God to Be Cut from the Pledge of Allegiance?
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/320769.aspx
Offensive. This is a term that has undergone some radical changes in our nation over the years.
There was a time - not long ago - when handing out free condoms on campuses, endorsing pro-homosexual student groups, and using God's name in vain were considered offensive, but not today.
Typical of the times, the Freedom from Religion Foundation recently filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire to eliminate the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.
Only about 10 percent of Americans are offended by this nation's Judeo-Christian roots, but prosecutors in The Freedom from Religion Foundation v. The Congress of the United States of America are looking to wipe out the name of God from the Pledge for everyone.
The legal challenge threatens approximately 50 million children attending our nation's public schools, many of whom acknowledge that America was founded under God's principles, as they recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Michael Newdow, representing the atheist group FFRF in its lawsuit against Congress, has been very active over the years in helping FFRF remove any references to God from public institutions across the nation.
But the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group "defending the right to hear and speak the Truth," filed a friend-of-the-court brief Friday to keep "under God" in the Plede of Allegiance.
"Those who disregard America's heritage have no right to demand that America abandon its traditions simply to appease their political agenda," said David Cortman, ADF's senior legal counsel. "The phrase 'one nation under God,'" was first used in President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address, long before Congress added it to the Pledge."
ADF has also worked hard to ensure that schools continue to recognize this nation's Christian foundation.
Just last year in Tuscon, Arizona, ADF helped students who weren't allowed to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at their school.
Not Standing Alone
Are Christians the only ones up in arms over attempts to eliminate God from the public square?
Not according to the polls.
In December 2005, FOX News conducted a poll, which found that 90 percent support keeping "under God" in the Pledge and 77 percent - "believe the courts have overreached in driving religion out of public life."
ADF reports that similar sentiments resonated a year earlier, when 89 percent of Americans questioned in a 2004 ABCNews.com/Washington Post poll said that "under God" should remain in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Does God Really Belong in Our Schools?
Today, many Christians believe a new battle has been waged - one where God is being kicked out of public schools in the name of political correctness, multiculturalism and tolerance.
But the trend of pushing God out of our schools started many years ago.
Back in 1963, the Lord's Prayer and Bible verses were ruled unconstitutional in public schools, which is the same year evolution was greatly augmented in science texts to the exclusion of creationism.
But is there anything else significant about this year?
Government reports and abstracts show that in this same year immorality began to skyrocket - a trend that continued for decades.
From 1963 to 1995, FBI records show that violent crimes grew by a staggering 353 percent.
Beginning in 1963, divorce rates shot up, rising 100 percent by 1993, according to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.
The U.S. Census Bureau shows a huge increase in unwed domestic partnership starting in 1963, a trend that rose by 577 percent through the year 2000.
Unmarried birth rates jumped up when God was kicked out of the schools, rising 181 percent from 1963 to 2001, according to the U.S. National Center of Health Statistics.
Incidences of sexually transmitted disease also began a dramatic upward trend in 1963. From 1963 to 1985, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports a whopping 58 percent rise, which would have gone even higher if not for improved treatment and diagnosis.
But one thing did start dropping that year - SAT scores.
The College Entrance Examination Board shows SAT scores began to plummet in 1963, falling 61 points by 1995 - the year the scoring scale was re-centered, or as some put it, "dumbed-down."
The Ins and Outs of School
Dr. Adrian Rogers, the late president of the Southern Baptist Convention, whose 60 million members make it the largest Protestant denomination, had this to say about the "moral freefall" in America resulting from taking God out of our schools:
Prayer is out; policemen in.
The Bible is out; values clarification in.
The Ten Commandments are out; rape, armed robbery, murder and bombs in.
Creation is out; evolution in.
Corporal punishment is out; disrespect and rebellion are in.
Traditional values are out; unwed motherhood in.
Abstinence is out; condoms and abortion are in.
Learning is out; social engineering is in.
Praise is out; blasphemy is in.
Proud to Be an American?
Dr. Rogers, who headed Love Worth Finding Ministries, also spoke of the sweeping tide outside the school gates.
"Something is happening in America that is very un-American," Rogers said. "America has become so amoral and immoral, so corrupt, so vial - for further information, consult the front page of any newspaper."
Rogers said, "A tidal wave of filth is sweeping across America," which is engulfed in "crookedness, lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, divorce, murder, lust, dope, vice."
Then Rogers went down a list of which many Americans wouldn't be very proud.
"We say America is number one," Rogers pointed out. "She is; she's number one in homosexuality, radical feminism, divorce, destruction of family values, abortion, political correctness and occult humanistic new age religion - that's America."
What Now?
