Ark. Pastor Challenges IRS With Pro-McCain Sermon
http://www.newsmax.com/politics/pulpit_politics/2008/10/15/140858.html
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- In a predominantly black church in a city known for its past racial strife, Bishop Robert Smith is taking sides. His targets: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and federal restrictions barring Smith's endorsement of Republican John McCain.
At the end of a recent sermon, Smith told about 50 worshippers at his Word of Outreach Christian Center: "I will be voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin."
Smith, who is black, said neighbors and friends have questioned why he isn't backing Obama, the first black presidential nominee from a major party.
"I just tell them it's not about race to me," said Smith, who was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. "It's about principle. I wouldn't care if it's my mother. If she isn't for life or for heterosexual relationships, I wouldn't vote for my momma."
Smith's sermon was aimed at fighting an Internal Revenue Service policy that prohibits charities and churches from involvement in political campaigns. Smith said he didn't tell parishioners anything they didn't already know from talking to him at dinners or in private.
"In my investigation of the candidates, neither one of them meets the Biblical standard 100 percent," Smith said during the Oct. 5 homily. "But only one of them has the basic understanding of when life begins. Only that one can be trusted to ensure that life does not end prematurely."
Smith said he would send a recording of the sermon to the IRS in hopes of triggering an investigation that would lead courts to abolish restrictions on church involvement in politics. He said what he did is not unlike what other pastors do regularly.
"In the black community, they do it all the time and they do it in other communities as well," Smith said in an interview after the sermon.
Smith isn't just testing the law. He's also testing his predominantly black congregation and neighborhood by backing McCain, in a city that was torn by racial strife when schools were desegregated 51 years ago.
"You never heard him once say you should vote for this person. He just said, `This is who I'm going to vote for and here are the principles behind it,'" said Angela Roberson, who has been attending the church for about a year and also supports McCain.
Experts say sermons such as Smith's violate IRS rules and federal law. Congress amended the tax code in 1954 to state that certain nonprofit groups, including secular charities and places of worship, can lose their tax-exempt status for intervening in political campaigns.
Smith was one of 33 pastors who had planned to make pointed sermons about political candidates in September in an effort orchestrated by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which hopes to challenge federal law and IRS rules on political speech by pastors. Scrapped because of a missed flight, Smith finally delivered the sermon last week.
"For the last 54 years, the tax restrictions have been used to silence and intimidate churches on those issues," said Erik Stanley, a senior attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund.
IRS spokeswoman Nancy Mathis would not comment on Smith's sermon but said the agency would monitor any allegations of political activity by churches.
Sen. McCain Urged to Address Unfounded 'Racist' Allegations Leveled Against His Campaign During Upcoming Debate
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07697.shtml
LOS ANGELES, (christiansunite.com) -- Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND Action, Inc., is calling on Sen. John McCain to confront charges leveled by prominent Democrats that his campaign is racially divisive during this Wednesday's presidential debate. The latest allegation came from veteran civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). Lewis escalated the attacks against McCain-Palin this week by comparing the campaign's mood during their rallies to the hate- filled activities of segregationists in the 60's led by the late Democrat George Wallace. The following is Rev. Peterson's statement about this issue:
"Rep. John Lewis was a leader of the early civil rights movement and he of all people should know better than to use such racially divisive fear tactics. For Rep. Lewis to suggest that the McCain campaign is remotely close to segregationists in any way is reckless and false. It also shows that if the Democrats can get John Lewis to stoop this low, they are desperate and afraid of the outcome in this election.
"Like Rep. Lewis, I too am a native of Alabama and I am intimately aware of the vicious tactics the segregationists used to rob blacks of their civil rights and stop progress in the South. I take issue with anyone exploiting the sacrifices of those early civil rights pioneers. And I won't sit idle while innocent Americans are being falsely attacked. So where are all the outraged Democrats who'll speak out against this injustice against white Republicans?
"Over the past two weeks a number of Democratic lawmakers have falsely accused the Republican party and the McCain campaign of being 'racists' without a shred of proof. Those lawmakers include: Rep. Alcee Hastings; Rep. Gregory Meeks; Rep. Barney Frank; Rep. Ed Towns, and Rep. John Lewis.
"Sen. McCain would do this nation and his campaign a great service if he could muster up the courage to boldly denounce Rep. Lewis' comments during the debate and challenge Sen. Barack Obama to either agree with or repudiate Lewis."
BOND Action, Inc., is a 501 (c) (4) new cultural action organization, which exists to educate, motivate and rally Americans to greater involvement in the moral, cultural and political issues that threaten our great country. Contributions to BOND Action, Inc. are not tax- deductible. For more information call (877) WE-ACT- 77, visit www.bondaction.org or write to us at BOND Action Inc., PO Box 35586, Los Angeles, CA 90035-0586.
McCain Hits Hard in Final Debate
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/465183.aspx
CBNNews.com - Presidential candidate John McCain kept rival Barack Obama on the defense, Wednesday night, blasting him over his tax plans, his unexplained political relationships, and his position on abortion in the final debate of this election season.
The 90 minute event at New York's Hofstra University delved into a host of domestic issues, including the candidates' proposals on how to fix the country's economic crisis.
With Obama leading in the polls less than three weeks from Election Day, McCain put on a feisty performance in an effort to bring fresh momentum to his lagging campaign. Dour economic headlines in recent weeks have hurt McCain's popularity, while propelling his rival's surge in the polls.
Spreading the Wealth
In the opening segment, McCain accused Obama of seeking to raise taxes in order to "spread the wealth around."
Those words were used by Obama earlier this week when a plumber, Joe Wurzelbacher from Ohio, confronted the senator on his tax plan, saying it would hurt him because he was considering buying a small business.
"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama explained to him then. "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success, too. And I think that when we spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
"Nobody likes taxes," Obama said in the candidate's exchange on taxes. "But ultimately we've got to pay for the core investments."
"If nobody likes taxes, let's not raise anybody's, OK?" McCain shot back.
Ayers, ACORN Connection
McCain also confronted Obama on his connection to domestic terrorist William Ayers and the liberal group ACORN, accused of violating federal law in registering voters.
"We need to know the full extent of your relationship. All of these things need to be examined," McCain said.
As he and campaign surrogates have said, Obama explained that he was only 8-years old in the 1960s when Ayers committed his terrorist activity and had only served on a board with him years later, as did even some Republicans.
But it has been widely reported Ayers also hosted a meet-the-candidate event for Obama in an Illinois race years ago, a fact that Obama did not mention during the debate.
"The fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Senator McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me," Obama parried.
Bush Administration Connection
During an exchange on reducing the federal budget, Obama again tried to pin McCain to the economic policies of the Bush administration.
"Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago," McCain retorted.
But Obama brushed aside McCain's maverick claim.
"If I've occasionally mistaken your policies for George Bush's policies, it's because on the core economic issues that matter to the American people - on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities - you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush," he said.
But McCain refused to cede any ground to his rival on that point, insisting later the he has resisted the Bush administration and his party on many instances and "had the scars to prove it."
Abortion, Supreme Court Nominees
As the discussion turned toward the candidate's position on Roe v. Wade, McCain blasted Obama for aligning himself with "the extreme aspect of the pro-abortion movement in America."
The Arizona senator said Obama had voted "present" while in the Illinois Legislature on a measure to ban one type of procedure late in a woman's pregnancy.
"I don't know how you can vote 'present' on an issue like that," McCain questioned.
Obama defended his vote, saying the bill would have undermined Roe v. Wade. He said it had also been opposed by the Illinois Medical Society.
"I am completely supportive of a ban on late-term abortions, partial-birth or otherwise, as long as there's an exception for the mother's health and life, and this did not contain that exception," he added.
McCain, in turn, sarcastically praised Obama for his "eloquence."
"He's for the 'health for the mother.'" McCain replied. "You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything."
On whether their abortion views would influence their choice of Supreme Court nominees, McCain refused to use it as a litmus test but charged Obama with voting against candidates who did not meet his ideology.
"The Senator voted against Justices Alito and Roberts on the grounds that they didn't meet his ideological stance," McCain said.
Obama pivoted, focusing instead on finding common ground on preventing unwanted pregnancies, providing options for adoption, and "helping single mothers if they choose to keep the baby."
Seeking to have the last word on the issue, McCain said that it was a given for the GOP that abortion needs to be reduced.
"But that does not mean we will cease to work to protect the unborn." McCain said.
Campaign Rhetoric
The candidates also volleyed on the tone of each campaign, which many charge has sunk to nastier levels in recent years. McCain has taken heat over comments from some rally supporters for inciting hate.
The fact is, Obama charged, "100 percent of your ads have been negative."
"Not true," McCain retorted.
"It absolutely is true," Obama continued.
An Associated Press fact check of Obama's statements show they are somewhat misleading.
It is true that McCain is currently running all negative ads; but, a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that he has run a number of positive ads during the campaign.
The candidates also sparred over a host of other domestic issues, including health care, energy independence, and free trade before ending the 90 minute debate.
With 20 days left before the big day, Moderator Bob Schiefer closed with what he said were his mother's words.
"Go vote now. It will make you feel big and strong."
A Look at Obama's Chicago Past
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/462414.aspx
CBNNews.com - In the race for president, Sen. Barack Obama labels himself as an agent for change, saying he's been a reformer for years. But some in his political hometown of Chicago are saying "not so fast."
While Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, his political birthplace is Chicago - a city known for its machine politics and Illinois - a state known nationally for government corruption.
Political experts say Obama has not been able to bring about fundamental reform in Illinois. In fact, he's allied with some of the state's most notorious politicos.
A recent McCain TV ad shows Obama saying "in terms of my toughness, look, first of all I come from Chicago." The ad goes on to make the point that Obama has formed powerful connections with some of Chicago's most corrupt politicians. It's a story the local media has followed for years.
"The McCain strategy is a wise one," said Chicago Sun-Times reporter Chris Fusco.
Fusco investigates state and city government for the Sun-Times. He and other members of the Illinois media say the national press is missing an important story--that corruption still exists in Illinois and Chicago politics--and Obama refuses to directly challenge it.
"Right now, what Sen. Obama appears to be doing from a political analyst standpoint is he's playing the safe card," Fusco said. "You know Mayor Daley's a popular figure in Chicago, despite his corruption troubles."
Illinois' long-term corruption issues have spawned a veritable watch-dog industry, including the Better Government Association. When it comes to corruption, BGA Executive Director Jay Stewart says, "we have a severe problem here."
Chicago's Political Machine
Stewart says Chicago's political machine, run by Mayor Richard Daley, is the state's engine of corruption. For years the city's media has chronicled how city workers are told to get out the vote to keep their jobs and how city contractors must make campaign donations to keep their contracts.
"If you go over to the federal courthouse building the last five or six years," Stewart began, "you'll see a steady flow of state and local elected officials, government employees, contractors--all going to jail for public corruption, trying to rip the public off in one scheme or another."
Obama himself even told the Sun-Times in 2005 that city hall corruption investigations gave him "huge pause" about supporting the mayor. But in 2007, he endorsed Daley's re-election bid. Weeks later, Daley backed Obama for president.
"The mayor's powerful. If you anger him you're going to suffer the repurcussions," Stewart said. "So I think a lot of politicians take a pass on it and Senator Obama has never been that kind of politician to take on Chicago corruption."
Political Family Tree
Besides Daley, Obama's political family tree includes Tony Rezko. Rezko was the senator's personal friend, fundraiser and now--a convicted felon. Rezko also helped Obama buy his home.
"Real estate transactions are perfectly legal. The problem with that one is at the time Obama buys the real estate from Rezko it's well-known that Tony Rezko is heading toward a federal indictment," Stewart explained.
Obama has admitted his relationship with Rezko showed bad judgment. But he calls Illinois Senate President Emil Jones his political godfather. Jones is widely viewed as a Machine insider.
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger also belongs on the family tree.
In 2006, Obama refused to endorse the reform candidate Forrest Claypool in the primary for Cook County Board president. He then endorsed Stroger, the son of a well-known Machine politician, in the general election.
"That was an opportunity where Sen. Obama really could have wielded some of his growing political influence and helped Claypool out in a race against an entrenched Machine incumbent," Fusco said.
Chicago Strategy
Today, the Chicago Machine lives on in the presidential campaign. Long-time Daley strategist David Axelrod is now Obama's chief strategist.
The Obama campaign turned down a CBN News interview request for this story. But the campaign's response statement to the McCain ad points out Obama's ethics reform legislation during his state senate days.
Republican state Senator Kirk Dillard sponsored the bill and worked with Obama.
"His contribution as a constitutional lawyer was very helpful," he said. "I give the man credit. I was the lead sponsor. He was a co-sponsor."
Critics call the legislation small potatoes. But watchdog groups note it was the first reform bill in Illinois in 30 years.
Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, explained "before that law you could call a legislator out of the chambers and hand him an envelope of cash and that was okay."
When it comes to good government legislation in Illinois - Canary, Stewart and others say Obama can take credit. But new laws alone don't clean up corruption, or make a reformer.
"Did new laws get enacted and did Sen. Obama play a role in enacting those laws? The answer is yes," Stewart began. "Do we still have horrible, horrible, horrible corruption in Illinois? The answer is yes."
Reformer Grade?
Today, Dillard gives Obama a "C+" as a reformer.
"He was once probably in the good solid 'B" category, but when you have Tony Rezko, a convicted felon, as your next-door neighbor, you passed on having a real reformer elected as your home town Cook County Board chairman, and the fact that you're not a part of it or product of it but you've embraced the Chicago Machine - I don't know how you can get much higher than a 'C+' or 'B-,'" Dillard said.
That grade may be understood in Illinois, but not in much of the country, which is still getting to know Obama and his home state.
Jesse Jackson: Under Obama 'decades of putting Israel's interests first' would end...
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_o_jesse_knows_133450.htm?page=0
Prepare for a new America: That's the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week.
He promised "fundamental changes" in US foreign policy - saying America must "heal wounds" it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the "arrogance of the Bush administration."
The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end.
Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.
"Obama is about change," Jackson told me in a wide-ranging conversation. "And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it."
Jackson warns that he isn't an Obama confidant or adviser, "just a supporter." But he adds that Obama has been "a neighbor or, better still, a member of the family." Jackson's son has been a close friend of Obama for years, and Jackson's daughter went to school with Obama's wife Michelle.
"We helped him start his career," says Jackson. "And then we were always there to help him move ahead. He is the continuation of our struggle for justice not only for the black people but also for all those who have been wronged."
Jackson is especially critical of President Bush's approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
"Bush was so afraid of a snafu and of upsetting Israel that he gave the whole thing a miss," Jackson says. "Barack will change that," because, as long as the Palestinians haven't seen justice, the Middle East will "remain a source of danger to us all."
"Barack is determined to repair our relations with the world of Islam and Muslims," Jackson says. "Thanks to his background and ecumenical approach, he knows how Muslims feel while remaining committed to his own faith."
Negative Advertising
http://townhall.com/Columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/10/14/negative_advertising?page=full&comments=true
One of the oldest phenomena of American elections-- criticism of one's opponent-- has in recent times been stigmatized by much of the media as "negative advertising."
Is this because the criticism has gotten more vicious or more personal? You might think so, if you were totally ignorant of history, as so many of the graduates of even our elite universities are.
Although Grover Cleveland was elected President twice, he had to overcome a major scandal that he had fathered a child out of wedlock, which was considered more of a disgrace then than today. Even giants like Lincoln and Jefferson were called names that neither McCain nor Obama has been called.
Why then is "negative advertising" such a big deal these days? The dirty little secret is this: Liberal candidates have needed to escape their past and pretend that they are not liberals, because so many voters have had it with liberals.
In 1988, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts called himself a "technocrat," a pragmatic solver of problems, despite a classic liberal track record of big spending, big taxes, and policies that were anti-business and pro-criminal.
When the truth about what he actually did as governor was brought out during the Presidential election campaign, the media were duly shocked-- not by Dukakis' record, but by the Republicans' exposing his record.
