U.S. Supreme Court to Determine Meaning of Second Amendment
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07221.shtml
OAKLAND, Calif., (christiansunite.com) -- After nearly 70 years of silence regarding the Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court is presiding over the District of Columbia vs. Heller and is expected to render a decision in June.
At issue, as attorney and Independent Institute Research Fellow Stephen P. Halbrook explains in his new book The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms (June 6, 2008 / Ivan R. Dee / $28.95), is whether the Second Amendment protects a citizen's right to privately keep arms.
Many have argued that the language in the Bill of Rights refers only to individuals active in a militia, such as the National Guard. But as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has opined, and as a growing body of evidence seems to indicate, the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" may very well be personal.
Having won three cases before the Supreme Court, Halbrook filed an Amici Curiae Brief on behalf of 55 Members of the Senate, the Senate President, and 250 Members of the House of Representatives, available for download at: www.independent.org.
While many books have been penned on gun control and related issues, none have delved so deeply into the nature of the right to keep and bear arms as it was understood and practiced during the first generation of the American Republic. The Founders' Second Amendment captures the intent of the Founders in their own words from newspapers, correspondence, and political debates; and also draws on archival sources revealed for the first time ever. Thomas Jefferson, an avid gun collector, believed that "all power is inherent in the people . . . it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." Samuel Adams understood that "peaceable citizens" should "keep their own arms." And as Federalist Tench Coxe understood the right, it concerned "private arms."
By placing historical events and their modern-day applications in context, Halbrook reveals how the intent of the Founders is hard to misinterpret. From the 1768 Redcoat occupation of Boston and disarming of citizens to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Halbrook's authoritative analysis of history demonstrates the great significance of this right to the Founders. When controversy ignited in 1787 over the ratification of a Constitution without a corresponding declaration of rights, compromise was only reached after James Madison drafted the Bill of Rights, affirming later on his association of republican government with an armed populace.
Now, more than 200 years later, as the Supreme Court weighs the arguments in the city known as Murder Capital U.S.A., Stephen P. Halbrook urges the Justices to recognize that the true meaning of the Second Amendment is as essential to the Bill of Rights as is that of the First.
About the Author
Stephen P. Halbrook is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and author of The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms (June 6, 2008/Ivan R. Dee). An attorney in Fairfax, VA and an expert on gun control and the Second Amendment, he has won three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has filed an amicus brief in District of Columbia vs. Heller and is representing more than 300 members of Congress. His other books include That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right; Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1866-1876; A Right to Bear Arms: State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; The Swiss and the Nazis; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II.
McCain Inteview: Obama Wants to Surrender in Iraq
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/mccain/2008/05/26/99017.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Republican John McCain on Monday sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for not having been to Iraq since 2006, and said they should visit the war zone together.
"Look at what happened in the last two years since Senator Obama visited and declared the war lost," the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting told The Associated Press in an interview, noting that the Illinois senator's last trip to Iraq came before the military buildup that is credited with curbing violence.
"He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time," the Arizona senator added. "If there was any other issue before the American people, and you hadn't had anything to do with it in a couple of years, I think the American people would judge that very harshly."
McCain, a Navy veteran and Vietnam prisoner of war, frequently argues that he's the most qualified candidate to be a wartime commander in chief. In recent weeks, he has sought portray Obama, a first-term senator, as naive on foreign policy and not experienced enough to lead the military.
The Iraq war, which polls have shown that most of the country opposes, is shaping up to be a defining issue in the November presidential election.
McCain, who wrapped up the GOP nomination in March, supports continued military presence in Iraq though he recently said he envisions victory with most U.S. troops coming home by January 2013 if he's elected. Obama, who has all but clinched the Democratic nomination, says he will remove U.S. combat troops within 16 months of taking office, though sometimes he shortens it to 11 months.
"For him to talk about dates for withdrawal, which basically is surrender in Iraq after we're succeeding so well is, I think, really inexcusable," said McCain, who has been to Iraq eight times, most recently in March.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton declined to respond directly to McCain, saying only: "Senator Obama thinks Memorial Day is a day to honor our nation's veterans, not a day for political posturing."
Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain's top surrogates, laid the groundwork for McCain's criticism in a television interview in which he noted Obama's absence from Iraq and floated the idea that Obama and McCain should go together to be briefed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Asked whether he'd be willing to take such a trip, McCain told the AP: "Sure. It would be fine."
"I go back every few months because things are changing in Iraq," he said. McCain questioned whether Obama has ever been briefed by Petraeus. "I would also seize that opportunity to educate Senator Obama along the way."
Both McCain and Obama spent part of Memorial Day in New Mexico, a general election battleground that was decided by razor-thin margins in 2000, for Democrat Al Gore, and in 2004, for Republican President Bush.
Obama addressed veterans Monday in Las Cruces while McCain used a speech at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial in Albuquerque to press his case against withdrawing troops from Iraq, saying they must continue their mission even though he's "sick at heart" by mistakes at the outset of the war.
McCain also defended his opposition to Senate-passed legislation that would provide additional college financial aid to veterans, a measure Obama supports.
The Republican made no direct mention of the Democrat but seemed to poke at him nonetheless.
McCain said his opposition to the bill was the right rather than the politically expedient position, suggesting Obama was on the wrong side of the measure sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate. Lawmakers blocked a more limited version that McCain supported.
"I am running for the office of commander in chief. That is the highest privilege in this country, and it imposes the greatest responsibilities. And this is why I am committed to our bill, despite the support Senator Webb's bill has received," McCain said. "It would be easier, much easier politically for me to have joined Senator Webb in offering his legislation."
However, McCain said he opposed Webb's measure because it would give everyone the same benefit regardless of how many times they enlist. He said he feared that would depress reenlistments by those wanting to attend college after only a few years in uniform. Rather, McCain said the bill he favored would have increased scholarships based on length of service.
McCain spent the early part of the holiday weekend at his retreat in Sedona, Ariz., where he entertained some two dozen guests, including three fellow Republicans who have been mentioned as possible vice presidential running mates: Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
"It really was just a social occasion," McCain told the AP. Asked whether he did any vetting of the three, McCain said: "None. Zero. There is plenty of time for that kind of thing."
Is There Really a Bias Against Women in Politics? History Suggests Otherwise
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,358179,00.html
Are women really discriminated against in politics? Sen. Hillary Clinton surely thinks so.
Indeed, she believes this year's presidential campaign has shown that sexism limits women's influence in politics. She claimed last week that "every poll I've seen shows more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman [than] to vote for an African American."
It's possible that Democrats are particularly sexist, but with women making up the majority of voters, one would think that politicians were ignoring women at their own peril.
In 2004, women made up 54 percent of voters. At least through early February of this year, women made up a much greater share of Democrat primary voters — accounting for between 57 and 61 percent of the vote in primaries and caucuses.
But whatever difficulties Clinton might be having, it seems that the policies adopted are much more important than who puts them into action, and the evidence indicates that women have long gotten their way.
Academics have for some time pondered why the government started growing precisely when it did. The federal government, aside from periods of wartime, consumed about 2 to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) up until World War I. That was the first war in which government spending didn't go all the way back down to its pre-war levels. Then in the 1920s, non-military federal spending began steadily climbing.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal — often viewed as the genesis of big government — really just continued an earlier trend. What changed before Roosevelt came to power that explains the growth of government? The answer is women's suffrage.
For decades, polls have shown that women as a group vote differently than men. Without the women's vote, Republicans would have swept every presidential race but one between 1968 and 2004.
The gender gap exists on various issues. The major one is the issue of smaller government and lower taxes, which is a much higher priority for men than for women. This is seen in divergent attitudes held by men and women on many separate issues.