The courts will decide whether or not God will remain in the Pledge of Allegiance.
If He is removed, many fear that American society will continue to plunge even further from the Christian values on which it was established and descend further down the road of immorality.
Kosovo Makes Historic Declaration of Independence From Serbia, Russia Protests
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330951,00.html
Revelers fired guns, waved red-and-black Albanian flags and set off fireworks over Kosovo Sunday after parliament proclaimed independence in defiance of Serbia and Russia, which condemned the declaration of the world's newest nation.
A decade after a bloody separatist war with Serbian forces that claimed 10,000 lives, lawmakers pronounced the territory the Republic of Kosovo and pledged to make it a "democratic, multiethnic state." Its leaders looked for swift recognition from the U.S. and key European powers — but also braced for a bitter showdown.
Serbia called the declaration illegal and its ally Russia denounced it, saying it threatened to touch off a new conflict in the Balkans. Russia and Serbia called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, which met later Sunday.
In the capital, Pristina, the mood was jubilant. Thousands of ethnic Albanians braved subfreezing temperatures to ride on the roofs of their cars, singing patriotic songs and chanting: "KLA! KLA!" the acronym for the now-disbanded rebel Kosovo Liberation Army. They waved American flags alongside the red Albanian banner imprinted with a black, double-headed eagle.
Many dressed in traditional costumes and played trumpets and drums, and an ethnic Albanian couple named their newborn daughter Pavarsie — Albanian for "independence."
"This is the happiest day in my life," said Mehdi Shehu, 68. "Now we're free and we can celebrate without fear."
By contrast, police in the Serbian capital Belgrade fired tear gas and rubber bullets in skirmishes with protesters who opposed the declaration. Groups of masked thugs ran through downtown Belgrade smashing windows and ransacking tobacco stands. At least 30 people were injured, about half of them police officers, hospital officials said.
Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade. Others broke windows at McDonald's restaurants and at the embassy of Slovenia — which holds the European Union's rotating presidency. Later in the evening, police kept a group of protesters from approaching the Albanian Embassy.
In Switzerland, which hosts many immigrants from Kosovo, police estimated about 10,000 people gathered in Lausanne. Crowds also cheered in Bern, where Bundesplatz square quickly filled with a happy crowd, champagne corks popping. In the U.S., crowds in New York's Times Square also celebrated the declaration.
Kosovo had formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the U.N. and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
Ninety percent of Kosovo's 2 million people are ethnic Albanian — most of them secular Muslims — and they see no reason to stay joined to the rest of Christian Orthodox Serbia.
The European Union and NATO, mindful of the Balkans' turbulent past, appealed for restraint and warned that the international community would not tolerate violence.
President Bush said the United States "will continue to work with our allies to the very best we can to make sure there's no violence."
"We are heartened by the fact that the Kosovo government has clearly proclaimed its willingness and its desire to support Serbian rights in Kosovo," Bush said while on a visit to Africa. "We also believe it's in Serbia's interest to be aligned with Europe and the Serbian people can know that they have a friend in America."
Underscoring fears of renewed unrest, an explosion lightly damaged a U.N. building housing a courthouse and a jail in Kosovo's tense north, home to most of its roughly 100,000 minority Serbs. No one was injured. An unexploded grenade was found near a motel that houses EU officials.
In the ethnically divided northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbs vowed never to let Kosovo go.
"The Albanians can celebrate all they want, but this stillborn baby of theirs will never be an independent country as long as we Serbs are here and alive," said Djordje Jovanovic.
Kosovo is still protected by 16,000 NATO-led peacekeepers, and the alliance boosted its patrols over the weekend in hopes of discouraging violence. International police, meanwhile, deployed to back up local forces in the tense north.
Sunday's declaration was carefully orchestrated with the U.S. and key European powers, and Kosovo was counting on international recognition that could come as early as Monday, when EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels, Belgium.
But by sidestepping the U.N. and appealing directly to the U.S. and other nations for recognition, Kosovo's independence set up a showdown with Serbia — outraged at the imminent loss of its territory — and Russia, which warned that it would set a dangerous precedent for separatist groups worldwide.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has argued that independence without U.N. approval would set a dangerous precedent for "frozen conflicts" across the former Soviet Union, where separatists in Chechnya and Georgia are agitating for independence.
Serbia's government ruled out a military response as part of a secret "action plan" drafted earlier this week, but warned that it would downgrade relations with any foreign government that recognizes Kosovo's independence.
Meanwhile, Serbia's government minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said Serbia would increase its presence in the roughly 15 percent of Kosovo that is Serb-controlled in an apparent attempt to partition the province.
Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu sought to allay Serbs' concerns, telling them: "I understand today is a fearful day for you all, but your rights and your property will be protected today as it will be always."
