Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Report Details Hostility in U.S. Military Toward Christian Members
Jul 10th, 2013
Daily Newscnsnews.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A coalition of legislators and religious freedom advocates warned Tuesday about the growing hostility toward Christians serving in the military and called for a federal statute to protect the religious liberty of troops.

The Family Research Council distributed a report, “A Clear and Present Danger: The Threat to Religious Liberty in the Military,” at the press conference on Tuesday at the Capitol detailing incidences of that hostility, including the July 27, 2011 cancellation of a 20-year-old ethics course taught at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California because it used Scripture.

On May 31, 2013, a painting that included a Scripture citation was removed from Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho after the Military Religious Freedom Foundation complained.

“There’s a long list of things that have been happening in very recent years that for those who do the most for us – uniformed members – who put their lives on the line and who have done that over 237 years, those who have fought for our religious liberties the most are the ones today who are having those very liberties taken from them,” Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said at the press conference.

Fleming sponsored and the House passed an amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act to create a statute designed to protect the religious liberty of service members, including the freedom to live out and talk about one’s religious beliefs.

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Let the Headlines Speak
Jul 10th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Military analyst: Women in front-line combat opens door for draft
"It is most unfortunate that Congress is allowing the Obama administration to lay the legal groundwork for selective service obligations to be imposed on unsuspecting civilian women on the same basis as men," says Donnelly. "This would include a future draft."  

Pastor Ken Hutcherson to Rev. Al Sharpton: ‘Not Again’
So why is it that you think Judeo-Christian believers, the religious right, tea partiers, patriots and white people in general who are starting to feel like second class citizens and separate but equal; are being scrutinized by the IRS and spied on by the NSA. Why should they not stand up and demand equal treatment under the law and the Constitution of these United States of America?  

WEAK IMPACT, NICE AURORAS
A minor CME hit Earth's magnetic field on July 9th at approximately 20:30 UT. The impact was weak, and at first had little effect, but in the hours following the strike a geomagnetic storm developed. At its peak during the early hours of July 10th, the G1-class storm produced auroras in northern-tier US states from Wisconsin to Washington.  

Arab countries take aim at Israel's alleged nuclear arsenal
Arab diplomats signaled on Tuesday they would seek to step up pressure on Israel over its assumed nuclear arsenal but the Jewish state said any attempt to “bash” it would be counterproductive.  

EU plots transatlantic bank regulator
Sources indicated that the agreement is seen as the major priority for the UK, given the role of the City in the international economy. It is understood that EU negotiators will push for a core agreement on financial regulation and principles, but also discuss how regulation should be enforced in the future. It is possible that, as a result of the talks, some form of transnational super-regulator could be established, which would take a lead on financial regulation across the two economic super powers.  

Suwanose-jima volcano (Japan): ash plume reported
Tokyo reported a small ash plume from the volcano at 5,000 ft (1.5 km) elevation today.  

Syrian rebels used nerve gas, Russia says
Russia says it determined an alleged deadly sarin nerve gas attack in Syria was carried out by Syrian rebels, not the Assad regime, as the White House asserts.  

Linchpin for Obama’s plan to predict future leakers unproven, isn’t likely to work, experts say
Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents. The techniques are a key pillar of the Insider Threat Program, an unprecedented government-wide crackdown under which millions of federal bureaucrats and contractors must watch out for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers. Those who fail to report them could face penalties, including criminal charges.  

House to Vote on Bill Prohibiting IRS Enforcement of Obamacare
The House of Representatives will take up a bill that would stop the Department of the Treasury, including the Internal Revenue Services, from implementing and enforcing the provisions of Obamacare. The bill...is just two pages long and claims its purpose is to "prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from enforcing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010."  

Privacy fears grow as Obama weighs expanded gun-buyer database
Mental health advocates are worried that the privacy of people who have received treatment for their illnesses could be jeopardized by a White House push to expand a database used to run background checks on gun buyers. President Barack Obama said he wants to see state governments contribute more names of people barred from buying guns to the database...  

Texas House approves sweeping abortion restrictions
The Texas House of Representatives approved sweeping abortion restrictions on Tuesday, including a ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy and tougher standards for clinics that perform the procedure. The vote of 98-49 came after a full day of sometimes emotional debate. Before the measure can head to the state Senate, it needs a final vote from the House, which is expected on Wednesday.  

Egypt Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie arrest ordered
Egypt's prosecutor's office has ordered the arrest of the leader of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement, Mohammed Badie, state media report. Mr Badie is accused of inciting the violence in Cairo on Friday in which at least 51 people were killed. Several leading Brotherhood figures are already in detention and warrants have been issued for hundreds more.  

BBC Says Christians Who Oppose Gay Marriage Are 'Damaging the Church'
The BBC thinks Christians who disagree with gay marriage are “throwbacks who are damaging the church,” according to one of its presenters. Roger Bolton also said if the BBC interviews a Christian who objects to abortion on religious grounds, “they are treated as though they are just a bit barmy.”  

Israel reportedly mulling deal that would see Russian troops on Golan
Israel may allow Russian soldiers to join the United Nations peacekeeping forces on the Golan Heights, and in return Moscow will halt the transfer of advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, the London-based Arabic-language daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported Wednesday. According to the report, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss alternatives to the weapons deal...  

Egypt unrest: Liberal opposition rejects transition plan
The main liberal opposition coalition in Egypt has rejected interim leader Adly Mansour's decree, which sets a new poll timetable to stop the unrest. The National Salvation Front (NSF) demanded more changes and consultation on the document. Both the Muslim Brotherhood, which supports ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, and the Tamarod protest movement earlier rejected the decree.  

30,000 California Prisoners Are Refusing Meals
Over 30,000 California prisoners started refusing meals on Monday morning in what might become the biggest hunger strike in California prison history, according to California's corrections department.  

Egypt's women watch protests from sidelines amid fears of sexual violence
Nashwa Youssef and her husband Sherif have been following every twist and turn amid the turmoil in the wake of the ouster of Egypt’s democratically elected president. “The anxiety is too much to bear. All I do is watch the news and surf social media for the latest updates,” said 30-year-old Youssef, an English teacher who lives just six miles from Tahrir Square, the symbolic heart of Egypt’s demonstrations. "My husband has gone down to Tahrir every day since the protests started.”  

'Blasphemy' teen flees Pakistan amid persecution of Christians
A Pakistani teen who provoked an international outcry when she was falsely accused of burning Islam’s holy book is finally out of danger and settling into a new life in Canada.  

Tropical Storm Chantal sets sights on Haiti, Dominican Republic
Haiti and the Dominican Republic will be in the cross hairs of Tropical Storm Chantal on Wednesday, threatening the Caribbean island nations with dangerous waves, storm surges and high winds, the National Hurricane Center warned Tuesday night.  

Muslim Brotherhood Kept Christians From Voting at Gunpoint During Morsi Election, Megachurch Pastor Reveals
Dr. Michael Youssef, founding pastor of the 3,000 member Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, who was born in Egypt, said that the ousting of former president Mohamed Morsi is a good thing for Christians in the North African country because the Muslim Brotherhood had kept Christians away from voting during the election by threatening to shoot them.  

Hezbollah blames Israel for Beirut bombing
One person killed, dozens wounded when car bomb explodes in southern Beirut suburbs • Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar says "Malicious act clearly bears the fingerprint of the Israeli enemy and its tools" • Celebratory gunfire reported in anti-Hezbollah Tripoli.  

Natural gas well leaking in Gulf off the La. coast
Natural gas leaked Tuesday from an old, non-producing well at an oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico about 75 miles off the Louisiana coast after a crew working to plug the well lost control of it, the Coast Guard said.  

Is Netanyahu Turning Left?
Jul 10th, 2013
Daily Newsdaniellepipes.org
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

With Syria and Egypt aflame, why is U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry returning to the Middle East for his sixth visit since February to focus on more Israeli-Palestinian shuttle diplomacy?