Women were much more opposed to the 1996 federal welfare reforms, which mandated time limits for receiving welfare and imposed some work requirements on welfare recipients. Women are also more supportive of Medicare, Social Security and educational expenditures.
Studies show that women are generally more risk-averse than men. This could be why they are more supportive of government programs to ensure against certain risks in life.
Women's average incomes are also slightly lower and less likely to vary over time, which gives single women an incentive to prefer more progressive income taxes. Once women get married, however, they bear a greater share of taxes through their husbands' relatively higher incomes — so their support for high taxes understandably declines.
Marriage also provides an economic explanation for why men and women prefer different policies.
Because women generally shoulder most of the child-rearing responsibilities, married men are more likely to acquire marketable skills that help them earn money outside the household. If a man gets divorced, he still retains these skills. But if a woman gets divorced, she is unable to recoup her investment in running the household.
Hence, single women who believe they may marry in the future, as well as married women who most fear divorce, look to the government as a form of protection against this risk from a possible divorce: a more progressive tax system and other government transfers of wealth from rich to poor. The more certain a woman is that she doesn't risk divorce, the more likely she is to oppose government transfers.
Has it always been this way? Can women's suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries help explain the growth of government?
While the timing of the two events is suggestive, other changes during this time could have played a role. For example, some argue that Americans became more supportive of bigger government due to the success of widespread economic regulations imposed during World War I.
A good way to analyze the direct effect of women's suffrage on the growth of government is to study how each of the 48 state governments expanded after women obtained the right to vote.
Women's suffrage was first granted in western states with relatively few women — Wyoming (1869), Utah (1870), Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1896). Women could vote in 29 states before women's suffrage was achieved nationwide in 1920 with the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
If women's right to vote increased government, our analysis should show a few definite indicators. First, suffrage would have a bigger impact on government spending and taxes in states with a greater percentage of women. And secondly, the size of government in western states should steadily expand as women comprise an increasing share of their population.
Even after accounting for a range of other factors — such as industrialization, urbanization, education and income — the impact of granting of women's suffrage on per capita state government expenditures and revenue was startling.
Per capita state government spending after accounting for inflation had been flat or falling during the 10 years before women began voting. But state governments started expanding the first year after women voted and continued growing until within 11 years real per capita spending had more than doubled. The increase in government spending and revenue started immediately after women started voting.
Yet, as suggestive as these facts are, we must still consider whether suffrage itself caused the growth in government, or did the government expand due to some political or social change that accompanied women's right to vote?
Fortunately, there was a unique aspect of suffrage that allows us to answer this question: Of the 19 states that had not passed women's suffrage before the approval of the 19th Amendment, nine approved the amendment, while the other 12 had suffrage imposed on them.
If some unknown factor caused both a desire for larger government and women's suffrage, then government should have only grown in states that voluntarily adopted suffrage. This, however, is not the case: After approving women's suffrage, a similar growth in government was seen in both groups of states.
Women's suffrage also explains much of the federal government's growth from the 1920s to the 1960s. In the 45 years after the adoption of suffrage, as women's voting rates gradually increased until finally reaching the same level as men's, the size of state and federal governments expanded as women became an increasingly important part of the electorate.
But the battle between the sexes does not end there. During the early 1970s, just as women's share of the voting population was leveling off, something else was changing: The American family began to break down, with rising divorce rates and increasing numbers of out-of-wedlock births.
Over the course of women's lives, their political views on average vary more than those of men. Young single women start out being much more liberal than their male counterparts and are about 50 percent more likely to vote Democratic. As previously noted, these women also support a higher, more progressive income tax as well as more educational and welfare spending.
But for married women this gap is only one-third as large. And married women with children become more conservative still. Women with children who are divorced, however, are suddenly about 75 percent more likely to vote for Democrats than single men. So as divorce rates have increased, due in large part to changing divorce laws, voters have become more liberal.
Women's suffrage ushered in a sea change in American politics that affected policies aside from taxes and the size of government. For example, states that granted suffrage were much more likely to pass Prohibition, for the temperance movement was largely dominated by middle-class women. Although the "gender gap" is commonly thought to have arisen only in the 1960s, female voting dramatically changed American politics from the very beginning.
Woman Wakes After Heart Stopped, Rigor Mortis Set In
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357463,00.html
Val Thomas’ doctors honestly can’t explain how she is alive today.
Thomas, who lives in West Virginia, is being called a medical miracle after she suffered two heart attacks and had no brain waves for more than 17 hours; reports NewsNet5.com.
Thomas’ heart stopped around 1:30 a.m. Saturday and doctors said she had no pulse. Rigor mortis started to set in, and she was placed on a respiratory machine.
“Her skin had already started to harden and her fingers curled,” Thomas’ son, Jim, told NewsNet5.com. “Death had set in.”
Thomas, 59, was rushed to a West Virginia hospital, where she was put on a special machine to induce hypothermia. This would allow her body to cool down for 24 hours before they would warm her up again, doctors explained.
However, Thomas’ heart stopped again after the procedure.
Her family said their goodbyes and Thomas’ tubes were removed, but she remained hooked on a ventilator as the possibility of organ donation was discussed.
However, Thomas woke up 10 minutes later and started talking.
“The nurse said, ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs. Thomas,’ and mom said, ‘That’s OK, honey, that’s OK,’” Jim Thomas said.
Val Thomas was transferred to the Cleveland Clinic so that specialists could check her out, but doctors said they could find nothing wrong with her.
“I know God has something in store for me, another purpose,” Val Thomas said. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure he’ll tell me.”
SBA List Releases Radio Ad in New Mexico Highlighting Anti-Life Record of Rep. Heather Wilson
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07222.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- Today the Susan B. Anthony List announced a $30,000 radio ad campaign on New Mexico Christian radio stations. The ad highlights Rep. Heather Wilson's (R-NM) record of supporting taxpayer funds for Planned Parenthood and her support for FDA approval of the RU-486 abortion pill. The script reads:
"There are 4,000 abortions every day in the United States. That's 4,000 children who weren't given a chance for life. This is a tragedy. But not to Representative Heather Wilson. She's part of the problem. Listen to the facts about her record.
Heather Wilson voted to send your tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion provider in the United States. Planned Parenthood is a billion dollar abortion business, yet Heather Wilson thinks they deserve your tax dollars. Heather Wilson claims she's pro-life. Yet Wilson voted twice to allow FDA testing and approval of the deadly RU 486 chemical abortion pill.
The Susan B. Anthony List is encouraging the public to call Heather Wilson at 505-346-6781 and tell her they know the truth about her record.
'Paid for by Susan B. Anthony List, Inc., www.sba- list.org and not authorized by any candidate or candidates' committees.'"
The ad addresses Rep. Heather Wilson's (R-NM) vote against an amendment sponsored by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to discontinue federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Last year, Planned Parenthood received over $300 million in federal taxpayer funding, while posting record profits of over $1 billion. Also raised are Wilson's two votes in favor of the FDA approval of the RU-486 abortion pill, which has been connected to serious injuries and even death for women who use it.
"Heather Wilson calls herself pro-life, but her voting record clearly shows otherwise. It is time Heather Wilson's constituents learn the truth about her votes to spend dollars from the pockets of principled pro-life Americans to destroy human lives," said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. "From her support for Planned Parenthood, to approval of the deadly RU-486 abortion drug, Heather Wilson's record is anything but pro-life."
The ad will run for three weeks beginning May 19, 2008 on Christian radio stations in New Mexico. It can be accessed on the Susan B. Anthony List website at www.sba-list.org/truth.
