The Johannesburg Business Day reports on a campaign of TV transmitter-building across Africa:
“God TV has a strategic plan for the continent,” [Rory] Alec says. “We cover the whole continent by way of two satellites at present, with the strategy of building transmitters in each country. We have three in Kenya and are planning to launch a fourth in Tanzania.”… God TV aims to have a terrestrial transmitter in every capital city in Africa.
According to its website, God TV was founded by Rory and his wife in the UK in 1990s, when British restrictions on religious broadcasting were relaxed. With a bit of help from the Holy Spirit (and Rupert Murdoch), the channel
now broadcasts on 15 satellites reaching over 400 million people, in more than 200 nations and territories.
God TV entered the USA only last year, where it got an endorsement from Cindy Jacobs:
As Cindy Jacobs has prophesied, “GOD TV is a harvest Channel and literally thousands of people are going to come to the Lord through its programming. And God is going to use GOD TV in a major way on the East Coast of the United States… This is no ordinary time… this is a time of divine visitation, and we are seeing this through GOD TV”.
In 2002 it relocated from Britain to Jerusalem, and Christian Zionism appears to be a significant part of its teaching:
Thousands of GOD TV’s viewers and partners from different nations will be gathering in Jerusalem in May 2008 to celebrate Israel’s 60th Anniversary as a modern nation and we would love you to join with us.
…As the only Christian network to broadcast from Jerusalem, GOD TV recognizes the Lord’s unending faithfulness in the restoration of Israel as a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy and we know that you will be touched beyond measure as you experience the presence of the Lord in the Land of the Bible.
The channel supposedly offers an “international mix of original programming”, but many of the names of those featured are the usual neo-Pentecostal suspects: Joyce Meyer, TD Jakes, Benny Hinn, Mike Bickle, Rodney Howard-Browne, Rick Joyner. Ron Luce is also on board.
Back in February I noted the plans of another Christian broadcaster to reach across Africa, in that case from Rwanda.
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As a historical aside, Business Day contrasts God TV with Paul Crouch’s TBN:
Los Angeles-based Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the largest Christian broadcaster in the world, has been going since 1973 and in 2005 had an income of $208m. It began broadcasting in Africa in 1986. In fact, the TBN operation based in Bhisho, then Ciskei capital, was the first overseas operation outside the US. TBN, which runs on DStv, also broadcasts through terrestrial stations in nine African countries.
Ciskei, of course, was notorious as a Bantustan set up by the apartheid regime, and in the 1980s under the control of “President for Life” Lennox Sebe.
A United Nations report on Iraq’s human rights situation has provoked mixed reactions in the northern Kurdistan region. Officials accuse the UN of “exaggeration and inaccuracy” while human rights activists say the “actual extent of violations has been understated by the UN.
The report by theUnited Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) covering the first three months of this year has a substantial section on human rights in the Kurdish- controlled north…
Government complicity in religiously-motivated discrimination is also reported in the pro-Western Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). According to the State Department, Christians and other minorities “living in areas north of Mosul asserted that the KRG confiscated their property … without compensation and …Assyrian Christians also alleged that the Kurdish Democratic Party-dominated judiciary routinely discriminates against non-Muslims.” ChaldoAssyrian Christians have also alleged that KRG officials affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party deny Christians key social benefits, including employment and housing.
Additional reports also alleged that foreign reconstruction assistance for ChaldoAssyrian communities was being controlled by the KRG without input from that community’s legitimate leaders. KRG officials were also reported to have used public works projects to divert water and other vital resources from ChaldoAssyrian to Kurdish communities. These deprivations reportedly threatened the safety of ChaldoAssyrians leading to mass exodus, which was later followed by the seizure and conversion of abandoned ChaldoAssyrian property by the local Kurdish population. Turkmen groups in the region surrounding Tel Afer also report similar abuses by Kurdish officials, suggesting a pattern of pervasive discrimination, harassment, and marginalization. Combined with non-state sources of instability, including violence from foreign jihadis and Sunni insurgents, the KRG’s practices add to the continuing flight of Iraq Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities to sanctuaries outside the country
…Between the Sunni-dominated insurgency and the KRG’s reported diversion of critical services and reconstruction assistance, the current confluence of events has forced tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians to flee during the last three years.34 According to some reports, nearly 50 percent of Iraq’s indigenous Christian population is now living outside the country.
These two reports come just a few days after the Washington Post profiled the nascent “Kurdish Lobby” in the US:
With Sunni and Shiite Arabs locked in a bloody sectarian war, Iraq’s Kurds are promoting their interests through an influence-buying campaign in the United States that includes airing nationwide television advertisements, hiring powerful Washington lobbyists and playing parts of the U.S. government against each other. A former car mechanic who happens to be the son of Iraq’s president is at the center of Kurdish efforts to cultivate support for their semi-independent enclave, but the cast of Kurdish proponents also includes evangelical Christians, Israeli operatives and Republican political consultants.
