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Single Currency a Step Closer for Alba Nations
Dec 16th, 2009
Daily NewsGao Xiaohui
Categories: Today's Headlines

The creation of a regional currency among Latin American countries drew closer over the weekend as Cuba agreed to pay for a shipment of Venezuelan rice in sucres – the new currency.

Cuba signed an agreement on Saturday to pay for the shipment in sucres, Rogelio Sierra, the nation's deputy foreign minister, was quoted by the AP as saying, without specifying what the shipment was worth.

The agreement came one day before members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) trade group met for a two-day summit starting Sunday in Havana.

The trade bloc – founded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2004 as a counterweight to the US-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas – agreed in October on the creation of the sucre to scale back the use of the US dollar.

The bloc comprises nine Latin American and Caribbean nations – Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Honduras, Ecuador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda.

The sucre would be rolled out beginning in 2010 in a non-paper form. With no printed or coin versions, the virtual currency will be used to manage debts between governments while reducing reliance on the US dollar and on Washington in general.

The currency, backed in April this year by the bloc, is named after Jose Antonio de Sucre, who fought for independence from Spain alongside Venezuelan hero Simon Bolivar in the early 19th century.

Obama's Safe Schools Czar Tied to Lewd Readings for 7th Graders
Dec 16th, 2009
Daily NewsFox News.com - Maxim lott
Categories: Today's Headlines;Moral Decline

Obama adviser Kevin Jennings is under fresh attack after it was revealed that the pro-gay group he formerly headed recommends books his critics say are pornographic.

Lieberman: Modern Anti - Semitism Denies Israel's Existence
Dec 16th, 2009
Daily NewsYnetNews
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Warning

Speaking at Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem, foreign minister says phenomenon supported by Iranian funding and radical Islamic elements in order to inflame hatred against Jews and delegitimize State. Goldstone Report encouraged protest, he adds

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday that "classic anti-Semitism, alongside Iranian funding and Islamic anti-Semitism, are being used to inflame hatred against Jews, but also to delegitimize the State of Israel

Speaking at the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem, the foreign minister said that this has become a complex attack, which has drawn the attention of anti-Semitic organizations across the world.

"Those who are behind this have crossed the line. They are seeking to destroy the Jewish country one piece after another. They deny the Jewish people's right to self-definition, call for academic boycotts and economic sanctions, and are gaining support among political elements across the world," he stated.

"Their stance is pure hypocrisy," Lieberman accused. "Only recently we saw how human rights organizations have been working vigorously to deny Israel's legitimacy by getting the UN Security Council to adopt the Goldstone Report."

He also mentioned Iran: "It’s scary that only several decades after the Holocaust, we see an incident in which a country supports anti-Semitism. Iran denies the Holocaust, calls for Israel's destruction and seeks to obtain a nuclear weapon. All this reminds us of what happened 70 years ago."

The foreign minister added that "this is an example of the hypocrisy of organizations that are obsessed with undermining the State of Israel's right to exist, 60 years after the Holocaust.

"Modern anti-Semitism has put on the form of being anti-Israel and hating Zionism and the State of Israel. Instead of saying 'throw the Jews into the sea' – they talk about a world without Zionism and without Israel."

 

Just for Once, the Archbishop is Right ...
Dec 16th, 2009
Daily NewsMailOnLine - Melanie Phillips (exerpts)
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Church;Persecution

In recent times, there has been a string of cases in which it is no exaggeration to say that British Christians have been persecuted for expressing their faith.

In July, Duke Amachree, a Christian who for 18 years had been a Homelessness Prevention Officer for Wandsworth Council, encouraged a client with an incurable medical condition to believe in God.

As a result, Mr Amachree was marched off the premises, suspended and then dismissed from his job. It was a similar case to the Christian nurse who was suspended after offering to pray for a patient's recovery.

Christians are being removed from adoption panels if they refuse to endorse placing children for adoption with samesex couples. 

Similarly, a Christian counsellor was sacked by the national counselling service Relate because he refused to give sex therapy sessions to gays.

What this amounts to is that for Christians, the freedom to live according to their religious beliefs - one of the most fundamental precepts of a liberal society - is fast becoming impossible. Indeed, merely professing traditional Christian beliefs can cause such offence that it is treated as a crime.

Take, for example, the case of Harry Hammond, an elderly and eccentric evangelical who was prosecuted for a public order offence after parading with a placard denouncing immorality and homosexuality - even though he was assaulted by the hostile crowd he was held to have offended.

Or look at the case of the Vogelenzangs, a hotelier couple from Merseyside, who last week were cleared of a 'religiously aggravated' public order offence after being prosecuted for insulting a Muslim guest.

While their behaviour may have been offensive and unwarranted, it is nevertheless a source of wonderment that for the police, 'hate crime' doesn't seem to occur whenever Christianity is pilloried, mocked and insulted - as happens routinely - but only when a minority faith is in the frame.

