Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Letting the people go

Our only source of information about Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, is the Old Testament account in Exodus. Jill Kamil puts the emigration of the Canaanites from Egypt in a historical context

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The Canaanites were not all cattle-herders and brick-makers. This talatat from the jubilee Temple of Akhenaten shows a Canaanite headman adoring Egypt’s Pharaoh in the early 14th century BC, and a spearman as a member of his bodyguard

Levantines from all walks of life have been settling in Egypt from very early times. Their presence can be traced back to the Middle Kingdom about 2000 BC, and they came in increasing waves from the New Kingdom, about 1567 BC, when Egypt commanded a vast empire that included Syria and northern Mesopotamia. They settled all over the country and were not all the brick-makers dissatisfied with their lot as described in Exodus.

Ordinary folk became farmers in their new land; craftsmen settled in cities to take up their former professions; and there was doubtless more than a sprinkling of traders and merchants. Many found employment in the “workers’ communality” at Deir Al-Medina on the Theban necropolis. By the second generation, Jews had lost the use of their native tongue; many bore Egyptian names, and not a few of the biblical stories (such as those of Joseph, his brethren, and Moses) are also of certain Egyptian folkloric tradition.

In the biblical record Egypt appears alternately as a place of slavery and of refuge, a land of plenty for the foreigner or a place from which he could flee. It was a country characterised by a high level of cultural and religious tolerance. Throughout the millennia foreigners were absorbed into Egyptian society, among them Hebrews as attested by carved reliefs in the jubilee temple of Akhenaten at Thebes (Luxor). This was the Pharaoh who, in the early 14th century BC, worshipped a single god as the creator and preserver of mankind. One of the talatat (the distinctive carved stone of which his temples were constructed) show Levantine headmen in his court, while another shows spearmen as loyal members of his bodyguard.

The ancient city of Memphis was marked out with quarters for Phoenicians, Syrians and other Semitic peoples. Among the Asiatic deities popular among the foreign community at Thebes were Baal, a war god of Canaan who has been identified with the Egyptian god Seth, and Resheph, a Canaanite-Phoenician god of thunder. Temples to alien gods were a familiar sight in Egypt.

Evidently the settlers were mostly happy with their lot. Some married Egyptians and gave their children Egyptian names. Others rose to high positions. Moses, for example, was born in Egypt of Levantine parents and raised in Pharaoh’s court. His name was derived from msw (“child”) and, according to the Bible, ” …Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts of the Apostles 7:22).

However, there were groups of immigrants, especially those who settled in the fertile triangle between the modern towns of Zagazig, Tel Al-Daba’a (the ancient Hyksos capital) and Ismailiya, who seem to have been less than satisfied with their position. This area might have been the “Land of Goshen” of biblical tradition, and taxes were apparently levied on newcomers in the form of compulsory labour. These people were set to manufacture bricks for the construction of the new Delta capital, the “House of Ramses”, which has been identified as Tel Al-Daba’a near the modern village of Khatana-Qantir.

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According to biblical accounts in Exodus, Moses’ first exposure to Sinai was when he fled there after incurring the wrath of Pharaoh by killing an Egyptian who had caused suffering to the Hebrews. On that occasion it is probable that he escaped along the well-beaten track in north Sinai, “the Way of Shur” (see map). After several days of fugitive life, Moses was resting by a well when the daughters of Nethro, a priest of Midian — whose location is not known — came to water their father’s flocks. Moses helped them, which courtesy they recounted to their father. He offered Moses hospitality, and subsequently his daughter in marriage and a new life in Midian. Moses appears to have settled happily into his new circumstances and his wife, Zipporah, bore him a son.

