A Look at Sarah Palin's Faith Walk
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/447144.aspx
CBNNews.com - Hers is a story of an overnight media sensation.
Afterall, how often do you see a gun-toting, pro-life Christian, hockey mom of five from Alaska get tapped to be vice-president?
Her fans see her as one of their own and that is music to the ears of the McCain campaign. She has single handidly changed the race for President.
And polls prove it. Before the conventions, white women supported Obama 50-42 percent. Now, there is a 20 point swing in favor of McCain. Enthusiasm is building too. Before Palin, only 12 percent were enthusiastic about McCain becoming president. Now it's 34 percent.
Crowds are also growing because of Palin. In Ohio this week, she finished her speech and some people left while McCain was still talking. On the campaign trail, she plays part attack dog, part maverick reformer --a tag team with a message of cleaning up Washington.
At rallies like the one near Youngstown Ohio you'll hear a lot of talk on the stage from Palin about her reformer image and maverick spirit, but the talk in the crowd is much different. It's a talk about her faith.
Call them faith moms, Bible study moms or whatever you want, but these women are coming out in droves because she's on the ticket.
Sarah's Walk with the Lord
Sarah Palin's walk with the Lord began in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, 45 minutes north of Anchorage. It's in a valley surrounded by snow capped mountains with a mocha stand, not coffee shop, on every corner. People there love to hunt, fish, ride their snow "machines" and they also love Sarah Palin. Palin Fever is there too and friends vouch for the no nonsense reputation she is gaining among the conservative base in the Lower 48.
"Her light definitely shines through and it's true. It's true," friend Julia Hamilton said.
To understand Sarah Palin, you must understand the role faith played in her life.
Rev. Paul Riley and his wife Helen sat down exclusively with CBN News. As then pastor of Wasilla Assembly of God Church, he baptized 12-year-old Sarah in a lake not too far from town.
"When she was a little younger, she was a little fidgety, but as she began to hear the music and began to hear the different illustrations given, it seemed to attract her and she was more motivated to respond and I think that drew her to the final commitment of stepping out and saying I want to be that kind of person," Riley said. "With all of her heart she began to serve God and began to memorize verses in the Bible."
Riley's wife, Helen, agreed.
"I think that Sarah hearing that over and over, hearing the word of God had a great impact on her life," she said.
Critics on Every Corner
The media has tried to dig deep into Palin's faith. Some critics take shots at her Pentecostal upbringing when they hear about people speaking in tongues or receiving the "gifts of the Holy Spirit." A Washington post cartoonist recently went as far as to suggest McCain was using Palin to communicate with God, but that God called it gibberish.
"We figure it's to be expected especially with Palin going for VP," Wasilla Assembly of God member Chris Bottoms explained. "Especially when you throw the tag Christian on it becasue there's not been a really good view of Christianity at times."
Recently, video clips of Gov. Palin speaking at the Church made their way on to YouTube. In talking about the Iraq war, Palin mentioned phrases like "task from God" and "God's plan." She was pressed about that in an interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson.
Faith isn't the only subject under the spotlight. Questions, even from some conservatives, have come up about whether she's experienced enough to be Vice-President. And perhaps one of the most emotional issues comes down to family.
Even some of her supporters wonder how a mother of five will be able to handle the role when she has an infant with Downs Syndrome and a 17-year-old who is pregnant. Those two examples may endear her to the pro-life movement, but bring up the important role of a mother.
"Being a mom, you have to be a multi-tasker. You are a chauffer, a chef, the doctor," Palin's friend, Sharon Bulawa, said. "You're so many different things in that role, that in itself lends to the facets of what you need to be, making lots of decisions, with things coming at you, but still being focused."
What the Critics are Saying
Palin has yet to silence her critics on a number of issues like her "Bridge to Nowhere" comments.
The Alaska Bridge was ridiculed as wasteful spending and while Palin did indeed ultimately reject it, she was on record at first as supporting it.
"They had her opposing these things called the bridges to nowhere. She never called them the bridges to nowhere. She supported them as a concept. How much to spend on them was another concept," House Democrat Les Gara said.
There are questions about earmarks as Alaska's governor. She champions herself as a reformer of wasteful spending, but critics point to Alaska's record of receiving the most earmarks per capita of any state in the country.
"I don't think its all been fair, but that's the media," Reno said. "But she's got a very thick skin, she's a very fair person, and it will all come out."
One thing is for sure-- because she's new on the national scene, the media vetting will persist from now until Election Day.
For her supporters, controversies don't matter at this point. To them, Sarah, as they call her, can do no wrong. Evangelical leaders say in unison that by picking Palin, the McCain campaign has energized the key social conservative base. And so the babies and their moms will still flock to the rallies, with signs like "Read My Lipstick." Sarah Palin soaks in all the attention while back in Alaska she has people like Pastor Riley and his wife praying for her.
"My prayer is that she will continue to be humble," Rev. Riley said. "That she will realize that she has God who is able to help her and give her wisdom and she will not be prideful over it. God will give her wisdom."
And Palin may have given John McCain what he needs too -- a ticket to The White House.
Palin's Church in Alaska Believes that Jesus Christ Is God, Created the World and - GASP -- Helps Gay Sinners Overcome Homosexuality
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07598.shtml
MEDIA ADVISORY, (christiansunite.com) -- The alternative new media and old establishment media alike are swarming around startling revelations concerning Alaska Governor and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's church in Alaska.
Huff-And-Puff Post has learned that Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin worships, actually believes the Bible that Christ came to earth as a man, professed to be God Himself and forgave peoples' sins, and performed miracles that only God could do, like raising Lazarus from the dead. Wasilla doctrine teaches that this same Jesus now sits at the right hand of His Heavenly Father and intervenes in the lives of human beings.
"We have discovered that these brainwashed Christianists who cling to their religion and their guns also cling to fairy tales about Jesus as some prayer- answering 'savior,'" said Arianna Huff-and-Puff, publisher of the online Post. "It's one thing to believe that this unseen God-man Jesus helped create the world and performs miracles in the lives of his followers -- like healing drug addicts and transforming the hearts of hardened criminals. But believing that He can help also people leave homosexuality - what are they, nuts?!"
Associated Press reports ominously that Wasilla Bible Church supports programs to help men and women overcome homosexual desires. AP, consistent with its well-earned reputation as Always Politically-correct, chose to use the homosexual pejorative "Pray Away the Gay" to describe Wasilla's ex-"gay" ministry.
AP also quotes New York City-based homosexual gadfly Wayne Besen: "'I think gay Republicans are going to run away' if Palin supports efforts like the prayers to convert gays." Oh well, there go 2,014 homosexual Republican votes for McCain - while millions of pro-family, Sarah-Palin-loving Republicans applaud ministries that offer godly, healthy change to homosexual strugglers.
But Professional Gay Activist Besen is not deterred. Oblivious to the thousands of former homosexuals worldwide who live happy lives shorn of their false "gay" identity, he is now begging his followers for money so he can fly to Anchorage to protest a "Love Won Out" conference promoted by Wasilla Bible Church and sponsored by Focus on the Family. LWO conferences - a favorite target of homosexual militants and anti-"Christianists" everywhere -- feature "born again" former homosexuals sharing their hopeful testimonies.
"Speaking of 'Praying Away the Gay,' perhaps now is the time for concerned Americans to pray that Besen receives only enough funds to purchase a ONE-WAY ticket to Alaska," said Americans For Truth president Peter LaBarbera. "Sure, that's putting a heavy burden on Alaska's citizens, but the lower 48 states and Hawaii then would be free of Besen's tiresome anti-Christian bigotry and preposterous crusade to 'prove' the impossible: that homosexuals (like all other sinners) can't change."
Note to humorless secular media elites and homosexual activists: this release is a spoof, but the parts about AP's biased reporting and Besen's "anti- ex-gay" Alaskan Adventure are true.
Truth Truck Rocks Grand Opening Of Obama's Nebraska Headquarters
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07595.shtml
OMAHA, Nebraska, (christiansunite.com) -- Operation Rescue's Truth Truck and a group from Rescue the Heartland staged a protest at the grand opening of Sen. Barack Obama's Nebraska Headquarters in Omaha on Wednesday evening.
Equipped with signs that said "Abortion Is An Obamanation" and "Stop the War on the Unborn," the group confronted hundreds of Obama supporters and the media with the truth of abortion. Since the grand opening was on outdoor event, the attendees were exposed to the protest for over two hours.
County Commissioner and former Mayor Mike Boyles was ticketed for blocking the Truth Truck. He later made the false claim on a radio station that the Truth Trucks picket funerals.
"Frankly, Mr. Boyles owes Operation Rescue an apology for his false and inflammatory remarks," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "Just because you disagree with someone, it doesn't give you a license to lie about them."
Larry Donlan, driver of the Truth Truck and organizer of the pro-life witness, was able to go on the same radio program and give a defense of the Truth Trucks. According to Donlan, some of the criticism from Democratic operatives backfired since several callers defended the Truth Truck and criticized the Democrats for not supporting the Freedom of Speech.
This is the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has opened a statewide headquarters with a paid staff in Nebraska in a generation. It shows how hard-fought this presidential race is likely to be.
"Abortion has become THE hot-button issue of this presidential campaign, and we applaud the Nebraska pro-lifers for taking that issue to the heart of the Obama camp in their state," said Newman. "We will continue to dog Obama on the issue of abortion whenever possible, because anyone who thinks that the issue of life is above his pay grade isn't fit to be elected as dog-catcher, much less President of the United States."
About Operation Rescue
Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation. Operation Rescue recently made headlines when it bought and closed an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas and has become the voice of the pro-life activist movement in America. Its activities are on the cutting edge of the abortion issue, taking direct action to restore legal personhood to the pre-born and stop abortion in obedience to biblical mandates.
55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/cetron_terror_attack/2008/09/10/129636.html
A major terrorist attack on the United States, probably featuring a weapon of mass destruction, is inevitable during the next four to five years, says Marvin J. Cetron, the futurist who predicted 9/11 with alarming insight.
During an exclusive interview with Newsmax, Cetron said the attack could come in as little as two-and-a-half to three years.
Cetron, who startled and embarrassed the intelligence community with his study "Terror 2000," has let the genie out of the bottle again with his latest report, "55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism."
When Newsmax asked how the expert and founder of Forecasting International Inc. (FI) can be so sure of the impending disasters, he said he needed to guard his classified sources.
"Let me put it this way: We have so many good sources of signals intelligence and human intelligence that lets us know what doesn't show up in the press," he said.
FI, which produced "55 Trends" has conducted an ongoing study of the forces changing our world for almost half a century in support of clients ranging from General Motors to the YMCA, and from the Central Intelligence Agency to the White House.
"Terror 2000," another FI project that was done for the Department of Defense in 1994, warned that terrorists were planning to use commercial aircraft as guided bombs to strike against a major landmark in the New York City area. It also warned that terrorists could hijack a commercial airliner, fly it down the Potomac, and crash it into the Pentagon.
Tragically, the report was filed and forgotten.
Cetron hopes this will not be the case with "55 Trends," a 252-page treatise that is very short on any good news and includes the disturbing conclusion that worldwide terror networks are stronger today than at the time of 9/11. It also contends that the cells are not taking orders but are free to attack when, where, and how they want.
"We're not talking about al-Qaida running these operations," Cetron says. "We're talking about cells and they are self-invigorated, if you will. They run on their own. The second thing that's a real problem in this is that they don't take orders. They do what they think is going to be good in their own local sphere."
Cetron is not talking only about cells overseas.
The Terrorists Are Already Here
He estimates that there are "a dozen or more cells in the United States and they don't get orders from overseas. They just know what to do. They get what they need."
Lurking in the homeland are small groups of less than five and some between five and 20, Cetron tells Newsmax.
"They get their funding from drug funds, they get it from money laundering, they get it from kidnapping, I can throw a whole list, but those people can give us a lot of grief," he says.
"There are two different groups – those that cost less than a quarter of a million to attack a target and then those that cost more than a quarter of a million. So you have to break them into separate areas and see what they are capable of doing and that's what you got to take a look at."
Cetron provides some detail about these ready-to-pounce cells: "They want to make two or three or four or five operations all at the same time and shoot up a whole bunch of strip malls. They will have already planted – about 50 yards back from those malls – bombs inside cars, so when the police set up their area that they want to cordon, they will blow up the police and the people watching to see what is going on."
As to where such zealots are coming from, Cetron notes, "Only 7 percent of the Muslim population agreed with what al-Qaida is doing, but if you take a look at 7 percent of 1.1 billion people, you are talking about over 1 million people running around here. That's a hell of a lot of people who will be sympathizers."
A multiple mall attack, however, could just be a warm-up, says Cetron, whose new report takes a hard look at WMD scenarios.
"But the biggest thing is that they could be using weapons of mass destruction. For instance, if anybody got into a printer where they print dollars or Euros, and they put pathogens on there, we could end up with literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, getting ill from that – and you wouldn't even know where the hell where it came from."
Another likely scenario, Citron says, is cyber war. "The Russians just used that in Georgia. You can literally turn off the electronics. Airplanes in the air wouldn't be able to fly, you wouldn't be able to communicate, you can turn off alarm systems. … They are actively looking to get into our systems…"
The Issue of Terrorists and Nukes
Cetron's band of experts in "55 Trends" concludes that, if Muslim extremists cannot lay hands on a stolen weapon from the former Soviet Union, they soon may be able to obtain them from Islamabad. Tehran remains a more distant possibility.
This is not a guarantee that terrorists will use nuclear weapons against the United States or other potential targets, Citron's latest report notes. The fabled "suitcase nuke" may be a terrorist's dream weapon, but it is technology that no one who would share is likely to possess.
Instead, al-Qaida or some future equivalent will receive bulky, low-yield devices that will be much harder to smuggle to their target. They may well try anyway, but it will be some time before this becomes an immediate possibility. During that interval our detection and intercept capability should improve significantly.
Other WMDs will be much more practical, the report says. If mushroom clouds do not appear over Manhattan or Washington, clouds of toxic gas or weaponized bacteria easily could.
As Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released sarin gas in the Tokyo subways in 1995, demonstrated, chemical weapons are available to essentially anyone who wants them enough to put in a modest effort to make them.
Biological weapons suitable for military use take considerably more effort to prepare, but there are practical purposes for which all-out weaponization is not required. And even if radiological dirty bombs are not traditionally considered WMDs, they could be equally disruptive if employed with skill in a major city, the report says.
The distinguished panel of experts and consultants behind "55 Trends" makes some grim predictions:
- International terrorism will grow as veterans of the Iraq War return to their native lands, train sympathizers in the tactics of terror, and spread across the world.
- Among the Western lands, Britain and France (owing to their large Muslim populations) and the United States will be at the greatest risk of attack, in that order. Further attacks on the scale of 9/11 are to be expected in all three countries over the range of five to ten years.
- These attacks will combine mass bloodshed and economic impact. Now that the World Trade Center is gone, Grand Central Station at rush hour would be an obvious target for Manhattan. Coordinated attacks on shopping malls, tourist attractions, casinos, schools, churches and synagogues, and sports events also are possible.