The Susan B. Anthony List is a nationwide network of Americans, over 145,000 residing in all 50 states, dedicated to mobilizing, advancing, and representing pro-life women in politics. Its connected Candidate Fund increases the percentage of pro-life women in the political process.
Rick Warren and 1,700 Leaders Launch the Peace Coalition at Purpose Driven Summit
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07220.shtml
LAKE FOREST, Calif., (christiansunite.com) -- Over 1,700 leading pastors, business and Christian institutional leaders from 39 countries and all 50 states gathered in Lake Forest, California, May 20-22, to create The PEACE Coalition, a new international alliance of churches, businesses, ministries, universities, and other institutions.
The launch of the PEACE Coalition occurred at a three day Purpose Driven Network Summit hosted by Saddleback Church where Dr. Rick Warren is the founding pastor. The coalition will cooperate in a global mission strategy called the P.E.A.C.E. Plan, which is a massive, long range effort to mobilize one billion Christians in local churches around the world to copy Jesus' model of ministry.
"For followers of Jesus, one of the most important words in our vocabulary is the word 'Go!,' Warren said. "Jesus repeatedly commanded every believer to go; you can't spell gospel or good news without 'go' - ours is an active, not passive, faith."
P.E.A.C.E. is an acronym for Promote reconciliation; Equip servant leaders; Assist the poor; Care for the sick; and Educate the next generation. Coalition members see these actions as Jesus' antidote to five "global giants,"- problems that affect billions of people worldwide: spiritual emptiness, self-centered leadership, poverty, pandemic disease, and illiteracy.
For the past four years, thousands of members of Saddleback Church have been testing prototypes of the P.E.A.C.E. Plan around the world. During this phase, called P.E.A.C.E 1.0, more than 7,700 members volunteered on over a thousand P.E.A.C.E. teams to serve in 68 countries. A dozen other Purpose Driven Network churches were invited to beta-test the plan with Saddleback. After studying the data reported back by these teams, Warren felt confident that the second phase, PEACE 2.0, was ready to be released with the public launch of the PEACE Coalition.
At a post-summit press conference, Warren pointed out that the size and complexity of the P.E.A.C.E. Coalition's objective would likely take decades to accomplish. "We usually set goals too low and try to reach them too quickly," he said. "Instead we should set God honoring goals in faith, and then invest the rest of our lives working toward them. This plan could take 50 years so it might not be completed in my lifetime. That's why I call the next generation the Reformation Generation."
During the summit, Warren outlined how the P.E.A.C.E. Plan is both a framework and a network for global mission. Confiding that a leader of a large, well- known parachurch ministry had told him the P.E.A.C.E. Plan was too ambitious for 'mere amateurs,' Warren reminded summit attendees that it was simply the same strategy that Jesus modeled with his disciples.
"The P.E.A.C.E. Plan just follows the instructions Jesus gave to his 70 'amateurs' in Matthew 10 and Luke 10 when he sent teams into villages," Warren said. "It is Jesus' framework for ministry, not ours."
Warren offered a summary statement of the P.E.A.C.E plan; "Ordinary people, empowered by God's Spirit, doing what Jesus did, together, wherever they are." The statement parallels Jesus' final instructions to the church in Acts 1:8 - "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (New International Version)
Warren noted that Jesus' command to go take the Good News further and further is simultaneous, not sequential. "We are to go to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth - all at the same time," he said.
"Jesus instructed his followers to do something that was physically impossible at that time because ocean crossing transportation didn't exist. People didn't even know about the Americas or Australia. Truly global mission was completely out of their realm of ability. But in His timing God has provided the technology for his commission to be fulfilled. You can now go practically anywhere in the world in about 24 hours."
Speaking of the P.E.A.C.E. Plan as a network, Warren pointed out that every time a new communication technology has arisen, the world has witnessed an expansion of the Gospel and growth of the church. He gave as examples, the Gutenberg press, the telephone, the radio, the television - and now the Internet.
"Today, anyone anywhere can reach everyone everywhere," stated Mark Beeson, pastor of Granger Community Church in South Bend, Indiana, referencing the global reach a single believer can have with a computer connected to the Internet. "Using technology that was previously unavailable for collaboration in global mission is one of the factors that are allowing us to create this new P.E.A.C.E. Coalition," added Nelson Searcy, pastor of The Journey Church in Manhattan, New York. Both Beeson and Searcy serve on the PEACE Coalition Council.
Another coalition member, Dave Ferguson, pastor of Community Christian Church in West Chicago, IL, said, "Local churches can now work directly with each other through a decentralized network instead of being separated by hierarchical silos." During program breaks at the summit, churches were overheard setting up church-to-church partnerships for P.E.A.C.E. projects around the world.
P.E.A.C.E. Coalition members will be able to access free software to coordinate their projects. Saddleback church invested $3 million in the initial development of six modules: A member mobilization module, a project management module, an e-learning training module, a world missions database module (awarded best Christian software in 2007), a PEACE Coalition social network, and a private social network for pastors Additional funding is being sought to complete the 4.0 version.
Warren noted that for 1,900 years, local churches initiated missions around the world, but in recent history, Western churches have largely abdicated their responsibility to parachurch organizations. New ministries to the poor, the sick, the uneducated, the lost and other groups were born when local churches failed to address those needs.
"First and foremost, the P.E.A.C.E. Plan is about reclaiming the primacy of the local church's role in global missions; to me, that is worthy of a reformation," Warren said, "Those other wonderful ministries do incredible work, but their capacity is miniscule compared to the potential of a worldwide network of local churches. Besides, in the New Testament model, Paul, Barnabus and others were sent out by a local church."
Warren explained how his members used to hand- deliver care packages to kids in Third World villages through a parachurch organization. Saddleback members felt good about it, but the plan ignored and devalued the long-term ministry of the local indigenous churches. Now every project is done through local churches, insuring that those churches are strengthened, receive the credit and are seen as the heroes in their communities.
"At a wedding the bride is the main character, the center, the star of the show - everyone else is supporting cast, but the glory goes to the bride," Warren concluded. "The P.E.A.C.E. Plan is built on the same principle. The Bride of Christ - of which the church is its local expression around the world - deserves the focus, the credit and the glory for faithfully serving their communities year after year."
Church of England told to stop watering down faith
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/church.of.england.told.to.stop.watering.down.faith/19056.htm
The Church of England is divided over a proposed motion urging it to proclaim Christianity as the only way to salvation and offer strategies on how to evangelise Muslims.
Senior church leaders as well as some Muslim figures have voiced anger at the motion proposed by Paul Eddy – a lay member of the church’s General Synod, according to the BBC. Eddy, along with traditionalist Anglicans, argues that the Church should stop avoiding hard questions about its beliefs.
The Church of England must make it clear that it believes in what the Bible says about Jesus being the only way to salvation, he said. Currently training to become a priest, Eddy believes that being upfront about the Church’s beliefs will be helpful to Muslim-Christian relations.
“Most Muslims that I’ve talked to say, ‘I really wish that Christians would stop watering down their faith and expecting us to do the same,’” Eddy said on BBC Radio Four on Sunday. “Until we start really saying what we really believe in our faith, there will be no respect.”
Eddy went on to note that Muslims expect Christians to believe that Jesus is the only way to God.
“They will expect us – if we’re true Christians – to try to evangelise them, in the same way they will expect us, if they’re true Muslims, to adopt their faith,” he said.
But the problem is that the Church, in an effort to be inclusive and to avoid offending people of other faiths, has “lost its nerve” and is “not doing what the Bible says”, he claims.
