Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Syrian FM Threatens 'surprises' for Western Forces
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Ari Sofer
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem vowed on Tuesday that his country will defend itself in case of any Western military strikes against it.    

"We have two options: either to surrender, or to defend ourselves with the means at our disposal. The second choice is the best: we will defend ourselves," Muallem said in a televised news conference.    

Muallem said that his country had defenses that would "surprise" the world, and that any such action against it would serve the interests of Israel and Al-Qaeda.

"Syria is not an easy case. We have defenses which will surprise others," he said.    

"The war effort lead by the United States and their allies will serve the interests of Israel and secondly Al-Nusra Front," an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group in Syria, said Muallem.    

He challenged Western states to present evidence that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons.    

"We are hearing war drums around us. If they want to launch an attack against Syria, I think using the excuse of chemical weapons is not true at all. I challenge them to show what proof they have," Muallem said.    

The foreign minister was speaking as the United States and its allies edged closer to launching strikes against the Syrian regime amid accusations it used chemical weapons against its own people.    

The moves came after a team of UN arms experts collected evidence from the site of the alleged chemical weapons attacks on the outskirts of Damascus August 21, which reportedly killed more than 300 people.    

The inspectors had been due to visit the sites again on Tuesday, but Muallem said their trip had been postponed until Wednesday because rebels failed to guarantee their security.    

"Today, we were surprised by the fact that they were not able to get there because the rebels did not agree to guarantee the mission's security. So the mission has been delayed until tomorrow," said Muallem.    

The group was originally due to leave Syria on Sunday, but their stay could be extended as they investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in the brutal 29-month conflict.

Muallem's warning follows a threat by a top Syrian official if his country was attacked by western states it would react by attacking Israel.

Speaking to an Arabic-language radio station, Syria's Deputy Information Minister Halaf Al-Maftah said that Israel would face a coalition consisting of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria in the event of any attack against Assad. In addition, terrorist groups in Syria and Lebanon would attack Israel with full force, he warned.

Al-Maftah added that Syria has “strategic weapons” that it would use in its attack on Israel. He did not specify what those weapons were.

Amid the heightened rhetoric, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee Chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman (Likud / Yisrael Beytenu) acknowledged Tuesday that, whilst Israel does not want to become embroiled in the Syrian conflict, it may be forced to do so in the event it is attacked.

Saudis Offer Russia Secret Oil Deal If It Drops Syria
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily NewsThe Telegraph
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russian a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts, if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria.

Report: British Warplanes in Cyprus Preparing for Syria Strike
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Elad Benari
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

In what might indicate that the British army is preparing for an attack on Syria, the Guardian reported on Monday that warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain's Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast.

Two commercial pilots who regularly fly from Larnaca told the Guardian that they had seen C-130 transport planes from their cockpit windows as well as small formations of fighter jets on their radar screens, which they believe had flown from Europe.

Residents near the British airfield, a sovereign base since 1960, also told the newspaper that activity there has been much higher than normal over the past 48 hours.

If an order to attack targets in Syria is given, Cyprus is likely to be a hub of the air campaign. The arrival of warplanes suggests that advanced readiness – at the very least – has been ordered by Whitehall as Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. President Barack Obama and European leaders step up their rhetoric against Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad, whose armed forces they accuse of carrying out the chemical weapons attack last Wednesday that killed many hundreds in eastern Damascus.

According to the Guardian, the U.S., Britain and their allies are likely to wait until a UN team currently in Syria has compiled its report and left the country, before carrying out any air strikes against the government. If the strikes go ahead, they are expected to focus on the strongest sinews of the Assad regime's power.

Hitting stockpiles of chemical weapons could appear more proportionate but that would bring with it the risk of dispersing neurotoxins over a wide area, potentially causing even more harm than Wednesday's gas attack, the newspaper noted.

The latest report follows a report in the Telegraph, which said that British and American naval vessels are currently preparing for military action against Assad’s regime.

According to that report, military commanders are currently drawing up a list of potential targets to strike, in a operation that would resemble the opening phase of the western intervention in Libya which helped oust Muammar Qaddafi.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu upped the ante on Monday by claiming United Nations approval was not necessarily needed for intervention to take place.

"Is it possible to act on chemical weapons, is it possible to respond to chemical weapons without complete unity on the UN Security Council?" Hague asked, rhetorically. 

"I would argue, yes it is. Otherwise, of course, it might be impossible to respond to such outrages, such crimes and I don’t think that is an acceptable situation."

Assad has threatened that any western intervention would end in failure.

“The United States faces failure (if it attacks Syria), just like in all the previous wars they waged, starting with Vietnam and up to our days,” he said.

Palestinian State in Jordan 'Inevitable'
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Ari Sofer
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Jordanian-Palestinian activist Mudar Zahran is not a man who minces his words. In fact, his outspokenness against the Jordanian regime has made him a persona-non-grata in his own country, forcing him to seek asylum in the UK.

