New Pope Elected

 

After a day and a half locked inside of conclave, Cardinals have elected a new pope. Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, stepped onto the world stage Wednesday as the new pope and leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. He is the first pope ever to be elected from the America’s. He has chosen the name Pope Francis 1. : He is the first Jesuit, the first non-European in modern times and first Latin American pope. He also is the first to take the name Francis, for the saint devoted to the poor.

The new pope is going to have to work through some very serious issues during his tenure. Women’s role in the church, the exodus of Catholics in North America and Europe, priest molestation scandals, and growing Catholic populations in Africa and Asia.

Best wishes

http://www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm

Jessica Watson Sails the World

Over the weekend 16-year-old Australian Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail solo around the world. WTF were her parents thinking. She’s a trailblazing young woman but damn, she was by herself for 210 days. My parents wouldn’t have dared let me be by myself for over half a year. And we don’t own a yatch…

Traveling more than 23,000 nautical miles (1,852 meters (approximately 6,076 feet))  in a yacht, called Ella’s Pink Lady. She is the youngest person to achieve this feat.

She arrived in Australia this weekend. A few days before her birthday which is May 18th.

I have to admit, that’s a pretty cool thing to do at 16 years old.

Iran + Turkey + Brazil in Nuclear Deal

Iran has signed an agreement brokered by Brazil to ship low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for nuclear fuel for its power plant. The deal agreed on Monday would oblige Iran to send Turkey 1.2 tonnes of uranium under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), beginning next month.

In exchange, Iran would receive – within a year’s time – 120kg of highly-enriched nuclear fuel rods through a still to be negotiated agreement with the so-called Vienna Group.

The Vienna Group refers to the four parties of the United States, Russia, France and the IAEA.

Iran would then – as per the terms of the agreement use the nuclear fuel rods for its Tehran medical research reactor.

The move aims to ease Western concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme, and stave off a possible new round of sanctions by the United Nations.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, signed the deal on Monday following a breakfast with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister.

After the deal’s announcement, Ahmadinejad called on the permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as Germany, to relaunch dialogue over Iran’s nuclear programe.

“It is time for the 5+1 countries to enter talks with Iran based on honesty, justice and mutual respect,” he said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/05/201051755444737189.html

Six women knifed by suicide attacker

A factory worker slashed six women with a cleaver before he jumped to his death from a three-story building in south China’s Foshan City. The 20-year old man surnamed Xie appeared at a market in Nanhai District about 7pm yesterday, hacking six young women as he walked along the street, Guangzhou Daily reported.

Five victims are in hospital with two in a critical condition. A witness said Xie picked only pretty young women as his target and slashed each of them once before he moved on to the next victim

The worst injured was a woman surnamed Wu. The attacker chopped her on the neck and she was still in a coma. Others were injured either in the neck or the shoulder.

This is just one of a series of incidences involving mentally deranged men attacking innocent people in public/private places. Over the past few months there have been several men who have attacked school children in the schools.

China has a serious issue of mental health that needs to be addressed with all the overwhelming news stories such as this one.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=437242&type=National#ixzz0oCC5WDD2

Deadly Plane Crash

In a deadly plane crash in Tripoli Lybia a 9-year-old boy Ruben van Assouw  of Holland was the only survivor out of 104 people on board the plane.

Nationality	Killed		Survivors	Total
	Passengers	Crew
Dutch	67	–	1	68
Libyan	2	11	–	13
South African	13	–	–	13*
Belgian	4	–	–	4
Austrian	2	–	–	2
British	1	–	–	1
French	1	–	–	1
German	1	–	–	1
Zimbabwean	1	–	–	1
Total	92	11	1	104

This particular flight carried 93 passengers and 11 crew. Most of the passengers were Dutch citizens returning from holiday in South Africa. The aircraft crashed about 900 metres (980 yd) short of Runway 09.

An investigation is underway.

Also reported Monday May 17, 2010, that Pamir Airways Flight 112 which was scheduled from Kunduz (Northern Afghanistan) to Kabul (the Capital of Afghanistan) crashed 10 minutes after take off at 8:30 am.

The flight had 38 passengers and 3 crew onboard, whose conditions are unknown at the present time.

