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Everyone is entitled to their beliefs...
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Differences are as old as the saints:
By KARAN MINNIS, Guardian Lifestyles Reporter -
Nassau, Bahamas:


In a country with over 200 churches and 15 denominations it is sometimes hard to understand and appreciate the beliefs of others. As a result, some may find it hard to understand why one church preaches from the Bible while another may preach from the Quran. However, according to several pastors, accepting other religious beliefs is simply the right thing to do.

"Everyone is entitled to their beliefs," says Bishop Philemon Wilson, senior pastor of Faith Temple Ministries International, Prince Charles Drive. "That is something that we have to accept and it's not because others may be right, but because we are not the ones to judge — God is.

"To be honest, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Therefore, we have to accept that even though to us a person is wrong as long as they feel they are right, they are within their fundamental rights.

So I think even though there are times we know that they are wrong we must leave them alone. We can try to share what we think is right with them and if they fail to accept that, then we have to back off and let them go on."

Wilson said that few people realize that the person they are thinking or talking to feels the same way, and that they are right, and that the other person is wrong.

"In turn, that person who we think is wrong feels like we are wrong, and so you know it's a two-way thing. This is why respecting the rights of people to believe what they want to believe is important. It is what is legal and what is expected of persons from a human rights perceptive."

Adding that religious differences are as old as the saints, Bishop Wilson says that without acceptance wars would exist and societies would not function well.

"We can see this happen as we speak. In Iran we have what they call 'Holy Wars', which many don't see as necessary. This is because even though it's important to stand up for your beliefs, many think that learning to accept difference is important as well. I don't think anyone would want a religious war in The Bahamas, and learning to accept differences prevents this. But before you can accept differences you must develop an understanding that everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe whether they're right or whether they're wrong.

"Once you have accepted, you will see that even though you think a person is wrong, they think they are right and until they are able to see what you are trying to say to them, it's pointless to fight. Therefore, you have to accept your differences and leave them or the issue alone. This is how people are."

Wilson says in some instances people even have different beliefs even within the same denomination. "If you're speaking about the Bible and denominations in general I think it's only natural for people to derive at different points of view. Life is about interruption and different denominations have interpreted the Bible a different way. For example, the Jehovah Witnesses believe that there is no Hell, and the Seventh-day Adventist believe that Saturday is the Sabbath. That is their interpretation and it is well within their rights. You can't change that, so you have to accept it."

Pastor Maria Lockhart, assistant pastor at Bethany Ministries, East Street South, says that it's not the job of a Christian or a child of God to judge.

"It's not fair for us to judge each other. That is not our role as Christians or even as men or women of God. If someone's beliefs are different from ours, as long as they are serving God and living by his laws, or at least what they believe His laws to be, how can we say they are wrong? Everyone's denomination has interpreted God's words in their own way. They have established their own doctrine upon that, and I myself cannot say they are completely wrong. I can only believe in what I believe in, and encourage people to do the same. I can't force them to do so, however, and if they choose otherwise I must accept that and pray."

Adding that peace is the ultimate goal, Lockhart says that in time the truth will be revealed.

"On judgment day we will all be corrected on our errors," she says. "At Bethany we believe that we will all be judged according to our beliefs and on how well we lived our life accordingly. I don't think it's a matter of which belief is right. I thing it's a matter of how well you lived your life according to your beliefs and if you practiced what you preached. That's what is really important — not if you kneel for the reading or not. Therefore judging each other should not be important. Instead loving each other should be."

October 12, 2008 | 2:35 PM Comments  0 comments



UNITED NATIONS warns hungry Haitians could cause more unrest in Haiti
Related to country: Haiti

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

UN warns hungry Haitians could cause more unrest:
By Louis Charbonneau -



UNITED NATIONS (Reuters): Ignoring the plight of hurricane-ravaged Haiti and leaving its population hungry and angry could lead to a new wave of social unrest in the Caribbean country, the top UN envoy to Haiti said Friday.

Haiti was hit by four storms -- Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike -- in the space of about a month. The storms killed at least 800 people, including 520 in the hardest-hit city of Gonaives.

UN envoy Hedi Annabi told reporters the relief effort was beyond the financial resources of either Haiti or the United Nations and ignoring Haiti's plight could spark renewed unrest. Soaring food prices led to deadly riots earlier this year.

"A poor, angry and desperate population is not compatible with security and stability," Annabi said.

He said he was confident the UN Security Council would renew the mandate of the UN Haiti mission, known as MINUSTAH, for another year and that the vote could come next week.

Although he gave no specific figures for the amount of aid Haiti would need, he said hundreds of millions of dollars would be required to improve its drainage and sewage systems.

The recent flooding left behind vast amounts of mud, partly because 98 percent of Haiti's forests had been destroyed, allowing earth to be washed down from the hills.

