PERSONALITY TEST ala DALAI LAMA

TES PERSONALITY DALAI LAMA
Silakan membacanya dengan santai dan rileks... Anda akan menemukan diri Anda sendiri... Dalai Lama berkata, "Bacalah dan lihat apakah ini sesuai untukmu." Sangat menarik. Hanya 4 (empat) pertanyaan dan jawabannya akan mengejutkan! Jangan curang dengan mengintip terlebih dahulu jawabannya. Buat otak kita terbuka. Sangat menyenangkan untuk dilakukan, tapi Anda harus mengikuti instruksinya secara perlahan-lahan. Ucapkan keinginan Anda sebelum memulai tes!

Jawablah pertanyaan berikut sesuai dengan pilihan hati Anda sendiri.

Hanya terdapat 4 pertanyaan dan jika Anda mengintip semua sebelum Anda menyelesaikannya, Anda tidak akan mendapat jawaban yang jujur mengenai diri Anda.
Arahkan ke bawah secara perlahan, jawablah semua tes secara berurutan sebelum menjawab jawaban yang di atasnya.

Gunakan pensil dan kertas untuk menulis jawaban Anda! Anda akan memerlukannya pada saat ingin mengetahui jawaban yang jujur tentang Anda. Semua jawaban akan menceritakan banyak hal tentang Anda sendiri.

Jangan takut, ini hanya tes personality Dalai Lama ... ;)

PERSONALITY TEST:
Ingat tulis jawabannya dengan pensil dan kertas yang sudah Anda sediakan.

Pertanyaan #1
Urutkan lima hewan di bawah ini yang menurut Anda bisa mewakili diri Anda (semua harus dipilih namun diurut berdasarkan prioritas pilihan).
a. Sapi/Cow
b. Macan/Tiger
c. Kambing/Sheep
d. Kuda/Horse
e. Babi/Pig

Pertanyaan #2
Tuliskan kalimat yang menjelaskan tentang hal dibawah ini menurut Anda
(Contoh: Hujan ==> Kalimat yang ada dibenak saya adalah: Menyegarkan dan penuh berkah)
1.Anjing/Dog
2.Kucing/Cat
3.Tikus/Rat
4.Kopi/Coffe
5.Laut/Sea

Pertanyaan #3
Pikirkan seseorang yang juga mengenal Anda dan memiliki arti penting buat Anda. Dimana Anda bisa menghubungkannya dengan warna di bawah ini. Jika mendengar warna di bawah ini, siapa orang yang langsung teringat bagi Anda (Jangan mengulang jawabannya, jawaban pertama Anda adalah yang digunakan).
Masing-masing warna dijawab hanya dengan menyebut satu nama orang atau teman dekat yang memiliki arti.
1. Kuning/Yellow
2. Oranye/Orange
3. Merah/Red
4. Putih/White
5. Hijau/Green

Pertanyaan#4
Selanjutnya Tuliskan Angka favorit Anda dan hari favorit Anda. Ucapkan keinginan yang benar-benar Anda inginkan! Lihat jawaban dari pertanyaan Anda di bawah ini.

(Sebelumnya ucapkan sekali lagi keinginan Anda)

JAWABAN


Pertanyaan # 1:
Hal ini akan menjawab prioritas hidup Anda, mana yang diutamakan:
Sapi/Cow berarti Karir
Macan/tiger berarti Harga Diri
Kambing/Sheep berarti Cinta
Kuda/Horse berarti Keluarga
Babi/Pig berarti Uang/Kekayaan


Pertanyaan #2:
Deskripsi Anda tentang
Anjing/Dog merupakan gambaran DIRI Anda SENDIRI
Deskripsi Anda tentang Kucing/Cat merupakan gambaran Sifat Pasangan Anda
Deskripsi Anda tentang Tikus/Rat merupakan gambaran Sifat Musuh Anda
Deskripsi Anda tentang Kopi/Coffe merupakan jawaban Anda jika ditanya Makna Seks..
Deskripsi Anda tentang Laut/Sea merupakan gambaran kehidupan diri
Anda sendiri

Pertanyaan #3:
Kuning/Yellow adalah seseorang yang tidak akan pernah Anda lupakan.
Oranye/Orange adalah seseorang yang Anda anggap sebagai sahabat sejati Anda.
Merah/Red adalah seseorang yang sangat Anda cintai!
Putih/White adalah Seseorang yang hatinya merupakan kembaran hati
Anda/Your Twin Soul
Hijau/Green adalah seseorang yang akan kamu ingat untuk selama-lamanya

Pertanyaan #4:
Anda harus mengajak teman anda untuk membaca artikel ini sebanyak angka favorit Anda dan keinginan anda akan tercapai pada hari favorit anda.


Ini yang Dalai lama telah katakan tentang Abad Milennium. Sisihkan sedikit waktu Anda untuk membaca dan menghayatinya.

Ingatlah selalu situs ini, jangan anda lupakan.

Mantra akan keluar dari tangan Anda dalam 96 jam kemudian. Anda akan mendapati sesuatu kejutan yang sangat menyenangkan. Ini jujur. Bahkan jika Anda bukan seorang paranormal.

Tolong lakukan. Ini sangat menarik

TERUSKAN AJAK TEMAN ANDA MEMBACA ARTIKEL INI PALING SEDIKIT 5 ORANG DAN HIDUPMU AKAN BERUBAH MENJADI BAIK

0-4 orang -- Kehidupanmu akan sedikit membaik
5-9 orang -- Kehidupanmu akan membaik sesuai keinginanmu
9-14 orang -- Kehidupanmu akan menemukan paling sedikit kejutan menyenangkan dalam 3 minggu kedepan
Lebih dari 15 orang -- Kehidupanmu akan membaik secara drastis.

JARKONI
http://klikpliz.com/jarkoni

Klik disini untuk melanjutkan »»

Dynasis...

Apakah Anda ingin punya Bisnis atau Penghasilan Tambahan tapi Tidak Punya Modal atau Takut Rugi?

