There has been no official United announcement, but via this FlyerTalk thread, according to several FlyerTalkers’ conversations with United employees at p.s. cities (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco), the airline will begin to offer Red Carpet Club (RCC) access to 1K and Global Service Mileage Plus members booked in business class or tickets upgraded to business class. Currently, only passengers booked in p.s. first class have RCC access, and also have International First Class lounge access.

A nice enhancement, if true – which, according to multiple UA employees, the change is certainly imminent. We’ll have to wait and see if 1K (and Global Service members!) in Economy class will obtain RCC access, as well.

I do worry, though, as with all United announcements, of what passengers must relinquish in exchange for the enhancement. United works similar to the law of conservation of energy, except with enhancements: “The number of enhancements in the universe is constant, and enhancements can neither be created, nor destroyed.” Like a change in energy, if United adds something somewhere, that energy has to come from someplace – usually equating to a removal of benefits elsewhere. They never really give anything away for free. Sadly, I’m a bit worried that this change might be the consolation of United removing the ability to readily upgrade on p.s. flights next year, except with a Systemwide Upgrade, or miles and a co-pay. For those that are intrepid enough to upgrade under the new draconian price schemes, access to the RCC might be the consolation prize.

We’ll see – but, again, if that’s the peace offering for losing p.s. upgrades – well, I think UA could offer something better for such a grave change.

Second Chance by Hillsong United – check it out!

The first time I heard this song, the lyric and the melodies stayed in my mind for days ♥

I love the lyric; I love ALL the words there. But, I do have my favs, so here are some of them:

“So it’s with everything I am
I reach out for Your hand
The hope for change
The second chance I’ve gained”

“How could greater love than this
Ever possibly exist”

“Bearing the marks of His love”

“Where a little faith’s enough
To see mountains lift and move”

Isn’t it a wonderful song?

So here is the FULL lyric:

Second Chance – Hillsong United
You called my name
Reached out Your hand
Restored my life
And I was redeemed
The moment You entered my life

Amazing grace
Christ gave that day
My life was changed
When from my shoulders
Fell the weight of my sin

So it’s with everything I am
I reach out for Your hand
The hope for change
The second chance I’ve gained

On You I throw my life
Casting all my fears aside
How could greater love than this
Ever possibly exist

Consume my thoughts
As I rest in You
I’m now in love
With a Saviour
Bearing the marks of His love

So I’ll wait upon You now
With my hands released to You
Where a little faith’s enough
To see mountains lift and move

And I’ll wait upon You now
Dedicated to Your will
To this love that will remain
A love that never fails

By Jeremy D. Morley

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (the Hague Convention) provides that a child who is habitually resident in one party country, and has been removed to or retained in another party country in violation of the left-behind parent’s custodial rights, should be promptly returned to the country of habitual residence. However, many countries are not parties to the Convention, and even some that are parties enforce the laws only sporadically or in accordance with their own societal customs. Thus, the attorney must take special care when faced with the possibility that his client’s foreign national spouse might take the children to such a country.

Preventing Abductions to Non-Hague Countries

The first 4 months are  the golden window, were you have the chance to get your children back due to the Hague convention.

The mother in Ahmad v Naviwala,  learned these lessons the hard way. The Family Court awarded her sole custody of the children but unfortunately (although represented by counsel!) she permitted the father to take them to Saudi Arabia for a 3-month visitation. Not surprisingly (to a jaundiced international family lawyer), the father refused to return the children from Saudi Arabia, refused to allow the mother to see the children and obtained an ex parte custody order in his favor from a Saudi court. Had he kept the children in Saudi Arabia, they would doubtless have never been reunited with their mother. Fortunately, he took the children on a trip to Texas, where they were seized pursuant to a Broome County Family Court order, and returned to New York.

The Family Court then granted custody to the father (!), with visitation rights to the mother. Recognizing that Saudi Arabia was not a party to the Hague Convention, and that the mother could not enforce her visitation rights there, the court imposed various conditions upon the father intended to ensure that he would allow the mother to visit the children in Saudi Arabia. For violating the prior custody order, the father was sentenced to a suspended term of incarceration conditioned upon his future compliance.

On appeal, the Third Department awarded custody to the mother, stressing the fact that the father had intended to permanently remove the mother from the children’s lives. The Appellate Division found that the Family Court’s efforts to ensure the mother’s access to the children in Saudi Arabia were entirely insufficient, and allowed visitation by the father only in the United States, with the mother having sole custody of the children’s passports. A successful outcome for the mother was obtained only because the father had brought the children to Texas. This case highlights the fact that, all too often, the courts are reluctant to impose strict conditions to prevent parental child abduction until after an abduction has actually taken place.

United States v. Amer

In United States v. Amer, Egyptian parents were living separately in New York without a custody order. The father abducted the children to Egypt. The mother’s efforts to secure their return failed and the father procured an order from an Egyptian court granting him sole custody. He returned to the United States without the children and was arrested for international parental kidnapping. He was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment and a 1-year term of supervised release, with the special condition that he return the children to the United States. The Second Circuit upheld the requirement that the children be returned, since it was closely tailored to the crime and it served to deter others from wrongfully taking their children overseas.

While Muslim countries are generally not parties to the Hague Conven-tion (Turkey being an exception, although it does not fully comply with its treaty obligations), the problem extends also to many other countries. For example, those Asian countries with Confucian-based state family registration systems, such as China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, are not parties to the Hague Convention (except for Hong Kong and Macau), and provide minimal assistance for the return of parentally abducted children.