For those who still minimize the risk of attacks, Cetron notes that the proof is in the pudding: Many foiled attempts have never reached the public domain because of concerns that intelligence sources will be compromised.
"We've stopped a lot of attacks," Citron tells Newsmax. "This is all classified, but the truth is that they have stopped a lot of stuff because we've gotten hold of computers. We've had a lot of people on the ground with human intelligence.
"If you want to put it properly, we've been damn lucky."
Citron fears that Britain and France are in a worse position than the U.S. and it all has to do with demographics.
"By 2025 they are going to have more Muslims than non-Muslims," he says. "That's a problem. In Britain they have to take people from all of the old Commonwealth countries. And it's not those people who come in the first generation. It's the second one, the brighter ones that can pass as being Brits or Europeans or French that are going to give us grief."
For anyone who thinks that the startling conclusions of "55 Trends" are the brainchild of one overly paranoid think-tanker, Cetron sets them straight.
"We had some 170 of the best people in the United States – not only the United States but all over the world," he says.
It was a case of taking the talents of futurists and combining that with the raw knowledge of folks out in the field.
"We sent it out to all of these people all over the world and said look here is what we think is going to happen in the future, now you tell us where we're wrong, and where we're right," Cetron says.
"We even had a bunch of flight officers and senior colonels and commanders in the Navy, etc., who sent us back information and said don't use my name but let me tell you what's really going on – and we used all of that information."
Disturbing Trends
If talking to Citron is an eye-opener, reading the great detail of the "55 Trends" report may be even more so. At every other page is the grim news that we may be traveling backward rather than forward in our war on terror.
Case in point: In deposing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and depriving al-Qaida of a safe haven there, the United States struck a major blow against the terrorist movement as it existed five years ago. Yet by failing to follow up on that success effectively, the report concludes, we have squandered much of the benefit that should have been gained from that first step in the counterterrorist war.
The Iraq War has supplied al-Qaida and its sympathizers with a cause around which to rally their existing forces and recruit new ones, the report says. As a result, the terrorist movement is now growing stronger, the report reveals.
Up to 30,000 foreign fighters are believed to have gravitated toward Iraq, where they are now gaining contacts and experience that will serve them well in future campaigns against the U.S. and its allies.
In this, Iraq is now serving the function that Afghanistan provided in the 1980s. The war in Iraq is building a skilled and disciplined terrorist cadre that will fan out across the world.
Saudi Arabia even has been forced to build a major program aimed at keeping young men from going to Iraq. The Wahhid, the dominant Muslim sect in that country, is teaching that joining the jihad is the Muslim man's second-greatest duty, after going to Mecca. They must fight in Iraq, then come back and be available to fight for fundamentalist Islam in Saudi Arabia.
Thus are terrorist cells built, independent of al-Qaida but firmly committed to its goals and methods.
Expert Reveals Possible Prime Targets of Terrorism
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/targets_of_terrorism/2008/09/10/129637.html
Marvin J. Cetron, the futurist who predicted 9/11, and who embarrassed the intelligence community with his study "Terror 2000," said the State Department requested the reference to terrorists using a jet aircraft as a weapon be deleted from the report. Officials feared it might give the terrorists an idea they hadn't already thought of, Cetron said during an exclusive interview with Newsmax.
"I no longer worry about giving the bad guys ideas. Ordinary citizens need to know where the dangers lie," Cetron said.
This analysis of several possible prime targets of terrorism is based on a new study that Cetron's Forecasting International carried out for the Pentagon. None of this information is classified.
Although the oft-mentioned threat of a "suitcase" nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb has been discussed widely, and is a possibility, the consequences of attacking lesser, non-nuclear threats can be dire.
Members of the armed forces, the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and many other agencies agree that the question isn't whether America will be attacked on its own soil again. It's only a question of when.
Ten scenarios the report outlined:
Attack on U.S. oil refineries
Probability: High
Impact: High
Four terrorists driving minivans approach four oil refineries: The Royal Dutch Shell installation at Port Arthur, Texas; the Valero Energy refinery at Corpus Christi, Texas; the Chalmette refinery east of New Orleans; and the Chevron refinery at Pascagoula, Miss. They crash through the gates and aim for the key catalytic units used to refine petroleum. The crashes set off more than 500 pounds of dynamite in each van. Eleven workers die in the initial attacks and six more perish in the infernos that send plumes of dark smoke miles into the sky. Even before the flames can be extinguished, the price of oil skyrockets to more than $200 a barrel. The president declares a state of emergency and dispatches National Guard units to protect key infrastructure.
Casualties: 17 dead, 34 wounded.
Consequences: In a single day, America loses 15 percent of its crude-oil processing capability for more than a year. The Federal Reserve slashes the prime rate by a full point in a desperate attempt to avert a recession, as gas prices balloon. Critics bemoan the fact that, for decades, the United States neglected development of its "dirty" oil-processing infrastructure -- and now it's too late. Total economic cost: $1.2 trillion.
Bring down four high-tension wires across the west
Probability: High
Impact: High
The North American power grid has a dark secret: Of the 10,000 power substations, a loss of only 4 percent will disconnect more than 60 percent of the entire grid. But only 2 percent needs to be disrupted because downing just a few power lines can have widespread consequences. Some attacks are as easy as starting forest or grass fires under transmission lines, to ionize the air and cause the lines to fail. Others require suicide car bombs. In 12 hours, by downing just four lines, more than 60 percent of North America is without power. Power is lost from Knoxville, Tenn., to Nevada, and north to the Canadian border.
Casualties: Other than the suicide bombers, there are no direct casualties. But patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and even private homes on respirators and other life-saving devices begin to expire. The indirect death toll starts to climb rapidly. Based on previous blackouts, 100 to 300 deaths are likely. Stop lights don't work, gas stations can't pump fuel, and civil disturbances occur as crowds waiting in lines to receive ice grow restless. The president considers requesting help from the National Guard to maintain order.
Consequences: Nearly 200 million people are affected, and infrastructure damage could take several months to repair. At best, the economic impact easily could top $100 billion.
Coordinated suicide shootings at major tourist attractions
Probability: High
Impact: Low
It is Dec. 1, and families across the U.S. are packing in a last Saturday of vacation fun before returning home to spend Christmas with relatives. In Anaheim, Calif., two recently hired Disneyland employees stand back-to-back and begin firing AK-47s into the crowd. To avoid detection, they smuggled the weapons into work, a few pieces at a time during the past few weeks, and reassembled them. Similar attacks take place simultaneously at Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld in Orlando, and at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Casualties: Before security personnel kill the attackers, 84 vacationers lie dead and another 103 are wounded.
Consequences: Its icons of innocence smashed, America loses hope of life returning to how it once was. Theme parks across the country lose an average of 10 percent of their business for the next year, an impact of about $1.25 billion. With many Americans afraid to resume normal lives, the economy teeters on the brink of recession.
Destroy Tennessee Valley Authority dams
Probability: Low
Impact: High
The Douglas Dam stretches 1,705 feet across the Tennessee River northeast of Knoxville. The Norris Dam spans 1,860 feet across the Clinch River northwest of the city. On May 10, 2009, with water levels at their annual peak, a bomb far below the water line cracks the Norris Dam. An hour later, the Douglas Dam is hit. Both structures give way, and the water backed up behind them easily sweeps away the smaller dams at Melton Hill and Fort Loudon. About 2.1 million acre-feet of water cascade down the Tennessee Valley, sweeping away just about everything in its path. The flood plows into the Watts Bar Dam, then the Chickamauga, the Nickajack, and on down the Tennessee River. The Watts Bar and Sequoyah nuclear power plants are flooded. Debris pours out of reservoirs, flooding Chattanooga as the crest passes. No trace is ever found of the terrorists who set the bombs.
Casualties: An early alert that the dams were failing surprisingly holds the deaths to 43 people.
Consequences: Damage to the Chattanooga area is estimated at $5 billion. Luckily, there are no radiation leaks from the nuclear plants, but all the secondary hardware outside the containment vessels is destroyed. About 20 percent of the TVA's power-generating capacity will be out of commission for at least a year, with repair costs for power facilities alone expected to run at least $2 billion. During the next five years, the Tennessee Valley will incur about $1 billion in flood damage the lost dams would have prevented. Cost to replace them: at least $25 billion.
Explode liquefied natural gas tanker and storage depot near Boston
Probability: Medium
Impact: Very high
A four-seat Cessna 172 takes off from Hanscom Field in Bedford, Mass., and turns southeast. In minutes, it passes over downtown Boston and arrives above the Distrigas liquefied natural gas depot on the far side of the Mystic River, in Everett. The small craft dives at a tanker that is unloading almost 40 million gallons of liquefied natural gas. On impact, a detonator sets off 250 pounds of explosives in the plane's back seat. An explosion with the power of more than 50 Hiroshima bombs destroys the entire storage depot. Boston's North End simply ceases to exist, along with parts of Chelsea, Everett, and Somerville.
Casualties: Nearly everyone within a half-mile of the terminal dies; at 1 mile, the toll averages 75 percent. An estimated 197,525 people are lost, with thousands more injured.
Consequences: Severe damage stretches for 2 miles in each direction. Several billion dollars worth of property is lost, including Boston City Hall and the Faneuil Market tourist area. The catastrophe dwarfs Hurricane Katrina by comparison. Lacking natural gas for heat, nearly 300 elderly residents die of cold during the winter. The tourists stop coming, businesses fail, and pundits sadly remark that Boston may never again be the city it once was.
Cruise the East Coast, releasing anthrax
Probability: Medium
Impact: High
On a night with a brisk easterly wind, two young men who had entered the country from Canada at Portal, N.D., drive from Boston to Washington, D.C. Opening the rooftop vent of their rust-bucket van, they fasten a dryer vent hose into it. Using a small air compressor and a funnel, they send anthrax spores into the wind. They have smuggled in only a small fraction of the weaponized anthrax stolen in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. But it will be enough. Driving through every rest area, with detours through downtown Hartford, New Haven, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Wilmington, they finally arrive in Washington. Parking at the Iwo Jima memorial, they distribute the last of the anthrax and walk off. Throughout the Northeast, the health-care system soon collapses under the needs of the dying.
Casualties: Almost 1.6 million people up to 40 miles downwind from Interstate 95 could be affected, according to 2003 Pentagon reports. At least 95 percent of those who inhale the spores will die, even with treatment.
Consequences: Based on the 2001 anthrax scare, this scenario could make substantial areas of the Northeast unlivable for the years it will take to decontaminate an area of more than 20,000 square miles. Cleanup and medical costs could reach $1.4 trillion.
Detonate EMP bombs in the Internet-critical region of Northern Virginia
Probability: Medium
Impact: High
EMP means "electromagnetic pulse," a blast of radio energy so strong it fries electronic equipment. Set off an atomic bomb at an altitude of 30,000 feet, and there won't be a computer working for miles around. But the terrorists who strike Northern Virginia on 9/11 in 2010 do not need a nuclear weapon to shut down the region's computers. Instead, they use homemade EMP generator-bombs that any good engineering student can build with $400 and information from the Internet. They detonate nine bombs in a triangle stretching from McLean west to Dulles International Airport and south to Chantilly. The blasts take down communications and navigation equipment at Dulles, some of the less critical computers at CIA headquarters in Langley, and data centers that carry some 40 percent of the world's Internet traffic. With police unable to use modern communications, the terrorists escape and leave the country. It is eight months before they are identified. Two years later, only one of the six-member team has been captured. A similar bomb, detonated near Wall Street, would be a "weapon of mass disruption," bringing chaos to the world's financial center.
Casualties: None directly. In Northern Virginia-area hospitals, 17 patients die in part because their computerized monitors no longer operate properly. Another 14 may have died when their pacemakers delivered massive shocks to the heart and then ceased working. And the chaos has just begun.
Consequences: Dulles-bound aircraft are diverted for three days until replacement gear can be brought in. About 40 percent of the world's Internet traffic flowed through this part of Northern Virginia. Losing that capacity slows the Internet to a crawl, which complicates military, emergency, and intelligence response. Most of the 175,000 people employed in IT-intensive region will be out of work for at least a year. Repairing the electronic infrastructure will cost an estimated $40 billion. Businesses across the United States lose an additional $2 billion a month because of the loss of Internet service.
Introduce E. coli into fast-food restaurants on Wall Street and Capitol Hill
Probability: High
Impact: Low
After a costly E. coli outbreak, one major fast-food chain announces that it will start testing lettuce on the farm. Another touts its program for preventing food-borne illnesses. Neither grasps the obvious, that their people are the weakest link: food preparation and delivery. Staff turns over rapidly, and it doesn't take long to plant "sleepers" in more than a dozen fast-food outlets near Wall Street and the four within half a mile of Capitol Hill. One Wednesday morning, they start misting lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and even buns with a spray containing E. coli.
Casualties: With the three- to eight-day incubation period, which masks the attack and puts the initial response over a weekend, five days' worth of customers are sickened, more than 13,500 in all. At least 142 people die, many of them children and elderly.
Consequences: Lawsuits filed against the chains demand a total of $250 billion in damages. They will not be settled for years. Even more costly: Fast-food hamburger orders drop by 27 percent, on average, throughout the industry for the first six months after the incident, resulting in a loss of about $57.5 billion in revenue.
Introduce nerve gas into air intakes of crowded public buildings
Probability: Low
Impact: High
A terrorist gets a low-level job servicing heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment for a contractor in Manhattan. His work takes him to important buildings: Madison Square Garden, where Andrea Bocelli is in concert; and to Carnegie Hall, where Reinbert de Leeuw is conducting students from Julliard and the Weill Institute of Music. Also on his route: the studios and offices of ABC, CBS, and DowJones. Hidden in his thermos is odorless sarin nerve gas, frozen into ice cubes. All he has to do is leave the ice inside each building's ventilation units, which he sets to "recycle" instead of drawing in fresh air from outside. As he escapes to New Jersey, the ice melts and the deadly gas spreads through each building. Other terrorists drop vials of pungent mercaptan, to simulate a natural gas leak, throughout Battery Park and South Street Seaport. This distracts police and emergency crews for hours. Chaos reigns in New York City.
Casualties: Two-thirds of the 15,000 people in Madison Square Garden are seriously ill, and 2,851 die. At Carnegie Hall, all 600 people are sick, and 127 die. The office buildings are hit during the night shift and add 86 more deaths.
Consequences: People are terrified. Tourism and event attendance drop precipitously across the country. New York City alone loses $500 million in wages and taxes for every 1 percent decline in visitor spending. The entire hospitality industry in New York hovers on the brink of collapse.
Scientists developing small robotic drones to become part of Air Force's arsenal
http://www.physorg.com/news140850742.html
It may look like a futuristic arcade game, but it's a scene from an official Air Force animated video: Bad guys of indiscernible origin being shadowed, from a careful distance, by small robotic drones designed to resemble birds and insects.
When one of the bad guys opens his apartment door, a tiny robo-bug, looking like a garage door opener with wings, sneaks in to spy. In another scene, a bug - the Air Force calls them Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs - creeps into a sniper's roost and delivers a deadly shot to the back of his head.
