Dakar

(Reuters) - Senegalese security forces have arrested seven Koranic teachers for forcing children to panhandle, a police official said on Friday, days after the West African state announced a crack down on public begging.

The predominately Muslim country is under mounting international pressure to end the use of children by Koranic teachers to collect money, rice and sugar after a prominent rights group said the practice was similar to slavery.

“We have arrested seven Koranic teachers who have sent children to the streets to beg,” police spokesman Mbaye Sady Diop said. “They were handed over to the prosecutor to do his job.”

Parents in Senegal have been entrusting their children to traditional Muslim schools, called daaras, for centuries, expecting them to receive food, shelter and teachings from the Koran, and to work on communal farms.

But forced begging began to emerge in the 1970s when crop failures led schools to move into cities and boarding students were called upon to panhandle to cover costs.

Human Rights Watch said in April at least 50,000 children in the country of 12 million were living in conditions “akin to slavery,” facing severe beatings from unscrupulous teachers if they did not collect enough money.

Some of the religious leaders – known as marabouts – make as much as $100,000 per year on the proceeds while cutting back hours in the classroom, according to the report.

Senegal announced last week it would enforce an existing ban on public begging, “under threat from partners.”

But opponents of the crackdown say with little formal employment and a virtually non-existent welfare system, many adults and children in the impoverished country have little choice but to beg.

The Gazette

Wayne Laugesen

For the editorial board

Online preview of Sunday’s lead editorial

Another atheist extremist went on a rampage last week, taking hostages at the Discovery Channel building and demanding the network do more to proselytize evolution and fear about environmental Armageddon. Before he harmed anyone, police shot the terrorist dead.

The violence and the response of atheist evangelists, such as American shock-scientist PZ Myers, illustrate how organized atheism increasingly resembles religion.

Writing for the Discovery Institute, David Klinghoffer pointed out that Darwinian theory has a strange effect on people who are “crazy, wicked, or both.” He’s correct, but he might as well have said “belief” or “philosophy” has a strange effect on people who are crazy, wicked or both.

Klinghoffer explained that Columbine High School shooter Eric Harris, Jokela High School shooter Pekka Eric Auvinen and Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter James von Brunn espoused an evangelical loyalty to Darwin and atheism.

Those who commit atrocities to fight for the cause of Darwin are similar to those who commit atrocities for the sake of Jesus or Muhammed. They are con men, striking out in hatred and justifying their acts with figures greater than self.

The vast majority of atheists lead peaceful, moral and humble lives. They love their children and help their neighbors. A small fraction proselytize with confrontation, just as a small percentage of religious faithful proselytize and demonize others. Of the few atheist proselytizers, a tiny fraction kills people and blows things up for the cause.

Just as religion has prophets and proselytizers, so does atheism. Conventional wisdom conflates Charles Darwin with atheism, and some atheists embrace the late great scientist as a prophet — even though Darwin wanted nothing to do with atheists and understood the ultimate limits of science. Darwin didn’t waste time trying to disprove creation theory, just as smart religious leaders don’t waste time trying to disprove scientific discoveries that reveal how God’s creation evolves.

Just as James Dobson and other evangelists cultivate audiences in order to spread their beliefs, so do atheist evangelizers. The bigs are Britons Christopher Hitchens, who is battling cancer, and Richard Dawkins, who turns 70 in March. Myers, who grabbed attention by vandalizing sacred religious property, is a young and energetic American evangelist on track to become the James Dobson of atheism.

As some Christian evangelists have fought against the teaching of evolution theory in schools, Myers preaches with fire and brimstone against the mere tolerance of religious beliefs of students. At the recent World Atheist Conference in Copenhagen, Myers called himself “a loud and militant atheist” who is accused of proselytizing. He refers to the faithful as “intellectual cowards.” He said any suggestion that atheist teachers respect the religious beliefs of students angers him, and “you do not want to see me when I’m angry.” Remember Hulk? He told the Copenhagen audience it would be a strain to be sensitive to the religious beliefs of a school student’s family without saying “bulls—.” He called prominent British biology philosopher Michael Ruse, who promotes reconciliation of faith and evolutionary theory, a “Clueless godshite.”