At a special session of parliament boycotted by 10 minority Serb lawmakers and televised live nationwide, sustained applause erupted after the rest of the chamber unanimously adopted the declaration of independence, which was scripted on parchment.
They also unveiled a new national crest and a flag: a bright blue banner featuring a golden map of Kosovo and six stars, one for each of its main ethnic groups. Few of the new flags were seen Sunday on Kosovo's streets, where the old Albanian banner still dominated.
"We, the democratically elected leaders of our people, hereby declare Kosovo to be an independent and sovereign state," the proclamation read.
"From today onwards, Kosovo is proud, independent and free," said Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former KLA leader. "We never lost faith in the dream that one day we would stand among the free nations of the world, and today we do."
"Our hopes have never been higher," he said. "Dreams are infinite, our challenges loom large, but nothing can deter us from moving forward to the greatness that history has reserved for us."
Like Sejdiu, Thaci reached out to ordinary Serbs, but he had stern words for the Serbian government.
"Kosovo will never be ruled by Belgrade again," he warned.
Thaci also signed 192 separate letters to nations around the world — including Serbia — asking them to recognize Kosovo as a state.
Kosovo's leaders signed their names on a giant iron sculpture spelling out "NEWBORN" before heading to a sports hall for a performance of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" by the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra.
"I feel stronger," said Ymer Govori, 36, carrying his daughter on his shoulders to celebrations downtown. "I have my own state and my own post code," he said, "and it won't say Serbia any longer."
‘The Canaanites were then in the Land’
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=103
And the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. (Genesis 12:6-7)
One of the arguments against the Jews’ right to sovereignty over their historical homeland, or conversely for the Palestinian Arabs’ right to a national homeland in these biblically Jewish lands, is that even though the Jews had a virtually unbroken presence here through the last 2000 years, in the centuries before 1948 it was the Arabs who comprised the overwhelming majority of the overall inhabitants, with the number of Jews almost marginal at one time.
Today this argument is applied to the “West Bank,” with some demographers pointing out that there are 2.5 million Arabs (90%) as compared to just 255,600 Jews (9.4%) in Samaria and Judea.
And since the “Disengagement” in 2005, the Gaza Strip is said to have 1.4 million Arabs, and not a single Jew.
No serious authority disputes that there were many more Arabs than Jews in Ottoman Empire Palestine at the end of the 18th century. According to respected historians like American Howard M. Sachar, there were only 6,000 Jews in Palestine in 1800 out of what, by 1840, was a total of 400,000 inhabitants.
While tens of thousands of Jews did begin flooding into the land from 1882 onwards, the Arab majority remained strong, so that in 1914 there were 60,000 Jews and 730,000 Arabs resident here.
Of course, 76 percent of Palestine (with its people) was lopped off and turned into Trans-Jordan in 1922, its Palestinian Arabs eventually becoming Jordanian citizens. Even so, the ratio in what was left of Palestine by 1948 stood, according to pro-Arab sources, at 2:1, with Jews numbering about 600,000 to the Arabs’ 1.2 million. Other sources put the Arab population figures lower, at just under one million.
Whatever the case, there were a good deal more Arabs than Jews all the way along.
This, triumphantly crow Israel’s enemies, more than supports the Arab claim to all of the land, and means that it is the Arabs who are being asked to concede land, because the land is theirs.
And indeed this is the Arab position. Israel’s friends may assert that it is the Jews who are being asked to make the tangible territorial sacrifices in the land-for-peace process, the Arabs and their supporters insist the opposite is true.
Western nations, from the earliest years of the 20th Century, fully aware that the Arabs massively outnumbered the Jews and always will and, with the industrial revolution in full flight, discovering that the lands on which the Arab states were being established were saturated with oil, happily adopted this convenient Arab position and have gone along with it ever since.
Historically, the numbers may favor the Arabs, but from the point of view of national ownership, it is the Jews - with their forefathers’ history of founding the nation of Israel here 4000 years ago, and who have never repudiated or relinquished their claim to any of the land despite twice being exiled from it, once for 70 years, and most recently for 1813 years – who have the sole claim.
Nationally, the Arabs come from Arabia. And although they today have more than 20 states, the Arabs are still, ethnically, one nation, as they themselves aver.
The Arabs who settled in Ottoman Palestine had no distinguishing linguistic, cultural or historic characteristics setting them apart from the Arabs living elsewhere in the Middle East. Their nationalist awakening (in Palestine and elsewhere in the region) only began in the 20th Century after political Zionism was well underway.
Before the establishment of antisemitic terrorist Arab groups like the PLO, the Palestinian Arabs had never had a single symbol of nationhood: no flag, no passport, no anthem and, most importantly, no country.
