Petition Tag - government

The problem in British Columbia is that it is illegal to chase bears with dogs because it is considered harassment of wildlife. But it is okay to shoot bears? It's cheaper but in the end will it really be?

FACT: on average, 1000 bears lose their lives in BC each year for being "problem bears".

FACT: bears are intelligent creatures, and the Karelian Bear Dog program has been used successfully to teach bears to stay away from potential "problem" areas.

FACT: the BC Government has no intention of making any amendments to the Wildlife Act until 2006. In the meantime, bears continue to die needlessly.

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The time remaining befre the WTO ministerial affords the people at the grassroots level to have a say on the issues affecting their human rights and their livelihood.

The fifth World Trade Organization's Hong Kong Ministerial will take place in December 2005, where vital TRADE issues/agreements will be decided. The time prior the ministerial affords us the opportunity as the citizens to influence our WTO ministerial not to sign for issues that affects our human rights and that exacerbate the level of poverty in our country and other developing nations.

The WTO has implemented agreements that have had a negative impact on people's human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other Human Rights instrument such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and cultural rights e.g. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) that allows the multinational companies the right to patent access to live saving drugs like ARVs (aids DRUGS) for people living with HIV/AIDS, this agreement violates the people's right to health, the Agreement on Agriculture that benefit the developed countries yet violating people in developing countries the right to food and adequate standard of living by allowing the developed nations (e.g. The US and EU) to continue subsidizing their exports flooding the domestic markets of developing nations such as South Africa and therefore resulting in job loses and poverty.

Another agreement that has had a negative effect on the livelihood of the people is the General Agreements of Trade on Service, privatizing essential human needs such as health, water, education and technology thereby increasing the level of poverty and inaccessibility to essential services.

Sign this petition and mandate of government not to sign for any agreement that will negatively affect our human rights as the citizens of the developing nation.

On the upcoming Hong Kong Ministerial the delegation will sign for the new agreement that was put forward by developed nations called the JULY FRAMEWORK, that will give more power to emerged economies to continue to bully the developing nations and to increase subsidies of imported goods in South Africa and thereby causing more job loses and poverty, making our farmers uncompetitive as a result of cheap imported goods that are less than our domestic cost of production.

SIGN FOR FAIR TRADE AND STOP TRADE LIBERALIZATION THAT BENEFIT THE RICH WHILE THE POOR SUFFER.

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Saulteaux Tribe of the Anishinabe in Warroad

This is our petition for federal recognition as an injustice was done to our Tribe on June 24, 1905. Instead of getting federal recognition we received individual allotments.

We were fully functional as a Government with our own Chief and Council. Chief Aye-Ash-A-Wash signed a treaty to keep Buffalo Point, which is part of our territory and now is in Canada just five miles from Warroad, Minnesota. He was recognized as Chief and as an Indian in Canada. The United States Government did not recognize him as an Indian or Chief. When the patents arrived in Warroad, Nah-May-Puck was our Chief.

We need federal recognition because it would be the right thing to do. We need to correct an injustice that took place here in the United States. Our Tribe was called the Saulteaux Tribe of the Ojibway Indians.

Please help us get the much-needed recognition, as federal recognition would bring millions of federal dollars into the surrounding communities including Warroad, Roseau and Baudette in Minnesota.

Federal recognition would also bring Indian Health Services, Economic Development and education dollars for all of it's members.

The following will receive the petition: Senator Mark Dayton, Senator Norm Coleman, and Senator Collin Peterson.

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When is a riot not a riot? When is a massacre not a massacre? When is a mass murderer not a mass murderer? And when is public outrage to be muted — if not entirely suspended?

When the Congress is the culprit. And when the victims are Sikhs.

That, at least, seems to be the attitude of much of our so-called secular establishment. The publication of the Nanavati report into the 1984 Delhi riots should have served to remind us of the horrors of that bloody week. It should have led us to recall how completely the administration failed and how innocent Sikhs were murdered in front of their own children.

Instead, the secular response to the report has been curiously low-key. It was a long time ago, we are told. What is the point in raking up old memories? Justice Nanavati doesn't conclusively blame anybody anyway, does he? And anyway, all secularists must unite to fight Hindu fundamentalism, so let's not get sidetracked by an old riot.

There is something sad and shameful about these responses. Listening to them yesterday, I had some sense of why secularism has fallen into such disrepute. It has become a flag of convenience for anybody who wants to oppose the BJP. And we have forgotten that all communal violence — no matter who it is directed against — is equally bad.

It wasn't always like this. Those of you with long memories will remember the horror with which most educated people reacted to the riots in 1984. Then, they became a Great Secular Issue in much the same way that the Gujarat riots later became a defining issue for a new generation of politicians.

Certainly, it was impossible not to be outraged by the massacres. They took place in the immediate aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the early violence was spontaneous, sparked off by public anger against Sikhs and by simmering Hindu resentment at the Punjab violence. Then, somebody spread a rumour that Sikhs were distributing sweets to celebrate Mrs Gandhi's death. Even though there was no substantiation to this story, small-time local Congress leaders gathered their followers and went in search of Sikh homes to burn.

What happened next is the subject of some dispute. Eyewitnesses claim that they saw senior Congress leaders — Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, H.K.L. Bhagat and Dharamdas Shastri — either leading the mobs or organising the violence. Naturally, the leaders have since declared their innocence, but there is little doubt that some of their followers were involved.

