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Uk to Shun Settlement Products?
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsYnet News - Roni Sofer
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

British government advises UK food chains to clearly label all products made in Judea, Samaria and Golan Heights; officials in Jerusalem condemn move, prepare to fight back. British embassy: This isn't a boycott

The British government advised all food chains in the UK to clearly mark any imported products made in Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights, Ynet learned Thursday.

The decision prompted deep dissatisfaction at the Foreign Ministry, which characterized the step as "capitulation to Palestinian organizations." However, British officials insist that the decision does not constitute a boycott against Israel

According to information received at the Ministry Thursday afternoon, the British government recommended that a prominent label be placed on hundreds of Israeli products made in Israeli settlements.

British officials are saying that the new move does not constitute a boycott, but rather, aims at transparency in a bid to warn consumers who do not wish to purchase such products. However, Israeli officials are unconvinced by the explanation and see the latest move as further escalation in the British trend to initiate boycotts of various kinds.

"We are talking about a worrisome move," a diplomatic source in Jerusalem told Ynet. "No similar move has been undertaken in any other country. What's concerning here is the conspicuous designation of Israeli products under guise of transparency and concern for British consumers."

U.S. to Back Unilateral Declaration of Palestinian State?
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsWND -Aaron Klein
Categories: Today's Headlines;Anti-Israel

TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Authority has been negotiating an understanding with the Obama administration regarding a Palestinian threat to unilaterally ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state outside of negotiations with Israel, WND has learned.

According to a senior PA official, the PA's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, headed a team that held a series of meetings the past few weeks with members of the Obama administration in Washington to discuss the U.S. response should the Palestinians bring to the U.N. Security Council a resolution to unilaterally create a Palestinian state.

"The U.S. position is less restrained than it appears in the media," said the PA official, referring to media claims the U.S. would veto any such resolution.

The PA official told WND the Obama administration did not threaten to veto the conceptual unilateral resolution, which had been threatened by the Palestinians last month.

The official also said the U.S. supports the creation of a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, meaning in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

The report follows a WND interview last month with Ahmed Qurei, former PA prime minister and member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee, who said the PA "reached an understanding with important elements within the (Obama) administration" to possibly bring to the resolution to the U.N. Security Council.

Asked to which "elements" he was referring, Qurei would only say they were from the Obama administration.

A top PA negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, named the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice and National Security Council member Samantha Power as among the Obama administration officials who were involved with the Palestinians' U.N. threat.

"The U.S. told us that they prefer a negotiated settlement with Israel, but if we (Palestinians) insist on a resolution, the Americans will not necessarily reject it," the PA negotiator said.

"The U.S. has a history of never before vetoing any U.N. move to create a new state," the negotiator pointed out.

U.S. supporting Palestinian land grab

While the Obama administration has long called for a halt to Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, it is "totally supporting" the building of official Palestinian institutions in those same areas as well as the strategic West Bank, a top Palestinian Authority official recently told WND.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a recent report by Israel's Shabak security services that the PA has been opening official institutions in what are termed areas B and C.

According to the 1993 Oslo Accords, territories defined as area A are entirely administered and controlled by the Palestinians; area B is administered by the PA but controlled by Israel; whereas area C, including eastern Jerusalem, is supposed to be entirely administered and controlled by Israel.

In defiance of the accords, the Palestinians in recent months have opened up official institutions, including PA ministry offices, in area C.

A WND investigation previously determined the U.S. has been aiding the Palestinians in developing infrastructure in eastern Jerusalem, including on property legally owned by Jews.

That development has been unfolding in multiple area C neighborhoods, such as the northern Jerusalem neighborhoods of Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis, which are close to the Jewish neighborhoods of Neve Yaacov and Pisgat Zeev in Israel's capital. Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis are located entirely within the Jerusalem municipality.

A tour of the Jerusalem neighborhoods found some surprising developments. Official PA logos and placards abound, including one glaring red street sign at the entrance to the neighborhoods warning Israelis to keep out.

Another official sign, in Kfar Akeb in Jerusalem, reads in English, "Ramallah-Jerusalem Road. This project is a gift

form (sic) the American people to the Palestinian people in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and PECDAR. 2007."

The sign bears the emblems of the American and PA governments and of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The displays were not present during a previous WND tour of the neighborhoods in 2006.

