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The Obama administration is announcing a wide-ranging effort to use U.S. foreign aid to promote rights for gays and lesbians abroad, including combating attempts by foreign governments to criminalize homosexuality.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named Ellen DeGeneres a “special envoy” for global AIDS awareness during a speech on Tuesday at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. DeGeneres, a lesbian comedian who hosts NBC’s Ellen DeGeneres Show, is in a same-sex marriage with actress Portia de Rossi. DeGeneres will “use her celebrity platform to raise awareness about the global fight against AIDS,” according to a State Department press release. The release also quoted from a letter Clinton sent to DeGeneres and from Degeneres's response. “By lending us your energy, compassion, and star power to serve as our Special...

The president of Ghana is leading the charge as several African countries are making their stand against Britain’s threat that they either legalize homosexual acts or be excluded from financial aid. “I, as president of this nation will never initiate or support any attempts to legalize homosexuality in Ghana,” said President John Evans Atta Mills in an official statement to the UK government under Prime Minister David Cameron last Wednesday. Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, Australia at the end of October, which Prime Minister Cameron attended, the issue of homosexuality...

When he was asked why the vast majority of Egyptians, the heirs to a great pre-Islamic civilization, speak Arabic rather than Coptic, a leading Egyptian historian replied, "Because we had no Ferdowsi." That would be the tenth-century Persian poet and the author of the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) who revived not only the Persian language, but also Persian identity. Ferdowsi is known for his efforts to save the Persian language, and the history, from oblivion. It has been suggested that Ferdowsi is Iran's Homer: "Twice as long as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey taken together, the Shahnameh blends Iran's ancient myths...

Someone had to say it -- and German Chancellor Angela Merkel deserves credit for being the one with the courage to say it out loud: Multiculturalism has "utterly failed." Multiculturalism is not just a recognition that different groups have different cultures. We all knew that, long before multiculturalism became a cult that has spawned mindless rhapsodies about "diversity." In Germany, as in other countries in Europe, welcoming millions of foreign workers who insist on remaining foreign has created problems so obvious that only the intelligentsia could fail to see them. "We kidded ourselves for a while," Merkel said in a...

(China Daily/Agencies) – Mattel Inc, the world’s biggest toymaker, lowered the sales target for its Barbie store in Shanghai by at least 30 percent after deciding the original marketing concept didn’t work. “The initial sales targets were astronomical,” said Dann Murphy, who took over as general manager as his predecessor left eight months after the store opened. Targets for the six-story outlet’s restaurant and “retail experience”, which includes designing personalized Barbie dolls, have been revised down three times since its opening in March. Mattel chose Shanghai for its first dedicated Barbie store as consumer demand slumped in the United...

Would Jesus Eat at McDonald's? Saturday 11th Aug 2007 by David Paulin The intellectual elite of the Presbyterian Church (USA) have in recent years joined ranks with the radical left. Its members vilify Israel, apologize for Islamic terrorists, and cheer on the Palestinian cause. Now, these Presbyterians have another villain: the Big Mac. America’s most famous hamburger is emblematic of the dark underbelly of globalization, according to David Hadley Jensen, an associate professor of something called “constructive theology” at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. On top of that, McDonald’s and its iconic burger are even at odds with...

The disease of America Hatred now has reached pandemic proportions in many corners of the globe, spreading far beyond the predictably hopeless fever swamps of Islamic militants, French intellectuals, or Latin American demagogues. In fact, many citizens within the USA itself energetically embrace the basic assumptions of America Hatred, perceiving their country as an unequivocally negative force on the world scene. John Tirman, director of MIT’s prestigious Center for International Studies, recently wrote a book called “100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World.” When questioned on my radio show, he refused to dismiss the notion that humanity might have...

