Rabindranath Tagore

(born May 7, 1861, Calcutta, India — died Aug. 7, 1941, Calcutta) Bengali poet, writer, composer, and painter. The son of Debendranath Tagore, he published several books of poetry, including Manasi, in his 20s. His later religious poetry was introduced to the West in Gitanjali (1912). Through international travel and lecturing, he introduced aspects of Indian culture to the West and vice versa. He spoke ardently in favour of Indian independence; as a protest against the Massacre of Amritsar, he repudiated the knighthood he had received in 1915. He founded an experimental school in Bengal where he sought to blend Eastern and Western philosophies; it became Vishva-Bharati University (1921). He was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.

For more information on Rabindranath Tagore, visit Britannica.com.

Pope sparks abortion controversy in Brazil

· Excommunication mooted for lawmakers
· One million Catholics expected at open air mass

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Thursday May 10, 2007
The Guardian

Pope Benedict XVI touched down in the world's biggest Roman Catholic country yesterday hoping to help reverse a 20-year exodus to Brazil's reborn evangelical churches, but immediately created controversy when he appeared to suggest that legislators who support laws allowing abortions should be excommunicated.

During a press conference on his flight to Sao Paulo, the Pope for the first time dealt in depth with a topic that has come up in many countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Italy.

He was asked whether he supported Mexican church leaders threatening to excommunicate leftist parliamentarians who last month voted to legalise abortion in Mexico City.

"Yes, this excommunication was not an arbitrary one but is allowed by canon (church) law which says that the killing of an innocent child is incompatible with receiving communion, which is receiving the body of Christ," he said.

The Vatican's chief spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, later tried to downplay the comments, saying the Pope was not himself ordering excommunications.

"Since excommunication hasn't been declared by the Mexican bishops, the Pope has no intention himself of declaring it," he said."Legislative action in favour of abortion is incompatible with participation in the Eucharist. Politicians exclude themselves from communion."

His comments are likely to raise the stakes in the debate over whether politicians can support abortion or gay marriage and still consider themselves proper Catholics, although during the flight the Pope had described the evangelical advance as "our biggest worry".

In 1980 nearly 90% of Brazilians said they were Catholic. Today the figure has dropped to around 73%, while the evangelical community has risen to nearly 20% of the population. "We have to become more dynamic," the Pope told reporters on the plane.

During the five-day visit to Sao Paulo he will be protected by a security detail reportedly twice as big as the one deployed during the recent visit of George Bush.

Tomorrow a million people are expected to attend an open-air mass in Sao Paulo to watch the canonisation of Brazil's first native saint, Antonio Galvao. Today the Pope will meet the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, and address 35,000 young Catholics in the Pacaembu football stadium.

Pope fever has overcome Brazil's media in the lead-up to the visit and tens of thousands of Catholics have descended on Sao Paulo hoping to snatch a glimpse of the Pope's bulletproof vehicle. The Vatican, however, is all too aware of the challenges it faces in Latin America. In 2005 the Brazilian cardinal Claudio Hummes conceded that the church had been "haemorrhaging" followers. "How much longer will Latin America be a Catholic continent?" he asked.

Critics blame the current crisis on the Vatican's failure to engage with the poor and its hardline stances on abortion and condoms.

Despite boasting the world's largest Catholic congregation, of around 136 million followers, Brazil has just 18,000 Catholic priests. Evangelical churches, in contrast, have representatives in virtually every corner of the country. But some Catholic churches have started installing air-conditioning and padded pews, and Christian discos are appearing in cities.

British Queen begins US trip in Virginia

The Queen is starting her first trip to the US for 16 years with a visit to Virginia to meet survivors of the worst college shooting in US history.

The 81-year-old monarch will be joined by the Duke of Edinburgh for the six-day East Coast tour.

The official state visit will end with two days in Washington DC with President George Bush.

The Queen's last stay in the US followed the first Gulf war when President Bush's father was in power.