Some local schools in the Jerusalem neighborhoods are officially run by the PA – some in conjunction with the U.N. – with many teachers drawing PA salaries. Civil disputes are usually settled not in Israeli courts but by the PA judicial system, although at times Israeli courts are used, depending on the matter.

Councils governed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization oversee some municipal matters. USAID provides the PA funds for road and infrastructure projects.

Israeli security officials said the local Jerusalem police rarely operate in peripheral eastern Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods. Instead, security has been turned over to the Israel Defense Forces and Border Police, who work almost daily with PA security forces. The PA police operate in the Jerusalem neighborhoods in coordination with Israel.

Shmulik Ben Ruby, spokesman for the Jerusalem police, confirmed the arrangement.

"If there are fights between some local families, sometimes we involve the PA police to make peace between the families," he told WND. "Yes, the PA police can operate in these neighborhoods in coordination with the IDF and Border Police."

Dmitri Ziliani, a spokesman for the Jerusalem section of Fatah, confirmed to WND the Palestinians have set up local command in some neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

"We were covering the best ways to improve our performance on the street and how we can be of service to the community," Ziliani said.

Ziliani said the PA holds regular official meetings in Jerusalem in anticipation of a future Palestinian state encompassing all of eastern Jerusalem.

"Our political program, as Fatah, dictates there will be no Palestinian state if these areas – all of east Jerusalem – are not included," Ziliani told WND.

According to Israeli law, the PA cannot officially meet in Jerusalem. The PA previously maintained a de facto headquarters in Jerusalem, called Orient House

, but the building was closed by Israel in 2001 following a series of suicide bombings in Jerusalem. Israel said it had information indicating the House was used to plan and fund terrorism.

Thousands of documents and copies of bank certificates and checks captured by Israel from Orient House – including many documents obtained by WND – showed the offices were used to finance terrorism, including direct payments to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group.

U.S. Sees Homegrown Muslim Extremism As Rising Threat
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily Newslatimes.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

The Obama administration, grappling with a spate of recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country confronts a rising threat from homegrown extremism.

Anti-terrorism officials and experts see signs of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims, driven by a wave of English-language online propaganda and reflected in aspiring fighters' trips to hot spots such as Pakistan and Somalia.

Europe had been the front line, the target of successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm. But the number, variety and scale of recent U.S. cases suggest 2009 has been the most dangerous year domestically since 2001, anti-terrorism experts said:

* There were major arrests of Americans accused of plotting with Al Qaeda and its allies, including an Afghan American charged in a New York bomb plot described as the most serious threat in this country since the Sept. 11 attacks.

* Authorities tracked other extremism suspects joining foreign networks, including Somali Americans going to the battlegrounds of their ancestral homeland and an Albanian American from Brooklyn who was arrested in Kosovo.

* The FBI rounded up homegrown terrorism suspects in Dallas, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C., saying that it had broken up plots targeting a synagogue, government buildings and military facilities.

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued her strongest public comments yet on the homegrown threat.

"We've seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as Al Qaeda," Napolitano said in a speech in New York. "Home-based terrorism is here. And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront."

Officials acknowledged that her tone had changed, though they said terrorism has been her focus since becoming Homeland Security chief.

In some of the 2009 cases, extremist leanings are suspected but motives are not known.

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- accused of killing 13 people in a Ft. Hood, Texas, shooting rampage last month -- has apparently suffered emotional problems. But in interviews, officials and experts have also raised his Muslim beliefs as an alleged motive.

A previous attack on the U.S. military, a shooting in June by an American convert who killed a soldier and wounded another at an Arkansas recruiting center, was apparently a case of a lone wolf radicalized in Yemen, according to Homeland Security officials.

"You are seeing the full spectrum of the threats you face in terrorism," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

"Radicalization is clearly happening in the U.S.," said Mitchell Silber, director of analysis for the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department. "In years past, you couldn't say that about the U.S. You could say it about Europe."

Europe has suffered a militant onslaught: transport bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, an assassination in the Netherlands in 2004, and close calls such as the fiery failed attack on the Glasgow airport in 2007.

Hard borders have helped the U.S. ward off the threat. But experts also said that Islamic radicalization is more widespread in Europe. Crime, alienation and extremism roil Muslim immigrant communities in places like tiny Denmark and the vast slums of France.

In contrast, American Muslims are wealthier, better educated and better integrated because the United States does a good job of absorbing immigrants and fostering tolerance, experts said. During the last decade, Americans have been a rare presence in the Al Qaeda-connected camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan that have trained hundreds of Westerners and thousands of recruits from Muslim-majority nations.