"Both Christianity and Islam are missionary faiths," Eddy pointed out. "For years, we have sent missionaries throughout the whole world, but when we have the privilege of people of all nations on our doorstep, we have a responsibility as the state church to share the gospel of Jesus Christ."
He urges Anglican bishops to give Church members advice on how to evangelise, and how to better support Muslims who have converted to Christianity and who are now ostracised by their communities.
The proposal is expected to be discussed at the General Synod summer meeting, being held from July 4 to 8 in York.
Eye on the EU: Will the Lisbon Treaty Spell the End of the WEU?
http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/commentary/eye-on-the-eu-will-the-lisbon-treaty-spell-the-en/
Lisbon Treaty Unlikely to End the WEU Anytime Soon
In 2002, Fulfilled Prophecy began reporting on a 10-nation military alliance, called the Western European Union, that appears to match a 10-nation alliance foretold in Bible prophecy. Now, with ratification of the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty underway, some may wonder what effect the treaty, if adopted, will have on the alliance. Guest columnist Mishael Meir answers this question.
Although repeated efforts have been made to kill it off, the Western European Union (WEU) lives on as a mutual defense treaty among its 10 permanent members. While the Lisbon Treaty appears to put into place elements that indicate a planned WEU demise, the WEU Ten always manages to survive. To understand what is happening, here’s some helpful background.
The Magic Number ‘10’
The WEU was created in 1954 by the modified Brussels Treaty as a means for Europe to interface with NATO through its own security and defense organization. Any of the 10 permanent members could withdraw after 50 years from the 1948 date of the original treaty or beginning in 1998. None of them has done so.
Additionally, all 10 members could choose to terminate the treaty by “denouncing” it. That hasn’t happened either.
Since 1998, there have been many calls to terminate the treaty. None has succeeded. Interestingly, in the WEU Council’s Dec. 6, 2000, Reply to Recommendation 666, the Council made clear that the WEU was sticking around, saying:
"the collective defence commitment provided for under Article V of the modified Brussels Treaty will remain and there is no intention on the part of its signatories to denounce the Treaty."
Beginning in 2001, the European Union absorbed almost all of the WEU’s functions. However, because the modified Brussels Treaty remains in effect, so does the treaty’s mutual defense clause that gave rise to the 10-state military alliance. The WEU’s Council exists only as a formality. It hasn’t convened as a body since November 2000, but the same people now sit within the structure of the EU as its Political and Security Committee, where it exercises “political control and strategic direction” of EU crisis-management operations. The WEU’s arms procurement body has been absorbed into the European Defence Agency, an agency of the EU headed by Javier Solana.
In June 2001, Solana, acting in his role as the WEU’s Secretary General, announced that the WEU Ten had capped the number of permanent members at 10, exactly as the prophet Daniel predicted (Daniel 7:24). After all, why continue expanding the WEU when the EU was beginning efforts to replace it internally?
The Netherlands apparently agreed. In 2004, on the eve of the draft constitution’s signing, the Dutch tried and failed to get the WEU Ten to terminate the treaty. Other WEU Ten members said no: The modified Brussels Treaty had to stay in place to maintain the binding commitment of mutual defense, given that such a commitment was not contained in the draft constitution.
Enter the Lisbon Treaty
After the French and Dutch citizens rejected the constitution in their 2005 referendums, the WEU urged the EU to continue building its security and defense framework using the legal authority of the EU’s existing treaties. The EU opted instead to trot out the constitution again, this time repackaged as the Lisbon Treaty. To ensure its ratification, the heads of state blocked their own citizens from being able to go to the polls, that is, except for the Irish who go to the polls on June 12. All of Europe is holding its breath to see the outcome of this crucial vote.
So, what happens if the Irish say yes and what happens if they say no? What effect will the Lisbon Treaty have on the WEU if it actually goes into effect?
If the Irish vote yes, the Lisbon Treaty, on its face, appears to endorse the continued existence of the WEU. Under Protocol No. 11, the EU and WEU are to make arrangements for enhanced cooperation between them. This is curious considering that the WEU is little more than an empty shell with only its democratic Assembly left.
Also, the Lisbon Treaty has something the draft constitution never had: a binding mutual defense provision that embraces all 27 member states. Although that would make the modified Brussels Treaty Article V redundant, the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty would not by itself terminate the modified Brussels Treaty. Only the WEU Ten can do that.
Additionally, the Lisbon Treaty contains provisions for “permanent structured cooperation” (PSCoop). It would allow members who meet certain criteria to build their own permanent military framework that the other states could later join, assuming they met the funding and troop level criteria set out in Protocol No. 11. Apparently some EU states have suggested that the WEU Ten would logically form the PSCoop membership.
If the Lisbon Treaty goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2009, and PSCoop gets underway, look for another call to terminate the modified Brussels Treaty. However, these are very big “ifs.” Even if it plays out as the EU hopes, it may take a long time before the PSCoop club got anything going. In the meantime, the WEU Ten will still exist as a military alliance and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
If the Irish veto the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has no Plan B. The treaty will fail just like the draft constitution failed. Be assured the heads of state will arm twist the Irish into another referendum so they can vote until they get it “right.” This is exactly what happened with their no-vote on the Nice Treaty, which the Irish finally ratified at a second referendum.
‘Man of Lawlessness’
What occurs to me in the analysis of EU and WEU treaties is that the antichrist will be a “man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Treaties are law and must be followed. The antichrist won’t care what a treaty says.
As a pertinent example, consider the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. The Roman Republic built the legal foundation for Western civilization, including the checks and balances system for democratic governance. Once Caesar Augustus transformed the Republic into the Roman Empire in 31 B.C., law turned into whatever the caesars said it was, regardless of what had already been established through the democratic Senate and treaties with foreign states.
Why a 10-state military alliance in the revived Roman Empire would suddenly hand the antichrist power can be explained under an endless number of scenarios. One is this. What if disaster happens while the EU is wrangling treaties and the only existing alliance is the WEU Ten? We all know who loves chaos and confusion, and it sure isn’t our God! (See 1 Corinthians 14:33).
As Herb would say, “stay tuned.”
How Europe is Starting to Set Global Rules
http://www.neurope.eu/articles/87081.php
The European Union is a success story. Europe’s achievements have to be seen not as a single act or chain of spectacular consecutive EU summits, but as a historical process. Almost 50 years ago, the political scientist Karl Deutsch defined a concept of a pluralistic security community based on: the sovereignty and legal independence of states; the compatibility of core values derived from common institutions;
mutual responsiveness, identity and loyalty; integration to the point that states entertain “dependable expectations of peaceful change” and communication cementing political communities. As it turns out, the EU today reflects these elements. For the past two decades, institutional reforms have worked better than they are given credit for. The EU has enhanced its decision-making mechanisms by moving more areas to qualified majority voting (QMV), and by streamlining its institutions. New mechanisms have emerged in such areas as a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). Failures have had more to do with inadequate political leadership and the lack of determination, as well as the EU’s dilemma over how to close its distance from the citizen.
Now we have the Reform Treaty signed in Lisbon. This is the rejected constitutional treaty minus, but the minus isn’t very big. The treaty aims to transform the Union into an international organisation and grant it legal personality. In my view, the Union is much more than a classical international organisation; It is a new animal that is more than an organisation and less than a state. The treaty says that the Union will act only within the limits conferred upon it by member states. The Union has always acted on the basis of conferred competence, and stating that obvious fact more explicitly reflects the continuing unease in some states over the very principle of supranational integration. The role of national parliaments is enhanced, the subsidiarity mechanism reinforced, and the double majority voting system is being implemented. The title “Minister of Foreign Affairs” in the rejected constitution has been dropped, so the CFSP is still in charge of the “high representative”.
