The world: Getting better every day

Cool costumes
Originally uploaded by vegacura.

Admittedly, I know about as little about Central Africa as I do about quantum physics, but surely this is good news?

Rwandan Hutu Rebels Denounce Genocide, Halt War

ROME (Reuters) - Rwanda's main Hutu rebel group announced Thursday they were ending their war against Rwanda and for the first time denounced the 1994 genocide of Tutsis that has been blamed on many of their members.

I can't make out from the Reuters story if there is anything else at play here. Certainly it puts Rwanda on the defensive and is aimed at forcing the government to provide guarantees, but that doesn't seem like a bad thing.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the leaders of the city's three major faiths have put aside their differences and joined together...in peaceful denunciation of gay-i-ness.

International gay leaders are planning a 10-day WorldPride festival and parade in Jerusalem in August, saying they want to make a statement about tolerance and diversity in the Holy City, home to three great religious traditions.

Now major leaders of the three faiths - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - are making a rare show of unity to try to stop the festival. They say the event would desecrate the city and convey the erroneous impression that homosexuality is acceptable.

"They are creating a deep and terrible sorrow that is unbearable," Shlomo Amar, Israel's Sephardic chief rabbi, said yesterday at a news conference in Jerusalem attended by Israel's two chief rabbis, the patriarchs of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches, and three senior Muslim prayer leaders. "It hurts all of the religions. We are all against it."

Abdel Aziz Bukhari, a Sufi sheik, added: "We can't permit anybody to come and make the Holy City dirty. This is very ugly and very nasty to have these people come to Jerusalem."

Behold the power of the International Gay Agenda! Perhaps announcing a Gay Pride Parade in Baghdad is just the thing to bring everyone together peacefully and bring an end to the insurgency in Iraq.