Saturday, July 26, 2008

1 in 3 Muslim students approve killing for Islam:'Stop talking about celebrating diversity and focus on integration and assimilation'

If ignorance and poverty are responsible for the growth of extremist views in the Islamic world, someone needs ask to Muslim students, privileged enough and bright enough to attend some of the United Kingdom's best universities, why one-in-three of them endorses killing in the name of Islam.The report of this finding, based on a poll of 600 Muslim and 800 non-Muslim students at 12 universities in the UK, and conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Center for Social Cohesion, will be released tomorrow as "Islam on Campus."
Among its findings of Muslim beliefs:
--40 per cent support introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims
--One-third back the idea of a worldwide Islamic caliphate based on sharia law
--40 per believe it is unacceptable for Muslim men and women to associate freely
--24 per cent do not think men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah
--25 percent have little or no respect for homosexuals.
--53 per cent believe killing in the name of religion is never justified (compared with 94 per cent of non-Muslims), while 32 per cent say it is
--57 percent believe Muslim soldiers serving in the UK military should be able to refuse duty in Muslim countries
--More than half favor an Islamic political party to support their views in parliament
--One-third don't think or don't know if Islam is compatible with Western views of democracy
"Significant numbers appear to hold beliefs which contravene democratic values," Hannah Stuart, one of the report's authors, told the London Times. "These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said there is no extremism in British universities."The report echoes one released last year by the Policy Exchange which found 37% of all Muslims aged 16-24 would prefer to live under a sharia system.In addition to polling of 1,400 students, the researchers visited more than 20 universities to interview students and listen to guest speakers brought on campus. The report notes radical Islamic preachers regularly deliver inflammatory speeches that target homosexuals and border on anti-Semitism."Our researchers found a ghettoized mentality among Muslim students at Queen Mary (college)," said James Brandon, deputy director at CSC. "Also, we found the segregation between Muslim men and women at events more visible at Queen Mary."A spokesman for Queen Mary told the Times the university knew Islamic preachers had spoken on campus but was unaware of what they had said."Clearly, we in no way associate ourselves with these views. However, also integral to the spirit of university life is free speech and debate, and on occasion speakers will make statements that are deemed offensive," he said.Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, condemned the study: "This disgusting report is a reflection of the biases and prejudices of a right-wing think tank – not the views of Muslim students across Britain. Only 632 Muslim students were asked vague and misleading questions, and their answers were willfully misinterpreted."The report was criticized by the country's largest Muslim student body, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies. Most of the Islamic societies on campuses operate under the FOSIS umbrella.The authors of the report note that campus Islamic societies have, in the past, been where some UK terrorists became radicalized. They cite Kafeel Ahmed, who drove a jeep engulfed in flames into a building at the Glasgow airport last year and died of his burns. Investigators believe he adopted jihadist beliefs while studying at Anglia Ruskin university, Cambridge.In April, WND reported that the director-general of MI5 had warned the government that donations of hundreds of millions of pounds from Saudi Arabia and powerful Muslim organizations in Pakistan, Indonesia and the Gulf Straits had led to a "dangerous increase in the spread of extremism in leading university campuses.""The finding that a large number of students think it is okay to kill in the name of religion is alarming," said Anthony Glees, professor of security and intelligence studies at Buckingham University."There is a wide cultural divide between Muslim and non-Muslim students. The solution is to stop talking about celebrating diversity and focus on integration and assimilation."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=70673
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Iran now has 6,000 centrifuges for uranium

TEHRAN, Iran-Iran's president said Saturday his country now possesses 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in its nuclear program that is certain to further rankle the United States and others who fear Tehran is intent on developing weapons.The new figure is double the 3,000 uranium-enriching machines Iran had previously said it was operating.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement, reported by the semi-official Fars news agency, comes a week after the U.S. reversed course in negotiations over Iran's nuclear program by sending a top American diplomat to participate in talks between Tehran and world powers.The bend in policy had prompted hopes for a compromise under which Iran would agree to temporarily stop expansion of enrichment activities. But the White House said Saturday's development did not facilitate a resolution. "Announcements like this, whatever the true number is, are not productive and will only serve to further isolate Iran from the international community," said White House spokesman Carlton Carroll.Iran, which insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, declared in April that it was aiming to double the 3,000 centrifuges it was running in its underground uranium enrichment plant in Natanz."Islamic Iran today possesses 6,000 centrifuges," Fars news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Saturday in an address to university professors in the northeastern city of Mashhad.Washington and its allies have been demanding a halt to Iran's uranium enrichment - something Tehran has repeatedly refused to do.The July 19 talks in Geneva were aimed at trying to reach a deal with Iran, and in exchange, the six world powers - the U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China - would hold off on adopting new U.N. sanctions against Iran. The country is already is under three sets of U.N. sanctions for its refusal to suspend enrichment.But participants in Geneva said Iranian negotiators skirted the freeze issue despite the presence of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later accused Iran of not being serious at the Geneva talks. She warned that Iran would face a fourth set of U.N. penalties if it does not meet a two-week deadline to agree to freeze suspect activities and start negotiations.On Saturday, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, lashed back at U.S. criticism of his country's role in the Geneva talks.His U.S. counterpart, Gregory L. Schulte, told the British Daily Telegraph in an interview published earlier this week that Tehran's chief negotiator delivered a "rambling" discourse in Geneva instead of focusing on the talks.Soltanieh told The Associated Press on Saturday that Schulte's comments "further damage his credibility and that of his country." He described the Geneva talks as "successful and constructive." Ahmadinejad asserted Saturday that Iran's interlocutors had agreed to allow it to continue to run its program as long as it was not expanded beyond 6,000 centrifuges, state radio reported.
"Today, they have consented that the existing 5,000 or 6,000 centrifuges not be increased and that operation of this number of centrifuges is not a problem," state radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.A report by the U.N.'s nuclear monitoring agency that was delivered to the U.N. Security Council in May said Iran had 3,500 centrifuges, though a senior U.N. official said at the time that Iran's goal of 6,000 machines running by the summer was "pretty much plausible."In the enrichment process, uranium gas is pumped into a series of centrifuges called "cascades." The gas is spun at supersonic speeds to remove impurities. Enriching at a low level produces nuclear fuel, but at a higher level it can produce the material for a warhead.The workhorse of Iran's enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge, which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge, which can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate.A total of 3,000 centrifuges is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that is past the experimental stage and can be used as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons.Iran says it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that will ultimately involve 54,000 centrifuges.Ahmadinejad called the U.S. participation in the latest round of nuclear talks "a victory for Iran." In the past, the U.S. said it would join talks only if Iran suspends uranium enrichment first."The presence of a U.S. representative ... was a victory for Iran, irrespective of the outcome. ... The U.S. condition was for Iran to suspend enrichment but they attended (the talks) without such a condition being met," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in the state radio report.On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad praised the U.S. participation at the talks as a step toward recognizing Tehran's right to acquire nuclear technology.

Iran hangs 29 convicted criminals in Tehran: report

TEHRAN-Iran executed 29 convicted drug smugglers and "bandits" on Sunday morning in Tehran's Evin prison, the state broadcaster's website IRIB reported. "Twenty-nine drug smugglers and well-known bandits were hanged in Evin prison on Sunday at dawn.These criminals had smuggled thousands of kilos of narcotics in the country and outside the country," IRIB reported.Iran said on Saturday it planned to execute 30 people for murder, rape, drug smuggling and other crimes.Police have in recent weeks arrested dozens of people in a new crackdown on "immoral behavior" in the Islamic Republic, whose human rights record is often criticized in the West."Some of these people were convicted of other crimes such as rape, murder, armed robbery ... and disrupting public security and peace," IRIB said.Iran usually carries out executions by hanging and in prisons. Sunday's executions all took place at 0510 (8:40 p.m. Saturday EDT), according to IRIB.At least 10 people were hanged in the country in July. In September last year, 21 people were executed in one day, but in two different places.Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's Sharia law, enforced since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution.Amnesty International in April listed Iran as the world's second most prolific executioner last year, with at least 317 people put to death, trailing only China which carried out 470 death sentences.
To read more go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSHOS71906320080727
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Yemen police station attack

Yemen Qaeda group claims attack on police station

DUBAI-An al Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for an attack on a police station that killed two people and injured 18 others in Yemen's Hadramout province.The attack on Friday was in retaliation for the killing of al Qaeda militants in Yemen, the Yemen Soldiers Brigades said in a statement on a Web site often used by al Qaeda.In Friday's attack, a car tried to enter the police complex but exploded after it was stopped at the gate, killing the attacker and a police guard.Earlier this year, gunmen killed two Belgian tourists in the Hadramout region in an attack the government said was believed to have been the work of al Qaeda.Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, is grappling with a campaign by al Qaeda militants, who have said they were behind several attacks in recent months, including a shelling near the U.S. embassy and a mortar attack on a refinery in Aden.The government has also been fighting Shi'ite rebels in the northern province of Saada since 2004, although President Ali Abdullah Saleh said earlier this month that battle had ended.

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FBI:"America is teeming with 20,000 terrorists".

Homeland Security: Forced to defend its growing terrorist watch list, the FBI let slip a chilling fact that should silence ACLU grumblers: America is teeming with 20,000 terrorists...After 9/11, federal authorities estimated that as many as 5,000 terrorists were living in the U.S. The new figure is jarring not only because it's four times as large but because it's based on real persons, not estimates.It's not something headquarters wanted to publicize. Officials had downplayed the threat so as not to spook the public. The spin had been that Britain has the homegrown problem, not us.But that was before the ACLU launched a campaign with the Democrat Congress to demonize the watch list as a Gestapo-like tool. The FBI had no choice but to knock down their myths.The ACLU charged that an "out-of-control" FBI is adding mostly innocent people to the list, ballooning it to "over 1 million names.""I doubt this thing would even be effective at catching a real terrorist," ACLU spokesman Barry Steinhardt harrumphed.In fact, the list has saved countless lives, according to the head of the FBI's terrorism screening center-an assertion backed up by a recent independent review by the GAO.And the watch list monitors only 400,000 people, not a million, says the FBI official, Leonard Boyle. The rest are aliases due to the myriad spellings and variations of Arabic surnames.In a rare public appearance on C-Span, Boyle added that the overwhelming share of individuals on the terrorist list are foreigners, while "5% to 6%" of individuals are U.S. citizens or legal residents.That still pencils out to at least 20,000 people living in this country right now — at large and on the streets — who have "some relationship with terrorist activity," as Boyle described it.They pose a big enough threat for airlines to legally bounce them off planes, and for every law enforcement authority from border agents to local police to detain them for questioning.At 20,000 strong, these suspected homegrown terrorists number a full army division. And they don't include the more than 440 active terrorists the Justice Department already has put behind bars since 9/11. Britain, by comparison, is watching just 8,000.But never mind all that. The ACLU and its allies on the Hill want to scrap the terrorist watch list and take law enforcement's eye off these potentially dangerous suspects.In a perfect world, the ACLU might qualify as a terrorist facilitator deserving of its own spot on the list.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=301879115541217#
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JIHAD WATCH:"India Mujahedeen" Bomb Indian City Kill at Least 29

Islamic Party Threatens Beijing Olympic Games

Hamas arrests many after blast

Hamas have arrested dozens of Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip after an explosion killed six people.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=82b_1217106743
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Hamas seizes Abbas-run agency in Gaza crackdown

GAZA-Hamas security forces stormed the office of a Palestinian news agency run by President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday and arrested dozens from his Fatah faction in their biggest crackdown since seizing Gaza, Fatah sources said. The sweep, in which 162 Fatah activists were arrested including two faction officials, came in response to an explosion on Friday that killed five members of the armed wing of the Gaza Strip's ruling Islamist Hamas group and a girl.The blast, the third of its kind in a day, marked one of the biggest flare-ups in internal Gaza violence since Hamas routed the forces of Abbas's more secular Fatah faction to seize control of the coastal territory a year ago.The sources said Hamas security men seized computers and files at the Gaza offices of the WAFA news agency, a Palestinian media outlet run by Abbas, and stormed 40 other Fatah offices.Two of those arrested on Saturday were senior Fatah officials, including, Ahmed Naser, a political Fatah leader in Gaza, and Abu Al'Abed Khattab, a former major-general in the Palestinian Authority, the sources said.A Palestinian said to have worked as a cameraman for a German television station was also among those held. But a security source said the man, Sawah Abu Saif, was arrested as a suspected Fatah activist and not for being a journalist.Hamas blamed "members of the fugitive party"-a derogatory term for Fatah-for Friday night's blast at a major junction outside Gaza City.
"REVENGE, REVENGE"
Thousands turned out for the funerals of the six victims of Friday's attack, some chanting "Revenge, revenge" as shots were fired into the air.Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, whose nephew was killed in the blast and whose oldest son was wounded, vowed to punish those responsible."Those who did this must be hanged in a public square and must be fired upon," Hayya said before the burials.Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh convened an emergency cabinet meeting and in a statement afterwards ministers said the bombing was "proof that Fatah is not interested in resuming any dialogue".Fatah officials in Ramallah denied Fatah had any link to the violence and blamed it on Hamas infighting. A statement from Abbas's office said: "The claim that Fatah carried out these explosions aims to cover up the fact that there are disputes within Hamas."A group called the "Al-Awda Brigades", which said it is aligned with Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack. The authenticity of the claim could not be verified. "The turn will come to all those who shared in executing and liquidating our people," the al-Awda statement read. "Our revenge will reach all members of the black militias of the executive force and leaders of Qassam (Hamas)."Abbas, finding his authority limited to the occupied West Bank, split with Hamas and revived peace efforts with Israel. He recently sought reconciliation with his Islamist rivals but they have balked at his precondition that they give up Gaza.The factional violence has eclipsed Israeli-Palestinian fighting in Gaza, where an Egyptian-brokered truce has largely held since last month despite some violations on both sides.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL435951420080726
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More deadly bombs rock India