It did not help that the police force failed. The Delhi Police disappeared from the streets of the capital and Sikhs were denied the protection they needed to save their lives. The administration delayed calling in the army and, in the interim, hundreds of poor Sikhs living in the resettlement colonies on the other side of the Yamuna were murdered. In a pattern that would be repeated in Gujarat nearly two decades later, the mobs resorted to extreme cruelty: fathers were killed in front of their daughters, women were raped in full public view and, in some cases, thugs drove electric drills into the heads of defenceless Sikhs.

By the time the riot was over — actually, I don't know why we call it a riot, it was a massacre — three things were clear. One: the Congress was involved. Two: the police and the administration did nothing to protect the Sikhs. And three: there was an unforgivable delay in calling in the military.

The dispute was over other issues. What was the level of Congress involvement? Were people like Bhagat and Tytler really involved? Did the policemen run away because they were scared? Or was it because they did not want to act against workers of the party that was in power? And why did it take so long to restore order? Was it because the government was in a state of chaos following Mrs Gandhi's assassination? Or was there a more sinister design? Was it true that Arun Nehru, the Congress strong man of that era, had said, "Let Delhi burn for three days"? Had Rajiv Gandhi's administration allowed the massacres to go on because they tapped into a vote-rich Hindu backlash?

Over two decades and many commissions of inquiry later, we have some answers. Yes, senior Congress leaders were involved. There may not be enough evidence to prosecute Tytler, but Justice Nanavati suggests that he played some role. About Bhagat, the report is vague: no purpose is served in investigating him further because of his advanced age and declining health. Sajjan Kumar and Dharamdas Shastri seem to have had some involvement.

On the more substantive issue of whether the administration allowed Delhi to burn, all the commissions have been unanimous: yes, it did, but this was because of incompetence and negligence, not because of any sinister design.

If there is a parallel, it is with the 1993 Bombay riots rather than with Gujarat. In Bombay too, the police failed to protect Muslims. And the local administration failed to ask the army to restore order till it was much too late. Then too, there were political workers involved — except that they belonged to the Shiv Sena which was in opposition, and not to the ruling Congress.

I suppose it offers secularists some comfort that the riots in two of India's greatest cities — Delhi in 1984 and Bombay in 1993 — were not engineered by Congress governments. But this is little comfort to the victims and their families. We elect governments to protect us and when they fail to do so, it is hardly reassuring to be told, "At least they didn't set out to murder you."

Besides, the distinction between a party and its government is not always clear. We accept now that the central government did not intend Delhi to burn in 1984 and that it did not ask the police to let Sikhs be murdered. But nevertheless, there is no denying the Congress's role in the massacres. Even if Rajiv Gandhi and his aides did not want the violence to spiral out of control, and even if the failure to protect the Sikhs was due to the government's state of paralysis following Mrs Gandhi's assassination, it was still local Congress leaders who led the mobs, who committed the murders. And if Justice Nanavati is to be believed, it wasn't just local leaders; some national figures were also involved.

In the Eighties, nobody was afraid of saying this. But Indian politics has now become so polarised between the so-called forces of secularism (i.e. the Congress and the Left) and the so-called communal elements (the Sangh parivar), that every event is now reassessed through the prism of this polarisation. So Congress supporters and communists are willing to forget the horrors of 1984 lest they weaken the secular case against Narendra Modi and the mass murderers of Gujarat.

But the truth is that a murderer is a murderer. A massacre is a massacre. A victim is a victim — regardless of whether he is Hindu, Sikh or Muslim. When somebody comes to kill you, it does not matter whether he does so in the name of Hindu fundamentalism or Congress extremism. If we forget the murders of 1984 and allow those who committed them to get away with it, then we lose the moral right to criticise Narendra Modi or to ever speak out against communal violence.

It saddens me that the secular establishment has forgotten basic morality. Its failure to stand up for the victims of the 1984 massacres shames us all.

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The abuses photographed in Abu Ghraib were universally condemned, but these have not been the last incidents of torture and ill-treatment by US officials. Reports of abuses continue to emerge from Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and elsewhere.

The US government has conducted reviews and investigations but they have not had the independence or reach necessary. A full, transparent and independent investigation of crimes must take place to ensure accountability for the human rights violations that are alleged to have occurred in US custody, including arbitrary detentions, "disappearances", torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Prosecutions must follow such an investigation, to prevent further torture and ill-treatment.

Detainees have been subjected to conditions of prolonged isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, sexual and other humiliation, mock executions and other threats. To stop these practices, in the name of the "war on terror", call on President Bush to act now.

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Save Our Soldiers (S.O.S) is a primary response designed to give moral support to British soldiers serving across the globe who are currently under investigation from the British Government.

Father's, son's, brother's, uncle's all of whom have families, all of whom need Government support, politically, financially, and morally.

By signing this petition you support the British troops and give them hope that the British people are with them in their hour of need. Thankyou.

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If you live in Desoto, Southern Sarasota, or Charlotte Counties in Florida, you often have to drive many miles to have a little fun on the ice.

The closest ice rink or roller rink is either in Bradenten or Fort Myers.

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The wolf population in Norway is in a critical situation. This spring the government of Norway sanctioned a culling of wolves from only an estimated population of 25 wolves remaining in the country. During the hunt, an alpha female was killed "by accident" from one of the packs not to be targeted for the hunt - effectively dispersing the family. By the end of the hunt there were only 2 families left, and only one mating pair between the two.

The attitude of the government is biased by heavy lobbying of sheep farmers throughout the country who are trying to protect their free-range sheep. A quote from Afenposten tells all: "We want to keep Norway wolf-free. The wolf is vermin and should be taken out," said the leader of the Center Party program committee, Lars Peder Brekk."