“Mulai Sekarang, Saya akan Membantu Anda Memiliki Penghasilan Rp5.314.320 per Bulan Bahkan Lebih...
Dengan Modal Rp0 & Tanpa Risiko!!“

Jika Anda memiliki Handphone dan sedikit kemauan, sebenarnya Anda sudah memiliki syarat yang cukup untuk mendapatkan tambahan penghasilan jutaan rupiah dengan modal kecil bahkan Rp 0,-

Berapa anggaran yang harus Anda keluarkan setiap bulan untuk kebutuhan mengisi pulsa HP Anda? Tentunya tiap orang tidak sama, tapi rata-rata Rp70.000 – Rp100.000 per bulan. Saat ini, pulsa sudah menjadi kebutuhan pokok bagi setiap pengguna HP dan merupakan sumber pengeluaran rutin tiap bulannya.

Jika Anda mau sedikit lebih jeli dalam menangkap sebuah peluang, Anda bisa menjadikan HP Anda bukan lagi sebagai Beban Pengeluaran, tetapi sebagai Sumber Penghasilan bagi Anda.

Selanjutnya, Saya Akan INFORMASIKAN Kepada Anda Bagaimana Mengubah HP Anda Menjadi Mesin Penghasil Uang!

BENEFITS!! BENEFITS!! BENEFITS!!

Tidak Ada Biaya Pendaftaran atau Iuran Apapun (100% GRATIS!!)
Harga Pulsa rata-rata SAMA dengan Harga Pasar
Repeat Order TINGGI, Karena Produk Sudah Umum Dipakai
Pasar LUAS: Ada Lebih dari 80 Juta Pengguna HP di Indonesia
Bukan Jualan & Tidak Ada Kewajiban Berjualan
Tidak Ada RISIKO RUGI, Karena Tidak Ada Kewajiban Stok Produk
Dijamin MUDAH Menjalankannya,
Terbukti Lebih Banyak yang Tertarik JOIN Dibandingkan dengan Bisnis yang Lain!!



KUNCI EMAS: Viral Marketing DYNASIS

Model bisnis yang menggunakan sistem member get member, untuk membangun jaringan pemakai. Viral Marketing adalah sistem pemasaran yang telah digunakan oleh perusahaan-perusahaan besar di dunia, seperti Amazone.com, dll.

Dan kini, Anda memiliki kesempatan untuk memanfaatkan peluang di bisnis ini bagi peningkatan finansial Anda!!

Bukan MLM: karena tidak ada sistem peringkat, tidak ada biaya pendaftaran, tidak perlu/tidak harus seimbang, tidak ada kewajiban hadir di pertemuan/seminar, dll.

Bukan Money Game: karena tidak ada biaya pendaftaran & tidak ada mark-up harga yang berlebihan (harga standar: sama dengan harga pasar)!



Salah seorang member DYNASIS yang hanya dalam waktu 6 bulan telah dapat mencapai bonus yang sangat signifikan.


Caranya Bagaimana?

Konsepnya sederhana:

Anda hanya MENGUBAH CARA BELANJA pulsa melalui DYNASIS dengan Harga Standar, kemudian Anda mereferensikan (mengajak) teman-teman dan keluarga Anda untuk beli pulsa dengan cara yang sama. Tanpa harus berjualan, Anda akan mendapatkan komisi dari setiap Transaksi pengisian pulsa yang dilakukan oleh jaringan Anda setiap bulan, selamanya.

Syaratnya Hanya 2:

Anda harus punya HP.
Melakukan pengisian pulsa minimal 1 kali dalam 1 bulan, dengan nominal pulsa bebas.
Samasekali tidak berat, bukan?


--o0o--



Tell Your Friend (TYF) Reward Program

Program pembagian keuntungan (profit sharing) berupa bonus setiap bulan yang diberikan kepada Anda sebagai kompensasi atas usaha Anda yang telah memperkenalkan bisnis ini kepada relasi-relasi Anda. Bonus tersebut dihitung dari setiap Transaksi pengisian pulsa yang dilakukan oleh Anda beserta jaringan Anda.

Keuntungan dari setiap transaksi penjualan pulsa oleh DYNASIS (BV) dibagi:
70% untuk member dan 30% untuk perusahaan.

BV (Business Value): margin keuntungan antara Harga Pulsa dengan HPP (Harga Pokok Pembelian). Misalnya Harga Pulsa Mentari 20.000 adalah Rp21.000; HPP Rp20.000, maka BV atau margin keuntungannya adalah Rp1.000. BV berbeda-beda untuk setiap Operator Selular dan untuk setiap nominal pulsa.
Trx Pemakaian Pribadi: transaksi (pengisian pulsa) yang dilakukan oleh HP Anda. Anda (Level-0) akan mendapatkan cash back sebesar 10% x BV dari setiap Trx Pemakaian Pribadi Anda (dimasukkan ke dalam bonus bulanan).
Trx Pemakaian Member: transaksi yang dilakukan oleh setiap member di jaringan Anda. Anda akan mendapatkan bonus sebesar 6% x BV dari setiap Trx Pemakaian Member sampai kedalaman Level-10 efektif (compressed system). Dengan demikian, Anda tidak akan mendapatkan bonus dari setiap Trx di Level-11 dst.
Level-1 (Frontline): semua member yang Anda sponsori langsung, atau posisinya di bawah Anda langsung. Jumlah member di Level-1 tidak dibatasi (unilevel; sistem matahari). Anda akan mendapatkan 6% x BV dari setiap Trx yang dilakukan oleh setiap Level-1 Anda setiap bulan.
Level-2: semua member yang disponsori oleh Level-1 Anda, atau posisinya di bawah Level-1 Anda langsung. Anda akan mendapatkan 6% BV dari setiap Trx yang dilakukan oleh setiap Level-2 Anda setiap bulan. Demikian seterusnya untuk level-level berikutnya.
Perhatikan contoh dibawah ini bagaimana anda bisa menghasilkan UANG dengan jumlah TAK TERBATAS!

