Republicans Go to War With Obama Over Foreign Policy Views
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/16/republicans-go-to-war-with-obama-over-foreign-policy-views/
Whether he meant to or not, President Bush, in his comments Thursday opposing diplomacy with despots, unleashed a torrent of GOP ire as prominent Republicans took the opportunity to pile on Barack Obama — treating Hillary Clinton as all but an afterthought.
The two-day food fight over foreign policy could be a preview of things to come, as Obama moves closer to wrapping up the Democratic nomination. Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain is already preparing for a general election fight against the Illinois senator, and their differences on diplomacy seemed to serve as a potent rallying cry for both Democrats and Republicans.
After Obama blasted both McCain and Bush on Friday for a failed go-it-alone policy in the Middle East, Republicans ripped Obama for his willingness to meet with nations like Iran without preconditions. The intense focus on national security was reminiscent of the 2004 presidential race between Bush and then-Democratic nominee John Kerry.
“You know, it would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies but that’s not the world we live in. And until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength and judgment and determination to keep us safe,” McCain said, calling Obama’s foreign policy “reckless.”
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said he thought Bush “hit the nail on the head yesterday in Jerusalem. And today, the nails started to complain. It’s not just naïve. It’s dangerous for our country.”
The Republicans were all speaking at a National Rifle Association meeting in Louisville, Ky., which served as a staging point for the cross-party battle.
Bush touched off the firestorm with his address to the Israel Knesset on Thursday, when, without mentioning Obama by name, he criticized politicians who would negotiate with terrorists and radicals. He called such positions a “foolish delusion” and the “false comfort of appeasement.”
Obama and other Democrats took it as an affront to him, and immediately lashed out at Bush and McCain. Obama said Friday that kind of comment is “exactly the kind of appalling attack that’s dividing our country and that alienates us from the world.”
Arguing that McCain and Bush have no room to talk when it comes to foreign policy, Obama said he would not directly engage terrorist groups like Hamas but defended his proposed policies of holding direct talks with sponsors of terrorism like Iran.
As Republicans lined up at the NRA meeting to slam both Clinton and Obama for what they described as their lax defense of the Second Amendment, they weaved in several responses to Obama’s diplomatic positions.
Former GOP candidate Mitt Romney said if Barack Obama were to meet with “some of the world’s worst actors” as president, it would “bestow upon them the dignity of the office of the president of the United States, giving them a propaganda bonanza.”
The Republicans also used the meeting to skewer Obama as an elitist politician who would curb the gun rights of ordinary Americans.
“Barack Obama may believe there is an individual right to bear arms in the Constitution. He would simply like to make it impossible for you to exercise that right,” former Bush adviser Karl Rove said.
McCain said that if either Democratic candidate is elected, “the rights of law-abiding gun owners will be at risk.”
Obama, who has supported tough gun restrictions, said Americans who use their guns legally to hunt or protect their families have nothing to worry about if he is president.
“They have got the same play book every election and guns is going to be one of those issues,” Obama said of his Republican critics. “And I understand that it has been effective for them in the past.”
But if the two-day furor over Bush’s remarks in Israel were any gauge, gun control likely won’t hold a candle to foreign policy as an issue that can galvanize Republicans against the Democratic nominee, and vice versa.
One Obama aide told FOX News the campaign would have had to spend millions in ad money to accomplish what the campaign believes it achieved in the past 36 hours — linking McCain to Bush on foreign policy, and portraying the Arizona senator as the next incarnation of a Bush presidency.
Obama: Wrong on Iran
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356417,00.html
President Bush is absolutely right to criticize sharply direct negotiations with Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Barack Obama’s embrace of the idea of direct negotiations is both naïve and dangerous and should be a big issue in the campaign.
The reason not to negotiate with Ahmadinejad is not simply to stand on ceremony or some kind of policy of non-recognition. It is based on the fundamental need to topple his regime by increasing the sense the Iranian people have — that he has isolated Iran from the rest of the world, to its severe and ongoing detriment.
The Iranian regime is almost entirely dependent on oil and gas revenues to pay for the vast program of social subsidies with which the government buys domestic support. Gasoline costs 35 cents a gallon in Teheran. Bread and all other staples are subsidized from public funds. But 85 percent of all government revenues come from oil and gas exports. There lies the regime’s vulnerability.
Iran is sitting atop the second largest oil reserves in the world. Only Saudi Arabia has more. But it can’t get at them. It lacks the foreign investment and technology necessary to increase, or even to sustain, its petroleum output. Under the Shah, Iran pumped upwards of six million barrels of oil a day. Now, Iran generates fewer than four million daily barrels. With domestic consumption of energy increasing at 10 percent a year — due in part to the massive subsidies which hold the price down — Iran is expected to see its oil exports cut in half by 2011 and entirely eliminated by 2014. If Iran cannot export oil, it cannot pay for social peace and the regime could be in dire trouble.
Without subsidies, the Iranian people, half of whom are under 30 and only 40 percent of whom are ethnically Farsi, will become restive and resentful. Already, many complain that Ahmadinejad’s policies have led to global isolation of Iran and stymied economic growth and social upward mobility. While opinion surveys in Iran indicate that the people support the nuclear aspirations of the regime, they are not willing to pay a price of international isolation.
If a President Obama were to meet with President Ahmadinejad, it would send a signal to the Iranian people that they are not isolated but that the rest of the world has come to respect them and to have to deal with them. The leading argument for toppling the current regime will have been fatally undermined.
But if the West sustains a policy of economic sanctions, curbs on foreign investment, and diplomatic isolation, the Iranian regime’s days are numbered.
Official United Nations sanctions are having some effect on Iran but the real power lies in cutting off investment by foreign companies, particularly in the banking and energy sectors. American companies are already prohibited from doing business there, although General Electric may be seeking ways around this prohibition through foreign subsidiaries.
Frank Gaffney, formerly of Reagan’s Pentagon, has pioneered the use of private economic disinvestment in companies that do business with Iran, Syria, North Korea, or Sudan. On his Web site, he has identified almost 500 companies that do business with these terror sponsoring nations. They include such international powerhouses as Sieman’s, Shell, Repsol, BNP Paribus, and Hyundai. He has crafted a terror free mutual fund which can earn good returns while avoiding investment in any of these companies.
Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman — now running for governor — pioneered disinvesting pension funds in these companies. Now California, Florida, and Louisiana have followed suit.
We need to let these policies work and global isolation of Iran is the way to do it. Negotiating with Ahmadinejad would simply boost his domestic stature and enhance his political stability, the exact opposite of what we should — and must — be doing.
Is Barack Obama More Afraid of U.S. Than Its Enemies?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356303,00.html
Apparently, Barack Obama is more frightened of America than he is of its enemies.
Case in point: His boxers are in a bunch over what President Bush said on the 60th anniversary of Israel's statehood. Bush said, "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists… as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along... We have heard these foolish delusions before," he says, recalling the Nazis... or the Belgians — I can never remember.
This is good stuff. But not for Obama, who replied, "It is sad that President Bush would use a speech on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack."
So let's get this straight: Obama thinks it's wrong for Bush to say, on Israel's birthday, that we shouldn't appease enemies of Israel.
But what's better, Obama? Should Bush echo your words and lunch with an Iranian madman who vows to wipe Israel off the map? That's a crappy birthday gift. Worse than soap on a rope.
Here's my real point: Obama must come up with a real plan to fight terror beyond scheduling tea time with tyrants. Problem is, instead of coming up with a plan, the Dems have spent the last seven years blaming Bush for everything. But he isn't going to be president anymore.
So, Senator, where's your plan?
You call Bush's policies "politics of fear," but we didn't fly planes into buildings — they did. Terrorism is "politics of fear" — destroying terrorists is not.
[...]
And if you disagree with me, then you sir, are worse than Hitler.
What are Muslims learning in Saudi Arabia's schools before they come here?
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64310
A Republican leader of Congress has urged President Bush to press the Saudi government to reform its textbooks during his visit tomorrow with Saudi King Abdullah.
In a letter to Bush, Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., founder of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, warned that the kingdom is still "spreading a dangerous ideology that attacked us on 9/11 and continues to threaten the United States and its allies around the world."
"I strongly urge you to raise my concerns regarding the use of textbooks that are sanctioned by the Saudi government for use within the country and around the world that preach hatred and violence toward non-Muslims and Western ideals of liberty," she said in the May 5 missive.
Despite Abdullah's post-9/11 promises of reforms, Saudi school texts used for Islamic studies still encourage violence and hatred toward "infidels," according to a recent comprehensive review by the Freedom House.
The nonprofit group says indoctrination begins as early as first grade and expands each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text teaching teens that their religious duty includes waging "jihad" against the infidel to "spread the faith."
Here are relevant passages from the Saudi textbooks, by grade level:
* First Grade: "Every religion other than Islam is false."
* Fourth Grade: "True belief means ... that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."
* Fifth Grade: "It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in Allah and His Prophet."
* Sixth Grade: "Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, Allah willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for Allah, for this is within Allah's power."
* Eighth Grade: "The apes are the Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."
* Ninth Grade: "The clash between this (Muslim) community and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as Allah wills."
Myrick worries the hateful religious indoctrination could translate into violence against the West. Of immediate concern, she notes, are the thousands of young Saudi men scheduled to immigrate to the U.S. on student visas.
The State Department plans to double the number of student visas issued to young Saudi men from 15,000 to 30,000 – despite the fact that nearly all of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals who immigrated to the U.S. on visas.
"We aim to increase their numbers to 30,000 over the next five years," U.S. Ambassador Ford Fraker last month told Saudi officials at the Al-Jouf Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
In the past, a large number of Saudi students have failed to show up for classes, coast to coast, and have overstayed their visas. Many of them have been caught up in terrorism investigations.
"As more young Saudi citizens take part in the scholarship student visa program, we must be sure that we are not permitting Saudi citizens into our country who seek to do us harm, as we saw with the 15 hijackers from Saudi Arabia who attacked us on 9/11," Myrick said.
The congresswoman also asked Bush to press the Saudi government to allow non-Muslim clergy to visit the kingdom as part of a reciprocal exchange under the U.S. R-1/R-2 religious visa program.
"I believe it is essential to a true dialogue between religions to allow clergy to come and speak to foreign audiences," she told the president. "No one should be prohibited from entering a country based on their religious beliefs."
Myrick plans to introduce a bill to restrict R-1 religious visas for Muslim clerics who come from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other countries that do not allow reciprocal visits by non-Muslim clergy.
Since 9/11, several foreign imams have been prosecuted or deported for soliciting jihad, including a Pakistani cleric in Lodi, Calif.
Myrick also plans as part of her 10-point "Wake Up America" anti-terror legislative agenda to introduce a bill to cancel U.S. contracts to train Saudi police and other security forces in U.S. counterterrorism tactics until the Saudis certify the prosecution of designated al-Qaida financiers – such as wealthy Saudi businessman Yasin al-Kadi – as well as the detention of repatriated Guantanamo terrorists whom the Saudis have released back into the general population after being "rehabilitated."
Some Gitmo detainees repatriated to Saudi Arabia have rejoined the jihad against U.S. troops overseas.
"As we continue to work with the Saudi government, it is essential that they end their practice of exporting terrorism," Myrick said. "Reports claim that the Saudi rehabilitation program of released Guantanamo detainees conditions the release on agreement not to attack within Saudi Arabia."
"If true," she added, "this is obviously detrimental to defeating the jihadist ideology that inspires our enemies."
Web Site Sympathetic to Terrorists Blasts FOX News for Profile
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356494,00.html
An English-language Web site that unabashedly promotes the work of Islamic terrorists has responded to a FOXNews.com profile of the site by assailing "the Kuffaar behind FOX News." Kuffaar, roughly translated, means "unbelievers."
After quoting FOX News.com's Friday story and citing verses from the Koran, the Revolution.Muslimpad.com blog affirms the belief that jihad is "an Islaamic obligation" rooted in Muslim texts.
"So in reality, you are calling my Prophet, Muhammad — peace be upon him — a terrorist," the blog post continues. "But of course, you guys won’t say that directly because you fear the wrath of the Muslims."
The site also decries what it calls a double standard toward terrorists, comparing the attacks of Sept. 11 with the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima during World War II.
Revolution.Muslimpad.com, also called "The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge," is believed to be the brainchild of a 22-year-old American Samir Khan of Charlotte, N.C.
The site's sleek modern style includes collections of the latest videos of U.S. military Humvees exploding from roadside bombs in Iraq, as well as pro-jihad messages aimed at radicalizing readers.
Its list of 63 top "scholars of Islam" and people to "take knowledge from" contained mostly known terrorists — including Usama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The site provides links to their works, all translated into English.
Terror experts say it is unique because it is written in English for a Western audience.
Gunman Wounds 3, Including Ex-Wife, in Shooting at California Church Festival
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356503,00.html
LOS ANGELES — A man with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire at a church festival Saturday, wounding his ex-wife and two bystanders before festival-goers grabbed him and held him for police, authorities and a church official said.
Gunfire rang out on a grassy field where the festival was being set up at the St. John Baptist de la Salle Roman Catholic parish shortly before 11 a.m., said police Capt. Steven Ruiz.
"We believe this is an isolated incident, a domestic-violence dispute," he said.
The man, whose identity was not immediately released, has a child who attends the church school but has had an ongoing dispute with the mother, Ruiz said.
He opened fire with a .22-caliber rifle a few minutes before the church's annual weekend festival was to begin. Father Robert Milbauer, the parish's pastor, said about 50 people, mainly church volunteers and their children, were busy setting up food and game booths and carnival-style rides when the gunfire erupted.
"I was walking toward the festival area to say an opening prayer and I saw them," Milbauer said of the shooting victims.
The man's 30-year-old ex-wife was one of the festival workers. She was hospitalized in stable condition, Ruiz said.
A 45-year-old man was shot in the chest and was in critical condition and another man, 47, was in stable condition with a leg wound, Ruiz said.
Their identities were not immediately released.
The man walked away after the shooting but was quickly grabbed by bystanders, one of whom was an off-duty police officer for the city of Burbank.
"They managed to overtake him and held him down," Ruiz said. "I'm told that he was in the process of possibly reloading."
The festival was shut down for the day, and Milbauer said grief counselors were meeting with witnesses, particularly the children.
"We'll have an evening Mass and we'll be praying for them at that time," he said of the wounded.
The parish plans to go ahead with the festival on Sunday, Milbauer said, in part to help parishioners put the tragedy behind them.
"We hope to be up and running and help people get beyond this," he said.
The church and school are located in the city's Granada Hills area in the San Fernando Valley, an ordinarily peaceful, multiethnic, middle-class residential neighborhood not far from the historic San Fernando Mission.
The annual festival features ethnic food booths, carnival games and rides. Proceeds go to the school's building fund.
"This is the only fundraiser that the parish has during the year," said Jerry Eckel, 62, a secretary in the religious education department.
There had been no major disturbances at the event in its 21 years, she said.
"It's a family event. There's no liquor involved," she said, adding the security is also provided.
The church, which has about 4,200 families in its congregation, has never been the scene of violence, she said.
"I'm just really shocked because I have been a member of the parish since I was 16 years old," she said. "I grew up there. It's home to us."
Pope restates gay marriage ban after California vote
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/pope.restates.gay.marriage.ban.after.california.vote/18825.htm
Pope Benedict, speaking a day after a California court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage, firmly restated on Friday the Roman Catholic Church's position that only unions between a man and a woman are moral.
Benedict made no mention of the California decision in his speech to family groups from throughout Europe, but stressed the Church's position several times.
"The union of love, based on matrimony between a man and a woman, which makes up the family, represents a good for all society that can not be substituted by, confused with, or compared to other types of unions," he said.
The pope also spoke of the inalienable rights of the traditional family, "founded on matrimony between a man and a woman, to be the natural cradle of human life".
On Thursday, the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriages in a major victory for gay rights advocates that will allow homosexual couples to marry in the most populous U.S. state.
Last year, Italy's powerful Catholic Church successfully campaigned against a law proposed by the previous centre-left government that would have given more rights to gay and unmarried couples.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is not sinful but homosexual acts are, and is opposed to gays being allowed to adopt children.
The California court found laws limiting marriage to heterosexual couples are at odds with rights guaranteed by the state's constitution.
U.S. President George W. Bush, who is opposed to gay marriage, prayed "for the family" with the pope at the White House last month during the pontiff's visit there.
Last year, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, made headlines with comments that critics said equated homosexuality with incest and paedophilia.
After he made the comments - which Bagnasco said were misunderstood - graffiti reading "Shame" and "Watch Out Bagnasco" appeared on the door of the cathedral in northern Genoa, where Bagnasco is archbishop.
The pope, who backed Bagnasco, will visit Genoa his weekend.
Opponents of gay marriage in the United States vowed to contest the ruling with a state-wide ballot measure for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.
The Dollar: Delaying The Day Of Reckoning
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/weekinreview/11goodman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=business
If the United States were any other country, these would surely be days of panic and austerity in Washington. With debts spiraling higher, a trade deficit exceeding $700 billion a year, and its currency plunging for years, the government would be forced to cut spending and jack up interest rates in a frantic bid to attract investment.
But the United States is not any other country. For more than half a century, Americans have enjoyed a unique privilege in the global economy: The dollar has been the world’s dominant currency, the money used in most transactions and the repository for the national savings of many countries, including China, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Come what may — a financial crisis here, a military misadventure there — Americans could count on money sloshing up thick on their shores. Virtually limitless demand for American government bonds has supported the dollar’s value, and kept domestic interest rates down. Americans have been emboldened to spend in blissful disregard of their debts, secure that foreigners would always supply finance. And that devil-may-care spending has in turn fueled economic growth around the world.
This dynamic may be so deeply embedded in the workings of the global economy that it could endure for many years to come: The costs of weaning the United States from its credit habit would ripple far and wide.
But what are the chances that a day of reckoning is coming, when the dollar would be so weak that America would have to play by the rules that apply to every other country? Recent signs do suggest some fraying in the American relationship with its many foreign creditors. The balance of trade has gotten so lopsided and the question marks hovering over the American economy so thick that some foreign governments are beginning to hedge their bets on the dollar.
