Voting: What Does God Think
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07737.shtml
MEDIA ADVISORY, (christiansunite.com) -- In God's eyes every Christian votes in every election! We vote by ballot or by silence. Silence gives weight to those in opposition to God's moral absolutes.
Accountability for Being Silent
In Matthew chapter 25 the Master gave the servants money to invest. One servant buried it thinking he did well. The Master called him "lazy" and "wicked". He took the money and expelled the servant into "outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth".
Our Opinion Has No Value to God (Is. 55:11).
God will call us to account for what we did with what we had. The servant's opinion in Matthew 25 had no value to the Master. Likewise, we will be accountable for our vote.
Who We Vote for is An Extension of Ourselves
American morality is disintegrating politically, socially and economically. Values of biblical moral reason which built America are opposed by values rejected by God e.g. abortion, homosexuality, corrupt business practice, etc.
Our vote, political and financial support of candidates binds us to them, their policies and the consequences that follow.
"If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine receive him not unto your home, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." II John 10,11.
The Spiritual Dynamic of Our Vote:
The vote is our expression of "God's speed". Knowing that God is victimized by abortion (Jeremiah 1:5 and Matthew 25) and He calls homosexuality an abomination what would he think- and do--- if we vote for those supporting those things?
Church History of Political Responsibility:
St. John Chrysostom (5th c) rebuked the Emperor for immorality. Other Emperors requested prayer and advice on public policy from St. Symeon the Stylite (2nd c) as he preached. Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire criticizes the Church for discouraging Christian involvement in government
Separation Between Church and State?
Thomas Jefferson assured pastors that the church would be protected from government intrusion not government separation from biblical morality.
"...We therefore, the representatives of the United Colonies submit the rectitude of our intentions to the Supreme Judge of the world." -- Founding Fathers, Declaration of Independence
The Founding Fathers submitted themselves to the "Supreme Judge of the world". We do well to follow their example.
Tony Nassif, author Jesus, Politics and the Church www.politicsandf aith.org.
Democrats and Republicans are Really Alike
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07741.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- Don Swarthout, President of Christians Reviving America's Values said today, "When will we wake up to the fact that Democrats and Republicans are more alike than they are different? Both are more concerned with getting elected than stopping our out of control spending."
Swarthout continued, "Both Democrats and Republicans today have to promise the moon just to have a chance of being elected. This is a major reason for out of control spending by our government."
Our national debt has doubled under Republican George W. Bush and that will continue no matter who is elected in November. Our current national debt ceiling of $11.3 Trillion Dollars is equal to a pile of $1,000 dollar bills stacked more than 700 miles high. When we add the national debt that is "off the books," it becomes $54,000,000,000,000.
America is in deep trouble when it comes to borrowing or printing more money for Stimulus Packages, Pork Barrel Spending and Government Give Away Programs. We cannot continue to spend money like it is going out of style unless we have the money.
If we continue to print money we will ruin the strength of the dollar and we will make it worthless. Some experts feel that day is very close to becoming a reality. You simply cannot run your household budget like we allow the Federal Government to run their budget. If you did our dollar would be worthless, our economy would be ruined and you would be broke in a short order.
Swarthout said, "We have to bite the bullet right now. We must stop printing money and borrowing money in such a reckless way. We have to find a President who will insist upon living within a budget, pay off our national debt and not allow spending on government give away programs."
Swarthout said, "Maybe we should not allow anyone to serve more than one term as a Senator or a Congressman. Maybe we should vote every incumbent out of office in order to meet these objectives."
"Our Declaration of Independence says when government becomes destructive it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and institute a new government. Maybe that should be a real possibility," Swarthout suggested.
Obama's unsavory ties
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225036822047&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
One watches with dismay as Democratic candidate Barack Obama manages to hide the truth on his longstanding, if indirect ties to two institutions: the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), listed by the US government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding trial; and the Nation of Islam (NoI), condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its "consistent record of racism and anti-Semitism."
First, Obama's ties to Islamists:
• The Khalid al-Mansour connection: According to former Manhattan Borough president Percy Sutton, Mansour "was raising money for" Obama's expenses at Harvard Law School. Mansour, a black American (né Don Warden), became adviser to Saudi prince Al-Walid bin Talal, CAIR's largest individual donor. Mansour holds standard Islamist views: He absolves the Islamist government in Sudan of sponsoring slavery, he denies a Jewish tie to Jerusalem and he wrote a booklet titled "Americans Beware! The Zionist Plot Against S. Arabia." (Both Obama and Mansour deny Sutton's account.)
• The Kenny Gamble (also known as Luqman Abdul-Haqq) connection: Gamble, a once-prominent pop music producer, cut the ribbon to the Obama campaign headquarters housed in a South Philadelphia building he owns. Gamble is an Islamist who buys large swaths of real estate in Philadelphia to create a Muslim-only residential area. Also, as the self-styled "amir" of the United Muslim Movement, he has many links to Islamist organizations, including CAIR and the Muslim Alliance in North America. (MANA's "amir" is Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.)
• The Mazen Asbahi connection: The Obama campaign's first Muslim outreach coordinator resigned after it came to light that he had served on the board of a subsidiary of the Saudi-sponsored North American Islamic Trust, with Jamal Said, another unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Hamas funding trial. Asbahi has ties to CAIR's Chicago and Detroit offices, to the Islamic Society of North America, yet another unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas funding trial, and to other Islamist organizations.
• The Minha Husaini connection: The campaign's second Muslim outreach coordinator has an Islamist background, having served as an intern in the Muslim Public Service Network. Immediately upon her appointment by Obama, she met with a group of about 30 Muslims including such notorious figures as CAIR's Nihad Awad; the Muslim American Society's Mahdi Bray, who has publicly supported Hamas and Hizbullah; and Johari Abdul Malik of the Dar al-Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, who has advised American Muslims: "You can blow up bridges, but you cannot kill people who are innocent on their way to work."
SECOND, OBAMA's ties to the Nation of Islam:
Obama's long-time donor and ally Antoin "Tony" Rezko partnered for nearly three decades with Jabir Herbert Muhammad, a son of NoI leader Elijah Muhammad, and says he gave Jabir and his family "millions of dollars over the years." Rezko also served as executive director of the Muhammad Ali Foundation, a rogue organization that, without Ali's permission, exploited the name of this CAIR awardee.
Jeremiah Wright, Obama's esteemed pastor for 20 years, came out of a Nation background. Recently he accepted protection from an NoI security detail, and has praised Louis Farrakhan, the NoI's leader, as one of the "giants of the African American religious experience." Wright's church celebrated Farrakhan for his having "truly epitomized greatness."
Farrakhan himself endorsed Obama, calling him "the hope of the entire world," "one who can lift America from her fall," and even "the messiah."
That Obama's biography touches so frequently on such unsavory organizations as CAIR and the Nation of Islam should give pause. How many of politicians have a single tie to either group, much less seven of them?
Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,1488910.story
CHICAGO -- It was a celebration of Palestinian culture -- a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.
A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.
His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."
Today, five years later, Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois who expresses a firmly pro-Israel view of Middle East politics, pleasing many of the Jewish leaders and advocates for Israel whom he is courting in his presidential campaign. The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years.
And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.
Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.
At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."
One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."
Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground. But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than either of his opponents for the White House.
"I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates," said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow for the American Task Force on Palestine, referring to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that began after the 1967 war. More than his rivals for the White House, Ibish said, Obama sees a "moral imperative" in resolving the conflict and is most likely to apply pressure to both sides to make concessions.
"That's my personal opinion," Ibish said, "and I think it for a very large number of circumstantial reasons, and what he's said."
Aides say that Obama's friendships with Palestinian Americans reflect only his ability to interact with a wide diversity of people, and that his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been consistent. Obama has called himself a "stalwart" supporter of the Jewish state and its security needs. He believes in an eventual two-state solution in which Jewish and Palestinian nations exist in peace, which is consistent with current U.S. policy.
Obama also calls for the U.S. to talk to such declared enemies as Iran, Syria and Cuba. But he argues that the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, is an exception, calling it a terrorist group that should renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist before dialogue begins. That viewpoint, which also matches current U.S. policy, clashes with that of many Palestinian advocates who urge the United States and Israel to treat Hamas as a partner in negotiations.
"Barack's belief is that it's important to understand other points of view, even if you can't agree with them," said his longtime political strategist, David Axelrod.
Obama "can disagree without shunning or demonizing those with other views," he said. "That's far different than the suggestion that he somehow tailors his view."
Looking for clues
But because Obama is relatively new on the national political scene, and new to foreign policy questions such as the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides have been looking closely for clues to what role he would play in that dispute.
And both sides, on certain issues, have interpreted Obama's remarks as supporting their point of view.
Last year, for example, Obama was quoted saying that "nobody's suffering more than the Palestinian people." The candidate later said the remark had been taken out of context, and that he meant that the Palestinians were suffering "from the failure of the Palestinian leadership [in Gaza] to recognize Israel" and to renounce violence.
Jewish leaders were satisfied with Obama's explanation, but some Palestinian leaders, including Ibish, took the original quotation as a sign of the candidate's empathy for their plight.
Obama's willingness to befriend Palestinian Americans and to hear their views also impressed, and even excited, a community that says it does not often have the ear of the political establishment.
Among other community events, Obama in 1998 attended a speech by Edward Said, the late Columbia University professor and a leading intellectual in the Palestinian movement. According to a news account of the speech, Said called that day for a nonviolent campaign "against settlements, against Israeli apartheid."
The use of such language to describe Israel's policies has drawn vehement objection from Israel's defenders in the United States. A photo on the pro-Palestinian website the Electronic Intifada shows Obama and his wife, Michelle, engaged in conversation at the dinner table with Said, and later listening to Said's keynote address. Obama had taken an English class from Said as an undergraduate at Columbia University.
Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian rights activist in Chicago who helps run Electronic Intifada, said that he met Obama several times at Palestinian and Arab American community events. At one, a 2000 fundraiser at a private home, Obama called for the U.S. to take an "even-handed" approach toward Israel, Abunimah wrote in an article on the website last year. He did not cite Obama's specific criticisms.
Abunimah, in a Times interview and on his website, said Obama seemed sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but more circumspect as he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. At a dinner gathering that year, Abunimah said, Obama greeted him warmly and said privately that he needed to speak cautiously about the Middle East.
Abunimah quoted Obama as saying that he was sorry he wasn't talking more about the Palestinian cause, but that his primary campaign had constrained what he could say.
Obama, through his aide Axelrod, denied he ever said those words, and Abunimah's account could not be independently verified.
"In no way did he take a position privately that he hasn't taken publicly and consistently," Axelrod said of Obama. "He always had expressed solicitude for the Palestinian people, who have been ill-served and have suffered greatly from the refusal of their leaders to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist."
In Chicago, one of Obama's friends was Khalidi, a highly visible figure in the Arab American community.
In the 1970s, when Khalidi taught at a university in Beirut, he often spoke to reporters on behalf of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. In the early 1990s, he advised the Palestinian delegation during peace negotiations. Khalidi now occupies a prestigious professorship of Arab studies at Columbia.
He is seen as a moderate in Palestinian circles, having decried suicide bombings against civilians as a "war crime" and criticized the conduct of Hamas and other Palestinian leaders. Still, many of Khalidi's opinions are troubling to pro-Israel activists, such as his defense of Palestinians' right to resist Israeli occupation and his critique of U.S. policy as biased toward Israel.
While teaching at the University of Chicago, Khalidi and his wife lived in the Hyde Park neighborhood near the Obamas. The families became friends and dinner companions.
In 2000, the Khalidis held a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid. The next year, a social service group whose board was headed by Mona Khalidi received a $40,000 grant from a local charity, the Woods Fund of Chicago, when Obama served on the fund's board of directors.
At Khalidi's going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. "You will not have a better senator under any circumstances," Khalidi said.
The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.
Though Khalidi has seen little of Sen. Obama in recent years, Michelle Obama attended a party several months ago celebrating the marriage of the Khalidis' daughter.
In interviews with The Times, Khalidi declined to discuss specifics of private talks over the years with Obama. He did not begrudge his friend for being out of touch, or for focusing more these days on his support for Israel -- a stance that Khalidi calls a requirement to win a national election in the U.S., just as wooing Chicago's large Arab American community was important for winning local elections.
Khalidi added that he strongly disagrees with Obama's current views on Israel, and often disagreed with him during their talks over the years. But he added that Obama, because of his unusual background, with family ties to Kenya and Indonesia, would be more understanding of the Palestinian experience than typical American politicians.
"He has family literally all over the world," Khalidi said. "I feel a kindred spirit from that."
Ties with Israel
Even as he won support in Chicago's Palestinian community, Obama tried to forge ties with advocates for Israel.
In 2000, he submitted a policy paper to CityPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee, that among other things supported a unified Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a position far out of step from that of his Palestinian friends. The PAC concluded that Obama's position paper "suggests he is strongly pro-Israel on all of the major issues."
