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U.S., Iraqi experts developing plan to preserve Babylon, build local tourism industry
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsStars and Stripes
Categories: Today's Headlines;Apologetics

HILLAH, Iraq — The remains of what was once the greatest city in the world occupy a vast site on the bank of the Euphrates River.

Their roots go back 3,800 years to when the city of Babylon was the heart of a Mesopotamian empire, and the remnants include great slabs of stone that are said to be the remains of King Nebuchadnezzar’s castle. A giant stone lion guards one end of the fortifications, but the most stunning remnants were removed by European archaeologists in the early 20th century.

Now soldiers with the 172nd Infantry Brigade are exploring the ruins as part of a U.S.-Iraqi effort to preserve the ancient city and plan for the return of Western tourists.

Members of the brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment escorted a group of U.S. heritage tourism experts to the ruins last week for the first of several visits to develop a preservation and tourism plan for the area.

U.S. and coalition troops have been criticized in the past for damaging and contaminating artifacts. In a 2006 report, the head of the British Museum’s Near East department said that, among other things, military vehicles crushed a 2,600-year-old brick pavement, and sand and archeological fragments were used to fill military sandbags.

Now the rapidly improving security situation in surrounding Babil province has persuaded the U.S. State Department and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage to embark on the preservation project, dubbed the Future of Babylon Project.

Editors Note.... This is an attempt to preserve the ruins of Babylon, not an attempt to rebuild the city. The Lord said the city would never be rebuilt, it hasn't been and it won't be. Alexander the Great sought to rebuild it in 330 B.C and died an untimely death at the age of 33. Saddum Hussein sought to rebuild the city and look what happened to him. Saddum Hussein built some buildings but they have no roofs on them and they are not occupied.

The announcement by an Ethiopian religious leader that he had the holy Ark of the Covenant has been proven to be false
Jun 29th, 2009
News UpdateJimmy DeYoung
Categories: Jimmy DeYoung News

Ark hunters and Bible enthusiasts recently were buzzing with the possibility that the Biblical Ark of the Covenant would be put on display in Rome, Italy. Now, they realized that the leader of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church patriarch Abuna Pauolos could not produce the Ark which he claims to have seen.

The Ethiopian patriarch had been in Rome to meet with Pope Benedict and he told the Pope that the Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia and has been there for many centuries and that he had actually seen the Ark which he described to be in very good condition.

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News

Claims by an Ethiopian religious leader or anyone else that the Ark of the Covenant has been in Ethiopia contradicts the Word of God and sets the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

For a number of years, Ark hunters have been searching for the most important piece of furniture that was a part of the temple worship in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. The search was motivated by tradition that the third King of Israel, King Solomon, had given the Ark to the Queen of Sheba and she had taken it to Ethiopia, a tradition that Jewish scholars say has no basis of truth. Some Ark hunters do believe the Ark to be in Ethiopia and there are those who even say Israeli commandos raided the Ethiopian church where the Ark was supposedly housed and returned the holy relic to Jerusalem.

According to the Bible, all of these accounts of the Ark being in Ethiopia are totally false. I Kings 8 reveals that King Solomon placed the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple that he built 3000 years ago. 400 years later, II Chronicles 35:3 reveals that King Josiah had the Levites place the Ark in a secret secluded hiding place underneath the temple in the 620's BC. During the Babylonian Captivity which took place from 605 BC through 539 BC, the Ark was still in that hiding place in Jerusalem according to Ezekiel 9:3 where it says that the glory of the Lord lifted off of the Ark of the Covenant to go back to the heavens.

Religious Jewish experts claim that the Ark of the Covenant is under the Temple Mount - underneath the Dome of the Rock - and will be brought out when the next temple stands in Jerusalem - according to Bible prophecy that may be fulfilled in the very near future.

Syria threatens 'practical steps' to retake Golan
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Syrian officials on Saturday threatened to take "practical steps" to regain control of the Golan Heights, since Israel is clearly not willing to negotiate its surrender.

The threats were made during a ceremony inaugurating a new communications center in the town of Kuneitra, which is located nearly on the border with the Golan.

Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said the new center would be used to report on what he called "the despair of Syrian residents living in the occupied Golan, under the rule of the barbaric and racist state of Israel."

Syrian President Bashar Assad, who last week declared there was no Israeli partner with whom to negotiate peace, was present at the ceremony

State approves construction of 50 new housing units in Adam
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsJpost
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

State approves construction of 50 new housing units in Adam | Jerusalem Post

Hours before Defense Minister Ehud Barak leaves for the United States, the Defense Ministry on Monday notified the High Court that in accordance with a 1996 government master plan for the construction of 1,450 housing units in a new neighborhood in the West Bank settlement of Adam, the ministry has at this stage approved only 190 units, of which 50 have received final approval.