It might sound far-fetched. But top Air Force officials believe that MAVs could be a significant part of the Defense Department's arsenal in the not-so-distant future.
Civilian researchers and airmen at the Air Force Research Laboratory, based at this installation just outside Dayton, have set a 2015 deadline to roll out the first generation of MAVs. This first group, they hope, will be the size of birds and be able to operate several days without recharging.
"These are one of the assets that in the future could be a game-changer," said Mark Lewis, chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force.
For more than a decade, the Pentagon and the aerospace industry have poured tens of millions of dollars into research surrounding tiny flying machines that officials say could be an invaluable help in battle and rescue operations.
Scientists have studied the flight of fruit flies, the crawling of insects and the perching of birds as they look for ideas on how to build an aircraft that is light enough to be carried in a soldier's rucksack but durable enough to stay aloft for long periods.
U.S. forces and their allies have already used some small vehicles in the field, but nothing that compares in size and stealth to what scientists at the Air Force lab are looking to develop in coming years.
Britain's Special Forces have tested a 28-inch-long MAV, called the Wasp, on reconnaissance missions in Afghanistan. Last year, the U.S. Marines placed a $19.3 million order for the small unmanned aircraft, developed by California-based AeroVironment. The Wasp can be fitted with explosives that could theoretically be used for a surprise attack.
The U.S. military relies on large unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance missions and surgical strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Air Force officials say the smaller MAVs, flying at 50 to 100 feet, would offer troops on the ground precise information that a larger drone flying at 30,000 feet cannot.
"The idea of developing very small unmanned flying vehicles has been an obsession of the Air Force for decades," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "It follows the general trend toward miniaturization of almost everything the Air Force does."
The near-term goal is to create a bird-size MAV by 2015, and by 2030 the Air Force hopes to deploy a bug-size aircraft, said Maj. Gregory Parker, a team leader in the laboratory's Air Vehicles Directorate. The marketing video, created by the Air Force scientists to explain their vision, claims the drones will be "unobtrusive, pervasive, lethal."
Parker said the directorate is searching for ways that their conceptual MAVs could harvest energy from potential resources in an urban environment, such as power lines and sunlight. Another problem is landing.
"The biggest challenge is how do we make it able to maneuver on spot, so it can land without a runway?" Parker said. "We have to figure out how do you land on a tree limb or building's edge? How do you land on a power line?"
Air Force officials say drones as small as the ones they envision could blend into the environment, peering around the blind turn of a mountain pass or peeking into a suspected insurgent hideout to gather intelligence more safely and with greater stealth, officials say.
Researchers are also working on technology that would allow Air Force officials to launch a swarm of MAVs to provide more detailed surveillance.
"Maybe you launch a thousand of them on one city block to find one (target)," Parker said.
Parker added that the use of tiny MAVs could have civilian applications. For example, small unmanned air vehicles could be dispatched into rubble after a natural disaster to search for signs of life.
Thompson, the defense analyst, said bird- and bug-size drones would be useful in the type of fighting troops have faced in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he remains skeptical that the researchers will be able to develop aircraft in the near future that can sustain missions that last weeks.
He also said significant advances would be necessary to create micro-air vehicles that could carry the weight of a small camera or a weapons system.
"There may be the know-how to create a vehicle the size of a grasshopper," Thompson said. "But if it can't carry the payload, why build a grasshopper?"
Douglas Blake, deputy director of the Air Vehicles Directorate, acknowledged that researchers face hurdles, but said his team has the brainpower to overcome them. And the payoff in the battlefield, he added, would be huge.
"This would give us the capability of going anywhere at any time," Blake said.
Is the US economic crisis leading to a New Global Monetary Order?
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/16/draghi-deeper-crisis-would-call-for-global-solution/
National solutions have been enough to stem the financial-sector crisis so far, ECB Governing Council member Mario Draghi said in a Berlin speech Thursday, but they may not be enough if things get worse.
"Policies are taking a variety of shapes that can be grouped within two broad categories: emergency and structural responses," said Mr. Draghi, who also heads Italy's central bank. "Until now, the first remained typically national since each crisis was unique to the financial structure of the country and so were the remedies.
However, if the crisis were to become systemic - and the past weekend has shown just how sudden and dramatic the turn of events can be — I believe that an internationally coordinated effort will be necessary."
Mr. Draghi's words have international heft, since he chairs the Financial Stability Forum — a group of global regulators and central bankers working on solutions for preventing the next blowup. He indicated the framework of the global financial system is undergoing a gut check: "A resilient infrastructure is one that is capable of withstanding the effects of the failure of a large financial institution. As we speak, this objective is being tested by reality."
Overall, he said, the global banking system has enough capital to meet its needs "under reasonable scenarios."
He offered no prediction about whether market conditions would continue to be "reasonable" but did say banks will need to raise "at least once again the amount of capital raised since the crisis began." Mr. Draghi's estimate of that amount, according to a person familiar with the matter, is $350 billion.
China paper urges new currency order after "financial tsunami"
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSPEK4365020080917?sp=true
Threatened by a "financial tsunami," the world must consider building a financial order no longer dependent on the United States, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Wednesday.
The commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc "may augur an even larger impending global 'financial tsunami'."
The People's Daily is the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, and the overseas edition is a smaller circulation offshoot of the main paper.
Its pronouncements do not necessarily directly reflect leadership views, but this commentary by a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University suggested considerable official alarm at the strains buckling world financial markets.
China's central bank earlier this week cut its lending rate for the first time in six years, a move analysts said was aimed at bolstering the economy and the battered stock market.
"The eruption of the U.S. sub-prime crisis has exposed massive loopholes in the United States' financial oversight and supervision," writes the commentator, Shi Jianxun.
"The world urgently needs to create a diversified currency and financial system and fair and just financial order that is not dependent on the United States."
But Vice Premier Wang Qishan, on a visit to the United States, told U.S. trade officials in a meeting on Tuesday that China and the United States needed to maintain close economic ties with global markets going through such turbulence.
"The Chinese government is well aware of the fact that the United States, which is the world's largest developed country, and China, which is the world's largest developing country, should have constructive and cooperative economic and trade relations," he said.
China is a major buyer of U.S. Treasury bonds, and through its sovereign wealth fund it has taken stakes in two large U.S. financial institutions.
In July 2005, China revalued the yuan and freed it from a dollar peg to float within managed bands. But the yuan and China's trade remains tightly linked to the fortunes of the dollar.
The commentary suggested China must brace for grave economic fallout and look to alternatives, saying the crisis brings to mind the Great Depression of the 1930s.
"Lehman Brothers announced bankruptcy will not only have a domino effect on the global financial world, it will bring a shock to the world economy," the front-page comment stated.
Megachurch Growth and Changes
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080913/report-tracks-megachurch-growth-changes.htm
Attendance numbers at America's megachurches continue to grow, and at very fast rates, according to the latest research on the country's largest churches.
Protestant congregations that already have at least 2,000 people in a typical weekend had an average rate of growth for five years of around 50 percent. And over 20 percent of megachurches experienced an increase of 100 percent. Slightly more than 10 percent of the churches showed stagnation or decline.
The findings come from a study entitled "Changes in American Megachurches: Tracing Eight Years of Growth and Innovation in the Nation's largest-Attendance Congregations," which was released Friday.
The continuous growth in the size of megachurches comes as no surprise as they have shown increasing numbers over the last eight years.
But despite the bigger congregations, megachurches have not expanded their sanctuaries to accommodate the larger flocks.
Megachurches are "getting bigger without getting bigger," commented Warren Bird, co-author of the study.
The average weekend megachurch attendance in 2008 was 4,142. The average main sanctuary seating, meanwhile, was 1,794.
More churches are opting for different strategies when accommodating larger crowds. Some have turned to "overflow rooms" where attendants would typically watch the service on a video screen in a different area of the church. Many are holding multiple services with the average megachurch today conducting five weekend services, up from 2005.
But perhaps the newest growth method adopted by megachurches is satellite campuses.
Over the last five years, over 30 percent of megachurches adopted the multi-site model compared to only 8 percent 6-10 years ago and 3 percent 11-15 years ago.
"There is no doubt that this phenomenon is an increasing reality judging by the percentage of megachurches that said they began a satellite in each of the past 5 year time periods," according to the report.
In 2008, 37 percent of megachurches reported holding satellite services and 22 percent were thinking about it. In 2000, only 22 percent were multi-site and no other churches were thinking about pursuing it then.
On average, churches had two satellite locations and offered 4 services at these each weekend. Five percent of megachurches, including New Life Community Church in Chicago, Ill., Seacoast Church in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., and LifeChurch.tv in Edmond, Okla., had 6 or more campuses and offered between 12 and 24 services.
While some critics of multi-site churches believe such a growth strategy detracts from the church planting effort, the new study found that megachurches with satellite campuses were the most likely group to plant other churches.
Only 16 percent of churches with multiple campuses never planted a church compared to 26 percent of churches without satellite locations.
Over the last five years, nearly 60 percent of multi-site churches have planted churches while 50 percent of churches without satellites did the same.
Overall, church planting has grown among megachurches from 68 percent in 2000, to 70 percent in 2005, to 77 percent in 2008.
Rise of the mini-denomination
Megachurches may be becoming de facto replacements for the more traditional denominations, researchers suggested.
Scott Thumma and Bird call it the rise of the "mini-denominations," although they are not necessarily fond of the term.
"Megachurches are creating around them structures and especially functions that once were done by the denominations," said Thumma, author of Beyond Megachurch Myths and a professor at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, on Thursday.
Some of these structures include operating large networks of pastors and churches, providing clergy resources and music material, mobilizing for community service and social justice efforts, and planting churches.
"They are creating alternative ways for churches and for religious people to get resources to do ministry, to do missions, to connect with other churches," noted Thumma.
"All the things that were typically done by a denominational form are being done at a local church level – if you can call a megachurch a local church," he added, noting the scale has shifted from the national hierarchical organization to an informal, local church network.
Megachurches, however, are not the biggest threat to the life of denominations, Thumma indicated.
"In think it's probably less actual competition that's going to kill the denomination. There's a lot of other things that will kill the denominations," he said.
Other developing patterns among megachurches
In other findings, more megachurches are identifying themselves as "evangelical."
In 2000, less than half (48 percent) chose the label "evangelical" but the number rose in 2008, with 65 percent now taking on the label.
Fewer megachurches are choosing to identify themselves as "charismatic" or "pentecostal." Only 7 percent chose the charismatic label in 2008 compared to 14 percent in 2000, and only 4 percent labeled themselves pentecostal compared to 11 percent in 2000.
"The vast majority of megachurches have always held a conservative theological position, and this hasn't changed. But what has changed is a turn away from distinctive theological segments within conservative Protestantism toward a 'generic evangelicalism,'" the study's authors stated.
A shift was also seen in political views.
The study stated that the majority of megachurch attendees are Republicans but "they are not the arch-conservatives many people portray them as."
Only 33 percent described the majority of their church's attendees as predominantly conservative. Three years ago, 51 percent had that label. Also, 44 percent said their congregants are "somewhat on the conservative side" in 2008 compared to 33 percent in 2005. And 17 percent labeled their congregants as "right in the middle" while 11 percent said the same three years ago.
Interestingly, the study also found that megachurches are not overtly political even during this year's election.
"The majority really want to stay out of politics as much as possible," said Thumma.
While keeping out of politics, megachurches are putting more emphasis on social justice and community service. In 2000, only 34 percent affirmed their congregation was "working for social justice." In 2008, 51 percent of churches affirmed this. Also in 2008, 73 percent of the megachurches stated that community service activities were given a lot of programmatic emphasis in the past year or were a specialty of the church.
'Somebody's Daughter' - Christians look to address porn addiction
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080916/-somebody-s-daughter-makes-case-against-pornography.htm
A special multi-media DVD-CD is set to release this week, addressing a problem that plagues nearly 60 percent of Christian men as well as 35 percent of women.
"Somebody's Daughter: A Journey to Freedom from Pornography" will be available Friday and includes a television documentary detailing the lives of three men and one couple active in Christian ministry who struggle with and eventually overcome addiction to pornography. Also included are nine therapeutic songs, four illustrative music videos, eight personal vignettes, and a study guide curriculum for individuals, counselors and churches.
"The 'Somebody's Daughter' DVD presents a compelling and heart-breaking case against the destructive effect of pornography in our culture," commented Larry Malone, director of the United Methodist Men Ministries, in a published endorsement.
"Pornography is ravaging the power of Christianity before our very eyes," he added. "When these video resources are matched with inspired music, lyrics and personal testimony, the war against pornography is engaged, and new territory is claimed for Christ."
The upcoming DVD-CD comes as recent surveys have found that nearly 60 percent of Christian men, 37 percent of pastors, and 35 percent of women admit to struggling with pornography.
It also comes not long after the recent media storm that struck following the confession of high-profile Australian preacher Michael Guglielmucci, who admitted to faking his two-year battle with cancer to hide his 16-year obsession with pornography.
Guglielmucci – who shocked not only the megachurch his parents established, Edge Church International in Australia, but the world-wide Christian movement with his confession last month – has been addicted to pornography since the age of 12, according to his father.
"This is who I am ... I'm addicted to the stuff, it consumes my mind," Michael Guglielmucci said of pornography in his first interview on Today Tonight since the story of his cover-up was first revealed on AdelaideNow.
"I'm sick and this is why I had to come up some sort of explanation of what was happening in my body," he added.
In a culture where sexuality and porn is now a part of everyday life, porn addiction in the Church is escalating.
In a poll conducted last year by ChristaNet.com, 50 percent of Christian men and 20 percent of Christian women were found to be addicted to pornography.
Furthermore, the survey found 60 percent of Christian women admitting to having significant struggles with lust; 40 percent saying they were involved in sexual sin in the past year; and 20 percent struggling with looking at pornography on an ongoing basis.
"We are seeing an escalation to the problem in both men and women who regularly attend church," said ChistiaNet.com president Bill Cooper.
The concept for the "Somebody's Daughter" project was born from a song of the same name written by Christian recording artist John Mandeville and Steve Siler, founder and director of the Music for the Soul ministry, after Mandeville revealed to Siler his struggles with pornography.
After attending a meeting for sex addicts, the two men wrote the song to illustrate that women should be viewed as a creation of a Holy God, and as a starting point for Mandeville's healing.
Since then, Music for the Soul has produced 18 music and spoken word tracks, four music videos and a television documentary – all compiled on the new release, "Somebody's Daughter." A curriculum guide is also available to help churches and ministries implement the resources on the DVD and CD.
"You can tell God's hand is all over this thing," expressed Rick White, senior pastor of The People's Church in Franklin, Tenn.
"This is the most powerful music I have ever heard," he said in his published endorsement for the project. "I've worn my CD out! Nothing has moved me as deeply as this project."
Following the DVD-CD's Sept. 19 release, the premiere of "Somebody's Daughter" will take place Sept. 27 at Trinity Baptist Church in Apopka, Fla., 15 miles north of Orlando. It is also scheduled to air Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 on the ION Television Network (formerly PAX TV). The documentary also is slated to air on INSP, Faith TV and "It's Time for Herman & Sharron."