In part, because he and other liberals think that the Arab and Iranian (and now Turkish?) war on Israel boils down to an Israel-Palestinian conflict and therefore they over-emphasize this dimension; in part, too, because he subscribes to the liberal illusion that Israel-related issues constitute the "epicenter" of the region (as James L. Jones, then Obama's national security adviser, once put it), so their resolution must precede dealing with other Middle Eastern problems.

But there's another possible reason for Kerry's enthusiasm: he took the measure of Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and found him indeed serious about reaching an accord with the Palestinians, and not just pretending enthusiasm to please Washington.

This, anyway, is the thesis of David M. Weinberg of Bar-Ilan University writing in Israel Hayom: "Netanyahu has been making uncharacteristically passionate statements about the diplomatic process; statements that go beyond the expected chatter about Israel's desire to engage the Palestinians and negotiate a two-state solution." 

Weinberg finds Netanyahu "desperate for diplomatic movement[, having] bought into the left-wing argument that the status quo is unsustainable." Weinberg perceives preparations now underway for "a unilateral Israeli initiative to concede significant parts of Judea and Samaria."

Why should Netanyahu, who emphatically did not campaign on this platform, make such plans? Weinberg looks mainly to domestic politics:

Netanyahu has no other national agenda item to sustain his prime ministership. He needs a new message that will reposition him as a leader in the public mind, and the Palestinian issue is all he's got to work with. The lead on economic and social matters has been grabbed by [political competitors Yair] Lapid and [Naftali] Bennett. 

There's little Netanyahu can do about the hot situation in Syria or Iran. His job is to react wisely and cautiously to developments on these fronts, not lead Israel into confrontation.

A unilateral Israeli withdrawal, Weinberg notes, "would blow the Lapid-Bennett alliance out of the water—something which is Netanyahu's highest political priority." The prime minister would then "bask in the glow of praise of Washington and Tel Aviv elites," pick up center- and left-electoral support, and presumably coast to another electoral victory.

This explanation does not convince me: Iran poses a potentially existential threat to Israel and coping with it quite suffices to "sustain his prime ministership." The Israeli public is focused on Tehran, not Ramallah, and Netanyahu, who boasts that he spends 70 percent of his time on security issues, hardly needs diplomacy with Mahmoud Abbas to prove his leadership.

Rather, his motives probably lie elsewhere: like other prime ministers of Israel, Netanyahu suffers from what I have dubbed the "Ben-Gurion complex," a desire to go down in Jewish history as a renowned leader. (David Ben-Gurion oversaw the founding of modern Israel). In his third term and (after Ben-Gurion himself) the country's second-longest serving prime minister, Netanyahu is all the more susceptible to this aspiration.

Post-1948, the Ben-Gurion complex translates into ending the external threats to Israel. Unfortunately, this worthy ambition has inspired repeated duplicity and distortion. As I described the phenomenon in 2004, "First, every elected prime minister [since 1992, being Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Netanyahu] has broken his word on how he would deal with the Arabs. Second, each one of them has adopted an unexpectedly concessionary approach."

Netanyahu made a campaign promise in 1996 that, were he in charge, Israel "will never descend from the Golan"; but a mere two years later he tried to offer Damascus the entire Golan territory in return for a mere slip of paper. (Had Netanyahu succeeded then, imagine the consequences today, what with Syria aflame and Al-Qaeda units approaching Israel's borders.) Fortunately, his cabinet colleagues obstructed him from implementing this folly.

These days, a center-left consensus intones that eliminating the external threat to Israel requires a two-state deal with the Palestinians. (I disagree.) Will Netanyahu turn to the left, defy his constituency and sign such an accord to win re-election? The pattern of wayward prime ministers plus Netanyahu's biography have caused me since 2009 to worry about such a betrayal of his mandate.

But perhaps we will be spared from learning an answer: Palestinian intransigence is annoying Kerry and might, yet again, take the diplomatic pressure off Israel.

