TWO YEARS AFTER TAHRIR SQUARE

EGYPT OPPOSITION IN CLASHES

ON REVOLUTION ANNIVERSARY

www.bbc.co.uk - Egyptian opposition supporters are gathering in central Cairo to mark two years since the start of the uprising that swept Hosni Mubarak from power. Police clashed with opponents of President Mohammed Morsi who are now converging on Tahrir Square. There are clashes in Alexandria and Suez. In Ismailia protesters set fire to the Muslim Brotherhood's party HQ. Critics accuse Mr Morsi of betraying the revolution. He denies this and has appealed for calm. An appeals court recently overturned Mr Mubarak's life sentence over the deaths of protesters and ordered a retrial. The 84-year-old former leader remains in detention at a military hospital.
Opposition supporters began converging on Tahrir Square on Friday morning. Some protesters have erected checkpoints to verify the identities of people passing through. Others have set up an exhibition of photographs of those killed in protests over the past two years.

The roads leading from Tahrir Square to several nearby government buildings and foreign embassies have been blocked by concrete walls since last November. Demonstrators tried to dismantle one of them on Thursday night, but a new wall was built to block entry to the Cabinet headquarters. The unrest continued overnight. On Friday, Nile TV reported worsening clashes outside the interior ministry near Tahrir Square. The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Tahrir Square says there are now large numbers of protesters there, but that the violence is restricted to a small corner of it, where teenagers are throwing stones at the parliament building. 
At least 25 people have been injured in clashes in Cairo since Thursday. Smaller rallies are taking place in other cities, including Alexandria, Ismailia, Suez and Port Said. Clashes were reported in at least two locations in Alexandria, with police firing tear gas and protesters burning tyres.

In the middle of a deep economic crisis, President Morsi has urged Egyptians to mark the anniversary in a 'peaceful and civilised way', but opposition groups continue to accuse him and his Muslim Brotherhood backers of betraying the goals of the revolution. Two years ago, on 25th January 2011, it began with a big dream: Millions of people went into the Cairo streets with the aim of toppling the dictatorial Mubarak regime and establishing a democracy in Egypt. But today, according to Professor Elie Podeh, the situation can be described in six words: disappointment, disillusionment, dissatisfaction, despair, distress and distrust. As much as the hopes for a change were big, so was the disappointment. There are problems and disturbances everywhere, so we should inquire about the cause of them and find out a solution to our miserable material life. 

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

Sanatana Gosvami, who had been a wealthy minister in the Mohammedan government in India, presented himself to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and asked, ke ami, kene amaya jare tapa-traya: "Who am I? And why am I suffering the threefold miseries?" This is intelligence. We are constantly undergoing some sort of distress, whether caused by the body and mind, inflicted by other living entities, or brought about by natural disturbances. We don't want all these miseries, but they are forced upon us. So when one accepts a spiritual master, the first question should be, "Why am I suffering?" ... Asking about the ultimate cause of our suffering is called brahma-jijnasa, inquiry into the Absolute Truth. As it is said in the beginning of the Vedanta-sutra, athato brahma-jijnasa: "Having gotten the human form of life, one should inquire into Brahman, the Absolute Truth."

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Journey of Self-Discovery” 
"The Self and Its Bodies"
Bhaktivedanta VedaBase Network

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
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CHILDREN KILLED IN U.S., OTHERS STABBED IN CHINA

USA, MAN KILLS 26 AT CONNECTICUT SCHOOL
CHINA, MAN SLASHES 22 CHILDREN AT SCHOOL

News Agencies - In the US: A man opened fire Friday inside the Connecticut elementary school where his mother worked as a teacher, killing 26 people, including 20 children, as youngsters cowered in their classrooms and trembled helplessly to the sound of gunfire reverberating through the building. The killer, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, armed with two handguns, committed suicide and another person was found dead at a second scene, bringing the toll to 28, authorities said. The attack, coming less than two weeks before Christmas, was the nation's second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead in 2007. 
Schoolchildren - some crying, others looking frightened - were escorted through a parking lot in a line, hands on each other's shoulders. “Our hearts are broken today,” a tearful President Barack Obama, struggling to maintain composure, said at the White House. He called for “meaningful action” to prevent such shootings. 

In China: A man with a knife slashed 22 children and one adult outside an elementary school in Henan province Friday morning; China's worst such incident in more than a year. The attack was reminiscent of a spate of knife attacks on schoolchildren that took place across China in 2010. In most cases, the attackers were unemployed middle-aged men, leading to speculation that the assaults stemmed from economic and social discontent. Friday's attack occurred at about 7:40 a.m. as children were arriving outside the gate of Chenpeng Village’s Wanquan Elementary School. The suspect, Min Yingjun, 36, allegedly slashed an elderly woman as well as the children. 
Local propaganda officials said later that Min had a psychological illness. In 2010, nearly 20 children were killed and 50 wounded in a string of copycat incidents around central China. China has strict gun control laws, so knives are the weapon of choice in violent crimes.