John Kerry, with a very similar ultra-liberal record, topped off by inflammatory and unsubstantiated attacks on American military men in Vietnam, disdained the whole process of labeling as something unworthy. And the mainstream media closed ranks around him as well, deploring those who labeled Kerry a liberal.
Barack Obama is much smoother. Instead of issuing explicit denials, he gives speeches that sound so moderate, so nuanced and so lofty that even some conservative Republicans go for them. How could anyone believe that such a man is the very opposite of what he claims to be-- unless they check out the record of what he has actually done?
In words, Obama is a uniter instead of a divider. In deeds, he has spent years promoting polarization. That is what a "community organizer" does, creating a sense of grievance, envy and resentment, in order to mobilize political action to get more of the taxpayers' money or to force banks to lend to people they don't consider good risks, as the community organizing group ACORN did.
After Barack Obama moved beyond the role of a community organizer, he promoted the same polarization in his other roles.
That is what he did when he spent the money of the Woods Fund bankrolling programs to spread the politics of grievance and resentment into the schools. That is what he did when he spent the taxpayers' money bankrolling the grievance and resentment ideology of Michael Pfleger.
When Barack Obama donated $20,000 to Jeremiah Wright, does anyone imagine that he was unaware that Wright was the epitome of grievance, envy and resentment hype? Or were Wright's sermons too subtle for Obama to pick up that message?
How subtle is "Goddamn America!"?
Yet those in the media who deplore "negative advertising" regard it as unseemly to dig up ugly facts instead of sticking to the beautiful rhetoric of an election year. The oft-repeated mantra is that we should trick to the "real issues."
What are called "the real issues" are election-year talking points, while the actual track record of the candidates is treated as a distraction-- and somehow an unworthy distraction.
Does anyone in real life put more faith in what people say than in what they do? A few gullible people do-- and they often get deceived and defrauded big time.
Barack Obama has carried election-year makeovers to a new high, presenting himself a uniter of people, someone reaching across the partisan divide and the racial divide-- after decades of promoting polarization in each of his successive roles and each of his choices of political allies.
Yet the media treat exposing a fraudulent election-year image as far worse than letting someone acquire the powers of the highest office in the land through sheer deception.
Barack Obama's Sweeping Agenda for Pro-Abortion Policy Changes Examined by NRLC's Douglas Johnson in 'National Review Online'
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07692.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- The Obama campaign and its allies have adopted an extensive "messaging strategy" that seeks to persuade religiously committed Americans that Obama has a middle-of- the-road position on abortion policy and will promote "abortion reduction."
Douglas Johnson, longtime legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and author of an article published today on National Review Online, titled "Unholy Messaging," calls the Obama effort "a brazen scam."
"The scam depends on the Obama campaign, with cooperation from the mainstream news media, deflecting attention away from Obama's actual record, and from his extensive commitments to pro-abortion interest groups," Johnson said. "Barack Obama is firmly committed to an agenda of sweeping pro-abortion policy changes that, if implemented, will surely greatly increase the number of abortions performed."
Johnson noted that a few short months ago, during his primary contest, Obama and his advocates were boasting about his record of leadership in opposition to legislation to ban partial-birth abortions, to protect infants born alive during abortions, and to require parental notification for minors seeking abortions, among other pro-life bills. "Those boasts were well-founded, and the current effort to re-package Obama as a moderate is a brazen scam," Johnson said.
The Obama "messaging" campaign includes a recently launched "Faith, Family & Values Tour" that will visit Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In addition, various independent groups are disseminating advertising and literature that advances the same strategy.
Among the specific Obama positions documented in Johnson's article (which contains extensive hyperlinks to documentation):
-- Obama is a cosponsor of the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act" S. 1173), which Johnson calls "the most sweeping piece of pro-abortion legislation ever proposed in Congress." The FOCA is a bill that would make partial-birth abortion legal again, strike down restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortion, and nullify virtually every state and federal law or policy that would in any way "interfere with" access to abortion, including parental notification laws. In a letter sent to every member of Congress by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on September 19, Cardinal Justin Rigali wrote, "No one who sponsors or supports legislation like FOCA can credibly claim to be part of a good-faith discussion on how to reduce abortions. In a speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund on July 17, 2007, Obama said, The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do."
-- Obama advocates the nullification of state laws requiring parental notification or consent for a minor daughter's abortion, which would be one of the effects of the FOCA. Moreover, since entering the U.S. Senate, Obama has had two opportunities to vote directly on the question of parental notification for interstate abortions on minors, and he voted "no" on both occasions.
-- Obama advocates repeal of the Hyde Amendment, the law that since 1976 has blocked almost all federal funding of abortion, even though both pro-life and pro-abortion analysts agree that this law has prevented many abortions. By even the most conservative estimate, there are more than one million Americans alive today because of the Hyde Amendment. "Because the Hyde Amendment must be renewed annually, a new president hostile to the Hyde Amendment could quickly place it in jeopardy," Johnson observed. The FOCA would also nullify all state laws restricting state funding of elective abortion.
-- In a written response to a pro-abortion advocacy group, the Obama campaign said that Obama is opposed to continuing current federal funding for "crisis pregnancy centers," which provide needed assistance to many thousands of pregnant women.
-- NRLC has thoroughly documented that in the Illinois state Senate, Obama led the opposition to legislation to protect babies who are born alive during abortions, and persisted in his opposition even after Congress had enacted a virtually identical federal bill without a single dissenting vote. Obama has in numerous ways actively misrepresented the content of this legislation, and his actions on it, but even when such misrepresentations were proved by NRLC and others, the major media simply let Obama abandon them and fall back to a different set of equally misleading claims.
In his article, Johnson criticizes recent coverage in the "mainstream news media," which, he writes, "have, with few exceptions, been very compliant with Obama's recent efforts to downplay his hard-line pro-abortion history and policy commitments, for the purpose of winning the general election." Typically, journalists simply describe Obama's position as "supports abortion rights," without giving details regarding his advocacy of federal funding of abortion, invalidation of parental notification laws, and the rest.
ACORN's Methods Spur Investigations
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/464688.aspx
CBNNews.com - WASHINGTON - You may have heard the name ACORN the last few days tied to reports of voter fraud. The group's goal is to register low income voters. But their methods are under investigation in a number of states.
Barack Obama once worked for the group and his presidential campaign is trying to downplay the relationship. But that may be a difficult task.
During the last two presidential elections, accusations flew that low income voters had been disenfranchised.
Some activists vowed they wouldn't let it happen again.
One of the largest of those groups, ACORN, has traveled from state to state registering poor, minority and young voters-groups who usually vote Democratic.
"ACORN is born out of the radical community organizer Saul Alinsky. And it was founded in 1970," said John Fund, author of Stealing Elections.
"They basically engage in welfare right demonstrations, demonstrations for more public housing. But they also do a lot of voter registration efforts, primarily in Democratic areas. Those registration efforts getting a lot of attention," he added.
During a recent investigation, a Cuyahoga County, Ohio, board member said to ACORN activists, "Your manual says one thing and you've done another."
The Ohio Electoral board criticized ACORN activists recently over allegations the group engaged in voter fraud. Earlier this week, a Cleveland man testified that ACORN contacted him and asked him to register up to 20 times.
"I was trying to help them because this is like, their job, and they needed the signatures. I didn't know it was this big of a controversy," the voter said.
Ohio isn't alone. Investigations are underway in at least a dozen states including Florida, where ACORN workers turned in a registration form filled out by "Mickey Mouse."
The FBI has taken notice -- federal agents raided the ACORN office in Nevada last week. There they found bogus registration forms that even included members of the Dallas Cowboys.
More than 800 bad applications were submitted in Pennsylvania and another two thousand in Connecticut.
In these and several other states, investigators allege that ACORN used false names and addresses, registered people multiple times and even submitted names of the deceased.
ACORN workers say the group has been targeted unfairly in an attempt to suppress votes for Barack Obama.
"They know that most of the new voters -- which has been the target for ACORN, new voters, people who haven't voted in the past -- are going to be the ones most likely to support Mr. Obama," ACORN volunteer Frank Beaty said.
Obama's campaign contributed more than $800,000 during the primaries for ACORN's get-out-the vote work.
The campaign says those payments stopped in May, but Obama's individual support goes back further.
As a state senator in Illinois, he served on the board of a charitable organization that awarded over $100,000 in grants to ACORN.
"Barack Obama was a former lawyer for ACORN, and he was their trainer for several years. So ACORN and Barack Obama are very closely linked. Obama has never criticized ACORN's methods, and I fear that ACORN is going to be injected into this election in a way that will cause the results to be in doubt," Stealing Elections author John Fund said.
ACORN claims it has two different wings -- political and non-political. The group's non-political arm is supposedly devoted to "non-partisan" registration efforts.
It's political wing, however, has formally endorsed Barack Obama. One ACORN board member has publicly praised Obama's past work with the group.
Obama's campaign Web site acknowledges that he did represent ACORN as an attorney, but states that ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any other type of employee.
'Honest Vote Wisconsin' to Press for Voter Registration Reform
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07690.shtml
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin, (christiansunite.com) -- A new bi-partisan group, Honest Vote Wisconsin, has been formed to push state election officials to adhere to the federal voter laws which require Wisconsin to conduct matching checks of new voter registrations back to January of 2006. The Government Accountability Board has refused to look at voter registrations prior to August 6, 2008.
Honest Vote Wisconsin Chair John Savage, a Milwaukee attorney and former member of the Wisconsin State Elections Board, said there is no excuse for the GAB's lack of action.
"Wisconsin has been sullied by election fraud in the past," Savage said. "The bipartisan HAVA law was passed by Congress so the people of our state will have confidence that only honest votes will be counted. Every illegal vote cast dilutes the impact of the honest voter. Every Wisconsin citizen has the right to expect that its officials will take appropriate measures to produce the cleanest possible voting rolls and at a minimum adhere to federal standards."
Honest Vote Wisconsin Co-Chair Tillie Bichanich said the non-partisan group will also call on Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi to expedite proceedings on Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's against the Government Accountability Board. Judge Sumi has postponed further action in the case until October 23, just 12 days before the election.
"Justice delayed is justice denied," Savage said.
"Judge Sumi does not seem to understand that this case cannot be treated as an ordinary lawsuit," Bichanich said. "A decision needs to be rendered in a timely fashion so that the GAB will have enough time to do the job they should have done in the first place."
Bichanich also blasted the GAB for prohibiting municipal clerks from running checks on new registrations made prior to August 6.
"It is outrageous that clerks trying do the right thing to adhere to federal law are being told they are not authorized to do so," Bichanich said. "You would think they would be delighted the clerks are taking the initiative."
Savage said Honest Vote Wisconsin will work to raise the awareness of Wisconsin citizens on voter registration reform and voter fraud while keeping the spotlight on the election officials between now and November 4.
Obama Attacks Fox News in N.Y. Times Magazine
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_attacks_fox_news/2008/10/15/140849.html
"I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls," Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama told New York Times Magazine.
In an interview with Matt Bai that will run this coming weekend, Obama complained about Fox News' coverage of his campaign.
"If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn't vote for me, right?" he said.
"Because the way I'm portrayed 24/7 is as a freak. I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?
"I guess the point I'm making," he went on, "is that there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it's powerful."
Obama also said, referring to newsmen at Fox News and MSNBC: "If voters are … polarized and if they're seeing two different realities, a Sean Hannity reality and a Keith Olbermann reality, then we're not going to be able to get done the work we need to get done."
No Freedom for Millions
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07693.shtml
SANTA ANA, California, (christiansunite.com) -- American citizens will exercise one of their many freedoms by going to the polls to vote for their favorite presidential candidate on November 4. U.S. elections provide for an orderly and peaceful transition of governmental leaders.
And every Sunday, as well as during the week, Americans are free to worship. No barred doors. No secret police. No censoring of the message by the government. The freedom to worship is one of our nation's most cherished values.
Of course, we need to be on constant guard to preserve these precious freedoms.
But in many countries around the world people don't have basic human rights - including religious freedom and the right to vote. Christians and other minorities - especially in Islamic and communist countries - are forced to worship underground. Reading a Bible could bring imprisonment. According to a Freedom House report, 43 countries or 36 percent of the world population were judged "not free" and 60 countries or 18 percent of the global population "partly free" in 2007. Those totals cover over 100 countries and 54 percent of the worldwide population.
Here are a few examples of countries where there are few human rights:
North Korea - People are forced to worship Kim Jong Il as a "god." Up to 700,000 North Koreans are suffering in prison camps, many for simply practicing their faith underground. There is no right to vote. North Korea has been ranked the No. 1 persecutor of Christians for six years in a row, according to Open Doors' World Watch List.
Saudi Arabia - The country is considered an ally of the U.S. due to its support of the war on terrorism. However, there is absolutely no religious freedom. A person charged with apostasy - changing one's faith from Islam - could face death.
Iran - Islam is the official religion in Iran and all laws and regulations must be consistent with the official interpretation of Shariah (strict Islamic law). Since hard-line conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president in 2005, persecution has increased for Christians and others. Iran is on the verge of passing a bill that would make apostasy a capital crime.
"As citizens in the U.S. go to the polls to vote on November 4 and to our places of worship with no harassment or restrictions, we thank our Lord for those freedoms which we enjoy," says Open Doors USA President/CEO Carl Moeller. "But millions of people worldwide don't have any basic rights. As one North Korean said last December, 'we can only celebrate Christmas in our hearts.' We need to advocate, encourage and pray for the millions who suffer for their faith."
The End of 'We the People'
http://townhall.com/Columnists/CalThomas/2008/10/14/the_end_of_we_the_people
Anyone desiring a preview of what the federal judiciary would look like under a Barack Obama administration need look no further than a narrow ruling by the Connecticut Supreme Court allowing same-sex "marriage."
By a 4-3 margin, the high court deprived Connecticut citizens of the right to limit marriage and, thus, societal approval, to the legal and covenantal relationship between a man and a woman.
The ruling cannot be appealed, in keeping with the dictatorial mind-set of the majority.
The court majority bought the legal pabulum served up by attorneys for the plaintiffs that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is akin to once prevalent laws prohibiting interracial marriage, as well as laws that discriminated against women for certain jobs and relegated blacks to "separate but equal" schools and other public venues.
Writing for the majority, Justice Richard N. Palmer revealed his acceptance of the liberal doctrine of a "living Constitution" constantly in need of updating in keeping with the times: "Šour understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection." Using such a standard, if the "understanding" of the endowed rights of blacks were to devolve to a pre-civil rights-era acceptance of black inferiority, would Justice Palmer argue that blacks would then have to give up their rights in order to serve "contemporary appreciation"? And what else would Justice Palmer and his three colleagues allow to be determined by contemporary whim?
Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, accused the majority of behaving like "robed masters" and "philosopher kings." He added, "This is about our right to govern ourselves. It is bigger than gay marriage." He is correct, of course, but such notions are beginning to fade as more of us either don't care, or are willing to trade a ruling class - in this case the courts - for individual freedom and the right to shape societal norms and mores from the bottom up, not the top down.
Connecticut becomes the third state - Massachusetts and California are the others - to sanction same-sex marriage. California has a measure on its November ballot, Proposition 8, to reverse a state Supreme Court ruling and preserve marriage between men and women.
An indication that the objectives of the gay rights movement go far beyond what any two individuals wish to do with each other can be seen in what California has tried to impose on heterosexuals wishing to marry. According to Focus on the Family's Citizen Link Web page, some county clerks exchanged the words "bride" and "groom" on marriage licenses for "Party A" and "Party B." One clerk rejected the application of Rachel Bird and Gideon Codding because they wrote in the traditional designations for themselves. It took a lawsuit by the Coddings, decided in their favor on Oct. 3, for the state to back down on its "Party A" and "Party B" requirement. Couples will now be allowed the "option" to designate themselves however they wish.
Under an Obama administration, it is not far-fetched to see the day when liberal federal judges decide that religious organizations must lose their tax exemptions should they refuse to employ homosexuals or others they regard as engaging in deviant behavior.