Apology call

The Queen's programme is aimed at forging bonds between Britain and the US and focusing on their shared future.

On Thursday the Queen will pay tribute to the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting and is expected to meet survivors and bereaved families.

Cadets from the college will line the steps up to the state capitol, where the Queen will deliver her keynote speech to the Virginia assembly.

The Queen will visit Jamestown on Friday to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the US's first permanent English settlement.

There have already been calls for her to apologise for the introduction of slavery and slaughter of American Indians.

Teabag

She will also fulfil a lifelong dream by attending the Kentucky Derby at the Churchill Downs racetrack at the weekend.

The finale will be two days in Washington DC, where she will be entertained by President Bush, visit a Nasa space centre and meet some of GI brides who left Britain for a new life across the Atlantic during the Second World War.

The box-office hit film The Queen, for which Dame Helen Mirren won an Oscar, is likely to have increased interest in the visit.

It will be the fourth state visit to the US by the Queen and the Duke, following tours in 1957, 1976 for the US Bicentennial and 1991. They also visited Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Mr Bush will undoubtedly be trying to avoid the embarrassment Mr Reagan faced once with the Prince of Wales.

It was revealed on Wednesday that Mr Reagan wrote in his diaries how the Prince was, "horror of horrors", served a cup of tea with the teabag left in it.

The Queen is arriving by plane and her carbon footprint will be calculated and offset for the first time for a state visit.

Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2007/05/03 06:07:27 GMT

America's tragedy

Apr 19th 2007

From The Economist print edition

After the Virginia Tech massacre, Its politicians are still running away from a debate about guns

IN THE aftermath of the massacre at Virginia Tech university on April 16th, as the nation mourned a fresh springtime crop of young lives cut short by a psychopath's bullets, President George Bush and those vying for his job offered their prayers and condolences. They spoke eloquently of their shock and sadness and horror at the tragedy (see article). The Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives called for a “moment of silence”. Only two candidates said anything about guns, and that was to support the right to have them.

Cho Seung-hui does not stand for America's students, any more than Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did when they slaughtered 13 of their fellow high-school students at Columbine in 1999. Such disturbed people exist in every society. The difference, as everyone knows but no one in authority was saying this week, is that in America such individuals have easy access to weapons of terrible destructive power. Cho killed his victims with two guns, one of them a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a rapid-fire weapon that is available only to police in virtually every other country, but which can legally be bought over the counter in thousands of gun-shops in America. There are estimated to be some 240m guns in America, considerably more than there are adults, and around a third of them are handguns, easy to conceal and use. Had powerful guns not been available to him, the deranged Cho would have killed fewer people, and perhaps none at all.

But the tragedies of Virginia Tech—and Columbine, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where five girls were shot at an Amish school last year—are not the full measure of the curse of guns. More bleakly terrible is America's annual harvest of gun deaths that are not mass murders: some 14,000 routine killings committed in 2005 with guns, to which must be added 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents (2004 figures). Many of these, especially the suicides, would have happened anyway: but guns make them much easier. Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns.

The trigger and the damage done

The news is not uniformly bad: gun crime fell steadily throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. But it is still at dreadful levels, and it rose sharply again in 2005. Police report that in many cities it rose even faster in 2006. William Bratton, the police chief of Los Angeles (and formerly of New York), speaks of a “gathering storm of crime”. Politicians on both sides, he says, have been “captured” by the vocal National Rifle Association (NRA). The silence over Virginia Tech shows he has a point.

The Democrats have been the most disappointing, because until recently they had been the party of gun control. In 1994 President Bill Clinton approved a bill banning assault weapons (covering semi-automatic rifles plus high-capacity magazines for handguns) and the year before that a bill imposing a requirement for background checks. But Democrats believe they paid a high price for their courage: losing the House of Representatives in 1994 shortly after the assault-weapons ban, and then losing the presidency in 2000. Had Al Gore held Arkansas or West Virginia or his own Tennessee, all strongly pro-gun, he would have won the election. These days, with hopes for a victory in 2008 dependent on the South and the mountain West, it is a brave Democrat who will talk about gun control. Some of them dismiss the very idea as “insensitive”.