President Hugo Chavez inaugurated a Venezuelan film studio Saturday to counter what he called Hollywood's cultural "dictatorship." Chavez announced $11 million in funds for the complex as he toured movie sets, costume rooms and sat in a director's chair - all part of Venezuela's new "cultural artillery" to combat U.S. domination, he said. "It's a Hollywood dictatorship," he said. "They inoculate us with messages that don't belong to our traditions ... (about) the American way of life, imperialism." He accused Hollywood movies of stereotypes that cast Venezuela and other Latin American countries as violent havens for criminals and drug traffickers....

WASHINGTON - After years of world leaders condemning America for overreaching its power, Americans elected their first ever Imperialist President. "We do everything we can to help the world, but we're still resented, they call us imperialist pigs," said DC cabbie Albert Shlutnick. "Now they'll see what imperialism is really like." Americans got a raw taste of its new leadership this morning at the first press briefing with President Hillshire in full form. The president opened the briefing with astonishing news: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that Iran and North Korea no longer exist. Are...

LITERACY levels are declining. Literacy involves not just the ability to read and write but to comprehend. Teaching methods developed in America result in people being able to read but not comprehend words. This is a major cause of the breakdown in communication in our society as individuals become more alienated. Thus, Australia continues down the road to becoming the 51st state of America. Changes in language reflect changes in society. Seemingly subtle or inconsequential changes become of qualitative significance when viewed in their sum total. The Americanisation of our language reflects the Americanisation of our society. The introduction of...

France claimed a significant victory last night in its relentless battle against the march of American culture with the adoption of internationally-backed protections. Supported notably by Canada, France was the driving force behind a "cultural diversity" convention agreed by 148 of the 154 countries which took part in the vote at the Paris general conference of the United Nations arts and culture agency, Unesco. America was virtually isolated, with Israel the only other country to vote against the treaty and four nations abstaining. It failed to force through a series of amendments to weaken the text, which reaffirms the rights...

Women activists in Cairo don't welcome the U.S. First Lady's visit.___ In a bid to promote American values and women’s rights in the Middle East, Laura Bush, the wife of the American president, arrvied in Cairo 23 May. Arab feminists, however, are telling the U.S. First Lady to mind her own house. Bush, who visited Egypt after stops in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Jordan, told the World Economic Conference in Jordan that “freedom, especially freedom for women, is more than the absence of oppression. It’s the right to speak and vote and worship freely.” Attendees at the International...

PARIS (Reuters) - France's national library has raised a "warcry" over plans by Google to put books from some of the world's great libraries on the Internet and wants to ensure the project does not lead a domination of American ideas. Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads France's national library and is a noted historian, says Google's choice of works is likely to favour Anglo-Saxon ideas and the English language. He wants the European Union to balance this with its own programme and its own Internet search engines. "It is not a question of despising Anglo-Saxon views ... It is just that...

Paris - The dominance of English as the world's lingua franca continues to grow, with the number of pupils studying French dwindling every year, language teachers from several countries gathered at a Paris trade show this week said, many with regret. The predominance of English on the Internet, the relative ease of learning basic English and the perception that English is "cooler" - thanks in large part to popular music and films - means French is becoming more and more restricted to older generations and the upper classes of many countries where it used to be the second language of...

HANOI - French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a “catastrophe” for global diversity if the United States’ cultural hegemony goes unchallenged. Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday’s opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity. The outspoken French president warned that the world’s different cultures could be “choked” by US values. This, he said, would lead to a “general world sub-culture” based around the English language, which would be “a real ecological catastrophe”. Citing Hollywood’s stranglehold over the film industry...

French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a "catastrophe" for global diversity if the United States' cultural hegemony goes unchallenged. Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday's opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity. The outspoken French president warned that the world's different cultures could be "choked" by US values. This, he said, would lead to a "general world sub-culture" based around the English language, which would be "a real ecological catastrophe". Citing Hollywood's stranglehold over the film industry as an...

French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a "catastrophe" for global diversity if the United States' cultural hegemony goes unchallenged. Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday's opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity. The outspoken French president warned that the world's different cultures could be "choked" by US values. This, he said, would lead to a "general world sub-culture" based around the English language, which would be "a real ecological catastrophe". Citing Hollywood's stranglehold over the film industry as an...