In the USA, a heavily armed gunman opened fire inside a Connecticut elementary school on Friday, killing 26 people, including 20 children, in the latest in a series of shooting rampages across the United States this year. The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lana, killed 18 children and six adults at the school and two wounded children died later in the hospital. His mother was a teacher at the school and is also believed to have been killed. Most of the fatalities happened in her classroom. Also on Friday morning, Chinese Police detained a man, Min Yingjun, 36, suspected of using a knife to injure 22 students and a villager at the gate of a primary school in Guangshan county in the city of Xinyang, Central China's Henan province. The injured students were sent to hospitals but their injuries were not considered life-threatening. The motive behind the attack remains unclear and the case is still under investigation.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

The present-day world appears to be running fast towards destruction. As per Indian scriptural evidence, the conditioned souls are enveloped by Lord’s illusory energy consisting of three primal qualities - Sattva, Rajah, and Tamah.  ‘Tamah’ indicates tendency to commit vice or to inflict injury.  In fact, Tamah tendency has now engulfed the whole world and is spreading over like fire and showing its most monstrous destructive ugly appearance.  The sagacious persons are bewildered to find any solution of this terrible tendency of violence. ... Lord does not think much about sins of other living beings who have got no such discriminating power. They do actions out of instinct. But God has bestowed discriminating power to human beings. In spite of that if they commit heinous crimes, surely they will be punished. They will never be spared. They are lowering the status of humanity. We may commit heinous crimes by deceiving ignorant human beings, beasts and birds, but we cannot deceive Supreme Lord Who is Omniscient. Lord is residing in the heart of every individual soul.

Śrīla Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Mahārāja :
“Human’s sins will never be spared”
Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math - www.sreecgmath.org

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sreecgmath/message/869

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
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INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST CHILD ABUSE

NO ROOM FOR COMPLACENCY TO PREVENT
AND PROHIBIT CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN

http://www.unric.org - Five top United Nations child rights experts today urged world Governments to adopt more active measures to protect children from all forms of violence, prevent the perpetration of crimes against children and to bring to justice those responsible for child sexual exploitation and for the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict. On Universal Children's Day, the UN experts highlighted the urgency of achieving universal ratification and effective implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its three optional protocols. 
In May 2010 the UN Secretary-General launched a two-year global campaign for the universal ratification of the first two Optional Protocols by 2012 with the joint support of his Special Representatives on Violence against Children, and for Children and Armed Conflict; the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, in cooperation with UNICEF and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“These treaties are key to the safeguard of children's rights and their effective protection from violence, abuse and exploitation in peace and conflict,” the experts stressed.  Since the launch of the campaign, 24 Member States have ratified the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography which is now in force in 161 countries; and 18 States have become party to the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict amounting to a total of 150 ratifications. 
In December 2011, the General Assembly adopted the third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, introducing a communications procedure to enable children to obtain redress for the violations of their rights. “There can be no room for complacency in our struggle to eliminate violence against children,” stressed Marta Santos Pais, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Violence against Children. “We are nearing the goal of universal ratification, strengthening children's protection from violence and bringing to an end impunity for incidents of sexual abuse and exploitation. Ratification is a crucial step but only the start of a demanding process of implementation.”

Two International observances are highlighted this week. Yesterday, November 19th, the “International Day of Child Abuse Prevention” and today, 20th of November, the “Universal Children’s Day.” The International Day against Child Abuse aims to create a culture of prevention around the world by encouraging governments and community organizations to play more active roles in protecting children and the Universal Children's Day, emphasizes the rights of the child to be protected and loved. The five child rights experts insisted on the crucial need to place child rights as a priority in the policy agenda and to implement all necessary measures to ensure the effective promotion and protection of the rights of all children, without discrimination. Preventing child abuse and neglect requires all of our efforts; from policy-makers, to community and parents. Everyone should be involved in put and end to violence against children and to look out for their welfare.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

In the glorious days, or before the advent of the age of Kali, the brāhmanas, the cows, the women, the children and the old men were properly given protection. ... The protection of children gives the human form of life its best chance to prepare the way of liberty from material bondage. Such protection of children begins from the very day of begetting a child by the purificatory process of garbhādhāna-samskāra, the beginning of pure life. ... This complete outlook is based on factors leading to successful humanity as against the civilization of polished cats and dogs. The killing of the above-mentioned innocent creatures is totally forbidden because even by insulting them one loses one's duration of life. In the age of Kali they are not properly protected, and therefore the duration of life of the present generation has shortened considerably.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam - Canto 1: “Creation”
Chapter 8: “Prayers by Queen Kuntī and Parīkshit Saved”
Verse 5 - Bhaktivedanta VedaBase Network