That still leaves the question of how the EU’s common and security policy will shift from rhetoric to action? Karl von Wogau, president of the European Parliament’s sub-committee on defence, has rightly noted: “The main challenge we face is not to rewrite the European security strategy, but to implement what we have already agreed.” Looking ahead, governance issues are likely to be subject of review as the innovations of the Reform Treaty are tested in practice. The double-hatted high representative of the Union for foreign affairs and security policy could be a model for use elsewhere in the institutional architecture. Interaction between the new permanent president of the Council and the member state presidencies is another area where improvements might be needed. The composition of the Commission will attract attention. Governance inside the Eurozone will also be the subject of further discussions if, as seems likely, it offers a basis for more advanced integration. Reducing the scope of qualified majority voting will remain a major objective. The procedure for amending a treaty, at present requiring ratification by all member states, will also need to be explored further.
The Union is likely to be spared a new wave of reform in the near future, but from 2010 onwards the pressures will grow for reviewing the existing provisions. New revision treaties could deal with selected issues, and hence be easier to agree on and ratify. Constructing a new international order based on multilateralism is neither a choice nor an alternative, but a necessity. Henry Kissinger believes that the United States should act as if it were functioning in a world where security depends on numerous other centres of power. “In such a world,” Kissinger has written, “the United States will find partners not only for sharing the psychological burdens of leadership, but also for shaping an international order consistent with freedom and democracy”. Such a new centre of power is constituted by the EU. But it is an open question whether the values shared by NATO and the EU, along with the concept of soft power, are compatible with the ambitions of the United States.
EU machine grinds to a halt for Irish vote
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/25/europe/irish.php?page=1
BRUSSELS: Never famous for speedy decision-making, the European Union is working more slowly than ever, and it is all the fault of the Irish.
Ireland, with a population of 4.2 million, votes June 12 in a referendum that will decide whether the European Union finally gets a full-time president and a single, more powerful, foreign policy chief.
The Irish electorate will determine whether the European Union can reorganize its ramshackle internal structures and play a more influential role on the world stage, or whether it will just carry on muddling through.
It is voting on what is known as the Lisbon Treaty, painfully renegotiated after voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005 rejected an earlier, more complicated version, which had the trappings of a constitution.
Referendums are always dangerous and almost all countries decided to skip having one on the Lisbon Treaty, which requires the approval of all 27 member nations of the European Union to come into force. But not the Irish.
Rarely have so few voters caused so many jitters across so many capitals. In 2001 the Irish voted no to the EU's Nice Treaty, an earlier attempt to streamline structures to prepare for the expansion of the bloc.
And with opinion polls showing much of the Irish electorate undecided, the possibility that the Lisbon Treaty may be rejected has sent unfamiliar tremors of fear through the ranks of Europe's top bureaucrats, who rarely have to trouble with voters.
That has meant a kind of unacknowledged but collective halt on anything controversial, particularly if it might upset Irish sensibilities.
"Every time there is a referendum this happens," said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research institute in London. "This is one of the reasons why there will not be another treaty change for 10 years, in my view.
"With 27 member states, ratification is so difficult," Grant said. "Someone is going to have a referendum and then you have to put policy-making in a freeze."
The view that Brussels has been gripped by a go-slow is shared widely. "We all know this is happening, but we are all denying it - so you won't get me saying anything on the record," one EU diplomat said.
But the evidence is all around. In March the European Union's 27 heads of government held one of their least eventful meetings in recent memory. By contrast, their summit meeting next month - which starts June 19, after the Irish vote - has a crowded agenda including climate change, the vexed issue of biofuels, food price rises, planned laws on carbon dioxide emissions from cars and the role of the new European president.
Initiatives likely to worry or annoy Irish voters are being played down or delayed.
For months little has been heard about plans to increase European defense cooperation or about a fundamental review of how the bloc spends its budget, expected to reach €134 billion, or $211 billion, in 2009.
Ireland is a defiantly neutral country and, in the 2001 referendum, defense proved to be a vital and controversial issue.
Ireland also remains, at least at heart, an agricultural country, so farming subsidies are popular.
Almost no work has been done on a fundamental review of the EU budget, around 43 percent of which - despite complaints from countries like Britain - still goes to agriculture.
Another initiative liable to worry Irish voters and of which little has been heard is the EU's long-standing ambition to harmonize the way in which corporate tax is levied. Ireland's economic boom was helped by some of the lowest taxes on corporations in the union.
Officials are also reluctant to discuss looming decisions about what the new treaty will mean in practice, including the powers of a proposed new full-time European president, its planned foreign policy chief, and its embryonic diplomatic service.
The European Union's executive currently has offices around the globe that deal with issues like aid and trade. The idea is to give these a bigger role in supporting the new, more powerful foreign policy chief. But critics worry that the union will assume some of the current responsibilities of national governments.
Similarly, a decision has to be made on whether the European president will have the role of an influential figure on the global stage or more of a technocrat who brokers internal negotiations among the separate member states.
The fear of appearing to take ratification for granted has contributed to inertia, even though the new posts are supposed to start in January next year. "We are caught between a rock and a hard place," said the EU diplomat who agreed to speak off the record. "If we took decisions before the treaty was ratified then we would be accused of flouting the democratic process."
Not every difficult issue can be avoided, of course. But those that emerge tend to get an Ireland-friendly spin.
When the European Commission recently outlined small-scale reforms to the EU's generous farm support scheme, the European Commission made it clear that the system itself was not under threat. The European agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, chided Britain's finance minister, Alistair Darling, for daring to suggest greater reform.
Still, delay until the middle of next month is the preferred option. Cutting farm subsidies is also a central element of an elusive global trade deal. Ministers from around the globe may be called to Geneva next month - and EU officials are lobbying for any meeting to be after June 12.
In the meantime the EU continues its job of churning out proposals and, for the time being, the more anodyne the better.
Recently one European commissioner, Meglena Kuneva, opened a telephone line to explain consumer rights to soccer fans attending this year's Euro 2008 tournament.
Using existing resources, and therefore costing little, this was a perfect initiative for these jittery, pre-referendum, days. It is consumer friendly and relates to the continent's favorite spectator sport.
And if it turns out to be useless, few swing voters are likely to notice - Ireland failed to qualify for the contest.
Pro-treaty lead narrows
A majority of Irish voters support the Lisbon Treaty, but the lead of the "yes" camp has narrowed in the past two weeks, a Sunday Business Post/Red C opinion poll has showed, Reuters reported from Dublin.
In the poll, conducted from May 19 to May 21, 41 percent of 1,005 respondents said they would vote "yes" in the referendum, 3 percentage points more than two weeks ago. But the share of the treaty's opponents increased by 5 points to 33 percent.
France confirms plans to boost EU's defence arm
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1211821365.24
(BRUSSELS) - France said Monday it would launch a new campaign to strengthen the EU's defence capability when it takes over the bloc's presidency on July 1.
"We have had very intensive discussions with the British. Same for the Germans and Spaniards," Defence Minister Herve Morin said, on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers in Brussels.
"A whole series of projects are on the table," he told reporters, including a revamped defence strategy and a surveillance network for the EU's coastline.
Since coming to power, President Nicolas Sarkozy has offered to reintegrate France into NATO's military command structure, which Charles de Gaulle pulled out of in 1966, in exchange for a defence boost in Europe.
Britain has proved an obstacle, amid reluctance to boost the EU headquarters in Brussels and increase the European Defence Agency's budget.
Another hurdle has been Germany, which France would have to convince to make a special effort to bring its military spending up to the level of Paris and London.