Recently another wolf was found dead by unknown causes. This male wolf was a member of the family of wolves whose alfa female was wrongfully killed during the hunt. This death strikes a devastating blow to the wolf population. Now only one family survives in Norway.

The purpose of our petition is to show global support for the wolves and to demand the government of Norway change their policies and protect the wolves from extinction.

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Update December 19, 2005

The petition was delivered to Number 10 Downing Street on the morning of the 19th of December 2005. We are following up with press. More details will be provided in due course.

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Help to Inspire a Cultural Renaissance in Britain.

The Government's proposed National Lottery Bill will turn the national lottery into a STEALTH TAX.

The National Lottery Bill allows the Government to shore up its failings by taking lottery money away from good causes to plug gaps in departmental budgets.

The creation of a Big Lottery Fund will take fifty percent of the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery. It will deprive the areas that it was set up to support - arts, sports, charities and heritage.

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P2P (peer-2-peer) users have been in a constant fight against the RIAA, MPAA, and even the FBI. Some people may say that P2P users should be punished for the breaking of copyright laws. Others say that data should be free for distribution. Millions of people in the past, the present, and hopefully the future will be using P2P.

The question comes down to do you think P2P users should be pursuited or not. US code Section 2319 of Title 18/Part I/Chapter 113 has given the government the ability to charge P2P users with a crime.

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On September 11, 1993, the Bloc Québécois federal political party, based on the need to defend the French language and promote Quebec culture, became officially registered with Elections Canada.

With this mandate in mind, in the October 1993 federal election, the Bloc formed the Official Opposition in the House of Commons, with Mr. Bouchard as their leader. In Canada, an opposition party is a political party with members elected to the House of Commons or legislative assembly that is neither the government party nor one of a coalition of parties forming the government.

The role of an opposition party is to oppose the government by criticizing government policies, suggesting alternatives and keeping the public informed about issues relating to government administration.

The Bloc Québécois has no other thought other than what is of benefit to Québec, and has no interest in being of benefit to the rest of Canada. They constantly strive and push for separation from Canada, seeking an autonomous and sovereign relationship with Canada.

The existence of the Bloc in the House of Commons is unconstitutional as this party does not run candidates outside of Québec. Should the Bloc ever become the Official Opposition Party again, how could they honestly and justly defend the interests of her Majesty and the people of Canada if their only reason for being is for the welfare of Québec?

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The current overgrowth of the Robbers Roost Golf Course is creating a health problem for the surrounding communities. Snakes, foxes, otters and mosquitos have been recently spotted and are a danger to the homeowners and their pets.

We request the owners of the property to mow it on a regular basis or the city mow it and bill the owners. We are all tax paying citizens and feel that our safety must be a concern for the local government and the entire community.

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The Treatment of Dogs and Cats in Korea.

Should the brutal treatment and death of a dog or cat concern us more than if the same were done to a cow, or a sheep, or a chicken. It shouldn't, but animals that the "Western world" looks upon as companion animals are treated very differently in Korea.

Many Koreans still believe that if one eats dog meat from dogs that have been tortured to death, it will make them more sexually active. The marketing of dog meat as a health food was initiated and perpetuated by the dog meat dealers to keep their billion dollar businesses going. The rationale behind savagely beating a dog to death lies in the primitiveness that when a dog is beaten they produce high levels of adrenaline hence the selling of their meat as a kind of "natural" viagra for impotence and vitality!

This adrenaline rush is achieved by hanging dogs from ropes on trees and leaving them to slowly strangle to death, and then while still alive, their fur is blowtorched off.

Cats do not hold any position of affection in Korean society. They are not eaten as dogs are but many attempts have been made to eradicate them, not by humane methods, but rather by beating the animals to death in sacks or, in some cases, boiling them alive in large pressure cookers to supply the insatiable demand for another "herbal" remedy - although clearly animals do not fall into this category.

The Korean government does not enforce its animal welfare laws so people make an assumption that farming dogs, slaughtering them and selling their meat is legal. It is not. The sale and cooking of dogs is illegal under Korea's food and sanitation laws.

Imagine being thrown into a cage full of other dogs. A cage so small there's no room to move and let alone stand. A cage so cramped there is no way you can get water or food .. assuming it was even provided to you. One day you are transported in the cage to a dog market.. your last journey, although you don't realise it.

You're pulled out of the cage by a rope tied around your neck and then held by that rope and beaten over and over again on the head with a metal stick...you're bruised, bleeding and concussed. you have no idea what fate has in store for you...you see a man approaching with a long stick..he jabs it into your side, you a feel a wave of electricity surge through your body. you're jabbed over and over again until your last grasps of air are extinguished from your body..

The dead, limp carcass of the dog is then transported again by motorcycle to the processing factory where eager purchasers look out for what they'll put on their dinner table tonight.

The lifeless body is dragged out of the cage and dumped into a huge pot of boiling water amongst other helpless dogs who have received the same fate. The pot is a machine with a fast whirlpool action that spins round and round to remove the fur off the tortured dog.

Once the fur has been removed (a delicacy in itself), the dog is scorched using a blowtorch. The process is now finally complete. The dog now, bearing little resemblance to anything other than a slab of meat is transported back to the shop...

Now, imagine being thrown into sack, pounded against the ground and thrown into a pot of boiling water - trying to scramble out of a pain that singes your body, only to be pushed back under water until you finally lose consciousness.

The pot is a large pressure cooker used to liquefy cats to produce a tonic unfoundedly believed to cure rheumatism and a variety of other ailments.