Court challenges against those who believe homosexual behavior is sinful seem to be occurring with greater frequency. According to Citizenlink, The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association in New Jersey, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, "lost part of its property tax exemption for refusing to allow a same-sex civil union ceremony to be conducted on its property." The state is also investigating the organization after it was charged with violating New Jersey's nondiscrimination statutes. New Jersey has a religious exemption law that is supposed to protect churches and religious organizations, but it hasn't in this instance, which raises questions about their effectiveness. The aim of the gay rights lobby is to destroy all remnants of biblical values and societal norms.
Gay rights advocates will take their agenda to federal courts as soon as sufficient numbers of liberal judges are there to give them what they want. Watch them vote in overwhelming numbers for Barack Obama. He is their future. This election is, among other things, about the future of the majority and whether we want this country to be shaped by the courts, or by "we the people."
Study: Student Views Shift Left in College
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081014/study-student-views-shift-left-in-college.htm
On issues such as abortion, gay "marriage" and religion, college students shift noticeably to the left from the time they arrive on campus through their junior year, new research shows.
The reason, according to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, isn't indoctrination by left-leaning faculty but rather the more powerful influence of fellow students. And at most colleges, left-leaning peer groups are more common than conservative ones.
After college, students — particularly women — move somewhat back to the right politically.
The research is the latest of several efforts by academics to lend analytical rigor to an emotional debate. Overall, college faculty lean left politically, but there's sharp disagreement on whether they impose their views on students. The UCLA researchers are among several social scientists who have tried to undermine the argument that students respond strongly to their teachers' opinions.
Overall, students were nearly as likely after three years of college to call themselves "conservative" or "far-right," according to findings, and only somewhat more likely to call themselves "liberal" or "far left."
On specific policy questions, they moved to more liberal positions.
Sixty percent of the college juniors said they support legalized abortion, up from 52 percent who said so as freshmen. The percentage supporting "legal marital status" for gay couples rose from 54 to 66. The percentage supporting increased defense spending fell from 34 to 25.
"People are moving out of the center to the left during college," said one of the researchers, Alexander Astin.
Studies dating back decades have noted the trend of college students moving to the left during their college careers. But finding a representative snapshot of overall college opinion is difficult, because colleges have such varying student bodies.
The new figures from UCLA — which has been tracking attitudes of freshmen for more than 40 years — give a fresher and, the authors contend, more valid portrait. Based on a sample of nearly 15,000 students who entered 136 colleges in 2004, the results are carefully weighted to represent the full college population. Unlike some other such surveys, UCLA was able to pose its questions to the same students when they started college and after junior year.
The responses came over a time of deepening unpopularity for the Bush administration and Republicans generally. But Astin said the data show a clear effect from being in college, not just a national trend. In particular, in a separate, not-yet published paper using similar data, he and colleague Nida Denson claim to isolate the changes to students' exposure to left-leaning peer groups.
Right-leaning students tend to concentrate at a smaller number of colleges. So at most colleges, there are more left-leaning peer groups, and students on balance move leftward.
"If you find yourself in a peer group where on balance the attitudes lean left, you'll tend to move in that direction," Astin said.
The UCLA research follows recent work by Gordon Hewitt of Hamilton College and Mack Mariani of Xavier University, and three authors of a new book called "Closed Minds? Politics and Ideology in American Universities." Both groups claim to represent a range of personal political views, but both generally conclude claims of classroom bias and indoctrination are overstated.
Daniel Klein, a libertarian economics professor at George Mason University in Virginia and a critic of the influence of left-leaning college professors, said too many students aren't offered a wide range of viewpoints in their classes. He said it's "a tragedy that they're not being exposed to more of the good stuff."
Among other findings:
- The percentage of students who support laws prohibiting homosexual relationships fell 10 points, from 31.5 percent to 21.5 percent after three years of college.
- The percentage who never attend religious services nearly doubled to 37.5 percent.
- There were exceptions to the leftward trend. A majority continued to support the death penalty, though the percentage saying it should be abolished rose 5 points to about 37 percent. On taxes, the percentage strongly agreeing the wealthy should pay a larger share rose slightly, but there was otherwise little change.
Looking at an earlier part of the study cohort, the researchers have found the percentage calling themselves "liberal" or "far left" rose from 24.0 percent to 29.9 percent six years after graduation, but the percentage choosing "conservative" or "far right" increased from 28.1 percent to 31.6 percent.
Essentially, fewer students called themselves middle-of-the-road, and they dispersed about equally in each direction after graduation. Still, the group identifying as "conservative" gained the most of any group.
Chicago plans school for gay students
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3167192/Chicago-plans-school-for-gay-students.html
The Pride Campus of Social Justice High School would be open to all students in the city, and would probably end up being "majority straight", said Arne Duncan, the head of Chicago Public Schools.
But it would provide a supportive atmosphere for gay pupils, using prominent gays and lesbians - including James Baldwin and Gertrude Stein - in its curriculum.
Bill Greaves, the city's liason officer on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, said the school would "make sure these people are not invisible in history".
He said it was important that gay and lesbian historical figures were highlighted to give young gay people positive, successful role models.
The proposals were supported by most of the 50 Chicago residents who attended a public meeting on the city's education. They will be voted on by the Chicago board of education on October 22.
If approved, the Pride Campus would be unlikely to open until 2010 and would teach 600 students.
The scheme has already been tried elsewhere, with the Alliance High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which considers itself "gay friendly" and has 125 students.
"We want to create great new options for communities that have been traditionally under-served," Mr Duncan said in the Chicago Tribune. "If you look at national studies, you see gay and lesbian students with high dropout rates... I think there is a niche there we need to fill."
In California, 'Gay Rights' Now Superior to Everyone Else's Rights
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07691.shtml
SACRAMENTO, California, (christiansunite.com) -- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed three bills squashing moral values and religious freedom. By elevating the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda above the rights of everyone else, Schwarzenegger has confirmed his legacy is being the most anti-family Republican governor in California history.
"There is no gay gene, but religious freedom is a God- given right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. So it's wrong and unfair to create new laws which make homosexual-bisexual-transsexual 'rights' superior to everyone else's rights," said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, a leading West Coast family issues organization.
"The words 'discrimination,' 'harassment,' and 'tolerance' have been redefined and are actually resulting in reverse discrimination and intolerance against people with moral values," said Thomasson. "Under these new laws, foster parents, nurses, doctors, health insurance plans, city and county commissions, and court-appointed children's advocates must abandon their moral, social or financial values at the alter of the homosexual- bisexual-transsexual agenda. This crate load of homosexual-bisexual-transsexual laws embodies the same intolerant spirit of the recent California Supreme Court ruling that trampled the religious freedom of doctors at the behest of homosexual 'rights.'"
Among the "LGBT" bills signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, after being approved by the Democrat-controlled Legislature, are:
· AB 3015 forces foster parents to train foster children to support homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality. The 2000 law upon which AB 3015 is based resulted in homosexual, bisexual and transsexual activism on school campuses from "LGBT" students and teachers. AB 3015 will do the same for foster children, many of whom have already been emotionally damaged by sexual abuse and neglect.
Under the new law, morally-minded foster parents will be trained to teach children in their homes what they themselves believe is a lie. In addition, the bill author says AB 3015 will "ensure that foster youth and their caregivers are knowledgeable about how to report" foster parents and public school teachers who cannot and will not support homosexuality, bisexuality or transsexuality. In other words, under AB 3015, positive and healthy pro-family values on sexual behavior and believing in natural gender can be reported as "harassment."
CAMPAIGN FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES is a leading West Coast nonprofit, nonpartisan organization standing for marriage and family, parental rights, the sanctity of human life, religious freedom, financial freedom, and back-to-basics education.
Gay couples rush to wed ahead of Calif. vote
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_10713617
SAN FRANCISCO — Same-sex couples from around California and the nation are feverishly tying the knot ahead of Election Day to avoid missing out if voters approve a ballot initiative aimed at banning gay marriage.
Aaron Twitchell and Orlando Manzo of Austin, Texas, waited two months for an appointment to get a marriage license in San Francisco. When they got to the city clerk's office, the line of people ahead of them was so long they worried they would be late for their own wedding.
"We are so happy California is so progressive they would allow something like this," said Manzo, 33, as his partner of nine years recently watched the clock and held a Tiffany's bag with their platinum rings inside. "I wouldn't say it's now or never, but we wanted to get married before then."
The urgency intensified last week with news that Proposition 8's supporters had far outraised its opponents and the measure was gaining support in public opinion polls.
"Couples are making their plans to come in before Nov. 4 because people are getting a little uneasy," said San Francisco Clerk-Recorder Karen Hong Lee. "It's too close to call, basically, and it's legal right now, so why wait?"
Proposition 8 would amend the state constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman. If approved, it would overturn a California Supreme Court ruling that made the state only the second, after Massachusetts, to legalize same-sex marriage. On Friday in Connecticut, the state Supreme Court ruled the state would be the third to allow gay marriage.
Since same-sex marriage became legal in California in mid-June, at least 11,000 couples have exchanged vows statewide, according to the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy based at the University of California at Los Angeles. That's more than the 10,400 gay and lesbian couples who have wed in Massachusetts since same-sex marriage was legalized there in May 2004, according to the institute.
The demand for same-sex marriage licenses has proven so great in San Francisco that Hong doubled the number of daily reservations her office accepts each day. And she assigned a second marriage commissioner to perform weddings.
Even so, the office is booked solid through Oct. 21 for license appointments.
Allie Schembra, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state, said Proposition 8 would become effective the day after the election if it passes.
But Hong and other county clerks say that because it usually takes a month for election results to be certified as final, they do not plan to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples until they are directed by the state health department, which oversees marriage records.
CA First Graders Attend Gay Wedding
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/463283.aspx
CBNNews.com - A group of first graders in San Francisco took a school-sponsored field trip to a homosexual wedding.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports the five-and six-year-olds were pulled out of school to "toss rose petals" on their newly married teacher.
The school's interim director called it "a teachable moment." But one pro-family group called it "overt indoctrination."
"This is overt indoctrination of children who are too young to understand it," said Chip White, Press Secretary for Yes on Proposition 8.
The parents of two students opted out of letting them go to the gay wedding.
School administrators admit the trip was controversial, but say same sex marriage is legal in their state.
Californians vote next month on whether to overturn the state supreme court's ruling allowing same-sex marriage.
How to False Prophet-Proof Yourself
http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/commentary/how-to-false-prophet-proof-yourself-what-holly/
"Prophet" Kim Clement and I finally agree on something.
The other night, the Trinity Broadcasting Network aired a "Special Moment With Kim Clement" — a brief clip from one of their past TV programs featuring Clement.
I can't find the transcript on the TBN Web site, but here's the gist of what Clement said:
People who are bound up theologically are not open to being ministered to like those who aren't bound up theologically.
In other words, Christians who know theology aren't as receptive to Clement's prophecies as those who don't know theology.
I couldn't agree more.
Yet this is very interesting: While I see theology as a good thing, Clement sees it as a bad thing. Why? Because it makes people less open to his teachings.
What is theology?
What is theology? It simply refers to the study of God and religious truth. It involves the most important questions people can ask, like "Who is God?", "What is He like?" and "How can we have a relationship with Him?" The Bible — God's perfect Word — is the source of Christian theology.
So, why would Clement be opposed to it?
Theology is like a wall that keeps out all the dangerous teachings. It's what protects Christians from being deceived by false prophets, like Clement — whose teachings share more in common with the New Age movement than Christianity. People who know theology will be able to detect the differences between real Christianity and counterfeit Christianity.
Theology will soon be our only spiritual protection — during the Antichrist's reign — when the False Prophet will deceive many professing Christians. The study of theology should be required homework for all Christians as we enter the last days.
Theology 101
If you've never studied Christian theology, then you should prioritize it. There is no substitute for careful study of the Bible. But you should also read a good book on theology, like Introducing Christian Doctrine by Millard J. Erickson (Baker Book House).
This is an abridged version of Erickson's book Christian Theology. Both are standard textbooks at many Christian colleges and seminaries. Not every Christian has the luxury of attending seminary, but that doesn't mean you can't benefit from using the same resources as seminary students.
It's true that the Christian faith requires an experiential relationship with God. Yet, we must make sure we're in relationship with the true God — and the only way to do that is by knowing theology.
How many are slipping out the back door of the church?
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081013/how-to-keep-people-from-quitting-church.htm
When it comes to growing a healthy church, Pastor Larry Osborne doesn't survey the front door to see how he can attract large crowds and wow them with a special program. For the most part, his eyes are glued to the back door.
That's because so many churches have been losing people, and some, without even noticing.
"As long as the front door is larger than our back door or even equal, we often think things are okay. And if the front door is larger, we're excited that we're growing," Osborne said as he explained how many churches lose almost as many people as they reach.
"Rather than reaching 100 people, 20 of which we keep, I'd rather reach 50 people, 40 of which we keep," he told The Christian Post.
Osborne is a senior pastor of North Coast Church in Vista, Calif. A pioneer in the multi-site movement, North Coast is widely recognized as one of the most innovative churches in the country.
And while innovation plays a key role in his ministry to the over 7,000 attendees each weekend, the long-time senior pastor is not concentrated on the newest next big thing.
His heart, instead, lies with making people stick for long-term spiritual growth. It's about keeping people by closing the back door of the church and developing what he calls a "sticky church."
"We've discovered lots of ways to reach people," Osborne writes in his new book, Sticky Church. "But we've often become so focused on reaching people that we've forgotten the importance of keeping people."
Churches have often attracted record crowds during Christmas and Easter when they typically conduct fancier services or put on special shows. Some have taken outreach to new levels by marketing special events, advertising relevant and creative sermon series, or utilizing technology.
But after the fancy lights, music and guest speaker are gone, the newcomer is likely to feel underwhelmed the following weeks and possibly slip through the back door.
And larger churches are most likely to be unaware of the back door because of the many people who come through their wide front door.
A 2006 study by LifeWay Research found that among the "formerly churched," 16 percent left because nobody contacted them and another 16 percent quit because nobody seemed to care that they left.
"When we keep people for only a short time, what we've done is more likely inoculate them to Christianity rather than help them get the real disease," Osborne noted. "Once someone's been to church for a while, kind of connected and then fades out, it is really hard, outside of a major crisis in their life, to reach them again."
After all, Osborne writes in his book, Jesus didn't call churches to draw big crowds or just sign people up. "He told us to make disciples," he says.
For Osborne, it's about fulfilling the second half of the Great Commission, instead of just the first half.
While the familiar first half calls Christians to go into all the world and make disciples, the second half goes further in urging believers to teach others to observe all things Jesus taught them.
"You cannot teach people to observe all things that Jesus taught if you've got them for six months or they come at three special seasons a year," Osborne said. "As I hear in some churches, as much as one-third or more of the churches comes to services once a month. It's pretty hard to disciple people and finish the job."
The sticky church concept is about discipleship, Osborne stressed, not church growth.
At North Coast, discipleship is best played out through sermon-based small groups. Osborne has found small groups to currently be the most effective way of being a sticky church and helping people to grow spiritually.
Since 1985, at least 80 percent of North Coast's average weekend attendance has participated in a small group.
"The ultimate goal of a sermon-based small group is simply to velcro people to the two things they will need most when faced with a need-to-know or need-to-grow situation: the Bible and other Christians," Osborne highlights in his book.
For nearly three decades now, North Coast has aimed everything toward helping the Christians it already has grow stronger in Christ, which has helped slam the back door shut. Osborne can testify that historically his church back door has been so small that if someone leaves for reasons other than moving, it will usually be on the agenda in one of their senior staff meetings, he writes.
With a small back door, North Coast has grown to 20 weekend services, all without spending a dime on advertising or marketing. Most of the growth has been through word of mouth.
"The idea of taking care of the people you have so well that they become raving fans causes them to bring their non-Christian friends," Osborne explained.
And when they come, North Coast makes it hard for them to slip out the back.
