GAS PROJECT MAKES PROGRESS

Dr Kwesi Botchwey

By Ekow Mensah

Dr Kwesi Botchwey, Chairman of the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC) has said that the gas infrastructure project is making significant progress.

He said “it is important to point out that significant milestone for mechanical completions have been achieved.

“The laying of the offshore pipeline is virtually completed” he said.

In an exclusive interview with “The Africa Report” of March 2013, Dr Botchwey said the 120km onshore pipeline from the processing plant to the power plant in Aboadze is nearing completion, and the manufacture of the key component of the Early Phase Infrastructure system is at an advanced stage.

He disclosed that the gas processing facility is far advanced.

Dr Botchwey complained that delay in the Ghana Development Bank loan and delays caused by checks on money transfers required by US regulations have “significantly affected the ability of Sinopec to pay subcontractors and procure certain components on a timely basis”

He said the original project completion schedule has been affected by a host of factors, including the structures of “our national procurement laws, the availability and schedule of key subcontractors and field conditions”

Dr Botchwey was non-committal on whether or not Ghana would sell her gas through the West Africa Gas Pipeline.

Editorial

SAY NO TO IMF

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have been at the very centre of Ghana’s economic misfortunes for close to three decades.

Within those three decades, Ghana has religiously obeyed all the instructions of these two institutions with disastrous consequences for the working people.

In spite of the huge disasters which have befallen the Ghanaian people as a result of swallowing the prescriptions of the institutions our leaders continue to listen to them.

Now the same the institutions are asking the Mahama administration to increase utility tariffs.

In the view of “The Insight” these two institutions do not mean well and the government ought to reject their advice.

The government ought to realize that it is the people of Ghana who voted for it and not the IMF and World Bank.

Jews, gentiles not equals in Israel

The Israeli Military Chief Rabbi, Brigadier General Rafi Peretz

 Head rabbi of the Israeli military Brigadier General Rafi Peretz believes non-Jews should not have equal rights with the Jews in Israel.

The rabbi said the idea of giving non-Jews equal rights in Israel goes against the principles of the Torah and government representatives have no authority to go against the Torah’s teachings.

This is while many researchers believe that the current Torah has been distorted and does not contain the original teachings of the Prophet Moses.

Peretz’s racist ruling has been published in a book titled “Laws of the Mezuzah” published by the Israeli military’s Rabbinate.

The book, which has been recently distributed in Israeli military bases, has been authored by rabbis, Capt. Alexander Rones, Capt. Dov Berkovich and Capt. Hananiah Shafran.

The book advocates installing mezuzahs, which are fixed to doorposts by Jews as a sign of faith, in army bases and says the presence of non-Jews in Israeli army bases cannot be used as a reason for not affixing mezuzahs there.

It also says even if government property is like a cooperative, since the public in general is Jewish, as long as non-Jews have not purchased a part of the assets, they have no right to government property. 

Cuba opens its prisons to the press

By Dalia González Delgado

Cuban and foreign journalists visited on April 9 the Combinado del Este prison facility, Cuba’s largest penitentiary, and spoke with inmates in cells, the hospital and in work and study areas.

Lieutenant Colonel Roelis Osorio, prison director, noted that 27% of the prison population is involved in voluntary, paid work within the institution.
Work is perceived as key in reeducating prisoners and preparing them for their subsequent reintegration in society, while at the same time it is a way of compensating for the damage they have caused.

This idea was confirmed by Nelson, who works in the prison’s vehicle workshop. He says that the work has many benefits. "It helps us to improve our status, gives us extra visits as encouragement, or we are taken out on weekends to play baseball. That is part of the normal regime but, to encourage us, the trips are more frequent."

The Combinado del Este prison has a workshop where prisoners can develop skills as bricklayers, blacksmiths, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and welders.
Luis Piña Rojas, head of the prison’s education facility, stated that each subject course runs for about six months, and upon completion, students are given a diploma which is valid outside the penitentiary.

"I’m taking an advanced welding course and lead reading groups," says Reinier, who shares a cell with two other inmates and has been waiting seven months for his trial.
The established time period for awaiting trial is up to 180 days, Lieutenant Colonel Osorio told Granma, but can sometimes take up to a year, although that does not often happen. This may be the case when a serious crime has been committed, requiring further investigation to avoid any injustice, he emphasized. 