Now stop imagining. This is not fiction. This is real. What you have just read happened to over 2,600,000 dogs and cats in Korea last year...and if nothing is done, it will happen to over 2,600,000 dogs and cats in Korean again this year.

In fact, the torturing you've just imagined is only a fraction of the cruelty that occurs to dogs and cats in Korea. Cultural myth dictates that dog and cat meat/soups are cures for various ailments and that the more adrenalin you can circulate through an animal's body during its last moments of life ie through making the death a more painful and gruesome one, makes the meat 'taste better'. This encourages dog farmers to enhance the suffering of the dogs...a killing that is devoid of any humanity.

Korean culture as with many other Asian cultures embraces the condemning practice of slaughtering animals for their own consumption, regardless of how the animal suffers in the process. The distinction between the killings in the East and the killings in the West is that the West follow stricter guidelines as to the method of slaughtering and are more heavily regulated by Animal Welfare Laws.

In 1984, the Korean Ministry of Health did outlaw the sale of dog meat, however has done very little, if anything to enforce a law that was only introduced to satisfy the public outcry at the time.

We need to do something to raise the awareness of people living in these countries to a level where they think twice about the validity of their traditions and the means adopted to satisfy them. We need to challenge the way that Koreans currently view their companion animals and force the government to take a more proactive stance against these cruel death sentences.

Source: Korea Animal Protection Society (KAPS)

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Please write a letter to the Korean government officials below to take a more active stance in fulfilling their governmental responsibilities in enforcing a law they have already introduced and thereby prosecute people who sell and slaughter cats and dogs for human consumption.

Korea is holding the World Cup next year and will therefore suffer greatly if they are seen to be treating their companion animals without humanity or regard for their welfare. We HAVE to put pressure on the Korean government to clean up their act now or else face international condemnation when the spotlight's on them during the World Cup. For the 2,600,000 plus dogs and cats in Korea awaiting their fate on death row.we owe it to them to put pen to paper and give up 5 minutes of our time to make a difference in this world.

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After developing and researching a civilian participation project on global warming and it's effect we realized the hazards and dangers that we are currently facing and more to come in the future.

We want your support for advocating our president Mr. Bush to enact the Kyoto Protocol and help the public be aware and educated of the current situation of global warming.

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Naomi's story.

Is a child born in Australia in a Detention Centre an Australian Citizen? If not, what is she? Does she have any rights?

Naomi Leong spent her third birthday on 5 May 2005 in detention. She spent her second and her first there as well. She was born there. This poor innocent has been held in this cruel situation all her small life.

While technically having been born and now growing up in Australia, she has been denied freedom and any semblance of a normal life, by the Australian Department of Immigration. No toyshops, no icecream, no playgroup.

Naomi's mother Virginia Leong, was 2 months pregnant when she was detained for trying to leave Australia without proper documentation.

Virginia entered Australia on a valid visa, but had overstayed a mere two months. She was whisked into the Villawood Detention Centre and there she has stayed since. Her home country has not stepped in to question her detaining, her host country has not bothered to resolve it. Three years have passed. How many more to follow?

Dr Michael Dudley, a child psychiatrist at the Sydney Children's Hospital said of Naomi in an interview on PM on ABC Radio National; "She's in a very anxious and distressed state. She's banging her head against the wall, she's gazing into the distance at times, she's mute, unresponsive, listless." (5 May, 2005)

In November 2004, Detainee advocates tried to insist that Naomi be allowed out to mix with other kids at a nearby child care playgroup for two hours each week. The child care group has said it would welcome her. The request was rejected.

"We really needed her to be in an environment where she actually had some chance to grow and develop normally," Dr Dudley said.

Virginia has another child, a six-year-old-boy, who is an Australian citizen. His father was previously married to Virginia, but he refuses to allow the boy to visit his biological mother and sister "in jail."
Has Virginia anybody who can help her? If not is she there to stay permanently?

Naomi is not alone in this plight. She is but one of 69 children being held in Immigration Detention Centres across Australia, the innocent victims in their parents' attempt to get a better life for their children than they had for themselves.

The system of mandatory, non-reviewable detention for everyone (no exception for babies and children) is a system introduced in Australia in 1992. Detaining children like this is contrary to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which Australia agreed to abide by in 1990.

It is the intention of this petition to free little Naomi, and to help prevent this treatment of all these other innocent children who through no fault of their own are destined to a more existence. To be held in Detention Centres for something they are not responsible for, is cruelty without comprehension.

This should not be happening in Australia. Join us in protesting to the government to give these poor children something to live for.

For more information on child immigration detainees in Australia please visit
www.chilout.org

ABC's story - 'Just another birthday behind Razor Wire' tells the sad story of little Naomi . Find it at http://abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/S1360970.htm then come straight back and sign the petition.

We want 20 million signatures - equivalent to the population of Australia - insisting that Government recognise that Australia is a country of caring people -and a country where we don't ruin the lives of children!

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Imposing religious and moral law will only lurch a state to more theocracy (rather than democracy) where it could undermine religious tolerance and civil liberty in the country.

The September 11, 2001 event was an act of revulsion that was committed in the name of Islam, and Islamic States including Malaysia and Arab countries blunted their criticism relatively to the U.S. occupation of Muslim land in the Arab world or U.S. affiliation with repressive regimes in Muslim countries counting mainly at U.S. support for the State of Israel as the root of terrorism.

Theocratical states (especially Islamic states these days) are less venerating to democracy and human rights. They draw religious lines between Muslim and Non-Muslim moving the Islamic world to fanaticism, while others may label it Islamo Fascism.