Creation Museum Draws Half a Million Visitors
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,437241,00.html
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The museum exhibits are taken from the Old Testament, but the special effects are pure Hollywood: a state-of-the-art planetarium, animatronics and a massive model of Noah's Ark, all intended to explain the origins of the universe from a biblical viewpoint.
The Creation Museum, which teaches life's beginnings through a literal interpretation of the Bible, is claiming attendance figures that would make it an unexpectedly strong draw less than a year and a half after it debuted.
More than a half-million people have toured the Kentucky attraction since its May 2007 opening, museum officials said.
For creationists — Christians who believe the Bible's first chapter of Genesis is the literal telling of the universe's start — the museum is a godsend. Many have returned with family and friends, some from faraway states arguing it's one of the few with a Christian worldview.
Many scientists say they fear damaging effects on science education when young people tour the museum and fail to square its lessons with what they're learning in school.
One display shows humans coexisting with dinosaurs — despite the two species being separated by 65 million years in most science texts.
"We're depressed, I think," said Dan Phelps, head of the Kentucky Paleontology Society, who toured the museum shortly after its opening. "There's been such a push in recent years to improve science education, but stuff like this still hangs around."
Phelps said he fears some teachers, shying away from the origins controversy, may choose to omit mentioning evolution studies in the classroom.
State education officials said they have seen no sign of students challenging science teachers in their classrooms based on conclusions drawn from visits to the Creation Museum.
"It's not been a huge issue. In fact it's almost a nonissue for public schools," said Lisa Gross, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education. "Teachers have been dealing with these things long before the Creation Museum came into being."
The Creation Museum doesn't draw nearly as many visitors as the nation's top science museums, which boast larger facilities and government funding.
The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington attracted 5.8 million visitors in 2006; the Children's Museum in Indianapolis brought in 1.2 million that year, according to a list compiled by Forbes magazine.
But for its size and budget — it took $27 million in private donations to build — the museum has been an overwhelming success, founder Ken Ham said.
The museum in rural northern Kentucky, a 30-minute drive south of Cincinnati, has drawn more than 550,000 visitors in 15 1/2 months, by its own count.
Regular visitors pay $20 for admission, but about 10 percent were admitted for free over the last 15 months, museum officials said.
Ham said it draws families, home-schooled children, Christian school groups and even many skeptics.
Inside, evolution is replaced with the Old Testament stories of Adam and Eve as the first humans and Noah rescuing the human race from a worldwide flood.
Ham feels the sleek presentation puts it on par with well-funded science museums.
Patrick Marsh, who helped create exhibits at Universal Studios in Orlando, was brought in as the museum's director of design.
"We made a decision quite a few years ago, that we wanted to do it first-class ... as good as you would see at museums or Disney World or Universal Studios," Ham said. "It's become an attraction in its own right, regardless of the message that we have here."
One visitor, Bill Michaletz, drove his family from Wisconsin in May.
"I do believe in creation, that God created it all," said Michaletz, who has five children. "I'm appreciative that there is a place to go for ourselves and our kids, to look at that view."
D.C. Conference to Discuss What Darwin Didn't Know - Scientists Challenge Naturalism with Latest Empirical Evidence
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07695.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- In anticipation of Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, Reasons To Believe (RTB) will host a conference at Christ Church on Embassy Row featuring biochemist Fazale Rana, PhD, and astronomer Hugh Ross, PhD. Friday, October 24 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Saturday, October 25 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. RTB scholars will discuss the impact of scientific evidence on creation arguments. A special Student Forum with Hugh Ross will be held at American University's Kay Center on Thursday, October 23 at 8:00 p.m.
The conference presents lectures by Rana and Ross, along with astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink, PhD, and philosopher Kenneth Samples. Topics include the historic Christian view of humanity, big bang cosmology and apparent cosmic design, junk DNA's functionality, and the fossil record's contradiction of evolutionary predictions.
Rana, Ross, and their colleagues contend that if Darwin had possessed today's data, he may have formed different conclusions. The purpose of this conference is to encourage dialogue between science and the Christian faith. As part of the presentation the scholars will show how creation can work as science.
Each lecture concludes with a time of Q & A. Saturday also includes a one-hour breakout session and the musical presentation OF THIS EARTH by Alexandra Bryant with the Aeolus String Quartet and Asaph Dance Ensemble.
The entire two-day conference is open to the public. Friday, October 24ths event is free. Tickets for Saturday, October 25 are $40 for adults and $20 for students. To register, please visit www.cconembassyrow.com or call 202-363- 4090. Christ Church on Embassy Row is located at 3855 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C., 20016.
Reasons To Believe is a nonprofit international and interdenominational science-faith think-tank dedicated to providing new reasons from science to believe in Jesus Christ.
For more information on this event or about the organization, visit Reasons To Believe at www.reasons.org
Online Missionaries – New Force in Evangelism
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081009/online-missionaries-new-force-in-evangelism.htm
Flights to exotic locations, uprooting one's family, and investing years of one's life are no longer required to do global mission work given the advancement of communication technology.
Now, with the power of Internet technology, Christians can share the Gospel and God's plan for salvation with people in 191 countries around the world without leaving their home.
Global Media Outreach (GMO), with its more than 71 Web sites divided by popular issues and topics, has helped over 1.3 million people indicate a decision for Jesus Christ in 2007 alone.
"People who are in crisis typically log on," said Walt Wilson, founder and chairman of GMO, to The Christian Post.
When people search about marriage and affairs, "chances are very good that they are going to find us," he said, "In fact that is the number one topic right now – marital relationship."
Wilson noted that two weeks ago a woman told him that she googled "help me" and that was how she found the ministry. Others have search on the Web using key words such as drug addiction, alcoholism, and financial chaos, among others and have found GMO.
"People who are in crisis find us," Wilson stated firmly, "I think for two reasons. We know something about search-engine optimization, and number two, I believe firmly that when a person is seriously seeking the face of God He is going to reveal Himself."
"So I believe a good deal of our success and our traffic comes from the power of the Holy Spirit," he said. "It is not that we're so smart or special."
GMO boasts a volunteer force of some 2,000 online missionaries who reply via email to questions posted by seekers, skeptics, and Christians needing support. The ministry purposely creates Web sites that are easy to use and find as well as safe for individuals who are searching for God online to learn about the Gospel and connect to a Christian mentor.
Volunteers are recruited from evangelical churches and are asked for references from their pastor. They typically spend only a few minutes a day responding to emails and hold another full-time job.
Christians participating in the ministry come from a wide range of professional backgrounds including business executives, housewives, students, truck drivers, and others.
Through these online missionaries, people from places as removed as a small village in Afghanistan have been able to ask questions about Jesus and Christianity.
Wilson remarked, "You wonder, how do these people have access to the Internet. Well there is only 1.3 billion people in the world who have access to the internet and 3.5 billion who have cell phones and we reach 400,000 people a month on cell phones," he commented.
"So in total there are more than 3 billion people out there who have access to the internet," he said. "And by the way, the church does not exist in most of their lives."
The GMO founder confirmed that the Web sites get a large amount of traffic from Muslims who are interested in Jesus.
After someone makes a commitment to Jesus Christ, online missionaries are responsible for steering them to the extensive discipleship program available online and also helping connect them to local churches or Christian movement.
This year, GMO hopes to help more than 2 million people indicate a decision for Jesus as their savior.
The ministry is preparing to expand its reach by launching Internet-based radio at the end of October and is currently developing Internet-based television, slated for release early 2009, to share the Gospel.
"We will tell all learners across the world the story of Jesus by film and by voice," Wilson said.
Statistics about GMO:
•Every 3 seconds the Gospel is presented to someone. In total, the Gospel is presented to 15 million people a year.
•Every 20 seconds a decision is made for Christ. A total of 2.5 million commitments are made a year.
Okla. Mayor Nixes Plan to Help Fund Jesus Statue
http://www.newsmax.com/us/jesus_statue/2008/10/15/140839.html
EDMOND, Okla. — The mayor of this conservative Oklahoma City suburb on Wednesday retreated from a board's decision to help buy a bronze sculpture depicting Jesus Christ and said a private group will buy out the city's commitment.
"We're not looking for a lawsuit," Edmond Mayor Dan O'Neil said.
The Edmond Visual Arts Commission last month approved paying $3,900 for "Come Unto Me," a 26-inch-tall statue that shows Jesus surrounded by children. It is planned for a sidewalk outside a downtown Catholic gift shop, which raised the rest of the $7,800 sculpture's price tag.
O'Neil said Wednesday that he plans to secure private funding to cover the city's commitment, as well.
Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said he was "delighted" by the mayor's decision.
"Clearly the city has felt some heat, and now they have seen the constitutional light," Lynn said.
A decade ago, Edmond was forced to pay more than $200,000 in legal fees after losing a court battle to keep a cross on its city seal. Last year, the city backed down from a decision to use public funds on a statue of Moses outside a church.
June Cartwright, who leads the commission and who supported funding the sculpture of Jesus, said the work was viewed simply as a piece of art, not a religious endorsement.
"It doesn't state that it is specifically Jesus. It is whatever you perceive it to be," Cartwright said.
However, the Web site of the work's artist, Rosalind Cook, described the image as depicting Jesus with three children, one cradled in his arm. "Every major line leads to the face of Christ who is the focal point and apex of the sculpture," the site says.
City Attorney Stephen Murdock, who lost the cross lawsuit 10 years ago, had concerns about Edmond having an ownership stake in the Jesus statue, O'Neil said.
O'Neill said news of the commission's decision had brought a "sort of mixed reaction" from across the country. "Some of them said, 'There's no need to fight over this,'" he said.
The mayor said guidelines will be drawn up to govern future local governmental participation in art projects.
Suit Against God Thrown Out
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/465143.aspx
CBNNews.com - LINCOLN, Neb. - A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator's lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn't properly served due to his unlisted home address.
State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against God. He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."
Chambers has said he filed the lawsuit to make the point that everyone should have access to the courts regardless of whether they are rich or poor.
On Tuesday, however, Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk ruled that under state law a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a lawsuit to move forward.
"Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice," Polk wrote.
Chambers, who graduated from law school but never took the bar exam, thinks he's found a hole in the judge's ruling.
"The court itself acknowledges the existence of God," Chambers said Wednesday. "A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God's omniscience."
Therefore, Chambers said, "Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit."
Chambers has 30 days to decide whether to appeal. He said he hasn't decided yet.
Chambers, who has served a record 38 years in the Nebraska Legislature, is not returning next year because of term limits. He skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians.
World markets drop after two-day rally
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5647
In Tuesday, Oct. 14, President George W. Bush and treasury secretary Henry Paulson explained that the Federal Reserve's $250 bn buyout of stakes in US banks was a short term measure to alleviate the credit crisis.
Paulson admitted that taking stakes in banks was necessary though objectionable to most Americans. Washington sources told DEBKAfile that whereas government intervention in the market is anathema to most Americans, buying shares is more acceptable. The $700bn package approved by Congress two weeks ago to buy toxic debts was too slow to allay the threat of global financial meltdown looming in the last week. Faster measures were therefore put in place to oil the wheels of liquidity and revitalize lending.
Nine US banks would therefore "sell preferred shares" to the government as a measure for conquering lack of confidence in the financial system and increasing the financing of consumption and investment to meet such basic needs as covering payrolls, stimulating business and helpig homeowners save their homes from foreclosure.
The nine banks are JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, the Bank of America, the Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Merill Lynch-Citigroup, Wells Fargo and State Street Corp. Monday, Japan's Nikkei closed up 14% Monday, its biggest single-day gain, after Wall Street's 11% rally and ahead of the US announcement of US plans to buy ownership stakes in major banks. Sidney was up 5% (after an A$10.4 bn stimulus package), Hong Kong 4%, New Zealand, nearly 7% and South Korea up to 5%. London, Paris, Frankfurt rise for second day after Asia.
European markets were revived Monday by multibillion pledges to support banks. Assuming even that the rallies are not a flash in the pan but show the tottering financial system starting to right itself, nevertheless economic experts are asking: What next? Some symptoms of the next economic crisis are already visible:
1. A slowdown is making itself felt in the United States, UK and parts of Europe, with early signs of rising unemployment and reduced consumer spending power.
2. The partial nationalization of major banks will force governments into managing them - for which official bureaucracies are eminently unsuited. Qualified personnel will be hard to find now that new legislature has slashed the outrageous perks and bonuses prevalent in the ailing financial industry.
3. There is no guarantee that the multibillion rescue plans will bring investors back to the markets long term after their initial interest.
4. After pouring the staggering sum of $4 trillion into their salvage plan, governments may find it is not enough. Where will additional resources come from? Fom extra taxes? The ordinary taxpayer may well exact a heavy political price from governments who take that course.
The Next Banking Bomb?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/10/cbsnews_investigates/main4514163.shtml
"This bill will, in my judgment, raise the likelihood of future massive taxpayer bailouts. …if you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas. If you want to trade in derivatives, God bless you."
That was North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan's statement on the floor of the Senate - not this week or last, or even during the last six months as Wall Street collapsed - but back in 1999.
Four years later in a letter to shareholders, billionaire investor Warren Buffett followed with his own warning, calling derivatives "weapons of financial mass destruction" controlled by "madmen."
While financial experts were concerned with the housing bubble and mortgage-backed securities, Dorgan and Buffett were focused on what many now believe may be the next big shoe to drop - the credit derivatives market, better known as credit default swaps.
What worries financial insiders most is the $54.6 trillion of risky credit derivatives concentrated among the few banks left standing.
Credit default swaps (CDS) are the cornerstone of the credit derivatives market accounting for more than 98 percent of all credit derivatives. They are difficult to understand, ignored by regulators and poorly reported on balance sheets. In simplest terms, CDS are insurance policies on things like bonds, loans and corporate debt. But there are two big differences: the seller of a CDS doesn't need to have the money to cover losses if the security defaults, and the buyer doesn't need to own the asset it wants to protect.
It's as if hundreds of people could buy insurance policies on houses they didn't own yet still collect the full value if it burns down.
The danger comes when the company defaults and the seller - because he's not required to - doesn't have the money to pay out on the default.
Investment firms that traded various derivatives, such as CDS, collected an average of $2 billion in fees each quarter over the past two years. And traders who spoke to CBS News said these transactions were the largest cash cows on Wall Street, even more profitable than mortgages. The newfangled transactions were seen as easy money and many traders had the attitude that when it blows up, it's someone else's problem.
Today, the same commercial banking heavyweights thought to be the most safe, JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America, hold 92 percent of all the disclosed credit derivative contracts, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
But that number is merely an estimate because the overwhelming majority of these contracts are unregulated - private, mostly undisclosed and difficult to measure.
"There is no question we are at the edge of the cliff and someone is going to fall off," said Weil, Gotshal & Manges Senior Partner Harvey Miller who is currently overseeing the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.
Back in 1999 when the legislation was being debated Senator Dorgan opposed the consolidation of commercial and investment banks. In fact, he sponsored two amendments to prohibit these new mega-banks from …investing in derivatives.
Today, Dorgan apparently feels the same way. He was one of 25 senators who voted no on the recent $700 billion bailout.
"No one knows where the credit derivatives are, whose balance sheets they may threaten, or how much additional risk they pose to financial firms. Yet, I was told this plan could not require regulation and transparency of these financial markets because there was opposition in Congress and the White House," Dorgan said in a statement explaining why he didn't vote for the bailout.
With banks already suffering losses from the subprime fiasco, many now believe they face chain reaction failures from the credit derivatives market.
"If the market keeps going in the direction it's been going, you're going to have lots of defaults which are dangerous things," said Miller.
Some economic analysts predict even more panic over next few months. As more corporations default and banks find out they can't make good on their contracts, a new round of losses for funds and financial firms could result and make the recent losses in mortgage-backed securities seem miniscule by comparison.
Credit Card Terms Taking Turns For Worse
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/14/earlyshow/living/money/main4519914.shtml?source=mostpop_story
The impact of ultra-tight credit markets is hitting your credit cards, and you might not even realize it.