Since 2004, prisoners have been able to enroll in a nursing course, offered in conjunction with the Ministry of Public Health. Acceptance for this course is more rigorous. Among other requirements, detainees cannot have been involved in a crime against the physical integrity of another.

The nursing course is offered at the National Inmates Hospital —headquartered within the Combinado facility—which offers service nationwide, although all prison establishments provide primary medical care and dentistry, as well as sanitariums for persons with HIV.
Another positive aspect of the Cuban prison system are family and spouse visits, including pavilions where inmates can spend up to 24 hours with close family members as a recognition of good behavior.

WORK AND STUDY CENTERS
Of the 200 penal facilities in Cuba, 155 do not follow traditional lines. The so-called Work and Study Centers (CTE) are open prisons, without cells or fences, where detainees travel to their workplaces from the center.

Contrary to what one might think, the escape rate is close to zero, according to Major Jorge Fonseca Calzadilla, director of La Lima CTE, in Guanabacoa.
This open regime, accommodating around 50% of prisoners, functions for low risk offenders or those with good behavior status, as part of their progression through the Cuban penal system , where inmates move from very high to high and then medium security closed facilities, to open ones. 

According to Major Jorge Fonseca, the work of the open prisons is even more important because this is the final stage prior to conditional release. 

La Lima CTE has labor contracts with 18 state entities responsible—for example—for housing developments and sanitation services in the capital.

Cuban prisoners are not only offered skills training, but also academic education. According to official figures, 27,095 are completing studies at different levels. 

This is the case of Pedro who, at 53 years of age, is pursuing sixth-grade studies. His day begins at 5.30am, with breakfast and then work. "I work until around 4pm, and then I study."

Similarly, these penitentiaries have been introducing the "Educa a tu hijo" (Educate Your Child) program, aimed at strengthening the links between prisoners and their families. "It’s really good," says Annel. "We are being taught here what we need to do at each stage of our children’s lives. It was a great experience for me to do something with my wife and my daughter despite the years I’ve spent in prison."

Prison officers who work with the inmates recognize that CTE’s are making an effective contribution to developing habits and values to prepare detainees for rejoining society once they are released.

In addition to visiting the Combinado del Este and La Lima penal facilities, a second group of journalists visited the El Guatao women’s prison and the San Francisco de Paula Youth Reform Center.

US-backed soft coup fails in Venezuela 

Venezuela President Maduro promises to protect the country

By Yusuf Fernandez

A US-sponsored soft coup against the Venezuela´s government and the recently-elected President Nicolas Maduro failed after Venezuelan authorities and people successfully contained the wave of violence unleashed against pro-government activists, eight of whom were brutally murdered on April 15, on a night of extreme violence, by an angry mobs of followers of Henrique Capriles Randoski, a pro-US right-wing politician who is currently governor of the state of Miranda.

The headquarters of the ruling party, the PSUV, in some cities were burned or attacked. Opposition activists also set fire to 18 Central Diagnostic Centres (CDIs - health centers), and three subsidized food markets (Mercals). Groups of thugs attacked the house of the director of the Electoral National Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, and the offices of two TV channels, Telesur and VTV.

The defeated candidate refused to recognize Maduro´s victory and called for a march to reach the CNE headquarters in Caracas and for a general strike the following day. However, shortly after he called off the march and the general strike became a failure because both workers and students just ignored it.

Capriles lost the election by a bit more than 250.000 votes and demanded a recount of votes, although he was unable to present any real evidence of a possible electoral fraud. He only gave one example of vote irregularities but it turned out to be false. He said that at a voting center in the state of Trujillo the number of voters was 536, but that a total of 717 votes were tallied. However, CNE´s results for this voting center show that only 369 votes were tallied, not 717.

In reality, Venezuelan electoral system has been praised for its transparency and accuracy. In October, Jimmy Carter said, “Election process in Venezuela is the best in the world”. Despite all this, on April 19 the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, agreed to count the 100 percent of the votes.

For his part, new President Nicolas Maduro warned the right-wing circles fomenting violent protests that they would be held responsible before the law. He also blamed Capriles for the eight murders of members of the PSUV.

Maduro said that violence was part of a plan “to take Venezuela off the road of democracy” and called on his followers to remain peaceful and not “fall for provocations”.

