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12/20/2005:

"The Exotic Adventures of Neil Bush"

If people know anything at all about the star-crossed Neil Bush, it likely relates to either his role in the failed Silverado Savings and Loan scandal during the 1980s, which cost taxpayers more than one billion dollars, or, more recently, the lurid details of his divorce from his wife of 23 years.

After a brief hiatus from the public spotlight, Neil Bush is back. Within a three-month period, Bush has shown up in Latvia, Ukraine and Georgia with Russian fugitive Boris Berezovsky, and has appeared at the side of the Unification Church's Rev. Sun Myung Moon in Taiwan and the Philippines.

...Bush, along with other "peace leaders", joined with Moon in meeting with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The president "praised Moon for his global peace efforts and God-centered, family-centered economic and social initiatives in various parts of the world, including projects in a number of Philippine cities", the Manila paper reported.

Moon's Philippines trip, one stop on a 100-day tour that is taking him to 100 cities in 67 nations and covering nearly 100,000 miles, was aimed at building momentum for his idea of developing a faith-based path to peace by revamping the United Nations.

Veteran investigative reporter John Gorenfeld told IPS that, "Moon speaks in parables from the Book of Genesis. He says the U.N. is like Cain, but he wants to build a second entity that is like Abel. Ideally his 'Abel U.N.' -- a body fusing all religions -- would be embraced by the U.N. But if not, he wants to set up his own alternative diplomatic machine to outshine the U.N."

During a May 2003 meeting with President Bush at the White House, Philippines President Arroyo suggested that the United States might consider co-sponsoring the proposal, the conservative online news magazine, NewsMax.com reported. According to that report, the president "expressed deep interest and asked his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to study the matter".