Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
Our Passion is to reach our individual and collective potential-Always!
Dear Patriotic Global Citizens and Friends of African Union and Ethiopia: the mother of humanity!
Wishing you a blessed season of festivities and European New Year!
It is becoming an integrated world day by day with all the challenges and opportunities it offers!
Good will as well as evil is being integrated across the world, and always! leaving us with a hard choice! To integrate or not to integrate with the rest of the world.
A lot can be said about both sides of the argument. The Shabia terrorists chose to integrate only with evil whereas their neighbors in Ethiopia to integrate with good will and good governance. The results are showing with the recent verdict of the UN Security Council.
What is the role of sovereignty? If the sovereignty does not bring food, shelter, business enterprises or more ideally, the pursuit of happiness, what ever happiness is for each individual and community.
After watching 2012 with my teen daughter over the weekend, I was more convinced that we are more integrated than we think, as the planet is one land mass covered by a huge water body that is threatened from time to time by the molten metals at the core of the earth, which send all the toxic gases, waves and volcanoes and these natural forces like the people who live on them do not have artificial boundaries.
We are all interconnected. The secret is how do we share the resources of the earth at our disposal? The progressives tell us then can distribute it to us evenly so long as we keep them in office and give them the sole right to do so. The conservatives tell us it is individual freedom that matters, and Greed can be a great force for wealth creation, which will trickle down to the poor eventually.
The attached story is a telling reminder of what can happen when you lease land to outsiders without consulting the local population. Remember: We lost Djibouti to the French and now the Americans after the loony Junta forgot to read the 99 year lease and supported by the loony communists did not even bargain the so called independence in 1977.
Then comes another loony group which claimed the whole Red Sea coast is an Arabian Sea and Penninsula and look what we have got. A real living hell and prison of all the population with no recourse to justice!
Now, Gambella is on its way. Can some one share with us the lease documents for 84 years and what it means and whether, India can eventually claim it as its new nations and nationalities of Indo-Gambela?
It is interesting that the world is investing in China for manufacturing, in India for services and Africa for food.
That is exactly what European Industrial Revolutionaries told us, when they thought Africa will be a great place for investment to fuel their upcoming industries.
Remember what transpired, some 600 years of slavery and we just got our first African American President. The pain, degradation and dispossession still continues in the Ghetto culture that emanated. Our own children in Chicago and around the US are victims of this great dehumanizing culture. We are still 3/5 humans in the US Constitution, even though Ardi has prov en without doubt that we are all Ethiopians and Africans.
Let us integrate, but in fairness, in justice and always with Good Governance of Stake holder's transparency and accountability.
Ethiopia has to lead as she has done at the Tekezie Hydro Electric Plant and Global Ecological Summit by demanding good governance in the investment protocol that the BRICs are rushing for.
May we empower every citizen to share in the decision making of its communities in the year 2010! The May 2010 elections should be about such issues of Soverignty where each individual is the Sovereign King and Queen of his neighborhood.
with regards and seeking your alternative perspectives
Dr B
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aeuJT_pSE68c
Bloomberg
December 30, 2009
Ethiopian Farms Lure Investor Funds as Workers Live in Poverty
Jason McLure
Until last year, people in the Ethiopian settlement of Elliah earned a living by farming their land and fishing. Now, they are employees.
Dozens of women and children pack dirt into bags for palm seedlings along the banks of the Baro River, seedlings whose oil will be exported to India and China. They work for Bangalore- basedKaruturi Global Ltd., which is leasing 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of local land, an area larger than Luxembourg.
The jobs pay less than the World Bank’s $1.25-per-day poverty threshold, even as the project has the potential to enrich international investors with annual earnings that the company expects to exceed $100 million by 2013.
“My business is the third wave of outsourcing,” Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, the 44-year-old managing director of Karuturi Global, said at the company’s dusty office in the western town of Gambella. “Everyone is investing in China for manufacturing; everyone is investing in India for services. Everybody needs to invest in Africa for food.”
Companies and governments are buying or leasing African land after cereals prices almost tripled in the three years ended April 2008. Ghana, Madagascar, Mali and Ethiopia alone have approved 1.4 million hectares of land allocations to foreign investors since 2004, according to the International Institute for Environment and Development in London.
Emergent Asset Management Ltd.’s African Agricultural Land Fund opened last year. On Nov. 23, Moscow-based Pharos Financial Advisors Ltd. and Dubai-based Miro Asset Management Ltd.announced the creation of a $350 million private equity fund to invest in agriculture in developing countries.
‘Last Frontier’
“African agricultural land is cheap relative to similar land elsewhere; it is probably the last frontier,” saidPaul Christie, marketing director at Emergent Asset Management in London. The hedge fund manager has farm holdings in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
“I am amazed it has taken this long for people to realize the opportunities of investing in African agriculture,” Christie said.
Monsoon Capital of Bethesda, Maryland, and Boston-based Sandstone Capital are among the shareholders of Karuturi Global, Karuturi said. The company is also the world’s largest producer of roses, with flower farms in India, Kenya and Ethiopia.
One advantage to starting a plantation 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the border with war-torn Southern Sudan and a four- day drive to the nearest port: The land is free. Under the agreement with Ethiopia’s government, Karuturi pays no rent for the land for the first six years. After that, it will pay 15 birr (U.S. $1.18) per hectare per year for the next 84 years.
More Elsewhere
Land of similar quality in Malaysia and Indonesia would cost about $350 per hectare per year, and tracts of that size aren’t available in Karuturi Global’s native India, Karuturi said.
Labor costs of less than $50 a month per worker and duty- free treaties with China and India also attracted Karuturi Global, he said. The $100 million projected annual profit will come from the export of food crops, including corn, rice and palm oil, he said. The company also is plowing land on a 10,900- hectare spread near the central Ethiopian town of Bako.
The project will give the government revenue from corporate income taxes and from future leases, as well as from job creation, said Omod Obang Olom, president of Ethiopia’s Gambella region and an ally of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling party.
“This strategy will build up capitalism,” he said in an interview in Gambella. “The message I want to convey is there is room for any investor. We have very fertile land, there is good labor here, we can support them.” The government plans to allot 3 million hectares, or about 4 percent of its arable land, to foreign investors over the next three years.
Surprised Workers
Workers in Elliah say they weren’t consulted on the deal to lease land around the village, and that not much of the money is trickling down.
At a Karuturi site 20 kilometers from Elliah, more than a dozen tractors clear newly burned savannah for a corn crop to be planted in June. Omeud Obank, 50, guards the site 24 hours a day, six days a week. The job helps support his family of 10 on a salary of 600 birr per month, more than the 450 birr he earned monthly as a soldier in the Ethiopian army.
Obank said it isn’t enough to adequately feed and clothe his family.
“These Indians do not have any humanity,” he said, speaking of his employers. “Just because we are poor it doesn’t make us less human.”
One Meal
Obang Moe, a 13-year-old who earns 10 birr per day working part-time in a nursery with 105,000 palm seedlings, calls her work “a tough job.” While the cash income supplements her family’s income from their corn plot, she said that many days they still only have enough food for one meal.
The fact that the project is based on a wage level below the World Bank’s poverty limit is “quite remarkable,” said Lorenzo Cotula, a researcher with the London-based IIED.
Large-scale export-oriented plantations may keep farmers from accessing productive resources in countries such as Ethiopia, where 13.7 million people depend on foreign food aid, according to a June report by Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food. It called for ensuring that revenue from land contracts be “sufficient to procure food in volumes equivalent to those which are produced for exports.”
Karuturi said his company pays its workers at least Ethiopia’s minimum wage of 8 birr, and abides by Ethiopia’s labor and environmental laws.
‘Easily Exploitable’
“We have to be very, very cognizant of the fact that we are dealing with people who are easily exploitable,” he said, adding that the company will create up to 20,000 jobs and has plans to build a hospital, a cinema, a school and a day-care center in the settlement. “We’re going to have a very healthy township that we will build. We are creating jobs where there were none.”
The project may help cover part of the $44 billion a year that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says must be invested in agriculture in poor nations to halve the number of the world’s hungry people by 2015.
“We keep saying the big problem is, you need investment in African agriculture; well here are a load of guys who for whatever reason want to invest,” David Hallam, deputy director of the FAO’s trade and markets division, said in an interview in Rome. “So the question is, is it possible to sort of steer it toward forms of investment that are going to be beneficial?”
Buntin Buli, a 21-year-old supervisor at the nursery who earns 600 birr a month, said he hopes Karuturi will use some of its earnings to improve working conditions and provide housing and food. “Otherwise we would have been better off working on our own lands,” he said. “This is a society that has been very primitive. We want development.”
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8435266.stm
BBC
December 30, 2009
Somali man 'tried to take bomb onto plane'
A Somali man is in custody in Mogadishu, suspected of trying to take explosives onto a plane in November, officials have revealed.
He had chemicals, liquid and a syringe - materials similar to those used by the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane on Christmas Day.
The Daallo Airlines plane was due to fly to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. The airport is in one of the few areas controlled by the Somali government.
Much of the country is in the hands of radical Islamist groups, accused of links to al-Qaeda. 'Red-handed'
But this is the first time that an attempt to blow up a commercial flight in Somalia has been reported.
"We don't know whether he's linked with al-Qaeda or other foreign organisations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise told the Associated Press news agency.
Despite the lack of law and order in Somalia, there are daily flights to neighbouring countries such as Djibouti and Kenya. The African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia works with the government on security in the Mogadishu airport.
US officials have learned about the Somali case and are investigating any possible links with the attempted attack in Detroit, AP reports.
Somalia has not had an effective national government for almost 20 years.
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http://www.fews.net/docs/Publications/ET_12_2009_%20OL%20Alert_final.pdf
December 30, 2009
Complete document, with figures: http://www.fews.net/docs/Publications/ET_12_2009_%20OL%20Alert_final.pdf
ETHIOPIA Food Security Alert December 30, 2009
Food security projected to deteriorate further in 2010
Poor performance of the June to September rains has resulted in below‐normal harvests inmeher‐cropping areas as well as poor water availability and pasture regeneration in northern pastoral zones.
This, combined with two consecutive poor belg cropping seasons (March‐May), high staple food prices, poor livestock production, and reduced agricultural wages, is expected to drive elevated food insecurity over the coming six months (Figures 1 and 2).
This follows high levels of food insecurity in 2009. Areas of particular concern are eastern marginal cropping areas in Tigray, Amhara, and Oromia, pastoral areas of Afar and northern and southeastern Somali region, Gambella region, and most low‐lying areas of southern and central SNNPR.
In most areas of the country, food insecurity during the first half of 2010 is projected to be significantly worse than during the same period in 2009 (Figures 3 and 4).
However, improved food aid distribution and trade flows, along with recent rainfall, will benefit pastoral populations in southern and eastern Somali region. Food security in eastern marginal cropping areas will likely deteriorate even further between July and September 2010. Overall, humanitarian assistance needs are expected to be very high.
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc. 4 Peace & Prosperity
Win-win synergestic Partnership 4P&P-focusing on
5Es: Education+Energy+Ecology+Economy+Enterprises
www.Globalbelai4u.blogspot.com; Globalbelai@yahoo.com
V: 571.225.5736; C: 703.933.8737; F: 703.531.0545
Our Passion is to reach our Individual and Collective Potential
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Peace and Security Speech by President Barack Obama at Oslo, Norway Nobel Peace Award
Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
Dear Patriotic Global Citizens and Friends of African Union and Ethiopia
The Nobel Peace Award Receipient Speech at Oslo, Norway is considered the new Obama Doctrine of Peace and Security for the 21st Century.
A balancing act between War and Peace or a new understanding of the concept of Peace and Security where Peace is a pro-active and pre-emptive strategy of security and well being.
The timing, the audience and at last the perspective is critical for all peace loving people to understand as we are entering a new World Order which is now being cristalized after ten years of the end of the Cold War. In fact, the Cold War ended and a new World Order appears to be emerging.
There will be alternative agenda being drafted with the Global Climate Change and Global Economic Crisis, but the War and Peace efforts in terms of actual battle ground is now clearly defined.
Yet, the Economic and Ecologic battle ground is yet to be defined. The question is will it follow President's Obama unfolding Foreign Policy or will it be more guided by Preventing Poverty, terror and global ciimate change.
Time will tell, and yet we need to proactively seek improving situatioins for all of our where our individual and collective potential is realized always!
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release December 10, 2009 Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize
Oslo City Hall
Oslo, Norway
1:44 P.M. CET
THE PRESIDENT: Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:
I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations -- that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.
And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. (Laughter.) In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who've received this prize -- Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela -- my accomplishments are slight.
And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women -- some known, some obscure to all but those they help -- to be far more deserving of this honor than I.
But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries -- including Norway -- in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.
Still, we are at war, and I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.
Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease -- the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.
And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a "just war" emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.
Of course, we know that for most of history, this concept of "just war" was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God.
