News Today

In a 100-page report titled “Troubled Waters: Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water,” Amnesty International claims Israel is cutting off access to water for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

“This scarcity has affected every walk of life for Palestinians,” Amnesty’s researcher on Israel, Donatella Rovera, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday, ahead of the report’s release. “A greater amount of water has to be granted to them.”

According to the report, water consumption per capita for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is about 70 liters (18 gallons) per day, while Israeli per capita use is 300 liters (79 gallons). On average, Israelis use four times the amount of water per person on than Palestinians.

In the West Bank the Mountain Aquifer is the only source of water for Palestinians. Israel controls the aquifer and over 80 percent of water drawn goes to the Jewish state. As a result, the 450,000 Israelis who live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinian residents.

Rovera said the water situation in Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, had reached a “crisis point.” He also estimated damage to Gaza’s sewer system from the Israeli offensive has left 90 to 95 percent of the water in the region contaminated and unfit for human consumption. To make matters worse, an ongoing Israeli blockade is stopping any supplies for repairs to come in.

Israeli officials denied many of the claims from the report, complaining that Amnesty had neglected to use transparent information provided by the Israeli government.

“Israel has fulfilled all its obligations under the water agreement regarding the supply of additional quantities of water to the Palestinians, and has even extensively surpassed the obligatory quantity,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The Palestinians, on the other hand, have significantly violated their commitments under the water agreement, specifically regarding important issues such as illegal drilling (they have drilled over 250 wells without the authorization of the Joint Water Commission) and handling of sewage.”

Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NOfJfAnrmQ&feature=player_embedded
http://topics.cnn.com/topics/amnesty_international
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iVkvzuni3YkNQU5PikPz4yiPs0GQD9BJA3KO0
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/10/27/israel.water/

One issue that I think will define the next generation, much like the civil rights era did for the baby-boomers, is gay marriage. This is an issue that runs deep in a lot of places across the United States, and even the world.

Gay marriage has actually been around for a lot longer than most people think. The first recorded mention of same-sex marriage occurred during the early Roman Empire where it was practiced both openly and commonly.

In fact, it wasn’t until 342 AD when the Theodosian Code was issued by the Christian emperor Constantius II that gay marriage became outlawed in Rome. Same-sex marriage didn’t just disappear though, there’s actually evidence that gay marriages were performed in medieval Europe as long as 600 years ago.

In 1989 Denmark became the first country to recognize same-sex unions in the form of “registered partnerships”, and in 2001 the Netherlands became the first nation to grant same-sex marriages. Today, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Norway, and Sweden are the only countries to date that give equal marriage status for both heterosexual and homosexual couples.

In the United States gay marriages are not recognized federally, however, same-sex couples can currently marry in six states and receive state level benefits. Several states also offer civil unions or domestic partnerships.

President Barack Obama has repeatedly said he is opposed to same-sex marriage, but he does support “full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples”, and called Proposition 8 “unnecessary.”

If you asked 100 U.S. citizens if they supported the issue or not, you’d probably get about the same amount of people in support as you would people against it. If you asked me whether I’d support the issue, you’d get a resounding NO.

Now let me explain myself…

In 1996, the United States Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defining marriage solely as a union between a couple of the opposite sex for all federal purposes. This is often an argument you’ll hear from people who are against gay marriage, that marriage cannot be defined as anything but between a man and a woman.

This got me thinking… To me, that seems like something that individual churches could decide a lot better than the federal government. In fact it seems very out of place for our government to be as heavily involved in marriages as they are.

It was in thinking about this that I stumbled (somewhat accidentally) upon my position against gay marriage, or really against marriage itself. There is no reason why our government needs to be involved in the actual marriage process, that is a role much better suited for our church.

I believe the government should offer civil unions, civil partnerships, domestic partnerships, registered partnerships — whatever you want to call it — to anyone and everyone. These partnerships should have equal protection and rights, regardless of the couple’s sexual preference. That’s only fair, and what we have right now is far from being fair.

In fact, a 2004 study by the Congressional Budget Office found 1,138 statutory provisions “in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving ‘benefits, rights, and privileges,’” including complete ineligibility for same-sex couples for spousal and survivor Social Security benefits.

Besides, the other positive about this kind of a solution is that the actual “marriage” issue (whether marriage is a term that applies only to a man and a woman) would be left up to individual churches, where it belongs. This way if a church did not want to recognize/perform gay marriages, then they would not be forced to.

Thoughts?

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20464004/
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/10/21/readers-respond-to-obamas-complex-stance-on-gay-unions-.html

Today the Senate passed a resolution authorizing the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners for trials in the United States. The measure passed by a 79-19 vote after being tacked on as part of the $44.1 billion budget bill for the Homeland Security Department.

