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JOHANNESBURG, 6 Apr 2006 (IRIN/PLUSNEWS) - HIV/AIDS activists have expressed concern that testimony by former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma, who is standing trial for rape, might reverse the gains made in creating awareness about the pandemic.A 31-year-old HIV positive activist has alleged that Zuma raped her at his home in Johannesburg in November 2005. Zuma has claimed that he had consensual sex with the complainant, and told the court this week that he did not use a condom because he believed that the risk of a man contracting the virus from a HIV positive woman was "minimal".Soul City,...

The National Organization for Women calls for the resignation of Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, who has failed to lead the prominent (and previously all-male) university toward true inclusion of women. His recent comments generated a firestorm of response from Harvard/Radcliffe women who were outraged that he would embarrass Harvard with such a public demonstration of sexism and ignorance. "Summers' suggestion that women are inferior to men in their ability to excel at math and science is more than an example of personal sexism, it is a clue to why women have not been more fully accepted and integrated into...

NewsStatementsReportsOp-Ed / ArticlesDocumentsConferencesLetters About Us Contact Us Who's Who FeedBack Directory Links Time in Palestine 10:19:59 ã, 06/02/2006 News Statements (Updated) Press Conferences (Updated) Op-Ed / Articles Letters (Updated) Reports (Updated) Documents (Updated) Maps Polls Featured News Interpol Hunting Ten Palestinians Accused of Corruption Influential People in Senior PNA Positions Involved in 50 Corruption Cases 06/02/2006 Palestine Media Center – PMC Palestinian attorney general Ahmed Al-Meghani told reporters on Sunday that a corruption investigation involving a multi-million dollar scandal has concluded that senior officials of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) may have stolen $700 million of public funds, adding he...

Abu Bin Mohammed,(may his tribe disappear!)Awoke one night from a gunshot near.And saw, by the moonlight in his room,An angel, writing a book of clay.Rumors were Bin Mohammed was gay! And to the vision in the room, he said,“What writest thou?”The vision raised its head, and with a nod of sweet amen, answered… “The names of those who love their fellow men.”“And is mine one?” asked Bin.“I’m afraid so,” said the angel. “I pray thee then, write me down as one who loves his women.”The vision wrote, and vanished. The next night, it appeared with a great awakening light. And...

How I returned to Monotheism To Akhmet DidatAlthough I grew up in a non-religious family, still from as early as I can remember I deeply believed in God, yet unknown to me, Omnipotent and always ready to give His hand to those who seek his guidance. In my youth years, when faced with a predicament and my own powers failed, I turned to God in my heart and the situation changed for the better. It came naturally, therefore, that to learn the truth about God I made a decision to join the Department of Philosophy at the Moscow State University....

MEXICO CITY, May 18 - Five days after President Vicente Fox provoked a storm of outrage in the United States by saying that Mexican migrants do work that "not even blacks want to do," the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson said in a visit to Mexico on Wednesday that he welcomed the remarks, in a backhand sort of way. Perhaps the greatest denial has been here in Mexico, where there is usually very little public examination of race, much less racism. Here, too, Mr. Fox seems to have opened a door, and this week the country seems engrossed by it. Mexicans...

By MICHAEL WINERIP Published: May 18, 2005 QUINCY, Mass. This year's math club at Quincy High School in Massachusetts, where Evelyn Ryan, far right, has been the adviser since 1999. Many club members have gone on to attend top-flight United States colleges. While the ethnic mix shifted some, families move here for the same reason my parents did 50 years ago: The housing is affordable, the subway ride to Boston is short, and Quincy public schools still send their top students to the best colleges. Though there has been an influx of Asian immigrants since the 1980's and most of...

<p>MANY Americans are mystified by the recent rise in the number and the audacity of suicide attacks in Iraq. The lull in violence after January's successful elections seemed to suggest that the march of democracy was trampling the threat of terrorism. But as electoral politics is taking root, the Iraqi insurgency and suicide terrorism are actually gaining momentum. In the past two weeks, suicide attackers have killed more than 420 Iraqis working with the United States and its allies. There were 20 such incidents in 2003, nearly 50 in 2004, and they are on pace to set a new record this year.</p>

Good morning to the Israeli left By Gideon Levy Good morning to the Israeli left. After an eternally long hibernation, we are starting to hear the sounds of its awakening. Only when the wind is once again blowing in its direction - and not because of anything it did - does the extra-parliamentary left dare to come out of the closet where it locked itself up more than four years ago. Perhaps one should welcome these signs of awakening, but it is impossible not to hold it accountable for its lengthy, disgraceful and cowardly silence that abandoned the street to...

By DANIEL J. HEMEL and ZACHARY M. SEWARD Crimson Staff Writers But Melissa E.B. Franklin, one of Summers’ most vehement critics this week, who is not a member of the committee, called Summers’ letter “a great step forward.” “There are probably quite a few members of the Harvard faculty who actually believe that there is an innate difference between girls and boys in science skill,” said Franklin, the Mallinckrodt professor of physics. “Now that this is brought up, maybe all the ensuing discussion will be able to convince those people otherwise.” —Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached atseward@fas.harvard.edu.