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The Liberal Party of Australia will have absolute legislative control of Parliament as from June 2005. One of the Government's first acts will be to slash the entitlements of people with disabilities.

The major change will be classifying anyone able to work 15 hours per week as no longer eligible for disability support, and instead, being classified as unemployed. This will subject an estimated 60,000 Australians already living in poverty to even worse poverty.

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The bali nine are suffering due to the mistakes and the lack of our Australian police and government investigating the ring leaders here in australia.

My name is Rachel Richardson and i am a former heroin addict and now a Human Rights campaigner and a member of Amnesty International, we need to stop injustices such as this, there needs to be more support in the war against drugs we need to educate our children against the dangers such as drug smuggling and the traps that they can so easily be caught up in.

There needs to be better rehabilitation and education and the government needs to be of support to this as well.... we all make mistakes and we need to learn from them not be killed for them.

Who will be the next victims ?? our children ?? being offered free holidays to indonesia. Then having their lives threatened or the lives of their families. This whole case needs to be investigated properly and the people behind this need to be prosecuted. Innocent people were roped into smuggling heroin and have already been sentenced to death due to the indonesian laws.

It is now up to the Australian Government and John Howard to help these innocent victims.

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Raping woman, killing children, pillaging agricultural villages, destroying lives.

The attention of the world is much too slowly turning its head to address the rampant and unmitigated devastation occurring in Sudan that has in the past 18 months left more than 50,000 savagely murdered and 1.5 million more among the families of those unfortunate dead as displaced refugees in ill-equipped camps and neighboring countries. This is a UN recognized human rights atrocity; the situation in Sudan is a grave emergency! Devastatingly, the attention that Sudan has received from commercial media - which is largely focused on the situation in Iraq - has not expressed the gravity of the situation.

Who is killing who in Sudan and why? The current campaign of ethnic cleansing is intent on eliminating several sedentary African tribal groups, motivated by a struggle for power in Khartoum, Sudan's capital. The killing campaign is being conducted by a hired militia at the bidding of an imposed, abusive, and controversial government struggling to retain its power over a nation of people that wants the fanatical government routed. While the urgency for action and assistance has never been keener, the conflict has actually been long standing. Sudan as a whole has been embroiled in 50 years of civil war and rebellion between the usually tyrannical power in Khartoum and the southern populations that do not want to live under the Khartoum government's religious and dictatorial policies.

To understand why the groups are in conflict, you need to first acquaint yourself with the region. Sudan is in East Africa, just South of Egypt, East of Chad, and North of Kenya. The population is a conglomerate of Arabs and Africans, nomadic pastoralists and farmers, Muslims, Christians, and Animists (those believing that everything in nature has a soul). These people of Sudan have been in conflict ever since the British abandoned the region in 1956. Upon their leaving, the British undemocratically passed control to one group of ethnically-foreign Arab northerners in the capital city, Khartoum. This empowered groups' policy of disregarding civil rights and instituting classical Islamic rule over the ethnically diverse Southern population has spawned the 50 years of civil war, famine, and human rights violations that have never been effectively dealt with. Compounded by the discovery of oil in the Sudan South in the 1970s, the Northern dictatorial government breached beyond merely unfair policy and began trying to dominate the natural resources of the South. Still, the worst of problems had yet to come.

By the 1980s, a series of poignant civil rights abuses aroused fear in the southern populations. The increasingly fanatical Islamized northern government had been abusing its power by dismantling the constitutional rights for people in the southern region and by imposing Shariya Law - traditional Muslim Law Code - over the ethnically diverse southern populations. In 1985, the southern borne Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) led a popular uprising that succeeded in expelling the Northern Arab government. The SPLM revolt was successful in replacing the government and at ushering in the installation of a democratically oriented - but still religious - Islamic government. This progress lead to peace talks that gave many hope for a stable Sudan; but the steps forward were not to last. In 1989, as peace agreements were being consolidated between the democratized Islamic government in Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in the South and just as the government was finally preparing to freeze the Shariya Islamic Law Code, General Omar al-Bashir lead the National Islamic Front in a coup against the liberating government to bring back the authoritarian Arabic form of Islamic government.

The Southern Sudanese hopes' had been dashed and there worst fears rekindled; upon Omar's imposition, he abolished the constitution that protected the Southern populations, censured his opponents by outlawing opposition parties, and he revamped Khartoum's control of the controversial Shariya Law by imposing, additionally, a traditional Islamic Justice System which began dealing out death liberally. Omar then proceeded to declare Jihad, a holy war in the name of Mohammad, against the non-Muslim and democratic African-Muslim people of Sudan.

The National Islamic Front government continued to polarize the Sudanese people and its actions began even to alienate Khartoum from its neighboring countries. Accused of attempting to incite jihad in eastern neighbor Eritrea, and of assisting in an assassination attempt on Egyptian President Mubarak during his visit to Sudan's eastern neighbor Ethiopia, and because Sudan was recognized for harboring terrorists such as Osama bin Laden who used Sudan as a base for executing the 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, General Omar's government became regionally isolated but Omar al-Bashir remains in power still today.

Omar's fundamentalist government, supported by their oil reserves, military technology, and fear, continue to push forward. Their campaign however is not fueled by purely by religious zeal as it may appear at first glance. It is much more ethnically motivated, pitting the Arabic Muslim government against the African, dark-skinned Muslim and non-Muslims of greater Sudan. The African Muslims are mostly sedentary tribal peoples, agricultural societies that embrace diversity. The Arabic government fosters the form of ethnic fanaticism that has plagued the Middle East, such as in Iraq where Arabic Sunnis have in the past threatened and massacred Islamic Shiites and Kurds.