Zahran did not pull any punches Sunday afternoon, speaking at a conference entitled "Two States for Two People, on Two Sides of the Jordan River." Deriding the Jordanian ruling elite as "Armani-wearing, English-speaking autocrats" he called on all parties to consider a radically different track to the current peace initiatives based off of a "Two State Solution" which would see a Palestinian Authority-run state in Judea and Samaria.

The conference was held at Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Heritage Center, and organized by Professors for a Strong Israel, with the goal  of fostering debate over alternatives to the "Two State Solution" which is currently on the table.

Zahran was the sole Palestinian Arab representative, but claimed to represent the "secular Palestinian majority" in Jordan, where between 60-80% identify as Palestinian, and which he believes hold the key to ending his people's conflict with Israel.

Arab, Israeli rights "not mutually exclusive"

He posited that the establishment of a Palestinian state in what is today Jordan would essentially solve the Arab-Israeli conflict in a way that was both practical and "historically just" for both peoples, and further claimed that such an eventuality was "inevitable," given what he saw as the increasing instability of the ruling Hashemite regime.

On the one hand, Zahran said that he understood why many Israelis oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria (also known as the "West Bank"), noting the region's strategic and historical importance to the Jewish State. Jews have lived in the area for more than 3,500 years, and its position in the center of the country, stretching to within 8 miles of the coast and overlooking Israel's main population centers, mean that its surrender to the PA would render Israel extremely vulnerable to attack.

Zahran said Israelis were rightly concerned that, even if the PA was being genuine about peace talks, it was highly possible that an Israeli withdrawal would be followed by a takeover by the Islamist Hamas movement, which is openly committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. Hamas ousted the PA in Gaza following Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the territory, and promptly intensified a campaign of terror against Israeli civilians, including the raining of thousands of rockets and mortar shells on Israeli communities in the south of the country. A Hamas-run Judea and Samaria would put most of the rest of Israel's population - including greater Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - at similar risk, posing an existential threat to the State of Israel.

He noted that the aging PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas did not have any obvious replacements, and claimed that once he was no longer at the helm the PA would quickly lose its control over the vast array of competing Arab tribes in Judea and Samaria.

On the other hand, he insisted that "we [Palestinians] will never give up a single inch of our rights as human beings," and that a solution had to be found that would satisfy the demands of millions of Palestinian Arabs for statehood.

However, unlike most Israeli and Arab leaders, he does not see the two imperatives as mutually-exclusive.

Zahran pointed to a number of international treaties, including the Faisal-Weitzmann agreement and the San Remo Declaration, which sought to establish a Jewish state west of the Jordan River, and an Arab one to the east (in addition to almost two dozen other independent Arab states).

"We [Arabs] got 77% [of the land originally allocated for a Jewish state], you barely got 22%" he said, referring to the San Remo Declaration, which saw more than three quarters of the land allocated for a Jewish state by the Balfour Declaration separated as an Arab state.

"This is one of the very few occasions we outsmarted the Jews," he quipped, but went on to lament the fact that instead of handing control to the local Arabs in "Transjordan," the British installed the Hashemite royal family, which hailed from the Hejaz, in what is today Saudi Arabia.

Re-opening the debate

A lack of democracy and the rule of the Hashemite minority over the Palestinian majority rendered it "illegitimate," Zahran claimed, and reiterated his view that the Kingdom would soon succumb to the "Arab Spring."

He accused the king of spending more than 50% of the country's GDP on the military, and enriching himself and his family at the expense of the rest of the population.

Once the king falls, he said, it is only natural that the Palestinian majority would vote in a Palestinian government, creating a de-facto Palestinian State. The only remaining question is whether that state would be secular or an Islamist "Hamas-stine," he claimed, urging western leaders to support the secular Palestinian opposition movement to avoid the latter.

The empowerment of the majority in Jordan would put the interests of the people before that of a ruling elite, granting both freedom and a better quality of life to all its citizens. A Palestinian Jordanian state would extend a similar "right of return" to the one which Israel grants to Jews throughout the Diaspora,  he added, solving the refugee problem and granting full political rights to Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria without posing a demographic threat to the Jewish state. Their status would be identical to that of Palestinian Arab residents of Jerusalem, who enjoy the status of "residents" in Israel, whilst voting in PA legislative elections.

Zahran also reserved harsh criticism for the "Hashemite cheerleaders" among many Israeli politicians and supporters of Israel, condemning them as shortsighted and immoral for supporting an autocratic regime on the basis of short-term security considerations, which regional developments have proven can change nearly overnight.

But whilst Zahran's views did receive wide support at the conference, not everyone was in agreement.

Likud MK Tzipi Hotoveli dismissed the idea as a 'fantasy,' as there is no way that Israel could control whether the Jordanian government falls or not.

Instead, she called on the Israeli government to consider annexing Judea and Samaria and granting its Arab population full citizenship. She insisted that such a move would not pose a significant demographic threat to Israel if the government focused on encouraging Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel), and as long as the rights to "citizenship" be made contingent on the upholding of one's "duties" as a citizen - which she claimed would neutralize the threat from hostile elements within the Arab population who seek to undermine the Jewish State.