Therefore, to talk about “giving land back” to the Palestinians as if they have had a homeland and a state at some point in history is pure fabrication and deception. The territory which the world today has dared to earmark for the creation of Palestine is land that was illegally occupied by Jordan (in the case of the “West Bank”) and militarily administered by Egypt (the Gaza Strip). Prior to that those areas, along with what is today Israel, were all part of the British Mandate, and before that, formed part of a province in the Ottoman Empire.
None of this territory can be given “back” to the Palestinians in the national sense simply because they never had it. (US President George W. Bush has acknowledged this by repeatedly spelling out his administration’s determination to “create a new state alongside Israel.”)
On the other hand, this land can absolutely be taken away or stolen from the Jews for who – in their four-millennia-long history, independent or occupied, whether they were in it or in exile – it has always been their national home.
These arguments rage back and forth and have for many, often bloody, decades. It is why the world generally sees the Israeli-“Palestinian” conflict as unsolvable.
For the Bible-believer, however, there is no argument at all.
God is not intimidated or influenced by the numbers game. He never has been. In fact, according to the Bible, He quite deliberately awarded Abram (Abraham) the land as an everlasting inheritance when he was just one man with his household.
When we read the verse in Genesis 12:7 where God tells Israel’s first patriarch that He is to inherit the land, we see the almost “in your face” way that promise comes hard on the heels of the no-nonsense statement: “And the Canaanites were then in the land.”
It is as if God is saying quite clearly: ‘I am fully aware that there are other nations in that land but even so, I am giving it to you.’
And indeed, when God reaffirms His promise of the land to Abram, He spells out that not only are Abraham’s descendants to inherit the territory, but bound up with it God was also giving into their hands all the nations that then dwelt in that land.
On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates –”the Kenites, the Kenezzites, and the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. (Genesis 15:18-21)
In summation then, for the purposes of this article, the promise of the land was made solely to those who would descend from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. It was to be an everlasting inheritance that would never be abrogated, not even by the unfaithful behavior of those descendants.
And God made it with Abraham despite (or arguably even because of) the fact that “the Canaanites were then in the land.”
That same Land belongs to this same nation, and exclusively to them, until today. It makes NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER that Arabs live here* or that they may have outnumbered the Jews. And it makes NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER if the entire world says otherwise, even if international laws are passed stipulating the division and sharing of the land.
From the River of Egypt to the Euphrates, (including territory today inside the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan), this land has been divinely bequeathed to Israel, and to Israel alone.
—————————
* Yes, Israel does have certain biblical obligations towards “the stranger who dwells among them” (and regarding these there will be a follow-up article); but no other nation has the right to establish a sovereign homeland in any part of this land. The only “nation” that has done so in history, the Crusader Kingdom, was accursed and short-lived.
Gaza Muslims continue ethnic-cleansing effort
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2332
Muslims attacked the library of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) in Gaza Friday in the latest move to drive Christians and Christianity out of the Islamist-controlled Strip.
According to a report in The Jerusalem Post Sunday, gunmen - some masked, others not - "stormed" the library, kidnapped two security guards, looted electronic equipment and stole a vehicle, then detonated a number of bombs inside the building, totally destroying the book collection.
Intent on making the area Islamically "pure," Muslim Arabs have looked for "reasons" to "justify" their targeting of the tiny Christian community - around 3000 strong - that lives in the midst of Gaza's 1.4 million Muslims.
The persecution has increased since Hamas violently took control of Gaza a year ago.
On October 6 last year, Muslims abducted Rami Ayyad, the manager of Gaza's only Christian bookstore that had been bombed by masked Muslims six months earlier.
Ayyad, 31, was the father of two small children; his wife was pregnant with their third. His shot and repeatedly stabbed body was found a day after he disappeared.
For Gaza's Muslims, ridding themselves of any active Christian presence would be cherry on top after successfully forcing Israel to remove every single Jew from Gaza in 2005.
"Palestinian" crowds have often been heard to chant: "First we'll fight on Saturday and then on Sunday" - meaning, after they rid themselves of Jews they will rid themselves of Christians.
Kassam hits near Israeli kindergarten
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2334
A Kassam rocket fired by Muslim Arabs in Gaza slammed into the ground not far from an Israeli kindergarten in Sderot Sunday.
Five residents of the Negev town - which has been pounded with thousands of missiles over the years as Israel-hating Arabs seek to kill Jewish civilians - were treated for shock following the attack.
While the Olmert government fumbles for a way to stop the rockets, and Gaza's Arabs proclaim their imminent victory over Sderot, the residents of that town have vowed not to leave.