According to the Bible, “In process of time … the king of Egypt died,” and there is no doubt that Moaes heard of his death and perhaps considered returning to his family in Egypt. Be that as it may, the decision was taken out of his hands by the spectacular vision of the burning bush on Mount Horeb, identified by biblical scholars with Mount Sinai. “And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush… ” He was told to remove his shoes because he was on holy ground — a detail which has captured the imagination of believers, scholars and artists ever since — and God commanded him to lead his people out of Egypt. “Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.” His own inclinations thus given reassuring confirmation, Moses, with God’s guidance, set out on his journey to Egypt where he met his brother Aaron, whose eloquence persuaded the elders of the Hebrew community to adopt Moses’ plan for their delivery out of Egypt, and “unto the land flowing with milk and honey”.

Some of his people who felt economically trapped in Egypt, and no doubt felt resentful of their situation, were only too happy to fall in with Moses’ plan. But it is difficult to picture all the Jewish communities in Egypt willing to abandon the country for an uncertain future. In fact, it is difficult to estimate the number that did. According to Exodus it was three million, but British archaeologist William Flinders Petrie suggested that the number was much smaller. He pointed out that the word alaf meant both “a thousand” and “a family” and, by calculating an estimated number of men and their dependents, he concluded that the number may have been nearer 27,000.

There is no evidence of this episode in Egyptian records, perhaps because people of different nationalities were free to come and go as they wished. Egyptians were unconcerned by the migration of a community of foreigners; they had abundant human resources of their own.

The Exodus and the subsequent 40 years’ wandering in the wilderness have been a subject of debate since early Christian times. Hermits and monks who sought refuge from Roman persecution in the Sinai peninsula were familiar with the Old Testament story, but had no idea of the route taken by Moses and his people. The Bible refers to the “mountain of God” as either Horeb or Sinai, nowhere making clear whether this was a single peak, two different mountains, or even the names used by different tribes to describe the same mountain.

In the 19th century, when Sinai became popular amongst explorers in search of holy places, some effort was made to trace the exact sites mentioned in the Bible. These researches were based on documentary and inscriptional evidence, and on the geographical characteristics of the land. Among those who published opinions (that were each, in turn, refuted) were JL Burckhardt, E Robinson, HS Palmer, WH Bartlett, Flinders Petrie, Y Aharoni, CS Jarvis, C Beke, A Musil, A Lucas and D Nielson. No more agreement could be reached among modern scholars than among ancient hermits. Even the exact point at which Moses crossed to Sinai was a subject of dispute.

There were three dominant views: the first was that the emigrants reached the Red Sea — which is supposed to have extended further north in biblical times — at or near Suez, and crossed to the Spring of Moses (Ain Musa). The second was that they proceeded southwards on the Egyptian shore and crossed the Gulf of Suez at Ain Sukhna, moving across to that spring. The third was that they travelled from the Nile Delta towards Sinai along the Wadi Tumilat to Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes, where the crossing was made. The latter hypothesis, the most generally accepted by the 20th century, became cemented in the 21st in accordance with active religious tourism promotion.

This is the traditional route of the Exodus, and the sites tourists are taken to are the Spring of Moses, some 28 kilometres south of Suez; biblical Elim, which has been identified with several sites including Wadi Garandel; the “Wilderness of Sin”, the large open plain of Al-Markha, 10 kilometres south of Abu Zeneima; biblical Rephidem, as either Wadi Watia or Wadi Firan; and the plain of Raha, taken as the site where Moses and his people encamped for an extended period of time. To the west of this plain is a hill, on a spur of which is a chapel believed to be the place where Aaron placed the golden calf, the graven image they had carried out of Egypt.

Towards the north, the narrowing plain of Raha leads to Safsaf, hills with bold precipices which some biblical scholars posited was a more accessible point for Moses to have received the law than Mount Sinai. From there Moses and his people made frequent journeys to Kadesh Barnea, a site in north-eastern Sinai which is strong in biblical tradition. Kadesh Barnea, present day Ain Gedeirat, is situated about six kilometres east of Kuseima, one of the oldest Bedouin settlements in the area known as Moses Valley, an extremely fertile area which shares a tradition, with Wadi Firan, of being where Moses produced water from a rock.