…Kurds want the sort of “strategic and institutional relationship” that Israel and Taiwan have with the United States, [Qubad] Talabani, [Kurdistan Regional Government’s representative in Washington and son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani,] 29, said. “It doesn’t matter which party is in power in Washington — the U.S. government isn’t going to abandon either of those countries,” he added. “We are seeking the same protection.”
The Post also introduces us to Bill Garaway, an evangelical minister who had produced PR commercials for the Kurds:
…Garaway, a rangy 62-year-old with receding silver hair, became enamored with the Kurds more than a decade ago, after concluding that many key events described in the Bible occurred in Kurdistan, including the stories of Noah’s ark and Queen Esther. He believes not only that the Kurds are descendants of the ancient Medes people, but also that the three wise men who the Bible says visited baby Jesus in Bethlehem came from Kurdistan.
A year ago, I noted a Washington Times interview with Georges Sada, the evangelical Iraqi general who received considerable media interest with his claims about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs. Sada painted a very positive picture of the KRG-controlled area, which I had some cause to question at the time. Last month, I blogged the visit of Christian Zionist leader Mike Evans to the KRG area, after which he called for the US to give the Iraqi Kurds “the tools…to fight the war”, and for the “liberal media” to be restricted in Iraq. Shortly afterwards, Iraqi feminist Houzan Mahmoud warned of a plan to include sharia law in the Kurdish constitution.
More details about Seung Hui Cho’s interaction with religion, from the Washington Post:
Hyang In Cho was so desperate to find help for her silent, angry son that she sought out some members of One Mind Church in Woodbridge to heal him of what the church’s head pastor called “demonic power.”
But before the church could act late last summer, Seung Hui Cho had to return to Virginia Tech to start his senior year, said the Rev. Dong Cheol Lee, minister of the Presbyterian congregation.
…”His problem needed to be solved by spiritual power,” said Lee, whose church members met with Cho and his mother. “That’s why she came to our church — because we were helping several people like him.” Those churchgoers told Hyang In Cho that her son was afflicted by demonic power and needed deliverance, Lee said.
Rev Lee is not the only figure to have suggested that Cho had been possessed – Richard Roberts (son of Oral) and Franklin Graham ventured the same diagnosis, and a minister named Paul F Davis revealed that
…”The eyes are the window of the soul. Cho Seung-Hui’s eyes revealed there was another resident occupying and possessing him. Cho’s dull eyes displayed an absence of life and abandonment. His body was the host and the demons the parasitical inhabitants, which clearly spoke through him during his video manifesto mentioning ‘my children, my brothers and sisters’ of which there was no factual basis…”
The One Mind Church is part of the Remnant Movement, which is also part of the “DaRakBang” (DRB) evangelization movement (see here for these links), from the Korean word for “Upper Room”. This website explains (well, sort of) what this means:
Darakbang is 3 M Movement. 1.) It is the movement of following the Message. 2.) It is the movement of having one mind. 3.) If these 2 take place, a Movement arises. In a word, if we become one by sharing the same message and mind, it becomes the movement that makes evidences in the field.
Titus was the fellow-worker who had the same spirit of 3 M as Paul.
A Korean-language website called Darakwen.net has a few articles in (rather poor) English, which give a bit more background. It seems that the Darakbang movement was founded in South Korea in the late 1980s by Pastor Ryu Kwang-soo, who was formerly part of the Hapdong Presbyertian Church; the split was acrimonious, with Hapdong accusing Kwang-soo of heresy and expelling sympathisers. Apparently there are now 3,000 churches in the movement.
Kwang-soo believes that demons are a significant force in the world, as he explains in one of his writings:
However, there are many peoples obsessed with demons. Some peoples around us honor the evil spirits. It is said that there are more than eight million demons in Japan where the number of mental patients reaches at the highest in the Asia.
…Therefore demon brings about dirty disease and impure minds, and rotten acts. Haunting the peoples, the demon stimulates them to take the deviated actions so severely as to commit suicide. It is proved that the number of mental patients occupied the top among the suicides.
4 demon-possessed people came together to start the new age movement in the United States, but we have been given the authority to drive out the forces of darkness. There is no reason for us to be scared of the evil forces.
You are invited to join the thousands of believers who will come to the West Front of the U. S. Capitol to read the entire Bible aloud and without commentary for 90 continuous hours.
…Many of the Bible Reading Marathons have been held in conjunction with the National Day of Prayer observances around our nation, which take place on the first Thursday of May.
…God’s Word and prayer are the real solutions to our nation’s problems. This can only be accomplished by reading all the Bible because God has magnified His Word above His Name [Psalms 138:2].
…Rev. Michael Hall, Pastor of The Peoples’ Church and Executive Director, International Bible Reading Association: “I believe God is using this vision singularly to call this nation back to the simplicity of God’s Holy Word, the Bible.