INTRODUCTION Dear citizen,This guide offers some practical advice that might prove useful in case you must make the difficult decision to look for work opportunities outside of Mexico. The best way to cross from one country to another is to obtain a passport from the Department of the Secretary of Foreign Relations, and a visa from the consulate of the country you are going to visit. Nevertheless, the reality is that we have noticed that many Mexicans are crossing the northern border without proper documentation, encountering great risks and perils. With the information in this guide, you might find the...

December 13, 2004, 8:35 a.m. Undiplomatic Imbalance The antisemitism at the U.N. is a problem for more than just Israel. There is a curious omission in the 129-page report on United Nations reform recently produced by a 16-person panel "of eminent and experienced people" at the request of Secretary General Kofi Annan. The U.N.'s own website, under "Main Bodies," lists the General Assembly, the Security Council, and directly below, the "Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People." But nowhere does the reform report mention this committee. The omission goes to the heart of what's really ailing the U.N....

Simon Schama divides us into two nations. One America is a perimeter, lying on the oceans or the fuzzy boundary with the Canadian lakes, and is porous and outward-looking. The other America is continental and landlocked, its roots of obstinate self-belief buried deep beneath the bluegrass and high corn. It is time we called these two Americas something other than Republican and Democrat. How about "Godly America" and "Worldly America?" Godly America is "mythic, messianic, conversionary, given to acts of public witness. Worldly America is a lot more like Europe. It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans...

Published: October 10, 2004 Can genes tell us anything meaningful about race? Do the races differ biologically? Can genes say anything about how race is related to complex traits like behavior and intelligence? The new interest in racial genetics comes at a time when the softer sciences, like anthropology and sociology, have declared that race is a cultural construct, without any biological significance... Geneticists, too, have gone on record as saying that race has no biological significance. Social scientists think genetic explanations might obscure the all-too-real social and economic causes (of differences)... The human genome comprises 3 billion nucleotides, strung...

Subject: Real News from Iraq This is a letter from Ray Reynolds, a medic in the Iowa Army National Guard, serving in Iraq: As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in...

Cathy's World Palestine is my revenge posted 05/11/04 (edited Wednesday, May 12, 2004 22:30) As Cecile wrote on her blog last night, I was indeed shocked (and I am not that easy to shock these days) to hear that her orchestra teacher had decided to have the kids perform the Palestinian National Anthem for the school's Diversity Day. (Don't even get me started on Diversity Day; as a mother, you learn to pick your battles.) He thought this would be a good idea after Cecile suggested they play the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah, in honor of the pregnant Israeli woman...

July 23, 2004, 10:42 a.m. Def to Reason HBO looks deep into an abyss. By Mark Goldblatt If you dive head first into the cesspool of black urban culture, through the flotsam and jetsam of bling-bling jewelry, designer sneakers, and "Free Mumia" T-shirts — through the Ebonic endearments of "ni**a" and "ho" and "dawg" — and if you struggle down past the snarling, muttering studio-menace of gangsta rappers and the haunch-spreading, butt-bouncing images of "empowered" womanhood — and then if you plunge deeper, past conspiracy theories about the LAPD and O.J., about CIA agents and crack, and about Jewish scientists...

Wince-Smith suggests that the bulk of outsourcing in companies such as IBM is associated with back-room operations (customer support, call centers). The cusp of technological innovation remains in the U.S. She then throws in the caveats: (1)There is cause for some concern in the fields of electrical engineering and software programming; unemployment is in a slump in those fields. (2)The design, engineering, and manufacturing of semiconductors is being done in China, presenting serious competition. In fact, China and India are both emerging as first-tier competitors. (3)Globalization is fueling this; China and India are simply offering talent at a cheap price....

Striving to Be Politically Incorrect by Arlene Peck Mar 10, '04 / 17 Adar 5764 To all of you who've written in to tell me how politically incorrect I am, let me take this opportunity to thank you. Most times, I think that we, in the United States, just don't "get it". What does it take to realize that the Arabs have a plan and we don't? The plan being once they destroy the Saturday people, then the Sunday crowd is next. All this kissy-feely, being nice, political behavior and the giving in to the ACLU and "human rights" groups...

Quick Facts on Legal Marriage for Same-Sex Couples by Demian © September 2003, Demian Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples Box 9685 Seattle, WA 98109-0685 206-935-1206 demian@buddybuddy.com www.buddybuddy.com The Netherlands became the first country in the world to offer legal marriage to same-sex couples on April 1, 2001. [Please see our article: Netherlands Offers Legal Marriage] And Belgium became the second on January 30, 2003. [Please see: Belgium Offers Legal Marriage] The Canadian province of Ontario became the third government in the world, on June 10, 2003, and British Columbia became the fourth, on July 8, 2003, to...