed in U.S.

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CAAT and the Corner House Win Judicial Review!

Dear Supporter,

We are delighted to be able to bring you the news that along with The Corner House we have WON our Judicial Review! The High Court has this morning ruled that the Government acted unlawfully when it curtailed a corruption investigation into BAE Systems’ Al Yamamah arms deals with Saudi Arabia. The full text of the judgment, as well as the judges’ summary and our press release is available on our website http://www.caat.org.uk.

As a result of this judgment the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will have to reconsider the decision to end the investigation. We are calling on Gordon Brown to make a commitment that there will be NO FURTHER GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE.

The Corrupt Saudi Royals

Background: A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.

All that BAE has ever rejected is any suggestion that the commission payments were illegal - Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States, meets George W. Bush in August 2002

Background: Bandar helped negotiate the 1985 Al Yamamah deal, a series of massive arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia worth GB£40 billion (US$80 billion), including the sale of more than 100 warplanes. After the deal was signed, British arms manufacturer British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) allegedly funneled secret payments of at least GB£1 billion (US$2 billion) into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington, in yearly installments of up to GB£120 million (US$240 million) over at least 10 years. Bandar allegedly took money for personal use out of the accounts, as the purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the operating expenses of the prince’s private Airbus A340. According to investigators, there was “no distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts [...], and the accounts of the royal family.” The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office investigation, which was stopped in December 2006 by attorney general Lord Goldsmith.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: A War Criminal!

We need your help!

- Please sign our petition urging Gordon Brown to make a commitment that there will be no further government interference into the SFO’s investigation into the Al Yamamah arms deals. The petition can be found at this link http://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/controlBAE/petition/petition.php .
We will be sending the petition to the Prime Minister next week so please sign it and forward it to friends as soon as you can.

Related Links:

• Arrest Abdullah, He Is a War Criminal

Corn for Food, NOT for Fuel

“We are hungry!”

Food riots have broken out in Port Au Prince, Haiti, due to soaring food prices. The violent clashes that have paralyzed the city left 5 people dead.

In El Salvador, sky-high food prices, especially corn, the staple diet of South America, led to protests. Women took to the streets banging their pots and pans, shouting “we are hungry!” Video report

Related Links:

• Riots across Egypt amid rising food prices

Poverty, Hunger, Disease

Image based on CIA world map showing percentage of population living below their national poverty line. Right click on the image, then click View Image to see original. (Image Credit: user:Sbw01f via Wikimedia; GNU Free Documentation License)

Country In Focus
India: A soul-sick nation with a diseased psyche that spends billions of dollars on its military and nuclear armament, instead of her people!

Democracy and Freedom [sic.] Indian Style: Women washing clothes in a filthy ditch alongside a main road in Mumbai, India. This file is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Brazil License Este arquivo está licenciado sob a Licença Creative Commons Atribuição licença 2.5 Brasil. This photograph was produced by Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency. Their site states: O conteúdo deste site é publicado sob a licença Creative Commons Atribuição 2.5 Brasil (Content of this site is published under the Creative Commons License Attribution 2.5 Brazil)

Main Entry:

Food Riots Grip Egypt, Haiti, El Salvador