Alas, however, a diary piece in the Washington Post suggests that the marathon did not do too well:
Organizers put out 600 folding chairs on the lawn — the spot where presidents are inaugurated — and set up a huge stage with powerful amplifiers. But at 9:30 a.m. yesterday, not one of the 600 seats was occupied. By 11 a.m., as a woman read a passage from Revelations, attendance had grown — to four people. Finally, at 1 p.m., 37 of the 600 seats were occupied, though many of those people were tourists eating lunch.
The article also has a bit of fun with one of the event organisers:
“This isn’t that kind of event,” explained Jeff Gannon, spokesman for the host, the International Bible Reading Association. Gannon, actually a pseudonym for James Guckert, had earned fame in 2005 representing a conservative Web site at White House briefings until it was revealed that he posted nude pictures of himself on the Web to offer his services as a $200-an-hour gay escort.
One of those who exposed Gannon was, of course, World O’Crap’s SZ, whose entries on the subject also chart Gannon’s turn to religion:
His posts at his site “ConservativeGuy.com”…seem to have disappeared, butSusanand her readers found an archivedcopyof his “Who is Conservative Guy?” bio — and it seems to indicate that “Jeff” can’t hold a job:
I’ve been a preppie, a yuppie, blue-collar, green-collar and white-collar. I’ve served in the military, graduated from college, taught in the public school system, was a union truck driver, a management consultant, a fitness instructor and an entrepreneur. I’m a two-holiday Christian and I usually vote Republican because they most often support conservative positions
However, once his escort sideline came to light, Gannon explained that in fact he was more than just a “two-holiday Christian”, and he suggested that he was therefore the victim of religious persecution:
I’m everything people on the Left seem to despise. I’m a man who is white, politically conservative, a gun-owner, an SUV driver and I’ve voted for Republicans. I’m pro-American, pro-military, pro-democracy, pro-capitalism, pro-free speech, anti-tax and anti-big government. Most importantly, I’m a Christian. Not only by birth, but by rebirth through the blood of Jesus Christ.
And indeed, Gannon’s association with the yearly Bible marathon, and its director Michael Hall, predates the scandal. Ancapistan has some pictures from 2004, and notes that
Upper photo is Michael Hall, pastor of the People’s Church located on Barracks Row in Washington D.C., in Guckert’s neighborhood. JD Guckert is a regular member of the congregation. According to Hall, JD was at his house when the news broke of JD’s porn websites.
JD also read at the 2005 DC Bible Marathon, but this year he elected to read late at night.
Dr. John A. Hash, Founder of Bible Pathway Ministries, burdened by growing biblical illiteracy throughout America, was impressed to take action. He was convinced that the godless spirit that envelops the world is deeply rooted in its lack of knowledge of the Bible, our Creator’s Guide on how He expects us to live, in order to accomplish His purpose for our existence. Dr. Hash realized that the giant task of bringing about an awakening to the importance of reading the Bible would require the entire Body of Christ — working together.
The International Bible Reading Associationwas established under the Co-Chair of Dr. John A. Hashand the late Dr. Bill Brightand the presidency of Richard Dingman of the Free Congress Foundation — and a global movement was under way. The response was overwhelming as world leaders began to network in an unprecedented way. Much has been accomplished in a short time. The goal was to proclaim 1990s~Decade of Bible Readingand enlist ONE BILLION PEOPLE to read all the Bible.
This was in 1989, and the effects were, it is hinted, dramatic:
Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christand Co-Chairman of the IBRA…presented a challenge to the Russian people on nationwide Soviet television to read all the Bible. He held up before them and read from the Presidential Proclamation signed by George Bush declaring 1990~International Year of Bible Reading. This is the first and only Proclamation in the history of the United States urging people to “read all theBible.” Dr. Bright then challenged Russian leaders to also issue a similar proclamation for their nation.
Pastor Michael Hall explained the rationale to OneNewsNow:
“We stand on Isaiah 55:11, where we believe God’s Word is going forth across the nation,” says Hall. “It’s a spectacular place to read; we’re reading right at the seat of the nation’s power. And we believe God’s Word transforms anyone who listens to it. We invite people to come and read, to come and listen, to come and pray.”
Rev. Rob Schenck opened this year’s event following a two-hour prayer service on the West Lawn of the U. S. Capitol that featured clergy from several Christian traditions including Faith and Action Chairman Rev. Paul Schenck, Rev. Michael Hall, Pastor of The Peoples’ Church and Executive Director of the International Bible Reading Association, former Navy Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt and Father Jay Longacre. The ministers consecrated the area from which the Bible would be read with anointing and prayer.
Rev. Rob Schenck read selections from James H. Hutson’s “The Founders on Religion” that included the writings and prayers of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush and others…Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt spoke of the persecution of Christians in America, including his own discharge from the U. S. Navy for offering prayers in the name of Jesus Christ…
However, despite nearly two decades of such events, the results so far look rather unimpressive. Randall Balmer (following Stephen Prothero) noted last year that
Many high school seniors believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife, while a majority of Americans cannot name one of the four Gospels. Jay Leno asked his Tonight Show audience one night to name one of Jesus’ twelve apostles; they came up empty. One in ten Americans believes that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, and only one-third knows that Jesus (not Billy Graham) preached the Sermon on the Mount. One of the most frequently quoted passages from the Bible—“God helps those who help themselves”—actually appears nowhere in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.