The DVD-CD set will be available at somebodysdaughter.org and is being distributed to Christian retailers by Vision Video.
Ten percent of sales of the project will be donated to Christian counseling centers to aid in counseling people with pornography addictions.
Russia's Arctic Incursions Worry Canada
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/canada_russia_arctic/2008/09/19/132563.html
Canada is worried about Russian moves to assert more control over the Arctic in apparent defiance of international treaties, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Friday.
Russia is flexing its muscles in the Arctic, where it is competing with the West for control of vast energy resources, and has started to send strategic bombers on testing flights across the North Pole toward Canada and the United States.
This week Moscow ordered officials to draft a law marking out Russia's borders in the Arctic. Any unilateral action would breach a deal between the five Arctic Ocean countries to let the United Nations rule on rival claims.
"We're concerned about not just Russia's claims to the international process but Russia's testing of Canadian airspace and other indications ... which may indicate some desire to work outside of the international framework," Harper told reporters during an election campaign stop in Farnham, Quebec. Election day in Canada is October 14.
The U.N. wants Arctic states to submit their territorial claims for consideration by May 2009.
Ottawa has stepped up sovereignty patrols in the Arctic and last month said it would toughen reporting requirements for ships entering its waters in the Far North.
Canada claims as its territory the entire Northwest Passage, a link between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but the United States says the passage is an international waterway.
Christian family attacked and three killed in Mexico
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07600.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - Three Christians in the community of Jolitontic, Chiapas, Mexico were recently brutally killed by a neighbour, according to a September 3 report from Compass Direct. Antonio Gomez blamed his Christian neighbour, Pedro Gomez Diaz and family, for his 11-year-old daughter's stomach ailment and accused the Christian family of practicing witchcraft.
After midnight on August 23, Gomez and seven of his friends entered the home of the Christian family and attacked them with machetes. Pedro, his wife Marcela and their oldest son, Rene were hacked to death. Six of the other Diaz children were seriously wounded. At last report, the eight men involved in the attack were being held in a jail.
Pray for the surviving Diaz family as they mourn their parents and oldest sibling. Ask God to give them comfort in knowing that Christ is victorious over death (1 Corinthians 15:50-58).
For more information on the persecution Christians face in Mexico, please visit www.persecution.net/mexico.htm.
Viewing the entire World Wide Web in 3D
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080918074924.pmf8tfso&show_article=1
An Australian company on Thursday launched a free tool it says offers web browsers a world-first opportunity to view the Internet in three dimensions.
Melbourne-based ExitReality said its application allows users to turn any regular website into a 3D virtual environment, where an avatar representing them can walk around and meet other browsers viewing the same website.
Founder Danny Stefanic said that previously only specialised websites such as Second Life and World of Warcraft allowed users to enter a 3D environment.
"ExitReality goes far beyond that," he said. "It allows you to view not just one website but the entire World Wide Web in 3D."
Browsers can use the tool to turn their social networking pages on sites such as Facebook and MySpace into a virtual apartment, where photographs are displayed on the wall and links to friends are "doors" leading to other apartments.
Users can customise their flats by "decorating" with 3D versions of couches from stores such as Ikea or downloading an e-jukebox to play music clips stored on their personal page.
Similarly, using ExitReality on video-sharing website YouTube creates a virtual cinema, where the browser's avatar sits next to other users also logged on to watch the clip they have selected.
Stefanic said the tool transformed the Web from a solo experience into one that could be shared with friends and other users interested in the same content.
"The user can see and share experiences with their friends while chatting with them and other people at either their own website or another billion web pages," he said.
Stefanic said there was a wealth of 3D content on the Internet that conventional web search engines ignored.
Such effects made the web more interesting for users, meaning they were more likely to spend more time browsing the page, he said.
"Users would normally spend no longer than a couple of minutes on a 2D website," he said. "In a 3D environment, this time can extend to half an hour, creating a huge potential for the website owner to maximise user engagement," he said.
Google blinks, allows Christian ads
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75521
Internet giant Google has changed its policy and will allow Christian groups to advertise their views on the issue of abortion as the result of a court action in the United Kingdom.
The legal action was launched by the Christian Institute because Google Ireland Ltd., described as the "doorway to the Internet," censored its simple ad reading: "UK abortion law – Key views and news on abortion law from the Christian Institute. www.christian.org.uk."
Google had explained it refused the ad because of its old policy that disallowed advertising of sites that mixed "abortion and religion-related content."
However, the Institute today announced a settlement that included a review of and a change to the Google policy.
"We are delighted to confirm that our legal proceedings against Google for blocking our abortion ad have been settled on amicable terms," the Institute's statement said. "As a result of the court action and other representations made to Google in recent months, Google has reviewed its AdWords policy to enable The Christian Institute and other religious associations to place ads on the subject of abortion in a factual and campaigning way."
Google, when the problem arose, said: "We only allow ads that have factual information about abortion."
But the Institute's head of communications, Mike Judge, said that revealed a "warped" set of values.
"To insinuate that religious groups are not factual on the issue of abortion is a huge insult to religious people across the globe," he said at the time. "This is not a debate about the rights and wrongs of abortion. It is about free speech. You can be pro-abortion and still recognize that Google is acting unfairly."
The Institute said it was told the new Google policy will apply worldwide immediately.
"This is an important issue of free speech and religious liberty and we are pleased with Google's constructive response to this matter," the organization said.
Earlier, Judge said the censorship was appalling.
"To say that religious sites with material on abortion are 'unacceptable content' (while) advertising pornography is ridiculous," he said. His opinions were shared by former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe.
"It does seem to me to be the most appalling and blatant case of religious discrimination and also to be a very silly attempt to stifle due debate," she said.
The details of the settlement, other than the policy was changed and the advertising now will be allowed, weren't released. But the organization also posted a statement on the settlement on YouTube:
The Christian Institute brought the action in April, citing the United Kingdom's Equality Act.
Eventually, Google responded.
"The issue of abortion is an emotive subject and Google does not take a particular side. Over the last few months we have received a number of representations about our abortion ads policy and we decided to conduct a review to make sure it was fair, up to date and consistent with local customs and practices," the corporation said. "Following the review we have decided to amend our policy, creating a level playing field and enabling religious associations to place adds in a factual way."
The Christian Institute had wanted to promote its online information about abortion just as Parliament was taking on discussion of the nation's proposed Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, the first opportunity in 18 years for members of Parliament to vote on time limits for abortions.
But Google officials at that time shut down the request.
"Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. In reviewing your AdWords Starter Edition account, we have found that your ad or keywords do not meet our guidelines. Please log into your account to see your disapproved ad, the reason for disapproval and editorial suggestions…," the e-mail said.
Then it specified that company policy "does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'abortion and religion-related content,' … As noted in our advertising terms and conditions, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site."
The Christian Institute's legal representation, the firm of Aughton Ainsworth, responded.
"It is unlawful for you to discriminate against the Christian Institute in a manner which infringes section 46 of the Equality Act 2006," an advisory letter from the firm said.
"In relation to your provision to the public or a section of the public of 'facilities or services' to advertise, you are treating the Christian Institute less favorably, on the express grounds of their religion or belief, than others where there is no material difference in the relevant circumstances," the law firm warned.
"This is evidenced by the fact that you permit groups, such as 'Reality Check,' who are promoting pro abortion beliefs, to advertise on the abortion link. … In fact the discrimination seems to be directly targeted at the Christian Institute. This is because the 'Google policy' to which you refer does not appear in your written 'AdWords Advertising Policies' at all.
"You permit abortion clinics to advertise their services and 'political advertising' … You also permit organizations to advertise 'anti-religious T-shirts' as a link to the Google search word 'secular,'" the firm said.
The Christian Institute was seeking to pay Google so that when the word "abortion" was typed, its link would appear on the side of the screen.
Parents Beware - Anti-bullying agenda becoming back door to promotion of Homosexuality
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1056415/Teach-pleasure-gay-sex-children-young-say-researchers.html?printingPage=true
Children as young as five should be taught to understand the pleasures of gay sex, according to leaders of a taxpayer-funded education project.
Heads of the project have set themselves a goal of 'creating primary classrooms where queer sexualities are affirmed and celebrated'.
The ambition was revealed in documents prepared for the No Outsiders project run by researchers from universities and backed with £600,000 of public money provided by the Economic and Social Research Council.
The stated purpose of the project - which is operating in 14 primary schools - is to stop bullying and prejudice aimed at homosexuals.
However, at a seminar at Exeter University tomorrow, supporters of the group will go beyond the anti-bullying agenda and discuss 'pleasure and desire in educational contexts'.
A document prepared for the seminar and couched in convoluted academic jargon says: 'The team is concerned to interrogate the desexualisation of children's bodies, the negation of pleasure and desire in educational contexts, and the tendency to shy away from discussion of (sexual) bodily activity in No Outsiders project work.
'The danger of accusations of the corruption of innocent children has led team members to make repeated claims that this project is not about sex or desire - and that it is therefore not about bodies.
'Yet, at a very significant level, that is exactly what it is about and to deny this may have significant negative implications for children and young people.'
No Outsiders is led by researchers from Sunderland University and also involves academics at the Institute of Education and Exeter University. Books, puppet shows and plays are used to teach children about same-sex relationships.
During the project, the seminar paper says, its members have 'challenged each other to go beyond imagined possibilities into queer practice'.
The seminar will 'question the taken-for-granted of the supposedly sexless, bodiless and desire-less primary classroom' and examine 'the place of the research team members' own bodies, desires and pleasures in this research'.
The discussions provoked a furious reaction from critics of the homosexual rights agenda. Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: 'When an adult who is working in a primary school suggests that children should explore their sexuality, that should result in a complaint to the police.'
Patricia Morgan, author of studies of family life and gay adoption, said: 'The proposal is that primary school classrooms should be turned into gay saunas. This is about homosexual practice in junior schools. The idiots who repealed Section 28 should consider that this is where it has got them.'
Project leader Dr Elizabeth Atkinson said the seminar had no connection with No Outsiders work in classrooms. 'The seminar is part of a long-standing academic debate and has nothing to do with schools,' she said. 'It has no connection with sex education.'
Section 28, the law which banned the promotion of homosexuality in state schools, was repealed five years ago. Current guidance on sex education says it should not promote sexual orientation or sexual activity.
Anglican church mocks Biblical Creationism with apology to Charles Darwin
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75273
A senior cleric of the Church of England wants his church to apologize to Charles Darwin in time for the observance of the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth next year. The Rev. Dr. Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs for the church, made his case in an article entitled, "Good Religion Needs Good Science," published in a special new section of the Church of England's official Web site.
"Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still," Brown wrote. "We try to practice the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and hope that makes some amends."
Apologize to Charles Darwin? The Church of England may well need to apologize, but not to Charles Darwin. If anything, the church needs to apologize for its rightful embarrassment in considering an apology to Darwin. But, it seems, this church is not embarrassed.
Dr. Brown apparently is a big believer in Darwin's theory of natural selection. "Subsequent generations have built on Darwin's work but have not significantly undermined his fundamental theory of natural selection," he insists. "There is nothing here that contradicts Christian teaching."
Well, Charles Darwin sure thought that the theory of natural selection contradicted Christian teaching. But, then again, he may have had a better understanding of Christian teaching than Dr. Brown.
To the end of his life, Darwin identified himself as a "nominal" Anglican, but by that time he had long abandoned theism and any belief in a personal God. The relationship between Darwin's changing religious beliefs and his developing scientific theory can be read either of two ways, and even Darwin appeared to have been unclear in his own mind how the two were related. The two options are these: Either Darwin's theory of natural selection undermined his belief in a personal God who directed creation, or his abandonment of his belief in a personal God as the agent of creation led to his development of the theory of natural selection. Either way, Darwin himself was clear that the belief that God is Creator and the belief that life is evidence of natural selection are incompatible beliefs.
Darwin differed, for example, with the American botanist Asa Gray over just this question. Gray allowed for God as the agent of design, working through what appeared to be natural selection - a form of what is often called "theistic evolution." But Darwin would have none of that, and he rejected any role for a divine Designer.
As Peter J. Bowler explains in Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence (Cambridge University Press), "The one thing Darwin could not admit was that God somehow played an active role in controlling the direction of evolution."
Dr. Brown argues that Darwin was misunderstood. In his words: "Darwin's meticulous application of the principles of evidence-based research was not the problem. His theory caused offense because it challenged the view that God had created human beings as an entirely different kind of creation to the rest of the animal world."
No, his theory caused offense because it challenged the view that God had anything to do with the creation of any species at all. Dr. Brown's version of Darwinism simply isn't compatible with what Darwin actually believed.
Dr. Brown wants to make the apology to Darwin because he is embarrassed that some in his church rejected Darwin's theories. This, Brown suggests, was due to the fact that the church is often fearful of new ideas. "When a big new idea emerges which changes the way people look at the world, it's easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then do battle against the new insights."
That kind of facile thinking is all too evident in today's doctrinally disarmed church. Here a senior cleric attempts to do public relations by offering a posthumous apology to Charles Darwin, while dismissing any theological concern about his theory and instead insisting that nothing in Darwinism contradicts Christian teaching.
Charles Darwin abandoned belief in God, and he himself traced this loss of faith to his theory of natural selection. He believed that his own doctrine of evolution was a direct contradiction to theism in general and to Christianity in particular.
Darwin argued that belief in miracles was insane and that the Christian doctrine of hell is immoral. In his Autobiography he wrote, "I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."
There are several points to observe here. First, Darwin clearly expressed confidence that Christianity is not true, and that we should be thankful for this fact. Second, Darwin, unlike some modern reformers of hell, understood that "the plain language of the text," that is, the Bible, points to hell as everlasting punishment. Third, Darwin simply would not believe in a God who would send his relatives and friends to hell - period.
But, by the time Darwin wrote his Autobiography, he had already abandoned belief in any personal deity. As Janet Browne of the British Society for the History of Science and University College, London, explains: "Living out for himself the archetypal Victorian crisis of faith, Darwin perhaps recognized that he had lost the last vestiges of faith when he discovered that biology provided him with the answers he most desired. In the end, in his autobiography, he asserted that religious belief was little more than inherited instinct, akin to a monkey's fear of a snake."
In other words, Charles Darwin was, as he suggested, the original "Devil's Chaplain." In this role he made the same basic arguments now offered by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and other "New Atheists." Does Dr. Malcolm Brown intend to apologize to these atheists, too?
An official with the Church of England rushed to clarify in the press that Dr. Brown was not offering an official apology on behalf of the church. The Telegraph [London] reported that a member of the Darwin family dismissed the apology as "pointless." Andrew Darwin, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, asked, "Why bother?" He went on to argue that the "apology" was more about making the Church of England "feel better" than to right a wrong.
Well, Dr. Brown's apology, offered on the official Web site of the Church of England, and in his role as Director of Mission and Public Affairs, may be "pointless," but it certainly makes a point about the Church of England. As a matter of fact, it might go a long way toward explaining how a church that once formed the backbone of British life now holds the attention of less than five percent of British citizens on any given Sunday.