Nonetheless, recent investigations have run across Americans suspected of being operatives of Al Qaeda and its allies who were trained overseas and, in several cases, allegedly conspired with top terrorism bosses. They include a convert from Long Island, N.Y, who was captured in Pakistan late last year; a Chicago businessman accused of scouting foreign targets for a Pakistani network; and at least 15 Somali American youths from Minneapolis who returned to fight in their ancestral homeland.

"A larger trend has emerged that is not surprising, but is disturbing," Chertoff said. "You are beginning to see the fruits of the pipeline that Al Qaeda built to train Westerners and send them back to their homelands. . . . This underscores the central significance of disrupting the pipeline at its source."

A campaign of U.S. airstrikes launched last year has pounded Al Qaeda hide-outs in Pakistan. But the flow of trainees gathered momentum in 2007 when Pakistani security forces ceded turf to militant groups, officials said. The suspect in the New York plot, Najibullah Zazi, and the Long Island convert, Bryant Neal Vinas, allegedly met in Pakistan in 2008 and discussed attacks on U.S. targets with Al Qaeda chiefs.

Vinas and Zazi are the first Americans to be accused of joining Al Qaeda in several years.

Meanwhile, Silber said in recent congressional testimony: "There have been a half-dozen cases of individuals who, instead of traveling abroad to carry out violence, have elected to attempt to do it here. This is substantially greater than what we have seen in the past, and may reflect an emerging pattern."

Some feel radicalization in the United States has been worse than authorities thought for some time.

"People focused on the idea that we're different, we're better at integrating Muslims than Europe is," said Zeyno Baran, a scholar at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington. "But there's radicalization -- especially among converts and newcomers, such as the Somali case shows. I think young U.S. Muslims today are as prone to radicalization as Muslims in Europe."

The New Socialism
Dec 11th, 2009
CommentaryTownhall.com - Charles Krauthammer
Categories: Commentary;Warning

WASHINGTON -- In the 1970s and early '80s, having seized control of the U.N. apparatus (by power of numbers), Third World countries decided to cash in. OPEC was pulling off the greatest wealth transfer from rich to poor in history. Why not them? So in grand U.N. declarations and conferences, they began calling for a "New International Economic Order." The NIEO's essential demand was simple: to transfer fantastic chunks of wealth from the industrialized West to the Third World.

On what grounds? In the name of equality -- wealth redistribution via global socialism -- with a dose of post-colonial reparations thrown in.

The idea of essentially taxing hard-working citizens of the democracies in order to fill the treasuries of Third World kleptocracies went nowhere, thanks mainly to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (and the debt crisis of the early '80s). They put a stake through the enterprise.

But such dreams never die. The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion. With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service of the newest religion: environmentalism.

One of the major goals of the Copenhagen climate summit is another NIEO shakedown: the transfer of hundreds of billions from the industrial West to the Third World to save the planet by, for example, planting green industries in the tristes tropiques.

Politically it's an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich man's guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt. But the idea of shaking down the industrial democracies in the name of the environment thrives not just in the refined internationalist precincts of Copenhagen. It thrives on the national scale too.

On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an "endangerment" to human health.

Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means over a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.

This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society

President Obama gives justification for war in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
Dec 11th, 2009
News UpdateJimmy DeYoung
Categories: Jimmy DeYoung News

In his acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, United States President Obama gave a clear justification for war as he said that he is the commander-in-chief of a nation that is in the midst of two wars and that armed conflict is at times necessary. Obama said the reality and recognition of history with the imperfections of man and the limits of reason is why force is sometimes necessary because evil does exist in our world.

The president acknowledged that a non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's army during the Holocaust and negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their weapons.

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News

US President Obama's justification for war in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech is stating the obvious as it relates to the future as described in Bible prophecy.

For the man who describes himself as the commander-in-chief of two wars, President Obama's justification for war in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech revealed reality in today's world. President Obama's illustration of Adolf Hitler's horrific Holocaust and the armed struggle being led by the Islamic terrorist group al Qaeda are excellent examples of situations that demand an armed battle to defeat evil. Couple the use of these two illustrations with the president's referring to "war" 35 times and "peace" 29 times in his speech and you have a message to the world that speaks of a future scenario that can be found in Bible prophecy.