And let’s not forget this guy:
Those who’ve missed Gannon’s pensées since his Talon News went under might like to know that he has a blog. Funnily, he doesn’t seem to like gay people very much.
Officials from controversial Christian game developer Left Behind Games (Left Behind: Eternal Forces) have announced that senior management at the company have accepted the resignation of senior vice president Jeffrey S. Frichner, with CEO Troy Lyndon also demanding the resignation of the company’s other three board members.
Left Behind Games, which has a peculiar corporate history, exists primarily to develop video games based on Tim LaHaye’s apocalyptic vision of the Last Days, following the rapture of the faithful. The books centre on a group of late converts to Christianity, who form a militia against the anti-Christ’s UN; critics complain that the Eternal Forces game promotes this rather paranoid worldview, and that the game’s violence is inappropriate for a Christian product. Reviewers have also claimed that the game contains spyware, and that as a game it isn’t much good anyway. Despite massive sales of the novels, the controversy has been seriously bad for business:
In February, the developer reported a $4.1 million loss for its third quarter ended December 31st, 2006, on revenues of $2.2 million for the first six weeks of the game’s sales.
In a bid to recoup ground, the company has been spamming blogs that discuss the game with puff pieces – I got one of these, which includes a rather unconvincing quote from Lyndon:
“Our game does NOT teach the pre-tribulation theology of the book series, except that this worldview is utilized as a FICTIONAL backdrop of the game”.
Lyndon and others connected with the game have argued that the game deals with “spiritual warfare” rather than real violence, and Left Behind Games has hired a consultant named Gordon Chiu to promote the idea that the game favours “non-violence” in a way that “connects very strongly with ancient Asian philosophies”. LaHaye himself, however, complains that the groups attacking Eternal Forces “don’t attack other violent video games”, while his co-author Jerry Jenkins tells us that the game is “not more violent than the Old Testament”.
The new co-chairs of Left Behind Games are Michael A. Knox and Leslie N. Bocskor, who are both successful business insiders:
Michael A. Knox was a former partner with CEO Troy Lyndon for five years while they built Park Place Productions from an initial investment of $3,000 into North America’s largest independent video game development company. Mr. Knox is currently the CEO of V2P Communications, one of the world leaders in the new Internet audio advertising industry.
“I am excited about the company’s future as it extends its presence as a leader in the family values, faith-based and inspirational media and entertainment marketplace,” said Mr. Leslie Bocskor. Leslie N. Bocskor is an entrepreneur and managing partner with Lennox Hill Partners LLC, a New York-based advisory firm and the co-founder of two arts & culture philanthropic organizations as well as numerous computer software, entertainment and technology companies.
Some of Bocskor’s companies and interests are listed here. Interestingly, Bocskor is also involved with the annual “Burning Man” event; he acts as its New York regional coordinator, and he founded the “Society for Experimental Arts and Learning” for New York enthusiasts. Further, a list that he created for Amazon suggests an interest in the New Age and esoteric.
Following on from yesterday, here’s another ex-Soviet billionaire dabbling in religion and politics. Haaretz reports:
Billionaire Russian-born Israeli businessman Arkady Gaydamak said Monday that he will run for mayor of Jerusalem, in a bid to replace incumbent Uri Lupolanski.
…Several months ago, Gaydamak was reported to be consulting with friends in Moscow who could assist him in mounting a mayoral campaign.
…The idea initially arose up when Gaydamak became involved in trying to mediate between the warring sides over the holding of the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem.
Gaydamak was reported to have been convinced that he would have the support of both the ultra-Orthodox sector and the fans of the Beitar Jerusalem club (which he owns), seen as a key electoral base.
One of the steps he has taken so far in this direction is the strengthening of his ties with the ultra-Orthodox sector in particular.
A second report (which suggests that Gaydamak would rather work behind the scenes than become mayor himself) adds a quote
“I have no doubt that the entire city will vote for me,” the billionaire said in one interview on Monday. “There’s not one person who is not familiar today with Gaydamak and what he is capable of.”
“Jerusalem is a symbol for the Jewish people and I plan to turn it into a symbol for peace and Judaism,” he added.
Like the guys we saw yesterday, Gaydamak is a controversial figure, and just a few weeks ago it was announced that he would be tried in absentia in France over an arms deal with Angola:
The case is one of a series of murky scandals from the Mitterrand era and involves political figures on both the left and right, as well as a colourful associated cast including the thriller writer Paul-Loup Sulitzer.
[Arms traders Pierre] Falcone and Gaydamak bought tanks, helicopters, artillery pieces, mines, flame-throwers and other weapons in eastern Europe and sold them to Angola through a Paris-based company called Brenco and its Slovak subsidiary.
Prosecutors say the deals required official authorisation, a charge rejected by the defence.
The weapons were used by Angolan President Eduardo Dos Santos to fight rebel UNITA forces under Jonas Savimbi.