By 2003, Omar's mistreatment of even his northern contingents and tribal populations in the area called Darfur, lead the tribal groups to mount a rebellion. In April 2003, in the name of human, social, and economic rights, and impassioned by their suffering, the Muslim tribal peoples of the Fur, the Zaghawa, and the Massaleit, allied under the two names, the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), took up arms against Omar's militarily defended government. Despite inferior resources, they actually achieved a string of victories.

At this point, fearing further retaliation, Omar made one of the most horrific moves that any dictator could entertain. He called upon nomadic Arabic horsemen in Sudan to enlist in a Janjaweed militia, promising a gun and additional payment of $116 a month in order to rape, route, and kill the African people of Darfur. Janjaweed is translated from Arabic as "man with a gun on a horse" but the Janjaweed are generally known as nomadic bandits. The government motivated the Janjaweed to carry out their mission in the Darfur region with racist incentive; told that their job was to cleanse Darfur of its darker skinned inhabitants. They were too given the additional incentive that their monthly payment would come from the booty plundered in the villages which they attacked.

For the last 18 months, the janjaweed have terrorized unabashed the tribal people of Darfur with a scorched earth policy, destroying the villages they attack. "They dump human corpses in wells to contaminate the water supply, essentially doing whatever is necessary to force the black African Muslims from their land never to return" says the report from the office of Congressman Wolf on what he witnessed while visiting.

You know when they are coming because they don't come alone. First you here the low pitched hum of the helicopters approaching. This is when most of the able villagers dash into the forest for sake of their lives. As the helicopter gun ship arrives, it first strafes the village destroying housing and killing people that have not left. It will often unload supplies for the janjaweed militia that follow close behind, coming out of the forest on horseback to finish the killing, raping, and destruction making the village uninhabitable, and to collect bounty from the village.

The government of Omar al-Bashir denies involvement, aid, or support of the raids. They maintain that the culprits are just uncontrolled bandits. Their overt lie is not much believed by anyone, as it is plainly obvious that the nomadic janjaweed alone are by no means capable to be flying the attack helicopters.

To date, the actions of the government and its militia have displaced over 1 million people from their homes, consolidating them into 129 crowded concentration camps monitored and surrounded by more janjaweed. These are what is called internally displaced people (IDPs). Their camps are ill-resourced. In Mornay, the largest camp with 70,000 people, rains carry human excrement back through the camp. At least 160 thousand Darfurians have escaped across the western border of Sudan to Chad. Few of them will ever be able to return to their home. If the refugees leave their camp, the janjaweed are there waiting for them just beyond the borders says the Wolf Congressional report. Rape of Sudanese woman is a daily reality for these refugees. They are forced to accept it, they must leave the camp to gather firewood for their families and straw to feed their cattle. The janjaweed tell the girls they rape that they are "trying to make their babies lighter." The janjaweed have even instituted a policy of branding the raped girls and woman so as not to mistake them. Murder of the male IDPs is a constant threat as well.

This is a holocaust going in Sudan today, directly in our site. After the holocaust of WWII where six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi forces, and again after failing to intervene to stop the devastating genocide of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, the world has now twice said "never again" to genocide. This is your chance to not only to say never again but to act on your intention. Get informed, read a few articles, you will understand the situation and realize why it is so devastatingly clear that this is a genocide that must be confronted immediately.

In the past months, the government in Sudan has been coming under increased - but still feeble - international pressure to address and respond to the crises. Kofi Anan and Colin Powell have both visited the region and agree it is a problem that needs to be dealt with, but what have they done to accomplish this? Currently the UN is discussing so they can make a declaration as to whether or not these atrocities may be considered a genocide. This is after a recent Security Council Resolution that urged the Khartoum government to better control the devastation in the region and to help ensure the security in the IDP camps. Do you believe it is appropriate to hold the same group which is responsible for instigating the atrocity as the group to hold responsible for ensuring the security of the region? Obviously the UN Security Council does. So who is guarding the camps? The janjaweed, the same people that were commissioned and brainwashed for murdering the Darfurians are now being publicly sanctioned by the UN to carry "defensive" weapons that will allow them to defend the safety of the black African people in the refugee camps.

The UN Security Council Resolution had the opportunity to send a clear message to the Khartoum government. Instead what do they do? They approved that more African Union monitoring forces should come to Sudan to oversee the situation. They failed to issue an arms embargo ensuring the Sudan government will have continued access to weapons. The UN also failed to inflict any real pressure on the Sudan government by passing on their opportunity to impose an oil embargo. An embargo would have forced Sudan to address the problem.

"The [UN] Security Council has ensured that the Sudanese government will have the resources necessary to continue its scorched-earth campaign in Darfur," said Human Rights Watch, an international non-profit human rights watchdog group. Instead of providing a resolution that sends a clear message to Khartoum indicating how serious the world is about putting an end to the atrocities, they committed a toothless resolution providing no real incentive for al-Bashir to respond.

This makes good sense. The UN is incapable of responding appropriately to human rights issues. You will agree if you look at who is one of the 14 member states on the UN Human Rights Commission: Sudan. Yes, the same government that fosters the genocide of ethnically African black Muslims in Sudan is a voting member on human rights issues.