Contoh 1: Mengajak 3 Orang Teman

Asumsi:

Bulan pertama Anda hanya merekrut 3 orang, selanjutnya tidak merekrut lagi.
Jaringan member Anda juga melakukan hal yang sama (terduplikasi sempurna) sampai Level-10.
Setiap member hanya melakukan 1 kali Trx/bulan, dengan nominal sebesar Rp10.000/orang.
BV (Business Value) sebesar Rp1.000/Trx.
Bonus Trx Level-1 s/d Level-10 (6% BV) = Rp60.
Bonus Trx Level-0 (pemakaian pribadi) diabaikan.
Level Jumlah Member Bonus (Rp)/trx Bonus (Rp)/bln
1 3 60 180
2 9 60 540
3 27 60 1.620
4 81 60 4.860
5 243 60 14.580
6 729 60 43.740
7 2.187 60 131.220
8 6.561 60 393.660
9 19.683 60 1.180.980
10 59.049 60 3.542.940
Total 88.572 60 5.314.320


Maka bonus Anda pada bulan ke-10 adalah Rp 5.314.320/bulan

Contoh 1: Mengajak 5 Orang Teman

Asumsi:

Bulan pertama Anda hanya merekrut 5 orang, selanjutnya tidak merekrut lagi.
Jaringan member Anda juga melakukan hal yang sama (terduplikasi sempurna) sampai Level-10.
Setiap member hanya melakukan 1 kali Trx/bulan, dengan nominal sebesar Rp10.000/orang.
BV (Business Value) sebesar Rp1.000/Trx.
Bonus Trx Level-1 s/d Level-10 (6% BV) = Rp60.
Bonus Trx Level-0 (pemakaian pribadi) diabaikan.
Level Jumlah Member Bonus (Rp)/trx Bonus (Rp)/bln
1 5 60 300
2 25 60 1.500
3 125 60 7.500
4 625 60 37.500
5 3.125 60 187.500
6 15.625 60 937.500
7 78.125 60 4.687.500
8 390.625 60 23.437.500
9 1.953.125 60 117.187.500
10 9.765.625 60 585.937.500
Total 12.207.030 60 732.421.800


Maka bonus Anda pada bulan ke-10 adalah Rp 5732.421.800/bulan

Perlu diingat, kenyataanya pemakaian pulsa setiap orang per bulan pasti lebih dari Rp 10.000,-. Maka penghasilan bulanan anda juga bisa berlipat-lipat!


--o0o--



Cara Mendaftar Menjadi Member DYNASIS

Silakan Anda mengirimkan SMS kepada referral (calon sponsor) Anda, dalam hal ini adalah saya (Aisa Dynda Mayshwarya), dengan format SMS sbb:

Reg.NoHP_Anda.Nama_Anda.Nama_Bank.NoRek_Bank

Contoh:
Reg.08123456789.Aisa Dynda Mayshwarya.BCA.4370631323

Jika tidak memiliki rekening bank:

Reg.NoHP_Anda.Nama_Anda.-.-

Contoh:
Reg.08123456789.Aisa Dynda Mayshwarya.-.-

Kirim SMS Anda ke: 081905015727

Catatan:


Pendaftaran di DYNASIS tidak bisa dilakukan sendiri, tetapi harus melalui referral (orang yang memperkenalkan usaha ini kepada Anda).
Karena proses registrasi hanya bisa dilakukan melalui No.HP yang sudah terdaftar sebagai Member DYNASIS.
No. Rekening Bank Anda akan dirahasiakan (tidak dipublikasikan) demi menjaga keamanan dan privacy Anda.
Rekening bank diperlukan untuk transfer bonus Anda oleh DYNASIS.
Jika Anda masih bingung, jangan ragu-ragu untuk bertanya kepada saya di No.HP:081905015727 (bisa via SMS).





Setelah terdaftar menjadi Member DYNASIS, Anda akan menerima SMS dari DYNASIS yang menyatakan bahwa No.HP Anda sudah terdaftar, dan Anda akan mendapatkan No.ID & PIN Anda.

Catat & simpan No.ID & PIN Anda jangan sampai hilang atau lupa!

No.ID & PIN tsb akan Anda butuhkan untuk keperluan:

Menggunakan Menu Layanan SMS di DYNASIS (Transaksi pengisian pulsa, registrasi member, pembelian deposit, cek jaringan, dll).
Akses (masuk) ke Member Area di web www.dynasis.net
Di bagian Member Area, terdapat Menu: profil Anda, database jaringan Anda, pertambahan member di jaringan Anda berdasarkan tanggal, & download Buku Manual DYNASIS*.




Bonus bagi Member Baru

Sebagai member baru, secara otomatis Anda juga akan mendapatkan:

Bonus deposit Rp500 dari DYNASIS, GRATIS untuk Anda!!
Web Replika Pribadi dari DYNASIS, GRATIS tanpa dipungut biaya apa pun!!
Anda bisa menggunakan Web Replika DYNASIS (web seperti yang sedang Anda baca ini) untuk sarana promosi online. Anda juga bisa menggunakannya untuk menawarkan (mempresentasikan) usaha ini kepada rekan-rekan Anda yang di luar kota. Anda tinggal menginformasikan alamat (URL) Web Replika Pribadi milik Anda, via telepon atau SMS, kepada mereka dan minta mereka untuk mempelajarinya. Mudah, bukan?





*Buku Manual DYNASIS:

Berisi panduan lengkap tentang Konsep & Paradigma bisnis Viral Marketing, serta petunjuk teknis tentang Cara Menggunakan Menu Layanan SMS DYNASIS secara detail. GRATIS!! GRATIS!! GRATIS!!

Anda bisa menggunakan buku tsb untuk proses edukasi ke jaringan member Anda, sehingga Anda tidak perlu capek-capek menjelaskan secara detail setiap teknis penggunaan Menu Layanan SMS DYNASIS kepada setiap orang. Tinggal Anda duplikasikan saja! Sangat praktis, bukan?





Transaksi – Pengisian Pulsa (Trx)

Pengisian pulsa (Trx) di DYNASIS bisa dilakukan kapan saja dan di mana saja (24 jam). Anda tinggal mengirimkan SMS melalui HP Anda ke No.SMS Center DYNASIS, dengan format SMS seperti dalam brosur. Trx atau pengisian pulsa dapat dilakukan ke No.HP Anda sendiri, atau ke No.HP orang lain, baik member ataupun nonmember DYNASIS (Anda sudah dihitung melakukan Trx – pengisian pulsa).

Agar dapat melakukan pengisian pulsa, terlebih dahulu Anda harus memiliki deposit di DYNASIS, minimal sebesar Harga Pulsa yang akan Anda isikan.