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
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GAZA KIDS AT RISK IN CROWDED URBAN BATTLE ZONE

GAZA’S CHILDREN FACE GRAVE RISKS
IN CROWDED URBAN BATTLE ZONE

http://jordantimes.com - The image of a dead preschooler cradled by the prime ministers of Egypt and Gaza in a hospital hallway has drawn attention to the dangers Gaza’s children face in this crowded urban battle zone. Children make up half of Gaza’s population of 1.6 million and seem to be everywhere in the current round of cross-border fighting between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Children loitered Friday outside a Gaza City morgue for a glance at the latest “martyrs”. Others followed adults to funerals or even rushed to the site where Israeli missiles had just struck a government building and fire was still smoldering.
Despite outward bravado, young boys of elementary school age said quietly that fear of air strikes kept them awake at night. So far, six of 28 Palestinians killed in Israel’s offensive this week have been children, ranging in age from just under 1 to 14 years, according to Gaza health officials. 

Most were killed by shrapnel while in or near their homes. In Israel, 12 children were hurt in rocket attacks this week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas of using Gaza’s civilians, particularly children, as human shields by launching rockets from crowded residential areas. Gazans argue that Israel is unleashing massive air strikes on their territory without regard for civilians. They say that even Israel’s self-described surgical strikes on targets put civilians at grave risk in Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated places. 
Mahmoud Sadallah, the four-year-old Gaza boy whose death moved Egypt’s prime minister to tears, was from the town of Jebaliya, close to Gaza City. It was said the boy died in an Israeli air strike. Israel vehemently denied involvement, saying it had not carried out any attacks in the area at the time. Gaza’s two leading human rights groups, which routinely investigate civilian deaths, withheld judgement, saying they were unable to reach the area because of continued danger.

More children have been killed and several injured in the latest Israeli. It is warned that hundreds of thousands of youngsters trapped in Gaza face prolonged power cuts and depleting supplies of food and water. The conflict between Israel and Gaza will have a devastating affect on children who make up nearly half the 1.6 million population of the Gaza Strip. President Barack Obama said he had been in touch with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the leaders of Egypt and Turkey as international attempts to broker a cease-fire continued. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon added his voice to growing calls for a ceasefire saying he was heading to the region to personally appeal for an end to the violence. The truly solution will come when we adhere to a God conscious philosophy and we understand that God as the supreme father and all living entities - without distinction - are sons of Him.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

When we forget this philosophy - that Krishna is the supreme father, Krishna is the supreme proprietor, Krishna is the supreme enjoyer, and Krishna is the supreme friend of everyone -  when we forget this, then we come into this material world and struggle for existence, fight with one another. This is material life.  Nor can we get any relief through our politicians, diplomats, philosophers. They have tried so much, but actually nothing they have tried has become fruitful. Take the United Nations. It was organized after the second Great War, and they wanted, “We shall now settle everything peacefully.”  But there is no such thing.  The fighting is going on, between Pakistan and India or between Vietnam and America or this and that. Mundane politics and diplomacy and philosophy - this is not the process.  The process is Krishna consciousness. Everyone has to understand this point, that we are not proprietors. The actual proprietor is Krishna. That's a fact. ... Artificially we are claiming, "It is my property." This is called maya, illusion.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Journey of Self-Discovery”
“Superconsciousness”
Bhaktivedanta VedaBase Network

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
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BURMA SECTARIAN VIOLENCE CONTINUES

BURMA: SECTARIAN VIOLENCE BETWEEN
BUDDHIST RAKHINES AND MUSLIM ROHINGYAS

www.voanews.com - Authorities in Burma say they are working to restore calm to western Rakhine state after a week of sectarian violence left nearly 100 people dead, destroyed thousands of homes and displaced 30,000 people, the vast majority of them Muslim. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has expressed concern the instability could spread. Burma officials on Tuesday said thousands of security officers are trying to restore order in western Rakhine state, following clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. 
While hundreds of Buddhists were displaced, and dozens of their homes destroyed, more than 27,000 Muslims were pushed out and some 4,000 lost their homes. Entire Muslim villages were burned to the ground. It is still not clear what started the latest round of fighting. Many Rohingya fled the coast of Rakhine state by boat and made their way to crowded camps in the capital Sittwe. 

Satellite photos published by Human Rights Watch showed a Muslim sector in the town of Kyaukpyu levelled by what appeared to be methodical and premeditated arson - more than 600 homes and nearly 200 houseboats were destroyed. The Rohingya, who are Muslim, are not recognized as citizens by the Myanmar government, nor are they are among the 135 official ethnic groups in the country formerly known as Burma. Deeply impoverished and effectively stateless, the Rohingya are viewed by the Buddhist majority as unwelcome immigrants who have crossed over illegally from neighbouring Bangladesh.
“It is very disturbing to see that the conflict has worsened,” Zaw Nay Aung, a democracy activist said. “The Burmese, the majority of whom are Buddhists, are Islamophobic.” He said anti-Islamic pamphlets have lately been circulating in western Myanmar, stirring up fear and anger among the Buddhists there.