This marks a step forward on the issue for the President, who ordered the facility closed within a year in January. Obama will now be able to sign the measure that already passed the House.

Tuesday’s plan requires the administration to develop a plan before any more transfers can occur. It also requires at least 15 days’ notice before a transfer can occur and a “certification that the prisoner does not represent a security risk.”

Navy Rear Adm. Tom Copeman, the prison camp commander, told reporters that he could clear out the detention center within ten days.

“If they say on Jan. 12, ‘Move them out,’ we can meet the deadline,” said Copeman, “given the proper amount of logistical support.”

Copeman didn’t mention how much the logistical support would cost, although he did say that he would need the use of the C-17 Globemaster aircraft to move the detainees.

Interestingly enough, this all happened on the same day that the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case of men who have challenged the U.S. government’s right to hold them at the Guantanamo Bay detention center after it’s been determined they pose no threat to the USA.

Sources:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091020/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_guantanamo_prisoners
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/77476.html#
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/10/as_high_court_takes_new_case_n.html

U.N.-backed fraud investigators on Monday threw out almost one third of President Hamid Karzai’s votes from Afghanistan’s August election. Of the five million votes cast, over 1.3 million were found to be fraudulent.

The findings by the Electoral Complaints Commission dropped Karzai’s votes below the 50 percent threshold needed for him to avoid a runoff. The Afghan president has been under increasing pressure to accept a runoff election with former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and is expected to announce his intentions on Tuesday.

After weeks of threatening to contest the panel’s findings and complaining about foreigners influencing the election too much, Karzai campaign spokesman Waheed Omar said yesterday that the Karzai camp was waiting for the election commission to formally certify the U.N.-backed panel’s findings before deciding what to do.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that she was “encouraged at the direction the situation is moving.”

Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

What a bizarre news day.

Most Americans woke up to hear the rather surprising announcement that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, who praised Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” his push for nuclear disarmament and his outreach to the Muslim world, selected Obama out of a pool of over 200 candidates. The President did his best to downplay the remarkable achievement.

“Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations,” said Obama at the White House. “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.”

There is a $1.4 million cash award that comes with the prize which Obama says he will donate to charity.

Moving on, later on in the morning NASA reverted back to a classic American strategy — If you don’t understand something, shoot it. In an attempt to find water on the moon NASA scientists fired a 5,000-pound rocket into one of the moon’s craters. It will likely take days to analyze the data from the NASA mission, codenamed LCROSS.

“We’re going to take our time and build up a case for water in the ejecta, if it’s there, or a case against it if it’s not there,” said the project’s principal investigator Anthony Colaprete. “And then understand if we’re seeing variations, what do these variations mean? We’ve got to understand that before we say anything.”

In some other odds and ends, a Pakistani suicide bomber killed 49 people today after detonating his bomb next to a car in a crowded market. Pakistani officials are swearing revenge.

The stock market rallied on Friday, and the Dow Jones ended the week at its highest point so far this year.

And finally, the H1N1 world death toll has reached 4,500 casualties, according to a new report by the World Health Organization.

Sources:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10372298-239.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091009/ts_nm/us_nobel_peace_obama_17

Editors Note: Sometimes a picture can say so much more about a topic than any blog post or essay on the subject ever could. Consequently I’m going to keep this post kind of short.

This is four-year-old Paige Bennethum watching her father, Army Reservist Staff Sgt. Brett Bennethum, at his deployment to Iraq in July. Little Paige Bennethum was absolutely devestated to see her father leave.

So as Brett Bennethum lined up in formation not even the commanding officer had the heart to tell the little soldier girl to let go of her father’s hand.

“I just miss my dad right now,” said Paige Bennethum.

If all goes well, Brett Bennethum is expected home in July.

. . .

Well that didn’t work out so well…

Despite the best efforts of both the President and the First Lady of the United States, Chicago was unsuccessful in its olympic bid. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) instead picked the city of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil to host the olympics in 2016.

Rio De Janeiro’s 2016 olympics victory will mark the first time that a South American country hosts an olympics, a fact that brought Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva to tears.

Chicago was the first country to be eliminated by the IOC, even though the city had one of the best bids to offer. Chicago recieved just 18 of 94 votes, drawing sharp criticism from some as to why the President even bothered to go in the first place.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called it the “worst day of his presidency.”

“Obama demeaned the office of the presidency, going on this sales pitch,” Limbaugh said.

While disgruntled Republicans can let a sly grin out today, I’m not sure it’s in the best interest of the G.O.P. to celebrate this event as a victory.