Wars between armies gave way to wars between nations -- total wars in which the distinction between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this continent. And while it's hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.
In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another world war. And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations -- an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize -- America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons.
In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty and self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.
And yet, a decade into a new century, this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.
Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states -- all these things have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today's wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred.
I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies.
Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.
But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions -- not just treaties and declarations -- that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.
The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.
So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another -- that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier's courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.
So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly inreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." A gradual evolution of human institutions.
What might this evolution look like? What might these practical steps be?
To begin with, I believe that all nations -- strong and weak alike -- must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I -- like any head of state -- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do, and isolates and weakens those who don't.
The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense. Likewise, the world recognized the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait -- a consensus that sent a clear message to all about the cost of aggression.
Furthermore, America -- in fact, no nation -- can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don't, our actions appear arbitrary and undercut the legitimacy of future interventions, no matter how justified.
And this becomes particularly important when the purpose of military action extends beyond self-defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor. More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.
I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.
America's commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come.
The leaders and soldiers of NATO countries, and other friends and allies, demonstrate this truth through the capacity and courage they've shown in Afghanistan. But in many countries, there is a disconnect between the efforts of those who serve and the ambivalence of the broader public.
I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That's why NATO continues to be indispensable. That's why we must strengthen U.N. and regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few countries. That's why we honor those who return home from peacekeeping and training abroad to Oslo and Rome; to Ottawa and Sydney; to Dhaka and Kigali -- we honor them not as makers of war, but of wagers -- but as wagers of peace.
Let me make one final point about the use of force. Even as we make difficult decisions about going to war, we must also think clearly about how we fight it. The Nobel Committee recognized this truth in awarding its first prize for peace to Henry Dunant -- the founder of the Red Cross, and a driving force behind the Geneva Conventions.
Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength.
That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. (Applause.) And we honor -- we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it is hard.
I have spoken at some length to the question that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me now turn to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.
First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior -- for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure -- and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.
One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In the middle of the last century, nations agreed to be bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work towards disarmament. I am committed to upholding this treaty. It is a centerpiece of my foreign policy. And I'm working with President Medvedev to reduce America and Russia's nuclear stockpiles.
But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.
The same principle applies to those who violate international laws by brutalizing their own people. When there is genocide in Darfur, systematic rape in Congo, repression in Burma -- there must be consequences. Yes, there will be engagement; yes, there will be diplomacy -- but there must be consequences when those things fail. And the closer we stand together, the less likely we will be faced with the choice between armed intervention and complicity in oppression.
This brings me to a second point -- the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.
It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.
And yet too often, these words are ignored. For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists -- a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.
I reject these choices. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests -- nor the world's -- are served by the denial of human aspirations.
So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran.
It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements -- these movements of hope and history -- they have us on their side.
Let me also say this: The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach -- condemnation without discussion -- can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.
In light of the Cultural Revolution's horrors, Nixon's meeting with Mao appeared inexcusable -- and yet it surely helped set China on a path where millions of its citizens have been lifted from poverty and connected to open societies. Pope John Paul's engagement with Poland created space not just for the Catholic Church, but for labor leaders like Lech Walesa.
Ronald Reagan's efforts on arms control and embrace of perestroika not only improved relations with the Soviet Union, but empowered dissidents throughout Eastern Europe. There's no simple formula here. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.
Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights -- it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.
It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can't aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.
And that's why helping farmers feed their own people -- or nations educate their children and care for the sick -- is not mere charity. It's also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement -- all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action -- it's military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance.
Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All these are vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more -- and that's the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there's something irreducible that we all share.
As the world grows smaller, you might think it would be easier for human beings to recognize how similar we are; to understand that we're all basically seeking the same things; that we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some measure of happiness and fulfillment for ourselves and our families.
And yet somehow, given the dizzying pace of globalization, the cultural leveling of modernity, it perhaps comes as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish in their particular identities -- their race, their tribe, and perhaps most powerfully their religion. In some places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even feels like we're moving backwards. We see it in the Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden. We see it in nations that are torn asunder by tribal lines.
And most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war.
For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint -- no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of one's own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe it's incompatible with the very purpose of faith -- for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. For we are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best of intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.
But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached -- their fundamental faith in human progress -- that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith -- if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace -- then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. (Applause.)
Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he's outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school -- because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child's dreams.
Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END
2:20 P.M. CET
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Dear Patriotic Global Citizens and Friends of African Union and Ethiopia
The Nobel Peace Award Receipient Speech at Oslo, Norway is considered the new Obama Doctrine of Peace and Security for the 21st Century.
A balancing act between War and Peace or a new understanding of the concept of Peace and Security where Peace is a pro-active and pre-emptive strategy of security and well being.
The timing, the audience and at last the perspective is critical for all peace loving people to understand as we are entering a new World Order which is now being cristalized after ten years of the end of the Cold War. In fact, the Cold War ended and a new World Order appears to be emerging.
There will be alternative agenda being drafted with the Global Climate Change and Global Economic Crisis, but the War and Peace efforts in terms of actual battle ground is now clearly defined.
Yet, the Economic and Ecologic battle ground is yet to be defined. The question is will it follow President's Obama unfolding Foreign Policy or will it be more guided by Preventing Poverty, terror and global ciimate change.
Time will tell, and yet we need to proactively seek improving situatioins for all of our where our individual and collective potential is realized always!
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release December 10, 2009 Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize
Oslo City Hall
Oslo, Norway
1:44 P.M. CET
THE PRESIDENT: Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:
I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations -- that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.
And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. (Laughter.) In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who've received this prize -- Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela -- my accomplishments are slight.
And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women -- some known, some obscure to all but those they help -- to be far more deserving of this honor than I.
But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries -- including Norway -- in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.
Still, we are at war, and I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.
Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease -- the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.
And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a "just war" emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.
Of course, we know that for most of history, this concept of "just war" was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God.
Wars between armies gave way to wars between nations -- total wars in which the distinction between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this continent. And while it's hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.
In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another world war. And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations -- an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize -- America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons.
In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty and self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.
And yet, a decade into a new century, this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.
Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states -- all these things have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today's wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred.
I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies.
Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.
But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions -- not just treaties and declarations -- that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.
The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.
So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another -- that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier's courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.
So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly inreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." A gradual evolution of human institutions.
What might this evolution look like? What might these practical steps be?
To begin with, I believe that all nations -- strong and weak alike -- must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I -- like any head of state -- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do, and isolates and weakens those who don't.
The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense. Likewise, the world recognized the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait -- a consensus that sent a clear message to all about the cost of aggression.
Furthermore, America -- in fact, no nation -- can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don't, our actions appear arbitrary and undercut the legitimacy of future interventions, no matter how justified.
And this becomes particularly important when the purpose of military action extends beyond self-defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor. More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.
I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.
America's commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come.
The leaders and soldiers of NATO countries, and other friends and allies, demonstrate this truth through the capacity and courage they've shown in Afghanistan. But in many countries, there is a disconnect between the efforts of those who serve and the ambivalence of the broader public.
I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That's why NATO continues to be indispensable. That's why we must strengthen U.N. and regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few countries. That's why we honor those who return home from peacekeeping and training abroad to Oslo and Rome; to Ottawa and Sydney; to Dhaka and Kigali -- we honor them not as makers of war, but of wagers -- but as wagers of peace.
Let me make one final point about the use of force. Even as we make difficult decisions about going to war, we must also think clearly about how we fight it. The Nobel Committee recognized this truth in awarding its first prize for peace to Henry Dunant -- the founder of the Red Cross, and a driving force behind the Geneva Conventions.
Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength.
That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. (Applause.) And we honor -- we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it is hard.
I have spoken at some length to the question that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me now turn to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.
First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior -- for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure -- and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.
One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In the middle of the last century, nations agreed to be bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work towards disarmament. I am committed to upholding this treaty. It is a centerpiece of my foreign policy. And I'm working with President Medvedev to reduce America and Russia's nuclear stockpiles.
But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.
The same principle applies to those who violate international laws by brutalizing their own people. When there is genocide in Darfur, systematic rape in Congo, repression in Burma -- there must be consequences. Yes, there will be engagement; yes, there will be diplomacy -- but there must be consequences when those things fail. And the closer we stand together, the less likely we will be faced with the choice between armed intervention and complicity in oppression.
This brings me to a second point -- the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.
It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.
And yet too often, these words are ignored. For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists -- a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.
I reject these choices. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests -- nor the world's -- are served by the denial of human aspirations.
So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran.
It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements -- these movements of hope and history -- they have us on their side.
Let me also say this: The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach -- condemnation without discussion -- can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.
In light of the Cultural Revolution's horrors, Nixon's meeting with Mao appeared inexcusable -- and yet it surely helped set China on a path where millions of its citizens have been lifted from poverty and connected to open societies. Pope John Paul's engagement with Poland created space not just for the Catholic Church, but for labor leaders like Lech Walesa.
Ronald Reagan's efforts on arms control and embrace of perestroika not only improved relations with the Soviet Union, but empowered dissidents throughout Eastern Europe. There's no simple formula here. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.
Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights -- it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.
It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can't aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.
And that's why helping farmers feed their own people -- or nations educate their children and care for the sick -- is not mere charity. It's also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement -- all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action -- it's military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance.
Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All these are vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more -- and that's the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there's something irreducible that we all share.
As the world grows smaller, you might think it would be easier for human beings to recognize how similar we are; to understand that we're all basically seeking the same things; that we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some measure of happiness and fulfillment for ourselves and our families.
And yet somehow, given the dizzying pace of globalization, the cultural leveling of modernity, it perhaps comes as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish in their particular identities -- their race, their tribe, and perhaps most powerfully their religion. In some places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even feels like we're moving backwards. We see it in the Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden. We see it in nations that are torn asunder by tribal lines.
And most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war.
For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint -- no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of one's own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe it's incompatible with the very purpose of faith -- for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. For we are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best of intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.
But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached -- their fundamental faith in human progress -- that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith -- if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace -- then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. (Applause.)
Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he's outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school -- because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child's dreams.
Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END
2:20 P.M. CET
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
President BHO at Oslo Nobel Peace Award 10 Dec 2009
Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-obama-nobel11-2009dec11,0,3952920.story
latimes.com
Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize as he defends the need for war
Obama acknowledges the irony of receiving the prize as he orders a troop buildup in Afghanistan.
He lauds past winners' commitment to nonviolence but says he can't follow their examples alone.
By Christi Parsons
7:21 AM PST, December 10, 2009
Reporting from Oslo
President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize here today, acknowledging the irony of winning it as a wartime president and calling his own accomplishments "slight" in comparison to past winners.
But in his speech to the Nobel Committee, Obama spoke of the concept of a "just war" and the pursuit of a "just peace," which he said sometimes depends on more than simply refraining from violence.
Lauding the commitment of past Nobel laureates to nonviolence, Obama said that, as a head of state and commander-in-chief of a military at war sworn to protect and defend his nation, he cannot follow their examples alone.
"I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people," Obama said. "For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."
With his remarks, delivered in the brief sunlight of the Norwegian winter's midday, Obama answered critics who complain that he was receiving the award before he has really done anything to achieve peace.
The award also comes just days after the president announced a military buildup in Afghanistan, a surge of 30,000 U.S. troops which the White House hopes will disable the terrorist headquarters in the region and bring the eight-year war to an end.
In presenting the award to Obama, Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland argued that Obama has already changed the temperature in the international climate since he was sworn in in January, simply by insisting on negotiations and diplomacy first.
The committee didn't want to wait to voice its support for Obama's ideals, Jagland said, suggesting the award will help the president achieve his goals.
"It is now, today, we have the opportunity to support President Obama's ideas," said Jagland. "This year's prize is a call to action for all of us."
Obama accepted the award on those terms, calling his own accomplishments "slight" in comparison to past winners and others who he said deserve it more than he.
"Perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the commander-in-chief of a nation in the midst of two wars," Obama said.
The war in Iraq is winding down, he said, and the one that he is ramping up in Afghanistan is one which the U.S. did not seek.
"Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land," Obama said. "Some will kill. Some will be killed.
"And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict, filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other," he said in a lecture delivered at Oslo City Hall.
Speaking before a large glass window, with the Oslo fjord visible behind him, the president praised the dignity of Burmese activist Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the bravery of Zimbabweans who insisted on the right to vote despite threat of violence and demonstrators who have marched against recent oppression in Iran.
"It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation," he said. "And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear to these movements that hope and history are on their side."
But Obama also described a "just peace" as one that includes not only civil and political rights but also encompasses economic security and opportunity.
"For true peace is not just freedom from fear," he said, "but freedom from want."
cparsons@tribune.com
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-obama-nobel11-2009dec11,0,3952920.story
latimes.com
Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize as he defends the need for war
Obama acknowledges the irony of receiving the prize as he orders a troop buildup in Afghanistan.