These 50 units are intended to house the settlers expected to be evacuated from the unauthorized Migron outpost, near Ramallah.

"The understandings were approved by senior government officials, Yesha Council representatives, and West Bank settler leaders," the ministry wrote in the statement issued to the court.

The timing of the notification, hours before Barak leaves for the US, could complicate the defense minister's goal to reach an understanding on the issue of settlement construction with US Mideast envoy George Mitchell, whom he is expected to meet in New York later Monday.

Eitan Baroshi, the defense minister's assistant for settlement affairs, explained that relocating Migron settlers to Adam would be the most desirable solution for the future evacuees, and that it was never stated that the Migron residents would be removed to a locale within the Green Line.

Speaking on Israel Radio, Baroshi had stressed that if the court would approve the proposed 50-unit expansion, the ruling would bind the residents of Migron.

Same-sex 'marriage' loses support among Americans
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsOneNewsNow - Charlie Butts -
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A recent poll indicates that Americans are not as supportive of homosexual "marriage" as they once were.

 A CBS-New York Times survey shows that support for redefining marriage to include same-gender couples has declined. Jenny Tyree of Focus on the Family Action tells OneNewsNow that, according to The New York Times, the figure dropped slightly -- but she believes nine percentage points is more than slightly.
 
"I think that this really digs into what Americans really feel about marriage -- that they like that [marriage is] defined between a man and a woman," she contends. "And also it's a bit of a backlash against the five states whose legislative bodies have redefined marriage very recently within the last several months."
 
Part of the drop may also relate to the continuing battle to defeat California's Proposition 8, she says, in which voters defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
 
"I think Americans really saw the intolerance that occurred after the Proposition 8 vote back in November," she recalls. "They saw that many who want to redefine marriage were not happy with really what the people decide, and what the people decided in California was to continue to define marriage the way it has been defined."
 
After the election, several lawsuits were filed to try to overturn the voters' decision. Another federal lawsuit challenging it was filed just last week. Tyree believes the poll also sends a strong message to the White House, which has stated as a goal to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Obama tells Jews to stop building homes – in Israel!
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsWND - Aaron klein
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Anti-Israel

'The positions of the U.S. and Palestinian Authority are closer than ever'

JERUSALEM – The Obama administration told the Palestinian Authority the "golden era" of Israeli construction in sections of Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank will soon come to an end, a top PA negotiator told WND.

"The U.S. assured us that for the first time since 1967, we are going into a period where there will not be allowed a single construction effort on the part of the Israelis in the settlements, including in Gush Etzion, Maale Adumum and eastern Jerusalem," said the negotiator, speaking from Ramallah on condition his name be withheld.

Maale Adumim is located in eastern Jerusalem. Israel reunited the eastern and western sections of Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Six Day War. Eastern Jerusalem, claimed by the PA for a future state, includes the Temple Mount.

The negotiator told WND the positions of the PA and U.S. regarding ongoing Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem "are closer than ever."

"The U.S. used to differentiate between natural grown and adding new communities. Not anymore. No construction will be allowed, not even natural growth," the PA negotiator said.

"Natural growth" means adding additional housing to existing communities to accommodate the needs of a growing population.

The negotiator spoke yesterday just before Defense Minister Ehud Barak took off for Washington, D.C., for meetings with the Obama administration.

The negotiator claimed that while Barak might reach an understanding with the U.S. regarding possible West Bank movements, such a deal would be for Israeli political purposes and wouldn't translate into actual Jewish construction on the ground.

The Obama administration recently demanded Israel halt all settlement activity, including natural growth, in apparent abrogation of a deal made by President Bush to allow for natural growth.

The deal was forged just prior to Israel's 2005 retreat from the Gaza Strip. It was confirmed by Sharon aide Dov Weissglas in 2005, and in a Wall Street Journal column last week by Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser to Bush who reportedly negotiated the arrangement. The deal was in line with an official letter from Bush the year before stating Israel cannot be expected to withdraw from the entire West Bank and that the Jewish state would retain major settlement blocs there.

The West Bank borders major Israeli cities and is within rocket firing range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport.

Military strategists long have estimated Israel must maintain the West Bank to defend itself from any ground invasion. Terrorist groups have warned if Israel withdraws, they will launch rockets from the West Bank into Israeli cities.

