Think Again: The end of the special relationship?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1225199609386&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
For those inclined to see the workings of divine providence in human history, the special affinity of the American people for Israel provides a happy example. If Israel could have only one consistent ally in the world, it would surely have picked the world's (still) most powerful nation. Without the United States, Israel would be hard pressed to obtain the weapons needed to defend itself.
American popular support for Israel has many sources. The first is historical. The Puritan founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony self-consciously modeled themselves on the ancient Hebrews and styled themselves as the New Israel. The Hebrew Bible provided their guidance. All the early presidents of Yale were Hebraists, and the college's insignia was patterned on the urim vetumim worn by the high priest.
To this day, Americans remain by far the most religious people in the Western world. Seventy million American Evangelicals constitute Israel's most ardent supporters. Americans have always tended to be jealous of their sovereignty and willing to defend themselves against any threat to their liberty. The state motto of New Hampshire, "Live free or die," captures that spirit. As such, they admire Israel's doughty self-defense against far more numerous enemies.
In Western terms, America is a center-right country. A major aspect of the American exceptionalism discussed by historians is its failure to develop a class-based political movement. That too has strengthened the bonds to Israel. Among American liberals, who tend to see the world in terms of victims and oppressors, 59 percent view the Palestinians more or equally sympathetically (according to a 2002 Gallup poll). Among conservatives, whose focus is on particular values and the determination to defend them, 59% view Israel more favorably.
The presence in America of the world's largest Jewish community - a community that is both wealthy and politically active - has also shored up American support for Israel. (That community, however, is diminishing both in numbers and concern with Israel; many of the most active supporters of Israel in Congress come from states with few Jews.)
BELIEF IN American exceptionalism, its chosenness, has always played a major role in American civic religion. The two dominant conceptions of American foreign policy - isolationism and liberal internationalism - are both predicated upon an assumption of American moral superiority. Isolationists fear contamination from the "foreign entanglements," of which president George Washington warned in his farewell address. Liberal internationalists seek to remake the world in America's image.
Sen. Barack Obama represents a third foreign policy approach - what Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington calls the "cosmopolitan." Far from taking American virtue as its starting point, the cosmopolitan seeks to remake America in Europe's image.
Thus Obama presented himself to Europeans last summer as a citizen of the world, one of them. "Mr. Obama," in the words of Fouad Ajami, "proceeds from the notion of American guilt. 'We called up the furies...'" He accepts the Western European critique of America's aggressiveness and seeks to restore American "moral standing" in the eyes of the world.
He shares the Europeans' contempt for the terminology of good and evil: "A lot of evil's been perpetuated based on the claim that we were fighting evil," he says. If his heart thrilled at the sight of Iraqis twice braving suicide bombers to go the polls, he kept it to himself. The war in Iraq, in his view, was nothing more than a "cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors... to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the cost in lives lost and in hardships borne."
And he expresses understanding for the grievances of the perpetrators of evil - Hamas, Hizbullah, even the perpetrators of 9/11, which he characteristically portrayed as part of "an underlying struggle between worlds of plenty and worlds of want" (despite the affluent backgrounds of the attackers). He voted against a Senate bill to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
Obama's most fervent support has come from the university campuses and cultural elites - where attitudes tend most to resemble those of Western Europeans, and where scorn for those who "cling to guns or religion" runs rampant. These campuses also happen to be the redoubts of the greatest hostility to Israel.
AN AMERICA that more closely resembles Western Europe will not be good for Israel. Western Europeans consistently deem Israel the greatest threat to world peace. And they are remarkably cavalier about Israel's defense of its own existence. Recent memory does not include any Israeli response to attack that the Europeans did not deem disproportionate. The Western European countries have done little to prevent the United Nations from degenerating into an anti-Israel debating society, and a number have supported or abstained on UN Human Rights Council resolutions supportive of anti-Israel "resistance" - i.e. terrorism.
Many commonly held attitudes predispose Europeans against Israel. Western Europe is far along a project of transferring political legitimacy from nation-states to supranational organizations like the European Union, the UN and the International Criminal Court. Having achieved their nation-state rather late in the day, the Jews of Israel remain proud of it. To the Europeans, however, a non-Muslim state based on national/religious identity seems an atavism.
Western Europe's almost religious faith in international institutions of open membership, like the UN, and a declining concern with national sovereignty threaten Israel. International criminal jurisdiction has already rendered Israeli military personnel wary of traveling abroad. Obama frequently demonstrates a similar reverence for the UN, and has a long list of international treaty obligations to which he is eager to submit the US.
Europe has adopted a stance of appeasement toward both external threats and to Islamic minorities within. (Ironically, the US, which offers no special dispensation to Muslims, has done a far better job of integrating Muslim immigrants than European countries.) Europeans' abhorrence of any resort to military action causes them to instinctively recoil from Israel, the superior military power in the region.
Having moved beyond simplistic categories of good and evil, Europeans try to take, at best, an even-handed approach to any conflict, invariably warning, for instance, against a "cycle of violence" whenever Israel responds to attack. Obama's immediate call for "mutual restraint" after the Russian invasion of Georgia was a classic example of that tendency.
Worse, European sophistication favors whichever party can present itself as the aggrieved underdog, or serves to mask an ugly cynicism, as in the recent multibillion-dollar deals signed by Austrian and Swiss energy companies with Iran.
To the extent that Obama's likely election betokens a move toward a more European America, the special ties that have bound the people of America and Israel show signs of fraying.
Evangelical support on the up for McCain
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/evangelical.support.on.the.up.for.mccain/21783.htm
Christian evangelicals and conservatives are not only largely supporting Republican candidate John McCain, but their support has actually increased, according to a newly released survey.
Crosswalk.com, the largely popular Christian web portal affiliated with faith-based media giant Salem Communications, polled its email subscribers this week and found a three-point increase (from 80 to 83) in support for McCain over the past month and a one-point decrease (from 13 to 12) in support for Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
The 979 users who responded to the survey were also found to be largely supportive of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who had electrified the conservative base after being tapped for the spot in August. While two per cent said they no longer supported the Alaska governor as a candidate, about 20 per cent said they favored her more as a candidate than they did a month ago.
“Although Senator Barack Obama’s lead over Republican candidate John McCain has reached double-digits in some states, the Democratic candidate has yet to convince Christian conservatives,” Crosswalk noted.
The latest poll paints a picture different from that of the Pew Research survey released earlier in the week, which showed support for McCain slipping among Christian evangelicals.
According to Pew, the percentage of evangelicals supporting McCain dropped from 74 to 65 in the last three weeks, while Obama gained four percentage points to move up to 22 per cent.
Overall, Pew found that the 48 per cent of Protestants in general that had supported McCain earlier in the month dropped to 43 per cent as of last week, while support for Obama went from 43 to 47.
“Currently, McCain holds a statistically significant advantage only among white evangelical Protestants (aside from Republicans),” Pew stated in its report Tuesday.
Another faith-based survey released this week that illustrated the drastic difference between the voting preferences of evangelicals versus other Protestants was that conducted this month by LifeWay Research.
According to results of the LifeWay survey released Thursday, 36 per cent of mainline pastors plan to vote for McCain, 37 per cent support Obama, and 24 percent are undecided. Meanwhile, out of self-identified evangelicals, 66 per cent said they plan to vote for McCain, 13 per cent said they are for Obama, and 19 per cent were undecided.
"Mainline pastors reflect the American setting – they are split between Obama and McCain,” observed Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research.
Self-identified evangelical pastors, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly for McCain, he added, drawing a conclusion similar to that of Crosswalk’s general Christian survey.
A very noticeable difference, however, between LifeWay’s findings and that of other faith-based polls was in the data from Protestants in general.
LifeWay found that 55 per cent of Protestant pastors had said they plan to vote for McCain. Notably, however, only 20 per cent said they planned to vote for Obama. A full 22 per cent remain undecided.
"Protestant pastors are strongly for McCain," observed Stetzer. But the number of undecideds given the late date in the campaign is “suprising”, he added.
“The undecided bloc appears to consist largely of pastors identifying themselves as ‘moderate’ or ‘conservative',” LifeWay observed.
The LifeWay survey also found that more than half (53 per cent) of Protestant pastors had personally endorsed candidates for public office this year – outside of their church roles. And less than 3 per cent agree that they have publicly endorsed candidates for public office during a church service this year.
LAPD chief warns of terror threat before election
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/10/22/state/n190806D01.DTL&type=printable
Police Chief William Bratton has a warning for Americans as the presidential election nears: Watch out for Osama bin Laden.
Bratton and R.P. Eddy, former director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, co-wrote an opinion piece in Wednesday's New York Daily News in which they predict the al-Qaida leader is either planning an attack on the U.S. or perhaps a less violent tactic to influence who wins the White House.
Either strategy, Bratton and Eddy wrote, would likely be aimed at helping John McCain because the Republican candidate "is more likely to engender Muslim anger and resentment than would his opponent" Barack Obama.
"Bin Laden probably realizes it could become markedly more difficult to paint the United States as the 'Great Satan' with a new president who is admired internationally," Bratton and Eddy wrote.
They predicted that any terrorist attack would likely include truck or car bombs in "high-value financial sites."
"The remaining 14 days before the elections should be seen as a time of high threat, and state and local police should be on high alert," they wrote.
Bratton and Eddy noted bin Laden's previous attempts "to make his opinion count" before an election. Four days before the 2004 presidential election, Bin Laden released a videotape in which he addressed Americans and criticized President Bush's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Bratton and Eddy asserted that bin Laden seemed to support Kerry in the tape, causing more votes to go Bush's way.
The article also cited the al-Qaida train bombings in 2004 that killed 191 people in Madrid, Spain, just days before that country's national elections. Bratton and Eddy wrote that the attack swung the election away from Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who was an ally in the Iraq war.
"This is a critical election for al-Qaida," Bratton and Eddy wrote. "The U.S.-led invasions of two Muslim countries during the Bush years and scandals such as Abu Ghraib have been a boon for bin Laden's demagoguery. He and other Islamists continually and dishonestly cite these wars as evidence of a U.S. war on Islam. That has helped create a steady stream of suicide bombers eager to destroy U.S. targets on their way to paradise."
Bratton has directed his department to prepare for another bin Laden scheme in the next week or two. Deputy Chief Michael Downing, head of the Police Department's anti-terrorism bureau, told the Los Angeles Times that surveillance teams have been assembled in Los Angeles' downtown financial district in case an attack is planned. Officers have also directed private security firms and area commanders to watch for suspicious activity, Downing said.
"We do not want them to be paranoid or anxious, but to orient our troops to potential threats," he said.
'The American View' Radio Program Now Live, Daily; Teaches Biblical/Constitutional View of American Law and Government
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07752.shtml
MEDIA ADVISORY, (christiansunite.com) -- "The American View" radio show - which teaches a Biblical/Constitutional view of American law and government and views current events from this same perspective - can now be heard live, daily on WTHU Radio in Thurmont, Maryland, from 11 am to Noon (EST). To hear this program, go to the WTHU site http://wthu.org/ and click on "Listen Now" in the right hand upper corner of the web page. The call- in number for the program is 1-877-775-9848.
"The American View" is co-hosted by Michael Anthony Peroutka and "Recovering Republican" John Lofton. Michael was the Presidential candidate of the Constitution Party in 2004. John was a long-time secular "conservative activist/journalist" until God saved him in 1980 and raptured him from among the Republican Party cheerleaders, the politics-will-save- us crowd.
Also appearing on this program, on occasion, will be Pastor David Whitney of the Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Pasadena, Maryland. David is, in addition, Senior Instructor at "Institution On The Constitution" IOTConline.com, co-founded by Michael Peroutka and his brother Steve Peroutka.
US game designer blasts into space with DNA cargo
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081012/ap_on_sc/as_kazakhstan_russia_space
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan – An American computer game designer reached space Sunday, fulfilling a long-deferred childhood dream that began with the flight of his astronaut father.
The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft carrying Richard Garriott and two crewmates — and the digitized DNA sequences of some of the world's most famous minds — hurtled into a clear blue sky from the Baikonur facility on the Kazakh steppe.
Garriott, a 47-year-old multimillionaire from Austin, Texas, is the sixth paying space traveler and the first American to follow a parent into orbit.
The Soyuz is due to dock Tuesday with the international space station, where British-born Garriott will spend about 10 days conducting experiments — including some whose sponsors helped fund his trip — and photographing Earth to measure changes since his father snapped pictures from the U.S. station Skylab in 1973.
As the bright orange glow of the rocket disappeared, Garriott's 77-year old father watched with binoculars.
"I'm elated, elated," Owen Garriott said when a loudspeaker announcement confirmed the spacecraft had reached orbit safely about 10 minutes after lift-off.
The younger Garriott said before Sunday's launch that he managed to recoup a significant slice of his trip's price — a reported $30 million — through some of his experiments and that he hoped his trip would provide a viable model for financing private space travel.
"What I am trying to do is demonstrate that you can mount a very successful campaign to go into space and beyond because it's good business," Garriott told The Associated Press.
The spacecraft is bearing the digitized DNA sequences of some of the world's greatest thinkers and musicians — as well as athletes, video game players and others.
The eclectic list ranges from famed physicist Stephen Hawking to comedian Stephen Colbert and Matt Morgan, best known as the "Beast" from the U.S. television show "American Gladiators."
The digitized DNA is part of "the immortality drive," a kind of time capsule that will also include a list of humanity's greatest achievements and personal messages from Earth. The program will be stored on the space station in case calamity were to one day wipe out the planet.
Garriott's crewmates on the landmark 100th manned Soyuz flight are Mike Fincke, an American astronaut who spent six months on the international space station in 2004, and Russian Yuri Lonchakov.
As they were driven away to the launch pad, Fincke gestured to his wife and children and mouthed the words "I'll call."
Fincke and Lonchakov, who will remain on the space station for months, told a pre-launch news conference Saturday that that their main task will be to expand the space station's capacity to host up to six astronauts, instead of three, by adding sleep spaces, a toilet and more oxygen generation.
Garriott, who made his fortune designing computer fantasy games, dreamed of space as a child and was shattered to learn that he could never become a NASA astronaut — like his father and many of their neighbors — because of his poor eyesight.
Seeing space was "one of the things he's wanted to do most in his life," Garriott's girlfriend, Kelly Miller, said at the launch.
He is an investor and board member of Space Adventures Ltd., a U.S.-based company that has organized trips aboard Russian craft to the space station for five other millionaires since 2001.
Garriott is to return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule on Oct. 24 with cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergei Volkov, who is the world's first second-generation space traveler. His father, Alexander, was a cosmonaut.
Science of invisibility's giant leap forward
http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/523446
It was a banner year for research in invisibility. The U.S. army could have a device within a decade.
This has been a year a lot of folks would like to see disappear.