Japan is a renowned haven for child abduction, particularly if the abducting parent is a Japanese national. See http://www.international-divorce.com/ca-japan.htm. In any custody battle involving a Japanese national, it would be foolhardy not to draft a custody order that precludes visits to Japan considering the possibility that that parent might take the child permanently to Japan. The courts in Japan will not enforce foreign custody orders and will not take any effective steps to return abducted children. See “Japanese Family Law — or The Lack Thereof!,” by Jeremy D. Morley, http://www.international-divorce.com/d-japan.htm. A foreign parent in a Japanese court will have minimal chance of securing anything more than extremely occasional visitation with his or her child in Japan if the other parent is Japanese. (Thus, in a case on which the author is currently working, the American father who lives in Japan has been allowed to see his child only once in 6 months, for only 2 hours, in court and with supervision).

Accordingly, if a Japanese parent threatens to take a child to Japan, or wishes to take a child for a temporary visit there during a time of marital strife, it is highly advisable to seek a court order barring any such visit. While a U.S. court will doubtless be skeptical when faced with such a motion, it is extremely important to educate the court as to the law, procedure, customs and traditions of Japan, all of which support a Japanese parent’s desire to raise a child in Japan to the total exclusion of the other (foreign) parent. Similar admonitions apply with respect to other countries that are not party to the Hague Convention.

Parents who oppose prohibiting the removal of children for temporary overseas visits often assert that such orders are unnecessary, because wrongfully retaining a child in a foreign country is a felony. The International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act (IPKCA), 18 U.S.C. 1204, makes it a federal offense to remove a child from the United States or to retain a child (who has been in the United States) outside the United States with intent to obstruct the exercise of parental rights (custody or visitation). Unfortunately, this law often makes a bad situation worse, since parents who have wrongfully retained children overseas fear that they will be arrested if they return to this country (as happened in U.S. v. Amer, supra). In addition, foreign countries rarely permit extradition for international parental kidnapping, and those countries that are the most likely to do so are countries that are already parties to the Hague Convention.

Preventing Abductions to Non-Compliant Hague Countries

Merely because a country is a party to the Hague Convention does not mean that it will effectively enforce its treaty obligations. For example, the U.S. State Department has asserted that Mexico is “non-compliant” with the terms of the Convention. U.S State Department Report on Compliance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, 2004. Mexico’s noncompliance results from the following problems:

• Mexico has not enacted any legislation to implement the Hague Convention, which has not been integrated into the Mexican legal system.
• The Mexican Central Authority has no law enforcement powers and Mexican law enforcement agencies make no serious efforts to locate parentally abducted children.
• The burden of finding an abducted child in Mexico is left entirely to the left-behind parent. Mexican authorities provide no effective help and if the child cannot be located, nothing happens.
• There is an apparent lack of understanding of the Convention among the judiciary in Mexico.
• The Mexican Central Authority does not have adequate resources to perform its functions under the Convention.
• The “amparo” (a special appeal in Mexico claiming a violation of constitutional rights) is used by taking parents to block Hague proceedings indefinitely.
• Mexican courts are able to reconsider the facts of a Hague at any stage of the proceeding, which allows proceedings to be prolonged substantially.

Accordingly, custody orders concerning parents with strong ties to Mexico must be drafted so as to minimize the risk that the child will be taken to that country. It would be reckless to permit a Mexican parent who has expressed a desire to move to Mexico, and who has strong family or business ties to Mexico, to take a child into that country for a visit, regardless of the conditions that may be imposed to encourage the parent to bring the child back to this country.

The State Department’s 2004 report establishes that similar concerns exist with respect to Austria, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mauritius, Turkey and Romania and, to a somewhat lesser extent, several other countries.

Conclusion

When courts receive applications to prevent children’s temporary visits to their parents’ country of origin, they are tempted to rely on the need to respect other countries’ legal systems and on international comity to preclude them from deciding that the foreign country may not provide sufficient guarantees that the child will be returned. However, if counsel marshal extensive evidence to support the fact that a foreign country will not respect or effectively enforce an American custody order, the courts should be prepared to reach the necessary conclusion and issue an effective remedy. It is far better to prevent children being taken to such countries that do not fully respect their international treaty obligations than to attempt to procure their recovery after the fact.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

Visit our web site at: www.abpworld.com

But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. – 1 Corinthians 6:17

We are one with Him.  What does that even mean?

In order to understand the verse, we need to put it in context.  Some of the Corinthians were using prostitutes, believing that bodily appetites didn’t matters for Christians just as they didn’t matter for everyone else. Paul reminds them that the bodies of Christians are one with the resurrected Christ.

The Bible teaches that when a man and women marry and join together, they become ONE.  They are betrothed to each other and are in unity with each other.  Parts of the wife are the husbands and nobody elses, like wise there are parts of the husband that are the wife and nobody elses.  Paul tells the Corinthians that their bodies aren’t mean for sin, specifically sexual immorality, but Christ.

When we put our trust in Christ for our salvation, we become united with Him.  Just like in Romans 6, we died to sin because Christ is not compatible with sin.  Him and sin just don’t go together.  We gained power defeating sin because we united ourselves with him and became ONE with Him.

Live like you’re united with him and you two are ONE with each other.  Don’t offer your body to sin.  Don’t cheat on Christ.  Love him.

by Jeremy D. Morley

Here are some tips for attorneys and clients faced with instituting or defending child abduction proceedings under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, whether in the United States or internationally.