“I made him cry,” Myers boasted in Copenhagen.

Whenever a Christian zealot bombs an abortion clinic, Christian leaders quickly defend the religion and the vast majority of believers who go through life doing no harm.

“We categorically condemn the act of vigilantism and violence that took his life. … Our condolences are extended to the Tiller family,” said Dobson, then-leader of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, in response to the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller in 2009.

Now listen to Myers, who was quick to defend his followers after atheist James J. Lee took hostages at Discovery in an effort to force more atheist televangelism.

“There’s basically no way anyone can argue that James Lee was representative of any significant subgroup of evolutionary biologists, fans of Darwin, or freethinkers; he’s a sad, lonely outlier,” Myers wrote in his blog, sounding like a preacher after an abortion-doctor shooting, in response to Klinghoffer.

Myers listed 19 reasons why atheism differs from religion, including this: “They (atheists) don’t make claims that taking courses in Darwinism will clear up your mental health issues.”

Really? Here’s Myers’ blog headline from April 28: “Sometimes, it really is hard to tell faith from a mental illness.” So, if believers in God would learn from Myers, they would lose the signs of mental illness.

The more atheists push their beliefs — through terror or preaching — the more they appear as another evangelical movement with faith in a philosophy that can never be proved or disproved. Atheists, welcome to the club. All you’re lacking are orphanages, AIDS hospices, missionaries, and thousands of charitable foundations. Get on it.

(Reuters Life!) - To sweeten their first day at primary school German children are normally given a cardboard cone filled with sweets, but schoolchildren in Essen this year opened their cones to find pens which project erotic images.

Children attending the Adolf Reichwein School in the northwestern German city were handed cones containing the pens by members of the German Communist Party, according to the school’s headmaster.

Angry parents who discovered that the pens given to their six-year-old children could project erotic images of women informed the headmaster.

In a press release the German Communist Party stated that it had purchased the pens from a discount store, which had said the pens lit up at the push of a button.

“The German Communist Party deeply regrets what has happened and is outraged that this kind of thing, which borders on pornography, can be purchased in normal shops,” it said, adding that its lawyers were now investigating whether the vendors could be prosecuted.

The party has offered to exchange the pens for something more suitable for children.

The Gazette

Mark Barna

 

For 20 years he searched 13 mountaintops in Turkey and Iran for Noah’s Ark. For eleven years he searched Israel, Egypt and Ethiopia for the Ark of the Covenant. He claims that four anchors found in a Malta bay are from St. Paul’s ship, which according to the Bible sank in the first century.

But Bob Cornuke, a Monument resident who presents himself as a real-life Indiana Jones, has mixed feelings about his decades of relic quests.

“I came down (from the mountain) with all this evidence for Noah’s Ark, and nobody cared,” Cornuke, 59, said.

In recent years, Cornuke has found something more fulfilling than trying to find archaeological evidence for Bible stories. During his  searches in Ethiopia, he started distributing medicine and supplies to Ethiopian widows and orphans. A few years ago he co-founded an orphanage in Axum, Ethiopia.

“This is more meaningful to me than looking for Noah’s Ark,” Cornuke said. “But if I wasn’t Indiana Jones, going into poor places, I wouldn’t have found these people.”

Cornuke was 28 when he quit the police force of a small suburban city in Orange County, Calif. He settled in Colorado and worked in the real estate business.

Through mutual friends, he met Jim Irwin, a retired astronaut who walked on the moon. In 1986, Cornuke was hired as a bodyguard on Irwin’s search for Noah’s Ark on Turkey’s Mount Ararat.

Cornuke says Irwin gave him encouragement to become a real-life Indiana Jones, complete with fedora, who searches the world for Bible relics. Before his death in 1991, Irwin helped Cornuke find sponsors for his adventures.