He lauds past winners' commitment to nonviolence but says he can't follow their examples alone.
By Christi Parsons
7:21 AM PST, December 10, 2009
Reporting from Oslo
President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize here today, acknowledging the irony of winning it as a wartime president and calling his own accomplishments "slight" in comparison to past winners.
But in his speech to the Nobel Committee, Obama spoke of the concept of a "just war" and the pursuit of a "just peace," which he said sometimes depends on more than simply refraining from violence.
Lauding the commitment of past Nobel laureates to nonviolence, Obama said that, as a head of state and commander-in-chief of a military at war sworn to protect and defend his nation, he cannot follow their examples alone.
"I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people," Obama said. "For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."
With his remarks, delivered in the brief sunlight of the Norwegian winter's midday, Obama answered critics who complain that he was receiving the award before he has really done anything to achieve peace.
The award also comes just days after the president announced a military buildup in Afghanistan, a surge of 30,000 U.S. troops which the White House hopes will disable the terrorist headquarters in the region and bring the eight-year war to an end.
In presenting the award to Obama, Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland argued that Obama has already changed the temperature in the international climate since he was sworn in in January, simply by insisting on negotiations and diplomacy first.
The committee didn't want to wait to voice its support for Obama's ideals, Jagland said, suggesting the award will help the president achieve his goals.
"It is now, today, we have the opportunity to support President Obama's ideas," said Jagland. "This year's prize is a call to action for all of us."
Obama accepted the award on those terms, calling his own accomplishments "slight" in comparison to past winners and others who he said deserve it more than he.
"Perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the commander-in-chief of a nation in the midst of two wars," Obama said.
The war in Iraq is winding down, he said, and the one that he is ramping up in Afghanistan is one which the U.S. did not seek.
"Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land," Obama said. "Some will kill. Some will be killed.
"And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict, filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other," he said in a lecture delivered at Oslo City Hall.
Speaking before a large glass window, with the Oslo fjord visible behind him, the president praised the dignity of Burmese activist Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the bravery of Zimbabweans who insisted on the right to vote despite threat of violence and demonstrators who have marched against recent oppression in Iran.
"It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation," he said. "And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear to these movements that hope and history are on their side."
But Obama also described a "just peace" as one that includes not only civil and political rights but also encompasses economic security and opportunity.
"For true peace is not just freedom from fear," he said, "but freedom from want."
cparsons@tribune.com
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
Monday, November 23, 2009
Educate to Innovate by Promoting STEM: Science Technology Enegineering and Mathemtics
Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
Obama highlights science education
E-mail|Link|Comments (1)Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor November 23, 2009 11:44 AM
In his latest bid to spotlight science education, President Obama today kicked off an “Educate to Innovate” campaign to help boost US students from middle-of-the- pack mediocrity internationally in science and math achievement to the head of the class over the next decade.
Obama announced $260 million in partnerships involving the federal government, companies, foundations, nonprofits, and science and engineering societies.
“Reaffirming and strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation is essential to meeting the challenges of this century,” the president said in a statement.
In his remarks, Obama also announced he will host a White House science fair starting next year.
The White House background paper is below:
WHITE HOUSE RELEASE
Today at the White House, President Obama launched the “Educate to Innovate” campaign, a nationwide effort to help reach the administration’s goal of moving American students from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math achievement over the next decade.
President Obama announced a series of partnerships involving leading companies, universities, foundations, non-profits, and organizations representing millions of scientists, engineers and teachers that will motivate and inspire young people across the country to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
President Obama believes that reaffirming and strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation is essential to meeting the challenges of this century.
A growing number of jobs require STEM skills, and America needs a world-class STEM workforce to address the “grand challenges” of the 21st century, such as developing clean sources of energy that reduce our dependence on foreign oil and discovering cures for diseases.
Success on these fronts will require improving STEM literacy for all students; expanding the pipeline for a strong and innovative STEM workforce; and greater focus on opportunities and access for groups such as women and underrepresented minorities.
In a speech to the National Academies of Sciences this spring, President Obama announced a commitment to raise America from the middle to the top of the pack internationally in STEM education over the next decade.
At that time President Obama also challenged governors, philanthropists, scientists, engineers, educators, and the private sector to join with him in a national campaign to engage young people in these fields. The partnerships announced today are the initial response to this “call to action.”
Additionally, to help meet this goal, the President’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund provides a competitive advantage to states that commit to a comprehensive strategy to improve STEM education.
Race to the Top will challenge states to dramatically improve their schools and student achievement by raising standards, using data to improve decisions and inform instruction, improving teacher effectiveness, using innovative and effective approaches to turn around struggling schools and making it possible for STEM professionals to bring their experience and enthusiasm into the classroom.
These reforms will help prepare America’s students to graduate ready for college and career, and enable them to out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world.
Public Private Partnerships
Time Warner Cable’s “Connect a Million Minds” Campaign: Time Warner Cable, in partnership with FIRST Robotics and the Coalition for Science After School, is launching a campaign to connect over one million students to highly-engaging after-school STEM activities that already exist in their area.
Time Warner Cable will use its media platform, Public Service Announcements, 47,000 employees, and a “connectamillionminds.com” website where over 70,000 parents and community members have already pledged to connect a child to STEM.
Time Warner Cable has made a commitment of $100 million over the next five years to support this campaign, and will target 80 percent of its corporate philanthropy to STEM.
Discovery Communications’ “Be the Future” Campaign: Discovery Communications, in partnership with leading research universities and federal agencies, is launching a five-year, $150 million cash and in-kind “Be the Future” campaign. This will create content that reaches more than 99 million homes, including a PSA campaign across Discovery's 13 U.S. networks, a dedicated commercial-free educational kids block on the Science Channel, and programming on the “grand challenges” of the 21st century such as their landmark Curiosity series.
Discovery Education will also create rich, interactive education content that it will deliver at no cost to approximately 60,000 schools, 35 million students, and 1 million educators, and through a partnership with the Siemens Foundation, will create STEM Connect, a national education resource for teachers.
Sesame Street’s Early STEM Literacy Initiative: Celebrating its 40th Anniversary, and with First Lady Michelle Obama appearing on the first episode, Sesame Street, in partnership with PNC Bank, is announcing a major focus on science and math for young children and a $7.5 million investment in the effort.
Sesame Street’s new season kicked-off with “My World is Green & Growing,” which will be part of a two-year science initiative designed to increase positive attitudes towards nature, deepen children’s knowledge about the natural world and encourage behavior that shows respect and care for the environment.
Twenty of the 26 new episodes will have a focus on STEM; 13 focus on science and seven focus on math. In addition, Sesame Workshop, in partnership with PNC Bank’s Grow Up Great Program, is announcing a new math initiative for preschool children entitled Math is Everywhere.
“National Lab Day,” Bringing Hands-on Learning to Every Student: National Lab Day is a historic grassroots effort, online at nationallabday.org, to bring hands-on learning to 10 million students by upgrading science labs, supporting project-based learning, and building communities of support for STEM teachers.
The effort is a partnership between science and engineering societies representing more than 2.5 million STEM professionals and almost 4 million educators, with strong financial support from the Hidary Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and industry partners.
Collectively, this partnership is committed to working with more than 10,000 teachers and 1 million students within a year, and 100,000 teachers and 10 million students over the next four years.
National STEM Game Design Competitions: The MacArthur Foundation, Sony Computer Entertainment America, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and its partners (the Information Technology Industry Council, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, and Microsoft) are launching a nationwide set of competitions that include the design of the most compelling, freely-available STEM-related videogames for children and youth.
The competitions will include the 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition, a $2 million yearly effort supported by the MacArthur Foundation that advances the most innovative approaches to learning through games, social networks and mobile devices.
One of the competitions will be open only to children, to help them develop 21st century knowledge and skills through the challenge of game design. This year Sony will participate in one segment of the competition and encourage the development of new games that build on the existing popular video game Little Big Planet.
Obama highlights science education
E-mail|Link|Comments (1)Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor November 23, 2009 11:44 AM
In his latest bid to spotlight science education, President Obama today kicked off an “Educate to Innovate” campaign to help boost US students from middle-of-the- pack mediocrity internationally in science and math achievement to the head of the class over the next decade.
Obama announced $260 million in partnerships involving the federal government, companies, foundations, nonprofits, and science and engineering societies.
“Reaffirming and strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation is essential to meeting the challenges of this century,” the president said in a statement.
In his remarks, Obama also announced he will host a White House science fair starting next year.
The White House background paper is below:
WHITE HOUSE RELEASE
Today at the White House, President Obama launched the “Educate to Innovate” campaign, a nationwide effort to help reach the administration’s goal of moving American students from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math achievement over the next decade.
President Obama announced a series of partnerships involving leading companies, universities, foundations, non-profits, and organizations representing millions of scientists, engineers and teachers that will motivate and inspire young people across the country to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
President Obama believes that reaffirming and strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation is essential to meeting the challenges of this century.
A growing number of jobs require STEM skills, and America needs a world-class STEM workforce to address the “grand challenges” of the 21st century, such as developing clean sources of energy that reduce our dependence on foreign oil and discovering cures for diseases.
Success on these fronts will require improving STEM literacy for all students; expanding the pipeline for a strong and innovative STEM workforce; and greater focus on opportunities and access for groups such as women and underrepresented minorities.
In a speech to the National Academies of Sciences this spring, President Obama announced a commitment to raise America from the middle to the top of the pack internationally in STEM education over the next decade.
At that time President Obama also challenged governors, philanthropists, scientists, engineers, educators, and the private sector to join with him in a national campaign to engage young people in these fields. The partnerships announced today are the initial response to this “call to action.”
Additionally, to help meet this goal, the President’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund provides a competitive advantage to states that commit to a comprehensive strategy to improve STEM education.
Race to the Top will challenge states to dramatically improve their schools and student achievement by raising standards, using data to improve decisions and inform instruction, improving teacher effectiveness, using innovative and effective approaches to turn around struggling schools and making it possible for STEM professionals to bring their experience and enthusiasm into the classroom.
These reforms will help prepare America’s students to graduate ready for college and career, and enable them to out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world.
Public Private Partnerships
Time Warner Cable’s “Connect a Million Minds” Campaign: Time Warner Cable, in partnership with FIRST Robotics and the Coalition for Science After School, is launching a campaign to connect over one million students to highly-engaging after-school STEM activities that already exist in their area.
Time Warner Cable will use its media platform, Public Service Announcements, 47,000 employees, and a “connectamillionminds.com” website where over 70,000 parents and community members have already pledged to connect a child to STEM.
Time Warner Cable has made a commitment of $100 million over the next five years to support this campaign, and will target 80 percent of its corporate philanthropy to STEM.
Discovery Communications’ “Be the Future” Campaign: Discovery Communications, in partnership with leading research universities and federal agencies, is launching a five-year, $150 million cash and in-kind “Be the Future” campaign. This will create content that reaches more than 99 million homes, including a PSA campaign across Discovery's 13 U.S. networks, a dedicated commercial-free educational kids block on the Science Channel, and programming on the “grand challenges” of the 21st century such as their landmark Curiosity series.
Discovery Education will also create rich, interactive education content that it will deliver at no cost to approximately 60,000 schools, 35 million students, and 1 million educators, and through a partnership with the Siemens Foundation, will create STEM Connect, a national education resource for teachers.
Sesame Street’s Early STEM Literacy Initiative: Celebrating its 40th Anniversary, and with First Lady Michelle Obama appearing on the first episode, Sesame Street, in partnership with PNC Bank, is announcing a major focus on science and math for young children and a $7.5 million investment in the effort.
Sesame Street’s new season kicked-off with “My World is Green & Growing,” which will be part of a two-year science initiative designed to increase positive attitudes towards nature, deepen children’s knowledge about the natural world and encourage behavior that shows respect and care for the environment.
Twenty of the 26 new episodes will have a focus on STEM; 13 focus on science and seven focus on math. In addition, Sesame Workshop, in partnership with PNC Bank’s Grow Up Great Program, is announcing a new math initiative for preschool children entitled Math is Everywhere.
“National Lab Day,” Bringing Hands-on Learning to Every Student: National Lab Day is a historic grassroots effort, online at nationallabday.org, to bring hands-on learning to 10 million students by upgrading science labs, supporting project-based learning, and building communities of support for STEM teachers.
The effort is a partnership between science and engineering societies representing more than 2.5 million STEM professionals and almost 4 million educators, with strong financial support from the Hidary Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and industry partners.
Collectively, this partnership is committed to working with more than 10,000 teachers and 1 million students within a year, and 100,000 teachers and 10 million students over the next four years.
National STEM Game Design Competitions: The MacArthur Foundation, Sony Computer Entertainment America, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and its partners (the Information Technology Industry Council, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, and Microsoft) are launching a nationwide set of competitions that include the design of the most compelling, freely-available STEM-related videogames for children and youth.
