Bush Begins Raising Money for McCain
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/bush_mccain/2008/05/23/98463.html
WASHINGTON -- President Bush starts raising money for John McCain's campaign next week, but the three fundraisers are closed, so there will be no news media cameras photographing the outgoing and incoming Republican party leaders together nor reporters observing their joint appearances.
The White House announced Friday that Bush will be the main attraction at three McCain events next week _ in Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah. In addition to building up the McCain campaign account, the fundraisers will also benefit the national Republican Party, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
All are being held in private residences, and McCain was expected to attend all of them, Fratto said. During the Bush presidency, fundraisers in private homes have almost always been held out of view of the public and the press, and Fratto said it would be no different this time. Former President Clinton sometimes allowed the press into such fundraising settings.
Bush's low approval ratings have raised questions about whether he will help or hurt McCain, especially as the Democratic candidates have argued that a McCain administration would amount to a third Bush term. In the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll last month, 28 percent approved of the job Bush is doing, his lowest rating ever in the survey.
Bush and McCain have not been together since March 5, when the president officially announced his endorsement of the likely GOP nominee in the White House's Rose Garden. Officials have declined to elaborate on how much they might campaign together, either to raise money or do traditional campaign rallies.
Bush has headlined numerous fundraisers for the Republican National Committee this election cycle, starting last year. That money will certainly be used in large part to boost McCain's campaign. But the events next week are the first involving Bush that directly funnel cash into McCain's campaign.
During Bush's three-day trip, he is also holding official presidential events at a Mesa, Ariz., cable company on Tuesday and at the U.S. Air Force Academy commencement on Wednesday. Under the complicated formula by which the cost of presidential travel is allocated when he is doing party events, the presence of official events on his schedule dramatically reduces the cost to McCain's campaign for Bush's campaign appearances.
Trail of Tall Tales: John McCain
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/22/trail-of-tall-tales-john-mccain/
Sen. John McCain has long presented himself as that rare bird in politics: an inveterate straight-shooter. But does campaign strain have McCain’s Straight Talk Express veering off course?
A string of incidents stemming from the senator’s two presidential runs suggests he’s no less fallible than any other candidate — and just as capable of adjusting facts to suit his purpose.
1. Confederate Flag Over South Carolina Capitol, April 19, 2000
During the run-up to the South Carolina Republican primary in February 2000, McCain was asked whether he felt the Confederate flag should be removed from atop the statehouse.
Non-truth: McCain stated publicly that it was up to South Carolinians to decide.
Truth: Two months later McCain said he believed “the flag should be removed” from the Capitol. “I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles,” he said. “I broke my promise to always tell the truth.”
Source: “Excerpts from McCain’s Remarks on Confederate Flag,” New York Times, April 20, 2000.
2. Economics Expertise, Jan. 27, 2008
Non-truth: When confronted with his own remarks about his economic prowess during a Republican primary debate, McCain said, “I don’t know where you got that quote from. I’m very well versed in economics.” In a later interview on NBC, McCain added that he’s “very strong on the economy.”
Truth: McCain was asked about a quote he gave The Wall Street Journal in a November 2005 interview in which he admitted he lacked expertise on economic issues. The quote read: “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. … I still need to be educated.”
McCain told reporters in December 2007, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.”
Sources: “‘Reform. Reform. Reform.’ John McCain Explains His Eclectic–and Troubling–Economic Philosophy,” Wall Street Journal, Nov. 26, 2005; NBC GOP presidential debate exchange, Jan. 24, 2008; “Meet the Press,” NBC, Jan. 27, 2008.
3. Safety in Baghdad, March 26, 2007
Non-truth: During an April 2007 visit to Baghdad, McCain said in interviews that “General (David) Petraeus goes out there (in Baghdad) almost every day in an unarmored Humvee.” He also said, “There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today.”
Truth: There are no unarmored Humvees in Iraq. McCain later admitted that he had misspoken regarding public safety in Baghdad. “Of course, I am going to misspeak and I’ve done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do it in the future,” he said. “I regret that when I divert attention to something I said from my message, but you know, that’s just life.”
Sources: “McCain Misspoke on Baghdad Security, He Says,” New York Times, April 8, 2007; “60 Minutes,” CBS, April 8, 2007.
4. Abortion Stance, Aug. 19, 1999
Non-truth: McCain told The San Francisco Chronicle that “in the short-term or even in the long-term I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.”
Truth: McCain soon after released a statement saying that he has always opposed Roe v. Wade and “as president, I would work toward its repeal.” McCain has a near 0 percent lifetime rating from NARAL, a national abortion rights group.
Sources: “McCain Softens Abortion Stand,” Washington Post, Aug. 24, 1999; “Capital Gang,” CNN, Aug. 28, 1999.
5. Conversation with Kerry, May 15, 2004
During the 2004 presidential campaign, speculation was widespread that Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, had asked McCain to join him as his running mate in the general election.
Non-truth: McCain told The New York Times that Kerry made no such offer, and when asked whether the two had ever discussed the possibility, even casually, McCain said, after pausing, “No. We really haven’t.”
Truth: McCain was asked again in 2008 about his reported conversation with Kerry, and told The New York Times, “I mean it’s well known. Everybody knows, it’s been well chronicled a thousand times that John Kerry asked if I would consider being his running mate.”
Sources: “Undeterred by McCain Denials, Some See Him as Kerry’s No. 2,” New York Times, May 15, 2004; “McCain Asked About 2004 Conversation with Kerry,” New York Times, March 7, 2008.
6. Al Qaeda and Iran, March 18, 2008
During a March 2008 visit to Jordan, McCain aired his concerns about ties between Al Qaeda and Iran.
Non-truth: McCain said that it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran.”
Truth: McCain had to be corrected a moment later by his Senate colleague Joseph Lieberman, and quickly amended his statement. “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda,” he said. McCain also made a similar comment a day earlier on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. It went uncorrected.
Sources: “A McCain Gaffe in Jordan,” Washington Post, March 18 2008; “John McCain on Iraq, Iran and the Middle East from Amman, Jordan,” The Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, March 17, 2008.
7. Ties to Lobbying Firms, Feb. 21, 2008
The New York Times published a story about McCain’s connections to Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist for the firm Alcalde & Fay. The Times reported that McCain had written to the FCC at Iseman’s behest to aid one of her clients, Paxson Communications.
Non-Truth: McCain’s campaign wrote in an e-mail to reporters, “No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC.”
Truth: McCain gave a sworn deposition five years earlier in which he said, “I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue. . . . I’m sure I spoke with him, yes.”
Sources: “For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk,” New York Times, Feb. 21, 2008; “A Hole in McCain’s Defense?” Newsweek, Feb. 22, 2008.
8. Attack Ads, Feb. 23, 2000
During the run-up to the Michigan primary in February 2000, the McCain campaign sponsored a telephone campaign that painted George W. Bush as an anti-Catholic bigot for courting the support of the evangelical Bob Jones University in South Carolina.
Non-truth: McCain denied to reporters that his campaign had anything to do with the calls.
Truth: McCain later admitted under repeated questioning that his campaign was responsible for the calls, but that their content had been so mischaracterized by the press that he did not recognize the calls as his own.
Sources: “McCain Campaign Admits Calls to Catholics,” New York Times, Feb. 23, 2000; “Straight Smear Express,” Washington Times, Feb. 28, 2000.
Trail of Tall Tales: Barack Obama
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/23/trail-of-tall-tales-barack-obama/
Sen. Barack Obama has gained a fervent following by preaching messages of hope and change, but has a long campaign tethered him to the sphere of age-old politics? A series of statements on the stump suggest Obama is perfectly capable of joining the ranks of silver-tongued politicians.
1. Spiritual Adviser, April 29, 2008
Non-truth: Obama told reporters at a news conference that his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was never his spiritual counselor.
“He was never my spiritual mentor. He was my pastor. And to some extent how the press characterized in the past that relationship, I think, was inaccurate,” Obama said.
Truth: During a June 5, 2007, speech at Hampton University, Obama introduced Wright by describing him as “the guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me.”
Sources: CQ, Newsmaker Transcripts, Special Events April 29, 2008; “Obama Says White House Ignores ‘Quiet Riot’ Among Blacks,” CBS2Chicago.com, June 5 2007.
2. Jeremiah Wright, April 16, 2008
Non-truth: During a March 14 interview with FOX News, Obama said he was never in church when his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made the now infamous sermons during which he proclaimed “God damn America” and asserted that the U.S. brought on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with its own “terrorism.”
“None of these statements were ones I had heard myself personally in the pews,” Obama said, calling the sermons “unacceptable and inexcusable.”
Truth: During a March 18 speech Obama said, “Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.” He added, “The remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial … they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country.”
Nearly one month later, on April 16, Obama told a group of Jewish leaders in Philadelphia that he “did not become aware of [Wright’s statements] until I started running for president,” implying that he did not hear the remarks while he “sat in church.”
Sources: “Obama Rejects Sermons from Pastor Who Was Like an Uncle,” FOXNews.com, March 14, 2008; “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama, ‘A More Perfect Union’” barackobama.com, March 18, 2008; “Obama Tells Philadelphia Jewish leaders He Would Not Sit Down With Hamas,” Obama speech, pool report, April 16, 2008.
3. Selma Voting-Rights March, March 5, 2007
Obama told an audience at a Selma Voting Rights March commemoration that during this historic civil rights event in 1965 “there was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma.”
Non-truth: He said his parents “got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama.”
Truth: Obama was born in 1961 — four years before the 1965 Selma march occurred. He later clarified his remarks, saying, “I meant the whole civil rights movement.”
Sources: “Sen. Obama Delivers Remarks at Selma Voting Rights March Commemoration, Selma, Ala.,” Newsmaker Transcripts, March 4, 2007; “Clinton and Obama Unite, Briefly, in Please to Blacks,” The New York Times, March 5, 2007.
4. Lobbyist Money, April 12, 2008
Non-truth: During campaign speeches, Obama frequently makes the contention that “I’m the only candidate who doesn’t take money from corporate PACs and lobbyists.”
Truth: Obama has raised nearly $14 million from lawyers and lobbyists. In October, Obama raised about $125,000 at a fundraising event in the Washington offices of Greenberg Traurig, the law firm that once employed convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Obama has sought to draw a distinction between “lawyer advocates” and “lawyer lobbyists,” but some non-partisan experts see that as “a distinction without a difference,” as they both operate as special interests.
Sources: “Full Text of Obama’s Speech to the Alliance for American Manufacturing,” Time.com, April 14, 2008; “Obama Draws Fine Line Between Lobbyists, Lawyer Donors,” Newsday, April 12, 2008.
5. Nuclear Legislation, Dec. 30, 2007
During a campaign event in Newton, Iowa, Obama touted his sponsorship of a bill in the Senate that required nuclear power plant owners to notify authorities immediately of all radioactive leaks, no matter how small.
Non-truth: That was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed” he told the crowd.
Truth: Obama had rewritten the bill to ease its passage and removed the language requiring the reporting of leaks. The bill died when it reached the full Senate, and did not pass as he claimed.
Source: “Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate,” New York Times, Feb. 3, 2008.
6. Law Professor, March 30, 2008
Non-truth: During a campaign fundraiser in Tallahassee, Fla., in March 2007, Obama spoke of his time as a “constitutional law professor” at the University of Chicago, “which means unlike the current president, I actually respect the Constitution.”
Truth: Obama never held a professor position at the University of Chicago. The university said he was a lecturer and taught courses to students at the law school, but “did not hold the title of professor of law.”
Sources: “Obama: Bush Fails to Respect the Constitution,” Associated Press, March 30, 2007; “No ‘Professor’ Obama at U. of C,” Chicago Sun-Times, March 30, 2008.
7. Life Magazine Claims in Obama’s Autobiography, March 25, 2007
In his 1995 autobiography, “Dreams From My Father,” Obama cited a copy of Life magazine as having stirred a racial awakening in him.
Non-truth: He wrote that when he was 9 years old, living in Indonesia, he flipped through Life magazine and read an article about a black man who had scarred and ruined his skin applying chemicals that promised to make his skin white. “I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation,” he wrote.
Truth: No article or pictures exist of any such story, according to Life historians. When questioned about the mix-up, Obama couldn’t name the specific magazine in which he read the article.
Source: “The Not-So-Simple Story of Barack Obama’s Youth,” Chicago Tribune, March 25, 2007.
8. Obama’s Fluency, March 25, 2007
Non-truth: Obama has claimed on numerous occasions that, as a boy growing up in Indonesia, he was fluent in the country’s language. “It had taken me less than six months to learn Indonesia’s language, its customs, and its legends,” he wrote in “Dreams From My Father.”
Truth: His first-grade teacher in Jakarta said he struggled with the language, needing help with pronunciation and vowel sounds, and teachers and friends remembered him as a being a quiet boy as a result of his difficulties.
Source: “The Not-So-Simple Story of Barack Obama’s Youth,” Chicago Tribune, March 25, 2007.
Obama's Pastor Loaded With Hate
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/rush_barack_obama/2008/05/23/98548.html
Rush Limbaugh lashed out at Barack Obama for comments Obama made at a Florida fundraiser saying Rush and Lou Dobbs were inciting xenophobia.
If he's looking for hate mongers, Limbaugh suggested, Obama should look at "his preacher, his spiritual adviser, [who] is loaded with hate."
Obama used Thursday's fundraiser at the Westin Diplomat near Fort Lauderdale, to attack Limbaugh and CNN's Dobbs for their militant stand on immigration policy charging that "a certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year.”
He then identified the culprits behind the hate crimes: “If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen.”
"My feelings are hurt here," Limbaugh said during his "Rush Limbaugh Show" Friday, adding, "I thought this guy was a unity candidate."
To see real xenophobia and racism, Rush advised, one needs only to look at South Africa: "The insanity of [Obama's] claims, is evidenced by what real racism — xenophobia — looks like in black-led South Africa, a country that is held to be the embodiment of the victory over racism.
"We have already covered the horrific racial violence, black-on-black, directed towards South African immigrants. After two weeks running, according to a report from the French News agency, violence is spreading: 'A wave of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa spread to Cape Town on Friday . . .'"
This, said Limbaugh, "is real xenophobia. This is real racism."
Trail of Tall Tales: Hillary Clinton
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/21/trail-of-tall-tales-hillary-clinton/
Sen. Hillary Clinton presents the image of a seasoned, ever-disciplined politician whose experience as first lady and a New York senator makes her ready to be commander-in-chief. But a series of misstatements — exaggerations, half-truths and lies — made by Clinton over the last 15 years have at times undermined her image and called her credibility into question.
1. Travelgate, June 23, 2000
An investigation was launched into the firing of seven long-time employees of the White House travel office, all of whom were replaced with friends and relatives of the Clintons.
Non-truth: In a sworn deposition to the General Accounting Office, Clinton was asked if she had any involvement in the decision to fire the staffers: “No, I did not,” she replied. She said she did not know the “origin of the decision” to fire the staffers, “had no role in the decision to terminate the employees” and “did not direct that any action be taken by anyone” regarding the matter.
Truth: The Office of Independent Counsel investigating it and other matters found “overwhelming evidence that she in fact did have a role in the decision to fire the employees” and that her testimony was “factually false.”
Sources: “Honesty: Hillary’s Glass House,” National Journal, Dec. 10, 2007; “Testimony About Travel-Office Dismissals,” New York Times, Oct. 19, 2000; “The First Lady Is Chided, But Not Charged,” New York Times, June 23, 2000.
2. Iraq War Vote, Jan. 13, 2008
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Clinton was asked about her 2002 vote to authorize the use of force against Iraq. Her vote helped authorize President Bush to use force in Iraq if diplomatic efforts failed to disband a nuclear weapons program that Saddam Hussein was believed to have developed.
Non-truth: Clinton insisted it was “not a vote for preemptive war.”
“It was a vote to put inspectors back in to determine what threat Saddam Hussein did in fact pose,” Clinton said.
Truth: On Oct. 10, 2002, on the Senate floor, Clinton said, “This is a very difficult vote … any vote that might lead to war should be hard, but I cast it with conviction.”
Sources: “Meet the Press,” NBC, Jan. 13, 2008;” Hillary Rodham Clinton official Senate Web site.
3. Sniper Fire, March 17, 2008
In 1996 Clinton visited Bosnia as first lady.
Non-truth: She told an audience at the George Washington University that she remembered “landing under sniper fire.”
“There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base,” she said. She made similar comments to other audiences.
Truth: Videotape of her arrival at Tuzla Air Base shows Clinton walking off the plane, greeting troops and walking calmly around camp. She is then met by a young girl who reads her a poem.
Clinton has admitted she “misspoke,” calling her story a “minor blip.” She attributed the misstatement to campaign fatigue. “I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I’m human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation.”
Sources: “Clinton Recalls Bosnia Trip as Dangerous,” Associated Press, March 17, 2008; “New CBS Video Contradicts Clinton Again,” CBS News, March 25, 2008; “Clinton Says She Erred on Bosnia Story,” Associated Press, March 25, 2008.
4. Vince Foster Documents, April 22, 1994
After the suicide of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, First Lady Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff Maggie Williams had documents removed from Foster’s office.
Half-truth: During a press conference, Clinton was asked why Williams was involved in removing the documents. Clinton responded: “I don’t know that she did remove any documents.”
Truth: Clinton administrations officials later acknowledged that the first lady requested the documents be removed and turned over to Williams. Williams was told to store the papers in the White House residence, where Clinton’s personal attorney later picked them up.
Source: “The Whitewater Affair: Excerpts From Hillary Clinton’s News Session on Whitewater,” New York Times, April 23, 1994; “Whitewater File Was Kept at White House Residence; Foster Office Papers Stored for Several Days,” The Washington Post, Aug. 2, 1994.
5. Iraq War Criticism, April 5, 2008
Non-truth: In Eugene, Ore., Clinton said that she was first to criticize the Iraq war, before Barack Obama, during their time in the Senate. “I started criticizing the war in Iraq before he did,” she said.
Truth: On Jan. 18, 2005, Obama criticized the war to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while questioning Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying the Bush administration presented an “open-ended commitment” to a U.S. presence in the country. On Jan. 26, eight days later, Clinton said the Bush administration’s Iraq policy was “riddled with errors, misstatements and misjudgments.”
Sources: “Clinton: Democratic Contest a Primary, Not a Coronation,” FOXNews.com, April 5, 2008; “Senate Foreign Relations Committee Holds Hearing on Nomination of Condoleezza Rice To Be Secretary of State,” NYTimes.com, Jan. 18, 2005; “Statement of Senator Clinton for the Congressional Record on Her Vote on the Nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State,” Clinton.Senate.gov, Jan. 26, 2005; “In Oregon, Clinton Makes False Claim About Her Iraq Record Vs. Obama’s,” Jake Tapper, ABCNews.com, April 6, 2008.
6. Brokering Irish Peace, Jan. 6, 2008
Non truth: In Nashua, N.H., Clinton told supporters that when she was first lady she organized a town hall in Belfast, Ireland, to help promote peace talks between Catholics and Protestants.
“I remember a meeting that I pulled together in Belfast, in the town hall there, bringing together for the first time Catholics and Protestants from both traditions, having them sitting in a room where they had never been before with each other because they don’t go to school together, they don’t live together; and it was only in large measure because I really asked them to come that they were there,” Clinton said.
Truth: There is no record of such a meeting at Belfast City Hall. The former first lady held a 50-minute meeting of Catholic and Protestant women at a Belfast café on Nov. 30, 1995, arranged by the U.S. Embassy, and she attended a Christmas tree lighting ceremony with President Clinton at Belfast City Hall.
Sources: “Nobel Winner: Hillary Clinton’s ‘Silly’ Irish Peace Claims,” Telegraph, March 8, 2008; “Hillary Clinton Hears How Hatred Is Buried,” Reuters News, Nov. 30, 1995. “First Lady Hears Voice of Women: Hillary, Bill Clinton in Northern Ireland,” The Times (UK), Dec. 1, 1995.