The United States -- NATO's biggest and most powerful member -- had been reluctant to strengthen Europe's defences, amid concerns that it would prove expensive and double-up on NATO capabilities.
But Washington's position has softened since Sarkozy took office last year.
"Our goal ... is to put in place a shared vision and objectives as well as common capacities and means for credible civil and military defences" in Europe, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.
"The means that we have at our disposal at the moment, objectively, are not up to European standards, politically, economically and technologically," he said, at a conference outside the meeting in Brussels.
"We have to draw lessons from the problems we had trying to drum up 3,000 troops for Chad," he said, underlining that EU governments committed in 1999 "to build a 60,000-strong force that could be deployed within 60 days by 2003."
The EUFOR Chad mission will eventually number 3,700 troops, some 2,000 of them from France.
The contingent was meant to deploy in November last year but only began to move there in January, due to a shortfall in troops and equipment and a funding row.
Brussels to keep control of 'Mediterranean Union'
http://euobserver.com/9/26184?rss_rk=1
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Tuesday (20 May) unveiled plans for a Mediterranean Union, taking care to emphasise its low-key vision for the new political set-up.
Rather than a radical shake-up of relations between the bloc and it southern neighbours, external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner said the proposals represented an "upgrade" in current relations and stressed that the EU's 13-year-old relationship with Mediterranean countries - known as the Barcelona process - remained "valid."
The new model will be formally launched on 13 July in Paris with a series of concrete projects, and foresees regular summits and ministerial meetings.
The commissioner noted: "It is very clear that this project is not directed against Turkey."
When the idea for a new Mediterranean organisation was first floated last year by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who presented it as a far more dynamic and exclusive club, open only to states with a Mediterranean coastline, he tried to sell it as an alternative to EU membership for Turkey.
But his original vision was appreciated neither in Ankara nor several other EU capitals, including, most importantly, Germany, who was concerned it would pit northern member states against their southern counterparts.
In March, all 27 EU leaders gave the nod to Mr Sarkozy's general idea but with some restrictive conditions - happily taken up by the commission, which was also not a fan of Mr Sarkozy's more elaborate plans.
"I see a possibility for a fusion that will be a success, and it will be the only way to make a success of this project," said Ms Ferrero-Waldner, of the 'Barcelona Process - Union for the Mediterranean' as it is now supposed to be known.
The new union will bring together 44 countries, including the 27 EU member states as well as Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Libya, Syria, Turkey and Albania, plus Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Monaco.
The commission is suggesting that the structure be backed up by a new secretariat - the location of which remains to be decided - that will organise summits and help co-ordinate projects. The projects are to focus on areas such as infrastructure and the environment.
The Mediterranean Union is to have a co-presidency from the EU and a Mediterranean country lasting two years.
EU to hold the reins
In an significant blow to France's grander vision for the project, the commission also suggested that the presidency on the EU side be kept firmly within existing EU structures.
France had wanted to be a presidency country for the first two years, but the commission suggests the role should fall to the EU foreign minister or commission president, under the new EU treaty - keeping political control of the process firmly in Brussels' hands.
Despite the reining in of the project, Paris welcomed the commission's plans.
"The French authorities are delighted by the commission's presentation in such a short time," a statement said. "A deeper examination of the commission's proposals must now take place."
'J'lem offers 91% of W. Bank in new map'
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211434103091&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Palestinian officials close to peace talks said Sunday that Israel has offered a West Bank withdrawal map that leaves about 8.5 percent of the territory in Israeli hands, less than a previous plan but still more than the Palestinians are ready to accept.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and other PA officials, however, told The Jerusalem Post that the report is unsubstantiated.
Also Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was quoted as telling backers that the negotiations have achieved no progress since they were restarted last November with a pledge to US President George W. Bush to try for a full peace treaty by the end of the year.
The Palestinian officials said that Israel presented its new map three days ago in a negotiating session. The last map Israel offered had 12 percent of the West Bank remaining in Israel. Israel wants to keep West Bank land with its main settlement blocs, offering land inside Israel in exchange. The land would be between Hebron in the southern West Bank and Gaza - at least part of a route through Israel to link the two territories.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are being conducted behind closed doors, said Palestinians were ready to trade only 1.8% of the West Bank for Israeli land.
Israeli officials refused to comment.
One of the Palestinian officials said the 8.5% figure of West Bank land Israel would retain with its new map does not include east Jerusalem, where Israel has built a string of Jewish neighborhoods it intends to keep. Israel wants to put off dealing with Jerusalem until the end of the process.
Abbas indicated skepticism about the prospects of the renewed talks.
"Nothing has been achieved in the negotiations with Israel yet," Abbas told a meeting of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, according to a report Sunday in the Fatah-associated al-Ayyam daily and confirmed by meeting participants.
Domestic issues in both Israel and the US are diverting attention from peacemaking, Abbas told Fatah leaders.
"I fear the (corruption) probe against Olmert and the American preoccupation with the (presidential) elections will negatively affect the negotiations," Abbas said, according to a member of the council, Salah Taameri.
Outcry against Israeli lawmaker who says ceding territory is punishable by death
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5298
At the first session of the Golan lobby in Jerusalem Monday, May 26 National Union Knesset member Aryeh Eldad, citing the Treason clause 97 of the Penal Law, declared: “He who acts to remove state-owned territory from state sovereignty and cedes it to a foreign state is punishable by death or a life sentence.”
He later explained to his outraged fellow-lobbyists that he meant sentencing by a court of law. Eldad’s comment referred to prime minister Ehud Olmert’s reported offer to restore the Golan, which the lawmaker termed part of sovereign Israel, to Syria for a peace accord.
Earlier, Olmert speaking at the Knesset foreign and affairs committee said that “only fantasists” believed in the Greater Land of Israel idea.
Meretz MK Ran Cohen is to file a complaint with the attorney general accusing Eldad of incitement. One of Eldad’s party colleagues Zevulun Orlev criticized his remark as open to interpretation as approval for another political murder of a prime minister and urged him to take it back. Other lobby members accused Eldad of shooting them in the foot.
The multi-partisan Golan lobby was convened after resumed peace negotiations were announced between Israel and Syria. Transport minister Shaul Mofaz, who attended the meeting, said ceding the Golan’s would amount to putting it in Iran’s hands.
A new Knesset motion tabled Monday requires 81 majority (out of 120 deputies) to approve Israeli withdrawal from the Golan.
Olmert: Israel hasn't offered Golan
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211434108168&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday denied allegations that he had put the Golan Heights on the negotiation table with Syria.
"No obligations were offered - either spoken or in writing - to Syria," he saidduring a rare appearance in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "All I said from February 2007 until May 2008 was 'I know what you want and you know what I want.'"
The statement contradicted the Syrian claim, made since the negotiations were announced last week, that Israel had already agreed to cede the Golan Heights.
Olmert added that he could prove that four previous prime ministers had held negotiations with Syria and had been "ready to offer extremely painful concessions."
"Everybody who has sat on my side of the table as prime minister understands that this kind of thing must be done with the maximum level possible of carefulness," he said.
Olmert also argued that he had faith that an agreement could be reached with the Palestinians by the end of 2008 and that Israel was running out of time to make such a deal.
The prime minister went to great lengths to explain how his vision of Israel's position toward the Palestinians had changed throughout the years. He argued that the international consensus was shifting to support a one-state solution involving a pluralistic, multi-confessional country - and that the government was now faced with the decision of holding on to the dream of Greater Israel or ensuring the future of Israel as a Jewish state.
"Only hallucinating people can still stick to the perspective" of the idea of Greater Israel, Olmert asserted.
Olmert also said that current government policy aimed on the one hand to prevent Hamas from taking control of the West Bank, as they had in Gaza, and on the other, to guarantee an increased freedom of movement throughout the West Bank.