Cara Pembelian Deposit

Anda bisa menggunakan salah satu dari 3 cara berikut:

Transfer via bank ke rekening DYNASIS. Prosedur & teknisnya bisa Anda pelajari di brosur & Buku Manual DYNASIS.
Beli deposit ke sponsor/upline Anda. Hal ini memungkinkan untuk pengembangan offline, tidak dianjurkan untuk pengembangan online!
Beli deposit cash ke Kantor DYNASIS di kota Malang, atau Galery Service yang ditunjuk.
Untuk mempelajari lebih jauh tentang teknis penggunaan Menu Layanan SMS DYNASIS, silakan Anda download Brosur & Daftar Harga Pulsa.


--o0o--



Ambil Keputusan... Bergabunglah Sekarang Juga!!
Jangan Sia-siakan Kesempatan Emas Ini!!.
Kalaupun Nanti Anda Gagal, Toh Anda Tidak akan Kehilangan Apa-apa!.

Ketik SMS dengan format:


Reg.NoHP_Anda.Nama_Anda.Nama_Bank.NoRek_Bank

Contoh:
Reg.08123456789.Aisa Dynda Mayshwarya.BCA.4370631323

Kirim SMS Anda ke: 081905015727



Ada lebih dari 60 juta pengguna HP di Indonesia (data tahun 2006) yang menunggu untuk Anda perkenalkan usaha ini. Dan Anda bisa memulai dari keluarga & teman-teman terdekat Anda. Ingat, perkembangan jaringan member DYNASIS sangat cepat! Sangat mungkin jika keluarga & teman-teman Anda keburu disponsori oleh orang lain! Jadi, kenapa bukan Anda yang mensponsori mereka??



Tidak ada paksaan untuk bergabung di bisnis ini! Tidak ada seorang pun yang berhak memaksa Anda! Keputusan hidup Anda ada di tangan Anda! Dan saya percaya, Anda cukup bijak & cerdas dalam memilih sebuah peluang!


--o0o--



Jika anda menginginkan berkonsultasi lebih lanjut, jangan ragu - ragu untuk menghubungi saya.



Hormat Saya,
Aisa Dynda Mayshwarya
HP: 081905015727

Klik disini untuk melanjutkan »»

Civil War Threatens Sudan, Again

It may have lasted lasted 22 years, claimed 2 million lives and displaced 4 million people, but Sudan's north-south civil war that ended in 2005 was scarcely noticed in the West. But as the conflict threatens to resume, it could wreak havoc with U.S. and international efforts to stabilize the region.
To many observers, the city of Abyei, on the fault-line between North and South Sudan, is the key to the country's future. On May 14, it exploded. What appeared to have been a small incident between rival militias on its outskirts quickly escalated into full-scale fighting, and there was little a small band of U.N. peacekeepers could do to contain it.
"We're seeing a full frontal and rear assault," a peacekeeper screamed into his radio as white U.N. helicopters dropped down into their base in the town and whisked civilians and other aid workers out. Mortar, artillery and rocket exchanges flattened much of the market town over the next few days. As 60,000 civilians fled into the bush, others darted into their mud huts to retrieve assault rifles and join the fighting. By its end several days later, much of Abyei was a smoldering ruin. Fighters continued to loot and torch thatched huts in rival areas. The northern army said 21 of its men had been killed. The southerners refused to give a death toll, but the bodies of several of their guerrillas lay in the streets, their boots removed.
The Abyei clash marked the first time that Sudan's northern army and their proxies and the former rebels from the south and their allies —now all part of the same Sudanese government of national unity — had turned their guns on each other since they signed a U.S.-brokered peace deal three years ago. Still, north-south enmity runs deep, and the new fighting has pushed the region back to the edge. "We are on the brink of a new war," was the assessment of Pagan Amum, secretary-general of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). Tensions have been building for months. In a report on the region in March, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned the situation "could quickly become national... It is uncertain whether the SPLM-NCP [National Congress Party, which dominates the north] partnership could survive a scenario in which the two parties supported their respective Abyei allies."
The history of animosity between the north and south stretches back centuries. The north — generally Arab nomads descended from kingdoms around the Nile — have repeatedly tried to subjugate the mixed Arab and African cattle herders and pastoralists of the south. In colonial times, the British administered north and south Sudan separately, although they united the two sides just before independence. Southern frustration at the perceived northern domination of the post-colonial government in Khartoum spilled over quickly into the First Sudanese civil war, which lasted from 1955 to 1972. Whereas then the hostility focused on land and water — southern Sudan has more water than the north, on the edges of the Sahara — today that has been reinforced by oil. The ICG says 70% of Sudan's oil reserves also lie in the south. Much of the 500,000 barrels of crude exported every day from Sudan is pumped from Abyei. The south, whose various leaders agitate either for independence or at least meaningful autonomy, complain they see little gain from the wealth under their soil. One Western diplomat estimates oil has earned the south $3.5 billion since 2005, a sum that could be expected to discourage the north from letting go of the south.
Added to such southern grievances are continuing disputes over the precise demarcation of the internal federal border between north and south under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). In particular, both sides claim Abyei. The north has also been slow to withdraw troops from the south, and suspicions are that it will drag its feet over a referendum, promised by the CPA and due for 2011, in which the south can vote for secession and independence. Complicating the situation is tribal local rivalry in the area, which both sides try to exploit to their advantage.
Meanwhile, civilian suffering continues, largely unnoticed by the world. Aid workers must contend with a relative lack of interest in south Sudan, which festers in the shadow of Sudan's other ethnic war, Darfur. Asked how bad the situation was in south Sudan, senior U.N. official Simon Strachan replied: "In south Sudan, women are eight times more likely to die in childbirth than they are of finishing primary school."
by PETTERIK WIGGERS

Klik disini untuk melanjutkan »»

