Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Moscow: Snowden Accepts Venezuela Asylum
Jul 9th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee Alexei Pushkov said Tuesday Edward Snowden has accepted Venezuela's offer of political asylum. Pushkov acted as unofficial point-man for the Kremlin on the Snowden affair, since he landed at Moscow international airport on June 23,. Russian refused to extradite him to the US for leaking details of a US intelligence monitoring program. Snowden has not been seen since he took refuge in the airport’s transit zone.

Majority of Europeans Support Biometrics for Id Cards or Passports: Steria Survey
Jul 9th, 2013
Daily NewsLTEB
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

According to a new survey conducted by Steria, the majority of European citizens support the use of biometrics for criminal identification and for identity documents and passports, though slightly less than half are supportive of the technology replacing PIN numbers for bank cards.

Steria, a provider of IT-enabled business services, contracted Toluna to perform the survey on citizens in the UK, France , Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and found that 81 percent of respondents think biometrics for criminal identification is a good thing, and 69 percent agreed that they would support the use of biometrics in identity cards or passports.

Specifically, 81 percent of French citizens favor the application of biometrics for ID documents, compared to 74 percent of Danish respondents and 68 percent of the survey’s British respondents. Across Europe, 69 percent were also in favor of using biometrics as a form of access control for secure areas. In this case, the French respondents proved again to be the most supportive, with 77 percent, followed by the Danes at 75 percent and the Brits at 69 percent.

According to the company, only 45 percent of citizens agreed they are in favor of the use of biometrics to replace PIN numbers for bank cards. Only 41 percent of Germans were keen to use biometrics for this purpose, compared to 43 percent of Norwegians and 44 percent of Swedish citizens. The French again, are above the European average with 53 percent in favor.

Let the Headlines Speak
Jul 9th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Firefighters lose ground to 2 big Nevada wildfires
Two large wildfires raged Tuesday in Nevada, where firefighters worked to gain the upper hand on a mountain blaze near Las Vegas that kept hundreds of people from their homes and another southwest of Reno that jumped in size a day earlier.  

Scoffers Waxing Worse and Worse
Scoffing has hit a whole new level but be of good cheer, it means the hour is very late. If you have perused headlines recently, or watched a TV news hour, you are stunned at what's going on. I am every morning as I post headlines here. I let them sink in and I shake my head. When has the world been in this much chaos? When have people been this unhappy, confused, addicted, pagan, angry and tuned out?  

Tony Blair defends Egyptian military coup - video
Former prime minister Tony Blair says the Egyptian army was right to intervene to prevent the country sliding into chaos. Blair, now the Middle East envoy representing the US, Russia, the EU and UN, says international community must work with Egypt's new government to help it stabilise the country and work towards democratic elections.  

Egypt's interim president announces election timetable
The streets of Cairo were quiet on Tuesday morning but Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement called for more protests later in the day, raising the risk of further violence. Under pressure to deliver a rapid timetable to restore democracy, Adli Mansour, the judge named head of state by the army...decreed overnight that a parliamentary vote would be held in about six months. That would be followed by a presidential election.  

Netanyahu said to have met secretly with Palestinian leaders
Former PA minister tells Knesset he and others negotiated with the prime minister, warns of violence if political process doesn’t show results.  

Earthquake: 3.1 quake strikes near San Simeon, Calif.
A shallow magnitude 3.1 earthquake was reported Monday afternoon seven miles from San Simeon, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 12:13 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 3.7 miles. In the last 10 days, there has been one earthquake of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.  

Man Dies From Flesh-Eating Bacteria After Seawater Gets Into Open Wound
A Louisiana man died after contracting flesh-eating bacteria while fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The Town Talk reports the bacteria known as Vibria vulnificus – which is found in warm seawater – killed the 83-year-old man after his open wound got infected when water splashed on him during a fishing trip.  

NSA surveillance: Supreme Court is asked to halt phone spying on Americans
A nonprofit privacy group asked the US Supreme Court on Monday to invalidate a secret court order that authorized the US government to collect and retain all telephone metadata from every Verizon business customer in the United States. The order was issued April 25 and required Verizon Business Network Services to turn over the data every day through July 19, 2013.  

Hot money exodus ends currency wars
Turkey's efforts to pull the lira off record lows on Monday are likely to be emulated across emerging markets as central banks fight to avert an exodus of foreign capital driven by the impending turn in US policy.  

Rand Paul: Orwell's '1984' has arrived
All of this and more has triggered a surge of renewed interest in a recent video by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in which he declares that “1984,” the George Orwell novel about ultimate government disinformation, manipulation and control – is here.  

Gun seizures trigger fear of massive police power
A flurry of recent stories about police knocking on – and sometimes knocking in – people’s front doors have raised alarms in both the U.S. and Canada about whether the home is still constitutionally protected from increasing police power. Just to make sure the message was loud and clear, the city’s Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley told ABC News: “No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons.” Then they did exactly that.  