In 2002, as a rash of suicide bombings struck Israel, Obama sought out a Jewish colleague in the state Senate and asked whether he could sign onto a measure calling on Palestinian leaders to denounce violence. "He came to me and said, 'I want to have my name next to yours,' " said his former state Senate colleague Ira Silverstein, an observant Jew.
As a presidential candidate, Obama has won support from such prominent Chicago Jewish leaders as Penny Pritzker, a member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, and who is now his campaign finance chair, and from Lee Rosenberg, a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Nationally, Obama continues to face skepticism from some Jewish leaders who are wary of his long association with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who had made racially incendiary comments during several sermons that recently became widely known. Questions have persisted about Wright in part because of the recent revelation that his church bulletin reprinted a Times op-ed written by a leader of Hamas.
One Jewish leader said he viewed Obama's outreach to Palestinian activists, such as Said, in the light of his relationship to Wright.
"In the context of spending 20 years in a church where now it is clear the anti-Israel rhetoric was there, was repeated, . . . that's what makes his presence at an Arab American event with a Said a greater concern," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director for the Anti-Defamation League.
LA Times Refuses to Release Tape of Obama Praising Controversial Activist
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/28/la-times-refuses-release-tape-obama-praising-controversial-activist/
The Los Angeles Times is refusing to release a videotape that it says shows Barack Obama praising a Chicago professor who was an alleged mouthpiece for the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was a designated terrorist group in the 1970s and '80s.
According an LA Times article written by Peter Wallsten in April, Obama was a "friend and frequent dinner companion" of Rashid Khalidi, who from 1976 to1982 was reportedly a director of the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA, which was operating in exile from Beirut with the PLO.
In the article -- based on the videotape obtained by the Times -- Wallsten said Obama addressed an audience during a 2003 farewell dinner for Khalidi, who was Obama's colleague at the University of Chicago, before his departure for Columbia University in New York. Obama said his many talks with Khalidi and his wife Mona stood as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."
Khalidi is currently the Edward Said professor of Arab Studies at Columbia. A pro-Palestinian activist, he has been a fierce critic of American foreign policy and of Israel, which he has accused of establishing an "apartheid system" of government. The PLO advocate helped facilitate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the early '90s, but he has denied he was ever an employee of the group, contradicting accounts in the New York Times and Washington Times.
The LA Times told FOXNews.com that it won't reveal how it obtained the tape of Khalidi's farewell party, nor will the newspaper release it. Spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the paper is not interested in revisiting the story. "As far as we're concerned, the story speaks for itself," she said.
The newspaper reported Tuesday evening in a story on its Web site that the tape was from a confidential source.
"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," the Times' editor, Russ Stanton, said. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."
In recent months Obama has distanced himself from the man the Times says he once called a friend. "He is not one of my advisers. He's not one of my foreign policy people," Obama said at a campaign event in May. "He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."
But on the tape, according to the Times, Obama said in his toast that he hoped his relationship with Khalidi would continue even after the professor left Chicago. "It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table ... [but around] this entire world."
A number of Web sites have accused the Times of purposely suppressing the tape of the event -- which former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn reportedly attended.
Sullivan said she would not give details of what else may be on the tape, adding that anyone interested in the video should read the newspaper's report, which was its final account.
"This is a story that we reported on six months ago, so any suggestion that we're suppressing the tape is absurd -- we're the ones that brought the existence of the tape to light," Sullivan said.
The Los Angeles Times endorsed Obama for president on October 19.
'Joe the Plumber' Backs Claim That Obama Would Bring 'Death to Israel'
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/28/joe-plumber-backs-claim-obama-bring-death-israel/
Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber," on Tuesday twice agreed with a claim from an audience member at a John McCain rally that "a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for the death to Israel."
Wurzelbacher was hitting the campaign trail on behalf of McCain for the first time, joining former Rep. Rob Portman on a GOP bus tour through Ohio.
At a stop in Columbus, he fielded the question on Israel from a self-identified Jewish senior citizen.
The questioner said he was "concerned" with Barack Obama's associations and "It's my belief that a vote for Obama is a vote for the death to Israel."
Wurzelbacher responded: "I do know that."
The questioner then complained about Obama's tax policies and reiterated his Israel comment.
"Well, you know what, I'll actually go ahead and agree with you on that one," Wurzelbacher said. "You know ... no, I agree with ya.'"
Wurzelbacher's first trip to the podium as a McCain surrogate was freewheeling. He often apologized to reporters gathered in a flag store for talking from his gut.
"I'm honestly scared for America," Wurzelbacher said.
He later said Obama would end the democracy that the U.S. military had defended during wars.
"I love America. I hope it remains a democracy, not a socialist society. ... If you look at spreading the wealth, that's honestly right out of Karl Marx's mouth," Wurzelbacher said.
"No one can debate that. That's not my opinion. That's fact."
Though "Joe the Plumber" has become a centerpiece of McCain's campaign in the closing days of the presidential race, McCain aides told FOX News the Republican nominee does not share Wurzelbacher's opinion on Obama's view toward Israel.
Obama states on his Web site that he strongly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship, as well as Israel's right to defend itself and foreign assistance to the country.
McCain, though, has suggested Obama's commitment to Israel is not as deep as it should be.
A McCain TV ad out Tuesday ridicules Obama for saying Iran, whose president is openly hostile toward Israel, is a "tiny" country that "doesn't pose a serious threat."
The narrator says: "Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't serious threats? Obama -- dangerously unprepared to be president."
Obama Affinity to Marxists Dates Back to College Days
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/28/obama-affinity-marxists-dates-college-days/
Barack Obama laughs off charges of socialism. Joe Biden scoffs at references to Marxism. Both men shrug off accusations of liberalism.
But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.
Obama's affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.
"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully," the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, "Dreams From My Father." "The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists."
Obama's interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called "the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union."
After graduating from Columbia in 1983, Obama spent a year working for a consulting firm and then went to work for what he described as "a Ralph Nader offshoot" in Harlem.
"In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia," Obama wrote in "Dreams," which he published in 1995. "At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature."
Obama supporters point out that plenty of Americans flirt with radical ideologies in college, only to join the political mainstream later in life. But Obama, who made a point of noting how "carefully" he chose his friends in college, also chose to launch his political career in the Chicago living room of Ayers, a domestic terrorist who in 2002 proclaimed: "I am a Marxist."
Also present at that meeting was Ayers' wife, fellow terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, who once gave a speech extolling socialism, communism and "Marxism-Leninism."
Obama has been widely criticized for choosing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an anti-American firebrand, as his pastor. Wright is a purveyor of black liberation theology, which analysts say is based in part on Marxist ideas.
Few political observers go so far as to accuse Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, of being a Marxist. But Republican John McCain has been accusing Obama of espousing socialism ever since the Democrat told an Ohio plumber named Joe earlier this month that he wanted to "spread the wealth around."
Obama's running mate, Biden, recently contradicted his boss, saying: "He is not spreading the wealth around." The remark came as Biden was answering a question from a TV anchor who asked: "How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"
"Are you joking? Is this a joke? Or is that a real question?" an incredulous Biden shot back. "It's a ridiculous comparison."
But the debate intensified Monday with the surfacing of a 2001 radio interview in which Obama lamented the Supreme Court's inability to enact "redistribution of wealth" -- a key tenet of socialism. On Tuesday, McCain said Obama aspires to become "Redistributionist-in-Chief."
Obama has managed to cultivate the image of a political moderate in spite of his consistently liberal voting record. In 2006, he published a second memoir, "The Audacity of Hope," that leaves little doubt about his adherence to the left.
"The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact," Obama wrote in "Audacity." "Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother, who to the end of her life would proudly proclaim herself an unreconstructed liberal."
National Journal magazine ranked Obama as the most liberal member of the Senate. The publication is far from conservative, employing such journalists as Linda Douglass, who resigned in May to become Obama's traveling press secretary.
Rev. Wright Could Be Key to McCain Winning
http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/rev_wright_mccain_obama/2008/10/28/144942.html
For months, Republicans have been searching for a smoking gun that would firmly tie Barack Obama to a radical to illustrate how out of step he is with most of America.
Guess what? That radical is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Unlike Obama's association with admitted terrorist William Ayers, no one can say Obama's relationship with Wright was tangential. By his own account, over a period of 20 years, Obama considered Wright not only his minister but his mentor, sounding board, friend, and adviser. When the mainstream media last March finally began running stories on Wright after Newsmax had done so for two and a half months, Obama said Wright was like an uncle.
"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community," Obama said.
On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America's racism.
Wright has said America created the AIDS virus to kill off blacks. He gave an award for lifetime achievement to Louis Farrakhan. He has equated Zionism with racism and has compared Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid.
"We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty," Wright has said. "God d— America!" Wright has shouted.
To those who say Obama did not really believe in Wright's views, I say: Would you listen to such hatred without walking out? Even among the most liberal Democrats who are my friends or family members, the answer is always the same: No.
Both Dick Morris and Kellyanne Conway, the highly respected Republican pollster, have said John McCain needs to run ads reminding voters of Wright's connection to Obama. Sarah Palin told Bill Kristol that the fact Obama didn't get up and walk out says something about his character.
"I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country..." she said.
But last summer, McCain ruled out bringing up Wright in his campaign, which he said would be "respectful." McCain at other times has said he considers Wright a religious issue. But there is nothing religious about Wright's racist hate speech.
More recently, McCain held a conference call with Jewish leaders. During the call, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the founder of the Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York and now the city rabbi of Efrat in Israel, said Obama is "obviously comfortable" with the views of Wright, whom Riskin described as anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish. He noted that until Obama finally severed his relationship with him, he and his wife Michelle had been contributing over $20,000 a year to Wright's church.
The rabbi asked McCain why he was not raising Wright as an issue and running ads featuring him. According to one participant, McCain said it would be a waste of time, since "everyone knows about Wright."
I beg to differ. The National Republican Trust PAC has started running ads tying Obama to Wright. The clips of Wright denouncing America are devastating.
Wright holds the key to what Obama is all about, demonstrating his attraction to a left wing, anti-American agenda. At this point, given the economic downturn, Wright could also be the key to McCain winning the election.
Skinheads who planned to kill Obama in court
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5679
The two neo-Nazis, Paul Schlesselman, 18, and Daniel Cowart, 20, were accused before a court in Jackson, Tennessee, Monday, with possessing an unregistered firearm and conspiracy to steal from a licensed gun dealer. The two men allegedly planned to assassinate Barack Obama after a murder spree, shooting 88 black people and decapitating another 14.
Killing Obama was to be their final act. Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said: "They didn't believe they would be able to do it, but would get killed trying."
While the threat to the Democratic senator was not too credible, the two skinheads were believed capable of carrying out an attack on black students. If elected in a week's time, Obama would become America's first African-American president.
Freedom's Defense Fund Launches Ad in Western, PA
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07734.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- Freedom's Defense Fund (FDF) launched an ad in Pennsylvania today exposing Jack Murtha for incendiary comments regarding the people of his western Congressional District. Murtha said his constituents are either "racist" or "red-necks".
To view the ad, please visit www.freedomsdefensefund.com.
"We have been accused by liberals and their allies in the media of running ads in Michigan with racial undertones," said Todd Zirkle, Executive Director of the Freedom's Defense Fund. "It appears to be liberals like Murtha are the only people focused on the color of anybody's skin in this race. Jack Murtha should be ashamed of himself."
Freedom's Defense Fund is known most for running a series of ads in Macomb County Michigan featuring Obama friends and allies Kwame Kilpatrick, Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright and Tony Rezko. This is their first foray television ad focused on a congressional race.
"We treat our contributors dollars like they are our own," said Zirkle. "Murtha's comments are outrageous, and we believe he needs to be held accountable."
FDF is a political action committee (PAC). We are dedicated to the principles of limited government, as the Founders understood them. We stand with conservative, pro-freedom candidates against the radical left and their elitist allies in Washington. FDF was established in 2004 and has over 20,000 supporters nationwide.
In a Joint Letter to Presidential Candidates, MIM President Robert Peters Says Upcoming WRAP Week Provides Opportunity 'To State Publicly That You...Support Vigorous Enforcement of Federal Obscenity Laws.'
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07736.shtml
NEW YORK, (christiansunite.com) -- In conjunction with the upcoming White Ribbon Against Pornography Week, MIM President Robert Peters sent a joint open letter to Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. Excerpts from the letter are set forth below. The entire letter is published at www.moralityinmedia.org and www.obscenitycrimes.org (Current News pages).
Dear Senators...
The annual White Ribbon Against Pornography Week begins this Sunday, October 26. Launched nationally in 1987 by Morality in Media, WRAP Week is intended to raise public awareness about the harms of pornography and about what can be done to fight back against pornography.
This would be a wonderful opportunity for each of you to state publicly that you are concerned about the explosion of pornography and that you support vigorous enforcement of federal obscenity laws.