Hundreds of Sderotians and citizens of other towns near Gaza, demonstrated outside the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem Sunday, calling for effective action against the terrorists and for steps to be taken to better defend the Israelis.
A special ministerial forum Sunday gave the green light for 8,000 homes in the Gaza area to be fortified against Kassam attack.
Israeli officials continue to debate the pros and cons of sending the IDF into Gaza in force.
IDF soldier wounded in ongoing war on terror
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2335
An Israeli soldier was seriously wounded Sunday as Israel pushed ahead with its limited war against Gaza-originating terrorism.
The member of an elite IDF unit was shot in the shoulder as Israel used troops supported by tanks and warplanes against terrorists who were firing mortars and machine guns in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
Three armed Arabs and an alleged civilian were killed as they clashed with the Israeli forces who had gone in to clear and demolish buildings that were being used for attacks against Israelis.
Meanwhile, 16 Arab suspects were detained in Samaria and Judea Sunday as Israeli security forces continued their round-the-clock effort to thwart "Palestinian" terrorism.
Olmert: Israeli Army Has 'Free Hand' to Attack Militants in Gaza Strip
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330986,00.html
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday gave his military a "free hand" to hit Gaza militants after a rocket slammed into a house in an Israeli town following a visit there by the new U.N. humanitarian chief, who called for an end to the daily salvos.
Speaking in Jerusalem at a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Olmert said he would not allow a humanitarian crisis to develop in Gaza, but the people of Gaza could not live normal lives while Israelis across the border were constantly targeted by rockets.
Olmert said Israel's military has a "free hand" to hit Gaza militants. "We will reach out for anyone involved in perpetrating terrorism against Israelis, and we will not hesitate to attack them in order to stop them," he said. "That applies to everyone, first and foremost Hamas. Hamas is in charge of Gaza."
Early Sunday Israeli ground forces entered Gaza, backed by aircraft. In clashes, three Palestinian militants and a civilian were killed, and an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded. Palestinian health officials said more than 20 people were wounded, including several gunmen and a 45-year-old civilian who was shot in the head.
The military said the target was the Gaza "terror infrastructure," and more than 80 Palestinians were taken for questioning.
John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, had just left Sderot, where he made an appeal for an end to the rocket fire from Gaza, when a rocket exploded in a house there.
No one was seriously hurt. Medics helped a shell-shocked woman from the house and took her for treatment.
Battered by rockets almost every day, Sderot is an inviting target, a town of 20,000 less than a kilometer (half a mile) from the Gaza fence. Twelve people have been killed in recent years and dozens wounded, including an 8-year-old boy who lost a leg in an attack last week.
"We condemn absolutely the firing of these rockets. There's no justification for it. They are indiscriminate, there's no military target," Holmes told The Associated Press during his visit to Sderot.
Israeli airstrikes and ground incursions into Gaza have killed dozens of militants in recent months but have failed to stop the rockets. Israeli leaders have warned that a broad ground operation is increasingly likely.
Holmes countered that Israel and the Palestinians must make peace.
"At the end of the day, the only thing that will make a lasting difference is a peace settlement," he said. "You can't stop these problems militarily. They have to be solved through negotiations."
Israel is trying to negotiate a peace agreement with the moderate West Bank-based government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday that Abbas would meet Tuesday with Olmert. The two have had regular meetings, but no progress has been reported.
In his address Sunday, Olmert said Abbas agreed that the issue of Jerusalem would be the last item on the agenda. "We will not start negotiations with the most sensitive issue that could end negotiations before we start," he said.
The two sides relaunched talks in November at a Mideast conference hosted by U.S. President George W. Bush, setting a December 2008 target for reaching a final accord.
In his address, Olmert said one possibility is signing a declaration of principles, but insisted a peace accord cannot be implemented unless "terror is stopped completely from Gaza."
"I hope the negotiating part of the basic principles can still be achieved in 2008," he said. He said waiting longer would encourage more radical elements among the Palestinians, especially Hamas.
"I will not hesitate to make every painful compromise that is needed to bring true and genuine peace," he said, while refusing to compromise on Israeli security.
He said the current Palestinian leadership is committed to peace with Israel "like no Palestinian leadership before," warning that if the effort fails, no future Palestinian regime would be as willing to make peace.
During Sunday's tour of Sderot, Holmes met with residents affected by the incessant rocket salvos.
Holmes nodded quietly as residents, some in tears, told their stories. A man lifted his shirt and showed Holmes a shrapnel wound on his belly. A woman told him she lost a fetus after going into shock when a rocket landed near her. The woman added that a teenage daughter of hers tried to slash her wrists after one rocket attack.