Lenders are tightening terms in numerous ways, and you need to be aware of all of them to avoid possible trouble down the road.
Behind the changes is the simple fact that lenders want to protect themselves from bad debt, so they're tightening standards and practices in hopes of avoiding defaults by credit card users.
What are they up to?
LOWER CREDIT LIMITS
This is the biggest and perhaps most ominous change of all -- and something many consumers won't realize has happened to them until it's too late. Here's what's scary: You don't have to "mess up" in order for a company to lower your credit limit. Big companies such as American Express, Bank of America and others say they can and will change terms at any time, based on market conditions and the economy in general. Any "perceived risk" can also lower your limit. That includes a decline in credit scores or late payments on other bills.
How much are credit limits being cut? In some cases, the cuts are big, Some companies are lowering the limit to right above your balance, and as the balance drops (meaning, as you pay off your debt), the credit limit drops, too. That makes it VERY easy to exceed your credit limit.
Credit card companies DO have to inform you that they're lowering your credit limit, but who really reads those small-print pamphlets that come in the mail? Consumers may not know their limit has dropped until they go over it and incur a large fee. Even worse than a fee, however, is how this affects your credit score. When a credit limit is lowered, it appears that you're using a much larger percentage of your available credit. That lowers your credit score, making it more difficult to obtain a mortgage, car loan, or even another credit card.
INACTIVE ACCOUNTS CANCELLED
Something else to keep your eye on: Banks are cancelling un-used -- and thereby, unprofitable -- accounts to eliminate the costs of maintaining those accounts. An inactive card can also be cancelled if your risk profile changes. That also hurts your credit score. Again, you may not realize this is happened. If you just have the card on hand "for emergencies," you're probably not paying any attention to it. But now, more than ever, you want to protect your credit score and keep it as high as possible.
FEWER CARD OFFERS
If you consider all those credit card offers in your mailbox, you'll be glad to hear that companies are sending out fewer solicitations. HSBC has sent out 54 percent fewer offers this year; Citibank, 45 percent fewer. But if you don't have great credit, that's bad news for you. When you get those offers in the mail, it means you've been pre-approved for a card. But if you have to search out cards and apply on your own it can, once again, lower your credit score. Plus, it's simply a pain in the neck, AND it's getting harder and harder to qualify for good cards. You may have to settle for one with a much higher interest rate.
FEWER ZERO-PERCENT OFFERS
Used to be that no-fee, zero-percent credit card offers were a dime a dozen. Carrying a lot of debt? Transfer to one of these cards for free, and pay zero percent interest for a year. Now, if you even qualify, the offers are more likely to be for six months. You're also likely to pay a balance transfer fee of 3 percent or more. If you're looking for a good zero-percent card offer (AND you have good credit), Chase and Discover still have a few deals.
NO SECOND CHANCES
Mess up once and that's it, you're out of luck. Banks won't hesitate to increase your interest rate or impose big fees if you pay late, etc. It used to be that if you were a good customer, you could call and basically apologize, explain your mistake, and ask that the fee be removed or your rate re-adjusted. But no longer. Card companies are holding firm to their punishments, and no amount of cajoling will change their minds.
Start-Up Offers Lower-Price DNA Mapping
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/start-up-offers-lower-price-dna-mapping/
The cost of determining a person's complete genetic blueprint is about to plummet again — to $5,000.
That is the price that a start-up company called Complete Genomics says it will start charging next year for determining the sequence of the genetic code that makes up the DNA in one set of human chromosomes.
Such a price, The New York Times's Andrew Pollack reports, would represent another step toward the long-sought goal of the "$1,000 genome."
At that price point it might become commonplace for people to obtain their entire DNA sequences, giving them information on what diseases they might be predisposed to or what drugs would work best for them.
"It's a shockingly low price," George M. Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard who is an adviser to Complete Genomics and to several other sequencing companies, told The Times.
Then again, the cost of DNA sequencing has dropped by a factor of 10 every year for the last four years, a faster rate of decline than even for computers, Dr. Church said.
DNA consists of a string of chemical units, usually represented by the letters A, C, G and T. The order in which those letters appear governs a person's inherited traits. Sequencing involves determining that order. The human genome — the complete set of DNA — consists of about six billion letters, counting both members of each pair of chromosomes.
The first human genome sequence, completed by the federally financed Human Genome Project in 2003, is estimated to have cost a few hundred million dollars. Last year, the genome sequence of James D. Watson, a discoverer of the structure of DNA, was completed at a cost of about $1 million.
Today, the cost is about $100,000, said Chad Nusbaum, co-director of the genome sequencing and analysis program at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass.
Complete Genomics will not begin its service until the second quarter of next year. By then, the cost of competing technologies will no doubt have fallen further. Just last week, Applied Biosystems, a leading manufacturer, said it expected that its newest machine would allow a human genome to be sequenced for $10,000, although that includes only the cost of consumable materials, not labor or the machinery.
Knome, a company that offers to provide consumers with their DNA sequence, charges $350,000. But that is a retail price that includes not just the sequencing costs but also the analysis of the data and the customer service.
Complete Genomics will not offer a service to consumers. But it will provide sequencing for consumer-oriented companies like Knome.
Knome is already exploring farming out its sequencing to Complete Genomics. "We anticipate we'd be able to significantly drop our price," Jorge C. Conde, the chief executive of Knome, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., told The Times.
But Complete Genomics expects most of its customers to be pharmaceutical companies or research laboratories that are doing studies aimed at finding genes linked to diseases. Such studies might look at the DNA of 1,000 people with a disease and 1,000 people without the disease.
Right now, such studies look at only particular locations in the DNA because it is too expensive to determine the entire DNA sequence. But presumably, an entire sequence would provide more complete information.
Pharmaceutical companies are also collecting DNA from participants in many clinical trials, hoping to find genetic patterns that could predict which patients will have the best response to a drug.
Complete Genomics, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., was started in 2006. But its sequencing technology has been under development by its chief science officer, Radoje Drmanac, since the 1990s — first at a federal laboratory and then at Hyseq, a genomics company that subsequently shifted to drug development and changed its name to Nuvelo.
Complete Genomics has raised $46 million in venture capital so far, including a small investment from Genentech, the biotechnology pioneer.
Complete Genomics's sequencer does not work that much differently from rival machines. But company executives say that miniaturization allows their sequencer to use only tiny amounts of enzymes and other materials. Outsiders have not yet examined the accuracy of the company's sequences.
Rather than selling machines, as most sequencing companies do, Complete Genomics will offer sequencing as a service. That also might help keep prices low because its machines do not have to look as pretty or be as foolproof as they would if they were being sold.
"We're not losing money at $5,000," Clifford Reid, the chief executive of Complete Genomics, told The Times.
The company's first project will be for the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, whose president, Leroy Hood, is an adviser to Complete Genomics.
Mr. Reid told The Times Complete Genomics hoped to perform 1,000 human genome sequences next year and 20,000 in 2010, with a goal of completing a million by 2013. That assumes the company can raise the money and find partners to build 10 sequencing centers at a cost of $50 million each. It also assumes there will be enough demand.
To put that in perspective, the number of human genomes sequenced to date by all parties combined is, at most, in the double digits. Knome, for instance, says it is on track to have 20 customers by the end of this year.
Volume, of course, could further drive down prices. "If we've got a million genomes sequenced by 2013," Mr. Reid said, "it's going to be very hard for anyone to compete with us."
Homeowners can link private cameras to city's surveillance network
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1190403,CST-NWS-cameras29.article
Charles Hill installed five surveillance cameras outside the 3,720-square-foot home he's building in West Chatham after local kids broke $3,700 worth of architectural windows.
From now on he won't be the only one checking the video when something bad happens on his block.
After vandals broke $3,700 worth of windows, Charles Hill had enough. He's linking his security cameras to Chicago's 911 center.
Charles Hill is the first homeowner to agree to hook up his camera's to the City of Chicago network.
Hill has become the first private homeowner to take the city up on its unprecedented offer to connect privately owned exterior surveillance cameras to Chicago's 911 emergency center.
"It'll do wonders for the block. God forbid, something mysteriously happens in the community. Those cameras could provide the city with some edge -- wherever it takes them," Hill said.
"Some people talk about the ACLU and all these privacy rights. But if a crime takes place, those individuals had to come from somewhere. I don't care if it's my brother or my mother. If those cameras do what they're supposed to do, whoever suffers will suffer."
As for the window vandalism, Hill said, "A lot of people said, 'Board the windows up.' I just refused to do it. I caught these kids."
Hill is not the only one taking advantage of the offer made by the city two months ago.
Nearly two dozen colleges, businesses and high-rises also have agreed to share their video with the 911 center to create a panoramic view of disaster scenes.
They include Boeing, Macy's, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Golub & Company, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Sears Tower, Prudential Plaza, the Cook County Administration Building, Rush Hospital, Columbia College, Harold Washington College, St. Xavier University, DePaul University, Roosevelt University, Ike Sims Village and an association of State Street merchants.
After the deadly school shootings at Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech, DePaul is hooking up at least 15 cameras at its Lincoln Park and South Loop campuses at a cost of roughly $10,000 for computer servers and switches.
Both DePaul campuses are in the heart of bustling residential and commercial districts.
"If something happens on a city street where we have a camera and the city has access to it, they can tell what they're sending first-responders into. . . . If there's an offender and the person is still in camera view, they can see what the person is doing and describe it to first-responders," said Bob Wachowski, DePaul's director of public safety.
Blue Cross will be adding six to eight cameras to the city's network at a building at 300 E. Randolph that's soon to double in size.
"An effective response in an emergency is based on the quality of information available to emergency responders. There's no better information than live video," said Patrick Dorsey, the company's executive director of security and safety.
The public-private Internet hookup will transmit fully encrypted video that cannot be compromised by computer hackers.
It was made possible by software tied to Operation Virtual Shield. That's the security grid that linked existing fiber optics into a single network and paved the way for hundreds more surveillance cameras, sophisticated software capable of spotting suspicious behavior and for mass transit cameras to be monitored by the 911 center.
Considering the enthusiastic response in the first two months, City Hall is confident that hundreds of private cameras ultimately will be added to the city's network.
"Besides the inevitable of what happened on 9/11, we see now that we have to reach out to forge a partnership with the private sector, and they see that, too," said Jim Argiropoulos, deputy executive director of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
"We're here for a common cause: to enhance security," he said. "They see that partnering with us and expanding the camera network is a win-win in terms of safety and security for Chicago."
Palm scans called next step for IDs
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/11/palm-scans-called-next-step-for-ids/
It could help track important information for patients, hands down. U.S. hospitals are adopting a palm-scanning technology to prevent fraud and link patients with medical records. Students taking important measurement tests will also benefit from the method.
Japanese technology giant Fujitsu began developing palm-scanning techniques in the mid-'90s after researching several biometric techniques including iris and fingerprint scanning.
Palm scanners use near-infrared light to reveal the unique pattern of veins in a person's hand, which show up as a black pattern, each unique. Fujitsu says its internal tests show that the vein patterns are 300 times more complex than fingerprints. Even identical twins have different vein patterns.
Fujitsu via Scripps Howard News Service A near-infrared image of a palm can be used to identify people through the unique pattern of the veins.
Fujitsu found many people were uncomfortable with iris scanning and feared finger-scanning pads could spread germs. Holding a hand over a palm scanner is more hygienic and less intrusive, the company says.
Three Japanese banks, among several early adopters of the technology, installed palm scanners during 2004 to prevent fraud. In the past two years, U.S. hospitals in Florida, California and the Carolinas have installed palm scanners to link patients to their medical records - replacing driver's licenses and Social Security numbers as proof of identity.
Students taking the GMAT, or the Graduate Management Admission Test, will be required to scan their palms, as a fraud-prevention measure, beginning in March. The palm scanners will replace fingerprint readers in 425 test centers worldwide, said Dave Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the Graduate Management Admission Council, which organizes the test.
The U.S. government uses palm scanners to control access to areas where agencies destroy classified computer data. Fujitsu hopes to market computer mice with built-in palm scanners that would provide better security for online banking.
The Baycare Health System, a chain of nine hospitals and 11 outpatient centers in Florida, began installing palm scanners in mid-July. Baycare links each patient's palm to his or her medical information, which hospital officials say will eliminate duplicate records and help doctors identify confused or unconscious patients.
About 27,000 patients have scanned their palms into the system, and Baycare adds more than 1,000 people each day, said Jim Schwamb, vice president for patient financial services.
"Our goal is to be at a million enrollments at the end of two years," Mr. Schwamb said. He declined to say how much Baycare spent to buy and install its 350 palm scanners but said the technology would cost an average hospital chain about $1 million.
That figure comes from HT Systems, a company in Tampa, Fla., that sells palm-scanning equipment and medical software. Purchase and installation costs can vary widely, depending on the complexity of existing computer systems, David Wiener, the company's vice president of sales, said an average hospital could be outfitted with palm scanners in 60 days for $100,000.
The Carolinas HealthCare System, a network of 23 hospitals, began using palm scanners in May 2007. It plans to finish installing scanners at the end of this year and so far has scanned 212,000 patients into its system.
Blogs, social networks, alternative news to be filtered out of free Nationwide Wi-Fi Network?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/free-nationwide-wi-fi-network-to-censor-political-websites.html
Both individual proposals to roll out free nationwide wi-fi Internet access across the United States contain language indicating that political websites deemed "offensive" will be filtered out and blocked.
The implementation of a universal wi-fi network covering the entire country is moving closer following the approval of House Representatives Anna Eshoo and Edward Markey after it was discovered the network would not interfere with incumbent wireless telcos such as AT&T and Verizon, who had raised concerns over potential signal interference.
Two competing parties, M2Z Networks and the FCC, are jockeying for the rights to roll out the network, but both have already stated their intent to install filters that block out pornography and anything else deemed "harmful".
According to a Daily Tech report, "Both proposals stipulate that any free wireless offerings have mandatory content filters, preventing users from viewing any material that "would be harmful to teens and adolescents," including pornography and anything "contemporary community standards" deem as obscene. Free-speech advocates call this condition unconstitutional."
As we have previously reported, similar free wi-fi networks on smaller scales include mandatory content filters that screen out even mildly political websites that are not part of the corporate establishment media.
London's St. Pancras International free wi-fi network blocks a barrage of alternative political websites, as we found out earlier this year when our own sites were inaccessible on the network.
"If you follow the logic of the rule, the network would have to block the news because a great deal of it discusses disturbing events or depicts these events through photographs and video clips," reports ABC News, adding that blogs, social networks and any other user generated content would be excluded entirely from the network.
"If the FCC insists on tying the creation of a free nationwide broadband wireless network to government mandated censorship, the constitutionality of the plan will surely be challenged in court and will be struck down," states the report.
However, if the rollout of a nationwide network is privatized then what is to stop the company from installing filters that censor political websites? This is already the case in major transport hubs across the west as free speech and anything that goes against the establishment grain is classified as "hateful" and is banned.
U.S. report: Russia has upgraded strategic nukes
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/eu_russia0592_10_09.asp
A Pentagon and Energy Department report recently sounded the alarm about Russia's expanding strategic nuclear forces funded by profits from its energy resources.
The report, "National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century, states that the United States does not view Moscow as an adversary.
"However, despite diligent U.S. efforts to improve relations with Moscow, Russia's transition to a more democratic state with a less confrontational, more cooperative foreign policy has seen recent setbacks," the report said.
Using profits from oil and natural gas resources, Russia is building up its strategic nuclear forces, including several new missiles and delivery systems.
They include:
* a new road-mobile and silo-based Topol-M (SS-27) ICBM;
* a new SS-27 derivative with a Multiple Independently-targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) payload the Russians call the RS-24,
* a new Bulava (SS-30) SLBM;
* a new Borey-class Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN);
* a new long-range strategic nuclear cruise missile designated the KH-102;
* modernization of Blackjack (Tu-160) heavy bombers;
* increased training for nuclear operations in all military branches; and
* upgraded nuclear weapons storage sites.