[T]here is both a "demand" side to the pornography problem and a "supply" side; and parents, schools and religious institutions should be at the forefront of efforts to reduce the demand for pornography through efforts to educate youth about the harms it can cause.
Those harms include the degradation of women in the production of pornography and sexual addiction. Sexual addiction can lead to acting out sexually against other children and to ruined marriages when children become adults. Children can also get wrong messages about sexuality from pornography...
Religious institutions should also be at the forefront of efforts to make persons of all ages understand that from a "faith perspective," viewing pornography is morally wrong (sinful, if you will) and that use of pornography is destroying countless marriages and contributing to other harmful sexual behavior...
The secular media should be at the forefront of exposing the social evils (harms) of pornography; and to their credit some in the secular media have helped make the public more aware of the addictive nature of pornography and of harms that pornography addiction causes...
There is also a "supply" side to the pornography problem; and as you also know there are federal laws that prohibit distribution of obscene materials in interstate and foreign commerce...
As you also know, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that enforcement of obscenity laws does not violate the First Amendment...[T]he Court also recognized that there are "legitimate governmental interests" at stake in stemming the tide of obscene materials, "even assuming it is feasible to enforce effective safeguards against exposure to juveniles." These include maintaining a decent society and protecting morality, family life, public safety, and the community environment.
This brings up an important issue: if elected President, will you nominate individuals to serve as Attorney General, Director of the FBI, and U.S. Attorneys who will enforce federal obscenity laws?
It is of course no secret that the U.S. has failed miserably at "enforcing effective safeguards against exposure to juveniles." The Internet in particular is awash with hardcore pornographic materials that are available to minors without cost or proof of age; and surveys indicate that large numbers of children have been inadvertently exposed to these materials or have sought them out.
It is also no secret as to why it is so easy for children to access hardcore pornography on the Internet. For the past 10 years, a law that Congress enacted to protect children from Internet pornography has been tied up in the federal courts because some judges think that parental use of filtering technology alone can protect children from Internet pornography...
This brings up another vital issue: if elected President, will you nominate individuals to the Supreme Court and other courts who will follow the "ACLU-party" line or who will refrain from interpreting the Constitution and other laws in a manner that reflects the foolish preferences of unelected judges?
....
What America needs now is a President who will build on the limited progress made during the past several years. I also think the American people will support such a President...
Next week would be a good opportunity for you to let the public know where you stand.
US: Pro-family groups launch counter-attack on porn
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/us.profamily.groups.launch.counterattack.on.porn/21746.htm
Several US anti-porn groups fed up with the number of children and marriages that have been harmed as a result of porn addiction are urging Americans to fight back during a pornography awareness event this week.
During the 20th annual "White Ribbon Against Pornography Week" (WRAP), which runs October 26 to November 2, Americans are being called to speak out on the detrimental effects of pornography and inform others about ways to remove the "garbage" from the lives of families and local communities.
For one week, people are also asked to wear or display a white ribbon in solidarity against pornography.
WRAP Week is being promoted by Morality in Media (MIM), Concerned Women for American (CWA) and American Mothers.
Dr Janice Shaw Crouse, director and senior fellow of CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute, says the pornography industry has "exploded" in recent years.
In just a few years, internet pornography has grown around 19-fold. In 1998, there were less than 80,000 internet porn sites, notes Crouse. That figure grew to 1.5 million in 2003.
Today, over 15,000 new adult movie titles are released every year, Crouse reports. Furthermore, recent figures reveal 35 million visits to porn sites from American computers every month.
Anti-porn activists say a higher supply of porn means more accessibility and greater exposure to the public, and some of those viewers include children.
Forty-two percent of internet users, aged 10 to 17, said they had seen online pornography within a one-year period, according to a 2007 study by University of New Hampshire. The study also found that over one-third of 16- and 17-year-old boys surveyed said they had intentionally visited X-rated sites in the past year.
"Since pornography is a $5 billion industry annually, it affects us all. It harms women and children, it destroys families, and it weakens communities," says Crouse.
"It is especially a threat to children when 85 per cent of prisoners convicted of possessing child pornography admit to abusing at least one child," she adds.
In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in California vs Miller that obscene material or hardcore pornography is not protected by the First Amendment.
Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, however, says the United States has "failed miserably" in protecting juveniles from pornography.
The Supreme Court has handed down a ruling against the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, which would make it a crime for commercial Internet sites to make pornography available to minors.
For Crouse, the fight against pornography is not a matter of legality but of enforcement.
"Obscenity is illegal and has been since 1973," says Crouse. "The problem is that state prosecutors and United States attorneys cannot prosecute unless violators of the obscenity laws are brought before them."
Peters has sent a letter to presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, urging them to state their support for vigorous enforcement of federal obscenity laws.
"If elected president, will you nominate individuals to serve as attorney general, director of the FBI, and US attorneys who will enforce federal obscenity laws?" asks Peters in the letter.
The backers of WRAP Week are asking people to complain to businesses that distribute pornography, write letters to the editor, distribute information to the community, educate community leaders about the negative effects of pornography, contact their state prosecutor and US attorney to complain about violations of state obscenity laws, and ask state and local legislators to curtail "sexually oriented businesses".
WRAP supporters are also encouraging pastors to preach about pornography as sin in their sermons this week.
"Our pastors need to preach about the 'wages of sin' regarding objectifying women and sexualising children," states Crouse in her latest opinion piece.
"Religious institutions should also be at the forefront of efforts to make persons of all ages understand that from a 'faith perspective,' viewing pornography is morally wrong (sinful, if you will) and that use of pornography is destroying countless marriages and contributing to other harmful sexual behaviour," says Peters.
On the web:
Morality in Media has sample sermons on its Web site that address the issue.
More information on WRAP Week and obscenity laws are available at www.moralityinmedia.org and www.obscenitycrimes.org.
Nationally Acclaimed Pastor Rick Warren Announces Support for Proposition 8
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07740.shtml
CALIFORNIA, (christiansunite.com) -- Rick Warren, nationally acclaimed pastor and author of the New York Times bestselling "The Purpose Driven Life," announced today his support in favor of Proposition 8, California's Protect Marriage Act.
Warren, founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, affirmed his support of the proposition, which would restore the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, in his News and Views email which is distributed to church members.
"For 5,000 years, every culture and every religion - not just Christianity - has defined marriage as a contract between men and women," Warren wrote. "There is no reason to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2% of our population."
A link to a video on the Saddleback Church was included, where Warren further discussed his support of Proposition 8.
(saddlebackfamily.com/blogs/newsandviews/ind ex.html?contentid=1502)
In August, Warren hosted presidential candidates Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama in a civil forum at Saddleback Church. During the two-hour event, Warren asked both senators for their definition of marriage and both agreed it was the traditional, historic and universal definition--one man and one woman for life.
"The courts threw out the will of the people," Warren said in his online video, in reference to the State Supreme Court's decision in May to overturn Proposition 22, approved by 61 percent of voters in 2000 to declare marriage between a man and a woman. "I never support a candidate but on moral issues I come out very clear."
Warren is considered one of the most respected and influential pastors in America and his support of Proposition 8 is unequivocal. He was named one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World and 15 World Leaders Who Matter Most and was called one of America's Top 25 Leaders by U.S. News and World Report.
Marriage Referendum Leads 52% to 43% Among Likely California Voters
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07739.shtml
NEW HAVEN, Conn., (christiansunite.com) -- A new poll of California voters shows Proposition 8, a proposed constitutional amendment that would reserve marriage for opposite- sex couples, has a 9 percentage point lead among likely voters, 52% to 43%. The poll was conducted for the Knights of Columbus by the Marist College Institute of Public Opinion between September 28 and October 5, 2008.
The survey shows that Proposition 8 has majority support among men (53%), women (51%), whites (51%), Latinos (57%), those who are married (59%) and those age 45 and older (59%). Those opposed include likely voters under age 45 (54% opposed) and those who are not married (54% opposed).
The poll also shows that Proposition 8 leads in every region of California except the Bay Area, where 58% are opposed.
52% of likely California voters believe the state Supreme Court was wrong to have overturned the 2000 referendum in which voters approved reserving marriage for opposite-sex couples, and 72% believe the decision should be left to the voters.
Poll respondents were presented with several arguments and asked whether each one would make them more or less likely to vote for Proposition 8. A majority (58%) were more likely to favor Proposition 8 when reminded that if it passes, same- sex couples will still be able to form civil unions in California. More than half of those describing themselves as opponents of Proposition 8 said they were more likely to shift from opposing to favoring the referendum because of this argument. Approximately one third of those voting "no" on 8 - and a significant number of undecided voters - would be more likely to vote yes if the proposition's failure could compromise the tax status of religious schools or if children in public schools would be taught that marriage was a relationship "between any two adults."
Nearly half (49%) of likely voters believe that same- sex marriage should not be law if legalizing it would place clergy at risk for lawsuits or threatens the tax- exempt status of religious institutions. And 79% of all likely voters believe that if Proposition 8 fails, clergy should not be required to perform same- sex marriages if it violates their religious convictions.
Full details of the poll results can be found at www.kofc.org.
Pro-Life Groups Asked to Send Special E-Mail: 'Where do the Candidates Stand on Abortion?' to House E-Lists - Goal: Reach Ten Million Voters
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07735.shtml
MEDIA ADVISORY, (christiansunite.com) -- National Right to Life Committee (www.nrlc.org) has produced an excellent flyer showing where John McCain and Barack Obama stand on abortion. McCain and Obama have very different positions, and millions of Americans need to see this flyer immediately! It's called: Where Do the Candidates Stand on Abortion? and can be found at www.nrlc.org.
"This flyer will help get out the pro-life vote for the sake of unborn babies, moms, dads and our country," said Sue Cyr, spokesperson for The Presidential Pro-life E-Mail Campaign.
Time is short! The Presidential Pro-life E- Mail Campaign is encouraging all organizations to e- mail their entire E-lists the Where Do the Candidates Stand on Abortion? flyer. The goal is a massive grassroots viral e-mail campaign that reaches 10 million American voters so they can learn the truth about the two major Presidential candidates' stands on abortion, especially in the swing states.
"This election presents a stark contrast between a pro-life candidate and one who is the most pro-abortion Presidential candidate in American history," said Sue Cyr. "The pro-abortion candidate, Barack Obama, has pledged that his first act as President would be to sign a bill (Freedom of Choice Act) that would undo all the pro-life legislative protections for abortion-targeted preborn babies that pro-lifers have gained in the last 35 years. Obama has also promised to appoint only pro- abortion nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, entrenching abortion on demand for another whole generation. This would be a disaster for our country and a death sentence for millions more innocent babies."
"Starting today," added Sue Cyr, "we're asking all pro-life organizations and individuals to send an encouraging e-mail and this fact-filled pro-life flyer to hundreds of thousands of voters all across America. The attachment is a reproducible flyer from the National Right to Life Committee that objectively states the two main Presidential candidates' positions on abortion."
"Please urge pro-lifers everywhere to download the Where Do the Candidates Stand on Abortion? flyer at www.nrlc.org, reproduce it and distribute it widely in their community. Send it to all relatives, friends and contacts . . . and ask them to do the same, to forward it on, and so on. Through this snowball effect, we hope to reach 10 million Americans with this vital pro-life message in the final days before the election. Unfortunately, millions of voters have been kept in the dark about Barack Obama's radical pro-abortion stand."
Download Where Do the Candidates Stand on Abortion? at www.nrlc.org
Deception Characterizes Opponents of South Dakota Abortion Ban
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07738.shtml
SIOUX FALLS, SD, (christiansunite.com) -- Vote Yes for Life, supporters of South Dakota's proposed abortion ban, has announced that it will file a complaint with the FCC this week over "deceitful advertising" that has been broadcast by those who oppose the abortion ban.
An abortion group operating under the misleading name "The Campaign for Healthy Families" has aired television ads falsely claiming that Measure 11 would cause the government to decide when a woman needs and abortion, not her physician.
"This ad is nothing but a scare tactic to confuse the voters of South Dakota," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "They know if they discuss the abortion-for-birth- control issue, which accounts for 97% of all South Dakota abortions, they lose every time. Their only hope of continuing unabated abortion in South Dakota is to deceive the public about Measure 11."
"We applaud the Vote Yes For Life organization for standing up to the abortion bullies and their lies, and taking appropriate action to stop the deception about Measure 11," said Newman.
Also yesterday, two so-called "pro-life" groups shamefully made equally misleading statements in the Argus Leader newspaper, siding with the Campaign for Healthy Families abortion group in their effort to defeat Measure 11.
Kyle Holdt, spokesperson for South Dakota Right to Life made the false claim that Measure 11 makes some lives expendable. Judi Brown from the American Life League erroneously stated, "This initiative is based on the assumption that some lives are more valuable than others and that wantedness determines a child's right to live."