Sixteen bombs hit India's Ahmedabad, 29 killed

AHMEDABAD, India-At least 16 small bombs exploded in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, killing at least 29 people and wounding 88, a day after another set of blasts in the country's IT hub, officials said.On Friday, eight bombs exploded in quick succession in the southern information technology city of Bangalore, killing at least one person and wounding six others.Saturday's blasts were in Ahmedabad's crowded old city dominated by its Muslim community. One was in a metal tiffin box, used to carry food, another apparently left on a bicycle."The blasts occurred in 90 minutes, one in a hospital, others in the old city of Ahmedabad," Narendra Modi, the state's Hindu-nationalist chief minister told reporters.There were two separate series of bombings, the first near busy market places. A second quick succession of bombs went off 20 to 25 minutes later around a hospital, where at least six people died, police said.Several TV channels said they had received an email from a group called the "Indian Mujahideen" at the time of the blasts. The same group claimed responsibility for eight bombs that killed 63 people in the western city of Jaipur in May.One television channel showed a bus with its side blown up, shattered windows and the roof half-destroyed. Another showed a dead dog lying beside a blown-up bicycle."The bus had just started when the blast happened," P. K Pathak, a retired insurance official who was traveling in nearby bus, told Reuters.
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Sri Lanka fighting kills 74, mostly rebels

COLOMBO-Sri Lankan troops continued their offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels in two days of fighting in the north that killed 66 Tigers and eight soldiers, the military said on Saturday.The fighting in the district of Jafna, Vavuiya Polonnaruwa, Mannar and Mullaitivu came three days after the government dismissed a declaration by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of a unilateral ceasefire from July 26 to August 4."Our offensives are going on, troops had killed 66 LTTE terrorists in the fighting on Thursday and Friday," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara."Eight soldiers had died and 11 were injured from the fighting," he added.The Tigers were not immediately available for comment. The government and rebels trade death toll claims that are almost impossible to verify independently.Sri Lanka's government is pursuing a strategy to gradually retake the Tiger's northern stronghold and win the 25-year civil war amidst an almost daily barrage of land, sea and air attacks in northern rebel-held territories.The latest fighting comes a week after the military said it had dealt a "fatal blow" to the rebels with the capture of the northwestern town of Vidattaltivu, the main base of the Tigers' sea wing and their logistics hub for the region.An email statement from the Tamil Tigers early on Tuesday said the rebels would refrain from military action during the 15th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference from July 26 to August 4.But warned they would be forced to take "defensive action" if the military attacked them.
To read more go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL636499020080726
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Rival clashes continue in Lebanon

Lebanese army deploys to halt second day of clashes

TRIPOLI, Lebanon-The Lebanese army deployed on Saturday to halt two days of heavy sectarian fighting in the northern city of Tripoli which medical sources said had killed nine people.Soldiers, backed by armored vehicles, took up positions between Sunni and Alawite districts of the city in an effort to stop clashes which have wounded at least 68 people and forced residents to flee their homes. The sides exchanged heavy grenade and machinegun fire until dawn.In the past two months, at least 22 people have been killed in the predominantly Sunni city in sectarian fighting blamed by politicians and analysts on political turbulence in Lebanon.The Lebanese army, which often takes on a policing role, said in a statement it would not tolerate any security violations "even if that requires the use of force in all its means". One soldier was among the wounded.The dead included a woman, a boy and a man who was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade while driving his taxi."It's unacceptable for Tripoli and its poor and deprived districts to keep paying the price of escalating internal political crisis," Economy Minister Mohammed Safadi, a Sunni politician from Tripoli, said in a statement.The bouts of violence in the city since late June have been linked to lingering disputes between the Sunni-led parliamentary majority bloc and a rival alliance led by Shi'ite Hezbollah, which is close to Alawite groups in the north.A protracted political conflict between the sides was largely resolved in May by a Qatari-mediated deal.But they are now at odds over the policy statement of a national unity government which was finally formed on July 11 after weeks of wrangling over portfolios.

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China denies group's claim of role in bus bombings

BEIJING-Chinese authorities denied claims by a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party that it was responsible for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and Yunnan province ahead of the Olympic Games, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.The group released a video threatening the Beijing Olympic Games and claiming responsibility for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and in Yunnan's Kunming, a terrorism monitoring firm in Washington said on Friday.But Xinhua reported that a police investigation of the Shanghai blast on May 5 had nothing to do with "terrorist attacks".The blast, which killed three people and wounded 12, was caused by inflammables such as oil, Cheng Jiulong, Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau deputy head, was quoted by Xinhua as saying."The blast was indeed deliberate but had nothing to do with terrorist attacks," he said.IntelCenter, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring firm, said the group had released a video entitled "Our Blessed Jihad in Yunnan", featuring a statement by the group's leader, Commander Seyfullah, threatening next month's Olympics."Despite the Turkistan Islamic Party's repeated warnings to China and international community about stopping the 29th Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese have haughtily ignored our warnings," IntelCenter quoted Seyfullah as saying.Seyfullah said the group bombed two public buses in Shanghai on May 5 and "took action against police" in Wenzhou on July 17 with a tractor loaded with explosives.The group also bombed a plastics factory in Guangzhou on July 17 and bombed three public buses in Yunnan on July 21, according to IntelCenter.
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War on terror is Pakistan's own war: prime minister

ISLAMABAD-Pakistan is fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban for its own interests, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Saturday as he embarked on his first official visit to the United States.Gilani, in office since March, is due to meet U.S. President George W. Bush in which militant sanctuaries along the Pakistani border with Afghanistan is expected to figure prominently. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking in Australia on Friday, set the tone for the visit by stressing Pakistan had to do more to curb the flow of militants fuelling the Afghan insurgency."Extremism and terrorism are our own problems. This is our own fight. This is our own cause," he told reporters at a military airbase in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, before his departure."My priority number one is to maintain law and order in the country ... and that's why it is in our own interest that extremism and terrorism is contained."The United States has long been frustrated at what it views as inadequate efforts by its major ally in the war on terror to do enough to combat militants along the border with Afghanistan.Washington has broadly supported Gilani's policy of using tribal elders to influence militants to give up violence but has expressed worries that militants would use the breathing space provided by talks to step up attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan.In recent weeks, U.S. officials have shown impatience over the rising number of attacks in Afghanistan, raising fears in Pakistan that U.S. forces might take action against militant bases on Pakistani soil.Pakistan, which itself is facing growing militant violence at home, says it would continue fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban but would not allow foreign forces to take action in its territory.

As in the days of Noah...

'Space burial' of 63 Japanese to take place at end of July

NEW YORK-Celestis Inc., a U.S. provider of the so-called "space burial" service, has scheduled a post-cremation memorial spaceflight for the ashes of 208 people from around the world, including 63 from Japan, at the end of this month, company officials said Friday.The number of Japanese included in the service is the highest number ever in the United States, they said. Space burial is a memorial service that began in 1997 in the United States. In the service, a small sample of the cremated ashes of the deceased is placed in a capsule and launched into space using a rocket.The idea of being "buried" in space has attracted an increasing number of people. The number of Japanese who have asked for the service has grown to the second highest on its list following Americans, said a Celestis spokesperson.The rocket for the upcoming service will be launched at the U.S. military facility on the Marshall Islands. It carries a satellite that contains the capsules of the ashes-ranging 1 gram to 14 grams per person.The satellite will go around the earth for several years before burning out in the atmosphere. The service costs from around $2,500, or about 270,000 yen, to $7,500.For security reasons, the specific date of the launch is not announced, and bereaved family members of the deceased are not allowed to witness the launch.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9259K8O0&show_article=1
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Bent cross to remain as symbol of strength

Parkersburg, Ia.-The cross is the eternal symbol of Christianity, a reminder of both Jesus' suffering during the crucifixion and the hope borne out of Christ's resurrection. There are three crosses atop the Parkersburg United Methodist Church.Two point skyward.The third cross bends eastward at an angle.The cross points in the same direction as the path of the tornado that roared through Parkersburg two months ago, when 200 mph winds descended upon this town of 2,000 people and eight churches. The tornado took six lives here while wiping clean the southern third of the town.Now, scores of destroyed homes are rising anew.But the bent cross atop the Methodist church won't be replaced.Here's why:Twenty-two of the church's parishioners lost their homes in the tornado. Many told the Rev. Betsy Piette that when they climbed out of their basements that afternoon and saw their houses gone, they looked south to see if their church was still there. Trees and houses were gone, so everyone had a clear view. What they saw on Parkersburg's horizon were the church's three crosses, one bent by the flying storm debris. The church had survived, its hymnals sitting perfectly in place, its sanctuary missing just one stained glass window.During the first church service after the tornado, Piette — who also lost her home — led the congregation in a group therapy session of sorts. Members spoke about the tornado. They spoke about survival. And one asked: What about the bent cross?Leave it that way, Piette said. The congregation shouted its approval. "We want people to know that we may be bent, but we're not broken," Piette said.And so, as this town rebuilds, the bent cross will stay bent.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807210317
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Orthodox Christians get back to their roots

Obama Held Private Session With Iranian-Americans

Sen. Barack Obama held a private session with a group of about two dozen Iranian-American donors shortly before a fundraiser this month in California after one of the participants said the Obama campaign would hold such a forum if local Iranian-Americans were able to raise $250,000.The forum-which was not on Obama's public schedule and was closed to the press-took place shortly before a fundraiser at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach, Calif., on July 13. That was less than a week before Obama's trip to the Middle East, where the U.S. relationship with Iran is a critical issue.Obama spoke for about 15 minutes, according to the Obama campaign. He did not take questions, and did not stray substantially from his standard stump speech about the need to engage with Iran and the rest of the world in new manner, according to one attendee.While such private meetings with well-heeled donors are not out of the ordinary, at least one fundraising pitch for the event was unusual.A businessman contacted by the campaign to help raise money suggested that special access to the candidate would only be granted if a fundraising threshold was met-making it sound like the kind of pay-to-play event that is frowned upon by watchdog groups and generally avoided by campaigns."The Obama campaign has promised to have a private meeting with Iranian Americans if we as a group can raise $250,000 for this coming Sunday's event," Manouch Moshayedi, a prominent Iranian-American businessman in Orange County, Calif., wrote in an e-mail distributed to potential donors July 9, according to a copy of the message obtained by ABC News."I am asking for your help in making this private meeting happen," he added. "If we are able to succeed, we will inform all of the Iranians who have signed up for this event to gather in a different room either before or after the general meeting to privately meet with Senator Obama."Shortly after the e-mail was distributed, the Obama fundraiser who enlisted Moshayedi's help, Hassan Nemazee, contacted Moshayedi to tell him he got some key details wrong: $250,000 was the target for him to help raise among Iranian-Americans in his area, but Obama was poised to address the group regardless of whether they achieved it.
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The Pentagon Didn’t Say Obama Couldn’t Visit The Troops In Germany

They just said that Obama couldn’t take his campaign staffers with him since their inclusion would have made the visit too much like a campaign stop.
Meaning that Obama could visit the troops, but he chose not to because he couldn’t bring his army of campaign staffers with him to act as a buffer between him and the troops.So the “the Pentagon wouldn’t let Obama visit the troops” line is just spin.He could have, but he chose not to.But Obama did call some of the soldiers today after he got blasted for deciding to spend a night on the town in Berlin instead of visit them.So that was big of him.After the fact.
By Rob

As in the days of Noah....

Rick Warren, 'gay' advocate team up to host Obama-McCain:Joint appearance at Saddleback Church co-sponsored by faith group challenging 'right'

The upcoming joint appearance by Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain at Rick Warren's evangelical Saddleback Church is co-sponsored by a left-leaning group led by a Unitarian-Universalist minister who once headed her denomination's homosexual advocacy office.Meg Riley is the board president of Faith in Public Life, whose board members include other theological liberals, including a pro-abortion Muslim leader and a Jewish rabbi, reported OneNewsNow.The group's stated vision hints at its challenge to the influence of the so-called religious right, saying it "envisions a country in which diverse religious voices for justice and the common good consistently impact public policy; and those who use religion as a tool of division and exclusion do not dominate public discourse."The blog Watchers Lamp noted Faith in Public Life offers a list of faith-based groups on its website that promote the homosexual-rights agenda.Warren told OneNewsNow, a Christian Internet site, he's not troubled by the association with a group at odds with his church's conservative evangelical theology."Really we just are ... co-hosting [the event]," Warren said, noting Faith in Public Life came up with the idea."Actually, we're in total control of the format, the program, the questions," he said. "It's at our church; and so it's not their event, it's our event."Warren will moderate the event with the presumed Republican and Democratic presidential nominees Aug.16 at Saddleback Church's Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion. He said the forum will be "a civil and thoughtful format absent the partisan 'gotcha' questions that typically produce heat instead of light." Issues, he suggested, would include poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate and human rights.Warren said that, at the candidates' request, the two-hour forum will be held in a non-debate format and open to all media. Both candidates want the questions to be posed exclusively by Warren, instead of a panel or members of the audience. Obama and McCain will each have an hour to converse with Warren, beginning with Obama, as determined by a coin toss.As WND reported, Obama's appearance in 2006 at Saddleback's Global Summit on AIDS and the Church stirred controversy when some evangelicals objected to a pro-choice Democrat being given the pulpit of a church that opposes abortion. At last year's AIDS summit, in November, Sen. Hillary Clinton gave a warmly received speech while Obama and McCain were among several candidates who presented taped messages via satellite.In addition to the Civil Forum event, Warren will convene an interfaith meeting at the church for some 30 Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders to discuss "cooperation in projects for the common good of all Americans." Warren, author of the mega-best-seller "The Purpose Driven Life," told OneNewsNow he does not believe the biblical Gospel is compromised by working with non-Christians in efforts to promote the "common good.""Now, I don't happen to agree with Muslims," Warren said, 'and I don't happen to agree with Jewish people, and I don't even agree with all of the things Catholics believe, but I ... can work with them on doing something like stopping AIDS, because we all believe sex is for marriage only."In the candidates' forum, Warren plans to focus on issues political reporters often ignore, such as how the candidates view the Constitution. One question might be, he told OneNewsNow, "Is it a quote 'living document' that can be changed, that can be reinterpreted with each generation as things change? Or is it a truth written in granite that is a standard by which we evaluate everything else, and you don't change it unless we amend it?"A Warren critic, evangelical pastor Bob DeWaay, author of the book "Redefining Christianity: Understanding the Purpose Driven Movement" and founder of the apologetics ministry Critical Issues Commentary, says he believes Warren is operating under the mistaken notion that uniting all religions to fight problems like AIDS and poverty will "warm people up" to Christianity.But he admits many evangelicals have a strong affinity for Warren."He's a very likeable guy on the surface, and I think pastors and Christians think, 'Well, look at this, if he can get all these people on board and he can build a big church and he's popular, and maybe if we get on board with that, some of that will rub off. Maybe we'll learn how to have a bigger church and how to be popular,'" DeWaay said in an audio report on his website.But DeWaay often reminds people "Jesus told us that the world would hate us.""Okay, so something's seriously wrong if we do achieve popularity with the world," he said.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=70604
As in the days of Noah....

Rice warns China on Olympic security

AUCKLAND, New Zealand-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned China on Saturday not to use its massive Olympic security apparatus to crack down on legitimate dissent. Beijing officials maintain the Olympics are threatened by terrorists and other extremists and some fear Chinese authorities could use that as an excuse to move against political opponents. Rice and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said any such action could mar the Games."Security threats have to be dealt with and that is fully understood by everybody, but security should not become in any way a cover to try and deal with dissent," said Rice who will head the U.S. delegation to the Olympic closing ceremonies. "That would be unfortunate."President Bush will attend the opening ceremony on Aug. 8 to demonstrate U.S. support for what Rice called "really a wonderful thing for China and the Chinese people.""We are hopeful that the Olympic games will come off without a hitch," Rice said, adding that Chinese authorities should make good on promises to "showcase not just the Olympics but an attitude of openness and tolerance.""They should carry through on those pledges, " Rice told reporters after numerous reports that an unspecified terrorist plot to disrupt the Games in co-host city Shanghai had been broken up. Chinese officials have said East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, has been plotting terror attacks on games venues as part of their decades-long fight against Chinese rule.Neither Rice nor Clark said they had any specific concerns about the safety of U.S. or New Zealand athletes who will compete although Clark said that any disturbances should be "dealt with proportionality and due restraint."While the event has become a magnet for critics of the government, ranging from free-speech advocates to activists over Tibet and Sudan's troubled Darfur region, most experts say the actual threat to the Beijing Games from terrorism is low.

As in the days of Noah...

Nuclear dispute dogs US ties with New Zealand

AUCKLAND, New Zealand-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday that a lingering nuclear dispute between the United States and New Zealand ought to be overcome to focus on a new era of cooperation in the Pacific and elsewhere. Rice said joint efforts to return to democracy to Fiji, stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, push maritime and fisheries security along with promoting free trade must take precedence over New Zealand's ban on nuclear-powered vessels and those carrying atomic arms.Despite attempts to put the contentious issue behind them, New Zealand's 23-year-old "nuclear free" status continues to hamper joint military activities with the United States. Rice said outstanding issues should be resolved, although she offered no thoughts on how to do so."New Zealand is certainly seen as a friend and an ally and one with whom we share values," she said at a news conference with New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark, adding that "a whole host of problems" had been dealt with in recent years."This is a very broad and deepening relationship, and it is going to continue to be so," Rice said an earlier event with New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters. "It is by no means a relationship that is somehow harnessed to or constrained by the past."Rice is just the second secretary of state to visit New Zealand in the past nine years. Although officials have called the dispute a "relic" and the country's prime minister has cordial relations with President Bush, the nuclear issue continues to be problematic.Since 1985, U.S. warships have been denied entry into New Zealand ports because the Pentagon refuses to declare if they are carrying nuclear weapons and, as a result, New Zealand has been effectively dropped from a joint security treaty with the U.S. and Australia.Joint military training exercises between the United States and New Zealand have also been suspended since then.Rice insisted that "the relationship is not stuck in the past" and noted that there have been "a lot of changes in the world since that time.""If there are remaining issues to be addressed then I think we ought to find a way to address them, because the relationship between New Zealand and the United States is such a beneficial one," she added.Yet, neither she nor Peters spoke to how that might be achieved.Instead, they pointed to a broad array of shared interests and projects, particularly in stopping the transport of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on the high seas and engagement with the island nations of the South Pacific, especially Fiji, where a military government has been in place since a December 2006 coup.Earlier this month, Fiji's military ruler postponed elections promised for March 2009, saying the timetable was unachievable because much-needed electoral reforms cannot be completed and implemented over the next eight months.The announcement prompted widespread condemnation and New Zealand, along with Australia, are demanding that the decision be reversed. The matter will figure prominently when Rice and Peters both attend a meeting of senior South Pacific officials on Saturday in Samoa."There is no impediment, logistical or otherwise, to a free and fair and open election in Fiji by March 2009," Peters said. "We know and believe that Fiji's only future lies in a democratic government, and that's what we're going to work for."Rice echoed that call, saying the matter had to be resolved."Clearly, the return to democracy in Fiji, clearly elections are the way to do that," she said.Rice and Peters also said they would continue to work on a languishing free-trade agreement between the United States and New Zealand.

As in the days of Noah...

FAA May Cut Back Flights From Israel To U.S.:Finds Israel's Aviation Safety Has Serious Security Flaws

WASHINGTON-The Federal Aviation Administration could soon cut back the number of flights from Israel to the United States after finding Israel's aviation safety to have "severe security shortcomings," according to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The FAA says it uncovered serious flaws in flight safety during a tour of Israel's airport security this week. Primarily, at Ben-Gurion International Airport the FAA found a lack of proper supervision, overcrowded airspace, and outdated technology. An Israeli air panel came to the same conclusion just a year ago,but no changes were implemented.A report is expected to be released in 90 days which will detail the FAA's decision on whether flights from Israel to the U.S. should be limited.
As in the days of Noah....

JIHAD WATCH:Group threatens Olympics attack, claims bombed buses

WASHINGTON-A group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party released a video threatening the Beijing Olympic Games and claiming responsibility for recent deadly explosions on two Chinese buses, a terrorism monitoring firm said on Friday. IntelCenter, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring firm, said the group had released a video entitled "Our Blessed Jihad in Yunnan," featuring a statement by the group's leader, Commander Seyfullah, threatening next month's Olympics. "Despite the Turkistan Islamic Party's repeated warnings to China and international community about stopping the 29th Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese have haughtily ignored our warnings," IntelCenter quoted Seyfullah as saying."The Turkistan Islamic Party volunteers who had gone through special preparations have started urgent actions."Seyfullah said the group bombed two public buses in Shanghai on May 5 and "took action against police" in Wenzhou on July 17 with a tractor loaded with explosives.The group also bombed a plastic factory in Guangzhou on July 17 and bombed three public buses in Yunnan on July 21, according to IntelCenter.The bus explosions killed at least two people and injured 14 in the southwestern city of Kunming on Monday amid a security clampdown ahead of the Olympics.The official Xinhua news agency had blamed the blasts on "sabotage" and was seeking to find out who was responsible."The Turkistan Islamic Party warns China one more time," Seyfullah said, according to the IntelCenter transcript.
To read more go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2529568020080725
As in the days of Noah....

Madrasas fight against rampant illiteracy

Friday, July 25, 2008

Famine, soaring food prices threaten millions in east Africa

More than 14 million people across east Africa are facing a humanitarian disaster because of a "lethal mix" of soaring food prices, drought and conflict, aid agencies say."The situation in the region is of extreme concern," Peter Smerdon, spokesman for the World Food Programme in Nairobi, told AFP Friday."Rising food prices on top of drought this year means that more and more people than in previous years are falling over the edge into destitution," he said.His comments echo warnings from the UN children's agency and the British-based development charity Oxfam."A lethal mix of drought, expanding conflict, rising food and energy prices, disease and high poverty is pushing children and their families in the Greater Horn of Africa to the brink of disaster," UNICEF said earlier this month.Oxfam said Thursday a "toxic cocktail" of crises was putting millions at risk.Aid agencies estimate that a total of 14.6 million people are facing disaster if donors do not urgently release funds.Smerdon said UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, governments and donors "need to react now to provide sufficient food and other assistance to bring the situation under control, or else there will be widespread suffering and increased deaths".At least 2.6 million Somalis-out of a total population of between nine and 10 million-are facing acute food shortages, but this figure could rise to 3.5 million by the end of the year, the UN says."An estimated 180,000 children are believed to be acutely malnourished" in the Horn of Africa nation, an increase of 11 percent in the past six months, according to the Food Security Analysis Unit, run by the UN's food agency.In certain areas the rains have failed for the fourth season running, it noted in a report published Friday.The situation is made worse by the pull-out of aid agencies from Somalia, where civil war has raged since 1991 and where aid workers have increasingly been targeted in the violence.The World Food Programme has launched an urgent appeal for 254 million euros (400 million dollars) to feed people threatened with starvation in Somalia, as well as Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda, until the end of the year.In Ethiopia, where a rebellion is raging in the southeast Ogaden region, a serious drought has left about 4.6 million people in need of urgent food aid, the UN says. It has raised fears of a repeat of the devastating famines of the 1980s that killed almost one million people.In Kenya, which is recovering from a bloody political crisis that left hundreds of thousands of people displaced, 1.2 million people are facing starvation.The UN says 707,000 people in Uganda's rural region of Karamoja are in dire need of food, and a further 80,000 people face severe food shortages in Djibouti, which has been hit by numerous droughts in recent years.In Eritrea, drought and rising food prices are also likely to have serious humanitarian consequences, but details are scant because the Asmara government has ordered at least nine NGOs to leave the country since the beginning of 2006.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080726031718.bmncn1fo&show_article=1

As in the days of Noah.....

Famine fears for East Africa

Gloomy summer headed toward infamy:CHILLY:Anchorage could hit 65 degrees for fewest days on record

The coldest summer ever? You might be looking at it, weather folks say.Right now the so-called summer of '08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees. That unhappy record was set in 1970, when we only made it to the 65-degree mark, which many Alaskans consider a nice temperature, 16 days out of 365.This year, however-with the summer more than half over-there have been only seven 65-degree days so far. And that's with just a month of potential "balmy" days remaining and the forecast looking gloomy.National Weather Service meteorologist Sam Albanese, a storm warning coordinator for Alaska, says the outlook is for Anchorage to remain cool and cloudy through the rest of July."There's no real warm feature moving in," Albanese said. "And that's just been the pattern we've been stuck in for a couple weeks now."In the Matanuska Valley on Wednesday snow dusted the Chugach. On the Kenai Peninsula, rain was raising Six-Mile River to flood levels and rafting trips had to be canceled.So if the cold and drizzle are going to continue anyway, why not shoot for a record? The mark is well within reach, Albanese said:"It's probably going to go down as the summer with the least number of 65-degree days."
MEASURING THE MISERY
In terms of "coldest summer ever," however, a better measure might be the number of days Anchorage fails to even reach 60.There too, 2008 is a contender, having so far notched only 35 such days-far below the summer-long average of 88.Unless we get 10 more days of 60-degree or warmer temperatures, we're going to break the dismal 1971 record of only 46 such days, a possibility too awful to contemplate.Still, according to a series of charts cobbled together Tuesday evening by a night-shift meteorologist in the weather service's Anchorage office, the current summer clearly has broken company with the record-setting warmth of recent years. Consider:
• 70-degree days. So far this summer there have been two. Usually there are 15. Last year there were 21. In 2004 there were 49.
• 75-degree days. So far this summer there've been zero. Usually there are four. It may be hard to remember, but last year there were 21. In 2004 there were 23.
So are all bets off on global warming? Hardly, scientists say. Climate change is a function of long-term trends, not single summers or individual hurricanes.
Last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that it's "unequivocal" the world is warming, considering how 11 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past 13 years.
So what's going on in Alaska, which also posted a fairly frigid winter?
LA NINA
Federal meteorologists trace a lot of the cool weather to ocean temperatures in the South Pacific. When the seas off the coast of Peru are 2 to 4 degrees cooler than normal, a La Nina weather pattern develops, which brings cooler-than- normal weather to Alaska. For most of the past year, La Nina (the opposite of El Nino, in which warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures occur off Peru) has prevailed. But that's now beginning to change.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Web site, water temperatures in the eastern South Pacific began to warm this summer-and the weather should eventually follow.The current three-month outlook posted by the national Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md., calls for below-normal temperatures for the south coast of Alaska from August through October-turning to above-normal temperatures from October through December.
By GEORGE BRYSON
As in the days of Noah....