He also declared “the coup d’état defeated” but added that the “destabilizations could continue”.

US involvement

The Venezuelan President also accused the US Embassy in Caracas of promoting the incidents.

“The US Embassy has funded the violence here. The Pentagon, the US Department of State and the CIA are those who rule the United States. Here in Venezuela, it is the people who do it”.

He added that the US intervention in Venezuelan internal affairs in recent months, and particularly during the election campaign, had been “brutal and vulgar... Its direct coordination with the oligarchs has been truly obscene”.

According to many media, Venezuelan opposition has been receiving money and other support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), USAID and several US-backed NGOs. Some media have also claimed that Capriles plans his electoral strategies with US political consultants.

One month before the elections, Roberta Jacobson, US Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Paيs, known by its hostility towards the Bolivarian Revolution, that “it will be a little difficult” for Venezuela's elections to be “clean and transparent” adding that “Capriles could be a very good president”. Venezuela, for its part, rejected US criticism against its electoral system. “Statements from US officials are part of a long campaign to discredit Venezuelan institutions,” said a senior official with the National Electoral Council (CNE).

The Obama administration has also refused to recognize Nicolas Maduro as President. Testifying before Congress, Secretary of State John Kerry backed Capriles´s call for a vote recount. He also warned that if it was found that there were irregularities during the electoral process, as reported by the opposition, Washington would require “serious explanations” to the Venezuelan government. For her part, Cuban-born and extremist Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen urged Kerry not to legitimize the “corrupt policies of a loyal to Chavez,” referring to Maduro.

Actually, the US calls for a recount were a rude interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state and an open support for the right-wing candidate, who, Washington hoped, should put an end to Venezuelan independent foreign policies and revolutionary social and economic policies, which have resulted in a steep decline of poverty and illiteracy rates in the country.

Furthermore, the US stance on the Venezuelan election is a blatant example of hypocrisy. The US 2000 presidential election is a good example of it. In 2001, two studies -one conducted by the Washington Post and the other by Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers- confirmed that Democrat Al Gore won the election in Florida by about 30,000 votes and George W. Bush lost. However, Bush was installed as president after an unprecedented and anti-democratic intervention by the US Supreme Court. These studies were mostly ignored by US media, except for the newspapers that commissioned them.

Latin America supports Maduro

However, Washington has become isolated once again with its policies towards Venezuela both in the Latin American and international context. Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, China, Russia and Iran have publicly expressed support for the President Nicolas Maduro.

The government of Ecuador, for example, said that free and democratic elections in Venezuela should be respected and that the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) “will not tolerate a coup” in that country, or anywhere else in the region.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “all independent agencies that monitored the electoral process have legitimized it”, including UNASUR, the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) and the Inter American Union of Electoral Organisms (UNIORE), among others. The Ministry pointed out that “request by the US and the US-controlled Organization of American States” was “out of place” and constituted a “simple intrusion” in Venezuela´s internal affairs. “Latin American brothers will not allow Venezuela´s borders to be violated,” the statement added.

Bolivia´s President Evo Morales accused the United States of being planning to stage a coup in Venezuela and condemned Washington´s questioning of the Venezuelan presidential election results as interference.

“I am certain that behind those remarks, the United States is preparing a coup d’état in Venezuela”, said Morales. “I would like to express that this (US demand for a recount) is a flagrant US interference in Venezuela’s democracy, as neither that US spokesperson nor the US government have moral authority to question electoral results in any Latin American country or around the world.”

Former Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, also called the US government’s position to request a recount “an act of interference”. “Americans should mind their own business and let us choose our destiny”, said Lula, who congratulated Maduro in Belo Horizonte, a city that is located in the heart of Brazil. He appeared next to the current president, Dilma Rousseff, in a meeting that celebrated the tenth anniversary of the coming to power of the Workers Party (PT). Significantly, the crowd burst into applause when Lula referred to Maduro, echoing a popular sentiment that is widespread across Latin America. For her part, Rousseff telephoned Maduro, congratulated him and told him that she was “ready to work together.”

Actually, Latin American countries are conscious that Venezuela is still the epicenter of the fight for Latin America´s integration and independence from the United States. Maduro was a key figure in this process for the six years in which he occupied the post of foreign minister. From that position, he became one of the promoters of the new Latin American blocks, such as Petrocaribe, ALBA, UNASUR or CELAC and actively worked for a new multipolar world order.