In a nutshell, a Hague Convention application may be made when a child is taken or retained across an international border, away from his or her habitual residence, without the consent of a parent who has rights of custody, if the two countries are parties to the Convention. The child must be promptly returned to the habitual residence unless the return will create a grave risk of harm to the child.

1. ACT FAST

An attorney must be ready to file a Hague Convention application and institute or defend a Hague Convention lawsuit on extremely short notice.

Prompt action may be critical. The Convention specifically requires that hearings be conducted expeditiously. A Hague case can theoretically be instituted more than a year after the abduction but a defense will then arise that the child has become settled in the new environment and, in practice, the longer a child is in a new place the more likely it is that a court will be reluctant to send the child away.

Fast action by the left-behind parent is also necessary to help prevent a claim that the parent has acquiesced in the child’s relocation.

Clients must move quickly to obtain the documents needed to file the initial application and then to collect the documents needed for the hearing. They should normally be asked to prepare a detailed family history and to assist the attorney to develop evidence as rapidly as possible.

In addition to the Hague application and lawsuit itself, counsel for the left-behind parent should take many other steps.

First, counsel should enlist the support of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues. Second, the left-behind parent should institute civil proceedings. If there is no custody order in place from a court in the jurisdiction of the habitual residence, an application should immediately be made for such an order.

Third, counsel should consider putting the abducting parent on immediate written and formal notice of the dire consequences, civil, criminal and financial, that the abduction will cause to that parent personally, and, possibly to others conspiring with the parent. It may be appropriate to provide an extremely short time for the abducting parent to cure the problem by returning the child.

Fourth, the parent should consider requesting the federal and state prosecutors to institute both federal and state criminal proceedings. The federal crime of international parental kidnapping is a felony with a penalty of up to three years in prison. In addition, many states including New York have provisions that also provide criminal penalties for parental child abduction. It will occasionally be possible to seek extradition based on a federal warrant.

2. PREPARE THE FACTUAL PRESENTATION INTENSELY

Hague Convention cases are often extremely fact-intensive. They frequently hinge on the ability of one party to convince the court of matters such as the habitual residence of a child, the extent to which a parent actually exercised custody rights and whether or not a parent consented to or acquiesced in a new residency. For a court to resolve these matters it must analyze the relevant facts.

A successful Hague proceeding requires the attorney, working closely with the client, to marshal as much evidence as possible, in as many forms as possible, to support the client’s position.

Clients are frequently shocked that matters that to them are obvious and indisputable turn out to be disputed and to require them to produce clear and convincing proof. They may well be insulted that their word alone is insufficient to convince the court that they are truthful and that the other parent is lying.

In one case, the parents had moved permanently with their young child from the mother’s native country to the U.S. Two years later, the mother took the child back to her country for a vacation and then refused to return to the States. In supporting her claim that the child was never habitually resident in the States she claimed that the original move to America had been only temporary and that she and the father had agreed that they would return to the mother’s native country after a year or two. The mother had planned the move well in advance and had amassed — and even created — evidence that tended to support her claims. Additionally, she had removed evidence from the parties’ home that would have disproved her claims.

To win the case, we interviewed neighbors, friends, family members, schoolteachers, real estate salespeople, fellow office workers and an array of other people who had had some connection with the family. We checked into any and all areas of the mother’s life for anything that might indicate her intention to stay in the States. We obtained emails, notes, invoices, and other documents. We searched old household bills for evidence of the purchase of items that inferred a degree of permanency. At the hearing, the mother was shocked that her husband had collected so much written evidence to disprove her claims and undercut her credibility. The courts ultimately — and with great reluctance, since they were going against a local national — found in favor of our client.

Since Hague cases are tried quickly, there is usually only one chance to present the case and it needs to be done well at the very outset. An attorney must embark on a quick campaign of collecting mounds of relevant evidence to support the client’s positions, and must expect the other parent to lie, cheat, and distort the facts in a desperate attempt to avoid losing the case.

Just as a current military strategy is to employ overwhelming force to create shock and awe, so too in a Hague Convention case it is often advisable to use overwhelming amounts of evidence to win the case. Such a campaign in a Hague proceeding may yield a capitulation by the other parent even before the hearing actually commences.

Hague Convention hearings sometimes take the form of “he said, she said” disputes in which each side makes verbal accusations against the other. Documentary evidence is usually far better than the mere word of one parent. Thus, if you want to claim that a parent applied for an immigration visa, you must be prepared to do more than simply have the parent tell the court that this was done. You should do whatever you can to get hold of the actual application papers that the parent signed in applying for the visa, which may mean contacting the lawyer who handled the immigration matter originally.

While it is helpful if documents are supported by sworn statements, it is not essential. Both the Convention and the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (“ICARA”) provide that authentication of documents is not required in a Convention proceeding.

3. PREPARE THE LEGAL ARGUMENT INTENSELY

Hague Convention cases raise unusual international law, foreign law and treaty law questions. They involve the courts in matters of a kind that they are usually not used to handling. In many jurisdictions the court may be entirely unfamiliar with Hague cases. Accordingly it is usually essential for the lawyers to help the court to an unusual extent. Certainly a well-reasoned memorandum of law is essential.

