Great Happiness

Not long ago I answered a telephone call
From an old friend I'd not heard from for a long time.
'Hi,' he said.
'I just wanted to see how you're getting along.'

For whatever reason,
Our paths had simply not crossed for a long, long, time.
It was good to talk with him.
I wondered why we hadn't kept in touch better.
Toward the end of the conversation, he said,
'If you need me in any way,
I'll be happy to help out.' And he meant it!

That call came at just the right time, as they so often do.
I needed those words of encouragement.
I hung up the phone feeling
A satisfying lump of warmth in my chest.

And that day I re-learned something important about life:
Life is primarily about people,
Not plans and schedules,
Not to-do lists and a million tasks left undone -
it's about PEOPLE!!
To love and to know that we are loved
Is the greatest happiness of existence.
And happiness seems to be something
That is in short supply for too many of us!

My friend reminded me that it is never enough
Just to love; we must also express it.
What good are our affectionate feelings
Toward others if we don't find ways to let them know?

George William Childs put it like this:
'Do not keep the alabaster box of your love
And friendship sealed up until
Your friends are dead.
Fill their lives with sweetness.
Speak approving, cheering words
While their ears can hear them and
While their hearts can be thrilled and made happier.
 The kind things you mean to say
When they are gone, say before they go.'

Begin the day with Gratitude

A day that begins with gratitude is a day that

 you'll be able to fill with positive progress.

 When you're sincerely appreciative of where you are and what you have,

 you'll greatly expand your own possibilities.
Begin with a thankful thought.

 

 And connect yourself with the abundance that is all around you.
There is always something for which you can be sincerely thankful.

 And the simple act of being thankful ignites a productive momentum

 in your world.
By focusing your thoughts on the positive aspects of your life,

you cause their influence to grow. Be grateful, and your gratitude

 happily creates even more things in your life for which you can be grateful.

The appreciation for what you have gives more value to all that you are.

 The blessings you enjoy are blessings precisely because you see them as such.
Tap into the great reservoir of real value that is already available to you.

 Live with gratitude, and you'll create even more reasons to be thankful.

IF YOU WISH

If you wish to be respected, then be ever respectful.
If you wish to be understood, then sincerely understand others.
If you wish to be appreciated, then be ever grateful.
If you wish to be loved, then give love in each moment.

If you wish to be wealthy, then act to create real value.
If you wish to learn, then take time to teach.
If you wish to climb higher, then life others up.
If you wish to be wise, then share what you know.

Whatever you wish, life will surely give it.
What you must do, though, is to truly live it.

There is so much to live for and so much to see.

You will have whatever you are willing to be.

China Pledges to Work With U.S. on Iran Sanctions

By DAVID E. SANGER and MARK LANDLER

Published: April 12, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama secured a promise from President Hu Jintao of China on Monday to join negotiations on a new package of sanctions against Iran, administration officials said, but Mr. Hu made no specific commitment to backing measures that the United States considers severe enough to force a change in direction in Iran’s nuclear program.