Therefore, US maneuvers against Venezuela have backfired. Venezuelans consider that Washington´s hostile actions and double-standards - criticizing a country´s transparent electoral system while backing unelected usurpers - against Venezuela represented one more reason to cast a ballot in favor of Maduro. Moreover, overwhelming support for Maduro from throughout Latin American and Venezuela itself will undoubtedly lead US plans to oust him and put an end to the Bolivarian Revolution to another resounding failure.

The Roots of Chechen Rage
 

By Oliver Bullough

You cannot understand the Chechens without understanding the mountains. The mountains created them as surely as the cold Atlantic created the Britons, or the frontier created the Americans.

The mountains were, for millennia, effectively impassable. Armies could go round the eastern end, through Azerbaijan and Dagestan on the shores of the Black Sea. Or they could pick their way along the Black Sea Coast, providing their horses and infantry did not mind getting their feet wet.

Between the two seas, however, was the rampart of the Caucasus, the highest range in Europe, which could only be crossed on foot and even then often only in summer. South of the mountains was the majesty of the ancient world: Byzantium, Persia, Alexander the Great, Assyrians, Medes, and the rest of them.

There were empires south of the mountains, but north of the mountains the peoples had no need to unite to resist invaders. Villages ruled themselves, acknowledged no overlord, robbed each other and traded, safely protected from conquest by the peaks at their backs.

Or, they were -- until the Russians came. Expanding southwards, first in a few exploratory missions under Peter the Great and then in force under Catherine the Great, the Russians fought all before them: the Nogais of the steppes, the last free descendants of Genghis Khan; the Tatars of Crimea; and finally the Chechens, and the other peoples of the Caucasus.

The clash between the armies of the autocratic, centralized, militaristic Russian state with the horsemen of the anarchic, freebooting Caucasus, who were too disorganized to trouble anyone more than a day or two's ride away, was the biggest culture clash in European history. The Russians won the first engagements, but the Chechens' response was not long in coming.

"In the village of Aldy a prophet has appeared and started to preach. He has submitted superstitious and ignorant people to his will by claiming to have had a revelation," wrote a Russian major general in 1785.

The Russians marched on Aldy, and destroyed it, but the prophet -- a man called Ushurma but now known as Sheikh Mansur -- was lying in wait. Half the Russian force of 3,000 died in an ambush on their way home, and Mansur became a hero for the Muslims of Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan.

Over most of the next century, religious leaders led the highlanders of Chechnya and Dagestan in opposition to the Russians. Their resistance was heroic but it was, ultimately doomed. They were, after all, fighting against Russia, the power that defeated Napoleon. As Imam Shamil, the highlanders' last leader, is said to have remarked when he was being taken to see the tsar after his surrender in 1859: "If I had known Russia was so big, I would never have fought against it."

Shamil, a Dagestani, was brutally frank about the Chechens, who would fight for him but refused to obey him in any other way, as they have refused to obey rulers, either foreign or their own, to the present day.

"There is nothing worse than this trash in the whole world. The Russians should say thank you to me that I corrected them a little. Without this, you would have only one way to deal with them: shoot them to the last man, as is done with harmful animals," Shamil told his Russian guard, according to the guard's diaries.

The Russians took him at his word. Although, the Chechens lived on in their homeland, they lived as a defeated nation, their best land given to Cossacks and their culture never given a chance to develop. When the tsarist government fell, it had done almost nothing to transform the anarchic highlanders into model Russian peasants and, after 1917, the new communists promised to help them find enlightenment in the modern state they would create.

"These people were doomed to incredible suffering and extinction," one official, the commissar for nationalities, told the Party Congress in 1921. He knew of what he spoke, because he was from the Caucasus himself. His name was Josef Djugashvili, though he is better known today as Stalin.

Hidden within his promise was a mistaken assumption, however, which was that the Chechens actually wanted to live as full Soviet citizens, which they didn't. "Bandits" continued to haunt the mountains. Some 35,000 Chechens were purged in 1931, and another 14,000 six years later. Still, the Chechens would not submit and, by 1944, Stalin had come to the same conclusion as Imam Shamil: The Chechens should be wiped out.