Russia has been diversifying its hoard of foreign exchange, plunking more into other currencies like the rising euro. In the oil-drenched Middle East, signs suggest a slight shifting to other flavors of money. And markets have been parsing every utterance from Beijing for hints that China may moderate its voracious appetite for dollars.
Meanwhile, China, Russia and Middle Eastern nations have been injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into state-controlled investment pools known as sovereign wealth funds, which have mandates to seek out better gains on their capital than they get from American government bonds.
“These central banks know that holding these low-yielding Treasury bills is just an aid program to the United States, and they want to get out of that business,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. “They are very keen to diversify.”
Over all, dollars have never been purchased in as large quantities. But, that said, the dollar has been slipping as a percentage of total foreign currency reserves, as nations increasingly sock away other currencies as well, to cushion themselves against crisis. Between 2001 and the end of 2007, the dollar’s share of the world’s total foreign exchange reserves shrank from about 73 percent to 64 percent, as the euro expanded from about 18 percent to more than 25 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.
That change does not reflect a selling of dollars, the monetary fund reports. Rather, it captures how the dollar has fallen in value against many currencies, making the total value of dollars a smaller percentage of all money. “It hasn’t been an active diversification,” said John Lipsky, first deputy managing director at the fund. “Central bankers tend to be the most conservative investors. Whatever they do is going to be done with exceeding caution.”
Now, however, people in international financial circles detect a subtle shifting of the ground in confidence about the dollar. A few years ago, the suggestion that another currency could rival the dollar would have been ridiculed. Today, some economists say the dollar could begin surrendering some of the advantages of dominance to the euro over the next decade or two. Longer term, the dollar could find itself eclipsed by China’s yuan as the primary money in usage in the world.
For Americans, losing that status could be painful, sending interest rates higher and raising the costs of buying homes and cars. A country that has been operating with essentially unlimited credit might have learn to live within a budget.
But many economists say that chatter about the demise of the dollar is overblown. The United States, despite its problems, has been a remarkably solid place to put money, making it singularly able to attract savings, they point out. The dollar is likely to continue to shed value, and the American economy will grow far slower than India’s and China’s, they acknowledge. Yet the dollar, they argue, remains one of the few entities that seem to have fundamental staying power in an age of risk and obsolescence. The size of the United States military alone reinforces confidence that America will endure to honor its debts.
Yes, foreigners have been lending alarming amounts of money to Americans, who have spent extravagantly in excess of their means, economists say. One day, balance will be restored in line with the basic laws of economics — perhaps chaotically, and probably via a substantial fall in the dollar’s value.
But “one day” could well get pushed into the future for a long time to come, for the simple reason that codependence governs the global economy: The current flows of capital lubricate world commerce, giving the American consumer the wherewithal to keep buying; those purchases, in turn, generate business and employment from Asia to Latin America.
When Americans head to the mall, backed by foreign largesse, they drive there burning gasoline made from oil pumped abroad, notably the Middle East. They drive home carrying electronics and clothing churned out in Chinese and Japanese factories. Making these goods absorbs commodities — energy from Australia and Africa; cotton from Texas and California; iron ore from Brazil and India.
Keeping this global assembly line humming has become a primary development strategy for China, as it continues a wrenching transformation from a predominantly agricultural nation into a rapidly industrializing trading power whose factories employ millions of poor farmers streaming toward cities.
China subsidizes many factories, handing out low-interest loans and making land available at below-market prices. Buying up United States Treasury bills helps goose production: China’s central bank buys dollars in part to keep the yuan valued lower, making Chinese goods cheaper on world markets. And by helping keep interest rates lower in the United States, China ensures that American consumers can keep buying.
The Chinese “recognize that they have to lend us the money if they want to maintain those markets,” said Michael P. Dooley, an economist and a partner in Cabezon Capital, a hedge fund specializing in emerging markets.
China’s leaders fear anything that threatens to crimp exports; that would eliminate jobs and send angry peasants back to their villages. So, with more than $1 trillion already invested in dollar-denominated assets, China is loath to do anything that could drive the dollar down precipitously. If it started selling dollars, that could trigger a panic that would send the dollar plummeting.
But some analysts wonder how much longer China can continue to win at this game. Investing money in the United States requires spending that much less on enormous problems at home, like pollution and a shortage of health care. By indirectly making mortgages cheap in the United States, China has helped foster the boom that saturated Miami with glittering condos even as tens of millions of Chinese live in dilapidated concrete block apartments.
On this side of the Pacific, the great real estate bonanza has, of course, ended badly. Some economists point to the real estate bubble as a prime example of the dangers of too much cheap money washing in: Speculators drive prices sky-high, setting markets up for a punishing fall.
“You can have too much of a good thing,” said Brad Setser, a former Treasury official now at the Council on Foreign Relations. In this view, if the dollar maintains its status as the global reserve currency, that would be good news for Americans only in the way that another offer for a credit card is good news for a family about to land in bankruptcy: It may stave off foreclosure for another spell, but it makes the ultimate day of reckoning that much worse.
“We continue to run deficits, and a larger share of our income goes to support this,” Mr. Setser said. “Our attitude seems to be, ‘Lord give us the strength to resist temptation, but not quite yet.’ ”
When Churches Decline......
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080513/32340.htm
Weak preaching and cultural adaptability are just two of many reasons Southern Baptists give to explain the decline of membership and baptisms.
"The shallow state of preaching has exacerbated the lethargy of the church and left the lost with no real Word from God," said Paige Patterson, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, in a column in Baptist Press.
"The pastor ought to be the major source of theological understanding and the most able teacher of the Bible,” he added.
"Anemic pulpits create anemic churches and denominations."
Since the release last month of the latest data on Southern Baptist membership and baptisms, both of which declined, Southern Baptists have speculated why the largest Protestant denomination in the country has been seeing lower numbers.
"Well, the time has come to identify the real problems," said Patterson.
Many church leaders have been calling for change to respond to what many identify as a shift from modern to postmodern culture. And the latest statistics showing shrinking numbers has made that call even more urgent. But cultural relevance has led many churches to lose the holiness of God and a thirst to be like God, Patterson noted.
A prominent conservative Southern Baptist, Patterson said he is the first to admit that "dullness and 'Baptist tradition' were too often the rule in our churches." But the suggestion that churches must chase after culture in order to be effective in evangelistic efforts is "misguided," he said.
"The more attune to culture Southern Baptists have become and the more we have incorporated the world into our worship, the more our baptisms have dropped!" Patterson noted. "Although I am not certain that there is a connection, as will become evident in what follows, I admit that I am suspicious."
Conservatives have not yet seen the revival that they hoped for following the "conservative resurgence" or what some opponents call "fundamentalist takeover" that began in the 1960s. But Patterson highlighted that they have not abandoned that hope and stressed the importance of not abandoning doctrine.
To be unapologetically Baptist – embracing the exclusivism of Christ in salvation, the inerrancy of God's Word, and the concept of a regenerate church witnessed by baptism and disciplined to live for Christ – may come off as being "mean-spirited" to the world, especially when opposing abortion and the practice of homosexuality, and doctrinal clarity is not popular in the world, the conservative leader admitted. But when following Christ and the Bible, Baptists have no choice about what they endorse and what they reject, he said.
Among other major causes Patterson listed for the Southern Baptist Convention's downturn are prayerlessness and a failure to share Christ individually on a consistent basis.
"The great need is for us to sense our spiritual poverty, seek God's face, and do His bidding. Folks, it is really that simple," he said.
Baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention fell for the third straight year in 2007 to the denomination's lowest level since 1987, dropping nearly 5.5 percent to 345,941, according to LifeWay Christian Resources' Annual Church Profile (ACP). Total membership also declined by 0.24 percent to 16,266,920.
Scientists, Theologians Debate Whether God Exists
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356376,00.html
WASHINGTON — Scientists hate God. Or find God very disturbing. In fact, modern science has found no evidence of God, and so it's stupid to think God exists.
The above statements are often presented as conventional wisdom, but are they true?
A new collection of short essays, discussed here Thursday at an event at the American Enterprise Institute, responds to that question with a more diverse set of voices than is usually offered.
Edited by Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer and backed by the John Templeton Foundation, the booklet features replies by 13 scholars and thinkers to the question "Does science make belief in God obsolete?"
The practical answer is, "Of course not." Many people worldwide believe.
In the United States, the percentage of the population without a religious affiliation is increasing, but the majority still have one, according to American Religious Identification Survey 2001.
The faithful aren't going away despite a golden age of scientific descriptions of the mysteries of life and the secularizing, culture-draining force of consumerism.
The answers offered by the booklet's two theologians, eight scientists, two cultural commentators and one philosopher are more creative and sophisticated than the mind-numbing "culture wars" portrayed on television.
Some of the thinkers even found ways to synthesize or reconcile God and science without throwing up their hands.
The standard line
The standard scientific line on God is well-represented in the booklet by several of the writers:
— Science has failed to find natural evidence of God. Natural evidence is all there is. No God. Case closed.
— Slightly softer is this line of reasoning: Science erases the "need" for God as an explanation of our experiences, and God either doesn't exist or is at best a hypothesis (to the agnostic).
— And then there's the view expressed in the title of University of Hawaii physicist and astronomer Victor Stenger's new book, "God: The Failed Hypothesis — How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist." Stenger also contributed to the new booklet.
These arguments are old news.
Shermer, who describes himself as spiritual and agnostic, adds a cosmic twist, casting doubt on our ability to recognize God.
He claims that any encounter with extraterrestrial intelligence, should we go looking, is statistically likely to turn up civilizations that are far more medically advanced than ours and would have the ability to create life, so they will be indistinguishable from God.
"Science does not make belief in God obsolete, but it may make obsolete the reality of God, depending on how far we are able to push the science," Shermer writes in the booklet.
Yet many scientists — 40 percent according to a 1997 poll cited by Shermer — believe in God. This isn't big news to scientists, but might surprise people who rely on mainstream views of science.
A handful of those folks — including Jerome Groopman, a professor of medicine at Harvard, and William D. Phillips, Nobel laureate in physics and a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute of the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology — are also represented in the booklet, arguing that the natural world and the world of faith are relatively separate, yet personally reconcilable domains.
"I think that we are all comfortable with the idea there are plenty of things in our lives that we will deal with outside of the scientific paradigm," Phillips told about 70 members of the public who attended the discussion of these issues between himself, Shermer and AEI theologian Michael Novak. "And while I think faith is a particularly important part of our lives that we should deal with outside of the scientific paradigm, it is certainly not the only one."
Reconciling God and science
Phillips, a Methodist, also drew from science to make his argument in favor of God's relevance, saying physicists know there are things that are "really, really improbable, but they are not really impossible according to the laws of physics ... From what I know about physics, it's not impossible to imagine a world in which God acts but we never can prove it."
In the booklet, philosopher Mary Midgley, who was not at the AEI event, states that science is just one worldview that has come to prevail. Science and religion need not be at odds.
"What is now seen as a universal cold war between science and religion is, I think, really a more local clash between a particular scientistic worldview, much favored recently in the West, and most other people's worldviews at most other times," she writes.
"Scientism ... by contrast, cuts [the setting of human life in] context off altogether and looks for the meaning of life in Science itself. It is this claim to a monopoly of meaning ... that makes science and religion look like competitors today."
Worldviews that transcend that competition or dichotomy are offered in the booklet by Kenneth Miller, Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy and Stuart Kauffman.
Miller, the lead witness for the plaintiffs in the Dover trial of 2005 (in which Judge John E. Jones III barred intelligent design from being taught in a Pennsylvania public school district's science classes), takes the classic Darwinian "grandeur in this view of life" approach. God is behind it all.
He rejects claims that the God hypothesis makes no sense, stating that "... to reject God because of the admitted self-contradictions and logical failings of organized religion would be like rejecting physics because of the inherent contradictions of quantum theory and general relativity."
Healing the schism
Kauffman, director of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics at the University of Calgary, takes a slightly New Age tack, saying we must "heal" the schism between science and religion by "reinventing the sacred" and evolving from a supernatural God to a "new sense of a fully natural God as our chosen symbol for the ceaseless creativity in the natural universe."
In other words, he suggests that we can get around the divide between science and God if we come up with a new concept for God that focuses on the wonders of nature, among other things.
This new concept is a global cultural imperative, Kauffman writes, if we are to overcome fundamentalist fears and reunite reason with humanity and the mysteries of life.
A middle ground that incorporates science more than the other God-friendly writers is offered by Hoodbhoy, a physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Pakistan.
Science hasn't necessarily made belief obsolete, "but you must find a science-friendly, science-compatible God," he writes. And that is possible, he claims, calling this entity a "scientific Creator."
Hoodbhoy thinks that God can be seen as operating within the laws of physics, tweaking outcomes in small ways that have big impacts by relying on phenomena we have observed already in the universe, such as the butterfly effect (in which the flapping of a butterfly's wings alters the atmosphere in a way that ultimately alters the path of a tornado).
In his own words, here are some things She (yes, Hoodbhoy uses the female pronoun) could do, Hoodbhoy writes:
"Extraordinary, but legitimate, interventions in the physical world permit quantum tunneling through cosmic wormholes or certain symmetries to snap spontaneously. It would be perfectly fair for a science-savvy God to use nonlinear dynamics so that tiny fluctuations quickly build up to earthshaking results — the famous 'butterfly effect' of deterministic chaos theory."
Hoodbhoy ends by saying that God is neither dead nor about to die. There is still plenty of "space for a science-friendly God as well as for 'deeply religious non-believers' like Einstein ... Unsure of why they happen to exist, humans are likely to scour the heavens forever in search of meaning."
A total of 5,000 copies of the booklet became available on May 2. Free copies can be obtained at www.templeton.org.
Americans For Truth Condemns Soulforce's Politicized 'Dialogue' with Mega-Churches
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07191.shtml
NAPERVILLE, Ill., (christiansunite.com) -- Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera today accused the homosexual activist group Soulforce of "politicizing Sunday worship" to further its anti-biblical agenda -- by calling for (quasi-forced) "dialogue' with mega-churches like Joel Osteen's and Rick Warren's "at the point of a potential protest."
Soulforce is leading an activist event called the "American Family Outing" in which they seek "peaceful dialogue" (on their terms) with Lakewood and five other mega-churches across the country each Sunday between Mother's Day and Father's Day. This Sunday they are targeting Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston.
LaBarbera issued the following statement on Soulforce's American Family Outing gimmick:
"In a letter to Lakewood Church, Soulforce claims that its proposed 'dialogue' is designed to 'lift up the conversation about faith, family and homosexuality to a national level and bring a new tenor of respect to the issue.' The truth is that Soulforce is trying to convince Bible-believing churches that their Scriptural teachings against this particular sexual sin are wrong.
"You don't achieve good-faith dialogue by announcing that you will be arriving at a church on a specified Sunday with 'several dozen' homosexual-led families. In the same way, Soulforce sent homosexual activists demanding 'dialogue' to Christian colleges: those that refused were hit with media-hyped protests.
"It is no more appropriate to 'dialogue' over homosexuality than it is to dialogue over any other sin. What if a traveling band of incest advocates - or perhaps a Gossipers' Task Force -- announced that it would be arriving at Lakewood Church on Mother's Day demanding 'dialogue' about their special interest? This is pro-'gay' political theater, nothing more.
"Soulforce and its allies (including Peggy Campolo, wife of Tony Campolo) claim they are 'deeply committed to respect for the authority of Biblical teachings.' That is not true, as evidenced by Soulforce's twisting of Scripture to advance the notion that homosexual behavior is acceptable. Soulforce founder Mel White has recklessly accused Christian pro-family leaders who defend Biblical orthodoxy of 'spiritual violence' -- playing to the vicious caricature of traditionalists as violent 'homophobes.'
"Christians don't negotiate with God over homosexuality or any sin. Rather, we reach out with truth in love to repentant people with the hopeful Gospel message that God can help them overcome any sin, including homosexuality, through faith in Jesus Christ."
Christians in Theater Arts Hosts June Conference in California
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07190.shtml
GREENVILLE, Sc., (christiansunite.com) -- Non-Profit Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA) presents its annual conference June 10-13, 2008, at Azusa Pacific University, 901 E. Alosta, Azusa, Calif. This national networking conference, entitled "Taking Theatre to the Next Level", features challenging courses, inspiring presenters and live performances, all with the singular goal of fostering artistic excellence.
CITA's 18th annual gathering boasts a strong lineup of speakers, including Robert Smyth, producing artistic director of Lamb's Players in San Diego. In addition, several workshops cater to a broad spectrum of interests, including: acting, dance, directing, musical theatre, screenwriting, teaching and learning through drama education, theatre in missions and worship, and theology in theatre. Participants from congregations, academic institutions, and theatre companies as well as individual theatre professionals, will further benefit from relevant panel discussions and valuable networking opportunities.
"This year, it's somewhat fitting that we're gathering around the corner from the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame," says Dr. Dale Savidge, CITA's founding president and executive director. "Hundreds of local artists, as well as believers from around the U.S., Canada and several foreign countries will come to be inspired by ministry leaders and challenged by professional theatre artists while fostering artistic excellence."
Attendees will enjoy screenings of the award-winning documentary Laundry and Tosca, as well as Purple State of Mind, and Decalogue I. On the main stage, Dancing with My Father, a moving and inspired play, will explore facets of a father-daughter relationship. In addition, late-night improv features Houseful of Honkeys.
For registration information, visit www.cita.org/ca2008 or www.cita.org.
About Christians in Theatre Arts
Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA) is a non-profit organization impacting the world and furthering the kingdom of God by equipping Christians in theatre arts. With nearly 2,000 members, CITA encourages artists to make a real connection between their spiritual life and artistic vocation by offering a continent-wide support network of contacts, information and resources for church drama groups, individual theatre artists and professional theatre companies.
'Full House' Star in New Christian DVD
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/376779.aspx
CBNNews.com - Would you risk everything you worked for, for your faith?
That is what producers of the new Christian movie "The Wager" want viewers to ask themselves.
Real life Christian actor Candace Cameron-Bure co-stars in the film, which examines the role faith plays during temptation.
Most would remember Bure as the girl who played D.J. Tanner on the 1980s show Full House. She is also sister of actor Kirk Cameron.