The matters in dispute in most Hague cases raise difficult legal issues that must be thoroughly briefed. Thus, the Convention requires the left-behind parent to establish that the child was taken from the “habitual residence” and that the parent had “rights of custody” under the law of that jurisdiction. However, neither of those fundamental terms is defined in the Convention and substantial jurisprudence has grown domestically and internationally setting forth often-contradictory determinations concerning their scope and meaning. Moreover, courts have held that, while they must determine under international law whether the left-behind parent possesses Hague Convention “custody rights,” they must first examine the law of the child’s habitual residence in order to ascertain the extent of the rights that such parent possesses under that law. In this regard, it is often essential to use foreign law experts to establish the existence and scope of such rights.

A Hague Convention attorney may ” and should ” cite cases not only from the domestic jurisdiction but also from other jurisdictions if they support the client’s position. It has become more usual to cite cases from other jurisdictions in this area of the law than perhaps in any other. Courts around the world recognize that it is best to coordinate their decisions with those of other courts internationally and, for that very reason, the Hague Conference on Private International Law has established a database of significant Hague cases from courts around the world.

4. AVOID BEST INTERESTS ANALYSIS

In representing the left-behind parent in a Hague proceeding, it is necessary to keep the court focused on the narrow issues that the Convention requires an applicant to establish and the narrow defenses that a respondent can assert. Whenever the hearing strays into any areas that might be considered as constituting an analysis of the child’s best interests, the applicant should vehemently object.

However, a party opposing a return should do his or her utmost to assert any and all relevant issues under the rubric of one of the defenses specified in the Convention and should be armed with case law to establish that similar claims were permitted in other cases.

5. BE FLEXIBLE CONCERNING EVIDENCE

In Hague cases evidence rules are usually relaxed, so evidence should be submitted in any possible format. Live testimony is invariably the best and normally everything should be done to get the left-behind parent into the courtroom. (An exception is if that parent would be a poor witness and his or her presence would create an opportunity for embarrassing cross-examination). If a witness cannot be brought to the courthouse, consider testimony by video conferencing or otherwise by telephone conference. As a last resort, submit affidavits.

6. USE AN EXPERIENCED ATTORNEY: IF THAT’S NOT YOU, FIND SOMEONE WHO IS

Hague Convention cases happen too fast, and too much is at stake for the client, for an attorney to learn about this area of law at the last minute. It is extremely important to locate counsel with knowledge and experience in Hague proceedings.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

Visit our web site at: www.abpworld.com

The United States has been fighting in Afghanistan for eight years now and Iraq for six years, a long time no-matter how you look at it.  These wars have cost us a total of $931,788,905,798 according to costofwar.com.  This is an outrageous sum of money.  Iraq, a war we are in because we were lied to about weapons of mass destruction, alone has cost us $700,202,832,872.  I fully support going after the terrorist in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and I fully support our troops, no matter where they are fighting, but the war in Iraq I do not support.  Imagine if we had spent that money on fighting poverty, research for curing and fighting AIDS, cancer, and other terrible diseases.  What if we had invested some of this money into our space program, imagine were we could be.  Or, we could have not spent it at all and not added $700,202,832,872 to our debt.  Possibly if that money had stayed in America we would never of had this recession and massive bailouts along with it.  But enough “what we could have done” and “what we should have done” America has far to much of that already.  The question is, what can we do now?  President Obama is working to pull us out of Iraq, without destabilizing the country our brave men and woman have died for, a good start and the right way to go as long as we are careful.  In Afghanistan he is being hesitant with his decision to add more troops, or not.  I think he should listen to  General McChristal, who better to decide what we need on the ground than the man who controls the troops on the ground, it should not be open for bureaucratic politicians to decide what is best in war.  May President Obama make the right decision.

John Locke

We can locate, negotiate and retreave your children from any country in the world.

We specialize in locating missing children up to ages 18.

Areas of expertise: International parental abduction, Missing children, Kidnappings,
Runaway children and Counselling.

Unfortunately in this day and time parental kidnapping happens and we are here to help you trough this difficult periode.
We are aware parental child abduction can be difficult to resolve, but we use professional operatives with the skills and expertise to help find a resolution.

One key to Abp World Group`s successful recovery and re-unification of your loved one is to use all necessary means available

We understand that your case investigation needs to be tailored to your pacific circumstances and must changing as the mission evolves.

ABP World Group provides Close Protection services, surveillance and investigation worldwide.Our personnel are discrete and professional, with international training and experience.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

Visit our web site at: www.abpworld.com

Would it shock you to learn that it is reasonably estimated that in the United States each year, between 300,000 and 400,000 children are abducted by parents?

Would it surprise you that a large number of these abductions occur during the process of separation, divorce, and/or child custody actions?

It surprised us!

The information comes from:

U.S. Department of Justice. Fact Sheet on Missing Children: National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children.

The figure was estimated at 378,000 in 2003 and rising each year since then.

While there are a variety of reasons that prompt a parent to kidnap their own children and engage in the most serious form of custodial interference, several studies show a common set of themes (a few in a longer list):

1. As many as 2/3 of the abductions were post-custodial offenses.  That means that the abduction occurred after the a court order had been issued dictating the custody of the child(ren).
2. Mothers were more likely to abduct when a custody order existed
3. Fathers were more likely to abduct when no custody order existed.
4. Mothers were more likely to abscond with the children or otherwise deny a father’s visitation or parenting time.
5. Fathers were more likely to use force to take their children or to fail to return them from their visitation or custody period.