"With all due respect to Mr. Holdt and Mrs. Brown, they are just dead wrong about this," said Newman. "Measure 11 is designed to save as many babies as possible now, while working toward complete abolition. No life is expendable. While it may not be possible under the circumstances to save them all, it is unthinkable and intolerable not to act to save the lives we can.
"If Holdt and Brown get their way, hundreds of pre-born babies will needlessly die. One simply cannot call themselves 'pro-life' then actively work to insure that as many abortions as possible continue to occur, as they have done. They need to get out their pro-life GPS and figure out what side they are on.
"In the interest of unity, we urge both groups to stop siding with Planned Parenthood and stand down on their misleading attacks against those who are trying to stop abortion and save as many innocent lives as possible."
About Operation Rescue®
Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation. Operation Rescue recently made headlines when it bought and closed an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas and has become the voice of the pro-life activist movement in America. Its activities are on the cutting edge of the abortion issue, taking direct action to restore legal personhood to the pre-born and stop abortion in obedience to biblical mandates.
Gates Calls Long-Term Outlook on Nuclear Weapons Safety 'Bleak'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444506,00.html
WASHINGTON — The long-term outlook for keeping U.S. nuclear weapons safe and reliable is "bleak," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday. In part, he said, that was because the United States is experiencing a brain drain in the laboratories that design and develop the world's most powerful weapons.
Gates said America's more than 5,000 nuclear weapons are now safe and secure, but he sketched out a series of concerns about the future, while stressing that nuclear weapons must remain a viable part of the U.S. strategy for deterring attack as long as other countries have them.
"Hope as we will, the power of nuclear weapons and their strategic impact is a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle — at least for a very long time," he said in remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank that advocates the elimination of nuclear arms.
In a later question-and-answer session with his audience, Gates said he is concerned about the possibility that some Russian nuclear weapons from the old Soviet arsenal may not be fully accounted for.
"I have fairly high confidence that no strategic or modern tactical nuclear weapons have leaked" beyond Russian borders, Gates said. "What worries me are the tens of thousands of old nuclear mines, nuclear artillery shells and so on, because the reality is the Russians themselves probably don't have any idea how many of those they have or, potentially, where they are."
Gates also said that if were advising the next U.S. president, he would advocate new nuclear talks with Moscow.
"I believe we should go for another agreement with the Russians," he said. "I believe it could involve further cuts in the number of deployed warheads. I believe we do need the verification provisions. But I think it ought to be an agreement that is shorter, simpler and easier to adjust to real-world conditions than most of the strategic arms agreements that we've seen over the last 40 years."
Both presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, advocate negotiating further reductions with Russia.
Gates offered a number of reasons why the United States should maintain its nuclear arsenal, including the assertion that by providing an umbrella of protection for allies like Japan and South Korea, it removes a reason for those countries to feel the need to develop their own nuclear weapons.
Echoing concerns by some congressional Republicans, Gates said there are reasons to worry about the U.S. arsenal.
"Let me first say very clearly that our weapons are safe, secure and reliable," Gates said. "The problem is the long-term prognosis — which I would characterize as bleak." He noted that the United States has not designed a new nuclear weapon since the 1980s and has not built a new one since 1992.
In his most extensive remarks on nuclear weapons since he became Pentagon chief nearly two years ago, Gates spelled out in detail his views on why nuclear weapons play a vital role in the broader U.S. defense strategy. And he called for urgent action to reverse a decline in focus on nuclear issues.
"Currently the United States is the only declared nuclear power that is neither modernizing its nuclear arsenal nor has the capability to produce a new nuclear warhead," he said. "To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program."
The Gates remarks come amid a growing debate in national security circles over whether and how the United States should take the lead in pushing for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.
Gates made clear he believes that such a goal, while reasonable, cannot be realized for many years.
"We must take steps to transform from an aging Cold War nuclear weapons complex that is too large and expensive to a smaller, less costly but modern enterprise that can meet our nation's nuclear security needs for the future," Gates said.
He urged Congress to drop its opposition to a long-stymied administration proposal to develop a design for a more secure nuclear warhead, saying it could be done without actual underground nuclear testing.
"The program would reinvigorate and rebuild our infrastructure and expertise," Gates said.
Most Icelanders want to join EU and eurozone after crisis
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1225106221.88
(REYKJAVIK) - A large majority of Icelanders would like their crisis-ridden country to apply for membership in the European Union and the eurozone, according to a poll published by the Frettabladid daily Monday.
Of the 800 people questioned by the daily at the weekend, 68.8 percent said they thought Iceland should apply for EU membership, up from 55.1 percent in a February poll and 48.9 percent in September 2007.
A full 72.5 percent of those polled meanwhile said they would like to replace their plunging krona -- which has shed more than half its value since January under the weight of the global financial crisis -- with the euro.
Iceland, a small island nation of just 320,000 inhabitants, has never applied for EU membership, but has signed the European Economic Area agreement with the block.
Within the coalition government, only the Social Democratic Party is officially in favour of joining the union, while Prime Minister Geir Haarde's conservative Independence Party is opposed to such a move.
Among supporters of the Social Democrats, 93 percent of those polled by Frettabladid said they wanted to become EU members.
In a similar poll also published by the same daily 10 days ago, 70 percent of the 1,200 people questioned said they thought Reykjavik should hold a referendum on whether or not Iceland should join the bloc.
That poll, conducted by the Capacent-Gallup polling company between September 25 and October 6, came just before Iceland's once booming financial sector collapsed under the weight of the global financial crisis. It indicated that 49 percent of Icelanders wanted to join the union, while 27 percent were opposed to such a move.
Financial crisis builds Polish euro-entry momentum
http://euobserver.com/9/27004
The financial crisis is building momentum for Poland to swiftly join the EU's single currency on 1 January 2012, with a positive political climate for the euro also developing in the Nordic states.
"The world crisis has shown that it's safer to be with the strong, among the strong and to have influence on the decisions of the strong," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Monday (27 October), adding that his pro-euro policy is "not based on any orthodoxy, any ideology" of deepening EU integration.
The remarks came after a meeting with the chief of Poland's main opposition party, Law and Justice head Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who opposes an early entry date and wants Poland to hold a referendum on the move.
"I am not excluding that Poland's entry into the euro zone could be played out in a referendum," Mr Tusk said, PAP reports. "The suggestion of a calendar to change the constitution [to allow the currency shift] and then a referendum is worth considering, but it would have to take place fast."
The Polish government is on Tuesday expected to finalise a roadmap for meeting its 2012 target and to present the document to President Lech Kaczynski before launching talks with the European Commission.
The country will aim to join the ERM2 mechanism - which limits the fluctuation of the Polish zloty to within 15 percent of the value of the euro - by June next year.
Polish parliamentary speaker Bronislaw Komorowski on Tuesday said that any euro referendum could only concern when the single currency is to be adopted, not if, since Poland legally obliged itself to join the eurozone in its 2004 EU accession treaty.
The Polish zloty dived by over 10 percent against the EU's single currency in recent days amid fears of a coming recession.
US bank JP Morgan on Monday also warned in a report that the zloty is even more vulnerable than the Hungarian forint due to an imbalance in foreign debt and foreign currency reserves, indicating that Poland may need to borrow €10 billion from the IMF next year.
Economists from other banks, including ING and Societe Generale, told Poland's Rzeczpospolita that the JP Morgan analysis was flawed. But opinion surveys show ordinary Poles have the crisis on their minds, with 70 percent of people saying Poland should join the euro in a GfK Polonia poll.
Nordic rethink
The reaction to the crisis in non-EU country Iceland has been even more extreme, with the Icelandic krona losing over 40 percent of its value and Reykjavik being forced to seek €5 billion in international loans to avoid bankruptcy.
Almost 69 percent of Icelanders want to join the EU and 72.5 percent want to swap the krona for the euro, according to a poll out Monday in the Frettabladid newspaper. Approval for EU entry was at 55 percent before the financial storm hit.
"Icelanders are starting to have doubts about their krona. An increasing number think the only solution is to act with other countries and not in isolation," Iceland's Institute of Economic Studies chief Gunnar Haraldsson told AFP.
Denmark and Sweden, which rejected the euro in recent referendums, have also begun a fresh debate, with the Swedish krona losing 7 percent of its value against the euro.
"I think to some extent, there will be a more friendly euro environment after this sharp decline in the currency. It could be an issue in Sweden's elections in 2010," SEB bank chief economist Haakan Frisen told the French newswire.
China Backs Europe's Push for Oversight
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122505550512770021.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
BEIJING -- After several days of talks between European and Asian leaders, China apparently has allied itself with Europe in calling for a vigorous system of international regulation.
In closed-door talks with European leaders Friday and Saturday, senior Chinese officials said they would back Europe's effort to overhaul international regulatory systems, European diplomats present at the meetings said. China most strongly stated its position Friday in a talk between Chinese President Hu Jintao and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.
Mr. Hu, according to diplomats at the meeting, said China would "actively cooperate" with the EU, which has been pushing an ambitious new system of global oversight. Formal talks on the new overhauls would begin in mid-November in Washington.
"The Chinese said they'd back more vigorous reforms," a senior European diplomat said in an interview. "They rely on the global economy and are afraid it's become very unstable."
Chinese officials had no comment on the closed-door meeting. In public statements, Chinese leaders issued milder endorsements of reforms. At the close of the seventh Asia-Europe Meeting on Saturday, for example, Chinese leaders backed the 45 nations' statement, which expressed "the need to improve the supervision and regulation of all financial actors, particularly their accountability."
Foreign diplomats have been keen to see how China would come down on the issue of regulation. On one hand, China values stability and thus would seem naturally to support regulation. On the other, it likely doesn't want international institutions that curb its sovereignty or constrain its financial flows.
In Brussels, EU officials said they weren't surprised China agreed to side with the EU in pushing for new rules for financial markets. "They want a seat at the table in whatever is going to happen," said an EU official who attended an Oct. 15-16 summit that drafted the EU's plan.
U.S. officials said that the Beijing meetings underscore the importance of President Bush's global economic summit, scheduled for Nov. 15 in Washington after the presidential election. The White House hopes to use the summit to discuss the crisis's underlying causes, analyze responses and develop principles to reform the global financial architecture.
Bush administration officials acknowledged their concerns that some countries could seek to use the financial crisis to move against free trade and promote more centralized economic models. "Whatever else we do, the summit needs to enhance our commitment to free markets and free trade -- the fundamental policies that have increased standards of living," said a U.S. Treasury Department official.
Czech Republic rejects EU villain role
http://euobserver.com/9/26999
The Czech Republic is being unfairly painted as an EU villain ahead of its presidency next year, Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg has said as the country gears up to take over the EU chair in January.
The Czech Republic's reputation as a highly eurosceptic country is "false," Mr Schwarzenberg told French daily Le Monde in an interview published on Saturday (25 October).
"We are not more eurosceptic that other countries in Europe, and I regret that we are being presented as the bad [characters] in the play," he said.
Referring to the country's outspoken EU-hostile president, Vaclav Klaus, the diplomat underlined he "has his own opinions," but added that "it is the government that forms foreign and European policy."
According to the Czech top diplomat, Prague will also ratify the EU's Lisbon treaty - aimed at making the bloc more efficient – before the January presidency hand over.
Additionally, Mr Schwarzenberg dismissed doubts that a "small country" like his could not deal with major issues such as the Russia-Georgia conflict and the global financial crisis, which have dominated the French presidency agenda.
"We may be small but in the case of the Russians specifically, we have more know-how than anybody else since we lived with them for 40 years," he said.
"[For the rest,] we will of course keep a close and constant relation with each and every one of the EU member states. We are in Europe, the phone works, everybody can go within one hour to London or Paris, where is the problem?" he added.
Pistols at dawn
Mr Schwarzenberg's comments come as speculations have mounted in the media that French leader Nicolas Sarkozy may have ambitions to lead the EU beyond the end of the French chairmanship of the bloc, on 31 December.
Le Monde reported last week - quoting several advisors to the French president - that Mr Sarkozy would like to lead a new eurozone "economic government," heading the group of countries using the euro until another EU member state using the single currency takes up the rotating EU presidency, in 2010.
The Czech foreign minister said he "could not believe" this means Mr Sarkozy wants to "neutralise" the Czech EU presidency.
"This suspicion is unbearable," he added, joking that if Paris tried to "sabotage" Prague's presidency - a word used by a Sarkozy advisor in Le Monde - it would merit an old-fashioned duel.
"If the president used this word, I'd consider it is an insult. And if we were [living] at the times of our grand-parents, we would have to meet at 5am in the Boulogne Woods [a large park in Paris], with two witnesses dressed in black," he said.
Klaus attacks
Meanwhile, Mr Klaus over the weekend accused the French president of trying to undermine the Czech contribution.
"Mr Sarkozy wants to siphon off our presidency," he said during a television debate on Sunday, using a term for illegal asset stripping coined when he was prime minister in the 1990s.
