Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

World Stocks Up As G - 20 Vows to Avoid Currency War
Oct 25th, 2010
DailyNewsYahoo News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues;World Government

LONDON – World stocks rose and the dollar slumped Monday after global finance chiefs vowed to avoid a currency war that could derail the global recovery. With no concrete guidelines to go by, however, investors are wary that this may only prove a temporary truce.

Finance ministers from the Group of 20 developed and emerging countries promised to avoid competitive devaluations — weakening a national currency to help exports and sustain economic recovery — but offered no binding targets for evening out trade imbalances.

Analysts said firmer guidelines may yet be delivered at next month's meeting of world leaders in South Korea, though sharp differences in views remain. For the time being, the weekend's promises were enough to calm investors' fears of a currency war and focus attention on the main economic event on the horizon — the Federal Reserve's expected expansion of the U.S. money supply, an attempt to boost growth that markets fear could also weaken the dollar.

As a result, stocks rose and the dollar fell, hitting a new 15-year low against the yen.

Lauren Booth Converts to Islam After 'Holy Experience'
Oct 25th, 2010
DailyNewsArutz Sheva - Chana Ya'ar
Categories: Today's Headlines

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, has converted to Islam after a trip to Iran.

The 43-year-old broadcast journalist, who works for Iran’s English-language Press TV, said she had a “holy experience” while visiting the Fatima al-Masumeh shrine in the city of Qom, a “shot of spiritual morphine.”

Upon her return to Britain, she told British publication The Mail in an interview published Sunday that she decided to immediately convert to Islam.

“Now I don’t eat pork and I read the Koran every day. I’m on page 60,” she told the publication. “I also haven’t had a drink in 45 days, the longest period in 25 years.”

Booth added that she now wears the hijab (hair covering) when she leaves her home, prays five times a day and visits the local mosque “when I can.”

Booth spent several months in Gaza two years ago after traveling there illegally on a “Free Gaza” ship that symbolically broke Israel’s blockade of the region.

After Israel allowed the vessel to dock in Gaza port, Booth was unable to leave, since she had no visa or other legal transport papers with which to enter Israel from the region. Nor was she able to leave via the Rafiah Crossing, since the group had no legitimate exit visa, since Gaza is not a sovereign nation – nor a visa for entry into Egypt.

'Snickers' in a concentration camp?
Despite her claims of the “concentration camp” conditions in the region that are “worse than Darfur” Booth was photographed buying Snickers candy bars and soft drinks in a well-stocked food store in Gaza.

She and her brother-in-law, who currently serves as the Middle East envoy for the Quartet of peace-keeping nations (the U.S., Russia, European Union and United Nations), are reportedly barely on speaking terms. 

Booth, who is a half-sister to Blair’s wife, Cherie, said she hopes her conversion to Islam will help change her brother-in-law’s presumptions about the Muslim faith.

IDF Rehearses for the Day Gen. Dayton's Forces Turn on It
Oct 25th, 2010
DailyNewsArutz Sheva - Gil Ronen
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Warning

The IDF's Nachshon Battalion's recent training exercises have included simulated battles against Palestinian Authority security forces. The mock battles were intended to prepare the soldiers for the possibility that the PA security forces in Judea and Samaria, that were trained in the past five years by US Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, would one day turn on Israel. Dayton was replaced a few days ago by Lt. Gen. Michael Moeller.

The simulation was part of a seminar for Central Command officers held two weeks ago at the Lachish training base, and named “From Routine Security Operations to Escalation.”

IDF journal Bamachaneh reported on the exercise and explained that it was held against the backdrop of recent “accelerated contacts, far from sight and from the media, for a reconciliation agreement between the Palestinian Authority (led by Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas) and Hamas.” Information about these contacts is spotty, but the only thing that appears to be preventing reconciliation is Hamas's demand that PA security forces cease coordinating security matters with the IDF.

An agreement between Abbas's PA and Hamas would “completely change reality in Judea and Samaria,” the military publication estimated.

Major General Avi Mizrachi, Head of Central Command, said at the seminar that “the most extreme situation that we predict in the Command is one in which the PA will decide to turn its weapons on us.” This scenario is possible, he said, but “our assessment is that it will not happen.” however,Brig.-Gen. Nitzan Alon, the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, disagreed and said that Central Command must prepare for the situation in which the PA becomes an enemy and will cease operating against terror units as it does today.

Maj.-Gen. Mizrachi opined that without the infrastructure established by the IDF in recent years, no Arab security mechanism could prevent terror in Judea and Samaria. “The mechanisms fear a Hamas takeover of Judea and Samaria more than they fear us,” he said. At present, he said, suppression of Hamas is in Judea and Samaria is “not bad,” and Israel and the PA share a common interest in preventing terror from occurring in – or emanating from – Judea and Samaria.

Central Command has also noticed a tightening of ties between Judea and Samaria terror cells and those that operate in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Gaza. Terrorists attempted abductions of Jews five times last year, said an intelligence officer named Ronen, but there has been an increase in such attempts this year.