NC Republican Ad Takes Aim at Obama
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/363601.aspx
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded critical ads in the run-up to the Pennsylvania primaries.
And now that Pennsylvania is in the rear-view mirror -- North Carolina Republicans are getting in on the act.
A John McCain ad slams two North Carolina politicians for endorsing Obama in light of his relationship to the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
McCain came out against the ad, and says he asked for it not to be aired. But the North Carolina GOP balked at the idea. They say voters need to know about the people Obama surrounds himself with.
"Unfortunately, in Barack Obama's run for the White House, he has chosen to associate himself with the wrong people," McCain said.
North Carolina and Indiana both hold their primaries May 6.
Huckabee to Write Book on His Campaign
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/363784.aspx
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Two weeks after the next president is elected, Mike Huckabee will publish a book sharing details on his failed bid for the White House and offering his vision for remodeling the conservative movement.
Sentinel, a conservative imprint of Penguin Group (USA), said Wednesday it will publish the former Arkansas governor and one-time Republican presidential hopeful's next book, to be released Nov. 18.
The book, not yet titled, will offer an insider's view of Huckabee's campaign and also offer his vision for the future, publishers said Wednesday.
"There's going to be a lot of untold stories and untold anecdotes," said Will Weisser, Sentinel's associate publisher. "But the other part is the governor's vision for the future of American politics and society and what should we be working towards? How does the (Republican) party become more unified?"
Huckabee, who served as governor for 10½ years, dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination last month after John McCain won enough delegates to clinch the party's nomination. Despite a financially strapped campaign, Huckabee won the leadoff caucuses in Iowa and seven other states.
The publishing company wouldn't say how much Huckabee will be paid.
Weisser acknowledged that they've agreed to the book at a time when Huckabee's political future is uncertain. The former governor recently formed a political action committee to raise money for McCain and other Republicans, and has also been mentioned as a potential running mate for the Arizona senator.
"We kind of had to think about that because obviously it's possible he could be the running mate," Weisser said. "It could certainly be hard to do a traditional book promotion if he's the vice president-elect. But some people here have pointed out that that's a nice problem to have."
In 2006, shortly before leaving office due to term limits and announcing his presidential bid, Huckabee published "From Hope to Higher Ground," which offered a preview of his policy proposals on areas ranging from taxes to education.
Huckabee, who lost more than 100 pounds after being diagnosed with diabetes, also published a book offering his tips on weight loss and healthy living called "Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork."
Sarah Huckabee, the former governor's daughter and executive director of his PAC, said her father was on the road and not immediately available for comment. She said her father was still writing the book.
Sentinel, which was founded in 2003, is also publishing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoir to be released in 2010.
White House Compassion in Action Roundtable Highlights Partnerships with Faith-Based and Community Organizations to Promote Healthy Marriages and Families
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07109.shtml
WASHINGTON -- The White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) today convened a Compassion in Action policy roundtable, highlighting innovative policies and partnerships to strengthen marriages and families. Hosted by OFBCI Director Jay Hein, the event explored effective models for Federal collaboration with faith-based and community organizations to help Americans who choose marriage succeed in marriage and, in turn, promote the well-being of our nation's communities.
Bringing together policymakers, business leaders, philanthropists, government officials and others, today's Compassion in Action roundtable featured promising public-private partnerships, new research, and activities of philanthropic organizations to strengthen the institution of marriage. Featured speakers included Joyce Thomas, regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Administration for Children and Families; Wade Horn, director of Deloitte Consulting LLP; Randy Hicks, president of the Georgia Family Council; and representatives from other philanthropic and non-government organizations.
"Healthy marriages are a keystone to the success of our nation," said Director Jay Hein. "Working alongside community leaders to strengthen marriages in America, we help ensure a more hopeful future of our children and our society."
President Bush has led efforts to promote healthy marriages and parenting education, placing emphasis on innovative partnerships with community efforts to improve the well-being of families throughout the nation. For example, the Healthy Marriage Initiative at HHS' Administration for Children and Families provides couples with knowledge and guidance on sustaining healthy marriages and parenting relationships. Additionally, HHS' Promoting Responsible Fatherhood initiative provides resources to help fathers play a positive role in their children's lives, particularly within a healthy marriage environment.
Evidence suggests that the health of marriage in America will play a key role in determining the future of our children, families and society itself. A study released today by the Institute for American Values titled, The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing, reveals the cost of family fragmentation to taxpayers and concludes that unnecessary divorce and unmarried childbearing carry profound public policy implications. The study also examines positive personal and societal impacts of healthy marriages and child rearing, which lead to decreased need for publicly-funded social programs.
Additionally, a 2005 study by HHS' Center for Marriage and Families titled, Why Marriage Matters, Second Edition, examines the importance of marriage on families and American society. The study indicates that, particularly among minorities, couples from disadvantaged backgrounds who marry and stay married are much less likely to suffer poverty or other material hardship. The research also concludes that married men are less likely to engage in violent and criminal activity. These and other family and marriage studies help shine a light on deep-seeded societal issues in ways that can guide government and private- sector organizations in determining ways to engage the root of these problems.
During today's roundtable, Director Hein recognized business leader and philanthropist Truett Cathy, who received a lifetime President's Volunteer Service Award this morning from President Bush in the Oval Office. Mr. Cathy was recognized for his lifetime of dedicated service to others in need, including his founding of WinShape Foundation, which provides various youth mentoring and marriage counseling services for individuals of all ages.
President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative (FBCI) is built from the conviction that the most effective way to address our communities' great needs is to draw upon the unique strengths of every willing community and faith-based partner. The President launched the FBCI in January 2001 to strengthen America's nonprofit sector and extend its work in partnership with government.
Since January 2007, the OFBCI has convened monthly Compassion in Action policy roundtables to discuss issues of interest to faith- and community-based organizations and honor the successes of dedicated Americans helping their neighbors in need. The roundtables convene and facilitate discussion between key government and private sector players around targeted issues.
For more information on the OFBCI and the President's compassion agenda, visit: www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/.
Congressman Murtha, Secretary of the Navy, and Several Marine Generals Demanded in Unlawful Command Influence Motion
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07113.shtml
ANN ARBOR, MI - Military prosecutors fought desperately to prevent the testimony of Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha, Secretary of the Navy Donald Winters and several top Marine Generals, including former Marine Commandant Michael Hagee and the current Commandant James Conway.
The requested witnesses showed the dirty hand of unlawful command influence - considered by the courts as the "mortal enemy of military justice. " The hearing on the motion to produce the testimony of these high ranking officials concluded yesterday at Camp Pendleton, California.
The Unlawful Command Influence motion was one of seven motions brought on for hearing this week by the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Court decisions on unlawful command influence require the military judge to avoid even the "appearance of this evil" in his courtroom. The Law Center, along with two detailed Marine lawyers, is defending Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest ranking military officer charged in the November 19, 2005, Haditha incident.
As of now, the judge has granted continuance on Lt. Col. Chessani's court-martial, pushing the trial date back from April 28th to June 17th. We still await Col. Folsom's ruling on the remaining motions.
Law Center attorneys Rob Muise and Brian Rooney, as well as detailed military defense counsel, Lt. Col. John Shelbourne, USMC, and Captain Jeff King, USMC,'??presented oral arguments on the seven motions to military judge Colonel Stephen Folsom, USMC.
"It was obvious from the outset that Lt. Col. Chessani was being made a political scapegoat. Even before the investigation was completed, Congressman Murtha publicly accused the Haditha Marines of "cold blooded murder" and officers of covering it up. Murtha claimed he got his information from the highest level of the military," said Richard Thompson, Chief Counsel of the Law Center.
The criminal charges against Lt. Col. Chessani stem from a house-to-house, room-by-room battle four of his enlisted Marines engaged in on November 19, 2005, after being ambushed by insurgents in the town of Haditha, Iraq. Even though Lt. Col. Chessani immediately reported the events of that day to his superiors, including the death of 15 noncombatant civilians caught in the crossfire, nobody in Lt. Col. Chessani's chain of command, all the way to General Casey showed any interest in conducting an investigation because they understood this to be combat action - not a law of war violation.
However, months later, a Time magazine story instigated by an insurgent propaganda agent, caused Pentagon officials to order the largest investigation in the history of the Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS). As a result, Lt. Col. Chessani, one of America's most effective combat commanders in Iraq, now faces dismissal (an officer's equivalent of a dishonorable discharge), loss of retirement, and imprisonment of up to 3 years.
Thus far, after 30 months of investigation costing millions of dollars, the cases against three of the four enlisted men charged for their part in the Haditha incident have been dismissed.
If defense attorneys were able to produce some evidence of unlawful command influence, the burden will shift to prosecutors to show beyond a reasonable doubt that: (1) the predicate facts alleged by the defense are untrue; (2) the predicate facts alleged do not constitute unlawful command influence; or (3) the unlawful command influence will not affect the proceedings.
This burden is high because command influence deprives service members of their constitutional rights. It is important to note that the court will determine not only whether there was actual unlawful command influence, but also whether there was an appearance of impropriety that would taint the public's perception of the fairness of the court-martial.
On May 17, 2006, months before the investigation was completed, Congressman Murtha held his first news conference on the Haditha incident. Murtha said he had been told by the highest levels of the Marine Corps that there was no IED, there was no firefight, and the Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood. "
The next day, Murtha again spoke about Haditha and confidentially proclaimed "All the information I get, it comes from the commanders, it comes from people who know what they're talking about. " "It's much worse than reported in Time magazine. "
He told a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer that Gen. Michael Hagee had given him the information on which he based his accusations.
Murtha's claim of cold blooded murder and cover-up fly in the face of previous investigations conducted by Army personnel.
The first investigation conducted by Army Colonel G. A. Watt found "there are no indications that [Coalition Forces] intentionally targeted, engaged, and killed noncombatants. " A second, by Army Major General Aldon Bargewell concluded there was no "cover-up" by the chain-of-command, and that "[The inaccurate press release that launched Time magazine's investigation] was not the result of any intent to conceal misconduct . . . "
When Colonel Watt's findings were given to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on March 10, 2006, one Pentagon official recalled,? "Rumsfeld told aides that the case promised to be a major problem. He called it - really, really bad -- as bad or worse than Abu Ghraib. '"
Several sources, including Generals Hagee and Conway, have told defense counsel that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld decided to set up an oversight "body" to keep tabs on the investigations and prosecutions of the Haditha cases.
Florida Bill Would Allow Evolution Challenge
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/363973.aspx
The Florida state Senate has passed an evolution challenge bill for public school teachers.
The bill, also known as the Academic Freedom Act, would prohibit school officials from disciplining teachers who offer facts that cast doubt on Darwin's theory.
It would also allow teachers to challenge the theory of evolution in the classroom with other scientific information.
The new bill came after the Florida Board of Education voted earlier this year to begin requiring evolution be taught in schools.
Opponents say the act would allow the teaching of creationism or intelligent design, which courts have defined as religion rather than science.
Sen. Ronda Storms sponsored the legislation, and sees its passage as a victory for academics.
One teacher e-mailed the senator about the bill, demonstrating its need.
"To say I have problems with evolution theory would be career suicide for me," the teacher said, adding that those who opposed evolution were often called "religious idiots."
The Academic Freedom Act was passed with a vote of 21 to 17.
It still requires approval from the House and Governor.
South Carolina Senate Passes Public Prayer Bill
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352524,00.html
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The state Senate has approved a bill that would allow prayers before public meetings.
The legislation says public bodies can adopt policies to let members take turns giving an invocation, elect a chaplain or create a pool of speakers from faith groups to offer the prayer.
The bill also calls for the state attorney general to defend public bodies if they face constitutional challenges.
The town of Great Falls lost a lawsuit filed in 2001 claiming it violated the separation between church and state when it used the name Jesus Christ in prayers. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the town's appeal in 2005.
The public prayer bill now heads to the House.
California Anti-Spanking Bill Passes First Hurdle
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07110.shtml
Sacramento - Despite protests from parents, California's Democrat-controlled Legislature is moving forward with banning many types of spanking. On Tuesday, a bill prohibiting spanking with an "implement," such as a wooden spoon, little paddle, rolled-up newspaper, switch, belt, or brush, passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Democrats for, and one Republican against.
AB 2943 by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, whose anti-spanking crusade made national news last year, is back with her proposal to add "the use of an implement" while spanking to the definition of child abuse in the California Penal Code. Other parts of AB 2943 that deal with actual child abuse are redundant with existing law.
"AB 2943 will result in good parents being arrested, handcuffed, and charged with criminal child abuse," said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families (CCF), who brought mothers who spank with wooden spoons and little paddles to the committee hearing. "No state legislature has passed a bill like this, and no state or federal court has ruled that spanking is child abuse. AB 2943 tramples the cherished right of parents to raise their own children and removes children from good parents who occasionally spank their children to correct misbehavior."
Voting "aye" on AB 2943 were all five Democrats on the committee: Jose Solorio of Santa Ana, Hector De La Torre of southeast Los Angeles, Fiona Ma of San Francisco, Anthony Portantino of La Cañada Flintridge, and Curren Price of Inglewood. Only Solorio and Portantino were present to hear testimony for and against AB 2943.
Although neither were in the committee room during the hearing on this significant bill, Republicans Greg Aghazarian of Stockton and Joel Anderson of El Cajon voted "no" on AB 2943 before the committee adjourned.
Ironically, Assemblyman Jose Solorio, a Santa Ana Democrat and the committee chair, voted for AB 2943, which broadly lumps together good parents with child abusers, despite opposing other bills on Tuesday that he said were "too broad" and supporting other bills to prevent "wrongful conviction."
Testifying against AB 2943 was Sarah Berke, who has five children and lives near Sacramento:
"I'm here today as one of the thousands of parents in our state who love our children and believe in traditional values," she told the committee. "As someone dead-set against the evil of child abuse, I also have a strong faith that calls on me to correct misbehavior and rebellion when it occurs. This means a spanking once in a while. Yet my faith and moral beliefs that teach me to 'train up a child in the way he should go' would make me a suspected child abuser under AB 2943. Under this bill, I could be arrested and charged with child abuse. I could be tried in criminal court, be sent to jail for a year, and lose custody of my children. AB 2943 tramples the rights of good parents to raise their children with various methods of correction and discipline. This is wrong. Spanking isn't child abuse."