These patterns of behavior are indicative of the reality that mothers are overwhelmingly the primary or sole custodial parent.

Prior to 1968, jurisdiction in child custody cases was dependent on a child’s residential within a particular state. This situation often contributed to child abductions by parents who were shopping for states that were more favorable in that regard.  It was easy to run off and simply choose the state that would give you the greatest likelihood of child custody.  It effectively provided incentive to run with the child(ren) and avoid actual kidnapping charges.

The United States has long since enacted several laws including the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) and the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA).

There are preventing measures that you can put in place to limit your exposure to parental kidnapping or, at the very list, aid authorities in finding your children and having them returned to you as quickly as possible.  They would include, in no particular order:

• Keep a journal. Record all factual events, including threats, from your high-conflict ex-partner.  If you truly believe the likelihood of an abduction is high, be sure to record the type and color of clothing (including shoes, hats, gloves, if applicable) in the journal, too.
• Make a list of possible suspects in advance. Include as much vital data as possible: names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, places of employment, license plate numbers, etc.
• Keep photographs of your children current! Once per month would be fantastic, once per quarter would be our absolute minimum suggestion.  Kids’ physical features can change rather quickly, so the greater your frequency, the better.  Additionally, a full description of your child(ren) including physical characteristics, birthmarks, piercings, hair color, eye color, height, weight, and anything else that may be helpful.  You may even consider fingerprinting your children and keeping the card in a safe, safe-deposit box, or other secure place.
• If a threat has been made, call the police! It’s especially helpful if the threat was left on a voice mail, in an email, or some other documented media.  The mere threat may be grounds for legal action and an order of protection.
• Notify babysitters, nanny, daycare facilities, schools. Be careful with this one and we urge you to only do this if you have verifiable evidence of an actual threat.  We are very much against false accusations and you must be aware that a false alligation can have legal consequences for you.  Consult an attorney.  We only recommend this measure if you firmly and truly believe the threat is real and verifiable.  Otherwise, you will serve to unnecessarily concern these people with a danger that isn’t real.  No one should release the children to anyone not authorized by you (the parent) and/or a court order.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

Visit our web site at: www.abpworld.com

As predicted by various speculators, U2 announced its 2010 United States tour dates today, hot on the heels of its live global webcast on YouTube. Having seen this show live on four different dates in three different venues, I can testify that, despite whatever detractors might say, the webcast worked on multiple levels to extend the communal stadium experience worldwide to create an instantaneous global connection and cohesion.

For many fans who have already seen the tour,  yesterday’s webcast and today’s announcement only further excited and enticed, prompting us to begin making summer travel arrangements to coincide with the next legs of the tour. –Andrew William Smith, Editor

U2 360 TOUR 2010

Presented by BlackBerry

NORTH AMERICAN ITINERARY

6-June        Anaheim, CA         Angel Stadium            On sale soon

12-June       Denver, CO          Invesco Field            On sale Nov. 6

16-June       Oakland, CA         Oakland-Alameda          On sale Nov. 2

County Coliseum

20-June       Seattle, WA         Qwest Field              On sale soon

23-June       Edmonton, AB        Commonwealth Stadium     On sale Nov. 2

30-June       East Lansing, MI    Spartan Stadium          On sale soon

03-July       Toronto, ON         Rogers Centre            On sale Nov. 2

06-July       Chicago, IL         Solider Field            On sale soon

09-July       Miami, FL           Land Shark Stadium       On sale soon

12-July       Philadelphia        Lincoln Financial Field  On sale soon

16-July       Montreal, QC        Venue to be announced    On sale soon

19-July       New York            New Meadowlands Stadium  On sale soon

EUROPEAN TOUR ITINERARY

10-August     Frankfurt, Germany  Commerzbank-Arena        On sale now

12-August     Hannover, Germany   AWD Arena                On sale now

15-August     Horsens, Denmark    Casa Arena               SOLD OUT

16-August     Horsens, Denmark    Casa Arena               SOLD OUT

20-August     Helsinki, Finland   Olympiastadion           SOLD OUT

21-August     Helsinki, Finland   Olympiastadion           SOLD OUT

25-August     Moscow, Russia      Luzhniki                 On sale soon

30-August     Vienna, Austria     Ernst Happel Stadium     SOLD OUT

03-September  Athens, Greece      Olympic Stadium          On sale Nov. 2

06-September  Istanbul, Turkey    Ataturk Olympic Stadium  On sale Nov. 2

15-September  Munich, Germany     Olympiastadion           On sale now

18-September  Paris, France       Stade de France          SOLD OUT

22-September  Brussels, Belgium   Stade Roi Baudouin       SOLD OUT

23-September  Brussels, Belgium   Stade Roi Baudouin       SOLD OUT

29-September  Seville, Spain      Estadio Olimpico         On sale now

De La Cartuja

02-October    Coimbra, Portugal   Estadio Cidade Coimbra   SOLD OUT

03-October    Coimbra Portugal    Estadio Cidade Coimbra   SOLD OUT

Additional dates and cities to be confirmed. Itinerary subject to change.

For complete tour and ticket information, fan club memberships, merchandise

and more, visit: www.mp3vita.net

New data reveals a stark rise in child kidnapping by estranged parents

By Helen Pidd,guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 August 2009

Almost 500 children were abducted from the UK and taken abroad illegally last year, according to figures released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

There were 336 cases of child abduction reported to authorities in the UK in 2008, an increase of 20% on 2005 figures. These cases involved an estimated 470 children last year. More children were taken illegally to Pakistan than any other country (30 cases in 2008), followed by the USA (23), Ireland (22) and Spain (21). Other abduction hotspots included Australia, France and Egypt.