"It was so important for me to want to do a Christian film. It's where my faith is," she said, Thursday, on The Today Show. "I have to pick the projects wisely, and things that are just purposeful and meaningful to me."
After Full House, Bure took a sabbatical from acting to take care of her three kids. She has devoted her Web site to helping young believers and to professing her Christian faith,.Growing in God with Candace.
The movie "The Wager" examines some of the trials many Christians face today, from struggles with marriage to tests of faith.
The storyline follows a successful Christian actor, played by Randy Travis, as he wrestles with the temptation he faces within his career.
In the movie, the main character must make tough decisions that could possibly end his acting career. But it could also demonstrate his faith in God.
"The Wager" was originally released by Outreach Cinema, a Christian group that organizes showings of faith-based film at churches nationwide.
Christ-centered distribution company PureFlix Entertainment released the DVD May 13.
Genetically modified human embryo could be first step to "designer babies"
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080512/D90KBJH00.html
News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it's a step toward creating "designer babies."
But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway.
"None of us wants to make designer babies," said Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
The idea of designer babies is that someday, scientists may insert particular genes into embryos to produce babies with desired traits like intelligence or athletic ability. Some people find that notion repugnant, saying it turns children into designed objects, and would create an unequal society where some people are genetically enriched while others would be considered inferior.
The study appears to be the first report of genetically modifying a human embryo. It was presented last fall at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, but didn't draw widespread public attention then. The result was reported over the weekend by The Sunday Times of London, which said British authorities highlighted the work in a recent report.
Rosenwaks and colleagues did the work with an embryo that had extra chromosomes, making it nonviable. Following a standard procedure used in animals, they inserted a gene that acts as a marker that can be easily followed over time. The embryo cells took up the gene, he said.
The goal was to see if a gene introduced into an abnormal embryo could be traced in stem cells that are harvested from the embryo, he said. Such work could help shed light on why abnormal embryos fail to develop, he said.
No stem cells were recovered from the human embryo, said Rosenwaks, noting that abnormal embryos frequently don't develop well enough to produce them.
Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, said the Cornell scientists were developing techniques that others might use to make genetically modified people, "and they're doing it without any kind of public debate."
A London-based group called Human Genetics Alert similarly criticized the work.
But Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said she's not troubled by the work. She said the idea of successfully modifying babies by inserting genes remains a technically daunting challenge.
"We're not even close to having that technology in hand to be able to do it right," she said, and it would be ethically unacceptable to try it when it's unsafe.
SmartMetric Announces That Your Fingerprint Will Make Credit Card Signatures and ATM PIN Numbers a Thing of the Past
http://www.sys-con.com/read/563353.htm
SmartMetric, Inc. (OTCBB: SMME) said today that its new Biometric Card will make signing a credit card or inputting a PIN number for your ATM card a thing of the past. With Identity Theft becoming the largest crime in the United States, a new and safer way of using credit and debit cards has become a quest for Banks around the World.
After more then 8 years of R&D, SmartMetric has announced today that it now can replace signatures and PIN numbers with a person's fingerprint thereby providing a 100% guarantee that the person making the transaction is who they say they are.
Inside your credit card is the smallest fingerprint scanner and reader in the world. Powered by an internal battery as thin as tissue paper the SmartMetric Biometric Fingerprint Card will only work when the card scans and reads the card owner's fingerprint. You become the key. Only the person authorized to use the card can turn it on.
The company President, Mr. Colin Hendrick, said this represents a revolution in credit card security that has the potential to make his company, SmartMetric, Inc., a world leader in the credit card and banking card industry.
Not only will the Fingerprint Card potentially save Banks around the world hundreds of millions of dollars but consumers will be protected against Identity Theft from this advance in electronic miniaturization. Using nano technology SmartMetric has achieved what many had thought impossible: a self-contained fingerprint scanner that fits inside a credit card.
The card uses a standard SmartCard surface-mounted chip as its interface thereby making the SmartMetric Fingerprint Card useable by 90% of the world's ATM machines and credit card reading machines in retailers around the world.
Billion-pixel cameral could change photography
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3938717.ece
A device that lets a camera take pictures with 100 times the resolution of the most advanced models on the market is poised to revolutionise amateur photography.
The Gigapan allows people to take pictures which are more than a gigapixel - or 1,000 megapixels - in size, effectively turning a single photograph into a panoramic experience, around which the viewer can navigate on a computer.
Yet the actual camera used is no more specialised than a regular digital model.
The Gigapan uses a robot mounted on a tripod to command a normal camera to take several hundred separate photographs of a single scene - each at a slightly different angle.
The individual photographs are then stitched together by software on the owner's computer - much as amateurs have attempted to do for years by after taking several pictures of a wide landscape, only with more impressive results.
In this photograph of the South Bank in London, the viewer can zoom in on different parts of the same photo to reveal the number of people in one of the pods on the London Eye, or the time shown by Big Ben - 7.24pm - even though each is hundreds of metres away.
By bringing together more than 350 separate, highly zoomed-in photographs in a single image, the GigaPan allows viewers to zoom in and out of different parts of the same image, creating the impression of a 3D environment.
The device, which derives its name from the fact that each of its composite images contains more than a billion pixels, is in effect doing for amateur photographs what Google Earth does for satellite imagery.
In a demonstration of the device given to Times Online, the Gigapan took 360 images of San Francisco bay over a period of about ten minutes - 36 across and 10 in each column.
The overall period of exposure is longer than with a traditional panoramic camera - which presents problems if moving objects enter the frame, as these ghostly images of torsos without legs show. By the time the camera tilts itself down several degrees after taking an picture which included a man's upper body, his legs are out of shot.
The viewing experience once the composite image is loaded onto a PC is remarkable. A typical image taken by a ten-megapixel camera, which would contain ten million pixels, becomes more fuzzy as you zoom in on it. The Gigapan's, by comparison, retains its sharpness across its full breadth and width.
The Gigapan was created by a group of academics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with the aim of allowing people to learn about foreign countries and culture by providing them with rich imagery of unfamiliar places.
"Our goal is to bring the world closer together by making it possible for anybody to take these panoramas and show them to people across the world," Randy Sargent, chief architect of the project at Carnegie Mellon, said.
The camera, one of several initiatives of the Global Connection Project (GCP), which is backed by Nasa, Google and National Geographic, is still being tested, but will likely cost "in the order of several hundred dollars" when released, according to a person involved with the trials.
The GCP has not given any pricing details, or a release date for the Gigapan.
Digital cameras which take high resolution panoramic images have been around for several years, but are expensive. One, made by PanoScan, costs $37,000.
Waging War Online
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/air-force-mater.html
The Air Force wants a suite of hacker tools, to give it "access" to -- and "full control" of -- any kind of computer there is. And once the info warriors are in, the Air Force wants them to keep tabs on their "adversaries' information infrastructure completely undetected."
The government is growing increasingly interested in waging war online. The Air Force recently put together a "Cyberspace Command," with a charter to rule networks the way its fighter jets rule the skies. The Department of Homeland Security, Darpa, and other agencies are teaming up for a five-year, $30 billion "national cybersecurity initiative." That includes an electronic test range, where federally-funded hackers can test out the latest electronic attacks. "You used to need an army to wage a war," a recent Air Force commercial notes. "Now, all you need is an Internet connection."
On Monday, the Air Force Research Laboratory introduced a two-year, $11 million effort to put together hardware and software tools for "Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement." "Of interest are any and all techniques to enable user and/or root level access," a request for proposals notes, "to both fixed (PC) or mobile computing platforms... any and all operating systems, patch levels, applications and hardware." This isn't just some computer science study, mind you; "research efforts under this program are expected to result in complete functional capabilities."
Unlike an Air Force colonel's proposal, to knock down enemy websites with military botnets, the Research Lab is encouraging a sneaky, "low and slow" approach. The preferred attack consists of lying quiet, and then "stealthily exfiltrating information" from adversaries' networks.
But, in the end, the Air Force wants to see all kinds of "techniques and technologies" to "Deceive, Deny, Disrupt, Degrade, or Destroy" hostile systems. And "in addition to these main concepts," the Research Lab would like to see studies into "Proactive Botnet Defense Technology Development," the "reinvention of the network protocol stack" and new antennas, based on carbon nanotubes.
Traditionally, the military has been extremely reluctant to talk much about offensive operations online. Instead, the focus has normally been on protecting against electronic attacks. But in the last year or so, the tone has changed -- and become more bellicose. “Cyber, as a warfighting domain . . . like air, favors the offense,” said Lani Kass, a special assistant to the Air Force Chief of Staff who previously headed up the service's Cyberspace Task Force. "If you’re defending in cyber, you’re already too late."
"We want to go in and knock them out in the first round," added Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, commander of the 8th Air Force, which focuses on network issues.
"An adversary needs to know that the U.S. possesses powerful hard and soft-kill (cyberwarfare) means for attacking adversary information and command and support systems at all levels," a recent Defense Department report notes. "Every potential adversary, from nation states to rogue individuals... should be compelled to consider... an attack on U.S. systems resulting in highly undesireable consequences to their own security."
GPS system to track students everywhere they go with truancy tracker
http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/tv/stories/wfaa080513_mo_truancy.f9ac6e9c.html
In the next two minutes, four teenagers will drop out of school. The national average is one every 26 seconds.
Dallas truancy courts handle 20,000 cases every year. Many of those are referred to the juvenile justice system, which often sends the teenagers to jail.
Using satellite technology, a pilot program may be able to turn the tide on Dallas drop outs by stopping truancy in its tracks. It’s called AIM, which stands for Attendance Improvement Management. The program attempts to steer kids back on track by watching them everywhere they go.
Last year, Ricardo Pacheco was a Crips gang leader at Bryan Adams High School. He rarely went to class and was failing out of school.
Today, he’s a soccer star on the same campus. He is also ready to graduate June 1.
“I’m coming to school every day, on time,” he said.
Pacheco’s secret tool has been GPS technology, which tracks his every move.
“Yeah, it helped me a lot,” he said.
Pacheco and several other students at Bryan Adams High wore ankle monitors last year. They were tracked by global positioning satellites, and that data was relayed to a monitor in the school.
This year, nine students in the tracking program carry hand held units that are about the size and shape of a cell phone. When they get to school each morning, they check in by hitting a small button three times. They do the same thing once during lunch and again when they get home each afternoon.
The signals show up as yellow dots on a website monitored by an attendant at the school. They are updated every ten minutes.
If a student isn’t at the right place, the attendant calls parents or police.
“What we’re trying to do is say, 'We’re going to keep in touch with you,'” said retired psychologist Paul Pottinger.
He came up with the idea and contracted with a GPS technology company to design the system.
Several local donors funded it. Pottinger’s now proposing to track 450 students on two DISD campuses for about $365,000.
“It’s effective in getting the kids to show up, but the school has to work on getting them to catch up,” he said.
Faculty and staff at Bryan Adams have started a tutoring program in the form of a parent education class to stimulate support for AIM. They have initiated a Saturday classroom recovery schedule, so that students with truancy problems can make up lost school days.
“What we wanted to do was provide support for the hopelessness that many of these kids have by the time they’re truant," said Cynthia Goodsell, the principal at Bryan Adams.
She said attendance among the GPS-assisted students is almost 100 percent.
This is the second time students at Bryan Adams have worked with the GPS truancy tracking program.
Last year, several students in truancy trouble wore ankle bracelets as part of a GPS tracking system, but critics deemed that too similar to criminal monitoring programs.
Now the system has been modified. Pottinger said he has prepared a plan to enroll 450 kids at two DISD campuses in the fall.
For Pacheco, it’s been a high-tech helping hand that kept him on track by tracking him daily.
Robotic suit could usher in super soldier era
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90M7EDO7&show_article=1
Rex Jameson bikes and swims regularly, and plays tennis and skis when time allows. But the 5-foot-11, 180-pound software engineer is lucky if he presses 200 pounds—that is, until he steps into an "exoskeleton" of aluminum and electronics that multiplies his strength and endurance as many as 20 times.
With the outfit's claw-like metal hand extensions, he gripped a weight set's bar at a recent demonstration and knocked off hundreds of repetitions. Once, he did 500.
"Everyone gets bored much more quickly than I get tired," Jameson said.
Jameson—who works for robotics firm Sarcos Inc. in Salt Lake City, which is under contract with the U.S. Army—is helping assess the 150-pound suit's viability for the soldiers of tomorrow. The suit works by sensing every movement the wearer makes and almost instantly amplifying it.
The Army believes soldiers may someday wear the suits in combat, but it's focusing for now on applications such as loading cargo or repairing heavy equipment. Sarcos is developing the technology under a two-year contract worth up to $10 million, and the Army plans initial field tests next year.
Before the technology can become practical, the developers must overcome cost barriers and extend the suit's battery life. Jameson was tethered to power cords during his demonstration because the current battery lasts just 30 minutes.
But the technology already offers evidence that robotics can amplify human muscle power in reality—not just in the realm of comic books and movies like the recently debuted "Iron Man," about a wealthy weapons designer who builds a high-tech suit to battle bad guys.
"Everybody likes the idea of being a superhero, and this is all about expanding the capabilities of a human," said Stephen Jacobsen, chief designer of the Sarcos suit.
The Army's exoskeleton research dates to 1995, but has yet to yield practical suits. Sarcos' technology sufficiently impressed Raytheon Co., however, that the Waltham, Mass.-based defense contractor bought Sarcos' robotics business last November. Sarcos also has developed robotic dinosaurs for a Universal Studios' "Jurassic Park" theme park ride.
Jack Obusek, a former colonel now with the Army's Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center in the Boston suburb of Natick, foresees robot-suited soldiers unloading heavy ammunition boxes from helicopters, lugging hundreds of pounds of gear over rough terrain or even relying on the suit's strength-enhancing capabilities to make repairs to tanks that break down in inconvenient locations.
Sarcos' Jacobsen envisions factory workers someday using the technology to perform manual labor more easily, and firefighters more quickly carrying heavy gear up stairwells of burning buildings. Disabled people also may find uses for the technology, he said.
"We see the value being realized when these suits can be built in great numbers for both military and commercial uses, and they start coming down in cost to within the range of the price of a small car," said Jacobsen. He declined to estimate how much the suit might cost in mass production.
But cost isn't the only obstacle. For example, developers eventually hope to lengthen the suit's backpack battery's life and tinker with the suit's design to use less energy. Meanwhile, the suit can draw power from a generator, a tank or helicopter. And there are gas engines that, while noisy, small enough to fit into the suit's backpack.
"The power issue is probably the No. 1 challenge standing in the way of getting this thing in the field," Obusek said.
But he said Sarcos appears to have overcome the key challenge of pairing super-fast microprocessors with sensors that detect movements by the body's joints and transmit data about them to the suit's internal computer.
Much as the brain sends signals to tendons to get muscles to move, the computer sends instructions to hydraulic valves. The valves mimic tendons by driving the suit's mechanical limbs, replicating and amplifying the wearer's movements almost instantly.
"With all the previous attempts at this technology, there has been a slight lag time between the intent of the human, and the actual movement of the machine," Obusek said.
In the demonstration, the bulky suit slowed Jameson a bit, but he could move almost normally. When a soccer ball was thrown at him, he bounced it back off his helmeted head. He repeatedly struck a punching bag and, slowly but surely, he climbed stairs in the suit's clunky aluminum boots, which made him look like a Frankenstein monster.
"It feels less agile than it is," Jameson said. "Because of the way the control laws work, it's ever so slightly slower than I am. And because we are so in tune with our bodies' responses, this tiny delay initially made me tense."
Now, he's used to it.
"I can regain my balance naturally after stumbling—something I discovered completely by accident."
Learning was easy, he said.
"It takes no special training, beyond learning to relax and trust the robot," he said.
Former NFL Player Miles McPherson Concludes Successful Jamaica Visit
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07192.shtml
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica, (christiansunite.com) -- Miles McPherson, a former U.S. professional football player turned minister of the gospel, told a crowd of 45,000 at a Montego Bay festival Saturday night that sexual relations outside of God's plan for marriage only lead to heartache and disease such as HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean, which according to the World Health Organization has the second highest prevalence rate in the world, after sub- Saharan Africa.
The San Diego, California- based McPherson, an African American Christian with Jamaican roots, was speaking on the second evening of a two-day Miles Ahead crusade on Dump Up Beach organized in celebration of Jamaica Broilers Group's 50th anniversary - one of three major family-oriented festivals under the Best Dressed 50 Fest banner presented in Mandeville, Montego Bay and Kingston.
"What the media tells you is sex, God designed as oneness," said McPherson, who is pastor of the 10,000-strong Rock Church in San Diego. He said satan has perverted God's plan who created a man and woman to become one within the commitment of marriage. Marriage is supposed to be a picture of the church, with the man loving the woman as Christ loved the church, and the woman honoring the man like the church honors Christ. "If your man loves you like Christ loves the church and lays his life down for you, you will have no problem honoring him," he told the women.
The former defensive back for the San Diego Chargers acknowledged that sometimes sin is fun "for a season." But it doesn't last, and it destroys.
McPherson and his San Diego- based Miles Ahead organization wrapped up nine days of evangelistic and humanitarian outreach in the Montego Bay area with the two, seven-hour-long music and evangelistic events Friday and Saturday nights. With more than 75,000 people in attendance, local church and Miles Ahead volunteers were overwhelmed by the number of "decisions and rededicated lives to Christ" that came forward.
3,515 decision cards (individually completed to signal one's faith in Jesus Christ) were registered, and 6,000 copies of 21 Jump-Start devotional books, authored by Miles McPherson, were quickly exhausted. Several thousand more people were encouraged to visit www.milesahead.tv where more materials were accessible online.
The festivals - put together by Jamaica Broilers in partnership with more than 100 churches across Jamaica, the Luis Palau Association and Miles Ahead, featured gospel musicians and artistes such as Papa San, Carlene Davis, Prodigal Son, Omari, New Generation, DJ Nicholas, TobyMac, and Israel Houghton & New Breed.
McPherson, after speaking in Montego Bay, partnered with internationally known evangelist Luis Palau on Sunday at the Kingston event which drew an estimated 150,000 people on Saturday and Sunday. 37,000 people attended the Mandeville festival the previous weekend which featured evangelist Andrew Palau.