Also visiting Israel on Sunday was French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who called on Israel and Hamas to negotiate a truce. "Hamas must stop firing, targeting (rockets) at Israel, and the Israeli people must answer," he told The Jerusalem Post daily.
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai rejected talks with Hamas, saying it was a terror group that does not recognize Israel's right to exist. "For now, there is nothing to talk about," he told Army Radio.
Moderate quake rattles Lebanon, Israel
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2336
An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale originated in southern Lebanon shortly after midday Friday as tens of thousands of Lebanese were marching through the streets of Lebanon calling for Israel's destruction.
The quake was felt throughout Israel, rocking buildings along the coastal plain, but causing no damage or injury.
According to one report, a hole six foot wide opened on the Temple Mount as a result of the seismic event. Muslim officials, who have been excavating all over the mount without supervision or authority to do so, were quick to accuse Israel of tunneling under the hill.
Friday's temblor was the latest in a series of quakes that have struck the region since last November.
While Israel is expected to suffer a major earthquake sometime soon, according to experts, lawmakers have frequently decried the lack of readiness for such an event amid dark predictions that a major disaster is waiting to happen.
Islamists Blame Israel for Quake Damage
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/323934.aspx
JERUSALEM, Israel - The Islamic Movement blamed Israel for damage at the Temple Mount caused by Friday's earthquake.
Officials from the al-Aksa mosque said tunnels dug by Israeli archaeologists in the area were compromising the stability of the Temple Mount.
Along with cracks in residential buildings, the quake caused the pavement to collapse, leaving a 3-foot deep, 5-foot wide and 6.5-foot long gaping hole, which Islamic officials covered with wooden boards.
The epicenter of the 5.3-magnitude earthquake was about nine miles northeast of the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.
Lebanese police said five people were lightly injured and several houses damaged in two villages in southern Lebanon.
According to The Associated Press, residents of Damascus and Beirut also felt the quake.
In Israel, the tremors were felt mainly in the Coastal Plain, though a house in a village west of Nablus collapsed onto the main road. No one was injured.
"On average, major earthquakes hit Israel once a century," Dr. Uri Frieslander, director of the Geophysical Institute, told Israel Radio.
"But the recent tremors do not indicate that a large-scale quake is on the way. What we're seeing are typical movements along the Dead Sea valley…which don't foreshadow anything or indicate that something is about to happen," he said.
In 1927, 500 people died when an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale occurred. Today, officials believe a quake of that magnitude would kill an estimated 18,000 people.
According to Israeli geologist Dr. Daniel Wachs, over the past 20 years, successive Israeli governments have failed to take the necessary steps to protect the public before the next large-scale quake.
'Syria and Iran anticipating serious military clash with Israel'
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2333
Damascus and Tehran expect to soon be caught up in a military confrontation with Israel.
According to a report in Al-Ahkbar, a Lebanese newspaper said to be affiliated with Hizb'allah, the Syrian and Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization does not intend to let last week's execution of top terrorist Amad Mugniyah be left unanswered.
The concensus in the region is that Israel was behind the blowing up of Mugniyah's car, and Hizb'allah chief Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to make Israel pay in "open war."
Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the cabinet in Jerusalem Sunday he has put the Israeli Air Force on alert for a possible Hizb'allah attack against Jewish communities in the north.
Barak said Israel was prepared for the possibility that an explosives-laden pilotless drone could be sent to explode inside an Israeli community.
Iran's Space Venture a Threat to U.S.?
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/321599.aspx
JERUSALEM, Israel - Now that Iran says it can put a satellite in space, the implications can be felt far beyond the Middle East.
Last week, Iran's President Mahmoud Admadinejad celebrated what he claims was Iran's launching of its first missile into space. It's one more sign of Iran's ambitious missile program.
"I'd characterize it as the most energetic, the most energetic, the richest missile program in the world today, not just in the region. I'm talking in the world," Israeli missile expert Uzi Rubin said.
Rubin says this should be a global concern because if Iran can put a satellite into orbit it should have no problem getting a bomb to the other side of the world.
He compares it to Russia's launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957.
"Why did Sputnik make such an impression on the U.S.? It wasn't this piece of metal that was in orbit making 'beep beep.' It was the rocket behind it that frightened U.S. public - and rightly so - because it showed that if they can put this 15 pounds in orbit, they can put something on Washington," Rubin said.
Now Iran could be closing in on that technological threshold. Combined with its nuclear program it raises a serious question.
"The question is whether they can make a nuclear device small enough to be dumped on America," Rubin said.
Now Rubin believes that just as Russia's space program once did, Iran's space venture poses a direct threat to the U.S.