Reasonably, you are probably appalled by what you have learned about Sudan. You know you can not rely on the UN to do anything constructive regarding this matter. Little known to most, the United States has actually been supporting the reabsorption of refugees from Sudan. Four years ago, the United States allowed the immigration of 7,000 black Sudanese refugees, actually victims of a different struggle against the same government. Many of these are young boys from southern Sudan who lost their parents violently while trying to escape the onslaught of northern Sudanese forces. They are now known as the Lost Boys. A group of at least 100 of them now call San Diego their home and are actively trying to build themselves a new life in this new world, along with all the trappings of modernity.

Take it upon yourself to learn, to discuss, and to represent what you know is right. Make sure that who ever wins the election for president on November 2 knows that giving attention to Sudan needs to be a priority for the United States. Don't wait to speak out and don't be afraid to raise the issue, it is not a very contested topic outside Sudan.

Resources for your learning interest:
www.lostboysfilm.com

Website about the Sudanese refugees experience starting a new life in the US:
www.icg.org

International Crisis Group, human crisis watch group:
www.house.gov/wolf/issues/hr/trips/sudanrpt_web.pdf

Document of Congressman Wolf's impression.

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Dear Honourable Stephen Harper and associate Members of Parliament;

As stated in the Globe and Mail, on Thursday April 28th, 2005, the honourable Stephen Harper will move to bring a no-confidence vote against the liberal government in the following month. Such an action has dire consequences for both Canadian Democracy, and the faith one has in Canadian Politics.

Although this faith has been repeatedly shattered, given the claims of corruption brought forth in regards to the sponsership scandal and the Gomery inquiry, forcing an election prior to the release of the report would undermine Canadian's ability to judge for themselves whether the Liberal government has lost the 'moral authority' to govern. While there is much anger with the Liberal Government, in Quebec and throughout Canada, for the sake of democracy, Canadians must be able to judge for themselves the scope of the injustice of the sponsership scandal. As a result, an election should not be forced until the Gomery Report has been produced.

Secondly, such an election would be a waste of both time that lawmakers could spend doing their job, as well as of the taxpayers money. Millions were lost in the sponsership scandal, but just how many more millions would be lost in an election that would produce near-identical results as the previous one. It is highly doubtful that given the divided support of Canadians an election would result in anything other than another minority government. As a result, it would be likley that such an election would produce a conservative or liberal minority government to be toppled once again a year or so after its formation. In other words, the question must arise, "Why must an election be held now?"

It is obvious that the Conservative Party's answer to this is that the liberal government has lost all moral authority to govern. However, this sponsership scandal is hardly new to this minority government, as it was equally an issue in the previous federal election of 2004. The only change is the production of the Gomery report revealing the details of the scandal. And that is exactly why the federal election should wait until at the very least the entire report has been released. Let the Canadian people see for themselves the details of the corruption first hand. There should be no reason for the Canadian people to have to rely on the media's point of view of the Gomery inquiry. It should be released to the public PRIOR to any move for a federal election.

Finally, in June 2004, the Canadian people expressed their wish to have a divided parliament. There was no clear majority, which proves to the legistlature that the Canadian people are divided. The Canadian elected the LIBERAL party as GOVERNING party, the CONSERVATIVE party as OPPOSITION, and both the NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY and PARTI BLOC QUEBECOIS as significant but smaller OPPOSITION parties. Therefore, each of these parties should work towards comprimises which BEST REFLECT the WILL of the Canadian People. A Minority Parliament is an expression of the Canadain People's desire for comprimise.

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Updated March 22, 2007

Taiwan has been excluded from the United Nations and its related organizations since 1971.

Since then Taiwan has neither been privy to the health related work of the World Health Organization (WHO) especially regarding the spread of infectious diseases. With the recent warning of many countries on the possibility that avian influenza could evolve into a pathogen deadly to humans, we face the threat of a worldwide epidemic.

The goal of the World Health Organization is the "attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health." Taiwan's exclusion from the WHO is basically contradictory with this objective. It places the health of not only the Taiwanese but also the entire global community at risk. Taiwan qualifies as an independent and sovereign state with a defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government, and a capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Despite exclusion from the WHO, Taiwan actively cooperates on numerous international health projects and provides much humanitarian assistance as part of its responsibility to the international community. The latest example, Taiwan International Health Action (Taiwan IHA), established in February 2006, aims to integrate Taiwan's human and material resources into an international medical and health affairs network. These efforts have been highly recognized and praised internationally.

This prohibition can be rectified by allowing Taiwan to participate when the World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO's decision-making body, meets in Geneva in May 2007.

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WHAT'S WRONG WITH H.R. 1528?

Among other things, it:

- Makes the federal sentencing guidelines a system of mandatory minimum sentences through a "Booker-fix" provision.
- Creates new mandatory minimums that further erode judicial discretion.
- Eliminates the safety valve for low-level drug offenders.
- Makes virtually every drug crime committed in urban areas subject to "drug free zone" penalties that carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence.
- Punishes defendants for the "relevant conduct" of co-conspirators that occurred BEFORE the defendant joined the conspiracy.

As written, H.R. 1528 would:

- Effectively make the federal sentencing guidelines a system of mandatory minimum sentences through a "Booker-fix" provision. This provision forbids judges from departing below the guideline sentence in all but a few cases.

- Make the sale of any quantity of any controlled substance (including anything greater than five grams of marijuana) by a person older than 21 to a person younger than 18 subject to a ten-year federal mandatory minimum sentence.

-Create a new three-year mandatory minimum for parents who witness or learn about drug trafficking activities, targeting or even near their children, if they do not report it to law enforcement authorities within 24 hours and do not provide full assistance investigating, apprehending, and prosecuting the offender.