Indeed, the Archbishop's complaint echoed an earlier Church-backed report that accused the Government of merely paying lip service to Christianity while focusing support on Muslims.

NB.....The writter is not writting from a Christian perspective, but from a secular perspective.

Israeli officials say Anti-Semitism is alive and kicking
Dec 16th, 2009
News UpdateJimmy DeYoung
Categories: Jimmy DeYoung News

At a two day conference held in Jerusalem, the global forum for combating Anti-Semitism, over 50 nations gathered with some 500 delegates to discuss the issue of Anti-Semitism and they heard from Israel's Minister of Diaspora Affairs that not one day goes by without an expression of hatred against Jews.

The conference leader quoted the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said that Anti-Zionism, in other words, Anti-Israel, is the same as Anti-Semitism indicating that anyone who criticizes Israel is criticizing the Jewish people.

Jimmy's Prophetic prospective on the News

The global forum to fight against Anti-Semitism held in Jerusalem reveals that being Anti-Israel is Anti-Semitic which Bible prophecy confirms as well.

Anti-Semitism is alive and kicking according to the Minister of Diaspora Affairs in Israel, Yuli Edelstein, who told 500 delegates from over 50 nations of this world that not one day goes by without an expression of hatred against Jews. Edelstein said that Jews around the world are in danger of their lives and when the state of Israel is under repeated assaults, that this is the worst kind of Anti-Semitism.

This issue, Anti-Semitism, is an issue that is not going away in the future, in fact it will only intensify according to Bible prophecy. The Jewish prophets spoke about hatred of the Jewish people in the last days, a hatred that will increase to the point that the Lord will have to intercede on behalf of the Jewish people. Jeremiah talks about the time of Jacob's Trouble, Jeremiah 30:7.

John, the Apostle, the writer of the book of Revelation, said that Israel, the Jewish people, will come under fire for a seven year period of time in the last days, Revelation 6-19. Zechariah wrote that two out of every three Jewish people will be killed during that time described in Revelation, Zechariah 13:8.

Indeed Anti-Semitism is alive and kicking and will only get worse.

Here Comes the Sun
Dec 16th, 2009
Daily NewsINVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Global Warming: Drip by drip, like a glacier melting in the sun, the claim that man is changing the climate is dissolving into irrelevance. The recent findings of Swiss researchers expose another hole.

Former Vice President Al Gore has for years warned that man-made global warming is melting the world's glaciers — a tactic commonly used by alarmists who want to whip up hysteria. Swiss researchers, however, have presented evidence that weakens the argument.

Scientists at Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology have found that solar activity caused Alpine glaciers to melt in the 1940s at rates faster than today's pace, even though it's warmer now.

The study found that the sun in the 1940s was 8% stronger than average and far more powerful than it is today. It also concluded that solar activity was weaker from the 1950s to the 1980s, an era in which the glaciers advanced.

The Swiss researchers are spinning their own work, saying that the evidence doesn't mean the public can stop worrying about man-made warming. But their finding validates other researchers who have said solar activity has a far greater impact on temperatures than human CO2 emissions.

This report from Zurich reminds us of another myth perpetrated by Gore. In his Academy Award-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," he contends the snowcap on Mount Kilimanjaro has retreated because of human greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet scientists have been telling a different story.

They say the melting on the 19,340-foot mountain has been going on for more than a century, beginning long before man accelerated CO2 emissions. They also report that temperatures at the top of Kilimanjaro never fall below freezing, so the reason for snowcap loss has to be due to one or more causes not related to temperature. A lack of snowfall is likely one of those.

Just as the Swiss researchers tried to soft-pedal their findings, the scientists who have studied Kilimanjaro also refuse to let the narrative unravel. They say the facts about the snowcap shouldn't be used to raise doubts about the official line that man is warming the planet. Nothing to see here, they say in effect, so move on.

Another sign that the alarmists' claims are falling apart is the statement made Monday by Gore at the global warming conference in Copenhagen: "Some of the models suggest ... that there is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years."

Gulf Arab States Move Closer to Single Currency
Dec 16th, 2009
Daily NewsAssociated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST
Categories: Today's Headlines

Gulf Arab nations put into force a monetary pact Tuesday, moving a step closer toward the elusive goal of a single regional currency and greater integration between the mainly oil-rich states.

The announcement by Kuwait's finance minister came as leaders from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council nations were wrapping up a two-day summit in which they launched a regional electricity project and discussed, among other issues, Iran's nuclear program and the war in Yemen.

Mustafa al-Shimali told Kuwait's official KUNA news agency that the launching of the monetary pact would now allow the governors of the central banks of the six GCC nations to set up "a timetable for the establishment of a regional central bank, with the aim of launching a unified Gulf currency."

The GCC, which groups Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, has been trying for years to develop a unified currency as part of a push for broader economic integration between their predominantly oil-rich nations.