7. Chelsea Jogging, Sept. 17, 2001
Non-truth: Clinton told NBC’s Jane Pauley that her daughter, Chelsea, went jogging on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and had planned to run near the World Trade Center.
“She’d gone, what she thought would be just a great jog,” Clinton said. “She was going to go down to Battery Park, she was going to go around the towers.”
Truth: In a Nov. 9, 2001, article in Talk magazine, Chelsea Clinton never wrote she went jogging on Sept. 11, 2001. Instead, Clinton said she was alone inside a friend’s apartment 12 blocks away when the first plane struck the World Trade Center. She watched the second plane hit the South Tower on her friend’s television.
Sources: “Today Show,” NBC News, Sept. 18, 2001; “Chelsea Clinton Speaks Out for the First Time in a Personal Account of the September 11 Tragedy and Its Aftermath,” Talk, Nov. 9, 2001.
8. Death of a Mother, March 2008
For about five weeks, Clinton told a story related to her by an Ohio deputy sheriff about a pregnant woman who lost her baby and died two weeks later.
Half-truth: Clinton said the woman was uninsured and was refused medical treatment because she could not come up with a $100 examination fee.
“It hurts me that in our country, as rich and good of a country as we are, this young woman and her baby died because she couldn’t come up with $100 to see the doctor,” Clinton said.
Truth: Trina Bachtel, 35, died last August, two weeks after her son was stillborn. But she did have health insurance and was not denied treatment for her troubled pregnancy when she sought help at a hospital in Athens, Ohio. She had, however, been asked to pay $100 for treatment at a clinic she first visited, where she had incurred debts when she previously lacked health care. The Ohio deputy sheriff confirmed that Clinton related the story as he had told it to her.
Sources: “Ohio Hospital Contests a Story Clinton Tells,” New York Times, April 5, 2008; “Clinton’s Tale Part Truth, Part Errors,” Associated Press, April 7, 2008.
9. Refugee Borders, March 12, 2008
Non-truth: Clinton said in a cable news interview that she “negotiated open borders” in Macedonia to fleeing Kosovar refugees.
Truth: Macedonia’s ambassador to the U.S. at the time, Ljubica Acevska, said during a March 2008 interview with National Public Radio that her government always had a policy to allow refugees’ passage into the country.
Sources: “American Morning,” CNN, March 5, 2008; “Is ‘First Lady’ A Foreign Policy Credential?” NPR, March 12, 2008.
10. Origins of the Name, April 2, 1995
Non-truth: At an airstrip in Nepal, Clinton told Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to conquer Mount Everest, that she had been named after the renowned mountaineer.
Truth: Clinton was born in 1947, when Sir Edmund was still an obscure beekeeper from New Zealand. He did not climb Everest until 1953, six years later.
Sources: “Hillary Clinton Meets Man Who Gave Her Two Ls,” New York Times, April 3, 1995; “Hillary, Not as in the Mount Everest Guy,” New York Times, Oct. 17, 2006.
11. National Guard Health Insurance, Dec. 20, 2007
Non-truth: Clinton’s television ad, “Guard,” which ran in New Hampshire, claimed National Guard and Army Reserve personnel had no health insurance until she and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham took action.
“You would think that after all the sacrifices and service of the National Guard and Reserve protecting our country, they would have had health insurance. But they didn’t,” Clinton says in the ad. “So I reached across the aisle and worked for three years with Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, to change that. Now every member of the Guard and Reserve has access to the health coverage they need.”
Truth: Before Clinton took office, all active-duty Guard and Reserve troops were covered by federal insurance, and four out of five non-active-duty National Guardsmen and Reservists were covered by their civilian employers or other sources.
Source: “Exaggerating Help For Troops,” FactCheck.org, Dec. 20, 2007.
12. Bill Kennedy Endorsement, April 15, 2008
Clinton scored an endorsement from a Montana politician, Yellowstone County Commissioner Bill Kennedy.
Non-truth: A press release from Clinton’s campaign said Kennedy was prompted to go for Clinton because of remarks Barack Obama made to a group of California donors in which he said small-town Americans get bitter and “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations.
“Today, Hillary Clinton received the endorsement of another prominent Montana leader, Yellowstone County Commissioner Bill Kennedy. … Kennedy said Sen. Obama’s remarks last week at a San Francisco fundraiser solidified his support for Sen. Clinton,” reads the Clinton campaign statement.
Truth: Kennedy told FOX News a day after the release: “I had been leaning toward Hillary for months. I actually decided to endorse her two weeks ago.” In other words, Kennedy decided to back Clinton on April 1, five days before Obama’s comments.
Sources: “Montana Pol: Clinton Endorsement Preceded Obama ‘Cling’ Flap,” FOXNews.com, April 15, 2008; “Yellowstone County Commissioner Backs Hillary for President,” Hillary for President Official Web site, April 14, 2008.
Letters Show Strength of Soldiers' Faith
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/380679.aspx
CBNNews.com - Does war tend to strengthen or weaken the faith of those fighting? A man who has collected more than 80,000 soldier letters has an answer.
For Arthur Craig, a letter from his son, 27-year-old Staff Sergeant Brian Craig, is precious beyond words.
Brian wrote it from Afghanistan in 2002, just days before he would die in a blast with three other soldiers. The four were part of an explosives unit, trained to destroy rocket caches.
But this time, the enemy had booby-trapped the site.
Arthur Craig remembers his last phone conversation with his son. A sandstorm made it difficult to hear. But Arthur had an important question.
"Out of my spirit," Arthur said, "I asked him, 'Brian, how is your walk with the Lord?' and he started to tell me and we were cut off."
Twelve days after Brian's death, his parents found a letter from their son in this mailbox. Brian had written it to his dad right after that last phone conversation.
Arthur reads the letter, "You have asked me about my walk with Christ on the phone. It is strange that of all my experiences in life, here in Afghanistan I have really started to grow spiritually. Pray for me that I may be a good example of a man of Christ."
The words provide a glimpse of a soldier growing in his faith, even in the midst of constant danger. They would prove to be a great gift.
"It was a tremendous blessing," Arthur said. "That was one of the days that we were very down."
Andrew Carroll is the founder of The Legacy Project, a national effort to collect American soldier letters.
He included Brian's letter in his new book, Grace under Fire, which focuses on letters of faith.
Some are filled with hope, like this one from a teen Civil War soldier who lay dying from a gunshot wound: "I don't think I shall live to see morning, but my kind friends, I am a soldier of Christ. I will meet you all in heaven."
Other letters contain the great questions of life, like one from a World War I private: "How can there be fairness in one man being maimed for life, while I get out of it safe?"
Others recount dramatic spiritual growth.
This was from a soldier in World War II: "I always considered myself a good Christian until I was captured, and then I learned what a fool I had been and what it really means to have faith."
Despite the span of years, from the Revolutionary War to Iraq, Carroll says the emotions are still the same.
"Whether you go off with a musket or an F-16, you're confronting your own mortality," he said, "and this in itself engenders these very profound questions and answers."
Carroll began collecting soldier writings after a family fire in 1989 destroyed all of his personal correspondence. Several years later, he started a movement that has netted more than 80,000 letters.
Carroll calls them the "great, undiscovered literature of America," and they reveal, he says, a pattern of faith being strengthened in times of war.
"What really happens is when you're in a war zone," Carroll said, "your mind concentrates on what's truly meaningful and lasting in life. And what are those things? Faith and family. So it's not really a question that you're grasping onto something to help your own self-survival. It's that the mind and soul are clear and they see with greater insight and purity what's really meaningful in life."
Army Staff Sergeant Jeff Pugmire is the one man who survived the explosion that killed Brain Craig and three others.
Jeff had served with Brian for years, and wrestled to make sense of his death. One letter to his wife is also published in Grace under Fire.
"I can tell you, though, that we don't do it for money or fame or fortune," Jeff said. "Heaven knows I'll never be rich. We do it for one another, for the men and women that are next to us. But most of all, Jennie, I do it for you and our beautiful little girls."
Jeff believes that Brian and the others did not die in vain.
He said, "They gave their lives for something they believed in -- in something that was important to them. It says in John, 'No greater love has a man than this -- that he lays down his life for his friends.' That epitomizes Brian, Justin, and Jamie."
In the midst of their grief, Brian's parents decided to share their son's letter with others and it has yielded a rich harvest. Many have given their lives to Christ, or rededicated themselves.
Who would have thought that one letter, written on simple notebook paper, could produce so much for the kingdom of heaven?
Arthur reads, "Thank you for all that you do for me. Thank you for being a role model. Thank you for being not only parents, but great friends. I love you, Mom and Dad, so much. Love, Brian."
The Old Titans All Collapsed. Is the U.S. Next?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/16/AR2008051603461.html
Back in August, during the panic over mortgages, Alan Greenspan offered reassurance to an anxious public. The current turmoil, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman said, strongly resembled brief financial scares such as the Russian debt crisis of 1998 or the U.S. stock market crash of 1987. Not to worry.
But in the background, one could hear the groans and feel the tremors as larger political and economic tectonic plates collided. Nine months later, Greenspan's soothing analogies no longer wash. The U.S. economy faces unprecedented debt levels, soaring commodity prices and sliding home prices, to say nothing of a weak dollar. Despite the recent stabilization of the economy, some economists fear that the world will soon face the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s.
That analogy is hardly a perfect fit; there's almost no chance of another sequence like the Great Depression, where the stock market dove 80 percent, joblessness reached 25 percent, and the Great Plains became a dustbowl that forced hundreds of thousands of "Okies" to flee to California. But Americans should worry that the current unrest betokens the sort of global upheaval that upended previous leading world economic powers, most notably Britain.
More than 80 percent of Americans now say that we are on the wrong track, but many if not most still believe that the history of other nations is irrelevant -- that the United States is unique, chosen by God. So did all the previous world economic powers: Rome, Spain, the Netherlands (in the maritime glory days of the 17th century, when New York was New Amsterdam) and 19th-century Britain. Their early strength was also their later weakness, not unlike the United States since the 1980s.
There is a considerable literature on these earlier illusions and declines. Reading it, one can argue that imperial Spain, maritime Holland and industrial Britain shared a half-dozen vulnerabilities as they peaked and declined: a sense of things no longer being on the right track, military or imperial overreach, economic polarization, the rise of finance (displacing industry) and excessive debt. So too for today's United States.
Before we amplify the contemporary U.S. parallels, the skeptic can point out how doomsayers in each nation, while eventually correct, were also premature. In Britain, for example, doubters fretted about becoming another Holland as early as the 1860s, and apprehension surged again in the 1890s, based on the industrial muscle of such rivals as Germany and the United States. By the 1940s, those predictions had come true, but in practical terms, the critics of the 1860s and 1890s were too early.
Premature fears have also dogged the United States. The decades after the 1968 election were marked by waves of a new national apprehension: that U.S. post-World War II global hegemony was in danger. The first, in 1968-72, involved a toxic mix of global trade and currency crises and the breakdown of the U.S. foreign policy consensus over Southeast Asia. Books emerged with titles such as "Retreat From Empire?" and "The End of the American Era." More national malaise followed Watergate and the fall of Saigon. Stage three came in the late 1980s, when a resurgent Japan seemed to be challenging U.S. preeminence in manufacturing and possibly even finance. In 1991, Democratic presidential aspirant Paul Tsongas observed that "the Cold War is over. . . . Germany and Japan won." Well, not quite.
In 2008, we can mark another perilous decade: the tech mania of 1997-2000, morphing into a bubble and market crash; the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and imperial hubris . These were followed by OPEC's abandoning its $22-$28 price range for oil, with the cost per barrel rising over five years to more than $100; the collapse of global respect for the United States over the Iraq war; the imploding U.S. housing market and debt bubble; and the almost 50 percent decline of the U.S. dollar against the euro since 2002. Small wonder a global financial crisis is in the air.
Here, then, is the unnerving possibility: that another, imminent global crisis could make the half-century between the 1970s and the 2020s the equivalent for the United States of what the half-century before 1950 was for Britain. This may well be the Big One: the multi-decade endgame of U.S. ascendancy. The chronology makes historical sense -- four decades of premature jitters segueing into unhappy reality.
The most chilling parallel with the failures of the old powers is the United States' unhealthy reliance on the financial sector as the engine of its growth. In the 18th century, the Dutch thought they could replace their declining industry and physical commerce with grand money-lending schemes to foreign nations and princes. But a series of crashes and bankruptcies in the 1760s and 1770s crippled Holland's economy. In the early 1900s, one apprehensive minister argued that Britain could not thrive as a "hoarder of invested securities" because "banking is not the creator of our prosperity but the creation of it." By the late 1940s, the debt loads of two world wars proved the point, and British global economic leadership became history.
In the United States, the financial services sector passed manufacturing as a component of the GDP in the mid-1990s. But market enthusiasm seems to have blocked any debate over this worrying change: In the 1970s, manufacturing occupied 25 percent of GDP and financial services just 12 percent, but by 2003-06, finance enjoyed 20-21 percent, and manufacturing had shriveled to 12 percent.
The downside is that the final four or five percentage points of financial-sector GDP expansion in the 1990s and 2000s involved mischief and self-dealing: the exotic mortgage boom, the reckless bundling of loans into securities and other innovations better left to casinos. Run-amok credit was the lubricant. Between 1987 and 2007, total debt in the United States jumped from $11 trillion to $48 trillion, and private financial-sector debt led the great binge.
Washington looked kindly on the financial sector throughout the 1980s and 1990s, providing it with endless liquidity flows and bailouts. Inexcusably, movers and shakers such as Greenspan, former treasury secretary Robert Rubin and the current secretary, Henry Paulson, refused to regulate the industry. All seemed to welcome asset bubbles; they may have figured the finance industry to be the new dominant sector of economic evolution, much as industry had replaced agriculture in the late 19th century. But who seriously expects the next great economic power -- China, India, Brazil -- to have a GDP dominated by finance?
With the help of the overgrown U.S. financial sector, the United States of 2008 is the world's leading debtor, has by far the largest current-account deficit and is the leading importer, at great expense, of both manufactured goods and oil. The potential damage if the world soon undergoes the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s is incalculable. The loss of global economic leadership that overtook Britain and Holland seems to be looming on our own horizon.
Sentient World Simulation - Testing An Alternate Reality
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/23/sentient_worlds/
Perhaps your real life is so rich you don't have time for another.
Even so, the US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda.
The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual "nodes" to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR.
Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information", according to a concept paper for the project.
"SWS provides an environment for testing Psychological Operations (PSYOP)," the paper reads, so that military leaders can "develop and test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners".
SWS also replicates financial institutions, utilities, media outlets, and street corner shops. By applying theories of economics and human psychology, its developers believe they can predict how individuals and mobs will respond to various stressors.
SEAS can display regional results for public opinion polls, distribution of retail outlets in urban areas, and the level of unorganization of local economies, which may point to potential areas of civil unrest
Yank a country's water supply. Stage a military coup. SWS will tell you what happens next.
"The idea is to generate alternative futures with outcomes based on interactions between multiple sides," said Purdue University professor Alok Chaturvedi, co-author of the SWS concept paper.
Chaturvedi directs Purdue's laboratories for Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulations, or SEAS - the platform underlying SWS. Chaturvedi also makes a commercial version of SEAS available through his company, Simulex, Inc.
SEAS users can visualise the nodes and scenarios in text boxes and graphs, or as icons set against geographical maps.
Corporations can use SEAS to test the market for new products, said Chaturvedi. Simulex lists the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor Lockheed Martin among its private sector clients.
The US government appears to be Simulex's number one customer, however. And Chaturvedi has received millions of dollars in grants from the military and the National Science Foundation to develop SEAS.
Chaturvedi is now pitching SWS to DARPA and discussing it with officials at the US Department of Homeland Security, where he said the idea has been well received, despite the thorny privacy issues for US citizens.
In fact, Homeland Security and the Defense Department are already using SEAS to simulate crises on the US mainland.
The Joint Innovation and Experimentation Directorate of the US Joint Forces Command (JFCOM-J9) in April began working with Homeland Security and multinational forces over "Noble Resolve 07", a homeland defense experiment.
SEAS (as will SWS) provides figures for specific economic sectors, and helps military, intel and marketing people visualize their global connections. Users can vary export and import figures for manufactured goods, for example, to gauge the potential impacts on other sectors
In August, the agencies will shift their crises scenarios from the East Coast to the Pacific theatre.
JFCOM-J9 completed another test of SEAS last year. Called Urban Resolve, the experiment projected warfare scenarios for Baghdad in 2015, eight years from now.
JFCOM-9 is now capable of running real-time simulations for up to 62 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. The simulations gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information such as military intelligence.
Military and intel officials can introduce fictitious agents into the simulations (such as a spike in unemployment, for example) to gauge their destabilising effects on a population.
Officials can also "inject an earthquake or a tsunami and observe their impacts (on a society)", Chaturvedi added.
Jim Blank, modelling and simulation division chief at JFCOM-J9, declined to discuss the specific routines military commanders are running in the Iraq and Afghanistan computer models. He did say SEAS might help officers determine where to position snipers in a city square, or to envision scenarios that might emerge from widespread civil unrest.
SEAS helps commanders consider the multitude of variables and outcomes possible in urban warfare, said Blank.
"Future wars will be asymetric in nature. They will be more non-kinetic, with the center of gravity being a population."
The Iraq and Afghanistan computer models are the most highly developed and complex of the 62 available to JFCOM-J9. Each has about five million individual nodes representing things such as hospitals, mosques, pipelines, and people.
The other SEAS models are far less detailed, encompassing only a few thousand nodes altogether, Blank said.
Feeding a whole-Earth simulation will be a colossal challenge.
"(SWS) is a hungry beast," Blank said. "A lot of data will be required to make this thing even credible."
Alok Chaturvedi wants SWS to match every person on the planet, one-to-one.
Right now, the 62 simulated nations in SEAS depict humans as composites, at a 100-to-1 ratio.
One organisation has achieved a one-to-one level of granularity for its simulations, according to Chaturvedi: the US Army, which is using SEAS to identify potential recruits.
Chaturvedi insists his goal for SWS is to have a depersonalised likeness for each individual, rather than an immediately identifiable duplicate. If your town census records your birthdate, job title, and whether you own a dog, SWS will generate what Chaturvedi calls a "like someone" with the same stats, but not the same name.
Of course, government agencies and corporations can add to SWS whatever personally-identifiable information they choose from their own databases, and for their own purposes.
And with consumers already giving up their personal information regularly to websites such as MySpace and Twitter, it is not a stretch to imagine SWS doing the same thing.
"There may be hooks through which individuals may voluntarily contribute information to SWS," Chaturvedi said.
SEAS bases its AI "thinking" on the theories of cognitive psychologists and the work of Princeton University professor Daniel Kahneman, one of the fathers of behavioural economics.
Chaturvedi, as do many AR developers, also cites the work of positive psychology guru Martin Seligman (known, too, for his concept of "learned hopelessness") as an influence on SEAS human behaviour models. The Simulex website says, if a bit vaguely, SEAS similarly incorporates predictive models based upon production, marketing, finance and other fields.
But SWS may never be smart enough to anticipate every possibility, or predict how people will react under stress, said Philip Lieberman, professor of cognitive and linguistic studies at Brown University.
"Experts make 'correct' decisions under time pressure and extreme stress that are not necessarily optimum but work," said Lieberman, who nevertheless said the simulations might be useful for anticipating some scenarios.
JFCOM's Blank agreed that SWS, which is using computers and code to do cultural anthropology, does not include any "hard science at this point".
"Ultimately," said Blank, "the guy to make decision is the commander."
Study: Americans Not All Flocking to Bigger, Contemporary Churches
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080520/32449_Study%3A_Americans_Not_All_Flocking_to_Bigger%2C_Contemporary_Churches.htm
Most Americans change churches throughout their lives, but a new study shows that they are not flocking toward one particular house of worship. The American religious landscape remains diverse and not one worship style or form of church emerges as the dominant choice for the country's faithful.
"The findings show a lot of individual change, but not a lot of broad trends,” said Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research. “Most people go to a place of worship that’s a different size, but there’s no strong trend toward finding smaller congregations or larger ones. There’s also a lot of change in worship styles, but not a big overall trend toward going someplace more contemporary or more traditional."