He added that the EU presidency was anyway "meaningless." "It is prestigious, but not for the countries. It is prestigious for the few politicians who go to Brussels 12 times per month," he was reported as saying by AFP.
If the Czech presidency had been in office during the financial crisis, it would have had "a more rational opinion …than most other European countries," Mr Klaus added, after earlier last week calling Mr Sarkozy's interventionist ideas on managing the economy "old socialism."
UK defence minister supports EU army
http://euobserver.com/9/27000
The freshly appointed UK defence secretary has publicly supported the idea of a European army, a key ambition of the French EU presidency.
Speaking to the country's Sunday Times newspaper yesterday (26 October), John Hutton, who took on the defence portfolio on 3 October, was asked about the prospects for an EU force.
He said: "I think we've got to be pragmatic about those things. I think that's perfectly sensible. France is one of our closest allies, and the French believe very strongly in this type of role. If we can support it, we should."
French President Nicholas Sarkozy, whose country currently chairs the EU's six-month rotating presidency, wants the bloc's existing military framework to have a new headquarters and each member state to commit 1,500 troops to rapid reaction forces.
"I'm not one of those EU haters [who think] anything to do with the EU must by definition be terrible," said Mr Hutton. "There's plenty of them around. I think frankly those kind of views are pathetic.
"Britain's role in the world is to be part of those alliances - that's the best way to project power, strength and conviction around the world," he continued. "People who don't understand that don't understand the nature of the modern world."
Mr Hutton also told the British paper that he thought the plans for a European Union mission to tackle piracy off the Somalian coast is a good example of how EU forces can be used.
Although the EU does not have a military, with defence remaining within the domain of each member state, Mr Sarkozy had hoped to place EU defence architecture at the heart of his country's EU chairmanship until his best-laid plans were overtaken by the global financial crisis.
In 2007, during French Bastille Day celebrations in which troops from every EU member state marched down the Champs-Elysees, Mr Sarkozy said the EU should construct a unified military.
The Bastille comments followed similar remarks from German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March of the same year on the occasion of the EU's 50th birthday. At the time, she said in an interview that she supported the idea of a unified EU army.
However, the UK, the largest of the EU's big-three military spenders ahead of France and Germany, has until now opposed the idea of a common EU force, arguing that it would unnecessarily duplicate tasks performed by NATO.
According to the Lisbon Treaty, rejected in June by the Irish in a referendum, the North Atlantic alliance "remains the foundation of the collective defence of [EU] members," with NATO always headed by a US general, however.
King Solomon's Mines Possibly Found in Jordan
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444286,00.html
WASHINGTON — The fictional King Solomon's Mines held a treasure of gold and diamonds, but archaeologists say the real mines may have supplied the ancient king with copper.
Researchers led by Thomas Levy of the University of California, San Diego, and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan's Friends of Archaeology, discovered a copper-production center in southern Jordan that dates to the 10th century B.C., the time of Solomon's reign.
The discovery occurred at Khirbat en-Nahas, which means "ruins of copper" in Arabic.
Located south of the Dead Sea, the region was known in the Old Testament as Edom.
Research at the site in the 1970s and 1980s indicated that metalworking began there in the 7th century B.C., long after Solomon.
But Levy and Najjar dug deeper and were able to date materials such as seeds and sticks to the 10th century B.C.
"We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us," Levy said in a statement. "But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible."
Their findings are reported in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Olmert to remain PM until gov't formed
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225036820496&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
President Shimon Peres began the countdown to new elections in his address at the opening of the winter session of the Knesset on Monday afternoon, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that he would remain caretaker premier until the formation of a new government early next year.
After consulting with the various factions in the Knesset, Peres said he had concluded that no one had the support to form a government and elections were inevitable. The Knesset has three weeks to dissolve itself, and elections will take place three months later.
"This is the hour in which the Israeli parliament and the political establishment are obligated to do some deep soul-searching," Peres said. "In the coming days, Israel will enter an election period.... The upcoming elections are an opportunity to raise the foundation of Israel and to alleviate its various weaknesses."
Several MKs in Kadima had pressed Olmert to step down, to allow the new Kadima leader, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who had failed to put together a new coalition, to prove her leadership capabilities before the elections.
"Two months ago, I informed the Israeli public of my intention to resign following the establishment of a new government," Olmert told the Knesset in a speech that followed Peres. "It was my hope and expectation that such government would be formed by the winner of the Kadima primary elections, before general elections. Since the die has been cast and it appears that the political system is heading towards elections, I will remain prime minister until the formation of a new government after the elections."
Also on Monday, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu unofficially launched his campaign, pledging not to give up any part of Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, and Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak challenged Livni and Netanyahu to an American-style debate.
An aide to Barak told The Jerusalem Post that debates should be held on politics, economics, social affairs and the rule of law.
Knesset Speaker Itzik and faction heads are scheduled to meet on Tuesday to decide whether to cut short the winter session, perhaps ending it as early as next week.
From the moment elections are declared, 111 days are counted until Election Day unless the Knesset sets a new date for concluding its current session. On Monday, Kadima faction head MK Yoel Hasson presented a bill to shorten the period of 21 days during which 61 MKs can present a candidate they are all agreed on to try to form a government.
At this time, it is most likely the elections will be held on February 10, but two more dates are possible: February 3 or January 27, Knesset sources said.
Appealing for national unity to counter international and internal crises, Peres used the opening of the winter session on Monday afternoon to urge the parties to work together.
"This Knesset session is opened against a background of internal and external turmoil which has aroused great concern in the heart of every citizen," Peres said. "The difficult process that ultimately ended the days of this government raises question marks which trouble all of the people of Israel. The confidence in the conduct of the governing agencies has been weakened, and moreover, the public trust in their leaders has been damaged. This unpleasant truth must not be hidden or neglected."
Olmert, who announced his resignation in September in the wake of several police corruption investigations, said the country had too many pressing security needs for him to leave office immediately.
"The security threats against the citizens of Israel do not wait for the political processes. The fear of terrorism cannot be postponed just because some of us are engaged in an election campaign. Hamas's continued military buildup and the smuggling of weapons in the North and South do not stop just because we're in the middle of an election campaign," Olmert said. "Iranian leaders do not sit still but continue to threaten and prepare destructive weapons - even during an election period in Israel. To all those I highly recommend not to try our patience or put our ability to the test."
"Over the past month, negotiations were conducted on the formation of a government. I value and appreciate the worthy efforts made by acting prime minister Tzipi Livni to form a government, and I regret the circumstances which led to the failure of the negotiations," Olmert said.
Olmert pledged to do all he could to resolve the financial dispute that endangered the opening of universities next week. He said the global economic crisis might be on its way to the shores of Israel, and the Israeli market must be prepared, "even if the government is a transitional one and the Knesset is heading towards elections. This is what the public expects, and it is exactly what we, as elected public officials, are committed to doing."
"We will not tolerate recklessness and will continue to exercise strict fiscal discipline. I expect all members of this House to enlist and unite for the sake of this shared interest," he said.
In his address, Netanyahu said that if elected, Israel would keep "defensible borders," and he pledged to retain the Golan Heights.
Netanyahu also said Israel would have to keep large swaths of the West Bank as part of any agreement with the Palestinians, and that all of Jerusalem will remain in Israel's hands.
"We will not negotiate over Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people for the past 3,000 years. I didn't do it in the past and I won't do it in the future," Netanyahu declared.
Itzik called on Knesset members not to be dragged into "wild tongue-lashing" and inciting against each other but above all she stressed and urged them not to take advantage of the upcoming period of uncertainty to pass "irresponsible" bills.
"We shall not tie the hands of the next Knesset and government with legislation initiatives that may award us with applause for a short moment," she said.
Itzik told The Jerusalem Post she would work to prevent the passage of private bills by prohibiting the practice during the short period the winter session would sit.
"Together," he concluded, "we will discuss a series of necessary steps, for the coming months, in order to insure the stability and strength of the Israeli economy. We will not allow irresponsible behavior and will continue to maintain strict fiscal restraint. I expect all members of this House to enlist and unite for the sake of this mutual interest."
Israel faces early poll after Livni plan fails
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/adbd0fdc-a3c6-11dd-942c-000077b07658.html
Israel is heading for elections early next year after Tzipi Livni, leader of the ruling Kadima party, conceded at the weekend that she did not have sufficient support from other parties to support her bid to become prime minister.
The move looks certain to extend a period of political uncertainty and governmental drift that has already lasted several months and has cast a deep shadow over Israel's twin-track peace talks with the Palestinians and Syria.
The country will now continue to be led by a lame-duck government under Ehud Olmert, who has vowed to step down as prime minister to fight corruption allegations.
Ms Livni, who currently serves as foreign minister, won the Kadima leadership in a primary last month. But she has struggled since then to hold together the fractious coalition assembled by Mr Olmert, who served both as Kadima boss and prime minister.
Ms Livni finally admitted defeat on Saturday after the ultra-orthodox religious Shas party - a key member of the coalition - rejected her plan to renew the alliance under her leadership. Yesterday she formally called on Shimon Peres, Israel's president, to hold early elections within 90 days.
Ms Livni is now almost certain to face an electoral showdown with Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the rightwing opposition Likud party who served as Israel's prime minister between 1996 and 1999. Recent polls have identified the two politicians, who offer starkly different policies, especially on the diplomatic front, as the clear frontrunners.
Ms Livni has pledged to continue the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority and is one of the most forceful advocates of creating an independent Palestinian state.
The hawkish Mr Netanyahu, on the other hand, is strictly opposed to a Palestinian state, which he argues would quickly fall into the hands of Islamist militants.
Both leaders would have to govern with other parties, either as part of a broad national unity coalition involving Kadima, Likud and the centre-left Labour party or, in Mr Netanyahu's case, an alliance of rightwing and religious groups.
Ms Livni's coalition bid had rested on the support of the Shas party, which has long played the role of kingmaker in Israeli politics. However, Shas demanded a high price for its support: an increase in child welfare payments - which benefit the large ultra-orthodox families disproportionately - as well as a promise not to discuss the status of Jerusalem in peace talks with the Palestinians.
The issue of East Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel after 1967 but which the Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state, is a critical one for the peace talks. Although Ms Livni was keen to avoid early elections, she made clear she would not allow herself to be tied down on such a vital matter.
"We'll go to elections as soon as possible. I'm not afraid of elections," she told Haaretz newspaper in an interview published yesterday. "The other possibility was for me to capitulate to extortion."
Ms Livni commands strong popular support but is widely seen as lacking experience on security matters. She had been keen to contest the next election from a position of authority and strength. Now she faces her first big electoral test as a candidate who tried to win the prime minister's office without a ballot - and failed.
She may, however, be able to turn the events to her advantage if her refusal to bow to what many see as the partisan demands of Shas prove popular with the majority of Israelis who are not ultra-orthodox.
Our World: All roads lead to Jerusalem
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225036822005&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's failure to form a government proved that all roads do in fact lead to Jerusalem. It was the issue of Jerusalem that deadlocked and ultimately scuttled Livni's coalition negotiations with Shas, which demanded that she pledge not to negotiate the partition of the city with the Palestinians. Livni refused to make such a pledge. And so the negotiations failed and new elections will soon be called.
In refusing to agree to Shas's demand, Livni made clear that partitioning the city - that is, giving the Palestinians sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the Arab neighborhoods - is so central to her preferred foreign policy that she could not budge on the issue despite her obvious desire to take up residence in the Prime Minister's Office. Moreover, it showed that she believes that the bulk of her potential voters hail from the post-Zionist Left. To win their support, she had to make clear that she is one of them.
In making Jerusalem, rather than welfare payments the wedge issue in their negotiations with Livni, Shas's leaders demonstrated their recognition of the fact that defending Israeli sovereignty over the capital city is more important to their voters than increasing welfare. Had they entered a Livni government without securing a pledge to defend Jerusalem, Shas would have been hard pressed to compete with the Likud in the coming elections.
Due to the centrality of Jerusalem in Livni's failed negotiations with Shas, it is apparent that maintaining or ending sovereignty over united Jerusalem will be the central issue of the coming elections. If the Left can convince a sufficient number of voters that a united Jerusalem is a drain on the country's resources or that it is impossible to enforce Israeli law among an increasingly lawless and irredentist Arab population, then it will have a fighting chance of winning the elections.
If the Right is able to demonstrate that the problems that afflict Jerusalem are little different from those suffered by mixed Jewish-Arab cities throughout the country and are a consequence of government and municipal mismanagement and are therefore manageable, then it will win the elections.
TODAY THE problems that Jerusalem faces stem from its unique demographic character, municipal mismanagement and the clear if previously unstated intention of successive leftist governments to eventually withdraw from the Temple Mount and from the city's Arab neighborhoods.