Daniel 9:27 speaks of a period of peace in the future brought about through the work of a one world dictator, the Antichrist, who brings this peace to the world, howbeit, it will be a short lived pseudo-peace. Jesus Christ, in Matthew 24:16, says the future holds a terrible time of wars and rumors of wars. Joel, the ancient Jewish prophet, reveals the truth of the world's largest militant militia ever formed made up of the nations of the Arab and Islamic world (Joel 2:2). Another Jewish prophet tells of a coming Holocaust of Jewish people when 2 out of every 3 Jews on Earth will be killed (Zechariah 3:8).

There, indeed, is a prophetic significance to President Obama's speech in Oslo, Norway - a speech that gave reference to events that will yet happen.

Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.

Pornography - the Quiet Family Killer
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily Newschristianpost.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Moral Decline

Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council released on Wednesday a new study detailing the effects of pornography on marriages, children and individuals.

"This is a ground-breaking review of what pornography costs families trying to create a life together," said Dr. Pat Fagan, who authored the study and serves as FRC's senior fellow and director of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion. "Men, women and sometimes even children are saturated by sexual content, and more significantly, are told that it has no real effect. It's just a little amusement."

But through the study, Fagan affirmed that "pornography corrodes the conscience, promotes distrust between husbands and wives and debases untold thousands of young women."

"It is not harmless escapism but relational and emotional poison," he commented.

Pornography was defined in the study as "a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual’s concept of the nature of conjugal relations."

The report showed that in families, pornography use leads to marital dissatisfaction, infidelity, separation and divorce.

Citing the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the report pointed out that 68 percent of divorce cases involved one party meeting a new paramour over the Internet, 56 percent involved "one party having an obsessive interest in pornographic websites," 47 percent involved "spending excessive time on the computer," and 33 percent involved spending excessive time in chat rooms.

Fagan commented, "The fact that marriage rates are dropping steadily is well known. But the impact of pornography use and its correlation to fractured families has been little discussed. The data show that as pornography sales increase, the marriage rate drops."

The FRC study revealed that among couples affected by one spouse's addiction, two-thirds experience a loss of interest in sexual intercourse; both spouses perceive pornography viewing as tantamount to infidelity; and pornography viewing leads to a loss of interest in good family relations.

Pornography use, Fagan says, is "a quiet family killer."

Men are more than six times as likely to view pornography as females and more likely to spend more time viewing it.

Men who habitually look at pornography have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexual behaviors, sexual aggression, promiscuity, and even rape. Moreover, men begin to view women and even children as "sex objects."

Additionally, addictive pornography use leads to lower self-esteem and a weakened ability to carry out a meaningful social and work life.

Among teens, those who watch pornography more frequently tend to be high sensation seekers, less satisfied with their lives, have a fast Internet connection, and have friends who are younger. Viewing such material at their age hinders the development of a healthy sexuality.

The study points out that with the growth of digital media and the Internet, social sanctions from parents, mentors and the community are operating in fewer and fewer quarters.

Fagan warns, "Habitual consumption of pornography can break down the relational substrates of human life and interaction – family, friends and society.

"As such, reinforcing these relationships is the surest guard against such destructive sexual tendencies."

The key to protecting against the effects of pornography, he says, is to foster relationships of affection and attachment, especially between the father and the mother and between parents and children. Deliberate parental monitoring of Internet use is an additional key defense. Fagan also calls on the government to "reassess its laissez-faire attitude towards the proliferation of pornography, especially on the Internet."

Poll: U.S. Isolationist Sentiment on the Rise
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsPersonal Liberty News Desk
Categories: Today's Headlines

A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center suggests that the U.S. has taken a sharp turn toward isolationism.

In the midst of a struggling economy, roughly 49 percent of participants said that the U.S. should "mind its own business internationally" and let other countries fend for themselves as best as they can.

The non-partisan research center has conducted a similar poll for the last 45 years and there has never been a plurality of voters who favored isolationism before.

However, the rate has steadily been rising. For example, in 2005, approximately 42 percent of respondents said that the U.S. should "mind its own business" in regards to international affairs, up from 30 percent in 2002.

Pew Research Center president Andrew Kohut said that the poor economy was most responsible for the America’s isolationist attitude and that the public was "displeased with the two wars [that the U.S. is] waging in Iraq and Afghanistan," quoted by the Associated Press.

Last week, President Obama announced that he will be dispatching 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The first batch of Marines will likely be deployed by the end of the year.

