Iran-Libya-Davoudi
First Vice President Parviz Davoudi said on Wednesday that the Islamic Republic of Iran and Libya have common and close view points on regional and international issues.
Speaking to reporters, prior to seeing off ceremony for Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, he said the two sides exchanged views on current developments in the Middle East region and the entire world.
He said that Tehran and Tripoli could adopt closer stand in dealing with regional developments.
Davoudi said the two sides also reviewed latest developments in Iraq and called for forging unity between Muslims and avoiding factional disputes between the Shia and Sunni Muslims.
He said withdrawal of occupiers is the only solution to Iraq's problem, adding that Tehran and Tripoli support the Iraqi territorial integrity.
Deeply rooted ties between Iran and Libya along with all-out cooperation would leave significant impacts on regional and international cooperation, he said.
Describing the current visit of the Libyan delegation to Iran as fruitful, he said the two sides are determined to broaden all-out ties.
Iran and Libya could have constructive cooperation in Latin America and African continent relying on their capabilities and potentialities, Davoudi said.
The Libyan premier arrived in Tehran Tuesday night ...   more »

MOSCOW: Russia's foreign minister warned Washington on Thursday that U.S. refusal to accept a Russian proposal of a joint missile defense would strengthen Moscow's belief that the prospective American missile shield is directed against Russia. He called the current state of relations "alarming."
Sergey Lavrov strongly urged the United States to embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal to jointly use a Russian-rented radar installation in Azerbaijan.
"If the United States rejects our initiative, we shall become firmer in our opinion that the underlying reason is not a threat from Iran," Lavrov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Putin made the proposal after months of bitter criticism of the U.S. missile defense plans. He dismissed U.S. claims that missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic were intended to counter a potential missile threat from Iran, describing them as a threat to Russia. He warned that he could respond by aiming nuclear missiles at U.S. allies in Europe.
Putin made the proposal to jointly use the huge Soviet-built radar station in northeastern Azerbaijan when he met with U.S. President George W. Bush earlier this month on the sidelines of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations ...   more »

States "In one form or another, all religions violate the rights of children."
By Peter J. Smith
NEW YORK, June 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Religious education is a form of child abuse and violates the rights of children, contends a thesis to be considered by secular humanists at the Center for Inquiry's congress in Beijing this October.
The Center for Inquiry, an organisation recently awarded special consultative status as an NGO at the United Nations (UN) will consider the proposals of Innaiah Narisetti, the chairman of the Center for Inquiry's India chapter, that portend the next stage in the assault on the rights of parents to educate their children.
Nasiretti called the influence of religion a "severe shortcoming in the global campaign to protect children" and a contributor to child abuse saying, "In one form or another, all religions violate the rights of children."
"Such abuse begins with the involuntary involvement of children in religious practices from the time they are born," says Narisetti. "All religions, through ritual, preaching, and religious texts, seek to bring children into day-to-day religious practice."
"This gives holy books and scriptures, as well as those who teach them, an early grip on the developing minds ...   more »

The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling
R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that "the science is settled." At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.
The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn't seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don't question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of "stopping global climate change." Liberal MP Ralph Goodale's June 11 House of Commons assertion that Parliament should have "a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide, which has tremendous potential for improving ...   more »