Jerusalem's ranking today as the poorest city in the country redounds to the fact that that the majority of its residents are Arab and haredi. These two sectors by and large do not work and do not pay municipal taxes. As a consequence, the municipal tax burden falls on the plurality of Jerusalemites who work and pay taxes - mainly religious Zionists and non-observant Jews. Due to the unfair tax burden, recent years have seen a steady stream of the city's productive residents migrating to surrounding communities where the tax burden is more evenly distributed and municipal services are consequently better.
Beyond the chronic problem of under-collection of taxes, Jerusalem suffers from problems of lawlessness among its Arab residents not unlike the problems that affect all cities with mixed Jewish and Arab populations. This Arab lawlessness is facilitated on a national level by the government's refusal to order the police and the State Attorney's Office to enforce and apply the law equally to Arab citizens.
Jerusalem also suffers from unique problems with lawlessness and underdevelopment. These problems have been created by successive governments that have silently encouraged the partition of the city by both enabling the PA to field militiamen in the city's Arab neighborhoods and discouraging and indeed prohibiting Jewish building in areas the government foresees being transferred to Palestinian sovereignty. These manufactured problems have retarded development and expansion plans. They have also artificially raised housing prices for the city's Jewish residents.
One of the chief responsibilities of Palestinian militia that operates in the city has been to enforce the PA's anti-Semitic law which defines the sale of land to Jews as a capital offense. Since 1994, dozens of Arab Jerusalemites have been executed by these men and their Fatah masters in Ramallah and Jericho for the "crime" of selling land to Jews. The government has made little effort to prosecute the offenders. Since 2004, when prime minister Ariel Sharon forced internal security minister Uzi Landau to resign due to Landau's opposition to Sharon's sharp turn to the left, the police have not been ordered to rein in the activities of the militia.
Largely as a consequence of this state of affairs, Jews are prevented from living in half of the city. The scarcity of housing options for Jews is what has caused an artificial increase in housing prices that has compelled young families to migrate out of the city.
Another factor contributing to the scarcity of land for Jewish building is the government's refusal to permit the building of new neighborhoods in areas like E-1 near Mount Scopus. Commerce is stifled, among other reasons, because the government has refrained from ordering the IDF to reassert control over Atarot municipal airport and industrial zone after the Palestinians began murdering businessmen, shooting passing motorists and threatening air traffic in 2000. In essence, as the building of the separation fence within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries shows clearly, the government has been effectively enacting the partition of the city for the past several years without ever acknowledging this fact.
The government's effective support for partition is perhaps nowhere more obvious than on the Temple Mount. There, the Islamic Wakf not only incites for jihad with impunity, it is also systematically destroying the remains of the Second Temple with impunity. The abject abandonment of Judaism's holiest site by successive governments has facilitated not only the radicalization of Jerusalem Arabs from surrounding neighborhoods, like Silwan, it has also emboldened global jihadists to believe that Jerusalem - and Israel with it - will soon fall into their hands.
IN LIGHT of these difficult realities, it is a relief that Jerusalemites are likely to elect Nir Barkat as their new mayor on November 11. While the mayor of Jerusalem has only a limited capacity to solve the unique, politically-driven maladies endangering the city, he does have considerable power to solve the problems that are similar to those impacting other cities nationwide. He can compel residents to pay their municipal taxes. He can enforce building codes. And he can use his power and influence to facilitate new building while improving municipal infrastructure to encourage economic growth and population expansion.
Barkat is a 48-year-old Jerusalemite. He served as a company commander in the paratroopers, and then went on to make a fortune in the hi-tech sector. In 1999, he and his wife became active philanthropists supporting various Zionist educational causes related to the city. In 2003 he retired from his business ventures to run for mayor. His party, Yerushalayim Tatzliah (Jerusalem will succeed), won 43 percent of the vote. Barkat has served for five years as the head of the opposition in the city council. In 2005, he joined Kadima.
Last year, he broke with Kadima when he discovered that the government was conducting negotiations on the partition of Jerusalem with Fatah leaders. Emerging as a staunch defender of the city's unity, he was one of the prominent leaders of the national opposition movement which arose to demand that the government end its negotiations on the issue.
As a mayoral candidate, Barkat has assembled a candidates list for his party comprised of members of the Likud, the Gil Pensioners Party, the Green Party and Labor. They have committed themselves to a common platform pledged to defend and facilitate continued Israeli sovereignty over the entire city.
In a recent conversation, Barkat explained to me that enforcing law and order in the Arab neighborhoods while encouraging local, non-jihadist neighborhood councils to take a leadership role in their communities is one of his primary goals.
"Today we have a crazy situation in which the number of municipal inspectors assigned to a neighborhood is inversely proportional to the degree of building code violations. We have four times more municipal inspectors assigned to Jewish neighborhoods than to Arab neighborhoods which have four times more building violations. I will reverse this situation as mayor."
Barkat also intends to push hard to build a new neighborhood for young people in E-1. To date, building in E-1 has been blocked by the government which as bowed to US pressure not to build in the strategically critical area that connects Jerusalem to Ma'aleh Adumim.
Barkat also intends to encourage economic growth in the city by developing its tourist sector. He correctly identifies projects like the City of David as sites with massive tourist potential. He believes that the proper way to achieve his goal of bringing 10 million tourists a year is to develop tourist attractions that link the Old City to surrounding areas like Gush Etzion.
Barkat has a vision of setting up a council of metropolitan Jerusalem that will involve the heads of the Jewish communities around the city in its overall development plans. This he believes will encourage business growth and lead to more rational long-term urban planning and infrastructure development.
Barkat's headquarters bustle with campaign workers. Most of them are in their early 20s. They hail from both non-observant and national religious backgrounds. Their enthusiasm for his candidacy is a product of his chairmanship of the non-profit Ruah Hadasha (new spirit) organization that helps students find post-university job opportunities in Jerusalem and encourages student involvement in the city. Yakir Segev, who founded and directs Ruah Hadasha, is one of the senior members of Barkat's party.
There is no guarantee, of course, that Barkat will be able to succeed in contending with the daunting challenges facing the city. But there is no doubt that if elected, he will bring a new integrity and commitment to the office and a welcome vision for Jerusalem that is both attractive and eminently achievable. Indeed, it is the success of Barkat's vision that will put paid the notion that united Jerusalem is ungovernable.
If as the polls indicate, Barkat wins the mayoral race in two weeks, the overwhelming majority of Israelis who are committed to safeguarding Israeli sovereignty over the eternal capital of the Jewish people will find a formidable ally in city hall.
Hamas would-be kidnapper intercepted by IDF-Shin Bet patrol
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5674
The incident, just released for publication, occurred on Sept. 21, when Jamal Abu Douaba was helped by his confederates to steal across the Egyptian border south of the Gaza Strip to the southern Israeli Negev. He was on a mission to kidnap Israel soldiers by luring them to the border for a "profitable dope deal." After drugging them with "samples of the merchandize," he would have smuggled them into the Gaza Strip through a prepared tunnel.
This scheme did not come off, but Hamas has not stopped hatching plots to kidnap Israeli soldiers, despite the ceasefire it concluded with Israel in June. The abducted Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit is still held in the Gaza Strip after nearly two and-a-half years.
Egypt veers around to most radical Palestinian anti-Israel stance
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5682
The relevant provision in the National Palestinian Accord drafted by Egyptian intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman enshrines the Palestinians' "legitimate right to resistance [euphemism for terror] for as long as "the occupation" is sustained, DEBKAfile's Middle East sources disclose.
The draft was drawn up as part of the Mubarak government's effort to broker the reconciliation of the Palestinian Hamas and Fatah. Egypt backed the most radical Palestinian line to make the draft palatable to Hamas. Israeli security sources say it is the most anti-Israeli document penned in many years.
In another step to make the running with Palestinian extremists, the four-page text endorses the 1948 refugees return to "their places before they were uprooted." This demand has been internationally accepted as a prescription for Israel's destruction.
Suleiman moreover omitted the conventional proposition that a Palestinian state must spring from a peace accord with Israel. In fact, Israel is not mentioned at all, as through it has no existence in any diplomatic or regional context.
Ignoring the radical winds blowing from Egypt, Israeli president Shimon Peres and defense minister Ehud Barak persist in clinging to the "moderate" camp led by the Mubarak regime as a valued go-between with the Palestinians. They are both now actively promoting the Saudi peace plan backed by Egypt and adopted at the Arab League 2002 summit.
When he visited Mubarak at Sharm el-Sheikh on Oct. 23, Peres faced a blank wall when he offered fresh Israeli diplomatic initiatives. His appeal for help in releasing the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit was equally snubbed. The Egyptian leader made it clear that patching up the quarrel among warring Palestinian factions was his sole concern, and so Peres came away from the encounter empty-handed.
Barak has also found it convenient to forget that Israel agreed last June to an informal six-month truce with Hamas after Cairo pledged every possible effort to obtain the soldier's quick release. Since then, the Egyptians have not lifted a finger.
Mil Intel chief warns Syria still heavily arming Hizballah
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5673
In his briefing to the cabinet's Sunday session, the head of AMAN, Israeli military intelligence Brig. Amos Yadlin brought out some harsh security developments.
In readiness for another Lebanon war, he warned, Hizballah has acquired rockets ten times more powerful than the hardware leveled against northern Israel in the 2006 Lebanon war. Whereas in 2006, the Lebanese terrorists shot rockets carrying 30 tons of explosives, next time, said Brig. Yadlin, the payloads would pack a 300-ton punch.
New Iranian naval base can block Strait of Hormuz, confront Israeli subs
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5681
Iran's naval chief Adm. Habibollah Sayyari told state radio Tuesday, Oct,.28, that the base could be used to block the entry of any "enemy" into the Persian Gulf. Iran has warned it would close the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil passes, if the US attacked its nuclear installations.
The new base is in the port town of Jask on Iran's southeastern coast opposite the point where the Gulf of Oman flows into the strait.
DEBKAfile's military sources note the additional advantages of its location for Tehran are quick access to the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Horn of Africa and support for three objectives:
1. A naval presence opposite the Gulfs of Oman and Aden, where Israeli maintains Dolphin submarines. For Tehran their presence is part of Israel's belligerent posture opposite Iran.
2. Intensified military involvement in Sudan on the Red Sea.
3. As a counterweight for the US, NATO and Russian naval might building up off the pirate-ridden Somali coast. From Tehran, this build-up looks like a potential threat to its maritime supply lanes and oil export routes.
Iranian authorities release son of hanged pastor
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/iranian.authorities.release.son.of.hanged.pastor/21739.htm
The Iranian authorities last week released on bail the son of a Christian pastor who was hanged for converting to Christianity. Ramtin Soodmand, a leader in the Evangelical Church of Iran in Mashhad, is charged with anti-government activities.
He was released on bail on Wednesday and has since been reunited with his wife and two children.
Release International, which serves persecuted Christians worldwide, has launched an appeal to support the Christians of Iran. It welcomes Ramtin's release, and is calling for more prayer and support for persecuted Christians in Iran.
"We're pleased Ramtin has been allowed to leave custody," says Release CEO Andy Dipper. "But scores of other Iranians who have become Christians are still in jail for their faith. Many of those could face execution, because the Iranian Parliament has called overwhelmingly for the death penalty for Muslim converts."
The authorities hanged Ramtin Soodmand's father, Pastor Hossein Soodmand, in 1990. Other pastors have been assassinated by unknown killers.
"Many more Christian leaders could be killed if Iran brings in the death penalty for apostasy," says Andy Dipper. "The Iranian authorities have taken it upon themselves to execute their own citizens who exercise their basic human right to choose their own religion. Please join us in praying and putting pressure on Iran to scrap this proposal."
Shortly before Ramtin Soodmand was set free, Release produced a viral video highlighting his plight and that of other Iranian Christians. The idea was to spread the one-minute video across the web to raise prayer and support for Christians during the current crackdown.
Iran has carried out arrests in several cities, including that of Shahin Zanboori, who was seized as he was sharing his faith. Secret police broke his arm and leg under interrogation. Shahin says they hanged him from the ceiling and beat the soles of his feet to force him to confess and name other Christians.
Shahin Zanboori is expected to be charged with spying. Two other Christians died in July after being badly beaten in a police raid.
Release International is helping Iranian Christians in practical ways. "Release is giving financial support to church leaders who've lost their jobs. Through our partners we're running training conferences, providing outreach materials, and are helping a special ministry to women, who are hugely disadvantaged in Iranian society," says Release CEO Andy Dipper.
"But their need is great and we need to do more, so we've launched the Iranian appeal. Please help us to help our brothers and sisters in Iran - and to stand with them in this time of trial."
Release is calling for prayer and action:
· Pray that international pressure will be brought to bear on Iran where hardliners such as President Ahmadinejad are gaining influence.
· Write a polite letter underlining your hope that Iran will uphold all citizens' freedom of religion.
You can address your letter to: His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran.
Or to: His Excellency Mr Rasoul Movahedian, Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 16 Prince's Gate, London SW7 1PT.