Prior to the stage performances, attendees enjoyed hours of family fun, including face-painting, toy giveaways, and an extreme sports demonstration of motocross, BMX bikes and skateboarding.
Nearly 300 Miles Ahead volunteers spent the week before the crusade traveling throughout Montego Bay working on humanitarian projects, such as painting and refurbishing two schools, holding a deaf education workshop, and sending teams into multiple schools to inspire and motivate.
In addition, 80 medical professionals hosted free medical clinics, bringing some US $5 million in free medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and health care to an estimated 6,000 Montego Bay residents. A team of athletes led by ex-NBA basketball player and former NCAA Division 1 men's coach Zack Jones as well ex- NFL player Darren Carrington conducted free sports clinics for young people alongside top Jamaica soccer stars Paul "Tegat" Davis and Warren Barrett.
"It was truly an honor and a blessing to work with the Jamaica Broilers, the Luis Palau Association, the local churches and the Government and people of Jamaica," said Miles Ahead Crusade Director Tim Innes. He revealed that delivering evangelistic, social and economic contributions to the country deeply touched and blessed his volunteers in the process.
Miles Ahead has plans for additional outreach activities throughout the Caribbean region.
Video highlights of the outreach and the crusades are available at the recently launched, interactive rich media site www.mileshead.tv.
Planting the seeds of a demographic winter
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=116418
Did you know that planting a tree won't save the earth? You've got to plant 483 trees just to offset your household's carbon footprint. And that's just for two people.
We know this because the Washington Post Home section on May 8 featured a cover story encouraging folks to plant trees while sternly warning them that this won't help much because people are a cancer on the planet.
Okay, they didn't quite put it that way, but it would be hard to miss the message. A graphic with 483 little green trees illustrates this stat from the EPA: "A two-person household is responsible for releasing 41,500 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. To offset that, each household would have to plant 483 trees and let them grow for 10 years."
If a two-person household is that bad, what does that make families with children? Environmental criminals, at the least, and maybe earth wreckers.
Before giving us tips on tree planting, Post writer Adrian Higgins exudes the fumes of global warming hysteria: "Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased by a third since the start of the industrial revolution, due mostly to the burning of coal and other fossil fuels, and that buildup has been linked to global warming."
Think about this for a minute. The industrial revolution revved up around 1850 or so, and with all the population growth and industrial production over the last 158 years, carbon dioxide has increased by only a third? He does not mention that this constitutes only a microscopic percentage of the entire atmosphere encircling the earth.
Could this mean that people are not really a threat to the planet after all? That we can get on with planting trees because ... they're pretty?
We ought to be focusing on a much scarier, and likelier, picture of the near future than the specter of too many people breathing, eating burgers and committing other random, senseless environmental atrocities. The really frightening future is a human race that is quickly depopulating.
A new documentary, Demographic Winter, provides the grim facts behind the worldwide trend away from having children.
- 70 countries, including virtually all of Europe, are now below replacement birth-rate levels.
- Russia's current population of 140 million will decline to 70 million by 2045 if current trends continue. The economic and political consequences would be staggering.
- The money boom triggered by the Baby Boom is about to run its course in the United States, as the Boomers make less, spend less and retire, drawing on the taxed earnings of a shrinking population of economic producers.
- In Germany, in 2006, in one province alone, 220 schools were padlocked for lack of pupils.
- Japan's population reduction is so severe that the country is virtually shutting itself down, with labor shortages and plants closing.
Now, if you buy into the global warming theory, this may seem all to the good, since each human is a detriment. As the Manhattan Institute's Kay Hymowitz notes in Demographic Winter:
A lot of people I've talked to about this say, "Isn't it great if the birthrate is going down, because, after all, that's fewer carbon footprints and less stress on Mother Earth." They're not thinking about how much their own care is going to cost when they get older.
And it will be costly. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are speeding toward a crash against a fiscal roadblock: the number of workers to pay for it is shrinking. Not only are we creating fewer kids, but more of the ones we do create are being born out of wedlock, which increases the likelihood that they will themselves be less self-sufficient.
The scientists, economists, sociologists, psychologists and other experts featured in Demographic Winter, which include Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker, Rutgers marriage expert David Popenoe, Harvard's Nicholas Eberstadt, New America Foundation's Phil Longman, Family Research Council's Patrick Fagan, Norval Glenn of the University of Texas, and many others, provide data that show the decline of the two-parent family is at the heart of human decline — globally. And it won't necessarily help the environment.
Dr. Jianguo Liu, director of sustainability at Michigan State University, notes that "global households are increasing more than the number of people" and thus using more resources. Because of divorce and the rise in single-person households, in 2005 alone in the United States, people used an extra 600 billion gallons of water and 73 billion kilowatts of electricity.
It turns out that the nuclear family is the most environmentally friendly way to house people. Yet the family is under assault by a constant media drumbeat about alternative lifestyles, the illusory "benefits" of the sexual revolution, and the costs of having children. A wire story the other day crowed about a study that says people are happiest in marriage when there are no kids around (it lets the adults be the kids instead).
On top of all that are the scare stories fueled by environmental groups. Stop reproducing! Heck, stop marrying! (Unless you're gay!) Fewer marriages mean fewer children using fewer resources. We get not only a greener earth, but the end of any pesky sexual "norm."
It's hard to escape the propaganda. Even when you turn to a paper's Home section for gardening tips, you find a screed against the impact of people (read: children) on the planet.
You might be happier if you skip the media altogether and go out and plant a tree, preferably with your kids, your dog and any other carbon-exuding criminals you can throw in.
Dangerous trend: Growing calls to limit family size or remain childless to save environment
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63755
"May we live long and die out" is the unofficial motto of a movement that seeks to improve the Earth's ecosystem by ensuring that the human species does not survive.
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT, consists of volunteers who have made active life decisions to remain childless for the benefit of the Earth, thereby preventing the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals.
While no one person takes credit for being the founder, Les U. Knight created its name and is the spokesperson for the movement.
"We've already exceeded Earth's carrying capacity for humans by quite a bit," Knight told WND. "We are using up our resources. The best way to stop it is by not breeding. It's really the best way because the people we don't create don't exist, and so there's no impact on them."
VHEMT activists believe a smaller population will benefit the Earth by reducing human and environmental catastrophe.
"There is no problem on the planet that would be more easily solved by adding more people," Knight said. "Everything that we like, including clean air and clean water and wilderness to go and visit, all of those will increase as there become fewer of us."
Knight said the greenest habit humans can have is to prevent creation of another member of the species, reducing humanity's ecological footprint on the Earth.
Though VHEMT volunteers have made active decisions to not bring children into the world, Knight said he is not concerned that the movement will literally die out.
"It's an idea, and it's not transferred genetically," he said. "We aren't born knowing we should go extinct; we have to learn it. We don't need to create new humans in order to indoctrinate them from birth. All of us come from breeding couples, and yet we've decided not to breed."
VHEMT strives to increase the status of women in society with the stated goal of giving them choices besides motherhood by promoting "universal reproductive freedom." While Knight said the main goal of the movement is to prevent procreation, he claims it does not promote abortion or other methods of terminating life.
"There's no need for that. Contraception prevents abortion, and we'll be dead soon enough," he said. "Whatever it takes to avoid creating a new human is what we advocate."
As for the size of the group, Knight said he can only guess because the movement is not an organization that people can join. However, he provided an estimate of the number of subscribers to the VHEMT philosophy:
"There must be several million people who have arrived at the conclusion that we would be better off without humans."
When Knight formed the movement, he had one objective in mind:
"The ultimate goal is one I will never see," Knight said. "I will never see the day that there are no humans on the planet."
Spread of nuclear capability feared
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24572974/
At least 40 developing countries from the Persian Gulf region to Latin America have recently approached U.N. officials here to signal interest in starting nuclear power programs, a trend that concerned proliferation experts say could provide the building blocks of nuclear arsenals in some of those nations.
At least half a dozen countries have also said in the past four years that they are specifically planning to conduct enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear fuel, a prospect that could dramatically expand the global supply of plutonium and enriched uranium, according to U.S. and international nuclear officials and arms-control experts.
Much of the new interest is driven by economic considerations, particularly the soaring cost of fossil fuels. But for some Middle Eastern states with ready access to huge stocks of oil or natural gas, such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the investment in nuclear power appears to be linked partly to concerns about a future regional arms race stoked in part by Iran's alleged interest in such an arsenal, the officials said.
"We are concerned that some countries are moving down the nuclear weapons path in reaction to the Iranians," a senior U.S. government official who tracks the spread of nuclear technology said in an interview. He declined to speak on the record because of diplomatic sensitivities. "The big question is: At what point do you reach the nuclear tipping point, when enough countries go nuclear that others decide they must do so, too?"
Although the United Arab Emirates has a proven oil reserve of 100 billion barrels, the world's sixth-largest, in January it signed a deal with a French company to build two nuclear reactors. Wealthy neighbors Kuwait and Bahrain are also planning nuclear plants, as are Libya, Algeria and Morocco in North Africa and the kingdom of Jordan.
Even Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, last year announced plans to purchase a nuclear reactor, which it says is needed to produce electricity; it is one of 11 Middle Eastern states now engaged in starting or expanding nuclear power programs.
Meanwhile, two of Iran's biggest rivals in the region, Turkey and Egypt, are moving forward with ambitious nuclear projects. Both countries abandoned any pursuit of nuclear power decades ago but are now on course to develop seven nuclear power plants -- four in Egypt and three in Turkey -- over the next decade.
Egypt's ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, told a recent gathering of Middle Eastern and nonproliferation experts that his country's decision was unrelated to Iran's nuclear activities. But he acknowledged that commercial nuclear power "does give you technology and knowledge," and he warned that a nuclear arms race may be inevitable unless the region's leaders agree to ban such weapons.
"We continue to take the high road, but there isn't much oxygen there, and it is very lonely," Fahmy told the gathering in Washington at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He added a prediction: "Without a comprehensive nuclear accord, you will have a proliferation problem in the Middle East, and it will be even worse in 10 years than it is today."
Many countries involved in nuclear expansion have stressed their peaceful intentions. Some, such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, publicly vowed never to pursue uranium enrichment or fuel reprocessing -- technologies that can be used to create fissile materials for nuclear weapons. But some arms-control experts say the sudden interest cannot be fully explained by rising oil prices.
"This is not primarily about nuclear energy. It's a hedge against Iran," said Ploughshares Fund president Joseph Cirincione, an expert on nuclear policy and author of "Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons." "They're starting their engines. It takes decades to build a nuclear infrastructure, and they're beginning to do it now. They're saying, 'If there's going to be an arms race, we're going to be in it.' "
Although U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran halted its research into making nuclear weapons five years ago, the Islamic republic still seeks to make enriched uranium with centrifuges at its vast underground facility at Natanz. It is now operating about 3,000 centrifuges and plans to increase the number to 50,000.
While Iran insists that the uranium will be used only to make electricity, the United States and its European allies have sought to dissuade Tehran from pursuing the technology by pushing ever-tougher sanctions through the U.N. Security Council. Iran's neighbors, convinced that a nuclear-armed Tehran is now likely, are keeping their own options open, nuclear experts say.
Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency and a winner with the IAEA of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for his work preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, has likened the pursuit of "latent" nuclear capability to buying an insurance policy.
"You don't really even need to have a nuclear weapon," ElBaradei said at a recent international conference of security officials in Munich. "It's enough to buy yourself an insurance policy by developing the capability, and then sit on it. Let's not kid ourselves: Ninety percent of it is insurance, a deterrence."
The Middle East's renewed interest in nuclear power is part of a global trend that began around 2004, as prices for fossil fuels began to rise. Before that, commercial nuclear development had remained relatively flat since 1986, when a massive fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine widely spread radioactive contamination in history's worst commercial nuclear power accident.
But now, with oil supplies tightening and prices soaring, nuclear power is being viewed in a different light, said Alan McDonald, an IAEA official who coordinates the agency's programs on nuclear energy. McDonald said he thinks there is a logical economic argument for developing a domestic nuclear industry, even if a nation's oil reserves are measured by the tanker-load.
"Why would these Gulf states want to go nuclear? Because they know their oil will only become more valuable as global demand increases," McDonald said. "It may be more cost-effective to sell oil to Americans driving Suva than to burn it domestically."
Outrage at Serb plan for church on Sarajevo heights
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/outrage.at.serb.plan.for.church.on.sarajevo.heights/18833.htm
A plan by Bosnian Serb war veterans to build a church on the heights above Sarajevo in memory of comrades killed in the 1992-95 war seems set to deepen divisions between Bosnia's two autonomous regions.
The association of Serb war prisoners originally planned to erect a giant cross on Trebevic hill, from where the Bosnian Serb army shot down into the capital during the 43-month siege, which killed more than 11,000 people.
That idea stirred public outrage in Sarajevo and was not supported by the Bosnian Serb leadership. But a new plan to build a Christian Orthodox church at the same site won the support of Bosnian Serb leaders this week.
"This church will be a symbol of the Serb calamity in Sarajevo," said Branislav Dukic, head of the association behind the idea.
Dukic said the names of 6,200 Serbs killed during the Sarajevo siege would be engraved in the church, to be built near the line separating the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb Republic, Bosnia's two autonomous regions.
The Serb Republic government pledged to finance the plan.
But Sarajevo mayor Semiha Borovac warned against construction of religious buildings on the heights from which the people of the capital were shelled and shot by snipers.
"I believe the building of a church will not improve reconciliation between Bosnian peoples," Borovac said in a statement to Reuters.
She added that the previous plan to erect the cross on Trebevic hill had been dismissed as a provocation by both the local and the international community.
But Serb Republic Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said his government would persevere in providing support to all organisations striving to establish the truth about wartime Serb suffering in the Bosnian capital, now predominantly Muslim.
MEMORIES OF WAR
Bosnia's two ethnic regions were stitched together under the 1995 Dayton peace accords in an uneasy alliance. Memories of war heavily burden relations among Muslims, Serbs and Croats.
Sarajevo's plight became synonymous with the war, as the world watched television images of Serb artillery, mortar and sniper fire raining down on the helpless city from above.
Miro Lazovic, a Serb who lived through the siege, said the church move was linked to local elections due in October.
"Religious objects must not be used as a seed of separation or for political instrumentalisation," he told the daily Dnevni Avaz.
"Dodik should leave the Serb calamity to history instead of using it for own political ends. Most Sarajevo Serbs were killed by Radovan Karadzic's army, which pounded the city with shells from that hill," he added.
Bosnian Serb wartime leader Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic are indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims. Both remain at large.
The tribunal has so far convicted two Bosnian Serb generals of war crimes and crimes against humanity for ordering the blockade of Sarajevo.
Dutch Cartoonist Arrested on Suspicion of Violating Hate Speech Laws
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356295,00.html
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A Dutch political cartoonist was arrested this week on suspicion of insulting people because of their race or religion through his work, authorities said Friday.
The cartoonist, who works under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of violating hate speech laws and held overnight before being released, said a spokeswoman for his publisher, Uitgeverij Xtra.
"He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen," the spokeswoman said.
She asked that her name not be used and declined to give Nekschot's real name because the cartoonist and publisher have received death threats.
Nekschot is known primarily for cartoons mocking Muslims and leftists, though the spokeswoman said he is a satirist who targets "any strong ideology."
Amsterdam public prosecutor spokeswoman Sanne van Meteren said Nekschot remains a suspect in a criminal investigation.
"We suspect him of insulting people on the basis of their race or belief, and possibly also of inciting hate," she said.
Each is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison under Dutch hate speech laws — or two years for multiple offenses.
Nekschot publishes primarily on several Web sites, including his own, but has also been featured on the Web site of Theo van Gogh, the filmmaker who was murdered by a Muslim radical in November 2004.
The cartoonist also works for HP/De Tijd, a major Dutch language weekly news magazine, and he has published two books.
One recent cartoon on his web site caricatured a Christian fundamentalist and Muslim fundamentalist as zombies who met at an anti-gay rally and now wished to marry.
Van Meteren said prosecutors were investigating a complaint that dated from 2005. They are now focusing on eight or nine published cartoons, she said, but prosecutors are not disclosing which ones.
Nekschot did not answer police questions during his arrest, she said, appealing to his right to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination.
The spokeswoman for Xtra said police had seized Nekschot's computer, sketches, CDs, DVDs and telephone at the time of his arrest.
EU plans international embassies in new superstate power grab
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1922140/EU-plans-international-embassies.html
The European Union will open its own embassies under a plan critics fear represents a "power grab" by Brussels officials pushing for a federal superstate.
The secret plan represents the first time that full EU embassies have been discussed seriously.
The "Embassies of the Union" would be controlled by a new EU diplomatic service created by the Lisbon Treaty.
The Daily Telegraph has seen a high-level Brussels document discussing plans for a "European External Action Service" (EEAS) which was proposed under the new EU Treaty, currently being ratified in Westminster.
Talks have so far remained behind closed doors. Officials fear political fallout over plans to implement the new Treaty before it has been fully ratified.
Working papers circulating in Brussels suggest that more than 160 EU offices around the world, including in member states, would become embassies.
The new service would rival established diplomatic services. Britain, with one of the world's largest, maintains 139 embassies and high commissions in capital cities.
Equally controversial is a proposal for EU ambassadors who would be accountable to the European Parliament.
"Parliament should aim for proper hearings of special representatives and ambassadorial nominees in the tradition of the US Congress for nominations of a clearly political nature," says the document.
Plans for the new foreign service have raised highly sensitive political issues by giving trappings of statehood to the EU and by fusing, for the first time, national diplomats with existing "eurocrats".
A vicious battle over who should control the diplomatic corps has broken out between national governments and the European Commission.
Countries such as Britain are alarmed that the EEAS, which is expected to take on some consular activities, would be a stepping stone to a single "supranational" euro-diplomatic service.
Meanwhile, Brussels officials fear that, if controlled by national governments, the new EEAS would draw power from "Community" bodies, such as the Commission, to inter-governmental institutions such as the Council of the EU, which represents member states.
"Any inter-governmentalism of policy areas under Community competence has to be avoided," states the confidential document.
"The EEAS will have to be in a specific way administratively connected to the European Commission."