The report notes that unlike the United States, Russia maintains a fully functional nuclear weapons design, development, test and manufacturing infrastructure capable of producing significant quantities of nuclear warheads per year.
"For a variety of reasons, Russia has explicitly placed increased emphasis on nuclear weapons in its national security policy and military doctrine, and has re-incorporated theater nuclear options into its military planning," the report said.
The report, made public after Russian forces invaded Georgia in August, said "considerable uncertainty remains about Russia's future course."
Woman Appeals Christian Symbols Ruling
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/464838.aspx
CBNNews.com - A Christian woman is appealing a ruling that British Airways did not discriminate against her when it asked her to stop wearing a cross visibly at work two years ago.
Nadia Eweida, 56, wants to overturn an employment tribunal ruling that she did not suffer religious discrimination.
The tribunal ruled that Eweida was not discriminated against, even though she was asked to conceal her plain silver cross necklace while other BA employees were allowed to wear Muslim veils and Sikh turbans.
The employee now wants to make sure Christians everywhere are free to "show their faith."
Eweida's claim is that the airline had "ruled for one minority group but not the other."
Sarah Moore, counsel for Eweida, told the hearing that the policy put her and other Christians at a "particular disadvantage in comparison to the adherents of other faiths," according to the BBC.
British Airways has since changed its uniform policy to allow crosses to be worn.
Islam's Legal Jihad
http://www.islamist-watch.org/article/958
Have you seen the little old lady who passes out Jehovah's Witness literature in your neighborhood? Some people stop and show interest. Others roll their eyes, and keep walking. But, would you ever expect anyone to threaten her? Call her a racist, and try to get her arrested?
Islamists would. And that is exactly what happened to two English Christian ministers who had the nerve to proselytize on a street corner in a predominantly Muslim immigrant area in the UK in 2007.
Such freedom of speech violations won't be an anomaly if the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which has a permanent delegation to the United Nations, succeeds in passing a UN resolution against "Defamation of Religion" Noboby in a western country will be able to discuss the socio-political consequences of Muslim immigration, for fear of being labeled "Islamophobic" and slapped with a fine, or even jail time.
Islamists are increasingly using lawful Islamism, or non-violent and legal strategies to spread Sharia, (Islamic law) in the West, encroaching on non-Muslim life everyday. Other examples include:
- Sharia Finance;
- Islam in public schools;
- Violations of basic hygiene policy by Muslim medical staff;
- Workplace violations in the name of religious freedom;
- Censorship of literature.
Under the banner of "religious freedom," Islamists attack the very fabric of democracy in favor of Islam in the public sphere. The above examples are not examples of pluralism, but a violation of the separation of church and state doctrine meant to keep people of all faiths, or no faith, equal under the law. Liberals have forgotten that secularism is not a free-for-all, but has boundaries in order to remain meaningful.
Freedom of speech has already been attacked repeatedly. Islamists tried to censor criticism of Islamist terrorism when the Muhammad cartoons were published in Jyllens-Posten in 2005. Strangely enough, the "cartoon intifada" arose 5 months after their original printing, but only weeks before the UNHCR was due to consider the OIC's resolution on "Combating Defamation of Religion."
Such a coincidence caused the National Secular Society to state in its Memorandum (Section E, point 2) to the UK Parliament that,
the Danish cartoon crisis was manufactured… to exploit sensitivities around racial discrimination and to promote (or even exaggerate) the notion of "Islamophobia" in order to restrict possibilities for open discussion or criticism of Islam….measures calling for legislation banning "defamation of religion" - …. aims to remove religion, especially Islam, from public scrutiny and public debate.
If any religion is to be integrated into the daily social, economic and political life of a nation, it must open the door for evaluation of its goals and application. Otherwise, OIC nations will be able to govern unilaterally without respect to international law. Consider the following precedent.
Saudi Arabia ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2000, with reservations, stating, "In case of contradiction between any term of the Convention and the norms of Islamic law, the Kingdom is not under obligation to observe the contradictory terms of the Convention."
Thus, Saudi Arabia confirms that it will only offer lip service to human rights by signing documents like the CEDAW charter. It will not actually improve the status of women, because it is a theocracy, and every move a woman makes is governed by Islamic law. CEDAW can do nothing for them. Moreover, if the Defamation of Religion resolution is passed, all human rights activists will feel even greater censorship, since protests from abroad will be construed as racism.
Consider the "Qatif girl" case. A Saudi girl was gang-raped in 2005 and blamed for it, since she was in the presence of unrelated men when it happened. Her attorney lost his license for challenging the Saudi courts. Only after generating global media pressure did the situation change in her favor. The king pardoned her and the attorney got his license reinstated. In a post- Defamation of Religion world, the attorney would have been trapped, unable to help the girl and disbarred if he dared to challenge Saudi Islamic law.
Lastly, the OIC resolution must fail because it is patently hypocritical. While professing great sensitivity toward religion, OIC members ironically regularly fail to show any respect for other faiths:
- Saudi Arabia continues to use bigoted textbooks, and export them to American Islamic schools despite promises to change.
- Iran sponsored a Holocaust cartoon contest in retaliation for the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in 2005. Yet, Jews had nothing to do with the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
- Pakistan's blasphemy laws attack Christians as a pretext for personal disputes.
The Defamation of Religion resolution is a free pass for Islamists to continue denigrating other religions and minorities through lawful Islamism. It ties the hands of any politician that questions the spread of Islamism in the West, and prevents critical evaluation of the treatment of women and minorities in Muslim societies.
Liberal and conservative citizens of the West must work together to prevent this resolution from passing in the UN.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrives in Geneva for Georgia talks
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1223983021.43
(GENEVA) - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Geneva Tuesday to meet with senior European diplomats ahead of talks over the conflict between Russia and Georgia in August, the UN said.
The UN chief will hold a dinner later Tuesday with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and the European Union's top foreign policy official Javier Solana in a bid to finalise the details of the talks.
Beforehand he will also meet the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, UN spokeswoman Elena Ponomareva said.
The talks in Geneva will be the first time Russia and Georgia have met face-to-face since the August conflict sparked by Tbilisi's bid to regain control of the separatist region of South Ossetia which in turn prompted a Russian invasion.
The talks are being held under the joint auspices of the UN, EU and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Foreign Ministry expects advanced EU decisions concerning Belarus
http://law.by/work/EnglPortal.nsf/0/AD7F1C5ED2D690BDC22574E2004F85D7?OpenDocument
Belarus welcomes the decisions taken by the European Council on October 13 and expects the decisions to be extended and advanced, Foreign Minister of Belarus Sergei Martynov told media after a meeting with Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
"It should be taken into account that we continue working together for the sake of improving our relations, overcoming differences and honest distinctions in our opinions which still exist in some issues," remarked the minister.
During the meeting with Javier Solana the Belarusian Foreign Minister said Belarus is interested in very productive and substantial relations with the European Union. "We are ready to work with this goal in mind. We understand that these relations mean a lot for both the sides due to a range of reasons — from economic ones to modern challenges, including contraband, illegal migration, transit, ecological problems and several other matters," said the minister.
The head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry underscored, "Our authorities have done a lot to make this day come true". "As I said, we are ready to cooperate with the European Union. We are ready to welcome the EU team, which is arriving within the next few weeks. Working hand in hand for the sake of wellbeing and economic stability of the continent is very important," said the minister.
EU eyes December launch for Somalia anti-piracy force
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnLE488353.html
BRUSSELS, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The European Union aims to launch a planned air and naval force in December to combat piracy threatening sea lanes off Somalia, the bloc's foreign policy chief said on Tuesday.
Piracy has soared off the coast of Somalia, with at least 30 ships hijacked this year, earning an estimated $18-30 million in ransom payments and turning the area into the world's most dangerous waterway.
EU envoys decided on Tuesday that British navy vice-admiral Philip Jones would head the bloc's planned operation and kick-off planning with the aim to launch the operation in December, Javier Solana said in a statement.
The operation's headquarters would be in London, the statement said.
"Javier Solana is confident that these undergoing preparations will allow the EU, in due time, to make an important contribution to the World Food Programme, to the protection of vulnerable vessels off the coast of Somalia and to the fight against piracy," the statement said.
The World Food Programme requires military escorts to bring food aid to the 2.4 million people it feeds in the war-torn Horn of Africa country.
France said earlier this month that at least 10 EU countries were willing to take part in the anti-piracy operation and that it hoped the plan could be finalised next month.
The countries included France, Spain, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Belgium, Sweden and probably Britain, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said after talks among EU defence ministers in Deauville, France.
German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said EU states planned to deploy three frigates, a supply ship and three surveillance ships. He said Germany planned to send a frigate.
The sealane in the Arabian Sea between Yemen and Somalia links Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal and is critical to Gulf oil shipments.
MEPs say EU anti-pirate mission is 'military nonsense'
http://euobserver.com/9/26939
The EU naval mission to be deployed against pirates off the coasts of Somalia is a "military nonsense," "morally wrong" and has "no international legal basis," several MEPs said at a hearing in Brussels on Wednesday (15 November), as delegates from the EU council and the bloc's military co-ordination cell defended the project.
If approved by member states in November, the EU's first naval mission will consist of five or six ships from different EU countries under the command of UK vice-admiral Philip Jones and with headquarters in Northwood, Great Britain, Mrs Claude-France Arnould from the EU council - the secretariat of EU top diplomat Javier Solana - told MEPs.
Russia is also in "military talks" to offer help, but with no political decision reached yet, captain Andres Breijo Claur, the head of the EU's "NAVCO" co-ordination cell, said. NAVCO was set up in order to co-ordinate the different existing naval forces in the waters off the Somali coast, including NATO and US led counter-terrorism task forces.
Since January this year, heavily armed pirates operating in the region where Somalia's northeastern tip meets the Indian Ocean have carried out 71 attacks on ships and still hold 11 ships for ransom. The maritime route is of strategic importance not only to food aid for African countries, but also because it leads to the Suez Canal through which an estimated 30 percent of the world's oil transits.
NATO members at an informal meeting last week in Budapest agreed to despatch immediately a joint fleet of NATO ships to escort UN vessels delivering food in the area.
Under fire from several MEPs who said the EU is needlessly duplicating NATO efforts, the council's Mrs Arnould said NATO has not actually deployed any ships yet, with individual efforts from countries like Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands now and then escorting UN ships for the time being.
Calling the planned EU mission "military nonsense" and a "desperate attempt" by the French EU presidency "to run up the EU flag on another military operation during its time in office," British Conservative MEP Geoffrey van Orden said.
"It is a pity that the British government has agreed to an EU naval operation at the same time that NATO will be engaged in the same waters. Not only does this introduce unnecessary complexity and political confusion but it stretches our meagre naval assets even further. Bear in mind that in the last 10 years the destroyer and frigate fleet of the Royal Navy has been reduced from 35 to 25," he told EUobserver.
Greek MEP Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos from the EPP-ED group criticized the set up of a "global armada," while German green MEP Angelika Beer underlined the lack of international law to sustain the proposed European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) mission.
"There is no clarity to the limitations of this mandate. Will the EU be able to sink ships and arrest pirates?" she asked.
Portuguese socialist MEP Ana Maria Gomes gave a fiery speech on the "moral problem" of the EU mission, which, in her opinion, is only about "protecting oil tankers."
"Nobody gives a damn about the people in Somalia who die like flies," she said.
Euro-Med Assembly: The Annapolis process should continue
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1436736.php/Euro-Med_Assembly_The_Annapolis_process_should_continue_
Amman- The Euro-Med Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) ended a two-day session Monday at the Dead Sea resort by urging continuation of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians as outlined in the November 2007 Annapolis conference.
'The momentum launched at Annapolis has enabled Israelis and Palestinians to restart their dialogue and must be continued,' said President of the European Union Hans-Gert Pottering, who also serves as president-in-office of EMPA.
He called for speedy solutions to two issues that hinder the peace negotiations: 'the expansion of settlements, which is undermining the Palestinians' confidence' in the peace process, and 'the extremely restricted freedom of movement of Palestinians,' which has hindered investment in the Palestinian economy and prevented economic recovery.
Given that EMPA countries provide 60 per cent of all aid to the Palestinians, Pottering warned of the need to prevent donors being overcome by 'a certain fatigue, or lack of interest in the fate of the Palestinians.'
He said that it was 'unacceptable that the fruits of financial solidarity should be wiped out as a result of military operations or for security reasons, however legitimate they may be.'
The EMPA meeting asked Euro-Med foreign ministers to officially recognize EMPA as the 'democratically legitimized parliamentary institution' of the Union for the Mediterranean, which was launched in July in Paris by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Livni steps closer to Israeli leadership
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d471b2f0-9957-11dd-9d48-000077b07658.html
Tzipi Livni on Tuesday moved one step closer to becoming the next prime minister of Israel, after she finally secured a pledge from her party's biggest coalition ally to stay in the government and support her bid for the leadership.
Ms Livni, who currently serves as foreign minister, won the race to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister and head of the governing Kadima party in an internal primary last month. But she has faced an uphill battle in the weeks since to hold together the fractious government coalition assembled by Mr Olmert, who is stepping down to fight corruption allegations.
The breakthrough came on Tuesday, when the centre-left Labour party under Ehud Barak, the defence minister and himself a former prime minister, agreed to sign a new coalition agreement.
The deal was struck between senior negotiators from the two parties, but has yet to be formally ratified by the two leaders.
Together Kadima and Labour have 48 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. They would need a further 13 seats to give them an overall majority.
If Ms Livni can now also persuade the ultra-orthodox religious Shas party to stay on board, she will have enough votes in the Israeli parliament to become Israel's second female prime minister after Golda Meir more than 30 years ago.
Shas has made its support conditional on a promise to raise child welfare payments. The party also wants to ensure that the current peace talks with the Palestinians exclude the sensitive issue of occupied east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of a future independent state.
The deal with Labour came after a marathon negotiating session lasting 17 hours, Israeli media reported. It will see Mr Barak elevated to the post of "senior" deputy prime minister, marking him out as the highest-ranking government member behind Ms Livni. He will also be handed an unspecified role in the current peace negotiations with Syria, which were launched by Mr Olmert earlier this year.
The agreement reflects the desire of both parties to avoid an early election, which polls suggest would usher in a right-wing government under Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud party and another former prime minister.
Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly urged both Labour and Shas not to join Kadima in a new government, arguing that Israel should go to the polls instead.
In an effort to prevent Shas from following the Labour lead, Mr Netanyahu on Tuesday met the party's spiritual leader, reportedly warning him of Ms Livni's intention to redivide Jerusalem.
While most analysts believe that Shas will ultimately decide to join the government, the arduous coalition talks of the past weeks suggest that a Livni-led government may suffer from the same lack of stability and political cohesion that bedevilled Mr Olmert.
Ms Livni is likely to face a particular challenge in uniting her government behind the current peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, which have made little headway since their launch last year.
Thousands of Christians March in Jerusalem Parade
http://www.newsmax.com/international/ml_israel_christians/2008/10/15/140778.html
JERUSALEM — Thousands of Christians from around the world, waving blue and white Israeli flags, marched Wednesday in a colorful holiday parade in Jerusalem to commemorate a Jewish holiday and show their support for Israel.
The annual parade to mark the week-long holiday of Sukkot, or Feast of the Tabernacles, was the latest display of the growing alliance between evangelical Christians and the Jewish state.
The International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem, a global organization that promotes ties between Israel and the world's Christian communities, sponsored the event in which 3,000 people from nearly 100 countries participated.
Christian Zionists are among the staunchest supporters of Israel, providing generous financial help and political backing. But some dovish Israelis are uncomfortable with the warm ties with evangelists because of their support for West Bank Jewish settlements and criticism of peace efforts with the Palestinians.
Israelis are also wary of what they see as the source of the unbridled support — a belief by some evangelical groups in a final, apocalyptic battle between good and evil, in which Jesus returns and Jews either accept Christianity or perish.
Pilgrims from Brazil were among the most enthusiastic marchers, carrying drums and dancing. "We love you, Israel!" they cheered, and Israelis lining the street shouted back "Shalom!"