Gaydamak also has extensive media interests. In 2005 the Committee to Protect Journalists noted that
During the latter part of 2005, companies and businessmen friendly to the Kremlin further restricted the national print media by purchasing three influential newspapers that had remained critical of the government…In October, Moscow-born businessman Arkady Gaidamak purchased the independent Moscow weekly Moskovskiye Novosti. Gaidamak said that media should not criticize the government, The Moscow Times reported.
There was further scrutiny in the British press in 2006, when Arkady’s son Alexandre Gaydamak became involved with purchasing soccer clubs:
Arkady Gaydamak, 53, made his fortune initially in France where he arrived as an apparently penniless, and, according to one account, illegal, immigrant in 1972. Within a few years, he had built a huge fortune and had established connections with the French political and financial lite and at least one part of the French security services.
…Since the Angolan affair broke, he has been the object of a war of words in the French press. Gaydamak angrily denied allegations, based on internal memos by French security services sent to an investigating judge, that he had connections with the Russian Mafia. He begun defamation proceedings against Le Monde and the security services involved.
Other accounts have described him as a friend and benefactor of France. He was awarded a medal, ‘L’Ordre National du Mrite,’ by President Jacques Chirac in 1996 for his part in brokering the release of two French pilots captured by Serbian forces during the Yugoslav civil war.
This is not his only French honour. He is also a ‘Chevalier de l’ordre du mrite agricole’, for his part in French food exports to Russia. A room in the Louvre museum was named after him after he donated a piece of 16th-century furniture, which once belonged to King Franois I.
In Russia itself, in 2005 Gaydamak took control of a Jewish group, as the JTA reported:
Much of KEROOR’s [Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and Organizations of Russia] new budget will come from Gaydamak’s own money, which puts him atop the list of domestic Jewish philanthropists and behind only a few foreign donors who have backed KEROOR’s archrival, the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities, the largest Jewish organization in the region.
The main donor and president of the federation, Israeli diamond mogul Lev Levayev, is believed to have introduced Gaydamak, who at one time owned a share in Levayev’s investment business, to the world of Russian Jewish philanthropy a few years ago.
…Those familiar with the situation said Gaydamak joined KEROOR, a 15-year-old group that includes Orthodox and Reform congregations, because he no longer was satisfied with his secondary role in the federation, which Levayev dominates.
…KEROOR’s chief rabbinical authority is Adolf Shayevich, one of Russia’s two chief rabbis. Shayevich has been at odds with a Kremlin that puts its trust in his main rival, Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, the federation’s leader.
The report adds the detail that
…He holds several foreign passports, drives around Moscow in a black luxury Bentley with Angolan diplomatic plates and holds a senior adviser’s post with the Angolan government.
There was also a recent profile in Time, which suggested that with a crisis of leadership in Israel, Gaydamak may “be in the position of kingmaker”:
He says [his] Social Justice [organisation] is not a political party. Rather, it was founded “to form a common ground for the non-privileged minorities who are the majority, for the people who were always kept out of power, who have no access to the new wealth, who have no protection, who are not patronized by the establishment.” He styles himself a nagid or gvir, a traditional Jewish philanthropist-leader who uses his wealth for the public good.
…Gaydamak also likes to spread his political affiliations around. Though he has said in the past that he would support Netanyahu for the Prime Minister’s post, Gaydamak nonetheless promotes talks with the Palestinians sooner rather than later (something Netanyahu does not support) and says Israel should be doing more to improve the quality of life for people in the West Bank and Gaza.
Yet another interfaith conflab involving religious leaders has just taken place, this time in Kiev. MosNews reports:
The Inaugural Summit on Peace and Tolerance devoted to the contemporary state and perspectives of the international inter-confessional dialogue has opened in the Ukrainian capital.
Global Foundation for Democracy headed by Kazakhstan entrepreneur Patokh Chodiev acted as the main organizer of the event.
Participants included Israel Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, Benazir Bhutto, Tom Ridge, Rev. Robert Schuler II, and a UCLA Muslim scholar named Muzzamil Siddiqi. President Alexander Machkevitch of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress delivered an address on the importance of toleration among religious leaders:
The EAJC President also reminded the summit’s participants about the experience of international dialogue between ethnical entities and religions under the aegis of Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
I blogged on Nazarbayev’s “Second Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions” – which saw religious leaders competing to offer the most lavish praise on the Kazakh leader – here. Machkevitch and Chodiev have good reason to speak well of Nazarbayev, since much of their personal wealth, and that of Alijan Ibragimov, with whom they make up “the Kazakh Trio”, is derived from their purchase from him of privatised state industries. Forbes has explored some of the murkiness:
Regional experts have accused them of orchestrating sweetheart deals with Kazakhstan’s long-serving president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and getting “special commissions” from steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal. Then there are the money-laundering charges and reams of bad press. The partners scoff at most of these allegations.