The EEAS will number between 2,500 to 3,000 officials at its inception in January next year. It is then expected to grow to 7,000, or even up to 20,000, according to different estimates.
Britain, which loses its veto over the EEAS after it is created by a European summit decision expected in October, is expected to contribute around 20 to 30 senior diplomats to the EU service.
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said yesterday: "As predicted the renamed EU Constitution is forming the basis of a power grab by the EU. It exposes Labour's stupidity in giving up the veto on an area key to Britain's interests."
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The UK opposes and will argue against naming EEAS offices embassies.
EU High Representative for the CFSP, welcomes the appointment of Kees Klompenhouwer
http://www.nieuwsbank.nl/en/2008/05/15/r052.htm
COUNCIL OF Brussels, 14 May 2008
THE EUROPEAN UNION S167/08 Javier SOLANA, EU High Representative for the CFSP, welcomes the appointment of Kees KLOMPENHOUWER as EU Civilian Operations Commander
Javier SOLANA, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), congratulated Mr Kees KLOMPENHOUWER today on his appointment as EU Civilian Operations Commander and Director of the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability (CPCC) at the Council of the European Union:
"I would like to congratulate Kees Klompenhouwer on his appointment as the Civilian Operations Commander and Director of CPCC. In this capacity, he will exercise command and control at strategic level for the planning and conduct of all civilian crisis management operations.
Mr Klompenhouwer brings considerable expertise to his role as Civilian Operations Commander. In the accomplishment of his tasks, he will have my full support and that of the European Union as a whole."
Mr Klompenhouwer addressed today the Ambassadors of the Political and Security Committee for the first time and presented the main priorities of his new function.
Background
Mr. Kees Klompenhouwer, whose appointment took effect on 1 May 2008, will exercise command and control at strategic level for the planning and conduct of all civilian crisis management operations, under the political control and strategic direction of the Political and Security Committee (PSC) and the overall authority of the Secretary- General/High Representative for the CFSP (SG/HR). He will also direct the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability (CPCC) which was established in August 2007 in the General Secretariat of the Council. CPCC currently totals 60 staff including Council officials, senior police, rule of law and support services national experts.
The Director of CPCC also has functional authority over planning capabilities and expertise contributed by the European Union Military Staff (EUMS) through its Civil/Military Cell and over the Watchkeeping Capability as far as their support to civilian operations is concerned.
CPCC has a mandate to plan and conduct civilian European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) operations under the political control and strategic direction of the Political and Security Committee; to provide assistance and advice to the SG/HR, the Presidency and the relevant EU Council bodies and to direct, coordinate, advise, support, supervise and review civilian ESDP operations. CPCC works in close cooperation with the European Commission.
The following civilian ESDP missions have been launched or are planned: EUPM (Bosnia and Herzegovina), EULEX Kosovo, EUPOL RD Congo, EU SSR Guinea Bissau, EUBAM Rafah (Palestine), EUPOL COPPS (Palestine), EUJUST LEX (Iraq) and EUPOL Afghanistan.
Attached: CV of Kees Klompenhouwer
FOR FURTHER DETAILS: Spokesperson of the Secretary General, High Representative for CFSP
+32 (0)2 281 6467 / 5150 / 5151 / 8239 +32 (0)2 281 5694 internet: www.consilium.europa.eu/solana e-mail: presse.cabinet@consilium.europa.eu
Kees Jan René KLOMPENHOUWER
Place and date of birth: Switzerland, 1954
Nationality: Dutch and French
Married to Joosje, three children
Education
MA Economics 1979, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
Fluent Dutch, English and French. Good German and Spanish. Moderate knowledge of Serbo-Croat and Russian.
Professional experience
9/ 2006 - Director East- and South Eastern Europe Department Ministry of Foreign Affaires, The Hague, The Netherlands
2002- 9/2006 Director for Foreign Intelligence
General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD)
1999-2002 Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiairy to Serbia, Belgrade
1995-1999 Defense Counsellor, The Netherlands Permanent Mission to NATO, Brussels
1992-1995 Head Military Cooperation Section, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague
1987-1992 First Secretary ; The Netherlands Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva
1983-1987 Policy Officer European Union Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague
1980-1983 United Nations Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague
1979-1980 Research Institute for Management Science elft ,The Netherlands
---
Lecturer in economics for students from developing countries.
EU outlines plan for new Mediterranean Union
http://euobserver.com/9/26129/?rk=1
The European Commission has begun to look at the possible set-up for the planned Mediterranean union by trying to breathe life into current bilateral relations between the EU and Mediterranean countries while avoiding an unwieldy new political organisation.
An internal paper discussed last week in EU commissioners' cabinets, suggests the new relationship has to be a "multilateral partnership" and "encompass all member states of the European Union."
It suggests summits at head of state and government level twice a year with the first official one to take place in Paris on 13 July, when France has the EU presidency.
This maiden summit is to formally create the "Barcelona Process - A Union for the Mediterranean" and establish the union's "structures and principle goals."
The summit's conclusions should include "a political declaration" and a short list of "concrete projects to be put in place" all of which should be agreed by consensus.
The careful wording as well as the cumbersome title for the EU-Mediterranean relationship reflects its controversial beginnings when, as the brainchild of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, it was foreseen as a more exclusive club, but which would still use EU money for funding.
This proposal, made during Mr Sarkozy's presidential campaign and seen as a way of wrapping Turkey up in a political structure that would keep it away from the EU, managed to offend several member states including Germany.
Eventually, EU leaders in March agreed to a softer all-inclusive version with less bite and Turkey, once it received assurances that it would not be seen as an alternative to EU membership, agreed to take part.
New secretariat
The Union for the Mediterranean which envisages working on a series of issues that affect both the EU and these southern countries including immigration, security and environment issues, is to have a co-presidency and a new secretariat.
The EU would be represented by the EU foreign policy chief and the president of the commission and of the European Council, while Mediterranean countries would have to choose their side by consensus. The co-president would have a mandate of two years.
The paper remains unclear about whether the secretariat should have limited powers, in charge only of following up on decisions made by the summit leaders or if it be something enlarged to every day "governance" of the Union for the Mediterranean.
The new set-up is supposed to include all countries involved in the current Barcelona Process – Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Israel, Libya, Syria, Turkey and Albania – as well as other Mediterranean states – Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Monaco.
It would revamp the current 12-year old Barcelona process which is designed to foster dialogue between the two sides but has become rather stale.
The commission paper suggests that any added value that the new-set-up is to have will depend on its capacity to attract money from the private sector for regional projects. It also suggests bilateral cooperation between certain countries and international financial institutions as further sources of funds.
The commission is soon to present its ideas on the Union for the Mediterranean to member states and the European Parliament. The project will then be formally discussed by EU leaders at a Brussels summit next month.
Israel's ‘doom’ could also be Europe's
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0508/steyn051208.php3
Almost everywhere I went last week — TV, radio, speeches — I was asked about the 60th anniversary of the Israeli state. I don't recall being asked about Israel quite so much on its 50th anniversary, which, as a general rule, is a much bigger deal than the 60th. But these days friends and enemies alike smell weakness at the heart of the Zionist Entity.
Assuming Iranian President Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic fancies don't come to pass, Israel will surely make it to its 70th birthday. But a lot of folks don't fancy its prospects for its 80th and beyond. See the Atlantic Monthly cover story: "Is Israel Finished?" Also the cover story in Canada's leading news magazine, Maclean's, which dispenses with the question mark: "Why Israel Can't Survive."
Why? By most measures, the Jewish state is a great success story. The modern Middle East is the misbegotten progeny of the British and French colonial map makers of 1922. All the nation states in that neck of the woods date back a mere 60 or 70 years — Iraq to the Thirties, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel to the Forties. The only difference is that Israel has made a go of it.
Would I rather there were more countries like Israel, or more like Syria? Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and its Arab citizens enjoy more rights than they would living under any of the kleptocrat kings and psychotic dictators who otherwise infest the region.
On a tiny strip of land narrower at its narrowest point than many American townships, Israel has built a modern economy with a GDP per capita just shy of $30,000 — and within striking distance of the European Union average. If you object that that's because it's uniquely blessed by Uncle Sam, well, for the past 30 years the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid has been Egypt: their GDP per capita is $5,000, and America has nothing to show for its investment other than one-time pilot Mohamed Atta coming at you through the office window.
Jewish success against the odds is nothing new. "Aaron Lazarus the Jew," wrote Anthony Hope in his all but unknown prequel to "The Prisoner Of Zenda," "had made a great business of it, and had spent his savings in buying up the better part of the street; but" — and for Jews there's always a "but" — "since Jews then might hold no property … ."
Ah, right. Like the Jewish merchants in old Europe, who were tolerated as leaseholders but could never be full property owners, the Israelis are regarded as operating a uniquely conditional sovereignty. Jimmy Carter, just returned from his squalid suck-up junket to Hamas, is merely the latest Western sophisticate to pronounce triumphantly that he has secured the usual (off-the-record, highly qualified, never to be translated into Arabic and instantly denied) commitment from the Jews' enemies, acknowledging Israel's "right to exist." Well, whoop-de-doo. Would you enter negotiations on such a basis?
Since Israel marked its half-century, the "right to exist" is now routinely denied not just in Gaza and Ramallah and the region's presidential palaces but on every European and Canadian college campus. During the Lebanese incursion of 2006, Matthew Parris wrote in The Times of London: "The past 40 years have been a catastrophe, gradual and incremental, for world Jewry. Seldom in history have the name and reputation of a human grouping lost so vast a store of support and sympathy so fast. My opinion — held not passionately but with little personal doubt — is that there is no point in arguing about whether the state of Israel should have been established where and when it was" — which lets you know how he would argue it if he minded to.
Richard Cohen in The Washington Post was more straightforward: "Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself."
Cohen and Parris, two famously moderate voices in the leading newspapers of two of the least anti-Israeli capital cities in the West, have nevertheless internalized the same logic as Ahmadinejad: Israel should not be where it is. Whether it's a "stain of shame" or just a "mistake" is the merest detail.
Aaron Lazarus and every other "European Jew" of his time would have had a mirthless chuckle over Cohen's designation. The Jews lived in Europe for centuries but without ever being accepted as "European." To enjoy their belated acceptance as Europeans, they had to move to the Middle East. Reviled on the Continent as sinister rootless cosmopolitans with no conventional national allegiance, they built a conventional nation state, and now they're reviled for that, too. The "oldest hatred" didn't get that way without an ability to adapt.
The Western intellectuals who promote "Israeli Apartheid Week" at this time each year are laying the groundwork for the next stage of Zionist delegitimization. The talk of a "two-state solution" will fade. In the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, Jews are barely a majority. Gaza has one of the highest birth rates on the planet: The median age is 15.8 years. Its population is not just literally exploding, at Israeli checkpoints, but also doing so in the less-incendiary but demographically decisive sense. Arabs will soon be demanding one democratic state — Jews and Muslims — from Jordan to the sea. And even those Western leaders who understand that this will mean the death of Israel will find themselves so confounded by the multicultural pieties of their own lands they'll be unable to argue against it. Contemporary Europeans are not exactly known for their moral courage: The reports one hears of schools quietly dropping the Holocaust from their classrooms because it offends their growing numbers of Muslim students suggest that even the pretense of "evenhandedness" in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" will be long gone a decade hence.
The joke, of course, is that Israel, despite its demographic challenge, still enjoys a birth rate twice that of the European average. All the reasons for Israel's doom apply to Europe with bells on. And, unlike much of the rest of the West, Israel has the advantage of living on the front line of the existential challenge. "I have a premonition that will not leave me," wrote Eric Hoffer, America's great longshoreman philosopher, after the 1967 war. "As it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us."
Indeed. So, happy 60th birthday. And here's to many more.
The 83rd Piece Completes the Prophecy Puzzle
http://missing-peace-bsalhus.blogspot.com/2008/05/83rd-and-final-piece-to-middle-east.html
Astonishingly the final piece of the end-times puzzle was uncovered in, of all places, Ireland on July 26, 2006. An engineer digging up Irish bog-land to create commercial potting soil noticed just beyond the bucket of his bulldozer, a well-preserved ancient parchment. It was Psalm 83, opened up in place and in plain view. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this Psalm that is filled with prophetic content has been dug up, dusted off, and rendered newsworthy in these latter days.
By placing this 83rd piece into proper place, predicted events come into appropriate alignment. This exciting discovery now completes the last days puzzle, enabling the prophecy buffs to confidently forecast the coming Arab-Israeli War, followed by the Russian – Iranian led invasion of Israel described in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and lastly the dreaded “Tribulation Period”.
Located in the Old Testament, Psalm 83 alludes to an Arab confederacy that seeks to destroy the modern day Jewish State of Israel. The Psalmist lists these ancient enemies of Israel by their ancestral names: “The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre: Assyria also is joined with them.” (Psa. 83:6-8, ASV; emphasis added)
Back then labels like Palestinians, Jordanians, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syrians, and Saudi’s, didn’t exist, so it is up to this present revelation generation to locate the whereabouts of these ethnicities today. This map taken out of my new book Isralestine; The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East, identifies these Islamic nations alongside their historical counterparts.
These nations have the tiny Jewish State completely boxed in on every side. Although a temporary and fragile peace exists between, Israel, Egypt and Jordan, the preponderance of these Arabs, don’t recognize Israel’s right to even exist.
Here is how the 83rd piece completes the prophecy puzzle. These predominately Arab groupings, whose ancestors have harbored an ancient hatred of the Jewish people from time immemorial, are going to attempt one final concerted effort to destroy the nation Israel.
The Psalmist puts it this way: “They [the Arab confederates] devise crafty schemes against your [Jehovah] people [the Jews], laying plans against your precious ones. “Come,” they say, “let us wipe out [modern day] Israel as a nation. We will destroy the very memory of its existence.” This was their unanimous decision. They signed a treaty as allies against you” (Psa. 83:3-5, NLT)
This self-explanatory passage informs us that the Middle East conflict of today will escalate into a massive war. This will make the historical Arab – Israeli wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, look like cross-town sporting rivalries comparatively. This war will leave Israel no choice but to decimate all of its evil Arab neighbors, and in the process put the world on notice that is has emerged into the “exceedingly great army” foretold to come in Ezekiel 37:10.
Furthermore, the Jewish State will stretch out sovereignty over some of the conquered Arab territories. They will do so in an effort to claim sections of the land their God Jehovah promised to their patriarch Abraham in Genesis 15:18. This potentially puts portions of Egypt on through to Iraq into their Real Estate portfolio. Part and parcel with increased territory comes Jewish possession of Arab resources and the associated spoils of war. Israel will become a much wealthier nation as a result of their conquest, and will begin to dwell securely in what I refer to as Isralestine, and Daniel 11:41 classifies as the “Glorious Land”.
In this post war condition, the Jewish State will appropriately resemble the nation of Israel described in the prophecy of Ezekiel 38:8-13. They will be a peaceful people gathered back into their ancient homeland of Israel, in the latter days. They will dwell prosperously, and securely. This is prerequisite for the stage setting of the Russian – Iranian led coalition described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 that comes to destroy Israel and take over Isralestine.
Pundits have often wondered why the Palestinians and their Arab cohorts, who are the most observable opponents of Israel today, are not enlisted in the Russian – Iranian coalition. The Psalm 83 puzzle piece evidences why; these populations are fragmented at that time. They are reduced to prisoners of war and refugees, and as such, of no military utility to the Russians and Iranians.
Sometime after Israel takes out their Arab neighbors, and becomes one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the cry will go out across the Promised Land, “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming”! Then the world will witness the God of the Jews execute the destruction of the Russian – Iranian led invasion of Isralestine. These events are described in Ezekiel 39:1-8, and are entirely orchestrated by God, without the assistance of the Israeli army. Thus the Israeli Defense force of today is emerging for the primary purpose of combating the Psalm 83 Arab confederacy.
Completing the prophecy puzzle, the Antichrist enters into the Middle East Theater, in an attempt to neutralize the empowered Jewish State, which at the time will be basking in the glory of two significant victories. The Jews will have defeated the Psalm 83 Arabs, and their God Jehovah will have destroyed the Russian – Iranian led coalition. In essence the struggling Jewish State of Israel today will be a super nation tomorrow!
'Ark of the Covenant altar' found in Sheba's palace
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63998
The queen of Sheba's palace at Axum in Ethiopia, purported to once have been the home of the Ark of the Covenant, has been found, archaeologists from the University of Hamburg report.
The Ethiopian queen was the friend and ally of King Solomon of Israel in the 10th century before Christ.
According to the Bible, in 1 Kings 10, the Queen of Sheba journeyed to Jerusalem after hearing of King Solomon's wisdom to see if what she had heard was true. So impressed was she that she gave large quantities of gold, spices and precious stones to the king of Israel.
"It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom," she said. "However I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard. Happy are your men and happy are these your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom! Blessed be the LORD your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne of Israel! Because the LORD has loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness."
Ethiopian tradition claims the Ark, which contained Moses' stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, was smuggled to Ethiopia by their son Menelek and is still in that country.
The Bible makes no mention of Solomon and the queen of Sheba marrying or having a child.
The university said scientists led by Helmut Ziegert had found remains of a 10th-century-B.C. palace at Axum-Dungur under the palace of a later Christian king. There was evidence the early palace had been torn down and realigned to the path of the star Sirius.
The team hypothesizes that Menelek had changed religion and become a worshiper of Sirius while keeping the Ark, described in the Bible as an acacia-wood chest covered with gold. Remains of sacrifices of bullocks were evident around the altar.
The research at Axum, which began in 1999, is aimed at documenting the origins of the Ethiopian state and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The discovery was made in the last 90 days.
"The results we have suggest that a cult of Sothis developed in Ethiopia with the arrival of Judaism and the Ark of the Covenant and continued until 600 AD," the announcement said. Sothis is the ancient Greek name for a star thought to be Sirius.
The team said evidence for this included Sirius symbols at the site, the debris of sacrifices and the alignment of sacred buildings to the rising-point of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.
Last-days 'birth pains' have begun
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64375
The world has endured an almost mind-numbing series of shocks in recent weeks, from the unprecedented swarm of tornadoes across the American Midwest to the death and destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis as it tore a path through Myanmar, better known as Burma.