Modern biblical scholars, however, observed that despite the fertile areas around valleys and oases in southern Sinai, vegetation was limited and it was doubtful whether it could ever have been sufficient to sustain a large number of people as well as vast herds of sheep and goats over a period of 40 years. This, together with studies based on historic and geographical evidence, gave rise to the theory that Moses and the Hebrew tribes crossed northern Sinai.

To fit the theory, one hypothesis was that Moses led his people out of Egypt via Succoth (biblical Pithom, present-day Tel Al-Maskuta), from which point he travelled along the Way of Shur across the dunes of north Sinai to Mount Hilal (claimed as the Mount of the Law). Another, which is based on archaeological studies in the north-eastern Delta and on the northern coast of Sinai, has tended to support an even more northerly route: Moses travelled north towards the Al-Tina mud flats and Lake Bardawil, the site of the crossing, and from there south to the Kadesh Barnea of the Bible. Philologists have hastened to point out that yam saf, which has been translated into “Red Sea”, was actually the “Sea of Reeds”, the lakes between Port Said and Al-Arish. These are well over two metres below sea level and, moreover, have rushes and reeds on the southern shores that fit the biblical description. Furthermore, the northern coast is the only route for which a logical explanation can be presented for the drowning of the Pharaoh’s pursuing army; they could have been caught on the sandbars by the incoming tide.

Advocates of the northerly routes point out that ancient Egyptians occupied most of southern Sinai during the period of the Hebrew sojourn since their turquoise and copper mines were located there. Indeed, there is evidence that southern Sinai was heavily garrisoned by Egyptian forces, and their barracks were within easy distance of the Plain of Raha and the Hebrew encampment.

Another observation that favours the northern route is that the tamarisk trees, which produce the gum known as manna, are plentiful in northern Sinai; that quails are common all along the coast and not infrequently land on the shore or seek cover in the scrub during the autumn migration; and, the most convincing argument of all, the only cultivable land large enough to support a horde of people, their goats and cattle, lies in the Al-Arish- Rafah-Kuseima triangle. This is the same area as Kadesh Barnea of the Bible, where the 12 tribes are described as pitching their tents around the sacred tabernacle.

Additionally, a number of names in northern Sinai strongly resemble places mentioned in Exodus: Kadeis (Kadesh Barnea), Hazira (Hazeroth), Libni (Libnah) and Arish (Alush) whereas, in the south of the peninsula, tamarisks are rare, quails are seldom seen, and the only area with an arguable connection may be Wadi Firan (the wilderness of Pharan). As for a suitable Mount of the Law, northern Sinai is not lacking in this either. Mount Hilal is 892 metres high. The Arabic word hilal means “crescent”, but the word halal means “lawful” in the context of ritual slaughter, or sacrifice, of animals.

Although it has not proved possible to map out correctly the route along which Moses led his people out of Egypt, scholars have noted the profound influence of Egyptian culture on the Hebrews, especially the similarity of the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. “Yahweh (Jehovah) weigheth the hearts,” it is written in Proverb 21:2, and the only doctrine in which a god weighs the human heart is in the court of Osiris in the underworld. Similarly, the biblical description of men being fashioned out of clay by Yahweh is so akin to the ancient Egyptian image of men being fashioned on a potter’s wheel out of the clay of the river Nile by the god Khnum that the connection is indisputable: “The potter of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean uses, and likewise also all such as serve to the contrary” (Book of Wisdom XV, 7). Finally, the sage Amenemope, whose work is written in demotic (British Museum Papyrus 10474), admonished: “Set yourself in the arms of god,” while Moses said in his blessing: “The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

The “Instruction it of Amenope” comprises 30 numbered chapters on right thinking and right action. It covers justice (Chapter VI) with “not (to) move the boundary-stone nor shift the surveyor’s rope … do not tamper with the widow’s land- bounds”; coveting (Chapter XI) in “covert not the poor farmer’s property nor hunger after his bread: the peasant’s morsel will gag in the throat and revolt in the gullet”; morals and neighbourly love (Chapter XIII) ” …it is better to be praised for neighbourly love than have riches in the storeroom; better to enjoy your bread with a good conscience than to have wealth weighed down by reproaches”; and consideration towards those afflicted (Chapter XXVII) in “mock not the blind nor deride the dwarf, nor block a cripple’s path”.