-Create a new 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for any parent committing a drug trafficking crime in or near the presence of their minor child.

- Mandate life in prison for persons 21 years or older convicted a second time of distributing drugs to a person under 18 or convicted a first time after a felony drug conviction has become final.

- Increase to five years the federal mandatory minimum sentence for the sale of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, college, public library, drug treatment facility (or any place where drug treatment, including classes, are held), or private or public daycare facilities - in short, almost anywhere in cities across the U.S.

- Eliminate the federal "safety valve," granting it only when the government certifies that the defendant pled guilty to the most serious readily provable offense (the one that carries the longest sentence), and has "done everything possible to assist substantially in the investigation and prosecution of another person," and would prohibit the federal "safety-valve" in cases where drugs were distributed or possessed near a person under 18, where the defendant delayed his or her efforts to provide substantial assistance to the government, or provided false, misleading or incomplete information.

For these reasons, FAMM opposes H.R. 1528.

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Though the use of children as soldiers is condemned by the international community, the atrocious practice are still continued in many countries.

Children involved in armed conflict, are beaten, raped, and killed. What's more troubling is that they are forced to carry out the same violent actions towards other people, even other children. Child soldiers live under severe conditions. They are not given the care that every child should get. Boys are not the only victim of this serious issue. Girls are also recruited as soldiers and are more at risk of rape, sexual harassment or abuse. Like the boys, they are also force to participate in combat.

We have an obligation to millions of children to make sure that they don't spend their childhood in a violent world where they must kill or be killed.

Please join us in our efforts to abolish the use of child soldiers.

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By the 1970s, commercial whaling had caused 8 out of the 10 great whale species to be commercially extinct. The International Whaling Commission's (IWC's) ban on commercial whaling went into effect in 1986. Since then, pro-whaling countries have been trying to lift the ban and continue to kill whales by using exceptions to the ban.

Most species of whales are still endangered and there is no humane way to kill a whale. Whales suffer horrible and often prolonged deaths due to brutal and unreliable killing methods used by whalers. They also suffer from being caught in fishing nets of commercial fisheries targeting other species. Instead of making an effort to safely release them, they are brought onboard to die and to be sold for human consumption.

The annual IWC meeting will be held in Ulsan, South Korea in 2005. South Korea has voted against protecting whales. Please sign this petition to let your government know that South Koreans care about whales and about animal welfare and want them to vote in favor of protecting these magnificent animals.

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The hunt has been banned in many countries but not Ireland. It is a cruel inhumane sport that kills innocent animals so posh rich people on their fat horses can have some fun. This is not right.

The wildlife in Ireland are incredibly rare and the hunt is absolutely wiping them out. There are other ways in which these people can still take part in their barbaric "tradition" as they call it like scent hunting where the hounds follow the scent, not the animal and everyone can still have a jolly good time! However the fat cats in the government want to keep it up because the english come over here for it and that improves the tourism wwhile killing our wildlife population!

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If you believe that:

the human rights given to humans must be preserved,

the Armenian Genocide was a crime against all of humanity,

the United States should demand that the present day Turkish government come to terms with history,

the United States should demand that Turkey make reparations of lost land and money to Armenians.

THEN PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION!!!!

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United States armed forces, in an effort to enforce UN resolutions regarding Saddam Hussain's Government in Iraq invaded beginning March 19, 2003. After two years of occupation and an election, US troops are still there. They should not be.

Bases for permanent occupation are being built. Tens of thousands of civilians have died as a direct result of our aggression.

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The first amendment: " Congress shall make now laws prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Two court cases will be held before the supreme court to hear the ruling and to make a decision on the rules of publicly displaying the Ten Commandments.

The large Texas cases took form in 2002 when a homeless atheist man named Thomas Van Orden passed by the monument, which sits next to the American Flag, American Eagle, and other religious symbols subscribed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and charged it of being an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The federal district court rejected his argument, ruling the state's reasons for placing the monument were clearly secular. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit also upheld the decision in 2003, and Van Orden appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

The out come of this case will inevitably change the way the Christian religion is held in this country. The ruling of making the ten commandments illegal to have in government buildings will trickle down to it being illegal to having them displayed anywhere in public. This will most likely lead to crosses being taken down off the sides of churches and the ultimate concealment of the whole Christian faith! This clearly violates the first amendment the courts are saying the ruling would be supporting.

Please help justice prevail in this court and help protect ALL religions in this great nation we reside in. Please take time to sign this petition and put forth an effort to keep the Ten Commandments in view of all onlookers.

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February 2005

The intention of this petition is to request the addition of the "Hanson College Lecture Tour" to Indianapolis, Indiana's Butler University roster of student events.

We are collecting signatures to provide to the Student Government Association at Butler University in order to reinforce the interest created by the Hanson College Lecture Tour. This tour is of educational value and would benefit the university's students, as well as, the surrounding demographic.

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Ticket touting is a million pound industry that blights the enjoyment of thousands of people. Fans should be entitled to buy tickets at fair prices without the constant threat of losing out to ticket touts.

We call upon the British Government to tackle this problem that cannot be ignored any longer. Please consider the following;

Instruct the Live Music Forum to investigate the impact of touting and scalpers upon the live music industry (which has proved to be successful in the Victorian State Government in Australia)

Encourage limits on the number of tickets available in any one transaction.

Encourage a 'free returns' policy like in theatres. This limit the number of tickets sold to touts when holders cannot attend an event.

Encourage internet auction sites to clamp down on illegal ticket touting on their sites.

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