In a study of over 1,000 American adults, released Monday by Ellison Research, 69 percent of all Americans who currently attend worship services have attended more than one place of worship - which includes churches, temples, or houses of worship - as an adult. Only 31 percent say their current place of worship is the only one they have regularly attended since age 18.
When changing where they worship, not all opt for a bigger congregation or a more contemporary worship style.
When choosing size, Americans are nearly evenly divided between a larger or smaller congregation. Forty-three percent of American Protestants have moved to a larger congregation and 45 percent switched to a smaller one. Just 11 percent switched to a place that is about the same size of the place they left.
Only 31 percent of Protestants say their current church has a more contemporary worship style while 42 percent say their new church is more traditional in worship.
Sellers believes the study results challenges common perceptions that Americans are abandoning traditional worship and small churches.
“With the rise of megachurches over the past few decades, and the increase in the use of contemporary forms of worship such as rock music, drama, or the folk mass, two common concerns are that traditional forms of worship are dying out, and that small churches may become a vanishing breed. There has been a slight trend toward more contemporary worship styles among people who switch where they worship, but certainly not a wholesale move away from traditional styles," Sellers commented.
"And there has been just as much movement toward smaller congregations as toward larger ones," he added. "Observers may worry about people leaving small congregations and going to the megachurches, but they need to realize there are about as many people moving down in size as moving up.”
Theologically, 53 percent of adults who changed their place of worship say their current place is about the same as their old one; 28 percent moved to a place that is more theologically conservative; and 12 percent switched to one that is more liberal. Protestants were much more likely than other faith groups to have moved to a place that is theologically different from their old church (52 percent). Only 25 percent of Catholics noted a theological difference between their current and old churches.
Some Americans who went to a different place of worship changed denominations or faith groups, including 37 percent of all adults and 44 percent of Protestants.
While the study did not focus on why people moved to another place of worship, it did find that in a majority of cases, Americans switched to find someplace closer to home.
"This research shows what people are changing, but it doesn’t address why," Sellers cautioned. "One person might change to a much smaller church or temple without size being a significant factor in their choice, while another person can consciously decide they want to move to someplace smaller and more intimate. This research shows what is happening out there, but it’s not accurate to pinpoint any of these changes as motivating factors when people switch where they worship.”
'Prince Caspian' walks tightrope for Christian fans
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-05-16-narnia-christian-caspian_N.htm
C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia book series is so revered by Christian readers that adapting the books into film becomes a delicate tightrope. Changes risk alienating fans, but what works in the books doesn't always translate well to the big screen.
On Friday, Walden Media and Disney released The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the sequel to the wildly successful 2005 film The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. The filmmakers faced the challenge of turning a beloved book with a slow plot into a modern film, but also one that retains the story's spiritual messages.
"The underlying messages are so important, and so vital to the story," says Douglas Gresham, Lewis' stepson and co-producer of the new film.
"Which are the return to faith, truth, justice, honesty, honor, glory, personal commitment, personal responsibility. Also the message (that) no matter how far away we stray, there's only one way back."
The first Narnia book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe told the story of four Pevensie siblings who enter Narnia through an old wardrobe and defeat the tyrannical White Witch. They are aided by the great lion Aslan, but only after he submits himself to be killed in the place of turncoat Edmund Pevensie. The book is widely regarded as a retelling of Lewis' Christian faith, with Aslan shining as a golden Christ figure who returns after death.
In Prince Caspian, the children return to Narnia (this time through a tube station near London's Trafalgar Square). Although they are only a year older, 1,300 years have passed in their former kingdom. The evil interloper Miraz has stolen the throne from Prince Caspian and forced the true Narnians into hiding.
Aslan has not been seen in centuries. Each character in the movie faces the same crisis: They long to see Aslan but he remains elusive. William Moseley, who plays Peter Pevensie, sees the search for Aslan as a metaphor for faith.
"When you talk about seeing, I think it's more believing," he said. "You believe, and then you see. Aslan represents God. People say, 'If God's there, why can't I see him?' Well, because you're not believing."
The movie format necessitated some changes to the book's storyline.
"Essentially, the book is a long walk followed by a short battle," says Andrew Adamson, the film's director and producer. He rearranged the time line to put more action at the beginning and expanded the battle scene.
He also had to leave out some beloved scenes and characters. Goodbye to Greek God Bacchus and his wild girls who in the book accompany Aslan on a joyful romp; writer Stephen McFeely said the Greek gods are no longer an easily recognizable cultural reference. Other characters were squeezed out by time constraints; Lewis' deftly drawn characters of talking bears, squirrels and dogs fade to the background.
However, such sacrifices allow more room to fully explore such characters as Reepicheep the valiant mouse, and Trufflehunter the faithful badger, both developed using computer-generated imagery. The film version also delves more deeply into the heart of Peter. His inability to see Aslan when his sister Lucy does — a key part of the book — is expanded into an inner struggle between his trust in Aslan and an ego-driven desire to prove himself.
Caspian, played by Ben Barnes, has a similar struggle: his desire for revenge against his evil uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) nearly overwhelms his desire to serve Aslan purely in the cause of freedom.
Adamson also updated the movie for 21st century mores. To make it more inclusive, he added female dwarves, child-aged fawns and an "Afro-centaur" (Cornell John) as Glenstorm, the noble half-man, half-horse. In addition, the Pevensie sisters, Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), join the battle, which they avoid in the book.
For Adamson, it was an obvious choice to allow women an active role in the fight. Referring to the gift of bow and arrow that Susan received in the first movie, Adamson laughs, "If she's just going to make sandwiches, then give her a plate and a knife."
Adamson made his case for the changes to Gresham by arguing that Lewis' female characters become stronger as the book series progresses — something he attributes to Lewis' real-life romance with Gresham's mother, Joy Davidman. Gresham agreed. As evidence, he recounted an encounter he witnessed between Lewis, Davidman and a longbow-wielding trespasser on their property. Davidman carried a small "garden gun." When the man aimed a drawn arrow at the pair, Lewis chivalrously stepped in front of Davidman to shield her. He remained for a moment until Davidman, a Bronx native, commanded, "Jack, get out of my line of fire."
"That whole kind of experience of my mother's determination and personality I think changed Jack's ideas towards women," says Gresham.
This is the last of Narnia for Moseley and Popplewell, whose characters do not return in later books (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the next in the series). "I was sad about that," says Popplewell, "but I'm excited to do new things."
Still, they've taken home some lessons from their time in Narnia. "Peter learned leadership is about serving other people," Moseley said, "and not serving yourself. Peter had to learn to reinstate his trust in Aslan."
Free Quran coming to your doorstep?
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64581
If you're in your front yard, working in the flower bed or chatting with a neighbor, they'll pass by silently to attach one of the bags they're carrying to your frontdoor knob and leave without speaking or engaging you in debate.
Their mission? To place a copy of the Quran in every home in the United States.
"We're just trying to be honest brokers of information," Wajahat Sayeed, founder and director of Book of Signs, which is also known as the Al-Furqaan Foundation, told the Chicago Tribune. "You make your own judgment."
Al-Furqaan is distributing its 378-page paperback English translation of Islam's holy book using teams of paid walkers who descend on neighborhoods, going door-to-door, much like other deliverers of newpapers and advertisements. They don't hand them directly to residents but, instead, leave them at the front door – but never on the ground. That would be disrespectful.
The translation's forward asks readers to treat the book with respect. Those objecting to the free copy of the Quran are requested to call the foundation phone number to have it retrieved or to make a donation to a local mosque.
According to Sayeed, who checks for messages daily, 30 percent are appreciative, another 30 percent are indifferent and requesting that the book be taken back and the rest are often filled with expletives.
"It is not pleasant to hear that after all the effort you made," said Sayeed, who works full time for the foundation in addition to being a strategy consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The Addison, Ill.-based organization says it has distributed more than 30,000 free copies of the Quran to homes around Houston, Texas, and another 70,000 in the Chicago area, including the evangelical stronghold of Wheaton.
Al-Furqaan's horizons go far beyond those two urban areas. The foundation aims to deliver copies of the Quran to every U.S. household. On its website, those interested can order copies by paying a shipping and handling charge. Sayeed is not concerned his American readers might be unable to understand the text.
"The general sense will be clear," he said, noting the foundation had chosen a translation Americans can easily read. "Islam teaches peace."
Al-Furqaan is not the only Muslim group distributing free Qurans.
WND previously reported the Council on American-Islamic Relations came under fire for distributing a free English-language edition of the Quran that had been banned by the Los Angeles school district because commentary notes accompanying the text were regarded as anti-Semitic.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations had previously included the edition in the Islamic book-package it offers libraries nationwide and was giving it away to help "improve America's image" through a program called "Explore the Quran."
A complaint by a history teacher revealed problems with the CAIR-distributed version.
Surah (Chapter) 2:65 of the Quran, which reads like most English versions, says: "And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed. In the matter of the Sabbath; we said to them: 'Be ye apes, despised and rejected."
In his corresponding note, the commentary reads: "There must have been a Jewish tradition about a whole fishing community in a seaside town, which persisted in breaking the Sabbath and were turned into apes."
Under the heading "Jews" in the book's index, is a reference to Surah 5:60, which says: " ... Those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some he transformed into apes and swine ... ."
In the index under "Jews" also are these phrases: "cursed," "enmity of," "greedy of life," "slew prophets," "took usury," "unbelief and blasphemy of" and "work iniquity."
Author and researcher Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, said that while the commentary notes in the CAIR-distributed version are particularly anti-Semitic, its rendering of the Quranic text largely is no different than any other version.
"It's an indication that what we think of as extreme in Islam is not really extreme but mainstream," he told WND. "You won't find a translation that doesn't have Jews being turned into apes and pigs."
RFID scanners coming to border this summer
http://www.themonitor.com/news/border_12226___article.html/crossing_sensors.html
Radio frequency sensors are set to go up at Rio Grande Valley border crossings this summer and fall, preparing the ports of entry for stricter entry requirements next year.
Known as RFID, or radio frequency identification, the sensors will be able to detect microchips embedded in new passports, border crossing cards and visas. Those with older passports will not be able to drive or walk through so easily, though - only passports, border crossing cards and visas issued in the past couple of years are equipped with the microchips.
The microchips will allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to pull up a traveler's information moments before a vehicle or pedestrian approaches an inspection booth. In many cases, travelers won't need to remove the cards from their pockets or purses.
The sensors' installation - set to run in phases July 21 to Oct. 20 - will likely close one to two lanes at a time during the construction periods. Construction should last about two weeks at each bridge, said Pharr-Hidalgo port Director Hector Mancha.
"We're doing as much as we can to make sure this doesn't slow down traffic," said Mancha, as CBP officials announced the plans in Hidalgo.
RFID technology is already used in Hidalgo and other U.S.-Mexico border crossings on SENTRI lanes, dedicated bridge lanes for pre-approved, low-risk travelers.
Customs officials say rolling out the sensors for mass use will help speed up traffic when new border crossing documentation requirements are implemented on June 1, 2009.
On that date, all U.S. citizens are set to be required to present a passport or border crossing card to re-enter the country. The new law is part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative that Congress passed in 2004 to protect U.S. borders.
"It'll make crossing the border easier while providing more protection," Mancha said.
Travelers from states that use so-called enhanced driver's licenses - state-issued licenses that provide proof of identity and U.S. citizenship - will also be able to cross with minimal fuss. Texas has not adopted enhanced driver's licenses, though.
How much the new sensors will speed up border crossing traffic will differ at every port of entry, said Joseph Mongiello, port director for the Rio Grande City-Camargo International Bridge.
Border officials were adamant the RFID sensors would not compromise personal information. Passports and other crossing documents only contain a serial number, which can be used to access data in a government-secured database, Mancha said.
Passport and visa applications do include personal information such as Social Security numbers, though.
The RFID sensor technology is expected to cost about $160 million to install nationwide.
McDonald's Tries Out New RFID-enabled Pay-By-Phone Coupons
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/05/mcdonalds-tries.html
First, it was the Starbucks-style store redesign and new focus on the coffee. Now, the latest attempt by McDonald's to stay relevant is through a new e-coupon system that it is currently testing in Japan.
Called the Kasazu coupon (or contactless) it is a payment application that is downloaded into your phone and is then placed on top of an RFID reader by the user for instant payments and coupon redemption.
Many other companies are using this, such as Visa, and RFID is being used for everything from paying for parking meters to expediting border crossings in RFID-enabled passports.
According to the press release, McDonald's will begin using the tech in 175 stores and eventually expand it to the other 3,800 stores in that country. There’s no word on when they expect to move this option to U.S. stores.
Many phones in Japan include RFID tech, so it's a good place to set-up highly concentrated trials of a transaction technology that will likely go completely mainstream in the next few years.
For McDonald's, and other companies that are thinking about connecting their service to portable applications, this is about more than just offering convenience to the customer.
For one, marketing campaigns and specific offers could be structured around an individual user's food preferences, where, of course, they could sell mobile ads and make a little extra dough.
Top Army General Praises New Cannon in Minnesota
http://www.newsmax.com/us/new_cannon/2008/05/24/98634.html
MINNEAPOLIS -- The Army's top general said he saw the future when looking at a new artillery vehicle that can hit a target over the horizon while remaining lighter, faster and more fuel efficient than the vehicle it will replace.
Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army's chief of staff, examined the so-called non-line-of-sight cannon with Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., at Minnesota defense contractor BAE Systems on Friday during a visit Casey said was meant to "check on our future."
The cannon, a two-man combat vehicle with an automated ammunition system that can fire 155 mm projectiles with greater precision than current Army equipment, is part of an Army modernization plan called Future Combat Systems. The Army will formally unveil the cannon next month at its birthday celebration in Washington, D.C.
The Future Combat Systems initiative has been criticized by some members of Congress for delays and escalating costs. But with a cannon prototype to show off, Casey said he hopes to convert the skeptics.
"We're able to demonstrate to people that the Future Combat Systems is real. They've been hearing about it, seeing it on briefing slides for a long time. But Sen. Inhofe and I just saw it drive around the parking lot," Casey said during a roundtable discussion with reporters at BAE Systems, which designed and built the cannon with help from several other contractors.
The cannon is still several years away from being used in combat. Like the other vehicles in the program, it's built on a common chassis that can travel up to about 37 mph. It's much lighter than conventional combat vehicles, with rubber tracks and a compact, hybrid-electric engine.
It can fire six rounds a minute, compared to less than four for current Army artillery units, Casey said. It's been engineered to precisely hit a target up to nearly 19 miles away, which Casey said is important for both urban and rural warfare. It will give U.S. troops a "decisive advantage" over any enemy, he said.
The cannon also takes fewer soldiers to operate because ammunition can be loaded automatically. Comparable vehicles the Army uses require four people, and the soldiers have to handle 100-pound bullets to make it work, said Deepak Bazaz, who helped direct the cannon project for BAE Systems.
"These are getting to be more like aircraft," Bazaz said while showing the vehicle to reporters. "All that automation is back here and the crew is up front controlling it."
Calif. quake scientists detail impact of 'Big One'
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080521/D90Q9RQ81.html
The "Big One," as earthquake scientists imagine it in a detailed, first-of-its-kind script, unzips California's mighty San Andreas Fault north of the Mexican border. In less than two minutes, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs are shaking like a bowl of jelly.
The jolt from the 7.8-magnitude temblor lasts for three minutes - 15 times longer than the disastrous 1994 Northridge quake.
Water and sewer pipes crack. Power fails. Part of major highways break. Some high-rise steel frame buildings and older concrete and brick structures collapse.
Hospitals are swamped with 50,000 injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina: $200 billion in damage to the economy, and 1,800 dead.
Only about 700 of those people are victims of building collapses. Many others are lost to the 1,600 fires burning across the region - too many for firefighters to tackle at once.
A team of about 300 scientists, governments, first responders and industries worked for more than a year to create a realistic crisis scenario that can be used for preparedness, including a statewide drill planned later this year. Published by the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey, it is to be released Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Researchers caution that it is not a prediction, but the possibility of a major California quake in the next few decades is very real.
Last month, the USGS reported that the Golden State has a 46 percent chance of a 7.5 or larger quake in the next 30 years, and that such a quake probably would hit Southern California. The Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage, was much smaller at magnitude 6.7.
"We cannot keep on planning for Northridge," said USGS seismologist Lucy Jones. "The science tells that it's not the worst we're going to face."
USGS geophysicist Kenneth Hudnut said scientists wanted to create a plausible narrative and avoided science fiction like the 2004 TV miniseries "10.5" about an Armageddon quake on the West Coast.
"We didn't want to stretch credibility," said Hudnut. "We didn't want to make it a worst-case scenario, but one that would have major consequences."
The figures are based on the assumption that the state takes no continued action to retrofit flimsy buildings or update emergency plans. The projected loss is far less than the magnitude-7.9 killer that caused more than 40,000 deaths last week in western China, in part because California has stricter building code enforcement and retrofit programs.
The scenario is focused on the San Andreas Fault, the 800-mile boundary where the Pacific and North American plates grind against each other. The fault is the source of some of the largest earthquakes in state history, including the monstrous magnitude-7.8 quake that reduced San Francisco to ashes and killed 3,000 people in 1906.
In imagining the next "Big One," scientists considered the section of the San Andreas loaded with the most stored energy and the most primed to break. Most agree it's the southernmost segment, which has not popped since 1690, when it unleashed an estimated 7.7 jolt.
Scientists chose the parameters of the fictional temblor such as its size and length of rupture and ran computer models to simulate ground movement. Engineers calculated the effects of shaking on freeways, buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure. Risk analysts used the data to estimate casualties and damages.
A real quake would yield different results from the scenario, which excludes possibilities such as fierce Santa Ana winds that could whip fires into infernos.
The scenario: The San Andreas Fault suddenly rumbles to life on Nov. 13, 2008, just after morning rush hour. The quake begins north of the U.S.-Mexican border near the Salton Sea and the fault ruptures for about 200 miles in a northwest direction ending near the high desert town of Palmdale about 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Scientists chose the scenario because it would create intense shaking in the Los Angeles Basin and neighboring counties - a region with nearly 22 million people.
The scenario will be released at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources meeting in Washington.
Here are the major elements:
_10 a.m.: The San Andreas Fault ruptures, sending shock waves racing at 2 miles per second.
_30 seconds later: The agricultural Coachella Valley shakes first. Older buildings crumble. Fires start. Sections of Interstate 10, one of the nation's major east-west corridors, break apart.
_1 minute later: Interstate 15, a key north-south route, is severed in places. Rail lines break; a train derails. Tremors hit burgeoning Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of Los Angeles.
_1 minute, 30 seconds later: Shock waves advance toward the Los Angeles Basin, shaking it violently for 55 seconds.
_2 minutes later: The rupture stops near Palmdale, but waves march north toward coastal Santa Barbara and into the Central Valley city of Bakersfield.
_30 minutes later: Emergency responders begin to fan across the region. A magnitude-7 aftershock hits, but sends its energy south into Mexico. Several more big aftershocks will hit in following days and months.
Major fires following the quake would cause the most damage, said Keith Porter, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studied physical damage for the scenario.
The quake would likely spark 1,600 fires that would destroy 200 million square feet of housing and residential properties worth between $40 billion and $100 billion, according to the scenario.
Once the shaking stops, emergency responders would do a "windshield survey" that involves rolling through neighborhoods to tally damage and identify areas of greatest need, said Larry Collins, captain of the Urban Search & Rescue Task Force at the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Collins said the scale of the disaster means firefighters would not be able to put out every flame.
"We're going to have to think about out-of-the-box solutions," he said.
Same Sex Marriage & The End of the World
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=43&authorId=88&tId=8
What do May 17, 2004, and May 15, 2008, have in common? One judge and a redefinition of marriage against the will of the people.
Both the Massachusetts Superior Court and the California Supreme Court by a one-judge margin redefined what marriage has always been in every culture and every religion for more than 5,000 years of recorded history.
Why does this matter?