Fitting, then, that the science of invisibility – yes, that's correct – made a giant leap forward in 2008.
Think Harry Potter sneaking out of Hogwarts unseeable in his "cloak of invisibility." Or, more to the point, the invisible Romulan ship chased by the USS Enterprise in the original sci-fi Star Trek series, the fount of so many subsequent real-life inventions.
This summer, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrated for the first time the ability to "cloak" three-dimensional objects in artificially engineered "meta-materials" that bent light around the objects. They "disappeared." Previous efforts were able to bend microwaves around objects, but visible light has proved much more difficult. This differs from the stealth technology developed in the 1980s, which reduces radar's ability to pick up a fighter jet, making it hard to track, but doesn't render the jet invisible. "Cloaking" would bypass the radar or other waves around the plane as if it weren't there.
The meta-materials are made using nanotechnology and engineered out of artificial atoms that are smaller than the wavelengths of light itself. One Berkeley approach used a "fishnet" material of metal layers to reverse the direction of light; the other used tiny nanowires made of silver.
"You'd have to wrap whatever you wanted to cloak in the material," said researcher Jason Valentine. "By sending light around the object that is cloaked, you don't see it."
Humans are able to see objects because they scatter the light that strikes them, reflecting some of it back to the eye. Sometimes there is "negative refraction," the effect that distorts what's being seen: a straw placed in water appears bent, a fish slightly further ahead of where it actually is.
But the negative refraction capacity of meta-materials is somewhat different. Instead of a bent straw or the fish looking slightly ahead of itself, "it would actually appear to be above the water's surface," Valentine explained, adding by way of understatement: "It's kind of weird."
This week, scientists at Purdue University in Indiana announced another breakthrough in cloaking technology, called transformation optics, in the journal Science.
The new way of "manipulating and controlling light at all distances represents a new paradigm for the science of light," said the lead researcher, Vladimir Shalaev, an electrical and computer engineer.
The mathematics behind transformation optics are similar to the mathematics behind Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes how gravity warps space and time. "Whereas relativity demonstrates the curved nature of space and time, we are able to curve space for light," said Shalaev, "and we can design and engineer tiny devices to do this."
Instead of a straw or fish, Shalaev used a stone to help explain the science to ordinary, still-visible people: "An electromagnetic cloak could bend light around itself, similar to the flow of water around a stone, making invisible both the cloak and an object hidden inside."
His team used a device resembling a round hairbrush, an array of tiny needles radiating out from a central spoke that bent light around an object. The needles are so small they reduced refraction or distortion of the light to almost zero, rendering the object invisible to a viewer.
Before anyone begins, however, to plan next year's Halloween costume, consider that Purdue's research, like Berkeley's, is funded by the U.S. Army Research Office.
As well, the infamous DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Agency) – sponsor of work on remote-controlled cyber-insect soldiers and equipment-carrying robots called BigDog– is also interested in coating experiments. It specifically wants a device to make objects invisible to radar and radio waves, not just human eyes.
During a teleconference this week, the Army's Dr. Richard Hammond said the Pentagon's goal is to develop an invisibility coating that will make tanks, airplanes, buildings – and, eventually down the road, even people – "disappear." It hopes to have a meta-materials device in production within the next two or three years, assuming full-scale cloaking isn't prohibitively expensive, which it well may be.
One of the pioneers of invisibility work earlier in the decade, Britain's John Pendry, an eminent theoretical physicist at London's Imperial College, marvels at the meta-materials' potential.
"You could build a shed out of this material and drive a tank in there, or hold a party inside it, and once you close the door everything it contains would be completely invisible," he recently said.
But more immediate applications go beyond military or, ultimately commercial, disappearing acts.
As well as curving light to make an object apparently disappear, the opposite effect can also be produced. Light can be concentrated in one specific area, making sunlight collection more efficient in solar energy applications.
Researchers say the technology will allow computers and consumer electronics to use light instead of electronic signals to process information. Ultra-powerful microscopes, 10 times stronger than exist today, will be able to see germs, chemical agents, even DNA.
But that's not all that happened in the year of the unseen. How about the unheard?
In June, Spanish scientists developed the blueprint for an "acoustic cloak," or shield, which would make objects impervious to sound by channelling sound waves around them. The technology could be used to, among other things, build soundproof homes and acoustically advanced concert halls. And once again, the military might be interested, both in concealing submarines from sonar detection and creating a new class of stealth ships.
But the material may need to be perfected first, pioneer Pendry pointed out. "You don't want to wrap a submarine in something that is heavy and several inches thick. It would add quite a lot to the Navy's fuel bill, I think."
If looks could kill
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12465303
Security experts reckon the latest technology can detect hostile intentions before something bad happens. Unless it is perfect, though, that may be bad in itself.
MONITORING surveillance cameras is tedious work. Even if you are concentrating, identifying suspicious behaviour is hard. Suppose a nondescript man descends to a subway platform several times over the course of a few days without getting on a train. Is that suspicious? Possibly. Is the average security guard going to notice? Probably not. A good example, then—if a fictional one—of why many people would like to develop intelligent computerised surveillance systems.
The perceived need for such systems is stimulating the development of devices that can both recognise people and objects and also detect suspicious behaviour. Much of this technology remains, for the moment, in laboratories. But Charles Cohen, the boss of Cybernet Systems, a firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is working for America’s Army Research Laboratory, says behaviour-recognition systems are getting good, and are already deployed at some security checkpoints.
Human gaits, for example, can provide a lot of information about people’s intentions. At the American Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, a team of gait analysts and psychologists led by Frank Morelli study video, much of it conveniently posted on the internet by insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. They use special object-recognition software to lock onto particular features of a video recording (a person’s knees or elbow joints, for example) and follow them around. Correlating those movements with consequences, such as the throwing of a bomb, allows them to develop computer models that link posture and consequence reasonably reliably. The system can, for example, pick out a person in a crowd who is carrying a concealed package with the weight of a large explosives belt. According to Mr Morelli, the army plans to deploy the system at military checkpoints, on vehicles and at embassy perimeters.
Guilty
Some intelligent surveillance systems are able to go beyond even this. Instead of merely learning what a threat looks like, they can learn the context in which behaviour is probably threatening. That people linger in places such as bus stops, for example, is normal. Loitering in a stairwell, however, is a rarer occurrence that may warrant examination by human security staff (so impatient lovers beware). James Davis, a video-security expert at Ohio State University in Columbus, says such systems are already in use. Dr Davis is developing one for America’s Air Force Research Laboratory. It uses a network of cameras to track people identified as suspicious—for example, pedestrians who have left a package on the ground—as they walk through town.
As object- and motion-recognition technology improves, researchers are starting to focus on facial expressions and what they can reveal. The Human Factors Division of America’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for example, is running what it calls Project Hostile Intent. This boasts a system that scrutinises fleeting “micro-expressions”, easily missed by human eyes. Many flash for less than a tenth of a second and involve just a small portion of the face.
Terrorists are often trained to conceal emotions; micro-expressions, however, are largely involuntary. Even better, from the researchers’ point of view, conscious attempts to suppress facial expressions actually accentuate micro-expressions. Sharla Rausch, the director of the Human Factors Division, refers to this somewhat disturbingly as “micro-facial leakage”.
There are about 40 micro-expressions. The DHS’s officials refuse to describe them in detail, which is a bit daft, as they have been studied for years by civilian researchers. But Paul Ekman, who was one of those researchers (he retired from the University of California, San Francisco, in 2004) and who now advises the DHS and other intelligence and law-enforcement agencies in the United States and elsewhere, points out that signals which seem to reveal hostile intent change with context. If many travellers in an airport-screening line are running late, telltales of anguish—raised cheeks and eyebrows, lowered lips and gaze—cause less concern.
Supporters of this sort of technology argue that it avoids controversial racial profiling: only behaviour is studied. This is a sticky issue, however, because cultures—and races—express themselves differently. Judee Burgoon, an expert on automated behaviour-recognition at the University of Arizona, Tucson, who conducts research for America’s Department of Defence, says systems should be improved with cultural input. For example, passengers from repressive countries, who may already be under suspicion because of their origins, typically display extra anxiety (often revealed by rigid body movements) when near security officials. That could result in a lot of false positives and consequent ill-will. Dr Burgoon is upgrading her software, called Agent 99, by fine-tuning the interpretations of body movements of people from about 15 cultures.
Another programme run by the Human Factors Division, Future Attributable Screening Technology, or FAST, is being developed as a complement to Project Hostile Intent. An array of sensors, at a distance of a couple of metres, measures skin temperature, blood-flow patterns, perspiration, and heart and breathing rates. In a series of tests, including a demonstration last month with 140 role-playing volunteers, the system detected about 80% of those who had been asked to try to deceive it by being hostile or trying to smuggle a weapon through it.
A number of “innocents”, though, were snagged too. The trial’s organisers are unwilling to go into detail, and are now playing down the significance of the testing statistics. But FAST began just 16 months ago. Bob Burns, the project’s leader, says its accuracy will improve next year thanks to extra sensors that can detect eye movements and body odours, both of which can provide further clues to emotional states.
Until proved innocent
That alarms some civil-libertarians. FAST, they say, amounts to a forced medical examination, and hostile-intent systems in general smack of the “pre-crime” technology featured in Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Minority Report” and the film based on it. An exaggeration, perhaps. But the result of using these devices, according to Barry Steinhardt, the head of technology and liberty at the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, DC, will inevitably be that too many innocents are entangled in intrusive questioning or worse with “voodoo science” security measures.
To the historically minded it smacks of polygraphs, the so-called lie-detectors that rely on measuring physiological correlates of stress. Those have had a patchy and controversial history, fingering nervous innocents while acquitting practised liars. Supporters of hostile-intent systems argue that the computers will not be taking over completely, and human security agents will always remain the final arbiters. Try telling that, though, to an innocent traveller who was in too much of a hurry—or even a couple smooching in a stairwell.
SAIC to support Army’s biometrics toolset
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/online/1_1/33779-1.html
Science Applications International Corp. will provide engineering support to help the Army maintain and enhance a biometrics toolset under a $37 million contract.
The Army’s Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems awarded the one-year contract under the Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-2 Services program. It has three one-year options.
The company will perform the work primarily in Sierra Vista, Ariz., and Kingstowne, Va.
The Army’s Biometrics Automated Toolset devices collect fingerprints, iris scans, facial photos and biographical information on people of interest, and stores that information in a searchable database. It also facilitates the use of biometrics for exploiting intelligence.
The system gives military forces the ability to identify, track and deal with the people they encounter in terrorism operations.
SAIC, of San Diego, ranks No. 5 on Washington Technology’s 2008 Top 100 list of the largest federal government prime contractors.
Nonlethal weapons touted for use on citizens
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14806772/
WASHINGTON - Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.
Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Secretary Michael Wynne.
“If we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation,” said Wynne. “(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”
The Air Force has funded research into nonlethal weapons, but he said the service isn’t likely to spend more money on development until injury issues are reviewed by medical experts and resolved.
Nonlethal weapons generally can weaken people if they are hit with the beam. Some of the weapons can emit short, intense energy pulses that also can be effective in disabling some electronic devices.
Packs of robots will hunt down uncooperative humans
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/10/packs-of-robots-will-hunt-down.html
The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a "Multi-Robot Pursuit System" that will let packs of robots "search for and detect a non-cooperative human".
One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I'm concerned about where this technology will end up.
Given that iRobot last year struck a deal with Taser International to mount stun weapons on its military robots, how long before we see packs of droids hunting down pesky demonstrators with paralysing weapons? Or could the packs even be lethally armed? I asked two experts on automated weapons what they thought - click the continue reading link to read what they said.
Both were concerned that packs of robots would be entrusted with tasks - and weapons - they were not up to handling without making wrong decisions.
Steve Wright of Leeds Metropolitan University is an expert on police and military technologies, and last year correctly predicted this pack-hunting mode of operation would happen. "The giveaway here is the phrase 'a non-cooperative human subject'," he told me:
"What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous and become armed.
We can also expect such systems to be equipped with human detection and tracking devices including sensors which detect human breath and the radio waves associated with a human heart beat. These are technologies already developed."
Another commentator often in the news for his views on military robot autonomy is Noel Sharkey, an AI and robotics engineer at the University of Sheffield. He says he can understand why the military want such technology, but also worries it will be used irresponsibly.
"This is a clear step towards one of the main goals of the US Army's Future Combat Systems project, which aims to make a single soldier the nexus for a large scale robot attack. Independently, ground and aerial robots have been tested together and once the bits are joined, there will be a robot force under command of a single soldier with potentially dire consequences for innocents around the corner."
What do you make of this? Are we letting our militaries run technologically amok with our tax dollars? Or can robot soldiers be programmed to be even more ethical than human ones, as some researchers claim?
Cyborgs are the next evolutionary step for humans
http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/spotlight/2008/108102404.asp
Professor Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading in the UK is a scientist that not only houses a chip in his skin but also a lot of nerve, pluck, arteries of gushing ideas, veins of maverick thoughts and much more.
In August 1998 he got a surgically implanted silicon chip transponder in his forearm and then in March 2002 was ready for another one. This time it was a hundred electrode array into the median nerve fibers of the left arm. Professor Kevin Warwick, born in Coventry, UK got his first degree at Aston University, followed by a PhD and a research post at Imperial College, London and subsequently held positions at the Oxford, Newcastle, and Warwick universities before being offered the Chair at Reading. His research interests include robotics and cybernetics in particular apart from areas like artificial intelligence, control, and biomedical engineering. His list of laurels includes higher doctorates (DScs) by Imperial College and the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, The Future of Health Technology Award from MIT USA, the IEE Achievement Medal, a place etched in 1999 and 2002 Guiness Book of Records, and so on.
Its not surprising that Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame calls him Britains leading prophet of the robot Age. In this exclusive interview with CyberMedia News, Kevin talks without mincing any words or chips, on various issues around the realm of cybernetics, cyborgs, human vs machines, words vs signals, ethics, evolution, and science. Excerpts
Its been ten years since Cyborg 1.0. How close has the reality come to sci-fi movies and human fancy?
We are witnessing tracking of objects and much closer monitoring of humans it will not be long before we see implant technology used for human tracking. We will also see the use of cybernetic technology to help a lot more people with disabilities paralysed individuals to drive themselves around for example. But this is real science, since it affects us all. I am afraid that I do not hold with the theory of global warming. There will always be climate change and from the point of view of someone in wet-cum-cold England things appear to be getting colder, not hotter. The big thing here is, do we know what we are doing that is bringing about climate change? At present the answer to this is no.
How has the cyborg concept and endeavor evolved over the years since the chip implant?
We are now investigating brain-computer links, in particular, an implant into the brain that acts bi-directionally. This probably will mean retraining neurons within the brain to alter their basic functioning. And to speak like a shaman, the crystal ball shows the next experiment to be six to eight years away with myself receiving a brain implant the main reason being for bi-directional communication. Clearly this is different from space projects. I believe it is far more important as it really changes what it means to be human.