Pastor Acquitted of Hate Crime Charge in Canada
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily Newschristianpost.com
Categories: Today's Headlines

A Canadian judge last week exonerated a former pastor who was charged of committing a hate crime for sending a letter to a local newspaper criticizing homosexuality.

Judge E.C. Wilson overturned a 2008 ruling by the Alberta Human Rights Commission that ordered former Alberta pastor Stephen Boissoin to stop all public criticisms of homosexuality and to pay the plaintiff $5,000 in damages, according to The Canadian Press.

Wilson ruled on Friday that the 2002 letter, which carried the headline “Homosexual agenda wicked,” was not a hate crime but is permissible under freedom of speech.

“The decision of Justice Earl Wilson of the Court of Queen's Bench in Boissoin v. Lund will have a significant long term positive impact on religious freedom in Canada," wrote Gerald Chipeur , Boissoin’s attorney, in a summary analysis of the judgment, according to LifeSiteNews.com.

Chipeur commented that the definition of what qualifies as hate speech was made clearer through the ruling. He also said the judge took away the “tools of censorship” and protected freedom of expression.

In 2002, Boissoin sent a letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate newspaper criticizing the pro-gay rights curriculum in the province’s education system.

“From kindergarten class on our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators,” Pastor Stephen Boissoin wrote.

The letter caught the attention of a human rights activist who filed a complaint against the pastor for “hate-mongering.” The activist supported his case by pointing to a homosexual who was beaten up two weeks after the letter was published as evidence that such speech can incite violence.

Boissoin’s attorney, however, argued that the plaintiff cannot prove the connection between his client’s letter and discriminatory practices against homosexuals in Alberta. The lawyer also highlighted that Alberta’s hate speech laws cannot suppress people’s right to express their opinions.

"While the decision did not strike down Alberta's 'hate speech' laws, it significantly limited the application of such laws,” Chipeur said.

But plaintiff Darren Lund responded to the ruling saying, “I really think this is a step backwards for our province,” in an e-mail to The Canadian Press.

“In my view, the judge’s ruling sets such strict standards for hate speech that this section is rendered all but unenforceable.”

The case of Boissoin, which had been ongoing for more than seven years, was used by conservative Christian leaders in the United States as an example of what could happen if D.C. lawmakers passed an expanded hate crimes law.

Prominent Christian right leaders such as James Dobson, Chuck Colson, and Tony Perkins warned that a hate crimes law could lead to “thought police” who consider verbal attacks or speeches to be hate crimes.

Despite the vocal protest by conservative leaders, a U.S.-version of the expanded hate crimes law was passed in October. The law adds violence against individuals based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability to the list of federal hate crimes. Conservative groups have vowed to keep a close watch on whether the legislation respects free speech and religious liberty as its supporters have promised.

Mixing Their Religion
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsCathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Church

The chances are that one in five of the people there find "spiritual energy" in mountains or trees, and one in six believe in the "evil eye," that certain people can cast curses with a look — beliefs your Christian pastor doesn't preach.

In a Catholic church? Chances are that one in five members believe in reincarnation in a way never taught in catechism class — that you'll be reborn in this world again and again.

Elements of Eastern faiths and New Age thinking have been widely adopted by 65% of U.S. adults, including many who call themselves Protestants and Catholics, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released Wednesday.

Syncretism — mashing up contradictory beliefs like Catholic rocker Madonna's devotion to a Kabbalah-light version of Jewish mysticism — appears on the rise.

And, according to the survey's other major finding, devotion to one clear faith is fading.

Of the 72% of Americans who attend religious services at least once a year (excluding holidays, weddings and funerals), 35% say they attend in multiple places, often hop-scotching across denominations.

Mass. Bishop Gives Clergy Green Light to Wed Same - Sex Couples
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily Newschristianpost.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Apostasy

Episcopal clergy in eastern Massachusetts are now allowed to solemnize marriages for "all eligible couples," including gay and lesbian couples.

“It’s time for us to offer to gay and lesbian people the same sacrament of fidelity that we offer to the heterosexual world," Bishop M. Thomas Shaw told The Boston Globe.

Shaw's decision to permit priests to officiate at same-sex weddings went into effect on Sunday. It comes five years after Massachusetts became the first state to legalize marriage for same-sex couples.

"Christian marriage is a sacramental rite that has evolved in the church, along with confirmation, ordination, penance, and the anointing of the sick, and while it is not necessary for all, it must be open to all as a means of grace and sustenance to our Christian hope," the Episcopal bishop stated.

Leaders of the diocese met in August to develop a policy in response to a resolution passed by The Episcopal Church's highest legislative body this past summer. In July, The Episcopal Church adopted a resolution stating that “bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church.”

The resolution also noted the need to consider providing theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of same gender relationships.

The Episcopal Church's House of Deputies further approved a resolution opening the ordination process to all baptized members, including practicing homosexuals.

Dallas bishop the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton rejected the resolution, declaring that the Diocese of Dallas would continue to "stand with the larger Church in affirming the primacy of Scripture, the sanctity of marriage and the call to holiness of life."

But over the past few months a number of dioceses have decided to lift bans on the blessing of same-sex unions, with the Diocese of Massachusetts taking a step further to allow clergy to solemnize same-gender marriages.

"Your bishops understand this (resolution) to mean for us here in the Diocese of Massachusetts that the clergy of this diocese may, at their discretion, solemnize marriages for all eligible couples, beginning Advent I," Shaw explained. "Solemnization, in accordance with Massachusetts law, includes hearing the declaration of consent, pronouncing the marriage and signing the marriage certificate."

He made clear that the provision is an allowance and not a requirement and that any member of the clergy may decline to wed gay and lesbian couples.

The eastern Massachusetts bishop noted to The Boston Globe that the diocese includes "a significant number of gay and lesbian clergy who are in partnerships" along with many gay and lesbian parishioners.

The Diocese of Massachusetts includes approximately 190 parishes and 77,000 church members.

Journalist Argues Same - Sex 'marriage,' Loses Job
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsCharlie Butts - OneNewsNow
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

A journalist in Maine has been fired from a publication after 19 years for replying to a homosexual activist's e-mail.

Larry Grard, 58, of Winslow covered the November election for Maine Today, the vote in which Maine citizens rejected homosexual "marriage." Subsequently, he received a press release at work from a homosexual activist which read: "We will not allow the lies and hate – the foundation on which our opponents build their campaign – to break our spirits." Being a devout Catholic, Grard was offended by the release's blanket reference to opponents of same-sex marriage. 
 
"Trevor Thomas, who was representing the Human Rights Campaign, complained people who voted 'yes' on [Question] 1, which is [a referendum] against gay marriage, were haters. I took offense to that," Grard explains. "I copied his e-mail address into my personal e-mail at work and kind of fired back at him."
 
Regardless of the fact that his e-mail reply was done through his personal account, Grard was ultimately fired for his "unethical" and "unprofessional" rebuttal, and he believes it was because he defended traditional marriage. He was further astonished a week later when his wife received a letter from Maine Today.
 
"I mean, it's small is what it is. It's just absolutely astonishing that they did that. We could not believe it," he says. "My wife, who absolutely did nothing wrong, [just] because she has the same last name as I do, they discontinued her cooking column, which was enormously popular."
 
Grard, who suffers from chronic insomnia and prostate cancer and whose wife is diabetic, says the loss of employment has made it difficult for his family to make ends meet. He believes he is now paying a price for being a committed Christian who took a stance for traditional marriage.

Former Treasury Official: Nation's Liability Growing to Unmanageable Levels
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsWND
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

A former State Department official is warning that U.S. national debt is growing to unmanageable levels, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports. 

C. Fred Bergsten, former assistant secretary of international affairs for the Treasury, sounded the alarm that dollar deficits may not be funded for long by foreign nations, including China, in the Nov./Dec. 2009 issue of the Council on Foreign Relations "Foreign Affairs" magazine. 

By 2030, Bergsten anticipates the net foreign debt of the United States will exceed $50 trillion, or 140 percent of gross domestic product. 

He predicted that by 2030, the United States will be paying $2.5 trillion a year to the rest of the world, equal to the nation's current total spending on health care, just to pay the interest on U.S. debt. 

Bergsten warns the U.S. debt crisis is so severe that the Obama administration must both reduce federal budget deficits and embrace a declining dollar, or face a collapse of the U.S. economy. 

"These projections suggest that the United States' annual current account deficit will thus climb to almost $6 trillion by 2030, more than seven times its previous high," he wrote. "Such a sum would account for more than 15 percent of GDP, or two and a half times the peak rate of 2006, and would be at least triple the accepted international norm for sustainable current account deficits, which is four or, at most, five percent of GDP." 

He continued, "It has long been known that large external deficits pose substantial risks to the U.S. economy because foreign investors might at some point refuse to finance these deficits on terms compatible with U.S. prosperity. 

"Any sudden stop in lending to the United States would drive the dollar down, push inflation and interest rates up, and perhaps bring on a hard landing for the United States – and the world economy at large." 

Bergsten warned the Obama administration risks becoming increasingly dependent on foreign nations buying U.S. debt to keep the federal government operating. 

"The country's fate is already in the hands of its foreign creditors, starting with China but also including Japan, Russia, and a number of oil-exporting countries," he stressed. "Unless the United States quickly achieves and maintains a sustainable economic position, its ability to pursue autonomous economic and foreign policies will become increasingly compromised." 

The Obama administration has admitted to a $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009, the largest federal budget deficit relative to the size of the economy since 1945. 

Moreover, the Obama administration projects a $9 trillion addition to the national debt over the next 10 years, nearly doubling in one decade the approximately $11.9 trillion national debt accumulated since the founding of the United States.

EU to Call for Global Financial Levy
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsAOIFE WHITE The Associated Press
Categories: Today's Headlines;World Government

BRUSSELS - European Union leaders will call for a global financial transaction levy in the hopes it could help buffer against future market crises, according to a draft statement published Friday.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was "growing support" for such a levy as well as Britain's plans for a one-off tax of 50 percent for all bonuses of more than more than 25,000 pounds ($40,800.)

France says it will follow suit-and called on others to join them. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, "We want and expect others to do the same because we are in a globalized world."

"It would be very difficult for Gordon Brown to say he was the only one to do it. It would have been impossible to say I was the only one to do it, so we do it together," Sarkozy told reporters.

Sarkozy's warm words of support for Brown are a striking contrast to recent comments where he claimed victory for France over Anglo-Saxon economics in nabbing a key EU financial services post for a Frenchman, Michel Barnier.

In a draft statement, the EU's 27 leaders backed limits on bankers' pay, saying that the financial sector should "immediately implement sound compensation practices" and that governments should consider "short-term options"-such as a bonus tax.

They also said a global tax on financial transactions should be one of several options that the International Monetary Fund should investigate when it puts forward plans on how the world should respond to the financial crisis.

In the statement they will finalize later Friday, they say it is important for financial institutions to make a contribution to "the society they serve" and to make sure the public "benefits in good times and is protected from risk."

Brown last month called on the Group of 20 rich and emerging nations to consider a tax on financial transactions that would pay for a global fund to rescue banks in future. France has talked about using such a tax to help poor countries fight climate change.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was quick to shoot the idea down, saying the United States was not keen to support such a levy even as it sought ways to shield taxpayers from bailing out the financial system again.

Supporters of measures such as a so-called Tobin tax-a flat tax on currency transactions named after Nobel Prize laureate James Tobin-say the money would protect countries from spillovers of financial crises. Critics argue the tax would simply dry up world financial flows.

EU officials such as European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and the EU's economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia are skeptical about how such a tax would work-because businesses could flee Europe if it were only charged here.

But Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel say they support the concept.

In the draft statement, EU leaders are also suggesting that the IMF should look into insurance fees, resolution funds and contingent capital requirements.

Art's Commentary....This is the beginning of World Government.

Eu Leaders to Work Through the Night for Third World Climate Funds
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsEUobserver - LEIGH PHILLIPS
Categories: Today's Headlines;World Government

 BRUSSELS - EU leaders at a summit in Brussels are to push on through the night to come up with more money to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change over the next three years.

"We need €5-€7 billion annually before 2013," Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt told reporters after an evening of talks in the EU capital.

"We are still working on putting them together. We will work through the night and come back tomorrow to ensure we have bigger figures on table."

As developing countries are already suffering the most from increased drought, floods and other climate disasters, they cannot wait for the world to agree to a much larger pool of money for climate action, which is expected to be agreed at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen but which will not be available until 2013.

The EU cash is a stop-gap measure aimed at bridging this period and at building trust among developing nations that the larger amount is on its way.

Countries need the cash both to adapt to climate change by such measures as building seawall defences against rising tides and developing more drought-resistant crops.

It is understood that a total of 15 EU member states have pledged monies for the fund, known as "fast-start" financing, on a voluntary basis.