In a 90-minute conversation here before the opening of a summit meeting on nuclear security, Mr. Obama sought to win more cooperation from China by directly addressing one of the main issues behind Beijing’s reluctance to confront Iran: its concern that Iran could retaliate by cutting off oil shipments to China. The Chinese import nearly 12 percent of their oil from Iran.
Mr. Obama assured Mr. Hu that he was “sensitive to China’s energy needs” and would work to make sure that Beijing had a steady supply of oil if Iran cut China off in retaliation for joining in severe sanctions.
American officials portrayed the Chinese response as the most encouraging sign yet that Beijing would support an international effort to ratchet up the pressure on Iran and as a sign of “international unity” on stopping Iran’s nuclear program before the country can develop a working nuclear weapon.
Still, the session had distinct echoes of former President George W. Bush’s three efforts to corral Chinese support for United Nations Security Council penalties intended to make it prohibitively expensive for Iranian leaders to enrich uranium and to refuse to answer the questions posed by international nuclear inspectors.
In those cases, former American officials said, the Chinese agreed to go along with efforts to address Iran’s nuclear ambitions but then used Security Council negotiating sessions to water down the resolutions that ultimately passed.
Mr. Obama also used his meeting with Mr. Hu, the fourth face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the world’s largest economy and its biggest lender, to keep up the pressure on Beijing to let market forces push up the value of China’s currency. That is a critical political task for Mr. Obama, because the fixed exchange rate has kept Chinese goods artificially cheap and, in the eyes of many experts, handicapped American exports and cost tens of thousands of American jobs.
In anticipation of Monday’s meeting, Chinese officials told Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner last week that they were about to resume a controlled loosening of their exchange rate, which would increase the relative costs of Chinese exports.
Mr. Obama’s senior Asia adviser, Jeffrey A. Bader, told reporters after the meeting on Monday that Mr. Obama told Mr. Hu that a market oriented exchange rate would be “an essential contribution” to a “sustained and balanced economic recovery.”
The session with Mr. Hu came just before the opening of the first summit meeting devoted to the challenges of keeping nuclear weapons and material out of the hands of terrorists. At a dinner Monday evening in the cavernous Washington Convention Center, Mr. Obama led a discussion of the nature of the threat and the vulnerability of tons of nuclear material that could be fashioned into a weapon.
Earlier in the day, John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, offered a sampling of Mr. Obama’s argument when he told reporters that the United States had continuing evidence of Al Qaeda’s interest in obtaining highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the only materials from which a nuclear weapon can be made, and that it would be used “to threaten our security and world order in an unprecedented manner.”
But he cited no incidents beyond the now-famous campfire conversations that Osama bin Laden held in August 2001 with two Pakistanis who had deep ties to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons laboratories. While Al Qaeda has tried repeated purchases, Mr. Brennan said, “fortunately, I think they’ve been scammed a number of times, but we know that they continued to pursue that. We know of individuals within the organization that have been given that responsibility.”
The main focus of Mr. Obama’s meeting is to obtain commitments from each of the 47 countries attending to lock up or eliminate nuclear material.
One such agreement was announced Monday with Ukraine which, after the fall of the Soviet Union, was, because of its remainder stockpiles of nuclear missiles and bombs, briefly the world’s third-largest nuclear power. It gave up the arsenal, but for the past 10 years had resisted surrendering its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, held at research reactors and another nuclear center.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit group that studies proliferation, has estimated Ukraine’s stockpile at 163 kilograms, or roughly enough for seven weapons.
According to a senior administration official, under the deal announced Monday the United States will pay to secure the highly enriched uranium, which will likely be sent to Russia for conversion into low-enriched uranium for nuclear power plants. As part of the deal, the United States will also help supply Ukraine with new low-enriched fuel and a new research facility.
But over all, it was Iran that dominated the day, because the administration has a goal of putting sanctions in place this spring, Mr. Obama said in an interview with The New York Times last week.
On Monday, Mr. Obama laid out the details of the sanctions package for Mr. Hu, according to a senior White House official familiar with the discussion. These are likely to include additional measures to deny Iran access to international credit, choke off foreign investment in Iran’s energy sector and punish companies owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which controls swaths of Iran’s economy, as well as its nuclear program.
The administration is betting that a large segment of Iranian society detests the Revolutionary Guards for its role in suppressing the protests that followed elections last June, and may welcome properly targeted sanctions.
“Until two weeks ago, the Chinese would not discuss a sanctions resolution at all,” the official said. But the Obama administration, in hopes of winning over Beijing, has sought support from other oil producers to reassure China of its oil supply. Last year, it dispatched a senior White House adviser on Iran, Dennis B. Ross, to Saudi Arabia to seek a guarantee that it would help supply China’s needs, in the event of an Iranian cutoff.
“We’ll look for ways to make sure that if there are sanctions, they won’t be negatively affected,” said the senior official.
There was little evidence in the meeting of the succession of spats that have soured Chinese-American relations over the last several months, American officials said. While Mr. Hu raised Chinese complaints about American weapons sales to Taiwan, an official said, he did so fleetingly. And he did not mention Mr. Obama’s decision to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Opposition Appears to Gain in Thai Crisis

By THOMAS FULLER

Published: April 12, 2010

BANGKOK — The battle of wills between the Thai government and tens of thousands of protesters barricaded in the streets of Bangkok appeared to turn in favor of the protesters on Monday, when the country’s army chief shunned a military solution to the crisis and the prime minister’s party suddenly and unexpectedly faced the prospect of dissolution.

