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zondag, mei 31, 2015
zaterdag, mei 30, 2015
Frustration mounts as Neskantaga First Nation goes more than 20 years without safe drinking water
Feds spent $1M on bottled water in First Nation with broken water plant, chief says
He said department officials told him that Neskantaga is number 19 on the government's priority list for spending on water plants. Previously, Moonias said the community was told it was fourth on that list.
The chief of Neskantaga First Nation in northwestern Ontario says, after 20 years under a boil water advisory, he can't understand why his community has slipped down the federal government's priority list for safe drinking water.
Chief Wayne Moonias met with officials from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada in Thunder Bay on Thursday.
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"We're over 20 years already where our people haven't been able to get the water they need to drink from their taps or to bathe themselves without getting any rashes," Moonias said.
Boil water advisory since 1995
The boil water advisory was issued for Neskantaga in 1995 because the water from the community's then two-year-old water plant often tested positive for high levels of chlorine and harmful disinfectant products.
Now, some people are walking more than a kilometre each day and carrying fresh water home from the lake or from the reverse osmosis water system that is not connected to the community's water mains, Moonias said.
The limited capacity of the reverse osmosis system means bottled water is sometimes flown in, at a hefty cost, he said.
"Our accountant estimates that at least a million dollars has been spent on bottled water," Moonias said. "Yet the government says they don't have any money."
$1M for bottled water vs. $5.8M for water plant
A 2013 report, funded by the federal government, set the total cost to design and build a new water plant in Neskantaga at $5,851,200. Moonias said after Thursday's meeting he's frustrated that the government appears unprepared to act on that report, or offer any help at all.
A spokesperson for Aboriginal Affairs confirmed to CBC News that department officials met with Moonias, but said she could not meet CBC's request for information about the outcome of the meeting.
Meanwhile, former Liberal leader Bob Rae wrote a letter asking the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs to fund a new water plant in Neskantaga. Rae is the negotiator for the community and eight other First Nations in their talks with Ontario about the Ring of Fire mining development.
"There is no time to waste," Rae wrote in the letter dated May 27. "Lives are at risk."
In response to Rae's letter, a spokesperson for Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt said that since 2006 the federal government has invested approximately $3 billion to complete more than 220 major projects and funded maintenance of over 1,200 water and wastewater treatment projects.
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29-5-2015
At least 6,000 aboriginal children died while in the residential school system, says Justice Murray Sinclair, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
At least 6,000 aboriginal children died while in the residential school system, says Justice Murray Sinclair, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Sinclair, who has been tasked with studying the legacy of the residential schools, says that the figure is just an estimate and is likely much higher. Residential schools were established in the 19th century and the last ones closed in 1996.
"We think that we have not uncovered anywhere near what the total would be because the record keeping around that question was very poor," Sinclair told Rosemary Barton of CBC's Power & Politics. "You would have thought they would have concentrated more on keeping track."
Sinclair offered the figure of 6,000 in a later interview with Evan Solomon to air Saturday on CBC Radio's The House — much higher than earlier estimates that put the number of school children who died in the system at less than 4,000.
Sinclair, who was Manitoba's first aboriginal judge, estimates 24 to 42 per cent of aboriginal children who attended the residential schools died at school or shortly after leaving school.
Most of the children died from malnourishment or disease. Some children who attended the schools in the 1940s and 1950s were even subjected to science experiments in which they were deprived essential nutrients and dental care.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, struck in 2009, is writing an exhaustive history of the residential school system. The commissioners interviewed over 7,000 people, and the final report, which is expected to be released on June 2, will span six volumes and include over two million words.
'Cultural genocide'
The new death toll comes in the wake of comments made by Beverly McLachlin, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. At an event on Thursday, McLachlin said that Canada attempted to commit "cultural genocide" against aboriginal peoples.
