We live in an age obsessed with peeling the onion, with digging into the secrets and mysteries that our forebears accepted. While weaker institutions have been pierced by our obsessive desire to scrutinize, the Church has resisted all efforts to bring it into the light. It has held tighter than a clam. Will the recent attacks (including Christopher Hitchens' call for his arrest) on Pope Benedict about his role in covering up the abuse of children by priests, his refusal to punish the offenders and his efforts to shield them from investigation and punishment by secular authorities change this?
Missing the Target
Labels: catholic church, child abuse, church, corruption, papacy, Pope Benedict, Pope John Paul, religion, sexual abuse |Israeli Settlements and American Security
Labels: ICJ, Israel, middle east peace, military strategy, Palestinians, United Nations, US foreign policy, West Bank |Once again the Israeli policy and practice of constructing settlements in the West Bank is undermining the peace process, and causing a rift in US-Israeli relations. Prime Minister Netanyahu is defiantly rejecting US demands that he stop recently announced plans to build yet another Israeli apartment complex in Eastern Jerusalem, and there is intense pressure on the Obama administration to back off and paper over the difference. It should not do so.
The occupied territories of the West Bank were captured by Israel in the 1967 war against Egypt and Jordan. The continued occupation is in violation of the international law principle against the acquisition of territory by conquest. It has been condemned as such time and again by resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, often with affirmative votes by the United States. Its illegality has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice. Yet Israel not only continues to occupy it, but over decades has sought to colonize parts of the territory, including Eastern Jerusalem, as part of a plan to change the "facts on the ground", such that when the state of Palestine is eventually established, it will be impossible to return these settled areas to the Palestinians. There are now over 300,000 Israeli's living in settlements within the occupied territories, many of them within the controversial "security barrier" built by Israel in the last decade.
As has been pointed out recently, the change in the political context is that Israelis no longer think that land-for-peace is essential to Israeli interests, while peace and a two-state solution is increasingly seen by Americans as essential to US national security.
Sayonara to Tuna
Labels: conservation, environment, international law, international trade, Japan, United Nations |On Thursday the United Nations conference on endangered species soundly rejected the tabled proposal to ban international trade in buefin tuna. The vote was taken by delegates to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, commonly referred to as CITES. The vote was 68-20 against, with 30 abstentions.
The bluefin tuna stocks around the world are understood to be in catastrophic decline. There are two separate stocks in the Atlantic, and recent studies show that the Western Atlantic stock declined by 82% between 1970-2007, while the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Stock has declined almost 75% since the 1950s, and is still in free-fall.
The Japanese consume more than 80% of all the Atlantic bluefin tuna catch, and the Japanese government pulled out all stops to defeat the resolution.