"This is something that a lot of people were looking forward to," said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based Banque Saudi Fransi-Credit Agricole Group. "This is a good step forward, but we also need to have some clarity on the authority of the monetary council" such as the timeframe at which they will move ahead.

The plan has hit repeated obstacles, however, with the United Arab Emirates and Oman saying they would not participate.

Still under review is whether the unified currency would be pegged to a basket of currencies, the U.S. dollar or some other currency. All GCC nations peg their currencies to the dollar except for Kuwait which relies on a basket of currencies.

Also unclear is whether the UAE - the second largest economy in the Arab world - will do an about-face and join the union. Oman has said it won't join because it is not ready.

Al-Shimali voiced hopes that the two nations would join "in the near future."

The UAE, a federation of seven semiautonomous sheikdoms that includes glitzy and now debt-saddled Dubai, said it was pulling out shortly after GCC officials selected Saudi Arabia - the Arab world's largest economy and home to the world's largest proven reserves of oil - as the future headquarters of the new central bank.

"They have made it clear that they will move ahead without the UAE and Oman," said Sfakianakis. But "one should be optimistic that at some later stage, the UAE and Oman ... or one of the two, will eventually become a participant in this."

"At this stage, I see it as highly unlikely," he said.

Activists Planning Temple Mount Ascent
Dec 16th, 2009
Daily NewsAbe Selig , THE JERUSALEM POST
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

A group of activists dedicated to bringing Jews to the Temple Mount told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that they were hoping to see hundreds of participants take part in a planned "mass pilgrimage" to the site scheduled for Thursday morning in honor of Hannuka, which celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple after it was recovered from Hellenist Greeks more than 2,000 years ago.

The pilgrimage, which will include guided tours of the area throughout the morning, will also be a litmus test for the shaky calm that has prevailed in Jerusalem's Old City since October, when rumors of a "Jewish takeover" of the mount sparked fierce clashes between Arab rioters and security forces in and around the sensitive holy site and in various neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.

The rumors were fueled in part by calls at the time, from a number of Knesset members and prominent national-religious rabbis, that Jews ascend to the Temple Mount with increased vigor. Those calls were portrayed, in turn, by Palestinian clerics as nefarious plans to invade the site or build a synagogue there.

The mount, which was the location of both the First and Second Jewish Temples from 960 BCE until 70 AD, is also home to the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksa Mosque, which is considered the third-holiest shrine in Islam.

Nonetheless, a representative of the Organization for the Renewal of the Temple (ORT) - which is organizing Thursday's event - told the Post on Tuesday there had been no indication the planned pilgrimage would cause renewed disturbances, even though tensions around the site are always high, and Tuesday was no exception.

Members of the group who had gone up to the mount on Tuesday were reportedly accosted by a group of Arabs as they exited the site and headed into the Old City's Muslim Quarter.

Yosef Rabin, an ORT member, told the Post that the scuffle broke out after a number of Arabs standing nearby became enraged when his colleagues started to sing Hannuka songs and dance as they departed.

"And that was completely legal," Rabin said. "We were no longer on the mount itself, and the police officers who were with us said it was okay to begin singing."

Police were quick to break up the fighting, Rabin added, but detained two of the group's members. A police spokesman contacted on Tuesday evening was unable to immediately verify Rabin's account.

Nevertheless, Rabin said, the trip had been calm and quiet up until the fighting broke out, and he added that his group was pursuing its goal of promoting awareness of the mount "through legal means only."

"We do everything legally and in conjunction with the police," Rabin said. "And as long as we do, there shouldn't be any problem."

Rabin also said that the violence seen in October had been mostly instigated by the leader of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, Sheikh Raed Salah, who has been markedly less vocal since the riots and his subsequent arrest and temporary banishment from the Old City.

"Even the Wakf (the Islamic authority that holds custodianship over the mount) was against Salah's provocations," Rabin said. "They didn't say it out loud, but it was reported that the Wakf was privately pleased with his arrest. They don't want problems like that, but there are instigators from other parts of the country who do."

Still, Rabin said he had personally spoken with police about Thursday's pilgrimage and that they had told him there was no reason to believe problems would occur.

"Our focus is on bringing people to the Temple Mount, nothing else," Rabin said. "And we've been making hundreds of phone calls, using lists we have, and sending out e-mails and Facebook messages to try and get as many people as possible to come."

"Little by little, we're going to take back the mount," he continued. "And it will be done without violence or force."

In a related development, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Monday issued a restraining order against Hatem Abdel Kader, a senior Fatah official and advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for Jerusalem affairs, which prohibits him from entering the Temple Mount for six months.

Kader was released on bail after being arrested
over the weekend for violating a previous restraining order, when he entered the Temple Mount to attend prayers there.

The senior Fatah official was banned from the mount for three weeks in October, after being arrested on suspicion of incitement during the riots that were taking place at the time.