The competitions will include the 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition, a $2 million yearly effort supported by the MacArthur Foundation that advances the most innovative approaches to learning through games, social networks and mobile devices.
One of the competitions will be open only to children, to help them develop 21st century knowledge and skills through the challenge of game design. This year Sony will participate in one segment of the competition and encourage the development of new games that build on the existing popular video game Little Big Planet.
Friday, November 20, 2009
New Cervical Cancer Screening Guidelines!
Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
New Cervival Cancer Screening Guidelines: No More 'Annual' Pap Smears
Doctors Say Young Women Can Wait for First Pap, and Get Them Less Often
By LAUREN COX and Dr. JOSHUA HUNDERT
ABC News Medical Unit
Nov. 20, 2009—
Pap smears may no longer be called "annuals" if doctors follow new cervical cancer screening recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The group announced today that women should start getting cervical cancer screenings at age 21 instead of 18, and that women could wait longer between the screenings -- regardless of when a woman starts having sex.
Women in their 20s with normal Pap smear results now should get screenings every two years instead of every year, and women in their 30s can wait three years between screenings, according to the new ACOG guidelines.
After a week of uproar over the controversial recommendations for less mammogram screenings for women, doctors say they will have to wait and see how the public reacts to the new pap smear guidelines.
"This is not a radical change in screening practices. This is something that's been coming gradually since the 1980s," said Dr. Alan G. Waxman, who helped write the new guidelines.
Some doctors hailed the decision as a way to reduce a host of problems caused by excessive screening; yet, a few others worried it might trigger more women to neglect annual checkups with gynecologists.
Waxman said the move toward fewer screenings will reduce unnecessary treatment in young women and protect them from future pregnancy complications.
On one hand, college-aged women have very high HPV infection rates. Dr. John Curtin, of The Cancer Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City said 70 percent of all college-aged sexually active people have contracted HPV. These high infection rates translate into a high number of abnormal pap smears.
However, the ACOG guidelines point out that only 0.1 percent of cervical cancer occurs in women under 21 years of age in part, doctors believe, because young women's immune systems are strong enough to fight off HPV before it causes cancer. When dysplasias progress to cancers it's usually a result of older women missing screenings for years at a time; 50 percent of women diagnosed with cervical cancer each year never had a pap smear before, according to the ACOG statement.
And some research has suggested the diagnostic surgery that often follow an abnormal result can pose problems for future pregnancies in some women.
"The driving force behind the change was the numerous studies that show women who are treated for cervical dysplasias are more likely to have a preterm birth," said Waxman, who is a professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
Unnecessary HPV Treatment Can Lead to Pregnancy Problems
Waxman explained that the LEEP procedure to remove precancerous tissue often caused by an infection with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, also weakens the cervix. In fact, it's estimated, one in 18 women who've had a LEEP procedure will go on to give birth prematurely.
But, he added, new studies have shown "with most of the cervical abnormalities in adolescents, most of them get better by themselves. ... The thought is that these are the people who have most of their child-bearing years in front of them."
The ACOG recommendations cite studies showing that up to 90 percent of these infections are cleared on their own in adolescents within a few years.
The measure also was intended to reduce anxiety in young women who may struggle with the news that they are infected with a sexually transmitted virus known to cause cancer.
"I was convinced I was dying, that I had cancer. There was not enough education back then," said Nicole C., a resident of La Porte, Texas, who was diagnosed at age 22 with cervical dysplasia -- an abnormal Pap smear -- caused by HPV. "My doctor at the time made me feel horrible about myself, accusing me of not being truthful about how many partners I'd had."
Reducing Anxiety Now and Later On
Nicole, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, had her first abnormal Pap smear in 1998. As the years passed, more of her friends were diagnosed with cervical dysplasia in their 20s.
As Nicole started serving as an impromptu counselor to explain how HPV is spread, she aimed to soothe fears and reduce the stigma.
"If I had known more back then, I would not have freaked out about it," she said. "I wished they had done that [changed the guidelines] years ago."
Many doctors say they recognize the same anxiety on their young patients' faces.
"Yes, the diagnosis of an abnormal Pap can cause emotional distress to an adolescent girl, and I have certainly seen that," said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y. "[Cervical biopsies] and repeat Pap smears with visits cost a lot of money."
In fact, some doctors felt the new recommendations did not go far enough.
Dr. Diane Harper of the University of Missouri-Kansas, who specializes in HPV infections, felt that ACOG is behind the other recommending bodies in the United States that argue screening should start at age 25, not age 21.
"There is ample evidence that screening earlier than 25 years is only costly with many false positives," said Harper. "The rest of the world is going to an every-five-or-six-year screening interval ... and ACOG is now just endorsing the three-year interval for HPV negative and Pap negative [women]."
Doctors speaking to ABCNews.com also said they felt the best way to prevent more cancer deaths wasn't to re-screen women who are already seeing doctors regularly, but to try to get women who aren't getting screenings at all into the doctors.
"Whether we screen everybody every two or three years isn't probably not going to make a big difference I don't think, just as long as they are getting screened," said Curtin. "The fact remains there are unscreened patients and they are at risk for cancer."
Doctors speaking to ABCNews.com also said they felt the best way to prevent more cancer deaths wasn't to re-screen women who are already seeing doctors regularly, but to try to get women who aren't getting screenings at all into the doctors.
"Whether we screen everybody every two or three years is probably not going to make a big difference, just as long as they are getting screened," said Curtin. "The fact remains there are unscreened patients and they are at risk for cancer."
Negative Effects of Fewer Pap Smears Unknown
On the other hand, many women admit that the only reason they go to a doctor is for an annual Pap smear and contraception. For those reasons, some doctors worry such women won't receive any medical checkups at all.
"Honestly, the first time it was discovered, I was going to Planned Parenthood for contraception because I had just become sexually active. It was only my second partner," said Alicia, a 32-year-old woman from New Orleans who also did not want her last name used.
Alicia had her first abnormal Pap smear when she was 18.
"I cried, and I really, really freaked out," she said.
But the task of treating her abnormal Pap smears made her aware of her health.
"That was a pivotal moment in my life," she said. "I started doing things better. I started getting into gardening and doing things to calm down."
Dr. Donnica Moore, president of Sapphire Women's Health Group and an obstetrician-gynecologist by training, worried that the new guidelines might keep women who've had a normal Pap smear, or no symptoms, away from the doctor.
"Women may now assume -- incorrectly -- that if they only need a Pap smear every two or three years, then they only need to see their gynecologist every two to three years, and for many of these women, their gynecologist is their primary care physician," said Moore. "Thus, they will not be getting a routine physical, breast exam, blood pressure measurement, and sexually-transmitted infection testing."
Changing Recommendations on Pap Smears
However, Friday's changes aren't the first to affect cervical cancer screenings. Over the years, doctors have scaled back on cervical cancer screening schedules after more research proved less frequent screenings were effective.
"It is about time this occurred," said Dr. Mark Einstein of the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y. "Oftentimes, young women are put into a 'high-risk' category, clinically, because they have a [positive] Pap test that is essentially just a sign of an HPV infection -- but it is not clinically relevant. This leads to anxiety and over-testing."
Dr. Joanna Cain of Brown University agreed, and argued that the HPV vaccine will further decrease the transmission of the virus that is responsible for up to 70 percent of cancers in the coming years.
Below is a timeline of changes to cervical cancer screenings over the years, according to Waxman:
1957 -- The American Cancer Society runs a nationwide campaign for women to get a Pap test every year.
1976 -- Canadian health leaders examine data and recommend a woman get a Pap smear every two years, after a woman has three consecutive normal Pap smears.
1980 -- The American Cancer Society follows Canadian guidelines recommending a woman get a Pap smear every two years after three consecutive normal Pap smears.
1988 -- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends starting screening at 18, or with the onset of sexual activity and getting a Pap test every year. But after three negative Pap tests, women should be screened less often.
2003 -- ACOG guidelines shift from recommending the first Pap smear at age 18 or the onset of intercourse to age 21 or three years after the onset of intercourse.
2008 -- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines shift to recommend adolescents who have a minor abnormality on a Pap test wait to get biopsies and a diagnostic test called a colposcopy.
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures
New Cervival Cancer Screening Guidelines: No More 'Annual' Pap Smears
Doctors Say Young Women Can Wait for First Pap, and Get Them Less Often
By LAUREN COX and Dr. JOSHUA HUNDERT
ABC News Medical Unit
Nov. 20, 2009—
Pap smears may no longer be called "annuals" if doctors follow new cervical cancer screening recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The group announced today that women should start getting cervical cancer screenings at age 21 instead of 18, and that women could wait longer between the screenings -- regardless of when a woman starts having sex.
Women in their 20s with normal Pap smear results now should get screenings every two years instead of every year, and women in their 30s can wait three years between screenings, according to the new ACOG guidelines.
After a week of uproar over the controversial recommendations for less mammogram screenings for women, doctors say they will have to wait and see how the public reacts to the new pap smear guidelines.
"This is not a radical change in screening practices. This is something that's been coming gradually since the 1980s," said Dr. Alan G. Waxman, who helped write the new guidelines.
Some doctors hailed the decision as a way to reduce a host of problems caused by excessive screening; yet, a few others worried it might trigger more women to neglect annual checkups with gynecologists.
Waxman said the move toward fewer screenings will reduce unnecessary treatment in young women and protect them from future pregnancy complications.
On one hand, college-aged women have very high HPV infection rates. Dr. John Curtin, of The Cancer Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City said 70 percent of all college-aged sexually active people have contracted HPV. These high infection rates translate into a high number of abnormal pap smears.
However, the ACOG guidelines point out that only 0.1 percent of cervical cancer occurs in women under 21 years of age in part, doctors believe, because young women's immune systems are strong enough to fight off HPV before it causes cancer. When dysplasias progress to cancers it's usually a result of older women missing screenings for years at a time; 50 percent of women diagnosed with cervical cancer each year never had a pap smear before, according to the ACOG statement.
And some research has suggested the diagnostic surgery that often follow an abnormal result can pose problems for future pregnancies in some women.
"The driving force behind the change was the numerous studies that show women who are treated for cervical dysplasias are more likely to have a preterm birth," said Waxman, who is a professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
Unnecessary HPV Treatment Can Lead to Pregnancy Problems
Waxman explained that the LEEP procedure to remove precancerous tissue often caused by an infection with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, also weakens the cervix. In fact, it's estimated, one in 18 women who've had a LEEP procedure will go on to give birth prematurely.
But, he added, new studies have shown "with most of the cervical abnormalities in adolescents, most of them get better by themselves. ... The thought is that these are the people who have most of their child-bearing years in front of them."
The ACOG recommendations cite studies showing that up to 90 percent of these infections are cleared on their own in adolescents within a few years.
The measure also was intended to reduce anxiety in young women who may struggle with the news that they are infected with a sexually transmitted virus known to cause cancer.
"I was convinced I was dying, that I had cancer. There was not enough education back then," said Nicole C., a resident of La Porte, Texas, who was diagnosed at age 22 with cervical dysplasia -- an abnormal Pap smear -- caused by HPV. "My doctor at the time made me feel horrible about myself, accusing me of not being truthful about how many partners I'd had."
Reducing Anxiety Now and Later On
Nicole, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, had her first abnormal Pap smear in 1998. As the years passed, more of her friends were diagnosed with cervical dysplasia in their 20s.
As Nicole started serving as an impromptu counselor to explain how HPV is spread, she aimed to soothe fears and reduce the stigma.
"If I had known more back then, I would not have freaked out about it," she said. "I wished they had done that [changed the guidelines] years ago."
Many doctors say they recognize the same anxiety on their young patients' faces.
"Yes, the diagnosis of an abnormal Pap can cause emotional distress to an adolescent girl, and I have certainly seen that," said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y. "[Cervical biopsies] and repeat Pap smears with visits cost a lot of money."
In fact, some doctors felt the new recommendations did not go far enough.
Dr. Diane Harper of the University of Missouri-Kansas, who specializes in HPV infections, felt that ACOG is behind the other recommending bodies in the United States that argue screening should start at age 25, not age 21.
"There is ample evidence that screening earlier than 25 years is only costly with many false positives," said Harper. "The rest of the world is going to an every-five-or-six-year screening interval ... and ACOG is now just endorsing the three-year interval for HPV negative and Pap negative [women]."
Doctors speaking to ABCNews.com also said they felt the best way to prevent more cancer deaths wasn't to re-screen women who are already seeing doctors regularly, but to try to get women who aren't getting screenings at all into the doctors.
"Whether we screen everybody every two or three years isn't probably not going to make a big difference I don't think, just as long as they are getting screened," said Curtin. "The fact remains there are unscreened patients and they are at risk for cancer."
Doctors speaking to ABCNews.com also said they felt the best way to prevent more cancer deaths wasn't to re-screen women who are already seeing doctors regularly, but to try to get women who aren't getting screenings at all into the doctors.
