Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Let the Headlines Speak
Jul 20th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Israel deploys Iron Dome near Red Sea resort of Eilat
Israel deployed its Iron Dome missile defence system near the Red Sea resort of Eilat, which is close to the border with Egypt, an army spokeswoman said. "An Iron Dome battery was deployed this morning in Eilat," the spokeswoman told AFP. "The batteries are deployed in several areas of the country and moved around according to changes in the (security) situation," she added without elaborating.  

State says Obamacare will force 72 percent increase in individual insurance plan rates
Insurance rates in Indiana will increase 72 percent for those with individual plans and 8 percent for small group plans under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, according to the state’s insurance department. The spike in costs is due primarily to new mandates under the law, which requires insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions and to offer a minimum level of benefits...  

Israel to free Palestinian prisoners over Kerry talks
Israel says it will release a number of Palestinian prisoners as part of an agreement made with US Secretary of State John Kerry to resume peace talks. Yuval Steinitz, minister responsible for international relations, said it would involve "heavyweight prisoners in jail for decades". Mr Kerry announced on Friday that initial talks would be held in Washington "in the next week or so".  

Dozens of Christians Killed in Plateau State, Nigeria
Gunmen killed six Christians in an early morning attack yesterday on Dinu village in southern Plateau state, a month after Muslim Fulani herdsmen shot a Christian to death in a nearby village, Christian leaders said.  

'Bash mobs' sweep through Southern California
Organized "bash mob" crime rampages of roving groups attacking innocent people and businesses have been striking cities around the United States. Law enforcement agencies in Southern California have reported few similar problems -- until now. In the last several days, there have been several reports of such group crime waves in South L.A., Hollywood, San Bernardino and Victorville. Long Beach police are bracing for another one Friday  

Merkel pressed on U.S. spying row before German election
Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to reassure German voters on Friday that Germany is not a "surveillance state" and said she was pressing Washington for answers on reports of intrusive snooping by U.S. intelligence.  

Russia releases Putin critic Alexei Navalny on bail after mass protests
Russia unexpectedly freed opposition leader Alexei Navalny on bail on Friday, bending to the will of thousands of protesters who denounced his five-year jail sentence as a crude attempt by President Vladimir Putin to silence him.  

Kerry says Israel, Palestinians laid groundwork for new peace talks
Secretary of State John Kerry announced Friday that Israel and the Palestinians have laid the groundwork to resume stalled peace talks. Addressing reporters before he flew back from the Jordanian capital of Amman, Kerry announced "an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming direct final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis."  

Dozens of NJ firefighters overcome as killer heat wave nears an end
Fifty firefighters were overcome by high temperatures Friday while battling a huge blaze in New Jersey, officials said, amid a heat wave suspected in the deaths of at least 13 people across the country in the last week.  

Saudi suspect in underwear bomb plots trained others, U.S. says
The United States believes the Saudi man suspected of designing underwear bombs for al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate has trained a small number of people on his advanced bomb-making techniques, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.  

Taliban-style edict for women spreads alarm in Afghan district
One of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main religious advisers will not overturn a decree issued by clerics in the north reimposing Taliban-style curbs on women, in another sign of returning conservatism as NATO forces leave the country.  

North Korean ship was carrying sugar donation, Cuba told Panama
When a North Korean ship carrying Cuban arms was seized last week in Panama on suspicion of smuggling drugs, Cuba first said it was loaded with sugar for the people of North Korea, according to a Panamanian official familiar with the matter. Cuban officials were quick to request the ship be released, pledging there were no drugs on board, and made no mention of the weapons which two days later were found hidden in the hold under 220,000 sacks of brown sugar, the official told Reuters. "They said it was all a big misunderstanding," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Certain Persecution Awaits Coptic Christians In Post Morsi Egypt
The continuing dramatic struggle for power and friction in Egypt continues between two groups: the Muslim Brotherhood and the supporters of Mohamed Morsi on one side, and the combination of forces, mainly secular but divided, opposed to radical Islam on the other.  

IRS officials in Washington ordered special scrutiny: congressional investigation finds
IRS employees have told congressional investigators that they were ordered by the agency’s Washington office to give extra scrutiny to tea party groups’ applications for tax-exempt status, according to excerpts from interviews with the employees that were released by House committee chairmen Wednesday. 