Over the years, Cornuke formed the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute, which is supported by donations, wrote books about his excursions, and gave lectures around the country for about $4,000 a pop. He also earned a degree in Bible studies and theology from Louisiana Baptist University.

In 2006, Cornuke made national headlines when he claimed to have found remains of a boat on an Iranian mountaintop. He suggested in interviews it was Noah’s Ark.

But criticism has followed Cornuke’s every move.

Some Christians call into question his interpretation of the Bible, such as his dismissing the conventional notion that Noah’s Ark settled on Mount Ararat. Many Maltese Catholics dispute his placing Paul’s shipwreck in St. Thomas Bay rather than St. Paul’s Bay.

Reputable archaeologists say Cornuke’s claims are without merit.

“I admire him for a very active imagination and fairly successful business, but from an academic standpoint, he has not much credibility,” said Payson Sheets, archaeology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“The standard of such research tends to be very low, mostly wish fulfillment justified by a bit of wood, or an unusual shape in the earth,” scholar Thomas Wynn said of the people who’ve claimed to have discovered Noah’s Ark.

As for Cornuke’s ideas on Paul’s shipwreck, the anchors may be from the right era, but nothing connects them to Paul’s ship, said Wynn, an archaeology and anthropology professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. “You have to have a reason to link your archaeological find,” he said.

Cornuke fires back that academics are only interested in disproving the Bible. “Emotionally, they detach from believing anything in the Bible,” he said. “What if I showed you Jesus alive? People still wouldn’t believe it.”

Cornuke is weary of debating academics and, to some degree, relic hunting. He says he’s finished searching for Noah’s Ark, and is satisfied with the evidence that the anchors, discovered in the 1970s by divers, are from Paul’s ship.

His focus these days is on Ethiopians.

For centuries, an Ethiopian legend has said that the Ark of the Covenant, in which according to the Bible the tablets of the Ten Commandments were stored, is in the country. For 800 years, it was housed in an Orthodox monastery on a Lake Tana island, the legend says, then transported to St. Mary’s of Zion Church in Axum, where it resides today out of public view.

For years, Cornuke and many others have led Christian tourists on an Ark of the Covenant quest in Ethiopia that’s grown into a cottage industry. The tours begin in Axum with the Timket Festival, which commemorates Christ’s baptism, followed by visits to the island monastery, Zion Church and other sites. Cornuke charges each tourist $3,495.

“People want to go with me because of my books and the Indiana Jones stuff,” he said.

Gradually the trip has included less time at tourist stops and more time helping Ethiopians. In Axum, Cornuke and many tourists have funded the building of the Bob Cornuke Elementary School and White Rose Orphanage.

Walt Larimore, who has a private medical practice in Monument, took the tour in January. He’s a skeptic about the Ark of the Covenant, but he loved helping Ethiopians with basic medical care.

Larimore said Cornuke has changed since the last Noah’s Ark expedition five years ago, which Larimore went on.

“Bob has fallen in love with these people,” Larimore said. “He does the relic quest on the tour, and people recognize him for the Indiana Jones thing. But when he gets around the orphans and the widows, you see his heart melt.”

The Gazette

Does this sound like your workplace?

You want to talk to your boss about a touchy subject, but you worry that speaking up will propel you to the head of the line during the next round of layoffs.

You argue with a colleague about work, even though you used to get along like college roommates.

You’re burdened by too much work, but you soldier on because there are more job applicants than jobs and your family needs the paycheck.

Three years into the nation’s worst economic crisis in generations, the climate around many offices, factories, stores and other places of employment on this Labor Day has changed, workplace professionals say.

Fear and stress dominate the workplace for many as companies call on employees to do more with less amid a dismal job market; 51 percent of respondents in a recent Gazette online poll said they either were working a bit harder or doing the work of two to three people since the recession began. And until the economy adds significant numbers of jobs — the Colorado Springs-area unemployment rate stood at 8.9 percent in July — don’t expect the workplace atmosphere to get much better. 

