c. 1997 Religion News Service
PepsiCo ends ties in Burma in light of U.S. foreign policy
(RNS) PepsiCo, the soft-drink maker, under pressure from human rights groups, has ended its last investments in Burma.
Religious and human rights groups, including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, cheered the decision.
The military dictatorship of Burma, known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), has been condemned for human rights violations by the U.S. State Department, the United Nations and human rights organizations around the world. Human rights groups have criticized SLORC for using forced labor and detaining political opponents, including Burmese democracy leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.”PepsiCo’s withdrawal is a product of the combined efforts of the Burma democratic movement as well as students, religious groups, human rights organizations, unions and others around the world who have pressed PepsiCo to terminate its involvement in Burma,”said the Rev. David Schilling, an official at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR).”We applaud PepsiCo for doing the right thing.” The ICCR is an association of religious shareholders that has been urging companies to withdraw from Burma.”This sends a strong message to Burma’s military dictators that there will be no `business as usual’ until democracy returns,”said the Rev. Joseph P. LaMar of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, a community of Roman Catholic missionaries that has sponsored shareholder resolutions urging PepsiCo’s withdrawal from Burma.”The beneficiaries of PepsiCo’s total withdrawal are the people of Burma who have been living under a harshly repressive military regime, notorious for systematic human rights violations,”he said.
Last April, the soft drink company sold its 40 percent stake in a local venture, Pepsi Cola Products Myanmar, but it retained links with the bottler.
In a Jan. 24 letter to LaMar, however, the company said it had severed its relationships with the bottler on Jan. 15.”Based on our assessment of the spirit of current U.S. government foreign policy, we are completing our total disengagement from the Burmese market,”the company’s statement read.
State Dept. criticizes Germany’s treatment of Scientology
(RNS) The State Department’s annual report on human rights includes criticism of Germany for its treatment of the Church of Scientology, although an agency spokesman has rejected the controversial sect’s attempts to draw parallels between its situation and the Holocaust.
In response, a German official said the United States had fallen prey to a Scientology public relations effort.
The State Department report _ knowledge of which was obtained by The Washington Post in advance of its release scheduled for Wednesday (Jan. 29) _ reportedly criticizes what an unnamed”senior administration official”told the newspaper was Germany’s”campaign of harassment and intimidation.” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns, responding to the Post story, said the United States remains concerned, as it has been for the past few years, by official discrimination against Scientologists on the part of some regional German authorities.
However, Burns dismissed the church’s claim that its treatment by Germany mirrors what happened to German Jews during the years leading up to the Holocaust.”There is no pattern of discrimination against the Scientologists that compares even remotely to what happened to the Jews and to others during the Nazi era,”he said.
German officials regard Scientology as a cult that preys upon individuals for financial gain. Scientologists have been denied government jobs and officials have sought to boycott concerts and movies by entertainers with ties to Scientology, such as actor Tom Cruise and jazz musician Chick Correa.
In the United States, Scientology is treated by the Internal Revenue Service as a bona fide religion.
American Jewish leaders lobby Netanyahu on”Who is a Jew?” (RNS) Non-Orthodox American Jewish leaders have been trekking to Israel in an effort to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to support proposed legislation opponents say would further deny the legitimacy of Reform and Conservative Judaism in Israel.
The issue _ commonly referred to as the”Who is a Jew?”debate _ threatens to drive a wedge between the Israeli government, which depends upon Orthodox backing to maintain its majority in parliament, and American Jews, who are overwhelmingly non-Orthodox.
The latest group to meet with Netanyahu was a contingent of about 50 Reform rabbis who met with him in Jerusalem Sunday (Jan. 27). They followed a group of about 20 Conservative Jewish leaders and a five-member delegation from the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, home to the largest Jewish community in the United States.
All three contingents urged Netanyahu to reject legislation proposed by Orthodox political parties that would deny non-Orthodox rabbis in Israel the right to perform conversions to Judaism.”We perform our conversions the exact same way as the Orthodox, and yet they are rejected not because of our procedures but because of who we are,”Roy Clements, president of Mercaz, the Conservative movement’s Zionist arm, told the New York Jewish Week.
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, told The Los Angeles Times that non-Orthodox American Jews could withdraw support for Israel if the legislation is approved.”If you have the Jewish state sending the message that you are not exactly equal here,”he said,”(yet) say `continue lobbying for us, continue your tourism but don’t bring us your religious sensibilities,’ well it doesn’t take much for Jews to disengage.” Orthodox leaders in Israel see themselves as guardians of the tradition and reject Reform and Conservative Judaism as inauthentic. The non-Orthodox groups in recent years have gained legitimacy in Israel through the courts. The proposed legislation is an attempt by Orthodox leaders to negate some of those gains.
Update: Election of Mother Teresa’s successor postponed
(RNS) The election of a successor to Mother Teresa as the leader of the Missionaries of Charity religious order has been postponed.
The vote had been scheduled for Feb. 2.
The office of Archbishop of Calcutta Henry D’Souza did not give a new date for the election or an explanation for the delay, but the ailing 86-year-old nun agreed to the postponement, Reuters reported.
More than 100 nuns have been at a retreat since Jan. 16 to discuss who might succeed Mother Teresa. The retreat was scheduled to end on Jan. 31, followed by several meetings of the electoral college. But a spokeswoman for the Missionaries of Charity said the retreat has been extended.
Mother Teresa, who founded the order nearly 50 years ago, has been its only leader. After suffering heart, kidney and lung problems in recent months, however, she told friends and close associates that she wished to retire as the order’s superior general.
Quote of the Day: first lady Hillary Clinton
(RNS) In”Heart & Soul of the Nation: How the Spirituality of Our First Ladies Changed America,”author Cheryl Heckler-Feltz includes quotes of a spiritual nature from a number of first ladies, including Hillary Clinton:”Religion is not just about one’s relationship with God, but about what values flow out of that relationship, how we follow them in our daily lives, and especially in our treatment of our neighbors next door and all over the world.”
MJP END RNS
