Andrea Riccardi
Andrea Riccardi is an Italian historian, professor and activist, founder of the Community of SantEgidio. Since November 16,2011, he has served as Minister for International Cooperation without portfolio in the Monti Cabinet, in 1999, he received the Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize from the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization. In November 2004, he was given the International Balzan Prize for Humanity, Peace and he has taught at Sapienza University and the University of Bari. Andrea Riccardi is a member of the Fondation Chiracs honour committee and he participated as jury member in 2009 for the Prize for Conflict Prevention awarded every year by this foundation. From 4 January 2013 to 16 May 2013 Riccardi was the President of Civic Choice, a centrist political party
Charlemagne Prize
The Charlemagne Prize is one of the most prestigious European prizes. It has been awarded annually since 1950 by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the ideals upon which it was founded. It commemorates Charlemagne, ruler of the Frankish Empire and founder of what became the Holy Roman Empire, traditionally the award is given to the recipient on Ascension Day in a ceremony in the town hall of Aachen. This contribution may be in the field of literary, economic or political endeavour, the first Charlemagne Prize was awarded to Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European Movement, and the founder of the Coudenhove-Kalergi plan. The award sponsors assert that the list of Charlemagne Prize winners reflects the history of the European process of unification and they quote Kurt Pfeiffer, the Charlemagne Prize reaches into the future, and at the same time it embodies an obligation - an obligation of the highest ethical value. The Lord Mayor of the City of Aachen
Human rights
Human rights are moral principles or norms, which describe certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. They are applicable everywhere and at time in the sense of being universal. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on circumstances, for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture. The doctrine of human rights has been influential within international law. Actions by states and non-governmental organizations form a basis of public policy worldwide, the idea of human rights suggests that if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights. The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights.
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family is the foundation of freedom. All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. According to Jack Donnelly, in the ancient world, traditional societies typically have had elaborate systems of duties, conceptions of justice, political legitimacy, and human flourishing that sought to realize human dignity, flourishing, or well-being entirely independent of human rights. These institutions and practices are alternative to, rather than different formulations of, one theory is that human rights were developed during the early Modern period, alongside the European secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics. The most commonly held view is that the concept of human rights evolved in the West, for example, McIntyre argues there is no word for right in any language before 1400. One of the oldest records of rights is the statute of Kalisz, giving privileges to the Jewish minority in the Kingdom of Poland such as protection from discrimination.
Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept of rights is intertwined with the modern sense of citizenship. The earliest conceptualization of human rights is credited to ideas about natural rights emanating from natural law, in particular, the issue of universal rights was introduced by the examination of extending rights to indigenous peoples by Spanish clerics, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms. These were followed by developments in philosophy of human rights by philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, hegel during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the term had been used by at least one author as early as 1742, in the 19th century, human rights became a central concern over the issue of slavery
World Methodist Council
The World Methodist Council, founded in 1881, is a consultative body and association of churches in the Methodist tradition. It comprises 80 member denominations in 133 countries which together represent about 80.5 million people, the highest organ of the World Methodist Council is the World Methodist Conference meeting every five years. The last conference, gathering under the theme Jesus Christ - for the Healing of the Nations, was held in August 2011 in Durban, South Africa. On 24 July 2006, Sunday Mbang stepped down as chairperson of the council, in 2006, it formally approved the historical Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The World Methodist Council has offices in, Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, Tennessee, New York City, current officers are, General Secretary, Bishop Ivan M. Abrahams President, Bishop Paulo Lockmann Vice-President, Gillian Kingston Treasurer, Kirby Hickey Jr. It is working towards a dialogue with the Orthodox Church, Education is concerned with education in churches and with Methodist educational institutions.
It has organized an international Association of Methodist Schools, the association links representatives from over 700 Methodist related schools and colleges all over the world. It has worked out the World Methodist Social Affirmation which was approved in 1986 and is part of the literature of several Methodist denominations, theological Education focuses on training for ministry based on basic Christian beliefs and distinctive emphases from the Wesleyan tradition. The World Methodist Peace Award is the highest honor bestowed by Methodists around the world, since 1977, it is given annually by the World Methodist Council. This award is given to individuals or groups who have significant contributions to peace and justice, considering courage, creativity. One ministry of the World Methodist Council is the World Methodist Evangelism Institute in Atlanta and it is an educational institution committed to the task of world evangelization and connected to a major university, Candler School of Theology, Emory University
Algeria
Algeria, officially the Peoples Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a sovereign state in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast. Its capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, the country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes. Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been President since 1999, Berbers are the indigenous inhabitants of Algeria. Algeria is a regional and middle power, the North African country supplies large amounts of natural gas to Europe, and energy exports are the backbone of the economy. According to OPEC Algeria has the 16th largest oil reserves in the world, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa. Algeria has one of the largest militaries in Africa and the largest defence budget on the continent, most of Algerias weapons are imported from Russia, with whom they are a close ally. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC, the countrys name derives from the city of Algiers.