As I wrote about in my book, "The Criminalization of Christianity," Jeffrey Satinover, who holds an M.D. from Princeton and doctorates from Yale, MIT and Harvard, was on my radio program one day and I asked him about where we are in history. He explained that according to the "Babylonian Talmud" – the book of rabbis' interpretation of the scriptures 1,000 years before Christ, there was only one time in history that reflects where we are right now. There was only one time in history, according to these writings, where men were given in marriage to men, and women given in marriage to women.
Want to venture a guess as to when? No, it wasn't in Sodom and Gomorrah, although that was my guess. Homosexuality was rampant there, of course, but according to the Talmud, not homosexual "marriage." What about ancient Greece? Rome? No. Babylon? No again. The one time in history when homosexual "marriage" was practiced was … during the days of Noah. And according to Satinover, that's what the "Babylonian Talmud" attributes as the final straw that led to the Flood.
On my Faith2Action radio program on Thursday, Rabbi Aryeh Spero verified this to be true.
Rabbi Spero spoke of God's compassion before the Flood, in hopes people would repent and turn back to His ways. He showed patience for hundreds of years.
But, he said, the Talmud's writings reveal that "before the Flood people started to write marriage contracts between men, in other words, homosexual 'marriage,' which is more than homosexual activity – it's giving an official state stamp of approval, a sanctification … of homosexual partnership."
In fact, he said, "the writings indicated that it wasn't even so much the 'straw that broke the camel's back,' but that the sin in and of itself is so contrary to why God created the world, so contrary to the order of God's nature, that God said then and there 'I have to start all over … to annihilate the world and start from the beginning. …'"
Rabbi Spero went on to say, "Even in ancient Greece they did not write marriage contracts between men. There was homosexuality, and it was wrong, but there was not an official 'blessed' policy. … Marriage is 'sanctification' (not simply a partnership)." He said to confer the title of sanctification and holiness upon this behavior is "probably one of the greatest sins of all that one does against God's plan for this world."
The one time it happened was: "During the days of Noah." When I first heard this, my mind immediately went to a verse I've heard many times but never with such relevance. The verse is found in Matthew 24:37. It reads:
"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man". – Mathew 24:37
I used to read this verse and think: It was bad at lots of points in history; it doesn't necessarily mean now, but if these Jewish writings are true, we are uniquely like the "days of Noah" right now – and only right now.
But it can't be yet, you say. You have a lot going on in your life? You're getting married? Here's how the New Living Translation describes that very sentiment in Luke:
"When the Son of Man returns, the world will be like the people were in Noah's day. In those days before the Flood, the people enjoyed banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat, and the flood came to destroy them all". – Luke 17:26-27
Happily going about as if everything was fine was what they did, too.
You don't like this possibility? Don't even believe in the Flood? Doesn't matter. Some things are true whether you believe them or not. How can you be sure? There's a way. Did you know that about one-fourth of the Bible is prophecy? A quarter of the Bible is a lot – it's a big book. And did you know God's standard? Perfection. That means that if even one of those prophecies is wrong, you can discount the whole thing. Kind of like a prophet who makes a false prediction – that made him a false prophet and a candidate for stoning. Did you know that 4,000 prophecies in that Bible have already come true down to the last detail? That leaves about 1,000 left to be fulfilled – those are the ones regarding the last days before the return of Christ, which are being checked off the list right now.
If 4,000 out of 5,000 prophecies have already occurred exactly as the Bible predicted they would, you might want to pay attention to the rest.
The good news is that 1.1 million people across California have signed a petition to bring marriage to a vote of the people through a state constitutional amendment (just like 27 other states have done). And guess what? An amendment to a state constitution trumps even the most out-of-control state judiciary. We'll likely know if these signatures are validated before this tyrannical ruling goes into effect, and I predict they will be since they gathered 400,000 more signatures more than they needed to qualify. Besides, they already voted – eight years ago where more than 61 percent of Californians declared marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Now they just need to turn that same language into a constitutional amendment.
I don't live in California, so why am I sounding the alarm? Here's why:
"But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand". – Ezekiel 33:6
I'm praying and working to protect marriage in California (and the rest of the country) not only because I care about marriage, but because I care about civilization. And, if we obey God, he just may spare us from the judgment we deserve.
Churches Targeted by Gay Rights Group
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/380794.aspx
CBNNews.com - A national pro-homosexual group has targeted six megachurches for protest and demonstration. But what they'll find at one of the targeted churches this weekend is a dinner and a discussion about Christian views on homosexuality.
Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., invited the group "Soulforce" to debate homosexual rights and gay marriage with church elders this Saturday, prior to their Sunday demonstration.
He also agreed to host a dinner for the group at his church this weekend.
"In light of the recent California Supreme Court decision, we welcome the discussion with the members of Soulforce and are confident in our positions on traditional marriage based on biblical morality," said Bishop Jackson.
"We have invited the members of Soulforce who plan to protest this Sunday's service to come inside the church, worship, and hear the truth of the Gospel," he said.
Members of Soulforce claim their demonstrations are designed to elevate the conversation about faith, family, and homosexuality to a national level -- and also bring a new tenor of respect to the issue.
Other targeted megachurches include Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church and T.D. Jake's The Potter's House.
Would you pay to clone your pet?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24776780/
A Northern California biotech company announced Wednesday that it will clone dogs for the five highest bidders in a series of online auctions. Some ethicists condemned the offer, fearing it could lead to human clones.
Opening bids start at $100,000 for the service being offered by Mill Valley-based BioArts International. The cloning process is to be performed by a South Korean scientist who suffered international disgrace after being found to have faked research.
BioArts chief executive Lou Hawthorne formerly ran Genetic Savings & Clone, which offered to clone pet cats for $50,000 but folded in 2006 because few were willing to pay so much.
But Hawthorne said in a phone interview that another service his old company provided — the storage of pet DNA for future possible clones — showed him the market for dog clones was strong.
"The average dog owner has a different relationship with his dog than the average cat owner," Hawthorne said. "The level of intensity on the dog side just dwarfed what we saw on the cat side."
To conduct the clonings, BioArts has partnered with a South Korean research team that recently created three clones of Hawthorne's family dog, Missy, who died in 2002.
The team was led by Hwang Woo-suk, who scandalized the international scientific community in 2005 when his breakthrough human cloning research involving embryonic stem cells was found to have been faked.
Tests performed at the University of California, Davis' Veterinary Genetics Laboratory found that DNA samples taken from Missy and the three other dogs appeared to belong to the same individual.
Hawthorne said that after spending 15 years with Missy, he is taking pleasure in seeing her mischievous streak coming out in her clones. They also like steamed broccoli just like she did, he said.
Some groups that monitor advances in genetic technology argue that the company's project, called Best Friends Again, could serve as a gateway to more unsavory practices.
"Many people consider pets to be part of our families," Marcy Darnovsky, associate director of the Oakland-based Center for Genetics and Society, said in a statement. "If we get used to cute cloned puppies, will some people expect cute cloned babies next?"
Critics also have lambasted the project for its association with Hwang. Earlier this month, a researcher close to Hwang told The Associated Press that the scientist, who went into seclusion after the deception was exposed, had established a pet-cloning company in Seoul.
Hawthorne said he was wary of working with Hwang at first but said the Korean scientist had assembled the best technology and talent available. All of Hwang's results connected to dog cloning have been independently verified, Hawthorne said.
BioArts said in a statement it has been granted the sole license for cloning dogs, cats and endangered species using patented processes developed for the cloning of Dolly the sheep, the first successfully cloned animal.
Groups critical of the dog-cloning effort also say the process is cruel, arguing that hundreds of failures are typical before one mammal is successfully cloned.
But BioArts found that dogs are much less likely to miscarry or give birth to malformed offspring during the cloning process than other animals, Hawthorne said.
"If everything isn't perfect, it doesn't work at all," he said. "With other species, their reproductive systems are more tolerant of error."
The auctions are scheduled to begin June 18.
Castro Attacks McCain, Bush in Column
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/castro_bush_mccain/2008/05/23/98564.html
Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday for his criticism of the Cuban government this week, saying McCain had shown why he finished near the bottom of his class at West Point.
In his latest newspaper column, Castro also attacked President George W. Bush for his speech on Wednesday announcing that U.S. citizens would be allowed to send cell phones to Cuba.
"A deluge of speeches and lies they directed at Cuba," Castro said in a column published in Communist Party newspaper Granma. "How far they are from knowing Cuba and its people."
McCain, speaking in Miami on Tuesday, vowed to maintain the United States' 46-year-long trade embargo against the island until, among other things, the Cuban government frees political prisoners and holds internationally monitored, multi-party elections.
"McCain, in his book 'Faith of My Fathers,' admitted that he was among the last five students in his course in West Point," Castro wrote. "He's showing it."
Castro provisionally stepped aside in July 2006 following intestinal surgery but still writes periodic columns. In February, he resigned the presidency, opening the way for the National Assembly to elect his younger brother Raul to replace him.
Despite the embargo, Bush said Americans would be allowed to send cell phones to their relatives in Cuba, in what appeared to be a response to recent reforms initiated by Raul Castro.
Bush called the reforms a "cruel joke" and accused Cuba of mistreating political opponents and oppressing the Cuban people.
"He doesn't speak of the circle of hunger and blockade (embargo) that last decades," Castro said, describing the comments of McCain and Bush as "gross lies."
Oil shortage could have worldwide ramifications
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5c9d05aa-25ca-11dd-b510-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=f2b40164-cfea-11dc-9309-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
On a rainy day last month, four drummers, three guitarists, a bagpiper, two didgeridoo players and 186 others assembled in the rural English town of Cirencester to discuss turning their neighbourhoods into low-impact communities built around farming, arts and crafts and herbal medicine
After communal meditation and a few speeches, those present gathered in small groups to discuss everything from transport without oil to engaging local politicians in the “Transition Towns” movement’s stated aim: reducing their carbon footprint in response to concerns over diminishing hydrocarbon reserves as well as global warming. The mood in the group discussing energy was sombre. One former civil engineer predicted the demise of the lightbulb within a decade and derided the idea that market forces and human ingenuity could save the planet, laughing it off as “the magic wand” theory.
For years, such meetings have been dismissed as eccentric. Most of the world’s oil executives, government ministers, analysts and consultants reject the “peak oil” theory – the notion based on the 1950s work of Marion King Hubbert, a Shell geologist, that crude production will soon enter terminal decline. They say it understates remaining reserves, plays down the contribution of technological advances and ignores the role of market forces in shaping future supply.
But with the oil price at a record $130 a barrel, more than 1,000 per cent higher than a decade ago, fears of the end of the hydrocarbon age have seeped into the mainstream. Many in the industry itself now accept that supply constraints are shaping the price as much as rampant demand. Calls for greater investment to ease these constraints formed the crux of many of the discussions at last month’s meeting in Rome between energy ministers of the world’s main oil producers and consumers. A few weeks later, analysts at Goldman Sachs and elsewhere, as well as ministers of the Opec oil cartel, predicted that prices could reach $200 within two years.
So are the peak oilists right? A series of recent events certainly appears to lend credence to those who argue that the world’s ageing oilfields are being sucked dry amid China’s and India’s determination to lift themselves out of poverty and the west’s reluctance to give up the luxuries of modern oil-dependent life.
The fact that Russia’s oil production declined almost half a percentage point in April, the first drop in a decade, was shocking enough news from the world’s second biggest oil producer, whose output was growing at a rate of 12 per cent just five years ago. But Russian oil executives have gone a step further: Leonid Fedun, vice-president of Lukoil, told the Financial Times the country’s production may have already reached its peak.
Just days later Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer and by far the largest exporter, confirmed it had put on hold plans to increase the kingdom’s production capacity. Ali Naimi, Saudi energy minister, said the demand forecasts he was reading did not warrant an expansion past the 12.5m b/d capacity Saudi Arabia’s fields will reach next year, following a laborious investment of more than $20bn. King Abdullah, the country’s ruler, put it more bluntly: “I keep no secret from you that, when there were some new finds, I told them, ‘No, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it’.’’
Most other forecasts show the world will need Saudi Arabia’s oil. Thus the kingdom’s reluctance to invest further in its fields has led some to ask whether Saudi Arabia can boost production or whether, after 75 years, the world’s biggest oil deposit has been cashed.
Friday’s announcement by Mr Naimi that Saudi Arabia would pump slightly more oil did little to ease prices because it failed to reduce concerns over supply: when the kingdom produces more oil, it eats into its cushion of spare supply. This means such measures sometimes backfire, driving prices higher – the opposite of what US President George W. Bush, who requested the increased output, had in mind.
One problem is that nobody really knows what is going on inside Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. Riyadh is so guarded that analysts from Sanford Bernstein, the financial services company, took to spying on its activity via satellite. They spent nine months monitoring the country’s drilling activities and measuring whether Ghawar, the world’s biggest oilfield, had subsided. Their conclusion: Saudi Arabia is having to work harder than the country’s engineers and geologists expected in 2004 to squeeze more out of the northern part of the ageing Ghawar field.
Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker, has a bleaker view of Ghawar’s health. He took the news that Saudi Arabia was not planning to expand to 15m b/d as further evidence that the kingdom was struggling to ward off a collapse of its oilfields.
With his book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, published in 2005, Mr Simmons, more than any other individual, laid the seeds of doubt over Saudi Arabia’s future reliability. Poring over 200 technical papers written by engineers over 20 years, some stored electronically and others gathering dust in the filing cabinets of the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ offices on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, he uncovered evidence the kingdom’s fields were far more complicated to tap and declining more quickly than the secretive nation was willing to reveal.
Less well known, but equally damning, is his study of the rest of the world’s oilfields. Mr Simmons launched his project in 2001 after none of the analysts brought in to help the US Central Intelligence Agency map the world’s remaining big sources of oil came up with answers that satisfied him.
He found that the world depends on just a few giant, old, declining oilfields and that almost nothing to match them has been discovered since the 1970s. One in every five barrels of oil consumed each day is pumped from a field that is more than 40 years old. Not a single field discovered in the past 30 years has ever been able to produce more than 1m b/d and the number and size of fields discovered since then have been shrinking dramatically.
Output declines as an oilfield ages – sometimes dramatically. One example is Mexico’s Cantarell field. Discovered by a fisherman in 1976, Cantarell at its peak produced more than 2m b/d. Today, the field pumps half that volume and is in relentless decline, losing 24 per cent of its production each year.
The same trend – though at a slower pace – is plaguing most fields around the world, possibly including the four biggest: Ghawar, Cantarell, Kuwait’s Burgan and China’s Daqing. This means running to stand still: each year as much as two-thirds of new oil supply capacity goes towards covering for the slowdown at ageing fields.
Mr Simmons’ work is potent fodder for peak oilists, who espouse their gloomy views of the future on websites ranging from those with an academic air to more alarmist ones that come complete with advertisements for freeze-dried food and survival guides.
Hubbert in 1956 correctly predicted that US production would peak between 1965 and 1970. His later forecasts proved less reliable, as did prophecies by his followers. The Hubbert model maintains that the production rate of a finite resource follows a largely symmetrical bell-shaped curve, meaning that post-peak life could turn quickly to economic turmoil followed by a horse-and-cart existence.
Mr Simmons knows his peak oil views have moved him towards the fringes of a business in which he used to occupy a far more central position. But he is not alone. T. Boone Pickens and Richard Rainwater, the billionaire US investors whose net worth is estimated at more than $3bn each, have profited from their view of peak oil, through their hedge funds of mainly oil and gas holdings. Last Thursday Mr Pickens placed a $2bn order for the first 667 of 2,500 wind turbines that he plans to erect on the Texas Panhandle as he goes about building the world’s biggest wind farm.
Fears over supply increasingly extend to the corner offices of international oil companies. James Mulva, chief executive of ConocoPhillips of the US, and Christophe de Margerie, his counterpart at Total of France, both recently said they did not think world oil production would ever surpass 100m b/d.
That is the amount of oil the International Energy Agency, the consuming nations’ watchdog, estimates the world will need in seven years’ time. By 2030, it will need 16m b/d more.
Mr Mulva and Mr de Margerie would take deep offence at being called peak oilists. But they, together with a rapidly growing number of industry executives and ministers, believe the world is running out of “easy oil” and that political barriers – such as Nigeria’s crippling unrest, the nationalisation that has stunted Russia’s energy industry and the international tensions that have for two decades stymied Iraq’s energy potential – are keeping companies from being able to exploit the 2,400bn-4,400bn barrels that remain.
Instead of preparing for Armageddon, they are using technologies such as horizontal drilling to squeeze more oil out of their old fields and looking for reserves in harsher terrains. But even they advocate that consumers, who rely on oil for everything from light to lipstick, should be less wasteful.
Industry executives admit that fields in the developed world, such as those in the North Sea and Alaska, are about to peak. (Sanford Bernstein believes production outside Opec will peak this year.) But they argue that unconventional fields, such as those in Alberta and in Venezuela’s Orinoco belt, hold more barrels of oil than Saudi Arabia, while the Arctic’s riches could be immense as well.
Natural gas, coal, corn, sugar cane, algae and turkey innards are promising alternative sources that could fuel China’s new love affair with the car, they say. Meanwhile the biggest oilfield, as Joseph Stanislaw, adviser to Deloitte Consulting, likes to point out, lies beneath Detroit. In other words, millions of barrels a day of oil could be saved if Americans traded in their gas-guzzlers for more efficient vehicles.
All of this means global production will follow an “undulating plateau for one or more decades before declining slowly”, says Peter Jackson of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an industry consulting firm. After studying its oil production and resources database, the group concluded that it saw no decline in the world’s ability to produce oil before 2030, making Cera’s one of the most sanguine forecasts.
But the ride could yet prove a bumpy one, even Cera admits. Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity is at its lowest level in a generation, having been eaten into by China and other fuel-hungry customers. It now stands at 2m-3m b/d, too little to cover a big interruption in supplies from elsewhere. This has already added a sizeable premium to international oil prices, though no one has a grasp of exactly how much.
Meanwhile, the long-term alternatives have serious downsides. The Alberta project is a big, dirty mining operation, both energy- and water-intensive. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s populist president, has made it risky for international oil companies to pour billions of dollars into the Orinoco belt. The technology to tap the Arctic’s big reserves and bring them back ashore has not been invented. Regarding power of the solar, wind and turkey-gut varieties, even the most optimistic forecasts say these will remain a small fraction of the overall energy mix.
In fact, even if all the policies to increase renewable fuels and to use oil more efficiently were to be enacted immediately, the world would still need Opec’s daily production to increase by 11.5m barrels by 2030, the bulk of which would have to come from Saudi Arabia, the IEA says.
That is a tall order. It is 50-plus per cent more than the amount by which Opec managed to increase output between 1980 and 2006. This time, the oil business is faced with a shortage of skilled labour (the industry’s average age is just shy of 50) and a squeeze in the supply of steel and other critical components.
So what if politics, an ageing workforce and a dearth of equipment get in the way and Saudi Arabia cannot – or will not – come to the rescue? Will the peak oilists turn out to be right, for the wrong reasons?
The answer depends on the market’s ability to adjust. For optimists, the worst that could happen is high oil prices eventually damp demand while giving the entrepreneurially inclined time to think of ingenious ways to produce and conserve energy.
Growth in demand is in fact already slowing, especially in the US and other developed countries. Neil McMahon, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein, suggests the downturn in developed countries may prove large enough to allow hungrier nations, such as those within Opec and China, to continue to demand increasing volumes of oil. “The question is: Have these developed nations been squeezed enough yet, or will prices have to go higher?” he asks in a recent report. Though he leaves open the possibility that prices will continue to rise for a while, he argues: “Based on 3.5 per cent growth in global GDP, overall oil demand growth will be close to zero.”
Guy Caruso, head of the Energy Information Administration, the statistical and forecasting arm of the US Department of Energy, also points to the power of the market to drive changes in government policy and the behaviour of consumers and oil companies. “As you know, we are not believers in peak oil. We believe the above-ground risk is the issue,” he says.