Two days after repulsing a blood-soaked military crackdown, the protesters cheered jubilantly at the announcement that Thailand’s Election Commission had recommended that the party of the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, be disbanded on charges of receiving an illegal donation.
“This government’s time in power is nearly over,” Veera Musikapong, a protest leader, said to throngs of protesters in the commercial heart of the city. Mr. Veera and other opposition figures said they would maintain their demonstrations to press Mr. Abhisit to resign.
The announcement by the Election Commission came hours after the head of the army, Gen. Anupong Paochinda, appeared to rule out further military action to remove protesters, saying, “The situation requires that the problem be solved by politics.”
General Anupong also described the dissolution of Parliament, the main goal of the protesters, as “a reasonable step.” The general’s comments were a stinging blow to Mr. Abhisit, who is portrayed by protesters as a puppet of Thailand’s elite and who came to power 16 months ago as part of a coalition brokered in part by the military.
For the past month, Mr. Abhisit’s besieged government has operated from a military base on the outskirts of Bangkok, the capital, as protesters, many of them farmers from the provinces, expanded their street protests.
Mr. Abhisit has appeared increasingly isolated following the failure of the military to dislodge protesters on Saturday after running battles that killed 21 people and made parts of Bangkok resemble a war zone. Former supporters of the government accused Mr. Abhisit of being powerless while the opposition decried the deaths.
Protesters have put important portions of Thailand’s capital beyond the government’s control. Armed with sticks and poles, red-shirted protesters have erected checkpoints at major intersections, blocking the police and the military. Although not quite anarchy, the protests have created a vacuum of law and order.
Even outside the two large protest sites, some police officers say they have stopped issuing traffic tickets, despite an increase in the number of motorists running red lights, driving down the wrong side of the road and parking where they wish.
“If I can stop them, I will. But if it puts us in danger, we will let them be,” said Lt. Col. Dejapiwat Dejsiri, a senior police official at a precinct in the wealthy Sukhumvit area of Bangkok. “It’s like there is no law anymore.”
The Election Commission’s announcement on Monday may tip the scales toward the opposition movement, but it is unlikely to resolve the country’s underlying political crisis.
The commission’s recommendation will be forwarded to the attorney general and ultimately to the country’s Constitutional Court. If found guilty, Mr. Abhisit’s Democrat Party, the country’s oldest, could be dissolved and its leaders, including Mr. Abhisit, could be barred from politics for five years.
The Democrat Party would be the third political party in three years to be dissolved.
“The system of political parties is on very shaky ground,” said Gothom Arya, a former election commissioner. “There is no stability.” Mr. Gothom, among others, has called for revision of the law that holds an entire party accountable for electoral offenses.
The two parties disbanded earlier were affiliated with Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister removed in the 2006 military coup. Mr. Thaksin is a hero and inspiration for many in the current antigovernment protest movement, but is despised by some members of the elite who see him as corrupt.
The stalemate between protesters, known as the Red Shirts, and the government is a reflection of deep divisions in Thai society that revolve around issues of income inequality and the power of unelected institutions like the powerful bureaucracy, the military and the royal entourage.
These tensions have existed for years, but one major stabilizing force in Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has often been able to bridge divisions in the country. Many Thais are hoping that King Bhumibol, who is 82 and ailing, will intervene to resolve the stalemate.
Thai television carried remarks Monday by Sumet Tantivejkul, the secretary general of a charitable foundation, who has worked with the king on many projects.
“His Majesty the King has always warned, ‘Don’t demolish the house,’ ” Mr. Sumet said. “The house is now close to collapse. We have to protect the country.”
Signs of the protesters’ continued impunity were amply evident Monday. The Thai news media reported that one group of Red Shirts abducted the head of CAT Telecom, the state-owned telecommunications company. Several hundred protesters “guarded” a government satellite station, Thai news outlets also said.
Both actions were meant to prevent the army from carrying out orders to take an opposition-run television station off the air.
On the eve of the traditional Thai New Year, large convoys of Red Shirts paraded coffins through Bangkok symbolizing the protesters killed on Saturday, to illustrate what they said was the brutality of the government.
Law enforcement in Thailand has always been patchy, and the freewheeling nature of Thai society has often been seen as an attribute of the country’s economic dynamism. But the lawlessness of protests has frightened foreign investors and raised questions about the stability of the country.