"Whether we screen everybody every two or three years is probably not going to make a big difference, just as long as they are getting screened," said Curtin. "The fact remains there are unscreened patients and they are at risk for cancer."
Negative Effects of Fewer Pap Smears Unknown
On the other hand, many women admit that the only reason they go to a doctor is for an annual Pap smear and contraception. For those reasons, some doctors worry such women won't receive any medical checkups at all.
"Honestly, the first time it was discovered, I was going to Planned Parenthood for contraception because I had just become sexually active. It was only my second partner," said Alicia, a 32-year-old woman from New Orleans who also did not want her last name used.
Alicia had her first abnormal Pap smear when she was 18.
"I cried, and I really, really freaked out," she said.
But the task of treating her abnormal Pap smears made her aware of her health.
"That was a pivotal moment in my life," she said. "I started doing things better. I started getting into gardening and doing things to calm down."
Dr. Donnica Moore, president of Sapphire Women's Health Group and an obstetrician-gynecologist by training, worried that the new guidelines might keep women who've had a normal Pap smear, or no symptoms, away from the doctor.
"Women may now assume -- incorrectly -- that if they only need a Pap smear every two or three years, then they only need to see their gynecologist every two to three years, and for many of these women, their gynecologist is their primary care physician," said Moore. "Thus, they will not be getting a routine physical, breast exam, blood pressure measurement, and sexually-transmitted infection testing."
Changing Recommendations on Pap Smears
However, Friday's changes aren't the first to affect cervical cancer screenings. Over the years, doctors have scaled back on cervical cancer screening schedules after more research proved less frequent screenings were effective.
"It is about time this occurred," said Dr. Mark Einstein of the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y. "Oftentimes, young women are put into a 'high-risk' category, clinically, because they have a [positive] Pap test that is essentially just a sign of an HPV infection -- but it is not clinically relevant. This leads to anxiety and over-testing."
Dr. Joanna Cain of Brown University agreed, and argued that the HPV vaccine will further decrease the transmission of the virus that is responsible for up to 70 percent of cancers in the coming years.
Below is a timeline of changes to cervical cancer screenings over the years, according to Waxman:
1957 -- The American Cancer Society runs a nationwide campaign for women to get a Pap test every year.
1976 -- Canadian health leaders examine data and recommend a woman get a Pap smear every two years, after a woman has three consecutive normal Pap smears.
1980 -- The American Cancer Society follows Canadian guidelines recommending a woman get a Pap smear every two years after three consecutive normal Pap smears.
1988 -- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends starting screening at 18, or with the onset of sexual activity and getting a Pap test every year. But after three negative Pap tests, women should be screened less often.
2003 -- ACOG guidelines shift from recommending the first Pap smear at age 18 or the onset of intercourse to age 21 or three years after the onset of intercourse.
2008 -- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines shift to recommend adolescents who have a minor abnormality on a Pap test wait to get biopsies and a diagnostic test called a colposcopy.
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Health Information Technology Act to ensure information follows the patient in a secure and private manner
Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
Dear Colleagues
This attachment is very important. It addresses key critical health information and technology issues.
1. Health Information should follow the patient
2. A key premise: information should follow the patient, and artificial obstacles – technical, business related, bureaucratic – should not get in the way.
2009/11/16 CMS CMSProviderResource
The HITECH Foundation for Information Exchange
November 12, 2009
A Message from Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
As the many activities mandated by the HITECH Act move forward, I want to take a moment to share my vision of the overarching goal and some of its implications. Our goal, above all else, is to make care better for patients, and to make it patient-centered. Information policy and health IT policy should serve that goal.
A key premise: information should follow the patient, and artificial obstacles – technical, business related, bureaucratic – should not get in the way. As a doctor, I have many times wanted access to data that I knew were buried in the computers or paper records of another health system across town. Neither my care nor my patients were well served in those instances.
That is what we must get beyond. That is the goal we will pursue, and it will inform all our policy choices now and going forward.
This means that information exchange must cross institutional and business boundaries. Because that is what patients need. Exchange within business groups will not be sufficient – the goal is to have information flow seamlessly and effortlessly to every nook and cranny of our health system, when and where it is needed, just like the blood within our arteries and veins meets our bodies’ vital needs.
If we are to reap the benefit of information exchange, Americans must also be assured that the most advanced technology and proven business practices will be employed to secure the privacy and security of their personal health information, both within and across electronic systems, and that persons and organizations who hold personal health data are trustworthy custodians of the information.
We must have comprehensive, clear, and sustainable policies that strengthen existing protections, fill gaps as they emerge, fortify new opportunities for patients’ access to and control of their information, and align with evolving technologies. I will devote a separate letter to this critical issue and the many activities mandated by the HITECH Act that we are developing.
On the question of exchange, however, the HITECH Act is pretty specific about eliminating inappropriate barriers.
It squarely tackles the commercial barriers. The HITECH Act calls for the “development of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of information and that…promotes a more effective marketplace, greater competition...[and] increased consumer choice” among other goals. (Section 3001(b)) This means we cannot support arrangements that restrict the secure, private exchange of information required for patient care across provider or network boundaries. Some of these arrangements may improve care for those inside their walls.
But ultimately, they have the potential to carve the nation up into disconnected silos of information, and thus, to undermine the vision of a secure, interoperable, nationwide health information infrastructure, which the law requires us to establish. Consumers, patients and their caretakers should never feel locked into a single health system or exchange arrangement because it does not permit or encourage the sharing of information.
It tackles the economic barriers. The HITECH Act incentives for providers and hospitals are powerful tools. While the official definition of “Meaningful Use” won’t be finalized until next year, the HITECH Act specifically highlights “information exchange” as one requirement for the incentives.
It tackles the technical barriers. The HITECH Act focuses on “interoperability” or “interoperable products.” In plain English, this means that our policies, programs, and incentives must aim for electronic health record (EHR) software and systems that can share information with different EHRs and networks so that information can follow patients wherever they go.
And to build the pipelines to carry this information, HHS is directed to invest in the infrastructure to “support the nationwide electronic exchange and use of health information …including connecting health information exchanges…” (Section 3011) This means we will work with all our partners in the health and IT industries and with organizations that are committed to information sharing to develop the technologies and policies that can help us deliver information securely, privately, and accurately to whomever needs to see it on behalf of the patient’s health. We must ensure interoperability for the future.
It provides building blocks for information exchange across jurisdictions. The grants for states and state-designated entities in Section 3013 – which will total $564 million – target information exchange across boundaries, not only within each state but explicitly as part of a nationwide framework. We will start announcing the awards this winter. These grantees’ activities must support interoperability that lets patient data follow the patient across political and geographic boundaries. The grantees will be our partners in building the nationwide infrastructure mentioned previously.
In short, the HITECH Act not only authorizes but requires us to mobilize all our policies, programs, and incentives to give the American people the patient-centric care they deserve and expect.
I look forward to engaging all our partners in this unique opportunity.
Regards,
David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
This letter is part of a series of ongoing updates from the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) encourages you to share this information as we work together to enhance the quality, safety and value of care and the health of all Americans through the use of electronic health records and health information technology.
For more information and to receive regular updates from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, please subscribe to the Health IT News list.
If you have difficulty viewing this message, please view it online.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Flu Season is upon us! CMS encourages providers to begin taking advantage of each office visit to encourage your patients with Medicare to get seasonal flu shots. Flu shots are their best defense against combating flu this season. And don’t forget—health care workers also need to protect themselves.
Medicare provides coverage of the flu vaccine without any out-of-pocket costs to the Medicare patient as a part B benefit. No deductible or copayment/coinsurance applies. Note that influenza vaccine is NOT a Part D covered Drug.
For more information about Medicare’s coverage of the seasonal influenza vaccine and its administration, as well as related educational resources for health care professionals, please go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNProducts/35_PreventiveServices.asp on the CMS website.
For information on Medicare policies related to H1N1 influenza, please go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/H1N1 on the CMS website.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: If you have problems accessing any hyperlink in this message, please copy and paste the URL into your Internet browser.
If you received this message as part of the All FFS Providers listserv, you are currently subscribed to one of eighteen Medicare Fee-For-Service provider listservs. If you would like to be removed from all NIH listservs, please go to (https://list.nih.gov/LISTSERV_WEB/signoff.htm) to unsubscribe.
If you would like to unsubscribe from a specific provider listserv, please go to (https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/show_list_archives) to unsubscribe or to leave the appropriate listserv. Please DO NOT respond to this email. This email is a service of CMS and routed through an electronic mail server to communicate Medicare policy and operational changes and/or updates. Responses to this email are not routed to CMS personnel. Inquiries may be sent by going to (http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ContactCMS). Thank you.
--
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH.
Corporate Director & Chair of Professional Advisory Bodies
Professional Competency & Quality Audit
V: 571.225.5736; V:703.933.8737; V: 202.299.1109/202.265.1766
F: 703.531.0545/202.2991108
Globalbelai7@gmail.com
Our Passion is to reach our individual and collective potential-Always!
Dear Colleagues
This attachment is very important. It addresses key critical health information and technology issues.
1. Health Information should follow the patient
2. A key premise: information should follow the patient, and artificial obstacles – technical, business related, bureaucratic – should not get in the way.
2009/11/16 CMS CMSProviderResource
The HITECH Foundation for Information Exchange
November 12, 2009
A Message from Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
As the many activities mandated by the HITECH Act move forward, I want to take a moment to share my vision of the overarching goal and some of its implications. Our goal, above all else, is to make care better for patients, and to make it patient-centered. Information policy and health IT policy should serve that goal.
A key premise: information should follow the patient, and artificial obstacles – technical, business related, bureaucratic – should not get in the way. As a doctor, I have many times wanted access to data that I knew were buried in the computers or paper records of another health system across town. Neither my care nor my patients were well served in those instances.
That is what we must get beyond. That is the goal we will pursue, and it will inform all our policy choices now and going forward.
This means that information exchange must cross institutional and business boundaries. Because that is what patients need. Exchange within business groups will not be sufficient – the goal is to have information flow seamlessly and effortlessly to every nook and cranny of our health system, when and where it is needed, just like the blood within our arteries and veins meets our bodies’ vital needs.
If we are to reap the benefit of information exchange, Americans must also be assured that the most advanced technology and proven business practices will be employed to secure the privacy and security of their personal health information, both within and across electronic systems, and that persons and organizations who hold personal health data are trustworthy custodians of the information.
We must have comprehensive, clear, and sustainable policies that strengthen existing protections, fill gaps as they emerge, fortify new opportunities for patients’ access to and control of their information, and align with evolving technologies. I will devote a separate letter to this critical issue and the many activities mandated by the HITECH Act that we are developing.
On the question of exchange, however, the HITECH Act is pretty specific about eliminating inappropriate barriers.
It squarely tackles the commercial barriers. The HITECH Act calls for the “development of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of information and that…promotes a more effective marketplace, greater competition...[and] increased consumer choice” among other goals. (Section 3001(b)) This means we cannot support arrangements that restrict the secure, private exchange of information required for patient care across provider or network boundaries. Some of these arrangements may improve care for those inside their walls.
But ultimately, they have the potential to carve the nation up into disconnected silos of information, and thus, to undermine the vision of a secure, interoperable, nationwide health information infrastructure, which the law requires us to establish. Consumers, patients and their caretakers should never feel locked into a single health system or exchange arrangement because it does not permit or encourage the sharing of information.
It tackles the economic barriers. The HITECH Act incentives for providers and hospitals are powerful tools. While the official definition of “Meaningful Use” won’t be finalized until next year, the HITECH Act specifically highlights “information exchange” as one requirement for the incentives.
It tackles the technical barriers. The HITECH Act focuses on “interoperability” or “interoperable products.” In plain English, this means that our policies, programs, and incentives must aim for electronic health record (EHR) software and systems that can share information with different EHRs and networks so that information can follow patients wherever they go.
And to build the pipelines to carry this information, HHS is directed to invest in the infrastructure to “support the nationwide electronic exchange and use of health information …including connecting health information exchanges…” (Section 3011) This means we will work with all our partners in the health and IT industries and with organizations that are committed to information sharing to develop the technologies and policies that can help us deliver information securely, privately, and accurately to whomever needs to see it on behalf of the patient’s health. We must ensure interoperability for the future.
It provides building blocks for information exchange across jurisdictions. The grants for states and state-designated entities in Section 3013 – which will total $564 million – target information exchange across boundaries, not only within each state but explicitly as part of a nationwide framework. We will start announcing the awards this winter. These grantees’ activities must support interoperability that lets patient data follow the patient across political and geographic boundaries. The grantees will be our partners in building the nationwide infrastructure mentioned previously.
In short, the HITECH Act not only authorizes but requires us to mobilize all our policies, programs, and incentives to give the American people the patient-centric care they deserve and expect.