Vatican Official Defends Evolution Against 'Useless' Creationism
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424942,00.html
VATICAN CITY — A professor at a Vatican-sponsored university expressed dismay Tuesday that some Christian groups reject the theory of evolution — implicitly criticizing the literal interpretation of the Bible.
Further emphasizing the official Catholic stance, a Vatican official restated the Church position that evolution is not incompatible with faith.
Both men spoke at a press conference ahead of a March event aimed at fostering dialogue between religion and science, and appraising evolution 150 years after Charles Darwin's landmark "On the Origin of Species."
The forum is being organized by Rome's prestigious Gregorian Pontifical University, which is highly influential in Vatican circles, and by the University of Notre Dame in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Popes going back to the mid-20th century have "recognized the scientific value of the theory of biological evolution," Gennaro Auletta, who teaches philosophy of science at the Gregorian, told reporters. "Greater understanding and assimilation of such subject matter by clergy and faithful has been hoped for."
"I would like to point out that unfortunately one cannot say that about the faithful of all Christian confessions, as media reports indicate," Auletta said.
Auletta appeared to be referring to stories about fundamentalist churches that maintain a literal interpretation of the Bible, including the belief that the world was created in six days.
Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi told reporters that: "One thing is sure. Evolution is not incompatible with faith."
"Creationism from a strictly theological view makes sense, but when it is used in scientific fields it becomes useless," Ravasi said.
Quoting the late Pope John Paul II, Ravasi said that "evolution can no longer be considered a hypothesis."
Pope Benedict XVI warned last week against fundamentalists' literal interpretations of the Bible.
The pontiff told a gathering of intellectuals and academics in Paris that the structure of the Bible "excludes by its nature everything that today is known as fundamentalism. In effect, the word of God can never simply be equated with the letter of the text," Benedict said.
Benedict, in a book published last year, praised scientific progress, but cautioned that evolution raises philosophical questions that science alone cannot answer. In the book, he stopped short of endorsing what is known as "intelligent design."
Intelligent design proponents believe that living organisms are so complex they must have been created by a higher force, rather than evolving from more primitive forms.
Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, an influential cardinal considered close to Benedict, has condemned a U.S. federal court decision that barred a Pennsylvania school district from teaching intelligent design in biology class.
Schoenborn has said he wants to correct what he says is a widespread misconception that the Catholic Church has given blanket endorsement to Darwin's theories.
Sharia courts operating in Britain
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2957428/Sharia-law-courts-operating-in-Britain.html
Five sharia courts have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester and Nuneaton, Warwickshire. The government has quietly sanctioned that their rulings are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court. Previously, the rulings were not binding and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.
Lawyers have issued grave warnings about the dangers of a dual legal system and the disclosure drew criticism from Opposition leaders.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: "If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so."
Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, added: "I think it's appalling. I don't think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state."
Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours.
It has also emerged that tribunal courts have settled six cases of domestic violence between married couples, working in tandem with the police investigations.
Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said that sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals under a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.
The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.
The disclosures come after Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sparked a national debate and calls for his resignation for saying that the establishment of sharia in the future "seems unavoidable" in Britain.
In July, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice agreed that Muslims in Britain should be able to live according to Islamic law to decide financial and marital disputes.
Mr Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of "smaller" criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.
"All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases," said Mr Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.
There are concerns for women suffering under the Islamic laws, which favours men.
Mr Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons.
The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.
In the six cases of domestic violence, Mr Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.
In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.
The White Men of Waziristan
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26564997/
In a Frankfurt courtroom last week, authorities charged three German citizens with a plot to kill Americans, accusing them of targeting a dance club in Giessen favored by U.S. service members. The authorities said the plot had the potential to kill hundreds of people and that the men were inspired by the December 2002 attack on two discos in Bali, Indonesia, that left more than 200 dead.
For Western intelligence officials, the plot was not a run-of-the-mill conspiracy by disaffected young men wanting to join the jihad. The reason was twofold: Two of the three were ethnic Germans, and all three had been trained at jihadi training camps in Waziristan, the tribal area of Pakistan where al-Qaida and Taliban training camps are located.
More than anything else, it's what one counterterrorism official calls "the white men of Waziristan" that worries officials — the increasing possibility that the next attacks in Europe or North America will be carried out not by those with Arab or South Asian passports, but by young Caucasian men from Germany, Great Britain, Australia, Canada or even the United States.
'No bigger worry'
"There is no bigger worry for the U.S. counterterrorism community than young Caucasian men who have turned to al-Qaida," said Roger Cressey, former National Security Council official in the Clinton and Bush administrations and now an NBC News consultant.
The most public expression of that concern was a little-noticed speech in mid-August by Ted Gistaro, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats at the National Directorate for Intelligence, created in 2004 to act as a clearinghouse for intelligence gathered by all U.S. agencies. In short, Gistaro is the intelligence community's strategic thinker on terrorism.
While Gistaro was careful to note that "we are not aware of any specific, credible al-Qaida plot to attack the U.S. homeland," he added, "Al-Qaida is identifying, training and positioning operatives for attacks in the West, likely including in the United States. These operatives include North American and European citizens and legal residents with passports that allow them to travel to the United States without a U.S. visa."
Gistaro was reiterating what CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said more colorfully when interviewed by Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" in March.
"It's very clear to us that al-Qaida has been able, over the past 18 months or so, to establish a safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area that they have not enjoyed before, that they are bringing operatives into that region for training, operatives that … wouldn't attract your attention if they were going through the customs line at Dulles with you when you're coming back from overseas," he said.
Asked by Russert if he meant that the operatives "look Western," Hayden replied, "Look Western, (people) who … would be able to come into this country … without attracting the kind of attention that others might."
"In early August, the president had a joint (National Security Council/Homeland Security Council) meeting on current threats, and the single biggest concern is the training of people that Gistaro referenced ... because they can't be tracked and they're not in anyone's database," he said.
The idea that Westerners have been training with al-Qaida has been among the nagging concerns of U.S. intelligence since shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In 2004, former CIA Director George Tenet alluded to the perceived threat, saying in a speech that "what we are fighting has an Arab face, an African face, an Asian face and an American face — a face that exists in our hemisphere."
There have been isolated examples of Americans working with al-Qaida or the Taliban — John Walker Lindh, the Californian who fought with the Taliban against U.S. forces in Afghanistan; Jose Padilla, the Illinois man convicted of conspiring to kill Americans overseas; and Adam Gadahn, the California video-gamer turned al-Qaida propagandist, who remains at large.
Ranks appear to be growing
What is different now, say intelligence officials and experts, is evidence that the ranks of Western converts are growing, including the arrest of the Germans in the plot to kill U.S. service members. While U.S. intelligence is not willing to detail its sourcing on the presence of Westerners in al-Qaida camps, NBC News has been told:
* Sources in Pakistan's South Waziristan, home of the most active al-Qaida operations in the border region, have recently reported seeing "white men" among those being trained in the camps. The U.S. believes al-Qaida has dozens of such operatives trained for terrorist attacks.
* There has been an increase in the use of English in al-Qaida messages to stoke discontent and motivate homegrown extremists. A tape released by Ayman al Zawahiri, al-Qaida's second-in-command, in August was his first in English. Although it was aimed at English speakers in Pakistan, it follows a general pattern. Gadahn, the Californian-turned-jihadi, has been featured in al-Qaida videos, although he has not been heard from since January. (U.S. officials do not believe he is dead but offer no explanation for his absence.)
* There is a thriving online jihadi community that often uses English to target disaffected Americans.
* Taliban officials have been boasting that they are training Westerners, claiming they have "several people from the West there in their training camps now." The Taliban said people "are coming from all over the world," especially from the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, to get jihadi training in South Waziristan. Some of them later return to their home countries, while others stay and fight Western forces in Afghanistan, according to the Taliban officials. The U.S. believes the Westerners are in fact in Pakistan, other parts of South Asia and perhaps Europe. There's no information that they have made it to the United States.
* Most recently, Taliban officials have contended that among foreign fighters "martyred" in a Predator attack near Wana in South Waziristan on Aug. 30 were "two Arabs of Canadian origin." U.S. counterterrorism officials will neither confirm nor deny the claim.
Al-Qaida operating freely along border
Gistaro said al-Qaida also has been able to operate training camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with increasing freedom.
"Al-Qaida has strengthened its safe haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas by deepening its alliances with Pakistani militants and pushing many elements of Pakistani government authority from the area," he said. "It now has many of the operational and organizational advantages it once enjoyed across the border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less secure scale."
Political instability in Pakistan and a sevenfold increase in suicide attacks in the past seven months have added to fears that the safe haven could expand. Intelligence officials agree there's a nationwide campaign of intimidation, with attacks now taking place in both urban and tribal areas.
Could this resurgence be a precursor of new al-Qaida threats against the U.S.?
"As the election nears, we expect to see an uptick in such threat reporting — of varying credibility — regarding possible attacks," Gistaro said. "We also expect to see an increase in al-Qaida's propaganda efforts, especially around the anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which has often been a hook for such propaganda statements."
"In Osama bin Laden's September 2007 address to the American people, he labeled the democratic system a failure," Gistaro said. He also called for Americans to convert to Islam and warned that the only other solution "is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you."
That political philosophy is part of al-Qaida training, whether for Arabs or Americans, say officials.
Election likely a motivation
While al-Qaida has no preferred candidate, said a senior intelligence official, "they certainly want to be a topic of the election" as they were in 2004 when bin Laden's first video in three years aired four days before voters went to the polls. Sen. John Kerry has said he believes the video turned the election to President Bush.
More recently, al-Qaida hasn't been getting the attention it is used to. Media outlets that raced to post Zawahiri audios seven years ago are now ignoring them. That factors into the intelligence community's assessment that we will likely hear from al-Qaida's leadership before the election — through words, violence or both.
"Perhaps the most pressing security challenge for the next administration is how to deal with the al-Qaida safe haven in Pakistan," said Cressey. "None of the options is ideal, but it's clear that action will be required."
Russian President: Nation Won't Be Pushed Into Isolation
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,425306,00.html
MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that Russia would not yield to Western pressure or be pushed into isolation over the war in Georgia.
Medvedev's comments appeared to be a response to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who warned Russia on Thursday that its policies have put it on a path to isolation and irrelevance.
Medvedev dismissed a claim that Russia was sliding back to authoritarianism.
"They are, in fact, pushing us onto the development track that is based not on normal and civilized cooperation with other countries, but on autonomous development behind thick walls and an 'iron curtain,"' Medvedev said at a meeting with non-governmental organizations. "This is not our track, and it makes no sense to return to the past."
In addition, he vowed that Russia would set its own course.
"No new outside factors, let alone outside pressure on Russia, will change our strategic course," Medvedev said.
"We will continuously strengthen our national security, modernize the military and increase our defense capability to a sufficient level," he said. "And we will determine what level is sufficient proceeding from the current situation; it can't be measured once and for all."
Medvedev reaffirmed his push for a new pan-European security pact, saying NATO alone can't ensure security on the continent.
"It only has provoked the conflict," he said, in a reference to the war in Georgia.
Medvedev and other Russian officials have previously claimed that the United States and some other NATO nations, by helping modernize the Georgian military, encouraged Georgia to launch military action to regain control over the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Russia responded by sending in troops who quickly repelled the Aug. 7 Georgian attack on South Ossetia and pushed deep into Georgian territory.
As Medvedev spoke, the Russian Parliament gave tentative approval to next year's budget, including a 25-percent increase in defense spending.
Without mentioning Rice, Medvedev derided her pledge Thursday to continue sponsoring Russian students, teachers, judges, journalists and others who want to visit America.
"I opened the Web this morning and saw our American friends saying they will keep providing assistance to Russian teachers, doctors, scientists, labor leaders and judges," he said. "The last point was really outstanding. What does it mean? Are they going to feed our judges? Will they support corruption? If it goes on like that, they will start selecting presidents here."
Medvedev's remarks reflected a growing strain in Russia's relations with the United States which dipped to the lowest point since the Cold War after the war in Georgia.
On a more conciliatory note, Medvedev added that Russia wants a "full-fledged dialogue" with the West. "We aren't trying to teach anyone, we want our views to be heard," he said.
Nato plan for rapid-reaction force to counter Russian agression
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4787565.ece
Nato defence ministers were today reported to be considering the creation of a rapid-response military force to respond to Russian aggression.
The proposal, a compromise dreamed up by the Pentagon to reassure allies, was to under discussion at today's Nato defence ministers meeting in London, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Britain called that meeting in April to discuss how Nato could be transformed to better address post-Cold War needs. But the creation of such a force would take Nato back to its roots as a deterrent on its own eastern borders after years of expeditionary missions to Kosovo and Afghanistan.
A senior US defence official told the newspaper that Washington would push for the creation of a small, light defensive force that could be deployed to a threatened member country.
Nato's only current standing deterrent is a paper one – Article Five of its charter, which deems an attack on one member as an attack on all and obliges all countries to come to its defence.
But Article Five has been invoked only once in Nato's history, after the September 11 attacks on the United States, and newer members in Eastern Europe have questioned whether the alliance still has the will and capability to carry through on its promise.
Questions will be asked today about whether such a force could in effect replace Article Five or whether it may provoke rather than pacify a resurgent Russia. There also remains the question of who would staff and equip the force, not to mention where the authority to deploy it would lie and in what situations it could be used.
Robert Gates, the US Secretary for Defence, hinted yesterday at the idea of a more concrete deterrent, calling for a revival of "the kind of actions Nato has been engaged in for 60 years that are not provocative and tend not to draw any firm lines".
"We need to proceed with some caution as there is a range of views within the alliance," he said, a nod to the like of Germany, France and Italy who are more cautious on the wisdom of Nato's eastward expansion.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato Secretary-General, is due to speak today on a roadmap for the alliance's transformation to provide quicker response forces and more mobile capabilities both in Europe and elsewhere.
UN-American
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,425581,00.html
Washington, D.C. – Millions of American boys have dreamed of hitting a grand slam homer or pitching a no-hitter in Yankee Stadium because baseball's greatest have performed there. Talented musicians and singers aspire to New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, for they know it represents the pinnacle of their profession. For gifted physicians and medical researchers, the Mount Everest of medicine is the Mayo Clinic.
But certain institutions can also bring out the worst in people. For the professional peddlers of anti-Americanism, haters of free enterprise, and true believers in global government, there is only one place that it really pays to perform: the United Nations.
The UN Headquarters building in Manhattan has become the venue of choice for "diplomats" and foreign leaders to condemn America, our values and virtues. Since the 1960s, star billing has been promised to any dictator or despot who will take to this "world stage" for the purpose of denigrating the United States and our bounty, wealth and power. When they show up for the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, it is guaranteed that their horrible harangues will be broadcast all around the planet.
Soviet tyrant Nikita Khrushchev was one of the first to grasp this opportunity and he did so repeatedly. Since then, totalitarians Fidel Castro, Yassir Arafat, Robert Mugabe, Daniel Ortega, Mamoud Ahmadinejad, Idi Amin, and Hugo Chavez have used the UN's bully pulpit to denounce the United States. Next week's gathering of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) promises more of the same.