"The most glaring blemish on the Canadian historic record relates to our treatment of the First Nations that lived here at the time of colonization," McLachlin said. She was delivering the fourth annual Pluralism Lecture of the Global Centre for Pluralism, founded in 2006 by the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, and the federal government.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission Chair Justice Murray Sinclair releases his final report next week. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)
Canada, she said, developed an "ethos of exclusion and cultural annihilation."
Sinclair said he agrees with McLachlin's characterization of the country's history.
"I think as commissioners we have concluded that cultural genocide is probably the best description of what went on here. But more importantly, if anybody tried to do this today, they would easily be subject to prosecution under the genocide convention," Sinclair told Evan Solomon of CBC Radio's The House.
"The evidence is mounting that the government did try to eliminate the culture and language of indigenous people for well over a hundred years. And they did it by forcibly removing children from their families and placing them within institutions that were cultural indoctrination centres.
"That appears to us to fall within the definition of genocide under the UN convention," Sinclair said.
The United Nations' convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide does not address "cultural genocide," but it says genocide may include causing "mental harm" to a racial or religious group.
A spokesperson for Bernard Valcourt, the minister of aboriginal affairs, would not comment on the chief justice's remarks, but issued a statement saying, "While we cannot undo the past, we can learn from it and we have taken the steps necessary to bring closure to the legacy of the Indian residential schools."
Policy of 'aggressive assimilation'
In the 19th century, the Canadian government developed a policy of "aggressive assimilation" calling for aboriginal children to be taught at church-run, government-funded residential schools.
The government felt children were easier to mould than adults, and the concept of a boarding school was the best way to prepare them for life in mainstream society.
Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, was a strong proponent of the system.
"When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with his parents who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write," he told the House of Commons in 1883.
The last residential schools, St. Michael's Indian Residential School and Gordon Indian Residential School, both located in Saskatchewan, closed in 1996.
In 2008, Prime Minister Harper made a historic apology for the harm caused by the residential school system.
You were powerless to protect your own children
and we are sorry
vrijdag, mei 29, 2015
Cuentos de muerte y sangre, aventuras grotescas
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Ratzinger was handed a volume containing the visions of false seer Conchiglia, who deifies the Virgin Mary, considers Pope Francis a “vicar of the Anti-Christ”, defines the Vatican as a den of deadly sins and claims that we are ruled by aliens. Mgr. Gänswein denied there being any support for the so-called seer or the content of the book. “Had Benedict XVI known what it was about he would never have agreed to the meeting”
ANDREA TORNIELLIVATICAN CITY
During the course of a meeting that lasted just a few minutes after the rosary was prayed, in the Vatican Gardens, on 9 May, the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, was handed a large book with a dark red cover and a stamp in the shape of a shell (conchiglia in Italian): the very same shell that appears in his episcopal and papal coat of arms. Neither the Pope Emeritus nor his personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein knew what it was about. Neither did the two envoys representing the false seer Franca Miscio - better known as Conchiglia, founder of an international movement whose model figures are Guadalupe and Juan Diego - have any knowledge of the contents of the volume.
The “messages” received from the fake seer are easy to find online. Conchiglia presents herself as a prophetess of our time and fills pages and pages with words that she assures come directly from God, Jesus and Mary. One of the strangest “revelations” she makes is an unshakable belief that aliens exist and that “alien DNA” has mixed with “Terrestrian” DNA so that there are now “alien beings” ruling the world.
The Vatican is described in the “prophesies” as den of all evils: “The Vatican is the centre of the global power that wants to create a single global religion uniting all false religions … it is the den of the seven deadly sins and other kinds of vileness.” Conchiglia deifies the figure of Mary whom equals to other figures of the Trinity and adds her to the sign of the cross, which becomes: “In the name of the Father, the Mother, the Son and the Holy Spirit!”