Claire Perry from Mechanicsville, Va. was part of the American delegation. Wearing a T-shirt with the American and Israeli flags on front and "Bless Israel Team" on the back, she said she was came to bless Israel and deliver humanitarian aid supplies. She said she felt "obligated to Israel for being able to share its salvation."
The march was part of a week of activities coinciding with Sukkot, which commemorates the 40-year desert trek of the biblical Israelites after their exodus from Egypt. The holiday began Monday and ends Oct. 21.
Jerusalem - the Holiest Place on Earth - is Going Online
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07696.shtml
JERUSALEM, (christiansunite.com) -- www.Jerusalem.com (Beta) launched in the recent days. Jerusalem.com is geared to be the internet gateway to the Holy City of Jerusalem for billions of faithful from all around the world. Now web surfers seeking a spiritual connection to Jerusalem can easily access its holy sites anytime from anywhere...just with the click of a mouse.
Friends and lovers of Jerusalem are now empowered to become an actual part of the spiritual life of this unique city and help strengthen the significant place Jerusalem plays in our world.
People from a host of countries and religions view Jerusalem as the life-force of their faith. Some yearn for it, many pray for its peace (Psalm 122:6), and many others pray each day toward the city to express their faith.
For the very first time in history, web surfers will have the ability to send vocal prayers to be heard in Jerusalem via special Jerusalem.com speakers located throughout the Old City and at historic holy sites. Jerusalem.com members are also invited to pray as they view live, vivid images of holy sites that inspire them. Of course, they can invite family, friends, and co-religionists anywhere in the world to pray with them.
Whether it's the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Garden Tomb or the Pool of Siloam, Jerusalem.com is empowering believers around the globe to experience the sites that are holy to them...even from a distance of thousands of miles.
Members of the Jerusalem Circle, enjoy daily updates which include a variety of interesting content and educational materials relating to Jerusalem and Israel. There are also special features and benefits for ministry and organization leaders to aid their communities in exploring Jerusalem.com. They can contact community @jerusalem.com for more information.
Just as Jerusalem have many faces, so will Jerusalem.com. In the coming weeks, we will be launching new and innovative features which will provide members with more opportunities to strengthen their connection with Jerusalem.
We invite everyone to become a true friend of the Holy City and to join Jerusalem.com in this unique and wonderful journey- to become a part of the Jerusalem.com community... as Jerusalem goes, so goes the world (Isaiah 2:3).
First suspected Palestinian bomb tunnel found on West Bank
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5648
An IDF military unit blew up the first suspected bomb tunnel built by Palestinians to be discovered on the West Bank Tuesday, Oct. 14. It was located west of Hebron near an Israeli military position overlooking the Trans-Judean highway. The Hamas has used bomb tunnels frequently with deadly effect against Israeli forces in and around the Gaza Strip.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that the tunnel entrance was located in a storehouse belonging to the Kawasmeh family and ran 100 meters to the IDF's Pillbox post which guards the highway. It looked as though its builders, presumed to be Hamas, had prepared the tunnel to blow up this position with its personnel, using this device for the first time outside the Gaza Strip.
The tip-off about the tunnel came from the Palestinian security forces which have just begun deploying in Hebron. Five local Hebronite detainees showed them the tunnel but claimed it was not built for terrorist attacks.
The Palestinian officers also handed the IDF unit a large packet of bomb-making materials and the makings of detonators, which they said they had found at a Hamas explosives laboratory in Hebron. Hamas denied their account.
Hamas-Fatah tensions rising as Abbas' last day as Palestinian Authority president nears
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3608996,00.html
Both individual proposals to roll out free nationwide wi-fi Internet access across the United States contain language indicating that political websites deemed "offensive" will be filtered out and blocked.
The implementation of a universal wi-fi network covering the entire country is moving closer following the approval of House Representatives Anna Eshoo and Edward Markey after it was discovered the network would not interfere with incumbent wireless telcos such as AT&T and Verizon, who had raised concerns over potential signal interference.
Two competing parties, M2Z Networks and the FCC, are jockeying for the rights to roll out the network, but both have already stated their intent to install filters that block out pornography and anything else deemed "harmful".
According to a Daily Tech report, "Both proposals stipulate that any free wireless offerings have mandatory content filters, preventing users from viewing any material that "would be harmful to teens and adolescents," including pornography and anything "contemporary community standards" deem as obscene. Free-speech advocates call this condition unconstitutional."
As we have previously reported, similar free wi-fi networks on smaller scales include mandatory content filters that screen out even mildly political websites that are not part of the corporate establishment media.
London's St. Pancras International free wi-fi network blocks a barrage of alternative political websites, as we found out earlier this year when our own sites were inaccessible on the network.
"If you follow the logic of the rule, the network would have to block the news because a great deal of it discusses disturbing events or depicts these events through photographs and video clips," reports ABC News, adding that blogs, social networks and any other user generated content would be excluded entirely from the network.
"If the FCC insists on tying the creation of a free nationwide broadband wireless network to government mandated censorship, the constitutionality of the plan will surely be challenged in court and will be struck down," states the report.
However, if the rollout of a nationwide network is privatized then what is to stop the company from installing filters that censor political websites? This is already the case in major transport hubs across the west as free speech and anything that goes against the establishment grain is classified as "hateful" and is banned.
Replace capitalism with Islamic financial system: cleric
http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/10/12/replace_capitalism_with_islamic_financial_system_cleric/afp/
Muslims should take advantage of the global financial crisis to build an economic system compatible with Islamic principles, influential Sunni cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said this week.
"The collapse of the capitalist system based on usury and paper and not on goods traded on the market is proof that it is in crisis and shows that Islamic economic philosophy is holding up," said the Egyptian-born, Qatar-based cleric.
"The Western system has collapsed and we have a complete economic philosophy as well as spiritual strength," he said at Sunday's opening of a conference on Jerusalem.
"All riches are ours... the Islamic nation has all or nearly all the oil and we have an economic philosophy that no one else has," Qaradawi said.
He urged Muslims to "profit from the crisis to bring about the triumph of the (Islamic) nation, which holds the spiritual and material resources for victory."
The sixth conference on Jerusalem is being attended by around 300 people representing political parties as well as Muslim and Christian NGOs, from various countries.
It is staged by Al-Quds (Jerusalem) International Institution, which is dedicated to the conservation of the holy city and its sacred places.
Participants include Khaled Meshaal, exiled head of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, and Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iranian spiritual leader Ali Khamenei.
The three-day conference will look at ways of protecting Jerusalem and its holy sites, which participants believe are threatened by Israel.
Russia moves into the Mediterranean with Syrian presence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/08/syria.russia
During balmy evenings in the sleepy Syrian port of Tartous locals promenade along the seafront or suck on hookahs discussing the two great pillars of their society: business and family.
Politics, such as it is in the tightly controlled one-party state, rarely gets a mention, and certainly not in public. But few could fail to wonder about the foreign sailors dockside and the grey warship dominating a harbor that was once a trading hub of the Phoenician empire and is now the centre of a new projection of power, this time by Syria's old ally Russia.
Tartous is being dredged and renovated to provide a permanent facility for the Russian navy, giving Moscow a key military foothold in the Mediterranean at a time when Russia's invasion of Georgia has led to fears of a new cold war.
The bolstering of military ties between Russia and Syria has also worried Israel, whose prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was in Moscow yesterday seeking to persuade the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to stop Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran. Mr Olmert later said he had received assurances that Russia would not allow Israel's security to be threatened, but offered no indication he won any concrete promises on Russian arms sales.
Igor Belyaev, Russia's charge d'affaires in Damascus, recently told reporters that his country would increase its presence in the Mediterranean and that "Russian vessels will be visiting Syria and other friendly ports more frequently".
That announcement followed a meeting between Medvedev and the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, at the Black sea port of Sochi in the immediate aftermath of Russia's victory over Georgian forces and its recognition of the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - actions Assad supported.
Now, with Ukraine threatening to expel Russia's Black sea fleet from its base in Sebastopol, the only route for the Russian navy into the Mediterranean, military cooperation between Moscow and Damascus appears to have taken on a new zeal.
"Israel and the US supported Georgia against Russia, and Syria thus saw a chance to capitalize on Russian anger by advancing its long-standing relations with Moscow," said Taha Abdel Wahed, a Syrian expert on Russian affairs. "Syria has a very important geographical position for the Russians. Relations between Damascus and Moscow may not yet be strategic, but they are advancing rapidly."
Tartous was once a re-supplying point for the Soviet navy at a time when Moscow sold Syria billions of dollars worth of arms. "Tartous is of great geopolitical significance considering that it is the only such Russian facility abroad," a former Russian navy deputy commander, Igor Kasatonov, said, following a meeting on September 12 in Moscow between the naval leaders from Russia and Syria.
Syrian-Russian relations cooled after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But they have taken on a new dynamic since Assad succeeded his father in 2000. After a state visit to Russia in 2005, he persuaded Moscow to wipe three-quarters off a £7.6bn debt Syria owed, mainly from arms sales.
Since then the two countries have been in talks about upgrading Syria's missile defenses with Russia's advanced Strelets system, provoking condemnation from Israel, whose fighter jets in September 2007 flew unchallenged into north-east Syria to bomb a suspected nuclear site.
Last month Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Moscow would consider selling Damascus new weapons that "have a defensive character and that do not in any way interfere with the strategic balance in the region". Though no defense pact has been signed between the two, as it has between Syria and Iran, observers suggest the very presence of Russian warships in Tartous would bolster Damascus's military standing in the region.
"Israel would think twice about attacking Syria again with Russian ships stationed in Tartous," said Abdel Wahed, an analyst.
A senior Israeli colonel has also accused Russia of passing intelligence about Israel to Syria and indirectly to Hizbullah.
Describing electronic eavesdropping stations on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights believed to be operated by Russian technicians, Ram Dor, information security chief for the armed forces, told an Israeli newspaper: "My assessment is that their facilities cover most of the state of Israel's territory. The Syrians share the intelligence that they gather with Hizbullah, and the other way around."
During the 2006 July war Hizbullah fighters used advanced Russian tank-buster missiles to cripple at least 40 of Israel's Merkava tanks, a key tipping point in a war that Israel later admitted it lost.
Taleban mounts week's second assault on Helmund capital
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5649
Afghan police report 18 Taleban attackers were killed on Wednesday, Oct. 15 in their second attempt this week to capture the Helmund capital of Lashkar Gah.
NATO and US commanders are concerned about the insurgents' redoubled determination to capture a major Afghan town. Lahskar Gah is some 550 km southwest of Kabul, at the center of a big opium-producing region and a major government center.
Tuesday, UN special envoy Kai Eida told the Security Council in New York that the number of attacks in Afghanistan had reached a six-year high. Taliban's influence continued to spread beyond their traditional strongholds in the south and east to provinces close to Kabul. He did not believe the insurgents would let up in the winter months
At the same time, the UN envoy strongly criticized the "gloom and doom" statements heard lately. Last week, the UK commander in Afghanistan Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith said: "We're not going to win this war."
Afghanistan's UN ambassador Zahir Tanin conceded that the security situation was worsening. Ordinary people are increasingly and savagely targeted, he said. But he repeated the Kabul government's willingness to talk to any Taliban elements willing to join a peace process.
Large-scale Iranian Air force exercise simulates attack on Israel
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5651
DEBKAfile's military sources report that the drill beginning Thursday, Oct. 16 in northern Iran, is Tehran's rejoinder to Israel's big aerial maneuver last June.
Then, more than 100 Israeli fighter-bombers went through their paces over the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, roughly the same distance from Israel as Iran.
Tehran's media claim the exercise will test its air force's ability to fly to Israel and back without refueling.
The exercise will also test the US-made FBX-T band anti-missile radar system delivered in September and installed at the IAF Nevatim air base in the Negev. The Iranians say they will be practicing their "state-of-the-art military equipment and flight tactics," meaning an attempt to jam US and Israeli electronics and radar.
According to Iranian media, the entire range of Iran's fighter fleet will take part, including US-made F-4, F-5, F-7 and F-14 fighters and domestic Saegheh fighters. Mid-air refueling will be provided by Boeing 707 aerial tankers.
In mid-August, Iran's Air Force chief, Brigadier General Ahmad Miqani, maintained that its antiquated fighter jet fleet had been overhauled and upgraded to fly distances of 3,000 kilometers without refueling. That would be more than double the distance between Iran and Israel.
That is why Tabriz, in Azerbaijan, at the northwestern corner of Iran, was picked as the starting point of the exercise. The official communiqué said the planes would be flying from air fields in Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz and Hamadan and Dezful.
Our military sources say that this means that the entire maneuver will take place over Iran and not venture out its air space. The planes will have to fly to Tabriz from bases in the south near the Pakistan border in order to replicate the more than 1,200 km distance between Iran and Israel.
The Iranian Air force also aims at deploying more than 100 warplanes for the exercise, matching the number Israel used in its maneuver four months ago.
Tehran has timed this large-scale drill for just three weeks before the US presidential election on Nov. 4, in response to speculation rife in the West that Israel may use the window between the US election and the swearing-in of the new president in January for an attack on Iran's nuclear installations.
The Iranians aim to show they have a first and second strike capability - not just with ballistic missiles but also by aerial attack.
Time Running Out For Iran's Christian Converts - Apostasy Bill Could Be Passed Soon
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/3179465/Hanged-for-being-a-Christian-in-Iran.html
A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.
Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.
And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.
David Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death. The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran's largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing.
It is a sign of how little interest there is in Iran's intention to launch a campaign of religious persecution that its parliamentary vote has still not been reported in the mainstream media.
For one woman living in London, however, the Iranian parliamentary vote cannot be brushed aside. Rashin Soodmand is a 29-year-old Iranian Christian. Her father, Hossein Soodmand, was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the "crime" of abandoning one's religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision.
Today, Rashin's brother, Ramtin, is also held in a prison cell in Mashad, Iran's holiest city. He was arrested on August 21. He has not been charged but he is a Christian. And Rashin fears that, just as her father was the last man to be executed for apostasy in Iran, her brother may become one of the first to be killed under Iran's new law.
Not surprisingly, Rashin is desperately worried. "I am terribly anxious about him," she explains. "Even though my brother is not an apostate, because he has never been a Muslim – my father raised us all as Christians – I don't think he is safe. They assume that if you are Iranian, you must be Muslim."
Her brother's situation has ominous echoes of her father's fate. Rashin was 14 when her father was arrested. "He was held in prison for one month," she remembers. "Then the religious police released him without explanation and without apology. We were overjoyed. We thought his ordeal was over."
But six months later, the police came back and took her father away again. This time, they offered him a choice: he could denounce his Christian faith, and the church in which he was a pastor – or he would be killed. "Of course, my father refused to give up his faith," Rashid recalls proudly. "He could not renounce his God. His belief in Christ was his life – it was his deepest conviction." So two weeks later, Hossein Soodmand was taken by guards to the prison gallows and hanged.
Life for Rashin, her siblings and her mother became extremely difficult. Some Muslims are extremely hostile to people of any other religion, never mind to those who they consider apostates: Ayatollah Khomeini declared that "non-Muslims are impure", insisting that for Muslims to wash the clothes of non-Muslims, or to eat food with non-Muslims, or even to use utensils touched by non-Muslims, would spoil their purity.
The family was supported with financial and other help from a Christian church based in Iran. That support became even more critical as Rashin's mother began to lose her sight. Rashin herself was eventually able to leave Iran. She now lives in London, married to a fellow Christian from Iran who successfully applied for asylum in Germany.
It took years for Rashin to understand how her father could have been legally executed simply for becoming a Christian. In 1990, there was no parliamentary law mandating the death for apostates. What, then, was the legal basis for Hossein Soodmand's execution?
"After the revolution of 1979, Iran's rulers wanted to turn Iran into an Islamic state, and to abolish the secular laws of the Shah," explains Alexa Papadouris of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a human rights organisation that specialises in freedom of religion. "So the clerics instituted a mandate for judges presiding over criminal cases: if the existing penal code did not include legislation on whether a certain kind of behaviour is an offence, then the judges should refer to traditional Islamic jurisprudence." In other words: sharia law.