AB 2943 will go next to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where last year's anti-spanking bill (AB 755) was stopped. Due to California's massive state budget deficit, AB 2943 and other bills that cost the state money to enforce may not pass.
"This bad bill labels tens of thousands of good fathers and good mothers as violent child abusers," said CCF's Thomasson. "Under AB 2943, all mandatory reporters, including teachers, police officers, social workers, counselors and clergy, must be trained to see parents who spank as potential child abusers. The fact that Sally Lieber wants to order good parents into a 'nonviolent parental education class' demonstrates that she thinks parents who spank are violent child abusers."
"We're all against child abuse and in favor of enforcing existing laws against abusive parents," said Thomasson. "But loving, corrective discipline of children's misbehavior is very different from hateful, harmful abuse. AB 2943 is a radical bill that would hurt tens of thousands of California families, accusing good parents of being child abusers, and forcibly removing children from safe, nurturing homes. This is so wrong - God gave children to parents, not to the state."
Several TV, radio and newspaper outlets came to AB 2943 hearing at CCF's invitation. CCF's website, www.savecalifornia.com, is equipping Californians to call and email their state legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to urge them to oppose AB 2943.
Virtually identical to her failed AB 755, AB 2943 would have the practical effect of making a non-injurious spanking with an object such as a ruler, a wooden spoon, folded newspaper, small paddle, stick or switch illegal. After being arrested, charged, and tried in a criminal court, parents could receive up to one year in jail and lose custody of their children. While Lieber claims that her bill only deals with child abuse, she has repeatedly said that all spanking, by definition, is child abuse.
AB 2943 would amend Penal Code 273a, which currently makes it a crime to cause unjustifiable pain, harm, or injury to any minor child. The instructions to a jury which are mandated by AB 2943 would state that a jury may consider that physical pain or mental suffering inflicted upon a child is unjustifiable if it is caused by any of the seven kinds of actions, which are also listed in AB 2943.
The first of the seven actions listed is "the use of an implement, including, but not limited to, a stick, a rod, a switch, an electrical cord, an extension cord, a belt, a broom, or a shoe." This includes the act of spanking with an object other than using one's hand. This provision threatens to criminalize California parents who lovingly correct their children's misbehavior with a spanking implement.
Because these items would be listed in the Penal Code, the police and District Attorney would likely consider all spanking with an implement to be grounds to bring charges against the parents. Then a criminal court trial would determine if the parents are guilty of criminal child abuse. Parents would have the difficult task of proving that the spanking was justifiable to the satisfaction of the court in a criminal trial in order to avoid being sent to jail for up to one year or receiving other penalties. The case also could be referred to Child Protective Services (CPS) and Juvenile Court, which could result in the possible temporary or permanent loss of custody of their children.
CAMPAIGN FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES (CCF) is a leading West Coast nonprofit, nonpartisan organization representing children and families. CCF stands for marriage and family, parental rights, the sanctity of human life, religious freedom, and back-to-basics education.
Planned Parenthood Accused of Racism
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/363785.aspx
Pro-life advocates held a vigil at a Planned Parenthood office just blocks away from the White House.
The group of pastors and students say Planned Parenthood targets the African-American community.
"Black America must wake up and stand up to this racist organization that purposefully plants abortion facilities firmly in black and minority neighborhoods," said Day Gardner of the Nation Black Pro-Life Union.
The crowd believes the evidence is overwhelming, citing a stated goal of Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger, and more recently, a student-led expose' involving phone calls that caught staff at Planned Parenthood accepting money to specifically abort black babies.
"We just think the less black kids out there the better," the donor said.
A Planned Parenthood worker responded, "Understandable. Excuse my hesitation. This is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited."
Planned Parenthood of Idaho quickly apologized, calling the conversation "offensive."
But the protestors say Planned Parenthood should not receive taxpayer money to practice racism.
For Lillie Epps her involvement in Thursday's rally is more personal.
When she was 26, she walked through the doors at that very clinic to have an abortion.
"If I only knew then what I know now," she said. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about the child that could've been."
Congressman Trent Franks, who spoke at the event, says he plans to introduce a bill that would make this group's goal of ending targeted abortions illegal.
"They have moved my heart to a new direction legislatively, that we're going to do what we can to say no...That it's against the law in this country to abort a baby based solely on their sex or their race."
Rev. Clenard Childress of Black Genocide believes an even greater issued of profit is involved.
"I believe, as always, that if abortion was not lucrative, it would not be legal and they are benefiting off of the blood of innocent babies."
Mammoth Prayer Event to Air LIVE on GOD TV
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07111.shtml
WASHINGTON -- As Christians gather in stadiums across America on Saturday 26 April for a national day of prayer and repentance, under the umbrella of 'ReignDown USA,' GOD TV will be in Washington, DC to broadcast the event's main draw- card direct from the National Mall.
The US capital, where GOD TV has studios near the White House, will be abuzz with believers from many different denominations as they come together to worship and pray, and the four-hour broadcast will be televised LIVE at 6pm (EST) throughout the USA on GOD TV (DIRECTV 365) as well as internationally to nearly half a billion people.
ReignDown USA is a broad coalition of Christians who have a vision for believers in every State to humbly seek God's presence and forgiveness so that His mercy would reign free across the nation, bringing healing and restoration. It is headed up by veteran Lutheran minister Walt Kallestad and his daughter Shawn-Marie Cole, who personally received a powerful vision from the Lord of Christians rallying together to cry out for God's mercy upon America.
This is in keeping with 2 Chronicles 7:14: "...and if My people, My God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking My presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I'll listen from Heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health" (The Message version).
ReignDown USA is supported by many high profile ministries and churches including Prayer Watch International; the Presidential Prayer Team; Congressional Prayer Caucus; and the Awakening America Alliance. Top US recording artist Michael W Smith will lead worship during the broadcast and prayers will be said by many different ministers including Cindy Jacobs of Generals International and Lou Engle of TheCall.
"The USA is entering a time of desperation for our Lord Jesus Christ," said Walt Kallestad "We've witnessed firsthand the threat of terrorism, natural disaster, broken marriages, moral depletion, denominational division and denying Christ as the center of everything we do. The time has come to repent and put God back in the center of our lives, our relationships and our nation.
"We are so pleased that GOD TV will be broadcasting ReignDown USA LIVE which will allow the broadest possible coverage of this event so that the entire Body of Christ around the world can unite simultaneously in worship and prayer as we lift up this nation."
Prayers during the four-hour ReignDown broadcast will include intercession for the President and future presidents, as well as prayers for the US Congress and Senate and judges serving in the Supreme Court, governors, mayors, state employees, pastors, teachers and other leaders, ending off with prayer for one another.
"As a ministry GOD TV is committed to praying for America, the president and for revival." said GOD TV co-founder, Wendy Alec. "There is enough power in the Church today to change the destinies of our nations, and so we encourage viewers across the world to tune in to ReignDown USA as we humble ourselves and pray together corporately. As we come into agreement, we will see breakthrough in the great nation of America."
For more information visit www.god.tv or www.reigndownusa.com
About GOD TV: www.god.tv
GOD TV was founded in the UK in 1995 by Christian media pioneers Rory & Wendy Alec and in 12 short years has become a global phenomenon. Today the network beams a broad cross section of cutting-edge programs, including many life-changing LIVE broadcasts, into millions of homes worldwide. The only Christian broadcaster to transmit globally from Jerusalem, GOD TV's powerful signal is carried via multiple satellites providing free viewing to almost half a billion people 24-hours-a-day. In the USA, the network has offices in Washington, DC and Orlando, Florida. Other offices are situated in Europe, Africa and Asia. In addition to its vast media outreach, GOD TV also helps people in charitable ways by supporting feeding schemes, orphanages, water drilling projects and disaster relief funds.
Texas Sex Abuse Outrage
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07112.shtml
ELDORADO, Texas -- When state authorities raided the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints facility in Eldorado, Texas, it exposed the fact that some people and organizations involved in the cover-up of child sexual abuse are not the targets of such investigations - even when overwhelming evidence identifies the perpetrators.
During a three-month undercover investigation, Life Dynamics Incorporated of Denton, Texas recorded over 800 calls to Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation facilities across America - including Texas. The female caller portrayed a 13- year-old girl who was pregnant by an adult and wanted an abortion in order to hide the illegal sexual relationship from her parents and the authorities.
On the tapes, many of the clinic workers are heard telling the caller that this situation was unlawful and that they were legally mandated to report it to the state. However, even after acknowledging this, 91 percent of the 800 facilities contacted agreed to illegally conceal it. Representatives of these organizations--often operating on tax dollars--routinely instructed a child who they believed to be a sexual assault victim to:
1. lie about or conceal her age or the age of the man who impregnated her
2. participate in illegal activity in order to circumvent the state's parental notification law
3. use a fictitious name, phone number or address when she came to the facility
4. keep the situation hidden by altering what she would say when she came to the facility
5. be more careful about what information she gave out and to whom
Many clinic representatives told the caller that they deal with this situation "all the time" and that the advice they were giving her is the way they normally handle it. And some of the most outrageous calls came from Texas. "The tapes from our investigation clearly prove that these people are running a statewide pedophile protection racket," said Life Dynamics President, Mark Crutcher, "and our law enforcement agencies are knowingly letting them get away with it."
Crutcher also points out that the situation in Eldorado affects only a tiny fraction of the potential child sexual abuse victims in Texas, while Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation facilities see them by the tens-of-thousands every year. He calls the selective enforcement of laws designed to protect Texas children from sexual predators, "a disgrace, a scandal and an embarrassment to our state."
For Additional Information Visit: ChildPredators.com
The descent into depravity - Children's hospital launches sex change for kids program
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=62010
A doctor at the renowned Children's Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body, according to a report today in the Boston Globe.
Pediatric endocrinologist Norman Spack, 64, says he started the Gender Management Service Clinic because he found himself encountering 20-somethings who were "transgendered" and in good shape socially, "but they were having trouble getting their physique to conform to their identity.
"I knew the 20-somethings could have better chances of passing if they were treated earlier," he said.
"We don't think that demonic is too strong a word to describe this," said a statement from the pro-family Mass Resistance organization. "It brings us thoughts of the Nazi doctors who thought they were doing good things."
WND has reported previously on some of the controversies prompted by the belief that a man can be born in a woman's body, or vice versa, including in Montgomery County, Md., where county officials have adopted a law that precludes those who provide public accommodations from discriminating based on that "gender identity."
Voters there have petitioned to have a vote on that law because they fear men who "decide" they are female walking into women's restrooms and locker rooms.
"Is this our future?" asked Mass Resistance in a commentary. "Dr. Norman Spack runs a clinic for young children who've 'decided' they are transgendered. Among other things, the clinic administers powerful hormones to delay (or even stop) puberty in order that the children more easily undergo operations that mutilate their bodies to 'change' them to the opposite sex."
"This is going on at the world-renowned Children's Hospital in Boston – not some backwater clinic. This is the elite of the medical profession," the organization said.
In a question-and-answer session with Globe columnist Pagan Kennedy, she starts the apologetic for doing surgery on children by saying, "Little boys sob unless they're allowed to wear dresses. The girls want to be called Luke, Ted, or James."
"Until recently, children with cross-gender feelings rarely received modern medical care – and certainly not hormone shots. After all, who would allow a child to redesign his or her body?" she asks.
But Spack, she wrote, has started a clinic that "is one of the few in the world to give children treatments that change their bodies."
She reports he uses drugs to delay puberty, "granting them a few more years before they develop bodies that are decidedly male or female."
Spack tells the interviewer he's seen "preadolescents" who have been dressing in underwear of the opposite sex "for years."
"The puberty-blocking drugs work best at the beginning of the pubital process, typically age 10 to 12 for a girl and 12 to 14 for a boy," he said. He's based some of his work on a Dutch model for sex-change, and said the recommendations there are age 16 for hormones that forever change a child's body.
But "for others," he wrote, "you lose opportunities if you wait. [One of my patients, a] transgendered girl from the UK, was destined to be a 6-foot-4 male. With treatment, she's going to end up 5-foot-10."
He said such treatments not only change the physical characteristics of the growing children, but also could leave them sterile for life.
"You have to explain to the patients that if they go ahead, they may not be able to have children. … But if you don't start treatment, they will always have trouble fitting in," he said.
"This isn't conjecture," Mass Resistance' commentary said. "It's happening now. And 'transgenderism' is being promoted to kids by homosexual/transgender activists in the public schools."
Children as young as 12 already have been given the treatment.
Meanwhile, LifeSiteNews has reported that Spack previously acknowledged that only about 20 percent of children who claim to have a confusion over their gender hold those feelings in adulthood.
The hospital itself calls the program "unique in the Western hemisphere."
As Pope Benedict visits US - many ask what divides Catholics and Protestants?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080416/METRO/556828862/1001
As Pope Benedict XVI continues with his highly publicized visit to the United States, some may wonder what the major differences are between Catholicism and Protestantism – the two main Christian bodies in the world.
Perhaps the biggest difference is their views on the sufficiency and authority of Scripture. Traditionally, Protestants believe that the Bible alone is sufficient in teaching man all that is necessary for salvation from sin, and contains the standard in which Christians should measure their behavior.
Catholics, however, do not believe that the Bible alone is enough, and instead hold that the Bible and sacred Roman Catholic traditions are equal in authority, as noted by Got Questions Ministries, which provides biblically-based answers on spiritually-related questions in its Web site, GotQuestions.org.
Roman Catholic doctrines, such as purgatory, praying to the saints, veneration of Mary, have little or no basis in the Scripture, but are based on Roman Catholic traditions.
Another major difference is the office and authority of the pope. There is no equivalent position to the pope in Protestantism because of the belief that no human being is infallible and that Christ alone is the head of the church.
Protestants believe that the spiritual authority of the church is based on the Word rather than apostolic succession, and that all believers through the Holy Spirit can understand the Word.
For Roman Catholics, on the other hand, the pope is the “Vicar of Christ,” and stands in the place of Jesus as the visible head of the Church. Therefore, his teachings are considered infallible and effective over all Christians.
Because of the emphasis on the authority of the Church over the individual believer, Catholics believe that only the Roman Catholic Church can interpret the Bible. Protestants, on the other hand, believe that all Christians have the authority to interpret the Bible through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The issue of salvation is also a point of contention between the two Christian bodies. Protestants traditionally believe that a person is justified and saved only by faith in Jesus Christ alone. However, Roman Catholics believe it is faith in Christ plus good works that man can be saved. Part of the Catholic salvation process is the seven sacraments: baptism at birth, confirmation, the Eucharist, holy orders, anointing of the sick, matrimony and penance.
"To get access to the grace of God, Catholics have to go through the Catholic Church and the sacraments,” pointed out Tal Davis, interfaith coordinator in the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board (NAMB)’s evangelization group, according to Baptist Press.
“We Southern Baptists think that's unnecessary and, in fact, is a hindrance to God,” Davis said. “We go straight to Jesus Christ for salvation by faith alone. No works are involved. You can't save yourself and you can't add anything to God's plan of salvation."
To Catholics, faith in Christ is only the beginning of salvation, and the individual must engage in good works for eternal salvation. Purgatory, for example, is where man goes after death if he did not sufficiently pay for his sins.
While Protestants recognize the importance of good works, they believe good works is the fruit of their salvation and not part of the process to be saved.
“Simply put, the Roman Catholic viewpoint on salvation implies that Christ’s atonement on the cross was not sufficient payment for the sins of those who believe in Him, and that even a believer must atone or pay for his own sins, either through acts of penance, or time in purgatory,” wrote Got Questions Ministries in its Web site.
Differences aside, Protestants and Catholics do share several core beliefs including the Trinity, the deity of Jesus, and the fact that he was sinless, that he died on the cross for man’s sin and rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.
"When you're talking to Catholics, you don't have to convince them to believe in God, Jesus Christ or the Bible," noted NAMB’s Davis.
Still, the divide between Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church is clear, as respected theologian Dr. R. Albert Mohler recently reiterated.
“I am convinced that he (the pope) is not right – not right on the papacy, not right on the sacraments, not right on the priesthood, not right on the Gospel, not right in understanding the Church,” the seminary president wrote recently in a special column for The Washington Post and Newsweek.
“The Roman Catholic Church believes that evangelicals are in spiritual danger for obstinately and disobediently excluding ourselves from submission to its universal claims and its papacy.
Evangelicals are concerned that Catholics are in spiritual danger for their submission to these very claims,” he added.
“We both understand what is at stake.”
According to the CIA World Factbook, Christians make up one-third of the world’s population, with Roman Catholics making up 17 percent, Protestants 5.8 percent, Orthodox 3.5 percent, and Anglicans 1.3 percent. By comparison, Muslims make up 21 percent, Hindus 13.3 percent and Buddhists 5.8 percent.
Rap Stars Spread the Gospel, but is it a Mixed Message?
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080423/32071.htm
Yung Joc appears on stage for a performance as an assembly of youth swarms toward his direction, screaming at the top of their lungs.
Only this time, the rapper delivers a message nothing like his raucous songs "I Know You See It," "Dope Boy Magic," or his smash hit "It's Goin' Down."
"I'm not trying to be a preacher, but God is real in my life," he says, while his 2-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter stand near him at an event called Exodus, a soulful revival for youths.
After Joc's testimony, the host of the event, Corey "CoCo Brother" Condrey, asks everyone to pray for the rapper. Many in attendance drop to their knees or stand place, tossing their hands toward the sky.
This is a scene Condrey, who created the event, has longed to see. He has set up a platform to marry hip-hop and gospel together through his nationally syndicated radio show, "The Spirit of Hip-Hop" and the yearly event Exodus. Condrey is using well-known rappers for their celebrity status, putting them in the forefront to spread the gospel to youth.
"We're trying to instill Jesus into them," the Atlanta-based disc jockey said. "We're making it cool, fly and showing them how they can go to their schools among their friends and love the Lord. And, it's coming from people who they can relate to."
On his radio show, Condrey has held interviews and prayer sessions with rappers such as 50 Cent, Ludacris, Kanye West and Young Jeezy. The show has also featured guest appearances from gospel stars such as Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams and Smokie Norful.
"I've been through a lot of different things," 50 Cent said on the show. "I feel like God is the only reason why I'm strong enough to get through those situations."
Exodus, a free event, has grown over the past three years, drawing between 3,000 to 7,000 fans. Condrey has changed the venue of the event each time, holding it once at a nightclub, a church and recently a skating rink.
After all, it's also an opportunity for fans to see their favorite artists.
"That's how we reach them," says Bone Crusher, who performed a rock-infused version of gospel. He is also known for his controversial hit "Never Scared," which drew attention for its vulgar lyrics at an Atlanta Falcons home game a few years ago.
"To reach those type of kids, you have to go into the gutter and get them out of difficulty. Yes, some of it is unorthodox and derogatory. But it's something I have to do to get the people out."
Certainly, hip-hop could use the good publicity, especially since the genre has been under increased scrutiny for its sometimes misogynist and violent lyrics. LL Cool J believes the hip-hop industry can benefit from rappers offering their spiritual testimonies to their fans. He hopes if that does happen, mainstream radio will embrace it.
"For popular artists to go down and speak to kids about God, righteousness and love for God is great," rapper LL Cool J said. He recorded a the rap gospel-type track "We're Gonna Make It" featuring gospel duo Mary Mary off his 2006 album, "Todd Smith."
"Especially, when the kids actually respect the artist and maybe seeing a topic in different aspect," he adds.
But minister Orlando Bethel calls Condrey and the rappers' actions hypocritical. He thinks youth shouldn't be taught about God by rappers such as Joc, who is currently facing a felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in December last year.
"There are people who say they're saved, and they're living in sin and think it's OK," said Bethel, who protested the event along with 15 others. "Then there is another category of people that are not saved. That's not right."
Some from the gospel industry think otherwise. Dr. Bobby Jones, host of the long-running BET gospel show bearing his name, says he has mixed thoughts about how non-churchgoers receive the message but is open to mainstream rappers speaking more about their relationship with God.
"I think it's very narrow-minded for someone to categorize an other one's relationship with their spirituality," says Jones. "Who are we to say what's right or wrong about what somebody develops? It doesn't matter if five minutes ago someone sang about the love of their life in a very intimate position, then the next five their talking about their love of Jesus Christ."
Gospel singer J Moss says a rapper's testimony may be the only one someone gets.
"It could be their only church," he said. "God is for everybody."
Condrey would know. He switched from hosting a popular radio show where he only played secular music to a hip-hop gospel platform in 2005 (The show is in 15 markets and syndicated by Radio One). He changed his format after persuading a homeless caller not to commit suicide while on air, saying he "began to hear God telling him to shift into a different arena."
Since then, Condrey said he quit drinking alcohol and vowed to be celibate until marriage, trying to lead by example.
After speaking at Exodus, Joc was inspired to record a track with R&B gospel singer Justin Clark.
"It was one of the defining moments in my life," Joc said. "Somebody might say, 'How can you talk to kids when you have a gun charge?' But accidents happen and people make mistakes. With young men and women looking up to me, I have to let them know that I'm a man of God."
Behold a Black Horse - America faces food rationing?
http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world
"When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come and see.' So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, 'A quart of wheat for a denarius (average food price x12), and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.'" Revelation 6:5-6
Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.
The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who tried to exceed the one-bag cap.
“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.
Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.
An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour.
Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.
The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.
“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.”
Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations.
India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of a new contract for foreign rice sales.
“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”
Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against future price hikes or a total lack of product.
“There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”
At the moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally.
Mr. Rawles said the spot shortages seemed to be most frequent in the Northeast and all the way along the West Coast. He said he had heard reports of buying limits at Sam’s Club warehouses, which are owned by Wal-Mart Stores, but a spokesman for the company, Kory Lundberg, said he was not aware of any shortages or limits.
An anonymous high-tech professional writing on an investment Web site, Seeking Alpha, said he recently bought 10 50-pound bags of rice at Costco. “I am concerned that when the news of rice shortage spreads, there will be panic buying and the shelves will be empty in no time. I do not intend to cause a panic, and I am not speculating on rice to make profit. I am just hoarding some for my own consumption,” he wrote.
For now, rice is available at Asian markets in California, though consumers have fewer choices when buying the largest bags. “At our neighborhood store, it’s very expensive, more than $30” for a 25-pound bag, a housewife from Mountain View, Theresa Esquerra, said. “I’m not going to pay $30. Maybe we’ll just eat bread.”
Americans hoard food as industry seeks regs
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080423/BUSINESS/868303815/1001
Farmers and food executives appealed fruitlessly to federal officials yesterday for regulatory steps to limit speculative buying that is helping to drive food prices higher. Meanwhile, some Americans are stocking up on staples such as rice, flour and oil in anticipation of high prices and shortages spreading from overseas.
Their pleas did not find a sympathetic audience at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where regulators said high prices are mostly the result of soaring world demand for grains combined with high fuel prices and drought-induced shortages in many countries.
The regulatory clash came amid evidence that a rash of headlines in recent weeks about food riots around the world has prompted some in the United States to stock up on staples.
Costco and other grocery stores in California reported a run on rice, which has forced them to set limits on how many sacks of rice each customer can buy. Filipinos in Canada are scooping up all the rice they can find and shipping it to relatives in the Philippines, which is suffering a severe shortage that is leaving many people hungry.
While farmers here and abroad generally are benefiting from the high prices, even they have been burned by a tidal wave of investors and speculators pouring into the futures markets for corn, wheat, rice and other commodities and who are driving up prices in a way that makes it difficult for farmers to run their businesses.
"Something is wrong," said National Farmers Union President Tom Buis, adding that the CFTC's refusal to rein in speculators will force farmers and consumers to take their case to Congress.
"It may warrant congressional intervention," he said. "The public is all too aware of the recent credit crisis on Wall Street. We don't want a lack of oversight and regulation to lead to a similar crisis in rural America."
Food economists testifying at a daylong hearing of the commission said the doubling of rice and wheat prices in the past year is a result of strong income growth in China, India and other Asian countries, where people entering the middle class are buying more food and eating more meat. Farm animals consume a substantial share of the world's grain.
U.S. wheat stocks are at the lowest levels in 60 years because worldwide consumption of wheat has exceeded production in six of the past eight years, said U.S. Agriculture Department chief economist Gerald Bange. Adding to tight supplies was the back-to-back failure of two years of wheat crops caused by drought in Australia, a major wheat exporter, he said.
In addition, the diversion of one-third of the U.S. corn crop into making ethanol for vehicles has increased prices for corn and other staples such as soybeans and cotton as more acreage is set aside for ethanol production.
Farmers also have raised prices because they have been hard hit by spiraling energy costs, which not only raised the price of diesel fuel to records of over $4 a gallon but drove up the cost of nitrogen fertilizer, which is made from natural gas.
"Commodity prices across the board are at levels not experienced in many of our lifetimes," said CFTC Chairman Walter Lukken. "These price levels, along with record energy costs, have put a strain on consumers as well as many producers and commercial participants that utilize the futures markets to manage risks."
The upswing in prices has been exaggerated by the massive influx of investors and speculators seeking to profit from rising prices for corn, wheat, oil, gold and other commodities. Big Wall Street firms and hedge funds have taken huge positions in futures markets that once were dominated by relatively small operators such as farmers and grain-elevator owners.
Small investors, who see fast-rising commodities as good hedges against inflation and a falling dollar, also are getting a piece of the action by investing in index funds that are tied to commodity prices.
"During such turbulent times, it is tempting to shoot first and ask questions later," Mr. Lukken said, but he contended the commission should be "cautious" about doing anything to curb speculation. He and other regulators argued that speculators add volume and liquidity to the markets, which makes them operate more efficiently and helps farmers and other players.
Commissioner Michael V. Dunn said the soaring demand for food and fuel worldwide might be leading to permanently higher food prices, both domestically and abroad.
"We may already be working under or fast approaching a new paradigm of higher agricultural prices," he said. "There is not a silver bullet or single solution to address the problems we are currently facing."
Japan's hunger becomes a dire warning for other nations
http://business.theage.com.au/japans-hunger-becomes-a-dire-warning-for-other-nations/20080420-27ey.html
Marikom Watanabe admits she could have chosen a better time to take up baking. This week, when the Tokyo housewife visited her local Ito-Yokado supermarket to buy butter to make a cake, she found the shelves bare.
"I went to another supermarket, and then another, and there was no butter at those either. Everywhere I went there were notices saying Japan has run out of butter. I couldn't believe it — this is the first time in my life I've wanted to try baking cakes and I can't get any butter," said the frustrated cook.
Japan's acute butter shortage, which has confounded bakeries, restaurants and now families across the country, is the latest unforeseen result of the global agricultural commodities crisis.
A sharp increase in the cost of imported cattle feed and a decline in milk imports, both of which are typically provided in large part by Australia, have prevented dairy farmers from keeping pace with demand.
While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-term — perhaps permanent — reduction in the quality and quantity of its food.
A 130% rise in the global cost of wheat in the past year, caused partly by surging demand from China and India and a huge injection of speculative funds into wheat futures, has forced the Government to hit flour millers with three rounds of stiff mark-ups.
The latest — a 30% increase this month — has given rise to speculation that Japan, which relies on imports for 90% of its annual wheat consumption, is no longer on the brink of a food crisis, but has fallen off the cliff.
According to one government poll, 80% of Japanese are frightened about what the future holds for their food supply.
Last week, as the prices of wheat and barley continued their relentless climb, the Japanese Government discovered it had exhausted its ¥230 billion ($A2.37 billion) budget for the grains with two months remaining. It was forced to call on an emergency ¥55 billion reserve to ensure it could continue feeding the nation.
"This was the first time the Government has had to take such drastic action since the war," said Akio Shibata, an expert on food imports, who warned the Agriculture Ministry two years ago that Japan would have to cut back drastically on its sophisticated diet if it did not become more self-sufficient.
In the wake of the decision this week by Kazakhstan, the world's fifth biggest wheat exporter, to join Russia, Ukraine and Argentina in stopping exports to satisfy domestic demand, the situation in Japan is expected to worsen.
Bakeries, forced to increase prices by up to 30% in the past year, are warning that the trend will continue. Manufacturers of miso, a culinary staple, are preparing to pass on the bump in costs caused by the rising price of soybeans and cooking oil.
And the nation's largest brewer, Kirin, is lifting beer prices for the first time in almost two decades to account for the soaring cost of barley.
"In the past, Japan was a rich country with a powerful yen that could easily buy cheap imports such as wheat, corn and soybeans," said Mr Shibata, who directs the Marubeni Research Institute in Tokyo.
"But with enormous competition from the booming Chinese and Indian economies, that's changed forever. You also need to take into account recent developments, including the damage to crops caused by drought and other disasters in exporting countries like Australia," where the value of wheat exports has tumbled from $3.49 billion to $2.77 billion in the past three years.
The situation has been compounded by a surge in demand for bio-fuels such as ethanol, made from maize, encouraging farmers around the world to divert their efforts away from wheat and barley and into maize, further driving up prices.
Arguably Japan's biggest concern, however, is its weakening ability to sustain its population with domestic produce. In 2006 the country's self-sufficiency rate fell to 39%, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
It was only the second time since the ministry began keeping records in 1960 that the population derived less than 40% of its daily calorie intake from domestically grown food.
Shinichi Shogenji, dean of the University of Tokyo's graduate school of agricultural and life sciences, said Japan's meat consumption had increased by 900% since 1955, in part because expanding incomes had enabled families to supplement the sparse national diet of rice, fish and miso soup with more Western-style food.
This trend, combined with rapid ageing and declining rural populations, had placed the country's self-sufficiency at a perilously low level, Professor Shogenji said.
In view of recent predictions by Goldman Sachs analysts that commodities could experience "explosive rallies" in the next two years, many are wondering if Japan could become an example to other rich nations that have relied too much on foreign supplies to put food on their tables.
Drought: Rivers Running Dry
http://www.newsweek.com/id/132892
Remember last fall when the city of Atlanta was said to be just weeks away from running dry? It's getting warm in the Southeast again, and Lake Lanier, which supplies water to parts of three states (Georgia, Alabama and Florida) is still down 13 feet from where it should be this time of year. Part of the fault lies with the Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates the outflow from the lake down the Chattahoochee River and sent billions of gallons into the Atlantic to protect the endangered sturgeon population, based on a plan that had not been updated since 1989. It also lost an additional 22 billion gallons, owing to a broken gauge. But the bigger problem is the lack of a coherent policy for collecting, conserving and using fresh water there, or in much of the rest of the United States, or, for that matter, the world.
Environmentalists have long warned about the crisis in nonrenewable resources, such as oil. Water, of course, is the ultimate renewable resource—it falls from the sky—and therefore has been of less concern. But where and when rain falls, and what happens to it after it hits the ground, are crucial in determining the health and prosperity of human societies, says Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and special adviser on environmental policy to an impressive number of foreign leaders including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, various governments, and even rock stars. In his new book, "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet," Sachs describes the worldwide water shortage as "one of our most daunting challenges." A six-year drought in Australia has virtually wiped out that country's rice crop, contributing to food riots in countries from Haiti to Indonesia this month. "Much of the world is already in water crisis," Sachs says. "And that crisis will only continue to grow."
Economists and geologists have identified one culprit in the water-management problem, a mind-set they call "stationarity"—the belief that natural systems fluctuate within a narrow, predictable range, even over long periods. "Stationarity is dead," says Chris Milly, author of a recent Science paper on the issue—done in by population growth, climate change and economic development. But the effect of the stationarity fallacy has been to leave water policy in the hands of relatively shortsighted municipal and state authorities, while the federal government has been looking the other way. This problem is especially acute in the Southwest. In February, one study found that Lake Mead, which supplies a stretch of the Colorado River that snakes through northern Arizona, could run dry in a decade or so, if current water use rates persist. Each year, the study found, the lake loses enough water for 8 million people. "Just like we have peak oil, we have peak water, and when it comes to the Colorado River, we are at that peak," says Tim Barnett, a scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., and coauthor of the Mead study. "The whole West is under the gun here." And while the threat may be less immediate in regions such as the Northeast, less water in one area can mean less food and more illness in another.
Sachs poses several technical and economic strategies that may help avert disaster. And unlike the ultrahigh-tech fixes to the energy crisis, many of these are relatively uncomplicated, low-cost and already proved. For example, digging ponds or underground receptacles to store rainwater for irrigation during dry spells has increased crop yields for some Chinese farmers by 20 to 50 percent. Cities such as Las Vegas are recycling wastewater. And a handful of states around the country, and countries around the world, have begun manually replenishing natural underground aquifers with treated wastewater or storm runoff, hoping to protect against droughts.
Sachs advocates using a combination of these and other similar strategies, depending on the needs of each region. In combination with economic incentives, he says, they can lessen the severity of the water problem without exceptional cost to the environment or the economy.
But implementing any of these takes planning, organization and leadership. "Politicians don't want to bear the costs of adjustment," Sachs says. "So they ignore the problem and continue the same unsustainable practices." There is no single solution. Governments, industries and individuals will collaborate or suffer the consequences. However responsibility is divided, we can no longer take our most renewable resource for granted.
2012: Mayans, Nostradamus & The Bible
http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/full.php?news=14815
There has been much talk of late about the supposed doomsday prediction of December 21, 2012 as reflected in the Mayan long calendar. Most of the ancient Mayan codices were burned by Spanish monks in 1521 as works of the devil. A few survived including the so called Dresden Codex. This 74 page codex written on tree bark and apparently from the famous Mayan temple and observatory at Chichen Itza was sent by Cortes to Emperor Charles V in 1519. Somehow it found its way to the Royal Library at the Court of Saxony in Dresden where it was purchased from a private collector by Johann Christian Goetze. While it was damaged by the fire bombing of Dresden during WWII, much has survived.
From this work, which was written between 1200 and 1250 AD, numerous astronomical and calendar data points were found including information on eclipses, the transit of the planet Venus as well as information on the motion of the moon, stars and the sun. It has been determined by research scholars that the Mayan long count calendar ends on 13.0.0.0.0 which equates to our date of December 21, 2012 at 10AM GMT. On that day it has been surmised the end will come.
According to my research, many have tried to tie this upcoming apocalyptic winter solstice day with a solar shift, solar storms, and a transit of Venus as well as with severe earthquakes. Is there any truth to these allegations? According to some astronomers, on this day our solar system will intersect with the Galactic Equator which only happens every 26,000 years. Since the Mayan calendar began in 3114 BC, they had never experienced anything like this before. The Mayans called this event the Sacred Tree. This alignment with the center of the galaxy also allows for maximum mass and thus maximum gravity.
According to the National Earthquake Information Service of the US Geological Survey, earthquakes have gradually increased from 1 severe quake between 1890 and 1899 to 765 from 2000-2004. Could this be due to our solar systems movement towards this Galactic Equator?
NASA predicts that a terrific solar storm will hit the earth in 2012 which will be 30-50 percent greater than anything before it. I believe that there has been global warming over the past decades but it is related to sunspot activity on the sun not carbon dioxide emissions. The sun has gotten hotter and that has affected the earth. A massive solar blast from the sun in 2012 could burn up the earth as could a collision with an asteroid or a comet.
There has even been talk of a polar shift which could disrupt the functioning of the entire earth and could change the axis of rotation. Such a shift has taken place in our geologic past and could happen again. If it happened on December, 21, 2012, it would truly be a day to remember.
This apocalyptic date of December 21, 2012 is also supposedly found in Hopi myths, the I-Ching, Aztec writings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Roman Oracles, writing of Seneca Elders, the chief Shaman of the Cherokee Tribe in NC, and even the writings of Nostradamus, The Russian mathematician Sergey Smelyakov of Khartov University taking the constant Phi (1.6180339), the so called Golden Mean or the Fibonacci sequence, and applying it to solar activity and planetary orbits, found that everything seemed to spiral in on itself on December 21, 2012 implying a time implosion or point of bifurcation.
The planet Venus is set to make a transit across the face of the sun on December 21, 2012 which happens very infrequently. It did happen recently, however, on June 8, 2004 which means it will happen again in eight years which is very unusual but predicted by the Mayans.
I cannot tell you for certain that the earth will be consumed by fire in 2012 or that there will be a polar shift or severe earthquakes, but I can tell you with certainty that one day in the not too distant future it will be consumed by fire and experience a polar shift and severe earthquakes. I can say that because the word of God says so and it did beginning over 2700 years ago, long before the Mayans or the Aztecs or the Hopi or the Seneca or the I-Ching or Nostradamus.
Once before because of its sin the earth was destroyed by water in the Great Flood of Noah's day but the Bible says that the world will be destroyed again, this time by fire.
"The present heavens and earth, by His word, are being reserved for fire, kept for the Day of Judgment and the destruction of ungodly men" (2Peter 3:7).
"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up" (2Peter 3:10).
"The sun scorched men with fire" (Revelation 16:8).
"A third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up. A great mountain (asteroid?) burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died and a third of the ships were destroyed. And a great star (comet?) fell from heaven burning like a torch and it fell on a third of the rivers and springs of water (Revelation 8:7-11).
"The inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men are left" (Isaiah 24:6).
"The hills melt and the earth is burned up" (Nahum 1:5).
Once again, many have associated December 21, 2012 with a shift in the poles as well as signs in the sky. What does the Bible tell us about these events?
"The stars will fall from the sky" (Matthew 24:29).
If the earth shifts on its axis and we are thrown around, the stars will appear to fall but it will actually be us that are moving.
"The earth is broken asunder. The earth is split through. The earth is shaken violently. Thee earth reels to and fro like a drunkard and it totters like a shack "(Isaiah 24:19-20).
Once again a shift in the polar axis might tear the earth apart.
"There will be great earthquakes. The sun became black like sackcloth; the moon became like blood.The stars of the sky fell to the earth... The sky split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up.every mountain and island moved out of their place' (Revelation 6:12-14).
More shaking of the earth.
"There will be great earthquakes and in various places plagues and famines and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. There will be signs in the sun and the moon and stars and upon the earth great dismay among nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves. Men fainting from fear as the powers of heaven will be shaken" (Luke 21:9, 25-26).
Here we see the Bible tell us about signs in the heavens spoken of in relation to December 21, 2012. But what do we do when we see these things happening?
"When you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I say to you that this generation will not pass away until all things take place.But when these things begin to take place straighten up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:31,32, 28).
God assures us that:
"Heaven and earth will pass away but My words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
Some people ask why God takes so long to punish the ungodly:
"The Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness but is patient toward you not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2Peter 3:9).
Remember this as the end fast approaches.
US army develops robotic suits
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7351314.stm
On the big screen, films like Robocop, Universal Soldier and forthcoming release Iron Man show man-machines with superhuman powers. But in Utah they are turning science fiction into reality.
We are at a research facility on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, ringed by beautiful snow-capped mountains. Once they held the Winter Olympics here; now they are testing endurance in other ways.
The aluminium limbs gleam in the brilliant sunshine, as the strange metal skeleton hangs from a safety harness at the outdoor testing site. It seems to be treading water; actually its programme is telling it to keep the hydraulic fluid in its joints moving.
Rex Jameson, a software engineer here at laboratories run by Sarcos, the robotics firm which designed the XOS exoskeleton, steps up and into the suit.
The lightweight aluminium exoskeleton, called XOS, senses Rex's every move and instantly moves with him; it is almost like a shadow or a second skin. It is designed for agility that can match a human's, but with strength and endurance that far outweigh our abilities.
With the exoskeleton on and fully powered up, Rex can easily pull down weight of more than 90 kilos, more than he weighs.
For the army the XOS could mean quicker supply lines, or fewer injuries when soldiers need to lift heavy weights or move objects around repeatedly. Initial models would be used as workhorses, on the logistics side.
Later models, the army hopes, could go into combat, carrying heavier weapons, or even wounded colleagues.
There are still problems to solve, not least how to create a mobile power supply that can last an effective length of time.
But the US military expects to take delivery of these early prototypes next year, and hopefully deploy some refined versions within eight years.
It is a long way off before we see robot soldiers that can fly or fire missiles - like in the movies - but the designers are already imagining future versions more reminiscent of Hollywood.
Picking Up Speed
http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/commentary/picking-up-speed/
Bible prophecy foretold a global religious system that will stifle Christianity, but most Christians don’t know how quickly it’s progressing. Consider these stories from this month.
1. The United Nations — which has already formed the Alliance of Civilizations to counter all forms of religious fundamentalism, including evangelical Christianity — is now considering forming a council of world religions.
2. This week, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), urged the European Union and the OIC to work with the United Nations to set “global guidelines” against insulting the religious beliefs of others. Read about it here.
3. In an interview on Pakistani television, Wednesday, EU high representative Javier Solana condemned the publication of cartoons and films that depict the Koran sacrilegiously, and he called for interfaith harmony.
Clearly, the Revelation 13 prophecies are picking up speed.
World religions to provide international relations with moral basis - Lavrov
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=4588
Moscow, April 22, Interfax - Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted to the important role of world religions in formation of moral component in international politics.
"It's necessary to base international relations on morality and consider the joint moral denominator, which have always existed in major world religions," Lavrov wrote in his article published by Profil magazine.
According to him, the moral component is "crucial" for "the conception of stable development". Today it's impossible "to address various problems in managing global processes" without such categories as self-restriction and solidarity, the Foreign Minister believes.
According to Lavrov, the key role in it belongs to inter-civilization dialogue "including its interreligious component."
"That's why we suggested setting up the Consultative Council of Religions under the UN auspices and support all processes, which can provide a platform for such talks both in frameworks the "Alliance of Civilizations" and the European Council," the minister stressed.
Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon discussed the prospects of establishing the Council of World Religions under the UN at their recent meeting.
Ihsanoglu urges political support for Alliance of Civilizations
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=139846
The head of the world's largest organization of Islamic countries has called on the nations of the world to put political support behind a UN-backed initiative for an "Alliance of Civilizations" and urged Western countries to isolate fanatic views in their societies to overcome the East-West divide.
"Countries participating in the initiative must put forward their political will to support it. Efforts must not be merely academic," Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said in an interview this week at his office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. "Our objective is to build peace in the world. We need political will to achieve this."
Turkey and Spain are co-sponsoring the Alliance of Civilizations initiative. The 57-member OIC is also supporting the alliance, Ihsanoglu said. He lamented, however, that caricatures and publications in the West insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad are preventing peace between civilizations.
"We are telling European officials that we have to reduce tensions between the East and West. If the tension culminates in clashes, everyone will be affected negatively, as will the prospects for world peace," Ihsanoglu said. The OIC leader explained that both sides should take action to fight radicalism. "Let's save the world from the negative impacts of extremists. You are condemning extremist elements in our countries, so do we. But extremists in your countries must also be condemned. Otherwise, the extremists on both sides will clash and the entire world will pay the price."
Ihsanoglu criticized the Danish government for its refusal to intervene when a Danish newspaper published caricatures insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Denmark had cited the principle of freedom of expression, despite an outcry from the Muslim world. "We, however, were saying that there could be no absolute freedom. Abuse of freedoms must be subject to legal sanctions at some point," he said, adding that there has been a different stance in many European countries due to subsequent talks with EU officials and efforts at UN platforms.
"But this is not enough," Ihsanoglu said, emphasizing that what was important was to make sure the insults against Islam will not continue. He called for joint efforts by the EU and the OIC at the UN to set global guidelines on the issue to make sure freedoms will not be used to insult the religious values of other people.
President to stay till end of his tenure, says Solana
http://www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?id=127254
ISLAMABAD: European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana has said that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would remain Head of State till end of his tenure.
In an exclusive interview to Private TV Channel here on Wednesday, he said, he backed the new government’s move to hold talks with those militants in tribal areas who want to contribute to the well being of the country by participating in a dialogue.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are facing terrorism and extremism while brotherly relations between them would not only fruitful for them but for the whole region, EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana maintained. War against menace of terrorism and extremism would be continued, Javier vowed.
Strongly condemning the publication of sacrilegious caricatures and film against Holy book “Quran”, he said, there is a dire need to promote inter-faith harmony. We doest doesn’t believe on clash between civilization, he said. The publication of sacrilegious caricatures hurt sentiment of million of Muslims around the world, he observed.
Answering to a question over long lingering issue of Kashmir, EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana asked Pakistan and India to mutually solve the issue amicably.
The leader of Europe? Answers an ocean apart
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/04/europe/poll.php
Henry Kissinger, U.S. secretary of state in the 1970s, once asked, "Who do I call if I want to reach Europe?" A new poll shows a trans-Atlantic gap in the answer today.
Most Americans think the call should be placed to Gordon Brown in London. But Europeans - especially the French - tend to think Angela Merkel should pick up the receiver in Berlin, according to the poll by Harris Interactive for the International Herald Tribune and France 24 television.
When asked what country is the leader of Europe today, a majority of Germans, perhaps unsurprisingly, picked Germany: 57 percent, the same figure as among Spaniards. Among the French, that figure rose to an astonishing 68 percent. The Italians and British were divided on the question between Germany and Britain.
On the other side of the Atlantic, 63 percent of Americans saw Britain as Europe's leading nation.
Looking to the future, the breakdown was roughly the same across the board when people from the six nations were asked about which country will have the most influence in Europe over the next decade.
When asked about political personalities, Europeans chose Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, as No. 1, with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France as a distant second choice. Americans, by contrast, named Brown, the prime minister of Britain, as most influential.
These questions loom large in Europe with the prospect of an election in January for a newly empowered presidency of the European Council, a post that currently rotates every six months among the 27 members of the European Union. Under the Lisbon treaty, which EU leaders agreed to in December after the defeat of a proposed constitution, the leaders would choose a president of the European Council for a 30-month term, renewable once.
The Lisbon treaty, which is moving toward ratification by Jan. 1, also envisions retaining the presidency of the European Commission, a five-year post currently held by José Manuel Barroso, thus giving two possible answers to Kissinger's question.
Two political bloggers in Europe, Jan Seifert and Jon Worth, want to see that number reduced to one. Their Web site, whodoicall.eu, has a petition calling for a merger of the two presidencies.
Worth said in an interview that the commission presidency is "democratically legitimate," because members of the European Parliament vote on it. The council president, by contrast, will be appointed by vote of the 27 heads of state. Worth argues that the commission president has more legitimacy because the heads of state are rarely chosen in elections where European politics are at issue, in contrast to members of the European Parliament.
"What concerns us would be the possibility of a strong council president and a weak commission president," Worth said. "In the end, you have to look at leadership and legitimacy."
But a substantial minority of Europeans disagree with Seifert and Worth. The poll showed widespread opposition to the very concept of a European president, much less combining the roles of the two future presidencies. While opposition did not reach a majority in any country, Britons were most opposed, at 46 percent, while Italians were the least, at 14 percent.
"The idea does sound a bit scary," Worth conceded. "You have to ask, though, what the alternative is."
When offered a laundry list of possibilities for a possible "president of Europe," along with the choice that there be no president, only a few individuals reached a threshold of 10 percent in any country. Merkel was named in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain was named in Britain, Italy and the United States. People in two countries named favorite sons: Jacques Delors, former European Commission president, in France, and former Prime Minister Felipe González in Spain.
EU wipes England off map in new European Superstate borders
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/23/nmap123.xml
England has been wiped off a map of Europe drawn up by Brussels bureaucrats as part of a scheme that the Tories claim threatens to undermine the country's national identity.
The new European plan splits England into three zones that are joined with areas in other countries.
The "Manche" region covers part of southern England and northern France while the Atlantic region includes western parts of England, Portugal, Spain and Wales.
The North Sea region includes eastern England, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and parts of Germany.
A copy of the map, which makes no reference to England or Britain, has even renamed the English Channel the "Channel Sea".
Each zone will have a "transnational regional assembly", although they will not have extensive powers. However, the zones are regarded as symbolically important by other countries.
German ministers claimed that the plan was about "underlying the goal of a united Europe" to "permanently overcome old borders" at a time when the "Constitution for Europe needs to regain momentum".
The Tories are drawing attention to the plan today, St George's Day. Eric Pickles, the shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, said: "We already knew that Gordon Brown had hoisted the white flag of surrender to the European constitution.
"Now the Labour government has been caught red-handed, conspiring with European bureaucrats to create a European super-state via the back door."
The disclosure of the European map comes as a YouGov poll commissioned by The Daily Telegraph showed that one third of people want England to have its own parliament.
Twenty per cent want England to be an independent country and for Britain to be broken up.
When Muslims Embrace Christianity in the U.K.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080422/32063.htm
Muslims converting to Christianity is a thorny issue almost anywhere in the world, but recently U.K. media attention has focused in on the persecution of former Muslims not in foreign land but in its own backyard.
Former Muslims who convert to Christianity are threatened with disownment and violence at the hands of their own family members – much like in parts of the Middle East. But the difference is these families don’t reside in a theocratic society, but in a western country that upholds religious freedom – including the right to convert to another faith.
BBC, U.K.’s leading news network, featured several stories and programs in recent months devoted to the issue of persecution of Christian converts from Islam. In its latest feature on Monday, it highlighted real cases of England-based Muslims who convert to Christianity and the consequences that follow.
Sophia (not her real name) is from a Pakistani background but lives in east London. Her family has put extreme pressure on her to return to Islam since she converted to Christianity.
“They kept saying, ‘The punishment is death, do you know the punishment is death?” she recalled to BBC.
She ended up running away from home, but her mother found her and showed up at her baptism.
“I got up to get baptized, that’s when my mother got up, ran to the front and tried to pull me out of the water,” Sophia said.
“My brother was really angry. He reacted and phoned me on my mobile and just said, ‘I’m coming down to burn that church,’” she remembered.
Another U.K. convert case is Ziya Meral, who was disowned by his parents when they found out about his conversion.
“They said ‘go away, you’re not our son,’” Meral said. “They told people I died in an accident rather than having the shame of their son leaving Islam.”
Meral’s case is slightly different from Sophia because he was born and raised in Turey. His family still remains there. He went to England to study at a university and later became a follower of Jesus Christ.
He had planned to gently break the news to his parents, but instead they found out when they saw him on national news being described as “an evil missionary” intent on “brainwashing” Turkish children. The wild story was based on a clip of Meral eating at a Christian summer camp right before heading back to Turkey.
For converts such as Sophia and Meral, there is widespread belief by Muslims around the world that they should be punished by death.
A poll conducted by the Policy Exchange last year suggested that over a third of young British Muslims believe that the death penalty should be used for apostasy.
Former Muslim turned Christian leader, Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo of the Barnabas Fund, said he is “delighted” to see the British media zoom in on the issue of conversion from Islam and the persecution of former Muslims.
“As a convert from Islam myself, part of my life’s work has been to seek to see this most cruel of laws removed from Islam, and to see that Christians like myself are given freedom to choose and believe without facing persecution and possibly death,” Sookhdeo wrote in a Barnabas e-mail newsletter Monday.
“Finally the world is waking up to this outrage and injustice. The secular media is to be congratulated for taking up the issue.”
The Islam expert – who advises British, American, and NATO military officials on jihadist ideology – called on Christians to pray that there will be real progress in religious freedom for former Muslims in the world.
Britain to Halt Troop Withdrawals in Iraq
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/363576.aspx
Britain is sticking by its decision to halt its troop withdrawals from Iraq.
Britain's Defense Secretary says troop reductions will only be made "if conditions allow."
The pause comes after the recent upsurge in fighting between Iraqi forces and Shiite militias.
Casualties and overall levels of violence in Iraq are down substantially.
But fighting ticked up again after Iraqi troops moved last month to regain control of Basra from Shiite militias.
Right now British soldiers are in the middle of training an entire Iraqi army division.
Britain has around 4,500 troops in Iraq.
Temple replica to be erected opposite Western Wall
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3534579,00.html
A grandiose museum featuring an elaborated massive replica of the Temple is currently being erected opposite the Western Wall.
The three-storey museum, whose construction is valued at nearly $20 million will be erected in the Aish HaTorah ("Fire of the Torah") Yeshiva complex.
The museum will feature a journey through Jewish history, from the days of Abraham to the present, emphasizing the message and significance of the Jewish people’s presence in the Land of Israel and their degree of accomplishment in world improvement.
Rabbi Yehuda Weinberg, in charge of the project’s establishment, told Yedioth Ahronoth Wednesday: "We are not taking a political stance," and added that the museum is also being sponsored by Canadian tycoon, Leslie Dan, a shareholder in Teva pharmaceutical Industries.
In addition to the great lavish interior, the museum’s crowning glory is no doubt the massive amphitheater, whose cost is being sponsored by veteran Hollywood star Kirk Douglas, and his no less famous son, Michael.
The amphitheater will feature a three-dimensional film depicting the history of the Jewish nation over a huge glass screen through which one can see the Western Wall. The museum will also include a learning center with a VIP wing to host movie stars, politicians and other celebrities from Israel and abroad.
The company in charge of the museum’s construction is the same international company that built visitor sites such as the Tower of London Museum and the World Museum Liverpool. The Aloni Company will provide special technology that handles marble polishing for reproducing historical ornamentation.
Ephraim Shor, in charge of the museum curation on behalf of the Yeshiva, commented that "this will be an audio-visual experience incorporating scents, so that the act of entering the Temple will be done with awe of God."
Israeli Supreme Court sides with Messianic Jews
http://www.bpnews.net/printerfriendly.asp?ID=27874
The Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that Messianic Jews have the same rights regarding automatic citizenship as Jews who do not believe in Jesus as the Messiah.
The case was brought by 12 applicants who had been denied citizenship primarily because they were Jewish believers in Jesus. Most of them had received letters saying they would not receive citizenship because they "commit missionary activity," according to an e-mail circulated by Calev Myers, founder and chief counsel of The Jerusalem Institute of Justice.
A clerk at the Ministry of Interior reportedly had told one of the applicants that because she was committing missionary activity, she was acting against the interests of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.
Israel's Supreme Court ended the two-and-a-half-year legal battle April 16 by ruling that Messianics should receive equal treatment under the Israeli law of return, which says that anyone who is born Jewish can immigrate from anywhere in the world to Israel and be granted citizenship automatically.
"This is yet another battle won in our war to establish equality in Israel for the Messianic Jewish community just like every other legitimate stream of faith within the Jewish world," Myers wrote.
Jim Sibley, a professor at Criswell College in Dallas and a former missionary to Israel, told Baptist Press that Jewish believers had been excluded from the law of return by previous court rulings, including one in the 1980s declaring that if a Jew believed in Jesus as the Messiah, he was not to be considered Jewish.
Traditional rabbinic Judaism teaches that Jewishness is determined by the mother's bloodline, Sibley explained. Biblically, though, it is traced through the father.
"Apparently at least one of these 12 who were being denied citizenship had a Gentile mother and a Jewish father," Sibley, director of the Pasche Institute of Jewish Studies at Criswell, said. "Even in a situation like that, it's usually enough to be granted citizenship. All this [court decision] does is to basically say the same rules that apply to any other Jewish people would apply to Jewish believers in Jesus."
With the ruling, Sibley said, Messianic Jews may seek citizenship in Israel without religious discrimination.
"It's really a huge ruling because the court apparently further ordered the Israeli Ministry of Interior to stop persecuting Jewish believers,” Sibley said. “Some of the very Orthodox Jewish sectors of society had taken positions in the Ministry of Interior and had been using their positions to revoke believers' citizenship, deny visas and generally harass not only Jewish believers in Jesus but also Christian workers in Israel."