He said, "They will threaten the U.S. implicitly, not explicitly, by having the capability and probably by flying satellites, and every time an Iranian satellite will fly above America, because it will fly above America, it'll make its beep beep. Remember the Sputnik. It implies capability."
Catholic Church Training Hundreds of Exorcists to Meet Growing Demand in Australia
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330955,00.html
The Catholic Church in Australia is training hundred of priests as exorcists to meet a growing demand for the religious ritual, The Sunday Mail reported.
"We are not very plentiful and certainly need more of us to cope with the big occult following that is emerging today," a priest based in Brisbane, who is the only one permitted to do the exorcisms in the state, told the newspaper.
Religious leaders say a growing interest in Satanism has led to the need for exorcists.
"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the devil," Father Gabriele Amorth, the Pope's exorcist-in-chief, told the newspaper. "You have to hunt high and low for a proper, trained exorcist."
An exorcism involves holy water, sacrament and Bible reading and can go on for many hours.
Novak: McCain Won't Pick Huckabee
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Novak_McCain_huckabee/2008/02/17/73421.html
Forget Mike Huckabee as a running mate for John McCain, his closest supporters say -- there's no chance he'll be on the GOP presidential ticket.
So writes veteran political columnist Robert Novak, who reports that political insiders close to McCain's presidential campaign "have put out the word that there is absolutely no chance that his last remaining major opponent for the GOP presidential nomination, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, will become McCain's running mate."
Novak explains that McCain personally likes the former Arkansas governor, and his campaign hasn't wanted "to antagonize Huckabee's evangelical supporters, whose backing will be needed in the general election," adding that he "is unacceptable to economic conservatives."
"The immediate problem that Huckabee poses for McCain strategists is how to get him out of the presidential race without offending him," Novak explains.
While Huckabee cannot possibly get enough delegates to win the GOP nomination, he remains the elephant in McCain's room, worrying his campaign "by threatening to win an occasional state, as he did recently in Kansas." Moreover, Novak notes that Huckabee "attempted to upset McCain in Virginia, though McCain wound up winning the primary there by a comfortable nine points."
Novak, however, fails to mention what may be the McCain camp's real anxiety over Huckabee's remaining in the race: fear over a brokered convention, possibly overturning the primary results.
In a Feb. 14 e-mail to supporters, Huckabee stressed that possibility, writing: "A few weeks ago, I stood at Chuck Norris' ranch before a crowd of people and said that Texas would be the place where the dynamics of this race changed dramatically in our favor.
"Since then, after winning West Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas and Louisiana and fighting close races in Washington, Oklahoma, Missouri and Virginia we have positioned ourselves to do just that."
He goes on to explain his goal of creating a brokered convention, a possibility that could throw the nomination wide open not just to he and McCain, but others:
"Remember the Republican nominee must have 1,191 votes to claim the nomination or else there will be a brokered convention where the party's top candidates will have an opportunity to make an impassioned plea as to why they are the best choice to represent the Republican Party in the fall against the Democratic candidate.
"Before we get to a brokered convention however we will need to win Texas and seize the momentum. For this to happen however, we must have your immediate financial support. We are laying it all on the field in Texas and we need you to join us."
Abortion Too Easy, Some Spaniards Say
http://www.newsmax.com/international/spain_abortion_fight/2008/02/17/73371.html
MADRID, Spain -- After same-sex marriage and fast-track divorce, Spain's social revolution has hit a roadblock _ abortion.
The abortion law, severely restrictive during Gen. Francisco Franco's dictatorship of the predominantly Roman Catholic country, was liberalized in 1985. But abortion has become too easy to obtain, say its opponents, and lately it has flared into a dispute so bitter it prompted abortion clinics to go on strike for five days.
Staffers have been arrested and 25 women who underwent abortions have been interrogated. At one point thousands of women swarmed a Madrid courthouse, shouting that they too had terminated a pregnancy, and demanding a change in the law to provide abortion on demand.
At issue is a crackdown on five facilities accused of performing abortions in violation of the law that permits them in the first 12 weeks in case of rape, 22 weeks in case of fetal malformation, and at any time if a psychiatrist certifies that the mother's physical or mental health is endangered.
Politically, it's a delicate matter. The Socialists, seeking re-election March 9, have quietly dropped a pledge of abortion on demand up to 12 or 14 weeks into a pregnancy, as exists in many other European countries, for fear of alienating centrist voters. The opposition conservatives, also seeking centrist support, are shying away from promising a complete ban as their allies in the church demand.
But for some, Spain's abortion law is already much too liberal. "In Spain, it is harder to cut down a tree illegally than it is to commit an abortion," Josep Miro i Ardevol, who leads a group called e-Cristians, wrote on its Web site.