"That automatically created problems" says Mr Papadouris, "because Islamic jurisprudence is not codified law: it is a series of formulations developed across generations by scholars and clerics. Depending on the Islamic school or historical era, these formulations can differ and even contradict each other."
On one subject, however, sharia law is unequivocal: men who change their religion from Islam must be punished with death. So when the judge heard the case of Rashid's father, he could refer to sharia and reach a straightforward decision: the death penalty. There was no procedure for appeal.
Nevertheless, in the 18 years since Hossein Soodmand's execution, there have been no judicially sanctioned killings of apostates in Iran, although there have been many reports of disappearances and even murders. "As the number of converts from Islam grows," notes Ms Papadouris, "apostasy has again become a serious concern for the Iranian government." In addition to 10,000 Christian converts living in Iran, there are several hundred thousand Baha'is who are deemed apostates.
There is another factor: President Ahmadinejad. "The President didn't initiate the law mandating the death penalty for apostates," says Papadouris, "but he has been lobbying for it. It is an effective form of playing populist politics. The Iranian economy is doing very badly, and the country is in a mess: Ahmadinejad may be calculating that he can gain support, and deflect attention from Iran's problems, by persecuting apostates."
The new law is not yet in force in Iran: it requires another vote in parliament, and then the signature of the Ayatollah. But that could happen within a matter of weeks. "Or," says Papadouris, "it could conceivably be allowed to drop, were there a powerful enough international outcry".
Time may be running out for Rashin's brother. She believes that the new law will be applied in an arbitrary fashion, with individuals selected for death being chosen to frighten others into submission. That is why she fears for her brother. "We just don't know what will happen to him. We only know that if they want to kill him, they will."
Relations Between Turkey and Arab Countries Enter New Era
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/12/content_10181015.htm
The inaugural meeting of foreign ministers between Arab nations and Turkey convened in the largest Turkish city of Istanbul on Saturday, marking the launch of the Turkish-Arab Cooperation Forum.
The establishment of such a new cooperation mechanism between Turkey and Arab countries ushered in a new era of constructive bilateral ties, politicians and analysts said.
"NEW ERA"
A joint statement issued after the meeting said the participants believed establishment of the forum "will further expand and deepen the relations in all fields between Turkey and the Arab countries by providing an institutional framework to promote cooperation and comprehensive consultations in all fields of mutual trust."
Mohamed Ahmed Hassan Ahmed, Charge d'Affaires of the Sudanese embassy in Turkey, told Xinhua that he believed the meeting signals a "new era" of relations between Arab countries and Turkey, noting that the establishment of such a cooperation mechanism will be "fruitful."
As a pivotal regional power, Turkey's active participation in the Middle East peace process, especially in mediating indirect talks between Syria and Israel, would help solve these chronic issues, he said.
Asked about reasons driving Ankara to reach out to the Arab world, Ahmed said after the cold war, Turkey, faced by globalization, inevitably wants to boost its political and economic clout in the Middle East.
"Turkey really wants a good and big relationship with Arab countries," he said.
Turkish-Arab relations started to improve in the 1980s. Over the past few years, Ankara has taken significant steps to develop and diversify its relations, on both bilateral and multilateral basis, with the Arab world. The Turkish Foreign Ministry has established consultation mechanism with a number of Arab countries.
INTERDEPENDENCY
Addressing the inaugural meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said that Turkey and Arab states are confronted with similar threats and problems, while they share the same goals and benefit from common opportunities.
"Our countries should cooperate with each other in order to cope with these problems and they (we) should search for solutions together," he said.
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, Arab League (AL) Secretary General Amr Moussa said that the Turks are also affected by the Middle East conflicts, which lead to Ankara's active involvement in helping solve the long-standing Arab-Israeli confrontation.
The Arabs need an "overall relationship" with Turkey, and vice versa, said Moussa on the sidelines of the Turkish-Arab meeting.
The Arab world needs Turkey's cooperation in solving the Arab-Israeli conflicts, the situation in Iraq and Somalia, he said, expecting Turkey's constructive role in these issues.
Unlike its NATO ally the United States, Turkey is now enjoying good relations with all the major players in the region, said Alon Ben-Meir, an analyst on the Middle East affairs.
To achieve this, it has improved relations with Iran, mended a conflict over water with Syria, refrained from being dragged into the war in Iraq, dramatically expanded trade and military cooperation with Israel, and has become directly involved in Palestinian economic development, according to Ben-Meir.
Ziyad Koprulu, a Qatari political expert on the Middle East, said shortly before the opening of Saturday's meeting that Turkey serves as a bridge between Arab and European nations.
The Arabs expect Turkey's EU membership so that the relationship with it would facilitate their communication and cooperation with the 27-member European bloc, said Koprulu.
Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/world/asia/13india.html
BOREPANGA, India — The family of Solomon Digal was summoned by neighbors to what serves as a public square in front of the village tea shop.
They were ordered to get on their knees and bow before the portrait of a Hindu preacher. They were told to turn over their Bibles, hymnals and the two brightly colored calendar images of Christ that hung on their wall. Then, Mr. Digal, 45, a Christian since childhood, was forced to watch his Hindu neighbors set the items on fire.
" 'Embrace Hinduism, and your house will not be demolished,' " Mr. Digal recalled being told on that Wednesday afternoon in September. " 'Otherwise, you will be killed, or you will be thrown out of the village.' "
India, the world's most populous democracy and officially a secular nation, is today haunted by a stark assault on one of its fundamental freedoms. Here in eastern Orissa State, riven by six weeks of religious clashes, Christian families like the Digals say they are being forced to abandon their faith in exchange for their safety.
The forced conversions come amid widening attacks on Christians here and in at least five other states across the country, as India prepares for national elections next spring.
The clash of faiths has cut a wide swath of panic and destruction through these once quiet hamlets fed by paddy fields and jackfruit trees. Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze.
Across this ghastly terrain lie the singed remains of mud-and-thatch homes. Christian-owned businesses have been systematically attacked. Orange flags (orange is the sacred color of Hinduism) flutter triumphantly above the rooftops of houses and storefronts.
India is no stranger to religious violence between Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the population, and India's Hindu-majority of 1.1 billion people. But this most recent spasm is the most intense in years.
It was set off, people here say, by the killing on Aug. 23 of a charismatic Hindu preacher known as Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who for 40 years had rallied the area's people to choose Hinduism over Christianity.
The police have blamed Maoist guerrillas for the swami's killing. But Hindu radicals continue to hold Christians responsible.
In recent weeks, they have plastered these villages with gruesome posters of the swami's hacked corpse. "Who killed him?" the posters ask. "What is the solution?"
Behind the clashes are long-simmering tensions between equally impoverished groups: the Panas and Kandhas. Both original inhabitants of the land, the two groups for ages worshiped the same gods. Over the past several decades, the Panas for the most part became Christian, as Roman Catholic and Baptist missionaries arrived here more than 60 years ago, followed more recently by Pentecostals, who have proselytized more aggressively.
Meanwhile, the Kandhas, in part through the teachings of Swami Laxmanananda, embraced Hinduism. The men tied the sacred Hindu white thread around their torsos; their wives daubed their foreheads with bright red vermilion. Temples sprouted.
Hate has been fed by economic tensions as well, as the government has categorized each group differently and given them different privileges.
The Kandhas accused the Panas of cheating to obtain coveted quotas for government jobs. The Christian Panas, in turn, say their neighbors have become resentful as they have educated themselves and prospered.
Their grievances have erupted in sporadic clashes over the past 15 years, but they have exploded with a fury since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda.
Two nights after his death, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.
The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage. Today, five men are under arrest in connection with inciting the riots. The police say they are trying to find the nun and bring her back here to identify her attackers.
Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state's highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as "a spontaneous reaction."
He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex.
On Sunday evening, as much of Kandhamal remained under curfew, Mr. Chauhan sat in the hall of a Hindu school in the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, beneath a huge portrait of the swami. A state police officer was assigned to protect him round the clock. He cupped a trilling Blackberry in his hand.
Mr. Chauhan denied that his group was responsible for forced conversions and in turn accused Christian missionaries of luring villagers with incentives of schools and social services.
He was asked repeatedly whether Christians in Orissa should be left free to worship the god of their choice. "Why not?" he finally said, but he warned that it was unrealistic to expect the Kandhas to politely let their Pana enemies live among them as followers of Jesus.
"Who am I to give assurance?" he snapped. "Those who have exploited the Kandhas say they want to live together?"
Besides, he said, "they are Hindus by birth."
Hindu extremists have held ceremonies in the country's indigenous belt for the past several years intended to purge tribal communities of Christian influence.
It is impossible to know how many have been reconverted here, in the wake of the latest violence, though a three-day journey through the villages of Kandhamal turned up plenty of anecdotal evidence.
A few steps from where the nun had been attacked in Nuagaon, five men, their heads freshly shorn, emerged from a soggy tent in a relief camp for Christians fleeing their homes.
The men had also been summoned to a village meeting in late August, where hundreds of their neighbors stood with machetes in hand and issued a firm order: Get your heads shaved and bow down before our gods, or leave this place.
Trembling with fear, Daud Nayak, 56, submitted to a shaving, a Hindu sign of sacrifice. He drank, as instructed, a tumbler of diluted cow dung, considered to be purifying.
In the eyes of his neighbors, he reckoned, he became a Hindu.
In his heart, he said, he could not bear it.
All five men said they fled the next day with their families. They refuse to return.
In another village, Birachakka, a man named Balkrishna Digal and his son, Saroj, said they had been summoned to a similar meeting and told by Hindu leaders who came from nearby villages that they, too, would have to convert. In their case, the ceremony was deferred because of rumors of Christian-Hindu clashes nearby.
For the time being, the family had placed an orange flag on their mud home. Their Hindu neighbors promised to protect them.
Here in Borepanga, the family of Solomon Digal was not so lucky. Shortly after they recounted their Sept. 10 Hindu conversion story to a reporter in the dark of night, the Digals were again summoned by their neighbors. They were scolded and fined 501 rupees, or about $12, a pinching sum here.
The next morning, calmly clearing his cauliflower field, Lisura Paricha, one of the Hindu men who had summoned the Digals, confirmed that they had been penalized. Their crime, he said, was to talk to outsiders.
Thousands of Christians Flee Iraqi City After String of Killings
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,437301,00.html
Cars and trucks loaded with suitcases, mattresses and passengers cradling baskets stuffed with clothes lined up at checkpoints Monday to flee Mosul, a day after the 10th killing of an Iraqi Christian in the northern city so far this month.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but local leaders have blamed al-Qaida in Iraq, which maintains influence in the region despite an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi military operation launched in May.
The latest victim was a music store owner who was gunned down Sunday evening at work in an attack that left his teenage nephew wounded, according to police and a neighbor.
Farques Batool, in his 50s, had refused to join other Christians fleeing the city because he needed to care for his wife, a daughter, his mother and the family of his dead brother, his neighbor Raid Bahnam said.
Batool's family finally fled Mosul after his death, leaving his wounded nephew in the hospital.
With the killing of at least 10 Christians this month alone, according to police, thousands have abandoned their homes in Mosul to seek refuge in churches and with relatives in neighboring villages or in relatively safe Kurdish-controlled areas nearby.
Faraj Ibraham, a 54-year-old power station employee who moved in with relatives in the village of Burtulla, said he was worried about his two daughters who had to leave school.
"We left in a hurry and they forgot to bring even their books. It will be a heavy burden for them even if we get to return home soon," he said.
Islamic extremists have frequently targeted Christians and other religious minorities since the 2003 U.S. invasion, forcing tens of thousands to flee Iraq — although attacks slowed with a nationwide decline in violence.
The reason for the latest surge in attacks was unclear. But it coincides with strong lobbying by Christian leaders for parliament to restore a quota system to give religious minorities seats on provincial councils that will be chosen by voters before the end of January.
U.N. special representative Staffan de Mistura strongly condemned "the spike in violence that has targeted the Christian communities in recent days" and warned the attacks were seeking to "fuel tensions and exacerbate instability at a critical time."
Religious leaders called for action.
Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk denounced "a campaign of liquidation and violence, with political objectives."
Another churchman, Monsignor Shiemon Warduni, appealed to "all the brother Muslims in Mosul, Baghdad and in Iraq" to do everything possible to end "this painful campaign," according to Vatican Radio.
Local organizations, meanwhile, appealed for help as they faced a flood of internal refugees.
"Thousands of people fled virtually overnight, many with only the clothes on their back," said Jamil Abdul-Ahad, the head of an interfaith Christian council in Mosul that has been distributing blankets and food aid to the internal refugees.
Iraq's government sent police reinforcements, and patrols were stepped up in Christian communities.
For many Christians, this was not enough.
"Our situation needs active work, not just media propaganda from government officials," Abdul-Ahad said. "The government should protect Christians in Mosul and safeguard their rights."
The governor of Ninevah province, which includes Mosul, said Christians began fleeing in force last week after seven Christians were reported killed.
"Fear spread because of threats from al-Qaida and 'Takfiris' (Sunni extremists) toward Christians and the assassinations of some of them," Gov. Duraid Mohammed Kashmoula said.
Bashar Jirjis Habash, the secretary of the committee for Christian affairs in the nearby town of Qaraqosh, said some families began arriving there after receiving threats in early September as the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan got under way.
There were conflicting reports on the number of Christians who have fled the city, although local officials said there were fewer leaving on Monday.
The International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental humanitarian group based in Switzerland, estimated that at least 829 families had been displaced and said Iraqi officials were asking for tents and plastic sheeting for possible camps to house them all.
One senior government official in Mosul, Jawdat Ismaeel, said the latest figures show that 1,092 families, or some 4,400 people, have fled the city.
N. Korea Sends Threats Over S. Korea
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/465280.aspx
CBNNews.com - SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea threatened Thursday to break off all relations with South Korea if its new conservative government continues what the North called a policy of reckless confrontation with the communist nation.
The warning, issued in a commentary carried in the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper, means Pyongyang could terminate civilian exchanges with the South, including a tourism program and a joint industrial complex, which have continued despite a freeze in their government-level ties.
If the South "keeps to the road of reckless confrontation with the (North), defaming its dignity despite its repeated warnings, this will compel it to make a crucial decision including the total freeze of the North-South relations," the commentary said.
South Korea played down the threat.
"It does not mean the North will take steps immediately," said Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon. "We will monitor the situation regarding this, and there is no change in the government's intention to improve South-North relations through dialogue."
The warning came days after North Korea resumed a stalled nuclear disarmament process after the United States removed it from a terrorism blacklist and amid lingering questions about the health of the North's leader Kim Jong Il.
The North made a similar threat earlier this month, when it said would expel South Koreans from the tourism and industrial projects if propaganda leaflets critical of Pyongyang keep arriving over the border.
Hong Hyun-ik, an expert at the security think tank Sejong Institute, said North Korea is putting strong pressure on Seoul now that its own relationship with the U.S. is improving and its negotiating power is strengthening.
"It's a sort of brinksmanship strategy," he said.
Pyongyang has been unhappy with South Korea's new President Lee Myung-bak, who took office in February with a pledge to get tough on the rival state - a stance that contrasted with that of his two liberal predecessors who aggressively sought reconciliation with North Korea by providing massive aid to the impoverished nation.
In protest, North Korea suspended all government-level dialogue and exchanges, though the sides met as part of broader international negotiations on Pyongyang's nuclear programs and had a one-off military meeting earlier this month marked by no progress.
North Korea has branded Lee a "traitor," "pro-American sycophant" and "despicable human scum."
"The Lee group is becoming more frantic in its racket of confrontation with the (North) in league with outside forces," Thursday's commentary said, calling Lee "so hell-bent on sycophancy towards the U.S. and confrontation with fellow countrymen."
The two sides fought the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically still at war. Their ties had warmed significantly since the first-ever 2000 summit of their leaders before freezing again this year.
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