The Supreme Court's decision should alleviate some of the pressure that Jewish believers and foreign Christian workers have felt in Israel, Sibley said, adding that he "can't help but believe" the ruling is related to a terrorist attack on the Messianic community that occurred in March.
In that incident, 15-year-old Ami Ortiz, whose parents are noted Messianic congregational leaders in Ariel, opened a bomb disguised as a gift delivered to his home. He suffered extensive damage to his body but is expected to recover after at least a year of treatment. Though a police investigation is ongoing, anti-missionary Orthodox Jews were among those originally suspected as perpetrators.
Sibley said Orthodox Jews should reconsider their view of Messianic believers and stop persecuting them.
"With the multitude of Jewish people simply walking away from their Jewish identity and assimilating through secularism and intermarriage, Israelis don't need to fear Messianic Jews," Sibley said. "As they themselves should know, Jewish believers in Jesus not only affirm their Jewishness, they insist on it. And furthermore, those who are citizens of Israel are patriotic. They serve in the military and they pay their taxes."
Israeli Ambassador Calls Former President Carter 'Bigot'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352539,00.html
NEW YORK — Israel's ambassador to the United Nations called former President Jimmy Carter "a bigot" for meeting with the leader of the militant Hamas movement in Syria.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, "went to the region with soiled hands and came back with bloody hands after shaking the hand of Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas," Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters at a luncheon briefing Thursday.
The diplomat was questioned about problems facing his country during a wide-ranging discussion lasting more than an hour. The briefing was sponsored by The Israel Project, a Washington-based, media-oriented advocacy group.
The ambassador's harsh words for Carter came days after the ex-president met with Mashaal for seven hours in Damascus to negotiate a cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers. Carter then called Mashaal on Monday to try to get him to agree to a one-month truce without conditions, but the Hamas leader rejected the idea.
The ambassador called last weekend's encounter "a very sad episode in American history."
He said it was "a shame" to see Carter, who had done "good things" as a former president, "turn into what I believe to be a bigot."
Telephone calls by The Associated Press to two Atlanta numbers for Carter were not immediately returned Thursday.
During Carter's visit, Gillerman said, Hamas "was shelling our cities and maiming and injuring and wounding Israeli babies and Israeli children."
The ambassador noted that Hamas is armed and trained by Iran, whose president once called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
"The real danger, the real problem is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the real threat is Iran," he said.
Gillerman spoke with reporters from around the world at the Times Square offices of a New York law firm on the same day Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in Washington meeting with President George W. Bush.
The ambassador said he was "quite optimistic" about the chances for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement because Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have met more times than any previous leaders of the two sides.
"I believe they've gone deeper and further than any other Israeli or Palestinian leader, and I believe that there is a very good chance (for a settlement)," he said.
Gillerman also was asked about the arrest last week in New Jersey of an 84-year-old man accused of passing U.S. weapons program secrets to an Israeli agent a quarter-century ago.
Retired U.S. military engineer Ben-ami Kadish faces charges linking him to the same now-defunct Israeli intelligence agency that used Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for spying for Israel.
Gillerman called it "a very old matter."
"It pertains to something that may or may not have happened 25 years ago" and would be decided when Kadish goes to trial, he said.
In the wake of the Pollard case, the ambassador said Israel had made a pledge not to spy on the United States, "and that is something which I know that we have honored completely."
The ambassador declined to comment on U.S. government reports that Syria was building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance before it was bombed by Israeli planes last year.
Gillerman called Syria a "destabilizing influence" in the Middle East.
"You see Syria's hosting, very hospitably and warmly, over 10 terror organizations in Damascus," the ambassador said, adding that the country also supports Hezbollah, an anti-Israeli Shiite group in Lebanon with close ties to Iran and Syria.
"Basically, Syria and Iran, together with Hamas and Hezbollah, are the main axes of terror and evil in the world," the Israeli ambassador said.
Palestinians: Carter Achieved Nothing
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352409,00.html
Recent talks between former president Jimmy Carter and a militant leader failed to make much of a difference in Gaza, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Wednesday.
Carter's meeting with exiled Hamas militant leader Khaled Meshaal, which drew anger from both the U.S. and Israel, did not produce a cease fire or prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, al-Malki told Agence France-Presse.
"The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else," al-Malki told AFP.
Also on Wednesday, Carter stopped just short of saying that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was lying about warning him not to meet last week with Hamas leaders in Syria.
"President Carter has the greatest respect for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and believes her to be a truthful person," read a statement issued by the Carter Center in Atlanta. "However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true."
Carter has said that he met with Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, and that Welch told him it was not advisable to meet with Hamas. The former president maintains he was never told not to go.
"No one in the State Department or any other department of the U.S. government ever asked him (Carter) to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President (Bashar) Assad or leaders of Hamas," said the Carter Center, which often speaks on the former president's behalf.
The statement said Carter tried to call Rice before making the trip and a deputy returned his call, since Rice was in Europe.
"They had a very pleasant discussion for about 15 minutes, during which he never made any of the negative or cautionary comments described above. He never talked to anyone else," the Carter Center statement said.
Rice on Tuesday told a very different story.
"I just don't want there to be any confusion," Rice told reporters covering her trip to Kuwait. "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas, and we certainly told President Carter that meeting with Hamas was not going to help" the current situation in the region.
Carter, meanwhile, said Meshaal told him during meetings in Damascus on Friday and Saturday that the militant political organization would "accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians."
Hamas has stated its dedication to the destruction of Israel, and is listed by the State Department, European Union and Israel as a terrorist organization.
The Bush administration has said that Carter's meetings could undermine the peace process started in Annapolis, Md., last year, and that Carter's visit gave tacit recognition to a terrorist group.
Muslim anti-Semitism is strategic danger for Israel
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977008.html
A new Israeli study of anti-Semitism with Muslim roots has concluded that the phenomenon is growing, even in Jordan and Egypt, which have peace treaties with Israel, and that "Anti-Semitism and the accompanying hate industry are a strategic danger for Israel and the Jewish people."
The study was conducted by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a research institute under the aegis of the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), an NGO which commemorates the fallen of Israel's intelligence services.
According to the findings of the study, "generations of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are brought up hating the Jews; the peace process is damaged and obstacles to the normalization of Israel's relations with the Arab countries of the Middle East are erected; indiscriminate Palestinian terrorism against Israel is made palatable, as is Hezbollah's Shi'ite terrorism and that of Al-Qaida, when directed against Israel and Jews around the world."
The study also found that Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan "enable (and some even encourage) anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incitement for a variety of internal reasons: they can use the struggle against Israel and the image of support for the Palestinians as a way of letting opposition groups let off steam (especially when Israel-Palestinian confrontations escalate), for increasing their identification with Islamist groups and for increasing support for their own regimes."
Paradoxically, both Israel-Arab military escalation and progress toward Israeli-Arab peace act to increase anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, the research showed.
Among the central themes in contemporary Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism are Holocaust denial coupled with claims that Israel is carrying out a holocaust against the Palestinians, as well as the drawing of parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany, the study found.
"The motifs used in anti-Semitic propaganda are often taken from Western neo-Nazi literature, media and rhetoric and there are clearly reciprocal relations between Holocaust denial in the West and denying it or trying to minimize it in the Arab-Muslim world," it said.
The study also found that Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism has a broad field is widespread among both lower classes and intellectuals, opposition groups and radical Islamic movements.
"Arab-Muslim regimes in the Middle East all use it, although the way they use it changes from country to country. It is not limited to the Middle East, since anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic propaganda are distributed to Muslim communities all over the world, especially in Europe. Anti-Semitism is marketed in a variety of ways (books, the Internet, television) and helps fan the flames of hatred for Jews and Israel among Muslim communities far beyond the Middle East."
The report singled out the Iranian regime for having turned anti-Semitism and the desire to destroy the state of Israel into a strategic weapon.
It concluded that "anti-Semitism supported by a state which publicly adheres to a policy of genocide and is making efforts to arm itself with non-conventional weapons which will enable it to carry out that policy is unprecedented since Nazi Germany."
Israel in uproar over reports Olmert willing to cede Golan Heights to Syria
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3535019,00.html
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert undoubtedly heard about the Syrian report saying he had agreed to cede Israeli control of the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria, while on vacation.
The report by the Damascus-based website Shams Press was joined by a report in the Syrian newspaper al-Watan, which claimed that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan telephoned Syrian President Bashar Assad on Tuesday and informed him of Olmert's willingness to fully withdraw from the Golan Heights in exchange for a peace agreement.
According to the report, which quotes "knowledgeable sources" in Damascus, Erdogan is expected to visit the Syrian capital over the weekend and take part in a first-of-its-kind economic summit between Syria and Turkey.
The Syrian report's credibility may be questionable, but that did little to pacify the infuriated political arena.
Head of the Knesset's House Committee, Knesset Member David Tal of the prime minister's Kadima party, announced Wednesday that he would push forward the forming of the Golan Heights Act once the Knesset returns from its Passover hiatus. The bill will make a referendum on the region's future mandatory.
Knesset Member Yuval Steinitz (Likud) said the report indicated "unprecedented irresponsibility on Olmert's part both political and defense-wise."
Without the Golan Heights, he added "Israel will have serious trouble defending itself and its water sources. I have no doubt the public is on the Golan's side, not the prime minister's."
The Likud party later issued a formal statement on the matter: "There is no limit to the dangerous concessions Olmert is willing to make for the sake of his political survival… Now he is willing to give way to Syria, an ally of Iran, which supports Hamas terror and supplies Hizbullah with weapons," said the statement.
False expectations
MK Marina Solodkin (Kadima) party, also criticized Olmert: "I am utterly against any withdrawal from the Golan, mainly because Syria is in cahoots with Iran and Hizbullah. Peace with Syria at this point in time is suicidal for Israel."
MK Ze'ev Elkin (Kadima) reiterated the sentiment, saying that in the last six months "Olmert has been fooling the Israeli public and the international community, making promises he can't keep… he has no support for this move, neither in the Knesset nor in Kadima.
"Creating false expectations like these will end up costing Israel dearly…a media spin is no way to make true peace," he added.
Knesset Member Effie Eitam of the National Union-NRP, said Olmert is sacrificing Israel's safety in a "desperate attempt to show his constituents some sort of a political achievement… He is willing to give up the one strategic asset which has kept the northern border quiet for the past 40 years."
The people, he added, "will not let him or anyone give the Golan Heights back to the Syrians."
Former Meretz Chairman MK Yossi Beilin, however, urged the prime minister to hold intensive and swift negotiations with the Syrians, saying "peace with Syria is a key part of regional peace and will lead to the implementation of the Arab peace initiative and to a dramatic change in Syria's relationship with the extreme elements in the region."
The Prime Minister's Office declined official comment on the report saying "we will not comment on the said report but we can refer everyone to the prime minister's holiday interviews saying that we know what the Syrians want of us, and they know what we want of them."
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem linked the report to the upcoming US Congress hearing regarding the North Korean bid to distribute nuclear technology to Syria, among other nations.
Israeli MKs Criticize Olmert
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/363363.aspx
JERUSALEM, Israel - Members of Knesset (MKs) responded harshly to Arab media reports that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to cede sovereignty of the Golan Heights to Syria.
On Wednesday, Syria's Champress Web site posted a report claiming that Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan relayed Olmert's message that he's ready to fully withdraw from the Golan Heights in exchange for a peace treaty with Syria.
On Thursday, Syrian President Bashar Assad confirmed the media reports and said Olmert had agreed to cede the Golan. Assad also said that Israeli and Syrian officials have been in contact since the end of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.
"The mediation between Damascus and Tel Aviv thoroughly increased since the end of the war in Lebanon and Hezbollah's victory," the Syrian president told the Qatari daily, al Watan. "However, Turkey entering the picture in April of last year has precipitated the disclosure of new, positive details," he said.
Rather than deny the reports, the prime minister's spokesman, Mark Regev, said, "We don't make it our practice to comment on every report on the press or an Internet site."
MKs Respond
MK David Tal (Kadima), head of the Knesset's House Committee, said he will push for passage of the Golan Heights Act, which calls for a national referendum to decide the area's future, when lawmakers return from the week-long Passover holiday.
MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) said the information revealed "unprecedented irresponsibility on Olmert's part, both political and defense-wise."
"Israel will have serious trouble defending itself and its water sources [without the Golan Heights]," Steinitz said. "I have no doubt the public is on the Golan's side -- not the prime minister's," he said.
The Likud party issued a formal statement Wednesday afternoon.
"There is no limit to the dangerous concessions Olmert is willing to make for the sake of his political survival….Now he is willing to give way to Syria, an ally of Iran, which supports Hamas terror and supplies Hezbollah with weapons," the statement read.
MK Marina Solodkin, another member of the prime minister's Kadima party, also criticized the prime minister's plan.
"I am utterly against any withdrawal from the Golan," she said, "mainly because Syria is in cahoots with Iran and Hezbollah. Peace with Syria, at this point in time, is suicidal for Israel," she said.
MK Ze'ev Elkin, also a Kadima member, said, "Olmert has been fooling the Israeli public and the international community, making promises he can't keep. He has no support for this move, neither in the Knesset nor in Kadima," Elkin said.
"Creating false expectations like these will end up costing Israel dearly. A media spin is no way to make true peace," he said.
MK Effie Eitam (National Union/National Relgious Party), a retired general, said Olmert's political aspirations were nothing more than "desperate attempts to show his constituents some sort of a political achievement."
"He is willing to give up one strategic asset that has kept the northern border quiet for the past 40 years," he said. "[The Israeli people] will not let him or anyone give the Golan Heights back to the Syrians," Eitan said.
On Thursday, leaders of Israeli towns in the Golan released a statement regarding the Olmert government's plans to cede the Golan.
"The heads of Golan communities emphasize that the Golan belongs to the Jewish people, who will never agree to relinquish it."
The leaders also announced that development of the Golan would continue "out of certainty that any attempt to harm Israeli sovereignty in the Golan constitutes a grevious threat to national security and is destined to fail."
Abbas Asks U.S. to Pressure Israel
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/363384.aspx
WASHINGTON - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will ask U.S. officials to pressure Israel to meet the end-of-the-year deadline for a binding agreement with the PA.