I look forward to engaging all our partners in this unique opportunity.
Regards,
David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
This letter is part of a series of ongoing updates from the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) encourages you to share this information as we work together to enhance the quality, safety and value of care and the health of all Americans through the use of electronic health records and health information technology.
For more information and to receive regular updates from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, please subscribe to the Health IT News list.
If you have difficulty viewing this message, please view it online.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Flu Season is upon us! CMS encourages providers to begin taking advantage of each office visit to encourage your patients with Medicare to get seasonal flu shots. Flu shots are their best defense against combating flu this season. And don’t forget—health care workers also need to protect themselves.
Medicare provides coverage of the flu vaccine without any out-of-pocket costs to the Medicare patient as a part B benefit. No deductible or copayment/coinsurance applies. Note that influenza vaccine is NOT a Part D covered Drug.
For more information about Medicare’s coverage of the seasonal influenza vaccine and its administration, as well as related educational resources for health care professionals, please go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNProducts/35_PreventiveServices.asp on the CMS website.
For information on Medicare policies related to H1N1 influenza, please go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/H1N1 on the CMS website.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: If you have problems accessing any hyperlink in this message, please copy and paste the URL into your Internet browser.
If you received this message as part of the All FFS Providers listserv, you are currently subscribed to one of eighteen Medicare Fee-For-Service provider listservs. If you would like to be removed from all NIH listservs, please go to (https://list.nih.gov/LISTSERV_WEB/signoff.htm) to unsubscribe.
If you would like to unsubscribe from a specific provider listserv, please go to (https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/show_list_archives) to unsubscribe or to leave the appropriate listserv. Please DO NOT respond to this email. This email is a service of CMS and routed through an electronic mail server to communicate Medicare policy and operational changes and/or updates. Responses to this email are not routed to CMS personnel. Inquiries may be sent by going to (http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ContactCMS). Thank you.
--
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH.
Corporate Director & Chair of Professional Advisory Bodies
Professional Competency & Quality Audit
V: 571.225.5736; V:703.933.8737; V: 202.299.1109/202.265.1766
F: 703.531.0545/202.2991108
Globalbelai7@gmail.com
Our Passion is to reach our individual and collective potential-Always!
Friday, November 06, 2009
Divine Feminine taking its rightful place in the universe
Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
Dear Global Patriotic Citizens and Friends of African Union and Ethiopia inlcuding Bibal Academy Alumni Colleagues:
Greetings in the name of the father, mother, son and daughter, the ideal family on earth:
It is interesting to note, that in all our life preparation, and experiences, there is no real training, and readiness, for sharing life' s main challenges, and opportunities in the setting of the family, the corner stone of our social and spiritual life.
I am surprised to discover, that in all my travels, and work across the world, and to-date, I have not seen any reliable training and preparation in managing the family in its total networks in any one of the cultures in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Training on how to date, court, engage, marry, choose family time, reproduction, conception, pregnancy, delivery, raising the family from new born to early childhood, later childhood, preschool, school, college and graduate studies.
It is amazing, that we just take chances in the most important part of our lives and yet spend hours navigating the linguistic, mathematical, science, geography, ecology, economy, social studies and all aspects of academic and cultural life, but not the building blocks of family.
Of course the center of the family life, sex and its blessings and repercussions are never dealt with enough detail , and focus and we take it as it comes with no preparation at all.
Unfortunately, the role of the family is defined, and managed by institutions, who have no track record in the business of the family. Like the men dominated faith institutions, and educational centers, that intentionally exclude women who are at the heart of the family life. They control the whole dialogue and formality of family life without any contextual or temporal or practical experience of what makes the family work or not work.
All these religious goons, through out history, and even now in modern times, have been promoting un- natural life patterns of monks and nuns as a natural life style, and, have skewed our schools, work place, and worship environment, by designing them such that there is no real preparation for family life. Imagine allowing a monk who has never had any experience of a family life presiding over social and family affairs. If at all he is an expert is in a life of disengagement and the family which is the center of engagement is allowed to be managed by inexperienced and disinterested parties like churches, mosques and temples, etc.
What an irony of life sor] far? Leaving the affairs of the center of our human existence into the hands of the most incompetent and disinterested parties in our common shared societies be it in the east, west, south or north. It is just unacceptable. Yet, it happens every day. To see and witness, a mother being forced to hand over her child as a suicide bombers by these same goons is such a tragic reality of our day.
Therefore, the social and civic laws, and practice have discriminated against women, especially mothers who are the real divine part of humanity both at home, work, worship place masculinizibg every part of our existence and depriving us the virtues and blessings if the divine feminine part if our lives
The recent massacre at the Army base in the US by an alleged psychiatrist who is meant to comfort and protect the troops is such a sad story and the fact that he was brought down or stopped his massacre by the Divine Feminine police officer us even mire telling!
It is our time, we give the divine space for our feminine self and respect mothers, the real Divine partners and co- creators with Universak Divine that is in all if us
I like the story and we need to have schools that honor and value our feminine self and our mothers , sisters and daughters!
It is our time to change this hopeless state of affairs and make the family the most noble, sacred and scientific of all our common shared existence by spending time, effort and resources to build, protect and preserve and promote it at all level of our modern existence.
The famlly is an idea whose time has come and we should make it a priority and women are at the center of this new paradigm and this story is so critical for us to take it seriously.
Thank you
Dr B
Www.globalbelai7.blogspit.com
Globalbelai7@gmail.con
Sent from my phone
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD; MPh
Washington, DC, USA
On 6 Nov 2009, at 04:53, D wrote:
The thing is probably 90% of voters who said this was their favorite E-mail never do anywhere near half of the chores listed in here specially having sex without complaining. Or maybe this whole thing is supposed to be funny because no woman ever does all that even in her dreams. Hey thanks for the joke!
Danny
On Nov 5, 2009, at 8:05 PM, Terri wrote:
A man was sick and tired of going to work every day while his wife stayed home.
He wanted her to see what he went through so he prayed:
'Dear Lord:
I go to work every day and put in 8 hours while my wife merely stays at home.
I want her to know what I go through.
So, please allow her body to switch with mine for a day.
Amen!'
God, in his infinite wisdom, granted the man's wish.
The next morning, sure enough, the man awoke as a woman.
He arose, cooked breakfast for his mate,
Awakened the kids,
Set out their school clothes,
Fed them breakfast,
Packed their lunches,
Drove them to school,
Came home and picked up the dry cleaning,
Took it to the cleaners
Went grocery shopping,
Then drove home to put away the groceries,
He cleaned the cat's litter box and bathed the dog..
Then, it was already 01P.M.
And he hurried to make the beds,
Do the laundry, vacuum,
Dust,
And sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
Ran to the school to pick up the kids and got into an argument with them on the way home.
Set out milk and cookies and got the kids organized to do their homework.
Then, set up the ironing board and watched TV while he did the ironing.
At 4:30 he began peeling potatoes and washing vegetables for salad, breaded the pork chops and snapped fresh beans for supper.
After supper,
He cleaned the kitchen,
Ran the dishwasher,
Folded laundry,
Bathed the kids,
And put them to bed.
At 09 P.M .
He was exhausted and, though his daily chores weren't finished, he went to bed where he was expected to make love, which he managed to get through without complaint.
The next morning, he awoke and immediately knelt by the bed and said: -
'Lord, I don't know what I was thinking.
I was so wrong to envy my wife's being able to stay home all day.
Please, oh! Oh! Please, let us trade back.
Amen!'
The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, replied:
'My son, I feel you have learned your lesson and I will be happy to change things back to the way they were.
You'll just have to wait nine months, though.
You got pregnant last night.'
This has been voted Women's Favorite E-mail of the Year!
If you agree, send it to all your friends who would enjoy this!!!!!
Regards
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.421 / Virus Database: 270.14.12/2431 - Release Date: 10/12/09 13:01:00
Dear Global Patriotic Citizens and Friends of African Union and Ethiopia inlcuding Bibal Academy Alumni Colleagues:
Greetings in the name of the father, mother, son and daughter, the ideal family on earth:
It is interesting to note, that in all our life preparation, and experiences, there is no real training, and readiness, for sharing life' s main challenges, and opportunities in the setting of the family, the corner stone of our social and spiritual life.
I am surprised to discover, that in all my travels, and work across the world, and to-date, I have not seen any reliable training and preparation in managing the family in its total networks in any one of the cultures in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Training on how to date, court, engage, marry, choose family time, reproduction, conception, pregnancy, delivery, raising the family from new born to early childhood, later childhood, preschool, school, college and graduate studies.
It is amazing, that we just take chances in the most important part of our lives and yet spend hours navigating the linguistic, mathematical, science, geography, ecology, economy, social studies and all aspects of academic and cultural life, but not the building blocks of family.
Of course the center of the family life, sex and its blessings and repercussions are never dealt with enough detail , and focus and we take it as it comes with no preparation at all.
Unfortunately, the role of the family is defined, and managed by institutions, who have no track record in the business of the family. Like the men dominated faith institutions, and educational centers, that intentionally exclude women who are at the heart of the family life. They control the whole dialogue and formality of family life without any contextual or temporal or practical experience of what makes the family work or not work.
All these religious goons, through out history, and even now in modern times, have been promoting un- natural life patterns of monks and nuns as a natural life style, and, have skewed our schools, work place, and worship environment, by designing them such that there is no real preparation for family life. Imagine allowing a monk who has never had any experience of a family life presiding over social and family affairs. If at all he is an expert is in a life of disengagement and the family which is the center of engagement is allowed to be managed by inexperienced and disinterested parties like churches, mosques and temples, etc.
What an irony of life sor] far? Leaving the affairs of the center of our human existence into the hands of the most incompetent and disinterested parties in our common shared societies be it in the east, west, south or north. It is just unacceptable. Yet, it happens every day. To see and witness, a mother being forced to hand over her child as a suicide bombers by these same goons is such a tragic reality of our day.
Therefore, the social and civic laws, and practice have discriminated against women, especially mothers who are the real divine part of humanity both at home, work, worship place masculinizibg every part of our existence and depriving us the virtues and blessings if the divine feminine part if our lives
The recent massacre at the Army base in the US by an alleged psychiatrist who is meant to comfort and protect the troops is such a sad story and the fact that he was brought down or stopped his massacre by the Divine Feminine police officer us even mire telling!
It is our time, we give the divine space for our feminine self and respect mothers, the real Divine partners and co- creators with Universak Divine that is in all if us
I like the story and we need to have schools that honor and value our feminine self and our mothers , sisters and daughters!
It is our time to change this hopeless state of affairs and make the family the most noble, sacred and scientific of all our common shared existence by spending time, effort and resources to build, protect and preserve and promote it at all level of our modern existence.
The famlly is an idea whose time has come and we should make it a priority and women are at the center of this new paradigm and this story is so critical for us to take it seriously.
Thank you
Dr B
Www.globalbelai7.blogspit.com
Globalbelai7@gmail.con
Sent from my phone
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD; MPh
Washington, DC, USA
On 6 Nov 2009, at 04:53, D
The thing is probably 90% of voters who said this was their favorite E-mail never do anywhere near half of the chores listed in here specially having sex without complaining. Or maybe this whole thing is supposed to be funny because no woman ever does all that even in her dreams. Hey thanks for the joke!
Danny
On Nov 5, 2009, at 8:05 PM, Terri
A man was sick and tired of going to work every day while his wife stayed home.
He wanted her to see what he went through so he prayed:
'Dear Lord:
I go to work every day and put in 8 hours while my wife merely stays at home.
I want her to know what I go through.
So, please allow her body to switch with mine for a day.
Amen!'
God, in his infinite wisdom, granted the man's wish.
The next morning, sure enough, the man awoke as a woman.
He arose, cooked breakfast for his mate,
Awakened the kids,
Set out their school clothes,
Fed them breakfast,
Packed their lunches,
Drove them to school,
Came home and picked up the dry cleaning,
Took it to the cleaners
Went grocery shopping,
Then drove home to put away the groceries,
He cleaned the cat's litter box and bathed the dog..
Then, it was already 01P.M.
And he hurried to make the beds,
Do the laundry, vacuum,
Dust,
And sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
Ran to the school to pick up the kids and got into an argument with them on the way home.
Set out milk and cookies and got the kids organized to do their homework.
Then, set up the ironing board and watched TV while he did the ironing.
At 4:30 he began peeling potatoes and washing vegetables for salad, breaded the pork chops and snapped fresh beans for supper.
After supper,
He cleaned the kitchen,
Ran the dishwasher,
Folded laundry,
Bathed the kids,
And put them to bed.
At 09 P.M .
He was exhausted and, though his daily chores weren't finished, he went to bed where he was expected to make love, which he managed to get through without complaint.
The next morning, he awoke and immediately knelt by the bed and said: -
'Lord, I don't know what I was thinking.
I was so wrong to envy my wife's being able to stay home all day.