Mr Bush however, has done active damage. On his watch the assault-weapons ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. New laws make it much harder to trace illegal weapons and require the destruction after 24 hours of information gathered during checks of would-be gun-buyers. The administration has also reopened debate on the second amendment, which enshrines the right to bear arms. Last month an appeals court in Washington, DC, overturned the capital's prohibition on handguns, declaring that it violates the second amendment. The case will probably go to the newly conservative Supreme Court, which might end most state and local efforts at gun control.

Freedom yes, but which one?

No phrase is bandied around more in the gun debate than “freedom of the individual”. When it comes to most dangerous products—be they drugs, cigarettes or fast cars—this newspaper advocates a more liberal approach than the American government does. But when it comes to handguns, automatic weapons and other things specifically designed to kill people, we believe control is necessary, not least because the failure to deal with such violent devices often means that other freedoms must be curtailed. Instead of a debate about guns, America is now having a debate about campus security.

Americans are in fact queasier about guns than the national debate might suggest. Only a third of households now have guns, down from 54% in 1977. In poll after poll a clear majority has supported tightening controls. Very few Americans support a complete ban, even of handguns—there are too many out there already, and many people reasonably feel that they need to be able to protect themselves. But much could still be done without really infringing that right.

The assault-weapons ban should be renewed, with its egregious loopholes removed. No civilian needs an AK-47 for a legitimate purpose, but you can buy one online for $379.99. Guns could be made much safer, with the mandatory fitting of child-proof locks. A system of registration for guns and gun-owners, as exists in all other rich countries, threatens no one but the criminal. Cooling-off periods, a much more open flow of intelligence, tighter rules on the trading of guns and a wider blacklist of those ineligible to buy them would all help.

Many of these things are being done by cities or states, and have worked fairly well. But jurisdictions with tough rules are undermined by neighbours with weak ones. Only an effort at the federal level will work. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, has put together a coalition of no fewer than 180 mayors to fight for just that. Good luck to him.

French presidential election

The French have chosen the right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist Segolene Royal to battle it out for the presidency after the first round of voting took place on Sunday. Mr Sarkozy gained 30% of the vote and Ms Royal 26%.

Unlike five years ago when the presidential run-off in France offered a choice between a centre-right incumbent, Jacques Chirac, and a far-right politician, Jean-Marie le Pen, this time voters will face a more classic choice between Right and Left.

In the coming two weeks, both Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal will have a difficult challenge. On the one hand, they'll want to shore up their core support on the Right and Left but, on the other hand, they'll need to appeal to the nearly one-fifth of voters who opted for the centrist candidate, Francois Bayrou, in the first round. Mr Bayrou's message was one of unity and pragmatism and both the candidates are certain to be stressing those themes.

It's hard to imagine two more different personalities than Mr Sarkozy, the former hard-line Interior Minister who leads from the front, and Ms Royal who promises a new style of leadership based on inclusivity. The policy contrast is also stark. Mr Sarkozy wants the French to work harder and pay less tax, is promising to curb union powers and a crackdown on young offenders. Ms Royal would maintain and improve France's welfare state, raise the minimum wage and, as she has put it, "reform the country without breaking it". Her election would also, of course, take France into totally uncharted territory - with a woman as president for the first time in the country's history.

Paul Legg, BBC

run-off
the final round of voting in the French election

incumbent
someone who is already holding a post

to shore up
to make secure, to use to their advantage

core support
here, people who always vote for the same party

to appeal to
to become liked by, to get support from

opted for
chose, voted for

pragmatism
a practical attitude

inclusivity
not excluding any section of society

stark
sharply evident, very obvious

totally uncharted territory
an entirely new situation, something that has never happened before

"limbo " Who said it? Where? Why?