“Taking any sort of glee in Chicago losing its bid for the 2016 Olympics is, in my view, an effort to overreach by criticizing the president,” former Bush White House aide Scott Stanzel told POLITICO. “It looks a bit petty and at times childish.”

Sources:
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212259813.shtml#
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/27857.html#

A couple things to go over real quick…

First off sorry I haven’t posted this weekend, it’s been quite an eventful week for news, especially in the world of foreign policy. I plan on catching up with that later. Secondly, it may have already come to your attention that comments are not working. Today.com is trying to work out a solution to the problem and hopefully comments will be back up and running soon.

Okay. Here’s a couple items of interest for you guys…

A Declaration of Independents, from Politico - Neat little story about some of the independent party governor candidates that are looking to make an impact in the next election.

This Iran missile thing could get ugly, real quick.

Military considers lifting ban on women serving in submarines.

Recovery.gov, the website promised by President Barack Obama to track the stimulus dollars, is up and running.

Alright, that’s all for now, I’ll try to get something else up here later tonight.

Are you fricking kidding me? This whole United Nations meeting is a joke. Did anyone catch Libya’s leader earlier today?

Moammar Gaddafi, Qaddafi, Khadafi — I couldn’t even tell you which one is the correct spelling. All three news channels broadcasting the event (CNN, MSNBC and FOX) spelled his name differently and a google news search for Libya brought up three different spellings as well.

For this post, I suppose we’ll settle on Gaddafi.

Anyways, to kick off the U.N. General Assembly Moammar Gaddafi took the podium directly after President Barack Obama spoke. What happened next was baffling.

From calls to abolish the Security Council because it had turned into a “terror council, to demanding $7.77 trillion in compensation to Africa from its past colonial masters, questions about who killed the Kennedy’s, Somali sea pirates, even the jet lag he experienced flying to New York — I kid you not, for over ninety minutes (he was alotted twenty) the United Nations let this man ramble on about nothing. NOTHING.

They literally had to change translators halfway through the speech because his rambling had gone on too long.

In fact, in the time that Gaddafi took to get through his speech (which, mind you, was written on torn out pieces of notebook paper) the U.S. Senate was able to hold hearings on and approve a resolution to condemn the “lavish” welcome home ceremony Libya gave last month for the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.

Our Senate wants an apology. I say we kick him out, or at least make him take that tent down (Editors Note - I guess they did make him take the tent down). Yeah, after being denied access in Central Park and in Englewood, N.J. this guy just sets up a huge Bedouin tent on one of Donald Trump’s properties in Bedford.

This is just ridiculous, the whole thing. His speech, his tent, the fact that he’s even on a United Nations security council. It’s a joke really. Only in a format as ridiculous as the United Nations is a man like this given creedence to, much less introduced as the “King of Kings.”

Sources:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=axvgOvJmgEno
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090923/pl_nm/us_usa_libya_2
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/09/23/2009-09-23_after_obamas_debut_spech_at_un_assembly_khadafy_and_irans_leader_take_to_the_pod.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/09/23/2009-09-23_libyan_despot_moammar_khadafy_chastises_united_nations_for_failing_to_prevent_wa.html

Just days after U.S. special envoy George Mitchell left Israel without reaching a deal for the resumption of peace talks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with President Barack Obama in New York. The trilateral meeting, which will take place on Tuesday, will be immediately followed by seperate individual meetings between Obama and each of the leaders.

While it would be foolish to expect anything too substantial to come out of Tuesday, the meetings have to be considered a step in the right direction and at the very least a small victory in foreign policy for the Obama administration — a victory that comes at a good time with Obama preparing to appear at the openings of the United Nations General Assembly and the G20 economic meetings in Pittsburgh.

“The sides agreed to this because of their respect for the president and his standing,” a White House official said. “We still have work to do to get to the point where we can relaunch talks.”

The goal of the meetings will be to get both sides back on track towards reaching a peace agreement. The two sides have been locked in a stalemate for months now. One of the main issues standing in the way of progress right now is the settlement issue, something Obama wants to stop and something the Palestinian’s demand a total freeze of before resuming peace talks.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knows a thing or two about the difficulties of negotiating between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

“I well remember that brilliant sunny afternoon on the South Lawn of the White House when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands,” she said. “And I well remember the disappointment at Camp David despite enormous efforts to try to finally forge that peace agreement when it was not successful.”

“However, I believe that the commitment evidenced by my husband and the commitment evidenced by President Obama to be in this from the very beginning, never to be deterred, … is the best way for America to demonstrate our absolute belief that this issue is at the core of so many other challenges we face,” Clinton continued. “And we are going to do all we can to persuade, cajole, encourage the parties themselves to make that agreement.”

Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/20/meeting-talks-obama-netanyahu-abbas
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27347.html