Just to make sure that no one has any doubts as to how things are going to go in the days ahead, the members of the General Assembly selected Miguel d'Escoto – a prominent America-hater – as their president. When the 63rd UNGA convenes on Tuesday, Mr. d'Escoto will "moderate" this year's assaults on the United States.
For those too young to remember the portly Mr. d'Escoto, he was one of the original founders of the Communist-inspired Sandinista movement that seized control of Nicaragua in 1979. His UN-published biography proudly proclaims that he "spearheaded the Nicaraguan Government's decision, in 1984, to bring to the International Court of Justice a claim against the United States for supporting military and paramilitary actions against the country, with the Court subsequently ruling in favor of Nicaragua."
Notably, the bio makes no mention of Mr. d'Escoto, a Maryknoll priest, being publicly reprimanded by Pope John Paul II during his 1983 visit to Managua. Nor does Mr. d'Escoto's resume reflect his tenure as a paid asset of the Central Intelligence Agency in Chile. Apparently, the US-haters at the UN just missed these facts.
None of this has deterred the utopian Mr. d'Escoto from serving as the "warm-up-act" for this year's Bash America Fest in the Big Apple. The visibly well-fed Mr. d'Escoto has already announced that this UNGA session should "go down in history as the 'Assembly of Frankness' for the sake of world peace and the eradication of poverty and hunger from the Earth."
Mr. d'Escoto has previously referred to President Ronald Reagan as a "butcher," called President George Bush a "liar" and now promises that under his leadership the UNGA will redress the "sad but undeniable fact that serious breaches of the peace and threats to international peace and security are being perpetrated by some members of the Security Council that seem unable to break what appears like an addiction to war."
All this is but preamble to what we can expect to hear from the likes of Iran's Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Chavez. Both "leaders" will be there representing states that have been accused of supporting terrorism, drug running, human-rights abuses and in the case of Tehran – pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Yet, Mr. d'Escoto claims that, "No State should appropriate the right to decide on its own which States are terrorists, or sponsors of terrorism, and which are not. Less still should States that are guilty of wars of aggression, the worst form of terrorism imaginable, presume to arrogate that right unto themselves, and further, to unilaterally take action against those it has stigmatized."
When he goes before this august body next week, President Bush needs to encourage Mr. d'Escoto – and the entire "Blame America First" crowd gathered in the General Assembly – to read Article 51 of the UN Charter: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."
UN looks to reform/expand Security Council with new global players
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080916013231.2hji7bxl&show_article=1
The UN General Assembly has agreed to begin negotiations on expanding the membership of the powerful Security Council no later than next February 28.
After hours-long bargaining, the assembly adopted by consensus a resolution on Security Council enlargement on the last day of its 62nd session.
The text decides that the inter-governmental negotiations would begin in an informal plenary of the General Assembly during its 63rd session, "but not later than February 28, 2009, based on proposals by member states, in good faith, with mutual respect and in an open, inclusive and transparent manner."
It said the aim was to "garner the widest possible political acceptance by member states."
The 192-member Assembly is to kick off its 63rd session Tuesday with a new president, Nicaraguan Roman Catholic priest and former foreign minister Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, who is to succeed Srgjan Kerim, a former Macedonian foreign minister.
The thorny issue of how to enlarge the 15-member Security Council to make it more representative and reflective of today's global realities has for years divided the UN membership.
Last year a report by five "facilitators" stated that most UN members support council reform but could not agree on how to bring it about.
The authors gave no suggestion for a final solution, but noted that many members seemed willing to look for compromise.
The report suggested moving forward in steps, with an "interim arrangement" that includes a "mandatory review to take place at a predetermined date."
During the transitional period a number of configurations, including a repartitioning of seats on a regional basis and the most delicate, the veto-wielding power of the five permanent members, could be considered.
The Council currently has 10 rotating, non-permanent members and five, veto-wielding permanent ones (China, United States, France, Britain and Russia).
Its makeup has remained largely unchanged since the establishment of the United Nations in 1945.
In 2005, a so-called Group of Four -- Germany, Brazil, India and Japan -- made a strong push to join the council as permanent members, along with two African countries, but without veto rights.
But their bid failed to get enough support as it ran into strong opposition from regional rivals such as Italy, Pakistan and Argentina.
General Assembly chief: UN must adopt 1947 resolution on partition of Palestine
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1022561.html
Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, president of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, on Thursday urged the UN to work toward implementing UN Resolution 181, which in 1947 called for the division of Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab states.
During a speech at the General Assembly auditorium in honor of his election, Brockmann said the UN should work without delay to fulfill its old obligation of creating an independent Palestinian state.
"The greatest case failure of the United Nations is the lack of a Palestinian state," he said. "Article 22 of the covenant of the League of Nations pledged as a 'sacred trust' to establish a Palestinian state on a Palestinian territory that was part of the Ottoman Empire."
Brockmann, 75, is a priest from Nicaragua who served as the country's foreign minister in the 1980s.
The newly elected General Assembly president continued to lament the lack of a Palestinian state, saying, "At this very moment, people continue to die as a result of our incapacity to implement a resolution adopted more than 61 years ago. As the consequence, today the Palestinian situation is at the lowest, most critical point in its tragic history."
Brockmann also criticized the UN's five permanent member nations and claimed that their "veto power has gone to their heads." He also had harsh words for the UN itself, claiming that the organization needs to undergo a process of democratization.
The speech, which came several days before Tuesday's opening of the General Assembly, caused a stir in the auditorium and left delegates looking surprised.
Israeli ambassador Daniel Carmon told Haaretz that Thursday's speech "expressed Brockmann's personal history and his political opinions - something that is unacceptable at the UN."
The Jewish daily Forward reported on Thursday that Brockmann is expected to participate in a dinner next week sponsored by five Christian organizations in honor of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Livni's limited mandate
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSPEK4365020080917?sp=true
More people will arrive at the Yarkon Park to see Paul McCartney perform than the number of people who bothered to show up at poling stations in order to elect the person who may become Israel's next prime minister.
This is the bothersome fact that emerged from the Kadima primaries, which ended up culminating in a tight race. A total of 0.5% percent of the public – this is the mandate received by a leader during one of the most fateful and complex periods in the State of Israel's history.
And still, a new Kadima chairwoman was elected Wednesday, thereby averting a political earthquake and possibly also a ruling party split. Kadima has become the first party in many years to elect a woman as its premiership candidate, and in the process chose a civilian without defense experience over a general who delivered results in the past.
But make no mistake about it: This victory does not guarantee that Livni will become prime minister. She now faces a difficult period. Following the justified euphoria, Livni will have to decide between two intricate alternatives: Whether to take advantage of the momentum and ride the wave of success to general elections, or else, exploit the priceless opportunity she now has to form an alternative government.
It may be that in order to maintain her clean image, it would be appropriate for Livni to go to elections in order to allow the entire public to elect its prime minister, thereby upgrading her legitimacy. Yet it would be difficult to blame her should she decide not to gamble on her primaries achievement and go to elections that may end badly for her.
It is customary to say that Shas is the obstacle faced by Livni en route to an alternative government, yet this is inaccurate. First of all, Livni would be able to form a government even without Shas, by bringing Meretz into the coalition and relying on the Arab parties. Moreover, there is no certainty that Shas, once it realizes that such government is realistic, would give up the opportunity to join it. Livni's problem is not Shas, but rather, the Labor party.
What will Barak do?
The voices emerging from Ehud Barak's direction recently were talking about an emergency government, or else, elections. The big question that remains is what will Barak be doing? Will he announce his decision to go to elections, or will his well-founded fear of elections overcome other considerations at this time? In any case, it would be interesting to see the next moves of the man who demanded that Olmert be replaced and pushed Kadima to hold the primaries.
For a long time, Livni conveyed the sense that she is interested in new elections, and that should she win Kadima's leadership race, she would go to elections and defeat Netanyahu. Yet in recent weeks she has been talking about an alternative government and her ability to form such government. It appeared that she changed her position because she realized that Kadima's registered voters do not want elections.
A senior Kadima figure said Wednesday that Livni would find it easier to go to elections than to take difficult coalition-related decisions, such as Barak's demand to fire Justice Minister Friedmann, or Eli Yishai's demand to boost child allowances. In order to form a government, said the senior source, one needs to make difficult decisions. Livni would prefer to present tough positions in coalition talks, not surrender to exaggerated demands, maintain her clean image, and go to elections that way, rather than erode her public status for the sake of a few months in a power.
The decision on the next move is in Livni's hands. She already proved that she is able to win – but how about taking decisions? We'll wait and see.
Abbas welcomes Livni's Kadima victory
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Palestinian Authority officials on Thursday welcomed the election of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as chairwoman of Kadima and said they were looking forward to working with her to advance the peace process.
The officials said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas was satisfied with Livni's victory because he believed that she is dedicated to the peace process.
They said that as head of the Israeli negotiating team, Livni had much more experience in conducting the talks with the Palestinians than any other senior Israeli government official.
"President Abbas is looking forward to working with Livni after she succeeds [Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert," said one official. "We believe that Livni will do her utmost to achieve a breakthrough in the negotiations."
Another PA official pointed out that there had been tremendous concern among the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah over the possibility that Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz would win the Kadima primary.
"Mofaz is a Likud man and as such he's not much different from [Likud Chairman Benyamin] Netanyahu," the official said. "We also haven't forgotten the iron-fist policy which he employed against the Palestinians when he was [IDF] Chief of Staff and Defense Minister."
He added: "Livni represents the voice of moderation and pragmatism while Mofaz is a man of war and extremism."
PA negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters that he was convinced that Livni would pursue her efforts to achieve peace with the Palestinians. "We welcome the choice of the Israeli people and hope that serious negotiations will take place after the formation of a new government," he said.
Hassan Asfour, a former PA negotiator and minister, described Livni as the "candidate of the Arabs." All the Arabs, he added, have long been waiting for Livni. "The question now is whether the Palestinian track would be as warm as Livni's relations with the Palestinian negotiating team and many Arabs," he said.
Hafez Barghouti, editor of the PA-funded Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, voiced skepticism regarding Livni's ability to boost the peace process.
"Livni is more radical in her views than Olmert," he said. "And she is more moderate than Netanyahu. She is opposed to the return of the Palestinian refugees [to Israel]. We should not expect much from the changes in Israel."
Hamas, for its part, said it saw no difference between Livni, Mofaz or any other Israeli leader. "There's a consensus in Israel on destroying the Palestinian people," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. "We don't pin any hopes on any elections in Israel because they don't want to give us our rights."
Olmert offers PA 98.1% of West Bank, proclaims an end to "Greater Israel"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1221142471485&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has discussed with the Palestinians transferring to them 98.1 percent of the West Bank, Channel 2 reported on Sunday evening.
The report on the ongoing negotiations was broadcast in advance of Tuesday's planned meeting between Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Prime Minister's Office declined to comment on the news item and said only that many such media reports had been published in the last months regarding the talks.
Earlier in the day, during what could be his last cabinet meeting before he becomes the head of a transitional government, Olmert addressed Israel's relationship to the West Bank when he spoke of a voluntary evacuation bill to help relocate settlers living east of the security barrier.
"The vision of a greater Israel no longer exists. Those who speak of it are delusional," the prime minister said. No vote was taken on the measure.
According to Channel 2, however, Olmert is considering concessions far beyond land east of the barrier and could transfer 98.1% of the West Bank to the PA. That is significantly more than the 94% to 96% that had been discussed in previous negotiations.
The report states that Abbas has asked that Israel cede the Jerusalem area settlements of Ma'aleh Adumim and Givat Ze'ev, but is willing to negotiate the status of the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Gilo and French Hill, which are over the Green Line.
In the past the Palestinians have demanded that Israel fully withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, including from eastern Jerusalem. Israel has insisted it plans to keep the larger settlements blocs including Ma'aleh Adumim and Givat Ze'ev as well as the Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.
The future of Jerusalem, according to Channel 2, was being negotiated between Olmert and Abbas, and not by the team led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
Olmert has also agreed that 5,000 Palestinian refugees would return to Israel - a thousand refugees every year for five years, according to the report.
Abbas allegedly rejected the proposal and was demanding the return of many more refugees.
According to the report, the Palestinians were also interested in access not only to the Dead Sea but also to the Kinneret, as they claimed they deserved some rights over the water flowing into the lake because the Jordan River runs through Palestinian territory.
Also Sunday, Olmert met with visiting Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, a former Middle East envoy for the European Union.
The two men spoke of the two-state solution and Olmert's voluntary evacuation plan.
Despite the Channel 2 report, both Abbas in an interview with Haaretz over the weekend, and Vice Premier Haim Ramon in briefing reporters on Sunday, expressed skepticism as to the success of the negotiations.
Ramon said he was not optimistic that a final-status agreement would be reached, "not at the end of this year and not at the end of next year."
But what was clear, he said, was that in the future, "settlements east of the barrier won't be under Israeli sovereignty."
There was no reason why those settlers who understood that the barrier represented a future border should have to wait five or 10 years to be evacuated, Ramon said.
At Sunday's cabinet meeting, he proposed a voluntary evacuation bill that would offer property owners in the 72 settlements outside of the barrier an average of $300,000 or NIS 1.1 million for their homes.
Those homes would then be sealed or destroyed so they could not be reused by other settlers, Ramon said.
His bill, which has the support of Labor but not Kadima or Shas, is an outgrowth of an earlier proposal by MK Colette Avital (Labor) and MK Avshalom Vilan (Meretz), who three years ago formed the group One House to advocate for such a bill.
According to Ramon, there are an estimated 61,808 settlers living outside of the barrier, out of whom 11,000, or 18%, would accept such an offer.
Such a measure, Ramon said, would help those settlers who did not enjoy the same security offered Israelis living inside the barrier and would also be seen by the Palestinians as a sign of good faith toward the negotiations.
Ramon's proposal was immediately objected to by the four candidates competing in Wednesday's primary for the Kadima leadership.
If the government wanted to make a gesture toward the Palestinians that involved territory, it should evacuate the unauthorized outposts, said Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit. That was particularly true, he said, given that it had already promised the international community that it would do so.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned that the Palestinians would view the measure as a unilateral step. She added that Israel should not take steps to determine a border while it was in the midst of negotiating one with the Palestinians.
Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said that such a law would embolden the Palestinians to increase their demands.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said the proposal would be impossible to implement. More to the point, it would make any future evacuations harder to carry out because the net effect of the bill would be to replace less ideological settlers with more determined ones.
In defense of his proposal, Ramon told reporters that the borders under negotiations with the Palestinians were already well known.
Livni, he said, could only wish that the barrier would in fact be the final border. With respect to Dichter, Ramon said that implementation should not be an issue in considering legislation.
He added that he believed the bill could be implemented and that if fewer settlers lived in those 72 communities, they would be easier both to defend and eventually to evacuate.
Settlers have attacked the plan and have pledged to outbid the government by offering those who want to leave more money.