There were 368 documented tornadoes in the U.S. in January and February of this year, shattering the previous record of 243 over that two-month period, set in 1999. February's total of 232 tornadoes also shattered previous records.
Cyclone Nargis ripped Burma apart, killing at least 128,000, according to Red Cross estimates, and creating some 2.5 million refugees.
Al Gore was quick to blame global warming. In an interview on NPR to plug his appropriately named book on global warming, "Assault on Reason," he told host Terry Gross: "And as we're talking today, Terry, the death count in Myanmar from the cyclone that hit there yesterday has been rising from 15,000 to way on up there to much higher numbers now being speculated. . … And last year a catastrophic storm last fall hit Bangladesh. The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China – and we're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming."
Maybe. But Germany's Institute of Marine Scientists says we're in for a 10-year period of global cooling. There sure seems to be a lot of opposition to what is supposed to be "settled science."
Global warming can't explain away the devastating earthquake that all but flattened a huge portion of western China. The death toll from Monday's quake is approaching 20,000, with twice that number still listed as missing. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Monday's earthquake was the 25th "significant" earthquake registered so far this year.
Back in 1969, the year I wrote "The Late, Great Planet Earth," the USGS identified a total of seven "significant earthquakes." I had noted in 1969 that there was a slight but discernible increase in worldwide earthquake activity since Israel's rebirth in 1948.
During the entire decade of the 1970s, the USGS recorded a total of 44 earthquakes it classified as "significant." The following decade, from January 1980 to December 1989, the USGS recorded 47 significant earthquakes. That is for the entire decade. From 1990 through the end of 1999, the USGS records 57 significant earthquakes. From 2000 thru to Monday's earthquake in Sichuan, China, the USGS recorded an astonishing 109 earthquakes of at least magnitude 7.0 and 13 earthquakes measuring between 8.0 and 9.9 on the Richter Scale.
On the other side of the world, the long-dormant Chaitan volcano erupted May 2 for the first time, say geologists, in more than 7,000 years. The BBC reported that a government volcano expert warned there could be a big eruption at any time.
"There could be a major explosion that could collapse the volcano's cone," said Luis Lara of the National Geologic and Mining Service.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned that Iran had "detected" a new highly pathogenic strain of wheat stem rust. The U.N. said the fungal disease could spread to other wheat-producing states in the Near East and western Asia that provide one-fourth of the world's wheat supply. The new strain, called Ug99, is capable of infecting up to 90 percent of the existing strains of wheat worldwide – and once infected, crop losses range between 70 percent and total loss.
Coupled with the losses already sustained as a result of the typhoon-related flooding in Java, Bangladesh, and India and from agricultural pests and diseases in Vietnam, it starts to add up. Last year, Australia suffered its second consecutive year of severe drought and a near complete crop failure; heavy rains reduced production in Europe; Argentina suffered heavy frost; and Canada and the U.S. both produced low yields. Food riots have broken out in Egypt, Haiti and several African states, including Mauritania, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Senegal.
Meanwhile, the drums of war continue to beat around the planet. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed his threat to destroy Israel this week. Hezbollah took over West Beirut, while the Arab world mourned the catastrophe of Israel's 60th birthday with threats of annihilation of the Jewish state.
In Israel, President Bush again warned that allowing the Iranian regime to obtain nuclear arms would be "unforgivable," signaling a continuation along a path that can only lead to an eventual war that will engulf the whole Middle East.
When Jesus was asked by His disciples to tell them what "signs" would precede His return at the end of the age, He warned that "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, plagues and earthquakes in various places," He said (Matthew 24 and Luke 21). Using an analogy immediately understandable to all peoples in all nations, he said of these signs, "All these are the beginning of birth pains."
Jesus used a Greek word for the labor pains of a woman about to give birth. Jesus knew that every generation could understand the illustration. His meaning is clear. Just as a woman experiences birth pains that increase in frequency and intensity just before giving birth, so ALL the signs of His return would increase in frequency and intensity just before His return.
Hey, for he first time in history, all of the signs have appeared together in the same time frame and are increasing in frequency and intensity. That, coupled with the fulfillment of the great predicted sign that Israel became a nation again after 2,000 hopeless years of worldwide dispersion, indicates that Jesus Christ is already at the door ready to return. Are you ready?
US pushes for Palestinian Sate, which has hatred of America as pillar of ideology and is certain to ally itself with America's enemies.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126172
The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) watchdog group has released a report warning that hatred of the United States is a pillar of the Palestinian Authority’s ideology.
As US President George W. Bush lavished praise this week on Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the latter broadcast on the TV station which he controls a stinging message: the US is “the greatest Satan in the world.” --Palestinian Legislative Council Member Najat Abu-Bakr (Fatah), PA TV, March 3, 2008.
The full 30-page PMW report examines statements made in the PA media over the past several years regarding the PA’s affinity for countries such as North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela, which are all openly anti-American.
“Significantly,” the report warns, “the affinity that is felt for such geographically distant non-Muslim countries... is precisely because these states publicly challenge and express loathing for the US.” The report also examined statements showing PA officials’ loathing for the United States, such as a Fatah legislator’s recent claim that the US is “the greatest Satan in the world.”
PMW staff found that the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001 was a frequent theme of anti-American cartoons in PA newspapers. Each year, the papers print cartoons, often on or shortly before September 11, depicting the Muslim world, particularly Iraq and “Palestine,” as the true victims of the attacks. America is depicted as the aggressor.
One frequent subject of praise in the Fatah-controlled media was former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Following Hussein’s execution PA papers referred to him as “the general Shahid [Martyr] leader, Saddam Hussein,” and the Fatah group that currently rules the PA dedicated a terrorist cell to his memory. Schools, streets, and sporting events were named after him, including the main road in the village of Yaabid, which was paid for by USAID.
PA papers and television reports praise terrorist groups fighting the US in Iraq and Hizbullah arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who until his death was wanted by the United States for the murder of hundreds of US citizens. Researchers found frequent praise for Syria and Iran as well.
PMW Director Itamar Marcus spoke in the US Congress last month about the dangers inherent in the creation of a PA state. While US President Bush and other senior politicians have touted the creation of a PA state as beneficial to American interests, a PA state would in all likelihood ally itself with America’s enemies, he said.
Among the statements quoted in the report:
“Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies… Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one.” --Ahmed Bahar, speaker of the PA legislative council, on PA TV in April 2007.
“The U.S. and Britain [forces]… stormed Iraqi cities with the participation of military forces from different countries and Baghdad fell. The Iraqis did not surrender to this occupation but succeeded in organizing themselves and a brave resistance to liberate Iraq began.” --Grade 12 textbook used in PA schools.
“To Bush, the Pharaoh, the despot, the terrorist of this period... [we say] that victory is for Islam.” ---Announcer on PA TV, June 2006.
“No Arab land is safe from the grand American conspiracy, and there is no Arab nation that is not threatened either internally or externally with slaughter…” --Al-Hayyat al-Jedidah, November, 2006.
The report also found much hatred of US President George Bush, who was referred to in PA media outlets as “racist,” “terrorist,” “devil from Hell,” and “worse than the German Fuhrer.”
“In the past,” the report warns, “US support has not been able to prompt changes in deeply-ingrained hate ideology.” In Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, providing support for groups resisting the ruling power did not win their loyalty to the US, researchers said. “In the case of Abbas's Palestinian Authority, this is even more striking. Palestinian alliances with these states, and enmity of the US, are deep, explicit and declared throughout the PA’s Arabic discourse... Judging by the tone and scope of the Palestinian Authority’s anti-American hate promotion documented in the report, this hatred by Palestinian Fatah and its closeness to these enemies of the US are not a result of any specific US policy, but are reflective of a deep and sincere ideological affinity to those enemies of the US,” the report concludes.
Bush Reiterates Middle East Peace
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/377055.aspx
CBNNews.com - Read below for this week's presidential radio address, verbatim.
Good morning. I'm speaking to you from the Middle East, where Laura and I are on a trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
When Air Force One touched down at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, I was greeted by Israel's President and Prime Minister. I joined them in celebrating an historic milestone: Israel's 60th anniversary as an independent nation. And I assured them that Israel could count on America as a strong and steady ally long into the future.
During our visit I had conversations with Israel's leaders about their efforts to forge peace with the Palestinians, and our shared belief that a peace agreement is possible this year. I also had the opportunity to address members of the Knesset, Israel's elected legislature. I reminded these democratic leaders that America was the first nation in the world to recognize Israel's independence. I told them that 60 years later, America is proud to be Israel's best friend in the world. I reaffirmed the principles that make our alliance strong: a love of liberty, a devotion to justice, and a respect for human dignity. And I said that standing firm on these ideals is the surest way to defeat the extremists and build a future of peace for people throughout the Middle East.
For Laura and me, this visit to Israel was an especially moving experience. We toured the Bible Lands Museum, saw the Dead Sea Scrolls, and visited Masada -- an inspiring shrine to Jewish courage and sacrifice in the first century. From the window of our hotel room we had a magnificent view of the Old City of Jerusalem, home to some of the holiest sites in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And on our final morning in the city we met some of Israel's young people, talented and hopeful citizens who gave me confidence in Israel's future.
On Friday we visited another of America's friends in the Middle East -- Saudi Arabia. I had a series of productive meetings with King Abdullah at his farm. We celebrated the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. We reaffirmed our shared objectives of peace in the Holy Land, a secure and united Iraq and a sovereign, independent Lebanon that is free of outside interference. We talked about oil production and gasoline prices. We discussed the King's efforts to diversify his nation's economy, and the importance of political reform. And I thanked him for Saudi Arabia's strong commitment to fighting terror.
Our final stop is Egypt, where we are visiting the beautiful resort city of Sharm el Sheikh. I am meeting with a number of key leaders from the region, including President Mubarak of Egypt, President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, King Abdullah of Jordan, President Karzai of Afghanistan, Prime Minister Gilani of Pakistan, and several senior officials from Iraq's democracy.
I will also address the World Economic Forum in the Middle East. I will stress the importance of building dynamic and diverse economies that unleash the creativity and enterprise of citizens throughout the region -- especially women and young people. I will make clear that the only way to ensure true prosperity is to expand political and economic freedom. And I will urge leaders across the region to reject spoilers such as the regimes in Iran and Syria, move past old grievances and embrace the changes necessary for a day when societies across the Middle East are based on justice, tolerance, and freedom.
Reaching that day will not be easy. But with continued leadership from America and our friends in the region, I am confident that it can happen. And when that day arrives, the Middle East will be more hopeful, the world will be more peaceful, and the American people will be more secure.
Thank you for listening.
Bush Pivots to Arab Side of Mideast Peace
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/377047.aspx
CBNNews.com - SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt -- President Bush pivoted to the Arab side of the Mideast peace dispute on Saturday, and got a far less glowing reception from his Egyptian host - a key player in the long-running fight - than he did in Israel earlier this week.
Bush opened two days of talks with a string of leaders in this Red Sea resort town by sitting down with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The two smiled and shook hands but said nothing to reporters.
Egypt was the first Arab nation to make peace with Israel and has long been seen as a key mediator in the Mideast dispute that Bush has said he wants to solve by the time he leaves office next January.
But Egypt's state-owned newspapers, which are run by government-appointed managers, greeted Bush with stinging criticism. Bush is seen in the Arab world as tilting much too far toward Israel, and Bush's two-day stay in Israel earlier this week seemed to reinforce that view.
In a much-anticipated speech Thursday to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Bush showered Israel with praise, strongly reiterated its right to defend itself and only gently urged leaders to "make the hard choices necessary," without mention of concrete steps. By contrast, he did not visit the Palestinian territories nor mention the Palestinians' plight. He spoke of them only in one sentence saying that Israel's 120th anniversary - in 2068 - would see it neighboring an independent Palestinian state.
"Bush aims to do nothing but appeasing Israel," wrote Mursi Atallah, the publisher of Al-Ahram, the flagship daily of the state-owned press.
A front page editorial in Al-Gomhouria, another Egyptian state-owned daily, described Bush as "a failed president who delivers nothing but a lousy speech."
Akhbar Al-Youm also on Saturday published a picture of Bush hugging Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and captioned it "lovers."
There was a similar reaction while Bush was in Saudi Arabia on Friday.
"We are all aware of the special U.S.-Israeli relation and its political dimensions," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said. "It is, however, important also to affirm the legitimate and political rights of the Palestinian people."
He also sharply criticized Israel for the "humanistic suffering weighed upon the West Bank and Gaza Strip population" of Palestinians. He said Israel's "continued policy of expanding settlements on Palestinian territories" undermines the peace process.
Bush is meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas late Saturday - they have dinner after a more formal discussion session. Israelis and Palestinians have been negotiating since December, but nothing visible has emerged from the secretive process. Bush did no negotiating while in Israel and left the Holy Land with no new progress.
Mubarak, nearly three decades in power, could be an unlikely partner for Bush's push to change that. Bush and Mubarak spent 90 minutes meeting and having lunch.
Over the past year, several secular newspaper editors in Egypt have been tried, some sentenced to prison, for anti-Mubarak writings. The country's most outspoken government critic, Egyptian-American Saad Eddin Ibrahim, has gone to the United States for fear of arrest; he faces trial on accusations of harming national interests. The Egyptian government also has waged a heavy crackdown on its strongest domestic opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, arresting hundreds of the Islamic fundamentalist group's members.
Egypt, the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance behind Israel, would still continue to get $1.3 billion annually in U.S. aid for the next decade under a package the administration sent to Congress last year.
Bush also was seeing Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, he is meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Jordan's King Abdullah II, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and several Iraqi leaders.
He had planned to meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora as well, but that session fell off his schedule amid turmoil in Lebanon.
The militant group Hezbollah overran Beirut neighborhoods last week in protest of measures aimed at the group by Saniora's government. The display of military power by the Shiite militant group resulted in the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. But on Thursday, Saniora's government reached a deal with Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, after Lebanon's Cabinet reversed measures aimed at reining in the militants.
The gathering storm against Israel, and beyond
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668636678&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The incendiary hate language emanating from Ahmadinejad's Iran - in which Israel is referred to as "filthy bacteria" and a "cancerous tumor" and Jews are characterized as "a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians" - is only the head wind of the gathering storm confronting Israel on its 60th anniversary.
Indeed, we are witnessing, and have been for some time, a series of mega-events, political earthquakes that have been impacting not only upon Israel and world Jewry but upon the human condition as a whole.
These include:
• state-sanctioned incitement to genocide in Ahmadinejad's Iran (and I use that term to distinguish it from the many publics and peoples in Iran who are themselves the object of massive state repression) dramatized by the parading of a Shihab-3 missile in the streets of Teheran draped with the emblem "Wipe Israel off the map";
• symmetrical terrorist militias confronting Israel, in particular Hamas in the south and Hizbullah in the north. These are not simply - though that would be threatening enough - terrorist in their instrumentality, but genocidal in their purpose as they openly and avowedly seek the destruction of Israel and anti-Jewish in their ideology. Both, by their own acknowledgement, demonize Judaism and Jews, not just Israel and the Israeli, as "the sons of monkeys and pigs" and "defilers of Islam";
• the globalization of a totalitarian, radical Islam that threatens not only Jews and Israel but international peace and security, while warning Muslims who seek peace with Israel that they will "burn in the Umma of Islam";
• the fragility, even erosion, of the Lebanon-Hizbullah divides, aided and abetted by the Iranian-Syrian pincer movements and further exacerbated in the present Lebanese-Hizbullah warfare;
• the phenomenon of radicalized home-grown extremism, fuelled by Internet incitement, threatening the security of Jewish communities in the Diaspora;
• exploding energy prices, with oil at $120 a barrel - six times what it was just six years ago - with the windfall billions of petrodollars encouraging and financing rogue states like Iran. Every $1 increase in the price of a barrel of oil represents millions more in the coffers of Iran;
• the ugly canard of double loyalty, where the Jewish and Israeli lobbies are accused of acting in a matter inimical to the American and European national interest, as if it is somehow "un-American" or "un-European" to petition government for redress of grievances, an Orwellian politics of intimidation that chills free speech and public advocacy;
• the trahison des clercs - betrayal of the elites - of which the UK is a case study, exemplified in the calls for academic, trade union, journalist, medical and intellectual boycotts of Israeli and Jewish nationals;
• the singling out of Israel for differential and discriminatory treatment in the international arena, as when the UN Human Rights Council,, the repository for human rights standards-setting, adopted 10 resolutions of condemnation against one member state of the international community, Israel, in its first year of operation alone; while the major human rights violators - Iran, Sudan, China - enjoyed exculpatory immunity; and
• the emergence of a new, escalating, global, virulent and even lethal anti-Semitism.
With Israel's 60th anniversary, these mega-events have not only intensified but congealed into what might be called a "gathering storm," finding expression in the two theses that underpin this article.
First, that this gathering storm appears to be without parallel or precedent since 1938, suggesting thereby that 2008 is reflective and reminiscent of 1938. The second thesis, which reflects my own position and is not inconsistent with the previous notion, is that whatever 2008 may be, it is not 1938.
Simply put, there is a Jewish state today that is an antidote to the vulnerabilities of 1938. There is a Jewish people with untold moral, intellectual, economic and political resources. There are non-Jews prepared to join the Jewish people in common cause, seeing the cause of Israel not simply as a Jewish cause, but - with all its imperfections - as a just cause.
Nor is Israel is isolated or alone. It has important friends and allies: for example, the United States, Canada, Germany and France, to name a few; and it has diplomatic relations with the two emerging superpowers, China and India. There are peace treaties, however imperfect, with Egypt and Jordan.
In a word, if one looks at Israel at 60 in this global configuration, 2008 is, even with an admittedly gathering storm not unlike 1938, nonetheless very different from the Thirties.
It is important, therefore, that Israel not be viewed as an Andy Warhol of the international media, or what passes as virtual reality on the Internet of the day. Israel is not simply a snapshot at age 60, nor a fragment frozen in time; nor is it anchored only in 60 years of Israeli statehood, or 120 years of Zionism.
For Israel, rooted in the Jewish people, as an Abrahamic people, is a prototypical First Nation or aboriginal people, just as the Jewish religion is a prototypical aboriginal religion, the first of the Abrahamic religions.