Power outages widespread in Texas after Dolly

HARLINGEN, Texas-Business at reopened restaurants was humming, grocery store parking lots were packed and residents of south Texas were venturing out on the newly dry roads again as the remnants of Hurricane Dolly moved well away from the Rio Grande Valley.But thousands were still without power Thursday and cleanup was ongoing following the Category 2 storm. Officials also warned that Dolly's aftereffects were not necessarily gone for good.Downed power lines remained the greatest danger. One person in Matamoros, Mexico, died from electrocution after walking past a power line on the ground.Fallen billboards and business signs still littered the streets, but residents were out and about after hunkering down for most of Wednesday. As the sun peeked through dark clouds, people began cleaning up and expressed relief that the storm didn't take many lives."We're all OK," said Hilario Cruz as he chopped up a felled tree that just missed his pickup truck in Harlingen. "We covered the windows. The water was up to our knees yesterday."There will be substantial cleanup: President Bush declared 15 counties in south Texas a disaster area to release federal funding to them, and insurance estimators put the losses at $750 million.By Thursday afternoon, forecasters downgraded Dolly to a tropical depression. The storm, which brought 100 mph winds, was expected to break up by Friday. It left behind more than a foot of rain in some areas and broke all-time July rainfall records in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.But with Dolly long gone, 159,000 people in the region were still without power at 10 p.m. EDT Thursday, according to Gov. Rick Perry's office. The figure was down from 228,000 earlier in the day.Steve McCraw, the state's homeland security director, said about 1,500 workers were on hand to help restore power and seven stations were distributing water, ice, food and hygiene kits.An aerial view of the Rio Grande Valley showed fields forming a checkerboard pattern, some inundated with water, others spared. Traffic was moving again in most places, but some residential areas were surrounded by floodwaters and debris was strewn across lawns.Perry, who flew over the area Thursday with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, cautioned residents not to rest easy just yet."It appears that we have handled it as well as it can be handled. But it is far from over," Perry said, noting possible flooding over the next five days from runoff as the storm moves northward.Sen. Cornyn said Dolly should remind the federal government that it needs to fund levee improvements along the Rio Grande."We're lucky Mother Nature didn't deal us a harsher blow," Cornyn said.After crashing ashore on South Padre Island midday Wednesday, Dolly meandered north, leaving towns on the northern tip of the Rio Grande Valley with a surprise. Officials had feared the Rio Grande levees would breach, but the storm veered from its predicted path and they held strong."We're glad it didn't make a direct hit but it just refocuses on the issues we have," said Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos. "The levees are suspect. Nothing's changed in my opinion."While the area near the border that expected the bulk of the storm was counting its blessings, residents a little farther north were wondering what hit them.In the La Quinta section of San Benito, flooding is routine as rain normally drives torrents of water off a nearby expressway and pool around raised railroad beds.But they said Thursday they'd never seen anything like this.One subsidized housing project will likely have to be torn down, having just barely survived three or four other floods, said Arnold Padilla, the city's housing director."If it was salvageable at all, it would be three or four months before it was livable," Padilla said.The raised railroad tracks that define the neighborhood became the vantage point, boat launch and the only dry ground around.Residents waded through waist-deep brown water with a few belongings wrapped in plastic bags held high in a sad caravan of Dolly's displaced.A bit farther northwest in Harlingen, Joanna Nunez was considering how to fix the new hole in her roof. She said that not long after the storm had torn away the chunk, a neighbor boy staying at her house asked if he could go outside to see Dolly."I told him, 'We are outside,'" she said, smiling and looking at the hole.Rain and wind from Dolly probably doomed much of the cotton crop in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. About 92,000 acres of cotton in the region were awaiting harvest but driving rains and high winds knocked bolls to the ground, making them unsalvageable, Texas Agri Life Extension agent Rod Santa Ana said. Sorghum acres damaged by rain in early July also could be doomed, he said.A remnant of the storm on Thursday blew several roofs off houses and businesses on San Antonio's south side, about 300 miles northwest of where the storm made landfall. There were no immediate reports of injuries and the National Weather Service sent a storm survey team to determine whether it was a tornado or strong winds.On South Padre Island, which endured the worst of Dolly's wrath, power could be out for another day, said town spokeswoman Melissa Zamora. A 9 p.m. curfew was set for the second night in row Thursday, and the National Guard and FEMA were distributing ice, water and food.South Padre Island officials said no buildings were in danger of collapse, but damage was widespread to hotels and other businesses. There were no dollar estimates on damage yet.
Avi Fima was mourning the damage to "my baby"—his Surf Stop store on Padre Boulevard. Windows were blown out, half the roof was torn away and water bubbled up the carpeting inside. "This is going to hit us good," Fima said. "We actually started summer really good. ... To rebuild it—the season will be over. We have a month left."Across the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, power was restored to large parts of Brownsville's sister city, and Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez said he hoped the lights would be on by the end of the day.Gas stations and factories reopened as about 2,500 police and soldiers patrolled to prevent looting while many of the 13,000 people who had taken shelter returned home.The last hurricane to hit the U.S. was the fast-forming Humberto, which came ashore in southeast Texas last September.The busiest part of the Atlantic hurricane season is usually in August and September. So far this year, there have been four named storms, two of which became hurricanes. Federal forecasters predict a total of 12 to 16 named storms and six to nine hurricanes this season.

As in the days of Noah....

PERSECUTION WATCH:Chad rebels free U.S. missionary after 9 months

N'DJAMENA-Chadian rebels have freed a U.S. missionary after holding him hostage for more than nine months in the remote north of the central African country, his U.S. evangelical organization said on Friday...
To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...

Rhodes fires rage

OBAMA'S OWN WORDS:What he really thinks of white folks

Resisting Islamization

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Rev. Keith Roderick(picture left), a defender of religious prisoners of conscience since 1982 as the Director of the Society of St. Stephen and Co-Director of the International Taskforce on Soviet Jewery. After responding to the appeals of Coptic Christians in 1987, he began working for Christians and other minorities from predominantly Muslim countries.He organized the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights in 1993, the largest umbrella organization representing these minorities.Fr. Roderick also serves as the Washington Representative of Christian Solidarity International and is the Canon for Persecuted Christians for the Diocese of Quincy, the only Canon defending persecuted Christians in the Episcopal Church.
FP: Rev. Keith Roderick, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Roderick: Thank you.
FP: We’re here today to discuss the capability that of non-Muslim minorities to resist Islamization. What do you think is the reality and where is the potential?
Roderick: Non-Muslims have survived centuries of Islamization, but just barely. The fact that they still exist in spite of conquest, violent persecution and institutional discrimination is remarkable. Unfortunately, accommodation to the pressures of Islamization has opened their communities to demise. Non-Muslims in Islamic societies never speak from the perspective of power. The historic realities of living as a “them” in a society that is religiously, politically, and economically delineated between “us” (Muslim) and “them” (Khafir) means that non-Muslims speak from the perspective of victimization. Their survival response has often been to submit to the forces of their own oppression rather to resist them. Accommodation as the strategy for survival has all too often meant abandonment of their cultural identity and values. Nevertheless, Christians and other non-Muslims have shown remarkable resilience.
Perhaps resilience itself may be the most powerful force of resistance to Islamization.
FP: What is the goal of the Islamist?
Roderick: The goal of the Islamist is to order all things in society by Islamic law. That goal is inherently racist. It assumes that a favorable balance of power favoring Muslims is the norm. Some argue that co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims in the past is a template for today. However, unless there is the acceptance of true parity between Muslims and non-Muslims it is delusional to believe that such a peaceful “co-existence” can be achieved. The imbalance of power always and inevitably works against the non-Muslim in Islamic society.
Therefore, to be resilient in the face of this reality means that the minority must seek to preserve the integrity of his own culture. When one finds that all of the institutions of society are constructed to ensure that non-Muslims remain second class citizens, it becomes necessary to seek out one’s own cultural institutions to identify with and strengthen. Integration into a society of mutual benefit presupposes equality and security. When these are denied to minorities, “co-existence” becomes a facade to justify the status quo of discrimination and prejudice.
It is true that, even in the deepest throes of “Jim Crow” American society, whites and blacks lived and worked together. However, this did not signify a just society. Institutional inequality, prejudice, and insecurity made true co-existence impossible until the black minority asserted their basic civil rights and the white majority, under the pressure of that movement, institutionalized into law equal rights and security for all.
FP: Is there anything non-Muslim minorities in Muslim majority countries can do in terms of their disempowerment?
Roderick: Non-Muslim minorities should not expect to be saved by a “champion” from the United States or Europe. They cannot wait to have someone else preserve their existence. During the past 20 years Western countries have been supportive of the self-determination campaigns of Muslims, but neglectful of others, especially Christians. They should expect, however, that allies will join them in solidarity. Coalition building among various ethnic and religious groups who have experienced jihad and subsequent Islamization is becoming an important instrument of unity and strength.When Igbo and Pakistani Christians, Indonesian Christians and Copts, Maronites and Assyrians recognize a common history of oppression that they share, they see the value of working to form a common strategy of resistance.Co-religionists in the West suffer a lack of passion for supporting non-Muslim minorities. There is often more interest in inter-religious dialogue than in speaking on behalf of those persecuted. It is part of the West’s self-denial.Western Christians and Jews were in the forefront of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S., the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, and the Save Darfur actions. Yet, when it comes to defending minorities in the Islamic world, they suddenly turn timid.Where is the sense of moral obligation and courage to advocate for Coptic monks that are beaten in their monasteries in Upper Egypt, or for Christians, Mandaeans, and Yezidis, murdered and ethnically cleansed from the land where they are indigenous in Iraq? What happens to Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. is not isolated from the fate of Christians in the West who will face soon enough similar challenges. Inner cohesion and external solidarity are necessary components to the kind of resilience that resists Islamization.
FP: Why is the West in the state of “self-denial” that you refer to?
Roderick: It is difficult for many liberals, who dominate the pulpits, as well as the political and academic institutions of the West, to accept Christians as victims.There is a general misconception that Christians are new to the Middle East, that they are interlopers, rather than threatened indigenous cultures, all of whom predate Islam.I suspect that there may be fear that by drawing attention to Christians and other minorities who are suffering as the result of Islamization, one might be accused of being anti-Muslim or bigoted. Political correctness is a strong force in our society.
FP: In terms of the silence that you discuss in terms of how we have betrayed non-Muslims in the Islamic world, what do you think are the causes? For instance, the lib-Left purports to be against racism, yet it says nothing about the racism inherent in the Islamist agenda? Where is the outcry from the Left? Why its silence?
Roderick: Someone from the Middle East told me once that Westerners play games, looking for win-win outcomes. Islamists play for win-lose outcomes. Liberals have a very difficult time dealing with the kind of triumphal attitudes inherent in Islamism. They think that everyone should be able to paint reality in subtle shades of gray. Islamic intolerance and barbarism is often excused as merely cultural expression.Several years ago my family was involved in liberating a young Philippina girl who had been given as a wedding gift to a Saudi student attending our local university. When challenged about the enslavement of this young girl by one of his students, the university provost cautioned that we should be more sensitive, because in Saudi culture this sort of thing is acceptable.Silence can only be construed as tacit consent of the Left. Two million Southern Sudanese were killed in the 20 years of terrible blood letting. This genocide was a direct consequence of the jihad instigated by the Islamic Front leaders in Khartoum. Religious conservatives were in the forefront of the movement to halt the slaughter and bring about a comprehensive peace. When that same Khartoum regime launched its jihad against Muslims in Darfur, religious conservatives again protested. This time they were joined by liberals in calling for an end to the violence. In fact, liberal organizations made it the cause de jour for a myriad of celebrities. All well and good, but where were they when Christians and animists were being murdered? All that the Christians and other non-Muslims of the Middle East want from the Left is a little more consistency in compassion. The liberal press has occasionally been responsive to the plight of the Christians of Iraq, but one suspects that it is not because of an authentic sense of solidarity, but the fact that the issue provides one more opportunity to show the failure of the Bush administration.
FP: What must we do to confront the Islamist agenda and to defend non-Muslims who are victims of Islamism?
Roderick: As I argued previously, resistance must be in the form of strengthening the non-Muslim communities within. The Islamist agenda is to annihilate the history and cultures of non-Muslim indigenous communities. We should encourage the non-Muslim communities to demand their rights and stand in solidarity with them as they do so. Non-violent resistance is a course that brings much risk. However, in face of the reality that non-Muslim minorities possess so little political power to bring about true parity with Muslims, thus security, this is the only course that remains practical. All institutions and social-political systems, including Islam, are constituted by human beings with conscience. There are many who may brutally act according to blind faith, but there are certainly others who respect the dignity of every human being. To these we must appeal with the reason of justice.
FP: Rev. Keith Roderick, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
Roderick: It was a pleasure to have this discussion. Thank you.
By Jamie Glazov
As in the days of Noah...

Rewarding Terror

On July 2, 2008 an Arab terrorist seized a bulldozer in Jerusalem, rammed it into people and vehicles, and ended up murdering three people (including the mother of an infant) and injuring dozens.The home of the murderer was not demolished.Because the murderer held Israeli citizenship, as an East Jerusalem resident, his family members collected "survivor benefits" from Israel's National Insurance Institute (like social security).They probably also collected payoffs from the Palestinian terrorist groups or their bankrollers in Arab countries who reward families of murderers.Terrorist family members were not expelled or deported.All in all, engaging in murder paid off handsomely.No subprime financial distress for them!The failure to penalize the family of the mass murderer had its effect this past week.Taking his cue, yet another terrorist seized a bulldozer in Jerusalem and rammed it into vehicles and people, injuring dozens.Both attacks could likely have been prevented if Israel were to get serious about fighting terrorism and defeating it, as opposed to its existing policy of seeking to end terrorism through appeasement.Israel treats terrorists as ordinary criminals, entitled to Miranda warnings, due process, legal representation, and longwinded trials.But terrorists are neither combatants nor common criminals and should be treated as neither.Terrorists are not summarily executed in Israel when caught, nor given the death penalty afterwards.Once captured, they are held under resort conditions, with DVDs and air conditioning.The baby murderer Samir Kuntar, released recently by Israel as a payoff to the Hezbollah for recovering the corpses of two IDF soldiers murdered by terrorists, was allowed to do a BA while in prison at an Israeli university and to marry.Israel is at war, but its leaders are too pusillanimous to declare so.Israel refuses to take any action at all against the families of suicide bombers, regarding them as "innocents" entitled to "rights," rather than as de facto accomplices in murder. Israel's only way for dealing with terror is to ask the terrorist squad leaders who send out the mass murderers in the first place kindly to take action and arrest the terrorist foot soldiers.While treating terrorists as enemy combatants is better than allowing them to enjoy civilian due process, rules, and protections, it is also an erroneous way of dealing with them. Terrorists must NOT be granted Geneva Convention privileges and POW rights. They must NOT be held under humane conditions, with Red Cross visits.Terrorists must be treated under a third unique paradigm, neither as POWs nor as criminals.Terrorists must be treated inhumanely.They should be denied human dignities, for behaving without human dignity is the very basis for their behavior and agenda.People who murder groups of children are not entitled to any privileges or exhibitions of compassion.They are beyond the pale.They are garbage. Treating them as such makes a huge powerful statement to the world. We honor those whose values we cherish in myriad ways; let us also exhibit our contempt for those deserving of it.
Moreover, the latest attempts to mollify the Hezbollah terrorists by releasing the baby murderer Kuntar contain even worse unprecedented dangers. One of the unique features of Nazism was the insistence that Jews were "Untermenschen" or an inferior species, and so killing Jewish civilians was not only a legitimate instrument for social policy but downright just.Since Jews were inferior to other humans, there could be nothing wrong with exterminating them like vermin. Jewish lives did not count.For decades the position of the Arab world has been largely the same. Arabs not only tried to make the point that killing Jewish children and civilians is legitimate, but attempted to coerce Israel into publicly and officially acquiescing in accepting this definition of Jewish inferiority.They did so by equating murderers of Jewish children with soldiers, and demanding that Israel do the same.
The vast majority of media organizations largely acquiesced, as manifested in their insistence on referring to suicide bombers as "activists" and "militants," and counting the suicide bombers among the "victims" of any terror atrocity.Israel's leaders, even the most cowardly, refused to accept this equation.Until now. When the Israeli cabinet under Ehud Olmert approved a "hostage deal" that traded a baby murderer for the corpses of two murdered IDF soldiers, it for all intents and purposes acquiesced in accepting the axiom of Jewish inferiority and the legitimacy of murdering Jewish children.Ehud Olmert has made me ashamed to be an Israeli.
By Steven Plaut
As in the days of Noah....

Change They Can Believe In

Barack Obama’s recent global tour may have been a media sensation abroad, but back home it was a punch line. “There was a huge reception for Barack Obama in the Middle East this past weekend,” quipped Jay Leno. “People were screaming, chasing him, hanging on his every word — and that was just the U.S. press corps.”The line hit home. With the presidential election still months away, much of the media establishment has cast its lot with the junior senator from Illinois. This was already the case during the Democratic primaries, when Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Terry McAuliffe, grumbled that 90 percent of the media were “in the tank” for Obama. This was not solely campaign spin. Saturday Night Live found the charge compelling enough to air a sketch mocking news anchors and their undisguised affection for Clinton’s rival.Media infatuation with Obama has only grown since he locked up his party’s nomination in early June. On magazine covers, newspaper pages and television screens, the storyline is all too clear: It’s all Obama, all the time.Among the more disturbing features of this adulation is its embarrassing effect on supposedly hard-nosed journalists. MSNBC News’ Lee Cowan aptly diagnosed the symptoms of Obamamania when he observed that “it’s almost hard to remain objective because it’s infectious. It’s almost not cool if you haven’t seen him in person.” One need only consider the sad case of Chris Matthews, who has gushed that Obama is “sort of a gift from the world to us in so many ways.” Hardball this is not.With the media’s biases so starkly exposed, it’s little wonder that Americans have lost faith in their fourth estate’s ability to cover the presidential race fairly. A recent Rasmussen found that 49 percent of respondents believed reporters would favor Obama in their coverage this fall. Just 14 percent expected the media to back John McCain.Such suspicions are warranted. For instance, a Project For Excellence In Journalism survey showed that Obama was a main figure in 78 per cent of newspaper, radio and television election reports in the six weeks since early June. By contrast, only 21 percent of reports focused on McCain. The Tyndall Report, which monitors the nightly newscasts of the three major American television networks, reported a similar bias. It found that CBS, NBC and ABC have expended 114 broadcasting minutes covering Obama since Hilary Clinton’s June withdrawal from the primaries, and only 48 minutes to McCain. On the media’s radar, the former Vietnam P.O.W. is M.I.A.A stunning example of journalistic favoritism-in-action was furnished by the New York Times. Last week, the paper published an op-ed by Obama detailing his plan for Iraq. One might think that McCain would be similarly entitled to this highly desirable piece of media real-estate. Yet, when McCain submitted a rebuttal piece, criticizing Obama’s timetable for the withdrawal of American troops, the paper refused to publish it. A Times editor claimed that McCain’s submission did not have “enough new information,” and encouraged the senator to resubmit a new version. As critics noted, this was the kind of brush-off typically reserved for unwanted freelancers, not would-be presidents. (Interestingly, while the Times decreed McCain’s article unfit to print, a European paper, the Berliner Tagesspiegel published it this week.)Though doubtless a sincere reflection of the mainstream media’s generally left-leaning politics, the Obama love affair may backfire. According to a recent RealClearPolitics poll, McCain was six points back of his Democratic rival at the start of July, at 48 percent to 42. But at the beginning of this week, he was only a point back, at 42 to 41. Among the main reasons given by respondents for their flagging enthusiasm was the media’s obvious preference for Obama; many found it unfair.Perhaps the worst aspect of the media’s Obama obsession is the concomitant suspension of all critical faculties. Lost in the admiring chorus chronicling Obama’s tour of Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe, for instance, was any serious scrutiny of his foreign-policy inexperience. Not only does this trivialize the presidential race, promoting personality over issues and policy, but it ill-serves the public, which, unlike its media, is more than willing to evaluate its presidential aspirants critically. Starry-eyed journalists’ fascination with Obama would ultimately be quite funny – if the consequences for the voters – and the nation – were not so serious.
By Stephen Brown
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5DDE7BDB-EA48-45A4-A638-A6DD8479BA4B
As in the days of Noah....

Obama received warmly in France

Obama's tour de France

Obama skips wounded troop visit

Jerusalem bulldozer drivers live in fear after attacks

JERUSALEM-Palestinian and Jewish bulldozer drivers alike say they live in fear of being mistaken for attackers.In less than a month, two Palestinian bulldozer drivers killed three Israelis and injured dozens after rampaging through Jerusalem's busy streets. Both drivers were shot dead."People have developed bulldozer-phobia," said Anas, a 23-year-old Palestinian driver who asked to be identified by his first name. "It is better to start looking for a new career." Bulldozers are common sight across Jerusalem, where a light-rail system and other projects are being built.Many of the drivers are Palestinians from Arab East Jerusalem, whose Israeli identification cards allow them to travel across the city and Israel, unlike Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank.For many Palestinians, bulldozers can be a symbol of Israeli occupation. The army uses them in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank. In Jerusalem, the municipality uses them to demolish homes constructed without hard-to-obtain building permits."Now the Palestinians are trying to fight the occupation by using its very tools,"Palestinian analyst Hani al-Masri said.Israel says only illegally built houses are demolished and maintains that difficulties getting building permits were no excuse for breaching the law.
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As in the days of Noah....

Gazan bombers target Hamas gunmen, 4 dead

GAZA-A bomb exploded next to a car used by the armed wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing three gunmen and a girl, the ruling Palestinian Islamist group and medical officials said.The attack was the third of its kind in a day, making for one of the biggest flare-ups in internal violence since Hamas routed the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction to seize control of Gaza a year ago.
Abbas, finding his authority limited to the occupied West Bank, split with Hamas and revived peace efforts with Israel. He recently sought reconciliation with his Islamist rivals but they have balked at his precondition that they give up Gaza.The Hamas armed wing issued a statement blaming "members of the fugitive party"-a derogatory term for Fatah-for Friday night's blast at a major junction outside Gaza City."We have information that some elements are planning to carry out bombings against the interests and leaders of Hamas in order to sow anarchy," said senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, whose son, himself a gunman, was wounded in the explosion.Nineteen other Palestinians were hurt, medical officials said, many of them passers-by on their way to the beach.Fatah officials in the West Bank could not immediately be reached for comment on the Hamas accusations.Hours later,Hamas said a car belonging to one of its members was torched in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.There were no casualties.Hamas police then stormed a local home and arrested two brothers, both Fatah members, Hamas said.
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As in the days of Noah...

Islam in Iran- Cruelty Towards Dogs and Dog Owners

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=56b_1216946299

As in the days of Noah....

Talks between Philippines, Muslim rebels collapse

KUALA LUMPUR/MANILA-The Philippine government and the largest Muslim rebel group failed to reach a pact on Friday to create an ancestral home for 3 million Muslims in the country's south, both sides said.Such an agreement is seen as vital for a resumption of formal peace talks, but would not guarantee the end of a near 40-year-old conflict that has killed 120,000 people and displaced 2 million on the resource-rich island of Mindanao. "We failed to settle the old issues after two days of hard bargaining," Mohaqher Iqbal, chief negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said after talks in Kuala Lumpur brokered by the Malaysian government."The talks collapsed because the government was undoing already-settled issues. The signing ceremony set for August 5 was cancelled," he told Reuters. "They're trying to re-open discussions on what had been agreed upon."Friday's breakdown came a week after both sides reported a breakthrough on the issue following several days of talks. Malaysian and Philippine foreign ministers had been due to witness the signing of the pact on August 5.A Malaysian government source said the two sides became deadlocked over the issue of territorial rights."To everyone's surprise, the Philippine government re-visited the territorial issues which took us 14 months to resolve," the source said. "The territorial issue ... has created an impasse and led to the collapse."No further talks have been scheduled and both sides will return home on Saturday.
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As in the days of Noah...

Egypt shuts down office of Iranian TV station

CAIRO, Egypt - Egyptian authorities have shut down the Cairo office of an Iranian TV network, a security official said Thursday, as the two nations spar over a film that justifies the killing of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by Islamic militants.Authorities confiscated equipment and shut the office of Al-Alam TV on Monday because it was operating without a license, said the security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.However, the head of Al-Alam’s Cairo office, Ahmed al-Sayoufi, said the network has been wrongly accused of involvement in the production of the documentary about Sadat and that the steps against it were linked to those claims. "Assassination of a Pharaoh" has caused offense in Egypt because it portrays Sadat’s killer in a positive light and the former Egyptian president as a traitor for making peace with Israel.The film was produced by the so-called Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs, which is a body backed by hard-liners within the Iranian government but not considered government-run.The film triggered a formal diplomatic protest by Egypt and could threaten recent steps to restore relations between the two countries that were cut three decades ago. Tehran cut ties after Egypt signed the peace agreement with Israel and provided asylum for the deposed Iranian Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.In Tehran, Hasan Abedini, the head of Al-Alam’s newsroom, told The Associated Press that the state-run satellite news channel has no link with the film. Nonetheless, all of the station’s news activities have been banned in Egypt, he said. Satellite customers in Egypt could still see the channel’s Arabic-language broadcasts.The film aired earlier this month at a festival in Iran along with documentaries about others whom the committee considers "martyrs."Khaled el-Islambouli was one of the army officers who fired on Sadat during a military parade in 1981. Egypt executed him by firing squad soon thereafter.The Egyptian government has condemned the film and Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit summoned the Iranian charge d’affairs in Egypt. Sadat’s family has filed lawsuits against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Egyptian Football Association canceled a friendly match with Iran because of the film.In May, Ahmadinejad offered to restore ties with Egypt, a strong U.S. ally. At the time, Ahmadinejad said his country was ready to open an embassy in Cairo as soon as Egypt agreed to do the same in Tehran. The Iranian president has since repeated his offer, most recently this month.But Egypt has also said that full diplomatic relations could only be restored if Iran takes down a large mural of el-Islambouli and changes the name of a street honoring him.
By MAGGIE MICHAEL
PS:These Islamofacists in Iran are CRAZY........Ahmadinejad the first of them...Meanwhile their people SUFFER....
As in the days of Noah....

Afghan family devastated by suicide blast

KABUL-Abdul Wahid was asleep in England when he received a panicked phone call."Buy a plane ticket and hurry to Kabul!" his brother's voice said.It would take Wahid more than 24 hours to make the long trip from his home in Sheffield, England to the Afghan capital. Only there did he discover the shattering news.Five members of his family had been killed in a devastating suicide blast outside the Indian Embassy.A suicide car bomber rammed the gates of the mission in central Kabul on July 7, just as a diplomatic vehicle was entering the compound, killing 58 people and injuring 141.Two Indian diplomats and two Indian guards were killed in the attack, but most of the casualties were Afghans queuing up to apply for visas.The blast was so powerful it blew the embassy's metal gates back into the compound and destroyed the perimeter wall. It was the deadliest attack in the capital since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban after the September 11 attacks in 2001."My brother wouldn't tell me what had happened, only that my daughter had been injured," Wahid says, sitting on the floor of his family home in western Kabul. His uncle picked him up from the airport and drove him straight to their home."When we got there, there was an ambulance and many cars parked outside our house," he says.He then saw the bodies of his wife, his sister, his 10-year-old daughter and his sister's 2-year-old twins laid out on the dusty ground.He buried them in a graveyard near the house later that evening. Like many Afghans, Wahid left Kabul in search of a better life when the Taliban were still in power, moving to Britain nine years ago. Settling in Sheffield, he opened a pizza takeaway shop with two brothers and after some time moved his parents over.Wahid was trying to get his wife and two kids to join him in Sheffield."I applied for a visa for my wife last September but it was rejected," he said, "so we were trying again this year."The British Embassy in Kabul does not issue visas so Wahid's wife made an appointment with the British High Commission in New Delhi and was waiting in line to get an Indian visa."My brother told my sister and my wife to queue up early on Monday morning and he and my other brother would come to join them as early as possible, as they would be held up in traffic," Wahid explains.The two women arrived at the embassy at 8 o'clock in the morning with Wahid's two daughters and his sister's four children. They got out of the taxi and waited for the brothers to arrive, seeking shade under a tree.The last call Wahid's sister made to her brother in Kabul was at 8:15."Where are you?" she said."I'll be there in 10 minutes," his brother told her.But by the time they arrived the whole road had been blocked off. At first the police would not let them past but eventually the brothers managed to push their way through the screaming crowds to the blast scene.Their relatives had already been taken away by ambulance so the brothers spent the rest of the day searching, eventually finding them in different hospitals around the city.Wahid's wife and sister died a few hours after arriving at hospital, the doctors unable to save them. His 17-month-old daughter and two eldest nieces survived.As he talks, the children run around the room clapping and laughing, oblivious to the conversation. But their bandaged arms and scars are a reminder of their lucky escape.
ANGER
Suicide bombs have killed well over 200 Afghan civilians so far this year. While foreign and Afghan troops are mostly the targets, some 80 percent of victims are innocent bystanders.As Wahid tells his story he pauses between sentences, his eyes fixed to the wall.But his grief soon turns to anger. Like many Afghans, most of Wahid's ire is directed not at those who carry out the attacks, but at the government and its failure to bring security more than six years after the Taliban's fall."There is no explanation for how this bomb went off outside the embassy," Wahid exclaims.Security had been beefed up at the complex and new blast barriers erected two days before the attack, without which the casualty figure could have been much higher.Afghanistan and India have accused a Pakistani intelligence agency of involvement in the attack. Pakistan has rejected the allegation.Afghan intelligence agents twice warned India of an impending attack, a well-placed official said, but most Afghans believe it was India that warned Afghan authorities who then failed to act.The Afghan government, Wahid said, "knew about it two months ago! Why could they not stop this ... It's embarrassing. What did the government do with this intelligence?" he says as his father whispers to him to stay calm.With no end in sight to the relentless violence, Wahid and his family have to carry on."I will take my parents and the children back to the UK," he says. "There is nothing here for me now."He plans to bring his two nieces with him as their mother was separated from her husband who had remarried."They have no one else," Wahid says.Asked if he has any hope for his country, Wahid shakes his head. "Not under this government!"
PS:This is what MURDERERS DO when THEY BLOW THEMSELVES UP and KILL the INNOCENT!!!!!!
As in the days of Noah....

OBAMA WATCH:He ventured forth to bring light to the world

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.The Child was blessed in looks and intellect.Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow. When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves:“Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the
Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.
And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”
By Gerard Baker
PS:I dont like when people uses scripture this way,but this portrays how those who think that OBAMA is the second coming think about him....
He is making a fool of himself in this tour,cause everybody knows how he is like and evidently --"people of the world" as he summoned them yesterday--also can clearly SEE....Is he thinking that europeans and palestinians are goona vote for him??????What on earth is he thinking??????????
As in the days of Noah....

23 wounded in Norway refugee centre attack

OSLO-Twenty-three people were wounded when a gang of 40-50 men armed with steel bars and machetes attacked residents at a refugee centre in Norway late on Thursday, officials said on Friday.No one was seriously wounded, but 10 were sent to hospital and 13 treated at a local clinic, hospital officials said.An official at the centre in Oestfold south of Oslo said the attackers were Chechens and the victims Kurds. Police declined to confirm or deny that and said they had made no arrests so far."There was an attack from outside the asylum centre by people who don't live here, Chechens, 40 to 50 men armed with steel bars and other weapons," Ole Morten Lyng, an official at the centre, told NRK public radio news."There also seem to have been knives involved," Lyng said. "They went into the rooms and pulled out Kurds and beat them up."A police officer said some of the attackers had machetes.Lyng told Norwegian news agency NTB that the conflict stemmed from a minor dispute between Kurds and Chechens at the centre that got blown out of proportion.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL564553920080725
As in the days of Noah.....

Iran snubbed by key trading bloc

Two killed, 18 injured in Yemen attack: source

SANAA-Two people were killed and at least 18 others injured when a car was rammed into a police station in Yemen's Hadramout province early on Friday, a security source said.The driver tried to enter the police complex but was stopped at the gate, after which the car exploded, killing the attacker and a police guard, the source said.
Twelve policemen and six women were also injured, he added.Al Arabiya television earlier reported that the blast had wounded 20 people and caused damage to some buildings in the area and power outage.There was no immediate claim of responsibility.The Hadramout region was the scene of an attack by gunmen who opened fire, killing two Belgian tourists in Shibam this year. The government at the time believed al Qaeda was behind the attack and had later arrested suspects.Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, is grappling with a campaign by al Qaeda militants, who have said they were behind several attacks in recent months, including a shelling near the U.S. embassy and a mortar attack on a refinery in Aden.The government has also been fighting Shi'ite rebels loyal to Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in the northern province of Saada since 2004, a battle which President Ali Abdullah Saleh said last week had ended.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL555774720080725
As in the days of Noah...

Embassies in Islamabad, a high security risk

Mystery explosions point to Iran's secret arms shipments to terrorists

For an organisation that prides itself on being a well-run administrative machine, the leadership of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards is having a rather testing time. It’s not just last Saturday’s mysterious explosion in a suburb of Tehran that killed 15 people that is causing the leadership sleepless nights, although the nationwide news black-out imposed immediately afterwards does suggest the Revolutionary Guards, the storm troops of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, are rattled.Details are only now starting to reach the outside world, and it looks increasingly like sabotage was responsible for devastating a military convoy as it travelled through Khavarshahar. The company responsible for moving the equipment, LTK, is owned by the Revolutionary Guards and is suspected of being involved in shipping arms to Lebanon’s Hizbollah Shia Muslim militia, which is trained and funded by Tehran.The Revolutionary Guards’ arms shipments to Lebanon and its allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are usually shrouded in such secrecy that only a few senior members of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government are briefed in advance. As the international crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme deepens, the Revolutionary Guards have intensified their efforts to supply regional allies with military hardware so that, in the event of Tehran becoming involved in an armed confrontation with the West, Iran can respond by opening a number of fronts in the Middle East and beyond.The need to keep the arms build-up secret would explain the Revolutionary Guards’ decision to ban the Iranian media from reporting the explosion, even though it was heard throughout the capital. But what really concerns Iran’s leadership is that the incident is the latest in a long line of unexplained explosions.In May, officials blamed British and American agents for an explosion at a mosque in Shiraz that had just finished staging an exhibition of Iran’s latest military hardware. Last year more than a dozen Iranian engineers were killed while trying to fit a chemical warhead to a missile in Syria.A few months earlier, a train reported to be carrying military supplies to Syria was derailed by another mysterious explosion in northern Turkey. It is highly unlikely that these incidents are unrelated, which has only served to deepen the mood of fear and suspicion gripping the Revolutionary Guards’ leadership.Tensions have been running high in Tehran since Seymour Hersh, the respected American investigative journalist, revealed in the New Yorker magazine last month that President George W Bush had authorised up to $400 million to fund a major escalation in covert operations to destabilise the regime.Having contended with Iran’s attempts to undermine the Iraqi government over the past five years, British and American military commanders are more than happy to undertake covert operations in Iran, and there have been unconfirmed reports that special forces are operating undercover in the country. Western diplomats and nuclear inspectors who frequently travel to Tehran as part of the international effort to persuade the Iranians to halt their uranium enrichment activities report that a sense of paranoia appears to have gripped the regime in recent months.“There has certainly been a change of mood since the start of the year,” a Vienna-based official told me this week. “In the past they always appeared very self-confident and sure-footed in their dealings with foreign officials. Now they come across as very suspicious, and watch our every move.”
Tehran’s changed political atmosphere might be explained by the fact that President Ahmadinejad and his senior officials realise they are running out of time in their negotiations with the West. After more than four years of painstaking talks with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran is continuing to enrich uranium at its underground facility at Natanz, a clear breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Even senior officials at the agency, who have gone out of their way to accommodate the Iranians’ concerns, have little confidence that the Iranians have any intention of reaching a compromise. “All they seem interested in is extending the talks as long as possible while all the time they continue with their uranium enrichment programme,” said an official close to the talks. “Their entire strategy appears to be based on playing for time.”Iran has just another week to respond to the latest proposal put forward by the West at last weekend’s meeting with Iranian officials in Geneva, in which Iran was offered economic reconstruction in return for halting the enrichment programme.Iran is intensifying efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of Hizbollah in southern Lebanon in preparation for a possible attack on Israel. Revolutionary Guards are keen to strengthen its leadership following the assassination of Imad Mugniyeh, Hizbollah’s head of security, in the Syrian capital by Israeli agents last February.Mugniyeh, the terrorist behind suicide truck bomb attacks on American and French troops in the 1980s, played a key role in building up Hizbollah’s military strength, which proved to be highly effective during its 2006 attack against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Tehran wants to appoint one of its commanders as a replacement, but has received unexpected resistance from Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general. Nasrallah insists Mugniyeh’s replacement must come from within Hizbollah’s ranks. Suddenly nothing seems to be going the Revolutionary Guards’ way.
By Con Coughlin in Vienna
As in the days of Noah....

Iran bans newspaper over economic reporting: agency

TEHRAN-Iranian authorities have banned the evening edition of a large circulation newspaper for publishing news they said was harmful to the economy, Iranian media reported.Hamshahri daily, which has a morning and evening edition, is owned by the Tehran municipality, which in turn is run by potential presidential hopeful Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a conservative political rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.It is the second daily in just over a month to be banned for economic reporting. Analysts say the economy will be the main battleground in next year's presidential race as the government grapples with surging inflation in OPEC's No. 2 oil producer.Rising prices are the main gripe for most ordinary Iranians."By a decision of the press supervisory board, Hamshahri evening edition has been banned. The reason for banning this publication was the propagation of untruthful news with the aim of creating disruption in the country's economic condition," the official IRNA news agency reported late on Thursday.Fars News Agency said Hamshahri evening edition would not be published for three months. Hamshahri on Thursday reported a row between cabinet economic ministers and Central Bank Governor Tahmasb Mazaheri, who have been at odds over interest rate policy. The governor wants to hike rates but has been opposed by the government.The daily Tehran Emrouz, launched about 18 months ago, was banned in June for an article critical of Ahmadinejad's economic handling.Ahmadinejad, who came to power in 2005 on a pledge to share Iran's oil wealth more fairly, has come under mounting criticism for not containing inflation now running at about 26 percent.
As in the days of Noah....

Mysterious blast in Iran: sabotage of Hizballah arms convoy?

Good news -- sabotage inside Iran?
"'Mysterious Iran blast likely an attack on Hizbullah arms convoy,'" from the Jerusalem Post, July 25 (thanks to Dennis):
A mysterious explosion in a suburb of Teheran that killed 15 people last Saturday was likely an attack on a Iranian military convoy carrying arms to Hizbullah, the Telegraph reported Friday.The Revolutionary Guards imposed a news black-out immediately after the blast, but the UK newspaper reported that it looked like sabotage was responsible for destroying the convoy as it traveled through Khavarshahar.The newspaper noted that the company responsible for moving the military equipment, LTK, was owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and was allegedly involved in shipping arms to Hizbullah.Last Saturday's incident was the latest in a series of mysterious explosions in the country....
Posted by Robert
As in the days of Noah....

JIHAD WATCH:Bombs in Bangalore

Bangalore, India-Earlier today, at least seven bombs exploded across Bangalore, home to most of India's information technology and outsourcing businesses.Thus far, two people are dead and up to 20 are reported to be wounded.Three different Islamist groups are under investigation.The usual suspects have been rounded up.
By Mike Pechar http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/193418.php
As in the days of Noah...

OBAMA WATCH:This Should Clear Up Any Controversy About Obama’s Birth Certificate…..

Straight from the top, baby.
From the (retards) geniuses at The Nose On Your Face.
By Pilgrim
As in the days of Noah....

Obama's path to presidency is far from clear

WASHINGTON-Even as his turn on the global stage hit an emotional peak Thursday with a speech before a cheering crowd of more than 200,000 in Germany, Barack Obama faced new evidence of stubborn election challenges back home.Fresh polls show that he has been unable to convert weeks of extensive media coverage into a widened lead. And some prominent Democrats whose support could boost his campaign are still not enthusiastic about his candidacy.Several new surveys show that Obama is in a tight race or even losing ground to Republican John McCain, both nationally and in two important swing states, Colorado and Minnesota. One new poll offered a possible explanation for his troubles: A minority of voters see Obama as a familiar figure with whom they can identify.Republicans are moving to exploit this vulnerability, trying to encourage unease among voters by building the impression that Obama's overseas trip and other actions show he has a sense of entitlement that suggests he believes the White House is already his.In Ohio on Thursday, McCain hit that theme: "I'd love to give a speech in Germany . . . but I'd much prefer to do it as president of the United States, rather than as a candidate for the office of presidency."Obama also faces discontent from some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's most ardent supporters, who are put off by what they describe as a campaign marked by hubris and a style dedicated to televised extravaganzas.Susie Tompkins Buell, a major Clinton fundraiser, said: "The Clinton supporters that I know are bothered by these rock-star events. These spectacles are more about the candidate than they are about the party and the issues that we care about."Obama is to return home Saturday after a nine-day trip that has produced some of the most memorable images of the campaign. Speaking in Berlin before a sea of young faces, the presumed Democratic nominee echoed a famous line from President Reagan, who, at Brandenburg Gate, implored Soviet counterpart Mikhail S. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall.""The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down," Obama told the warmly enthusiastic crowd in Tiergarten park. He spoke from a stage constructed near the Victory Column, a soaring monument to Prussian military triumphs. Powerful as the image was, back home some voters wondered whether the trip was necessary. Both Obama and McCain had been invited Thursday to a cancer forum organized by cyclist Lance Armstrong's foundation at Ohio State University.McCain showed; Obama did not. Some in the crowd took notice.Ann Marie Jones, a stay-at-home mother whose 10-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer in September, said she had leaned toward Obama "until he didn't show up tonight.""I feel like I understand what he's doing over there, but I think he needed to be here tonight for this," she said.Jones, a 40-year-old Republican from Aledo, Texas, said she was troubled by the duration and scale of Obama's overseas trip. "I think we have a lot of things going on with our children-many different things going on here in the United States that need our attention."Many voters still seem to be puzzling over who Obama is, even after a race that has lasted a year and a half. By 58% to 47%, voters identity more with the values and background of McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, than with Obama, according to a newly released Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Obama may also be slipping in some key states. He lost a narrow lead in Colorado, falling 5 percentage points in the past month, and now trails McCain 46% to 44%, a new Quinnipiac University poll found. In Minnesota, Obama fell 8 percentage points, though he still leads McCain 46% to 44%, the survey found. The polling spanned the five days before Obama went abroad and the first four days of his trip.At a time when nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track, the political climate would suggest that McCain, whose party controls the White House, might lag by large margins. Yet a national Fox News poll released Thursday showed that Obama's 4-point lead over McCain in June had shrunk to a single point. The new Journal/NBC poll showed Obama leading by 6 points, unchanged from the month before.The race remains close even though McCain has stumbled at times and has been largely eclipsed this week by Obama's high-profile trip to Europe and the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan.On Thursday, television images showed Obama addressing the throng in Berlin, his speech carried live on cable news networks. McCain, meanwhile, spoke to reporters outside an Ohio fudge shop, where his comments were nearly drowned out by wind chimes.But Obama is struggling with a different set of obstacles; he has yet to lock in some of Clinton's most devoted supporters and active fundraisers.
By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
As in the days of Noah....

Obama Snubbed Soldiers Because There Was No Photo Op for Him

Rob posted earlier on Obama skipping out on visiting the troops: Obama Skips Visiting US Troops In Germany To Make Time For More Campaigning In Front Of Germans. Patterico’s Pontifications points to what could be the real reason!
One military official who was working on the Obama visit said because political candidates are prohibited from using military installations as campaign backdrops, Obama’s representatives were told, “he could only bring two or three of his Senate staff member, no campaign officials or workers.” In addition, “Obama could not bring any media. Only military photographers would be permitted to record Obama’s visit.”
NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski
What a class act! He could visit wounded soldiers, but no one would see him do it! In Barack’s world, What’s the percentage in that?
Cross Posted at Proof Positive
By Proof
As in the days of Noah....

Obama Cancels Visit to U.S. Troops in Germany

Barack Obama’s campaign said Thursday that the Illinois senator opted not to visit U.S. troops at military facilities in Germany because it would be “inappropriate” to make such a stop on the campaign-funded leg of his trip.The German magazine Der Spiegel reported earlier that Obama canceled a visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a military hospital in Germany, and the Ramstein Air Base.The report came as Obama prepared to speak to thousands at a high-profile address in Berlin. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs released a statement saying Obama originally wanted to visit troops at Landstuhl to “express his gratitude for their service and sacrifice,” and noted that he already visited troops in Iraq while he was part of an official congressional delegation.But he said the second leg of Obama’s trip was different.“The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign ”(((((????????))))))Gibbs said. John McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said,“Barack Obama is wrong. It is never inappropriate to visit our men and women in the military.”McCain’s Senate colleague Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., also took a shot at Obama.“I noticed that Obama had plenty of time to shoot hoops … but he didn’t have the time to stop by (the Ramstein base),” he told FOX News.
PS:OBAMA loves adulation.
OBAMA loves photo shoots
OBAMA DOESNT CARE for OUR TROOPS
OBAMA is a living DISGRACE and a POOR CHOICE for a PRESIDENT
OBAMA is the one that is INAPPROPIATE.....
As in the days of Noah....

Obamamessiah rocking and rolling straight into the sermon on the mount! Hilarious Satire from England! He ventured forth to bring light to the world

Brilliant bit of satire that captures perfectly the idiocy the campaign of Obamamessiah. Naturally an Englishman wrote it.
And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.
When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”
In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.
And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.
He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the
Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.
And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the
Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.
He ventured forth to bring light to the world Gerard Baker - Times Online
http://pierrelegrand.net/2008/07/25/obamamessiah-rocking-and-rolling-straight-into-the-sermon-on-the-mount-hilarious-satire-from-england-he-ventured-forth-to-bring-light-to-the-world.htm
As in the days of Noah....

Obama stirs complex feelings in France

As Barack Obama’s overseas tour continues to prompt swoons of European delight-more than 200,000 came out to see him speak in Berlin Thursday-Friday’s stop in France will provoke more than simple adoration. While many Europeans see Obama as a symbol of change in the United States, in France, where racial issues play a particularly divisive role in domestic politics, Obama has become a symbol of some French voters' hopes for their own country. Obama meets with French President Nicolas Sarkozy later this morning. “The French are looking in the mirror and reflecting on their own shortcomings when it comes to multiethnic and multiracial society,” said Georgetown professor Charles Kupchan, who is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think it’s safe to say that it would be almost unthinkable that a minority would be a leading contender for the presidency of France.” France has a substantial population of nonwhite immigrants, largely from former colonies in North and West Africa, that has struggled to participate in French political life. A French group that studies diversity issues released a report in March showing that minorities occupied just 2,000 out of 520,000 city council seats across France. There is only one black member of Parliament from mainland France. “I think that in Obama, the French see a minority figure who has succeeded in making it to the top,” Kupchan said. After Obama secured the Democratic nomination, a French civil rights group, the Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires, issued a statement decrying the absence of similar figures in French politics. “What black candidate could stand for the French presidency with a chance of being elected that is equal to that of a white?” the statement asked. On June 29, Le Monde, France’s leading newspaper, reprinted Obama’s entire March 18 speech on race under a headline that quoted a translation of the address: “Race is a subject that our country cannot allow itself to ignore.” Obama was referring to his own nation’s troubled racial past and present — but French readers could have taken a different suggestion from the headline. French interest in Obama developed long before the Illinois Democrat had even secured his party’s nomination: In February, the newspaper Le Parisien released a poll showing that Obama would have beaten Hillary Rodham Clinton 38 percent to 36 percent in a vote of the French public, despite Clinton’s long presence on the international scene. “When the primaries started, people were for Hillary,” explained Corine Lesnes, a reporter for Le Monde who covers the American presidential race. “But when they found out about Obama, the ‘Obamania’ started.” “People are looking for the face of an America they can admire and take as a model,” she said, describing the French reaction to Obama’s race in this way: “The United States is a society where a guy like Obama can make it to Harvard. The dream is alive.”
By ALEXANDER BURNS
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/12043.html
As in the days of Noah....

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Aviation Expert Acusses Iran of Military Deception

Arctic May Hold 90 Billion Barrels of Oil, U.S. Says

The Arctic may hold 90 billion barrels of oil, more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mexico combined, and enough to supply U.S. demand for 12 years, the U.S. Geological Survey said.One-third of the undiscovered oil is in Alaskan territory, the agency found in a study released today. By contrast, a geologic formation beneath the North Pole claimed by Russian scientists last year probably holds just 1.2 percent of the Arctic's crude, the U.S. report showed. Energy producers such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp. have accelerated exploration of the northernmost regions for untapped reserves amid record prices and receding access to deposits in more hospitable climates. Russia's move to scrap a United Nations convention and carve out an exclusive Arctic zone sparked protests from Canada, the U.S., Norway and Denmark."Most of the Arctic, especially offshore, is essentially unexplored with respect to petroleum,'' Donald Gautier, the project chief for the assessment, said in the report."The extensive Arctic continental shelves may constitute the geographically largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth.''Russia dispatched a nuclear-powered icebreaker to the Arctic Ocean last year to map a subsea link between Siberia and the North Pole as part of a bid to refute a UN convention limiting resource claims beyond 200 miles (321 kilometers) offshore. Canada said earlier this month that it plans to counter the Russian overture with"a very strong claim'' to Arctic exploration rights.
No Time Estimate
The U.S. report didn't include an estimate for how long it will take to bring the reserves to markets. Offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa can take a decade or longer to begin pumping oil.The geologists studied maps of subterranean rock formations across the 8.2 million square miles above the Arctic Circle to find areas with characteristics similar to oil and gas finds in other parts of the world.The study also took into account the age, depth and shape of rock formations in judging whether they are likely to contain oil, Gautier said today during a conference call with reporters. Seismic data doesn't yet exist for most of the Arctic, he said. Pe'troleum doesn't just occur anywhere,'' Gautier said.It requires a very narrow set of burial conditions.''U.S. oil executives such as Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Rex Tillerson and Chevron Corp.'s David O'Reilly have urged lawmakers to relax prohibitions against offshore drilling, including much of Alaska. Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress rejected President George W. Bush's July 14 effort to end a 25-year moratorium on drilling in most coastal waters.
West Siberia Basin
The region above the Arctic Circle also holds an estimated 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, equal to 27 percent of the world's known gas reserves, the study showed. Almost 40 percent of the gas reserves are in Russia's West Siberia Basin.About 84 percent of the oil and gas reserves probably lie offshore, the report showed. The region also has an estimated 44 billion barrels of natural-gas-liquids such as propane and butane, which are used by chemical producers, oil refiners and for home heating.The study encompassed all areas north of 66.56 degrees north latitude and only included reserves that could be tapped using existing techniques. Experimental or unconventional prospects such as oil shale, gas hydrates and coal-bed methane weren't included in the assessment.
Data Contributors
Contributors of data to the study included the Geological Survey of Canada, the U.S. Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the Cambridge Arctic Shelf Program and researchers in Denmark and Greenland. No Russian institutions took part in the study.The survey only applied to undiscovered reserves. Exxon Mobil, Shell, Gazprom OAO and other energy producers have already found 400 oil and gas fields that hold the equivalent of 240 billion barrels. On a combined basis, the undiscovered reserves of oil and gas in today's report amount to 412 billion barrels.Most of those discoveries remain capped because of a lack of pipeline or shipping facilities to haul the petroleum to markets.Crude for September delivery fell $3.98, or 3.1 percent, to $124.44 a barrel at 2:59 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil climbed 66 percent in the past year on its way to a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11.
Global Demand
Global crude demand is expected to rise by 1 percent this year to 86.85 million barrels a day, after a 1.3 percent increase in 2007, the International Energy Agency said in a July 10 report.
Kazakhstan, site of the world's two biggest oil discoveries of the past three decades, has 39.8 billion barrels of crude reserves, according to London-based BP Plc. Nigeria's reserves amount to 36.2 billion barrels and Mexico holds 12.2 billion. Russia, the world's largest producer last year, has 79.4 billion barrels of oil reserves and 1,577 trillion cubic feet of gas.The U.S. is expected to use about 7.39 billion barrels of crude this year, according to the Paris-based IEA.
By Joe Carroll
As in the days of Noah.....

Russian-European Manned spaceship design unveiled

The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled.It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation.The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivalling the US Ares/Orion system.Unlike previous crewed vehicles, it will use thrusters to make a soft landing when it returns to Earth.Russian aerospace writer and graphic designer Anatoly Zak has produced artist's renderings of the new craft based on a design released by Russian manufacturer RKK Energia at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK last week.In some respects, the capsule resembles America's next-generation spacecraft Orion. The 18-to-20-tonne Russian-European vehicle is designed to carry six crew into low-Earth orbit and four on missions to lunar orbit.One of the most unusual features about the capsule appear to be the thrusters and landing gear on its underside. Mr Zak said it would use these engines to soften its landing on Earth after the fiery re-entry through our atmosphere.The European Space Agency (Esa) has been talking to its Russian counterpart Roscosmos about collaborating on the Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS) since 2006.
Launcher decision
"If Esa and the Russian Space Agency reach agreement, Europe will supply the service module of that co-operative spacecraft," Mr Zak told BBC News.This service module will use technology - such as the propulsion systems - developed for Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), an unmanned freighter recently sent to re-supply the International Space Station (ISS).Russia may provide the launcher for the new manned spacecraft. This might be an entirely new vehicle, or a modification of an existing rocket.Mr Zak said Russia was insisting in its negotiations with Europe that all future manned projects be based in Vostochny, the new cosmodrome being developed in Russia's eastern Amur region. The Russian government wants to host its first manned launch from that site in 2018.At the moment, all manned Soyuz launches take place from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.Alternatively, the space agencies could opt to "man-rate" Europe's Ariane 5 launcher, which lifts off from Kourou in French Guiana. This would allow the rocket to carry humans into space.This would involve making major modifications to Kourou spaceport, including the development of infrastructure to support a crew escape system in the event of an emergency.It is quite possible that both launch sites would play a role in any collaborative programme, which would necessitate the lofting of cargo as well as human crew.
However, if this collaboration falls apart, Europe has another option for direct manned access to space.
Other option
In May this year, European aerospace company EADS Astrium unveiled its own model of a crewed space vehicle, described as an "evolution" of the ATV, which was built by a consortium of European companies led by Astrium.It would combine what is essentially the avionics and propulsion end of the ATV with a crew compartment taking the place of the current cargo section.Mr Zak commented: "I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A. Their Plan B is the initiative made by EADS Astrium in Bremen."But if the agencies want a manned craft capable of reaching the Moon, they will need to develop new, more powerful rockets than those on the drawing board today."This is an open question, there are no decisions on how to proceed," said Mr Zak.The CSTS is also sometimes referred to as the Advanced Crew Transportation System (ACTS). Esa and Roscosmos started talks on the project after some Esa member states rejected further involvement in the development of another manned spacecraft called Kliper.The proposals will go before a crucial meeting of space ministers from European member states in November this year.
By Paul Rincon
As in the days of Noah...

Hackers get hold of critical Internet flaw

SAN FRANCISCO-Internet security researchers on Thursday warned that hackers have caught on to a "critical" flaw that lets them control traffic on the Internet.An elite squad of computer industry engineers that labored in secret to solve the problem released a software "patch" two weeks ago and sought to keep details of the vulnerability hidden at least a month to give people time to protect computers from attacks."We are in a lot of trouble," said IOActive security specialist Dan Kaminsky, who stumbled upon the Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerability about six months ago and reached out to industry giants to collaborate on a solution."This attack is very good. This attack is being weaponized out in the field. Everyone needs to patch, please," Kaminsky said. "This is a big deal."DNS is used by every computer that links to the Internet and works similar to a telephone system routing calls to proper numbers, in this case the online numerical addresses of websites.The vulnerability allows "cache poisoning" attacks that tinker with data stored in computer memory caches that relay Internet traffic to its destination. Attackers could use the vulnerability to route Internet users wherever the hackers wanted, no matter what website address is typed into a web browser.The threat is greatest for business computers handling online traffic or hosting websites, according to security researchers. The flaw is a boon for "phishing" cons that involve leading people to imitation web pages of businesses such as bank or credit card companies to trick them into disclosing account numbers, passwords and other information."I was not intentionally seeking to cause anything that could break the Internet," Kaminsky said Thursday during a conference call with peers and media. "It's a little weird to talk about it out loud."Kaminsky built a web page, http://www.doxpara.com, where people can find out whether their computers have the DNS vulnerability. As of Thursday, slightly more than half the computers tested at the website still needed to be patched."People are spending tens of thousands of hours getting this patch out the door," Kaminsky said.The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), a joint government-private sector security partnership, is among the chorus urging people to quickly protect computers linked to the Internet."Just like you should wear a seat belt going down the road to be safe in a car accident, the same applies here," said Jerry Dixon, a former director of cyber security at the US Department of Homeland Security."The patch is your seat belt. The exploit is out there and you definitely need to take precautions. Now is not the time to keep waiting."Two "exploits," software snippets that take advantage of the vulnerability, have been unleashed on the Internet in the past 24 hours, Securosis analyst Rich Mogul said during the conference call."The threat is there," Mogul said.

As in the days of Noah....

Egypt jails Facebook activists for 'threatening national security'

Police have arrested 26 Internet activists in the port of Alexandria, and 14 of them were jailed for more than two weeks for "threatening national security," a security official said on Thursday. Around 30 young Egyptians who belong to the so-called "6 April" group on social networking site Facebook, a group which earlier this year called for a day of protests at rising prices, gathered in Alexandria on Wednesday. "We were heading for Sidi Beshr beach but a policeman prevented us getting there because we had a large kite painted with the Egyptian flag and we were wearing T-shirts with 'April 6 Movement' on," said Mohammed Abdel Aziz.He said that in the evening the group was walking along the seafront singing nationalist songs when police arrived and arrested 14 of them, he said.The official confirmed the arrests and said another 12 were detained on Thursday.The first 14 arrested have been jailed for 15 days under emergency laws for "threatening public security," the official said, while the others are still being questioned.The arrests "indicate the security agencies are targeting 35 young men and women who are members of the 6th of April group and all attending a trip arranged by the group," the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said in a statement.ANHRI tried to contact those detained "but all their mobile phones are turned off, which raises concerns, especially with the well-known practice of torture" where they are being held, it said.Esra Abdel Fattah, the woman who set up the April 6 group in March calling for protests against price hikes, was detained at the time but freed after her mother made an appeal to Interior Minister Habib al-Adli.Fattah, 27, was among several bloggers arrested ahead of what was supposed to be a nationwide protest on April 6.Egyptian police took her from a Cairo coffee shop a week before the planned day of action. Her Facebook group had 64,000 members, but observation of the day of protest was sporadic.Instead, protests focused on the Nile Delta city of Mahalla, where three people were killed by police after clashes erupted when demonstrators pulled down posters of President Hosni Mubarak.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080724153852.bdz43bxy&show_article=1
As in the days of Noah....

Arab Israeli MP Justifies Tractor Attack To Hamas TV.

The lawmaker chooses the Gaza-based TV channel to explain why Palestinians would want to attack Israelis...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ad6_1216934832
As in the days of Noah....

Ahmadinejad vows no Iran concessions in nuclear crisis

TEHRAN-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday vowed that Iran would not yield in the crisis over its nuclear drive but the White House warned again that it risks more sanctions if it fails to freeze sensitive nuclear work."The Iranian people are steadfast and will not step back an inch against the oppressive powers," Ahmadinejad told a rally in the southwestern province of Kohgelouyeh-Boyerahmad.His defiant comments come after world powers warned Iran has only a fortnight to respond to their latest offer seeking to end a five-year crisis that has raised fears of regional conflict and sent oil prices spiralling. The White House said it was still hopeful Tehran would suspend its controversial nuclear activities, otherwise more international sanctions would follow."We hope the Iranians will provide a positive answer," national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. But "if they do not, the international community is united that more sanctions are coming."World powers have offered to start pre-negotiations during which Tehran would add no more uranium-enriching centrifuges and in return face no further sanctions-the so-called "freeze-for-freeze" approach.Iran is already under three sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to halt sensitive uranium enrichment work, which the West fears could be aimed at making nuclear weapons.The United States took the unprecedented step of sending a top diplomat to meet Iran's chief negotiator Saeed Jalili at Saturday's international talks in Geneva which ended in a stalemate. But Washington, which has led the efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear drive, has also warned Tehran of "punitive measures" if it spurns the international offer and presses on with enrichment work.Ahmadinejad welcomed the US presence in talks as a "positive step" and said that the US diplomat William Burns had talked "politely in the meeting and respected the Iranian nation. "But the president vowed that further sanctions would not force Iran to back down in the standoff."The Iranian nation does not value your threats. You are mistaken if you think you can force this nation to back down with sanctions, threats and pressure," he said.Iran denies allegations of seeking nuclear weapons, insisting that its programme is designed to provide energy for its growing population when the OPEC member's reserves of fossil fuels run out.Permanent Security Council members-Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States-plus Germany have made Iran an offer, which includes trade incentives and help with a civilian nuclear programme in return for suspending enrichment. Ahmadinejad alleged that world powers "do not mind centrifuges and enrichment... but that they want to show the world they can force the Iranians to retreat with a psychological operation and deception."The New York Times on Tuesday released what it said was a two-page informal document that outlined Tehran's approach to talks in Geneva and was distributed by Iranian negotiators.The paper called for seven more rounds of talks, stressed the need for an end to sanctions, and made no mention of an incentives package.Iranian officials have repeatedly said they have no intention of freezing enrichment and that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to make its own nuclear fuel.However, Iran's first Russian-built nuclear power plant is yet to be completed and come online.Hopes of a breakthrough rose in recent weeks after Ali Akbar Velayati, the top foreign policy advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said it would be in Iran's interests to accept the package.Ahmadinejad, who has already dismissed Velayati's comments as personal, reaffirmed that he was in charge of Iran's nuclear case."They (world powers) thought the nation was divided, that the people and the president had been sidelined in the nuclear case and that they would be able to impose their views."But I told them they were mistaken to celebrate and their feast would soon turn into a funeral."

As in the days of Noah...

Iran ends cooperation with UN nuclear arms probe

VIENNA, Austria - Iran signaled Thursday that it will no longer cooperate with U.N. experts probing for signs of clandestine nuclear weapons work, confirming the investigation is at a dead end a year after it began.The announcement from Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh compounded skepticism about denting Tehran's nuclear defiance, just five days after Tehran stonewalled demands from six world powers that it halt activities capable of producing the fissile core of warheads.Besides demanding a suspension of uranium enrichment-a process that can create both fuel for nuclear reactors and payloads for atomic bombs-the six powers have been pressing Tehran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency's probe.Iran, which is obligated as a signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to develop nuclear arms, raised suspicions about its intentions when it admitted in 2002 that it had run a secret nuclear program for nearly two decades in violation of its commitment.The Tehran regime insists it halted such work and is now only trying to produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity. It agreed on a "work plan" with the Vienna-based IAEA a year ago for U.N. inspectors to look into allegations Iran is still doing weapons work.At the time, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei hailed it as "a significant step forward" that would fill in the missing pieces of Tehran's nuclear jigsaw puzzle-if honored by Iran. He brushed aside suggestions Iran was using the deal as a smoke screen to deflect attention from its continued defiance of a U.N. Security Council demand for a halt to uranium enrichment.The investigation ran into trouble just months after being launched. Deadline after deadline was extended because of Iranian foot-dragging. The probe, originally meant to be completed late last year, spilled into the first months of 2008, and beyond.Iran remains defiant. It dismisses as fabricated the evidence supplied by the U.S. and other members of the IAEA's governing board purportedly backing allegations that Iranians continue to work on nuclear weapons.Officials say that among the evidence given to the IAEA are what seem to be Iranian draft plans to refit missiles with nuclear warheads; explosives tests that could be used to develop a nuclear detonator; and a drawing showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads. There are also questions about links between Iran's military and civilian nuclear facilities.On Thursday, Aghazadeh appeared to signal that his country was no longer prepared even to discuss the issue with the IAEA.Investigating such allegations "is outside the domain of the agency," he said after meeting with ElBaradei. Any further queries on the issue "will be dealt with in another way," he said, without going into detail.Britain, one of those suspicious of Iran's nuclear activities, was critical."We are concerned by reports that Iran is refusing to cooperate with the IAEA on allegations over nuclear weapons," the British Foreign Office said in a statement. "The IAEA has raised serious concerns over Iran's activities with a possible military dimension. If Iran is serious about restoring international confidence in its intentions, it must address these issues."The IAEA asked in vain for explanations from Iran, and its last report in May said Iran might be withholding information on whether it tried to make nuclear arms. Reflecting ElBaradei's frustration, the report used language described by one senior U.N. official as unique in its direct criticism of Tehran. Aghazadeh's comments Thursday appeared to jibe with those of diplomats familiar with the probe who told The Associated Press that the IAEA had run into a dead end.A senior diplomat on Thursday attributed Tehran's intransigence in part to anger over a multimedia presentation by IAEA Deputy Director-General Olli Heinonen to the agency's 35 board members based on intelligence about the alleged weapons work. The diplomat, like others, agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name because his information was confidential.Tehran dismisses the suspicions of the U.S. and allies, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday again vowed that his country would not "retreat one iota" from pursuing uranium enrichment.On Saturday, a U.S. diplomat had participated in talks with Iran held in Geneva, raising expectations that a compromise might be reached under which Iran would agree to temporarily stop expansion of enrichment activities. In exchange, the six world powers-the U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China-would hold off on adopting new U.N. sanctions against Iran.But participants at Geneva said Iranian negotiators skirted the freeze issue despite the presence of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday accused Iran of not being serious at the Geneva talks. She warned that all six nations were serious about a two-week deadline for Iran to agree to freeze suspect activities and start negotiations or else be hit with a fourth set of U.N. penalties.Aghazadeh, who is also head of Iran's atomic agency, played down the international complaints, but he also evaded a direct answer on whether Tehran would give any ground on an enrichment freeze."Both sides are carefully studying the concerns and expectations of both sides," he told reporters.

As in the days of Noah....

QUAKEWATCH:Powerful aftershocks hit China quake area, 1 dead

BEIJING-At least three powerful aftershocks hit southwest China's quake area on Thursday, killing one elderly person and injuring more than a dozen, the official Xinhua news agency said...
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As in the days of Noah....

Lebanese Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadhlallah: In the Arab World, Dictatorship Begins at Home - ':MEMRI TV

'...We raise our people to submit to the strong. Therefore,nobody expresses opposition. They are afraid.It is better to not talk, to not object.That is why we have tyrants who are like gods.Among the Arab and Islamic peoples, you might find people who criticize Allah and the Prophet, God forbid, but can you find people who criticize mortals like the president or the king? No, this is not allowed.Such people go straight to jail or to the gallows.If you say something against Allah-never mind.If you say something against the Prophet or the imam-never mind.But if you say something against the president, the king, the Emir, or any senior politician-that is not allowed. What does this mean?It means that we have succumbed to being slaves, because this is what slavery means.'
As in the days of Noah....

China says breaks up international terrorist cell

BEIJING-Shanghai police have broken up an international terrorist group that had planned to attack an Olympic football preliminary match in the city, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday."We have staged raids and cracked a group of terrorists," Xinhua quoted Cheng Jiulong, Shanghai Public Security Bureau deputy director and head of the Shanghai security office for the Olympics, as saying. However, Cheng did not say when the terrorists were first discovered, how many suspects were detained or where they came from, said Xinhua."We have obtained information that international terrorist organizations would likely launch an attack against an Olympic venue in the city during the Games," Cheng said.The report comes after state media said earlier in the day that Chinese paramilitary police swore to prevent terrorist attacks or "political incidents" from disrupting the Beijing Olympics in a show of force at the Games' main stadium."International terrorist forces are itching to strike with terror attacks against the Beijing Games, and hostile domestic forces' disruption and sabotage activities against the Games are steadily unfolding," the People's Armed Police News reported.Chinese officials have said their main Games security worries focused on separatist militants seeking an independent Uighur homeland in the country's far west Xinjiang region and campaigners for an independent Tibet.Human rights critics say China has grossly exaggerated the security threats from Uighurs and Tibetans to justify harsh control in those regions.Shanghai police have been put on a "crisis" footing as part of a campaign to ensure public safety during Olympic football matches in the city next month, said Xinhua.
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As in the days of Noah...

Obama Skips Visiting US Troops In Germany To Make Time For More Campaigning In Front Of Germans

You have to wonder about Obama’s priorities with this decision.
1:42 p.m.: SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for Friday. “Barack Obama will not be coming to us,” a spokesperson for the US military hospital in Landstuhl announced. “I don’t know why.” Shortly before the same spokeswoman had announced a planned visit by Obama.
Meanwhile Obama’s speech in front of what is predicted to be a screaming mass of German citizens remains on schedule.
Meaning that this candidate for America’s highest office, this candidate to be commander-in-chief of the military, would rather talk to Germans than American soldiers. And there’s a question as to why Obama canceled the visit with the troops. His campaign is saying time restraints, but Jack Tapper said Obama was talking about how he was going to spend his “down time” in Berlin.
Kind of speaks volumes about what kind of a leader Obama would be doesn’t it? Obama is proving himself to be a candidate that is more worried about what foreigners think of American than what is best for America itself.
By Rob
As in the days of Noah....

Obama To Reporters: Why Don’t You Guys Go Out And Distribute Some Flyers For My Campaign

Wow:
“I doubt we’re gonna have a million screaming Germans,” Obama said.
... A reporter noted that the campaign has been distributing fliers to Berliners to drum up attendance.
“Why don’t you guys go out and distribute some fliers?” Obama asked. “Is that a conflict for you guys?”
Joked a cable news correspondent: “We have been. It’s called television.”
I don’t know what to be more nauseated about.That Obama would have the gall to outright ask reporters to distribute flyers for his campaign, even if it was a joke, or that one reporter openly suggested that they were actively campaigning for him with their journalism.
By Rob
As in the days of Noah....

USA Today: Why Can’t Obama Just Admit That The Surge Worked?

A good question:
Why then can’t Obama bring himself to acknowledge the surge worked better than he and other skeptics, including this page, thought it would? What does that stubbornness say about the kind of president he’d be?
Read the whole thing.
I’d suggest that the answer is because Obama doesn’t think it’s politically expedient for him to admit that the surge worked. He was driven to the nomination by the far-left hordes that have taken over the Democrat party, and while Obama does need to nab the middle and as much of the right as he can if he wants to win the election he can’t just turn tail on those hordes who nominated him.
So he’s stuck between a rock and the hard place. Does he ‘fess up to reality to please the vast majority of reasonable, logical Americans? Or does he continue to pander to the anti-war base that got him this far which cares little for things like reason and logic?
His choice to this point is clear.
By Rob
As in the days of Noah...