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compleet arrtikel: Vatican Insider
woensdag, mei 27, 2015
dinsdag, mei 26, 2015
guarda-louça; pudim Molotov met een strikje d´rom
Symposium
Tegen loodcorrosie van orgelpijpen wordt al langer gewaarschuwd. Door het corroderen van vallen er gaten en kunnen pijpvoeten in elkaar zakken waardoor orgels zelfs onbespeelbaar kunnen worden. Van de 150 historische orgels in Nederland vertonen er tientallen in enigermate schade aan de pijpen, zo bleek dit weekend op het symposium in het Amsterdamse Orgelpark.
Azijnzuur
Zolang er nog onduidelijkheid heerst over de exacte chemische oorzaak lopen alle historische orgels gevaar, aldus Diepenhorst in NRC Handelsblad. Ondanks jarenlang internationaal onderzoek is er namelijk nog geen remedie gevonden. Duidelijk is wel dat de combinatie van eikenhout en lood in de orgels problemen oplevert: het azijnzuur in het hout tast immers het lood aan.
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maandag, mei 25, 2015
Pope I was touched down under
klik The Archbishop of Sydney has ordered a complete review of the archdiocese's professional standards and safeguarding policies after a royal commission heard further shocking accounts of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy.
Speaking of the shame and disillusionment felt by clergy and faithful after sex abuse accounts and allegations, Archbishop Anthony Fisher says he is determined to ensure it never happens again in the church.
"We may feel disillusioned, contaminated, ashamed," he said in a letter to Sydney Catholics on Monday.
"I am determined that we will do all we can to ensure such things never happen again in our church; that those entrusted with the care of the young and vulnerable `care for the lambs' and keep them safe; and that those already harmed are brought justice and compassion."
He said he would soon make announcements about further improvements to the Sydney Archdiocese professional standards and safeguarding practices, and he wanted the "best contemporary testing and discernment" for seminarians, as well as improved protocols and responses to allegations and the needs of survivors.
He goes on to warn there will be more to "lament and more humiliation and purification ahead for the Church".
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is currently conducting hearings into abuse committed by clergy in Ballarat.
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"Dear friends, may this celebration, in the presence of the Successor of Peter, be a moment of rededication and renewal for the whole Church in Australia.
"Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country.
"Indeed, I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that as their pastor I too share in their suffering.
"These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation.
"They have caused great pain and have damaged the Church's witness.
"I ask all of you to support and assist your bishops, and to work together with them in combating this evil.
"Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice.
"It is an urgent priority to promote a safer and more wholesome environment, especially for young people.
"In these days marked by the celebration of World Youth Day, we are reminded of how precious a treasure has been entrusted to us in our young people, and how great a part of the Church's mission in this country has been dedicated to their education and care.
"As the Church in Australia continues, in the spirit of the Gospel, to address effectively this serious pastoral challenge, I join you in praying that this time of purification will bring about healing, reconciliation and ever greater fidelity to the moral demands of the Gospel."
-Reuters
(Vatican Radio) The IOR, the Institute for Works of Religion, released its Annual Report for 2014 on Monday, showing a net profit of 69.3 million Euros, a substantial increase from the 2.9 million reported in 2013.
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(Vatican Radio) The IOR, the Institute for Works of Religion, released its Annual Report for 2014 on Monday, showing a net profit of 69.3 million Euros, a substantial increase from the 2.9 million reported in 2013.
Vatican Bank’s Profit Soars
VATICAN CITY
Wall Street Journal
By FRANCIS X. ROCCA
May 25, 2015
ROME—The Vatican bank said its 2014 net profit skyrocketed to €69.3 million ($77 million) from €2.9 million a year earlier, owing largely to a steep rise in net trading income and a decline in extraordinary operating expenses. The increase also reflected an exceptionally low net profit for 2013, largely from write-downs on legacy investments.
In its third annual report, released Monday, the Vatican bank, officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR, also described its efforts to bolster compliance with international financial norms, as part of a continuing effort to repair its scandal-plagued reputation.
The 2014 profit will allow the bank to turn over €55 million to the Holy See, for charitable purposes at the discretion of the pope, an amount in line with previous years. Last year, the bank drew from its reserves to give the Holy See €54 million.