Kerry Runs Around in Rings
Jul 20th, 2013
Daily NewsBarry Rubin
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Peace Process

Advice: Don’t read about the latest double-talk and impending supposed breakthroughs in the media. Look at underlying interests; not imaginative headlines.

Jordan’s Abdullah First Arab Visitor to Post - Coup Cairo
Jul 20th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: One World Church;Contemporary Issues

King Abdullah II of Jordan arrived in Cairo Saturday on the first visit by an Arab leader since the ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi almost three weeks ago. Abdullah was greeted at the Cairo airport by Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi. DEBKAfile: Saudi King Abdullah approved the Jordanian king’s visit to signal Riyadh's approval of the Egyptian military’s overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood, which in Jordan too leads the opposition to the throne

Ice Age Warning Sign: China’s Wheat Crop Destroyed….Asian Giant Must Import Grain
Jul 20th, 2013
Daily NewsReuters
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

China’s wheat crop has suffered more severely than previously thought from frost in the growing period and rain during the harvest, and import demand to compensate for the damage could see the country eclipse Egypt as the world’s top buyer.

Interviews with farmers and new estimates from analysts have revealed weather damage in China’s northern grain belt could have made as much as 20 million tonnes of the wheat crop, or 16 percent, unfit for human consumption. That would be double the volume previously reported as damaged.

Higher imports, which have already been revised upwards on initial damage reports, will further shrink global supplies and support prices, fuelling new worries over global food security.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday raised its forecast for China’s imports in 2013/14 to 8.5 million tonnes from 3.2 million tonnes in the previous year, prompting U.S. wheat prices to rally to more than two-week highs.

But overseas traders and analysts estimate imports could rise above 10 million tonnes, surpassing the 9 million tonnes the world’s biggest buyer Egypt is expected to buy.

Competition from China for more imports would force other buyers, such as Egypt, to pay more for grains, in a new blow for the Middle East country after two years of political turmoil has left it struggling for funds to pay for food imports.

In China’s top wheat producing province of Henan, farmers visited by Reuters said kernels shrunk because of the frost early this year followed by more damage with grains germinating due to the rainstorms in May. Henan is in the northern grain belt, which accounts for about half of China’s output.

“The kernels this year are half their normal sizes,” said Feng Ling, a 55-year old farmer in Xuchang, central Henan, where some growers have seen their production slashed by 40 percent from year ago. “The harvest was terrible.”

China has already booked around 3 million tonnes of wheat for shipment in the year to June 2014, nearing last year’s purchases.

That would be the biggest volume imported since the near 10 million tonnes China booked in 2003/2004 after a sharp decrease in the domestic harvest. In a normal year, China accounts for about a fifth of global wheat production and consumption.

“We expect between 15 to 20 million tonnes of wheat will be downgraded to use for animal feed, which will reduce wheat supply for milling purpose,” said Li Qiang, chief analyst at agricultural consultancy, the Shanghai JC Intelligence.

The crop damage across large swathes of China’s farmland is adding to concerns over global food supplies after unfavorable weather in top wheat exporters the United States and the Black Sea region resulted in quality downgrades.

Detroit Bankruptcy to Set Off Pitched Battles With Creditors, Pensions, Unionsd
Jul 20th, 2013
Daily NewsDetroit Free Press
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Detroit on Thursday became the largest American city to file for bankruptcy, a historic move sure to ignite complex battles in coming months with creditors, pensioners and unions who stand to lose significantly as the state tries to rescue a city whose failure Gov. Rick Snyder said was 60 years in the making.

Bankruptcy and restructuring experts said the filing will initiate a new round of battles in federal court, potentially setting national precedents on matters ranging from whether bondholders get repaid when cities run out of money to whether public pensions, previously thought to be sacrosanct under the Michigan Constitution, are protected in municipal bankruptcies.

Financially troubled cities around the nation will be watching what happens in the Motor City for lessons that could apply to them.

In the end, state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s attempt to reach out-of-court settlements could not overcome opposition from unions, retirees and a long list of lenders to whom the city owes as much as $20 billion.

“There’s some real benchmark laws that could be set here,” said Jim McTevia, a leading turnaround management expert in Bingham Farms. “There are going to be a number of issues that a normal bankruptcy doesn’t cover.”