On Feb. 23 -- a holiday in the Soviet Union, on which citizens honored the soldiers of the Red Army -- troops moved in, rounded the nation up, packed it onto trains and shipped it to Central Asia. Thirty-five percent of the deportees died, either in the packed cattle cars or on the freezing steppes when they arrived in the depths of the cold Kazakhstan winter.

This is the defining moment in Chechens' modern history, when they were wrenched away from their mountains and dumped like rubbish in an unfriendly land with a flat horizon. Even the Russian government has recognized this was a genocide, and yet few Russians today appreciate the trauma it caused. Everyone lost someone and, when they were allowed home beginning in 1959, many of those bodies came home to Chechnya with them, to be buried in the mountains, not in the foreign steppes.

They were kept together by their faith, by their Sufi Islam with its closed brotherhoods and secret rituals. The generation that grew up in Kazakhstan nursed a seed of grievance. That seed grew in the fertile soil of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, and flowered into a declaration of independence in the dying days of the Soviet Union.

Of Boris Yeltsin's many disastrous decisions, few were as terrible as the idea that a quick war against the rebellious Chechens would help boost the new Russian president's flagging poll numbers toward the end of 1994. He sent in the tanks, thus uniting a nation that was sinking into in-fighting. He ordered the tanks out against two years later. Moscow's mighty army was defeated in the streets of Grozny by Chechen irregulars, and the superpower's impotence was laid bare for all to see.

But these were the Chechens, ungovernable even by their own, even by Aslan Maskhadov, the man who had led them to their unlikely victory over a country with more people in uniform than there are Chechens. Without an external enemy to unite them and, no doubt, aided by trained provocateurs sent by Moscow, they fell into squabbling between Islamists, mafia gangs, secular nationalists, and ordinary Chechens who just wanted to get on with things.

In 1999, the Chechens invaded Dagestan, supposedly to aid allies there, and a new Russian leader decided Moscow had had enough. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was making none of Yeltsin's mistakes, however. He had no intention of fighting among the tower blocks of Grozny. His artillery flattened the Chechens' capital block by block, driving his opponents into the open, where they died on mines or explosions or in extrajudicial executions.

International sympathy drained away over the succeeding years as Chechen insurgents resorted to the most terrible of atrocities in attempts to force Russia to the negotiating table: seizing a theatre in Moscow, a school in Beslan, and blowing up trains, buses, and planes. None of it worked. Moscow's grip tightened and thousands of Chechens fled forever, forming diaspora communities in Western Europe, the Gulf, and the Middle East.

And that is how the Tsarnaev brothers ended up -- via Dagestan and Kyrgyzstan -- in Boston, ungovernable men of the mountains, warlike, disorientated, come to fight a pointless and unjustified fight thousands of miles from the mountains they once called home.

Source:Ocnus.net 2013

I assume the Presidency with courage, love and a desire for peace

President Maduro, Venezuela

 By Yaima Puig Meneses & Leticia Martínez Hernández
"I am the first Chavista President, the first worker to become President in the history of this country. I hope to uphold with dignity the values of our homeland and make the dreams of Hugo Chávez Frías a reality, the dreams of a greater [Latin American] homeland, secure, in peace. I assume the Presidency with courage, love and a desire for peace," Nicolás Maduro asserted April 19, at the conclusion of the ceremony inaugurating him as President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

At several points during his remarks, the new President honored the life and work of Comandante Chávez, who he called a giant, and described as immortal. "Chávez left us a free homeland; he left us a model, a plan for the country with five historic objectives which the people ratified with this election," he said.

Maduro called for unity within the country and assured those who did not vote for him, "We respect you; we recognize you; we appeal to you to not let yourselves be inculcated with so much intolerance and hate." He did, however, reiterate that there would be no impunity for those who commit crimes, for those who recently killed the loved ones of eight Venezuelan families. 

He affirmed that during the six years of his administration, new missions would be launched, among them the Grand Electricity Mission, while at the same time all existing programs will be reviewed and strengthened. He said that corruption and bureaucratism will be confronted to make the revolution one of efficiency and economic growth, to reach higher levels of development and continue the construction of socialism in Venezuela.
Referring to the xenophobic campaign unleashed against Cuban collaborators in the country, after the April 14 elections, he commented that Cuba has offered Venezuela solidarity, love, health and respect, adding, "We are one people."

