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05/12/2005:

"Coastal route for first humans migrating from Africa?"

Former British colonies can be free and starve, or be loyal and be fed
Pan Africanist Congress founding president Mangaliso Sobukwe used to relate a tale about a jackal and a dog. According to the story, a jackal met a domestic dog. The dog was fat and the jackal was lean. Seeing that the jackal was extremely lean, the dog offered to take it to his home where they would be fed by the dog's owner.

"My owner looks after me very well. I do not have to hunt for food. If you come along , you will be fat just like me," said the dog.

The jackal, attracted by the idea of not worrying about the next meal, asked : "What do you give him in return?"

"My loyalty. I have surrendered my freedom to my master. Most of the time I am chained to a tree in his yard," said the dog.

Walking away, the jackal said: "I'd rather be lean and free than be fat and chained."

Coastal route for first humans migrating from Africa
For many years experts have assumed the early migrants headed through what is now Egypt, across the Sinai and into the Middle East. New evidence suggests they might have taken a more southerly route, along the coasts of the Arabian peninsula into India, Indonesia and Australia.

Chinese come from Africa, just like the rest of us
An international study has found that the Chinese people originated not from "Peking Man" in northern China, but from early humans in East Africa who moved through South Asia to China some 100,000 years ago, Hong Kong's Ming Pao daily reported yesterday in a finding that confirms the "single origin" theory in anthropology.

According to the newspaper, a research team led by Jin Li (ª÷¤O) of Fudan University in Shanghai has found that modern humans evolved from a single origin, not multiple origins as some experts believe.

The Ultimate War Crime, Killing the Children
The Destruction of Iraq's Educational System under US Occupation

Skilled Workers Only
The countries of western Europe, joined by France on Wednesday, have stepped up their efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, adopting policies that favor the regularization of skilled foreign workers.

Black And White And Full Of Crap
Lies Run Big, Facts Small in U.S. Media
As sharp-eyed readers learned a few months ago from single-paragraph articles buried deep inside their newspapers, Pat Tillman died pointlessly, a hapless victim of "friendly fire" who never got the chance to choose between bravery and cowardice. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Washington Post now reports that Pentagon and White House officials knew the truth "within days" after his April 22, 2004 shooting by fellow Army Rangers but "decided not to inform Tillman's family or the public until weeks after" the nationally televised martyr-a-thon.

Our war for 'whatever'
At her court martial last week, according to The New York Times, Private First Class Lynndie R. England told the judge that when pressed to join in the humiliating of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, she responded by saying, "OK. Whatever." In that case "whatever" consisted in an abandonment of human decency, but it assumed England's prior abandonment of her own moral core. The word "whatever" as prelude to her acts revealed that, before humiliating the prisoners, she had humiliated herself.
But, speaking of Iraq, a spirit of "whatever" animates those much further up the US chain of command. Indeed, England and her fellow guards at Abu Ghraib were not the originators of that spirit, but merely transmitters of it. When President Bush announced the effective American abandonment of normal restraints in the global war on terror, he was saying, "Whatever it takes." Whatever we have to do. We will be bound by nothing but our own will, accountable to no one. Forget Geneva. In order to win, we will do whatever.

Chiquita's Children
In the '70s and '80s, the banana companies Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita used a carcinogenic pesticide, Nemagon, to protect their crops in Nicaragua. Today, the men and women who worked on those plantations suffer from incurable illnesses. Their children are deformed. The companies feign innocence.

South Africa to Publish Indigenous Language Books
The South African Department of Arts and Culture is working hard with a local publisher to publish material in indigenous languages across all genres, BuaNews information service reported Thursday.