Abductions usually occur when marriages break down between couples of different nationalities, and the parent who is not awarded custody kidnaps their children. Now is peak abduction season, as children are taken abroad during the school summer holidays and not returned.

Usually, the cases aren’t publicised as they are dealt with in the family courts where reporting restrictions apply to any cases involving the welfare of minors. But they are becoming increasingly common – when the Guardian spent a day in a family court in London recently, eight out of 14 cases heard involved child abduction.

The government has little power to intervene in around 40% of all abduction cases, as they involve children being taken to countries not signed up to the Hague convention, an international treaty which obliges nations to promptly return children wrongfully retained in their jurisdiction. Experts say it is often almost impossible for mothers to get back children taken by their fathers to Islamic countries with sharia law, such as Saudi Arabia, which prioritise male parental rights.

But recently Gordon Brown and the new health secretary, Andy Burnham, have personally intervened in the case of Nadia Fawzi, then a four-year-old British girl taken from Wigan to Libya by her Libyan father.

A month ago, Burnham, the girl’s MP, flew to Tripoli for meetings with the Libyan justice ministry and police force about the case, and Gordon Brown asked the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, to help return the girl to the UK when the two met for the first time at the G8 summit in Italy.

Nadia was picked up from her home in Wigan by her father, who said they were going to a party. But instead, he drove to Manchester airport, where he was captured on CCTV buying plane tickets to Libya. Nadia hasn’t been home since.

Her British mother, Sarah Taylor, saw her daughter on a few occasions in the months after her abduction, but has had no contact with her since Christmas 2007.

Taylor has spent the last two years doing everything in her power to be reunited with her now six-year-old daughter. Libya is a notoriously difficult country to negotiate with on such matters – it has not signed up to the Hague convention, and so the UK government is limited in the support it can offer.

In November 2007, Taylor took a drastic step. She sold her house, gave up her job and moved to Libya to fight through the local courts for the custody she had already been awarded in the UK courts after her marriage to Nadia’s father broke down.

After a long and difficult battle in the labyrinthine sharia legal system, Taylor won full custody of Nadia in 2008. But her ex-husband refused to comply with the court order, and despite quiet but firm interventions from the Foreign Office and assorted other agencies in the UK and Tripoli, he still has the little girl in his care. Or at least Taylor believes he does – no one is entirely sure where in the Libyan capital father and daughter are currently living.

Burnham told the Guardian he is hopeful that mother and daughter will soon be reunited.

He said: “This awful injustice and crime has now been raised at the highest level and we now expect swift action. This is a story about a young girl taken illegally off the streets of my constituency and I will go to any lengths to right that wrong.”

In 2008, 134 out of the 336 cases of child abduction involved children taken to non-Hague countries, including Bangladesh, Russia, Iraq and Nigeria. These cases are dealt with by the Foreign Office, while Hague cases go through the Ministry of Justice in England and Wales, and the Scottish and Northern Irish court services.

Scotland dealt with nine cases last year involving 12 children. In Northern Ireland last year there were 12 reported instances, involving 20 children taken to the Republic of Ireland, the USA, Israel, Germany, Finland, Poland and France.

The increase in cases is an “inevitable consequence of greater migration”, according to Andy Elvin, chief executive of the charity International Social Services, which helps parents secure the return of their children. “Child abduction is a growing trend as we have an increasing number of families where at least one parent is originally from overseas,” he said.

Denise Carter, director of Reunite, a UK charity specialising in international parental child abduction, said: “The increase in international travel and more and more people travelling on short-term contracts and changing their habitual residence also has an effect.”

Figures from Reunite show that since 1995, the number of children abducted from Britain and taken to another country has risen by 93%.

The government’s figures clearly show the effect of EU enlargement. For example, until Latvia joined the EU in 2004, there had been no reported cases of children being abducted there from the UK in the previous four years. But in 2005, three cases were reported, and there has been at least one new instance every year since.

Similarly, while there were no reported abductions to Poland in 2003, the year before the country’s EU entry, there were 10 in 2006 and 2008. “We expect to see more and more cases from countries like Poland as the years go on and more couples marry, have children and get divorced,” said Elvin.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “When there is no international mechanism in place, usually the left-behind parent’s only option [other than trying to come to an agreement with the other parent] is to file a case in the courts of the country where their child has been taken. However, pursuing such a case will often be expensive and there is no guarantee the courts will decide that the child should be returned to the UK.”

Summer is peak abduction season as children are taken abroad during school holidays and not returned.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

Visit our web site at: www.abpworld.com

The 67 heads of state, criminals, financiers and philanthropists who really run the world.

Forbes— In its inaugural list of the world’s most powerful people, Forbes has the News Corp. chief at No. 7, ahead of such luminaries as the king of Saudi Arabia (No. 9), Pope Benedict XVI (No. 11) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (No. 17),
Topping the list is President Obama, followed by China president Jintao Hu, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, is No. 10. Murdoch is the only pure media mogul to crack the top 10, though Brin and Page certainly dabble in media, as does No. 6 on the list Carlos Slim Helu, the Telmex CEO who recently purchased a 6.4% stake in the New York Times.