Although Israel isn't negotiating with Hamas, he said, there were messages conveyed through the Egyptians that Israel was willing to open crossings into Gaza - except for Rafah - for the sake of transferring humanitarian goods. The opening of crossings, he warned, would be dependent on progress in the negotiations for the release of captive IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.
But before Olmert spoke, head of the IDF's Research Division Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz offered a somewhat grimmer picture of Israel's would-be negotiating partners. Syria, he said, does not intend to change its relations with Iran, and is continuing to arm Hizbullah, which is rebuilding its forces both north and south of the Litani River, with a focus on rocket capability.
In the West Bank, Baidatz said, Mahmoud Abbas's control over the area is declining, and there is a chance that Abbas might not run for re-election in the upcoming elections in January if he does not achieve significant progress in negotiations with Israel.
Olmert also offered up tough talk against his opponents, particularly MKs Benny Elon and Effi Eitam of NU-NRP, who interrupted his explanations with references to the criminal investigations against him.
"Whoever is looking for something else will find me ready for battles - and I don't fear battles," said Olmert.
Later, he described Elon and Eitam as "haters of peace who drag us into endless wars in order to avoid giving up a single particle of land. From your perspective, there are no limits to what you will do."
Lebanese President Sworn In as Beirut Cheers
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,358174,00.html
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Military bands and an honor guard salute greeted President Michel Suleiman on Monday as he entered Lebanon's presidential palace to begin the monumental task of uniting a wounded nation and reconciling its rival political factions.
Suleiman, who was elected Sunday, was greeted by applauding staffers on a red carpet at the palace in hilly Baabda near Beirut, rather than by an outgoing president as is normally the custom.
Lebanon has been without a head of state since November, when Emile Lahoud left office without a successor.
Suleiman's election is the first tangible step in the deal to end the political crisis which erupted this month into the worst violence since Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.
Army cannons fired 21 shots to salute Suleiman, as a brass band played Lebanon's national anthem. Dozens of his staff members erupted into applause.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said President Bush had called Suleiman to congratulate him and invite him to Washington "so the two leaders can meet to discuss issues of strategic importance to both the United States and Lebanon."
Earlier Monday, Suleiman bid farewell at Beirut's airport to the emir of Qatar, who brokered a deal among Lebanese politicians last week which led to the election. Parliament had failed to elect a new president 19 times over the past six months.
Suleiman is expected to begin consultations with legislators over the formation of a new government as early as Tuesday.
"I call on you all, people and politicians, for a new beginning," Suleiman said after he was sworn in Sunday. "Let us be united."
He faces a daunting task. Under the terms of the agreement reached last week in Doha, a new national unity Cabinet will be formed in which Hezbollah and its allies have veto power.
Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's Cabinet was considered dissolved upon Suleiman's election Sunday. But the new president asked Saniora to stay on as caretaker until a new administration is formed.
Once parliamentary leaders name a new prime minister, that person would then present a Cabinet lineup for the president's approval. The Cabinet then needs to draft a policy statement to present to parliament for a vote of confidence.
The majority is expected to choose the prime minister from its ranks. Saniora or majority coalition leader Saad Hariri are among those mentioned in the media as candidates.
The president, who has limited powers, has no choice but to approve the choice of the majority of legislators he polls. But the head of state can block a Cabinet's formation if he doesn't approve the lineup presented by the prime minister-designate.
Cabinet posts will be distributed according to the Doha agreement: 16 for the majority, 11 for the opposition and three for president, who heads the Cabinet.
The group must also respect an equal split between Christians and Muslims, as required under Lebanon's power-sharing formula.
The agreement also calls for a new election law under which 2009 elections will be held. The president serves a six-year term.
Suleiman also was expected to embark on a regional tour, after getting an invitation to visit Egypt from Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who attended Sunday's election session.
Exclusive: Syria places massive missile, warplane, sub order in Moscow
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5297
DEBKA-Net-Weekly 350 has revealed that Damascus, in the process of peace talks with Israel, sent a large military delegation to Moscow, headed by air force-air defenses commander Gen. Akhmad Ratyb with an Iranian $5 billion check, to buy the latest Russian missiles, warplanes and other military hardware for the Syrian armed forces.
DEBKAfile adds: The makeup of Damascus’ shopping list and its financing source do not support Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak in their contention that peace talks hold out a good prospect of Syria pulling away from its alliance with Iran.
The Syrian purchasing list was disclosed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources on May 23[...]
Is Iran Withholding Info for Nuke Probe?
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/381738.aspx
CBNNews.com - Iran may be withholding information needed to establish whether it tried to make nuclear arms, the International Atomic Energy said Monday in an unusually strongly worded report.
The tone of the language suggesting that Tehran continues to stonewall the agency - the U.N. nuclear monitor - revealed a glimpse of the frustration felt by IAEA investigators stymied in their attempts to gain full answers to suspicious aspects of Iran's past nuclear activities.
Iran has described its cooperation with the IAEA probe of its alleged nuclear weapons experiments as positive, suggesting it was providing information requested by agency officials. Indirectly disagreeing, the agency also said that Iran continued to deny such activities, dismissing evidence to the contrary submitted for its perusal as misleading or false.
The findings were part of a restricted agency report forwarded to the U.N. Security Council and to the 35 board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency that was obtained by The Associated Press.
The nine-page report also noted that Tehran remains defiant of U.N. Security Council demands to stop uranium enrichment.
Shrugging off three sets of council sanctions, it had instead expanded its operational centrifuges - machines that churn out enriched uranium by about 500 since the last IAEA report in February, said the report.
In announcing major progress in Iran's push for nuclear power, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last month that Iranian scientists were putting 6,000 new uranium enriching centrifuges into place and testing a new type that works five times faster.
The report noted that Iran now had only 3,500 centrifuges and specified that the few advanced machines actually running were only in a testing phase.
Uranium can be used as nuclear fuel or as the fissile core of warheads, depending on the degree of enrichment. Iran insists it has a right to the activity under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and says it want only to generate power.
But addressing whether Iran was complying with agency requests, the report said that "Iran has not provided the Agency with all the information, access to documents and access to individuals necessary to support Iran's statements" that its activities were purely peaceful in intent.
"The Agency is of the view that Iran may have additional information, in particular on high explosives testing and missile related activities which ... Iran should share with the agency," said the report. It was referring to two alleged sets of tests that agency officials say could be linked to a nuclear program.
Iran already rejected evidence provided by the U.S and other IAEA board members on alleged weapons programs in February, but then promised to revisit the issue ahead of the agency's next board meeting in a week.
Its nuclear programs have been under IAEA investigation since 2003, after a dissident group revealed the existence of a clandestine enrichment program.
A senior U.S. envoy suggested the report was a strong indictment of Iran's defiance of the international community's efforts to seek answers about trouble parts of its nuclear program, noting it "details a long list of questions that Iran has failed to answer."
"At the same time that Iran is stonewalling its inspectors, it's moving forward in developing its enrichment capability in violation of security council resolution," Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. delegate to the IAEA told the AP. He described parts of the report as a "direct rebuttal" of Iranian claims that all nuclear questions had been answered.
Six Iraqi Teens: Man Forced Us to Become Suicide Bombers
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,358150,00.html
BAGHDAD — Six teenage boys who said they were being trained as suicide bombers were detained Monday in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told The Associated Press that the boys were between the ages of 14 and 16, and that initial investigations show they were being trained by a Saudi militant who was killed in military operations.
The soldiers were acting on tips when they found the boys in the basement of an abandoned house that was being used by insurgent groups in the Sumar area in southeastern Mosul, deputy Interior Minister Kamal Ali Hussein said later at a press conference.