In context to Project Cyborg 2.0, did your experiments accomplish the objectives you set out for?
Yes, we did achieve a basic form of telegraphic communication. It is possible therefore to transmit signals directly between two (or more) human brains. As long as the signals are learnt, I dont see that we will need words any more, but it will open the possibility of communicating more abstract concepts, feelings, ideas, colors, images, etc.
You once said in an interview, I think by 2100 people would be able to communicate by thought signals alone with no need for telephones or old fashioned signaling. How do you view this prognosis today?
I think it will be well before 2100. It is such a powerful means of communication, and the technology to do it is just about in place. We are about to enter extremely exciting times for science.
As the worlds first cyborg, what were your experiences and encounters vis-a-vis your personal life?
The experience of communicating in a new way with my wife brought us even closer together its not a bad thing to do for a relationship much better than buying flowers or a ring!
When the implant was in place, we were shocked one day to witness enormous electrical signals appearing on my nervous system. This turned out to be due to a text message coming through on one of my researchers cell phones. Since that time when I am on a bus or train and am close to someone whose cell phone rings, I tend to move away from them as quickly as I can. I now only use my cell phone when it is absolutely necessary.
If one goes by the definition of cyborg as a human dependent on technology, has most of the world population skewed itself to being cyborgs?
Some philosophers believe that we all have become more linked with, more dependant on technology, and as a result our brain has changed its functioning. For me though, when people think of a cyborg it is more a human who has been enhanced in some way (from a human norm), and the technology is integral to them, it is part of their body not sure if anyone else fits that bill.
Whats your reckoning of the technological evolution via cloning, cybernetics, human genome initiatives, etc, in comparison to biological evolution in light of the ethical concerns, pitfalls, and sustainability debate it is subject to?
I think it is right that there are ethical concerns and it is up to scientists to listen to such concerns and act as they see fit. I have certainly modified my research in light of ethical suggestions. However, some issues are delicate the robot with a rat brain project involves taking neurons from a rat fetus some people have a problem with that, but to stop our research would be wrong, since as the results could have a profound effect on the treatment of Alzheimers disease. It is difficult for scientists but we must listen and draw a reasonable balance.
Besides the upsides of the technology, what would you comment on the downside of the technology?
I think cyborgs are the next evolutionary (in a technical sense) step for humans because of intellectual superiority then they probably will replace humans. Machines are certainly gaining in their intelligence and could become a potential threat anyway, if we do not upgrade to be cyborgs then thats the end of it anyway.
There are still a lot of technical questions regarding cyborgs to be sorted, but most likely this will happen for commercial benefit. For example, it would not be nice for hackers to get in to your brain signals through an implant. Clearly, security needs to be a lot stricter than it is now.
Your observations on India in the realm of scientific endeavors, research, and cybernetics in particular?
I think there are enormous opportunities in India this cyborg technology is very new and it is the countries that embrace it that will benefit most from it. And I have felt considerable interest in this area in India and feel that the IITs in particular are very well placed. The young graduates appearing from the IITs are as good (if not better) than any other technical graduates in the world many of them are extremely impressive.
Whats your view on the Big Bang experiment and all the buzz, debate and excitement it has generated?
The Big Bang experiment has attracted a lot of publicity. But it is an extremely expensive experiment and I am really not sure what will come out of it. I am not particularly impressed. Some people have said that it will prove God does not exist I completely disagree it will prove no such thing. Only God would himself be able to prove that he doesn't exist now that is interesting philosophy not (like Descartes) to try to prove that you do exist, but rather to prove that you do not exist.
Nano Engineers to Create "Field Hospital on a Chip"
http://www.azom.com/news.asp?newsID=14277
With a $1.6M grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR), UC San Diego NanoEngineering professor Joseph Wang will lead a project to create a "field hospital on a chip" that soldiers can wear on the battlefield.
The automated sense-and-treat system will continuously monitor a soldier's sweat, tears or blood for biomarkers that signal common battlefield injuries such as trauma, shock, brain injury or fatigue. Once the system detects a battlefield injury, it will automatically administer the proper medication, thus beginning the treatment well before the soldier has reached a field hospital.
"Since the majority of battlefield deaths occur within the first 30 minutes after injury, rapid diagnosis and treatment are crucial for enhancing the survival rate of injured soldiers," said Joseph Wang, a NanoEngineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the Primary Investigator on the project.
To realize their "field hospital on a chip" idea, the engineers will need to build a minimally invasive system that monitors multiple biomarkers simultaneously and uses the system's "smarts" to process all this biomarker information and tease out accurate, automated diagnoses. These diagnoses would immediately trigger drug delivery or other medical intervention.
"Today's insulin and glucose management systems for patients with diabetes don't include smart sensors capable of performing complex logic operations," said Wang, who helped to develop the first noninvasive system for monitoring glucose from a patient's sweat. "We are working on a system that will be different. It will monitor biomarkers and make decisions about the type of injury a person has sustained and then begin treating that person accordingly," said Wang.
"Developing an effective interface between complex physiological processes and implantable devices could have a broader biomedical impact, providing autonomous, individual, 'on-demand' medical care, which is the goal of the new field of personalized medicine," said Wang.
To reach this level of automated diagnostic dexterity, the researchers plan to build upon "enzyme logic" breakthroughs recently demonstrated by Evgeny Katz, a Co-PI on the grant and the Milton Kerker Chaired professor of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science at Clarkson University.
Katz and colleagues demonstrated recently that enzymes can not only measure biomarkers, but also provide the logic necessary to make a limited set of diagnoses based on multiple biological variables.
One of the many challenges now facing Wang and his team, however, is to get the enzyme logic system to reliably work on sensing electrodes that humans can wear. Thus far, enzyme logic operations have only been demonstrated in solution.
From Biomarkers to 1s and 0s and Treatment
Lactate, oxygen, norepinephrine and glucose are examples as the kinds of injury biomarkers that will serve as biological input signals for their prototype logic system. Electrodes containing a combination of enzymes will serve as sensors and provide the logic necessary to convert the biomarkers to products which may then be picked up by another enzyme on the electrode for further logic operations. The electrodes will also act as transducers that produce strings of 1s and 0s that will activate smart materials that release medication based on predetermined treatment plans.
"We just want the ones and zeros. The pattern of ones and zeros will reveal the type of injury and automatically trigger the proper treatment," said Wang.
For example, if an injured soldier were to enter a state of shock, enzymes on the electrode would sense rising levels of the biomarkers lactate, glucose and norepinephrine. In turn, the concentrations of products generated by the enzymes would change—higher hydrogen peroxide, lower norepi-quinone, higher NADH and lower NAD+. This will cause the built-in logic structure to output the signal "1,0,1,0" which points to shock and will trigger a pre-determined treatment response.
"This is biocomputing in action," said Wang.
"We are just at the beginning of this project. During the first two years, our primary focus will be on the sensor systems. Integrating enzyme logic onto electrodes that can read biomarker inputs from the body will be one of our first major challenges," said Wang.
At the end of the four-year project, the researchers expect to have a working prototype that can detect different combinations of injury biomarkers thanks to the enzyme logic. At the same time, the researchers will also be working on signal-responsive membranes that can release drugs, as well as the electrical or optoelectronic systems that allow the sensors to communicate with the drug delivery system.
"We really hope that our enzyme-logic sense-and-treat system will revolutionize the monitoring and treatment of injured soldiers and lead to dramatic improvements in their survival rate," said Wang.
Computer circuit built from brain cells
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn15019-computer-circuit-built-from-brain-cells.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
For all its sophistication and power, your brain is built from unreliable components – one neuron can successfully provoke a signal in another only 40% of the time.
This lack of efficiency frustrates neuroengineers trying to build networks of brain cells to interface with electronics or repair damaged nervous systems.
Our brains combine neurons into heavily connected groups to unite their 40% reliability into a much more reliable whole.
Now human engineers working with neurons in the lab have achieved the same trick: building reliable digital logic gates that perform like those inside electronics.
Built from scratch
Elisha Moses at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and his students Ofer Feinerman and Assaf Rotem have developed a way to control the growth pattern of neurons to build reliable circuits that use neurons rather than wires.
The starting point is a glass plate coated with cell-repellent material. The desired circuit pattern is scratched into this coating and then coated with a cell-friendly adhesive. Unable to gain purchase on most of the plate, the cells are forced to grow in the scratched areas.
The scratched paths are thin enough to force the neurons to grow along them in one direction only, forming straight wire-like connections around the circuit.
Using this method the researchers built a device that acts like an AND logic gate, producing an output only when it receives two inputs.
Better together
The gate is made from a network of neurons in a square shape approximately 900 micrometres on a side. Three of the sides form a "horseshoe" 150-micrometres wide, and packed with neurons. On the fourth side an isolated neuron island is linked to the other sides by two thinner bridges (see image, top right).
Neurons send their wire-like extensions that carry signals – axons – across those narrow bridges to the neuron island.
When stimulated with a small dose of a drug, the neurons send signals around the circuit. An ion blocker is used in the centre of the horseshoe to electrically isolate one side from the other.
By changing the width of the bridges, the researchers are able to control how many axons link to the neuron island, and tune their device to behave like an AND gate.
The neurons on the island only produce an output after receiving signals through both of the thin bridges. Like a natural system, the device transcends the performance of individual neurons – achieving 95% reliability from a collection of 40% reliable components.
Brain interface
Rotem thinks that this provides a useful model for real brain function. "The existence of a threshold level for activation plays a central role in neuronal computation," he says. In his logic gates and real brains alike, many neurons contribute to generate a signal strong enough to excite another group of neurons, he says.
Charles Stevens at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, is not so sure, pointing out that real brain "circuits" do not resemble logic gates.
But achieving reliable performance from lab-grown neurons is still impressive, he adds. "There is a sort of fascination with neural networks grown in culture, and this paper improves on the usual random networks," he says.
Rotem says that brain-cell logic circuits could serve as intermediaries between computers and the nervous system. "It's difficult to physically interface [neural prosthetics] with live neurons," he says.
Brain implants can allow the paralysed to control robot arms or learn to talk again, but suffer a drop-off in performance when scar tissue coats their electrodes. "An intermediate layer of in vitro neurons interfacing between man and machine could be advantageous," he says.
Scientists may soon be able to erase fear and trauma from your mind
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/22/scimind122.xml
Scientists are a step closer to being able to wipe the mind clean of painful memories, a deveolpment that will offer hope to those with a fear of spiders or who are trying to bury traumatic experiences.
Neurobiologists believe they will soon be able to target and then chemically remove painful memories and phobias from the mind without causing any harm to the brain.
The researchers think that the new technique could help war veterans get over the horrors of conflict and cure people with debilitating phobias.
It could even eventually be applied to ease the pain of a failed relationship or a bereavement.
"While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives," said Dr Joe Tsien, a neurobiologist at the Brain and Behaviour Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine.
"Our work reveals a molecular mechanism of how that can be done quickly and without doing damage to brain cells."
The team, who published their work in Neuron and worked with scientists at East China Normal University in Shanghai, has isolated a "memory molecule" in a mouse and used it to remove its painful memories.
In a number of experiments they instilled a trauma in the mouse by applying electric shocks - but then removed the memory with a calcium enzyme called CamKII.
Just as a war veteran remembers a fateful patrol when he was fired upon, mice can establish a very long-lasting emotional memory about a place if, for example, they receive a mild shock to the paws.
But fears both new and old alike were wiped clean or over-written by over dosing the mouse's brain with CamKII.
A similar approach was taken with object recognition memory, giving mice a couple of toys to play with then erasing their memory of one of them. Each time the mice acted like it had a new toy.
Eventually the research could lead to a pill or injection being administered to a person at the same time as they are asked to recall the painful memory or fear.
Despite the exciting breakthrough Dr Tsien said it would still be years before a similar trick could be carried on a human because their brains were much more complicated.
He also cautioned against the use to erase failed romances.
"If one got a bad relationship with another person, hoping to have a pill to erase the memory of that person or relationship is not the solution," he said.
Staph germs harder than ever to treat, studies say
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081027/ap_on_he_me/med_staph_infections;_ylt=AkhgRCUjLKs.FWTBDVrPWeKs0NUE
WASHINGTON – Drug-resistant staph bacteria picked up in ordinary community settings are increasingly acquiring "superbug" powers and causing far more serious illnesses than they have in the past, doctors reported Monday. These widespread germs used to be easier to treat than the dangerous forms of staph found in hospitals and nursing homes.
"Until recently we rarely thought of it as a problem among healthy people in the community," said Dr. Rachel Gorwitz of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now, the germs causing outbreaks in schools, on sports teams and in other social situations are posing a growing threat. A CDC study found that at least 10 percent of cases involving the most common community strain were able to evade the antibiotics typically used to treat them.
"They're becoming more resistant and they're coming into the hospitals," where they swap gene components with other bacteria and grow even more dangerous, said Dr. Keith Klugman, an infectious disease expert at Emory University. "It's really a major epidemic."
The germ is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. People can carry it on their skin or in their noses with no symptoms and still infect others — the reason many hospitals isolate and test new patients to see if they harbor the bug.
MRSA mostly causes skin infections. Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow was just hospitalized for a staph infection, his second in recent years, and the team reportedly has had at least six cases in the past three years.
But the germ can be life-threatening if it gets into the bloodstream, lungs or organs. Pneumonia, sinus infections and even "flesh-eating" wounds due to MRSA are on the rise, doctors reported Monday at an infectious diseases conference in Washington.
About 95,000 serious infections and 20,000 deaths due to drug-resistant staph bacteria occur in the United States each year.
To treat them, "we've had to dust off antibiotics so old that they've lost their patent," said Dr. Robert Daum, a pediatrician at the University of Chicago.
The CDC used a network of hospitals in nine cities and states to test samples of the most common community MRSA strain, USA300, over the last few years.
MRSA usually is resistant only to penicillin-type drugs. But 10 percent of the 824 samples checked also could evade clindamycin, tetracycline, Bactrim or other antibiotics.
"The drugs that doctors have typically used to treat staph infections are not effective against MRSA," and family doctors increasingly are seeing a problem only hospital infection specialists once did, Gorwitz said.
Even more worrisome: many of these community strains had features allowing them to easily swap genes and become even hardier.
Also at the conference:
_Doctors from Spain reported the first hospital outbreak of MRSA resistant to linezolid, a last-resort drug sold by Pfizer Inc. as Zyvox in the United States and Zyvoxid in Europe. A dozen intensive care patients got pneumonia and bloodstream infections last spring and the outbreak was controlled after use of the antibiotic was severely curbed, said Dr. Miguel Sanchez of Hospital Clinico San Carlos in Madrid.
_Georgetown University saw a spike in sinus infections due to MRSA. The germ accounted for 69 percent of the staph-caused cases in the hospital between 2004 and 2006 compared with 30 percent from 2001 to 2003.
_Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit found that more than half of staph-caused pneumonia cases from 2005 through 2007 were due to MRSA.
_Doctors from Case Western Reserve University and the VA Medical Center in Cleveland found that by the time hospitals isolated and tested new patients to see if they harbored MRSA, many had already contaminated their skin and surroundings. Within about a day of being admitted, roughly a third had already started to spread the germ.
Hospital screening is controversial, and has had mixed success, said Dr. M. Lindsay Grayson, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
The nation's Veterans Affairs hospitals began universal MRSA testing in 2007. Illinois and some other states have adopted or are considering laws requiring hospitals to test high-risk and intensive-care patients for MRSA.
The conference is a joint meeting of the American Society for Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
One Web ID To Rule Them All
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7699320.stm
A scheme to allow people to use one name and password on lots of different websites has got a boost from Google and Microsoft
The two tech giants have unveiled plans that will sign-up their users into the Open ID scheme.
The move means the scheme will soon be able to add more than 400 million users to the initiative.
The two firms join others, such as Yahoo and AOL, as backers of the single sign-on scheme.
One-way traffic
Open ID was dreamed up as a way to ease the mental and administrative burden of having a different login identity and password for almost every website.
The idea should mean that anyone with an Open ID identifier can use it to log in to, and use, any and every other site that has signed up to the scheme.
Microsoft and Google were early adopters of the scheme, and took seats on the board of the Open ID Foundation in 2007. However, both are only now releasing the tools and technology to work with the scheme.
On 28 October, Microsoft announced that it was starting technical trials that would lead to all the users of its Windows Live service being enrolled in Open ID in 2009.
The trials are for those running websites to see how Microsoft is working with the Open ID standards, and how to go about accepting that version as a login identifier.
Google has taken a similar route and announced plans to test its implementation of the Open ID technology. This will allow other websites to use logins for Gmail and other Google services alongside their own ID systems.
About 10,000 websites are thought now to accept Open ID as a login route. When both trials by Google and Microsoft are completed, more than 750 million user accounts will be enrolled in the system.
However, as critics have pointed out, much of the backing for Open ID is only one-way.
Other sites are being allowed to accept Google and Microsoft logins in place of their own, but the two tech giants are not reciprocating. At the moment the two are not accepting other Open ID credentials to login to their services.
Designer babies: Creating the perfect child
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/30/designer.babies/
Bring your partner, grab a seat, pick up your baby catalog and start choosing.
Will you go for the brown hair or blond? Would you prefer tall or short? Funny or clever? Girl or boy? And do you want them to be a muscle-bound sports hero? Or a slender and intelligent book worm?
When you're done selecting, head to the counter and it's time to start creating your new child.
Does this sound like a scary thought?
With rapid advances in scientific knowledge of the human genome and our increasing ability to modify and change genes, this scenario of "designing" your baby could well be possible in the near future.
Techniques of genetic screening are already being used -- whereby embryos can be selected by sex and checked for certain disease-bearing genes. This can lead to either the termination of a pregnancy, or if analyzed at a pre-implantation stage when using In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), can enable the pregnancy to be created using only non-disease bearing genes.
British scientists last week developed a "genetic MoT" test, which offers a universal method of screening embryos for diseases using a new technique of karyomapping, which is more efficient than previous processes.
The test would be taken on a two-day-old IVF embryo and is yet to be validated, but it could mark a significant change; allowing doctors to screen for gene combinations that create higher risks of diabetes, heart disease or cancer.
Experts estimate the test, if licensed by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, could be available for around $3000.
In the future we may also be able to "cure" genetic diseases in embryos by replacing faulty sections of DNA with healthy DNA, in a process called germ line therapy. This has been performed on animal embryos but is currently illegal for humans.
Furthermore, the developing technologies of genetic alteration open up a whole new set of possibilities -- which could result in so-called "designer babies."
The technique -- known as inheritable genetic modification -- modifies genes in eggs, sperm or early embryos and results in the altered genes being passed on to future generations. Should parents be allowed to create their babies?
This could potentially irreversibly alter the human species. So, the obvious question arises: should we be doing this?
Some countries have made genetic screening or alteration illegal by law, and the ethical questions surrounding the uses of the technology are vast -- creating a palpable tension over the subject.
In September, Internet giants Google and Microsoft withdrew adverts for sex selection products and other services considered illegal in India when they were threatened with legal action.
The Center for Genetics and Society is trying to encourage debate on the topic -- as soon as possible.
Executive director of the organization, Richard Hayes, told CNN that the general public of most countries was missing out on taking part in the debate.
"The debate has taken place amongst scientists and science journalists, but average people feel overwhelmed with the technical detail. They feel disempowered."
Hayes said his organization supported the use of embryo screening to help prevent the passing on of serious diseases and disorders like Cystic Fibrosis, but is wary of other technologies and how genetic screening and alteration can be misused.
"We support the use of that to allow couples at risk to have healthy children. But for non-medical, cosmetic purposes, we believe this would undermine humanity and create a techno-eugenic rat race," Hayes said.
He said there were immense amounts of resources being poured into developing gene altering techniques and no laws in many countries to stop them from starting clinics that could offer selected cosmetic traits.
"As technology advances it is possible that any number of human characteristics in part influenced by genes could come under human control. Right now there is an enormous amount of research being conducted to correlate specific genes with specific characteristics."
One of the organizations researching genetic alteration is the University of California Irvine's Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center.
Professor of biological chemistry and developmental and cell biology, and co-director of the Center, Peter Donovan, feels the research could have massive benefits.
After his team discovered a greatly improved method for genetically manipulating human embryonic stem cells earlier this year, Donovan said:
"The ability to generate large quantities of cells with altered genes opens the door to new research into many devastating disorders.
"Not only will it allow us to study diseases more in-depth, it also could be a key step in the successful development of future stem cell therapies," Donovan
But according to Hayes the potential for misuse of this technology could have dire consequences for the human race.
"This runs many risks. It's used in many countries to avoid the birth of female children.
"The technologies are going to be accessible to affluent couples and would be used in ways that could increase inequality. The last thing we need now is a genetic elite.
"This designing aspect would also lead to an objectification of children as commodities."
Hayes said it was important that people began debating the issues now so the correct "rules, regulations and regulatory oversights" could be established before the technology was complete and accessible.
Sun's protective 'bubble' is shrinking
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3222476/Suns-protective-bubble-is-shrinking.html
The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.
New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.
Scientists are baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink in this way and are to launch mission to study the heliosphere.
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, will be launched from an aircraft on Sunday on a Pegasus rocket into an orbit 150,000 miles above the Earth where it will "listen" for the shock wave that forms as our solar system meets the interstellar radiation.
Dr Nathan Schwadron, co-investigator on the IBEX mission at Boston University, said: "The interstellar medium, which is part of the galaxy as a whole, is actually quite a harsh environment. There is a very high energy galactic radiation that is dangerous to living things.
"Around 90 per cent of the galactic cosmic radiation is deflected by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment."
The heliosphere is created by the solar wind, a combination of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields that emanate a more than a million miles an hour from the sun, meet the intergalactic gas that fills the gaps in space between solar systems.
At the boundary where they meet a shock wave is formed that deflects interstellar radiation around the solar system as it travels through the galaxy.
The scientists hope the IBEX mission will allow them to gain a better understanding of what happens at this boundary and help them predict what protection it will offer in the future.
Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable.
Measurements made by the Ulysses deep space probe, which was launched in 1990 to orbit the sun, have shown that the pressure created inside the heliosphere by the solar wind has been decreasing.
Dr David McComas, principal investigator on the IBEX mission, said: "It is a fascinating interaction that our sun has with the galaxy surrounding us. This million mile an hour wind inflates this protective bubble that keeps us safe from intergalactic cosmic rays.
"With less pressure on the inside, the interaction at the boundaries becomes weaker and the heliosphere as a whole gets smaller."
If the heliosphere continues to weaken, scientists fear that the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including Earth, will increase.
This could result in growing levels of disruption to electrical equipment, damage satellites and potentially even harm life on Earth.
But Dr McComas added that it was still unclear exactly what would happen if the heliosphere continued to weaken or what even what the timescale for changes in the heliosphere are.
He said: “There is no imminent danger, but it is hard to know what the future holds. Certainly if the solar wind pressure was to continue to go down and the heliosphere were to almost evaporate then we would be in this sea of galactic cosmic rays. That could have some large effects.
“It is likely that there are natural variations in solar wind pressure and over time it will either stabilise or start going back up.”
Russia lines up new anti-missile system to counter U.S. missile shield plans
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/22/content_10235817.htm
MOSCOW, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Russia's Strategic Missile Forces are being equipped with new anti-ballistic missile systems in response to U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield in Europe, Interfax reported Wednesday.
"Considering the changing military and political situation in the world, and U.S. plans to deploy missile shield, as well as the need to adequately respond to these plans, a set of measures are being taken to develop the Strategic Missile Forces," Commander Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov told Interfax news agency.
New types of silo-based and mobile missile systems capable of countering the prospective U.S. missile defense system will be created, he said, adding that a fifth-generation RS-24 multiple-warhead missile system will enter service with the forces in 2009,
The new system will strengthen Russia's nuclear deterrence, including its capability to penetrate missile defense shields, he said.
RS-24 missiles and RS-12M2 missiles of the Topol-M system, which has already been handed over to the army, will become the fundamental elements of the troops' main attack force, he noted.
Repeatedly ignoring Russia's fierce opposition, the United States is determined to set up a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter the so-called threats from Iran.
Moscow warned that the missile shield will definitely pose a threat to its national security and make the two European countries its target of strike once the situation worsens.
'Big Brother' bothers Britain
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-britain-cameras_goeringoct27,0,6427653.story
Each day, the average London resident is filmed 300 times as he or she walks their children to school, takes the train to the office or relaxes after work at a sidewalk cafe. Britain has 4.2 million closed-circuit surveillance cameras, one for every 15 people in the country, security experts say.
In a nation that, like the United States, worries about the potential for terrorist attacks as well as regular crime, most people are hardly bothered by the lack of privacy.
"I wouldn't say I'm worried by it. It's become a way of life," said Louise Hughes, a lawyer living in south London. "Its very presence is a reassurance."
But a new round of government proposals—to dramatically expand surveillance and data collection and to strengthen other anti-terror measures—has some public officials warning that the government must not go too far in this city where George Orwell set "1984," the famous novel about the dangers of an all-seeing "Big Brother" government.
"We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom's back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security state," warned Sir Ken Macdonald, Britain's director of public prosecutions, in a speech last week.
Surveillance data have helped Macdonald's office successfully prosecute 90 percent of terrorism cases, he said, a conviction rate far higher than that in the U.S.
But new technological advances are giving government the ability to track people "every second of every day, in everything we do," he warned. Before passing laws permitting the government to do just that, "we should take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can't bear."
Like Chicago, London has an ever-growing number of discreet security cameras keeping an eye on schools, trains and city streets, particularly in high-crime areas. A growing number of London's cameras can automatically read license plates on cars, compare passing faces to those of criminal suspects and notify authorities about suspicious behaviors.
British spy agencies, like those in the U.S., also have access to telephone records.
But Britain's government wants to begin keeping databases of e-mails sent, calls made on Skype, exchanges on social networking sites, chats on gaming sites, communications made through eBay and a variety of other Internet interactions.
In addition, the government proposes to begin requiring registration of all mobile phones in the country—today more than half are unregistered pre-paids—and it hopes to issue a national identity card for everyone living in Britain, with details stored on a central database. It also proposes giving each newborn child an identity number that will follow them through life.
Jacqui Smith, Britain's home secretary, has called such changes "vital" to the country's anti-terrorism efforts. She emphasizes that the content of e-mails and phone calls would not be recorded. But with more and more people—including terrorists—exchanging information online through a multitude of "chatting" options, tracking the flow of communication on the Web is crucial, she said.
"The communication revolution has been rapid in this country, and the way in which we intercept communications and collect communication data needs to change too," she said in a speech this month. "If it does not, we will lose this vital capability that we currently have and all take for granted."
Privacy protections and civil liberties have eroded around the world in recent years as nations struggle to balance cherished freedoms with efforts to effectively combat terrorism.
The Bush administration has been heavily criticized for setting up in Cuba the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terror suspects, and Privacy International, a London-based privacy watchdog group, has criticized Congress for approving a presidential spy program that lets the government track any overseas communications on U.S. e-mail providers including Gmail and Hotmail.
Britain's government, faced with a revolt by legislators, recently dropped plans to extend detention of terror suspects without charge from 28 to 42 days. But, in a separate initiative, it appears to be pressing ahead with plans to issue national identity cards that would include chips holding biometric data like fingerprints and photos. A former head of Britain's MI5 domestic spy agency last week called such an effort an overreaction to terrorist threats.
"The British, like the Americans, know there are terrorist cells out there that want to cause mayhem. But they don't yet know how to strike a balance between doing what is absolutely necessary to stop those attacks and preserving the civil liberties that are the essence of Western civilization," said Robin Shepherd, a foreign policy expert at Chatham House, a leading London think tank.
Britain's government has shown some signs of responding to the growing criticism. Many of the security changes, once expected to be formally proposed this year, are now being delayed until next year, officials say, and some may be revised.
Critics of the measures say they hope the plans will ultimately be either scaled back or abandoned altogether.
"Decisions taken in the next few months and years … are likely to be irreversible. They will be with us forever," Macdonald warned.
The better route to standing up to terrorists, he suggested, "is to strengthen our institutions rather than to degrade them."
Bush to Attend UN Dialogue on Religions
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081101/bush-to-attend-un-dialogue-on-religions.htm
UNITED NATIONS – President Bush will join several other world leaders at a General Assembly meeting to promote a global dialogue about religions, cultures and common values, U.N. and U.S. officials said Friday.
The meeting is a follow-up to an interfaith conference in Madrid organized by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Juan Carlos of Spain in July which brought together Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and representatives of other religions and sparked hopes of a new relationship among religions.
General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann has sent invitations to all 192 U.N. member states to the high-level meeting on Nov. 12-13 and expects at least 20 or 30 world leaders to attend, his spokesman Enrique Yeves said. Bush will attend on Nov. 13, U.N. and U.S. officials said.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush "remains committed to fostering interfaith harmony among all religions, both at home and abroad." She said Bush also plans to meet separately with Abdullah.
D'Escoto believes the initiative "should be broadened to talking not only about religions but about cultures, about all the common values we have," Yeves said.
"He would like that we talk not only about dialogue, but about joining forces in order to work together with all these common values to address the major issues that we are facing right now in the world," Yeves said.
Abdullah, whose country bans non-Muslims from openly practicing their religion, has called for religious tolerance and said such dialogue is the duty of every human being.
Saudi King to Attend UN Interfaith Dialogue
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081027/saudi-king-to-attend-un-interfaith-dialogue.htm
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – The ruler of conservative Saudi Arabia said he plans to attend a meeting at the United Nations next month to discuss his initiative to promote interfaith dialogue, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
In remarks carried by the agency late Saturday, King Abdullah, whose country bans non-Muslims from openly practicing their religion, called for religious tolerance and said such dialogue is the duty of every human being. The king also urged fellow Muslims to reach out to non-Muslims as a way to show that Islam is not a violent religion.
"I will go to America for the dialogue of followers of religions," the king said at a meeting with Information Minister Ayad Madani and newspaper editors. "The dialogue comes a time when the world is criticizing Islam."
"It is regrettable that some of our sons have been tempted by Satan or brothers of Satan," the king added, referring to Muslim militants who have carried out attacks around the world. "Nothing can purify (Islam's reputation) except for the extension of Muslims' hands to their brothers in other religions."
Abdullah has taken a leading role in bringing adherents of different sects and religions together. In the past few years, he has encouraged dialogue between the kingdom's Sunni majority and Shiite minority.
Earlier this year, he brought together different Muslim sects for a meeting in the holy city of Mecca. In July, he presided over a gathering of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists among other religions hosted by Spain.
Saudi newspapers this month quoted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as saying that the General Assembly will discuss the king's interfaith initiative in mid-November, on Saudi Arabia's national day.
Commemoration of Munich massacre "may offend Muslims"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5019844.ece
Specialist advice is being given to Scotland Yard on how to reduce tensions between police and Muslims during the London Olympics because of growing concerns about the Games clashing with the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during the day, The Times has learnt.
Experts will also warn the Metropolitan Police to ensure that the planned commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Games does not offend local and travelling Muslims.
The recommendations have been made by inter-faith advisers to Scotland Yard, where antiterrorism police are preparing to combat any possible Islamic terrorist threat to the Games.
Community tensions in the lead-up to the games have already been raised by a controversial Muslim movement, Tablighi Jamaat, which plans to build Britain’s largest mosque and Islamic complex near the 2012 Olympic stadium site.
Michael Mumisa, an Islamic scholar, and one of four experts hired by Scotland Yard who began training the police this week on inter-faith issues, said that the commemoration of the 11 Israeli athletes, killed by Palestinian militants from the Black September Organisation at the 1972 Munich Games, could become a national security threat if it was not managed properly and was perceived by Muslims to be “hijacking” the Games.
Edward Kessler, executive director of the Woolfe Institute, which deals with inter-faith dialogue, teaching and research, said that police needed to have a “minimum level of faith literacy” to help them deal with religious issues during the London Games. Dr Kessler said: “During Ramadan you’re going to have a lot of tired, hungry, less evenly tempered people because they haven’t eaten for 18 hours.”
Anti-Israel Sentiment Grows in Germany
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/472596.aspx
Israeli Foreign Ministry officials are concerned about increasing anti-Israel sentiment in Germany.
While German Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed her country's strong support for the Jewish state, public opinion against Israel is beginning to sway government officials.
Israeli officials fear that the public's anti-Israel mood will take its toll on Germany's willingness to stand behind Israel, especially with the increasing threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
"The Germans are filled with prejudice against Israel. Our public relations delegates are pulling their hair out in frustration when they meet young and old people there," a senior official told YNet news.
"More than once, they hear remarks like, 'That's not your country,' 'It's a shame that a Jewish country was established on stolen land,' 'Israel is treating the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews,' We are equally responsible for the Palestinians as we are for the Jews,'" he said.
During a recent meeting of the Israel-Germany Friendship Youth Forum, a number of participants disagreed with isolating Iran despite the Islamic Republic's nuclear arms program, reported a staff member at the Israeli Embassy in Berlin.
Germany does more business with Iran than any other European country, with projected exports of 4 billion euros in 2008.
Don't force EU's new world order on America
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article4969235.ece?openComment=true
Politics may make strange bedfellows, but economic crises make even stranger ones. Gordon Brown, a free trader, now finds that Nicolas Sarkozy, an arch-protectionist, has virtues he had not previously noticed. It seems that they are united by three things. First, they believe, or at least are pretending that they believe, that the current ills originated in the United States. You might remember: these are the same United States whose entrepreneurship Chancellor Brown lauded to all who would listen, before becoming prime minister and slipping easily into the anti-American mode that now dominates his public and private discourse.
Second, Brown and Sarkozy, along with their EU partners, believe that now is the time to put the former hegemon in its place. America, they believe, is paralysed by the lame-duck status of its president. It will, they reason, be forced to go along with any European proposals for what is variously called a “new financial architecture” and a “new world order”. The joy on the faces of EU leaders as they gather for their conferences can be seen in news photos. Never mind that the banking systems of their countries are on the verge of collapse, or that they are headed for a recession deeper and longer than the one the United States will suffer. Now is their chance to do things that the Americans might not like, but can’t stop.
Third, Brown, Sarkozy & Co have always done what President Ronald Reagan accused his own bureaucracy of doing: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidise it.” Brown, long famous for profligate spending and mindless regulations, now proposes to subsidise homebuying by first-time buyers so that they can catch the falling knife that is the house-price market. And his new-found friends in the EU have never hesitated to increase their tax-funded budgets, and draft regulations at such a rate that even the lobbying firms in Brussels cannot follow all the action.
But that’s no business of the US. Now, however, the EU 27 plan to make it America’s business. The enthusiastic response to Brown’s memorandum suggests that his partners have signed on to a regulatory scheme that they plan to put to the US on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. There will be more regulations, more regulators, more international gatherings of those regulators, perhaps a new Bretton Woods agreement with a timetable “for agreeing these proposals over the next few weeks and months”, says the prime minister.
Regulators would study the world’s economies for signs of trouble. They would supervise the impact of the financial sector on the real economy. Hedge funds would be closely regulated. Executive pay and bonuses would be limited. Offshore centres would be regulated (important to the French, who find foreign competition unpleasant). “Market participants,” Brown insists, “should develop a robust clearing facility for OTC \ credit derivatives and fulfil other commitments to achieve greater certainty in OTC deriv- ative markets.” Whatever that means,
it shows that no detail is to be spared the regulator’s review. There is, alas, no mention of a commission to stimulate innovation in financial services.
But give Brown his due. He did lead the way in developing a plan to do the most important thing that could be done to bring the crisis off the boil: recapitalise the banks. That, while Hank Paulson and George Bush were talking about spending $700 billion to buy duff IOUs from the banks — which would do nothing to add to their capital unless the US Treasury overpaid, which it said it would not do. The Dutch finance minister Wouter Bos had reason to say: “The crisis showed an absence of US leadership.”
Now there is nothing wrong with greater co-ordination of economic policy among nations. It was good that the leading countries co-ordinated their recent reduction in interest rates, and it is good that there are talking shops, such as the International Monetary Fund (the US is its largest funder), where ideas can be exchanged.
But informal co-operation is not the same thing as erecting a new world order. As the British delegation to the original Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, conference in 1944 repeatedly argued, individual nations must be free to adjust to special circumstances by having “opt-outs” — the ability to flout the rules when circumstances require.
Consider the question of purchasing shares in banks. In Britain, the prime minister initially decided to attach punitive conditions to the assistance the government was offering. Preference shares were to have a 12% coupon; no dividends could be paid on common shares until the banks retired the government’s shares; there were to be no bonuses for executives.
America has something Britain does not: a large non-bank financial sector. Favour the banks, and GE and other financial firms find themselves hard put to compete for funds, which is why the Fed is buying non-banks’ commercial paper to level the playing field. Also, with no hard-left pressure to be punitive, the American administration could set earnings on its preferred shares at 5%, allow dividends on common shares, and impose less stringent limits on executive compensation. One size just does not fit all. Nor would a return to the fixed-exchange-rate regime of Bretton Woods fit today’s globalised world, no matter what Sarkozy thinks.
Sarkozy “is not going to let the Americans get in his way”, an aide said. And Brown wants to hold his big international conference after the US elections, so he can deal with the more tractable Barack Obama.
For Brown, such a Bretton Woods II would put him in the role played by John Maynard Keynes in 1944, when his biographer Robert Skidelsky reports Keynes “was the Churchill of this [financial] world, and no one could have taken his place”.
That wouldn’t be the first time, and won’t be the last time, the prime minister has likened his role in coping with the financial crisis to Churchill’s role in coping with Hitler.
- Irwin Stelzer is a business adviser and director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute.
UN envoy to ME: Halt house demolitions
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225199614829&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The UN's Mideast envoy Robert Serry said Saturday he was "alarmed" by Israel's decision to resume house demolitions in the West Bank.
Earlier this week, Israel knocked down dozens of shacks in two West Bank villages, leaving dozens of Palestinians homeless.
Serry said Israel agreed in April to halt the demolitions and he urged it to reinstate the moratorium.
Israel's actions "send a discouraging signal" about Israeli support for efforts to improve living conditions in the West Bank and to build Palestinian backing for peacemaking, Serry added in a statement.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said at least some of the houses were built illegally on public land.
"The fact that the UN continues to ignore the specific circumstances of each case and prefers to express generalized criticism makes these statements very unhelpful," Palmor said.
Meanwhile on Friday, the European Union's French presidency urged Israel to take action to halt settler attacks on Palestinians near Hebron.
"The European Union once again condemns in the strongest possible terms the acts of violence and brutality committed against Palestinian civilians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank," the presidency said in a statement.
"The European Union would point out that it is up to the Israeli government, which has itself condemned these acts, to take the necessary measures to stop them immediately, in accordance with its international obligations," it added.
It came at the end of a week which began and ended with the increasingly familiar sight of an outpost demolition and rioting settlers.
On Friday morning, settlers clashed with police and Palestinians in the Kiryat Arba area following the demolition of an illegal structure built on the ruins of the Federman Farm outpost.
In response to the operation, settlers reportedly vandalized Palestinian fields and cars and hurled rocks at a Palestinian home. Some Palestinians responded by throwing stones back.
A photographer for the French news agency Agence France Presse was wounded when he was hit in the head by a stone thrown by settlers.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said four policemen were lightly wounded and three settlers were arrested. The three detainees were remanded in custody for three days.
On Friday afternoon, settlers returned to the site and built two wooden structures, Israel Radio reported.
Security forces had dismantled the outpost on Sunday and two homes - one belonging to the family of well-known far-right activist, Noam Federman, and the other to the family of singer Sinai Tor - were demolished.
The evacuation sparked an immediate protest by activists, who slashed the tires of Palestinian cars and vandalized a Muslim cemetery in nearby Hebron. They also threw stones at soldiers and damaged sections of the Kiryat Arba security fence.
A number of settlers went on the radio and threatened further violence should the evacuations continue. One even spoke of how he wished that IDF soldiers would be killed by their enemies.
By Sunday evening, activists had returned and built a small, white, one-room structure at the site and set up a generator.
King Solomon's 3,000-Year-Old Copper Mine Discovered?
http://news.softpedia.com/news/King-Solomon-039-s-3-000-Year-Old-Copper-Mine-Discovered-96570.shtml
The wise Solomon was Israel's 3rd king from 965 BC to 925 BC, the son of King David (from the story of David and Goliath), and the owner of an enormous harem and incommensurate wealth gathered by means of mining and trading. H. Rider Haggard's best-selling novel, “King Solomon's Mines,” fueled the imagination of hundreds of treasure hunters searching for the hidden wealth of gold and diamonds described to have been contained in the depths of the mining shafts.
During the 1970s and the 1980s, some digs in the region of the Jordan Valley known as Khirbat en-Nahas, (Arabic for “ruins of copper”) uncovered an ancient giant copper mine. The research performed at the time indicated that the metalworking activities took place on the site sometimes during the 7th century BC, ruling out the possibility of King Solomon's involvement in any way. Still, based on recent findings and technology, Dr. Thomas Levy from the University of California in San Diego, together with Mohammed Najjar from Jordan's Friends of Archeology, has managed to date the mine to the 10th century BC, in the time of Solomon's rule.
The site is comprised of about 100 buildings and a fortress amidst a 24-acre (0.0375 square miles, or 0.097 square kilometers) area, all covered in black slag and large enough to be spotted by satellite. The dating was also backed up by the discovery of an Egyptian scarab and amulet from the same period. “We have evidence that complex societies were indeed active in the 10th and 9th centuries BC, and that brings us back to the debate about the historicity of the Bible narratives related to this period,” Dr. Levy explains.
The finding will shed new light on the old topic of the Old Testament's historical validity and accuracy, since it provides some interesting data that coincides both with Bible writings and with historical records. “We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us. But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible,” states Levy.
Archaeologists report finding oldest Hebrew text
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE49T52620081030?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&rpc=22&sp=true
Archaeologists in Israel said Thursday they had unearthed the oldest Hebrew text ever found, while excavating a fortress city overlooking a valley where the Bible says David slew Goliath.
Experts have not yet been able to decipher fully the five lines of text written in black ink on a shard of pottery dug up at a five-acre (two-hectare) archaeological site called Elah Fortress, or Khirbet Qeiyafa.
The Bible says David, later to become the famed Jewish king, killed Goliath, a Philistine warrior, in a battle in the Valley of Elah, now the site of wineries and an Israeli satellite station.
Archaeologists at Hebrew University said carbon dating of artefacts found at the fortress site, about 20 km (12 miles) southwest of Jerusalem, indicate the Hebrew inscription was written some 3,000 years ago, predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by 1,000 years.
They have been able to make out some of its words, including "judge," "slave" and "king."
Yosef Garfinkel, the lead archaeologist at the site, said the findings could shed significant light on the period of King David's rule over the Israelites.
"The chronology and geography of Khirbet Qeiyafa create a unique meeting point between the mythology, history, historiography and archaeology of King David," Garfinkel said.
Israel looks to the next election
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225199614485&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
The Rightist bloc led by the Likud will defeat the Left, led by Kadima and Labor, by eight Knesset seats in the national election on February 10, according to a Jerusalem Post/Smith Research poll.
The survey, taken on Wednesday of 501 respondents representing a statistical sample of the electorate, found that Likud, Shas, Israel Beiteinu, the National Union-National Religious Party and United Torah Judaism would combine for 64 seats, while Labor, Kadima, Meretz and the Arab parties would together win only 56.
If those numbers prove to be correct, Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu could form a right-wing government that would likely end negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and perhaps with Syria. However, Netanyahu told the Knesset this week that he wanted to see Kadima and Labor in his government.
The February 10 election date was finalized on Thursday.
While other polls taken earlier in the week found that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's refusal to give in to Shas's coalition demands helped her Kadima Party climb ahead of Netanyahu's Likud, the new survey reported that Kadima and the Likud would tie with 27 mandates each.