The EIA predicts that US imports of oil and petroleum products will decrease slightly in the next 22 years. This means the import dependence of the world’s biggest oil consumer is forecast to drop from 60 per cent to 50 per cent by 2015 before climbing again slightly to 54 per cent by 2030. The reasons for the drop include improved car efficiency, slower demand, higher use of biofuels and a 1m b/d increase in oil production from the US’s Gulf of Mexico by 2012. “One of the things M. King Hubbert couldn’t have known is about the technology to drill in 12,000 feet of water and to drill horizontally,” Mr Caruso says.
A pessimist’s version of events would include a more serious and widespread downturn, as developing countries buckle under the burden of subsidising their citizens’ swelling fuel and food bills. At the extreme end are the views of Jeremy Leggett, a geologist turned entrepreneur and author of Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis. In his worst-case scenario parable, he writes: “The price of houses collapsed. Stock markets crashed ... Companies went bankrupt ... Workers fell into unemployment by the hundreds of thousands and then millions. Once affluent cities with street cafés now had queues at soup kitchens and armies of beggars on the streets.”
Industry executives dismiss this as doom-mongering so corrosive that it has the power to distort policy and investment decisions. But such visions also have the power to prompt people to use energy more efficiently. The bagpipers and didgeridoo players of Transition Towns are indeed already a part, if only a small one, of the solution to the uncertainties ahead – even if the world never has to experience quite the disaster that they predict.
Big Brother database for phones and e-mails
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article3965033.ece
A massive government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials.
The information would be held for at least 12 months and the police and security services would be able to access it if given permission from the courts.
The proposal will raise further alarm about a “Big Brother” society, as it follows plans for vast databases for the ID cards scheme and NHS patients. There will also be concern about the ability of the Government to manage a system holding billions of records. About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated 3 billion e-mails are sent every day.
Home Office officials have discussed the option of the national database with telecommunications companies and ISPs as part of preparations for a data communications Bill to be in November’s Queen’s Speech. But the plan has not been sent to ministers yet.
Industry sources gave warning that a single database would be at greater risk of attack and abuse.
Jonathan Bamford, the assistant Information Commissioner, said: “This would give us serious concerns and may well be a step too far. We are not aware of any justification for the State to hold every UK citizen’s phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable. We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Holding large collections of data is always risky - the more data that is collected and stored, the bigger the problem when the data is lost, traded or stolen.”
David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “Given ministers’ appalling record at maintaining the integrity of databases holding people’s sensitive data, this could well be more of a threat to our security, than a support.”
The proposal has emerged as part of plans to implement an EU directive developed after the July 7 bombings to bring uniformity of record-keeping. Since last October telecoms companies have been required to keep records of phone calls and text messages for 12 months. That requirement is to be extended to internet, e-mail and voice-over-internet use and included in a Communications Data Bill.
Police and the security services can access the records with a warrant issued by the courts. Rather than individual companies holding the information, Home Office officials are suggesting the records be handed over to the Government and stored on a huge database.
One of the arguments being put forward in favour of the plan is that it would make it simpler and swifter for law enforcement agencies to retrieve the information instead of having to approach hundreds of service providers. Opponents say that the scope for abuse will be greater if the records are held on one database.
A Home Office spokesman said the Bill was needed to reflect changes in communication that would “increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data and use it to protect the public”.
The end of fatherhood - woman win right to children without fathers
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3972376.ece
Single women and lesbian couples won landmark parental rights last night as MPs voted to remove the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will replace the rule with a “need for supportive parenting” after opponents were defeated in two votes by unexpectedly wide margins.
The Government had been prepared for defeat but won the free votes by majorities of 75 and 68. The decisions mean that the legislation will grant the most significant extension to homosexual family rights since gay adoption was sanctioned.
It will stop fertility clinics turning away lesbians and single women because their children will not have a father or male role model. While the current law does not block such therapy, it is sometimes used to justify refusals.
In another landmark decision last night, MPs rejected moves to prevent women having abortions up to 24 weeks into pregnancy. In the first vote on the issue in 18 years, an attempt to reduce the limit to 22 weeks was rejected by 71 votes. An attempt to reduce the limit to 20 weeks was defeated by a majority of 142.
The defeat came despite a high-profile cross-party campaign and the decision by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, to back a reduction in the limit to 20 weeks. The Prime Minister voted to retain the existing limit.
The Government has now won all four of the measures on which it agreed to grant Labour MPs a free vote. Moves to allow the creation of hybrid embryos for medical research, and “saviour siblings” screened as suitable tissue donors for sick children, were passed by large majorities on Monday.
MPs who backed the fatherhood amendments said the traditional family would be undermined. Iain Duncan Smith, who proposed enshrining the importance of a father and mother, said that the new law would amount to telling couples that “fathers are not important, or are less important than mothers”.
The former Tory leader said there was overwhelming evidence that children without fathers were more likely to have problems at school and with drink and drugs. He also questioned whether the existing law led to genuine discrimination, as many IVF clinics already treated lesbians and single women.
His criticisms were backed by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’ Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, in an interview with The Times. “I think it strange that the Government should want to take away not just the need for a father but the right for a father,” he said.
The law will now be brought into line with the Human Rights Act. The Bill will also allow both partners to be recognised as parents when lesbian couples conceive with donated sperm, or gay men use surrogacy. At present, only the natural mother or father is automatically considered to be a parent when gay couples have fertility treatment.
A Times/Populus poll last month found that 40 per cent of people were against the Government’s proposals and 32 per cent in favour. It also revealed a generational divide: while over-55s were strongly opposed, 18 to 34-year-olds were strongly in favour of reform.
Late Term Aborted Babies in UK Left to "Gasp for Breath" Until Death
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08052012.html
The venerable Spectator, a leading British magazine of political news and commentary, has published excerpts from a letter from a British nurse who, in 2005, described babies surviving late-term abortions who are left to "gasp for breath for ten minutes on the side of a sink" until they die.
The nurse, identified only as "Kay" in a newspaper column, said, "I know of two nurses who went off work with stress as a result of their experience with late terminations. I suffered horrendous nightmares and guilt for months. The guilt comes from the fact that you as a nurse cut the umbilical cord and, as dramatic as it sounds, we felt like murderers." In Britain, late term is defined as those abortions committed after 20 weeks gestation.
The Spectator's Fraser Nelson wrote that Sun newspaper columnist Jane Moore had written a column about the nurse's letter but declined to discuss the matter on a television talk show with Andrew Marr because it was "unsuitable" to be talked about on air. Moore's March 2005 column did not publish the full text of the letter. Nelson, political editor of the Spectator, however, said that given the ongoing debates over the lowering of the gestational age limit for legal abortion in Parliament he would publish an edited version of Moore's column this Sunday.
"I would say that I'd like every MP to read it before voting, but I suspect those voting to keep the 24-week limit would not expose themselves to descriptions of what, precisely, they are supporting," Nelson wrote. This is the first time Moore's column has been made available on the internet.
In her letter, Kay said, "It is all too easy for people to picture a clump of cells or mush. People don't want to picture perfectly-formed miniature babies and I don't blame them, I was once the same."
Kay, however, said that she had no qualms about "terminations" for disabled, or potentially disabled children. Kay said that "terminations" for "social reasons" far outnumber those committed for suspected foetal abnormality. She says that "emotional distress" the reason most commonly given, cannot be genuine and that abortion, even by 2005, was already being used as a form of contraception.
"There are girls who come back five or six times demanding terminations and they get them. How can someone coming for their fifth termination be allowed to keep saying it is due to emotional distress? I should imagine in ten years' time the emotional distress of being allowed to have five terminations is going to take its toll. What is going on?"
But Fr. Tim Finigan, founder of the Association of Priests for the Gospel of Life, responded, "So is it OK to allow 'severely disabled' babies to die gasping for breath on the side of a sink?"
Writing on his weblog, the Hermeneutic of Continuity, Fr. Finigan added, "I hope the article does indeed make some MPs think about what is going on in our supposedly civilised society but I pray that the presumption 'It's OK if they are disabled' can be seen for what it is."
Christians vow to continue pro-life campaign
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christians.vow.to.continue.prolife.campaign/18986.htm
As Christians continued to express their disappointment over the abortion vote in Parliament this week, many are renewing their determination to speak up on behalf of the unborn child.
MPs in the Commons voted on Tuesday to retain the upper legal limit for abortion at 24 weeks. Motions to introduce a 20-week limit were defeated by 332 to 190 votes, whilst proposals for a 22-week limit were dropped by 304 to 233.
“We have lost this battle, but we must continue to speak up on behalf of light and truth in this nation. We must not give up for the sake of the children,” said Andrea Minichiello Williams, Public Policy Director at the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship.
Ms Williams called on the church to step up its engagement with pro-life issues.
“The church and the nation need to be aroused from slumber regarding pro-life issues. Perhaps now that it is clear just how bad it is we might do so,” she said. “We need to keep praying.”
Earlier in the week, CARE’s Director of Parliamentary Affairs, Dan Boucher also appealed to the church to start speaking out on pro-life issues.
“May 20th 2008 was a very bad day in the history of our nation,” he said. “I hope that it will serve to provoke Christians to engage in the public square with greater energy and wisdom and that God will turn the tide.”
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said that the abortion vote would come as a disappointment to people of all faiths and none.
“But this issue will not go away,” he added. “Whilst the law affects attitudes, it does not in itself compel anyone to have an abortion. Even without a change in the law there is much we can all do to change the situation.”
The Cardinal called for pro-lifers to work together to reduce the rates of abortion in the UK.
“There are many people on all sides of this debate who agree that 200,000 abortions a year is far too many, and abortion on this scale can only be a source of profound sadness and distress to us all.
“Abortion is not only a personal choice. It is also about the choices our society makes to support women, their partners and families who face difficult decisions.
“For the sake of our common humanity, and the lives at stake, we must work to foster a new understanding and approach to relationships, responsibility and mutual support.
“Even without a change in the law we can and should work together at least to make abortion much rarer.”
UFO's, Demons and the Vatican
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080521/D90Q9RQ81.html
Vatican chief astronomer Father Jose Gabriel Funes in a long interview with the L’Osservatore Romano newspaper this week made news by saying there is a certain possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and that such notion “doesn’t contradict our faith.” “How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere? Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ’sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation,” he said.
The statements by Funes are the latest in a string of recent comments by Vatican astronomers confirming a belief that discovery may be made in the near future of alien life, including intelligent life, and that this discovery would not unhinge the doctrine of Christ.
In 2005, another Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno tackled this subject in a 50-page booklet, Intelligent Life in the Universe, in which he concluded that chances are better than not that mankind is facing a future discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Approximately 7 years ago Monsignor Corrado Balducci made similar news when he said ETs were actually already interacting with earth and that some of the Vatican’s leaders were aware of it.
Before his death in 1999, maverick Catholic theologian Father Malachi Martin hinted at such more than once. In 1997, while on Coast to Coast AM radio, Art Bell asked him why the Vatican was heavily invested in the study of deep space at Mt Graham Observatory in southeastern Arizona. As a retired professor of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Father Martin was uniquely qualified to hold in secret, information pertaining to the Vatican’s Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) project at the Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO). Martin’s answer ignited a firestorm of interest among Christian and secular UFOlogists when he said, “Because the mentality… amongst those who are at the… highest levels of Vatican administration and geopolitics, know that, now, knowledge of what’s going on in space, and what’s approaching us, could be of great import in the next five years, ten years.”
Those cryptic words “…what’s approaching us, could be of great import in the next five years, ten years,” was followed in subsequent interviews with discussion of a mysterious “sign in the sky” that Malachi believed was approaching from the North. People familiar with Malachi believe he may have been referring to a near-future arrival of alien intelligence.
If ET life is something Vatican officials have privately considered for some time, why speak of it so openly now, in what some perceive as a careful doctrinal unveiling over the last 24 months? Is this a deliberate effort by church officials to “warm-up” the laity to ET Disclosure? Are official church publications on the subject an attempt to soften the blow before disclosure arrives, in order to help the faithful retain their orthodoxy in light of unprecedented forthcoming knowledge?
There might be a more mundane explanation for the Vatican’s recent interest in all things spacey.
Writing on Thursday, May 15th for Newsweek (The Vatican and Little Green Men), Sharon Begley noted that “this might be part of a push to demonstrate the Vatican’s embrace of science (in 1992 it apologized for that whole unfortunate Galileo mess, after all)… Interestingly, the Vatican has plans to host a conference in Rome next spring to mark the 150th anniversary of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin’s seminal work on the theory of evolution. Conference organizers say it will look beyond entrenched ideological positions—including misconstrued creationism. The Vatican says it wants to reconsider the problem of evolution ‘with a broader perspective’ and says an ‘appropriate consideration is needed more than ever before.’”
Do other religions agree with the Vatican on ET brethren?
Following L’Osservatore Romano’s interview with Jose Funes, Muslim and Jewish leaders joined to say their religion could accommodate an ET reality, while a scholar for the Russian Orthodoxy excluded the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
The question of how the world’s political and religious communities would respond if suddenly faced with visitors from beyond is something world religions and even the US Government has studied. Paul Davies of The Atlantic Monthly wrote in 2003 that the discovery of even a single bacterium somewhere beyond Earth could force mankind to revise its understanding of who we are and where we fit into the cosmic scheme of things. Davies speculated that such a find could throw the human race into a spiritual identity crisis that could leave some gasping for faith in God.
In contrast, the Alexander UFO Religious Crisis Survey of ministers indicated that a majority of people–both religious and non-religious–not only believe in but could accept an ET reality without throwing God out with the bathwater.
Davies hopes this is true. As a cosmologist he sees order in the universe, including the anthropic balances that make life possible elsewhere. This has led to a deep personal interest in the subject of God and ET in which his response to either an ET discovery or visitation would be compatible to his religious ideas. He says the discovery of extraterrestrial life might actually substantiate biblical creation, not challenge it, if mankind is–as the Alexander UFO Religious Crisis Survey suggests–ready for it.
Professor Anthony Tambasco of Georgetown University not only believes the world–including its religious people–is ready for ET, but responding to NASA’s recent press releases about life potentially existing on Mars, he said that if the discovery of life is substantiated, “it will not unravel traditional biblical convictions, but rather provide an opportunity to enlarge or broaden them.”In a related CCN article, Sayyid Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America said, “Most Muslims would also welcome the discovery of life off of Earth.” The Koran refers to Allah as the God of ‘worlds,’ he said, not just one world.
Rabbi James Ruden of the American Jewish Committee says most Jews also leave open the possibility of life on other planets in their interpretation of Genesis.
But What If ET Is Already Here, And He’s the Devil?
Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are historically connected to the idea of extraterrestrial life. In some cases, behavior of these strange sightings have left witnesses feeling as if they had observed something alive, not mechanical. “I have become thoroughly convinced that UFOs are real,” popular Christian writer Hal Lindsey once wrote. “I believe these beings are not only extraterrestrial but supernatural in origin. To be blunt, I think they are demons.”
In Angels Dark and Light, Gary Kinnaman accepts UFO sightings as the manifestations of angels of darkness. “My main reason for thinking this is that UFO sightings have never, at least to my knowledge, led a person closer to God. In fact, most UFO experiences have just the opposite effect.”
Associate professor of psychology Elizabeth L. Hillstrom points out in her book Testing the Spirits that a growing number of scholars support similar conclusions of UFOnauts being synonymous with historical demons:
From a Christian perspective, Vallee’s explanation of UFOs is the most striking because of its parallels with demonic activity. UFO investigators have noticed these similarities. Vallee himself, drawing from extrabiblical literature on demonic activities, establishes a number of parallels between UFOnauts and demons….Pierre Guerin, a UFO researcher and a scientist associated with the French National Council for Scientific Research, is not so cautious: “The modern UFOnauts and the demons of past days are probably identical.” Veteran researcher John Keel, who wrote UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse and other books on the subject, comes to the same conclusion: “The UFO manifestations seem to be, by and large, merely minor variations of the age-old demonological phenomenon.”
Other theologians caution against connecting UFOs with demonology. They say if UFOs represent anything supernatural at all, the unidentified objects could be manifestations of good angels, while phenomenon such as so-called alien abduction is more in line with manifestations of demons. In other words, good “Watchers” observe earth from UFOs (using what one evangelical theologian recently referred to as “celestial conveyances”) while fallen Watchers such as those spoken of in the apocryphal Book of Enoch do evil.
Whatever intelligence is behind much of this mysterious heavenly activity, one thing is for sure, a long history of UFO sightings in connection to momentous or major religious historical events exists. Regardless of the position one takes on UFOs specifically, the possibility of open contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life has never been better according to those who study deep space for the Vatican.
European Union's new treaty approved in Germany
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080523/ap_on_re_eu/germany_eu_treaty
The German parliament's upper house approved the European Union's new treaty on Friday — the document's last legislative hurdle in the 27-nation bloc's most populous country.
The document, known as the Lisbon Treaty, easily won the necessary two-thirds majority in the upper house, which represents the country's 16 state governments. All but one state voted in favor, giving the treaty 65 out of a possible 69 votes.
Germany becomes the 14th country to approve the treaty in parliament. Only President Horst Koehler's signature — usually a formality — is required to complete ratification.
The lower house overwhelmingly backed the treaty last month. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said it creates "no less than a new foundation for Europe."
The treaty would alter the EU's decision-making process, envisioning more decisions by majority vote rather than unanimous endorsement. It would also provide for an EU president and a more powerful senior foreign policy official to give the bloc a stronger voice in global affairs.
The treaty replaces a more ambitious draft constitution that EU leaders drew up to govern a bloc whose membership has expanded from 15 to 27 nations in recent years. That charter was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
The new treaty must be ratified by all 27 EU members to take effect. Only one country, Ireland, is holding a referendum, set for June 12.
Time is ripe for EU-wide nuclear safety rules, Brussels says
http://euobserver.com/9/26196?rss_rk=1
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Brussels has called on EU member states to end the six-year deadlock over one of Europe's touchiest topics and agree common nuclear safety rules as well as ways in which to store nuclear waste.
"It is an absolute necessity," EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs told EUobserver on Thursday (22 May), while blaming EU governments for a lack of political will to give Brussels a stronger say on the issue.
Referring to the commission's previous attempts to legislate in the area, Mr Piebalgs said that some member states thought "the commission would gain too much power".
The EU's executive body tabled a nuclear package covering safety aspects twice - first, in 2002 and, subsequently, an updated version in 2004. But the package was killed off as soon as it reached the council, representing EU governments.
But according to Mr Piebalgs, progress on nuclear safety rules are inevitable also in order to speed up certification procedures for constructing new nuclear plants in Europe.
He cited Slovakia's application to build two reactors in Mochovce, describing the long-running case as "one of the casualties of not having common safety standards". Bratislava, at the forefront of a renewed push for nuclear energy, has been waiting for the commission's opinion since July 2007.
"Why does it take a year? Because we have to give an opinion based on the International Atomic Energy Agency requirements or on the best practices. If it is clear what is required, it will be easier to deliver an opinion," commissioner Piebalgs said.
The two sides are arguing over whether Mochovce should have full containment - additional walls of concrete and steel protecting the reactor. This is not something that is required under international standards, but is considered by some as the best way of protection.
"I would very much welcome if the member states move out of this stalemate ... and look favourably at this [common nuclear safety] issue," he concluded.
The current commission, under the leadership of Jose Manuel Barroso, has not shied away from supporting the nuclear path, a controversial option in many parts of Europe. It says that nuclear energy has a role to play in meeting the EU's growing concerns about security of supply and CO2 emission reductions.
Currently, 15 member states use nuclear energy for power generation. With some 150 nuclear reactors in operation, the 27-nation EU is the world leader when it comes to a number of commercial nuclear power stations. They cover one third of the union's electricity needs.
But many criticize what is being called a nuclear renaissance and refuse to grant nuclear energy the saviour role in the EU's fight against climate change.
"The same amount of money spent on energy efficiency and renewables could much more effectively result in lower greenhouse gas emissions," Andras Perger from the Hungary-based Energia Klub said on Friday (23 May).