He said the boys had been recruited over the last month to carry out suicide bombings against Iraqi security forces in Mosul, although the specific targets had not been revealed to them.
The insurgents had threatened to kill the boys or their families if they refused to obey, Kamal said, adding that the group included the son of a female physician, the son of a college professor and four who belonged to families of poor vendors.
"They were trained how to carry out suicide attacks with explosive belts and a date was fixed for each one of them," he said.
The U.S. military in northern Iraq said American forces were not involved and had no information about the arrests.
U.S. and Iraqi military commanders claim that Al Qaeda in Iraq is increasingly trying to use women and children in attacks to avoid stepped-up security measures. There has been a series of recent bombings by women.
Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, is believed to be the insurgent network's last urban stronghold. U.S. and Iraqi forces launch a crackdown there this month.
The Iraqi government is trying to assert control over the country and the Mosul offensive is one of a trio of major operations. The other two are focused on Shiite extremists in Baghdad's Sadr City district and the southern city of Basra.
A roadside bomb struck a U.S. mine-resistant armored vehicle known as an MRAP on a road that runs parallel to the canal on the southern edge of Sadr City, but it caused no casualties, according to the American military.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover said American forces have faced other roadside bombings in the district since anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia to stop fighting after fierce clashes that killed hundreds of people.
But he said the truce had brought the numbers sharply down.
In other violence Monday, a bomber on a motorcycle struck a checkpoint manned by Iraqi police and U.S.-allied Sunni fighters Monday north of Baghdad, killing four people, officials said.
The blast occurred about 200 yards away from the house of the head of the local awakening group, which has joined forces with the Americans against Al Qaeda in Iraq in Tarmiyah, according to a police official and a member of the group.
Those killed included a policeman, two Awakening Council guards and a civilian, according to the police. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.
A U.S. soldier also was killed and two others wounded Monday in a roadside bombing in the northern Salahuddin province, raising to at least 4,082 the number of American service members who have died in Iraq since the war started in March 2003.
Another roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint on the road that leads to the Baghdad International Airport, wounding five people, including one Iraqi soldier and four civilians, police said.
The attacks came a day after the U.S. military said violence in Iraq had reached its lowest levels in four years.
Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a U.S. military spokesman, said Sunday that the number of attacks in the past week decreased to a level "not seen since March 2004," although he did not give specific figures.
Suspected Al Qaeda fighters also kidnapped an Awakening Council leader, Sheik Saleh al-Karkhi, and his brother after blowing up his house Monday in the village of Busaleh in the volatile Diyala province north of the capital, a police official said, declining to be identified because he wasn't supposed to release the information.
EU Proposal Ready for Iran Nuclear Talks, Solana Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a95CHwHih1GY&refer=africa
May 26 (Bloomberg) -- European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he has a new offer ready for Iran as part of the effort to convince the country to halt nuclear enrichment.
``We have worked on another proposal and that is finished,'' Solana told reporters before a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels today. ``I would like very much to send it.''
The incentive package, the latest step in three years of nuclear negotiations with Iran, is a revised version of one that Solana presented to the Iranians in 2006. The original offer included a pledge to provide Iran with enriched uranium for power stations in exchange for suspension of its own enrichment efforts.
Iran says its nuclear program is needed to produce fuel for power stations, while the U.S. and its allies allege the project is being used as cover for the development of an atomic weapon.
The U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China, along with Germany, have already agreed on the new proposals, though they haven't been made public.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said last week that his government has agreed to a trip by Solana to Iran to deliver the package. After the EU meeting today, Solana said that he hopes to make the trip within a month.
The United Nations Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran since 2006 in order to pressure the country into stopping enrichment.
Prominent House Church Leader Detained in Xinjiang on Separatism Charge
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07223.shtml
HUOCHENG, Xinjiang, (christiansunite.com) -- CAA has learned that a prominent house church leader was detained in Xinjiang Province on May 16, 2008. Eyewitnesses have informed CAA that at 1:00pm on May 16, 2008, Lou Yuanqi, a house church leader in Qingshuihe Town, Huocheng County of Xinjiang Uygur Atonomous Region was summoned to Qingshuihe Township Police Station by The State Security agency and interrogated for an hour. At 11:30pm the same day, Lou Yuanqi was transferred to Huocheng County Detention Center under a charge of "inciting separatism".
Pastor Lou has been arrested several times in the past. He was detained on October 20, 2006, along with 3 other pastors for organizing a House Church. All 4 pastors served 32 days in detention where they were severely beaten by guards and inmates on a daily basis. This is the first time Lou has been detained under criminal detention which means he will likely face a serious indictment in the court.
On February 28, 2008, his 16 year old daughter Lou Nan was detained for one day along with other 10 minors when they were caught attending a children's Bible study. This will be the second time the Chinese government has used a "Separatist Charge" against a house church leader. On May 27, a Uygur Christian Alimujiang Yimiti will be tried in the Kashi City Court, in Xinjiang for being accused of separatism and espionage for foreigners.
CAA calls upon the Chinese government to immediately release this innocent pastor.
To Communicate your concern, contact:
Cell Phone numbers in Hucheng PSB office
Director of Police: Mr. Wang Keqiang +86- 13909999156
Director of Domestic Security Protection: Mr. Di Li Xia Ti +86-13519980871
Deputy Director of Domestic Security Protection: Mr. Li Gang +86-15894-181-855 +86-13899703878
Director of Detention Center: Mr. Jiao Feng +86- 13909991370
Deputy Director of Detention Center: Mr. Sun Baoliang+86-13031375159
Ms. Wu Aiying, Minister of Ministry of Justice of the PRC
Tel:+86-10-65205114
Fax:+86-10-64729863
Address: No. 10, Nan Da Jie, Chaoyangmen, Beijing City (Zip Code: 100020)
Karen Cyclone Victims Still Denied Aid in Burma
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07224.shtml
SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich., (christiansunite.com) -- After days of worldwide pressure in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, Burma's military government has finally eased restrictions on the delivery of international relief aid into the country. On Monday, the junta granted permission to its Asian neighbors to oversee the distribution of foreign aid to storm survivors, and also approved a visit to the region by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. According to government officials, the death toll from Cyclone Nargis has now risen to over 78,000, with 56,000 others still missing.
But even as desperately needed relief aid trickles in, ethnic Karen survivors are reportedly still fending for themselves in various parts of the country. With no foreign or government aid of any kind being delivered in Karen-populated areas, thousands of victims are going without the most basic of necessities; many are sleeping on the ground with little more than plastic sheets.
The denial of cyclone relief aid to the Karen is proving to be the latest instance of the Burmese government's genocidal effort to eliminate the mostly Christian ethnic group, which has rebelled against the junta's repressive regime for over four decades. As army guards continue to block roadways and entrances into Karen villages, hundreds of storm victims are suffering and dying each day from injury, disease, and starvation. Although other local Christians have attempted to bridge the gap with secret donations of rice bags, biscuits and clothing, the military's clampdown on relief aid to Karen storm victims has made the mission that much more difficult.
Christian Freedom International (CFI), a Michigan- based organization that aids persecuted Christians around the world, including the Karen, is using its extensive network of underground house church pastors in Burma to wire funds into the country. The organization, which has a long humanitarian history in the region, has built numerous orphanages, schools, and medical facilities, and has remained a firm advocate for the thousands of ethnic Christians who have been suffering in the midst of a destructive civil war for years.
To donate to the cyclone relief effort, or to learn more about CFI's work in Burma, call 1-800-323-2273 or visit www.christianfreedom.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment