Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Washington Caught Off Guard By Netanyahu Visit
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsYnet News - Yitzhak Benhorin
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Israel says PM did not consult Obama ahead of trip because meeting on peace process unnecessary

WASHINGTON – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intention to visit Washington for the annual UJC General Assembly has surprised many on Capitol Hill and was apparently not coordinated with the Obama administration.

 An American source told Ynet Sunday that news of the visit had been received with reserved astonishment.

 The Obama administration has not yet responded to questions of whether a meeting with Netanyahu was forthcoming due to their surprise over the unscheduled visit. On the other hand, failure to invite Netanyahu to the White House may be perceived as a diplomatic crisis.

 Sources in Jerusalem say Netanyahu did indeed decide to attend the GA without first consulting President Barack Obama, but that since the latter would also be present at the event the two may meet in any case.

An official statement regarding Netanyahu's visit is scheduled to be published soon in the US, and an unofficial oral announcement has already been given by the Jewish Federations' leaders. The prime minister's visit is scheduled to take place on November 8-10.

U.S. Congress Rejects Goldstone Report, Wants Obama to Do the Same
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

US congressional leaders at the weekend said they will vote on a bipartisan bill officially rejecting the findings of the Goldstone Report into the recent Gaza war, and calling on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to do the same.

Until now, Obama has made clear that he is uncomfortable with the Goldstone Report, but has refrained from making any decisive statements on the matter.

But Congress wants him to go further by negating the report and threatening to us the US's veto power should the report, which accuses Israel of war crimes, be brought before the UN Security Council.

The congressional bill insists that the Goldstone Report is one-sided because it accuses Israel of various crimes, but glosses over the eight years of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel that preceded the war. It also notes that many of the crimes Israel is accused of by Goldstone were actually the result of Hamas' illegal use of human shields.

The bill highlights an interview given by the report's author, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, to the Jewish publication the Forward in which he admitted the report's findings would never stand up in court.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Sunday rejected recent reports that he had decided to hold an internal probe into Israeli actions during the war in compliance with Goldstone's demands.

Netanyhau's office said Israel may still probe its conduct during the war, as it does after most major armed conflicts, but that it won't be in response to or compliance with Goldstone. The statement noted that 24 of the 36 claims presented in the Goldstone Report had already been investigated long before the controversial allegations went public.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he is still against a national probe, insisting that the Israeli army's internal investigations into individual claims of wrongdoing or mismanagement have always been more than adequate, and far more than any other nation does.

Two Year Countdown to War over Jerusalem
Oct 25th, 2009
Weekly CommentaryArt Sadlier
Categories: Commentary;The Nation Of Israel;Prophecy

There is a growing call from President Obama and other world leaders to declare a Palestinian State which is to take effect in two years. The Arabs and Muslim nations are also calling for such a proposition. The idea is that Israel will not submit to all of the Palestinian demands and so a Palestinian State will be declared without the input of Israel and without Israel’s agreement.

This week the Palestinian Prime Minister made it clear what that new Palestinian State would look like. Fayad laid out his plan in a paper submitted this week. He stated that it would occupy all of the territory held prior to the 1967 war. He spelled out clearly that it would involve all of Judea and Samaria and all of Jerusalem, both east and west. In case any wondered if he really meant all of Jerusalem, he repeated ten times that he meant all of Jerusalem. Fayad stated that Jerusalem is today an illegal settlement.

News reports leaked that Obama is disgusted with Israel. Israel has dared to stand up for her rights and that stands in the way of Obama’s plan to gain the favour of the Islamic world.  Obama has promised the moon to the Palestinians so they are now holding out for Israel’s total capitulation. If, as it seems likely, the world leaders declare a Palestinian State to take effect in two years, that would terminate any negotiations by the PA, why would they negotiate? It will all be theirs in two years anyway. The result would be a two year countdown to an all out war.

When you read a good novel and the suspense is more than you can stand, you can go to the last page and find out the end result. The Word of God has the final chapter in the unfolding drama of world history. We know that Israel is going to fail to trust God and in disobedience and unbelief will compromise the promises of God to them. They will receive a counterfeit Messiah, the (Antichrist), he will sign a false peace treaty with Israel and the world. This will be a peace that will seem to give Israel what they want only to bring disaster to her.

The peace treaty will involve dividing the land of Israel and bring the judgement of God on Israel and the nations.

2013 update: Time has seemed to reveal that the Palestinians have been indeed waiting for just such a scenario.

Swine Flu Emergency! What Does That Mean?
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsWND - Drew Zahn
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Is president's proclamation formality, or institution of Obama martial law?

President Obama announced today that he has declared a "national emergency" over the H1N1 virus, a phrase with an ominous sound, but with little explanation offered by most of the news media.

The Associated Press, for example, merely stated that the declaration removes "bureaucratic roadblocks" and enables officials to "bypass federal rules." Other news outlets were even vaguer, saying the declaration waived federal requirements, but not saying what those requirements govern.

In the void of information, Internet rumors were quick to flame, centering on concerns over how the Obama administration might use the declared emergency to suddenly expand government power.

"Obama just declared H1N1 a national emergency," wrote a WND reader in an e-mail, "Here we go with martial law."

An article by Kurt Nimmo of InfoWars took the worry a step further, wondering if the White House's declaration engaged certain measures of the National Emergencies Act:

"In the weeks ahead," Nimmo writes, "we may witness a move toward martial law, forced vaccination and internment of those who refuse."

But even if there really is a plot to manipulate the H1N1 virus scare into enforcing a sweeping expansion of federal power, today's "national emergency" falls far short of martial law.

In fact, the laws enacted by the president's proclamation do little more than clear administrative hurdles for quicker processing of Medicare payments, and the very provisions of the National Emergencies Act that the president cited in his proclamation actually limit the power his administration can take.

But even if there really is a plot to manipulate the H1N1 virus scare into enforcing a sweeping expansion of federal power, today's "national emergency" falls far short of martial law.

In fact, the laws enacted by the president's proclamation do little more than clear administrative hurdles for quicker processing of Medicare payments, and the very provisions of the National Emergencies Act that the president cited in his proclamation actually limit the power his administration can take.

Swine Flu Cases Overestimated?
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsCBS News
Categories: Today's Headlines

CBS News Exclusive: Study Of State Results Finds H1N1 Not As Prevalent As Feared

If you've been diagnosed "probable" or "presumed" 2009 H1N1 or "swine flu" in recent months, you may be surprised to know this: odds are you didn’t have H1N1 flu.

In fact, you probably didn’t have flu at all. That's according to state-by-state test results obtained in a three-month-long CBS News investigation.

The ramifications of this finding are important. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Britain's National Health Service, once you have H1N1 flu, you're immune from future outbreaks of the same virus. Those who think they've had H1N1 flu -- but haven't -- might mistakenly presume they're immune. As a result, they might skip taking a vaccine that could help them, and expose themselves to others with H1N1 flu under the mistaken belief they won't catch it. Parents might not keep sick children home from school, mistakenly believing they've already had H1N1 flu.

Why the uncertainty about who has and who hasn't had H1N1 flu?

In late July, the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there's an epidemic?

Some public health officials privately disagreed with the decision to stop testing and counting, telling CBS News that continued tracking of this new and possibly changing virus was important because H1N1 has a different epidemiology, affects younger people more than seasonal flu and has been shown to have a higher case fatality rate than other flu virus strains.

CBS News learned that the decision to stop counting H1N1 flu cases was made so hastily that states weren't given the opportunity to provide input. Instead, on July 24, the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists, CSTE, issued the following notice to state public health officials on behalf of the CDC:

"Attached are the Q&As that will be posted on the CDC website tomorrow explaining why CDC is no longer reporting case counts for novel H1N1. CDC would have liked to have run these by you for input but unfortunately there was not enough time before these needed to be posted.

While we waited for CDC to provide the data, which it eventually did, we asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.

While we waited for CDC to provide the data, which it eventually did, we asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.

(CBS)

It’s unknown what patients who tested negative for flu were actually afflicted with since the illness was not otherwise determined. Health experts say it’s assumed the patients had some sort of cold or upper respiratory infection that is just not influenza.

Palestinians: of Course We Torture Prisoners
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

The Palestinian Authority admitted at the weekend that its security forces, funded and trained by the US and Europe, regularly employ torture against prisoners and detainees.

In an interview with British newspaper the Mail, Haitham Arar, head of the human rights department of the PA Interior Ministry, acknowledged that torture, beatings and assassinations were all common tools of the regime of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Arar called those practices "a shame on the Palestinian Authority."

In related news, Saudi Arabia, before whose king US President Barack Obama bowed shortly after taking office, sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes over the weekend for her role in interviewing a local man about his sex life.

The interview aired last summer. The man who was interviewed was sentenced earlier this month to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes.

Pakistan Police Torture Christians Arrested in Islamic Attack
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsCOMPASS DIRECT NEWS
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Church;Persecution

LAHORE, Pakistan, October 23 – Two Christians in Gojra, Pakistan who allegedly fired warning shots as an Islamist mob approached that burned seven Christians to death on Aug. 1 told Compass they were tortured after police arrested them. Only one of the hundreds of Muslim assailants responsible for burning at least 50 homes is in jail for the fire assault on Gojra’s Christian Town, but sources said Islamists have provided police a pretense for arresting the two Christian brothers who gave shelter to 300 people. Naveed Masih, 32, alias Fauji (“the Soldier”) and his 25-year-old brother Nauman Masih were arrested on Sept. 2 and Sept. 7 respectively for “rioting with deadly weapons and spreading terror with firing,” although the latter has been released on bail. From his jail cell, Naveed Masih told Compass that he and his brother were taken to the Police Training Centre in Choong, where they were kept in illegal detention for 18 days. Police kept them hungry for days, he said; when they asked for food, officers told them to confess that they had fired weapons, he added. Naveed Masih also said police tortured them to try to force them to say they had links with terrorist organizations that provided arms and ammunition to them. “Sometimes we were hung in a dark well while our faces were covered with a cloth,” Naveed Masih said. “They beat me with cane sticks on the back of my hands and sometimes hung me upside down and then brutally beat me.”

Obama Declares Swine Flu National Emergency
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsAP
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Order could speed treatment in emergency rooms as epidemic spreads

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency, giving his health chief the power to let hospitals move emergency rooms offsite to speed treatment and protect noninfected patients.

The declaration, signed Friday night and announced Saturday, comes with the disease more prevalent than ever in the country and production delays undercutting the government's initial, optimistic estimates that as many as 120 million doses of the vaccine could be available by mid-October.

Health authorities say more than 1,000 people in the United States, including almost 100 children, have died from the strain of flu known as H1N1, and 46 states have widespread flu activity. So far only 11 million doses of the vaccine have gone out to health departments, doctor's offices and other providers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials.

Muslims Riot Atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount, 3 Israelis Hurt
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

Palestinian Arab Muslims on Sunday repeated attacked Israeli visitors and police officers atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount, resulting in a number of injuries and numerous arrests.

The violence began when police escorted a small group of Jewish tourists to the Temple Mount early Sunday morning. While there, the group was verbally assaulted, and caught on camera preparations by hundreds of young Arabs to launch attacks on Jews visiting the Western Wall below.

Shortly after, Israeli riot police stormed the Temple Mount and were assaulted by stones and firebombs. The officers managed to disperse the rioters and remove the piles of stones and cans of oil and gasoline they had stockpiled.

But while visiting with Muslim officials later in the day in an effort to prevent any further violence, the Israeli officers were again assaulted, resulting in the injury of at least three of the policemen.

Israeli riot police again stormed the facility and forcibly ejected the Arab troublemakers. Among the 15 rioters arrested by police was Hatam Abdel Khader, chief advisor on Jerusalem affairs to "moderate" Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Sporadic instances of stone throwing continued into the afternoon in various Arab-dominated portions of Jerusalem's Old City.

Israeli authorities said they were not surprised by the violence after Hamas spent the entire weekend warning all Arab Muslims in the area of what it called another attempt by "Zionists" to desecrate the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.

Choosing God's Side
Oct 25th, 2009
Though for the WeekA. W Tozer
Categories: Commentary;Meditation

The points at which God's way and man's intersect are likely to be four (though there may be others), and we will usually find our differences with God to occur somewhere in these four areas. . . .
Second, our moral standards. There are probably as many ideas of righteousness as there are people in the world, and it would be futile to argue that one is better than another. The test is not which code is best but whether or not any code agrees with the Scriptures. In the Christian Scriptures, the Lord of the whole earth declares His own moral will for mankind, and it is profound wisdom to seek it and conform to it. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of our own deceitful hearts. For all men of faith, God's will is righteousness. The believing soul will not argue about it; he will accept it and bring the controversy to an end.

The third point of possible controversy is in our way of life. This embraces the whole of our lives on earth as decided by our basic moral ideas. Our way of life is simply our moral code in its daily outflow. p>The fourth is our plans. The Christian who has in principle accepted God's truth as his standard of conduct and has submitted himself to Christ as his Lord, may yet be tempted to lay his own plans and even fight for them when they are challenged by the Word of God or the inner voice of the Spirit. We humans are a calculating, planning race, and we like to say, "Tomorrow I will . . ." But our Heavenly Father knows us too well to trust our way to our own planning, so He very often submits His own plans to us and requires that we accept them. Right there a controversy is sometimes stirred up between the soul and God. But we had better not insist on our own way. It will always be bad for us in the long run. God's way is best.

Bank Failures Hit 106 for Year; Many More are
Oct 25th, 2009
Daily NewsAP
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Bank failures hit 106 for the year; many more are weak and could be shuttered

WASHINGTON-- It's a big number that only tells part of the story. The number of banks that have failed so far this year topped 100 on Friday -- hitting 106 by the end of the day -- the most in nearly two decades. But the trouble in the banking system from bad loans and the recession goes even deeper.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other banks remain open even though they are as weak as many that have been shuttered. Regulators are seizing banks slowly and selectively -- partly to avoid inciting panic and partly because buyers for bad banks are hard to find.

Going slow buys time. An economic recovery could save some banks that would otherwise go under. But if the recovery is slow and smaller banks' finances get even worse, it could wind up costing even more.

This year's 106 bank failures are the most in any year since 181 collapsed in 1992 at the end of the savings-and-loan crisis. On Friday, regulators took over three small Florida banks -- Partners Bank and Hillcrest Bank Florida, both of Naples, and Flagship National Bank in Bradenton -- along with four elsewhere: American United Bank of Lawrenceville, Ga., Bank of Elmwood in Racine, Wis., Riverview Community Bank in Otsego, Minn., and First Dupage Bank in Westmont, Ill.

When a bank fails, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. swoops in, usually on a Friday afternoon. It tries to sell off the bank's assets to buyers and cover its liabilities, primarily customer deposits. It taps the insurance fund to cover the rest.

Bank failures have cost the FDIC's fund that insures deposits an estimated $25 billion this year and are expected to cost $100 billion through 2013. To replenish the fund, the agency wants banks to pay in advance $45 billion in premiums that would have been due over the next three years.