Civil War Threatens Sudan, Again

It may have lasted lasted 22 years, claimed 2 million lives and displaced 4 million people, but Sudan's north-south civil war that ended in 2005 was scarcely noticed in the West. But as the conflict threatens to resume, it could wreak havoc with U.S. and international efforts to stabilize the region.To many observers, the city of Abyei, on the fault-line between North and South Sudan, is the key to the country's future. On May 14, it exploded. What appeared to have been a small incident between rival militias on its outskirts quickly escalated into full-scale fighting, and there was little a small band of U.N. peacekeepers could do to contain it.
"We're seeing a full frontal and rear assault," a peacekeeper screamed into his radio as white U.N. helicopters dropped down into their base in the town and whisked civilians and other aid workers out. Mortar, artillery and rocket exchanges flattened much of the market town over the next few days. As 60,000 civilians fled into the bush, others darted into their mud huts to retrieve assault rifles and join the fighting. By its end several days later, much of Abyei was a smoldering ruin. Fighters continued to loot and torch thatched huts in rival areas. The northern army said 21 of its men had been killed. The southerners refused to give a death toll, but the bodies of several of their guerrillas lay in the streets, their boots removed.
The Abyei clash marked the first time that Sudan's northern army and their proxies and the former rebels from the south and their allies —now all part of the same Sudanese government of national unity — had turned their guns on each other since they signed a U.S.-brokered peace deal three years ago. Still, north-south enmity runs deep, and the new fighting has pushed the region back to the edge. "We are on the brink of a new war," was the assessment of Pagan Amum, secretary-general of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). Tensions have been building for months. In a report on the region in March, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned the situation "could quickly become national... It is uncertain whether the SPLM-NCP [National Congress Party, which dominates the north] partnership could survive a scenario in which the two parties supported their respective Abyei allies."
The history of animosity between the north and south stretches back centuries. The north — generally Arab nomads descended from kingdoms around the Nile — have repeatedly tried to subjugate the mixed Arab and African cattle herders and pastoralists of the south. In colonial times, the British administered north and south Sudan separately, although they united the two sides just before independence. Southern frustration at the perceived northern domination of the post-colonial government in Khartoum spilled over quickly into the First Sudanese civil war, which lasted from 1955 to 1972. Whereas then the hostility focused on land and water — southern Sudan has more water than the north, on the edges of the Sahara — today that has been reinforced by oil. The ICG says 70% of Sudan's oil reserves also lie in the south. Much of the 500,000 barrels of crude exported every day from Sudan is pumped from Abyei. The south, whose various leaders agitate either for independence or at least meaningful autonomy, complain they see little gain from the wealth under their soil. One Western diplomat estimates oil has earned the south $3.5 billion since 2005, a sum that could be expected to discourage the north from letting go of the south.
Added to such southern grievances are continuing disputes over the precise demarcation of the internal federal border between north and south under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). In particular, both sides claim Abyei. The north has also been slow to withdraw troops from the south, and suspicions are that it will drag its feet over a referendum, promised by the CPA and due for 2011, in which the south can vote for secession and independence. Complicating the situation is tribal local rivalry in the area, which both sides try to exploit to their advantage.
Meanwhile, civilian suffering continues, largely unnoticed by the world. Aid workers must contend with a relative lack of interest in south Sudan, which festers in the shadow of Sudan's other ethnic war, Darfur. Asked how bad the situation was in south Sudan, senior U.N. official Simon Strachan replied: "In south Sudan, women are eight times more likely to die in childbirth than they are of finishing primary school."
by PETERRIK WIGGERS

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After the Speeches, More Pessimism

Last week's gloomy reports on U.S. progress in Iraq from a panel of retired officers and from the Government Accountability Office were followed by sunnier assessments by General David Petraeus. The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq spent nearly 18 hours testifying before four congressional panels on the start-and-stop advances being made by U.S. troops. And on Thursday night, President Bush told the nation that the progress cited by Petraeus will enable a small drawdown of troops, while still requiring a 130,000-strong U.S. military presence in Iraq for the indefinite future. But by the time the sun rose Friday, dark clouds — in the form of yet another pair of gloomy reports — had again returned to the picture in Iraq.
The latest downbeat assessments are the official White House report, mandated by Congress, on the progress of Iraq's government toward achieving 18 benchmarks set by the U.S. legislature, along with the State Department annual survey of religious freedom around the world. The White House report showed Baghdad improving in only one of the 18 benchmark categories — allowing members of Saddam Hussein's former ruling Ba'athist Party back into the Iraqi government. The religious-freedom report concludes that Iraq's "ongoing insurgency significantly harmed the ability of all religious believers to practice their faith," and found that believers of any stripe are subject to "harassment, intimidation, kidnapping, and killings" in their mosques and elsewhere.

The grim tone of the new studies contrasts starkly with the words of Bush and Petraeus this past week. While the pair acknowledged difficulties ahead, they stressed the 30,000-strong troop surge has made the country less violent and more stable, therefore justifying a continued and substantial U.S. troops presence. "The military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met," Petraeus said. "In the face of tough enemies and the brutal summer heat of Iraq, coalition and Iraqi security forces have achieved progress." President Bush, in his speech, proclaimed "the troop surge is working." Among his evidence was a statistic that carried echoes of Vietnam-era body counts. "Along with the Iraqi forces," he said, "they have captured or killed an average of more than 1,500 enemy fighters per month since January."

The sole benchmark moving from unsatisfactory in July to satisfactory in the latest report is what the White House calls "de-Ba'athification reform." That means, among other things, that more than 45,000 members of the once-banned Ba'athist party have been allowed to return to positions in the Iraqi government and military, or had their pensions restored.

Yet even that bit or progress highlights the continuing problem in Iraq of determining just who the enemies are. Before L. Paul Bremer took the reins of the interim government in Iraq two months after the invasion, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged in a memo that the U.S. occupation administration "eliminate the remnants of Saddam's regime," including the dictator's "old enforcers — the Baath Party, Fedayeen Saddam, etc." Two weeks later, Bremer told Rumsfeld and Bush in a letter that "we must make it clear to everyone that we mean business: that Saddam and the Baathists are finished."

Friday's White House report carried a different message, embracing the Iraq Study Group's "support of re-integration of former Baathists... into civic life." The Bush Administration now "makes de-Baathification reform an integral part of the U.S. government's Iraq strategy" and hails "the re-integration of former Baathists taking place on the ground."

Former Ba'athists, of course, are hardly the only former enemies now being cultivated as friends in Iraq. The U.S. is now cooperating with many one-time Sunni insurgents, whom Rumsfeld famously denounced as "dead-enders," and there's a growing working relationship between the U.S. military and the Shi'ite forces commanded by Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi army is the most notorious of the Shi'ite militias. It's all part of a gradual redefining of what the Administration really means by success in Iraq.

by John Moore

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Training an Iraqi army...