Severe thunderstorms leave Toronto underwater, 300K without power
The Canadian city was hit with a month’s worth of rain in just one day, with approximately 3.5 inches of rainfall beginning at 4:00 pm EST. Commuters were soon stranded in traffic, with public transit enduring long delays.  

POTENT SUNSPOTS, STILL QUIET
Sunspots AR1785 and AR1787 are defying the odds. Despite the fact that both sunspots have unstable magnetic fields laden with energy for strong flares, solar activity remains low. Maybe it is the calm before the storm  

Tropical Storm Chantal Aims for Caribbean
Newly formed Tropical Storm Chantal is taking aim at the Caribbean this week. The Atlantic Basin has been void of a tropical depression or storm since mid-June, until Sunday evening that is.  

In Egypt, Islamists call for uprising after military opens fire
With its people more polarized than ever and the military once again struggling to impose calm, Egypt's downward spiral appears to have no bottom. At least 51 people were killed Monday when army and police forces opened fire on a sit-in during morning prayers.  

Israel Destroyed Syrian Weapons Depot Containing Advanced Russian Arms
A massive explosion last Thursday at a major Syrian weapons depot in Latakia, not far from the main port of Tartous, completely destroyed the facility and munitions stored there. Tartous is Syria’s main port. It is largely controlled by the Russian military, and the route by which all weapons transported by sea would enter Syria. As such, any advanced Russian weaponry would enter via Tartous and might be stored in the Latakia depot.  

Explosion rocks Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon
A large explosion rocked a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group south of the Lebanese capital Tuesday, setting several cars on fire, sending a thick plume of black smoke billowing into the sky and wounding at least 15 people, security officials said.  

Japan says faces increasing threats from China, North Korea
Japan faces increasingly serious threats to its security from an assertive China and an unpredictable North Korea, the defense ministry said in its first annual report since hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office.  

Firefighters lose ground to 2 big Nevada wildfires
Firefighters lost ground Monday to two large wildfires burning through parched pine forests in northern and southern Nevada, including a nearly 24-square-mile blaze that forced more than 500 people out of homes in woodsy Mount Charleston enclaves near Las Vegas and a more than 27-square-mile fire in the Pine Nut Mountains southwest of Reno.  

The Hatfields and McCoys Come to the Middle East
Some thirty years ago at a conference in Princeton, Tahseen Bashir, the witty and urbane Egyptian diplomat and presidential spokesman, commented on Arab Middle East politics in a pithy sentence. “Egypt” he said “is the only nation-state in the Arab world: the rest are just tribes with flags.”  

U.S. mulls speeding up troop withdrawal from Afghanistan: report
The United States is considering speeding up its planned withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, including a possible "zero option" that would result in no U.S. forces in that country after 2014, the New York Times reported on Monday.  

Recovery woes: America's second-largest employer is a temp agency
Behind Wal-Mart, the second-largest employer in America is Kelly Services, a temporary work provider. Friday's disappointing jobs report showed that part-time jobs are at an all-time high, with 28 million Americans now working part-time. The report also showed another disturbing fact: There are now a record number of Americans with temporary jobs.  

Gun Seizures Trigger Fear of Massive Police Power
Jul 9th, 2013
Daily NewsWND
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A flurry of recent stories about police knocking on – and sometimes knocking in – people’s front doors have raised alarms in both the U.S. and Canada about whether the home is still constitutionally protected from increasing police power.

As WND reported, High River, Alberta, has become a recent focal point of the controversy, when it was revealed Royal Canadian Mounted Police entered the flooded town after a mandatory evacuation, broke down doors and began confiscating “several hundred” firearms.

The details are eerily reminiscent of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, when officers similarly invaded homes and confiscated thousands of weapons they uncovered.

In High River, RCMP and province officials assured citizens the only guns taken were those “improperly secured” and “in plain view” – to be stored for safekeeping and returned to residents after the evacuation ended.

But Michael Coren of Canada’s Sun News says the authorities are “lying, because we know the police actually broke locks to get into cupboards to find out if there were guns there.”

High River resident Cam Fleury believes his house, which sits at a high point free of floodwater, was targeted by the RCMP. The following video shows his front door was broken down, and police made a bee-line for his gun cabinet:

“This whole area is the highest point in town, so there was no flood damage,” Fleury told Sun News, “so there was no reason for them to enter any of these houses.”

The RCMP’s actions drew a rebuke from Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose office issued a statement: “If any firearms were taken, we expect they will be returned to their owners as soon as possible. … We believe the RCMP should focus on more important tasks such as protecting lives and private property.”

Yet civil rights and gun advocates in the country warn that’s not good enough.

Faith Goldy, who has been following the story for Sun News, is concerned about the information authorities were able to gather by invading people’s homes: “Now they’ve got [firearm] serial numbers, they’ve got addresses and there is no mechanism put in place for us now to force them to abolish what has basically become an emergency, back-door [gun] registry.”