In a word, the Jewish people is the only people that still inhabits the same land, embraces the same religion, studies the same Torah, hearkens to the same prophets, speaks the same aboriginal language - Hebrew - and bears the same aboriginal name, Israel, as it did 3,500 years ago.
Israel, then, is the aboriginal homeland of the Jewish people across space and time. It is not just a homeland for the Jewish people, a place of refuge, asylum and protection. It is the homeland of the Jewish people, wherever and whenever it may be; and its birth certificate originates in its inception as a First Nation, and not simply, however important, in its United Nations international birth certificate.
The State of Israel, then, as a political and juridical entity, overlaps with the "aboriginal Jewish homeland"; it is, in international legal terms, a successor state to the biblical, or aboriginal, Jewish kingdoms.
The internal divides besetting Israel should not mask the existential raison d'etre, and moral imperative, of Israel itself. Nazism, and the gathering storm of the Thirties, almost succeeded not only because of its pathology of hate and industry of death, but because of the powerlessness of the stateless Jew and the vulnerability of the powerless without a state. Israel, then, is an antidote to Jewish vulnerability, the raison d'etre in the most profound existential sense for Jewish self-determination.
It is not the case, as it sometimes said, that if there had been no Holocaust, there would not have been a State of Israel, as if a state could somehow even compensate for the murder of six million Jews. It is the other way around: If there had been an Israel, there would not have been a Holocaust, or others horrors of Jewish history.
In the end, we come back to the beginning: that whatever the gathering storm from without may be, whatever the internal grievances, the Kulturkampf of the Jews' despair in 2008 would not only be a betrayal of the Jewish aboriginal past, but a denial of the next 60 years and beyond.
Police want PM questioned in 48 hours
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668643861&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The National Fraud Agency is demanding that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert undergo another, urgent round of questioning in the next 48 hours regarding suspicions that he illegally accepted large sums of cash from New York Jewish businessman Morris Talansky, Channel 2 reported on Friday.
According to the report, investigators fear that once Olmert and his attorneys receive a transcript of Talansky's early testimony, the content of that transcript would somehow influence what the premier would later say during questioning. Therefore, the police want Olmert questioned before Talansky takes the stand. Talansky is due to testify in court on Sunday, May 25.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will hold a hearing Monday on appeals filed Thursday by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his close aide, Shula Zaken, asking the court to reject a lower court decision that ordered New York Jewish businessman Morris Talansky to testify in court even though the state has not yet decided whether to put the two on trial.
Justice Salim Joubran, who scheduled Monday's hearing, also rejected the request of Olmert's lawyers to immediately freeze the lower court's decision to hear Talansky's early testimony.
Olmert is suspected of illegally accepting large sums of cash from Talansky. Zaken allegedly knew about the gifts and received some of them on Olmert's behalf.
Talansky lives full-time in the US, but two of his children live in Israel, and he owns a home in Jerusalem and visits the country twice a year.
On May 9, the Jerusalem District Court accepted the state's argument that if Talansky were allowed to leave Israel now, it was not certain he would return to testify if the state prosecution ultimately indicts Olmert and Zaken.
In Olmert's appeal, his lawyers, Eli Zohar, Ro'i Blecher and Nevot Tel-Tzur, wrote that the state's request to hear the early testimony was "unprecedented" as Talansky was a suspect in the investigation and had been questioned by police under caution.
"As such," the lawyers wrote, "the means for forcing him to obey [a court summons] that can be put into effect to guarantee his return to Israel are very strong and effective."
The district court, the attorneys continued, "did not take into account [Talansky's] repeatedly declared intention to return to Israel to testify should it be decided to file an indictment, or the witnesses' circumstances, including the fact that he owns an apartment in Israel, that most of his family lives here and that he has routinely come to Israel twice a year for many years."
The lawyers added that the state could insure that Talansky returned by making him leave a financial guarantee behind or, if he did not return, either take testimony from him in the US or have him testify by closed circuit television.
The attorneys also argued that the early testimony harmed Olmert's right to a fair trial, for the following reasons:
• The prime minister does not know what the specific charges against him will be if the state decides to indict.
• He will not receive all of the evidence that police have gathered so far.
• The police are continuing to gather evidence that his lawyers will not have when they question Talansky.
• The state prosecution may continue to question Talansky after he testifies.
• Olmert's lawyers will not have enough time to prepare their cross-examination.
• Talansky is currently a suspect. It is not known at this point whether he is testifying as a witness or as a defendant.
Zaken's lawyer, Micha Fetman, filed a separate appeal on Thursday. The appeals are due to be heard together.
A Jewish-American billionaire who was questioned by police in the corruption case on Thursday said he has never given money to the prime minister and called suggestions of any wrongdoing "insulting."
S. Daniel Abraham, a philanthropist who made his fortune as founder of Slim-Fast food products, was summoned by police this week to discuss his ties with Olmert. Police suspect Olmert accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal donations in the US, either for campaign financing or as bribes.
"Of course I never gave any money to Ehud Olmert. The very question is insulting to me," Abraham told Army Radio. "This is my reputation at stake and I have no reason to risk it."
Abraham, a strong supporter of Israel who is in the country during its 60th anniversary celebrations, said Olmert is honest and "one of the best prime ministers we have ever had."
Also related to the Olmert affair, Channel 2 news reported Thursday night that the limousine driver for Talansky transferred envelopes containing cash to the prime minister.
According to the report, the driver told police that he had given the prime minister the packages, which contained money from several "millionaires," including Abraham.
Senior minister speaks out against Olmert government restraint on Gaza attacks
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5275
Internal security minister Avi Dichter said in a radio interview Saturday, May 17, that on no account may a terrorist entity be permitted to exist between Israel and Egypt. The Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip did not qualify as a state and should not be treated as one, he stressed. No accommodations for Gaza would work without effective deterrence. Israel’s current military operations had fallen down on the task of deterring the rising volume of Palestinian missile and rocket attacks; Israeli towns and villages had become “sitting ducks.”
Dichter vowed to push the government with all his strength into a solution which put an end to this intolerable situation.
Efffective deterrence, he said, may take years to build up. He pointed to the example of the 2002 Defensive Wall operation in Jenin which finally put down West Bank terrorist violence after years. The minister pledged to push with all his strength for effective deterrent action against Hamas.
In answer to a question, he said he may bid for the Kadima party leadership when the time was right.
DEBKAfile’s political sources report that Dichter’s take on the Gaza Strip is not without support from some fellow ministers, sections of the military command and the general public, but he is fighting an uphill battle against prime minister Ehud Olmert, defense minister Ehud Barak and foreign minister Livni, who put their trust in engagement with Hamas for an informal ceasefire as negotiated through Egypt.
This view gained support Friday from a group led by former chief of staff Lipkin-Shahak, ex-Mossad director Ephraim Halevi and a former left-wing lawmaker Yossi Beilin. They urged the government to accept a ceasefire even on Hamas’ terms rather than carry out a major campaign to eliminate Hamas’ war machine and arsenal.
Ex-Israeli AF chief: Thousands of missiles may hit Israel population in future war
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5274
Outgoing Air Force commander, Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shkedy said in a radio interview Saturday, May 17, that the peril comes from thousands of missile stocked by Syria, Hizballah, Hamas and possibly Iran. Israel has developed new defensive capabilities to reduce their impact.
He revealed that during the 2006 Lebanon War, the Air Force intercepted a pilot-less aircraft in time (to prevent it landing). Hamas’ arsenal compares with that of Hizballah, said the former air force chief. It consists of missiles, rockets and guns of all types, including anti-air weapons. He said Israeli aircraft have not been “critically affected” until now but they are under constant fire. Asked about dealing with the problem, he replied that this was not a military decision.
Shkedy reported that the force had assiduously fine-tuned its air attacks to reduce Palestinian civilian casualties and had succeeded in bringing it down to a ratio of one to every 24 armed men hit.
The ex-commander went on to say: “One cannot shut one’s eyes to Iran… Their rhetoric with regard to Israel is very precise. But there is no issue of significance that has no operational solution. I have invested a lot in this. We treat it with great seriousness.”
Shkedy added that Israel had invested considerable effort in preparing to deal with threats from the “world jihad movement” (al Qaeda) - “on ground and by air.”
Dramatic new support for Red-Dead plan
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1210668650235&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A group of Israeli and foreign businessmen and bankers are finally ready to build a $3 billion canal between the Red and Dead Seas, desalinating the water, producing hydroelectric power and yielding profits, clean water, jobs and potentially unprecedented regional cooperation.
The project could create work for a million Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians, draw eight million tourists a year to Israel, and produce a billion cubic meters of desalinated water.
Jordan's King Abdullah and Saudi Prince Walid bin-Talal have already given their enthusiastic endorsement of the project, according to its initiators.
The dramatic Valley of Peace initiative in the Arava was unveiled Thursday - the 60th anniversary of Israel's Independence on the Gregorian calendar - by 57-year-old Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva, owner of the El-Ad Group that includes Manhattan's Plaza Hotel and Delek, Israel's second-largest oil and gas company.
With inspiration and involvement from President Shimon Peres, the project needs only government approval, as Tshuva said that tycoons such as Shari Arison, Nohi Dankner and Stef Wertheimer have all committed themselves to investing money in the project.
No state funds will be needed, Tshuva told The Jerusalem Post after his emotional speech during a luncheon at the Presidential Conference 2008: Facing Tomorrow at Jerusalem's International Convention Center.
Tshuva, who sat with Peres along with other leading business people, said that the 166-kilometer-long canal between Israel and Jordan would be only the beginning. The planned Valley of Peace through the Arava would be developed to include tens of billions of dollars worth of hotels (with 200,000 beds) and other tourist attractions, clean industry and one of the largest botanical gardens in the world - providing a million jobs.
It would quadruple tourism to Israel from today's two million annual visitors, he said. The billion cubic meters of desalinated water it would yield would make the Arava green on both sides of the border, said the 57-year-old real estate and fuel tycoon as Peres smiled broadly. Greenhouses would raise winter fruits and vegetables and sell them in the region and abroad.
The area would, according to this "amazing vision," be turned into a free-trade zone, attracting investment from around the world. A high-speed train line and highway would run alongside the canal, transporting people and goods between the Dead and Red Seas within an hour, according to a sophisticated audiovisual presentation shown to the audience.
"This is the only way to get out of the cycle of violence and the dead end in the area," continued Tshuva. Jobs and prosperity, he maintained, would moderate Arabs in the region and give them an alternative to violence and terror. "Peace will be made not by peace agreements but by making cooperation and goodwill among the peoples of the region. The Valley of Peace will provide a solution for generations to come."
Not only did the Jordanian king tell Tshuva that he wants to be an "active partner" in the project and wanted it to "start immediately," but Saudi Prince bin-Talal, who visited him at the Plaza Hotel in New York, said he was ready to invest in the project via Jordan. Tshuva expects investors in other countries such as the US, China, Japan and Russia to participate in funding it.
A "Valley of Peace Law" would be required to pave the way for the canal, "which can be built two years after the earthmoving machines are brought in. I know. I have experience," Tshuva declared. He also delivered a short message in Arabic to highlight his interest in Arab cooperation in the project.
Asked by this reporter - who covered the late prime minister Menachem Begin's Knesset dinner some 30 years ago when he announced a plan for a "Mediterranean-Dead Sea Canal" - about previous canal plans that never took off, Tshuva said such a horizontal canal would not work "for various reasons" but that the climate today makes a Red-Dead Sea canal possible.
The hundreds of people at the luncheon gave Tshuva and Peres a standing ovation.
Leon Recanati, former chairman and CEO of the IDB Holding Company and now head of a private investment company, told the Post that if "ecological and other data proved positive and it were regarded as economically worthwhile, such a canal would be worth investigating." As for himself, Recanati said he would not invest in it because "I am doing other things."
Bomb goes off outside Christian school in Gaza
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/bomb.goes.off.outside.christian.school.in.gaza/18831.htm
A bomb exploded outside a Christian school in the Gaza Strip on Friday, causing damage but no injuries, witnesses said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which ripped through the gate of the Rosary Sisters School in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip shortly before dawn.
The school was also targeted by masked gunmen last year shortly after Hamas Islamists took control of the coastal territory in June. The school was torched and looted in that incident.
Over the past two years, there have been a rash of attacks targeting U.N.-run schools, the American International School, Internet cafes and video stores.
Analysts have blamed radical Muslim groups with links to al Qaeda for the attacks.
The Gaza Strip is home to some 3,000 Christians.
Hezbollah 'redrawing' Mideast map
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63755
Hezbollah's dramatic gains in Lebanon last week are just part of a regional process that began last year in the Gaza Strip and will continue in Jordan and Egypt, a Hamas official in the West Bank told The Washington Times.
Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Ramallah-based Hamas political activist and editor, said militant groups across the Middle East are gaining power at the expense of U.S.-backed regimes, just as Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
"What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement; now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon. It's going to happen in 2009 in Jordan and it's going to happen in 2010 in Egypt," Sheik Khader said in an interview.
"We are seeing a redrawing of the map of the Middle East where the forces of resistance and steadfastness are the ones moving the things on the ground."
His remarks highlight how a growing alliance linking Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah straddles the Shi'ite-Sunni rift.
The notion of new countries falling under Islamist influence reflects a goal of Hamas' parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood, of replacing secular Arab regimes with Islamist governments.
In the same way that Hamas' victory over the Palestinian Authority security forces in Gaza fighting last June profoundly disturbed neighboring Arab states, fighting in Lebanon yesterday and last week has sent shock waves throughout the Middle East and spurred an emergency meeting of the Arab League.
The Arab League is sending Secretary-General Amr Moussa to mediate among the Lebanese government, Hezbollah and Sunni supporters of the government.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza, took a different approach to the standoff in Lebanon by saying that the fighting primarily served Israel.
Mr. Abu Zuhri called on each side to engage in dialogue instead of fighting.
But several supporters of Hamas in Gaza were comparing Hezbollah's advances into Sunni neighborhoods of Beirut to Hamas' overrunning of security forces loyal to Mr. Abbas.
The fighting of the past few days has brought Lebanon closer to armed internal conflict than at any other time since the end of its 15-year civil war in 1990.
In Israel, military and political leaders expressed concern that the Lebanese government, led by U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, yielded to Hezbollah's show of force.
"What is going on in Lebanon at this hour is actually the overthrow of Lebanon by Hezbollah. The democratic Lebanese government will become a puppet government — an Iranian dream," said Ze'ev Boim, a lawmaker from Israel's governing Kadima party.
"It is particularly awful to see an Iranian battalion on the northern border of Israel."
Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, said the international community failed to insist that the government of Mr. Siniora confront Hezbollah, and is now paying the price.
Hezbollah's ascendance in Lebanon is likely to prompt a new round of fighting with Israel, he said.
"If, for the last two years, Hezbollah didn't move against us because it was more interested in grounding its position domestically in Lebanon, now Hezbollah will feel more at ease to operate against us," he said. "I think the good years are behind us."
Hezbollah fought Israel to a standoff in a 2006 war. The militant Shi'ite group battered Israeli cities with rockets, and an incursion by Israeli troops into southern Lebanon failed to stop the rocket attacks.
The Artist Formerly Known As 'Prince' & Muslims formerly known as 'Islamic Extremists'
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080516/COMMENTARY/99074936
The popular American singer and songwriter, Prince, emerged as a very successful artist in the 1980s. In 1993, a contract dispute with his record label — under which the name "Prince" had been trademarked — caused him to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol. As such, he became known as "[Symbol] — The Artist Formerly Known As 'Prince.' "
In 2000, as the contract ended, the unpronounceable symbol and "Formerly Known As" moniker were dropped — his name reverting to "Prince" again. From a legal and marketing standpoint, it was a clever maneuver, enabling him to maintain high visibility for the name "Prince" while claiming not to be "Prince."
Despite this name-gaming process, the public readily knew him as "Prince" regardless of what other label was attached. However, a recent U.S. government decision to undertake a similar name change effort is not so clever.
A document titled "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counter-Terrorism Communication" published last month by the U.S. government's National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) urges officials to avoid referring publicly to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as "Islamic" or "Muslim" or use terms such as "jihad" or "mujahideen."
The rationale: Such words tend to "unintentionally legitimize" terrorism. "Avoid labeling everything 'Muslim,' " the document reads. "It reinforces the 'U.S. vs. Islam' framework that al Qaeda promotes." Instead, such terrorist groups should be characterized as "violent extremists," or "totalitarian and death cult."
NCTC explains "a large percentage of the world's population ... subscribes to this religion [and] ... unintentionally alienating them is not a judicious move." Also discouraged are words such as "Islamist" and "Islamism" as "the general public, including overseas audiences, may not appreciate the academic distinction between Islamism and Islam." NCTC concludes, even though such terms may be accurate, there is a "strategic" concern about officials using them.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security representative asserts avoiding the word "Islam" in the same breath as "terrorism" is by no means a "watering down [of] what we say" and is "in no way an exercise in political correctness." However, that exactly is what it is.
At a time the general public — here and in democracies abroad — struggles to understand a major threat to our way of life, it is important we not sugarcoat it. Interestingly, NCTC's Report on Terrorist Incidents for 2006 revealed that a majority (56 percent) of fatalities worldwide for which responsibility was conclusively determined were attributable to "Islamic extremism."
Islamic extremist attacks against U.S. targets include: 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Iran and its staff; 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon; 1983 bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut; 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; 1993 attack on New York's World Trade Center; 1996 attack on Khobar Towers U.S. military complex in Saudi Arabia; 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; 2000 attack in Yemen of the USS Cole; and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. A common pattern emerges: Islamic extremists kill.
The NCTC is failing to heed the advice of British-American historian and Middle East expert Bernard Lewis — "the most influential postwar (World War II) historian of Islam and the Middle East." Mr. Lewis finds descriptions like "Islamic terrorism" appropriate due to "the essentially political character which the Islamic religion has had from its very foundation and retains to the present day.
An intimate association between religion and politics, between power and cult, marks a principal distinction between Islam and other religions." Terms like "violent extremists" or "totalitarian and death cult" do nothing to educate and/or sensitize non-Muslims to the most dangerous threat to their existence.
