Message McCain-Palin
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=160
In his most recent newsletter Gary Bauer, a former Republican presidential candidate, the founder of "Campaign for Working Families" and president of "American Values" writes:
"In the next few days, I will be meeting with the key leaders of the McCain campaign, and I would like to share your thoughts with them. If you would like to email your comments, suggestions or a note of encouragement for Senator McCain and Governor Palin, please send and email to info@cwfpac.com under the subject heading "Campaign Comments" and I will be certain to share them. Please keep your remarks as brief as possible. Thank you."
PLEASE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MR. BAUER'S VALUABLE OFFER AND GET YOUR WARNING AGAINST DIVIDING GOD'S LAND THROUGH TO THE REPUBLICAN TICKET. If you would like to receive his emails you can sign up at his website at http://www.ouramericanvalues.org.
Although not an American, I cannot keep quiet on this matter. This is what I sent him earlier today:
At the Vice Presidential debate Mrs Palin said, concerning this land: "a two-state solution is the solution."
It is NOT the solution if those two states are carved out of the Land of Israel, whose borders have been clearly demarcated in Scripture, which also states that the return of that land to Jewish sovereignty is God's doing.
Furthermore, according to the Bible, all nations will be judged by God Himself for dividing up that land. (Joel 3:1-3)
Supporting "two states" supports dividing the land between an ancient nation that has biblical, historical and traditional rights to it, and a non-nation that has none of these rights but which has garnered global support for its illegitimate territorial claims through terrorism, violence, murder and threats.
"Land-for-Peace" is an immoral policy and a bankrupt one.
70 years ago this year, Britain and France forced Czechoslovakia to give the Sudetenland to Hitler to appease him and prevent war. Instead, this betrayal of the Czechs led directly to World War 2 and untold millions of deaths.
Successive US administrations have pressured Israel into giving the cradle of Jewish civilization to the Arabs to appease them and keep the Middle East stable. Instead the surrender of these lands to the Arab world has fueled their hunger to get it all, and is setting the stage for another massive war.
The US has no business trying to play "honest broker" between Israel and those who are out to destroy Israel. Instead America should - because of its Judeo-Christian heritage and values - be unapologetically and unmistakably on Israel's side.
Supporting the two-state solution will deprive a McCain-Palin administration of God's blessing. Neither will there be inroads to victory in any of the other battles in your cultural war while the White House continues to support and push for "land-for-peace."
Reversing this policy will require immense moral courage and great statesmanship. But doing so will bring God's abundant blessing.
For the Almighty, supporting Israel is not an issue. It is THE issue.
Flashback: Bush's One Fatal Mistake
http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/commentary/flashback-bushs-one-fatal-mistake-what-herb-th/
I'm concerned about America's future. Here's why.
You may not have noticed, but my last commentary, With Us, or Against Us (http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/commentary/with-us-or-against-us-what-herb-thinks/), was actually a continuation of thought from a prior commentary I had posted about the space shuttle Columbia disaster
You see, while watching that tragic fall of Columbia, I began wondering if it was a sign of America's coming fall. If you want to know what made me think it could be a sign, see my commentary A Sign In The Texan Sky (http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/commentary/a-sign-in-the-texan-sky-what-herb-thinks)?.
As I write, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is building Washington's case for an American-led war against Iraq. At the same time, the Pentagon is asking for a build-up of America's military in Asia for a possible conflict against North Korea. (Read about it here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-564663,00.html).
Question: Can America fight and win two major wars at the same time? Some say yes, some say no. However, there is one thing everyone seems to agree on — it would be very costly to America to do so.
Back to the idea that the fall of Columbia could be a sign of America's coming fall. This brings up another question: Why? If it was a sign, why would God allow a good and great nation like America — filled with so many Bible-believing churches — to fall?
Here's why. Because, along with all great good American has accomplished in the world, last year America may have made one fatal mistake. In March 2002, the Bush administration sponsored United Nations Resolution 1397 (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rt/11134.htm). This resolution called for the creation of a Palestinian state. A few days later his administration also backed Resolution 1402 (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rt/11135.htm) calling for Israel to withdraw from the territories.
This action taken by the Bush administration was very significant not only because of the warnings in the Bible about this land belonging to Israel, but also because, for the first time in history, an American president was seen as taking a stand with the world against God's little nation Israel.
So, when Bush said, "You're either with us, or you're against us," we were all reminded of the words of Jesus and that, in order to win our war against evil, there can be no compromising with evil.
However, when Bush took that stand against Israel in the UN Security Council that day in March, I'm afraid he may have unknowingly made one fatal mistake and stepped over that line of compromise with evil.
You see, Jesus is standing with Israel. And, we're either with Him or we're against Him.
And that even applies to a great and good nation like America.
Rep. Alcee Hastings' Anti-Palin Remarks Labeled Racist and Elitist
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07663.shtml
LOS ANGELES, (christiansunite.com) -- On Wednesday, Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) speaking to the National Jewish Democratic Council, warned black and Jewish voters to be wary of Sarah Palin because "anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks." Hastings is a former federal judge who was impeached and removed from the bench in 1989 for perjury and corruption. He's been in Congress since 1992. Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND ACTION, Inc., repudiated his remarks. The following is Rev. Peterson's statement on this issue:
"Alcee Hastings' deplorable comments about Sarah Palin are elitist, racially divisive and should be repudiated by Sen. Obama and The Congressional Black Caucus. I would also like to know who Hastings is referring to when he says 'what they do to black and Jews.' Who are 'they'?
"We're seeing an increasing trend of race and class warfare being used by Obama and his surrogates during this election. To hear Rep. Hastings and Sen. Obama's condescending attitudes towards mainstream Americans with traditional values is disturbing.
"Earlier this year, Michelle Obama said 'for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.' In April, Barack Obama showed his true colors when he described small town Americans as 'bitter' and that they 'cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.' To the contrary Mr. Obama, it's you and your socialist friends who have shown antipathy towards hard-working Americans.
"My fellow Americans, it's crystal clear that the Obama's and their supporters in The Congressional Black Caucus are out of touch and don't much care for the core values and the good people that make this great country work."
BOND Action, Inc. is a 501 (c) (4) new cultural action organization, which exists to educate, motivate and rally Americans to greater involvement in the moral, cultural and political issues that threaten our great country. Contributions to BOND Action, Inc. are not tax-deductible. For more information please call (877) WE-ACT-77 or visit www.bondaction.org
PA [Palestinian Authority] wants Livni and Obama
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2530
The veteran terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization is hoping for a double whammy in its favor next month when it hopes Israel will come under the prime ministership of Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni and Americans will put Barack Obama in the White House.
This is according to the "Palestinian" so-called foreign minister, Riyad al-Malki, during a conference held at the Israeli Foreign Ministry Sunday.
"We hope that [Livni] will succeed [in forming a new government] because this will also show continuity and commitment to the peace process and to the negotiations [for] a Palestinian state," Malki said, according to the leftist daily Ha'aretz.
As for America: "We are waiting to see who will be the next president, (Barack) Obama versus [John] McCain, and believe me there is a big difference between the two vis-a-vis the situation in the Middle East ... the Middle East peace process and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
While Malki did not elaborate on the PA's view of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates - both McCain and Obama have vowed to be good friends to Israel - it is widely understood that the very liberal Obama would be far more willing to pressure Israel into giving into "Palestinian" demands.
Senator McCain's personal record as a soldier and as a victim of brutal violence in a prisoner of war camp is considered far more likely to be tough on the Arab side and more supportive of Israel's security needs.
Livni has until November 3 to succeed in forming a government if she wants to become prime minister. The following day Americans go to the polls to choose their new president.
Syria wants Obama in the White House
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2533
Israel Today reported Monday that Syrian President Bashar el-Assad is reaching out to US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama "and is pegging its future on the latter winning the upcoming American election."
The Israeli news site based its report on a recent Forbes article by the editor of a Syrian news website, All4Syria.
According to the article author, Ayman Abdel Nour, Assad is banking on Obama becoming president and lifting US sanctions against Syria.
"To show his support for Obama, Assad has reportedly been reaching out to former and current advisors to the Illinois senator, including Robert Malley, Daniel Kurtz and Hernando de Soto, all of whom have visiting Damascus in an official capacity."
Nour said Assad's political future could depend on a President Obama looking more favorably on Syria, where anti-government forces have been gaining strength in light of the perceived failures of the Alawite regime.
Evangelicals see moral decline in Wall St. woes
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE4905RF20081001
Conservative U.S. Christians say the culture has gone to hell and it has taken the economy and Wall Street down with it.
It is a view which outsiders may find puzzling but has wide resonance in the U.S. heartland: the notion that moral decay and a lost sense of responsibility has brought on the worst banking and credit crisis since the Great Depression.
Such a view helps explain the unpopularity in conservative Christian circles -- which have a big influence on the Republican Party -- of a $700 billion bailout plan which the U.S. House of Representatives rejected on Monday, rocking financial markets.
Mounting consumer and household debt as housing prices fall is one of the main reasons behind the current crisis -- a crisis that religious conservatives say has moral roots.
The narrative goes roughly like this: the "collapse" of the traditional family, widespread divorce and a "permissive" culture have led to a disregard for personal responsibility.
A culture focused on instant gratification -- through the overuse of credit cards to buy consumer goods, for example -- has also lost other "traditional values" such as thrift and hard work.
"You can't have a strong, vibrant society when you don't have strong, vibrant families. It's a crisis of commitment, it's a crisis of responsibility," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobby group with strong evangelical ties.
"If you don't live up to your responsibility you are going to see that in the broader culture. You see this on Wall Street," he told Reuters.
It is a view that has been echoed by other conservative commentators, on Christian radio stations and on popular "Talk Radio" programs.
"To spend more than you've got is not the way we brought up our kids ... You have a whole credit industry that grew up around people wanting what their parents had without working 20 years to get it," said Gary Ledbetter, spokesman for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
Conservative Christians and evangelical Protestants in particular are a key base of support for the Republican Party which has rallied to John McCain's White House bid since he picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Tying "values" to economic problems is one way that religious conservatives can keep some focus on the "culture" issues they have long fought over as public attention is riveted on Wall Street, job security and house prices.
Upholding "traditional" values which they say have been under assault since the 1960s informs much of their outlook, ranging from their opposition to abortion and gay rights to a professed aversion to heavy debt loads.
"Although debt is not a sin, it also is not a normal way of life, according to Scripture ... debt is a dangerous tool that must be used, if at all, with extreme caution and much prayer," says the conservative evangelical advocacy group "Focus on the Family" on its web site.
But some commentators have noted that the "Religious Right" has long been among the staunchest supporters of the free-market ideology and the deregulation of financial markets preached by the Republican Party.
"Essentially the Christian Right did not do serious biblical reflection on economics, it just borrowed its model from the Republicans," said David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Atlanta.
"Conservative Christians who accepted the unregulated free market ethos must bear some of the responsibility for its consequences," said Gushee.
Preparing for financial apocalypse, Americans stock up
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/apocalypse_69329___article.html/
Some are hunkering down for the economic apocalypse. Others say they are merely stocking up on essentials for a worst-case scenario. In Marysville — and across the country — September's financial disasters have been driving Americans into survival supply stores for Meals Ready-to-Eat, and other emergency goods for long-term storage.
"I've been selling ammo cans by the pallet," says Tom King, owner of Sutter Surplus Sales on D Street.
Many of his customers, he says, "are gearing up to raise their own food and put up security fences. They're telling me to be ready."
"Granted," he says, "they are the extremists."
But precautionary measures are no longer the domain of survivalist regulars.
After the S&P 500's blue-chip index lost 9 percent on Monday — the biggest one-day percentage drop since 1987's Black Monday — Campbell Soup Co. stood tall as the lone sell-off survivor. That fact left one financial strategist, quoted in U.S. News & World Report, to quip, "If you have no confidence in your banking system ... the only thing you can have confidence in is the ability to build a bunker."
At the Ready Store, an Online operation based in Salt Lake City, water filters are at a premium. So are MREs, a key food source for military personnel during training and combat deployments.
"In the last two weeks," says Jonathan Dick, the company's sales and marketing manager, "we've sold 200 percent above normal levels in just about everything."
Hurricane Ike, which reached land Sept. 12, continues to play a big role on both the demand and supply ends of the business, especially when it comes to MREs.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency bought an unprecedented number of the pre-packaged, add-hot-water-and-eat meals from one of two primary wholesale suppliers in the days just after the storm struck the Gulf Coast.
FEMA also bought 13 truckloads of MREs from Ki4U.com, a distributor out of Gonzales, Texas.
"Inventory is shrinking here faster than this page can be updated," reads the explanation on that company's Web site. A seller of anti-radiation pills, fallout shelters and nerve gas detectors, Ki4U.com advertises such information as, "The Good News About Nuclear Destruction."
But Dick says his own spike in sales owes more to bank failures and their aftermath, than to hurricane survivors or the truly paranoid.
"With natural disasters, you see increases in short-term survival sales," he says. "People are trying to get through the next three days."
But since mid-September, people have been ordering a six-month or a year's supply of food, he says.
"We had a record day yesterday," Dick says of Monday, which saw a failed bailout proposal in Congress and plummeting action on Wall Street. Customers told him, "What if I lose my job and I lose my life savings and I don't have any money to buy food?"
"It's not just extremist people," Dick says. "There's a lot of uncertainty out there right now."
For King and his Marysville store, sales of hunting and camping gear are flat for this time of year.
But on Tuesday, he had only two MREs left on the shelf and no way of getting more. He sells the packs for $10 a-piece, and now steers customers to dehydrated foods, also a big seller at the Ready Store.
Sales of duffel bags and other carrying bags also have been remarkably brisk in recent days, King says.
Many of his customers, especially those from the Sierra foothills, he says, mention the current financial crises as their primary reason to stock up on such items.
"They think the polarization between the haves and have-nots is going to be very extreme," King says. And when limited resources become even more valuable, "they'll need to stay mobile."
Foreign economists urge creation of new global financial system after US failures
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/01/foreign-economists-prod-us-on-global-plan/
Leaders and economists from Western Europe to East Asia Tuesday urged the United States to go beyond reviving a failed domestic bailout and start working on a new global financial system.
"The Americans don't have a choice — they must absolutely have a global plan," Christian Noyer, head of the French central bank, said in Paris.
David Smick, a global strategist and author of "The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers of the Global Economy," said the next U.S. president should immediately call for a second "Bretton Woods" conference to devise a new doctrine of international finance.
The tiny New Hampshire town hosted a conference shortly after World War II that established rules for economic interchange among the world's industrial powers and created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
"I am convinced that the sickness runs deep and that we need to rethink the entire financial and monetary system, as we did in Bretton Woods ... to create the tools for worldwide regulation made necessary by the globalization of trade," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in the French city of Toulon on Monday.
He said that officials from France, Britain, Germany and Italy will meet next week in Paris with the Continent's top financial officials to prepare for a proposed global summit on the economic crisis. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will participate.
The 27-nation European Union said Tuesday that the crisis "has become a global problem" and Washington has a "special responsibility" to resolve it.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel took aim at the House failure to pass the Bush administration's $700 billion bailout proposal, which sparked a global stock market plunge. She called the package a "precondition for creating new confidence in the markets."
Kaoru Yosano, the Japanese minister of economic and fiscal policy, agreed. "The outcome has caused a major impact on not only the U.S. economy but also the world economy," he said.
Until a few weeks ago, foreign governments were blase and even gloated about U.S. financial woes, Mr. Smick said. "The decoupled theory has taken a crash landing," demand is plummeting worldwide and foreign financial institutions have been forced to come to terms with their own "toxic waste," he said.
EU officials blamed U.S. policies and business practices for the meltdown, while the Vatican denounced corporate greed.
"The United States must take its responsibility in this situation, must show statesmanship for the sake of their own country, and for the sake of the world," said European Commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberger. "The turmoil that we are facing has originated in the United States."
The Bush administration sought to calm politicians and markets, assuring them that it has been "reflecting" on developments and promising long-term solutions.
David McCormick, undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said Washington will take into account any potential global impact when it makes decisions about "how the U.S. regulatory structure should evolve."
However, the State Department said the United States had to pass its own legislation first.
"There will be time to consult with countries about what's going on and what steps we may take," spokesman Robert Wood told reporters. "But right now, the work has to be done by the administration and Congress."
In the meantime, foreign governments and financiers took steps to stop the contagion from spreading.
Mr. Sarkozy met with France's leading bankers and insurance chiefs and promised to announce new measures to tackle the situation by week's end.
European central banks and the Bank of Japan injected more cash into the market.
The Bank of England said it was offering up to $10 billion to a maximum of 10 banks, while the European Central Bank offered $30 billion to banks in an overnight operation, with a minimum bid amount of $5 million and a maximum of $3 billion.
Belgium's Dexia bank became the country's second to get a government-assisted bailout in as many days.
The Irish government announced an unlimited guarantee on deposits at six domestic banks a day after the Irish Stock Exchange suffered its greatest fall in history. Finance Minister Brian Lenihan called on fellow EU leaders to follow his country's example.
The market in Ireland made up for most of its losses Tuesday. Markets worldwide that opened sharply lower gained back much of that value later on hopes that Congress will pass a revised package soon.
Still, trading in Moscow was suspended for part of the day to limit losses. The Russian government has been rolling out measure after measure to address the crisis of confidence plaguing Russia's banks.
In a further move to assuage fears and ease the credit crunch, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday that the government will provide up to $50 billion to businesses outside the financial sector.
Other countries in Central and Eastern Europe have been affected to a lesser extent, but officials and business people said that could change.
"It is quite threatening what is going on," Hungarian Foreign Minister Kinga Goncz said Tuesday during a visit to Washington.
In Croatia, Vilim Klemen, co-owner of a brokerage firm, said: "It's impossible that the situation in the global marketplace won't influence the domestic stock exchange."
Dow Jones falls below 10,000 points first time in four years
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5631
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones dropped 780 points before rallying to 323 Monday, Oct. 6. It followed the selloffs in the first sessions in Asia, Europe and Russia since the US $700 bn bailout plan was enacted last week. Tel Aviv's morning recovery abruptly reversed to decline 4.5 percent.
Earlier, London's FTSE slumped more than 8 percent, French stocks plummeted by 9 percent, the German DAX by 5.3 percent and Russia's ruble-denominated MICEX stock market was suspended after dropping more than 15 per cent. After the Nikkei earlier slid by more than 5 percent, the Japanese central bank pumped $9.5 bn into the financial system.
Tel Aviv's shock decline of 6-10 percent Sunday, especially of corporate bonds -although arrested Monday - convinced prominent Israeli economists of the need for the government to ditch its static policy and budget for an emergency rescue plan.
Defense minister Ehud Barak, in coalition negotiations with Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, urged her to take the helm and support a plan in partnership with the central bank and the Histadrut Trade Unions Federation to revive economic momentum before a serious recession took hold.
Industrialists report 64 percent of Israel's exporters have lost their overseas clients and carried out wholesale layoffs because of the government's failure to deal with the weak dollar against the shekel.
The Federation's Secretary General, Ofer Eini, warned that the job market is collapsing and the government must guarantee pension funds and savings to protect workers who are fired or retire.
The IMF chief has urged the European Union to work out a collective response to the crisis after several governments went their own way. German chancellor Angela Merkel offered extensive protection to savers and bank deposits, although she qualified an earlier blanket plan. Britain followed with a promise to protect deposits of up to ₤50,000, after Ireland and Greece took similar steps.
French banks threw their support behind a joint Belgian-Luxembourg decision to bail out Fortis while the Iceland government is racing against time to salvage its biggest bank Kaupthing and smaller firms. Their collapse would ripple across the North Sea to undermine several big British High Street companies, including the big pub chain Mitchells & Butlers and Debenhams department stores, in which Iceland financial institutions are invested.
Credit and economic slowdown worries caused oil to drop to under $86 per barrel Monday.
Americans Clueless About Plans to Create New Life Forms
http://www.livescience.com/technology/080930-synthetic-life.html
If you've never heard of the exciting field of synthetic biology, you're not alone, but you might want to get wise to the field's controversial promise to create life from scratch.
About two-thirds of U.S. residents are clueless as well, having never heard of the synthetic biology. Only 2 percent in a new telephone survey of 1,003 adults said they have heard a lot about the work, which crosses biology with technology and promises to create forms of life that Nature never thought of.
Synthetic biologists engineer and build or redesign living organisms, such as bacteria, to carry out specific functions. The field is a scientific playground for the genetic code, where previously nonexistent DNA is formulated in test tubes.
By taking genetic engineering to the extreme, synthetic biologists aim to make life in the lab.
The promise is that the novel organisms will fight disease, create alternative fuels or build living computers. Already, researchers have transplanted genetic material from one microbe species into the cellular body of another, described last year as the living "equivalent to converting a Macintosh computer to a PC by inserting a new piece of software."
"We face daunting problems of climate change, energy, health, and water resources," a group of 17 leading scientists in the field stated last year. "Synthetic biology offers solutions to these issues: microorganisms that convert plant matter to fuels or that synthesize new drugs or target and destroy rogue cells in the body."
Now you know.
But why should you care?
For one, the field "is potentially controversial because it raises issues of ownership, misuse, unintended consequences and accidental release," according to a report earlier this year commissioned by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in England. In a nutshell, some fear microscopic lab freaks might escape and wreak havoc.
That in mind, scientists are concerned that the United States is falling behind other countries in many areas of science and technology and that the current administration has been downright hostile toward some fields of science. Obtaining federal funding for cutting-edge research can be challenging when the public doesn't even know what the research is about or what its benefits might be.
And as the new poll showed, we tend to fear what we don't know.
Respondents were asked how they viewed the potential risks and rewards of the new technology. "Those more familiar with synthetic biology are more inclined to have a positive assessment of the tradeoff," the pollsters found.
"Early in the administration of the next president, scientists are expected to take the next major step toward the creation of synthetic forms of life," said David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. "Yet the results from the first U.S. telephone poll about synthetic biology show that most adults have heard just a little or nothing at all about it."
The poll was conducted in August by Peter D. Hart Research Associates. The results were announced today.
Nearly half of the poll respondents said they have heard nothing at all about the broader field of nanotechnology. Again, "there is a positive association between awareness of nanotechnology and the belief that the benefits of nanotechnology will outweigh the risks," the analysts found.
Why Sunday Remains The Most Segregated Day Of The Week
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/04/segregated.sundays/
The Rev. Paul Earl Sheppard had recently become the senior pastor of a suburban church in California when a group of parishioners came to him with a disturbing personal question.
They were worried because the racial makeup of their small church was changing. They warned Sheppard that the church's newest members would try to seize control because members of their race were inherently aggressive. What was he was going to do if more of "them" tried to join their church?
"One man asked me if I was prepared for a hostile takeover," says Sheppard, pastor of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Mountain View, California.
The nervous parishioners were African-American, and the church's newcomers were white. Sheppard says the experience demonstrated why racially integrated churches are difficult to create and even harder to sustain. Some blacks as well as whites prefer segregated Sundays, religious scholars and members of interracial churches say.
Americans may be poised to elect a black man for president, but it's segregation as usual in U.S. churches, according to the scholars. Only about 5 percent of the nation's churches are racially integrated, and half of them are in the process of becoming all-black or all-white, says Curtiss Paul DeYoung, co-author of "United by Faith," a book that examines interracial churches in the United States.
DeYoung's numbers are backed by other scholars who've done similar research. They say integrated churches are rare because attending one is like tiptoeing through a racial minefield. Just like in society, racial tensions in the church can erupt over everything from sharing power to interracial dating.
DeYoung, who is also an ordained minister, once led an interracial congregation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that eventually went all-black. He defines an interracial church as one in which at least 20 percent its membership belongs to a racial group other than that church's largest racial group.
"I left after five years," DeYoung says. "I was worn out from the battles."
The men and women who remain and lead interracial churches often operate like presidential candidates. They say they live with the constant anxiety of knowing that an innocuous comment or gesture can easily mushroom into a crisis that threatens their support.
"It's not all 'Kumbaya' and 'We are the World,' " says Sheppard, the pastor of the Northern California church, who was raised by his father, a Baptist preacher, in the black church. "There are plenty of skirmishes."
Can't we just be Christians?
If it's so tough, why bother? That's one of the first questions interracial churches must address.
DeYoung says he encountered many blacks who said they wanted a racial timeout on Sunday.
"They would say, 'I need a place of refuge,'" he says. "They said, 'I need to come to a place on Sunday morning where I don't experience racism.' "
Whites also complained of their own version of racial fatigue, other scholars say.
Theodore Brelsford, co-author of "We Are the Church Together,'' another book that looks at interracial churches, says whites often say that church should transcend race.
"They'd say, 'Can't we just get along without talking about race all the time? Can't we just be Christians?'"
Not really, say advocates for interracial churches. They argue that churches should be interracial whenever possible because their success could ultimately reduce racial friction in America.
American churches haven't traditionally done a good job at being racially inclusive, scholars say. Slavery and Jim Crow kept blacks and whites apart in the pews in the nation's early history. Some large contemporary black denominations, like the African Methodist Episcopal church, were formed because blacks couldn't find acceptance in white churches.
Large denominations like the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians split over race in the 19th century when their members clashed over the issue of slavery, Michael Emerson, a scholar on interracial churches, recounted in his book, "Divided by Faith."
But interracial church advocates say the church was never meant to be segregated. They point to the New Testament description of the first Christian church as an ethnic stew -- it deliberately broke social divisions by uniting groups that were traditionally hostile to one another, they say.
DeYoung, the "United by Faith" co-author, says the first-century Christian church grew so rapidly precisely because it was so inclusive. He says the church inspired wonder because its leaders were able to form a community that cut across the rigid class and ethnic divisions that characterized the ancient Roman world.
"People said that if Jews, Greeks, Africans, slaves, men and women - the huge divides of that time period -- could come together successfully, there must be something to this religion," DeYoung says.
Biblical precedents, though, may not be enough to make someone attend church with a person of another race. Something else is needed: a tenacious pastor who goads his or her church to reach across racial lines, interracial church scholars say.
The Rev. Rodney Woo, senior pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, may be such a person. He leads a congregation of blacks, whites and Latinos. Like many leaders of interracial churches, he is driven in part by a personal awakening.
Woo's mother is white, and his father is part Chinese. He attended an all-black high school growing up in Port Arthur, Texas, where he still remembers what it was like to be a minority.
"Everyone understands the rules, the lingo, the mind-set -- except you," he says. "It was invaluable, but I didn't know it at the time."
When he became pastor of Wilcrest in 1992, he was determined to shield his church members from such an experience. But an exodus of whites, commonly referred to as "white flight" was already taking place in the neighborhood and the church.
Membership fell to about 200 people. At least one church member suggested that Woo could change the church's fortunes by adding a "d" to his last name.
"The fear there was people would think I was Chinese," he says. "There would be a flood of all these Asians coming in, and what would we do then?"
Woo kept his last name and his vision. He made racial diversity part of the church's mission statement. He preached it from the pulpit and lived it in his life. He says Wilcrest now has about 500 members, and is evenly divided among white, Latino and black members.
Woo doesn't say his church has resolved all of its racial tensions. There are spats over music, length of service, even how to address Woo. Blacks prefer to address him more formally, while whites prefer to call him by his first name, (a sign of disrespect in black church culture), Woo says.
Woo tries to defuse the tension by offering something for everyone: gospel and traditional music, an integrated pastoral staff, "down-home" preaching and a more refined sermon at times.
But he knows it's not enough. And he's all right with that.
"If there's not any tension, we probably haven't done too well," he says. "If one group feels too comfortable, we've probably neglected another group."
Going from "they" to "we"
Sometimes, though, a determined pastor is not enough. Interracial churches can also implode on issues far more explosive than worship styles -- like sex and power.
One such issue is interracial dating. Some scholars and leaders who deal with interracial issues say it's not unusual for parents in racially-mixed churches to leave when their teenage kids begin dating.
Woo saw that exodus at Wilcrest. Some parents talked about the importance of a multiracial church, until their kid became attracted to someone from another race within the church.
"As kids began to date, some things get revealed," he says. "They didn't want their kids involved in interracial dating -- and that's not just whites."
Accepting black leadership is another touchy subject. Most interracial churches are led by white pastors. A congregation typically becomes all-black if a black pastor is hired, says DeYoung, the "United by Faith" co-author.
"As long as the top person, the senior pastor, is white, power sort of resides with whites," DeYoung says. "But when that shifts, it does something psychologically to people. People usually leave."
Black pastors who do gain the acceptance of interracial congregations still have to watch themselves. Some white parishioners, even progressive ones, get uneasy when a black pastor gets too fiery in the pulpit, says Brelsford, co-author of "We are the Church Together."
"A black church sermon that could be understood as impassioned might be interpreted as angry and defensive by a white congregation," Brelsford says. "It could kick into fear of black men."
Sheppard, the black minister of the church in California, says he modified his style to appeal to all sorts of people.
He says he abandoned the pulpit pyrotechnics he learned growing up in the black church when his congregation's racial mix changed. He also carries his authority lightly, dressing casually in the pulpit and consulting with church committees before making decisions. In conversation, he's relaxed and accessible.
"I'm very aware of how rare this is," he says of being the black minister of an interracial congregation. "I'm humbled by it."
The people in the pews must also do their share of adapting, scholars and ministers say. Only when ethnic groups no longer feel compelled to abandon their entire culture on Sunday morning can a church claim to be interracial, Brelsford says.
An interracial church isn't one in which all the black members act, dress and worship like the church's majority white members to make them feel comfortable, he says.
Interracial churches resist "taking one dominant identity and forcing everyone to fit into it," Brelsford says.
That appears to have happened at Sheppard's church in Northern, California. Since its rocky early days, it has now grown to a multiracial congregation of about 6,000 people. Whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos - all now attend.
"We refuse," Sheppard says, "to be a one-flavor-fits-all church."
Interracial congregations often include people who probably wouldn't have become friends in any other circumstances. They are people like Dwight Pryor, a black man who grew up in segregated Mississippi seeing blacks brutalized by whites. He says he grew up disliking white people.
Today, Pryor says he is best friends with a white member of Wilcrest, a man who grew up in Alabama during segregation in a family that hated blacks.
When Pryor sees his friend on Sunday, he says he no longer sees a "they" or a "them" trying to invade his world.
He sees his brother in Christ.
"We come to love each other," he says. "When I look into his eyes, I can see the love of Jesus Christ. He and I have become friends."
Presbyterian Church fails to enforce Church discipline, displaying "one of the most absurd decisions ever rendered by an ecclesiastical court"
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081003/court-clears-presbyterian-minister-who-wed-lesbian-couple.htm
Three years after conducting a wedding ceremony for a lesbian couple, the Rev. Janet Edwards was acquitted on charges of violating Scripture and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s constitution.
The Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) of the Pittsburgh Presbytery ruled unanimously 9-0 to clear the minister on the grounds that she could not have performed the ceremony since the church and state define marriage as between a man and a woman.
"It can't be an offense to the constitution to attempt to do the impossible," stated the decision, read by the Rev. Stewart Pollock, chairman of the regional church court, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and who has been critical of the PC(USA)'s liberal direction, said the decision represents "one of the most absurd decisions ever rendered by an ecclesiastical court."
"This decision is the equivalent of saying that it can't be an offense to the PC(USA) Constitution, or to Scripture, to attempt to marry a man to a woman other than his current wife, or to his mother, or to a prepubescent child, or even to a horse, because the Church does not recognize as a valid marriage cases of bigamy, polygamy, adultery, incest, pedophilia, or bestiality," Gagnon stated.
Some argue that the court did not offer a satisfying decision, especially as the PC(USA) continues debates over homosexuality, and that it was more of a "non-decision."
Edwards and the couple she wed in 2005 – Brenda Cole and Nancy McConn – were pleased but the minister also acknowledged that the decision "does not settle disagreement among my colleagues."
But the Rev. James C. Yearsley, who was among several Presbyterian ministers that filed a second complaint against Edwards after the first was dismissed in November 2006 on a technicality, said he wasn't surprised by the court decision.
"This is the direction of our denomination, and it is accelerating. But it's the wrong decision for the wrong reasons. It's a further attempt to accommodate culture at the expense of scriptural authority and belief," he commented, as reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Also, before the ruling, Yearsley, who said he would not push for an appeal, stated that an acquittal would signal collapse of church discipline.
During the Oct. 1-2 trial, biblical scholars and theologians on the defense testified that Edwards' acceptance of same-sex "marriage" was within the Presbyterian tradition of interpreting Scripture in its cultural context, according to the local Post-Gazette.
A 2000 decision by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the denomination's highest court, held that clergy could conduct services blessing same-sex couples but could not present them as marriages and that the services should not resemble weddings.
Although the charges against Edwards contended she "knowingly and willfully" performed a ceremony that was "contrary" to the PC(USA) constitution, Pollock of the regional PJC said the prosecution offered no evidence that Edwards violated Scripture when it listed eight biblical passages defied.
Presbyterians have debated the issue of homosexuality for decades. In June, the highest governing body of the PC(USA), the General Assembly, approved a proposal that allows lesbian and gay ministers to be ordained – which still has to be approved by a majority of local presbyteries – while choosing to keep its current definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.
To many in the denomination, including Gagnon of Pittsburgh Seminary, homosexual behavior is a sin.
Gagnon believes the latest church court decision "constitutes nothing less than an illegal nullification of the Constitution and Scripture."
"Such unreasonable decisions threaten to do irreparable damage to the credibility of the PC(USA)," he said.
The ruling on Edwards follows a similar decision made by the denomination's highest court earlier this year when the Rev. Jane Spahr, a lesbian, was found not guilty of violating denominational law when she officiated at the weddings of two lesbian couples. The high court ruled that the ceremonies Spahr performed in 2005 and 2004 were not marriages.
The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76671
A new study reveals that if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted to criticize the nation of Israel before the United Nations, he could use American public school textbooks to do so.
"It is shocking to find the kind of misinformation we discovered in American textbooks and supplemental materials being used by schools in every state in the country," said Dr. Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research and a co-author of the study.
"Elected officials at every level should investigate how these offensive passages are creeping into our textbooks. Presenting false information in the classroom undermines the very foundation of the American educational system," he said.
Tobin teamed with insititute research associate Dennis Ybarra for the study, titled, "The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion." The five-year effort, which looked at 28 prominent history, geography and social studies textbooks, reveals American public school students are being loaded up with indoctrination about Christianity, Judaism, Islam and the Middle East, to the cost of Christianity and Judaism and the benefit of Islam.
According to an earlier report from the American Textbook Council, history textbooks throughout the U.S. schooling system promote Islam.
The new study by the IJCR found more than 500 erroneous passages in the books, including one textbook that charged that early Jewish civilization contributed little to the arts and sciences.
An excerpt from "World Civilizations," published by Thomson Wadsworth, for example, said, "Excepting the Old Testament's poetry, the Jews produced very little of note in any of the art forms ... There is no record of any important early Jewish contributions to the sciences."
The level of outrageousness grew: "Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus," claims "The World," published by Scott Foresman.
"The textbooks tend to be critical of Jews and Israel, disrespectful about Christianity, and rather than represent Islam in an objective way, tend to glorify it," said co-author Ybarra. "To teach children, for instance, that Jesus was a Palestinian and de-emphasize his Jewishness does a disservice to Christians and Jews as well as anyone who cares about historical accuracy."
The institute analyzes issues such as racial and religious identity, philanthropy and higher education. Its full report is available at TroubleWithTextbooks.org, where all 28 books that came under its review are listed.
The organization said its study revealed textbooks include routinely negative stereotypes of Jews, Judaism and Israel. For example, Israel is blamed for starting wars in the Middle East and Jews are charged with deicide, and the problems are rife through the three mega-publishers that have deep enough pockets to get approval and publish a textbook in the major states of Texas and California.
"The 'Trouble with Textbooks' is a very important book not only for Jews but for the entire Christian community," said Rev. John J. Keane, ecumenical officer for the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. "This volume is an excellent tool for anyone who is interested in balanced information that is fair and reliable concerning Judaism, Christianity and Islam."
The authors found textbooks that stated or suggested:
* Jesus was a "Palestinian," not a Jew.
* The Arab nations never attacked Israel. Arab-Israeli wars "just broke out," or Israel started them
* Arabs nations want peace, but Israel does not
* Israel expelled all Palestinian refugees
* Israel put the Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab lands, not Arab governments
* Palestinian terrorism is nonexistent or minimal
* Israel is not a victim of terrorism, or terrorism against Israel is justified
* U.S. support of Israel causes terrorism, including 9/11
* The intifadas were children's revolts not involving adults or terrorism
They also found that Judaism and Christianity are treated as matters of believing, while Islam is treated as a matter of fact. In the glossary of "World History: Continuity and Change," the Ten Commandments are described as, "Moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew God Yahweh on Mount Sinai." But the same glossary states as fact the Quran is a, "Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from God."
The study found, "Islam is treated with a devotional tone in some textbooks, less detached and analytical than it ought to be. Muslim beliefs are described in several instances as fact, without any clear qualifier such as 'Muslims believe. . . .'"
Likewise, the Islamic empire of the Middle Ages was "a time of unqualified glory without blemishes," and Muslims "always tolerated Jews," unlike their Christian counterparts. The texts use terms such as "stories," "legends" and "tales" to talk about Jewish writings.
"If the president of Iran wants to blast Israel at the U.N., he can use American textbooks to do so," Tobin concluded.
The earlier ATC report took two years to study textbooks, and its author, Gilbert T. Sewall, found the problems regarding Islam "are uniquely disturbing."
"History textbooks present an incomplete and confected view of Islam that misrepresents its foundations and challenges to international security," the ATC report said."Islamic activists use multiculturalism and ready-made American-made political movements, especially those on campus, to advance and justify the makeover of Islam-related textbook content."
"Particular fault rests with the publishing corporations, boards of directors, and executives who decide what editorial policies their companies will pursue," the report said.
One of the executives for a text critiqued by ATC, Bert Bower, founder of TCI, told WND at the time not only did his company have experts review the book, but the state of California also reviewed it and has approved it for use in public schools.
"Keep in mind when looking at this particular book scholars from all over California reviewed it," he said.
One of the experts who contributed to the text, according to the ATC, was Ayad Al-Qazzaz.
"Al-Qazzaz is a Muslim apologist, a frequent speaker in Northern California school districts promoting Islam and Arab causes," the ATC review said. "Al-Qazzaz also co-wrote AWAIR's 'Arab World Notebook.' AWAIR stands for Arab World and Islamic Resources, an opaque, proselytizing 'non-profit organization' that conducts teacher workshops and sells supplementary materials to schools."
Feds launch dragnet to stop 'October surprise' attack
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76415
As Pakistani investigators hunt the terrorists behind the massive Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad, FBI agents in the U.S. have begun aggressively hunting for Americans who have recently returned from trips to Pakistan where they may have trained at al-Qaida camps, WND has learned.
A coast-to-coast dragnet has been launched partly in response to leads developed in the arrest of one of al-Qaida's "fixers" in the U.S., say FBI officials. They report the bureau is in a race against time to identify Pakistan-trained sleeper cells and disrupt a possible pre-election "October surprise."
For the first time since 9/11, counterterrorism field agents have been authorized to spy on young Muslim men and women – including American citizens – who have traveled to Pakistan without any specific evidence of wrongdoing.
Controversial new investigative guidelines approved by the Justice Department allow agents to monitor suspects and conduct undercover interviews even before opening formal investigations.
FBI headquarters has ordered its field offices to aggressively pursue anonymous tips and report back any suspicious activities in their Muslim communities. The intelligence will be immediately analyzed and shared in a threat matrix to avoid a repeat of the so-called "Phoenix memo" intelligence failure, officials say.
In the weeks prior to 9/11, an alert agent in the FBI's Phoenix office noted that several radical Middle Eastern men were taking flying lessons. He drafted a memo and sent it to headquarters, which promptly buried it, missing an opportunity to act before the disastrous hijackings of 9/11.
The FBI's new rules and current sense of urgency follow the recent interrogation of al-Qaida operative Aafia Siddiqui, an M.I.T.-educated scientist who fled to Pakistan after 9/11. She was arrested this summer in Afghanistan and brought back to the U.S. after sustaining injuries from a gun battle.
According to a federal indictment, Siddiqui was found with handwritten notes that referred to a "mass casualty attack" and listed various locations in the U.S. including Wall Street, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Plum Island and the Brooklyn Bridge. In addition, certain notes referred to the construction of "dirty bombs," chemical and biological weapons and other explosives.
Siddiqui's notes also discussed "mortality rates associated with certain of these weapons and explosives," the indictment says. Other notes referred to various ways to attack "enemies," including destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs and using gliders.
A computer thumb drive in Siddiqui's possession contained electronic correspondence that referred to specific "cells" and "attacks" by certain "cells," the indictment says. Other documents referred to "enemies," including the U.S., and discussed recruitment and training.
Officials say subsequent interrogations have revealed that possibly hundreds of American Muslims, many of them of Pakistani descent, have traveled to Pakistan in recent years to train at al-Qaida and Taliban madrassas and terror camps and have returned to the U.S. to carry out suicide attacks.
The revelation has shocked the politically sensitive FBI into abandoning its long-held policy of coordinating investigations in the Muslim community with Muslim-rights groups. Officials say it's more important than ever to track down Muslims who have traveled to Pakistan, and gather and disseminate intelligence quickly to disrupt possible terror plots before they can develop to an operational stage.
"There's some worry we may be in another Phoenix moment," one official said, "but this time we're determined to leave no stone unturned."
The formation of al-Qaida training camps inside Pakistan has been a major concern among U.S. security agencies since at least 2004, when Washington issued a rare intelligence directive to border agents to check young Pakistani male travelers –including Americans – for physical signs of military training.
As WND first reported, they were asked to look for "rope burns," "unusual bruises," "scars" and other possible injuries suffered from obstacle courses, firearms or explosives.
"Many of the individuals trained in the Pakistani camps are destined to commit illegal activities in the United States," warned the two-page DHS advisory that launched the special action.
According to another internal DHS document obtained by WND, the department more recently directed customs officers to escort passengers identified by "one-day lookouts" to secondary inspection, where they are subjected to a battery of questions to determine if they have visited terror camps in Pakistan.
American citizens of Pakistani descent also are under increased scrutiny. Over the past few years, U.S. authorities have arrested or investigated several Pakistani-American men who have trained at the camps during trips to Pakistan. One camp used photos of President Bush for target practice.
"The camps are a big concern," said a DHS official, who requested anonymity. "We are questioning U.S. citizens, as well as Pakistani nationals, as they come back to the states if the computer says they might have terrorist ties."
FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier this month cited the threat posed by the Pakistani terror-training camps while briefing Congress about the bureau's expanded investigative powers, which officially go into effect Oct. 1.
"We know that in western Pakistan now that there are camps in which individuals are being trained. The U.K. knows that very well because individuals who were involved in the 2005 attacks and later attacks had traveled to Pakistan for training in the camps and then come back," Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee. "I believe the American public would want us to do what is necessary to try to identify persons who had traveled to Pakistan, whatever their heritage, whatever their background, whatever their ethnicity, to determine who has gone to Pakistan to obtain that training and may be coming back to the United States to undertake an attack."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., complained the new investigative rules would give FBI agents license to racially profile citizens.
FBI officials noted that the Marriott blast, which killed both U.S. Defense and State Department officials, signaled new techniques by al-Qaida-trained suicide terrorists. The dump-truck bomb they used was so massive, leaving a crater 30 feet deep and 60 feet wide, that it managed to severely damage the building even from beyond the concrete barriers protecting the perimeter of the building.
Also, investigators said that the hotel – a high-profile target that was used by Western diplomats as well as the CIA – had been targeted at least twice previously for attack, just as the U.S. embassy in Yemen had been hit in minor operations before this month's full-scale attack.
The repeat attacks indicate the terrorists are testing security, experts say. It also indicates they will keep coming back to the same target until they are successful in destroying it.
In the U.S., the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1993 and then again in 2001. A target the hijackers intended to strike but failed to hit on 9/11 was the U.S. Capitol. Terror analysts believe the Pentagon remains an al-Qaida target as well, since it was only partially damaged in the 9/11 operation.
GPS 'spoofing' could threaten national security
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26992456
Computers have been hacked for decades. But now, scientists at Cornell University and Virginia Tech are now warning about the dangers of "spoofing," or hacking into the Global Positioning System (GPS) that controls everything from car navigation to national power grids.
"The average person doesn't realize how much infrastructure is based on GPS and how vulnerable it is," said Brent Ledvina of Virginia Tech, who helped build a spoofer to show weaknesses in the system. "But the truth is that a lot can be done about these vulnerabilities."
A GPS receiver detects signals from about 30 orbiting satellites. Based on the time it takes for the signal to reach the receiver and the direction it came from, the receiver can triangulate an exact time and place, down to hundreds of nanoseconds, according to Ledvina.
The easiest way to mess with a GPS device is simply to jam it, or create a false GPS signal that overpowers the real GPS signal. In this case, the victim would know about the sabotage right away; often the GPS receiver simply doesn't work.
The second, more sinister, method is called spoofing. In spoofing, the intended target doesn't know that the signal received from a GPS unit is wrong: A spoofer creates a false GPS signal that passes as a real GPS signal, and an incorrect time or location appears on the intended receiver.
"It looks exactly like a real GPS signal," said Ledvina. "Everything looks completely normal, but the spoofer is controlling your position in time and space."
Being a couple microseconds off of the real time might not sound like a big deal to the average consumer with a GPS car navigation system, but GPS has spread far beyond what its creators envisioned in the 1970s.
Being even 10 microseconds off could cause power generators, some of which use GPS signals to sync electrical grids to power stations, to explode, said Ledvina. Air traffic controllers use GPS to help avoid plane collisions. Banks time-stamp financial transactions using GPS. Police attach GPS receivers to criminals to monitor their activities.
At its worst, successfully spoofing a GPS receiver could mean plane crashes and exploding generators. A more likely scenario, said Paul Kintner of Cornell University, is less disastrous but still illicit -- people could falsify their geographic or chronological position to avoid house arrest or authorities, for instance.
"Apparently fisherman are required to carry a GPS monitoring unit and already have made crude attempts at spoofing," said Kintner. "There are likely more examples of where people do not want to be tracked that would gladly pay for a spoofer."
The good news is that, for now, it is still pretty hard to create a spoofer. Some of the study authors have been working on GPS technology for more than 15 years now. Kintner estimates it cost them over $1 million to build their spoofer (including manufacturing costs). Ledvina says the hardware alone was about $1,000.
The spoofer itself was the size of a briefcase and was plugged into the wall. The scientists also connected the spoofer to a GPS receiver with a cable instead of broadcasting the signal, which would have violated FCC regulations.
If they had broadcast the signal it would only go a few meters, which means the spoofer and the intended receiver would have to be physically close. Eventually the size of a spoofer could decrease to about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
That said, it only took two part-time students about a week of work each to build the spoofer. The cost of hardware and the expertise necessary to build the next spoofer will drop quickly as well, as Ledvina illustrates.
"Ten years ago it would have taken a grad student a few weeks to jam a GPS receiver," said Ledvina. "Now Virginia Tech probably has 100 students who, with the right equipment, could build a jammer in about ten minutes." Ledvina expects a similar trend to follow spoofing.
Spoofing is not a new concern.
In 2001, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a report on GPS that laid out six countermeasures to deter spoofing, such as adding additional, non-GPS instrumentation, or keeping humans in charge of decision instead of leaving them up to computers. But such measures can be expensive, and they don't necessarily solve the problem.
The Cornell and VT team has successfully found a way around five of the six countermeasures, and are currently working to crack the last one.
The only GPS systems that can't be spoofed are military systems used by some soldiers and GPS guided "smart-bombs," says Richard Langley, a GPS researcher at the University of New Brunswick who reviewed the Cornell and Virginia Tech research.
"The military GPS signals are protected against spoofing by using a secret encryption, so that only receivers with that encryption technology can access the signal," said Langley. "There is no such protection for civilian GPS use."
The large number of civilian GPS devices makes civilian encryption impractical, but it also goes against the creator's original purpose in developing GPS, which was to provide free access to anyone anywhere, said Langley.
Kitner and Ledvina are clearly concerned about the effect that releasing this information to the general public would have. They are, after all, exposing major flaws in vital systems. But ultimately, they released the information in the hope that it would inspire GPS manufacturers and others to put safety measures in place.
"We have a technology-dependent society, and that makes us more vulnerable," said Kintner.
Report warns of dangers to US with rise of China
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/01/new-us-defenses-sought-to-counter-beijing-buildup/
The United States needs new weapon systems, including missile defenses and other advanced military capabilities, to deter and counter China's steady buildup of nuclear and conventional arms, according to a draft internal report by a State Department advisory board.
U.S. defense policy has stressed missile defenses against Iran and North Korea. The report, by the Secretary of State's International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), is the first to recommend such defenses against China, including technology in space.
The draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, said Chinese strategy goes beyond building forces capable of retaking the island of Taiwan. China seeks to "break out" by projecting power beyond its region including sea lanes that carry energy resources for its modernization, the document said.
"Using superior U.S. military technical capacities, the United States should undertake the development of new weapons, sensors, communications, and other programs and tactics to convince China that it will not be able to overcome the U.S. militarily," the report said.
The draft report presents a tough assessment of Chinese strategic modernization that goes beyond many current government and private-sector analyses that say that China's military modernization does not pose a major challenge to U.S. security interests.
For example, in an interview with The Washington Times in March, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden expressed professional "admiration" for China's rapid and sophisticated buildup and said it is "not inevitable that they will be an enemy." The report said that to reduce the chance of a miscalculation by China that could lead to a crisis or conflict, the United States "must take seriously China's challenge to U.S. military superiority in the Asia-Pacific region. ... China's military modernization is proceeding at a rate ... to be of concern even with the most benign interpretation of China's motivation."
Chinese Embassy spokesman Wang Baodong said in a statement that China is "naturally becoming stronger and more influential in world affairs" after 30 years of reform, but remains committed to peaceful development and a "foreign policy of peace."
"China will not harm anyone or pose a threat to anyone. China's development is opportunity, not threat. Any versions of China threat will continue to be proved fallacious," he said.
Mr. Wang also said his government is "committed to the peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question and the peaceful reunification" of the island with the mainland.
The draft by the 17-member advisory board has not been officially released. A State Department official familiar with the report said it is in the late stages and could be completed in the next several weeks.
The official said the report's stark assessment of China's strategy and forces was in line with the board's mandate to provide frank advice to the secretary of state from analysts outside government.
The draft report said China's "major objective is to counter U.S. presence and U.S. military capabilities in East Asia through the acquisition of offensive capacities in critical functional areas that systematically exploit U.S. vulnerabilities." It said the buildup involves capabilities for "asymmetric warfare," such as space and computer weapons, that could help Chinese forces defeat a stronger U.S. military.
Among the areas of U.S. strategic vulnerability identified in the report are gaps in U.S. missile defenses; dependence on space for communications; the U.S. inability to use force against China except through aircraft carrier groups; and "fragile electronics and the Internet." The report recommends that the United States acquire new offensive space and cyber warfare capabilities and missile defenses as well as "more robust sea- and space-based capabilities" to deter any crisis over Taiwan.
China currently has about 20 missiles capable of reaching the United States but is projected to have more than 100 nuclear missiles, some likely with multiple warheads, by 2015, the report said.
Among the key findings:
• Continued rapid economic growth of 10 percent a year is "vital" for China to continue to compete with the United States and achieve its main goals of regime survival and regional dominance.
• China's industrial and defense espionage is aimed at obtaining advanced technology for economic and military modernization.
• The scale, scope and speed of China's rise fundamentally impacts U.S. national security, yet the U.S. "possesses only a limited understanding of Chinese intentions, and how Beijing's economic and military expansion affects these interests."
• China's military and civilian leaders are not always on the same page and that separation is a potential "focal point" for mitigating hostility. China's civilian leaders understand Americans but the Chinese military suffers from "clear paranoia and misperceptions" about U.S. intentions.
• To avoid an "emerging creep" by China toward strategic nuclear coercion, "the United States will need to pursue new missile defense capabilities, including taking full advantage of space," the report said.
On China's expansion after centuries as a regional power, the ISAB report stated that: "In China's view, Taiwan is the key to breakout: If China is to become a global power, the first step must include control of this island." Taking over the island would allow China to control the seas near its coasts and to project power eastward, the report said.
China views Taiwan, where nationalist forces fled from the mainland in 1949, as central to "the legitimacy of the regime and key to power projection," the report said. Taiwan also is seen by China as a way to deny the United States a key ally in "a highly strategic location" of the western Pacific, the report said.
Chinese authorities have said they desire peaceful reunification with Taiwan but will not allow it to declare formal independence and have not ruled out the use of force.
The advisory panel report also recommended that the U.S. increase sales of advanced conventional forces to allies in Asia and improve counterintelligence efforts.
Larry M. Wortzel, chairman of the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said he has not seen the report but that blocking Taiwan independence and gaining control of the island "is one of the highest priorities set for the People's Liberation Army by the Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee and the Central Military Commission." "If China accomplishes this, its military can concentrate on missions to expand China's presence, influence, and even control, in wider areas of the Asia-Pacific region," he said.
Mr. Wang, the Chinese Embassy spokesman, said China's budget for 2007 was $45 billion, or 1.4 percent of gross domestic product. He said this year's defense budget is $57.2 billion, an increase of 17.6 percent.
The United States spends about 4 percent of GDP on defense, according to the CIA World Factbook.
However, the Pentagon's latest annual report on China's military stated that China's military spending figures do not include spending on China's space program, strategic forces, foreign acquisitions, military-related research and development and paramilitary forces.
Pentagon: China Cancels Some Military Contacts
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,433501,00.html
WASHINGTON — China has canceled some military contacts with the Pentagon as a result of America's recent announcement of a planned arms sale to Taiwan, a Pentagon official said Monday.
Beijing has notified the U.S. that it will not go forward with some senior level visits and some other cooperative military-to-military plans, said Marine Maj. Stewart Upton, a Defense Department spokesman, told The Associated Press.
"In response to Friday's announcement of Taiwan arms sales, the People's Republic of China canceled or postponed several upcoming military-to-military exchanges," he said.
Beijing is angry over the U.S. decision to sell Taiwan a huge package of military items including guided missiles and attack helicopters.
Upton said this does not represent a change in U.S. policy and that "China's continued politicization of our military relationship results in missed opportunities."
A call seeking comment from the Chinese Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned.
Russia Preparing For Confrontation with US & Nato?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/27/russia
Russia announced an overhaul of its strategic nuclear forces and army yesterday, in the clearest sign yet that Moscow may be preparing for a possible full-scale military confrontation with the US and Nato.
Speaking after Russia carried out its biggest military exercises since the cold war, Dmitry Medvedev, the president, said Russia would build a space defence system and a fleet of nuclear submarines by 2020.
This summer's brief war with Georgia, which led to a further rift between Moscow and the west, showed the need for Russia to have a strong military in a state of "permanent readiness", Medvedev said.
His defence initiative is the biggest in Russia for at least a decade. It comes amid bitter opposition from Moscow to Washington's plan to site a missile defence system in central Europe - a project the Kremlin says upsets Europe's strategic balance. The move is also a riposte to US-backed plans for Georgia and Ukraine to join Nato.
Moscow opposes Nato's further expansion, arguing that it challenges its regional "privileged interests". Moscow also accuses the US of encouraging, and even participating in, Georgia's attack on the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia.
"Just recently we had to rebuff aggression unleashed by the Georgian regime. As we discovered, a local smouldering conflict - even occasionally a frozen one - can flare up into a genuine war," Medvedev said, addressing Russian troops.
He said Russia needed a "guaranteed nuclear deterrent system" in place by 2020. The armed forces had to be prepared for "various political and military scenarios," he warned.
He promised large-scale construction of warships, including nuclear submarines armed with cruise missiles, and also announced plans for a system of air and space defence. The president promised to improve living conditions for Russian soldiers, as well as better military education and training.
He was speaking after watching an military exercise in the southern Urals. Yesterday one leading analyst said the exercise - which involved 40,000 troops, 7,300 pieces of heavy equipment and nuclear-capable missiles - was designed to simulate a war with the US.
"This is very significant. Right now the present Russian leadership believes that a war with Nato is very much possible," Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based defence analyst, told the Guardian. "This is the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union that the Russian military is actually preparing for an all-out nuclear war with America."
He added: "I believe we [the Russians] are sending the west a serious message. The message is treat us with respect, and if you don't go into our backyard we won't go into yours. Russia wants to divide the world into spheres of influence. If not, we will prepare for nuclear war."
Felgenhauer said Russia's military was old but still effective. "Our military is backward in its development. But we still have a sizeable nuclear potential. It can kill a hell of a lot of people," he said.
Russia's conflict with Georgia worsened tensions with the US that had been building since Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy and Medvedev's predecessor, came to power in 2000 and began reasserting Russia's status as a world power.
Russia's military endured years of under-funding following the collapse of the Soviet Union, with its warships and aircraft sitting idle for long periods. Analysts say the nuclear deterrent did not suffer the same neglect.
The Kremlin, now sitting on a large cash pile after several years of high oil and gas prices, has already injected large sums into reviving the military.
Putin, now prime minister, announced earlier this month that nearly $95bn (£51.5bn) would be allocated to defence and security in 2009. That is a 27% increase on the previous year.
Russia to deploy new nuclear missile
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4915BN20081002?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
Russia hopes to deploy a new nuclear missile next year designed to penetrate anti-missile defenses and will build eight submarines to carry it, defense officials said on Thursday.
The latest statements underline Moscow's determination to upgrade its nuclear strike forces on land, sea and air. They are regarded by Russian commanders as the cornerstone of the country's defenses.
Colonel-General Vladimir Popovkin, head of armaments for the Russian armed forces, told the Defense Ministry newspaper "Red Star" that Russia's recent war with Georgia "compels us to rethink the current state of the armed forces and how they should develop further."
President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have both pledged to extend Russia's recent military build-up with extra funds to buy new, high-tech arms. On Wednesday, Putin announced an extra $3.1 billion of spending next year, partly to replace equipment lost in the Georgia war.
The deputy commander in chief of the Russian navy, Admiral Alexander Tatarinov, said on Thursday that by 2015 Moscow would build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines to carry a new, nuclear-capable strategic missile.
"The navy has gone over to building ships and nuclear submarines by the batch," Tatarinov told Interfax news agency.
"A new state armaments program includes a plan to build a batch of eight nuclear submarines that would be armed with new Bulava strategic missiles."
Defense analysts based in Moscow say much of the extra spending has not reached the front line because of corruption or mismanagement and many weapons programs are running late.
One of these is the Bulava, a submarine-launched long-range nuclear missile which Putin says will be capable of penetrating any missile defenses -- a reference to Washington's plans for a new global system to shoot down hostile rockets.
The Bulava, a modified version of the land-based Topol-M, has had a checkered history with several test launch failures and is running at least two years late.
The navy pronounced the latest Bulava exercise on September 18 a success, saying the missile flew from the White Sea across Russia to the Far East.
Popovkin, who is also deputy defense minister, said he hoped the armed forces would accept the Bulava for service next year. Upgrading Russia's strategic nuclear forces remained a priority because they were the cornerstone of its defenses, he said.
"As long as we are a nuclear power, no hotheads will venture to attack our country," Popovkin said in the interview.
" ... We have already this year started fitting out strategic nuclear forces with the Topol-M missile," he added.
Russia also plans to modernize its nuclear-capable Tupolev TU-160 supersonic strategic bombers and to fully commission the first nuclear-powered submarine to carry the Bulava missile, he added.
Russian nuclear stealth bomber was able to fly within 90 seconds of the British coast without being picked up by radar
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1064713/Russian-nuclear-bomber-flies-undetected-20-miles-Hull.html
A Russian nuclear stealth bomber was able to fly within 90 seconds of the British coast without being picked up by radar, it was revealed today.
The supersonic 'Blackjack' jet flew completely undetected to within just 20 miles from Hull in one of the worst breaches of British security since the end of the Cold War.
RAF radar eventually picked up the plane, but the only two pairs of fighter jets used for air alerts were on other duties.
The embarrassing breach late last year has called into question Britain's defence capabilities after four jet squadrons were cut from the RAF's budget four years ago.
One senior RAF pilot told The Sun: 'The Russians made us look helpless. It was a disaster - it basically gave the Russians the green light to fly wherever they want.'
The supersonic jet had taken off from Engel's Air Base near Saratov on Russia's Volga delta.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the incursion took place but said it had a 'multi-layered' approach to deterring enemy aircraft.
U.K. Court Recognizes Threat to Christian Converts From Islam
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080930/u-k-court-recognizes-threat-to-christian-converts.htm
A U.K. immigration court of appeals has for the first time recognized the life threatening circumstances of Muslim converts to Christianity by granting asylum to a Syrian evangelical Christian couple.
In an unprecedented victory, the European Center for Law and Justice (ECLJ) helped a young couple (whose identity is being withheld for security reasons) gain refugee status in the United Kingdom.
The court recognized that the couple would face real physical threats, including death, if they return to Syria, the country of origin of the husband. The appeal was granted on both asylum and human rights grounds.
"This is a significant and groundbreaking decision that clearly puts the focus on the fact that many converts to Christianity from Islam face real danger including the ultimate penalty of death," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of both the ECLJ and its U.S.-based affiliate the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), in a statement.
He added, "This important decision will not go unnoticed in the international arena and we're delighted that it provides protection for Christian converts who are at great risk because of their faith and their desire to share it."
The couple had converted to evangelical Christianity a few years ago – the husband in 2003 and the wife in 2005 – and has thereafter openly witness their Christian faith to Muslims via internet chat rooms.
After their conversion, which is considered apostasy under Sharia law and punishable by death, the couple began receiving death threats, including a video of a beheading.
Also, the husband's family told him if he refused to return to Islam then they would "wash their shame," or put him to death.
"This is truly a landmark day in the United Kingdom as a nation awakens to the ever-growing threat of radical Islam and the plight of Christians in the Middle East," said Roger Kiska, Legal Counsel of the ECLJ who represented the couple at the U.K. appeals court. "I couldn't be happier with the decision and the role that ECLJ played in the case."
The ECLJ and ACLJ have worked closely together on the case. The ACLJ helped gather the signatures of six members of the U.S. Congress in a letter to the U.K. appeals court in August.
Members of Congress had urged the appeals court to protect the couple and acknowledge that they "would face severe religious persecution as a result of their conversion from Islam to Christianity."
American lawmakers also recognized that the couple faced a "credible threat" and that their lives were in danger.
Britain to Spy On Every Call, Email and Text
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/britain_spying_emails/2008/10/06/137846.html
A top secret program being developed by British spymasters soon may allow them to snoop on every computer, text message and phone call in the United Kingdom, according to plans revealed this week.
The program — called the Interception Modernization Program — is part of a $20 billion effort being pushed by GCHQ, the government's secret eavesdropping agency, according to the Times of London. It would easily be the largest surveillance system ever created in Britain, and quite possibly any Western democracy.
The British already have a sophisticated closed-circuit TV (CCTV) system that covers large metropolitan areas of the country. The linked system of cameras with full pan, tilt, zoom and infrared capability allows continuous surveillance in central business districts.
Tens of thousands of other cameras available to the police operate in phone booths, vending machines, buses, trains, taxis, alongside motorways and inside automatic teller machines. Using a technology called automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), the system can store license plate numbers into databases to determine the movement of suspect cars.
Now the country's two major spie services, MI-5 and MI-6, want to carry that capability into mobile phones and computers, reported the Daily Express of London. The goal is a "live tap" on every electronic communication in Britain. Critics say it will dwarf CCTV, ANPR and literally record the data usage of every person in the U.K.
The nation's spy bosses have told British officials that a system is needed to "capture" the array of communications between terrorists planning to attack Britain. Draft emails, chatroom discussions and internet browsing on encrypted jihadist websites are the preferred forums for al-Qaida cells to plan their attacks. They make up "friendship trees" in which separate terror cells communicate with one another.
British conservatives and civil libertarains are especially concerned over the ethical implications of granting such power to government agencies with little oversight.
"This would be a massive infringement of human rights," conservative councillor Jacky Fletcher told reporters.
"I am all in favor of policing and I believe there do need to be special measures in place to track terror suspects," Fletcher said. "But those measures already exist. You can get court orders to track messages and other things for limited periods of time."
There are 18 million broadband internet connections in the United Kingdom, while 57 billion texts and three billion emails are sent each year.
In the UK, telephone and internet companies must give details of calls or Web use to law enforcement agencies if a senior officer certifies that it is needed for an investigation. For the security services, a minister must give approval; for the police, a chief constable.
In the United States, meanwhile, obtaining permission to tap is harder. The government requires a special order approved by FBI officials to demand data on telephone calls and internet use. To intercept communications, the FBI needs a court order.
Russia using food exports to expand influence
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3089124/Russia-uses-big-wheat-yield-as-a-foreign-policy-tool.html
The largest wheat harvest in 15 years is expected to yield 51 million tons, of which a record-breaking 15 million are earmarked for export. Only the US and Canada are expected to export more.
The boom comes as the Kremlin's influence in the Middle East grows, with trade volumes at record levels and increasing collaboration in the energy sector.
Russia's grain trade may prove as controversial as its involvement in energy markets, because it was announced in July that the industry, now mainly in the hands of private traders, would soon be amalgamated into one trading company under Kremlin control.
Iraq has bought 200,000 tons of Russian hard milling wheat at $300 a ton. It is the second large sale of Russian wheat since July.
"In the last few years there has been an increase in Russian wheat exports not just in absolute terms, but also in terms of global market share," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a grain analyst at the Food and Agriculture Organisation at the United Nations. "This year Russia will export perhaps twice as much wheat as Argentina, one of the top five traditional wheat exporters."
In the 19th century Russia and Ukraine were the bread basket of Europe, but production dropped under Josef Stalin's forced collectivisation policy and by the end of the Cold War the Soviet bloc had become a net wheat importer.
Now thanks to rising world food prices and a new law allowing foreigners to own land, Russia is once again exporting. With the proximity of Black Sea ports to wheat-deficient Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Russian wheat has a competitive edge.
Experts believe that Russia has huge potential for growth – millions of acres of farmland lie fallow and vast expanses of fertile land have never been farmed at all.
"Russia is replacing the EU as a supplier in North Africa and also in parts of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa," said Mr Abbassian. "This was not expected in such a short space of time."
Russia: 64% of Pregnancies End in Abortion, thousands left infertile from abortion complications
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08100103.html
Alarmingly high abortion rates in Russia are leaving an increasing number of women infertile, said Marina Tarasova, deputy head of the St. Petersburg Research Institute For Gynecology and Obstetrics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at an international conference on Monday.
The St. Petersburg Times reported that with 64 percent of Russian women procuring abortions, 200,000 to 250,000 women each year are stripped of their biological ability to procreate because of permanent effects from the procedure.
"Over the past five years, female infertility in Russia has increased by 14 percent, and over 1.5 million Russians need advanced medical technology to become pregnant and maintain a healthy pregnancy," Tarasova said.
She also mentioned that by the end of last year, there were 5.5 million infertile couples in the country.
In the teenage population, one in four women have a gynecological ailment or reproductive disorder. Furthermore, over the last five years, there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of women aged 15-17 who have experienced these health problems.
The Russian government is attempting to promote family values within the country, naming 2008, "The Year of the Family." Abortions, however, are still offered free of charge at all state clinics.
4 European nations call for new EU body to supervise banks
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93K2VJG0&show_article=1
PARIS, Oct. 5 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Four major European nations agreed Saturday to set up within the European Union a body to supervise banks as part of their efforts to stem the spread of the financial turmoil, triggered by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, in Europe.
In a statement released after an emergency summit in Paris to deal with the financial crisis, leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy said mechanisms should be established within the European Union to oversee cross-border European financial institutions and enhance international cooperation.
The four nations also agreed that should public support be necessary for ailing financial institutions, it should take place in "a framework which recognizes adequate protection of taxpayers' money, the responsibility of managers, and shareholders to bear their share of the burden."
They welcome the decision of the European Investment Bank to mobilize 30 billion euros of support for small and medium size European enterprises and urge the bank to frontload this effort, the statement said.
The four European Group of Eight member nations also agreed that the application of the Stability and Growth Pact, which governs fiscal policies of EU member states, should "reflect the current exceptional circumstances."
The pact requires EU member states to limit the size of their budget deficit to less than 3 percent of gross domestic product.
But the agreement by Britain, France, Germany and Italy suggests they will tolerate the deficit of an EU member state breaching the 3 percent of GDP threshold if it occurs as a result of the nationalization of failed financial institutions.
The four nations also expressed strong support for the recent actions taken by the European Central Bank and other European central banks to respond to the financial crisis and pledged to "take all the necessary measures" to ensure the soundness and stability of the European banking and financial system.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a press conference after the summit that an emergency G-8 summit should be convened to discuss and come up with global countermeasures for the crisis.
In addition to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, other European leaders, including ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet attended the summit.
EU Pressures Iran to Drop Apostasy Bill
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081001/eu-lauded-for-pressing-iran-to-drop-apostasy-bill.htm
A Christian human rights group applauded the European Union for issuing a declaration to Iran that urged the repressive state to drop its draft apostasy bill and to release Christian converts from detention.
"We warmly welcome this strong reaction from the EU to Iran's proposed apostasy bill," said Christian Solidarity Worldwide's advocacy director, Tina Lambert, in a statement Tuesday. "If the legislation is passed by the Iranian parliament there will be dire consequences for thousands of Christians living in Iran."
In September, Iran's parliament had overwhelmingly approved a bill, named the Islamic Penal Code, which would punish apostasy with the death penalty. The bill proposed adding apostasy to a list of crimes that would result in execution.
The European Union, in response, released a declaration last Friday that challenged the Iranian parliament to rethink passing the bill into law.
"The European Union urges the Islamic Republic of Iran to reconsider its decision to examine the law in question, release all those who have been imprisoned because of their religious affiliation and allow all its citizens to exercise their freedom of religion or belief in full," read the EU letter.
It also expressed concerns over the arrests of members of religious minorities, including Iranian converts to Christianity and members of the Bahai community. The EU called for this "immediate" and "unconditional" release and the end to all "forms of violence and discrimination against them."
Among the arrested Christian converts are Mahmoud Mohammad Matin-Azad, 53, and Arash Ahmad-Ali Basirat, 40, who have been detained since May 15. Both were charged with apostasy just days before the first stage approval of the bill.
If the apostasy bill does pass, both the converts' lives would be in serious danger.
"The international community must continue to urge the Iranian Government to release all those detained on the basis of their religious affiliation and respect their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," CSW's Lambert declared.
"CSW joins the EU in requesting the Iranian parliament to drop this bill without delay."
The bill is to be sent back to the Legislative Commission for amendment proposals before it is returned to Parliament for another vote.
Iran is ranked third in Open Doors' World Watch List for countries with the worst persecution of Christians.
IRAN: Teheran send letter of protest to Solana
http://www.agi.it/world/news/200810061748-pol-ren0064-art.html
Teheran, Oct 6 – Iran has prepared a letter to protest the measures taken by the international community against its nuclear programme. The text, "two pages""a spokesman of the Supreme Council for National Security, Ahmad Khademolmelleh, explained, will be handed over "in the coming hours" to the European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana.
NATO chief does not expect Israel to abandon its "supposed nuclear arsenal"
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5634
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday he doubted that the world could stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb. Therefore, as a result of Iran's nuclear activities, he would never expect Israel to abandon its own, "supposed nuclear arsenal." Scheffer added: "As we all know, Israel never admits to what it has, but I do not see very many arguments for the Jewish state to abandon its potential." The NATO chief was addressing a World Policy Conference organized by France's IFRI foreign affairs think tank in southeast France.
"My concern is that the Security Council, as we speak, is rather incapable of coming to further conclusions on further sanctions," Scheffer said.
"What is as dangerous (as the nuclear program) is the missile technology which (Iran) is also developing at a fast pace," he said. "This becomes an element for the security of the United States and of course Europe.
Iran has a series of medium-range missiles, which experts say could target Israel. Tehran has also said it is working on long-range missiles.
Jews – It's YOUR land; when will you JUST SAY SO!
http://www.stangoodenough.com/?p=158
It is true, Israel, that:
The entire world insists you surrender your historic heartland to which untold millions of Jews prayed and longed to return to through the centuries.
The world's 1.2 billion Muslims believe Allah has ordained that no sovereign Jewish state can exist in Dar-el-Islam (the world of Islam)
Great numbers of Islam's adherents hate you with an unquenchable hatred and are ready to sacrifice their lives to destroy yours.
It is true that:
The European Union has leaders and members who consider the 1948 rebirth of the State of Israel as the worst thing to have happened in the 20th Century.
The majority of polled Europeans believe that Israel poses the greatest threat to world peace today.
Belligerent, resurgent Russia plans to assist your Middle Eastern enemies in eventually squeezing you out of the region and out of existence.
The United Nations has voted for more resolutions condemning Israel than all its other condemnations combined.
It is true that:
Your own media, and not only left-wing newspapers like Ha'aretz and Yediot Ahronot (Ynetnews) but even the centrist The Jerusalem Post – have either enthusiastically embraced or reluctantly succumbed to employing the epithet "West Bank" that delegitimizes the Jews' claim to their heartland – even though Israel's mountain spine has for millennia been known as Samaria and Judea (Judea – From which you get your national designation, JEW!)
You have only got one friend in the community of nations and but for Washington's veto in the UN Security Council and its numerous acts of support for your nation you would – barring Divine intervention – have already been erased from the map of the world.
As a result you feel obligated to jump as high as the Americans "ask" you to; after all, you feel, you do OWE them.
It is also true that:
Most of your leaders going all the way back to David Ben Gurion and, before him, to the great Zionist visionaries Theodore Herzl and Chaim Weizmann have been avowed secularists or agnostics and not G-d-fearing Jews.
Many (most?) of you are like them, and you do not believe there is any way on earth you can defy, or stand against, all these overwhelming odds. And there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you can win support for any claim you might make to actually OWNING the land everyone is breathing down your neck to surrender.
BUT IT IS YOUR LAND. AND YOU HAVE EVERY REASON AND RIGHT TO SAY SO.
If you truly love your people, then it is your clear DUTY to say so.
I want to ask you something, dear Am Yisrael
Do you know of any other nation that has ever existed in ALL OF HISTORY that has so globally and for millennium after millennium massively and positively impacted mankind?
Do you know of any other nation that can claim to have survived EVERY EFFORT the mind of evil man could conceive to eradicate them?
Do you know of any other nation that has been decimated by war, its survivors driven into exile, then rendered repeatedly homeless over thousands of years, driven out of country after country, forced en masse to convert or die, made the scapegoat for every major national ill, ultimately devoured in an industrial death machine leaving a pitiful few million remaining, and has still SURVIVED?
And not only survived, but returned to their original country and there been reconstituted as a nation, restoring thriving life to their destitute land, resurrecting their original language, withstanding overwhelming and unrelenting efforts to militarily crush them, indeed becoming a nation "in a day" and rapidly racing to the frontlines of hi-tech and other industrial development that never stops and cannot be outdone?
Let me tell you, NO NATION COMES CLOSE TO YOURS. Israel, you are one amazing M-I-R-A-C-L-E.
And behind every miracle is one amazing G-D.
He is YOUR G-d. The L-rd G-d of ISRAEL. He has named Himself after you. With Him on your side you CANNOT BE OUTNUMBERED and YOU WILL NOT BE UNDONE.
G-d foretold everything that you would experience as a nation; everything I have listed above, and more. He promised to preserve you among the nations and to return you from exile TO THE SAME LAND FROM WHICH YOU WERE DRIVEN 2000 years ago.
AND WHAT'S MORE:
He has promised to keep you in this Land, to go to war against Your enemies on your behalf, and to wipe out all those who seek to destroy you. He has sworn to bless those who bless you, and He has vowed to curse those who curse you. This is the pledge and the commitment of your Father in heaven, the Creator of all things.
He does not lie. He is not impressed by numbers. He is not fearful for your future. In fact, as He sits enthroned high above the earth your G-d, dear Israel, is laughing to scorn all nations and all religions that hate you.
Hear what your great King David said of Him:
"The L-RD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
The G-d of my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation,
My stronghold and my refuge;
My Savior, You save me from violence. …
"For You are my lamp, O L-RD;
The L-RD shall enlighten my darkness.
For by You I can run against a troop;
By my G-d I can leap over a wall.
As for G-d, His way is perfect;
The word of the L-RD is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him…" (2 Samuel 22:2,3, 29-31)
David also says:
For who is G-d, except the L-RD?
And who is a rock, except our G-d?
It is G-d who arms me with strength,
And makes my way perfect.
He makes my feet like the feet of deer,
And sets me on my high places.
He teaches my hands to make war ,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. (Psalm 18:31-34)
As asG-d messaged you through His prophet Jeremiah:
Thus says the L-RD, your Redeemer,
And He who formed you from the womb:
"I am the L-RD, who makes all things,
Who stretches out the heavens all alone,
Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;
Who frustrates the signs of the babblers,
And drives diviners mad;
Who turns wise men backward,
And makes their knowledge foolishness;
Who confirms the word of His servant,
And performs the counsel of His messengers;
Who says to Jerusalem, 'You shall be inhabited,'
To the cities of Judah, 'You shall be built,'
And I will raise up her waste places…" (Isaiah 44:24-26)
And as He promises you through Zechariah:
"The L-RD will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall not become greater than that of Judah. In that day the L-RD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like G-, like the Angel of the L-D before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem…." (Zechariah 12:7-9)
Israel, if you look around you, you may have much reason to fear. And if you put your trust in man, or in a nation, you will surely be let down.
But if you look to the One who still gazes on you with love, to Whom you remain His special treasure and the apple of His eye, and if you put your trust in Him, your fear will leave you and your hope will be restored.
Trust in your G-d, Israel, and lay claim to the land He has given to you, EXCLUSIVELY AND FOREVER.
From the River to the Sea, and more: THIS LAND IS YOURS.
Livni spells out her 'peace' policy in front of EU, US diplomats
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2532
If she becomes Israel's next prime minister, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will push ahead with the Annapolis process (the latest appelation affixed to the US-pushed land-for-peace effort) with the aim of reaching a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinian Arab leadership.
This is according to Livni's first policy speech since being elected to the chair of Israel's ruling Kadima Party, and which was delivered Sunday to a Jerusalem audience that included ambassadors of the US, France and Germany as well as representatives of the PLO.
"Annapolis will continue," she said, but added that Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas was not in a politically-strong enough position to accept the kind of blanket offer of land made by outgoing premier Ehud Olmert last week.
Nevertheless, both Israel and the PLO should "not allow dates or political changes to stand in our way.
"The point is to understand the required concessions in order to conduct a correct process," Livni said.
Those "concessions" amount to nothing less than Israel's surrender of the cradle of Jewish civilization in exchange for Arab promises of peace.
Livni has spent many hours in close and intense discussion with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who is pushing hard for an Israeli-PA agreement of some form or other to be signed by year's end.
The Israeli is working to cobble together a coalition which she would head up as prime minister if she succeeds.
Israelis and Christians opposed to this suicidal diplomatic direction are praying the Kadima Party will implode over increasingly prevalent internal differences and that Livni will not succeed to form a government.
Does Livni Share Olmert's Plan To Give Away Golan, Most of Eastern Jerusalem?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127806
Israel must give away the Golan Heights and most of eastern Jerusalem, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview with the Hebrew daily newspaper Yediot Acharonot on Friday.
Olmert has previously said he had not promised Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel would end its sovereignty over the strategic Golan area, which was annexed to the Jewish State decades ago.
However, in the weekend interview the lame duck prime minister maintained, "One more hill, another 100 meters – this is not what is going to change the security of Israel." Olmert said that Damascus would be forced to end its ties with Iran in exchange for peace and Israel's relinquishing the Golan Heights.
In an address at the opening of the winter session of the Knesset in 2006, Olmert told lawmakers that negotiations with Syria would require some changes in Damascus: "One makes peace with those who eschew terrorism and not those who host the headquarters of terror organizations. You make peace with those who have made a strategic decision to advocate a moderate policy and not those who assist in the arming of a terror organization which threatens regional stability…
"Israel will consent to making peace with the President of Syria only if he makes a genuine strategic decision to renounce terrorism, and not with a leader who uses the language of peace as a tactic to divert the world's attention from other issues."
Olmert vowed exactly two years ago this week, "As long as I am prime minister, we shall not give up the Golan for all eternity!"
His current statements, coming at the tail end of his reign while Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni tries to form a new government, now present the new Kadima party chairwoman with a policy she may have no choice but to accept.
If she does not, she risks a breakdown in the peace negotiations while running the danger of losing a coalition.
However, a majority of Knesset Members already have stated they oppose any withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
Olmert: 'Peace' agreement with PLO still possible by year's end
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2531
He's resigned and only waiting now to leave office as soon as a new government is formed, but Ehud Olmert continued Monday to promote what he called the very real possibility that Israel and the PLO arch-terror organization, also known as the Palestinian Authority, would reach an agreement before the end of the year.
This agreement, if he somehow still manages to oversee it, would mean that Israel "will withdraw in practice from nearly all of [Judea, Samaria and 'East' Jerusalem] if not from all of them."
Monday morning Olmert complained to visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas was not ready to sign an agreement despite his (Olmert's) unprecedented offer of Jewish lands.
Like all Israel's left wing, Olmert does not recognize Israel's right to fight for the biblical and historic land of Israel. As someone who does not accept God's giving of this land exclusively and forever to the Jewish people, the outgoing prime minister stated last week that the "dream" of a greater Israel is no more.
In an apparent attempt to shore up the new head of his Kadima Party, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is trying to form a new government which she would head, Olmert told reporters Monday his "peace plan" is not binding on her.
"The views on territorial exchange [not territorial exchange but territorial surrender - Ed] that I expressed in the interview are my view, only I am obligated by them, it was my opinion," he said.
They are "not binding to Mrs. Livni."
Sergei's Courtyard in downtown Jerusalem to be transferred to Russia
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5632
Caretaker prime minister Ehud Olmert will announce the transfer during his Moscow visit starting Monday, Oct. 6. His Kremlin talks are expected to focus on Russia's return to the Middle East as contributor to Iran's nuclear program and Syria's arms supplier.
The picturesque site of Sergei's Courtyard in downtown Jerusalem houses Israeli government ministries. It was built in the early 20th century as part of the Russian Orthodox Church Compound as a grand lodging for visiting Russian royals and aristocrats. In 1918, the British housed government offices in the buildings, a practice continued by Israel.
In the 1960s, Israel purchased most parts of the extensive compound from the Soviet Government, barring Sergei's Courtyard and the Russian Orthodox Church. The transaction was paid for in oranges.
The Courtyard and other Russian church properties in Israel have long been in dispute between the "Red" and the "White" Russian churches.
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel has petitioned the High Court of Justice to block the transfer. Its claim rests on the ruling by the Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz, who has said: "A caretaker government has no competence to take major and irreversible decisions to be left as an accomplished fact for its successor.
Hamas Awaiting Fatah's Collapse
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127823
The Hamas chapter in Hevron (Hebron) - a city largely under the control of the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority - says that the Fatah government must "not be talked with, but rather gotten rid of."
In a declaration issued by the terrorist organization branch office in Hevron, Hamas states that the collapse of the Fatah regime in Judea and Samaria is "just a matter of time." So reports the Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq al-Aussat.
About 100 people were killed in June 2007 when Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah. Hamas has set the destruction of Israel as its goal, and has carried out some of the worst terrorist slaughters against Israel over the past 15 years.
The Hamas charter states, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it... There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."
Hamas in Yesha?
The consequences of a Hamas regime in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) for the nearly 300,000 Jews living there, as well as for the additional hundreds of thousands living within rocket-range of these areas, can therefore only be guessed.
The latest Hamas declaration comes in anticipation of a planned "Palestinian national dialogue" session in Cairo. The Hamas chapter in Hevron calls on Hamas leaders not to take part, saying, "Fatah should be overthrown, not talked with."
Hamas Demands Release of all Prisoners, and More
"All previous talks with the Palestinian Authority have not helped at all," the declaration stated. The Hamas terrorist branch office in Hevron says that if Fatah wants dialogue with Hamas, it must first release the Hamas prisoners, re-open Hamas charity insitutions, and remove all restrictions from Hamas activities.
In the Palestinian Authority elections in January 2006, Hamas won a majority of the PA legislature, including every single seat from the city of Hevron.
War-of words for now-escalates between Israel and Hizb'allah
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2534
Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hizb'allah, always on the ebb and flow, have begun to heat up again recently, with both sides messaging each other of dire consequences in the event of another war between them.
In the event of another conflict (the last was the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2005) Israel will be ready to unleash a massive bombardment of areas under Hizb'allah's control, including residential areas used by the group.
Instead of pursuing mobile Hizb'allah missile units across southern Lebanon, the IDF will opt to punish the country itself and target population centers that provide cover and aid to the terrorists.
Speaking to the Israeli mass-circulation daily Yediot Ahronoth last weekend, the chief of the IDF's Northern Command, Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, warned Israelis not to be fooled by the relative quiet in the north.
War could erupt again, and if it does, Israel is ready to "wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction," he said.
Warfare like that would be aimed at not only vanquishing Hizb'allah but also sending an unequivocal message of deterrence against both the Lebanese and the neighboring Syrian regimes.
Hizb'allah scoffed at the threat, letting it be known Monday that "a big surprise" awaited Israel if it tangled again with the group.
"What do they imagine Hizb'allah's reaction will be? They actually say it has 40,000 missiles... Are they preparing for things that they have not considered and that others have not considered?" asked Ibrahim al-Amin, the editor of the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar described as "a senior Hizb'allah-linked journalist."
"Who said that Hizballah does not think about all of the options which the enemy will use, including those which have been mentioned recently."
Not only a Hizb'allah rocket storm, but also international outrage directed against Israel is likely should Israel's forces employ "disproportionate power."
Even Israeli surgical strikes on terrorists frequently trigger waves of condemnation from the international community.
"Hizballah Brigades of Palestine" - new Gaza-West Bank terror group
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5630
Local undercover officers of the Iranian-sponsored Hizballah established and funded this "new" Palestinian terrorist organization for "operations" under their orders, DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report. It described itself in a statement issued Saturday, Oct. 4, as a "Sunni jihad group which has nothing to do with politics", and whose members are "former members of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jhad and leftist parties." Their goals are to "carry out Jihad for the sake of Allah and resist enemies of Islam."
Our sources note that the Lebanese Hizballah's current practice is to hire members of all the Palestinian terrorist groups on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for ad hoc operations for which they are paid. The "new members" are in fact rent-a-terrorist mercenaries. Hizballah also enlists Israeli Arabs for gathering intelligence.
The Israeli high military command and counter-terror chiefs estimate that Hizballah's issued its statement to counter the stern warning from the IDF Northern Command chief, Brig. Gaby Eisenkott, that a new Hizballah rocket blitz against Israel would bring forth the destruction of Shiite villages in southern Lebanon. They would see a "second Dahya," he said (referring to the Shiite district of Beirut which the Israeli Air Force flattened in the 2006 Lebanon war).
Hizballah's replied Sunday that Israel was too weak to make war on Lebanon and if it did, would face the same defeat as before.
Egypt to host 'Annapolis 2' peace summit in November
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1025598.html
An international summit is to be held in Egypt in November, with representatives from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the members of the Quartet - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. According to a senior official in Jerusalem, the Israeli and PA participants will brief the Quartet over progress made in the ongoing peace talks.
The gathering is said to be the result of a compromise between the U.S., Israel and the Palestinians. In recent months U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been urging both sides to draft a document detailing the points of agreement in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. She suggested they compile an "inventory" detailing progress on each of the core issues, such as Jerusalem, borders, refugees' right of return, security, settlements and water rights.
Israel opposed Rice's suggestion and argued that it would set the talks back. "It would make each side harden its stance to appear as though it has made no concessions," the Israeli source said. "Finally, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni managed to persuade her Palestinian counterpart, the head of the PA negotiating team, Ahmed Qureia, to reject the inventory idea."
Instead, the parties agreed on to give a detailed briefing to the Quartet. The Israeli and PA negotiators believe that would be less binding and would allow issues to be presented more freely.
Quartet representatives met with their Arab League counterparts in New York last week and approved the proposed Israeli and Palestinian briefing. Also, Quartet members decided to hold a peace summit in Moscow next spring.
Meanwhile, the Israeli source said the November summit will probably take place in Sharm el-Sheikh on the anniversary of last year's Annapolis summit. Quartet representatives, including its Middle East envoy, former British prime minister Tony Blair, will participate as well as officials from Jordan and Egypt.
The political turmoil in Israel following the resignation of Ehud Olmert as prime minister is hampering attempts to determine the level of representation at the summit. If Livni becomes prime minister then the heads of states of other participating countries will also be required to attend. Another issue that must be reconciled before the summit is held is the difference in opinion between Livni and Olmert, who have each been holding independent talks with Palestinians.
Olmert, who has met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas every two to three weeks, has proposed that Palestinians receive 93 percent of the West Bank, and Israeli territory amounting to 5.5 percent of the West Bank as part of a land swap. According to the proposal, Israel will accept a few thousand Palestinian refugees within its borders on humanitarian grounds over a 10-year period. Olmert proposed that the issue of Jerusalem be put on hold and discussed in cooperation with the international community. Abbas apparently opposes the proposal at this point.
At the same time, Livni has been holding talks with Qureia aimed at trying to reach a detailed final status agreement. While the two sides made little progress over the core issues they have agreed on a broad range of issues such as water and the economy. Both Livni and Qureia categorically rejected Olmert's proposal.
The Annapolis summit was held on November 27, 2007, in the U.S., with participants from about 40 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Syria and Indonesia.
'World will not stop Iran going nuclear'
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2535
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be vowing to destroy Israel as his country races to manufacture the nuclear weapon with which to carry out that genocidal deed, but the international community that allowed Hitler to wipe out a third of all the world's Jews just 65 years ago will not succeed in stopping him.
This dark view was conveyed Monday by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
Addressing a conference in France, Scheffer said he was worried by the failure of the United Nations to slow down or stop Iran's race for an A-Bomb for Allah.
"It is a major challenge to prevent Iran from continuing to strive to get the bomb," Scheffer said, according to a Reuters report.
"I am not positive about the world being able to stop Iran from fulfilling its ambitions."
Israel's leaders across the political spectrum have vowed that their nation will not allow Iran to go nuclear, and have appealed for American support to enable them to successfully strike the Islamic Republic's atomic facilities.
Newspapers in Israel recently reported that Israeli Prime Minister personally asked US President George W. Bush for a green light to hit Iran, but that the American turned down the request.
US pledges Cobra gunships to Lebanon against Syrian invasion threat
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5633
DEBKAfile's military sources report that the US decided to withdraw Cobra military helicopters for the Lebanese army from emergency stores in Jordan after Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora alerted Washington to Damascus' plot for a large-scale terror attack or assassination to drum up a pretext for invading northern Lebanon.
The decision was taken in talks between Lebanese government and military leaders with deputy secretary of state David Hale and assistant defense secretary Mary Beth Long, who arrived in Beirut Saturday, Oct. 5.
The helicopters are intended to impress on Damascus that the US will intervene militarily if the Syrian troops massed on the North Lebanese border cross over.
Tuesday, Oct. 7, a Lebanese military delegation will visit Jordan to inspect the Cobras stored there after fighting in Iraq. They will have to work out how to transport them to Lebanon, either 1) transported disassembled aboard large American transport planes via Israeli air space over the Mediterranean to Lebanon; or
2) have American pilots fly them by the same path; or by the slowest route 3)
loaded in parts aboard a freighter at Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba, then carried through Suez to the Mediterranean.
According to our military sources, the US has promised Cobra flight training for Lebanese air crews. Until they are ready, the gunships will be flown by civilian fliers from the Middle East with military backgrounds.
DEBKAfile reported earlier that Siniora and Lebanese president Michel Suleiman complained to the two US envoys that Washington's efforts to draw Damascus out of the Iranian orbit were throwing Lebanon to the wolves. The US also faced losing its foothold in the country. The prime minister said a tip-off he received uncovered a Syrian conspiracy to stage a major terrorist operation or assassinate a Lebanese figure of equal rank to the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, whose murder in 2005 left Damascus under grave suspicion. The consequent turmoil in Beirut would trigger the Syrian incursion.
Two brigades of the 4th Syrian Mechanized Division, numbering up to 10,000 men have been poised on the Lebanese border since last month and are now on combat readiness.
Damascus has accused the pro-West majority leader Saad Hariri (son of the dead politician) of organizing 45 extremist Islamic organizations, mostly Salafi, in northern Lebanon and establishing similar fronts in Sidon and the Ain Hilwa Palestinian camp in the south. As the pretext for a military invasion of northern Lebanon, Bashar Assad's emissaries claim that these fronts pose a threat to Syria's national security and Hizballah's position in the country.
'US considers lifting Syrian sanctions'
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017465661&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Washington is considering a change to its Syria policy in the near future that would entail lifting sanctions against the country but would not include returning the US ambassador to Damascus, Israel Radio quoted senior US officials as saying on Sunday.
The officials said discussions were being held on how the US could best influence Syria, in light of the country's recently improved relations with France and President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Damascus last month.
A US official said there were several encouraging signals from the Syrians, including the decision to open diplomatic ties with Lebanon.
On Thursday, a senior Israeli diplomatic official said Jerusalem had no problem with the US engaging in dialogue with Damascus.
The Israeli official spoke in response to two US-Syrian meetings held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York earlier last week.
"The Syrians are putting out all kinds of feelers to the US to set things in motion before the upcoming [American] elections," the official said. "Damascus has already gotten credit for engaging in indirect talks with Israel and is now trying to capitalize on that with the Americans."
Russian nuclear missile cruiser to dock at Syrian port on Yom Kippur eve
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5623
Russian Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo disclosed Wednesday, Oct. 1, that a four-ship squadron led by the Peter the Great nuclear missile cruiser will call in at the Libyan port of Tripoli and "other Middle East ports" before heading out to the Caribbean for joint maneuvers with Venezuela.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that one of those ports is Tartus, Syria, where preparations are afoot to receive the visiting Russian flotilla.
Peter the Great , one of the most advanced naval vessels afloat, may in fact anchor at the new facility the Russians are building at Syria's second major port, Latakia, for its first visit to Syria; the rest of the squadron, the Admiral Chabanenko submarine, a reconnaissance vessel and a fourth ship, will dock at Tartus.
Peter the Great is designed to sink large surface vessels such as aircraft carriers. The ship's Granit (Nato designated SS-N-19 Shipwreck) anti-ship cruise missiles (20 missile launchers) can destroy vessels up to 500 km distant in ripple-fire mode.
An S-300F defense missile complex is installed on Peter the Great , with 12 launchers and 96 vertical launch air defense missiles.
The Navy spokesman in Moscow said the Russian warships will perform maneuvers in the Mediterranean, without adding details. They will pass through the Strait of Gibraltar Sunday, Oct. 5, visit Tripoli next and on Oct, 8 or 9, put in at a Syrian port.
Coinciding with the 35th anniversary of the Egyptian-Syrian Yom Kippur attack on Israel, the Russian warships' arrival in Syria has serious connotations:
1. It means that prime minister Ehud Olmert will be wasting his time if he intends using his talks in Moscow next week with president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin to ask them to drop their plan for a permanent base at a Syrian port. That plan is clearly going full steam ahead.
2. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 is recorded in Russian and Arab military annals as the high point of Russian-Arab military and intelligence cooperation. The Soviet Union as it was then was responsible for the great deception which disguised Arab war preparations behind a screen of misdirection and gulled Israeli intelligence into complacence.
Moscow is signaling Jerusalem on this sensitive date that it has decided to revert to its old military ties with Damascus on the same scale as its historic 20th century partnership.
3. The precedence the Russian navy is awarding to visiting Middle East ports before Venezuela attests to the importance Moscow attaches to its new Damascus-Tehran-Caracas alignment opposite the US-Israel alliance.
Bush to Sign India Nuclear Legislation
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,433485,00.html
WASHINGTON — The White House says President George W. Bush plans to sign into law on Wednesday a bill approved by Congress allowing civilian U.S. nuclear trade with India.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe also said Monday the signing of the actual bilateral nuclear deal with India was expected shortly thereafter.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday that no substantive issues stand in the way of signing the overall deal. She said it was only a matter of waiting for a series of administrative steps.
The agreement allows U.S. businesses to begin selling nuclear fuel, technology and reactors to India in exchange for safeguards and U.N. inspections at India's civilian — but not military — nuclear plants.
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