“It can hardly be doubted that the author of Proverbs was acquainted with the Egyptian work and borrowed from it,” wrote Miriam Lichtheim in her Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol II, “for in addition to the similarities in thought and expression, ‘Have I not written for you 30 sayings of admonition and knowledge’ derives from the author’s acquaintance with the ’30 chapters’ of Amenemope.”

The Hebrew culture did not emerge in a vacuum. It was subjected to influences from many quarters, among them the wisdom of Egypt. Moses and his people carried much more than a graven image out of Egypt.

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Incisions with Precision Presents: Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa by De La Soul

This time with Incisions with Precision NDT will be tackling a subject that is some what taboo in the African American community, child molestation. The track Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa is in my opinion one of the most important songs De La Soul ever made. Not just because of the subject matter but because of how it explores the psyche of a child pushed too far. Click image for article.

Egypt’s Nile: nation puts great river at heart of its security

Threatened by a cut in Nile water supply, Egypt sees its leading regional role draining away and its desert farms running dry

• Jack Shenker in Aswan
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 June 2010 21.44 BST

Egypt‘s monumental Aswan High Dam, and that is by standing directly on top of it. Beneath your feet lie 43m cubic metres of granite, an edifice that took 10 years and a billion dollars to assemble. Each year Egypt takes more than 55 billion cubic meters of water from the Nile, seen above at Aswan. Photograph: Tony Craddock/CorbisThere is only one way to appreciate the scale ofTo your south 2,000 or more square miles of water stretch out towards the Sudanese border, forming Lake Nasser, one of the largest reservoirs on Earth. To the north, gurgling out quietly from deep within the barrage, there is the Nile, now tamed, steady, and ready for use by 80 million people downstream.

In terms of sheer technical ambition, not to mention its impact on Egypt’s economic fortunes, political might and cultural identity, nothing has rivalled the High Dam since the pyramids.

Judging from the nationalist symbols plastered all over a nearby celebratory monument, and from the soldiers patrolling the dam’s walkways, this vast structure means as much to Egypt today as it did when it was completed 40 years ago

Symbolising the country’s historical mastery over the world’s longest river, it also marks the spot where, should upstream African countries have their way, surrender of that control will first become visible.

The consequences of any reduction in Egypt’s share of the Nile’s flow will be felt across the country, not least on the brackish fields of the Nile Delta, about 500 miles away, where farmers are already struggling to find fresh water.

Near Aswan it becomes clear how important the Nile is to Egypt, which relies on the river for 90% of its water supply. On the west bank of the city, on a 600-metre wide strip of verdant land that quickly gives way to rocky desert, Omar and his fellow farmers produce grapes, figs, watermelons and other crops for export to food markets in Cairo. Temperatures here can reach up to 45C in summer but irrigation canals and oxen-powered pumps keep Nile water streaming in all year round.

“The Nile is everything to us, it’s liquid gold,” explained the 25-year-old as he oversaw the day’s mango harvest. “We’re like fish here: take us from the water and we’ll perish.”

In the fishing and agricultural districts of upper Egypt there is little sympathy for the countries upstream that are threatening to boost their share of the Nile’s resources. The stance is echoed by technical experts in Cairo, who claim that Egypt’s share of the water in the region is already dangerously small.

“Nile-basin countries as a whole receive 7,000bn cubic metres [bcm] a year of rainfall,” said Khaled Abu Zeid, a regional water resources programme manager at CEDARE, the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe. “In the Nile basin itself, you’re looking at 1,660bcm of annual rainfall. And then from all this, you have Egypt taking 55.5bcm a year from the Nile, our only source of fresh water. So we have to ask ourselves exactly what we’re talking about when terms like ‘water sharing’ are used. Egypt is a desert environment, whereas some of the upstream countries could not get any greener.”

