July 9, 2006 | E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org - Director: Fernando Oshige
Contenido
ARGENTINA: Religious and social organizations to protest before Congress for payment of illegal debt MEXICO: Caravan of Pastors for peace crossed Mexican border en route to Cuba BRASIL: Academic analyze the relationship between soccer, politics and religion PERU: Solar power to bring the New Testament to rural Peruvian communities ARGENTINA: Ecumenical Network applauds project to install traffic lights with sound in Buenos Aires
ARGENTINA
Religious and social organizations to protest before Congress for payment of illegal debt
BUENOS AIRES, Jul. 7 (ALC).The Argentine foreign debt payments are a ?perverse ransacking? against the nation, but the government remains focused on paying it off, denounced religious and social organizations on the six-year anniversary after a judge ruled that the debt had been perfidiously increased since 1976.
?This ruling is a formidable tool to confront this perverse ransacking but it has been practically ignored by Congress, which continues to refuse to deal with it and to impel the required investigation,? said a statement from the organizations who called for a major demonstration next Thursday in front of Parliament.
Those convening the act include ATTAC-Argentina, Justice Assembly for All, Olmos Cause, Dialogue 2000, the Illegitimate Foreign Debt Impact Program of the LWF, the Argentine Judicial Federation, Protection International, The Yes Movement for the Peoples, and Popular Sovereignty, among others.
On July 13, 2000 a Judge of the Nation concluded in a ruling on the Argentine foreign debt, known as the Olmos Cause that it has been ?grossly increased as of the year 1976 through a vulgar and offensive economic policy that brought the country to its knees.?
At this time, economic experts declared that the ?Argentine foreign debt has no economic, financial or administrative justification,? recalled the organizations that lamented that up to today ?this illegitimate debt continues to be paid with the hunger of the people.?
The protest planned for Thursday will be carried out under the slogan ?Debts should be paid but not swindles? and will call on the Argentine political class to explain ?Why do we keep paying the debt??, said Argentine Lutheran Pastor Angel Furlan, one of those responsible for the Illegitimate Foreign Debt Impact Program of the LWF.
The organizations have lobbied deputies and senators to deal with the ruling from the Olmos Cause and the legal project to declare the debt accumulated under the 1976-1983 dictatorship null and to investigate the consequences.
MEXICO
Caravan of Pastors for peace crossed Mexican border en route to Cuba
MEXICO, Jul. 6 (ALC). The Pastors for Peace Caravan successfully crossed the US-Mexican border last Thursday shortly after 6:00 am en route to Cuba with humanitarian aid, reported Ellen Bernstein.
The itinerant delegate, made up of nine brightly pained vehicles carrying 100 tons of aid from 127 places in the United States and Canada crossed the international Pharr bridge, escorted by local police and entered Mexico.
?One of the toll collectors flashed a "V" sign - for victory and for peace - at the passing caravanistas as we passed through the tollbooth?, said Bernstein. According to a press note, ?We understand that there were high level meetings involving US attorneys, Customs officials and local police to determine how they would handle the challenge from Pastors for Peace this year.?
According the group ?Their refusal to meet our challenge is especially significant in light of last year's action, in which US Customs, under orders from the US Commerce Department, selectively inspected and confiscated items of humanitarian aid including computers destined for disabled Cuban children. ?
Pastors for Peace is a project of the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), a national ecumenical agency which has been working for social justice since 1967.
Rev. Lucius Walker, executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, said,? The US is calling for regime change in Cuba; but we are here today calling for regime change in the US. It's time that our government turned toward peace, toward reconciliation, toward respect for the sovereignty of Cuba and of all our neighbors. We are here today to show it can be done."
BRASIL
Academic analyze the relationship between soccer, politics and religion
SÃO LEOPOLDO, Jul 6 (ALC). Sports are almost a lay religion with their myths, dogmas and saints and many times they compete with religion when games are played at the same time as mass and worship services, said professors Ricardo dos Santos y Francisco Teixeira, from the Federal University of Río de Janeiro (UFRJ).
Researchers from the President Time Study Group of UFRJ, Santos and Teixeira are the editors of a book ?Football and politics, the construction of a national identity,? recently published by Mauad Publishing. The work includes articles by 14 authors and addresses the issue from three points: class, race and geography.
In the political aspect there is no historic evidence, at least in Brazil that soccer has won elections or has helped overcome social injustice. ?The position, frequently elitist, of soccer as an opiate of the people has no supporting evidence in Republican history,? affirmed the UFRJ researchers in an interview with the Humanitas Institute (IHU) of the University of Valle del Río de los Sinos (UNISINOS), de São Leopoldo.