Orr filed a Chapter 9 bankruptcy petition Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan that is the largest of its kind in terms of population and the size of the debts and liabilities involved. Bankruptcy experts said the outcome is sure to have sweeping impact on how other troubled cities around the country resolve financial difficulties. But Snyder said the size of debt involved mattered less to him than the city’s inability to provide services to its 700,000 residents.

Snyder, who approved the filing, called the move “a last resort to return this great city to financial and civil health for its residents and taxpayers.”

“I know many will see this as a low point in the city’s history,” Snyder said in his order authorizing the filing. “If so, I think it will also be the foundation of the city’s future — a statement I cannot make in confidence absent giving the city a chance for a fresh start, without burdens of debt it cannot hope to fully pay.

“This was a difficult decision,” Snyder said, “but it’s clearly the right decision because there are no other viable options.”

Bing: ‘Difficult for all’

Mayor Dave Bing, who called it a difficult day, said Orr called him in the afternoon to tell him about the filing.

“One of the things that I want to say to our citizens is that as tough as this is, I really didn’t want to go in this direction,” Bing said. “But now that we are here, we have to make the best of it. I think Kevyn and the team that he brought together has a lot of history of succeeding. This is very difficult for all of us, but if it’s going to make services better off, then this is a new start for us.”

Orr, who appeared with Bing at an evening news conference, said he hopes to get through the bankruptcy process by late summer or fall of next year. He did not answer questions about what impact he expects bankruptcy to have on thousands of city retirees or creditors of the city, saying those talks are ongoing. Orr said he believes the city has been negotiating in good faith.

“We don’t have time for more delaying tactics, more litigation, business as usual,” he said. “We’ve been saying that again and again and again. Everybody knows I have an 18-month term, and I have 15 months left in it. So, we’re going to start. And we’re going to give the level of services that the city needs.”

Debkafile: Kerry Obtains Israeli, Palestinian Consent to Negotiate Interim Accord, Without Borders
Jul 20th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Peace Process

After substantially lowering his expectations, US Secretary of State John Kerry was able to save his mission to restart peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians with only moments to spare before his sixth round of shuttle diplomacy crashed.  Friday night, July 19, Kerry announced in Amman that “initial talks would resume in Washington very soon.” 
In this exclusive report, debkafile discloses for the first time details of the formula for which Kerry obtained the consent of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and, after an unscheduled side trip Friday to Ramallah, of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as well.
According to the Kerry formula, the forthcoming negotiations would focus on attaining an interim peace accord - without determining final borders - for establishing a Palestinian state in broad areas of the West Bank from which Israeli would withdraw.

Those areas would be subject to trilateral US-Israeli-Palestinian consensus on security arrangements and require some Jewish settlements to be removed.

Initial negotiations will start next week in Washington behind closed doors.  Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and the prime minister’s adviser Yakov Molcho will represent Israel and senior negotiator Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian side. A third US team will report to John Kerry.
It was also agreed, according to this exclusive debkafile report, that the negotiating process would last no less than nine months up until March 2014, during which Israel agreed to an undeclared partial standstill on construction in Judea and Samaria outside the settlement blocs - except for building to accommodate natural growth.

The freeze would not apply to the West Bank settlement blocs or Jerusalem.

The Palestinian leader dropped his stipulation for a total construction freeze. He also promised not to carry out his threat to push anti-Israeli measures through UN and other international institutions during the talks.

The US Secretary also persuaded Abbas Friday to waive his ultimatum for peace talks to be based on 1967 borders. Instead, President Barack Obama will send him a letter affirming US recognition that the object of the negotiations is to establish a Palestinian state as the national home of the Palestinian people whose borders will be based on 1967 lines.
Obama will send another letter to Netanyahu affirming that the negotiations must lead to the recognition of the state of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, whose future borders will be based on the 1967 lines while also accommodating Israel’s security needs and its realistic demographic circumstances.

The talks will proceed on two levels: The Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams in Washington, who will defer to their principals, Binyamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas and John Kerry. Those three will only meet for direct talks when the teams have tangible results in the bag.

Before leaving Amman, the US Secretary said cautiously: “The agreement is still in the process of being formalized."