Given the precarious state of Egypt’s water security, it is not surprising that successive political leaders have described any possible alterations to the distribution of the Nile as an existential threat to the nation. Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s president, famously declared himself ready to go to war against any attempt to limit Egypt’s dominance of the river; recently, Egyptian columnists have characterised the actions of upstream states as a “genocidal war” against Egyptians. Some writers have suggested that Egypt’s strident rhetoric has hampered the spirit of co-operation between Nile states.

But Abu Zeid said: “Egypt sincerely wants to work with upstream countries, and I hope that those countries don’t look negatively upon these statements about the Nile being a ‘red line’ for Egypt. But regardless of what language you choose to employ, the fact is the Nile is a national security issue for Egypt.”

As an indication of how seriously the Egyptian government is taking the present crisis, responsibility for the Nile basin dispute was removed from the water and foreign affairs ministries last month and put into the hands of Egypt’s intelligence and security chief, Omar Suleiman.

Suleiman was in Uganda this week holding talks with the country’s president about the Nile issue, as Egypt stepped up efforts to persuade other countries, such as Burundi, not to sign the rival River Nile basin co-operative framework agreement threatening Egypt’s hegemony.

Egypt makes much of its water recycling and desalination programmes, arguing that the country’s barren environs have forced it to use meagre water resources efficiently. But critics dispute these claims, pointing to the outskirts of big cities like Cairo where luxury residential developments are accompanied by a rash of water-intensive landscaped gardens and golf courses.

There are many who believe that Egypt’s Nile predicament also reveals a long-term political malaise, which has seen the country’s status as the pre-eminent regional power slowly drain away.

“President Nasser cultivated a sense of post-colonial solidarity with upstream states based around the non-aligned movement, yet under the regimes of his successors Africa has been neglected,” said Nabil Abdel Fattah, a research director at the Al-Ahram Centre. We have seen a marginalisation of the African affairs institutes at universities, a marginalisation of African news on our TV screens. The problem here is … the perception we have of Egyptian identity. Our politicians see Africa as a backwater, its countries as underdeveloped.”

Omar could not agree more. “This would never have happened under Nasser; if he were still with us nobody would dare try to take our water.”

• guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Black writers in a ghetto of the publishing industry’s making

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Kathryn Stockett’s novel “The Help,” published by a Penguin Books imprint, sold 1 million books within a year of publication. Her novel has gained accolades and awards, including the prestigious South African Boeke Prize. “The Help” is being adapted for the screen; at the helm of production is the Academy Award-winning director and producer Steven Spielberg.

Sue Monk Kidd’s best-selling novel “The Secret Life of Bees,” also published by Penguin Books, is another story set in the South with African American characters. Kidd’s novel garnered similar fame, fortune and recognition.

Kathryn Stockett and Sue Monk Kidd are living the dream of thousands of authors, myself included. But they are not the first white women to pen stories of the black American South and be lauded for their efforts. In 1928, Julia Peterkin wrote a novel, “Scarlet Sister Mary,” for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Stockett’s and Kidd’s novels tackle racism and celebrate the power of friendship and acceptance. Both novels were given beautiful covers that did not reveal the race of the characters. Both books were marketed to black and white audiences.

My debut novel, “Sugar,” was also published by a Penguin imprint. Set in the 1950s South, the story line deals with racism and celebrates the power of friendship and acceptance. The original cover depicted a beautiful black woman standing behind a screen door. “Sugar” was marketed solely to African American readers. This type of marginalization has come to be known among African American writers as “seg-book-gation.” This practice is not only demeaning but also financially crippling. When I looked into why works by African American writers were packaged and marketed so differently than those by their white counterparts, I did not have to search far for my answer.

Literature about the oppressed written by the oppressor has a long tradition. The trend can be traced all the way to colonialism — a movement that was not only physical but textual, the evidence of which can be found in the diaries, letters and journals of colonists, settlers and plantation slave owners.

Representation of African Americans by white people in texts records a history of “inferiority.” Based on these perceptions, African Americans have endured slavery, genocide, medical apartheid and segregation.