“The key word is really uncertainty,” said Marie McIntyre, a Georgia-based office coach and author, whose weekly workplace column runs in Sunday’s Gazette Business section. “Even if you have a job, and even if you feel fairly secure in your job, you’ve usually seen instances of people in your workplace or have friends or neighbors from other places lose their jobs with no warning. They were in perfectly good jobs, but through no fault of their own, their jobs just went away. That pervasive uncertainty is the main factor that really increases the stress right now.”

Stress and uncertainty play out in several ways in today’s workplace — affecting managers as well as rank-and-file workers, experts say.

Some employees become risk averse — they avoid situations they can’t control or that bring added pressure, McIntyre? said. They’re reluctant to make a decision if they believe a wrong choice could threaten their job, they avoid high-profile projects for fear of falling flat, or they turn down promotions because greater responsibility comes with higher expectations.

Even employees with a good job offer from another company might choose to stay where they are, McIntyre? said. It’s not that they don’t want a new challenge, she said; rather, employees don’t want to become the new kid on the block — who doesn’t have a reservoir of goodwill built up with their new employer — if layoffs come.

Heightened workplace tensions also mean employees argue more instead of talking out their disagreements, said Steve Tucker, program manager with Colorado Springs-based Profile EAP, Centura Health’s employee assistance program that contracts with about 70 state and national organizations to provide employee and management services.

“Those things that might have been discussed before all this pressure and stress was going on now come out in a bit more intense way,” Tucker said. “There’s more intense conflict, there’s stronger disagreement … with co-workers not getting along. That was going on before, but we’re seeing when it’s happening now, it’s more intense.”

The conflicts aren’t just among rank-and-file employees; they involve bosses, too, Tucker said.

Supervisors who have seen their budgets cuts and who have been forced to lay off good people are stressed as well, he said. Meanwhile, their employees are expected to do more work with fewer resources, and even work longer hours — although the U.S. Commerce Department reported last week that second quarter worker productivity fell more than previously thought, which suggests doing more with less might no longer be an effective business strategy

The willingness by employers and employees to have collaborative discussions has shifted, and neither side has as much patience as before, Tucker said.

“The supervisor is not as easily supportive of the issues that the employee comes to them with, and the employee … takes the tact of being more attacking and accusing,” Tucker said.

Employees, however, need to be cautious about their dealings with supervisors in this climate, McIntyre? said. For example, would an employee’s controversial opinion during a staff meeting be appreciated or antagonize the boss?

“Everybody with half a functioning brain cell knows that their boss has … a huge effect on their job security,” McIntyre? said. “I think people have been making much more of an effort to get along with their bosses, even if they don’t like their bosses.”

Personnel evaluations — written by managers — have become especially important in this era of increased workplace jitters, McIntyre? said.

Upper management might know layoffs are coming, so they pressure lower-level supervisors to be more realistic and straight-forward on employee evaluations — using them as a tool to help determine who stays and who goes, McIntyre? said. Likewise, some rank-and-file employees will appeal a bad review because they know it could determine their fate in the company, she said.

In this climate, some employers have found workers are more likely to fight to protect their wages, benefits and jobs, said Kim Koy, a Colorado Springs attorney and director of the southern regional office of the Mountain States Employers Council, a Denver-based non-profit that represents private employers. In the past, employees upset about bosses or workplace conditions might quit, figuring they could find work elsewhere; now, knowing jobs are scarce, they’ll fight harder to hold onto their positions or dispute unpaid overtime, Koy said.

The council’s attorneys have reported an increase in federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints filed against employers alleging discrimination in the workplace, said Deborah Brackney, a vice president in Mountain States’ Denver office, although she didn’t have an exact number.

Some employers have seen more incidents of substance abuse among employees, said Tucker, of Profile EAP. While nobody knows the exact reason for the incidents, increased workplace pressure likely is a contributing factor, he said.