At the Iowa Straw Poll a few weeks ago, just about every Republican presidential candidate who mentioned the war in Iraq cited an op-ed piece in the "liberal" New York Times written by two military analysts from the "liberal" Brookings Institution. They had just returned from a brief tour of Iraq where they saw many of the same things I saw on a similar trip in June. They saw the success our military has had in turning Sunni tribes against extremists from al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) but then extrapolated wildly, saying this was a war we "just might win." Predictably, this had the impact of crack cocaine on neoconservatives, producing a euphoric and slightly violent high. The conservative Weekly Standard scurrilously announced that it had helped dash the "hope" of war opponents that Iraq was lost. The op-ed will be cited continually in the discussion of the war that will accompany the September reports of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Which is too bad, because it is fundamentally misleading about the next stage of the war.

To be sure, the success in the Sunni areas is real, but it may have greater long-term significance in the region than it does in Iraq. We've learned an important lesson in Anbar province: the Islamic-extremist message is a loser. Most Muslims do not want to live without music, television and, especially, tobacco. They don't want their daughters forcibly married to jihadis or their sons shrouded in explosive vests. That is certainly good news, but it's not enough. Indeed, the campaign against AQI may be among the last useful missions for the U.S. military in Iraq. We could drive out every last Islamic extremist, and the country would still be in the midst of a civil war that is trending toward chaos. And make no mistake: the U.S. colonialist insistence on dictating the shape of Iraq's future — framing a constitution, training an Iraqi army and the threat of a permanent U.S. military presence — has exacerbated the chaos.

It has been clear for months that Nouri al-Maliki's National Unity government is, as a senior U.S. official said, "none of the above." Senator Carl Levin called for it to be replaced after his and Senator John Warner's mid-August Iraq jaunt. And Ambassador Ryan Crocker told me, "The fall of the Maliki government, when it happens, might be a good thing." But replace it with what? The consensus in the U.S. intelligence community is that there's going to be lots of bloodshed, including fighting among the Shi'ites, before a credible Iraqi government emerges. It also seems that the U.S. attempt to build an Iraqi army and police force has been a failure. Some units are pretty good, but most are unreliable, laced with members of various Shi'ite militias. This was clear from my conversations with U.S. combat officers on the ground in Baqubah, Baghdad and Yusufia. It became clearer when seven enlisted men serving in Baghdad wrote a very courageous Op-Ed piece in the New York Times on Aug. 19 in which they said, "Reports that a majority of Iraqi army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric."

The military success against al-Qaeda in Anbar province has led to a certain incoherence in U.S. policy. We are working bottom up, from the tribal grass roots, with the Sunnis ... but top down, and not very successfully, with the Shi'ite majority. According to Crocker, tribes aren't as important among the Shi'ites, who tend to organize themselves in larger structures, especially around two dominant political families, the Sadrs and the Hakims. Each family has a militia. The Sadrs have the Mahdi Army, and the Hakims have the Badr Corps, and these two forces are now at war with each other in southern Iraq. In recent weeks, Hakim-leaning governors of two provinces were assassinated, most likely by special units associated with the Mahdi Army.

In the southern port city of Basra, the situation is complicated by a third party, Fadhila, which controls the local government. Basra may just be a metaphor for Iraq right now. There is no possible role for the U.S. military in the dispute there. The British are leaving, and the intra-Shi'ite battle is ramping up. The Iranians are trying to play all sides. "Under a different set of circumstances, you might argue — as some are now doing — that we need a Basra surge," Crocker told me. "But you'd need a fairly large force, and we don't have the troops. And if we even proposed it, the political element in the U.S. would go nuts."

The next leader of Iraq and the shape of the next Iraqi government and its armed forces will probably be determined by how the Sadr-Hakim battle turns out, as will the decision about how or whether to reconcile with the Sunnis. The Kurds will prefer the aristocratic Hakims to the populist Sadrs, and so will we. But aristocrats seldom win battles of this sort; a strongman who is no fan of democracy or the West might emerge. In any case, the choice will be made by the Iraqis, not us.
by David Furst

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the Sunni-Shi'a Peace

Pleasantries have barely been exchanged — the tea hasn't even been served — before Haji Kaadam Jabbar Hamsa al-Qarghuli lets Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Rohling have it. "I am very angry," says the leader of one of the area's Qarghuli tribes to the commander of the U.S. Army unit in charge of the area surrounding the town of Yusufiyah, which is about 10 miles south of Baghdad. "We are trying to work together," he says, "but dignity comes first."

The colonel had known this was coming. He is here to soothe some tensions that have broken out between the Shi'a-dominated Iraqi Army and the local, Sunni-dominated Sons of Iraq armed security organizations that the U.S. Army also supports. While the area has enjoyed a striking decline in overall violence over the past year, Colonel Rohling now spends an increasing amount of time managing the complex and fragile relationships that have made this peace possible — and making sure this detente does not unravel every time a partisan crime is committed.

The most recent crime the colonel is dealing with was particularly provocative. On May 14, a woman passed several Sons of Iraq checkpoints as she made her way to the front gate of an Iraqi Army patrol base. She asked to see the company's commander, Captain Wassim Abdul Hadi Saaud al-Sertani. She was a suicide bomber and when the commander arrived, she detonated her explosive vest and killed him and herself.

The event set off waves of accusations and recriminations. Convinced that the Sons of Iraq were to blame for lax security, if not for active participation in the plot, Captain Sertani's men fanned out immediately after the blast, roughing up Sons of Iraq members and hauling several into hours of custody. This, Haji Kaadam insisted to the American colonel, was an affront. "If there is an IED or an armed attack, that is our responsibility," he says. "But a lone woman? That is out of our hands. Yet the Iraqi Army came down here and began hitting our people, blaming them." Without ruling out that some Sons of Iraq individuals may have been involved, Colonel Rohling's intelligence officers and the Iraqi Army continue to investigate the woman's identity and motivation. He has no proof yet, but Rohling suspects the attack was a personal vendetta against the captain because the woman targeted him so specifically. "She could have done so much more damage to the Iraqis, or the Americans, for that matter, if she had chosen to," he says.

Colonel Rohling has been circulating throughout the area ever since the bombing, talking to sheiks and Iraqi Army units, encouraging them not to let emotions escalate, making sure everyone is seeking answers, not vengeance. "This week has been about throwing a wet blanket on things, just trying to calm everyone down," says Major Bill Kuttler, the unit's operations officer. Today, Colonel Rohling has arrived with the wet blanket in full effect, telling Haji Kaadam that the soldiers reacted strongly because they loved their commander, but the Iraqi Army commander realizes "seeking justice does not involve trampling on the rights of the Qarghuli people."