Not all member states are coming forward, however.

The Swedish EU presidency on the eve of the summit promised €765 million over three years from its own treasury, building on an earlier UK pledge of €880 million.

Finland, the Netherlands and Spain each offered €300 million over the three years, EU officials said. Denmark offered €160 million. Belgium and Poland each offered a total of €150 million, while Austria is considering between €80 and €140 million.

In the morning, leaders have been asked to put their final figures on the table.

"Tomorrow we'll wake up with better figures," said Mr Reinfeldt.

The offers are based on a European Commission proposal dating back to September, which analysed what it felt was the European Union's "fair share" of the funding needed.

The EU executive called for rich countries around the world to put together a pool of between €5 and €7 billion a year for fast-start funding. Of this, Europe should commit between €500 million and €2.1 billion, it said, while adding that the bloc should strive to increase its contribution beyond this range.

In comparison, Europol, the European criminal intelligence agency based in the Hague today revealed that EU member states had been swindled out of €5 billion in lost VAT revenues by criminals as a result of loopholes in the bloc's flagship mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases, the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Over the medium to longer term, development NGOs have called on the EU to commit to a minimum of €35 billion a year post-Copenhagen in funds for third world climate adaptation and mitigation by 2020.

Art's Commentary.....The tide is running high for World Government. World leaders are going to have their way.

Eritrea Arrests 30 Praying Women, Relatives Say
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsBBC News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

Thirty elderly women have been arrested in Eritrea while praying together, one of their relatives living in the United States has told the BBC.

Requesting anonymity, she said she only found out about her mother when she phoned to speak to her this week.

Most of the women belonged to an outlawed evangelical group.

The government recognises only four religions - Islam, Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran - and bans gatherings of more than five.

Eritrea's information minister told Reuters news agency he was not aware of the weekend arrests.

"If they were arrested, I'm sure they were committing a crime," Ali Abdu is quoted as saying.

Human Rights groups regard Eritrea as one of the world's most repressive states.

'No security risk'

"Nobody's seen them. She's not allowed to carry a cell phone," said the daughter of one of the women taken into custody at the prayer meeting in the capital, Asmara.

She told the BBC's Network Africa programme that her mother met with friends to read the Bible and pray every weekend.

A Christian religious rights group in the US has condemned the arrests and expressed concern for the women's safety.

"We know that Christians who are imprisoned in Eritrea are mistreated, they face torture," International Christians Concern's Jonathan Racho said.

"They don't pose any security risk to the country," he said.

According to a recent US State Department report, more than 3,000 Christians have been detained since the religious crackdown began in 2002.

More than 90% of Eritreans belong to one of four recognised religions.

Christian Woman from Sudan Flees Muslim Family
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily NewsCompass Direct News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

NAIROBI, Kenya, – A Sudanese woman who fled to Egypt after converting from Islam to Christianity is living in secluded isolation as her angry family members try to track her down. Howida Ali’s Muslim brother and her ex-husband began searching for her in Cairo earlier this year after a relative there reported her whereabouts to them. While there in July, her brother and ex-husband tried without success to seize her 10-year-old son from school. “I’m afraid of my brother finding us,” said the 38-year-old Ali, who has moved to another area. “Their aim is to take us back to Sudan, and there they will force us to return to the Islamic faith or sentence us to death according to Islamic law.”

Canada's National Newspaper Calls for Worldwide One Child Policy
Dec 11th, 2009
Daily Newsfinancialpost.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.

A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.

The world's other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity's soaring reproduction rate.

Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.

The intelligence behind this is the following:

-If only one child per female was born as of now, the world's population would drop from its current 6.5 billion to 5.5 billion by 2050, according to a study done for scientific academy Vienna Institute of Demography.

-By 2075, there would be 3.43 billion humans on the planet. This would have immediate positive effects on the world's forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.

-Doing nothing, by contrast, will result in an unsustainable population of nine billion by 2050.

Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many people, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.

The fix is simple. It's dramatic. And yet the world's leaders don't even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.

None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world's big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control. And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children (i. e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development, which, in turn, prevents protections or development.

China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet.

For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pastureland into desert as is now the case, or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs.

The point is that Copenhagen's talking points are beside the point.

The only fix is if all countries drastically reduce their populations, clean up their messes and impose mandatory conservation measures.

Art's Commentary......We live in an hour when everything that is taught in God's word is under attack. The world is at war with God and His Word!