“It’s a coping mechanism,” he said. “If people are feeling stressed, they’ll do it more.”
—
Contact the writer at 636-0228

TALES FROM THE FRONT: WORKERS’ STORIES

For a story about how workplace conditions have changed during the nation’s three years of economic turmoil, The Gazette solicited comments from rank-and-file employees. Here are the experiences of three local workers. One has witnessed heavy-handed management that has hurt employee morale; a second butted heads with the boss; and a third says work is good, but concerns remain about the future. The newspaper agreed to protect their identities.

Hostile work environment
Employee No. 1 works as a manager for a Colorado Springs nonprofit. Given the nature of the organization’s work, you’d probably expect an employee-friendly environment. Not necessarily, she said.

“This is one of the more hostile work areas I have ever seen,” she said.
Some supervisors within the organization use fear and intimidation to oversee workers, she said. One manager threatened to fire a worker who showed up 15 minutes late one day; the same manager boxed an employee into a corner in order to confront the worker eyeball to eyeball.

What have employees done? Some are staying mum because they support the nonprofit’s work in the community, but they’re also worried about reprisals if they speak out.

“They’re held hostage by the fact that they need the job,” she said. “Morale is terrible. They feel that management, if you want to call it that, is not seeing the real situation. It’s supporting something that’s unjust. But they (employees) also feel that they can’t do anything … because they’re worried. ‘Gee, will my job be in jeopardy if I say anything?’ It’s a bad situation.”

Walking on eggshells

Employee No. 2 was fired from a job as an assistant manager at an automotive business last month amid onoging tensions between several workers and the owner.

“We all bit our tongues,” he said. “It was like he was really watching us closely. Everybody was walking on egg shells because we didn’t want to lose our jobs.”

The owner might have behaved the same way five years ago when times were better, he said. But the poor economy certainly added to the owner’s stress. Because of the owner’s disagreements with workers and the pressure he was under, the employee tried to lay low before eventually getting fired.

“You do only what you know you won’t get in trouble for,” he said. “You don’t show initiative. You don’t overstep your bounds. You don’t step on your superior’s toes. Anything like that. You have a role here, and you have to stay within that role, because if you step out, you could ruffle some feathers down the road.”

War weariness
Employee No. 3 works in high tech and has been laid off a couple of times over the past decade because of volatility in the global tech industry. Earlier this year, he was hired by a tech company in Colorado Springs that’s done well so far this year.

The company’s work environment is positive, and employees feel valued, he said. Many of the company’s managers have worked in people-oriented cultures of high-tech firms.
“We’re not afraid to bring things up to our boss,” he said.

But like other industries, high tech has gone through severe changes, and the company where the employee works holds a strict line on expenses.

“Nobody gets away with working only 40 hours a week anymore,” he said. Likewise, the company outsources and cuts expenses where it can.

Despite working for a company that’s doing well, the employee said high tech workers in general have a “war weariness” about them because of downsizing, outsourcing and other economic upheavals in their industry. They know things can change quickly.

“In this current climate, we’re just always looking over our shoulders,” he said. “Nothing shocks us anymore. You hear about layoffs, ‘well here we go again.’ Whereas at the beginning of the decade, it was all fresh and new … Now, it’s one more tool to make their numbers look good.”

AHVAZ, IRAN (Worthy News)– Members of a home-based church in the city of Ahvaz are worried about one of their own who has not been heard from since his arrest, Worthy News has learned.

The 27 year-old Neshan Saeedi was arrested by plain-clothes security forces that entered his house on July 24.

The security officers searched his home and seized personal belongings: a computer, CDs of Christian seminars and teachings, Christian books, Bibles, and family photo albums.

Saeedi’s family was taken to Chaharshir detention center in Ahvaz for several hours of questioning and harsh interrogation. Security officers said they were apostates who were unworthy of raising their 6 year-old daughter, and if they continued their Christian activities, they might lose custody of her. They were also accused of anti-government activities by acting as agents of foreign powers.