It's possible that the concept of limbo — as in the border region of Hell, where in Roman Catholic theology innocent but unbaptized souls reside — will be officially consigned to oblivion. But the metaphorical extension meaning "nothingness" or "indecision" is likely here to stay:

"In a long-awaited document, the Church's International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an 'unduly restrictive view of salvation.' ...The verdict that limbo could now rest in peace had been expected for years. The document was seen as most likely the final word since limbo was never part of Church doctrine, even though it was taught to Catholics well into the 20th century."

Link: Vatican buries limbo after centuries - MSNBC.com

Nagasaki mayor shot dead

Tokyo - The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki died early on Wednesday after being shot as he campaigned for re-election, police said, in a crime allegedly linked to an underworld gang.

Iccho Ito, 61, succumbed to wounds sustained late Tuesday when he was shot as he got out of a van at his election office facing Nagasaki's central train station, a police spokesperson in the southern city said.

Ito underwent emergency surgery late on Tuesday, but the hospital said a bullet had reached his heart and he did not regain consciousness after the operation. The police spokesperson said he had died of massive blood loss.

Gun violence is rare in Japan, which strictly controls arms possession.

But police said the suspect, identified as 59-year-old Tetsuya Shiroo, was affiliated with Japan's largest organised crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi.

Senior Nagasaki police official Kazuki Unebayashi said the assailant, who was taken into custody immediately after the incident, "fired several bullets at the back of the victim with an intent to kill him".

Public broadcaster NHK, quoting unnamed sources, said Shiroo had grievances with the city after his vehicle was damaged due to poor maintenance on a road several years ago.

"I hope that authorities will investigate the case thoroughly and get to the truth," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

Ito was an outspoken pacifist who was born one month after the best-known event in Nagasaki's history - the world's second and last atomic bombing on August 9, 1945 that killed more than 70 000 people.

A political independent, he had been campaigning for another term in office ahead of elections scheduled for Sunday.

"At around 7.50 pm, I heard two gunshots, like bang, bang," the owner of a restaurant near the scene told NHK.

"At first I didn't think it was gunfire," he said. "But when I looked outside, a man was already apprehended."

Nagasaki has seen attacks on politicians before. In January 1990, a right-wing extremist shot and wounded then mayor Hitoshi Motoshima for saying he believed the late emperor Hirohito bore responsibility for World War II.

Japan's last political assassination was in October 2002, when a rightist stabbed to death Koki Ishii, an opposition lawmaker campaigning to expose corruption, outside his Tokyo home with a 30-centimetre (12-inch) blade.

The Japanese "yakuza" are active in underworld crime, and have interests in show business and other lucrative industries.

A report earlier this year by the National Police Agency said the Yamaguchi-gumi, headquartered in the western city of Kobe, had about 40 000 members and accounted for some 50 percent of Japan's underworld.

The Yamaguchi-gumi has reportedly been trying to branch out from its home ground, particularly in Tokyo, leading to a turf(territory) war earlier this year that resulted in rare shootings in the capital.

Last year, in his annual address marking the atomic bombing, Ito lashed out at the United States, North Korea, India and Pakistan for their nuclear arsenals, asking, "What is the human race doing?"

One witness to the shooting said he called emergency rescue teams as soon as he heard the gunfire.

"I just got off a bus and was walking through the bus terminal. I heard one bang. I only recall one. I thought a tyre(tire) might have burst," the unidentified witness told NHK.

"A person had fallen over and a lady was in a panic. Then it dawned on me that it was a gunshot," he said.

He said he saw five people tackle down the suspect. "He didn't appear to have resisted," he said.

Gunman's Writings Disturbing

Tuesday April 17, 2007 8:16 PM

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was described Tuesday as a sullen loner whose creative writing in English class was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service.

News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against ``rich kids,'' ``debauchery'' and ``deceitful charlatans'' on campus.

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., officials said. He was living on campus in a different dorm from the one where Monday's bloodbath began.