"President Abbas will tell Bush that this is the last chance to reach an agreement," senior PA officials told Jerusalem Post Palestinian Affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh before the PA delegation departed for Washington.
According to the officials, Abbas plans to say that Israel has done nothing to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the five months since the Annapolis conference.
"If we fail to reach such an agreement before the end of Bush's term in office, the situation in the region will deteriorate," the PA officials warned.
"We seek a framework agreement that includes all the core issues and how these core issues will be resolved -- and ending with the establishment of a Palestinian independent state," Abbas told reporters on board the flight to Washington.
"If a deal is signed between Israel and the PA, no Palestinian refugee will be left in Lebanon," he said.
In the minds of Abbas and Palestinian officials, the destination of the refugees is Israel, not the "independent Palestinian state."
PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki told reporters on the flight that Abbas would demand a total settlement freeze and removal of checkpoints in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
"The gaps are still there," Abu Rudeina, spokesman for the PA president, told the press. "The Palestinian and Israeli positions are still far from each other. That requires American intervention," he said.
On Wednesday, in a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Abbas said time was running out to meet the deadline put forth at November's meeting in Annapolis.
Bush also met with Jordan's King Abdullah Wednesday, who pressed the President to meet the demands of the Palestinian Authority to push the negotiations through to a final status agreement. The two leaders also discussed plans for a peace summit during the President's upcoming visit to the region for Israel's 60th Anniversary celebration.
Bush plans to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Sinai coastal city of Sharm el-Sheik and visit King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia.
According to The Associated Press, the US administration wants to arrange a "peace summit" where Arab leaders would endorse an interim statement that would show some progress in the negotiations between Israel and the PA.
But prospects for such a summit are slim, as security concerns prevent Israel from meeting the PA's demands within the timeframe and the core issues -- the future of Jerusalem, borders of a future Palestinian state, water, Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, and the so-called right of return for Palestinian "refugees" and their descendants -- all have yet to be resolved.
Hamas’ new strategy
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3534103,00.html
It’s already clear by now – Hamas has changed its combat strategy. In recent weeks the organization diverted its main effort from “statistical” rocket terrorism, aimed at indiscriminately hurting Israeli civilians both physically and mentally, to what can be characterized as focused and complex “guerilla operations” mostly targeting IDF forces operating along the fence.
The organization’s strategic objectives have remained unchanged: First, to force Israel, through military and propaganda pressure, to lift the economic siege on the Strip. The siege threatens Hamas’ survivability in power. The second objective is to squeeze out of Jerusalem a lull in the fighting under terms that would enable Hamas to grow stronger militarily and politically and to prepare for a large-scale round of fighting in the future.
The reason for the change in combat strategy is the fact that the organization’s leadership recently reached the conclusion that the statistical terror directed at civilians – rockets, mortar shells, and machinegun fire – does not result in the required political and psychological “yield.” It even damages Hamas when it comes to international and Palestinian public opinion and grants Israel legitimacy to hit the group and its leaders, and even to embark on a large-scale operation in the Strip. Hamas wants to prevent this as well, and therefore the group decided to focus its efforts on “high quality” operations against the IDF.
Israeli sensitivity to abductions
The greatest aspiration of group leaders, who prefer guerilla operations against the IDF, is the abduction of an Israeli soldier or soldiers. The Hizbullah experience and their own experience taught them that more abducted soldiers would not only significantly boost the organization’s bargaining power in the negotiations on securing the release of prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, but would also provide them with a powerful pressure lever.
Should Hamas possess several IDF captives, the Israeli government would carefully weigh an order to assassinate Hamas leaders in the Strip or instruct the IDF to embark on a large-scale operation – for fear of Hamas revenge. Even in cases where Hamas men are unable to abduct soldiers, but can cause many casualties among IDF troops, the group benefits.
We saw an example of this last week, when almost half of a Givati force was hurt in an ambush laid by Hamas men. Three soldiers were killed and four were wounded. The Israeli media rushed to slam the force’s conduct and did not fail to note Hamas’ ability to kill eight Israelis in the current year, as opposed to only three last year.
Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus who are carefully, if not passionately, following Israeli media reports apparently concluded, just like Hizbullah realized in the Second Lebanon War, that the Israeli public is sensitive to casualties among troops more than it is sensitive to moral and physical damage caused to civilians as a result of the Qassams and Grads in Sderot and Ashkelon. Such successful guerilla attack initiated by Hamas also grants it more points and broad support on the Palestinian street. Therefore, this is the channel where efforts should be directed at, both in order to negotiate a lull from a position of strength and to boost Hamas’ political power and prestige.
New Hamas capabilities
It is no wonder that the organization decided to quickly carry out another major assault, on several fronts, on Passover eve. The attack on Kerem Shalom, which was prepared well in advance, failed thanks to the alert declared by the Southern Command, and mostly thanks to the alertness and quick action of the deputy commander of the Desert Patrol Battalion, which mostly comprises Bedouin commanders and fighters.
However, the operation attested not only to the fact that Hamas is changing its strategy, but rather, showed that it is also able to execute it at a higher level of sophistication in terms of planning, execution ability, and coordination between various forces that it lacked in the past.
The training sessions in Iran, Lebanon, and Syria and the large quantities of explosives and missiles accumulated in the Strip ever since the fence was breached are leaving their mark. In the attack carried out before the seder, Hamas used about two tons of apparently industrial explosives. This means it has a few more tons in its warehouses. The fact that the attack was carried out only a few days after previous attacks in the fence area shows that Hamas prepared a series of such assaults, which will apparently be carried out within a short period of time.
A very senior IDF official estimated that Hamas does not fear a large-scale IDF operation at this time, because group leaders reached the conclusion that Israel would avoid a broad or painful operation in the Strip at this time in order not to undermine the Passover celebrations and later the State’s 60th independence day.
IDF improves its capabilities
The IDF is not standing still either and is utilizing new combat capabilities. In recent weeks we witnessed more accurate aerial assaults that were carried out within a very short time, targeting the backup troops of the Hamas cells that launched assaults on the fence. In addition, Hamas fighters who fled the scene of attack were hit from the air. This attests to new and better intelligence capabilities than what we saw in the past.
However, we should realize that these capabilities are insufficient, at least for now, in deterring fighters instilled with religious zealotry, who know in advance that their chances of returning alive from the operation are slim. In order to deter Hamas from implementing its new strategy and combat methods, a strategic balance of terror must be created vis-à-vis the organization.
The simplest way to create such balance of terror is to thwart the series of strategic attacks Hamas will be initiating in the near future, while causing a heavy casualty toll among the attackers. At the same time, the fuel supply and humanitarian aid directed into the Strip should be curbed to a minimum, until the attacks stop.
A senior military source noted with puzzlement the fact that Hamas is targeting the crossings, while Israel continues to supply all its needs through them. Political officials note that the supply continues because of international pressure on Israel and because of the orders of the High Court of Justice and the attorney general, yet the IDF finds it difficult to understand this logic.
“Hamas is an enemy that conducts itself like an enemy in war and controls the Strip both politically and military,” said a senior army official who could barely hide his frustration.
In any case, the IDF estimates that should Egypt fail to secure an agreement with Hamas soon on a lull in the fighting, there will apparently be no option but to upgrade the means and combat methods employed against the group. For example, an ongoing intensive series of assassinations targeting the organization’s political and military leadership in the Strip. If this doesn’t work either, the Israeli government will be forced to decide on a broad operation or series of operations in the Strip. The IDF certainly hopes that the failure of Hamas’ Passover eve offensive would put an end to this macabre spiral.ue."
Muslim Leaders Want Mecca to Be Center of World Time Zones
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7359258.stm
"And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High and think to change TIMES and laws (Sharia?): and they shall be given into his hands until a time and times and the dividing of times" (Daniel 7:25).
Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.
Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.
The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.
One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.
He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.
A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim "qibla" - the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when they pray.
The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim.
The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.
The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science.
It is called "Ijaz al-Koran", which roughly translates as the "miraculous nature of the holy text".
The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence.
But the movement is not without its critics, who say that the notion that modern science was revealed in the Koran confuses spiritual truth, which is constant, and empirical truth, which depends on the state of science at any given point in time.
Hamas vs. Jews, Christians
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/362811.aspx
GAZA STRIP - For Hamas and other jihadist groups, the Islamic faith is the driving force behind their movement.
How does Islam shape the thinking of Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip?
According to Hamas political leader Khalil Abu Laila, the Western concept of free speech, exemplified by the political cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, offended all Muslims, sparking violent reactions and drawing them together in a common cause.
"By provoking the religious feelings of Muslims, you are uniting them under the flag of Islam," Laila told CBN News.
"Americans must know, when the religious feelings of Muslims and Arabs are provoked, this will motivate Muslims to move closer to the people who are raising the flag of Islam," he said.
Laila dreams of the day when Islam will control not only the Middle East, but every continent on earth -- especially Europe and North America.
"When Islam will rule, we will not have anything but good relations with the Europeans and Americans, and it will be based upon equality," Laila said.
"But what is unfortunate today is that the governments of Europe and the United States are dealing with the Muslims and Arabs like a "master and his slaves," and the Americans are bossing us around," he said.
Muslim clerics often refer to Jews and Christians as the "sons of monkeys and pigs," but for Hamas officials, such as Younes al-Astel, Jews and Christians are also bigots.
"It is in their nature," al-Astel asserts. "They believe they are the sons, the beloved people of God, and whoever is their enemy will be animals in the image of human beings made to serve them as slaves," he said.
"People who have this sick way of thinking about non-Jews, in their own mind they believe that we Arabs and Muslims don't deserve to live," al-Astel said.
"Some people may look at the Hamas struggle as one for territory in Gaza and the West Bank [Judea and Samaria], but these leaders have a much larger global goal built on centuries of resentment," he concluded.
In the Gaza Strip, Hamas has begun the largest military buildup in its history, recently stepping up its cross-border attacks against Israeli soldiers and citizens.
With their constant efforts to provoke Israel, Hamas leaders hope to put themselves at the vanguard of jihad -- "holy" war -- not just against Israel, but against the West as well.
Throughout much of the Muslim world -- from Iran to the Gaza Strip -- comes the cry "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!"
Video to Link North Korea to Nukes in Syria?
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/363295.aspx
Congress members will view a videotape and other evidence Thursday showing that Syria was building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance before Israeli planes bombed the facility last year, a U.S. official says.
U.S. intelligence officials consider the evidence "extremely compelling," the U.S. official said, adding that it was gleaned from a variety of sources, not just Israeli intelligence.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity late Wednesday because of the sensitive nature of the information.
CIA Director Michael Hayden and other intelligence officials are to brief Congress on the evidence related to the bombed Syrian facility in appearances Thursday before six committees.
Israeli warplanes bombed a site in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, that private analysts say appears to have been the site of a reactor, based on commercial satellite imagery taken after the raid. The site later was razed.
The target of Israel's raid has been veiled in secrecy, with U.S. intelligence and government officials refusing to confirm until now suspicions that the site was to be a nuclear reactor.
The Syrian reactor was similar in design to a North Korean reactor that has in the past produced small amounts of plutonium. The official said no uranium - the fuel for a reactor - was evident on site.
Plutonium-producing reactors are of international interest because plutonium can be used to make high-yield nuclear weapons.
But Syria has maintained in the past that the site was an unused military facility.
Syria did not declare the apparent reactor to the International Atomic Energy Agency nor was it under international safeguards, possibly putting Syria in breech of an international nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
The revelation of alleged North Korean cooperation with Syria comes at a sensitive time for Pyongyang.
U.S. diplomats are pressing North Korea to come clean about its nuclear cooperation with Syria as part of those talks but have had little success.
Under an agreement reached last year with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, the North is required to give a full account of its nuclear programs, including whether it spread nuclear technology.
North Korea claims it gave the nuclear declaration to the U.S. in November, but U.S. officials say the North never produced a "complete and correct" declaration.
The Capitol Hill briefings come the same week a U.S. delegation went to North Korea to press the regime for a detailed list of its nuclear programs, the latest sticking point at international nuclear disarmament talks.
White House Calls N. Korea Nuke Aid 'Dangerous,' Says Syria 'Must Come Clean'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352515,00.html
WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that North Korea's secret work on a nuclear reactor with Syria was "a dangerous and potentially destabilizing development for the world," raising doubts about Pyongyang's intention to carry through with a promised disclosure of its nuclear activities.
Seven months after Israel bombed the reactor, the White House broke its silence and said North Korea assisted Syria's secret nuclear program and that the destroyed facility was not intended for "peaceful purposes."
Top U.S. intelligence officials who briefed reporters said they had high confidence in the judgment that North Korea had aided Syria with its nuclear program and the intention was to produce plutonium. But they claimed only low confidence for the conclusion that it was meant for weapons development, in part because there was no reprocessing facility at the site — something that would be needed to enrich nuclear material for use in a bomb.
The Bush administration's assertions could undermine six-party negotiations to try to resolve the nuclear standoff with North Korea. But a senior administration official told reporters he hoped the disclosure would instead provide leverage to officials trying to get an accurate accounting of North Korea's nuclear and proliferation activities.
The White House issued a two-page statement after lawmakers were given details about the reactor in a series of briefings on Capitol Hill that included a video presentation of intelligence information the administration contends establishes a strong link between North Korea's nuclear program and the bombed Syrian site. The briefing also included still photographs that showed a strong resemblance between specific features of the plant and one near Yongbyon in North Korea.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the revelations make it clear that any deal to eliminate North Korea's nuclear programs must also stop its proliferation activities and include vigorous verification. But he said the information in the briefings was not a cause to end the talks.
"To the contrary, it underscores the need for pursuing the talks, which remain our best chance to convince North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons and to stop proliferation," Biden said.
The White House said the International Atomic Energy Agency also was being briefed on the intelligence.
While calling North Korea's nuclear assistance to Syria a "dangerous manifestation" of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and its proliferation activities, the White House said it remained committed to the talks.