After the interogation, the wife and daughter were released, but no one has seen Saeedi since.

After the arrest, members of the home-based church who fellowshipped with Saeedi have scattered and disbanded. Security agents are desperately seeking two other leaders of the church while Saeedi is presumed to be under great pressure to reveal the names of all church members.

CHRISTIANITY SPREADING

Elam Ministries, an organization supporting churches in Iran, has linked the crackdown on Christians to concern among Iran’s leaders about the spread of Christianity in the Islamic nation. “Because Iran is a strategic gateway nation, the growing church in Iran will impact Muslim nations across the Islamic world.”

The group said recently that in 1979, there were less than 500 known Christians from a Muslim background in Iran. “Today the most conservative estimate is that there are at least 100,000 believers in the nation.”

The perceived hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come under international pressure to improve religious rights and abandon his nuclear program. He has denied wrongdoing.

Phnom Phen, Cambodia (Worthy News)– Daughters of Cambodia, a Christian outreach and rehabilitation program started by British missionary Ruth Elliott, is working to free girls sold into the sex slave industry, Worthy News has learned.

Ruth Elliott has been working in Cambodia for six years to bring girls sold as sex slaves out of the trade. Since 2004, Elliott has worked near the red light district, confronting the practitioners of prostitution head-on, trying to bring them out of the sex trade into a new career and a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

LAUNCHING OUT

According to Elliott, God called her from the time she was 14 for this work. “The Lord began to speak to me,” she told CBN. “He wanted me to go into the places that were worst and to facilitate healing the brokehearted and setting the captives free.”

In Cambodia, 90% of the prostitutes in the sex trade industry are sold into it by their parents. A number of the girls say their families depend on them for support so they feel obligated to stay.

“They live in the pit of Hell. It’s the truth,” Ruth said, speaking on the victims’ situation. “And they experience horrendous trauma when they come out.”

A NEW BEGINNING

Daughters of Cambodia is a day-center started by Elliott that is located near the brothels. They make their own clothing, fashion accessories, and home furnishings and market them locally and overseas.

“We had to start small businesses, which are fair trade businesses, in order for the girls to exit the sex industry,” she said. “For without another job, it is just impossible for them to leave the sex industry.”

The Daughters of Cambodia center teaches the girls not only new work skills, they also learn valuable lessons for establishing a healthy family and home. “Things like domestic violence prevention, conflict resolution skills, budgeting skills, this kind of thing,” Elliott explained. “[Also] drug prevention.” Up to 60 girls at a time participate in the program, earning money for rent, food, and other needs.

BRINGING IN JESUS

In addition to teaching the girls how to survive without using their bodies to make money, Elliott also introduces the girls to Jesus Christ. And not to them only, but also to the brothel owners.

“We do build a relationship with the brothel owners and they are welcome in our church program,” she said. “We want brothel owners to come. We want pimps to come. We want everyone in the sex industry to come to our church because we believe in the power of Jesus to change everyone’s life.”

“This involves going directly into the brothels and inviting sex workers who are in the sex industry in Cambodia to change their lives, if they are interested in doing that,” she explained.

The message of unconditional love from Jesus Christ is producing great results, especially among the girls. “They respond very quickly to the gospel because they have never in their lives experienced love – unconditional love and acceptance,” Elliott said. “And many of them become Christians as a result of this.”

GOD’S POWER AT WORK

The work is not easy. And while it can be dangerous, God’s power to protect them is evident in a mighty way. “I have to say we have never, ever, not even one day, had any problems, any brothel owners turn up at our door demanding a girl back or threatening us in any way,” she proclaimed. “We have never had a single threat against us. And I can’t explain that to you except I believe the grace of God is on us.”

The goal of Elliott is to have her girls graduate from the program and live successfully on their own. She hopes to have other Daughters of Cambodia-style centers in other countries with similar needs.

Information for this report was provided by CBN News.

Apocalypse # 13