The bank has been reviewing accounts to ensure compliance with anti-money-laundering regulations and to make sure all its clients belong to one of four categories consistent with its mission to serve “works of religion”: Catholic institutions; individual clergy and members of religious orders; Vatican employees and pensioners; and foreign diplomats accredited to the Holy See.
Wall Street Journal
By FRANCIS X. ROCCA
May 25, 2015
ROME—The Vatican bank said its 2014 net profit skyrocketed to €69.3 million ($77 million) from €2.9 million a year earlier, owing largely to a steep rise in net trading income and a decline in extraordinary operating expenses. The increase also reflected an exceptionally low net profit for 2013, largely from write-downs on legacy investments.
In its third annual report, released Monday, the Vatican bank, officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR, also described its efforts to bolster compliance with international financial norms, as part of a continuing effort to repair its scandal-plagued reputation.
The 2014 profit will allow the bank to turn over €55 million to the Holy See, for charitable purposes at the discretion of the pope, an amount in line with previous years. Last year, the bank drew from its reserves to give the Holy See €54 million.
The bank has been reviewing accounts to ensure compliance with anti-money-laundering regulations and to make sure all its clients belong to one of four categories consistent with its mission to serve “works of religion”: Catholic institutions; individual clergy and members of religious orders; Vatican employees and pensioners; and foreign diplomats accredited to the Holy See.
Jane Lee
Legal Affairs Reporter for The Age
Legal Affairs Reporter for The Age
25-5-2015
Lawyers for the Catholic Church insist they will not challenge survivors' claims Cardinal George Pell tried to bribe one and ignored another's abuse reports, even though they themselves are willing to be cross-examined.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is expected to make findings on the claims, and to ask for a full response from Cardinal Pell, who now manages the Vatican's finances in Rome.
Lawyers for David Ridsdale and Timothy Green – Dr Martine Marich and Dr Kristine Hanscombe – told the commission on Monday that their clients were both willing to be recalled to give more evidence about their claims from last week, and to be cross-examined if required.
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An inconvenient truth about the same-sex marriage referendum
Breda O’Brien
25-5-2015
Seven hundred and thirty-four thousand, three hundred people did not vote No to love and equality. They are just as generous and inclusive as their neighbours who voted Yes, and just as fond of their gay relatives. In fact, some of them are gay themselves.
That does not fit the dominant narrative that only people who were rigid, intolerant and fearful voted No. It is an inconvenient truth that this was not a referendum on whether we like gay people or not.
People who voted No recognise marriage as the place where society celebrates sexual and gender differences as deeply embedded features of the human condition, primarily – although by no means exclusively – because it produces children. They wanted to preserve that in our social structures and law.
The vast majority of Yes voters also voted from generous and humane impulses. More importantly, parents and relations of gay children, in particular, desperately wanted to convey to their children that they were just as equal as their straight siblings. We can all admire that and understand why they feel they have achieved that objective.
We do not have to admire the fact that the campaign may have lasted weeks, but the soft coverage of gay icons and celebrities and “human interest” stories pushing the Yes side have been going on for years, with the enthusiastic collusion of the media.
We do not have to admire a Government who relentlessly framed this so it was always going to be a battle between the heart and the head. We do not have to admire Government Ministers who talked about damaging the gay people’s mental health if we voted No.
The same Government presided over the disintegration of mental health services – everything from removing guidance counsellors from school, often the first to pick up serious problems – to decimating the psychiatric services. The hypocrisy is stunning.
We do not have to admire a political system that ignored 734,300 voters, aside from six brave TDs and Senators who dared to be different.
The No campaign was left with the unenviable task of pointing out the consequences of amending the Constitution on the family. They were rubbished and derided at every turn as scaremongers and purveyors of red herrings.
Yet certain facts remain facts no matter how often they are denied. Every time two men bring a new child into the world, they need to use surrogacy. Every time.