China School Attacks

Bizarre is the word that best describes recent incidences in China over the past few months. Men (possibly with extreme mental illnesses) have broken into schools and attacking preschool, kindergarten, and primary school age children. The most recent attack was by  Wang Yonglai. He broke into a school and attacked 5 children with a hammer and then set himself on fire. What the fuck, who does that and why are people doing this at a high percentage this year in China.

It was the fourth assault on Chinese students in little more than a month, and the third in three days. On Thursday, a 47-year-old unemployed man stabbed 28 children and 3 adults at a kindergarten in Jiangsu Province, on China’s east coast just south of Shandong.

n Wednesday, a 33-year-old ex-teacher with a history of mental illness stabbed 15 children at a primary school in Leizhou, in Guangdong Province.

That attack occurred on the same day the authorities executed another man, 42-year-old Zheng Minsheng, for a March 23 knife attack at a primary school in Fujian Province that left eight children dead.

Iceland Volcano Pics

Getty images, AP & Reuters photo’s of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano April 2010

Vatican #2 under fire for linking gays to pedophilia

Even though Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of the Vatican and Catholic Church’s number 2 in charge said, “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia, but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia.” “This pathology is one that touches all categories of people, and priests to a lesser degree in percentage terms,” he said. “The behavior of the priests in this case, the negative behavior, is very serious, is scandalous.” Outrage has been directed at the Vatican and its head of state, Pope Benedict.

Not really sure what prompted the Cardinal’s comments while he was visiting Chile but as a leader and head of state you should know not to piss off an entire minority population. Especially when you have some explaining to do about your own priest sexually abusing children and their homosexual acts. The last thing the Catholic Church needs to be doing is putting themselves in the news by deliberately causing controversy. Sometimes questions don’t need to be answered and other times you should just shut the fuck up about certain subjects where your opinion will be amplified.

He should know that this is going to damage his superior, the pope more so that it could ever damage him. There are already talks of the Pope being arrested in Britain. Which is legally impossible to do in another country because he is a head of state and has not been indicted by the United Nations court. But nonetheless this Pope has taken all the blame for acts that happened during his and Pope John Paul 2 reign.

But really though, how are you going to link homosexuality with Pedophilia. Hasnt he ever watched the dateline special to catch a predator. It’s all type of random people who do that and not always homosexual. To stigmatize a whole population of people like that is just wrong and just not smart. I’m sure in the court of public opinion this guy will be criticized into retirement and resignation.

Church statistics show that two-thirds of incidents of abuse of adolescents by priests involved homosexual priests. That stains the church more so than homosexuality…

But the real story here is how homosexuality despite being illegal in most countries has a strong support system when it is put up against the catholic church. Maybe people are slowing seeing how homosexuality is misrepresented in society.

The Catholic church is just digging a bigger whole to bury itself within

China Earthquake

A strong earthquake toppled hundreds of homes and some schools in the remote mountainous Tibetan Plateau of southwest China on Wednesday, killing at least 400 people and injuring thousands.

More than 10,000 people were injured and thousands left homeless in freezing conditions after a series of quakes and aftershocks caused many of the low, mud-brick buildings in county to collapse, residents and state media said

The main 6.9 quake was centered in the mountains that divide Qinghai province from the Tibet Autonomous Region

The Tibetan plateau is regularly shaken by earthquakes, though casualties are usually minimal because so few people live there.

Yushu is home to some 100,000 people, spread over a vast area, but the quake struck near the relatively highly-populated county seat of Jyeku.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63D01120100414

Maternal Death Rates on the Decline

The medical journal Lancet is reporting that about 342,900 women died in 2008 from pregnancy and child birth. That is down from a 1980 study which about 526,300 women died. Despite technological and scientific advancements there is still a danger to women during all stages of pregnancy.

But this study suggest that some of the reasons for the lower maternal death rate is because lower pregnancy rates in some countries; higher income, which improves nutrition and access to health care; more education for women; and the increasing availability of “skilled attendants” — people with some medical training — to help women give birth. Improvements in large countries like India and China helped to drive down the overall death rates.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest maternal death rates. Brazil improved more than Mexico, Egypt more than Turkey. Six countries accounted for more than half of all the maternal deaths in 2008: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

the number of pregnant women who died from AIDS is about 60,000.