Other media bigwigs on the Forbes list of the 67 most powerful people include No. 13 Jeff Immelt, the CEO and chairman of NBC Universal parent GE.

Prime Minister of Italy and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi is No. 12, while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of the business news service that bears his name, is No. 20.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is No. 45, New York Times editor William Keller is No. 51, Al Jazeera director-general Khanfar Wadah is No. 54, Apple founder and Disney director Steve Jobs is No. 57 and BBC director-general Mark Thompson is No. 65.

Forbes held its list to 67 “based on the conceit that one can reduce the world’s 6.7 billion people to the one in every 100 million that matter.”

Its criteria consisted of: the number of people one influences; one’s ability to project power beyond one’s immediate sphere of influence; control of or access to significant financial resources; and how actively one wields power.

The list even includes a few of the more notorious drug traffickers, terrorists and other assorted outlaws. Osama bin Laden, for example, is No. 37.


View the entire list @

Thought by many to be lost to the sands of time, archaeologists recently unearthed the body of the first president of the United States, George Washington. For hundreds of years, the disappearance and presumed death of the first president was shrouded in mystery, but now it appears that many shocking details are finally coming to light. Groundbreaking as this discovery is, it appears that for the scientific community, there are now more questions than answers.

Professor Keith Buhrningman, head of the American History department at Stanford University, has openly stated that he “will never think of ol’ Georgie boy the same again.” When pressed for actual details, prof. Buhrningman declined to comment further. However, a factual rumour overheard in the lab stated that the famous legend of the late president’s wooden teeth was grossly understated and perhaps even downplayed.
Doctor Thomas Wūdstock, Harvard drop-out, is soon to release a book, The Six Hundred Dollar Man, detailing the scientific community’s findings.
“I can’t give too much away, but I will say that from our early observations, it appears that his teeth weren’t the only wooden part of George Washington. Over two-thirds of Washington’s body was replaced with rich, polished wood! And not just bones; a few major organs were replaced with extremely intricate wooden cogs and machinery. Buy my book.”
When asked which organs were replaced, and what powered the wooden machinery, Wūdstock replied,”It’s easy to get swept up in all this “wooden man” hooplah, but people are forgetting the most important mystery of all: what kind of wood it is. My money is on mahogany. Keith and most other scientists have bet on oak, so if I’m right, more winnings for me! Oh, also, his body was riddled with bullet holes, which is important to historians, but not important to scientists. Buy my book.”

Secret reports passed between scientists contain Da Vinci-esque diagrams of what can only be described as a half-human, half-wooden cyborg.
This new information has sparked endless speculation, not only in the scientific community, but also in popular online chat communities or “chatmunities”.

Self-named “Doc” “Reginald” “McSteamery” runs the website Steampunkjunkie.com, where chat topics have ranged from the light-hearted “Washington costume ideas!” to the cryptic “Ye olde conspiracie? WTF?!”
Doc McSteamery states, “This is so totally awesome! Did you see the gears and machinery? Made of REAL WOOD?! God, that’s just so… I mean the craftsmanship… wow! If they find out he has brass parts too or was steam-powered, I’ll die. I’ll literally die. This is truly another great first for America; we’re the greatest great in the entire great!”

The implications this information has for America’s- and even maybe the world’s- history, is staggering. A wooden cyborg as first president might possibly mean taking a second glance at the rules regarding presidential elections and appointments. If this seems sure to raise political controversy, it won’t be the first time; this presidential secret stirred the controversy kettle, even in Washington’s time.

Alongside Washington’s body was found a partially-burned confession letter. In it, Aaron Burr writes that “two hired goons” coerced him into “murdering [his] only friend, Alexander Hamilton.” The letter then states the two goons, “Franklin and Adams”, told Burr that “Hamilton knew too much for his own big mouth” and that Burr “had to shut him up real bullet-like.” The confession goes on to say that Washington was intending to silence Hamilton himself, but that he ultimately “didn’t want to get his greasy wooden mitts dirty” in connection with the murder. It’s certainly difficult to envision America’s first president as a wooden cyborg president, but a wooden cyborg assassin president sounds even more fantastical. Is there any proof of George Washington as a killer, aside from the well-documented accounts of his battles?
A third item was found in Washington’s hidden tomb: A wooden gun held in his human right hand, next to several wooden bullets. The gun appears to have fit neatly inside the president’s hollow right thigh, which was entirely wooden, velvet-lined, and opened up specifically for gun-storage. The last item in the casket, a wooden pepper mill labeled “Whompin’ Washington’s pepper spray” was found resting in a holster in Washington’s leather belt. The gun and pepper spray combination has led top police experts to believe Washington may have served as a kind of judge, jury, and executionary robotic law enforcer.
“No doubt about it, Washington ran this country with a wooden fist,” says New York Chief of Police Randy Fish. Fish is not pleased with Buhrningman, Wūdstock or any of the other music festivals scientists.
“At first I thought those scientists were doing good work, but any first-year cop can tell you that only most of the holes in Washington’s body are bullet holes; the rest of ‘em are termites holes. From the angle of the bullet entry wounds, my forensics department has concluded that Washington was such a badass, he actually shot the termites out of himself from time to time.”

But what of the larger picture? Does this evidence of primitive technology mean there may now be cyborgs living among us constructed of stone, or bronze or even iron? Only time will tell. Until then, one thing is certain: we “soft-skins” can only hope they’re as wonderful and patriotic as our beloved wooden cyborg assassin president, who could apparently tell a lie.