On the web: www.releaseinternational.org
US raid killed Syrian al Qaeda cell leader
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5676
A US counterterrorism official said Monday, Oct. 27, that American special forces killed the head of a Syrian network that funneled fighters, weapons and cash in to Iraq when they raided Abu Kemal 7 km inside Syria Sunday. The unnamed official said the raid targeted the home of Abu Ghadiyah, leader of a key cell of foreign fighters in Iraq. A villager said the US force grabbed two men and took them away by helicopter when they flew back to Iraq.
An American military official said earlier that the cross-border raid by helicopter-borne special forces at al Sukkariya near Abu Kemal in N. Syria Sunday, Oct. 26 targeted "the foreign fighter network" that travels through Syria into Iraq. In the first US comment on the incident, the anonymous spokesman hinted at more cross-border action when he said: "We are taking matters in our own hands."
He spoke shortly after Damascus summoned the US and Iraqi envoys to protest the "serious aggression" in which 8 "civilians, including children" were killed and 14 wounded.
Three days earlier, US commander in western Iraq, Maj. Gen. John Kelly, called the Syrian border "an uncontrolled gateway" for fighters entering Iraq. He described the borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan as "fairly tight" and referred to US forces' success in shutting down the "rat lines" in Iraq with help from governments in North Africa. "The one piece of the puzzle where we have not shown success on is the nexus in Syria," Gen. Kelly said.
DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report he was referring to help from the Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian governments, as well as Western Europe countries hosting large North African migrants, in drying up the stream of al Qaeda's recruits for Iraq. However, Syrian president Bashar Assad has frustrated years of US effort to shut down the network operating out of his territory.
DEBKAfile's military sources report: This was not the first US military incursion of Syria. Previous US strikes on Syrian soil in 2004 and 2005 targeted al Qaeda exit points to Iraq and involved bombardments and clashes with Syrian border units.
These US attacks were discontinued for three years. Sunday's operation was an extension of the US-Iraqi offensive to purge the northern Iraqi town of Mosul and northern Syria of al Qaeda elements, the jihadists' last two strong bastions in the region.
According to eye witnesses, 8 US troops dropped by at least 2 helicopters stormed a farm house in Sukkariya and killed 8 people before flying back to Iraq. Damascus announced it held US forces responsible for "this aggression and all its repercussions." It called on the Iraqi government to launch an immediate investigation into "this serious violation and prevent the use of Iraqi territory for aggression against Syria."
Al Qaeda fighters recently captured by the US military in and around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul revealed the unabated flow of arms, fighters, cash and explosives from Syria to Iraq. The discovery belied Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem's assurance to US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice when they met in New York in September that Damascus had halted this traffic.
Abu Kemal is located opposite the al Qaim region of Iraqi Anbar. For most of the five-year Iraq war, it was al Qaeda's main logistics base for the jihadists fighting in Anbar. Recently this province, finally cleared of terrorists, was handed over to Iraqi forces. Washington is determined not to allow the Syria rat line to destroy one of the great US achievements of the war.
Asked if the incident was compatible with Israel's talks with Syria, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni commented: Damascus must stop aiding al Qaeda as well two other terrorist groups, Hizballah and Hamas. DEBKAfile's political sources note that the northern Syrian operation bears strongly on the US presidential campaign 10 days before voting. Both candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, will no doubt comment and if the attacks continue and meet with Syrian reprisal, they could become a focal campaign theme.
US cross-border incursions from Afghanistan firing missiles from drones at Taliban and al Qaeda havens in Pakistan are ongoing. The latest attack took place Sunday night killing up to 20 insurgents.
Syria, Hizballah on alert for Israeli action after US raid
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5677
DEBKAfile's Middle East sources report that Damascus and the Lebanese Hizballah have alerted their forces to a possible Israeli strike against Hizballah's arms smuggling routes, supply sources, and stocks, using as a precedent the US cross-border raid which killed eight people at an al Qaeda base in northern Syria Sunday, Oct. 26.
Those sources report that Syrian president Bashar Assad and Hizballah's leader Hassan Nasrallah fear that US-Israeli military synchronization for Israel's attack on Syria's nuclear reactor in September 2007 may have been repeated in Sunday's American raid at Abu Kemal.
According to DEBKAfile's military sources, intelligence analysts in Damascus, Beirut and Tehran have concluded that US Air Force planes, specifically those providing an umbrella for the helicopter-borne raid, flew over Israel before reaching Syrian skies.
They point out that, on the morning of the attack, Israel's military intelligence chief, Brig. Amos Yadlin, appeared before the cabinet session in Jerusalem with an unusually grave assessment of the military collaboration between Damascus and Hizballah.
He disclosed that Syria had become "Hizballah's arms warehouse" and was catering to "every single Hizballah wish for strategic resources."
Syria has given Hizballah, DEBKAfile reveals, medium-range surface rockets, radar systems and anti-air missiles. Yadlin reported that "Assad trusts Hizballah more than his own army." Its operatives work out of Syria without any restraint.
Damascus and Hizballah find room for anxiety in three more events:
1. Israel's chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazy met the UNIFIL commander Gen. Claudio Graziano last week and put him on notice that Israel would no longer put up with the ongoing Syrian violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which imposed an embargo on arms supplies to Hizballah.
2. Before Sunday's cabinet meeting, defense minister Ehud Barak and Gen. Ashkenazi put their heads together on ways to halt these violations.
3. Barak then phoned Gen. Graziano to reiterate that Israel had run out of patience with Syrian arms smuggling to Hizballah.
Israel normally liaises with the UNIFIL commander through the OC Northern Command, Brig. Gad Eisenkott. Direct high-level contacts are rare.
All these pointers to possible Israeli military action in the steps of the American raid have made Damascus and Hizballah's leadership anxious; they fear Israel has reached breaking-point and may no longer choose to look the other way on Hizballah's massive rearmament.
Syria and Iraq trade charges of cross-border terror
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5678
Speaking to reporters in London, Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem accused the United States of carrying out "criminal terrorist aggression" in its helicopter-borne raid of an alleged al Qaeda haven in northern Syria Sunday, Oct. 27. He declared: "If attacked again, we will defend our territory." He demanded an investigation and the handover of its results to the Syrian government. Iraq too must answer questions.
Earlier, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh Monday, Oct. 27, described the Syria site attacked the day before as the scene of activities of "terrorist groups operating from Syria against Iraq." He said "The latest of these groups… killed 13 police recruits in an (Iraqi) border village. Iraq had asked Syria to hand over this group which uses Syria as a base for its terrorist activities."
Damascus closes US cultural center, American school
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5683
Two days after Sunday's US helicopter-borne commando raid at Abu Kemal inside northern Syria, the Damascus government ordered the American cultural and school shut down and posted protest notes to the UN Secretary General and Security Council Chairman. Syria also called off a session of its joint commission with Iraq scheduled for Nov. 12-13, in response for its permission for the US strike from its soil, in which it claimed eight "civilians" were killed.
Baghdad at first complained the site targeted had been used for cross-border terror attacks into Iraq. A US counterterrorism official said Monday, Oct. 27, that American special forces killed Abu Qhadiyah, the head of a Syrian network that funneled fighters, weapons and cash in to Iraq.
But Tuesday, the Maliki government turned round and rapped the US action on the grounds that the Iraqi constitution forbids attacks from its soil on other countries.
DEBKAfile reports that Tehran is leaning hard on the Baghdad government to denounce the American incursion into Syria fearing it will pave the way for a possible US strike against Revolutionary Guards bases in Iran.
Solana expresses concern at US air raid in Syria
http://www.ejpress.org/article/31463
BRUSSELS (EJP)---EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana has voiced concern at the US air raid against al-Qaeda in Syria on Monday that caused the death of civilians.
"I am concerned at the air raid that took place inside Syria which resulted with the death of civilians," he said in a statement.
Solana recalled that he was in Syria last week where he discussed with the Syrian authorities "prospects for improved stability and security in the region."
"I hope the situation can rapidly return to normality," he added.
During his Damascus visit, Solana held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem about the regional situation and the development of closer ties between the European Union and Syria.
The following is an edited summary of Mr SOLANA's remarks to the press during his stay in Damascus:
"I have had a very good meeting with the Syrian President. I have had a very good personal relationship with him for many years and it is good to see him again. I hope that contacts between the EU and Syria will be strengthened," Solana told the press in the Syrian capital.
"On EU-Syria relations, my presence here in Syria has a meaning. President Sarkozy was here in September and we are engaged also in the new Mediterranean dialogue that we have established," he added.
He said EU-Syria relations "are developing" and expressed the hope that the Association Agreement between the two sides that is due to be updated "can be concluded soon."
Solana said the EU supports the indirect talks between Syria and Israel and thanked "our Turkish friends" for the role they are playing.
Solana's visit to Damascus was the first since March 2007, when his trip signaled a resumption of EU contacts with Damascus frozen after the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Lebanese figures blamed Syria for the murder but Damascus has repeatedly denied any involvement.
Solana's return to Damascus came after Syria and Lebanon formally established diplomatic ties on October 15, for the first time since independence 60 years ago.
IAEA diplomats say evidence warrants follow-up nuke probe in Syria
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5684
Diplomats in Vienna said Tuesday, Oct. 28, that freshly evaluated soil and air samples provide enough evidence to warrant a follow-up probe by the UN nuclear watchdog at the suspected Syrian nuclear site at El Kibar bombed by Israel in September 2007.
IAEA experts want to revisit the site and also follow up on US, Israeli and other intelligence allegations that North Korea had been helping Syria build a plutonium reactor there.
Damascus has denied running a covert program.
DEBKAfile's military sources reported exclusively on Oct. 4 that Syria had resumed its nuclear program at installations scattered across the country and that North Korean nuclear experts were back.
According to recent American reports, a Syrian military delegation visited Pyongyang to find out whether their arms deals and nuclear collaboration were at risk as a result of Kim Jong-il's ill health.
Our sources also disclosed that IAEA director Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei and his deputy Dr. Olli Heinonen have been at odds for months over whether the UN watchdog should push ahead with its probe against Syria.
ElBaradai argued there was no evidence to support US and Israel claims that Syria had been building a reactor, but Heinonen, who led an agency inspection in Syria last June differed and wants to go on with the investigation. According to our sources, Heinonen as demanded access to the west bank of the Euphrates River opposite the El Kibar site, where Syria is believed to have cleared the ground of the debris left by the Israeli bombardment.
He also wants to question named army officers, engineers and technicians alleged to have been engaged in the program. Heinonen submitted to the government in Damascus a list of Syrian officials with dates on which they are suspected of having met secretly with North Korean nuclear physicists. He has asked for clarifications on the subject of those encounters.
On Oct. 3, Damascus offered to continue to cooperate with the IAEA but stated that no more inspections would be allowed because the locations requested were restricted military areas.
The deputy director's dossier will be submitted to the agency's board meeting next month. If further probes are recommended and Syria stalls, the way will be opened for a complaint to the UN Security Council and possible sanctions against Damascus.
Syria following US, Israeli elections
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225199590545&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Syria is keeping a close eye on the outcomes of the upcoming US presidential and Israeli elections, particularly after Sunday's US raid on a Syrian compound has raised questions about the future of US-Syrian relations and American foreign policy in the region.
"The big question is whether this [strike] is a change of policy by the US, which affects the way it deals with not only Syria but also Iran and certain areas of Pakistan," said Nadim Shehadi, an associate fellow of the Middle East Program at the London-based Chatham House. "A change of policy would mean that the US will go into hot pursuit where it thinks that there are terrorists being sent into Iraq and Afghanistan."
Shehadi said that the Syrians have already decided there can be no improvement in US-Syrian relations between now and the new US administration. Syrian officials are counting on a radical change in US policy with the new administration, which implies they are expecting a victory for Democrat Barack Obama - the candidate calling for change, he said.
"Syria wants Obama," says Prof. Joshua Landis, co-director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "They believe he will get out of Iraq sooner and give better relations with Syria a try. They are careful but hopeful…. They know that McCain was an early supporter of the war [in Iraq] and said that Syria and Iran would be next."
McCain's advisers have also criticized Obama for saying he would talk to Syrian President Bashar Assad, he said.
"Like [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy and the Europeans, Obama might go with a warming and the use of carrots," Landis said. "Obama said he would listen to other world powers. It would mean a chance to normalize relations, get back a US ambassador and get US support for negotiations with Israel."
But some experts argue that additional engagement with Syria might not bring about the desired results. While Europeans think that the policy of isolating Syria has led the country to support insurgents in Iraq and groups like Hizbullah and Hamas, Syria believes that its policy of being a spoiler has succeeded and is the reason why the world is running to engage with it, Shehadi said.
"If you engage Syria on the basis of what Syria understands, then it won' t have incentive to stop its policies," Shehadi said. " It could be the case that once you engage Syria, it will only do more of what it thinks has led to the engagement."