At the same time, Mr Perger accused the nuclear lobby of trying to make a comeback through the EU's most recent member states. "The aim to finish outdated and mothballed Soviet-design reactors shows that the nuclear industry tries to survive at whatever cost," he said.
Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria were all forced by the European Commission to shut down Soviet-era nuclear reactors as part of their 2004 accession to the EU. Currently, Lithuania as well as Romania, are eyeing construction of new power plants.
In addition, Italy has just announced it is to resume building nuclear reactors in the next five years, two decades after a referendum saw the Italian public vote against the energy source.
Nazi church seeks future as bulwark against fascism
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/nazi.church.seeks.future.as.bulwark.against.fascism/19016.htm
A rundown Protestant church built to glorify Hitler's Third Reich is hoping for a new lease of life as a memorial against Nazi oppression.
The place of worship in southern Berlin is a unique example of the Protestant Church's adoption of Nazi propaganda, with furnishings rich in symbolism favoured by the dictatorship.
From the entrance hall chandelier shaped like an iron cross military medal to the wooden carving of a Wehrmacht soldier on the pulpit standing on the right-hand side of Jesus, the atmosphere is heavy with reminders of Hitler's rule.
The brown-brick church that once reverberated to the swell of Nazi anthems badly needs repairs. This week, the parish launched a bid to secure fresh investment to rescue the building completed in 1935, two years after the Fuehrer took power.
"The building shows how such a murderous ideology could infest itself in a 'normal' society," said local pastor Hans-Martin Brehm.
"I think every generation risks doing terrible things if it's not mindful of the past," he said.
Brehm estimates the building, which is no longer used for regular services, needs 3.5 million euros.
"If nothing's done, it's going to collapse," he said.
Brehm wants the Martin Luther Memorial Church to become a place of remembrance that is used for regular cultural events, not a museum that he says would render it a "dead stone" relic.
Authorities appear sympathetic to the church's plight.
Given the building's link to the Nazi era, it is a strong candidate for public funding, said Anna Maria Odenthal at Berlin's office for the conservation of historical monuments.
BANNED SYMBOLS
The building's origins go back to the anti-Semitic Deutsche Christen (German Christian) movement which claimed to have hundreds of thousands of Protestant members by the mid-1930s.
A study by historian Manfred Gailus calculated that about a quarter of Berlin's Protestant parishes were run by pro-Nazi clergy, with many others acquiescent.
Towering over the church's chancel is a "victory arch" of tiles decorated with images that alternate from traditional Christian symbols to the blank faces of helmeted soldiers and Nazi stormtroopers from the brown-shirted Sturmabteilung (SA).
According to locals, an image of Protestant reformer Martin Luther inset in the wall of the entrance hall was replaced by Hitler's face. Luther's likeness has since returned.
Swastikas that once adorned the church have also been removed. The Nazi symbol is banned in modern Germany.
But many other reminders of the period remain.
On a raised platform above the entrance is an organ first played at the Nuremberg Nazi party rally of 1935 - where anti-Semitic race laws where passed.
Yet despite its purpose-built design, the church has never become a shrine to neo-Nazis, nor was it a shining example of obedience to Hitler's regime, said Brehm, 55.
"The parish rejected all the mass baptisms and uniformed parades, apart from when they were officially prescribed. They went on in the neighbouring churches," he said.
Just weeks after the infamous Jewish pogrom in November 1938 "Reichskristallnacht" (Night of Breaking Glass), the local pastor wed a Jewish woman to an "Aryan" German in the church.
"That was strictly forbidden then," said Brehm.
Orthodox Jewish Youths Burn New Testaments in Israel
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080520/32455_Orthodox_Jewish_Youths_Burn_New_Testaments_in_Israel.htm
Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.
Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.
After receiving complaints, Aharon said, he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and drove through the neighborhood, urging people to turn over the material to Jewish religious students who went door to door to collect it.
The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue, he said.
The Israeli Maariv daily reported Tuesday that hundreds of Jewish religious school students took part in the book-burning. But Aharon told The Associated Press that only a few students were present, and that he was not there when the books were torched. Not all of the New Testaments that were collected were burned, but hundreds were, he said.
He said he regretted the burning of the books, but called it a "commandment" to burn materials that urge Jews to convert.
"I certainly don't denounce the burning of the booklets," he said. "I denounce those who distributed the booklets."
Jews worship from the Old Testament, including the Five Books of Moses and the writings of the ancient prophets. Christians revere the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, which contains the ministry of Jesus.
Calev Myers, an attorney who represents Messianic Jews, or Jews who accept Jesus as their savior, demanded in an interview with Army Radio that all those involved be put on trial. He estimated there were 10,000 Messianic Jews, who are also known as Jews for Jesus, in Israel.
Police had no immediate comment.
Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, though in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust of World War II.
Earlier this year, the teenage son of a prominent Christian missionary was seriously wounded when a package bomb delivered to the family's West Bank home went off in his hands.
Last year, arsonists burst into a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews and set the building on fire, raising suspicions that Jewish extremists were behind the attack. No one claimed responsibility, but the same church was burned down 25 years ago by ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists.
Israeli military intel: Tel Aviv within range of Hamas rockets by 2010
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/me_israel0144_05_16.asp
Israel's military intelligence has projected that Hamas would be capable of producing missiles with a range of up to 50 kilometers.
The military has concluded that Iran wants the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip to achieve the capability of firing missiles and rockets at targets in Tel Aviv, about 50 kilometers from the Gaza Strip.
"Every community within a 40-kilometer range may come within range of the Hamas rockets: Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, even Beersheva," Israeli military intelligence commander Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin said.
On May 14, Palestinian gunners renewed Katyusha rocket fire into Israel. A Grad BM-21 rocket slammed into a shopping mall in Ashkelon and injured scores of people.
In an interview on Friday by the Israeli daily Haaretz, Yadlin said Hamas would achieve such a capability by 2010. Yadlin said Hamas wanted to reach similar capabilities as the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah, which has acquired missiles with a range of at least 120 kilometers.
Military sources said Hamas has sought to acquire the Fajr-3 and Fajr-4, with ranges of 43 and 70 kilometers, respectively. They said Hamas has already acquired several Iranian projectiles, including the Nour rocket.
For his part, Yadlin said Hamas, which has formed a military of some 13,000 soldiers, has acquired or produced several rockets with a range of more than 20 kilometers. He said Hamas intended to significantly increase that capability.
"If this matter is not dealt with, Hamas will bring more cities within its range of fire," Yadlin said.
The Israeli military, including military intelligence, has urged an offensive that would topple the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. So far, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have opposed the plan.
"The Israeli army has never been this ready to launch a large-scale operation in Gaza," Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said. "It may be that we have no choice but to destroy all the nests of terror. Apparently we'll have no choice."
Palestinians: Future state must have armed forces
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/me_palestinians0156_05_20.asp
The Palestinian Authority has demanded the right to establish a military after independence.
PA sources said Palestinian negotiators have relayed a demand that any Palestinian state would be allowed to establish an army and air force. The sources said the military would be deployed along the borders with Israel and Jordan and ensure external security.
"If we are to become an independent state, then we are responsible for our own security," a PA source said. "This has been our position."
The PA demand was relayed by chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei, a former prime minister. The sources said the position marked a departure of a previous commitment that any Palestinian state be demilitarized.
Qurei submitted the Palestinian demand for a military during negotiations with Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni in Jerusalem on May 18. The sources said Ms. Livni was taken aback by Qurei's position and thought he meant that the new Palestinian state would create a strong police force.
"Livni was very upset by the Palestinian demand and saw this as a violation of previous commitments," an Israeli official said.
The Israeli official said the PA has hardened its positions during the latest U.S.-sponsored negotiations for a Palestinian state by 2009. The official said Qurei was supported by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who determined that the Palestinian state must not be inferior to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, which has established a 10,000-man military.
On Monday, Palestinian gunners in the Gaza Strip fired missiles that reached the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. The missiles landed near an unspecified strategic site in the city.
Palestinians fear Olmert's criminal investigation will affect peace talks
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/11/content_8147016.htm
RAMALLAH, May 11 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian top negotiator on Sunday said he fears a criminal investigation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will harm the chance of a deal this year on Palestinian statehood.
"The investigation may affect the negotiation process between the Israeli and the Palestinian sides," the Palestinian radio quoting Ahmed Qurei as saying.
Saeb Erekat, a negotiator, also said that if Israel went for early elections, this will mean the end of the negotiations.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) resumed their peace talks in November at a U.S.-hosted conference.
Erekat explained the PA aspires "a comprehensive peace deal" involving the complicated final-status issues such as Jerusalem, borders, settlements, refugees and prisoners.
Olmert said he will resign if officially charged with receiving bribery from an American businessman.
Hamas: Israel PM Too Weak to Talk Peace With Syria
http://www.newsmax.com/international/hamas_israel_syria/2008/05/24/98646.html
TEHRAN, Iran -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is too weak to take the necessary steps for peace with Syria, Hamas' exiled leader said Saturday during a visit to Iran, the militant group's ally.
An investigation into Olmert over corruption allegations has raised doubts about his ability to conclude a peace deal with the Palestinians by a year-end target or pursue recently confirmed peace talks with Syria.
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said there is skepticism about the seriousness of Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria. Withdrawing from the strategic plateau that Israel captured in 1967 is Syria's key demand for peace. But it would be tough to sell in Israel and unlikely that the unpopular Olmert would be able to pull it off.
"It's maneuvering and playing with all the (negotiating) tracks _ it's a well known game and besides, Olmert's weakness will not allow him to take this step," Mashaal said.
Mashaal spoke during a joint news conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki, in response to a question about Wednesday's announcement that Israel and Syria had restarted direct peace negotiations.
Mashaal, who resides in the Syrian capital, Damascus, was careful not to criticize Syria's decision to restart negotiations with Israel and said he was sure the renewed talks would not come at the expense of the Palestinians.
Israel has asked Syria to cut its ties with Hamas and Iran as a condition for any peace agreement, which Damascus rejected Saturday.
An editorial in the Syrian Tishrin newspaper, which reflects official policy, said Israel could not lay down preconditions ahead of negotiations.
"Damascus does not want preconditions, that would put the cart before the horse ... It does not bargain over its relations with other countries and people, nor would it want to bargain with others over their relations," the editorial said.
Israel and Syria are bitter enemies whose attempts at reaching peace have failed in the past. The last round of talks collapsed in 2000 because of a disagreement over a narrow strip of land along the Sea of Galilee that Israel wanted to keep to preserve its water rights.
The two countries have fought three wars, their forces have clashed in Lebanon, and more recently, Syria has given support to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Palestinian militant groups including Hamas. Iran, Israel's archenemy, also backs Hezbollah and Hamas.
During the news conference, Mashaal also renewed his condemnation of the Israeli-led blockade of the Gaza Strip, imposed after Hamas overran the coastal territory a year ago. He also threatened to forcibly reopen Gaza's Rafah crossing to Egypt.
"If the international community and the concerned parties don't take the initiative and break the siege, we will break it ourselves. We insist on opening all crossings, particularly Rafah," he said.
In January, Hamas militants blew holes in the wall separating Gaza from Egypt, sending a flood of desperate Palestinians across the border to buy supplies.
Egypt resealed the border 12 days later and has warned Hamas against a repeat performance.
Israel & Syria spar over who gets what in Golan peace deal
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211434084936&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Israel and Syria began sparring Thursday over what they expect the other to give up for a peace agreement, a day after the announcement that indirect negotiations between the countries are under way and two weeks before the talks are to resume in Turkey.
While Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has kept Israel's expectations of Damascus vague, both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak began sending out more concrete signals on Thursday on what Israel believes Syria needs to do in the framework of a peace agreement - and the Syrians were not pleased with what they heard.
Olmert, however, remained short on specifics, telling visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that "the Syrians know what we want and we know what they want."
He also told EU ambassadors in a meeting he held with them that Israel was keen on moving Iran out of the "axis of evil."
In the evening, a number of booing protesters, waving banners reading "The people are with the Golan," interrupted Olmert during a speech he was making in Latrun.
The prime minister took a moment to compose himself, and then replied: "The Golan is the most beautiful place that I have recently visited. Let's put politics aside."
He was speaking at an event marking the end of the Jewish Agency's MASA youth aliya program.
Livni was more explicit than Olmert about what she wants from Damascus.
Before her meeting with Kouchner, she said, "Israel has always aspired to peace with its neighbors, and the negotiations with Syria are a part of that. But the Syrians must understand that this involves their complete renunciation of support for terror by Hamas, Hizbullah, and Damascus's problematic connections with Iran."
Barak also commented on the negotiations, saying at an IDF ceremony at Beit Hanassi that moving Syria out of the circle of hostile countries has long been an important Israeli goal.
"But we have to be realistic," he said. "Peace will be reached only from a position of strength and security. Both sides - and I emphasize both sides - will have to make painful concessions as part of an agreement, and both sides know that. The Syrians, just like us, know that concessions run both ways."
Barak attempted to sober excitement over the announcement of the talks by saying a great distance still had to be traveled before an agreement could be reached.
Both Livni's and Barak's comments elicited sharp responses on Al-Jazeera from Syrian Information Minister Muhsin Bilal, who said of Livni's comments about the need for Syria to cut itself off from Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran, "When they make these demands, they are setting conditions and the issue of peace, the peace process does not require prior conditions."
Referring to Barak's statements about the need for both sides to make painful concessions, Bilal added that there was nothing painful in Israel returning the Golan, because it was Syrian land.
"These conditions have already been rejected, as is the phrase 'painful concessions,' since what the Syrians are demanding is their right," he said.
Bilal also reiterated what Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said a day earlier, that Olmert had committed Israel to a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
"He knows that the whole of the Golan Heights will be returned to Syria and that Israel will withdraw to the lines of June 4, 1967," Bilal said.
The Prime Minister's Office denied that any such guarantees were made.
Olmert, meanwhile, tried to dispel concerns - including those voiced in Washington - that the announcement of a Syrian peace track would make progress on the Palestinian track more difficult, telling Kouchner that he intended to conduct negotiations with both parties, "with neither coming at the expense of the other."
Meanwhile, Ilan Mizrahi, the former head of the National Security Council who backed contact with Damascus a year ago, said it was unrealistic to think that Syria would immediately cut off ties with Iran, or even with Hizbullah and Hamas.
Rather, he said, what was possible was a gradual cooling of the ties, something that could be evidenced in a greater rapprochement between Syria and the non-radical Arab states, and perhaps in less blanket support for Hizbullah.
"This is a process," he said, "and it is dependant on a number of different factors."
One of those factors was Iran itself, and Mizrahi said it would be interesting to see whether Teheran took steps now to get even closer to Syria.
The former NSC head said that while Damascus would likely not immediately cut off ties with Iran, he was in favor of Israeli negotiations with Damascus because it could eventually lead to a process that would significantly dilute the Iranian-Syrian relationship.
Meanwhile, government sources said there was no need at this time to upgrade the level of the Israeli delegation involved in the negotiations, since the talks were still between the Israeli delegation and the Turks, and not directly between Israel and the Syrians.
Olmert's chief of staff Yoram Turbowicz and foreign policy adviser Shalom Turgeman are representing Israel in the discussions. Though neither are considered Syria experts, they both enjoy the prime minister's complete confidence.
Damascus is being represented by Riad Daoudi, a legal expert in the Syrian Foreign Ministry, and Sami Taqi, head of a think tank in Damascus that is close to the government.
The Turkish mediator is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's leading foreign policy adviser, Ahmet Davutoglu.
Government sources said there would likely be no need to upgrade Israel's delegation until direct talks with the Syrians began, something Olmert told the European ambassadors Thursday he hoped would take place in the near future.
Iran - this is the strategic reality, like it or not
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2008/0516.html
Statesmen in the West are concerned that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Iran officially denies any such attempt. “We are developing peaceful nuclear power,” they declare. As if to fuel fears and suspicions abroad, the Iranians refuse the kind of oversight that would ensure their program is peaceful. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wonders why the Iranians insist on enriching uranium on their own terms. Why would an oil rich country risk confrontation with the United States to develop a few nuclear power plants it doesn’t need?
The reader might ask why any of this should be a problem. Why shouldn’t Iran develop nuclear power and nuclear weapons? The United States and Russia have thousands of nuclear warheads. Britain, France, China and Israel have hundreds of such weapons. Pakistan is building nuclear weapons in competition with India. The problem has everything to do with Iran’s ideological orientation, and Iranian support for Islamic terrorism. Iran’s president has suggested that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Other Iranian officials have publicly mused that Israel could be eliminated with nuclear strikes and the Muslim world could survive Israeli retaliation because the Muslim world is extensive and populous. Such a strike could conceivably be worthwhile. Statements of this kind are troubling, and President George W. Bush has vowed to block Iran’s nuclear program. It is no secret that the U.S. has prepared a military option if Iran refuses to back down. Already the Americans have imposed sanctions on Iran.
The Israelis are also worried, and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made repeated statements about an “Iranian threat” that must be dealt with decisively. He does not mince words. According to Netanyahu, we are obliged to believe those who promise to wipe us out. He points to the example of Hitler, who publicly threatened to eradicate the Jews from Europe. Speaking before the annual United Jewish Communities Assembly, he said: “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.” Something must be done before it is too late. “Israel would certainly be the first stop on Iran’s tour of destruction,” he explained, “but at the planned production rate of 25 nuclear bombs a year … [the Iranian arsenal] will be directed against ‘the Big Satan,’ the U.S., and the ‘moderate Satan,’ Europe.” In criticism aimed at the international community, Netanyahu said that no one cared about the fate of the Jews under Hitler, “and no one seems to care now.” The Iranian nuclear program, he warned, “goes way beyond the destruction of Israel…. It’s a global program in the service of a mad ideology.” Netanyahu believes an Israeli strike against Iran may be necessary.
The situation in the Middle East is coming to a head. President Bush appears to agree with Netanyahu’s argument. According to experts, American preparations for a military confrontation with Iran have been underway for years. Everyone knows the United States has the cruise missiles and bombers needed to smash Iran’s deepest nuclear program after trashing the Iranian air defense grid. There is no need for an invasion of Iran. A simple air strike will solve the Iranian nuclear problem once and for all. But the problem is not so simple.
Would the U.S. President bomb Iran after Russian leader Vladimir Putin warned against such a move last year? President Bush appears to dismiss Putin’s warnings, refusing to believe that his “friend” would bring Russia into direct conflict with the United States. Never mind the fact that Russia has armed Iran with anti-ship missiles. Never mind the fact that Iran’s nuclear program wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without Russian help. Look at the price of oil, which Russia is selling in large quantities on the world market. It is in Russia’s interest to make things messy in the Middle East.
Iran is not a pushover country, like Iraq. In any military showdown the Iranians have a trump card. They can close the Strait of Hormuz. Given the high price of oil today, would the U.S. President create a battle zone around the world’s most sensitive oil artery? If oil reaches $200 per barrel the global economy will sputter. How will the U.S. economy handle gasoline at $10 per gallon? Perhaps all of this helps explain why President Bush has been putting 70,000 barrels of oil per day into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Iran has several thousand medium and short range mobile ballistic missiles. This considerable strike power could inflict serious damage on regional oil facilities and infrastructure. Iran also deploys large numbers of anti-ship missiles, and has received delivery of Russia’s SSN-X-26 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles (with a range of 300 kilometers). This missile was designed to wipe out U.S. carrier battle groups. How could oil tankers safely enter or exit the Persian Gulf when the entrance is within Iranian missile range?
American air power cannot destroy the Iranian missile threat to the Persian Gulf in a timely fashion. Missiles with mobile launchers (like those deployed by Iran) are difficult to track and destroy. Furthermore, Iran’s air defenses are superior to Iraq’s air defenses. American pilots may not have the same advantages they enjoy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even if Bush refrains from bombing Iran, the Israelis are almost certain to launch airstrikes of their own. Such strikes would set off a major war in the Middle East. According to Michael Hirsch, writing in the May 7 edition of Newsweek, “a number of circumstances are aligning to make an Israeli strike on Iran more likely before the end of 2008.” The Israelis apparently believe that Iran will have nuclear weapons by 2009 or 2010. They believe that diplomacy has failed. They fear that President Bush’s successor will prove weak-willed. They see Iran’s retaliatory strength building. Time is therefore running out.