…”People have questions about how they became so rich,” says Zeyno Baran, a director at think tank Nixon Center. “They didn’t do business in a way that is competitive or transparent. It’s mainly based on relationships.” Though the details surrounding the early days of Kazakhstan’s privatization efforts are fuzzy, the trio denies receiving special consideration from the government, especially from President Nazarbayev, who is known to keep a tight rein on foreign investors.
“These guys are not Kazakh, yet somehow they got the trust of the president and used their relationship with the president actively,” says Leyla Abdimomunova, a Kazakhstan analyst based in the capital, Astana. Other regional experts agree that the troika received special favors; at least two separate private investigators have looked into the trio’s ties to Nazarbayev, one of which yielded hotel documents that show they traveled together in 1998. Alexander Ignatov, whose company consults in the former Soviet Union states, says rumors are rampant that the three partners were active financiers of Nazarbayev’s latest presidential campaign.
As well as the “Summit on Peace and Tolerance” and Nazarbayev’s congresses, there has recently been a large-scale interfaith meeting in Moscow (blogged here) and a Russian-backed “Dialogue of Civilizations”, which dwelt on religion, in Cyprus (blogged here). The “Trio” also ran a Jewish-Muslim dialogue meeting last year:
The forum entitled “Islam and Judaism: the road to dialogue and cooperation”, organized by the EAJC and the Council of Mufits of Russia received backing of Patokh Chodiev, chairman of the global foundation “For Democracy”, and entrepreneur Alijan Ibragimov.
The event was attended by a delegation of Iranian lawmakers, headed by the leader of Iran’s Jewish community and deputy of the Iranian parliament Morris Motamed, the EAJC said in a statement. Other attendees included chairman of the Russian Council of Muftis Ravil Gainutdin, chief rabbi of Russia Adolf Shayevich, representatives of Muslim and Jewish communities, government officials, diplomats and scholars from the former Soviet republics.
In organising the Summit, it seems that the “Trio” also had dealings with a counterpart in Ukraine; according to the Pak Tribune, it was
…arranged by the Global Capital Associates and the Ukrainian Interfaith Association…
The Ukrainian Interfaith Association – also known as “A Step to Unity” – is headed by another businessman, Vadim Rabinovich. Rabinovich is a controversial character: in 1999 he visited Liberia on a private jet owned by a Ukrainian mafia boss and arms dealer, and in 2002 he was accused by Der Speigel of having sold tanks to the Taliban. In 1995 he had his US visa revoked, and WorldNetDaily hyped links with Clinton and Gore for its own purposes in 2000. Rabinovich, however, maintains that allegations of wrongdoing are politically-motivated. The businessman is also known in Ukraine for his charitable works, such as his funding of Ukraine’s 9/11 memorial monument. His interfaith efforts were recognised in 2002:
The chairman of the Ukrainian Interfaith Association ‘Step to Unity’, Vadim Rabinovich, has been honoured by the Patriarch of Kiev and all Ukraine, Filaret, with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s highest award – the first class order of Holy Apostolic Duke Vladimir in recognition of his ‘achievements in the spiritual revival of the Ukraine’ and the significant role the Association plays in bridging the trust between various secular and religious components of the country.
The Pak Tribune also reported on Bhutto’s speech at the Summit:
“If elections in my country are rigged, we hope to emulate your orange revolution through public demonstrations and people’s power”, she said by adding that the fanatics who exploit the name of Islam do not speak for the Muslim people…
This report also states that President Viktor Yuschenko was the host of the event, but according to a short JTA report he backed out at the last moment.
Milingo says some disciples of Sun Myung Moon sought him out with invitations to speak at their conferences. The time he was allotted gradually grew, as did his audiences; soon he was leading mass healings in the packed theatres he had so missed.
…Later he would realise he had “fallen into a trap, and the shock was greater than I had imagined”.
…In order to be appointed an official preacher to the Catholics in the organisation, he was told, he would have to be married in the Moonie rite to a wife selected by Moon himself. “I agreed because, in my stupidity, I thought that this way I could do good.” He was not drugged or hypnotised, he says.
…Meanwhile, the Moonies had plans: to found a well-financed parallel Catholic Church in Africa, autonomous from Rome, with its own hierarchy headed by Milingo. “I would not have gone along with the plan,” says Milingo, who was becoming more and more depressed. “One day, one of the last I spent with Maria Sung, the situation I found myself in seemed so absurd that I raised to God a desperate prayer, whose last words were something like, ‘Let me die, Lord, let me die.'”
On March 14, at the Wednesday Service, Archbishop Milingo gave a special lecture at Cheongshim Graduate School of Theology.
…At this service, Archbishop Milingo emphasized, “I received many teachings from True Parents [=Rev Moon and Mrs Moon] but the core is from the family”. He also pointed out the problems of theology churches by Terallianus and St. Augustine that they were established mainly centering on men, saying “A family is a gift from God, and the woman is the center of that.”
…At the end there was a time for the students to ask questions. One student asked, “Tell us your motive to accept True Parents as the Messiah.” He answered, “Looking at True Parents’ life and his current achievements I realized that this person is the messiah sent by God.”