The Syrians are also "very concerned" about who will become the next prime minister in Israel, Landis said. The worry is that Binyamin Netanyahu, one of the leading candidates for the country's top post, would team up with Syria's opponent Saudia Arabia to try to harm Syria and the peace talks.
"Rather than try to continue the talks, he could push a new US team with Saudi help to convince them not to put stock in improved US-Syrian relations," Landis said. "He could propose some plan of pressure and continued isolation on Syria. This would be very bad for Syria."
While Syrians don't really know Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, they hoped she would pick up where Olmert left off with negotiations.
"Olmert's opening to Syria was very helpful," Landis said.
Indeed, as far as the Syrians are concerned, "Tzipi is [certainly] better than Bibi because he is against relinquishing the Golan, even for peace," said Moshe Maoz, a professor emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
But others argue that Syria is very comfortable with the current state of internal politics in Israel since it gives them more time to avoid making any decisions when it comes to the Jewish state.
"They can blame all the paralysis on Israel," Shehadi said. "What the Syrians want is to end the isolation that it is in and the peace talks are a part of ending the isolation."
Iraq Asks U.S. to Reopen Talks Over Security Pact Changes
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444379,00.html
BAGHDAD — Iraq's government decided Tuesday to formally ask the United States to reopen negotiations on a proposed deal to keep American troops here past the end of the year. The U.S. suggested it may not be ready to offer more concessions.
That cast doubt on whether the agreement can win parliamentary approval by the end of 2008, when the U.N. mandate expires — and with it the legal basis for the U.S. military to operate in Iraq.
The U.S. has warned that without an agreement or an extension of the mandate, military operations would cease, including not only combat operations but also infrastructure projects and aid to Iraq's government.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the decision to ask for more talks was taken after Cabinet members submitted amendments to the draft. They asked Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to present them to the Iraqi negotiating team.
Al-Dabbagh described the amendments as "essential" before the prime minister can submit the draft to parliament. Al-Maliki has said he won't submit the document to the 275-member legislature unless he is confident it can win overwhelming approval.
In Washington, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the Bush administration may talk to the Iraqis about their proposed amendments, but that "it will just be a very high bar for them to clear for us to change anything" in the agreement.
She said that U.S. officials have not seen the amendments list.
"It might be something we can work with, it might not," Perino said. "We have provided them with our best thinking on it, our best offer. We think that the door is pretty much shut on these negotiations."
For nearly two weeks, Iraqi politicians have been considering the draft agreement, which would keep U.S. troops in Iraq through 2011 unless both sides agree that they could stay.
The draft would also give the Iraqis a greater role in supervising U.S. military operations and allow Iraqi courts to try U.S. soldiers and contractors accused of major crimes off duty and off base.
But critics say the draft does not go far enough in protecting Iraqi sovereignty, and major Shiite politicians said last week that the agreement stands little chance of approval in its current form.
One option being floated privately is to ask the U.N. Security Council to renew the mandate for six months or a year until a way out of the deadlock is found. It is unclear whether Russia, China and other council members may raise their own demands and delay the process.
An official at al-Maliki's office said some of the amendments submitted in Tuesday's Cabinet meetings had been forwarded to U.S. diplomats in Baghdad. The official said the changes were mostly attempts to clarify parts of the text that the Cabinet found open to interpretation.
He said the changes were introduced in both the English and Arabic texts of the agreement. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to talk about the discussions.
Neither the official or al-Dabbagh elaborated on the changes. Some Iraqi politicians have complained that the parts dealing with Iraqi jurisdiction were unclear.
They also wanted clarification of the conditions under which U.S. troops might be asked to stay after Dec. 31, 2011.
The agreement, reached after months of tough negotiations, has stirred a political storm in Iraq, with most of the major political groups reluctant to take a clear position for or against the deal.
Only the radical group led by anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has taken a public stand on the agreement. The group, which holds 30 seats in parliament, has rejected it outright.
Al-Maliki has not publicly committed himself to the current draft.
Iraqi leaders have objected to what they describe as unjustified threats by senior American officials about what would happen if the year ends without an agreement or a new mandate.
"I don't think there are any Iraqis who think that they are ready to do this on their own, deep down," Perino said. "Iraq still has a lot of violence that they have to deal with. Our soldiers are the ones who are there to help them deal with it. And they're going to need our help for some time."
In violence Tuesday, four police officers were killed in a drive-by shooting in the turbulent northern city of Mosul, while three civilians were killed and 13 others wounded in a Baghdad car bombing, police said.
Also in the capital, another nine people, including four policemen, were wounded in two separate roadside bombs targeting police convoys.
Terror in Mosul: Christians Flee Attacks
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/471956.aspx
MOSUL, Iraq - These are dangerous times for Christians in Iraq. The northern city of Mosul has witnessed a wave of Muslim violence against Christians.
Now threats of more attacks have thousands of people fleeing from their homes.
Horrific Memories
It was a night that changed Sabha Basheer's life for ever.
"Four men burst into the room, their faces were covered," she said. "They started pointing their guns at us screaming telling us to get out of bed! They tied my husband's hands, blindfolded him and threw him in the back of the car."
Within hours, the call came in from the Sunni insurgents who had kidnapped her husband.
Thomas: How much did they ask for your husband?
Sabha: $50,000. I did not have this kind of money to pay."
Ten days later, his body was dumped on the side of a road in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
"All the bones in his body were broken," she recalled. "He was hacked repeatedly and choked to death."
His crime: being a member of Iraq's tiny Christian community. Her husband was killed four years ago.
Today she faces another unimaginable crisis.
On October 4, radical Muslims in Mosul started killing Christians and intimidating others. Sabha, along with thousands of Christians fled their homes after radical Muslims threatened to kill them if they didn't convert to Islam.
"The situation had gotten so bad in Mosul that most of the Christian families were paying money to al-Qaeda in exchange for protection. But that money got us nowhere," Sabha said.
City of Refuge
Today, she and dozens of Christian families have sought refugee in a cultural center outside Mosul. Ibraham Shaba Ibrahim is the center's director.
"We used to have parties and different meetings in this hall," Ibrahim said. "But now we've converted it into a place for these refugees."
Before the U.S.-led invasion, there were about a million Christians in Iraq. They lived in relative security, free to worship and build churches. But after the invasion, Muslim radicals started targeting them.
Christian activist George Mavah said, "There are people and groups behind the scenes that we cannot see who want to drive the Christians out of Iraq. This is nothing short of an ethnic cleansing of a specific group of people."
Dr. Hussein Sinjari, a human rights activist, blames al-Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent groups for the violence against Christians.
"This is the fundamentalist Islam, the fascist Islam, this is the Islam al-Qaeda and they don't like the 'other,'" human rights activist Dr. Hussein Siniari explained.
Church leaders here estimate that most of Iraq's Christians have now fled or been killed. And about 13,000 have left Mosul. They're part of the more than 4 million Iraqis the United Nations says have fled their homes since the war began.
Safer Under Saddam Hussein?
"We are glad that Saddam is gone, but I must tell you that at least we felt safe back then. No one ever dared to attack us. Now we are being killed," Sabha said.
Today, in the towns of the Nineveh Plain, a few miles northeast of Mosul, Christians have taken refugee in schools, churches and monasteries.
Some 250 Christian families have fled the violence in Mosul and have moved to the Nineveh Plains to a village called Bartella. But there is still a tremendous amount of fear in this community because there is concern that al-Qaeda as well as various insurgents could slip into this community.
Mosul is one the most dangerous cities today in Iraq.
In addition to al-Qaeda, U.S. commanders say at least 12 insurgent groups operate in the city. But as U.S and Iraqi forces launch new security operations, the concern is that some of these insurgents will move into the areas where Christians have taken refuge.
Meanwhile, security around Mosul has improved somewhat. The government is pledging financial support and protection for every Christian family that returns to Mosul. But so far, just a handful have returned.
North Korea Threatens to Turn South Korea Into 'Debris'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444369,00.html
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea's military warned Tuesday it would attack South Korea and turn it into "debris," in Pyongyang's latest response to what it says are confrontational activities by Seoul against the communist country.
The threat comes a day after military officers from the two Koreas held brief talks at the heavily fortified border, their second official contact since the North broke off inter-Korean relations in February.
The North threatened to cut off all ties if the "confrontational racket" continues, citing a South Korean general's recent threats to launch a pre-emptive strike against its nuclear sites and the refusal of civic activists in the South to heed Pyongyang's demands to cease distribution of propaganda leaflets critical of its leadership.
"The puppet authorities had better remember that the advanced pre-emptive strike of our own style will reduce everything opposed to the nation and reunification to debris, not just setting them on fire," the North's military said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Relations between the two Koreas have been tense since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's administration took office earlier this year pledging to get tough with Pyongyang.
Earlier this month, Gen. Kim Tae-young, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a parliamentary committee that his military was prepared to attack suspected nuclear sites in North Korea if the communist country attempts to use its atomic weapons on the South.
North Korea has demanded that South Korea stop activists from sending balloons carrying leaflets critical of the communist regime across the border, saying the flyers violate a 2004 inter-Korean accord banning propaganda warfare.
The South Korean government has stopped official propaganda but says it cannot prohibit activists from sending the leaflets, citing freedom of speech.
Defying Pyongyang's demands, South Korean activists on Monday sent helium balloons carrying 100,000 leaflets to the North. Some noted Kim's reported health troubles and called for the North Korean people to rise up against the authoritarian leader.
The North said it also was offended by recent comments by South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee about leader Kim Jong Il's health.
South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee told a news conference in Washington earlier this month that both the U.S. and South Korea believed Kim Jong Il remained in control, adding: "If we show him too much attention, then we might spoil him."
U.S. and South Korean officials say Kim suffered a stroke and underwent brain surgery in recent months, but the North has denied there is anything wrong with the 66-year-old leader.
The two countries remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The peninsula is divided by one of the world's most heavily fortified borders.
EU to Send Warships to Patrol Pirate-Infested Somali Waters
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444466,00.html
BRUSSELS, Belgium — The European Union announced details Tuesday of its planned anti-piracy patrols off Somalia's coast, saying at least four warships backed by aircraft would begin policing the dangerous waters in December.
The EU flotilla will eventually take over patrolling the area from NATO ships, which arrived over the weekend and began escorting vessels on Monday.
An EU official said the bloc's new flotilla would include four to six ships backed by three or four maritime patrol aircraft, and would be led by British Vice Admiral Philip Jones. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to be quoted by media. Two other EU officials corroborated the details, also on condition of anonymity.
The EU had announced its planned patrols last month to help guard the waters off Somalia, which are considered among the most dangerous amid a renewed outbreak in piracy.
Somalia — caught up in an Islamic insurgency — has no functioning government, no navy and no coast guard to police its coast, which includes the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Already 10 EU governments have volunteered ships or aircraft to the EU force, the EU official said.
Several non-European nations, including India, Malaysia and Singapore, have also expressed interest in joining the EU force, he said. Russia also said it would help.
Meanwhile, NATO sent three ships over the weekend into the Gulf of Aden for anti-piracy patrols and escorting cargo vessels. The Greek frigate HS Themistokles accompanied a World Food Program cargo vessel carrying aid to Somalia. The Italian destroyer ITS Durand de la Penne escorted a merchant vessel chartered by the African Union. And the British frigate HMS Cumberland has been assigned surveillance and deterrence activities, NATO said in a statement.
Several warships of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet have also been deployed off the Horn of Africa.
Four other NATO warships sailed over the weekend to ports in the Middle East. And the Russian missile frigate Neustrashimi is in the Yemeni port of Aden.
About 20,000 vessels pass annually through the Gulf of Aden, which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea.
While maritime piracy worldwide has declined over the past five years, piracy off Somalia has soared. The region has overtaken the Straits of Malacca — the waterway shared by Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia — as the world's most pirate-infested region.
Tanzanian Christians oppose introduction of Islamic courts
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/tanzanian.christians.oppose.introduction.of.islamic.courts/21751.htm
Christian leaders in Tanzania have spoken out against proposals to introduce Kadhi, or Islamic, courts to deal with disputes in the country's Islamic community.
A petition, signed by 64 leaders from the Christian Council of Tanzania (CCT) and Pentecostal churches, said that such courts would create religious tension in a country that is proud of its religious and social tolerance.
If introduced, the Kadhi courts will deal with domestic issues such as marriage and divorce. They were introduced officially in 1985 to the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, which is 99 per cent Muslim.
According to the BBC, politicians and the public are split on the issue and whilst the Tanzanian government has not yet made a decision, there is a "good chance" it will approve the proposals.
The government is contemplating joining the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Tanzania's Guardian newspaper quoted Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Bernard Membe as saying the government would seek the consent of the people when deciding whether or not to join the OIC.
Christian leaders spoken against joining the OIC, saying that it would breach the Tanzanian constitution which states that the country is secular.
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