Several years ago, the posting on the Internet of a violent extremist's diary reflected his intense hatred for Americans. Diary entries described his desire to murder American students. On April 20, 1999, he and a fellow terrorist acted upon this hatred at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Clearly, Islamists do not lay sole claim to violent extremism. But we have to recognize threats posed by the Columbine terrorists and by Islamic extremists are much different. Terrorist acts by the former focus on impacting those within the perpetrator's limited "world;" terrorist acts by the latter focus on impacting the entire world, achieving global submission to Islam. Thus, the former is an anomaly; the latter is not.
U.S. concerns over alienating a peace-loving Muslim majority choosing to remain silent as their religion is hijacked by Islamic extremists should not cloud the language used to identify the threat within their midst — and ours — for what it really is. This extremist mindset has been inbred within Islam for centuries, responsible for the deaths of more Muslims by fellow Muslims than non-Muslims.
An inability of this silent Muslim majority to comprehend the Islamic extremist threat should not impose upon us a reluctance to use descriptive words to help educate Americans where from the threat really emanates.
The artist Prince had it right in using a name change to maintain high visibility for himself; but a similar effort by the U.S. government to rename al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups for what they are not does a great disservice by clouding the true identity of this threat. If this is to be the policy, we should at least insist a moniker similar to that Prince used be applied — thus calling these killers "Violent Extremists formerly known as 'Islamic extremists' " so their true identity, as was the case for Prince, is prominently highlighted.
Exclusive: Command vessel USS Mount Whitney posted opposite Lebanon
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5276
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Saturday, May 17, the USS Mount Whitney , considered the US Navy’s most advanced command, control, communications, computer and intelligence vessel, took up position opposite Lebanese shores for an “unscheduled mission.”
The Sixth Fleet spokesman Lt. Patrick Foughty said the ship would be there “to support additional communication requirements for our ships already underway.”
DEBKAfile’s sources add that the USS Cole missile destroyer arrived in that sector last week, while the USS Harry Truman carrier strike group began cruising in the Mediterranean around Greece, whence the aircraft on its decks can reach Syrian and Lebanese skies. The fleet spokesman added there are no long-term plans to keep the Mount Whitney away from its home base.
Although the US lieutenant did not name those plans, military observers gained the impression that the American navy-air build-up off Lebanon was designed for a short stay or a specific operation, after which it will disperse.
Our sources disclose that, during the fierce Hizballah onslaught on Beirut last week and its closure of the international airport, the Americans ran a helicopter lift from Cyprus to the US embassy landing pad with provisions of food, water, medicine and personnel.
The Mount Whitney enables a joint task commander to effectively control all the units of his force. The ship can receive and transmit large amounts of secure data from any point on earth and provide timely intelligence and operational support as needed.
Christians marginalised in Lebanon crisis
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christians.marginalised.in.lebanon.crisis/18832.htm
At an upmarket jeweller's in east Beirut's Ashrafieh district, wealthy Lebanese Christians shop for gold and diamonds, far removed from the upheaval that has sidelined their once-dominant community.
Last week's fighting, in which at least 81 people were killed, pitted the opposition Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah against pro-government Sunni Muslim and Druze factions. But no major Christian group took part in the fighting or played a role in ending the violence.
"Times change. Once we ruled militarily, and now it is Hezbollah," said 80-year-old George Aoun.
Unlike the rest of the Arab World, Christians have traditionally been leading players in Lebanon. At an estimated one-third of the population, they far outweigh the proportion of Christians in any other Arab country.
But the Christians became divided over loyalties to rival leaders, leaving them marginalised during the latest crisis. Lebanese political scientist As'ad Abu Khalil said the community now had "no significant role" in Lebanese politics.
The presidency, a post reserved for them under Lebanon's sectarian political system, has been vacant since November, depriving them of a platform to exercise influence, Christian politicians say.
Members of the community, which is still dominant in business and finance, hope that shunning violence during the latest upheaval will preserve the Christians of Lebanon in the long run.
"The Christians will keep thriving by adopting non-violence. Hezbollah has been exposed as a force ready to kill fellow Lebanese. Why doesn't it wait for elections if it wants more power?" said Selim Mouzannar in his Ashrafieh jewellery shop.
Aoun, who lost 11 members of his family during an attack by Palestinian guerrillas on the town of Damur south of Beirut during the 15-year civil war, said the latest violence would drive more Christians to leave Lebanon.
"If I was younger I would emigrate myself. Hezbollah has the numerical superiority and the Christians are too divided. But the Christians can still advance by not making an enemy of the Shi'ites," said Aoun, who owns a restaurant in Ashrafieh.
During the civil war, Christian Maronites were at one stage allied to Syria, but then switched allegiance to Israel. When the war ended in 1990, Christians emerged with diminished political powers.
Inter-communal divisions deepened after former army commander Michel Aoun allied with Hezbollah in 2006 in opposition to the governing coalition which is composed of Druze, Sunni and Christian politicians, with a few Shi'ites.
In the Christian Gemaizeh district, life returned largely to normal on Thursday.
"Lebanon is the Gate of the East because of its Christians, but it is time to realise Shi'ite ascendancy. They have the numerical superiority," said Francois Bassil, owner of Le Chef restaurant.
"We better not repeat mistakes of the civil war and ally with foreign powers," he said. "By the time foreign help comes we will be under the knife."
Seven House Church Leaders in Shandong Detained for Bible Study; One Pastor from Taiwan Expelled; One House Church Pastor in Jilin Wounded
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07194.shtml
MIDLAND, Texas, (christiansunite.com) -- China has been intensifying its campaign against the House Church Christians recently. CAA learned that in the morning of May 8 (Beijing Time), three house church leaders in Shandong province were detained while organizing a Bible study group. One pastor from Taiwan was expelled from China immediately. He will not be allowed to come back to China for 5 years. Meanwhile, four other church leaders from the same province have been detained since the beginning of May. One pastor from Jilin province was beaten up on May 4 for his independent church activities.
According to eyewitness reports, at approximately 11:30am, about 30 church leaders from different provinces of China were raided at a rented house at Qingzhou City Shandong province while having a three-day Bible study led by a pastor from Taiwan. Over 20 officers from PSB and Religious Affairs Bureau of both Weifang and Qingzhou city riding in 6 police vehicles carried out the raid. They declared the meeting an "illegal gathering" because it was not registered. All of the church leaders were forced to register their ID numbers and home addresses. 23 of them are students who are studying church worship music in a school run by the local House Churches.
One local House Church pastor told CAA after he was released that 28 year old pastor Zhang Yongliang who is the organizer of both the music school and the Bible study was detained along with his parents. When Zhang's father was beaten by the PSB during the raid, Zhang's mom tried to talk to the police, then both of them were detained for the charge of "obstruction of justice."
The PSB also confiscated all of the music instruments and one computer from the church music school.
CAA also learned one House Church pastor in Yanji city, Jilin province was beaten up and wounded on May 4. Pastor Hao Yuji was arrested by the PSB of Yanji city while he was preaching in his church that day. He was told by the PSB officials he should dissolve his church. When pastor Hao asked why, he was beaten up. Both his head and chest were wounded. Pastor Hao left the government sanctioned corrupted Three-Self church and established a House Church a few years ago.
Moreover, in Jiaxiang County Shandong province four House Church Christian leaders have been detained. 25-yeaqr-old Ms.Qiao Lei and 24-year-old Ms. Wang Qin were arrested at Yantun village, Wangtun town by the PSB of Jiaxiang Couty for being accused as being 'evil cult members'; on May 3, another two Christians Mr. Cao Guanggen and Mr Jin Heshui(42- year-old) were also detained. All four are still being held at the PSB office of Jiaxiang county.
The Chinese government has been intensifying its crackdown against House Church Christians recently because of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. CAA urges the Chinese government to immediately release these detained innocent House Church pastors and believers.
Franklin Graham under fire for Olympic evangelism comment
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/franklin.graham.under.fire.for.olympic.evangelism.comment/18830.htm
American evangelist Franklin Graham came under fire for saying he opposed evangelism during the Beijing Olympic Games.
Graham had made the comment to Chinese reporters during his recent trip to mainland China, where he visited government officials, church leaders, and preached to 12,000 people at a Chinese megachurch.
The eldest son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham said he opposed missionary work during the Games because it is prohibited under Chinese law, and he does not encourage anything illegal.
In response, a respected religious freedom activist defended Chinese house church Christians as “law-abiding, patriotic citizens” who are not doing anything wrong by following their faith which teaches them to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.
“[Christians] cannot and will not [concede] to a ‘faith moratorium’ in order to please an atheistic government during the Olympic Games, even if that means enduring imprisonment and torture,” said Bob Fu, president of China Aid Association, in a statement on Wednesday.
Fu, who was recently honoured by President Bush for his religious freedom advocacy in China, denounced the Chinese law as unjust because it asked Christians to go against the teachings of Jesus Christ.
He called Graham’s comment about submitting to the ban on Olympic evangelism “a deep offense” to the hundreds of house church prisoners and their family members.
In China, the Christian population is divided into two groups – those worshipping in the state-sanctioned churches under the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and those attending unregistered house churches.
TSPM leaders have publicly stated that foreign evangelistic efforts during the Beijing Olympics are not welcome or tolerated, Fu said. But house churches feel differently.
“To the house church leaders, it’s an issue of the lordship of Christ to the church,” Fu explained to OneNewsNow. “And if the church ceases to do evangelism, is it the true church? It’s a big question.”
Religious freedom has improved in communist China in recent years, but the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) this year still recommended the State Department to keep China on its religious freedom blacklist because of its treatment of house churches and religious minorities not recognised by the Chinese Government.
Recent persecution of unregistered churches include the arrest of 270 Protestant house church pastors in December, and the expulsion of more than 100 foreign missionaries last summer – the largest event of its kind since 1954 after the communist government took power in 1949.
As All Else Fails, Christian Freedom International Dispatches Aid into Devastated Burma
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07193.shtml
SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich., (christiansunite.com) -- Christian Freedom International, a Michigan-based humanitarian organization, is embarking on a unique mission to get desperately needed relief aid into cyclone-ravaged Burma. The organization's efforts are coming at a time when other international assistance has been rejected by the Burmese government, and as U.N. food aid shipments have already been confiscated by the military for its own use in the storm's aftermath.
Cyclone Nargis, which hit the Southeast Asian country on May 3, 2008, destroyed homes, roadways, grain stores and rice fields, and knocked out electricity in many parts of the country. To date, the official death toll from the storm has climbed to nearly 23,000, with 42,000 others still missing. It is the worst cyclone to hit Asia in 17 years, when 143,000 people were killed in Bangladesh in 1991.
Despite the overwhelming need for food, shelter, clean drinking water, and medical supplies for thousands of Burma's survivors, the junta remains adamant in its refusal to accept the help of a major international relief operation, insisting that it alone will distribute emergency aid among the cyclone victims. "Conventional ways of delivering aid just doesn't work in Burma," says Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International. "Independent groups like CFI are the only answer to getting aid into the country." Jacobson, who has personally made dozens of trips to the region to deliver relief aid to persecuted Karen and Karenni Christians, believes that the Burmese government's indifference to the widespread suffering of its people in the wake of Cyclone Nargis is helping the international community finally understand the true level of the junta's abject inhumanity.
For the past decade, Jacobson and his workers have witnessed firsthand the devastation of Burma's genocidal brutality carried out against its own citizens, which has caused the displacement of tens of thousands of refugees and the vicious beatings, rapes, and murders of thousands more - a humanitarian crisis that has remained unknown to most of the international community. Burma's repressive government also became the subject of worldwide scrutiny after the country's recent monk-led protests demanding freedom for all Burmese citizens.
CFI, a nonprofit organization that assists persecuted Christians around the world, has an established network of underground house church pastors in Burma, through which it is wiring funds to help provide emergency assistance for cyclone victims. CFI has also dispatched a team of indigenous backpack medics into remote areas, where storm-affected victims will receive lifesaving medical care. CFI workers are also providing spiritual guidance to Burma's suffering victims, offering Bibles and other materials to those who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
To provide a donation for Burma's cyclone relief effort, or to learn more about CFI's work in Burma, call 1-800- 323-2273 or visit www.christianfreedom.org.
Gospel for Asia's first aid shipment reaches cyclone-ravaged Burma
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/gospel.for.asias.first.aid.shipment.reaches.cycloneravaged.burma/18837.htm
Gospel for Asia's first shipment of cyclone relief supplies has arrived in Burma and has been received by GFA and Believers Church officials.
"Because of our previous service to the nation in times of such need, our national leader has a good reputation among government leaders, and the local churches are held in high regard," explained GFA President and founder KP Yohannan.
"As a result, the government has agreed to allow GFA/Believers Church to not only bring in supplies, but also to make sure they reach the people who are in such desperate need."
Even though there have been several reports in the international media of aid materials being diverted, GFA has been assured that these will get to those in need.
In addition to the medical supplies that were flown into Rangoon airport, GFA and Believers Church are also shipping food to the disaster-struck nation.
"Please pray that all of these supplies will get into the hands of the people who need them the most," Yohannan pleaded. "I also ask that Christians offer prayer that the government leaders will give greater freedom to help the hurting in remote areas."
In what he described as a near-miracle, the Burma Government has also given special permission to GFA and Believers Church to open medical clinics in its church compounds.
"This is a very unusual situation," Yohannan said, "and it is good because we have 400 churches in Burma, and many are in the most affected areas. Of course we cannot minister to everyone who is suffering as a result of this disaster, but we will do everything we can to help everyone we can."
Yohannan said the most pressing need at these clinics is for trained medical personnel.
"I am asking people to pray that God would lead us to Burmese doctors and nurses who are already in the country, since so far the government has not allowed outsiders to come in and work," Yohannan said.
Yohannan also revealed that the Believers Church leader in Burma has asked to open an orphanage to care for more than 90 children now in his church's temporary care.
"Could you please allow us to pick up the pitiful children who have lost their parents in the cyclone," he pleaded. "They have no families and are completely alone."
Yohannan said permission had been granted and that the children will be cared for.
GFA workers have been actively involved in the relief effort since a few hours after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma in the early hours of May 3. The work was started in the GFA Bible college in Rangoon, where people sought shelter in the badly damaged, but still usable, buildings. A few days later, GFA workers spread their efforts to other parts of the storm-ravaged country.
The Bible college is still being utilized as a shelter. A portable generator there has made it possible to draw clean, fresh water out of the campus well. The water is being bottled and distributed to those who so desperately need it. At night, the missionaries are using portable projectors to show an Indian-made film about Jesus.
Missionaries are focusing their attention on the two major needs of the people.
"The people are asking for water to drink and rice to eat. Starvation is the major problem right now," Yohannan said.
GFA and Believers Church has additional medical and food shipments on the way to the country, and more than 300 students from GFA's Bible colleges, along with missionaries and volunteers, are mobilised to get food and clothing to the storm survivors.
News reports from inside Burma put the death toll at 38,491. The United Nations estimates that more than 60,000 people perished because of the storm. The International Red Cross says the dead could number as high as 127,900.
"No matter what the official number is, we must remember that each of these people was a soul precious to God. In the same manner, we must continue to help the millions of survivors. They need to hear that they are beautiful in God's eyes," Yohannan said.
Weather-related troubles may not be over for the people of Burma. Heavy rains have been falling on the country for several days and the annual monsoon season is just a few weeks away.
The foul weather may complicate the distribution of some emergency supplies, but it will not be cause for the relief efforts to stop. GFA's 500 native missionaries in Myanmar will continue to serve their fellow countrymen, long after the crisis disappears from the headlines.
"Rebuilding Burma could take years. And since our missionaries, churches and Bible college students are indigenous, they are there for the long haul," Yohannan said.
OBI Delivers Water, Food to Burma Children
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/376707.aspx
CBNNews.com - MYANMAR - Operation Blessing has teamed up with local residents, aid workers and medical staff to help get food, water and aid to the survivors of Cyclone Nargis.
"Two major projects are underway, which will save thousands of lives as well as prevent much disease and suffering," said Operation Blessing President Bill Horan.
The first project is aimed at providing electricity for existing water wells. The cyclone obliterated most of the electrical supply in the region, and officials report it could take between 3 and 6 months to have power lines repaired.
"Many orphanages and churches have perfectly good wells, but since the storm, they have no capacity to pump water because the power is out," Horan said. "Clean drinking water is the greatest single need facing storm victims."
The generator project includes purchasing and installing 40 diesel generators, which will provide electricity to existing wells and pump fresh drinking water to the surrounding community at each site. The generators will be put in place, monitored and maintained by an electrician and team provided by an OBI partner based in Myanmar.
"OBI will fund the purchase as well as a 3 month fuel supply, delivery, wiring and installation of all 40 units," Horan said. "This project will provide safe drinking water to thousands of victims and empower locals to be a blessing to their community during this crisis."
Each well serves an average of 500 people per day. The whole project with all 40 generators in place will meet the needs of an estimated 20,000 people on a daily basis.
After the current crisis passes, the generators will remain in place to serve as sources of emergency power in the event of future disasters or power outages.
The second project tackles the issue of emergency medical care by providing mobile medical teams.
Flooded regions and contaminated water sources can quickly become a breeding ground for a growing number of diseases and infections including intestinal disorders, respiratory illnesses, skin infections and diarrhea.
"After drinking water, medical care is the most urgent need of victims," Horan said. "Many days after the cyclone there are still countless injured people who have not received any medical attention."
Flooded regions and contaminated water sources can quickly become a breeding ground for a growing number of cases of disease including intestinal disorders, respiratory illnesses, skin infections and diarrhea.
OBI will hire local medical doctors, nurses and pharmacists for emergency medical missions in the delta region and affected area around Yangon.
The plan is to form five teams, each team consisting of two doctors, two nurses and one pharmacist. Teams will work five days a week for three months, providing primary healthcare and minor surgical procedures.
"By using Burmese doctors and staff we can access the very hardest hit areas without restriction," Horan said.
Each team will serve an average of 200 people per day, allowing the project to serve an estimated total of 60,000 victims.
OBI will provide wages, medications and transportation for the five teams. OBI's local partner will provide administration, coordination and in-country management.
No comments:
Post a Comment