The citys name in turn derives from the Arabic al-Jazāir, a form of the older Jazāir Banī Mazghanna. In the region of Ain Hanech, early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa were found, neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles similar to those in the Levant. Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques, tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian. The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian and this industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC and this life, richly depicted in the Tassili nAjjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a native population that came to be called Berbers.
These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages, as Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, trade, by the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthages North African territory, the Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as DR Congo, DRC, DROC, East Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo is a country located in Central Africa. From 1971 to 1997 it was named, and is still called, Zaire. It is the second-largest country in Africa by area and eleventh largest in the world, the Congolese Civil Wars, which began in 1996, brought about the end of Mobutu Sese Sekos 32-year reign and devastated the country. These wars ultimately involved nine African nations, multiple groups of UN peacekeepers and twenty armed groups, besides the capital, the other major cities and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. DR Congos largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of DRCs exports in 2012, as of 2015, according to the Human Development Index, DR Congo has a low level of human development, ranking 176 out of 187 countries. The country was known officially as the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 27 October 1971, in 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the change was not put into practice.
The countrys name was restored by former president Laurent-Désiré Kabila following the fall of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, some historians think that Bantu peoples began settling in the extreme northwest of Central Africa at the beginning of the 5th century and gradually started to expand southward. Their propagation was accelerated by the transition from Stone Age to Iron Age techniques, the people living in the south and southwest were mostly San Bushmen and hunter-gatherer groups, whose technology involved only minimal use of metal technologies. The development of tools during this time period revolutionized agriculture. This led to the displacement of the groups in the east and southeast. The 10th century marked the expansion of the Bantu in West-Central Africa. Rising populations soon made intricate local and foreign commercial networks that traded mostly in salt, iron. Belgian exploration and administration took place from the 1870s until the 1920s and it was first led by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, who undertook his explorations under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium.
The eastern regions of the precolonial Congo were heavily disrupted by constant slave raiding, mainly from Arab–Swahili slave traders such as the infamous Tippu Tip, Leopold had designs on what was to become the Congo as a colony. Leopold formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and he named it the Congo Free State. Leopolds rėgime began various infrastructure projects, such as construction of the railway ran from the coast to the capital of Leopoldville. Nearly all such projects were aimed at making it easier to increase the assets which Leopold. In the Free State, colonists brutalized the local population into producing rubber, for which the spread of automobiles, rubber sales made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, known as the death penalty, is a government sanctioned practice whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, the term capital in this context alluded to execution by beheading. Fifty-six countries retain capital punishment,103 countries have abolished it de jure for all crimes, six have abolished it for ordinary crimes. Capital punishment is a matter of controversy in various countries and states. In the European Union, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment, the Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, prohibits the use of the death penalty by its members. The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007,2008,2010,2012 and 2014, non-binding resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions. Although most nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the population live in countries where executions take place, such as China, India.
Execution of criminals and political opponents has been used by nearly all societies—both to punish crime, in most countries that practise capital punishment it is reserved for murder, war crimes, treason, defection or as part of military justice. In many countries use the death penalty, drug trafficking is a capital offence. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are punished by the death penalty, in militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offences such as cowardice, desertion and mutiny. The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history, most historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death penalty was a part of their justice system. Communal punishment for wrongdoing generally included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal punishment, banishment, usually and shunning were enough as a form of justice. The response to crime committed by neighbouring tribes or communities included a formal apology, a blood feud or vendetta occurs when arbitration between families or tribes fails or an arbitration system is non-existent.
This form of justice was common before the emergence of a system based on state or organized religion. It may result from crime, land disputes or a code of honour, acts of retaliation underscore the ability of the social collective to defend itself and demonstrate to enemies that injury to property, rights, or the person will not go unpunished. However, in practice, it is difficult to distinguish between a war of vendetta and one of conquest. Elaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements often done in a religious context, compensation was based on the principle of substitution which might include material compensation, exchange of brides or grooms, or payment of the blood debt. Settlement rules could allow for animal blood to replace human blood, the person offered for execution did not have to be an original perpetrator of the crime because the system was based on tribes, not individuals
Bible
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching.