“There’s absolutely no way, no how you can justify going into people’s homes and taking their property without a warrant,” asserted Tony Bernardo of the Canadian Sport Shooting Association. “This is Canada! We have laws here!”

“People are protected from having an unwarranted search and seizure,” Goldy added, “[yet] that’s exactly what happened here.”

Gun grabbing nothing new in the U.S.

Americans are similarly protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Yet the Fourth Amendment was sorely tried – or outright ignored, depending on your perspective – when the residents of New Orleans faced similar floodwaters.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of weapons – legally obtained and owned – were simply grabbed from citizens after New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III announced, “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons.”

Just to make sure the message was loud and clear, the city’s Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley told ABC News: “No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons.”

Then they did exactly that.

Economist Hazem El - Biblawi Named Egyptian Prime Minister
Jul 9th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The Egyptian government spokesman announced Tuesday that the economist and former finance minister Hazem el-Biblawi was named provisional prime minister, shortly after Saudi Arabia and the UAE transferred $5 billion in emergency aid to Egypt’s central bank. Mohamed ElBaradei is named vice president for foreign affairs.

American Evangelist Arrested in London for Preaching Homosexuality is a Sin
Jul 9th, 2013
Daily NewsVirtueonline
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Tony Miano was arrested for preaching against sexual immorality and was found to be in violation of Public Order Act Section 5, for "using homophobic speech"

Tony Miano, a retired deputy sheriff from Los Angeles County, Calif., was arrested in London, England, earlier this week for preaching on abstaining from sexual immorality, both heterosexual and homosexual, in downtown Wimbledon. He was found to be in violation of Public Order Act Section 5, for "using homophobic speech that could cause people anxiety, distress, alarm or insult," Miano said in a YouTube video posted on Wednesday.

Preaching from 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12, Miano spoke about sexual sins for 25 minutes before being cut off by Metropolitan Police officers who said that although preaching in itself is not an offense, the specific part of the Bible he was preaching from was interpreted as homophobic by the woman who called to complain.

Miano told police officers that he doesn't hate homosexuals, and then reiterated that he was preaching about all forms of sexual immorality - lust, fornication and addiction to pornography. He said that he "loves homosexuals enough to bring them the truth of the Gospel."

Subsequently, Miano was arrested and escorted uncuffed to the police station, where he was booked, photographed and fingerprinted. Police also took a DNA sample to ensure that he was not a wanted criminal.

During the seven hours he spent in jail, Miano said he was interrogated about his faith in Jesus Christ, and was asked a series of questions.

"I was asked if I believe homosexuality is a sin. I was asked what portion of the Bible I was reading. I was asked that if a homosexual was hungry and walked up to me, would I give them something to eat."

Miano said Wednesday that he was hoping to get a copy of the interrogation, "because the world really needs to hear it."

On Thursday, he posted a transcript from the interrogation on his website, Cross Encounters.

Sports Fan International, the mission team that organized the evangelistic effort outside the Wimbledon tennis tournament, quickly retained attorney Michael Phillips of Christian Concern, an organization Miano described as being similar to the American Center for Law and Justice and Alliance Defending Freedom in the United States. Phillips relayed the bad news to Miano that he was facing 24 hours in jail, followed by prosecution, in which he could possibly be ordered to stay in England until the completion of his trial, which could last four to five months.

Miano said he then asked for his Bible and received a copy of the Gideon's Bible, and began reading from Acts 1-5, and explained that he found particular comfort in chapters 3-5. He also said he sang hymns inside his jail cell.

In time, Miano said a peace came over him. He later found out that although he was expecting the worst, the inspector had decided to release him "without further action." He was released just after midnight on Tuesday.

"61 Executions Since Iranian Elections"
Jul 9th, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Ari Soffer
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

More than 60 Iranians have been executed since the recent presidential elections on June 14th, opposition and human rights activists told Arutz Sheva. Activists condemned the elections themselves as a "sham", given that the Iranian "Supreme Leader" Ayatolla Khameini hand-picked the list of elligible candidates.

The number of those executed by the regime since the election now stands at 61, including 6 women and a young man who was just 15 at the time of his arrest. Executions in the cities of Ahvaz, Shahrekord and Karaj were carried out in full view of the public.

The wave of executions appears to belie predictions by some commentators that Iran is entering into an era of moderation after the election of Hassan Rouhani, hailed as a "moderate" by much of the Western media. Other commentators have noted that Rouhani is part of the ruling regime's inner circle, - he was only allowed to run after a careful vetting process by the Supreme Leader - and dismissed his image as a "moderate" as little more than a ruse by the regime to buy more time as it continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Indeed, a 2006 article by The Telegraph reveals Rouhani's penchant for manipulating western observers, noting the key role he played in hiding Iran's secretive nuclear program from European inspectors.