Egyptian Prosecution Orders 10 Brotherhood Leaders Detained
Jul 10th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Egyptian Army’s Financial Coup: 13 Billion Petrodollars from Saudi, Uae, Kuwaiti Fans
Jul 10th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

In a dazzling display of monetary muscle, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates poured $8 billion in a single day into the coffers of Egypt’s army rulers in cash, grants, loans without interest and gifts of gas, a dizzying life-saving infusion into its tottering economy. Forking out sums on this scale in a single day – or even month - is beyond the capacity of almost every world power – even the US and Russia - in this age of economic distress. The Arab oil colossuses managed to dwarf Iran’s pretensions to the standing of regional power.
Tuesday, July 9, just six days after the Egyptian army overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi, a UAR delegation of foreign and energy ministers and national security adviser landed in Cairo. They came carrying the gifts of $1 billion as a grant and $2 billion in long-term credit.
In well-orchestrated moves, Saudi Arabia then stepped forward with a $5 billion package, of which a lump sum of $2 billion was drafted to Egypt’s state bank that day, followed by another $2 billion as a gift of Saudi gas, and a further $1 billion for propping up the sagging Egyptian currency.

The delivery by two Arab governments to a third of financial assistance on this scale and on a single day is unheard of in the Middle East, or, indeed, anwhere else.

As they celebrate Ramadan, 84 million Egyptians can start looking forward to a square meal at the end of their month of fasting.
This river of largesse was the outcome of a development first revealed by debkafile last week: The Egyptian military high command was not working alone when its operations headquarters put together the July 3 takeover of power from the Muslim Brotherhood; it was coordinated closely down to the last detail with the palaces of the Saudi and UAE rulers and the operations rooms of their intelligence services.
The last DEBKA Weekly issue 594 (July 5) carried details of the military-intelligence mechanism at work between the three governments.
The coming issue, out next Friday, July 12, offers further revelations of how this mechanism is designed to shore up Egypt’s post-coup regime and restore the strife-torn country, the most populous in the Arab world, to its traditional eminence. Cairo is assigned a lead role in a Sunni Muslim bloc stretching from the Gulf to Cairo (with room for quiet collaboration with Israel) to withstand the challenges posed by the alliance of Russia, Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah.

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The petrodollar shower for Egypt did not end with the $8 billion from Saudi Arabia and the UAE: Kuwait has pledged another $5 billion in a secret communication to Riyadh. It will be released after the sheikhdom's parliamentary elections on July 27, and so raise total Gulf Arab bounty to Egypt to the staggering total of $13 billion.
Friendly assistance on this scale tends to diminish the relevance of Washington’s dilemmas over the continuation of its $1.3 billion aid package to Egypt after a military coup, of which $700 is due this year.

The suggestion that US aid may be used to hasten Egypt’s “swift return to a democratically elected civilian government” loses its force when Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both guaranteed to make up any shortfalls in US aid to Egypt.
On June 26, Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Kadri Jamil boasted that Moscow, Beijing and Tehran were contributing half a billion dollars per month to Syria’s war chest. “It’s not so bad to have Russia, China and Iran on your side,” he gloated.
Egypt can now boast to have far outstripped Syria in foreign support - $13 billion in a single month, compared with a mere $6 billion in a year.

China Opens ‘World’s Largest Building’ — Complete With Indoor Beach, Fake Sun
Jul 10th, 2013
Daily NewsNational Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

China’s fourth largest city may have problems with smog, but you’d never know it sitting at the urban centre’s beachside resort. Of course, Chengdu, doesn’t have a beach, and the resort is indoors.

The city has just opened the New Century Global Centre, a structure that China touts as the “World’s Largest Building.” The giant structure has 1.76 million square metres of floor space and is half a kilometre long, 400 metres wide and more than 100 metres tall.

Contained inside is a 14-screen IMAX theatre, two five-star hotels, a shopping village and a long stretch of offices. The developers claim that you could fit more than 20 Sydney Opera Houses inside the Global Centre.

“We have borrowed a Japanese technique,” guide Liu Xun told the Sydney Morning Herald. “There is an artificial sun that shines 24 hours a day and allows for a comfortable temperature.”

The sun shines down on a manufactured beach-side resort built to hold over 6,000 people.

AFP/Getty ImagesThe "New Century Global Centre" building opens to the public in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan province on June 28, 2013.

Of course, the Global Centre isn’t the only mega-building project in China. A few hundred kilometres away in Changsha, the Sky City project looks to erect the world’s tallest skyscraper.