In Samaria, where a new citizens' protest movement has already started, its leader, former Samaria Regional Council head Benny Katzover, said they were collecting signatures of residents who had pledged not to leave.
The regional council had received many calls from people who wanted to move there to protest against the Ramon bill, he said.
Speaking in defense of the voluntary evacuation bill at the cabinet meeting, Olmert said that for the 40 years since it acquired the West Bank during the Six Day War, Israel had been making excuses as to why it could not do anything.
This, he said, did not help Israel. It was important Israel showed it had taken initiative in the peace process.
"We have to advance the voluntary evacuation compensation bill and to bring it to the cabinet [for a vote]," the prime minister said.
Olmert said he had not always supported territorial concessions and that he had initially felt that then-prime minister Ehud Barak had offered the Palestinians too much at Camp David in 2000. "I thought that the land between the Jordan River and the sea was ours," he said.
In the end, he said he came to the conclusion that we had to reach an agreement with the Palestinians if we did not want to see Israel become a binational state.
There was no time to waste, Olmert said. adding: "We can argue about every small detail and find that when we are ready for an agreement there is no partner and no international support."
In the not too distant future, there would come a day when "we will want those same solutions that we are rejecting today," he said.
Israel had to reach a final peace agreement with the Palestinians and the Syrians. If this happened, then relations with other Arab nations would follow suit, he said.
Hamas chief: West Bank is ours
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75530
Members of the Hamas terror group are the rightful representatives of the Palestinian people and should control the entire West Bank just as they rule the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, the Hamas chief in Gaza, told WND in an exclusive interview.
"According to our rights, we are the elected majority, and a majority in a democracy should control all the Palestinian areas, whether in the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip. This is not an extraordinary issue," said Al-Zahar, who is considered the second most powerful Hamas leader following the group's overall chief, Khaled Meshaal, who resides in exile in Damascus.
"Do you respect democracy? If you respect democracy, the elections in January 06 indicated Hamas is the majority and it should run the administration in Gaza and the West Bank," said al-Zahar, speaking from Gaza.
Al-Zahar was referring to Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 in which Hamas was victorious by a large margin. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas unilaterally disbanded the Hamas-led Palestinian government after Hamas seized control of Gaza last summer.
The Hamas chief's comments to WND come amid fears in the Israeli intelligence community Hamas eventually may attempt to take over the strategic West Bank just as it seized Gaza, particularly if Israel withdraws from the territory.
According to multiple reports, the Israeli government reportedly has been negotiating the evacuation of most of the West Bank as part of U.S.-backed talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state, at least on paper, before President Bush leaves office in January. Israel would hand the territory to Abbas' Fatah party.
In a dramatic statement this past weekend, Olmert declared at a Knesset meeting that "Greater Israel" is over.
"Greater Israel is over. There is no such thing. Anyone who talks that way is deluding themselves," Olmert stated.
Greater Israel is a reference to territories captured by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War, including the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.
Security officials in Jerusalem are warning if Israel withdraws, Abbas' forces may not be strong enough to contend with controlling the West Bank without the aid of the Israel Defense Forces.
Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's Shin Bet Security Services, estimated during a Knesset meeting last November that if control of the West Bank were handed over to Abbas, Israel would suffer a "significant threat to its security."
Palestinian security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted to WND they would have trouble controlling the West Bank without Israeli intervention.
According to the officials, Fatah's intelligence apparatus routinely hands the IDF lists of Hamas militants that threaten Fatah rule, requesting that Israel make arrests, although Fatah has been stepping up direct arrests of Hamas gunmen in recent weeks.
Perhaps foreshadowing coming tensions, Hamas' so-called military wing yesterday urged its gunmen in the West Bank to use force if security men loyal to Fatah try to arrest them.
Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian security officials told WND they have specific information Hamas is quietly setting the stages for a possible West Bank takeover attempt. The officials said that among other things, Hamas has been acquiring weaponry in the West Bank and has set up a sophisticated system of communication between cells for a seizure attempt.
In what is considered the most threatening Hamas move, according to the officials, the terror group is thought to have heavily infiltrated major Fatah forces in the West Bank and has been attempting to buy off Fatah militia members, many times successfully.
The issue of Hamas infiltration of Fatah was thought to have been the Achilles heel that led to the terror group's takeover last summer of the entire Gaza Strip, including dozens of major, U.S.-backed Fatah security compounds there. Hamas' seizure is thought to be a partial consequence of Israel evacuating Gaza in 2005.
Hamas' infiltration of Fatah was so extensive, according to top Palestinian intelligence sources speaking to WND, it included the chiefs of several prominent Fatah security forces, including Yussef Issa, director of the Preventative Security Services, the main Fatah police force. Issa regularly coordinated security with the U.S. and Israel.
In a bid to strengthen Fatah, the U.S. has been providing the group's militias with weapons, financial aid and advanced training conducted an American-run bases in the West Bank and Jordan.
But WND previously reported the U.S.-trained security forces have been failing at basic anti-terror missions.
Iran, Hizbullah, and the bomb
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3594533,00.html
Ronen Bergman is clearly irritated when he addresses the "intolerable chatter" of Israeli politicians on the prospects of an Iran strike.
"You know the famous quote: 'If you're gonna shoot, shoot! Don't talk!'" he says. "I think this approach we adopted of having to convince the world that it must 'hold us back' so we don't attack Iran is delusional. The world knows we can do it, especially after the bombing of the Syrian site. We don't need to prove it to anyone."
Bergman says that he is particularly upset when belligerent statements are made by senior officials as part of domestic political battles.
"What we have here is Shaul Mofaz wanting to show that he's tougher than Tzipi Livni, and he does it at the expense of the global oil market. It's crazy." Bergman says, referring to skyrocketing oil prices in the wake of Minister Mofaz's remarks on Iran/
Bergman, one of Israel's foremost security and terrorism experts, has been following Iran for many years and is passionate about the subject. Last year he published a book about Israel's struggle against the Iranian threat that topped the local bestseller list for long weeks. The book has now been published in English under the title The Secret War with Iran, prompting an interview with Ynetnews on some of today's burning questions.
Let's start with the million dollar question: Is Israel capable of striking Iran's nuclear sites?
Israel has the ability, through various means, to hit Iran's nuclear sites. Our politicians have said it too. The sites are of course heavily fortified, but for the time being only a small part of them is underground. News reports suggesting that everything is in bunkers aren't true. Keep in mind that it is hard to do this sort of thing underground; we're not talking about hiding a pencil case.
However, Israeli intelligence and military officials are not talking about destroying the Iranian nuclear program, as was done in Iraq – at most, they are talking about considerably slowing it down. We should also keep in mind that the strike on the Iraqi reactor did not completely eliminate the threat. After all, 10 years later they were again on the verge of a nuclear breakthrough. The strike merely forced the Iraqis to divert the previous effort to a different track.
What are some of the operational problems Israel will face should it decide to strike Iran?
While Israel is certainly capable of launching an attack, this entails several problems. For one thing, we cannot compare Israel's arsenal to what the United States has in terms of means. Such an operation would require many sites to be attacked more or less simultaneously, while neutralizing considerable defensive measures – the Iranians have deployed a crazy number of missile batteries. Moreover, even if such attack succeeds, it will only succeed in hitting the sites we know about. What about the secret sites we don't know about?
In short, we need a combination of intelligence and operational capabilities in order to launch such strike. To some extent Israel possesses such capabilities, but to some extent it does not. We may indeed have drawn up plans for such operation, but it doesn't mean that it will happen tomorrow.
An attack on Iran would only happen as the absolute last result. In my book I quote Dr. Eli Levita, deputy director of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission, who says that the worst nightmare for Israel is an American president – any president – calling our prime minister and giving us the green light to attack Iran, on our own.
What kind of Iranian response do you expect to a possible strike?
The Iranian response to such attack could materialize in various forms. At this time Iran has a missile arsenal that can reach Israel; we are talking about roughly 70 Shihab missiles that pose a similar threat to the Iraqi Scud missiles in the First Gulf War. As such, it's not such a big problem. Some missiles will fall in the sea, while others will be intercepted by Arrow missiles; such response would cause some damage, but it won't be an existential threat.
Journalist Uri Avneri once spoke to me about the famous quote: "If a dog bites a man, that's not news – but if a man bites a dog, that's news." He said this sentence had one exception – when a dog bites a man nobody cares, except for the man who was bitten. Well, we can say that if missiles land here it will certainly matter to the people who would be hurt. But it's not an existential threat.
An issue that is more problematic in my view is Hizbullah, particularly their ability to target interests overseas, as they have done in Argentina. The Iranians are in fact employing two arms here that are a sort of insurance policy. They use the threat of terror to deter Israel and the US from attacking, and they want a nuclear bomb to ensure that nobody would do to them what was done to Saddam Hussein.
In addition, an Iranian disruption of the flow of oil could have a critical effect on the global oil market. I mean, look at what happened when Mofaz spoke about attacking Iran, sending oil prices up – and this while he merely spoke about it. Imagine what would happen in case of an actual attack.
You mentioned Hizbullah's terror threat: Do you foresee the group avenging the assassination of commander Imad Mugniyah? Are they interested in revenge?
They are very interested. It may be too early to assess the implication of Mugniyah's assassination on Hizbullah's operational activity – I don't know whether even Hizbullah itself can assess it. However, the symbolic meaning of the assassination is immense and is much greater than the operational meaning. He was Hizbullah's hero.
I'm certain there will be attempts to avenge his killing. In fact, I think they are looking to do something on a magnitude we haven't seen before. Sadly, for us it is difficult to protect every single target. Physical security will only solve the problem to a certain extent. The great hope here is that we will acquire the intelligence information needed to thwart such attacks. The fact that the Mugniyah assassination was carried out shows that Hizbullah has been infiltrated. We can only hope that this will also enable us to thwart revenge attacks.
Let's talk about the book: What prompted you to write it?
I've been covering Iran for many years now and have dealt with it extensively. To my great regret, many of my predictions over the years have materialized, including the intelligence defeat that led to the Lebanon War setback vis-Ã -vis Hizbullah. This issue was very much on the agenda, yet I felt that I wanted to provide a bird's-eye view that starts with the last years of the intimate relationship between Israel and the Shah, just before the Iranian Revolution.
After the book was published in Hebrew I got responses from readers who said that suddenly everything makes sense to them. They said they were familiar with various events described in the book, but now understood the full logic behind them. This is what I wanted to do, to provide a sequence, a sort of timeline that would offer deeper insights.
Having said all that, the important aim at the end of the day was to provide the undisclosed details of the secret war that has been pitting the West against Iran for the past 30 years. I was a student of Christopher Andrew, a historian who has stressed the importance of intelligence in shaping momentous events. He said that one cannot study history without understanding the role of intelligence. Yet as opposed to World War II, for example, which was an open war with an intelligence aspect to it, here there is no open war – almost everything is secret and below the surface.
On a final note: We spoke about Hizbullah's terror threat. What should we expect in case hostilities are renewed on the Lebanese border?
Hizbullah fears that in case of an attack on Iran, and a Hizbullah response in the form of a terror attack overseas or rocket attacks on Israeli targets, the IDF will take advantage of the opportunity and attack Hizbullah in Lebanon. Therefore, the organization is trying to create deterrence vis-Ã -vis Israel.
A particularly worrisome aspect in this context was Russia's problematic conduct during the Second Lebanon War. For example, information gathered at Russian intelligence outposts in Syria was handed over to Hizbullah during the war and used against the IDF. This is a very grave matter.
We should keep in mind that just like we had the Winograd Report, Hizbullah had their own Winograd commission – they also tried to draw some lessons. In fact, Mugniyah was leading this process – this is why he was in Damascus. I believe they have learned some lessons and integrated them into their preparations for a possible Israeli attack.
Israel slated to buy US smart bombs for possible attack on Iran
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The US Department of Defense has notified Congress of a potential sale to Israel of 1,000 smart bombs capable of penetrating underground bunkers, which would likely be used in the event of a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
The notification to Congress was made over the weekend by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the branch of the Pentagon responsible for evaluating foreign military sales. Congress has 30 days to object to the deal.
The deal is valued at $77 million and the principal contractor would be Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
The bomb Israel wants is the GBU-39, developed in recent years by the US as a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision and low-collateral damage strikes.
Israel has also asked for 150 mounting carriages, 30 guided test vehicles and two instructors to train the air force in loading the bombs on its aircraft.
The GPS-guided GBU-39 is said to be one of the most accurate bombs in the world. The 113 kg. bomb has the same penetration capabilities as a normal 900 kg. bomb, although it has only 22.7 kg. of explosives. At just 1.75 meters long, its small size increases the number of bombs an aircraft can carry and the number of targets it can attack in a sortie.
Tests conducted in the US have proven that the bomb is capable of penetrating at least 90 cm. of steel-reinforced concrete. The GBU-39 can be used in adverse weather conditions and has a standoff range of more than 110 km. due to pop-out wings.
In its recommendation to Congress, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency wrote that Israel's strategic position was "vital to the United States' interests throughout the Middle East."
"It is vital to the US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives," the statement read.
The agency's announcement came amid growing concern that the Pentagon was not willing to sell Israel advanced military platforms such as bunker-buster missiles in an effort to dissuade Jerusalem from attacking Iran's nuclear facilities.
Bunker-buster missiles would be a fundamental component of an air strike against Iran, since many of the nuclear facilities, such as the Natanz uranium enrichment complex, have been built in underground, heavily fortified bunkers.
During the Second Lebanon War, Israel reportedly received an emergency shipment of bunker-buster missiles from the US to use against underground Hizbullah facilities.
Yiftah Shapir, from the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said the GBU-39 is one of the most advanced in the world and would improve Israel's standoff fire capabilities.
"The bomb is extremely accurate," he said. "All you have to do is punch in the coordinates, fire and forget."
He said they could be used to attack Iranian underground facilities like Natanz but that they could only penetrate a few meters.
"Hundreds of these would have to be used in an attack on Natanz for it to be successful," Shapir said.
Russia to sell Iran missiles for defense of nuke sites
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4781027.ece
Russia snubbed its nose at the United States today by announcing plans to sell military equipment to both Iran and Venezuela.
The head of the state arms exporter said that Russia was negotiating to sell new anti-aircraft systems to Iran despite American objections.
"Contacts between our countries are continuing and we do not see any reason to suspend them," Anatoly Isaikin, general director of Rosoboronexport, told Ria-Novosti at an arms fair in South Africa.
Reports have circulated for some time that Russia is preparing to sell its S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran, offering greater protection against a possible US or Israeli attack on the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities. The missiles have a range of more than 150 kilometres and can intercept jets approaching at low altitudes.
Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, said that it was logical to conclude a lucrative contract with Iran "in the current situation, when the US and the West in general are stubbornly gearing toward a confrontation with Russia".
Russia has already delivered 29 Tor-M1 missile systems under a $700 million deal with Iran in 2005.
Sergei Chemezov, the head of state-owned Russian Technologies also disclosed that Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez wanted to buy anti-aircraft systems, armoured personnel carriers, and new SU-35 fighter jets when they come into production in 2010.