Police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set him off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

``He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him,'' school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of people gathered in the basketball arena, and when it filled up, thousands more filed into the football stadium, for a memorial service for the victims. President Bush and the first lady attended.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger received a 30-second standing ovation, despite bitter complaints from parents and students that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the first burst of gunfire. Steger expressed hope that ``we will awaken from this horrible nightmare.''

``As you draw closer to your families in the coming days, I ask you to reach out to those who ache for sons and daughters who are never coming home,'' Bush said.

A vast portrait of the victims began to emerge, among them: Christopher James Bishop, 35, who taught German at Virginia Tech and helped oversee an exchange program with a German university; Ryan ``Stack'' Clark, a 22-year-old student from Martinez, Ga., who was in the marching band and was working toward degrees in biology and English; Emily Jane Hilscher, a 19-year-old freshman from Woodville, Va., who was majoring in animal and poultry sciences and, naturally, loved animals; and Liviu Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer who was said to have protected his students' lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman.

Meanwhile, a chilling portrait of the gunman as a misfit began to emerge.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not know Cho. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as ``troubled.''

``There was some concern about him,'' Rude said. ``Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this.''

She said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.

The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that he left a note in his dorm room that included a rambling list of grievances. Citing unidentified sources, the Tribune said he had recently shown troubling signs, including setting a fire in a dorm room and stalking some women.

ABC, citing law enforcement sources, reported that the note, several pages long, explains Cho's actions and says, ``You caused me to do this.''

Investigators believe Cho at some point had been taking medication for depression, the Tribune reported.

Classmates said that on the first day of an introduction to British literature class last year, the 30 or so English students went around and introduced themselves. When it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.

The professor looked at the sign-in sheet and, where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark. ``Is your name, `Question mark?''' classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.

Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself for being anonymous. ``He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked,'' Poole said.

``We just really knew him as the question mark kid,'' Poole said.

The rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart - first at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom building, where 31 people, including Cho, died after being locked inside, Virginia State Police said. Cho committed suicide; two handguns - a 9 mm and a .22-caliber - were found in the classroom building.

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was a legal, permanent resident, federal officials said. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.

Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the Glock and a box of practice ammo to Cho 36 days ago for $571.

``He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. We won't sell a gun if we have any idea at all that a purchase is suspicious,'' Markell said. Markell said it is not unusual for college kids to make purchases at his shop as long as they are old enough.

``To find out the gun came from my shop is just terrible,'' Markell said.

Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But ballistics tests show one gun was used in both, Virginia State Police said.

And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were found on both guns. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both attacks but that the link was not yet definitive. ``There's no evidence of any accomplice at either event, but we're exploring the possibility,'' he said.

Officials said Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va.

Two of those killed in the shooting rampage, Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson, graduated from Westfield High in 2006, school officials said. But there was no immediate word from authorities on whether Cho knew the two young women and singled them out.

``He was very quiet, always by himself,'' neighbor Abdul Shash said. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him. He described the family as quiet.

South Korea expressed its condolences, and said it hoped that the tragedy would not ``stir up racial prejudice or confrontation.'' ``We are in shock beyond description,'' said Cho Byung-se, a Foreign Ministry official handling North American affairs.

Classes were canceled for the rest of the week. Norris Hall, the classroom building, will be closed for the rest of the semester.

Many students were leaving town quickly, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks.

Jessie Ferguson, 19, a freshman from Arlington, left Newman Hall and headed for her car with tears streaming down her red cheeks.

``I'm still kind of shaky,'' she said. ``I had to pump myself up just to kind of come out of the building. I was going to come out, but it took a little bit of 'OK, it's going to be all right. There's lots of cops around.'''

Although she wanted to be with friends, she wanted her family more. ``I just don't want to be on campus,'' she said.

Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.

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Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Centreville, Va.; Matt Barakat in Richmond, Va.; and Vicki Smith, Sue Lindsey and Justin Pope in Blacksburg contributed to this report.