At the Iraqi Army base where the captain was killed, Rohling drives this point home. "You need to strike a balance when you deal with the Qarghuli," he tells two junior Iraqi Army officers. "I understand that you can't demonstrate weakness, but you can't come on too strong, either. Today is the hottest day of the year so far, but I need cool heads, okay?" They nod in agreement.

Everyone the colonel speaks to on his rounds today, whether Qarghuli or Iraqi Army, affirms that life is better now than it was even a few months ago, and they pledge that peace will be maintained. But tensions, distrust and resentments roil beneath the surface, and they can erupt quickly and intensely. Haji Kaadam says Iraqi Army vehicles scream past his checkpoints at reckless speeds and says some Army officers have been demanding that the Sons of Iraq salute them. The Iraqi Army officers, meanwhile, sneer that the Sons of Iraq are either incapable of maintaining security or, worse, provide it selectively.

As the day's meetings conclude, Colonel Rohling says, "The important thing, in the aftermath of something like this, is that we don't move backwards. We can't move forward every day, but on the days we don't, I need to make sure everybody is just taking a pause and not gearing up for a giant leap backwards."
By JIM FREDERICK/YUSUFIYAH

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the notion of community, culture and civilization

The wars arise in part from very secular fears about identity and survival. Two factors, sometimes contradictory, are at work: 1) deep, real, material interests lie just beneath the surface of most of today's ostensibly religious conflicts; 2) religion, not as a doctrinal crusade but as an identifying birthright, a heritage, is persistently present to complicate every issue, to enforce an "us-them" hostility. Religion, always a receptacle for ultimate aspirations, can enlist the best and worst in its congregations. In conflict, religion can be used—or perverted—to call up supernatural justifications for killing. In 1915 the Bishop of London asked his congregation to "kill Germans, to kill them, not for the sake of killing, but to save the world, to kill the good as well as the bad, to kill." The dark side of religious conviction can be a violent intractability, an avenging angel's note of retribution. As Martin Luther wrote, "He who will not hear God's word when it is spoken with kindness must listen to the headsman when he comes with his ax." Religion can provide a warmth of certitude and belonging. When its energy is turned outward, it may express itself in acts of mercy and even saintliness. But piety can also be lethal when directed against strangers and infidels. William James, writing 75 years ago, defined the problem: "Piety is the mask, the inner force is tribal instinct."
One writer, Miriam Reik, has claimed, "Were Ireland an African island and its natives black, no one would doubt that Ulster's troubles show the classical symptoms of a colonial struggle." That is true enough. Since the 17th century's Scottish and English Protestant settlers came to Ulster under the protection of the British Crown, the native Catholic minority has been relegated to permanently inferior status. Yet the conflict has a strong tribal aspect, with religion serving as the identifying element, even though groups such as the I.R.A. are now more likely to quote Marx than Jesus. Protestants like the demagogue Ian Paisley have kept the "religious threat" alive by constantly referring to the dangers of "popery" and "Romanism."
It is interesting and perhaps a bit mystifying that most of the religious struggles around the world involve Moslems. Some scholars believe such conflicts may be an expression of a resurgent Islam. Says Duke University Political Scientist Ralph Braibanti: "This may be the moment in history when money, diplomacy and strategy join together in providing a new context for the renaissance of Islamic identity and perhaps of Islam itself." Islam makes no distinction between the secular and the religious. The Moslem doctrine of jihad (holy war) has an immediate, literal significance. As the Vatican's guidelines on Islam observe, "Islam is a religion, yet it is also inextricably bound up with the notion of community, culture and civilization."

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DOCTRINE..

Moslem doctrine accounts for much of the intractability of the Middle Eastern situation. The Koran specifically sanctions religious war: "When ye encounter the infidels, strike off their heads until ye have made a great slaughter of them." The Grand Sheik of Al Azhar in Cairo, a leading center of Islamic learning in the Middle East, has flatly said, "The struggle against Israel is jihad, and if all Moslems did their duty and took a weapon, there would be no problem." Moslem theology distinguishes between dar-al-Islam (the region already conquered for Allah) and dar-al-Harb (the region of Holy War, still to be conquered). Israel lies in dar-al-Islam and as such is seen as an alien presence in land already belonging to Moslems.
But the struggles involving Moslems are more complicated than that intransigent doctrine. Arab leaders like Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Syria's Hafez Assad are not encouraging the rhetoric of holy war. Arabs are not theologically blinded to the larger secular issues of international power. In Lebanon, for example, a tangled social history has preceded what might seem at first glance an essentially religious struggle. The roots lay in the creation by the French in 1920 of a greater Lebanon from the remnants of the defeated Ottoman Empire. This Lebanon combined a predominantly Maronite Christian area, which had had a semiautonomous status in the past, with Moslem regions. The country's Moslems have tended to identify with the Arab Orient, while the Maronite Christians looked to the West. The Christians' special relation with the French and the rest of the West gave them enormous advantages. Lebanon was slow in developing a state system of education, but the Maronites became the best-educated community in the Arab world because of the large number of French Catholic mission schools in their area. Through such advantages, many of them created a thriving entrepreneurial class and gained control over the economic life of Lebanon, the commercial and financial center of the Middle East. The country became a pattern of haves and have-nots—with the line drawn between the religious communities. But again, as in Ireland, the religious identifications have served as a deeply embittering factor. Observes Ralph Potter, professor of ethics at Harvard Divinity School: "We pick out that factor which puts most things into immediate order for us. Where religion satisfactorily encompasses the whole logic, it becomes the prime identifier. At the same time, that shorthand also traps people into a primarily religious identity."
Other conflicts involve longstanding secular grievances. They are perhaps primarily not religious so much as they are exertions for recognition and even survival. Yet the element of religion gives all these wars an odd phosphorescence. What is important is usually not a deep spiritual faith but rather an intense loyalty to the religious community. The phenomenon has something to do with a clinging to identity, especially in such enclaves as Northern Ireland and Lebanon, whose national identities are fractured and cannot in themselves command patriotic followings. One of Egypt's leading intellectuals, Political Scientist Magdi Wahba, sees signs everywhere of "a disintegration of the national fabric and a religious revival taking its place."

