At no previous moment in world history has the gap between the rich and poor been as wide as today. As an important, newly-released report reveals, this growing class divide exists in virtually every nation on earth.

A 2006 study by the World Institute for Development Economic Research of the United Nations University, establishes that as of 2000, the upper 1 percent of the globe’s adult population, approximately 37 million people, who average about $515,000 in net worth per person, and collectively control roughly 40 percent of the world’s entire wealth. By contrast, the bottom one-half of the planet’s adult population, 1.85 billion people, most of whom are black and brown, own only 1.1 percent of the world’s total wealth. There is tremendous inequality of wealth between nations, the U.N. report notes.

Dear Friend,

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Throughout 2006, Tamil people made a constant and consistent appeal for permanent peace in the island. They hoped that through the full implementation of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) this can and will be achieved. Mirroring their hopes, LTTE too repeatedly appealed for the full implementation of the same.

On October 28 in his opening speech at the Geneva talks Tamilselvan said, "We request the international community, the Co-Chairs and the Norwegian facilitators to act to ensure one hundred percent the implementation of the CFA and the strengthening the role of the SLMM. We are confident that such actions will bring normalcy in the lives of our people, and help in taking forward the peace process towards a satisfactory conclusion".

On 22 December following a meeting with Norwegian Special Envoy, Jan Hansen Bauer, LTTE again appealed in a press statement, "If permanent peace is the desired outcome, the CFA signed by both parties and backed by the Norwegians, and the international community must be implemented 100%".

On New Year’s Eve, from 6 to 7 pm, dozens of Toledoans will mark the terrible total of U.S. deaths in Iraq by silently holding 3,000 lights on Summit St., between Jefferson and Madison.

"We hold three thousand lights to give that number a visual impact but how can anyone visualize tens of thousands of wounded and the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis?" asked Mary Anthony, a Toledo member of Military Families Speak Out.  Her son will return to Iraq in February for his second deployment.

Anthony added that "This New Year, the NW Ohio Peace Coalition and peace activists all over the country resolve to escalate our demands on Congress to end the occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home now.  And that means Congress must cut off funding for this war."

When Representative Marcy Kaptur’s returns to her Toledo office, members of NWOPC will take the 3,000 lights to her asking that she take them to Washington with this message: "This is what 3,000 looks like.  Bring our troops home.  Stop the deaths.  Stop the funding!"

With Jimmy Carter's book a best seller and the Iraq War a top political concern, many Americans may have an interest right now in thinking about Israel and Palestine.  I'd like to recommend to anyone with that interest picking up a copy of a short and brilliant book by the British philosopher Ted Honderich called "Right and Wrong and Palestine, 9-11, Iraq, 7-7." 

"7-7," for Americans who haven't memorized that number, is the date of the terrorist attack in London's subway.  Honderich addresses ethical questions raised by the four topics in his title, but does so after laying out a general understanding of the philosophy of ethics.  In fact, it is on page 114 of a 247-page book that he finally gets around to a preliminary discussion of the definition of terrorism and on page 131 that he first touches on the four topics named.  The preceding pages may, however, be the most valuable portion of his book.

Prof Dan Tokaji Drops Pro-DRE litigation as Moot, Calls VVPAT "Fool's Gold" says Congress should "Take a Breath" on Further Legislation

Prof./Lawyer Dan Tokaji is lead counsel in the most potentially damaging elections case in America (Stewart v Blackwell, 6th Cir.)  and he is also arguably the chief legal conjurer for a world of DRE technology, having sued on behalf of the ACLU in this case to require DREs and have them held constitutional while having paper-based punchcards and central count optical scans held unconstitutional on account of their relative residual vote rates (defined as overvotes plus undervotes). 

NEW YORK (December 29, 2006) – The Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s Wall Street Project celebrates its 10th anniversary as a force for economic justice and equal opportunity with a gala reception from 7 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, January 10, at the United Nations Headquarters, First Avenue at 46th Street, New York City.

The reception brings to a close the 10th Annual Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project Economic Summit, to be held Jan. 7-10, 2007, at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers, 811 7th Ave. at 53rd Street in midtown Manhattan. For more information regarding the economic summit go to www.wallstreetproject.org.

“When we originated the Wall Street Project a decade ago, our goal was to bring Wall Street to Main Street, broadening economic opportunities nationwide,” said Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., founder and President of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “Today, the dominant force in business is globalization, and the Wall Street Project, accordingly, is expanding its scope to highlight the worldwide need for access to economic opportunity.”

If anyone thinks that there is anything high minded, noble, patriotic or praiseworthy about what Dick Cheney and the Cons engineered in Iraq, they should sign up for SSI disability because they lost all brain function.

First, the 9-11 crock complete with Pearl Harbor hystrionic and media manipulation is about as credible as an invasion of purple space aliens off the Long Island Sound. That was engineered to support the fear based hellacious pretext for a world war of crusade proportion with the wierd conflation of the alleged terrorism of a secular country wholly unrelated to that still floating around nomad named Bin Laden.

Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.
President
International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

Since its declaration of independence in 1776, the United States has been involved in many wars. Several books were written in this regard including an elaborate pictorial book, Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism by Dr. Joel Andreas who teaches in John Hopkins University in Baltimore. This pictorial book is also available in Spanish and has been translated into Japanese, Korean, Thai, Danish, and German in addition to other languages. More information from: www.addictedtowar.com or www.akpress.org

Military Held as Top Priority

The pardon of Richard Nixon by President Gerald Ford started this nation on the path that eventually gave us the Constitutional abuses of George W Bush. The current media frenzy supporting the pardon is both simplistic and illogical.

Ford pardoned Nixon before Nixon was brought to trial or convicted. The rule of law was ignored in favor of a double-standard where Presidents were not held accountable for law-breaking. The illegal activities of Nixon in the political sphere were an assault on American Democracy and should have been severely punished. Because of Ford’s outrageous pardon, Right-wing Republicans never understood how un-American the tactics of Nixon were. The current national Republican leadership is still Nixonian to their core!

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