Maduro reported that several Comprehensive Diagnostic Centers (CDI) were besieged by members of the opposition, alleging that Cuban doctors were hiding ballot boxes in the clinics. People in the neighborhoods, however, came out on their own to defend the centers and Cuban collaborators, "who come by the thousands" to the Venezuelan fields and towns.
Heard, in addition to Maduro’s statements, were expressions of affection from those in attendance, which included deputies, state governors, representatives of the people, Chávez family members and delegations from 61 countries, 16 of which were led by Presidents or Prime Ministers. Cuban President, Raúl Castro Ruz thanked Maduro for his kind words of affection for Cuba.

Maduro emphasized that the CDI, with many Cuban health professionals on their staffs, have state of the art equipment to serve the poor, the working people, those who have never had medical attention. "Service is provided free of charge, as our Constitution states - the best service, with the best equipment, the best doctors. Not one bolivar is charged there to any man or woman from this homeland, they will never be charged," he said.

"That is why," he continued, "in response to this aggression, we are now going to build more CDI. There will be more heath care, more doctors."

"Cuba deserves all of our love, their Revolution is the child of Martí, of Bolívar, of Fidel, and deeply loved by Hugo Chávez. It is a well-respected country. It is no accident that Cuba today holds the Presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and no accident that, in the United Nations, the majority of countries vote in favor of ending the blockade."

The culmination of the swearing-in ceremony included the singing of Venezuela’s national anthem, in the voice of Comandante Chávez, filling the semi-circular hall with emotion. Equally moving was the moment in which María Gabriela, daughter of the eternal Bolivarian leader, and Diosdado Cabello, President of the National Assembly awarded Maduro the presidential sash and liberators pendant.

As night fell, Maduro moved to the Paseo de los Próceres boulevard, accompanied by members of his Cabinet, as well as several heads of state, among them President Raúl Castro, to attend the parade, with which the Bolivarian National Armed Forces expressed their absolute loyalty to the new President and recognized him as Commander in Chief.
Visibly moved, Maduro recalled that this was the first military parade at this emblematic site he had attended without Chávez, reiterating that the former President’s memory remains alive.

Pie de fotos:
1. (maduro-1) María Gabriela, daughter of Hugo Chávez, and Diosdado Cabello, President of the National Assembly present Maduro with the presidential sash and liberators pendant.
2.(maduro-2) President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and President of the National Assembly (Foto: Prensa Miraflores)
3.(maduro-3) Maduro arrives at the Paseo de Los Próceres for the military parade in his honor. (Foto:José M. Correa)
4.(maduro-4) Sin pie (Foto: Estudios Revolución)
5 (desfiles-civico-militar) sin pie.
6.(raul-maduro) Cuban President Raúl Castro visits the Montaña Garrison. (Estudios Revolución)
7. (maduro AVN) sin pie
 

Do We Need God to be Moral?

By Lee Dye

One of the world's leading primatologists believes his decades of research with apes answers a question that has plagued humans since the beginning of time. 

Are we moral because we believe in God, or do we believe in God because we are moral?

Frans de Waal argues in his latest book that the answer is clearly the latter. The seeds for moral behavior preceded the emergence of our species by millions of years, and the need to codify that behavior so that all would have a clear blueprint for morality led to the creation of religion, he argues. 

Most religious leaders would argue it's the other way around: Our sense of what's moral came from God, and without God there would be no morality.

But this is a column about science, not religion, so it's worth asking if de Waal's own research supports his provocative conclusions, documented in the newly released book, "The Bonobo and the Atheist." 

Just the title answers one question: he is an atheist, although he disparages the efforts of other atheists to convince the public to abandon all beliefs in the supernatural. Religion serves its purpose, he argues, especially through the rituals and body of beliefs that help strengthen community bonds. 

De Waal is a biology professor at Emory University and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta. He is widely regarded as one of the world's top experts on primatology, especially the sometimes violent chimpanzees and their fun-loving sexually obsessed cousins, the bonobos, sometimes called the forgotten apes because they have become so rare. 

Through years of research all over the world, de Waal has reached these basic conclusions: Chimps and bonobos and other primates clearly show empathy with others who are suffering. They have a sense of fairness, they take care of those in need, and they will share what they have with others who are less fortunate. 