Please, oh! Oh! Please, let us trade back.
Amen!'
The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, replied:
'My son, I feel you have learned your lesson and I will be happy to change things back to the way they were.
You'll just have to wait nine months, though.
You got pregnant last night.'
This has been voted Women's Favorite E-mail of the Year!
If you agree, send it to all your friends who would enjoy this!!!!!
Regards
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.421 / Virus Database: 270.14.12/2431 - Release Date: 10/12/09 13:01:00
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Ending Poverity by Advancing Prosperity- an Idea whose time has come at last!
Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
Re: Ending Poverty by Advancing Prosperity- An Idea whose time has come at last!
Commercial Farming the pathway for Eliminating poverty with pros
Submitted by Globalbelai7 on Thu, 2009-10-22 17:21.
Dear Shanta:
I am amazed by your daring admission that Ending Poverty or creating wealth is the only solution to African's problem with poverty.
Poverty Reduction is a voodu science designed to starve Africans for a long time to come. Did you see European Union Agricultural Policy being developed on reducing poverty? For that matter is the Green Revolution in India based on increasing productivity or ending poverty?
It is interesting at last you seem to have got the idea, that wealth creation and building prosperity is the only solution to impending abject poverty. How can you reduce poverty? Can you really quantify poverty at the level where you can show you can reduce it.
Why not eliminate it with creating wealth and prosperity?
The old and outdated approach by the World Bank and IMF to postpone prosperity by reducing poverty is a bankrupt ideology that has no evidence based science but a rather cruel way of keeping Africans starving.
The latest work by Dr Gebissa Ejeta of Purdue University and the World Food Prize for 2009 indicate that if African Farmers are enabled with technology and are allowed to begin farming in a commercial way with increased cooperatives and the like, they will improve their productivity and eventual wealth creation.
The current system of micro-farming based subsistance farming is a recipe for disaster.
So, more than the farming technology, it is the Macro-Economics and lack of investment in Commercial Farming that is making poverty a substance of interest and perpetual failure by the Bank and IMF and similar bodies who do not seem to approach the problem with evidence based science.
All their structural adjustment and and conditionality is nothing but voodu science being played out by disconnected and callous economists and their supportive World Bank Governors and Donors.
it is time to look at the research carefully, and most importantly listen to the local governments and farmers on what works for them.
For once let Washington and the Economist listen to the farmers and science.
Please read the attahed interesting story about the work of Dr Gebissa Ejea for your additional information.
Belai H Jesus, MD, MPH
www.globalbelai7.blogspot.com
Globalbelai7@gmail.com
Ethiopian Sorghum Breeder Wins 2009 World Food Prize
By Steve Baragona
Washington
15 October 2009
Baragona Report - Download (MP3)
Baragona Report - Listen (MP3)
The World Food Prize is the top international award for individuals who have increased the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world
The 2009 World Food Prize has been awarded to Gebisa Ejeta, an Ethiopian-born plant scientist at Purdue University. The private, $250,000 award -- presented at ceremonies in Des Moines, Iowa, October 15th -- is given annually to people who have helped address the world's food needs. This year's prize honors Ejeta's life-long work to improve the production of sorghum, one of the world's most important grain crops. It also honors his efforts to take his discoveries beyond the lab -- to the farmers who need them the most.
Desire to help others rooted in his own childhood poverty
Ejeta is one of those success stories that show the difference an education -- and a motivated mother -- can make. Ejeta grew up in a one-room thatched hut in rural Ethiopia. But he says his mother had other plans for him.
"She didn't care much for the lifestyle in the community that we lived in," Ejita recalls. "And for some strange reason, this woman was able to see that through education one can get out of this drudgery and get to a better life."
So she found opportunities for Ejeta to study, and a place to stay, in a neighboring town, a 20-kilometer walk away. Ejeta studied. He excelled. And now he is being honored for his life's work helping others rise out of poverty.
Lowell Hardin is an emeritus professor at Purdue University who has known Ejeta for 25 years. "Because he grew up in very, very modest circumstances -- a single mother in a remote village in Ethiopia -- he knew poverty," Hardin says. "He knew hunger. And when he was fortunate enough to get an education thanks to his mother's pushing, he decided he was going to apply his talents in this direction."
Research efforts focused on threats to African food crops
Gebisa Ejeta received World Food Prize for his efforts to improve sorghum production
Ejeta applied his talents to fighting a weed called Striga, or witchweed, which threatens crops that feed more than 100 million people across sub-Saharan Africa. Ejeta says the parasitic weed can ruin fields of sorghum, a major staple in hot, dry regions of Africa.
"If you grow a crop that is susceptible to infection by the parasite," he says, "you just basically don't have any chance for growing a crop if your soil is contaminated. And most of these soils are getting contaminated."
Before Ejeta took up the challenge, researchers hadn't had much success controlling the weed. Its seeds can lie dormant in the soil for decades. But Ejeta and his team at Purdue University discovered the chemical signals produced by the sorghum plant that tell the Striga seeds to wake up -- that a victim is available. They then found sorghum varieties that didn't produce the signals, and bred a line of Striga-resistant plants that thrived in a broad range of African growing conditions. These new varieties produced up to four times more grain than local types, even in drought-plagued areas.
Making sure African farmers benefit directly from his research
But Ejeta knew the research breakthrough was just the beginning. Once the new variety was developed in 1994, he worked with non-profit groups to distribute eight tons of seed to farmers in twelve African nations.
That's typical of Gebisa Ejeta, according to his colleague at Purdue, Mitch Tuinstra.
"One of the most important things about Gebisa's work is that he always carries it to the next level," Tuinstra says. "Which is, 'How do I translate the products of this research into technologies that empower and strengthen farmers in Africa?'"
Ejeta's new varieties of sorghum resist drought and the weed Striga
Ejeta has always understood the importance of getting technology into the hands of African farmers. Just out of graduate school, Ejeta bred a high-yielding, drought-tolerant variety of sorghum. When the new hybrid variety was introduced in 1983, Ejeta says farmers were thrilled to find it yielded more than double what traditional varieties produced.
"They thought it was fantastic that they were getting this kind of performance with this hybrid," he says. "And so, the initial response was, 'How can we get seed?'"
That is a critical question: Who will produce and deliver high-yielding seeds to farmers who need them, when there is no viable seed industry?
Ejeta was able to work with Sudanese farmers' cooperatives to scale up production of his drought-resistant sorghum.
But much of Africa still lacks a seed industry to get improved varieties to farmers. And farmers often don't have access to markets to sell the products of their improved harvests. So today, Ejeta is working to develop the market from the ground up. For example, along with local partners he connects brewers, bakers, and flour millers with farmers growing the improved sorghum. By working along the entire chain, from farmers' seeds to consumers' plates, his work is helping to lift people out of poverty - and providing a powerful weapon in the war on hunger.
Re: Ending Poverty by Advancing Prosperity- An Idea whose time has come at last!
Commercial Farming the pathway for Eliminating poverty with pros
Submitted by Globalbelai7 on Thu, 2009-10-22 17:21.
Dear Shanta:
I am amazed by your daring admission that Ending Poverty or creating wealth is the only solution to African's problem with poverty.
Poverty Reduction is a voodu science designed to starve Africans for a long time to come. Did you see European Union Agricultural Policy being developed on reducing poverty? For that matter is the Green Revolution in India based on increasing productivity or ending poverty?
It is interesting at last you seem to have got the idea, that wealth creation and building prosperity is the only solution to impending abject poverty. How can you reduce poverty? Can you really quantify poverty at the level where you can show you can reduce it.
Why not eliminate it with creating wealth and prosperity?
The old and outdated approach by the World Bank and IMF to postpone prosperity by reducing poverty is a bankrupt ideology that has no evidence based science but a rather cruel way of keeping Africans starving.
The latest work by Dr Gebissa Ejeta of Purdue University and the World Food Prize for 2009 indicate that if African Farmers are enabled with technology and are allowed to begin farming in a commercial way with increased cooperatives and the like, they will improve their productivity and eventual wealth creation.
The current system of micro-farming based subsistance farming is a recipe for disaster.
So, more than the farming technology, it is the Macro-Economics and lack of investment in Commercial Farming that is making poverty a substance of interest and perpetual failure by the Bank and IMF and similar bodies who do not seem to approach the problem with evidence based science.
All their structural adjustment and and conditionality is nothing but voodu science being played out by disconnected and callous economists and their supportive World Bank Governors and Donors.
it is time to look at the research carefully, and most importantly listen to the local governments and farmers on what works for them.
For once let Washington and the Economist listen to the farmers and science.
Please read the attahed interesting story about the work of Dr Gebissa Ejea for your additional information.
Belai H Jesus, MD, MPH
www.globalbelai7.blogspot.com
Globalbelai7@gmail.com
Ethiopian Sorghum Breeder Wins 2009 World Food Prize
By Steve Baragona
Washington
15 October 2009
Baragona Report - Download (MP3)
Baragona Report - Listen (MP3)
The World Food Prize is the top international award for individuals who have increased the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world
The 2009 World Food Prize has been awarded to Gebisa Ejeta, an Ethiopian-born plant scientist at Purdue University. The private, $250,000 award -- presented at ceremonies in Des Moines, Iowa, October 15th -- is given annually to people who have helped address the world's food needs. This year's prize honors Ejeta's life-long work to improve the production of sorghum, one of the world's most important grain crops. It also honors his efforts to take his discoveries beyond the lab -- to the farmers who need them the most.
Desire to help others rooted in his own childhood poverty
Ejeta is one of those success stories that show the difference an education -- and a motivated mother -- can make. Ejeta grew up in a one-room thatched hut in rural Ethiopia. But he says his mother had other plans for him.
"She didn't care much for the lifestyle in the community that we lived in," Ejita recalls. "And for some strange reason, this woman was able to see that through education one can get out of this drudgery and get to a better life."
So she found opportunities for Ejeta to study, and a place to stay, in a neighboring town, a 20-kilometer walk away. Ejeta studied. He excelled. And now he is being honored for his life's work helping others rise out of poverty.
Lowell Hardin is an emeritus professor at Purdue University who has known Ejeta for 25 years. "Because he grew up in very, very modest circumstances -- a single mother in a remote village in Ethiopia -- he knew poverty," Hardin says. "He knew hunger. And when he was fortunate enough to get an education thanks to his mother's pushing, he decided he was going to apply his talents in this direction."
Research efforts focused on threats to African food crops
Gebisa Ejeta received World Food Prize for his efforts to improve sorghum production
Ejeta applied his talents to fighting a weed called Striga, or witchweed, which threatens crops that feed more than 100 million people across sub-Saharan Africa. Ejeta says the parasitic weed can ruin fields of sorghum, a major staple in hot, dry regions of Africa.
"If you grow a crop that is susceptible to infection by the parasite," he says, "you just basically don't have any chance for growing a crop if your soil is contaminated. And most of these soils are getting contaminated."
Before Ejeta took up the challenge, researchers hadn't had much success controlling the weed. Its seeds can lie dormant in the soil for decades. But Ejeta and his team at Purdue University discovered the chemical signals produced by the sorghum plant that tell the Striga seeds to wake up -- that a victim is available. They then found sorghum varieties that didn't produce the signals, and bred a line of Striga-resistant plants that thrived in a broad range of African growing conditions. These new varieties produced up to four times more grain than local types, even in drought-plagued areas.
Making sure African farmers benefit directly from his research
But Ejeta knew the research breakthrough was just the beginning. Once the new variety was developed in 1994, he worked with non-profit groups to distribute eight tons of seed to farmers in twelve African nations.
That's typical of Gebisa Ejeta, according to his colleague at Purdue, Mitch Tuinstra.
"One of the most important things about Gebisa's work is that he always carries it to the next level," Tuinstra says. "Which is, 'How do I translate the products of this research into technologies that empower and strengthen farmers in Africa?'"
Ejeta's new varieties of sorghum resist drought and the weed Striga
Ejeta has always understood the importance of getting technology into the hands of African farmers. Just out of graduate school, Ejeta bred a high-yielding, drought-tolerant variety of sorghum. When the new hybrid variety was introduced in 1983, Ejeta says farmers were thrilled to find it yielded more than double what traditional varieties produced.
"They thought it was fantastic that they were getting this kind of performance with this hybrid," he says. "And so, the initial response was, 'How can we get seed?'"
That is a critical question: Who will produce and deliver high-yielding seeds to farmers who need them, when there is no viable seed industry?
Ejeta was able to work with Sudanese farmers' cooperatives to scale up production of his drought-resistant sorghum.