It's always amusing when someone who's particularly fussy or fastidious or snooty is suddenly plunged into chaos or dirt or commonness. We can't help but laugh when the wine-snob gets served a Bud Light at a family dinner or the deconstructionist semiotics professor's son grows up to be a junk bond trader. The happenings of life have a nice way of bringing back to earth those who have drifted into the airy, affected stratosphere. And those of us watching often get a real kick out of the display. Perhaps this is why I have been experiencing such a warm and...

<p>Several years ago, I was at a conference in London. I took an evening to do some exploring. Taking the underground to Piccadilly Circus, I tried to find a traditional English pub for fish and chips.</p> <p>I couldn't find one. There in the cultural heart of the former British empire, all one could see was McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and an occasional sushi establishment. The fashions worn by the thronging crowds were American, as was the music blaring from almost every club. The British invasion of the 1960s had been reversed.</p>

MILLAU, France (AP) - Back in 1999, a sheep farmer in an Asterix mustache led a small band of Gauls on a Big Mac attack heard 'round the world. A proud, feisty France, he exulted, humbled Imperial McDonald's. The symbols seemed perfect. Asterix, a French comic-book hero who drew super-strength from a magic potion, saved his corner of Gaul from Rome. But, this time, the Empire struck back. Today Jose Bove, the Farmers' Confederation firebrand, risks slipping away into history. "McDo" cash registers at 1,030 locations, meanwhile, ring up a million sales a day to French customers. McDonald's France reported...

<p>Predictably, the graffiti artist didn't wait long. The bright green Starbucks advertising poster was defiled by black spray paint -- or embellished, depending on one's point of view -- hours after the maiden coffee shop opened here.</p> <p>Over the past week, concerns about the arrival of the Seattle java giant filtered their way through the media. The usual French suspects talked about Simone and Jean-Paul and their smart set spinning in their graves at the sight of the latest American cultural invasion. And just how do we know Starbucks won't feed us American Frankenfood?</p>

Cultural creativity is big business in America. According to the most recent data from Economists Incorporated, U.S. "copyright industries" — including recording companies and Hollywood studios — export $88.97 billion worth of their wares each year. These industries represent about 5.2 percent of America's GDP. But not everybody sees this as a success story. Global cultural snobs take the popularity of American music and movies as a personal affront. They have quietly devised a scheme to cut back the world-wide flow of U.S. cultural exports. There is still time for the Bush Administration to stop this effort dead in its...

<p>LONDON — Stick-wielding Saudi religious police were raiding toy stores and gift shops in the desert kingdom to seize anything related to the Western holiday season, including flowers, candles, stuffed animals, Barbie dolls and other items considered evil.</p> <p>The squads of police from the "Authority for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" are targeting the New Year period, which is considered a non-Muslim festival, in an attempt to eliminate Western corrupting influences.</p>

The Coca-Cola is served from a tap, the fries are neatly arranged in a box and hamburgers are served in cartons. But this is not McDonald's, it is the Iranian equivalent, MacMashallah. The existence of the fast-food restaurant is an extraordinary testament to the lure of the "Great Satan's" capitalist icons. So too is its popularity - the place is full of young customers chewing on their burgers and hoping to visit the land that they are taught to hate. "America has the best of everything," says Farhad, a 19-year-old customer. "I watch their films, I listen to their music....

It is a fair bet that the likes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sartre and de Beauvoir would not have become the giants of world literature they are today had they been fuelled by Starbucks takeaway caffe lattes rather than shots of strong espresso in such celebrated Left Bank cafes as Flore and Les Deux Magots. But that did not stop the giant US coffee chain on Thursday announcing plans to open its first branch in France early next year, and even to insist that customers observe its no-smoking policy. The company, which has more than 7000 outlets around the world, did...