~there is quite a bit of concern when reading comments about this story, I’ll leave it at that…missions seem to always coincide with political agenda, the danger we put our brave, young men in, and the cost factor when looking at our destroyed country~
Jan. 25, 2012
Navy SEALs succeed in saving Jessica Buchanan, 32, from Somali pirates.
Jessica Buchanan, the woman rescued from Somalia bandits by U.S. special forces, is so dedicated to helping others that she sold all of her belongings to become a missionary in Somalia.
Buchanan, 32, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. She graduated from Valley Forge University, a Christian college in Phoenixville, Pa., in 2007. She was a student teacher in Africa before graduating and her romance with the continent began.
“She fell in love with Africa,” Rev. Don Meyer, dean of Valley Forge University told the Associated Press. “She could hardly talk about Africa without tears in her eyes.”
Her home church, the York Cavalry Temple Assembly of God, put out a message during her captivity that combined her devotion and determination.
“Please pray for Jessica and her family. She is a former student at Valley Forge Christian college and she sold all she owned to become a missionary in Somalia. Pray for her safe keeping and safe return,” the church said.
Buchanan’s family also appears to be deeply devoted to their religion. In a statement of gratitude today to the SEALs, the State Department and President Obama, they said, “We knew that God would set our sister free.”
Madeline Mathe, Buchanan’s sister’s mother-in-law, told ABC affiliate WSYR Buchanan is “a wonderful Christian girl.”
Others attested to Buchanan’s grit.
“She’s up for a challenge, and it didn’t surprise me that she would do something like this,” John Hravatic, who worked as a teacher with Buchanan at the Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi, Kenya, told ABC News. He called Buchanan “adventurous” and vivacious.”
Jessica Buchanan Is a Missionary Who Loves Africa
Buchanan started as a student teacher at Nairobi’s Rosslyn Academy in 2007 because of “God’s call on her life to teach overseas,” according to her biography on the school’s web site. She student taught first and sixth graders before being hired as a fourth grade teacher in 2008.
“She was an awesome teacher. Kids loved her,” Hravatic said. “[The] kids are excited she is free.”
Buchanan left the school in 2009. She moved to Hargeisa, Somalia with her Swedish husband, Erik Landemalm, who she met in Africa.
Landemalm did aid work for the Association of European Parliamentarians With Africa and served as a Project Officer in the group’s Somalia office, according to its annual report.
Buchanan, 32, was kidnapped on Oct. 25, 2011, along with her Danish co-worker Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, in Galkayo, Somalia. The two worked together for the Danish Demining Group, a division of the Danish Regugee Council, Buchanan served as a regional education adviser, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Over the three months of her captivity, concern grew about Buchanan’s deteriorating health, which was described as possibly “life-threatening” and a “window of opportunity for mission success” presented itself, according to Pentagon spokesperson George Little.
Meyer told ABC News he heard something was wrong with Buchanan’s liver, but that she seems to be in good health now.
The two were rescued today by the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6, the same covert group that successfully carried out the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.
Buchanan is doing “as well as you would expect given what she has gone through,” a military official told ABC News.
Buchanan is currently at U.S. Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.
According to her family, she will be reunited with her father in Italy.
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, Luis Martinez, and Erin McLaughlin contributed to this report http://abcnews.go.com/International/jessica-buchanan-missionary-loves-africa/story?id=15439390
Image via Wikipedia
EU DATA PROTECTION OVERHAUL TO IMPOSE NEW BURDENS ON BANKS
Financial services firms and credit card processors will be obliged to report incidents of lost or stolen data within 24 hours of a breach, according to new EU rules set to be introduced Wednesday.
Full story: http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=23347
EUROPEAN EXCHANGES AND VENDORS DEVELOP POST-TRADE STANDARDS
A consortium of exchanges and technology suppliers have developed a set of common standards designed to restore post-trade transparency in the European equity markets.
Full story: http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=23348
COMMERZBANK AND CAPCO BID TO MODEL IT COMPLEXITY
Commerzbank has embarked on a project with consultancy Capco to develop an ‘IT complexity model’ that can be used by CIOs to measure and then master their organisation’s technology.
Full story: http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=23346
MASTERCARD MOBILE APP LETS AUSSIE MOVIE-GOERS ORDER FOOD FROM THEIR SEAT
MasterCard has teamed up with Commonwealth Bank and cinema group Hoyts to pilot a mobile payments application that lets movie-goers order food and drinks directly from their seats.
Full story: http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=23345
Image by ~C4Chaos via Flickr
~it was a bit of a weird week, because a number of the stories which garnered the most press & posting fell out of the purview of what i’d normally cover; namely the saber rattling with iran, the internet protest against the “stop online piracy act”(SOPA), and election year politics, & most specifically the tax situation of mitt romney, who admitted that only he paid around 15% taxes on proceeds from his vulture capital ventures, which precipitated a feeding frenzy in the left econ blogosphere as dozens of posts were produced showing how the wealthiest americans only paid a maximum of 15% tax on capital gains (paul krugman mustve had a half dozen posts on it all by himself), or less tax than those making $34,000; sadly, its all been said before, several times, in several contexts, ie, by warren buffett, who noted that his secretary was taxed at a higher rate, and by others in regards to the top 25 hedge fund earners who garnered $22.07 billion in 2010, and by virtue of the special treatment of their earnings, paid taxes at a lower rate than the typical middle class household…anyhow, all of this rehashing did bring back an old graph of interest, which is included here to the right, showing effective tax rates for certain ranges of income, from those below $34,390, who average a 6.7% tax rate, to the 4 high bars of incomes between $74,700 and $345 million who all pay an average around 21% of their income in taxes, to the 400 richest households, who all take in more than $345,000,000 yet pay only 16.6%, less that the rest of the high brackets…even if you werent online wednesday, i imagine you heard something about the protest against SOPA & its senate sister PIPA, as most news outlets at least gave mention to the fact that wikipedia had shut down (you can read the Wikimedia press release here)… the two bills had their origins with the music & movie industies, who wanted to stop pirated downloading of their works…but the bill was so all inclusive that it would also hold liable not only those who copy copywritten material (like yours truly), but also website owners such as facebook & wikipedia where the public might post such material, & even anyone who linked to such a site, and also would effectively require every blog administrator to police his comment section for such material posted by anonymous outsiders…those in violation could have their ISP addresses blocked, or would no longer be recognized by their domain name servers (ie, www.google.com would no longer get to google)…as a result of the protest over 100 websites shut down (list here), most linking users to a petition to be sent to congresscritters & the administration…by thursday key congressional sponsors of SOPA abandoned the bill, and at least 18 senators withdrew their support from PIPA…but dont be surprised if it comes back in another form, as most in congress still believe in possession of ideas & ownership of thoughts, and the independent power of the internet runs counter to the ongoing attempts to impose a police state in this country…over a dozen links to this story are in the section at the end of this package, with OWS & other news not included in my blog…