It was a fantasy to suggest that the referendum would extend marriage to same-sex couples and then give them no way to have children.
Yet the Yes side kept saying that this referendum had nothing to do with children, much less surrogacy.
Given the Yes vote, when two married gay men conceive a child through surrogacy, then those two men and the child will be the natural, primary and fundamental unit of society and the child’s mother will not be.
We are giving the status of marriage, superior and antecedent to all positive law, to a family that can only bring new children into the world through surrogacy, egg donation or sperm donation.
We have damaged irreparably the connection between marriage and a child’s right to know and be cared for by the two people who each give them half of their biological, social and familial identity.
Sure, reproductive technologies are used anyway, but before May 22nd, no one could say that the Irish people voted to affirm in our Constitution something that inevitably separates children from half their genetic heritage and one half of their relations.
Some day, there will be a young Irish woman wandering the streets of Copenhagen. She will have been raised by her lesbian mother and her partner, both of whom she loves dearly, and who are great mothers.
But she also has a deep longing to know the other half of herself, her father, and simple things like whether she got her love for music or the shape of her hands from him. All she knows is her father was a Danish sperm donor. She has no idea how many half-siblings she has. She is in contact online with other sperm donor children, some of whom have 150 half-siblings.
Her father’s address, given when he sold his sperm, is long out of date. So she wanders, looking at Danish faces, wondering, is that man my sperm donor father? Could that be a half-sibling?
It would have happened anyway, regardless of the amendment. But she also has to deal with the crushing fact that in 2015, her fellow Irish citizens voted for it and affirmed this arrangement that deprived her of half her identity. They voted that it was natural, primary and fundamental, and enshrined it into the Constitution.
These are not comfortable realities. We may want to banish people who disturb the dominant narratives, but certain truths cannot be wished away.
zondag, mei 24, 2015
zaterdag, mei 23, 2015
donderdag, mei 21, 2015
Case study 28; “Would you please step out of the car, sir”
please be aware that the content of the public hearings can be distressing for viewers.
¨....
The evidence in the first stage of this hearing will include the personal stories of
a number of survivors. That evidence will describe the gross violations of
individuals by ordained members of the Catholic Church. As you are aware, the
Royal Commission has revealed many shocking stories of the betrayal of
children. As we listen to the evidence in this hearing we should all reflect on the
impact for those who have suffered in the Ballarat region, and the thousands of
others who have suffered throughout Australia. In this hearing there will be evidence from perpetrators. The evidence will not be directly concerned with the circumstances of their offences. That has already been dealt with by the Courts. However, the evidence has an important part to play in the Royal Commission coming to understand both why ordained members of the Catholic Church became abusers and how the Church responded to allegations of their abuse. It will be particularly important in helping the community to learn of the knowledge that people in authority in the Church had of the abuse and will assist us to assess the response of those in charge.
I appreciate that the evidence of perpetrators may be confronting for some people, in particular survivors. However without the evidence of perpetrators, the true story of the response of the Church in Ballarat may never be completely revealed. Mindful of the possible impact of the hearing, the Commission staff have been careful to organise, in cooperation with local services, support for any person who may need it during the hearing.
From my discussions and those of Commission staff with members of the community, I am aware that there may be different and strongly held views about the conduct of ordained people and the appropriateness of the response of leaders of the Church in the Ballarat Diocese.
Many want this public hearing. There are others who doubt the need for a public hearing. Some may not want the story told. Unless the truth is revealed and known publicly the prospect of effective healing for survivors and institutions is diminished. When he recently visited Sri Lanka Pope Francis said of the suffering brought by civil war in that country
“the process of healing also needs to include the pursuit of truth, not for the sake
of opening old wounds, but rather as a necessary means of
promoting justice, healing, and unity”
The Pope’s words have relevance to the task we are about to undertake in this hearing.¨
¨ ...it is customary to stand and bow your head.
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That’s all I can say¨
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That’s all I can say¨
January , 2014
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