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The scenes are macabre

The scenes are macabre.
Religious images adorn vehicles and guns as Christian soldiers, some of them wearing crosses around their necks, storm Moslem strongholds. Moslem soldiers, in their turn, strip or mutilate the bodies of dead Christian soldiers, tie them to cars and drag them through the streets. In the vicious war in Lebanon, religion is a palpable presence—though allegiances are complex and contradictory; some Christians are backing the leftist Palestinians, while the Syrians, mainly Moslem, support the rightist Christian forces. Still, the air crackles with a certain primitive energy of zealots in a holy war.
Fighting and dying under religious flags go on with a violent persistence elsewhere around the world. Protestants and Roman Catholics in Ulster trade killings in a kind of perpetual motion of futility. Arabs and Israelis stand tensely at borders of territorial, cultural and religious dispute. In the Philippines, Moslem separatists are in rebellion against a Christian majority. Greek-Cypriot Orthodox Christians confront Turkish-Cypriot Moslems across a sullen truce line. Pakistan separated from India because Moslems feared the rule of a Hindu majority.
Why, at this point in the 20th century, the strange vitality of what seem to be religious wars? Westerners tend to regard them as something anachronistic—an offense against the heritage of the Enlightenment, spasms of violent superstition. If war is often enough inexplicable, religious conflict at least seems to carry war's inherent irrationality into an even uglier, throwback realm of absolutes, beyond the reach of compromise. Or perhaps it is simply that agnostic societies find it difficult to understand why anyone would think religion worth fighting about.
These conflicts are, of course, more complicated than religious fanaticism; they have a great deal to do with economic discrimination, battles for political power, questions of deeply laminated social difference. Nor do the wars involve religious doctrine—except in oblique, complex ways. A Belfast pub is not blown up to assert the Real Presence or the Virgin Birth. Many of the terrorists are atheists anyway. In such places as Ireland and Lebanon, religious leaders on all sides have prayed and pleaded for an end to the fighting. The I.R.A. is filled with the excommunicated, whose religious observances are limited to theatrical funerals for its martyrs. But the violence persists with a life of its own, like a hereditary disease. It is an anomaly of such conflicts that organized religion is powerless to stop them—as if a war involving religion were too important to be left to churchmen.
By LANCE MORROW

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KARMA...

The two natural disasters struck just days apart, yet their aftermaths were strikingly different. When cyclone Nargis swept through Burma on May 2-3, leaving roughly 134,000 people dead or missing, the world reacted with deep sympathy and immediate promises of aid. International generosity, so far reaching nearly $230 million in relief aid, stood in sharp contrast to the callousness of the ruling junta, which unilaterally slowed the flow of aid to a trickle and essentially ignored the plight of millions of suffering Burmese.

Then on May 12, an earthquake in the central Chinese province of Sichuan razed hundreds of villages, killing at least 65,000 people. While battalions of Chinese People's Liberation Army soldiers clawed through rubble to rescue people buried alive and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao rushed to the disaster scene to comfort victims, the Western reaction was far more muted.

Yes, nearly $160 million in cash was pledged by foreign nations, and the quake helped shift media attention from Beijing's harsh crackdown on Tibetan riots earlier this year. But, all in all, the Chinese earthquake didn't elicit the same groundswell of popular international compassion as the Burmese cyclone — much less the activist urgency of the genocide in Darfur. Indeed, significant amounts of aid to China seemed to be from multinational corporations with an eye to economic relations with the People's Republic rather than from an outpouring of populist sympathy. In an extreme indication of prevailing Western attitudes, Hollywood actress Sharon Stone suggested that the Sichuan temblor could have been the result of bad "karma" for China's recent campaign in Tibet.

Certainly, there are few victims as beleaguered as the Burmese. Oppressed by a military junta for more than four decades, the people of Burma seemed to expect little from their government when Cyclone Nargis tore through the Irrawaddy Delta. The government duly met those low expectations, for weeks keeping nearly all foreign aid workers out of the devastated delta and even confiscating private donations from Burmese horrified by their rulers' inaction. Nearly a month after the storm, the United Nations estimated that 1 million victims still had not received any help at all. Then, just two days after U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon left Burma following a donors' conference in the commercial capital, Rangoon, the generals yet again proved their disregard for international sentiment by extending by another year the house arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The figurehead of Burma's strangled political opposition, she has been under detention for much of the past two decades. With the exception of the North Koreans, few nationalities feel as downtrodden as the Burmese do.

Survivors of China's earthquake have faced a different kind of international scrutiny. While there's no questioning the overwhelming tragedy faced by the people of Sichuan, the narrative of sympathy is more complicated. In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, many foreigners were alarmed by what has been perceived as a burgeoning Chinese nationalism, which manifested itself most fervently after the Olympic torch relay was disrupted by foreign activists calling attention to Chinese human-rights abuses. The same national pride was what prompted thousands of ordinary Chinese citizens—not normally known for their sense of volunteerism—to rush to the aid of the Sichuan earthquake victims, loading up their own cars with food and water to distribute to the needy.

But the flip side to this Chinese patriotism—jingoistic rants on the Internet against any foreigner daring to question, say, Tibet's status as an inalienable part of China—has raised concerns in the West. Add to that the slew of bad press linked to Chinese workshops, which have churned out cheap but potentially dangerous products. Sichuan is one of the leading sources of the migrant labor that is powering China's factories. Perhaps it's harder to feel concern for the very workers who may have been toiling at factories producing toxic baby toys or dog food.

But people in need are people in need. True, it may be easier to cheer for an underdog like Burma than a behemoth like China. But when U.S. President George W. Bush condemned Suu Kyi's continuing detention, he also stressed that the junta's political intransigence would not affect American aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis. The same calculus should be used for Sichuan. Yes, China is richer than Burma, and it may not need as much international aid as a country widely regarded as an economic basket case. But Beijing has urgently appealed for more tents and supplies from foreign donors. And the lessons of past natural disasters are instructive: After the 2004 tsunami, the international community poured money into the Indonesian province of Aceh, where civil strife had been simmering for years. The reconstruction effort, in part, helped galvanize a peace that holds to this day.

China as a potential superpower is not going to disappear anytime soon. Already, China's state-controlled press, which just weeks ago was castigating the outside world for harping on human-rights abuses instead of cheering the upcoming Olympics, has acknowledged with gratitude the aid provided by foreign countries. A few more donations could generate a lot more goodwill. That, with apologies to Sharon Stone, is the true meaning of karma.

by Michael Urban

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