But much of Africa still lacks a seed industry to get improved varieties to farmers. And farmers often don't have access to markets to sell the products of their improved harvests. So today, Ejeta is working to develop the market from the ground up. For example, along with local partners he connects brewers, bakers, and flour millers with farmers growing the improved sorghum. By working along the entire chain, from farmers' seeds to consumers' plates, his work is helping to lift people out of poverty - and providing a powerful weapon in the war on hunger.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Ardipithecus ramidus (Ardi) a 4.4 Million year human ancestor fossil found in Ethiopia on Thursday 01 Oct 2009
Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe
Dear Global Patriotic Citizens and Friends of African Union and Ethiopia
The Science journal of 02 October 2009 has announced the discovery of yet another fossil skeleton predating Lucy by some one Million years, estimated to be 4.4 million years old. This pushes the legend, story and science of human ancestry by one million years.
Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus is the newest fossil skeleton found in the Western Afar Rift/Awash Valley Time Capsule treasure trove. Lucy was estimated to be 3.2 million and she was classified as Australopithecus afarensis.
The first fragments of Ardi were first found i 1992, some seventeen years ago.
Scientists claim that Ardi will replace Lucy as the earliest known skeleton from the human branch of the primate family tree, taing the first evolutionary steps since humans diverged from with our common ancestors with the chimpanzees. The scientists further stated that no modern ape is a realistic proxy for characterizing early hominid evolution.
It is expected that Ardi stood some 4 feet tall and weighed about 120 pounds, almost a foot taller and twice the weight of Lucy
Its brain is no larger than that of a modern chimp. This is considered a realistic proxy for characterizing early hominid evolution.
Its very long arms were used for retaining its agility for free-climbing and walked upright with two legs and its foot did not yet developed the characteristic arch.
Its very long arms and short legs resembled the proportion of extinct apes.
The discovery site is an arid flood plain along the Awash River in Ethiopia. It is 140 miles North East of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital and 45 miles South of Hadar where the legendary Lucy was discovered in 1974.
Dr Suwa of Japan, specialist in fossil teeth, commented that the canine teeth looked more like humans or pre-humans than chimps and gorrilas who in contrast have projecting upper canines.
It is reported that there are several fossils found in the same area that range from 5 to 6 million years and it is likely more older hominid finds will be announced once they are able to reconstruct the composiete skeleton.
Surely, this is an interesting time for anthropology and and earliest human ancestral studies and trust the security in the region will continue to allow more discoveries and may be even new fossil hunters expedition green tourists.
Dr B
www.globalbelai7.blogspot.com
Globalbelai7@gmail.com
571.225.5736
Move Over, Lucy; Ardi May Be Oldest Human Ancestor
by CHRISTOPHER JOYCE
EnlargeJ.H. Matternes
An artist's rendering of what Ardipithecus ramidus, aka "Ardi," may have looked like. This female stood about 1.2 meters, or about 4 feet, tall.
text sizeAAAOctober 1, 2009
Scientists on Thursday unveiled a fossil human ancestor dating back 4.4 million years — a creature more ancient than the famous fossil "Lucy." And, the scientists say, even more important than Lucy.
The team that discovered the fossil, called Ardipithicus ramidus, say it's the closest thing yet found to the common ancestor of both chimps and humans. That common ancestor is thought to have lived about 6 million years ago. From that animal, chimps and other apes evolved in one direction, while our own ancestors, the hominids, evolved through several forms into what we are now.
The anthropologists found the bones in Ethiopia, in a desert region called Aramis. Scientists have previously discovered a few teeth and bones of Ardipithicus, dating from 5 to 6 million years ago. But in this case, they have more than 100 bones from 36 individuals, including a partial skeleton of a female whom they've dubbed "Ardi."
The area excavated "was a time capsule with contents that nobody had ever seen before," says anthropologist Tim White, of the University of California, Berkeley, and the team co-leader.
EnlargeKent State University
Dr. C. Owen Lovejoy, Kent State University professor of anthropology, stands next to the reconstructed skeleton of "Lucy." A team of researchers including Lovejoy have discovered a skeleton older than "Lucy," nicknamed "Ardi."
The skull had been crushed into scores of pieces, says White. But after years of reconstruction work, White says, "what we have is a very small-brained cranium of an early female hominid that is very different from a chimpanzee."
That's critical, White says. "People have sort of assumed ... that the last common ancestor was more or less like a chimpanzee." Ardi suggests otherwise — that in fact the earliest known hominid was a "mosaic," with some features like chimps but others like monkeys, such as the feet.
Other features are more like the more recent hominid, Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), such as the teeth. For example, the canine teeth near the front of the mouth in both male and female Ardipithicus are much smaller than a chimp's canines.
"It's just a treasure trove of surprises," says C. Owen Lovejoy, one of the leaders of the team and an anthropologist at Kent State University. Take the small canines, he says. A chimp's big, protruding canines — especially the males' — are for fighting or intimidating other males to get access to females, Lovejoy says. Small canines on Ardipithicus suggest a different social strategy.
"So females are picking males that are using some other technique to obtain reproductive success, and that technique is probably exchanging food for copulation," Lovejoy says.
White and Lovejoy say that the hand and arm bones, as well as bones from the feet and pelvis, suggest that Ardi was able to walk on two legs. But it was probably more comfortable in the trees, though it maneuvered on its palms in a way different from chimps.
EnlargeT. White
The cover of Science showing the partial skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species living about 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia.
The team spent almost two decades collecting everything from animal bones to pollen in the region. They conclude that Ardi lived in a lush, wooded environment, not the grassy savanna usually thought to be the habitat of the earliest human ancestors.
"This is more important than Lucy," says anthropologist Alan Walker of Penn State University. The number of bones and its greater antiquity give scientists a wealth of new information on this earliest part of human evolution. At the same time, he says, the team's conclusions will draw a lot of skepticism from other scientists.
Among the skeptics is Bernard Wood, professor of anatomy at George Washington University. Wood says it could well be that these bones belonged to a creature that evolved outside the line that led to humans — that it was in fact a separate branch of primate evolution that disappeared into a dead end, like so many other forms of ancient life.
The scientific community will now get a chance to test the team's conclusions, which are outlined in 11 papers — with 47 authors — in the journal Science.
Related NPR Stories
World's Oldest Hominid Now World's Oldest Tourist Aug. 23, 2007
Dig Finds A Thriving Cultural Mecca In Indianapolis July 23, 2009
With Climate Swing, a Culture Bloomed in Americas Feb. 11, 2008
E-mailShareComments (117)Recommend (40)Print
Humans
Researchers Unearth A Hominid More Ancient Than Lucy
Move Over, Lucy; Ardi May Be Oldest Human Ancestor
Shakeup At Sequenom After Investigation of Down Syndrome Test
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PodcastRSS
Humans
All Things Considered–
Global Green Entertprises, Inc 4 Peace & Prosperity!
OUr Passion is to reach our individual and collective potential-Always
African Renaissance Broadcast
Dear Global Patriotic Citizens and Friends of African Union and Ethiopia
The Science journal of 02 October 2009 has announced the discovery of yet another fossil skeleton predating Lucy by some one Million years, estimated to be 4.4 million years old. This pushes the legend, story and science of human ancestry by one million years.
Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus is the newest fossil skeleton found in the Western Afar Rift/Awash Valley Time Capsule treasure trove. Lucy was estimated to be 3.2 million and she was classified as Australopithecus afarensis.
The first fragments of Ardi were first found i 1992, some seventeen years ago.
Scientists claim that Ardi will replace Lucy as the earliest known skeleton from the human branch of the primate family tree, taing the first evolutionary steps since humans diverged from with our common ancestors with the chimpanzees. The scientists further stated that no modern ape is a realistic proxy for characterizing early hominid evolution.
It is expected that Ardi stood some 4 feet tall and weighed about 120 pounds, almost a foot taller and twice the weight of Lucy
Its brain is no larger than that of a modern chimp. This is considered a realistic proxy for characterizing early hominid evolution.
Its very long arms were used for retaining its agility for free-climbing and walked upright with two legs and its foot did not yet developed the characteristic arch.
Its very long arms and short legs resembled the proportion of extinct apes.
The discovery site is an arid flood plain along the Awash River in Ethiopia. It is 140 miles North East of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital and 45 miles South of Hadar where the legendary Lucy was discovered in 1974.
Dr Suwa of Japan, specialist in fossil teeth, commented that the canine teeth looked more like humans or pre-humans than chimps and gorrilas who in contrast have projecting upper canines.
It is reported that there are several fossils found in the same area that range from 5 to 6 million years and it is likely more older hominid finds will be announced once they are able to reconstruct the composiete skeleton.
Surely, this is an interesting time for anthropology and and earliest human ancestral studies and trust the security in the region will continue to allow more discoveries and may be even new fossil hunters expedition green tourists.
Dr B
www.globalbelai7.blogspot.com
Globalbelai7@gmail.com
571.225.5736
Move Over, Lucy; Ardi May Be Oldest Human Ancestor
by CHRISTOPHER JOYCE
EnlargeJ.H. Matternes
An artist's rendering of what Ardipithecus ramidus, aka "Ardi," may have looked like. This female stood about 1.2 meters, or about 4 feet, tall.
text sizeAAAOctober 1, 2009
Scientists on Thursday unveiled a fossil human ancestor dating back 4.4 million years — a creature more ancient than the famous fossil "Lucy." And, the scientists say, even more important than Lucy.
The team that discovered the fossil, called Ardipithicus ramidus, say it's the closest thing yet found to the common ancestor of both chimps and humans. That common ancestor is thought to have lived about 6 million years ago. From that animal, chimps and other apes evolved in one direction, while our own ancestors, the hominids, evolved through several forms into what we are now.
The anthropologists found the bones in Ethiopia, in a desert region called Aramis. Scientists have previously discovered a few teeth and bones of Ardipithicus, dating from 5 to 6 million years ago. But in this case, they have more than 100 bones from 36 individuals, including a partial skeleton of a female whom they've dubbed "Ardi."
The area excavated "was a time capsule with contents that nobody had ever seen before," says anthropologist Tim White, of the University of California, Berkeley, and the team co-leader.
EnlargeKent State University
Dr. C. Owen Lovejoy, Kent State University professor of anthropology, stands next to the reconstructed skeleton of "Lucy." A team of researchers including Lovejoy have discovered a skeleton older than "Lucy," nicknamed "Ardi."
The skull had been crushed into scores of pieces, says White. But after years of reconstruction work, White says, "what we have is a very small-brained cranium of an early female hominid that is very different from a chimpanzee."
That's critical, White says. "People have sort of assumed ... that the last common ancestor was more or less like a chimpanzee." Ardi suggests otherwise — that in fact the earliest known hominid was a "mosaic," with some features like chimps but others like monkeys, such as the feet.
Other features are more like the more recent hominid, Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), such as the teeth. For example, the canine teeth near the front of the mouth in both male and female Ardipithicus are much smaller than a chimp's canines.
"It's just a treasure trove of surprises," says C. Owen Lovejoy, one of the leaders of the team and an anthropologist at Kent State University. Take the small canines, he says. A chimp's big, protruding canines — especially the males' — are for fighting or intimidating other males to get access to females, Lovejoy says. Small canines on Ardipithicus suggest a different social strategy.
"So females are picking males that are using some other technique to obtain reproductive success, and that technique is probably exchanging food for copulation," Lovejoy says.
White and Lovejoy say that the hand and arm bones, as well as bones from the feet and pelvis, suggest that Ardi was able to walk on two legs. But it was probably more comfortable in the trees, though it maneuvered on its palms in a way different from chimps.
EnlargeT. White
The cover of Science showing the partial skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species living about 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia.
The team spent almost two decades collecting everything from animal bones to pollen in the region. They conclude that Ardi lived in a lush, wooded environment, not the grassy savanna usually thought to be the habitat of the earliest human ancestors.
"This is more important than Lucy," says anthropologist Alan Walker of Penn State University. The number of bones and its greater antiquity give scientists a wealth of new information on this earliest part of human evolution. At the same time, he says, the team's conclusions will draw a lot of skepticism from other scientists.
Among the skeptics is Bernard Wood, professor of anatomy at George Washington University. Wood says it could well be that these bones belonged to a creature that evolved outside the line that led to humans — that it was in fact a separate branch of primate evolution that disappeared into a dead end, like so many other forms of ancient life.
The scientific community will now get a chance to test the team's conclusions, which are outlined in 11 papers — with 47 authors — in the journal Science.
Related NPR Stories
World's Oldest Hominid Now World's Oldest Tourist Aug. 23, 2007
Dig Finds A Thriving Cultural Mecca In Indianapolis July 23, 2009
With Climate Swing, a Culture Bloomed in Americas Feb. 11, 2008
E-mailShareComments (117)Recommend (40)Print
Humans
Researchers Unearth A Hominid More Ancient Than Lucy
Move Over, Lucy; Ardi May Be Oldest Human Ancestor
Shakeup At Sequenom After Investigation of Down Syndrome Test
Podcast and RSS Feeds
PodcastRSS
Humans
All Things Considered–
Global Green Entertprises, Inc 4 Peace & Prosperity!
OUr Passion is to reach our individual and collective potential-Always
African Renaissance Broadcast
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