This “inferiority” is a tool fundamental to ethnic distancing in society. Today, this tool is used with great precision in the mainstream publishing industry. While, yes, the distancing may not be total — meaning a few select African American authors have “crossed over” into the mainstream — the work of many African Americans authors, myself included, has been lumped into one heap known as “African American literature.” This suggests that our literature is singular and anomalous, not universal. It is as if we American authors who happen to be of African descent are not a people but a genre much like mystery, romance or thriller.

Walk through your local chain bookstore and you will not see sections tagged British Literature, White American Literature, Korean Literature, Pakistani Literature and so on. None of these ethnicities are singled out or objectified the way African American writers are.

And while, yes, a vast majority of all writers, regardless of skin color, are struggling to stay afloat, and there are more African American writers being published today than at any other time in history, one must still take note of exactly what is being published.

Mainstream publishing houses contort themselves to acquire books that glorify wanton sex, drugs and crime. This fiction, known as street-lit or hip-hop fiction, most often reinforces the stereotypical trademarks African Americans have fought hard to overcome. And while we are all the descendants of those great literary pioneers who first gave a voice to the African American experience, and one certainly could not exist without the other, somewhere down the line the balance was thrown off and the scales tipped in favor of a genre that glorifies street life and denigrates a cultural institution that took hundreds of years to construct.

This year is arguably the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance. It is also the 50th anniversary of the death of Zora Neale Hurston, one of the most iconic figures of the Renaissance. In 1950 Hurston addressed this very problem in her essay “What White Publishers Won’t Print,” which was published in the Negro Digest.

“For various reasons, the average, struggling, non-morbid Negro is the best-kept secret in America. His revelation to the public is the thing needed to do away with that feeling of difference which inspires fear, and which ever expresses itself in dislike.”

Her words still ring true.

Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven novels. Her most recent book, “Glorious,” was published in May.

Genetically Altered Salmon Get Closer to the Table

A gene-engineered fish, top, and a natural one of the same age.

By ANDREW POLLACK

The Food and Drug Administration is seriously considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate.

The developer of the salmon has been trying to get approval for a decade. But the company now seems to have submitted most or all of the data the F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.

Some consumer and environmental groups are likely to raise objections to approval. Even within the F.D.A., there has been a debate about whether the salmon should be labeled as genetically engineered (genetically engineered crops are not labeled).

The salmon’s approval would help open a path for companies and academic scientists developing other genetically engineered animals, like cattle resistant to mad cow disease or pigs that could supply healthier bacon. Next in line behind the salmon for possible approval would probably be the “enviropig,” developed at a Canadian university, which has less phosphorus pollution in its manure.

The salmon was developed by a company called AquaBounty Technologies and would be raised in fish farms. It is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon as well as a genetic on-switch from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the salmon.

Normally, salmon do not make growth hormone in cold weather. But the pout’s on-switch keeps production of the hormone going year round. The result is salmon that can grow to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of three years, though the company says the modified salmon will not end up any bigger than a conventional fish.

“You don’t get salmon the size of the Hindenburg,” said Ronald L. Stotish, the chief executive of AquaBounty. “You can get to those target weights in a shorter time.”

AquaBounty, which is based in Waltham, Mass., and publicly traded in London, said last week that the F.D.A. had signed off on five of the seven sets of data required to demonstrate that the fish was safe for consumption and for the environment. It said it demonstrated, for instance, that the inserted gene did not change through multiple generations and that the genetic engineering did not harm the animals.

“Perhaps in the next few months, we expect to see a final approval,” Mr. Stotish said.

But the company has been overly optimistic before.

He said it would take two or three years after approval for the salmon to reach supermarkets.

The F.D.A. confirmed it was reviewing the salmon but, because of confidentiality rules, would not comment further.

Under a policy announced in 2008, the F.D.A. is regulating genetically engineered animals as if they were veterinary drugs and using the rules for those drugs. And applications for approval of new drugs must be kept confidential by the agency.

