Witness to Rwandan massacre speaks - 06 Oct 08

2008-11-08T04:51:35Z

The conflict in eastern Congo has its roots in the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Somewhere between half a million and a million people were slaughtered in the space of just a hundred days. Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda says he's fighting to protect ethnic Tutsis in eastern Congo from suffering a similar fate. Kenya has called for an emergency summit on Friday, to help put an end to the current crisis. Paul Jordan was one of 30 Australian peacekeepers who witnessed one particularly notorious massacre in Rwanda. In his view, talk needs to be replaced by action.

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Author reading: "The Shoals of Time" by P. Orin Zack

2008-12-02T20:29:39Z

In 2001, Homeland Security was given the task of eliminating the threat of terrorism. It was granted broad powers, autonomy, and told to do whatever it took to accomplish its objective. To succeed, the department will eventually have to be given the authority to act globally as well.

What if an agency like this became the centerpiece of a global peace effort, and that in turn created the need for a global government with the power to maintain the peace provided by that agency? What if it was so successful that peace was enforced for over a century? Now imagine your world and its people faced with the threat of extinction, and the one thing preventing you from doing something about it was that very same agency. What would you do?

"The Shoals of Time" is about such a world. Except that after the conflict between peacekeeper and revolutionary was reduced to a game of cat and mouse between their leaders, the cheese escaped into the past...

In 2291, psychically-trained Healer Gillian Thomas is gathering herbs in the hills above Los Angeles when she's unceremoniously escorted back to town by a pair of brusque MedCenter Security workers. Her former bond-partner, a government peacekeeper, had been injured, and one of her escorts suspects that Phil ought to have been treated at the holistic Kubler-Ross Hospice Center where Gillian worked, rather than at the tech-heavy East-Side MedCenter.

Engaging her escort in an illicit investigation, she visits the crime scene, and discovers that there was more to the story than she'd been told. But while mulling over the evidence with some medicinal tea, she inexplicably passes out. When she regains consciousness, she finds she has a serious problem: she can't move, can't open her eyes, can't even call for help, and nobody responds to her psychic pleas for help. Having no alternative, she decides to go out-of-body to look for answers.

Intent on finding whoever was responsible for causing the situation, she sets out on a dangerous journey, knowing full well that not everyone who had made the attempt returned alive.

"...an engrossing saga of love, betrayal, disaster, and repercussions ... highly recommended ... an enjoyable, complex, interwoven narrative..." --- Midwest Book Review

"...a big novel that's richer, more intricate, and has more going on than most of the science fiction novels on the shelves these days... " --- Writer's Digest

Visit my blog: KlurgSheld.wordpress.com

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Inside Story- Peacekeeper deaths in Darfur- 01Oct07- Part 2

2008-10-24T03:29:35Z

Inside Story investigates the fallout following the deaths of 10 AU peacekeepers in Darfur.

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Inside Story- Peacekeeper deaths in Darfur- 01Oct07- Part 1

2008-10-24T03:29:46Z

Inside Story investigates the fallout following the deaths of 10 AU peacekeepers in Darfur.

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Peacekeeper at Brave New Films

Witness to Rwandan massacre speaks - 06 Oct 08

Author reading: "The Shoals of Time" by P. Orin Zack

Inside Story- Peacekeeper deaths in Darfur- 01Oct07- Part 2

Inside Story- Peacekeeper deaths in Darfur- 01Oct07- Part 1