Violence has continued this week in western Myanmar, as an apparent campaign of ethnic cleansing is being carried out against the Muslim minority group known as the Rohingya. There have been widespread reports of razed and burning homes, gunfights and many Rohingya fleeing in small wooden boat. The Rohingya in Burma number around 800,000 but are not recognized as citizens and have few legal rights. Most people in Burma consider them illegal migrants and refer to them as Bengalis. The U.N. considers them one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. We should see our real identity, beyond the body, to accept everyone as part of our family.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

In spiritual training, perhaps the single most important point to understand is that you are not your body. You are the soul within it. The soul is completely transcendental to the body, and does not come under the same designations that we give to the body. It does not belong to a certain family name or ethnic group. The soul is not Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc. It is also not American, Indian, Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, or anything else. According to the Upanishads it is also not happy, sad, frustrated or content, nor does it imagine anything but what it ought to imagine. It does not take birth, grow, change or die. ... There is a saying that anything that is temporary or changes is not the eternal truth. We have to go beyond what is temporary to get a glimpse of what is real and true. And the soul exists in that field of eternity that is completely beyond the mind, body and senses.

Stephen Knapp (Śrīpad Nandanandana dasa) :
“Thirty-one Days to Salvation on the Vedic Path”
“Day Twelve: You Are Not Your Body”
http://www.stephen-knapp.com  -  http://www.stephenknapp.info/
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/thirtyone_days_to_salvation_on_the_vedic_path.htm

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CHURCH HIT IN NIGERIA SUICIDE BOMB ATTACK

10 KILLED, 100 WOUNDED
IN NIGERIA CHURCH BOMBING

www.bbc.co.uk - At least ten people have been killed and dozens injured in a suicide bombing during Mass at a Catholic church in northern Nigeria, officials say. An explosive-laden vehicle drove into the church and detonated its load, ripping a hole in the wall and roof. The attack happened in Kaduna, which has been targeted by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the recent past. 
President Goodluck Jonathan promised to “redouble” his government's efforts to tackle terrorism and violence. He called the attack part of an “unfortunate and unacceptable trend that threatens the peace and stability of our nation”. 
A spokesman for the local governor has called for calm, pleading with people on local radio not to retaliate. Authorities said that Christian youths attacked a vehicle that had come to rescue survivors after the attack, smashing one of the windows. 

Unconfirmed reports said at least two people were killed in reprisal attacks by Christians after the bombing. No group has said it carried out the bombing. The attack happened at St Rita's church in the Malali neighbourhood of the city. The vehicle had been stopped at the security gate outside the church. The driver initially reversed, but then careered straight through the church wall and detonated the bomb. Members of the choir are thought to be among the dead and injured. 
The church was surrounded by soldiers and police after the blast, and ambulances were taking the injured to hospital. 
Nigeria's north has a large Muslim majority whereas the south is most populated by Christians and those who follow traditional religions.  Kaduna is on the dividing line between the two areas. The BBC's Will Ross in Kaduna says many people have come to the city in recent months in search of sanctuary from violence in other parts of northern Nigeria.

A suicide bomber rammed an SUV loaded with explosives into a Catholic church holding Mass on Sunday in northern Nigeria. The church attack left at least seven people dead in addition to the bomber, while at least three people were killed and more than 100 others were wounded in reprisal violence in the city. Islamist militant group Boko Haram is fighting to overthrow the government and impose the sharia, an extreme form of Islamic law. The group has said it carried out previous attacks on churches in Kaduna state in June. At least 50 people were killed in the bombings and the reprisals that followed. Religious intolerance should always be avoided, it is the source of hatred and sectarian violence against other manifestations of faith toward God.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

Dharmists (those who follow Sanatana-dharma, the Vedic path) often welcome other religions, as in the way we have seen so many that have settled in India and made it their home, such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, the Parsis, Jews, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Baha’i, etc. While Christians and Muslims, on the other hand, have a vast history of destroying any other culture or people in whichever land they invaded. This is a profound difference that history cannot deny. Intolerance kills.  So, we can see the liberality, kindness and openness of Dharmists, yet in any Muslim country, they allow but one religion to flourish, and any other religion must practice undercover, or they are persecuted and driven out or even thrown into prison, just as we are seeing many Hindus and Christians being driven out of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Stephen Knapp (Śrīpad Nandanandana dasa) :
“Why All Religions Are Not the Same”
http://www.stephen-knapp.com  -  http://www.stephenknapp.info/
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/why_all_religions_are_not_the_same.htm

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
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