Just four days after ThinkProgress reported that the United States military academy at West Point was planning to host an Islamophobic general as its featured speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast, that general has now pulled out of the event. West Point just issued this news release:

LTG (Ret) William Boykin has decided to withdraw speaking at West Point’s National Prayer Breakfast on 8 February 2012. In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the United States Military Academy will feature another speaker for the event.

VoteVets, the coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, is to be commended for raising this issue and putting pressure on West Point to do the right thing. VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz told ThinkProgress this evening, “This is why VoteVets exists — the calls from veterans, activists, and civil rights leaders around the country made this decision possible. I’m glad that the cadets will not be forced to hear the words of an anti-Muslim general whose rhetoric does not align with the values of our military and also endangers our troops in combat.”

Boykin has a deep record of anti-Muslim rhetoric. For instance, he said there should be “no mosques in America“; Muslims worship an “idol“; “Islam is a totalitarian way of life, it’s not just a religion”; “it should not be protected under the First Amendment”; Muslims operate “under an obligation to destroy our Constitution.”

Hopefully, Boykin will learn from this incident that his rhetoric is both wrong and hurtful.

Amid the riveting tales from Somalia of a daring special operations rescue of aid workers, captures of Somali pirates, and, today, news of Ethiopian forces pressing a new front in their battle for the anarchic Horn of Africa state, comes the harrowing story of journalist Hassan Osman Abdi.

The 29-year-old director of Shabelle radio network was shot to death on Saturday outside his home by unknown assailants. Abdi, known by his nickname “Fantastic,” covered corruption in Somalia.

The advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said of his death:

Violence against journalists in Somalia is sustained by impunity for those responsible. It is quite clear that Abdi was deliberately targeted. We call for a serious and impartial investigation that leads to the identification of his murderers.

His colleagues said they believe the al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab militant group that rules large swaths of Somalia by force orchestrated the killing. “Absolutely, we are sure it is al-Shabab,” Abdi’s colleague told Al Jazeera. An Al Shabab website offered up the killing as a “lesson” to other journalists, further pointing to the group as the killers.

Another journalist, Abdisalan Sheikh Hassan, was killed just over a month ago. In the past three years, 13 journalists in Somalia died in targeted violence, according to the Committee To Protect Journalists, an advocacy group that meticulously documents such killings and confirms motivations behind the killings.

The deaths — and continuing threats — are having a chilling effect on reporters in Somalia, which has lacked an effective central government since 1991. Five employees of Shabelle radio alone lost their lives in attacks, and Abdi is the third news director to be killed. His colleagues are disheartened. Station editor Muhyadin Hassan said the threats continued:

We sleep at the radio station because we can’t go home. We don’t know why we are being targeted. You can’t know who is going to kill you.

Another colleague noted that they couldn’t even attend his funeral service: “We can’t even pay respects to our fallen colleague since al Shabab is threatening us.”

Somalia’s president Sharif Ahmed, who controls little territory in the country despite foreign forces attempting bolster him, condemned Abid’s killing as a “senseless murder.” AMISOM, the African Union force fighting militants in Somalia, offered its condolences for the killing and said it would help the federal government in any investigation.

Projected global population growth from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2040 will lead to a dramatic rise in demand for resources. Population growth and a mushrooming global middle class will, by 2030, require a 50 percent increase in food production, 45 percent more energy, and 30 percent more water, according to a new report released by the United Nations.

The report, “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing,” [PDF] explores the dramatic increases in demand for natural resources facing the world in coming decades and concludes that the current trajectory for global development is unsustainable [PDF]:

We can no longer assume that our collective actions will not trigger tipping points as environmental thresholds are breached, risking irreversible damage to both ecosystems and human communities. At the same time, such thresholds should not be used to impose arbitrary growth ceilings on developing countries seeking to lift their people out of poverty. Indeed, if we fail to resolve the sustainable development dilemma, we run the risk of condemning up to 3 billion members of our human family to a life of endemic poverty.

The U.N. report finds that a renewed political commitment to sustainable development pays dividends in the long-term but faces short-term political challenges. The authors argue that economic policymakers fail to see sustainable development as an increasingly crucial component of global economic development. They write:

Most economic decision makers still regard sustainable development as extraneous to their core responsibilities for macroeconomic management and other branches of economic policy. Yet integrating environmental and social issues into economic decisions is vital to success.

The U.N.’s “High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability,” which issued the report, calls on the international community to form a “new political economy” for sustainable development that “recogniz[es] that in certain environmental domains, such as climate change, there is ‘market failure’, which requires both regulation and what the economists would recognize as the pricing of ‘environmental externalities’, while making explicit the economic, social and environmental costs of action and inaction.”

While the panel finds that the current problems resource and population challenges can be fixed with sound public policy, they conclude that major reforms of the global economy must be undertaken quickly. “Tinkering on the margins will not do the job,” they write. “The current global economic crisis …offers an opportunity for significant reforms.”

Last week, VoteVets called on West Point last week to cancel a planned speech by ret. Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, who has a long history of issuing hate-filled rhetoric about Muslims. In the past, Boykin has said Muslims worship an “idol” and that “Islam is a totalitarian way of life, it’s not just a religion.” Last week, the military academy stood by its decision.

Now, the veterans’ organization is now asking Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno to cancel the National Prayer Breakfast in February. “LTG Boykin’s values are inconsistent even with current Army doctrine,” they write in a letter to Odierno. The group is calling on its 100,000 members to also email Odierno urging him to cancel the event.

FreeThoughtBlogs reports that West Point cadets and faculty members are beginning to organize in protest to Boykin’s appearance.

The Forum on the Military Chaplaincy, a group led by retired chaplains, and including members from many faiths represented in the military chaplaincy, today called on the West Point Chaplain to reconsider the invitation for Boykin. “A prayer breakfast isn’t an academic discussion, where controversial views can be challenged and debated,” pointed out Tom Carpenter, former Marine and co-chair of the Forum. “Nor is it an appropriate place to present views, however cloaked, that disrespect those Muslims and gays who are honorably serving in the U.S. military.”