Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Menard wrote today to the Hamas government's Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, about a ban on the daily Al-Ayyam in the Gaza Strip.

An Open Letter of the Dalit Christians to Honourable Prime Minister of India, Indian Parliamentarians and Indian Church Authorities

The Hon'ble Prime Minister,
152, South Block,
New Delhi -110 011

Wish you Happy Christmas and New Year.

For the last several decades, the Indian Church Authorities and its Leaders at National and International level have been subtly pressurizing the Indian Government to make suitable amendments in the Constitution to include converted Dalit Christians in the list of Schedule Castes. Our Constitution founders and framers had seen the validity of assuring equality and respect to Dalit Hindus in their Hindu fold, while they were not clear as to the implications of the same with Dalit Christians.

The announcement by Premier Graham of a proposed new nuclear reactor at Point Lepreau defies belief. The premier, it seems, has lost his moral compass.

The last ice age retreated approximately 9,000 years ago. During that glacial period most of Canada, including the maritime region, was covered with a sheet of ice over one kilometer thick. We live in an interglacial period which may endure 20,000 to 50,000 years. The weight of continental ice sheets depress underlying rocks several 100's of meters and even kilometers such as in present day Greenland.

In a capitalist democracy, whether liberal or conservative, too much or too little in the way of lifetime capital gifts or inheritance is bad for anyone. Everyone, not just the few, should have some capital that they themselves have done nothing whatsoever to create, earn, save or make. If anyone deserves an inheritance, everyone deserves an inheritance.

Average wealth of every adult and child in the UK was £85,000 at the end of 2002, according to the Office for National Statistics. It may be about £90,000 now. All British-born UK citizens should receive at 25 the same basic minimum after-tax inheritance of ten per cent of average wealth - a British Universal Inheritance payment of, say, £10,000 less 10 per cent tax - to be broadly financed by reforming 'Inheritance' Tax into a 10 per cent flat tax on the luxury expenditure of giving and bequeathing and introducing a progressive lifetime Capital Receipts Tax on receiving, starting at 10 per cent.

As U.S. organizations that care deeply about human rights, as well as the image of the United States in Indonesia and within the international community, we find your statement regarding the death of the dictator General Suharto appalling. We are deeply dismayed that your condolence statement on behalf of the U.S. government fails to even acknowledge the extraordinary crimes of this brutal and corrupt dictator.

You must be aware that these crimes include the extra-judicial killing of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, the murder of more than 100,000 civilians in East Timor, the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, and the theft of billions of dollars from his country's coffers.

Re: Toronto District School Board Vote on "Improving Success for Black Students"

As you know, a report (01-08-1217) was recently issued by the Toronto District School Board in anticipation of a Special Meeting that said Board will hold on January 29, 2008. It is expected that the Board will then vote on whether to accept the recommendations in the report. Among the recommendations is that the TDSB open an "Africentric Alternative School" encompassing grades Kindergarten through 12.