Those and other human-like characteristics, that have been clearly documented by other researchers as well, at least show they have some grasp of morality. It doesn't mean they are moral -- especially chimps, which can be very violent -- but they have the "basic building blocks" for morality, de Waal argues. 

Chimps, he says, "are ready to kill their rivals. They sometimes kill humans, or bite off their face." So he says he is "reluctant to call a chimpanzee a 'moral being.'"

"There is little evidence that other animals judge the appropriateness of actions that do not directly affect themselves," he writes. Yet, "In their behavior, we recognize the same values we pursue ourselves. 

"I take these hints of community concern as a sign that the building blocks of morality are older than humanity, and we don't need God to explain how we got to where we are today," he writes. 

Our sense of morality, he continues, comes from within, not from above. Many activities he has witnessed show that apes feel guilt and shame, which also suggest a sense of morality. Why should anyone feel guilty if they don't know the difference between right and wrong?

For example, Lody, a bonobo in the Milwaukee County Zoo, bit the hand -- apparently accidentally -- of a veterinarian who was feeding him vitamin pills. 

"Hearing a crunching sound, Lody looked up, seemingly surprised, and released the hand minus a digit," de Waals writes. 

Days later the vet revisited the zoo and held up her bandaged left hand. Lody looked at the hand and retreated to a distant corner of the enclosure where he held his head down and wrapped his arms around himself, signs of both grief and guilt. 

And here's the amazing part. About 15 years later the vet returned to the zoo and was standing among a crowd of visitors when Lody recognized her and rushed over. He tried to see her left hand, which was hidden behind the railing. The vet lifted up her incomplete hand and Lody looked at it, then at the vet's face, then back at the hand again.

Was he showing shame and grief? Or was it fear of a possible reprisal? The ape at least realized he had done something wrong, de Waal argues, showing the seeds of moral behavior. 

There are scores of other examples showing deep grief over a dying colleague and compassion for a mother ape that has lost her young and care for young apes that have lost their parents. All those things are signs of what we would call unmistakable morality, if the subjects were humans, not apes. 

"Some say animals are what they are, whereas our own species follows ideals, but this is easily proven wrong," de Waals writes. "Not because we don't have ideals, but because other species have them too." 

When an ape expresses grief or guilt or compassion he is living out the blueprint for survival in a culture that is becoming more complex, and possibly more dangerous. He is acting from within, not because he believes in God who defined right and wrong. De Waal puts it this way: 

"The moral law is not imposed from above or derived from well-reasoned principles; rather it arises from ingrained values that have been there since the beginning of time."

He cites at least one instance when those "ingrained values" led to action among bonobos that seems like a divine solution to a nasty problem that confronts human society around the world. 

Bonobos, according to his research, know how to avoid war. 

Over and over he has seen neighboring bonobo colonies gather near a common border as the males prepare to do battle. Ape warfare can indeed be violent. But when the bonobos are ready to fight, the females often charge across the boundary and start making out with both genders on the other side. 

Pretty soon, the war has degenerated to what we humans would call an orgy, after which both sides are seen grooming each other and watching their children play.

So an orgy is moral? Maybe these guys understand it really is better to make love, not war.

Maduro names cabinet members

Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has named his new cabinet members, keeping key ministers from the administration of the country’s late leader Hugo Chavez.

Just days after his inauguration, Maduro’s new cabinet members were sworn in at a ceremony in the capital, Caracas.

"This act is very important, today April 22, 2013. By swearing in this government team we are starting a new cycle of the Bolivarian Revolution," Maduro said during the ceremony.

Nearly half of the country's former ministers will remain in office.

Nelson Merentes has been named as the country’s finance minister and former finance chief Jorge Giordani as the new planning minister.

Chavez’s son-in-law has also been sworn in vice president.

Elias Jaua and Rafael Ramirez will keep their current posts as foreign and oil ministers.

Socialist Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election on April 14. He won 50.8 percent of the vote against 49.0 percent for the opposition leader Henrique Capriles.

Capriles said he did not recognize the official results, claiming that there were more than 300,000 incidents from Sunday’s poll that would need to be examined.

On March 8, Maduro became Venezuela’s acting president, following the death of late President Hugo Chavez, who lost a two-year-long battle with cancer on March 5. Maduro has promised to continue the socialist policies of the former leader.