President Bush, on his side, understands what the Israelis are obliged to do. And yet, however ready he may be to strike Iran he cannot effectively act without Congressional approval. Already Congress is threatening to withhold funding for military operations. Even the Republicans in Congress have lost their stomach for Middle East confrontation. In a surprising setback for the President’s war preparations the U.S. Senate voted 97 to 1 to stop putting oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve through the rest of the year. The House approved a similar bill by a vote of 385 to 25. President Bush cannot effectively veto these measures because they were passed by overwhelming majorities.
It is unwise for a president to attack a country when his own country is not united. It is unwise to attack Iran when Russia is supporting Iran. It is unwise to make the world’s most sensitive oil artery into a war zone. The U.S. economy is already in trouble. Oil has gone above $120 per barrel. There are limitations to power, and it may be difficult for President Bush to accept those limitations. Will he strike Iran?
The arguments for striking Iran are reasonable arguments. Iran is ruled by dangerous fanatics who are attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. But Iran already possesses a world-stopping capability. Iran has deadly weapons aimed at the world’s most vital oil artery. If there are food riots in the Third World because of high oil prices today, imagine what will happen if Iran shuts off the Strait of Hormuz tomorrow.
This is the strategic reality, like it or not.
Iran looks to punish Muslim Apostates who convert to Christianity
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3178
Police in the southern Iran city of Shiraz this month cracked down against known Muslim converts to Christianity, arresting members of three Christian families and confiscating their books and computers.
The arrests began at 5 a.m. on May 11, when two couples were taken into custody before boarding their flights at the Shiraz International Airport and sent directly to jail. All four were subjected to hours of interrogation, questioning them solely “just about their faith and house church activities,” an Iranian source told Compass.
The detained Christians were identified as Homayon Shokohie Gholamzadeh, 48, and his wife Fariba Nazemiyan Pur, 40; and Amir Hussein Bab Anari, 25, and his wife Fatemeh Shenasa, 25.
Although the two wives were released the same day of their arrest, Anari was detained until May 14, and Gholamzadeh remains jailed.
Two hours after the early morning arrests of May 11, police authorities invaded the home of Hamid Allaedin Hussein, 58, arresting him and his three adult children, Fatemah, 28, Muhammed Ali, 27, and Mojtaba, 21.
All the family’s books, CDs, computers and printers were hauled off as well.
Hussein, his daughter and one son were released later the same day, but son Mojtaba remains in prison.
Two days later, local police picked up two more former Muslims involved in a separate house church in Shiraz as the Christian converts were talking together in a city park. Both men, Mahmood Matin and a second man identified only as Arash, are still jailed.
Still another arrest incident was reported last month in the northern city of Amol, in Mazandaran province near the Caspian Sea. Two of the arrested converts to Christianity, one a pregnant woman, are still imprisoned, with no news of their whereabouts.
Mushrooming House Churches
Over the past two years, Iran’s harsh Shiite Muslim regime has continued to arrest, harass and intimidate dozens of citizens involved in the nation’s mushrooming house church movements.
One such movement confirmed last month that its indigenous groups of Iranian converts to Christianity are doubling in size every six months.
Converts from Islam are routinely subjected to both physical and psychological mistreatment while being held for days or weeks, usually in solitary confinement. Huge bail amounts are demanded for their release, under the threat of further detention or formal criminal prosecution if caught worshipping or spreading their faith.
The large number of Iranians embracing Christianity has been attributed in part to a number of radio stations and satellite television channels launched in the past five years broadcasting Christian programs in Farsi into the country 24 hours a day.
One Tehran analyst quoted in a May 8 article in US News & World Report accused Christian satellite TV channels of “emotionally manipulating” Iranian viewers into changing their religion.
“Iranians are looking for a balm, and proselytizers are taking advantage of that,” the unidentified analyst claimed.
But Iranian Christian converts both inside and outside the country disagree. The overwhelmingly unpopular Islamist regime has so disillusioned its citizens with Islam, they say, that thousands are now willing to risk arrest, lashings and even death to find peace and purpose for their lives.
In January of this year, the Iranian parliament drafted a proposed criminal code that would make the death penalty mandatory for “apostates” who leave Islam for another religion.
Under the existing law, apostasy is one of several “crimes” which can be punished with execution, although Islamic court judges are not required to hand down a death sentence.
The last Iranian Christian convert from Islam formally charged with apostasy was acquitted in May 2005. But Hamid Pourmand served 22 months of a three-year prison sentence on fabricated charges before he was finally released under virtual house arrest in July 2006.
Food crisis creates an opening for Muslim fundamentalists
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-food18-2008may18,0,2913579.story
The smell of freshly baked bread calms the room filled with women in frayed cloaks and worn slippers. Grateful for the assistance, they walk out of a Muslim Brotherhood social service center into the trash-strewn alley, clutching plastic bags packed with flat bread loaves.
For five years, the Jordanian government has clamped down on the Islamist group's electoral ambitions and its charity programs, suspicious it was using good deeds to win political support.
But the global food crisis has carved out new opportunities for the Brotherhood and other hard-line groups across the Muslim world. Increasingly unaffordable prices underscore criticism of autocratic governments and drive more people toward fundamentalist groups. Though the Brotherhood fared poorly last year in municipal elections, it has been steadily gaining ground in recent months, sweeping votes for the leadership of Jordan's professional associations.
"We used to win some and lose some. Now, we win all of them," said Zaki Bani Arshid, leader of the Islamic Action Front, the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. "The government which tried to marginalize us politically for years has now given us a big gift."
The increase in food prices has challenged America's goals in the Middle East at a critical juncture, when it is attempting to win support from friendly governments for an Israeli- Palestinian peace initiative and for confronting Iran and Al Qaeda.
Analysts and officials worry that the crisis could result in food riots.
The anger has taken on an increasingly anti-U.S. tone, even among elected officials. Egyptian lawmakers, for example, have accused the United States of causing the crisis by conspiring to keep their country dependent on wheat imports.
"If we look at these main factors behind the increase in world food prices and the specter of famine and political turbulence, we will easily reach the conclusion that [the] Bush administration and the bunch of neoconservatives and their foolish policies in waging external wars . . . are, in practice, behind this deep crisis," said an April column in the pro-government daily newspaper Al Watan in Oman, a staunch U.S. ally.
"America is being held responsible for what is happening," said Arshid, of Jordan's Islamic Action Front. "It's supporting these corrupt regimes."
The frustration is potentially more explosive here than in more democratic parts of the developing world.
"People can tolerate anything except when it comes to food," said Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian economist and critic of the government. "The security establishment cannot open a file for the hungry like you can for the political activists. One day you'll wake up and see havoc."
Officials throughout the Middle East have begun importing food, implementing price controls, slashing import duties for foodstuffs and locking in prices for future purchases of wheat and rice. They've also begun preparing local fields for wheat production and making monetary reforms.
Morocco has decided to spend $2 billion to raise public-sector wages. In Egypt, where subsidized bread is synonymous with the people's bond to the state, deadly riots broke out during the 1970s when then-President Anwar Sadat considered slashing the subsidies. President Hosni Mubarak is working to calm an explosive atmosphere marked by a rising inflation rate, labor unrest, strikes and fears that long bread lines may again appear.
Both Jordan and Egypt have raised government salaries and pensions by more than 20%. And Lebanon's Ministry of Social Affairs plans to increase by eightfold the number of people it aids.
Jordanian government officials consider the economic situation their highest priority, a grave, snowballing threat, analysts said. Officials remember the riots that erupted in 1971 when the price of sugar went up and in 1996 when bread prices jumped.
"The government understands the severity of the situation," said Fahd Khitan, a columnist and editor for the independent Amman daily Arab Today.
But awareness has not been enough to forestall the economic repercussions in a country where per-capita annual income is about $5,500 and 60% of workers earn fixed wages as public-sector employees.
Meat and chicken prices have risen 30% since October. The price of a dozen eggs has nearly doubled, to $2.30. And produce has climbed at an even higher rate, with squash soaring from 25 cents a pound to 80 cents and tomatoes from 9 cents a pound to 45 cents.
Jordanians say they've seen able-bodied men sifting through garbage bins. Middle-class families have begun selling off personal belongings to maintain their lifestyle or forgoing fruit or lamb for weeks.
Mohammed Hadid, a leader of a tribe from which the armed forces draw recruits, was shocked when a retired soldier from his tribe told him he had not eaten meat in five months.
"It's still sinking in," Hadid said.
Despite the global nature of the price increases, governments across the Arab world have come under particularly harsh criticism.
Public service employees, especially those who've served in the security forces, cling to the vision of the state as a caretaker. But policies adopted in recent years have decreased official control of prices. Privatization efforts and free-market slogans have only fueled perceptions of corruption, giving teeth to claims that the region's pro-U.S. governments are corrupt lackeys serving only the elite.
"The economic team doesn't believe in the poor," said economist Kamhawi, who often confers with ranking Jordanian officials. "They only care about the rich. They say, 'The poor are failures. We have no interest in helping failures.' "
Opponents of the U.S.-backed governments in the Middle East have been locking on to the food crisis.
"Let the Workers Eat Cake," blared a headline on the front page of the April 30 edition of Al Akhbar, a Lebanese daily newspaper allied with the Shiite militia Hezbollah. The headline accompanied an article about how the government has delayed a decision to increase the minimum wage.
Other than Islamic charities and social wings of militant groups such as Hezbollah or Hamas, there is no tradition of charitable giving to alleviate pressures on the poor.
In Pakistan, parents increasingly send children to religious madrasas instead of public schools, lured by the free lunches. Madrasas have been prime recruiting grounds for militants.
In Lebanon, Saudi-funded Sunni Muslim charities and political parties, as well as Hezbollah, shield their followers from the worst effects of the rising food prices.
"This system of financially helping the poor by political groups has created a great deal of . . . allegiance to politicians and not to state institutions," said analyst Ziad Ayoubi.
In Jordan, the Islamic Action Front has ramped up its charity programs, offering food baskets and financial help to 32,000 families. Requests for help have jumped 30% this year, said Murad Adaileh, who oversees the group's social services programs. Applications for free bread have jumped 50% since the beginning of the year.
On some days, the line outside the food distribution outlet stretches into the streets. The poor come in droves. Wafa Mansour, 39, a cherub-faced mother of two, visits every other day for bread. "Everything is very expensive," she says. "I can't buy vegetables or meat."
Opposition elements led by the Islamic Action Front have called for strikes to protest the prices and the government's privatization plan and are convening a workshop this month to discuss the situation.
"The Islamists will reap the benefits" of the crisis, said economist Kamhawi. "They will win by default."
Analysts and officials worry that the middle class will be sapped of its purchasing power and that more young Muslim men will be driven toward extremist groups.
Arab states are considering the creation of an emergency fund to help alleviate spiraling food prices, according to the Jordanian news agency, Petra.
Many Jordanians say members of the army, the pillar of the regime, are being struck hardest by the crisis, unable to make ends meet on salaries of less than $10 per day.
"When you talk to the police officers and the army they're more and more complaining about everything," said Mohammed Masri, an analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan.
Hadid, the tribal leader, recently received reports of security forces selling weapons.
"In the days to come, Al Qaeda won't need to bring weapons and bombs from outside Jordan," Hadid said. "They'll get it from here. The circumstances will allow Al Qaeda to penetrate the security apparatus."
He paused. "There will be explosions."
Christian faces death penalty in Pakistan for blasphemy against Quran
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65028
A Christian doctor is being held in a Pakistan jail while religious extremists demand that he be publicly hanged for blasphemy.
Dr. Robin Sardar, 55, is facing a possible death sentence after an envious friend claimed he made offensive remarks about the Quran and Muhammad's beard, according to a report by the International Christian Concern, a Washington, D.C.-based human rights group.
Sardar's former friend, Muhammad Yousaf, became jealous of the Christian's professional success and financial status, so he filed a First Information Report May 5 with police, claiming the doctor had made derogatory statements about the prophet.
According to Sardar's nephew, a mob of more than 200 Muslims wielding guns, sticks and kerosene oil attacked the doctor's home and medical offices following the report to police. The men, wearing green turbans to represent their Islamic faith, broke into Sadar's home, shattered windows and ruined the family's furniture in their residence and clinic.
"The mob then turned on Sardar and his family," the ICC reports. "Mr. Pervaiz Ghori, another of Sardar's relatives, said that the mob would have killed him if the police had not intervened in the nick of time."
The Islamic extremists protest daily on city streets, calling for the Christian doctor to be publicly executed. His nephew said Muslim clerics have been sending messages out over the mosque amplifier, urging the community to slay Sardar's family.
Another human rights organization, the National Commission for Justice and Peace, is defending Sardar, imploring officials to drop the case and requesting that they safeguard religious minorities.
According to Pakistan's laws against blasphemy, people who make disrespectful comments about Islam can receive punishments similar to sentences for murderers.
Former President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq added Section 295-B to Pakistan's penal code in 1982, ordering that critical remarks about the Quran would be punishable by life in prison.
Section 295-C, commonly referred to as the blasphemy law, states "Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine."
In 1990, the federal Sharia court ruled, "The penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet ... is death and nothing else."
Christian in Algeria face jail time for converting from Islam
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/192802.php
A 37-year-old Algerian woman, Habiba Qawider, faces a possible three years in prison for abandoning the Islamic faith without government permission. Her court case is being held in Tiaret, 400 kilometers west of Algiers.
Qawider was arrested during a police spot check of bus riders in April and found to be carrying 10 copies of the Bible. She didn't have a special permit to follow Christianity as required by law nor did she have the authorization to change her religion.
Six other Christians face the same charges in a separate court case. Their trial starts on May 27.
Land of the Tsar
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-566931/Russia-A-totalitarian-regime-thrall-Tsar-whos-creating-new-Facist-empire.html
As ex-President Putin settles in to his new role as Prime Minister, he has every reason to congratulate himself.
After all, he has not only written the script for his constitutional coup d'etat, but staged the play and given himself the starring role as well.
Of course, he has given a walk-on role to Dmitry Medvedev, his personally anointed successor.
But the transfer of power from Putin to his Little Sir Echo, Medvedev, and the show of military strength with those soldiers and clapped-out missiles in Red Square on Victory Day which followed it last week, made it clear who is really in charge.
No decision of any significance for the Russian people or the rest of us will be made in the foreseeable future without the say - so of Medvedev's unsmiling master.
Just before he stood down as President, Putin declared: "I have worked like a galley slave throughout these eight years, morning til night, and I have given all I could to this work. I am happy with the results."
As he surveys the nation today he reminds me of that chilling poem by Ted Hughes, Hawk Roosting, in which the dreaded bird sits at the top of a tall tree musing: "Now I hold all Creation in my foot - I kill as I please because it is all mine - I am going to keep things like this."
In a way he is right to be so self-satisfied. He has told the Russian people that life is much better than it was before he took over - and, after a journey of some 10,000 miles across the largest country in the world for a new book and BBC TV series, I am in no doubt that the majority of his subjects believe him.
I travelled from cities to towns to villages by road, rail and boat and met a great diversity of people - from St Petersburg glitterati to impoverished potato-pickers, from a witch who charms the sprites of the forest to the mountain herdsmen who worship fire and water, from oilmen to woodcutters.
It was an exhilarating and revelatory experience in a land of extremes. But it was also deeply disturbing.
Despite the fact that Putin's Russia is increasingly autocratic and irredeemably corrupt, the man himself - their born-again Tsar - is overwhelmingly regarded as the answer to the nation's prayers.
Russia has a bloody and tormented history. Its centuries of suffering - its brutalities, its wars and revolutions, culminating in the collapse of communism and the anarchic buffoonery of the Yeltsin years - have taken a terrible psychological toll.
Cynicism and fatalism which eat away at the human psyche have wormed their way into the very DNA of the Russian soul.
In a nation that has not tasted and - with very few exceptions - does not expect or demand justice or freedom, all that matters is stability and security.
And, to a degree, Putin has delivered these twin blessings. But the price has been exorbitant and the Russians have been criminally short-changed.
Putin boasts that since he came into office investment in the Russian economy has increased sevenfold (reaching $82.3 billion in 2007) and that the country's GDP has risen by more than 70 per cent.
Over the same period, average real incomes have more than doubled. But they started from a very low base and they could have done far better.
Nor is this growth thanks either to the Kremlin's leadership or a surge of entrepreneurial energy.
On the contrary, it is almost solely down to Russia's vast reserves of oil and gas.
When Putin came to power, the world price of crude oil was $16 dollars a barrel; it has now soared to more than $120 dollars - and no one knows where or when this bonanza will end.
But this massive flow of funds into the nation's coffers has not been used "to share the proceeds of growth" with the people; to reduce the obscene gulf in income between the rich and poor.
It has not helped to resurrect a health service which is on its knees (and is ranked by the World Health Organisation as 130th out of the 190 countries of the UN), or to rebuild an education system which is so under-funded that the poor have to pay to get their children into a half-decent school or college.
It has not brought gas and running water to the villages where the peasants have been devastated by the collapse of the collectives, or even developed the infrastructure that a 21st century economy needs to compete with the rest of the world.
Russia may be a member of the G8 whose GDP (because of oil) should soon overtake the United Kingdom, but, in many ways, it is more like a Third World country.
Stricken with an epidemic of AIDS and alcoholism which both contribute to a male life expectancy of 58 years, the population is projected to shrink from 145 million to 120 million within a few decades.
So where has all the oil wealth gone? According to an Independent Experts Report, written by two former high-level Kremlin insiders who have had the courage to speak out, "a criminal system of government has taken shape under Putin" in which the Kremlin has been selling state assets cheaply to Putin's cronies and buying others assets back from them at an exorbitant price.
Among such dubious transactions the authors cite the purchase by the state-owned Gasprom (run until a few months ago by Dmitry Medvedev) of a 75 per cent share in an oil company called Sifnet (owned by Roman Abramovich, the oligarch who owns Chelsea Football Club).
In 1995 Abramovich, one of Putin's closest allies, paid a mere $100 million for Sifnet; ten years later, the government shelled out $13.7 billion for it - an astronomical sum and far above the going market rate.
Even more explosively, the authors claim the Kremlin has created a "friends-of-Putin" oil export monopoly, not to mention a secret "slush fund" to reward the faithful.
According to an analyst at Moscow's Carnegie Centre, which promotes greater collaboration between the U.S. and Russia, the report is "a bomb which, anywhere but in Russia, would cause the country to collapse".
In Britain such revelations would certainly have provoked mass outrage, urgent official inquiries and a major police investigation - if not the downfall of the government.
But because of Putin's totalitarian grasp on power (he has not only appointed his own Cabinet, which used to be the prerogative of the President, but will remain in charge of the nation's economy), there will be no inquiry.
You can forget any talk from the new President about "stamping out" corruption. This social and economic disease is insidious and rampant.
According to Transparency International - a global society which campaigns against corruption - Russia has become a world leader in the corruption stakes. Foreign analysts estimate that no less than $30 billion a year is spent to grease official palms to oil the wheels of trade and commerce.
But when you raise the subject, Russians shrug their shoulders: "What's the problem?" they retort.
"That's how the system works. It will never change."
And that is because everyone is at it. From corporations (including foreign investors who claim to have clean hands but cover their tracks by establishing local "shell" companies to pay the bribes) to the humblest individuals who buy their way out of a driving ban.
In a country where the "separation of powers" has become a bad joke, the law courts are no less corrupt.
Except perhaps for minor misdemeanours at local level, the judiciary is in thrall to the Kremlin and its satraps.
The threat of prosecution for tax fraud is the Kremlin's weapon of choice against anyone who dares to challenge its hegemony.
When Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in Russia, used his oil wealth to promote human rights and democracy, Putin detected a threat to his throne.
The oligarch was duly arrested and convicted of fraud. He now languishes in a Siberian jail where he is in the third year of an eight-year prison sentence.