The trouble began when police raided and shut private abortion clinics in Barcelona and Madrid in November and December, acting on complaints from church-affiliated groups that the facilities were carrying out illegal abortions.
One prominent clinic owner in Barcelona was among 13 people arrested, and he spent two months in jail until his release in mid-January. Two others remain in custody, although no one has been formally charged.
The Association of Accredited Abortion Clinics says the police searches were aggressive while demonstrators harassed patients and employees with threatening phone calls and graffiti such as "Murder is committed here."
It said that after authorities didn't respond to its pleas for protection, it called the Jan. 8-12 strike, shutting down around 40 clinics and forcing the postponement of nearly 2,000 procedures. "We are absolutely desperate because this is no way to work," Empar Pineda, the association's spokeswoman, said in an interview.
Around 100,000 abortions were carried out in 2006 in Spain, which has a population of 45 million. In Italy, by comparison, with a population of 58 million, the figure is about 137,000 for 2004, the last year for which full figures are available.
In Spain women who have an abortion can get the government to pay for it, but nationwide around 60 percent pay for it themselves, mainly because this way it is faster and more confidential. All the clinics under investigation are privately owned.
More than 90 percent of Spain's abortions fell into the category of women citing mental distress, said Pineda.
The complaints that prompted the raids were filed by e-Cristians, which alleges a gross lack of government supervision and record-keeping.
No charges have been formally brought, but the Barcelona clinics are suspected of using bogus psychiatric certificates, according to an official with the Civil Guard, which made the arrests. The two people who remain in custody are psychiatrists, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of department rules.
Pineda acknowledged that the mental-distress argument is a loophole, "a bit of theater that we play out" because Spain doesn't have abortion on demand. Under Franco, the only grounds for an abortion was a "family honor" clause designed to spare parents the embarrassment of an unwed daughter having a baby, Pineda said.
In the case of the Madrid raids, Pineda blamed the harassment on conservatives who run the regional government. Its president, Esperanza Aguirre, is seen as a candidate to take over her Popular Party's national leadership if it loses the March election, and "is winking at her electorate to show that she is tough," Pineda said.
The ruling Socialist Party, meanwhile, has already infuriated conservatives and the Roman Catholic church with its sweeping reforms and having once promised abortion on demand, now says it is open to a "period of reflection."
China Concerned by U.S. Satellite Missile Plan
http://www.newsmax.com/international/china_satellite_missile/2008/02/17/73335.html
BEIJING -- China is concerned by U.S. plans to shoot down an ailing spy satellite and is considering what "preventative measures" to take, the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
"The Chinese government is paying close attention to how the situation develops and demands the U.S. side fulfill its international obligations and avoids causing damage to security in outer space and of other countries," spokesman Liu Jianchao said.
President George W. Bush has decided to have the Navy shoot the 5,000-pound (2,270 kg) satellite with a modified tactical missile after security advisers suggested its re-entry could lead to a loss of life, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
"Relevant departments in China are closely watching the situation and studying preventive measures," Liu said in a brief statement posted on the Foreign Ministry's Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn).
On Saturday, Russia's Defense Ministry said the U.S. plan could be used as a cover to test a new space weapon.
It will be the first time the United States has conducted an anti-satellite operation since the 1980s. Russia also has not conducted anti-satellite activities in 20 years.
China launched a ground-based missile into an obsolete weather satellite in January 2007, drawing international criticism and worries inside the Pentagon that Beijing has the ability to target critical military assets in space.
Churchgoers Remember Shooting Victims
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/324034.aspx
DEKALB, Ill. - Churchgoers remembered the victims of the Northern Illinois University shooting rampage Sunday with prayers and support for the school and family members.
At First Baptist Church of DeKalb, members passed out red ribbons to several dozen people who attended a morning service. The Rev. Joe Sanders offered prayers for the families of victims and relatives of the gunman who killed five students and wounded 16 other people in a lecture hall Thursday before taking his own life.
"Our spirit cannot help, cannot even begin, to grasp the horror that we have seen," Sanders told those gathered. "I'm never going to be the same. I don't think any of us will be the same. The way we think and live will be altered by what happened at NIU."
In the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, worshippers at Christ Church were asked to rally around Gary and Linda Parmenter, whose 20-year-old son, Daniel, was killed in the shooting.
"We think of unexpected and unexplained violence that strikes our family," the Rev. Doug Calhoun prayed. "We grieve and we shudder. We know there's no answer to this."
Authorities said Steven Kazmierczak, 27, had a history of mental illness and had been off his medication for weeks when he stepped out from behind a screen on the lecture hall's stage and opened fire on a geology class.
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