From paskids.com

This is the definition of PAS as described by R.A. Gardner who discovered the syndrome and has become an expert in dealing with the issue.

Gardner’s definition of PAS is:

“The parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the target parent.”

(Excerpted from: Gardner, R.A. (1998). The Parental Alienation Syndrome, Second Edition, Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.)

Basically, this means that through verbal and non verbal thoughts, actions and mannerisms, a child is emotionally abused (brainwashed) into thinking the other parent is the enemy. This ranges from bad mouthing the other parent infront of the children, to withholding visits, to pre-arranging the activities for the children while visiting with the other parent.

Read more about it at www.paskids.com

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

An Article from:

http://www.findsabrina.org/index.html

Parental child abduction victimizes more than 354,000 U.S. families each year. This crime is widely misunderstood by those not directly affected by the crime, including some law enforcement and government officials, who are under the misconception that children are inherently safe when they are with an abducting parent. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Dr. Dorothy Huntington, an early leader in parental child abduction issues, best describes what parental child abduction fully encompasses, in her 1982 article entitled, Parental Kidnapping: A New Form of Child Abuse. She states, “Child stealing is child abuse…..Children are used as both objects and weapons in the struggle between the parents which leads to the brutalization of the children psychologically, specifically destroying their sense of trust in the world around them…..We must re-conceptualize child stealing as child abuse of the most flagrant sort.” (Huntington, 1982, p. 7)

Parental Child Abduction often scars children and their left behind families for life. In addition to psychological trauma, children often suffer from inadequate schooling, poor nutrition, unstable lifestyles, and neglect. The abducting parent poisons the child against the left-behind parent until the abducted children believe the left-behind parent is either dead or will harm them if found.

Parental Child Abduction is not an act done out of love for the child. The primary goal of the parental child abductor is to get even with the other parent. The abductor victimizes the left-behind family by depriving them of visitation or custodial rights and in the process psychologically torturing them with worry and grief. Statistically, half of parental child abductors have criminal records and most have a history of violent behavior, substance abuse or emotional disturbance. Gender doesn’t matter. Both fathers and mothers abduct equally and 15% of the time the abduction is with force or violence. Half of family abductions occur before the relationship between parents end while half occur 2 or more years after divorce or separation, usually after parents develop new households, new relationships, move away or are frustrated with the legal system. Once abducted, the children are at the mercy of the abducting parent, who, in hiding, avoids scrutiny by police, doctors, counselors, and child protective services.

The victimization that children suffer when taken by a parent is no less than that of children taken by a stranger, yet the response of society varies considerably. It is this variance that lessens the chance of aggressive investigation by law enforcement or from the public intervening. The left behind families are left in a constant state of emotional turmoil, never knowing if their children are safe, where they are, or whether they’ll ever see them again.

Even if a family is lucky enough to find their children, life is never the same again. Families must start over, attend counseling (sometimes for years and years) and in many states must face allowing the children to have visitation with the abductor again and the possibility of re-abduction.

Education, awareness and stronger penalties for parental child abductors are key in the fight to keep children safe and deter would be parental abductors. Unfortunately, the process has been slow across the 50 United States. Some states do not even recognize parental child abduction as a crime while others treat it with the severity it deserves. Until the justice systems in all 50 states uniformly handles the issue with severe punishment, the lives of innocent children will continue to be destroyed in mounting numbers.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

The goal of Abp World Group international child recovery services is to locate, negotiate and recover your missing child.
We can dispatch personnel to most locations in the world; we specialize in locating missing children up to ages 18.

Areas of expertise: Parental abduction, Missing children, Kidnappings,
Runaway children and Counselling.

Unfortunately in this day and time parental kidnapping happens and we are here to help you trough this difficult period.
We are aware parental child abduction can be difficult to resolve, but we use professional operatives with the skills and expertise to help find a resolution.

One key to Abp World Group`s successful recovery and re-unification of your loved one is to use all necessary means available including:

Intelligence Gathering
Information Specialists/Skip Tracing
Evidence Procurement
Interview/Evaluation
Surveillance Special Ops
Non-Combatant Evacuation Ops
Domestic Support
International Operations
Maritime/Land/Air transport

- We collaborate with The Missing Children Network in Sweden, Bortfort.no and ERG in Norway and many other org.

We understand that your case investigation needs to be tailored to your pacific circumstances and must be changing as the mission evolves.

ABP World Group is a complete Security service.
Our experience and training gives our organization the capability to operate and assist our clients whenever and wherever they need us. We are able to assist our clients anywhere in the world within 24 hours.

Child abduction occurs when a child is removed from a country unlawfully, i.e. in contravention of the parental responsibility/custody rights of one of the parents. The term also covers cases where a child is retained abroad following a holiday or access visit.

Ministry of Justice and the Police

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

ABP World Group Ltd. International Child Recovery Services

The Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is a multilateral treaty, which seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of abduction and retention across international boundaries by providing a procedure to bring about their prompt return. The “Child Abduction Section” provides information about the operation of the Convention and the work of the Hague Conference in monitoring its implementation and promoting international co-operation in the area of child abduction.

Read more about the Hague convention here: The Hague Convention

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Services

Whenever the evening news brings the story of a kidnapped child or teen, the terrifying prospect of abduction fills the minds of parents across the country. But it’s important to remember that most kids pass through childhood safely.

Read more about it at www.Kidshealth.org

Published by:ABP World Group International Child Recovery Services