None of this is a matter of public debate in Russia where the media has been muzzled by the Kremlin, their freedom of expression stifled by the government.
Almost every national radio and television station is now controlled directly or indirectly by the state, and the same applies to every newspaper of any influence.
In the heady days immediately before and after the collapse of the Soviet empire, editors and reporters competed to challenge the mighty and to uncover scandal and corruption.
Now they cower from the wrath of the state and its agents in the police and the security services.
That diminishing number who have the courage to investigate or speak out against the abuses perpetrated by the rich and powerful very soon find themselves out of a job - or, in an alarming number of cases, on the receiving end of a deadly bullet.
Some 20 Russian journalists have been killed in suspicious circumstances since Putin came to office. No one has yet been convicted for any of these crimes.
Putin calls the system over which he presides "sovereign democracy". I think a better term is "cryptofascism" - though even the Kremlin's few critics in Russia recoil when I suggest this.
After all, their parents and grandparents helped save the world from Hitler - at a cost of 25 million Soviet lives. Nonetheless, the evidence is compelling.
The structure of the state - the alliance between the Kremlin, the oligarchs, and the security services - is awesomely powerful.
No less worryingly is popular distaste - often contempt - for democracy and indifference to human rights.
In the absence of any experience of accountability or transparency - the basic ingredients of an open society - even the most thoughtful Russians are prone to say: "Russia needs a strong man at the centre. Putin has made Russia great again. Now the world has to listen."
The new Prime Minister has brilliantly exploited the patriotism and latent xenophobia of the Russia people to unify them in the belief that they face a major threat from NATO and the United States.
This combination of national pride and insecurity has been fuelled by the America with its proposed deployment of missiles only a few hundred kilometres from the Russian border, allegedly to counter a nuclear threat from Iran.
No serious defence analyst believes this makes any strategic sense, while even impeccably pro-Western Russians recoil from this crass assertion of super-power hegemony by President Bush.
Similarly most Russians feel threatened - and humiliated - by the prospect that Ukraine and Georgia, once the most intimate allies of the Soviet Union, may soon be enfolded in the arms of NATO.
Georgia, which is struggling to contain a separatist movement that is openly supported by the Kremlin, has the potential to become a dangerous flashpoint in which the Western allies could only too easily become ensnared.
Does this mean - as some have argued - that we are about to face a new Cold War? I don't think so for a moment.
With communism consigned to "the dustbin of history", there is no ideological conflict of any significance. And there is now only one military superpower.
In comparison with America, Russia's armed forces are a joke. Only catastrophic stupidity on either side could lead to a nuclear confrontation.
But this does not mean that we can all breathe a sigh of relief and forget about the Bear.
An autocratic and resurgent Russia that feels bruised and threatened is an unstable beast.
The Kremlin's growing rapprochement with Beijing (the adversaries of a generation ago are now not only major trading partners, but conduct joint military exercises) shifts the balance of power in the world.
And as life on earth becomes less and less secure, with evermore people competing for a dwindling supply of vital resources, Russia, as an energy giant, is once again a big player on the world stage.
Make no mistake, we are in for a very bumpy ride.
Russia prepares to sign new arms deal with Syria
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211288131705&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Fearing that Damascus is acquiring advanced military platforms, Israel is closely following meetings being held in Moscow this week between a high-level Syrian military delegation and Russian Defense Ministry officials.
Senior government officials in Jerusalem said they have been aware for several days of the Syrians' upcoming visit to the Russian capital but that it was not yet clear which military platforms Damascus was requesting.
According to reports in the Russian media, the delegation, led by Syrian Air Force commander Gen. Akhmad al-Ratyb, will be in Moscow for five days and meet with Russian Defense Ministry and Air Force officials, as well as visit several military bases and units.
According to the reports, the talks will focus on arms sales - including submarines, anti-aircraft missiles, the latest model MiG fighter jets and advanced surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.
Israel is particularly concerned with a Syrian request for long-range S-300 surface-to-air missiles that could threaten IAF jets flying on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
The S-300 is one of the best multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world and reportedly can track 100 targets simultaneously while engaging 12 at the same time. Syria recently received 36 Pantsir S1E air-defense systems from Russia. Iran is believed to have already procured several S-300 systems to protect its nuclear facilities.
Israeli defense officials expressed grave concern over the possibility that Syria would obtain these new military platforms. Damascus, the officials said, had dramatically increased defense spending recently. In the past three years, Syria has spent more than $3 billion on weapons, up from less than $100 million in 2002.
Officials said that Israel was working diplomatically with Moscow to prevent the sales, but that for the right amount of money, Russia would likely approve the sales in any case.
According to the reports, Syria is also discussing a purchase of MiG 29SMT fighter jets. Currently, the Syrian Air Force is extremely weak, so advanced long-range MiGs would give it a significant boost.
Israel is also extremely concerned about a possible sale of the Iskander surface-to-surface missile system. The Iskander, Israeli weapons experts said Tuesday, was the heir to the Scud and was far superior to the ballistic missiles currently in Syria's arsenal. The Iskander is propelled by solid fuel and has a range of 300 kilometers, with accuracy of about 20 meters.
"This would without a doubt be a major threat to Israel," one Israeli expert said.
Lastly, Syria is also reportedly interested in buying two Amur-1650 submarines from Russia. The Amur 1650 is a diesel-electric operated vessel and reportedly can strike salvo missile blows at multiple targets simultaneously.
Syria has a navy but does not have operational submarines.
Allies of Gog fall into place as Russia boosts military cooperation with Libya
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=26045
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday promised Libya's leader Moamer Gathafi that Moscow would buttress economic and military ties with Tripoli, the government news service said.
Putin and Gathafi spoke on the telephone and agreed to continue "the useful confidential dialogue between the two countries and noted mutual interest in boosting cooperation in both civil and military spheres," a statement said.
Putin "stressed the need to realize the accords cinched during the recent Russo-Libyan summit and affirmed that as prime minister he intended to give it all due attention," it added.
Libya has had its debt to the Soviet Union waived in return for important contracts to Russian companies.
These include the Russian state railroad company's plans to construct a 600-kilometre (375-mile) rail link between the cities of Syrte and Benghazi, which is estimated to cost over two billion euros.
The two countries also signed four accords on economic and financial cooperation, exchange of confidential information and promotion and protection of investments.
Libya had been an important ally of the Soviet Union and a faithful client of Soviet arms. However, ties between the two nations cooled after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russian Communists Not Happy With Harrison Ford's New 'Indiana Jones' Movie
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357923,00.html
The latest "Indiana Jones" movie isn't finding many fans among Russia's Communists.
Leaders of the Communist Party of St. Petersburg have accused the actors Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett of being "capitalist puppets" and promoting crude, anti-Soviet propaganda in their new film, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
They have urged Russian moviegoers to boycott the film and told Ford, 65, not to visit the country.
The swashbuckling archaeologist’s fourth adventure is set in the Cold War in 1957. It pits Indiana Jones against a sinister KGB agent, played by Blanchett, who leads a ruthless team of Soviet spies in the hunt for a skull endowed with mystical powers.
The Communist Party’s ideology committee in Russia’s second largest city saw red over the plot. In an open letter, it declared: “Your work in this film is an insult to the Soviet and Russian people, who remember the difficult Fifties when our country was concluding its reconstruction after the Great War, but did not send merciless terrorists to the USA.”
The letter said Russians are fond of many of Ford's other roles, but not this time.
“You have no future in Russia any more. Speaking plainly, it is better for you not to come here. You will be beaten and despised.”
The protests appeared to have little impact on the film’s commercial prospects. It was released on Thursday on 808 screens in Russia, a record for a Hollywood film.
The Communist Party has withered since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but it remains the second largest party in the Duma, the Russian parliament.
China reports 35 radioactive sources secured in quake-hit Sichuan, 15 inaccessible
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5292
Eleven days after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck western China, vice environment minister Wu Xiaoqing first revealed Friday, May 23, that 50 hazardous radioactive sources have been located – 35 recovered and controlled; “three more buried in rubble and 12 in dangerous buildings. At present, tests show no accidental release of radiation,” he reported as the death toll climbed past 55,000.
Two of the most badly damaged cities housed China’s secret nuclear weapons design facility - at Mianyang - and a plutonium processing facility - in Guangyuan – both close to the quake’s epicenter.
Soon after the quake struck, Chinese soldiers were sent to protect nuclear sites and preparations made for an environmental emergency.
DEBKAfile’s military sources note that the Beijing announcement did not specify the nature of the hazardous sources or disclose how they - or the secret nuclear weapons and plutonium facilities were secured – whether sealed with cement and lead like the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine in the 80s or their contents removed to safe places.
According to the Beijing government’s official Web site, “nuclear facilities and “radioactive sources” included power plants, reactors, scientific research labs and medical treatment facilities, a big concentration of which are located in the worst hit areas.
French sources disclosed that 489 hospitals with laboratories containing radioactive materials, as well as hundreds of high-risk industries, were leveled.
Hans Kristensen, a nuclear arms expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said it was hard to believe that the military plants with nuclear materials had escaped the disaster. Other experts suspect that the damage to radioactive sites and radiation leaks may extend beyond the stricken Sichuan province.
Vice minister Wu admitted “Environmental supervision capacity in the area is badly below what is needed.” The ministry's priorities are ensuring safe drinking water, the management of hazardous chemicals and preparing for adequate environmental supervision during reconstruction.
Our sources add that the Chinese government has also deployed to the nuclear disaster areas the security teams trained by the International Atomic Agency in Vienna to respond to radiological attack, such as a dirty bomb, during the Olympic Games taking place in Beijing this coming August.
China's Catholics visit shrine under watchful eyes
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/chinas.catholics.visit.shrine.under.watchful.eyes/19014.htm
Bells clanged, children played and police kept watch as pilgrims clutching rosary beads flocked to one of China's most revered Catholic shrines on Saturday, the day Pope Benedict XVI designated World Day of Prayer for China.
"There are fewer people than last year," said a 30-year-old seminary student surnamed Wu as he welcomed worshippers into the 150-year-old Sheshan Cathedral, which sits atop a scenic hill about a 45 minute drive from downtown Shanghai.
"The government made sure to keep order this year," Wu added.
May is the month Chinese Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary, and it is the peak season for the country's faithful to visit Sheshan.
But the authorities restricted attendence this year, fearing social unrest after March's protests in Tibet and ahead of Beijing's August Olympic games, Catholic media reports said.
Tensions were heightened this year after Pope Benedict penned a prayer that asks that Chinese be allowed to freely express their faith and allegiance to him in their officially atheist country.
"Sustain all those in China, who, amid their daily trials continue to believe, to hope, to love," the prayer says. "May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world..."
Last year, around 11,000 of China's 12 million estimated Catholics visited the shrine in early May, but this year that dwindled to 5,000, the reports said, blaming roadblocks that were erected to prevent any large gatherings.
Relations between the Vatican and Beijing have hit low points several times in recent years as the Vatican criticised China for appointing bishops without papal approval. Beijing has requested that the Vatican sever relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.
On Saturday, uniformed police officers and security guards stood along every step of the trail as hundreds of pilgrims climbed up to Sheshan.
A FAITH DIVIDED
China's Catholics are split between those who belong to a state-backed Church and an underground Church whose members are loyal to the pope, whom Catholics believe is the successor to St Peter.
Diplomatic ties between the Vatican and China were severed two years after the 1949 communist takeover. But in early May, the Pope reached out to China by hosting an unprecedented concert at the Vatican by Beijing's national orchestra.
On Saturday, the Mass at Sheshan focused not on politics, but on the deadly earthquake in Sichuan - which authorities fear may have claimed 80,000 lives or more - and also on the spiritual issues related to China's rise on the global economic stage.
Some pilgrims were convinced that China's treatment of religious life has evolved with the country's rapid economic development .
"The police are just there to protect us," said Feng Fuying, 46, a former government worker. "There is no control over faith anymore. You can love your country, and love your religion."
U.S. Official Says N. Korea Close to Producing Long-Awaited Nuke Program Account
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357647,00.html
WASHINGTON — North Korea is extremely close to producing a long-awaited accounting of its shuttered nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said Friday. The documentation would be a major step toward a disarmament deal with the reclusive communist regime.
Although there is no date agreed yet, the documentation is expected within the next month. That would clear the way for a high-stakes meeting as soon as the end of June between the top U.S. and North Korean diplomats, along with the other four nations involved in a deal to put North Korea out of the nuclear weapons business.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the six-nation diplomatic consultations are confidential, says the U.S. insists it be able to verify that North Korea's documentation is complete.
The official says that weeks of preparation with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia are coming to a close.
The administration's top negotiator for North Korea will travel to China and Russia next week for the final preparatory meetings before the North hands over its paperwork.
Senior U.S. officials said that while in China, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will meet with his North Korean counterpart.
Hill met earlier this week in Washington with Japanese and South Korea diplomats involved in the disarmament talks. Those sessions were considered the most difficult hurdles before the group can formally receive North Korea's nuclear accounting and reciprocate with promised concessions. Japan wants further assurances that North Korea is serious about investigating allegations that it abducted Japanese citizens, and a new government in South Korea has taken a much tougher line on relations with the North.
With those meetings out of the way, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Hill will brief the Chinese and Russians.
China is the North's closest ally and the host of the six-nation talks. As host, China is the nation to which the North will formally present the documentation.
The Bush administration rejected a Clinton-era nuclear deal and diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang, and has shunned the North for much of President Bush's time in office. The expected meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and North Korea's top diplomat would mark a major turnaround in relations with a state Bush once labeled part of an "axis of evil."
North Korea said it needed a strong deterrent to ward off a possible U.S. invasion, and exploded a nuclear device in 2006, before agreeing to trade away is nuclear weapons program for economic and political concessions from Asia and the West.
One of the first requirements for the North was a detailed technical accounting of its plutonium program, including the amount of weapons-grade plutonium produced at a now-shuttered reactor.
The United States says the North missed a Dec. 31, 2007 deadline to come up with that paperwork. U.S. officials say the North produced only a partial accounting last fall but is now ready to turn over all the information that the United States and its partners need.
The United States has promised that after the accounting is in and checked it will remove North Korea from a State Department list of nations that sponsor terrorism. Lifting the terror stigma is a special goal of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Under the schedule U.S. officials expect, the United States could grant that concession in June.
Burma rulers denying aid to Christians
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/burma.rulers.denying.aid.to.christians/19013.htm
Persecution watchdog Release International has launched an urgent appeal to help Burma’s Christians reach out to survivors of Cyclone Nargis within their community amid reports that the military regime is withholding aid from Christians.
Release said it was receiving reports from its partners that some Christian groups in the country were being denied aid by the military junta, which has been reluctant to let in foreign aid and aid workers to help in the aftermath of the cyclone that struck on May 2.
According to Release’s partners in Burma, the authorities are denying aid to some Christian groups in the country and there are fears that the junta may use the aftermath of the cyclone to ethnically cleanse people groups that are predominantly Christian.
Years of fierce persecution against Burma’s largest and mostly Christian minority group, the Karen people, is well documented. They have previously fallen victim to ethnic cleansing, military attacks and have been used as human minesweepers by the army because of their faith.
The US-based Christian Freedom International echoed concerns for the Karen people. It fears that the relocation of storm-affected victims into consolidated population centres, currently being enforced in Karen State, is more to do with the junta's effort to increase its control over civilians rather than care for survivors in need of help.
The Chief Executive of Release International, Andy Dipper, said, “Release is concerned that access to many of those in need is still being denied, as a result of discrimination against Christians.
“We remain troubled that international relief funds might be misused to forcibly relocate people on grounds of their ethnicity or faith.
“Any relocation of internally displaced persons from camps or disaster areas must be voluntary. They should not be coerced in any way – including through the suspension of aid. These people should be allowed to return to their former homes in safety and with dignity.”
Release International said its partners in Burma have been bringing food to Karen survivors of the cyclone, who say they have been denied aid from the authorities. Some have gone into hiding for fear that the authorities may use the chaos to pursue their policy of ethnic cleansing unseen.
An estimated 134,000 people are dead or missing after the May 2 storm and sea surge, which largely affected the Irrawaddy Delta. Around 2.4 million people are in need of aid.
Release International’s contact on the ground, Pastor Barnabus, whose real name has been concealed for security reasons, described the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis.
“There are many Christian villages in the worst hit area,” he said. “In one township all 17 Christian villages have been totally wiped out. Only a few people survive.
“When international aid arrived the authorities discriminated against Christians. Those with the ‘C-virus’ [Christians] don’t get aid. So the churches are doing their best to help them.”
He told Release that the churches had pooled their resources together to help Karen survivors in hiding.
“They are in hiding because of rumours that the authorities will force them to undertake road construction like prisoners on a chain gang,” he said.
“The junta is systematically carrying out an ethnic Christian minority cleaning operation. It is clear they want to replace the people of the fertile swamp delta area - the rice bowl of Burma - with the ethnically Burman people. And they want to drive the Karen to a different location to mix them with the Burman.”
Pastor Barnabus is helping Karen survivors by delivering bags of rice that have been donated by churches.
He added: “These Karen have not been saved by the authorities, but by the churches. We were able to give our small gifts to survivors at a high school – about 1,700 Karen minority Christians.”
Pastor Joshua, another Release partner, runs a Bible college that was damaged in the cyclone. The students escaped unharmed.
“We are safe by God’s grace, but are suffering from a lack of water and food. Many thousands of people are homeless now,” he said.
“Many poor people’s houses nearby have gone and more than 400 people ran to the college for shelter. The problem is we have no food for them. I am going out to our mission fields to see if I can find our people. Thank you for your prayers.”
A network of pastors, students and churches is being coordinated by Release International’s partners on the ground to provide shelter for hundreds of homeless families.
“Believers have responded sacrificially and courageously to reach out with help and hope,” said Release. “In a land where the nation’s leaders have vowed to eradicate Christianity the challenge is to reach out with the gospel and demonstrate the love of God.”
The Director of Operations at Christian humanitarian agency World Emergency Relief, Alex Haxton, said on Friday that negative media headlines have meant that emergency appeals for Burma are receiving donations well below expectations.
Whilst media reports have tended to spotlight the struggle aid agencies are facing to bring aid to cyclone survivors, Haxton insisted that those agencies with native Burmese partners on the ground, like WER, World Vision and Tearfund, are successfully reaching those in need with emergency relief.
He appealed to Christians not to be dissuaded from giving to emergency appeals.
“The need is real, the need is great. So do give and pray that righteousness will prevail. Don’t be negative, don’t be sceptical, but give and give generously because there is real need,” he said.
Release International said it had also begun successfully sending out aid from the UK and that it plans to send more as funds come in.
“Please help the Christians of Burma as they reach out to their communities to save lives,” said Dipper. “Help them to rebuild their homes, schools, churches and orphanages.”
Premier Christian Radio and Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) have teamed up for a new nationwide campaign, Change for Burma!, to highlight the current crisis in the country and mobilise Christians the world over in championing human rights and freedom in Burma.
"The campaign highlights three immediate steps which the international community should take to address the political and humanitarian emergency in Burma,” said Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
“The first step is to act without delay to ensure the immediate and safe delivery of humanitarian aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis, with whatever means necessary.
"The second is to categorically reject the results of the sham referendum held in Burma earlier this month.
“The third is to put pressure on the UN Security Council to refer a case of crimes against humanity against Burma's ruling generals to the International Criminal Court."
Supporters of the campaign are being urged to write to Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander, to address the campaign’s concerns and build an international coalition to deliver humanitarian aid.
"It's our duty as a Christian media group to highlight the work of Christian Solidarity Worldwide and other Christian organisation,” said Premier Christian Media's Chief Executive, Peter Kerridge said. "We hope that by partnering with Christian Solidarity Worldwide on the the Change for Burma! campaign we can take their message to Christians across the UK."
The campaign has been endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said, "We follow the Christ who always stood with the oppressed, the weak and the marginalised: 'inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these ye have done it to me.'
“Let us join with Christ with those suffering in Burma. Let us support them in their plight," Archbishop Tutu said.
For more information about the campaign, go to www.changeforburma.org
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