I wrote about Milingo’s part in Rev Moon’s African ambitions recently here.
Back in 1991 journalist John Cornwall published an interview with Milingo in his book Powers of Darkness, Powers of Light (1991, Viking Penguin, pp. 330-334). Here’s a taster:
…The archbishop’s eyes stretched wide. ‘We are now in the last days of Satan’s reign, and he is working overtime through his agents to complete the takeover of the world. His agents are nothing less than the Freemasons who have penetrated to the very heart of Christ’s Church. It is the task of the Freemasons to lull Christians, especially priests, into believing that the Devil and his demons don’t exist. Satan plays with priests like toys when they don’t believe in him.
…’Now Satanism is at its strongest throughout the world. These are the years of the Devil. Black Masses, and blaspheming God, and Judas priests. Before he died Pope Paul VI knew what he had done [post-Vatican II]. He knew it! He had let Satan free within the Church. He said he could smell the stench of smoke around the sanctuary. He said the truth!
…’I was in Holland two weeks ago!’ The archbishop was now shouting and spitting again. ‘I was praying in Amsterdam from seven-in the morning to half-past two, and the priests were falling like corpses before me. The Devil congratulated me for calling him a liar. A witch came to me and said, “How dare you!” I received a letter from the Devil telling me that I should never dare to speak to the demons like that. It said the devils are more powerful than me and they’ll be watching for their chance. But this isn’t true, you see.’…
The European Parliament on Tuesday slammed a proposed conservative, Church-backed sex education program in Croatia, saying it encouraged discrimination.
In a letter sent to top Croatian officials, the EU parliament deputies voiced “concern regarding the potential implementation … of a reproductive health and sexual curriculum put forward by the GROZD Association” of parents.
The program “supplies medically inaccurate and incomplete information about sexual and reproductive health and family planning as well as about available and legal contraceptive methods,” read the letter seen by AFP…
The curriculum has been approved for Croatian schools by the education ministry, and agreement from the health ministry is pending. Javnohas further details:
The letter says that the programme is discriminating and stigmatising towards certain groups such as same gander communities. The module on human sexuality of the GROZD association not only provides medically incorrect information, but also contains sexual/gender prejudices and negative stands towards homosexuality and is inconsistent with the Croatian Constitution and legislature that bans such forms of discrimination.
…The programme of the GROZD association, according to them, is founded on a negative attitude towards sexuality and distorted information on contraception and sexually transmitted diseases, and promotes prejudices about genders, sexual orientation, marriage, family and pregnancy…The opinion is based on an analysis of the GROZD association’s programme by the Reproductive Rights Centre from New York.
The controversy has actually been brewing for a while; ILGA Europe reported last year:
On 19th December 2005, the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport elected the Committee for the Health Education, with tasks of preparing a public invitation for the creation of programmes of health education for primary and secondary schools, giving opinions on the programmes and giving its recommendations to the minister. The final deadline for the completion of these tasks was 15th May 2006.
…After headlines in the media that the Ministry had already adopted experimental programmes, on 24th May 2006 minister Dragan Primorac publicly stated that the Ministry at that point had not considered health education programme proposals. However, the Team for Legal Changes and the Women’s Network expressed concern because it was stated in the media that the relevant Ministry would adopt the programme of the GROZD association.
…The author of the GROZD programmes is Mr Ladislav Ilèiæ, also vice-president of the Teen STAR association and the author of the Teen STAR sexual education program, which the Ombudswoman for Children declared unconstitutional and contrary to national legislation and the Convention on the Rights of a Child.
However, some opponents of the programme seem to have responded rather excessively, if this detail is correct:
…Ms Kristina Pavloviæ, president of the Teen STAR association and Mr Ladislav Ilèiæ, vice-president of the association are under criminal proceedings under suspicion of committing the criminal offence of Racial or other discrimination by violating the right of a child.
Further complaints were made in January:
TheCESIAssociation called met on January 11, 2007, to present its concern over the decision of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports to approve the use of the experimental curriculum in health education prepared by the GROZD Association, in ten schools in Croatia. The GROZD programme awaits the approval by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
…GROZD’s programme, in the sections covering human sexuality, promotes extremely conservative, faith based morality. Thus, it presents masturbation as “turning inwards to one’s self”, while contraception is judged as preventing a complete intercourse and that none of the recognized means of prophylactics is safe enough. The sexual intercourse is defined exclusively as a relationship between members of the two opposed sexes, treating homosexuality as unnatural abomination. Finally, the programme states that divorces result from inability to experience true love.
GROZD (Civic Organising for Democracy) appears to be a civic organization that operates in Croatia and Bosnia-Hertzogovena; Teen Star (“Sexuality Teaching in the context of Adult Responsibility”), meanwhile, is run by Dr. Hanna Klaus under the auspices of the Natural Family Planning Center of Washington D.C. It operates in several European countries, as well as South Korea. A report here describes Dr Klaus’s approach:
A soft-spoken gynaecologist and member of the Medical Missionary Sisters, Dr Hanna Klaus has chosen to adopt a different approach to the problem, addressing the issue of unplanned pregnancies at its very heart.