With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books.
Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel.
This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
Trastevere
Trastevere is the 13th rione of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City, and within Municipio I. Its name comes from the Latin trans Tiberim, meaning literally beyond the Tiber and its logo is a golden head of a lion on a red background, the meaning of which is uncertain. To the north, Trastevere borders the XIV rione, Borgo, in Romes Regal period, the area across the Tiber belonged to the hostile Etruscans, the Romans named it Ripa Etrusca. Rome conquered it to control of and access to the river from both banks, but was not interested in building on that side of the river. In fact, the connection between Trastevere and the rest of the city was a small wooden bridge called the Pons Sublicius. By the time of the Republic c.509 BC, the number of sailors and fishermen making a living from the river had increased, immigrants from the East settled there, mainly Jews and Syrians. The area began to be considered part of the city under Augustus, since the end of the Roman Republic the quarter was the center of an important Jewish community, which inhabited there until the end of the Middle Ages.
With the wealth of the Imperial Age, several important figures decided to build their villae in Trastevere, including Clodia, and Julius Caesar. The regio included two of the most ancient churches in Rome, the Titulus Callixti, called the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, and the Titulus Cecilae, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. In the Middle Ages Trastevere had narrow, irregular streets, moreover, at the end of the 15th century these mignani were removed. Nevertheless, Trastevere remained a maze of narrow streets, there was a strong contrast between the large, opulent houses of the upper classes and the small, dilapidated houses of the poor. The streets had no pavement until the time of Sixtus IV at the end of the 15th century, at first bricks were used, but these were replaced by sampietrini, which were more suitable for carriages. In 1744 Benedict XIV modified the borders of the rioni, giving Trastevere its modern limits, Trastevere maintains its character thanks to its narrow cobbled streets lined by ancient houses.
At night and tourists flock to its many pubs and restaurants. The unique character of this neighborhood has attracted artists, foreign expats, in the sixties and seventies, the American musicians/composers Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of the group Musica Elettronica Viva, lived in Via della Luce. Sergio Leone, the director of Spaghetti Westerns, grew up in Viale Glorioso, ennio Morricone, the film music composer, went to the same school, and for one year was in the same class as Sergio Leone. Public libraries in Trastevere include Casa della Memoria e della Storia
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is an American daily newspaper. It is the most widely circulated newspaper published in Washington, D. C. and was founded on December 6,1877 and its current slogan is Democracy Dies in Darkness. Located in the city of the United States, the newspaper has a particular emphasis on national politics. Daily editions are printed for the District of Columbia, the newspaper is published as a broadsheet, with photographs printed both in color and in black and white. The newspaper has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes and this includes six separate Pulitzers awarded in 2008, the second-highest number ever awarded to a single newspaper in one year, second only to The New York Times seven awards in 2002. Post journalists have received 18 Nieman Fellowships and 368 White House News Photographers Association awards, in years since, its investigations have led to increased review of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In 2013, its owners, the Graham family, sold the newspaper to billionaire entrepreneur.
The newspaper is owned by Nash Holdings LLC, a holding company Bezos created for the acquisition, the Washington Post is generally regarded as one of the leading daily American newspapers, along with The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The Post has distinguished itself through its reporting on the workings of the White House, Congress. It is one of the two daily broadsheets published in Washington D. C. the other being its smaller rival The Washington Times, unlike The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post does not print an edition for distribution away from the East Coast. In 2009, the newspaper ceased publication of its National Weekly Edition, the majority of its newsprint readership is in District of Columbia and its suburbs in Maryland and Northern Virginia. The Sunday Style section differs slightly from the weekday Style section, it is in a tabloid format, and it houses the reader-written humor contest The Style Invitational. Additional weekly sections appear on weekdays, Health & Science on Tuesday, Food on Wednesday, Local Living on Thursday, the latter two are in a tabloid format.
In November 2009, it announced the closure of its U. S. regional bureaus—Chicago, Los Angeles and New York—as part of a focus on. political stories. The newspaper has bureaus in Maryland and Virginia. While its circulation has been slipping, it has one of the highest market-penetration rates of any metropolitan news daily, for many decades, the Post had its main office at 1150 15th Street NW. This real estate remained with Graham Holdings when the newspaper was sold to Jeff Bezos Nash Holdings in 2013, Graham Holdings sold 1150 15th Street for US$159 million in November 2013. The Washington Post continued to lease space at 1150 L Street NW, in May 2014, The Washington Post leased the west tower of One Franklin Square, a high-rise building at 1301 K Street NW in Washington, D. C