Many villages in the West Bank, which Israelis commonly refer to as the "biblical heartland," are mentioned throughout the Torah:

The book of Genesis says Abraham entered Israel at Shechem (Nablus) and received God's promise of land for his offspring. He later was buried in Hebron.

The nearby town of Beit El, anciently called Bethel, meaning "house of God," is where Scripture says the patriarch Jacob slept on a stone pillow and dreamed of angels ascending and descending a stairway to heaven. In that dream, God spoke directly to Jacob and reaffirmed the promise of territory.

And in Exodus, the holy tabernacle rested in Shiloh, believed to be the first area the ancient Israelites settled after fleeing Egypt.

Jerusalem riots leave 7 wounded
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Thousands of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem clashed with police over the weekend in response to the first ever opening of a municipal parking lot on Shabbat.

Orthodox leaders insist everything in the capital must remain closed on Shabbat in obedience to the biblical command not to work on the day.

Their followers displayed their displeasure by hurling stones at police and setting fire to municipal property across the city. In one clash, a six-year-old boy and five police officers were lightly wounded.

In another part of town, a young Orthodox Jewish man fell from a fence while trying to join a demonstration and suffered serious injuries.

Police arrested at least 60 Orthodox demonstrators before community leaders finally succeeded in convincing the rioters to return home.

Israel 'fed up' with US settlement demands
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Peace Process

A senior Israeli government official cited by the Hebrew daily Israel Hayom on Monday said that Jerusalem is becoming "fed up" with the Obama Administration's exaggerated focus on the construction of Jewish homes in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of late have become almost hostile when demanding that Israel halt the growth of Jewish neighborhoods in any areas claimed by the Palestinian areas.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, have responded by saying they cannot simply freeze the normal flow of life in these areas.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak flew to Washington on Monday in an effort to calm the tension.

The official who spoke to Israel Hayom said Barak will impress upon the Americans that Israel is ready to consider a construction freeze in Jewish settlements, but only if it is part of a larger agreement under which Washington will later publicly back the growth and inclusion inside Israel's recognized borders of certain larger settlement blocs.

In the meantime, construction in these areas continues, and Israeli Minister of Intelligence Dan Meridor noted that contrary to the statements by Obama and Clinton, that is not a violation of Israel's peace commitments.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Meridor recalled that when Israel accepted the US-authored Road Map peace plan, it did so with 14 attached reservations. Those reservations were acknowledged by the administration of former President George W. Bush, and Israel was provided with verbal guarantees that its commitments would not impede the normal flow of life in Jewish towns.

Meridor rejected the Obama Administration's position that because they agreements were not written down and signed they no longer bear any weight.

"We never had a deal with the Republican administration; we had an agreement with the United States," said Meridor. "These understandings were a part of the agreement. Its written part and its oral part compliment each other."

The agreement between Israel and the Bush Administration allowed for the ongoing construction of new homes within the existing boundaries of Jewish towns and neighborhoods in Judea and Samaria, so long as Israel did not extend those boundaries or build entirely new settlements.

G-8 Demands Settlement Freeze
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

The G-8 - Group of Eight richest nations - has also called on Israel to stop building in the Biblical areas of Judea and Samaria. It issued a statement on Friday calling for a "freeze in settlement activity (as well as their 'natural growth')." The statement equated this demand with a call for an "unequivocal end to violence and terrorism."

Cabinet Minister Binyamin Begin (Likud) visited the Jewish town of Beit El, in southern Samaria, last week, and committed to work on behalf of the community. “Like Netanyahu announced at Bar Ilan [Universit, the government will allow natural development in Judea and Samaria,” Begin assured residents. He said he pictures Beit El in 20 years “like it is today, but flourishing even more.”

More than 270,000 Jews lived in Judea and Samaria as of 2007. Jewish population growth in the area is estimated at 5-6 percent per year, a much higher growth rate than that in the rest of the country.

According to Israeli demographers, an estimated 1.35 Palestinian Authority Arabs lived in Judea and Samaria as of 2004.

California Assembly Speaker: Conservative Talkers Are Terrorists
Jun 29th, 2009
Daily NewsNPR - Noel Sheppard
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Conservative talk radio hosts are terrorists.

So said the Speaker of California's Assembly in an interview published at the Los Angeles Times Saturday.

As amazing as it may seem, this was Karen Bass's (D-LA) response to the question, "How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature's work?" (h/t NBer Gary Hall):

The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: "You vote for revenue and your career is over." I don't know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it's about free speech, but it's extremely unfair.