The Labor Party under Ehud Barak would win 14 seats, three or four more than other surveys predicted this week. While other polls predicted that enough of a protest vote existed to elect the environmentalist Green Party to the next Knesset, the Post poll found that it would not pass the 2 percent electoral threshold.
Still, pollster Rafi Smith noted that some 17% of respondents, representing a potential 20 mandates, were undecided. He said a significant portion of those respondents had voted for Kadima and Labor in 2006.
"Voters of parties on the Right are much more hard-core in their support for the parties that they voted for in past elections than Kadima, while voters who backed Kadima, Labor and Meretz in the last election are more fluid," Smith said.
The poll found that a surprisingly large number of people who voted for Labor in 2006, some 14%, were planning to vote for the Likud this time.
Kadima will receive the largest portion of former voters of the Pensioner's Party, which the poll predicted would not return to the Knesset after ironically winning much of the protest vote from young voters in the last election.
A Ma'agar Mohot poll broadcast on Israel Radio Thursday predicted that Labor would win 16 or 17 seats, much higher than the 10 predicted in a Dialog poll published in Haaretz the same day.
The Ma'agar Mohot poll gave Likud 25-26 seats over Kadima's 22-23. The Dialog poll predicted that Kadima and Likud would both win 31 seats.
A Gal Hadash poll published in Yisrael Hayom gave the Likud 31 mandates, Kadima 30 and Labor 13. While most surveys predict the NU-NRP will keep its current nine seats, the Gal Hadash poll predicted it would fall to six.
Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik on Thursday formally notified the Knesset House Committee that the election will be held on February 10.
Parties will be required to submit their Knesset candidate lists by the end of December.
State employees and soldiers who wish to run will have to quit their jobs next week. Televised election advertisements will begin on January 10 and the publishing of polls will be banned starting on February 6.
Netanyahu Reshapes Likud, Builds Shadow Cabinet
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1364
Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, energized by more than two years in opposition, is launching his Likud party into Israel’s general election campaign with a new look and a new top echelon.
DEBKAfile’s political sources report he is remolding it into a center-right party with a new leadership made up of the middle generation of Likud stalwarts and an infusion of outsiders from non-political occupations, rival parties, and at least two ex-generals.
Negotiating in person, he is close to deals with a mixed bag of would-be star performers.
They include, according to our exclusive sources, Benny Begin (son of the late prime minister Menahem Begin), Yair Shamir , Dan Meridor , former chief of staff, Lt. Gen. (Res) Moshe Yaalon , NU lawmaker Effie Eyta (a former general, who holds the key to the national religious vote), and former cabinet minister Nathan Sharansky , who is well-connected in Washington.
Likud has also offered incentives to MKs Zeev Elkin and Marina Solodkin for quitting Tzipi Livni’s party and crossing the floor. Both are reputed vote-catchers among the large Russian-born electorate.
Likud’s recast center-right image is directed at drawing the moderate, pragmatic elements of the Israeli right wing, which two years ago voted for Kadima and which have much in common with the traditional base of Labor, the Kibbutz movement.
At the same time, he is offering a home for the Jewish communities of the West Bank (pop: 300,000), their supporters and the security hawks.
Netanyahu calculates that Benny Begin’s name will restore the luster of Likud’s founding fathers and their clean reputations, in contrast to Kadima’s aura of corruption.
Yair Shamir, son of Yitzhak Shamir, another Likud prime minister who was a model of integrity, will add an up-to-date, go-getting business image to the revamped Likud list.
Shamir Jr. after being brought in as chairman, turned the Israeli Aviation Industries round from collapse to profitability. He came from the Air Force, which he left as brigadier after heading its logistics department. Shamir’s inclusion on the list will tell the Israeli voter that better times are ahead for an economy bogged down by a cumbersome, unhealthy bureaucracy and outdated infrastructure.
Dan Meridor, once too moderate for Likud, is invited to rejoin and bring his moderate left-wing connections along.
At the other end of the scale, Effie Eytam is reckoned to be worth two to three Knesset seats at least among the approximately 750,000 national voters, who favor retaining Judea and Samaria and the Golan. Eytam is cast as an insurance policy against the Netanyahu administration tipping over too far to the left. With him aboard, a Likud government would be held back from evacuating Jewish communities from these territories or supporting the broad territorial concessions to the Palestinians and Syria advocated by Kadima and Labor.
Likud leaders hastened to state this week that no government of theirs would honor concessions made to Syria by the transitional prime minister Ehud Olmert, who announced his intention of resuming the indirect dialogue with Damascus before the elections.
Yaalon, designated for the key slot of defense minister, is a critical piece in Netanyahu’s jigsaw puzzle.
A member of Kibbutz Grofit, the former chief of staff may bring Likud its first substantial contribution from the kibbutz movement. It consists of the Labor and Kadima factions, which seriously question the two-state solution of the Israel-Arab dispute propounded by President Bush and embraced by prime minister Ariel Sharon and his leading disciples, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert.
Yaalon’s views on security, the dispute with the Palestinians and Iran, are as hawkish as those of Eytam or the Likud right wing – but on the economy, social gap and education, he would lean to the left of Netanyahu’s free market philosophy.
Netanyahu went to work on his dream team after his earlier back-door, power-sharing deal with Labor leader Ehud Barak and talks with Livni’s Kadima rival Shaul Mofaz foundered.
The former has since opted for contesting Livni for the left-wing margin, while Mofaz has been too slow to decide where he belongs.
By February 10, 2006, when Israel votes for a new parliament, government and prime minster, the next US president will have spent 20 days in the White House and Iran will be assembling its first nuclear bomb or warhead. The newly-elected government in Jerusalem will need all its energy and resources to confront the problems which the outgoing administration has long avoided.
Livni: No Syria talks before elections
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225199616923&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Foreign Minister and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni distanced herself over the weekend from the notion of continuing discussions with Syria via Turkish mediation, following reports that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was planning to ask Ankara next week to arrange another round of talks.
"If this is more than just keeping the negotiations alive, it is inappropriate and unacceptable," Livni said. "The government should concentrate now on the day-to-day functioning of the state and finding solutions to immediate crises - nothing more than this."
Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev told The Jerusalem Post, "The prime minister believes it is important that Israel continues the talks and negotiations on the Syrian track," but he would not confirm that Israel was weighing a formal approach to Turkey to renew the indirect negotiations with Syria that took place earlier this year.
With the Syrian track frozen, representatives of the Quartet will gather in Sharm e-Sheikh this weekend to try to assess how much progress has made on the Palestinian track in the year since the launch of the Annapolis process.
Livni, who also heads the Israeli negotiating team with the Palestinians, will attend the Sharm gathering, which will take place at the ministerial level.
The chief Palestinian negotiator, former PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei, will also participate.
Condoleezza Rice will arrive in the Sinai resort after talks in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, in what is likely to be her last visit to the region as US secretary of state. It will be her 19th visit to the Middle East in two years, and her eighth since Annapolis.
The speculation about a resumption of the contacts between Israel and Syria followed last week's meeting in Jerusalem between Olmert and the visiting Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul.
On Friday, Likud MKs asked Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz to examine whether Olmert had the authority to resume peace talks with Damascus while he headed a caretaker government.
"Olmert has no authority for such a move and he has no legal right at the end of this government's term to make unacceptable commitments on Israel's behalf," said Likud MK Limor Livnat, who submitted the petition to the attorney-general.
Livnat said she hoped Mazuz would act within a day or two to block Olmert from resuming the negotiations.
Former foreign minister Likud MK Silvan Shalom expressed doubt over whether even the Syrians believed it was possible to clinch an agreement during the last few months of the government that the Israeli public would support and the Knesset would endorse.
"Olmert has no ethical or legal authority to conduct peace talks and to make commitments in Israel's name," Likud MK Gilad Erdan said.
Erdan's colleague in the Likud, Reuven Rivlin, said a transitional government didn't have a mandate to conduct negotiations over Israel's vital interests. He called on Kadima to show national responsibility and block Olmert from resuming the Syria talks.
Negotiators have held four rounds of indirect talks through Turkish mediators, but contacts have been suspended for months because of Israel's political instability.
An official in the Prime Minister's Office said Olmert was aware of the restrictions of his caretaker role and was not planning to reach agreements with Damascus. Instead, he hoped to receive answers about Syria's willingness to distance itself from its allies in Iran and Hizbullah.
There was also criticism from Olmert's cabinet, with Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai of Shas saying negotiations with Syria "legitimize the axis of evil" and that talks at this time would weaken Israel.
In contrast, Science, Culture and Sport Minister Ghaleb Majadle of Labor said that especially at this current juncture, peace talks with the Syrians and the Palestinians must be accelerated.
"When we need to make peace, it should not be delayed just because of elections," he said.
Kadima MK Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael also defended the continuation of peace talks with Syria.
"There is no reason to stop the peace negotiations with Damascus," he said. "It will take time for talks to advance to the agreement stage anyway."
Concern in Israel as Egyptian war games simulate war with Israel
http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=38391
Israel is upset over Egyptian military exercises in which the simulated “enemy” is Israel, and some are calling on the U.S. to reconsider its aid to Egypt because of it.
Israel and Egypt – two U.S. regional allies – signed a U.S.-sponsored peace treaty in 1979 – Israel’s first with an Arab nation.
The Egyptian navy reportedly carried out the largest exercise in its history last week. Dubbed Victory 41, the military maneuvers marked the Egyptian sinking of the Israeli Naval vessel Eilat 41 years ago, in which 47 Israeli sailors were killed and 91 wounded.
According to the daily Ha’aretz, Oct. 20 was set aside as a holiday marking the sinking of the Israeli vessel for the Egyptian naval forces.
The paper also quoted the Egyptian Navy commander in chief Vice Admiral Mohad Mamish in an interview with the Arabic newspaper Al Ahram, saying that the Egyptian Naval vessels were outfitted with advanced missiles and the Navy had supply contracts with Germany, Russia and the U.S.
“Unfortunately now for more than 10 years most of the big [Egyptian] exercises are simulating war against Israel,” said Dr. Yuval Steinitz, member of the Israeli Knesset’s influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
The first time was in 1996 when they imitated a war against “a little country that is bordering Egypt on the northeast,” Steinitz told CNSNews.com on Wednesday.
Looking on the map, it’s clear who they were simulating the war against, he said.
The only new thing this time is that it has been leaked to the press, said Steinitz.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert telephoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to apologize for comments made by a right-wing Knesset member, who noted that Mubarak has never come on a state visit to Israel. Olmert told Mubarak that Israel considered him to be “a strategic partner and a close friend.”
But there are signs of other strains in relations.
The Hebrew daily Maariv reported on Tuesday that on a recent trip to Egypt, the director of the military/political and policy bureau of Israel’s Ministry of Defense, told Egyptian Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi that Israel was concerned about Egypt carrying out of Egyptian army exercises "that are directed against an Israeli threat and that relate to it [Israel] as an enemy.”
Israel also is concerned that it has become the central focus for Egyptian officers in building their forces and by the lack of “any relations of any kind” between the Israeli and Egyptian armies, Gilad was quoted as saying.
According to the paper, Tantawi said relations between the armies could improve in the future in tandem with progress in regional peace. He also said that security challenges obligate Egypt to build an effective deterrent force.
Steinitz said the military exercises, combined with massive Egyptian force building plus indoctrination of the military against Israel, was “something to be concerned about.”
He also said that despite the peace agreement between the two countries, Egypt is anti-Israel in most international bodies and is also educating the public “for hatred and not for peace.”
Earlier this year, the Anti-Defamation League told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that its analysts had found the Egyptian press to be “a leading propagator of anti-Semitic images” for many years and that that trend was now spreading to other newspapers in the region.
Egypt is considered one of America’s allies in the region and has been a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It is currently mediating reconciliation talks between the military Hamas group and the Fatah faction of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
U.S. aid
Since signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Egypt has received an average of more than $2 billion annually in economic and military foreign assistance from the U.S. – the second largest foreign aid package after Israel. The administration has requested $1.3 billion in military aid for 2009 – the same amount it received in 2008.
“U.S. policy toward Egypt is aimed at maintaining regional stability, improving bilateral relations, continuing military cooperation, and sustaining the March 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty,” according to a Congressional Research Service report to Congress in August 2008.
Egypt has long been viewed by U.S. administrations as a “moderating influence” in the Middle East. Many congressmen see Egypt as a “stabilizing force” in the region, but others would like to see the U.S. pressure Egypt to, among other things, “take a more active role in reducing Arab-Israeli tensions,” the report said.
The U.S. Embassy here had no comment on the military exercises.
But the Zionist Organization of America criticized the Egyptian “celebration” of its past attacks on Israel and urged the U.S. to reconsider its massive aid to Egypt contingent on Egypt adopting “truly peaceful actions and policies toward Israel.”
“Egypt has shown in a variety of ways that it remains a country deeply hostile to Israel and may indeed be a leading influence in Arab world hostility to Israel,” ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said in a statement.
“In an era of peace that was meant to be ushered in by the 1979 Camp David peace treaty, Egypt should not be celebrating past military assaults on Israel which were fought in pursuit of a policy to eliminate Israel,” Klein said.
“This is not a matter of a country simply honoring its war dead. It is matter of maintaining the hostility to Israel’s existence,” he said.
The ZOA noted that the Egyptian celebrations were in the wider context of Egyptian political, cultural and media hostility toward Israel.
Earlier this year, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said he would “burn Israeli books himself if found in Egyptian libraries.” In 2006, a poll found that 92 percent of Egyptians regarded Israel as an enemy nation, and 50 percent regarded the U.S. as an enemy, the ZOA reported.
Iran opens new naval facilities at Gulf entrance, enabling blockage of entry into the Gulf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7694947.stm
Iran has opened new naval facilities east of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow entrance to the Gulf which is key to oil supplies, state media say.
Naval chief Admiral Habibollah Sayyari was quoted as saying the base in the town of Jask would enable Iran to block the entry of an "enemy" into the Gulf.
Iran has threatened to close the strait in response to a potential military strike over its nuclear activities.
Key 'chokepoint'
"We are creating a new defence front in the region, thinking of a non-regional enemy," Adm Sayyari told state run Iranian radio.
"In this region we are capable of preventing the entry of any kind of enemy into the strategic Persian Gulf if need be," he said.
The Strait of Hormuz is "by far the world's most important chokepoint," according to the US government's Energy Information Administration.
About 20% of oil traded worldwide passes through the narrow waterway, the body says.
There has been speculation that the US or Israel might stage a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, in response to Iran's refusal to halt the enrichment of uranium, a process which can be used to make fuel for nuclear bombs.
Tensions remain high, although many analysts believe an attack has become less likely in recent months.
The base is in the port town of Jask, about 1,050 miles (1,700 kilometres) south of Tehran.
Iranian Nuke Scientist: Weekend Quake was a Nuclear Test
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128151
A weekend 5.0 Richter earthquake in Iran was actually a nuclear bomb test, says an Iranian nuclear scientist claiming to be working on the project.
This past Saturday night, southern Iran experienced what was reported as a significant earthquake - a seismic event measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter was just north of the strategic Straits of Hormuz, which separates Iran from Abu Dhabi and Oman and which is the gateway to the Persian Gulf.
The report quotes an Iranian nuclear scientist who claims to be working in uranium enrichment for the project, and who said that the "quake" was actually an underground nuclear bomb test.
Israel Insider adds that the test/quake was actually the second in a series. Nine days ago, a 4.8 Richter scale event occurred, with its epicenter only five kilometers away from the weekend tremor.
The Israel Insider source reports that two nuclear rockets are currently ready - and are intended for use against Israel in the coming months.
If the report is correct, it would belie previous speculation that Iran would not begin nuclear testing until it had more nuclear-bomb production capability.
The geographical location of the test has several advantages. It is exposed to significant seismic activity, which could serve to mask nuclear tests; it is believed to be close to Iran's nuclear development facility; delivery and transport of material and personnel can be effected easily through the Hormuz Strait; and Iranian enemies would hesitate to bomb the area because that would threaten the flow of a substantial percentage of the world's oil.
Reuters reports Thursday morning that Iran has begun building a line of naval bases along its southern coast and up to the Straits of Hormuz.
Iran threatens US with suicide bombers
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225199610409&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Only a few days ahead of the American presidential election, Iranian parliamentary speaker 'Ali Larijani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah 'Ali Khamanai have launched harsh verbal attacks against the United States.
Referring to the US army's attacks in Pakistan and Syria, Larijani said they would not be answered with diplomatic protests.
"The US method and conduct, expressed by this aggression, will only be stopped by a clear-cut and unexpected response, whose grounds were set by the martyr Hussein Fahmida," Larijani said during a parliamentary session on Wednesday.
Fahmida was 13 when he detonated an explosive device he carried on him, destroying an Iraqi tank during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
Iranian official calls for attack on UK
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017624184&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Fearing a US strike on Iran during President George W. Bush's last months in office, a senior Iranian official has suggested the Islamic regime should target London to deter such an attack.
In an article on the Iranian Web site Aftab last week - translated by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute - the head of the Europe and US Department in the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Wahid Karimi, said that an attack on London would deter the US from attacking Teheran.
"The most appropriate means of deterrence that Iran has, in addition to a retaliatory operation in the [Gulf] region, is to take action against London," Karimi said.
In the article, the Iranian official said that an attack might also stem from the fact that presidents in their second terms are "usually adventuresome."
Citing some examples he said: "US presidents are usually adventuresome in their second terms... [Richard] Nixon, disgraced by the Watergate scandal; [Ronald] Reagan, with the 'Irangate' adventure; [and Bill] Clinton, with Monica Lewinsky - and perhaps George Bush, the sitting president, will create a scandal connected to Iran's legitimate nuclear activity so as not to be left behind."
He speculated that a US attack on Iran could come between next month's presidential election and when the new president enters office in January 2009.
"In the worst-case scenario, George Bush may perhaps persuade the president-elect to carry out an ill-conceived operation against Iran, prior to January 20, 2009 - that is, before the regime is handed over and he ends his presence in the White House. The next president of the US will have to deal with the consequences," he warned.
Admitting that previous Iranian warnings to paralyze "the Jerusalem-occupying regime" to deter "American adventurism" has not worked, Karimi said that "the most appropriate means of deterrence" for Iran would be to attack London.
"If we agree that such a scenario - with America, England and Israel at its center - is conceivable, then it would seem that the most appropriate means of deterrence that Iran has, in addition to a retaliatory operation in the [Gulf] region, is to take action against London. Experience proves that the [part played] by politicians in Tel Aviv and in London, in the [fanning of the] flames against Iran and in the urging of America to strike Iran, is no less than [the part played] by Bush," he said.
During a visit to Bahrain last Wednesday, the chairman of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, regarded by some as a moderate, rejected claims that his country's support of militants fighting US forces in Iraq could be considered support for terrorism.
"They are freedom fighters fighting to defend their country and independence, that is not terrorism," he said.
Larijani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator, said Iran's support was part of its commitment in the region to assist its neighbors in fighting occupation, and accused the US, the West and Israel of contradicting the values of freedom and democracy.
He also said that the ties between Teheran and Damascus were strategic, and downplayed any impact that the indirect Syrian-Israeli negotiations might have.
"Despite Israeli talk of peace, they continue to build settlements and none of their alleged peace efforts have been achieved. The real problem is with the Zionist entity because its existence depends on creating conflict in the region," he said.
In an interview in the al-Wasat newspaper, he attacked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a personal manner, referring to her not having had children.
"The West needs to reconsider what they say. The top US diplomat Condoleezza Rice, during the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, described the war as 'the birth pangs of a new Middle East,'" he said. "As a woman who did not try the experience of pregnancy, she seems to not have known that a birth needs longer time than that."
In addition to supporting Hamas and Hizbullah, Iran has also been supporting the Islamist insurgencies in Iraq and southern Afghanistan, where British troops are based.
Syrian 3rd Army moves south from Iraq border to face Lebanon and Israel
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5686
According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the removal of Syrian forces is intended to punish the US twice for last Sundays’ commando raid in northern Syria which killed 8 people including Abu Ghadiyah, the Syrian controller of smuggled insurgent fighters and weapons into Iraq. First, the 8th Army’s removal opens the Iraqi border open to the free passage of al Qaeda, Fatah al-Islam and Iraqi insurgents for attacks on US forces in Iraq. Second, Syrian troops are now massed in position to bring military pressure to bear on US allies in South Lebanon and Israel.
These developments have set the stage for more US strikes on Syrian soil to hit back at the jumping-off bases used by terrorists and insurgents to attack US targets. US Homeland Security Minister Michael Chertoff said Friday: “A country should have the right to attack another if it is harboring a potential terrorist threat.”
The Syrian 3rd army, which is composed of two Border Guard brigades and two more of infantry and assault helicopters, began moving south Wednesday, Oct. 29, evacuating the 600 km stretch of Syrian-Iraqi border they manned for the past year under a US-Syrian agreement.
The US embassy in Damascus was shut Thursday over an “increased security risk” as tens of thousands mounted an anti-US protest in the town center. The embassy has warned Americans in Syria to stay on alert.
Libya offers to host Russian military base: report
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081031061121.1evl045k&show_article=1
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who visits Moscow Friday for the first time since 1985, will offer to host a Russian naval base in his north African country, a Russian newspaper reported.
"Libya is ready to host a Russian naval military base," the Kommersant reported, citing a source close to the preparations for Kadhafi's first visit here since the days of the Soviet Union.
The base could be located at the port of Benghazi, the source said.
"The Russian military presence will be a guarantee of non-aggression against Libya from the United States, which is not in a hurry to embrace Kadhafi despite gestures of reconciliation," the newspaper said.
Kadhafi is scheduled to visit Russia from Friday to Sunday.
Relations between Russia and Libya, a former pariah state that has pushed to get back into the international fold in recent years, showed signs of significant warming this year after a long chill.
Earlier this month, a Russian warship docked in Tripoli as part of a global show of force that is to include joint naval exercises between Russia and Venezuela in the Caribbean in November.
In April, during a visit to Tripoli by then-president Vladimir Putin, Moscow agreed to cancel billions of dollars of Libyan Soviet-era debt in exchange for multi-billion-dollar contracts with Russian companies.
During his visit, Russian gas giant Gazprom signed a cooperation agreement with Libya's national energy company while Russia's rail monopoly signed a 2.2-billion-euro contract to build a railway line in Libya.
During the Cold War, Libya bought many of its weapons from Moscow.
Iraqi Christians begin to return to Mosul
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/iraqi.christians.begin.to.return.to.mosul/21781.htm
Christians have begun to return home to the Iraqi city of Mosul as attacks against them over recent days have calmed.
A local migration official in Mosul, Jawdat Ismaeel, has said that the exodus of Christians from the city has stopped, according to AP.
Earlier in October numerous death threats and killings took place against Mosul’s Christian community, which led to about half the city’s Christians - 13,000 - fleeing the violence.
It is believed that Sunni insurgents were behind the violence in the hope of driving the Christians out of the region. However, now more than 200 people have returned to the city.
According to AP Ismaeel said, “Christian families have stopped leaving and started to come back to their houses in different neighbourhoods in Mosul.”
The violence has been condemned by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It has even offered each family that returns 1 million Iraqi Dinars (approx. $850). In addition the migration department has granted Christian government workers and students a leave of absence from work and class until the end of October.
Afghan journalism student sentenced to 20 years for insulting Islam
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4986956.ece
An Afghan journalism student sentenced to death for allegedly ’insulting Islam’ had his conviction upheld but his sentence reduced to 20 years in prison by an Afghan central appeal court today.
The prosecution alleged that Sayed Perwez Kambashkh, 24, downloaded from the internet and distributed an article by an Iranian writer questioning some of the tenets of Islam relating women’s rights. He has always denied the charges.
He is alleged to have added three paragraphs to the offending article himself, one of which read: “This is the real face of Islam... the prophet Mohammad wrote verses of the Holy Quran just for his own benefit.”
At his appeal court trial today five professors of Balkh University, where the defendant was a student, claimed that Kambakhsh disrupted classes by asking “anti-Islam and insulting questions.”
Kambakhsh was originally sentenced to death by a local court in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif following his arrest in October 2007.
Following today’s hearing defence lawyer, Mohammad Afzal Shormach Nuristani, said his client would appeal to Afghanistan’s Supreme Court. Mr Nuristani has faced repeated death threats, as has his client.
The case has drawn widespread criticism from human rights organisations and Western governments. Kambakhsh claimed he made a confession after being tortured by officials from the Afghan security services. He claims his accusers were motivated by personal enimities to bring the charges against him.
The proceedings of the original trial were criticised by the European Union amongst others, after it emerged that the trial was held in closed session with only three judges, a court clerk and prosecutor present. Kambakhsh was given only three minutes to defend himself before being sentenced to death.
International observers and human rights groups also attacked today’s appeal proceedings, held in open court.
“We are much concerned about the legal process of the trial,” said Nader Nadery, commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. “The reaction of the judge seems to be one sided. Kambakhsh’s defence lawyer wasn’t given enough chance to speak.”
One of the witnesses in yesterday’s trial, a student identified only as Hamid, told the court that he made his original statement after he was threatened with expulsion from Balkh University and faced intimidation from members of the Afghan intelligence service.
“There is a big reform process for criminal procedure in Afghanistan, but if you don’t enforce those procedure laws they are not worth anything,” said John Dempsey, an American lawyer who attended the trial on behalf of the Washington thinktank, The United States Institute of Peace. “In this case the procedures were routinely ignored to the detriment of Kambakhsh.”
The trial has aroused similarly strong passions among conservative Afghans.
Mohammad Jawed, a lawyer from Mazar-e-Sharif who also attended today’s trial said: “This judge is against Muslims, this is a very low sentence. He should be hanged. Five teachers from the University of Balkh bore witness that he was against Islam. They saw him downloading and distributing it.”
Afghanistan is a signatury to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which enshrines freedom of speech, expression and religion. However, it is widely held among Afghan lawmakers that the third article of the Afghan Constitution, which forbids anything contrary to the ’beliefs and provisions of Islam’, takes precedence over all other articles.
There have been a number of other recent blasphemy trials in the country.
Dan McNorton, a UN Spokesman, told the Times: “We are closely monitoring the Kambakhsh case. We remain concerned about whether fair trial standards were followed at all stages as well as possible implications of this case for freedom of expression issues.”
Pastor killed in Sri Lanka
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07748.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - Pastor Sebamalai Gunesh (33) of Elohim Gospel Church in the village of Orugodawatte on the outskirts of Colombo was found dead on October 8, according to the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.
The pastor was reported missing on October 6 when he did not return home from a religious meeting held in the town of Kadawatha. Pastor Gunesh's brother was also found dead in a nearby location.
Ask God to comfort Pastor Gunesh's wife, 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter in their grief. Pray that those responsible for the attacks will come to repentance and salvation, just as Paul did. Pray for wisdom and protection for those serving Christ in Sri Lanka at great risk.
For more information on the suffering of Christians in Sri Lanka, go to www.persecution.net/srilanka.htm.
Radicals Threaten Christians: 'We Will Make Our District Like Orissa'
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07747.shtml
JHARKAND, India, (christiansunite.com) -- Anti-Christian radicals in India's Jharkand state have threatened local believers with organized violence modeled after the attempted genocide of Christians in neighboring Orissa, according to reports received by Gospel for Asia's headquarters in Carrollton, Texas.
GFA missionary Mohan Girji was badly beaten by anti- Christian extremists on Friday. The next day, a large group of Hindu radicals gathered with the purpose of bringing Orissa's persecution rampage to their state as well.
"We will make our district like Orissa," the extremists declared, referencing the state where the worst persecution against Christians erupted nearly two months ago.
The threats were accompanied by an attack on a GFA-related church and an attempt to organize the beating of two other GFA missionaries. Fortunately, the beatings were not carried out.
GFA President K.P. Yohannan called the threats totally unwarranted.
"These attacks and threats are another sign that a radical minority of Hindus are attempting to use hate and violence to keep people from knowing the love and hope found in Jesus Christ," Dr. Yohannan said. "I ask that all Christians pray for our brothers and sisters in Jharkand at this time--and pray for those who persecute them, that they will come to know the love of God that can free them from their captivity by the Enemy."
The extremist group is using what they say is a mistranslation of a word in the Jharkhand-language Bible as their excuse for attacking the Christians, demanding that the word be changed. In Orissa, the rampage that has driven more than 50,000 Christians from their homes started when a Hindu swami was killed by Maost rebels. The Hindu radicals insisted that Christians killed the swami, despite the Communists claiming responsibility.
As in Orissa, the tension in Jharkand has forced the Christians in Pastor Girgi's area to leave and gather in another location for worship.
Gospel for Asia is an evangelical mission organization based in Carrollton, Texas, involved in sharing the love of Jesus across South Asia.
Australian parliament considers changing Lord's Prayer
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/australian.parliament.considers.changing.lords.prayer/21758.htm
The speaker of Australia’s parliament has called for a debate on the practice of reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of parliamentary business.
Since 1901 the Lord’s Prayer has been recited at the start of every parliamentary sitting.
Harry Jenkins, speaker of the House of Representatives, said that the debate should focus on whether the prayer should be reworded or replaced completely.
Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, he said, "One of the most controversial aspects of the parliamentary day I found from practically day two is the prayer.”
His comments come shortly after Rob Oakeshott, a new independent MP, expressed his disappointment that there was no acknowledgement of the indigenous people of Australia at the start of each sitting.
In his maiden speech Oakeshott said, "I ask you to revisit this question of daily acknowledgement within this chamber for traditional owners, a simple symbolic but respectful act which will assist in building a better Australia," reports AFP.
Jenkins said that some form of recognition to the indigenous population would be in step with the apology to Aboriginals, made by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in January for injustices during in the last 220 years of white settlement.
Australian Immigration Minister Chris Evans said, however, that it was unlikely things would change. Evans noted that traditional land owners were mentioned every year at the opening of parliament and at other formal Parliament House functions.
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Evans said, "We had this debate in the Senate a few years ago when there was talk about having a moment's reflection rather than the Lord's Prayer but the strong view among Senators was that the Lord's Prayer ought to remain - I wouldn't expect any change."
'Jesus was not God' book written by Catholic Priest being sold in churches
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/10/29/Jesus_was_not_God_priest_sparks_Catholic_controversy
Jesus Christ was not God, and Mary was not a virgin, according to a controversial new book written by an Australian Catholic priest.
In the booklet, ‘God is Big. Real Big’, which has gone on sale for $20 in several churches, Bathurst priest Peter Dresser argues Jesus could not have been God.
“This whole matter regarding Jesus being God ... not only does violence to my own intelligence, but must be a sticking point,” he says.
“For millions of people trying to make some kind of sense of the Christian religion ... No human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that.”
Father Dresser claims Joseph was Jesus’s father, Mary was not a virgin – and actually had six children – and that the story of the resurrection should not be taken literally.
The booklet has angered conservative Catholics, such as Sydney priest Anthony Robbie.
“What a breathtaking know-all, to claim he knows the mind of Christ contrary to scripture and tradition. His words rob Christianity entirely of its meaning and purpose,” Father Robbie told News Ltd.
Australia to implement mandatory internet censorship
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24568137-2862,00.html
Australia will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government.
The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.
The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.
The plan was first created as a way to combat child pronography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.
Communications minister Stephen Conroy revealed the mandatory censorship to the Senate estimates committee as the Global Network Initiative, bringing together leading companies, human rights organisations, academics and investors, committed the technology firms to "protect the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their users".
Mr Conroy said trials were yet to be carried out, but "we are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material."
The net nanny proposal was originally going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option of contacting their internet service provider to be excluded from the service.
Human Rights Watch has condemned internet censorship, and argued to the US Senate "there is a real danger of a Virtual Curtain dividing the internet, much as the Iron Curtain did during the Cold War, because some governments fear the potential of the internet, (and) want to control it"
Groups including the System Administrators Guild of Australia and Electronic Frontiers Australia have attacked the proposal, saying it would unfairly restrict Australians' access to the web, slow internet speeds and raise the price of internet access.
EFA board member Colin Jacobs said it would have little effect on illegal internet content, including child pornography, as it would not cover file-sharing networks.
"If the Government would actually come out and say we're only targeting child pornography it would be a different debate," he said.
The technology companies' move, which follows criticism that the companies were assisting censorship of the internet in nations such as China, requires them to narrowly interpret government requests for information or censorship and to fight to minimise cooperation.
The initiative provides a systematic approach to "work together in resisting efforts by governments that seek to enlist companies in acts of censorship and surveillance that violate international standards", the participants said.
In a statement, Yahoo co-founder and chief executive Jerry Yang welcomed the new code of conduct.
"These principles provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted," he said.
"Yahoo was founded on the belief that promoting access to information can enrich people's lives, and the principles we unveil today reflect our determination that our actions match our values around the world."
Yahoo was thrust into the forefront of the online rights issue after the Californian company helped Chinese police identify cyber dissidents whose supposed crime was expressing their views online.
China exercises strict control over the internet, blocking sites linked to Chinese dissidents, the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, the Tibetan government-in-exile and those with information on the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
A number of US companies, including Microsoft, Cisco, Google and Yahoo, have been hauled before the US Congress in recent years and accused of complicity in building the "Great Firewall of China".
The Australian Christian Lobby, however, has welcomed the proposals.
Managing director Jim Wallace said the measures were needed.
"The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry's desire for unfettered access," Mr Wallace said.
Disturbing Stories Expose Dark Realities of Christian Persecution
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081030/disturbing-stories-expose-dark-realities-of-persecution.htm
A solemn atmosphere descended upon a room full of culturally diverse evangelical leaders on Wednesday as disturbing accounts of religious persecution poured forth from those living in anti-Christian hotspots.
One by one, panelists shared stories of attacks against Christians in their country that included atrocious acts such as beheadings, gang rape, and genocide.
Stories were especially poignant because of the speakers’ closeness to the actual persecution, of which some were personally experienced.
The Rev. Godfrey Yogarajah of Sri Lanka, the new director of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Religious Liberty Commission, shared that just a few days prior to his arrival in Thailand for the WEA General Assembly, one of the WEA pastors in his country of Sri Lanka was murdered and the pastor’s body thrown in a river.
A Vietnamese pastor named “Daniel” (full name cannot be disclosed for security reason) on the panel spoke about his father, a pastor, who was imprisoned for six years for his faith following the communist takeover in 1975.
The Vietnamese government now continues its persecution of his family for a second generation by denying Daniel citizenship because of his leadership in a major house church organization. His wife has to carry the burden of representing his family in every legal procedure.
But perhaps the most emotionally-charged testimony came from the Rev. Dr. Richard Howell, the general secretary of Evangelical Fellowship of India and Asia Evangelical Alliance.
Howell went beyond informing the evangelical leaders in the audience about the recent anti-Christian rampage in India to explain the reason behind Hindus’ hatred of Christians.
Hindu nationalist political parties believe and promote an ideology that promotes Hindu nation, Hindu culture, and Hindu people – “nationalism linked to Hindu religion,” said Howell.
“If you are not a Hindu, by definition, you are an anti-national,” he states. “So the hatred of Christian is hatred of Christian identity. They don’t like us not because of what we do – they definitely hate what we do – but also who we are.”
“They want to turn India into a Hindu nation, that is why Christians are hated,” the evangelical leader said.
But more importantly, Christians are hated because they empower the poor, which is the “root cause of any hatred that they incur,” he said.
Empowering the poor Dalit disturbs the caste system, which defines the group formerly known as untouchables as impure.
“A Dalit can never become a Brahmin (the highest position among the four social classifications of Brahminical Hinduism). It is his fate that he is condemned to be an impure Dalit. He should die a Dalit,” Howell explained.
However, the Gospel empowers and liberates Dalits when they become a follower of Jesus Christ, which angers the Brahmins.
“In 1857, every single Christian in Delhi was slaughtered – every single Christian. There was a time in Delhi where every single Muslim was put to death,” recalled a visibly emotional Howell in a loud but trembling voice.
“In 1984, when Mrs. [Indira] Ghandi (India's first and to date only female Prime Minister) was killed, 3,000 Sikhs were butchered – 3,000 of them on the streets of Delhi,” he recalled. “They have killed the Christians, they have killed the Muslims, they have killed the Sikhs, and now it is the time of Christians to be killed.”
He cited reports claiming that 50,000 Indian Christians have been displaced because of the violence, 30,000 of them live in relief camps – some, as reported by news agencies, sleeping without blankets – and over 4,000 Christian homes, churches and businesses have also been destroyed.
Some Christian groups say nearly 100 Christians have been killed in the attacks, although the media reports significantly lower figures – around 40 to 50 deaths.
“Persecution continued for two months unabated, uncontrolled,” Howell said angrily. “Government is a participator to the persecution that is taking place. Police stand as silent spectators. Nuns have been gang raped in the present of police.”
The current anti-Christian campaign is said to be the worst in the 60 years of India’s independence. India is the largest democratic country to experience such a large scale persecution of religious minority.
Though Hindu radicals accuse Christians of only serving the poor to convert them, Howell vehemently denied the allegations.
“Christians care for the poor for the sake of the love of Jesus Christ, not because we go out to convert,” he asserts. “Propagation machine say Christians serve to convert. If that was the case, our percentage should be 40, 60 or 80 percent – that’s not the case.”
India’s population is currently comprised of 80.5 percent Hindus, 13.4 percent Muslims, 2.3 percent Christians, and 1.9 percent Sikhs, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Other panelists, meanwhile, discussed the dire situation in Iraq, including Christian women who were being kidnapped, raped and beheaded.
Sharia Banking On The Rise
http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=26633&t=1&c=11&cg=3&mset=1011
The swift rise of the Islamic finance industry could hit a wall in the coming years as the sector struggles to find enough experts to do the job, an industry official said yesterday.
Shariah banking’s sudden popularity has created a scramble for bankers, scholars and lawyers conversant in both conventional finance and Islamic economics, and produced a shortage that sometimes compromises the quality of products, experts say.
Many Islamic bankers are drawn from the conventional finance sector and have structured products which have drawn criticism that Shariah banking is little more than usury-based financing cloaked in Islamic dress.
The Islamic industry’s rapid growth has outpaced the rate at which the sector is able to churn out workers, said Agil Natt, CEO of Kuala Lumpur-based INCEIF, which says it is the world’s only dedicated Islamic finance university.
“We want to bring the Islamic finance professionals closer to understanding Shariah principles and we want the Shariah advisers to be able to understand some of the problems of practitioners,” Natt said in an interview.
“If you do not train the right kind of human capital, there is a risk that the growth of the industry can be stymied.”
About 30,000 Islamic finance professionals will be needed in the Middle East in the next ten years, he said, citing figures from consultancy AT Kearney.
In Malaysia, another leading centre of Islamic finance, an estimated 8,600 Shariah bankers would be needed by 2012, almost double the 4,800 available now, according to the central bank.
The Islamic insurance, or Takaful, industry would require just over 2,000 professionals by 2012, up from 1,250 now.
The industry’s lack is especially glaring in commercial banking and takaful in the Middle East, retail banking in the US and fund management and investment banking in Malaysia, Natt said.
Modern Islamic banking, which has its roots in the 1970s oil boom, has been growing about 20% annually, driven mainly by a surge in Middle East oil revenues.
It aims to be a viable alternative to the conventional industry but with over 300 financial institutions worldwide and the sector valued at about US$1 trillion, the size of the Islamic industry is still just a fraction of conventional banking.
The shortage of talent in the industry is creating a fierce competition for workers. Middle East institutions, in particular, are trying to draw in professionals by offering top dollar.
It has also driven up wages, with it not uncommon for Shariah bankers to draw higher pay than their conventional peers.
The Islamic industry’s growth was not expected to stall despite easing energy prices, as the global financial meltdown and US housing crisis have put the spotlight on ethical investing, Natt said.
“There would be no drop in momentum simply because Islamic banking and finance has features which makes it appealing for even non-Muslims,” said Natt, formerly a top official of Malayan Banking, Malaysia’s largest lender.
The industry also faces a shortage of Shariah scholars, he said, estimating that there are about 200 such scholars worldwide.
All financial institutions that offer Islamic products must have a board of Shariah advisers who decide if instruments comply with Islamic law’s standards.
INCEIF, which was set up in 2006, is funded by Malaysia’s central bank and has over 1,800 students from 52 countries.
Pastor Zhang and family targeted by authorities in China
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07751.shtml
(christiansunite.com) - Chinese authorities continue to target underground church leader Pastor Zhang "Bike" Mingxuan and his family. At noon on October 16, approximately 15 Public Security Bureau officials barged into the legally rented apartment of Pastor Zhang and his wife, Xie Fenglan, and began throwing their belongings out into the street.
Xie Fenglan urgently phoned her oldest son, Zhang Jian, for help. He arrived to find authorities knocking his mother to the ground. When he tried to shield her from their blows, he was beaten with iron bars. His mother phoned for an ambulance, but was informed that a government-issued order forbade dispatching one for relatives of Pastor Zhang. She then phoned her other son, Zhang Chuang, for help. When he arrived, he too was beaten by the officials. A family friend eventually brought Jian to the hospital where he regained consciousness. He suffered a broken nose and may never regain sight in his right eye.
Jian left the hospital with Chuang because PSB officials were watching him. However, the brothers continued to be threatened by officials and were warned not to leave Chuang's apartment until a Chinese House Church Alliance celebration, scheduled for October 20 and organized by their father, was over.
Pastor Zhang, who was traveling at the time of the attack, has not been heard from and it is suspected that he has been detained by authorities. Police recently used garbage to block the entryway to the church building where Pastor Zhang preaches. Xie Fenglan was evicted from her home and at last report has been residing with another house church leader because authorities ordered hotels to refuse her shelter.
Pray for the Zhang family as they face many trials for their faith in Christ. Pray for an end to the crackdowns on Chinese Christians (2 Thessalonians 1:3-4).
For more information on the plight of Chinese Christians, visit www.persecution.net/china.htm.
Muslims behead Christian convert from Islam in Somalia
www.compassdirect.org
Among at least 24 aid workers killed in Somalia this year was one who was beheaded last month specifically for converting from Islam to Christianity, among other charges, according to an eyewitness.
Muslim extremists from the al Shabab group fighting the transitional government on Sept. 23 sliced the head off of Mansuur Mohammed, 25, a World Food Program (WFP) worker, before horrified onlookers of Manyafulka village, 10 kilometers (six miles) from Baidoa.
The militants had intercepted Mohammed and a WFP driver, who managed to escape, earlier in the morning. Sources close to Mohammed’s family said he converted from Islam to Christianity in 2005.
The eyewitness, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said the militants that afternoon gathered the villagers of Manyafulka, telling them that they would prepare a feast for them. The people gathered anticipating the slaughter of a sheep, goat or camel according to local custom.
Five masked men emerged carrying guns, wielding Somali swords and dragging the handcuffed Mohammed. One pulled back Mohammed’s head, exposing his face as he scraped his sword against his short hair as if to sharpen it. Another recited the Quran as he proclaimed that Mohammed was a “murtid,” an Arabic term for one who converts from Islam to Christianity.
The Muslim militant announced that Mohammed was an infidel and a spy for occupying Ethiopian soldiers.
Mohammed remained calm with an expressionless face, never uttering a word, said the eyewitness. As the chanting of “Allah Akubar [God is greater]” rose to a crescendo, one of the militiamen twisted his head, allowing the other to slit his neck. When the head was finally severed from the torso, the killers cheered as they displayed it to the petrified crowd.
The militants allowed one of their accomplices to take a video of the slaughter using a mobile phone. The video was later circulated secretly and sold in Somalia and in neighboring countries in what many see as a strategy to instill fear among those contemplating conversion from Islam to Christianity.
Unconfirmed reports indicated that a similar incident took place in Lower Juba province of Somalia in July, when Christians found with Bibles were publicly executed. Their families fled to Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and such killings are forcing other Christians to flee to neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.
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