Annabi said there must be large-scale reforestation combined with an alternative energy plan. Firewood is Haitians' principal source of energy.

Annabi said MINUSTAH was working with Haitian authorities to help the devastated city of Gonaives, which was coated with some three million cubic meters of mud that could turn rock hard. "It's as close as it comes to a hell on earth," he said.

He noted that the hurricane season was not over and Haiti could face further storms and flooding this year.

He acknowledged that it was difficult to ask wealthy donor countries to hand over more money for the poorest country in the western hemisphere at a time when global financial markets were struggling to ward off a total meltdown.

"I realise we are in a difficult environment," he said. However, he said it would not hurt the economies of developed countries to hand over more aid for Haiti.

Last month the World Food Program said it only had resources to help flood victims in Haiti through November.


October 11, 2008
caribbeannetnews

October 11, 2008 | 10:26 AM Comments  0 comments



WE ARE AND WE SHOULD BE SOCIALISTS
Related to country: Cuba

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Reflections of Fidel:



LAST October 2nd we discussed the international price of the fuels that we are consuming. I am under the impression that its significance attracted the attention of many leaders and cadres.

There is a general debate about the percentage of the population with access to electricity and other common services of modern life. This may vary from 40% or less to 60% or a bit higher. It depends on access to hydroelectric resources and other elements.

Before January 1, 1959, almost half of the Cuban people had no access to electricity. Today, with a population twice the size and broad access to that energy, its consumption has increased several times over.

In our country, as in a large part of the world —except for the super-rich nations— that electricity is brought to the people by air through the use of electricity pylons, posts, transformers and other means, many of which were knocked down by the strong winds of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike throughout the island.

An article in Granma signed by Maria Julia Mayoral outlines the devastation of the power grid by both natural phenomena. But she adds that while the hurricanes were moving through [the island], generators provided electricity to "966 bakeries, 207 food processing centers, 372 radio stations, 193 hospitals, 496 polyclinics, 635 water-pumping stations and 138 senior citizens’ homes, among other basic facilities."

"Assuring this meant that…it was necessary to quickly dismantle hundreds of emergency units located in production and service centers to set them up in places that were not connected to the national electric power system. This was possible thanks to the coordinated actions of work brigades from various agencies and transportation companies, with the support of local authorities. The equipment that was temporarily moved will be returned to its original centers as soon as the situation is back to normal."

These words, which I am quoting exactly, show the devotion dedicated by local and national Party and government cadres to finding solutions.

The headline of the article written by Maria Julia reads: "Millions spent to bring light to the people."

I think that this is the right time to recall that the generators were set up for the following purposes:

•To guarantee crucial services such as health care or food preservation under any circumstances;

•Industrial food production, such as bread, milk and others;

•To ensure steelworks, which cannot be halted because that would seriously damage the industry;

•To guarantee defense and information services which are indispensable at all times. Suffice it to mention the meteorological centers and their radars, which track the course of hurricanes;

•To ensure the progressive generation of electricity with minimum consumption, much more efficiently than the available thermoelectric plants.

Having said this, we should remember that the generators range from small motors that can produce 40 KW/h to those that can generate 1,000 KW/h or more. Sometimes it becomes necessary to put together several of these generators; for example, in a hospital with advanced technological equipment and an indispensable air conditioning system, which tend to be high energy consumers.

These generators use diesel to operate and their efficiency grows as their capacity for electricity generation increases to a certain point. They require appropriate grease, a stock of spare parts, maintenance, etc.

A growing number of generators have motors that operate without interruption and use a different type of fuel.

The ideal thing would be for every production or service center to receive electricity from the national electric power system using more efficient machines that operate on fuel oil, which is much cheaper than diesel and is obtained from oil refining and is a fuel that is being increasingly used for passenger and cargo transport, tractors and other farming equipment.

If, for any reason, diesel-operated generators are used to provide electricity for housing and are operated for 20 hours or more, the consequences are negative. Their main purpose is for emergencies and, at the present stage of Cuba’s development, for a limited number of peak hours.

Among the different types of generators that use hydrocarbons, nothing compares to the ones that use fuel oil, even if the investment is more costly. Because of their weight and complexity, they cannot be moved from one place to another at any time. In this sense, they are second only to the combined-cycle plants that use gas, which is previously filtered for sulfur and other contaminants.

We should be mindful that no cadre should forget the advisability of not wasting a minute to return all diesel-consuming generators to their regular functions in neighboring provinces and municipalities as soon as the emergency is over. We have a serious shortage of that fuel; the country is spending too much and it has been necessary to reduce the allocations required.

Production and distribution of food and construction materials, I repeat, have absolute priority at this time. We are not a developed capitalist country in crisis, whose leaders are going crazy looking for solutions amidst depression, inflation, a lack of markets and unemployment; we are and we must be socialists.



Fidel Castro Ruz
October 4, 2008
7:35 p.m.