However, soccer has served to construct an image and symbolic values in the consolidation of a State policy. ?This is clearly seen in the Getulio Vargas government (1930-1945, and in 1951-1954) when sports were appropriated in an emblematic manner.
Brazil began to build a national identity in the first years of the Republic, proclaimed in 1889. Over the years soccer took on a central role in the national unity project and was the first event to integrate the poor, black people, and mestizos in social cooperation institutions, like clubs, street teams and schools and even the Brazilian national team.
?There we have the construction of an inclusive national identity,? said the social investigators.
The UFRJ History Professors emphasized the importance of Getulio Vargas in using sports as a tool to build national identity. German dictator Adolf Hitler did the same in Germany when he promoted physical education in the formation of the Arian race.
Today, soccer is a cultural manifestation that mobilized the largest number of people on the planet. The World Cup is an example of this. The UFRJ researchers indicated, however that it is an event where national identities are upheld, presented and celebrated.
The book is the result of six years of research and includes the collection ?Social Memory of Sports,? that began in 2002.
PERU
Solar power to bring the New Testament to rural Peruvian communities
LIMA, Jul. 5 (ALC). The ?Proclaimer? equipment that operates with solar power and allows people to listen to the Bible will be placed at the service of rural Peruvian communities that do not have electricity or basic services by the Peruvian Bible Society and the Hosanna Ministry.
The initiative seeks to address the limitations in many rural poor communities that do not have economic resources or electricity and where many people do not know how to read or write.
The Proclaimer is equipment that reproduces the New Testament in audio using a solar panel. It is simple to operate and easy to transport and it is designed to stand up to frequent use.
According to the Peruvian Bible society, this new modality of spreading the Word of God will benefit many peasant farmer communities because the Proclaimer is available in Spanish and Quechua.
Each section of the New Testament lasts up to 30 minutes. The Proclaimer has 40 sections and contains the entire New Testament.
Some 200 people can listen at one time and there are 170 units for use in rural Churches. The project integrates the ?Faith Comes By Listening? Project that the Peruvian Bible Society has been developing as part of the aid that the pastoral ministry provides.
The Proclaimer will be distributed as of September to rural Churches. The Peruvian Bible Society is responsible for its distribution in Spanish and the Runa Simi Quechua organization will distribute it in Quechua. The aim is to distribute more than 200 units this year.
The Proclaimer was tested in Puquio, Ayacucho and had significant impact. ?God has heard our prayers,? said one pastor after the demonstration.
For more information contact the Peruvian Bible Society. Telephone (051) 4330077 or E-mail: informes@casadelabiblia.org
ARGENTINA
Ecumenical Network applauds project to install traffic lights with sound in Buenos Aires
BUENOS AIRES, Jul. 5 (ALC). Traffic lights that are equipped with sound so that they can be seen and heard, in particular by people with visual handicaps, will be set up in Buenos Aires after the legislative body approved an initiative that promotes ?speaker traffic lights.?
The initiative, impelled by Congressman Juan Gobbi was emphasized by the Ecumenical Disabilities Advocacy Network that forms part of the World Council of Churches Justice, Peace and Creation Team.
Adapting the traffic lights will make it necessary to modify current legislation, said Ricardo Gross, regional EDAN Secretary in Rio de la Plata.
Congressman Gobbi proposed calling on public universities and NGOs from the province of Buenos Aires to develop a sound prototype that could be adapted to current traffic lights.
Gross emphasized the need to have a better design so that problems that took place in Granada, Spain are not repeated when the neighbors destroyed the traffic lights because of the noise they made.
?Based on these experiences, it is fundamental that non government organizations specialized in accessibility bring their advice to the designers and the experiences from the developed world,? he said.
According to Gross, the province of Buenos Aires presents innumerable press barriers that do not facilitate the independent life of people with visual or motor disabilities, such as seriously damaged streets, a lack of access and a lack of traffic lights, etc.
He said that the absence or deficiency of traffic lights is one of the main causes of accidents in all provinces while the few active traffic lights are the object of sabotage and damage.
?For this reason, launching this program must be accompanied by a campaign to raise the awareness of the common citizen,? he said.
?Educating people with disabilities will be much easier if those who have no disability understand how complicated it can be to travel through the city. To climb stairs, cross the street, take a bus, etc, can be an odyssey,? he concluded.
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