Henry Clifford – AquaBounty, developer of the AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon, would sell fish eggs to fish farms, not salmon to supermarkets.

Critics say the drug evaluation process does not allow full assessment of the possible environmental impacts of genetically altered animals and also blocks public input.

“There is no opportunity for anyone from the outside to see the data or criticize it,” said Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. When consumer groups were invited to discuss biotechnology policy with top F.D.A. officials last month, Ms. Mellon said she warned the officials that approval of the salmon would generate “a firestorm of negative response.”

How consumers will react is not entirely clear. Some public opinion surveys have shown that Americans are more wary about genetically engineered animals than about the genetically engineered crops now used in a huge number of foods. But other polls suggest that many Americans would accept the animals if they offered environmental or nutritional benefits.

Mr. Stotish said the benefit of the fast-growing salmon would be to help supply the world’s food needs using fewer resources.

Government officials and industry executives say the F.D.A. is moving cautiously on the salmon. “It’s going to be a P. R. issue,” said one government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the issue.

Some of these government officials and executives said that F.D.A. officials had discussed internally whether the salmon could be labeled to give consumers the choice of avoiding them.

The government has in the past opposed mandatory labeling of foods from genetically engineered crops and animals merely because genetic engineering was used. Foods must be labeled, it says, only if they are different in their nutritional properties or other characteristics.

It would seem difficult for the government to change that policy. And experts say the administration may not have the legal authority to do so.

One possibility could be voluntary labeling by those who sell the fish.

Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the principal deputy commissioner of the F.D.A., said in a statement: “Labeling is one of many issues involved with the review of genetically engineered animals for use in food. As has been publicly reported, the AquAdvantage Salmon is under review by the agency, and as we move forward, we will share information with the public.”

Mr. Stotish of AquaBounty said his company was not against voluntary labeling, but the matter was not in its hands because it would only be selling fish eggs to fish farms, not grown salmon to the supermarket.

He said the company had submitted data to the F.D.A. showing that its salmon was indistinguishable from nonengineered Atlantic salmon in terms of taste, color, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, proteins and other nutrients.

“Our fish is identical in every measurable way to the traditional food Atlantic salmon,” Mr. Stotish said. “If there’s no material difference, then it would be misleading to require labeling.”

Virtually all Atlantic salmon now comes from fish farms, not the wild.

The F.D.A. must also decide on the environmental risks from the salmon. Some experts have speculated that fast-growing fish could out-compete wild fish for food or mates.

Mr. Stotish said the salmon would be grown only in inland tanks or other contained facilities, not in ocean pens where they might escape into the wild. And the fish would all be female and sterile, making it impossible for them to mate.

The F.D.A. is expected to hold a public meeting of an advisory committee before deciding whether to approve the salmon. Typically at such advisory committee meetings, much of the data in support of the drug application is made public and there is some time allotted for public comment.

But Gregory Jaffe, biotechnology project director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said such meetings often do not give the public enough time to analyze the data.

Superbrain Yoga® is a simple and effective technique to energize and recharge the brain. It is based on the principles of subtle energy and ear acupuncture. This powerful technique is explained in Master Choa Kok Sui’s latest book Superbrain Yoga®.

Pilot studies on the effects of Superbrain Yoga® on school children include children with disabilities such as ADHD/ADD, developmental and cognitive delays, Down syndrome and specific learning disabilities. Children studied showed significant increase in academic and behavioral performance, greater class participation and improved social skills. In one study, the result of an electroencephalograph showed increased amplitude in the parieto-occipital region of the brain following the Superbrain Yoga®. This indicates increased brain electrical activity following the exercise. More studies on the effects of Superbrain Yoga® are being conducted.
www.superbrainyoga.org

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/globalvoices/ – A Black Panther living in exile in Tanzania commits his life to activism and community service.

He has resurrected the principle s of community service in the identical fashion they functioned at their peak in America. The Each one teach on philosophy is what we need to resurrect here in America. Please watch and be inspired!!!!.