US plans to site an anti-missile shield in eastern Europe to deter surprise attacks from Iran have outraged Russia, which believes the system in Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed at weakening its defences.
Strains between Nato and Russia after the war in Georgia have also contributed to a sharp deterioration in relations.
Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, one of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's closest allies, has visited Venezuela and Cuba this week. Kommersant said that Russia was forming "alliance relations" with the two anti-American regimes as a response to US involvement in former Soviet republics.
Mr Sechin said that "military-technological cooperation" between Russia and Venezuela was increasing, adding that the two sides were also in talks on oil and shipbuilding projects.
President Chavez is expected to visit Moscow next week. Two Russian long-range strategic nuclear bombers landed in the Venezuelan capital Caracas last week, the first time they had visited the Latin American state.
The TU-160 Blackjack supersonic bombers took off last night for the return journey to Russia after completing their patrol mission along the South American coast, air force spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Drik said.
Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, voiced concern at Russian bomber flights close to American shores last month and warned Moscow that it was playing a "dangerous game".
Mr Sechin travelled to Nicaragua yesterday as part of Russia's efforts to revive its influence on America's doorstep in Latin America. Nicaragua was the only state to join Russia in recognising the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and President Daniel Ortega is also due to visit Moscow soon.
Ten Russian warships have docked at Syrian port
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5591
Israeli military and naval commanders were taken by surprise by Rear Adm. Andrei Baranov's disclosure that 10 Russian warships are already anchored at the Syrian port of Tartus, DEBKAfile's military sources report.
Moscow and Damascus have worked fast to put in place the agreement reached in Moscow on Sept. 12 by Russian navy commander, Adm. Vladimir Wysotsky and Syrian naval commander Gen. Taleb al-Barri to provide the Russian fleet with a long-term base at Syrian ports. Israel was not aware that this many vessels were involved in the deal.
What most worries Israeli military leaders is an earlier announcement by Adm. Wysotsky that Russia's Mediterranean assets would subjected to its Black Sea fleet command, thereby placing Russia's warships near Israel's shores at the service of Moscow's contest against the US and NATO in the Caucasian. It is feared that Israel will be dragged into another cold war.
Rear Adm. Baranov disclosed that the warships in Tartus had brought engineering crews to widen and dredge the harbor to accommodate additional, fleet vessels. The crews were also working on expanding Latakia, another Syrian port, possibly for aircraft carriers or guided missile cruisers.
The Russians are making no secret of their intention of using their naval presence in Syrian ports as a deterrent to a possible Israeli air strike against Syria.
Pakistan: From ally to possible enemy - US arms sales may come back to haunt us
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/US_faces_the_F-16s_it_supplied_Pakistan/articleshow/3482718.cms
The United States is suddenly faced with the uncomfortable scenario of confronting the very same weapons and military hardware, including F-16 fighter jets, it has armed Pakistan with for decades.
The unsavoury prospect of having to take a crack at the its one-time ally has surfaced most starkly in the skies over the Afghan-Pakistan border this weekend after the Pakistan Air Force deployed its US-supplied F-16s to challenge the violation of its airspace by US drones, and in one case, an airborne assault that landed US Navy Seals inside Pakistani territory.
The turnaround of Pakistan from an ally to a potential enemy has alarmed lawmakers, some of whom are now questioning the continued supply of arms to Islamabad. On Tuesday, a Democrat-controlled House Foreign Relations panel has scheduled a hearing whose snarky title -- ''Defeating al-Qaida's Air Force: Pakistan's F-16 Program in the Fight Against Terrorism'' == betrays the unease over the Bush Administration's relentless arming of Pakistan. Al-Qaida has no known air force.
Some lawmakers and analysts have long questioned the need for Washington to arm Pakistan with sophisticated fighter jets to counter Al-Qaida's and Taliban's diffused militants, many of whom are in Pakistan's towns and cities and are patronised by Islamabad's intelligence agencies. ''The panel will look at how the F-16 program fits into the broader US strategy in the fight against terrorism as well as into the overall US relationship with Pakistan,'' a notification from the sub-committee read.
The House sub-committee is lead by Gary Ackerman, a known critic of the administration's relentless pandering of Pakistan with military supplies. He and other lawmakers have questioned the administration's recent decisions to provide funding for mid-life upgrades to F-16s, especially after government audits said Pakistan has been using US military aid to bulk up its forces against India rather than use it for counterterrorism.
In July, the Bush administration sought to shift $226.5 million in US counterterrorism aid for the F-16 upgrades. Ackerman said the subcommittee will seek witness testimony about the ''complete scope of the F-16 program with Pakistan including the number of planes, updates made to existing planes, proposed armaments, schedule of delivery and source of payment.''
In addition, because Congress has previously provided Pakistan with significant amounts of Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for counterterrorism and law enforcement activities against al-Qaida and the Taliban, the subcommittee will seek testimony on how these planes contribute to Pakistan's efforts in the fight against terrorism and extremism, and how the use of additional FMF to pay for mid-life updates to Pakistan's existing F-16 fleet enhances those efforts. The subcommittee is also expected to examine what counterterrorism equipment or programs were foregone as a result of the July 16, 2008, reprogramming request.
Fearful of a Congressional squeeze on further F-16 supplies and upgrades, an unnamed senior Pakistani official in Washington briefed US and Pakistani journalists on Friday on the central role the jets were playing in the war on terror. Pakistan, he said, has flown nearly 100 missions during three weeks in August that produced some 500-550 Taliban casualties. But the PAF needed night-flying capability because the militants were regrouping in the night.
There is a great deal of skepticism about Pakistan using F-16s against militants, and the body count it keeps producing. Several accounts from the region describe friendly, fraternal ties between the Pakistani military and Taliban fighters.
On Sunday, the Pakistani media reported tribal sources as saying a PAF jets were seen patrolling the skies on the country's western borders with Afghanistan in the afternoon, soon after a US predator was seen flying in the area. ''Neither the CIA-operated Predator nor the Pakistani jet fighter took any offensive action as the two planes didn't encounter each other,'' a report in the Pakistani newspaper The News, said.
Pakistan's army chief Pervez Kiyani has vowed to defend the country against US incursions ''at all costs.''
Anti-Christian attacks spread across India
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07613.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - The violence in Orissa sparked by the recent assassination of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati has emboldened Hindu militants in nearby states to launch attacks on Christians.
On September 5, four members of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity order were attacked by approximately 20 Bajrang Dal activists at the Durgh train station in Chhattisgarh state. The two nuns and two helpers were forced off the train and handed over to police officers by a mob chanting anti-Christian slogans. They were accused of the "kidnapping and forced conversion" of four babies between one and two years old whom they were transporting (with proper documentation) from Raipur to the Shishu Bhava charity centre in Bhopal. The nuns were detained overnight and the babies taken to a government hospital. At last report, the children have still not been returned to the sisters.
On September 7, the 86-year-old St. Bartholomew Church building was burned down in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh. Although the church watchman has accepted blame for the arson attack, local Christians argue that the police are protecting the Hindu militant groups truly responsible. In Kolar district, Karnataka, Hindu militants stormed into another church building, tore up Bibles, hymnals and curtains, and beat several members present. The militants seized the pastor and took him to a nearby temple where he was pressured into observing Hindu rituals. He was released only after he gave the militants a written declaration stating that he would not return to the village or continue any church activities.
Pray that Christians under attack will know God's care and provision. Pray for Christians to be strong in the face of pressure to deny Christ. Pray that the international community will voice deep concern for the Christians in India who are being persecuted for their faith (Proverbs 31:8-9).
To learn more about the situation Christians face in India, go to http://www.persecution.net/india.htm.
Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official: OK to kill owners of 'immoral' TV networks
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080912/saudi_tv_fatwa.html?.v=1
Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.
The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the "deviance of thousands of people."
Many of the most popular Arab satellite networks -- which include channels showing music videos often denounced as obscene by Muslim conservatives -- are owned by Saudi princes and well-connected Saudi businessmen. Al-Lihedan did not specify any particular channels.
Al-Lihedan is chief of the kingdom's highest tribunal, the Supreme Judiciary Council. Saudi Arabia's judiciary is made up of Islamic clerics whose decrees, or fatwas, on everyday issues are widely respected. Their fatwas do not have the weight of law. In the courts, cleric-judges rule according to Islamic law, but interpretations can vary.
Al-Lihedan was answering listeners' questions during the daily "Light in the Path" radio program in which he and others make rulings on what is permissible under Islamic law.
One caller asked about Islam's view of the owners of satellite TV channels that show "bad programs" during Ramadan.
"I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast calls for such indecency and impudence ... and I warn them of the consequences," he said.
"What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?" he said.
"Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it's permissible to kill them," he said. "Those calling for sedition, those who are able to prevent it but don't, it is permissible to kill them."
Among the most viewed Arabic satellite networks is Rotana, which airs movies and music videos. It is owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a billionaire businessman and member of the royal family whom Forbes ranks as the world's 13th richest person.
Al-Lihedan sparked controversy in the past by issuing a decree that Saudis can join jihadists to fight U.S. troops in Iraq.
Christians under fire from authorities in Laos
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07590.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - The family members of three men detained for "believing in Jesus and worshipping God" in the village of Boukham, Savannakhet province on August 3 were pressured by police to renounce their faith, according to an August 28 report from Compass Direct.
On August 24, the three detained men -- Pastor Sompong, Boot and Khamsavan -- received a visit from their families. When they arrived, officers tightened the handcuffs and wooden stocks restraining the detained believers, causing them severe pain. They told the visitors, "This is the consequence of not signing documents to renounce your faith. We have already given you three opportunities to do this, but you have refused." A few days later, the village chief ordered the families of the men to sign documents renouncing their faith. The believers refused to do so.
In other regions of the country, authorities are cracking down on churches. In mid-August, twenty-two families were reprimanded by authorities for holding worship services in a private home after their church building was torn down by officials in January. At last report, however, they were continuing to meet together in a church member's home and their requests to rebuild have been denied. On August 25, the chief of Donphai village, Attapue province fined local Christians for holding a worship service during local animistic ceremonies. The Christians refused to pay the fine and are continuing their weekly worship services.
Pray for the release of Pastor Sompong, Boot, and Khamsavan. Pray that Christians in Laos will be emboldened to obey God regardless of what man says (Acts 5:29).
For more information on the situation facing Christians in Laos, go to www.persecution.net/laos.htm.
China's military ambition fuels Asian arms race
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/2827473/Chinas-military-ambition-fuels-Asian-arms-race.html
China's growing military ambition, matched only by its growing military spending, is fuelling a rapid Asian arms race.
Beijing deploys the world's biggest army, its defense spending is rising faster than any other power and, to cap it all, its forces will this month carry out their first spacewalk.
With India, Japan and Russia also investing heavily in defense, a new Asian arms race is under way. According to official figures, Beijing's military budget this year is 418 billion yuan - £35 billion - a rise of 17.8 per cent on 2007. This already exceeds Britain's defense budget of £34 billion and places China's military spending second only to the US.
According to figures from Jane's, the military specialists, it has risen by 178 per cent in the past seven years, even after adjusting for inflation. At this rate, China will spend £180 billion - half of the Pentagon's current budget and five times Britain's - by 2020.
But the greatest change is not in how much China is spending, but where the investment is going. Under Chairman Mao, China regarded the army as a massed revolutionary block whose sheer scale would simply absorb any threat, foreign or domestic.
Only since the first Gulf War in 1991 has China started focusing on the new generation of military hardware it may face in the event of war. Beijing's military planners know they cannot rely on China's size alone as a deterrent.
The result has been a three-pronged strategy. China is upgrading technology while downsizing the army. The first prong is to increase the number of short- and medium-range missiles it has aimed at Taiwan, the future of which is China's number one military priority.
The second is to build a navy capable of projecting power into the Pacific and beyond, both to deter US intervention on Taiwan's side and to guard vital shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean. But this will not be a classic "blue water" navy with a global reach - China still has no aircraft carriers.
The third prong is the outermost line of defense: a space and anti-satellite program that may one day be strong enough to threaten US weapons and guidance systems. This is asymmetric warfare at its most dramatic.
China's submarine building program is at last starting to show success after years in which it relied on Russian imports. Beijing is presently building two submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles and another boat designed for attack missions. Once these reach completion, China's navy will have five ballistic missile submarines - compared with Britain's four - and seven other nuclear submarines. Projecting power across thousands of miles of ocean is the only purpose for a fleet of this kind.
This helps explain why India is building a nuclear submarine of its own and leasing another from Russia. India's navy presently enjoys a slender advantage over China in that it possesses one aircraft carrier and is acquiring another two. In practice, however, China's superior submarine fleet probably negates this gain.
In the past, China's alliance with Pakistan worried India most. There are historical tensions too - China and India fought a bloody border war in 1962 over disputed territory in the Himalayas.
But of greatest importance is a long-term rivalry for pre-eminence in Asia between the world's most populous nation and its biggest democracy.
On the other hand, some observers say both countries are too busy with other threats to be too concerned with each other. A study by Jane's Industrial Quarterly concluded that that helping their industrial base was a major reason for the military build-up by both India and China. Their shared aim is to replace Russian military imports and boost their own exports, while gaining knock-on benefits for civilian industry.
To the extent there is an armed race between the two powers, it may be a means of giving weight to their rising international status.
"There is a feeling that China needs to have a modern military to be able to have a seat at the top table internationally,'' said Matthew Smith, a Jane's military economist.
Evangelists arrested for "creating social unrest" in Ethiopia
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07609.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - Yonas and Yerga (not their real names), two well-known evangelists in the Muslim-majority region of western Ethiopia, were arrested on August 25 and imprisoned on false changes of "creating social unrest," according to VOMC sources.
Although the men were not physically tortured in prison, they said they were insulted, threatened and "very poorly treated." Both were released on September 5 but the charges against them were not dropped. At last report, they were scheduled to appear in court on September 8.
Pray that the Lord will continue to make these believers strong to withstand opposition. Pray that their family members will entrust the situation into His care. Pray that Christian leaders in Ethiopia will work together to increase Christ's kingdom at all cost (Ephesians 2:14-16).
To learn more about the trials facing Christians in Ethiopia, go to www.persecution.net/ethiopia.htm. You can also order a DVD entitled "Ethiopian Voices" from The Voice of the Martyrs and experience the courage and faith of our Ethiopian brothers and sisters. Go to www.persecution.net/catalog.htm to order a copy.
Church burned down by Muslims in Kwara, Nigeria
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07589.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - Muslim militants burned down a Christ Apostolic Church building on August 31 in the capital city of Baboko, Kwara state complaining that it was too close to a mosque, according to a September 2 report from Compass Direct.
At the time of the attack, the Christians were worshipping together at another location because of a relocation order issued by the government in response to complaints. The church building, which is 500 metres from the local mosque, was previously attacked by militants on June 16 when Muslims broke into the sanctuary and destroyed property.
Pray that these believers will stand firm and grow in faith as they face opposition. Pray that the passion of God's people in Nigeria will be a light that draws others to Christ.
To learn more about how Christians are persecuted in Nigeria, go to www.persecution.net/nigeria.htm.
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