Dr Klaus designed the program to help empower young people by giving them a personal understanding and experience of fertility through familiarity with fertile symptoms as well as “concrete ways of responding to the corresponding emotional changes and pressures” they face.
Dr Klaus says that teenagers deserve more than a fire and brimstone message of premarital sex leading to unplanned pregnancies and STIs. If they don’t understand their sexuality, neither will telling them to “save themselves for marriage” be successful in many if not the majority of cases. “Neither the provision of contraception nor the exhortation to preserve chastity serves adolescents’ need to integrate their now-present biological capacity to procreate into their operational self-concepts,” she believes.
She insists that the Teen STAR program is not merely a way to teach teenagers how to avoid pregnancy. The statistics for the program corroborate this claim with over 90 percent of female and male virgins remaining abstinent while 30-65 percent of sexually active students stopped engaging in premarital sex during the year-long Teen STAR program.
This indicates that teenagers are ready to respond maturely when presented with appropriate content. They do not need sexually explicit information forced down their throats to realise that their sexual activity has not only physical, but emotional and psychological impacts on themselves and those with whom they associate.
A sociology MA thesis by Kimberley Ann Wood has further discussion here.
A Hindu fundamentalist group in Nepal bombed a Christian orphanage accusing its administrators of converting its non Christian children and receiving funds from pro-Maoist organisations. The explosion occurred in Birganj, Nepal’s industrial capital, at the “Grace Children Home” and wounded one child who is now in hospital.
…The attack was claimed by the Nepal Defence Army (NDA), a recently-created group that wants to restore the Hindu theocracy that once ruled the country.
One boy was injured in the attack; the Himalayan Times has further details:
Fifteen-year-old Mukesh Karki was injured when a bomb went off inside Grace Children’s Home situated at Radhemai Tole in Birgunj-16 today, the inspector at District Police Office (DPO) in Parsa Gautam Mishra said. Karki, who has sustained leg injuries, is undergoing treatment at Narayani Sub Regional Hospital.
Asia News quotes the justification for the attack by a certain “Praban”:
“Firstly, the Christian owners of the home are obviously converting the Hindu and Buddhist children from the hills and mountains to Christianity. [. . .] The bomb was a warning against their nefarious project. Secondly, [. . .] we have evidence that they are actually children of Maoist guerrillas who were killed in army operations during the insurgency. The Maoists don’t mind if their children become Christians.”
This is just the latest action by the NDA, which emerged in February when it bombed the offices of the CPN-UML (“Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist)”), again in Birgunj. Other attacks followed in March, as the Nepal News reported:
A day after it owned up responsibility for having hurled bomb at Kantipur’s regional office in Biratnagar, a whisky factory in Tankisinwari and UML office in Parsa, the NDA has exploded a bomb at the residence of Nepali Congress MP Ashok Koirala in Morang district…At the site of explosion, pamphlets were found in which the NDA has put forth 24-point demands including restoration of Hindu state.
A publishing company was also attacked around the same time. The News adds:
Kantipur daily has reported that NDA is operated by Indian elements supporting Hindu state in Nepal. The daily has reported that main organiser of NDA is Baba Sanjaya Nath – a priest at Kali Temple in the border town of Raxaul. The NDA workers are found to actively take part in rallies organised to protest secularism in Nepal, it said. The daily has reported that Birgunj-based people who had association with Panchayat politics in the past are close with the Baba.
Another individual associated with the group is someone who goes under the name “Parshu Ram”, who writes their pamphlets.
Venting anger at Nepal’s transformation into a secular state from the world’s only Hindu kingdom, protesters Wednesday shut down Birgunj city, the country’s southern industrial hub, and announced a closure Thursday as well…
Though the measures were hailed by ethnic indigenous communities, which follow their own religion, as well as Christian and Muslim organisations, Hindu groups, especially those with political connections, condemned the action.
The World Hindu Federation (WHF), a controversial organisation headed by a former aide of the king, and Shiv Sena Nepal were among the bodies protesting against the conversion.
This was followed by a call for “holy war” in September:
Arun Subedi, chairman of the Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena Nepal – with the same name as a hardline Mumbai (Bombay)-based organisation but unconnected to it – says secularism may worsen Hindus’ relations with minority religions.
“Nepal is a Hindu country,” he says. “It is the playground of God and a very holy country.
“If Nepal is not a Hindu kingdom then there is no Nepal. We are entering into a holy war,” he says, describing a Hindu scripture as his arms and ammunition.
This Hindu militancy is doubtless in part fuelled by the continuing activities of the country’s Maoists. Journalist Kamala Sarup noted just yesterday that
Even though the Maoists’ Communist Party of Nepal has declared peace, the violent killings, kidnappings and extortion continue. The victims of earlier violence want peace, democracy and development. But the various political entities have all resorted to violence to further their own causes.