The United States became aware North Korea was helping Syria with a nuclear project in 2003, said intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity. The critical intelligence that cemented that conclusion, they said, came last year: dozens of photographs taken from ground level over a period of time, showing the construction both inside and outside the building.
The Israeli strike on Sept. 6, 2007, ripped open the structure, known as the Al Kibar reactor, and revealed even more evidence to spy satellites: reinforced concrete walls that echoed the design of the Yongbyon reactor.
After the attack, Syria tried to bury evidence of its existence and erected a new building to hide the site. The building is not believed to house a new reactor, the officials said.
"This cover-up only served to reinforce our confidence that this reactor was not intended for peaceful activities," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "The Syrian regime must come clean before the world regarding its illicit nuclear activities."
The Syrian reactor was within weeks or months of being functional when Israeli jets destroyed it, a top U.S. official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The official said the facility was mostly completed but still needed fueling and significant testing before it could be declared operational.
"We had to assume they could throw the switch at any time," a senior intelligence official said.
No uranium, which is needed to fuel a reactor, was evident at the site, a remote area of eastern Syria along the Euphrates River. But senior U.S. intelligence officials said the reactor was similar in design to the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, which has in the past produced small amounts of plutonium, the material needed to make powerful nuclear weapons.
A senior intelligence official said the intelligence agencies believe North Korea was motivated by "cash" rather than a desire to obtain plutonium from the reactor.
Syria has maintained in the past that the site was an unused military facility, and on Thursday, its embassy denounced what it called the U.S. "campaign of false allegations." It accused the administration of trying to mislead Congress and world opinion "in order to justify the Israeli raid in September of 2007, which the current U.S. administration may have helped execute."
Senior U.S. officials said the U.S. military was not involved in the attack, and the U.S. government, although informed in advance, did not approve it.
"Israel made the decision to attack," a senior administration official said. "It did so without any so-called green light from us. None was asked for and none was given."
"It has become obvious that this maneuver on the part of this administration comes within the framework of the North Korean nuclear negotiations," the Syrian statement said.
And in an apparent reference to prewar claims by the Bush administration that Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction, the statement concluded: "The Syrian government hopes that the international community and the American public, particularly, will be more cautious and aware this time around in facing such unfounded allegations."
Top members of the House Intelligence Committee who were briefed on the reactor said it posed a serious threat of spreading dangerous nuclear materials.
"This is a serious proliferation issue, both for the Middle East and the countries that may be involved in Asia," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.
Hoekstra and Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, told reporters after the closed briefing that they were angry that the Bush administration had delayed informing the full committee for so long. That delay has created friction that may imperil congressional support for Bush's policies toward North Korea and Syria, Hoekstra said.
The White House also used its statement as an opportunity to denounce the nuclear activities of Iran, which it says is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. Perino said the international community must take further steps, beginning with full implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
While Washington was awash in condemnation of North Korea's proliferation activities, the communist regime is expressing optimism about current six-party negotiations with the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan. The optimism over the talks is raising hopes of breaking the impasse that has deadlocked arms negotiations.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it had discussed technical matters with the Americans for moving forward on that and other agreements from the arms talks. "The negotiations proceeded in a sincere and constructive manner and progress was made," the ministry said in a statement.
As part of that process, the North is required to submit a "declaration" detailing its programs and proliferation activity, but the talks are stalled over Pyongyang's refusal to publicly admit the Syria connection. However, officials say the North Koreans are willing to accept international "concern" about unspecified proliferation.
White House is convinced North Korea helped Syria build secret nuclear reactor
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5210
“We have good reason to believe that the reactor, which was damaged beyond repair on Sept. 6 of last year was not intended for peaceful purposes,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino in a statement Thursday, April 24, after intelligence officials briefed US lawmakers about the Syrian nuclear facility destroyed by Israel last year.
A Syrian nuclear reactor built with North Korean help was weeks away from functioning, a top U.S. official told lawmakers.
The Syrian ambassador denied the report as a “fantasy.” He said the US had a record of “fabricating evidence of nuclear activity in its allegations against Iraq before the 2003 invasion.”
Perino's statement, which broke White House silence on the raid, did not mention Israel. It said Syria was building a "covert nuclear reactor" in its eastern desert that was capable of producing plutonium.
Syria did not inform the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency about the construction of the reactor and after it was destroyed, Syria "moved quickly to bury evidence of its existence," the White House said.
The United States has long been "seriously concerned" about North Korea's nuclear weapons program and its proliferation activities and Pyongyang's cooperation with Syria was a "dangerous manifestation" of those activities, the White House said.
North Korea missed a December 31 deadline to make a declaration of its nuclear programs in a deal with the United States, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea.
"The construction of this (Syrian) reactor was a dangerous and potentially destabilizing development for the region and the world," Perino said.
That development underscored the international community was right to be concerned about the nuclear activities of Iran and "must take further steps" to confront that challenge, she said.
Russian Air Force to begin upgrading strategic bombers this month
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080422/105640820.html
A new Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bomber will enter service with Russia' Air Force by the end of this month, the Air Force chief said on Tuesday.
"We hope that the 121st heavy bomber regiment will receive a new Tu-160 plane on April 29," Col.Gen. Alexander Zelin said.
"It is a fully upgraded plane, adapted to new weapons systems," he said.
He added that another three to four such bombers will enter service before the end of the year.
The Tu-160 Blackjack is a supersonic, variable-geometry heavy bomber, designed to strike strategic targets with nuclear and conventional weapons deep in continental theatres of operation.
The aircraft has all-weather, day-and-night capability and can operate at all geographical latitudes. Its two internal rotary launchers can each hold 6 Raduga Kh-55 cruise missiles or 12 Raduga Kh-15 short-range nuclear missiles.
The plane bears a strong resemblance to the U.S. B-1A Lancer strategic bomber, although it is significantly larger, and with far greater range, up to 11,000 miles without refueling.
According to official reports, there are at least 15 Tu-160 bombers in service with the Russian Air Force. Russia plans to upgrade the existing fleet and build at least one new bomber every one-two years to increase the number of available aircraft to 30 in the near future.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the resumption of strategic patrol flights last August, saying that although the country had halted long-distance strategic flights to remote regions in 1992, other nations had continued the practice, and that this compromised Russian national security.
Although it was common practice during the Cold War for both the U.S. and the Soviet Union to keep nuclear strategic bombers permanently airborne, the Kremlin cut long-range patrols in 1992. The decision came as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the ensuing economic and political chaos.
However, the newly-resurgent Russia, awash with petrodollars, has invested heavily in military technology, and the resumption of long-range patrols is widely seen among political commentators as another sign of its drive to assert itself both militarily and politically.
VeriChip goes direct to consumer with its implantable RFID chips; Would you buy?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8567
VeriChip said Tuesday it will begin pitching its implantable RFID chips directly to consumers in a move that aims to link doctors directly to personal health records.
VeriChip said it will launch a direct-to-consumer marketing campaign in South Florida on April 28. The general idea appears to be to woo a bunch of retirees to implant an RFID chip and connect the information with personal health records. VeriChip will pitch its wares through HEARx hearing aid stores in the Palm Beach area.
Rest assured the idea of implantable RFID chips will freak a few folks out. However, I see RFID as a key component to personal health records, which are patient controlled medical data repositories. Microsoft (HealthVault resources), Google (Google Health resources) and others have pitched personal health records and the idea makes a lot of sense. The problem: What happens if I’m in a car wreck and can’t tell the doctor my log-in and password? What if my personal health record on a portal doesn’t synch up with a hospital’s IT systems? Will I actively manage my personal health record?
Simply put, personal health records (PHRs) have their limitations and an RFID chip could expand their use. It would be a lot easier if I were implanted with an RFID chip that could be read when I pass through the doors of the emergency room. Could this RFID chip be hacked? Possibly. But in real world use an implantable RFID chip used for medical purposes makes a lot of sense to me.
VeriChip will hook up its chip with its patient ID system called Health Link. In a statement VeriChip says:
Health Link is the connection between you and your personal health record. It provides emergency room doctors and nurses with immediate access to your vital medical and emergency contact information, which will help them to treat you rapidly, accurately and safely during an emergency. Health Link utilizes a tiny microchip (similar in size to a grain of rice) and a secure, private, online database that links you to your personal health record. Your Health Link is always with you and cannot be lost or stolen.
The Health Link microchip stores only a unique 16-digit identification number and is injected just under the skin in the rear upper portion of the right arm. When a Health Link member presents in an emergency department unconscious, unresponsive or confused, emergency medical personnel use the Health Link scanner to retrieve the member’s identification number to access his or her personal health record.
On paper, VeriChip’s idea makes sense, but it would be nice if the RFID chip could synch with multiple personal health record systems.
The big question here is whether VeriChip can market this implantable RFID chip in a way that’s palatable to consumers.
Web pages have 'come alive and started breeding'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&xml=/earth/2008/04/16/sciweb116.xml
Living web sites that grow, develop and evolve to suit the taste of the people that read them are now finding their way on to the internet.
For two decades, computer scientists have played around with evolutionary software that can gradually evolve and mutate to carry out a task efficiently, or hone the design of a wing, robot or whatever, without the need for a programmer to get involved.
Now these techniques are being used to allow web sites to keep themselves up to date and to adapt to the latest fads and fashion, reports New Scientist.
Not only are they quicker to evolve than possible with human intervention, they offer the chance to come up with new ways to organise material in the web that work best for users.
Matthew Hockenberry and Ernesto Arroyo of Creative Synthesis, a non-profit organisation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have created evolutionary software that alters colours, fonts and hyperlinks of pages in response to what seems to grab the attention of the people who click on the site.
To start, he used mouse-tracking software developed by Arroyo while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on 24 people who were asked to use a basic web site template for a blog.
Once the blog went live, control of the design was out of their hands.
The software treated each feature as a “gene” that was randomly changed as a page was refreshed.
After evaluating what seemed to work, it killed the genes associated with lower scoring features – say the link in an Arial font that was being ignored - and replaced them with those from higher scoring ones say, Helvetica.
“We see a lot of terrible designs for the first 100 or so generations,” Hockenberry tells New Scientist.
But the pages gradually morph to be more pleasing. Interestingly, they do not simply reflect a consensus of what people want to see, since the random element means the exercise is truly creative.
“The mutations will always occur and while they are responsive to human attention, they are not bound by them.
It is possible to develop unique mutations that may actually influence human goals (rather than the other way around).”
Prof Gregg Vanderheiden of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says sites that cater to people with disabilities would particularly benefit from evolving pages.
And evolutionary computing researcher Charles Ofria of Michigan State University in East Lansing says the idea might remove the need to constantly test websites on users in the way that companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook now do.
The work is reminiscent of the way that evolutionary methods were used to create organic art by the America Karl Sims – at an exhibition, art was continually evolving by breeding the images that people liked to look at, and killing those that were unpopular.
“A lot of the work done in genetic / organic art certainly serves as a significant intellectual inspiration,” says Hockenberry.
“The most significant difference is the goal of targeting the real public in a process. We want to add a sense of responsibility to this genetic growth. Does the process make sense? Does it do something useful? How do people work within this process and support it?
"Most of the examples of using genetic algorithms are about making something - and then showing the result for interaction. We want human creativity to be a driving force within a process of computer genetic evolution. So while pages might be growing - it still matters if humans take care of them and they can still influence the growth in very significant ways.”
Hannah Montana star's new book to focus on family relationship
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/hannah.montana.stars.new.book.to.focus.on.family.relationship/18308.htm
Miley Cyrus, 15-year-old teen star who attributes her family and Christian faith for keeping her grounded in her fast-pace lifestyle, will write about her life before becoming Hannah Montana in a book deal that was confirmed by the publisher for Disney on Tuesday.
In her memoir, a reportedly seven-figure deal, the star of hit Disney Channel series "Hannah Montana" will write about her early life in Tennessee and the excitement of making it big on TV, music and film.
The teen star will also open up about the positive impact her relationship with her family – particularly her mum Leticia – had on her.
"I am so excited to let fans in on how important my relationship with my family is to me," said Cyrus in a statement. "I hope to motivate mothers and daughters to build lifetimes of memories together, and inspire kids around the world to live their dreams."
The book also gives readers a look at her personal photos and "her inner circle of loved ones", according to Disney. It will be published in early spring 2009, around the same time "The Hannah Montana Movie" is expected to debut.
Whilst serving as a role model for young teen girls with her squeaky-clean image, Cyrus also uses her fame to witness for Christ.
The bubbly teen has made her Christian faith no secret on camera.
When interviewed by Barbara Walters for an Oscar night celebrity special, she credited her family and faith for keeping her grounded and protected from the materialism and partying that usually dominate a teen star's lifestyle.
“Some people don’t have a family to fall back on, like I have, and that’s when something greater than even that comes in – and that’s faith and that’s what I have for me,” she told Walters, according to ABC News. “That’s what keeps me strong.”
On her Easter instalment of her YouTube show, "The Miley and Mandy Show", Cyrus and her best friend Mandy Jiroux dedicated their video to Jesus.
"Jesus rocks! That's why we do what we do," said the “Hannah Montana” star. "She (Mandy) dances for Jesus. I sing, dance and act for Jesus! ... Now that I think about it, I do everything for Jesus. We make the YouTube videos for Jesus. We’re all about it."
Cyrus regularly attends a church in Montrose, California, where she reportedly puts as much as $1,000 in the offering baskets.
In recent days, two pictures showing a girl who resembles Cyrus flashing some skin hit the Internet and have generated buzz among critics. It is uncertain whether the pictures are of the teen star or if they are part of a smear campaign. Cyrus' camp has yet to respond.
In the Disney channel show, Cyrus plays a high school teen with an alter-identity as a pop singer. Her real dad Billy Ray Cyrus, the country singer who is known for the single “Achy Breaky Heart”, plays her television dad on the show. For two years, the show has maintained the No 1 spot for series among kids ages 6 to 14 on US cable TV.
Her “Hannah Montana” character has spawned one successful project after another, including a top-grossing, sold-out tour last year; a No. 1 3-D film based on the tour; and several music albums.
No comments:
Post a Comment