Former Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon disagreed with both views. He pointed to the excellent security cooperation between Israel and the Jordanian government as proof that the continued existence of the Hashemite Kingdom was in Israels' best interest.

Despite the split in opinion, the event's organizer, Professor Aryeh Eldad, was pleased with the outcome, though he reserved criticism for the Israeli right.

"The right has been very good at saying what should not be done, but has failed to come up with an alternative solution."

The conference, he said, had gone a long way to reopening a debate which in his view had been stifled since the Oslo accords in 1993.

Nonprofit Says It Was Threatened With Arrest for Feeding Raleigh Homeless
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily Newswral.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A spokesman for the Raleigh Police Department says a police officer was enforcing a city ordinance when he reportedly told, without explanation, a group of volunteers Saturday that they could be arrested for serving breakfast to the homeless.

Love Wins Ministries posted on its website Saturday that the officer approached them as they were preparing to pass out free coffee and sausage biscuits to more than 70 homeless people in downtown Raleigh.

“This morning we showed up at Moore Square at 9:00 a.m., just like we have done virtually every Saturday and Sunday for the last six years,” the ministry’s pastor and director, Rev. Hugh Hollowell, wrote in a blog post. “Today, officers from Raleigh Police Department prevented us from doing our work, for the first time ever. An officer said, quite bluntly, that if we attempted to distribute food, we would be arrested.”

Hollowell said the officers wouldn’t tell the group which ordinance they were violating, but simply told them they had to leave.

Sec. 9-2022 of the rules governing city parks prohibits the distribution of food without a permit.

“No individuals or group shall serve or distribute meals or food of any kind in or on any City park or greenway unless such distribution is pursuant to a permit issued by the Parks, Recreation and Greenway Director,” the ordinance states.

Police spokesman Jim Sughrue said in an email Sunday that no one was arrested and that the group was “simply informed” of the rules, which have been on the books since 1998.

“Work is ongoing with those involved, some of whom are developing alternative sites,” Sughrue said. “Ultimately, the ordinance is a city issue, of course, and when final determinations are made, the police department works with everyone to handle things in the smoothest way possible.”

Love Wins is one of a number of nonprofits who help feed the homeless near Moore Square on weekends.

Todd Pratt, a volunteer with Human Beans Together, said his group was also notified recently that it could no longer serve the homeless on public property. On Sunday, the group moved to a private parking lot across the street from Moore Square, but police also asked them to leave that area.

“We had lots of volunteers and lots of hungry people and nowhere to go,” Pratt said.

William McLaurin, who owns the private lot, allowed the volunteers to stay, but said he was worried about liability issues in the future.

Berrie Alston and Raheen Andrews say they are grateful for meals from volunteers.

“This is the only place that some people can go for a meal,” Alston said. “They are trying to push us out of the park.”

“If the people want to come out and choose to give us some food or anybody some food, why would you stop them?” Andrews asked.

Love Wins and Human Beans say police cited excessive litter in the area on Mondays as a reason for the crackdown, but organizers say they always clean up the mess after serving a meal. They believe the move has to do with the city’s revitalization efforts in the area.

Mid - East Including Israel on High Alert After Obama’s Failed Last-ditch Bid for Syria Deal With Iran
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Monday night, Aug. 25, saw one Middle East country after another, including Israel, going on high military alert after they learned that US President Barack Obama had failed to come to an understanding with Tehran on Syria and so avert a US-led operation against Syria over its chemical attacks.

Obama had hoped this understanding would also pave the way to direct dialogue on the nuclear issue with the new Iranian president Hasan Rouhani.
debkafile’s intelligence sources report that the US president delegated two emissaries for two separate tracks.

He found cause for optimism in Tehran’s consent to receive Jeffrey Feltman, UN Deputy Secretary, Monday, Aug. 25, although in his former capacity as US Undersecretary of State and US ambassador to Damascus, Feltman was viewed as an adversary of Iran, Syria and Hizballah.

Feltman arrived suddenly in Tehran Monday and was received by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif without delay.
The other intermediary was Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who arrived in Tehran Monday for a visit with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He too made no headway in his attempt to persuade his host that the US was amenable to a last-minute understanding on Syria for holding back an attack.

Khamenei responded with a cold threat: If the Americans attack Syria, “the entire Middle East will suffer from burns,” he said.
This response was the signal for orders to American military assets in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf to go on a state of high preparedness Monday night, debkafile’s military sources report. Iran, Russia and Syria deployed their forces in readiness for a US-led attack on Syria. Syrian units were ordered to leave their bases and spread out across the country’s broad open areas.
The ten military chiefs meeting in Amman focused on coordination of the joint operation against Syria which is expected to begin very shortly.
Participating in the meeting chaired by US chief of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey were the top commanders of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada.
The powerful message coming from US Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House spokesman Jay Carney Monday night indicated that the Obama administration was not about to back off its promise of consequences for those responsible for using chemical weapons against civilians and “shocking the world’s conscience.”

Both bluntly accused the Assad regime of the heinous crime of chemical warfare on civilians. “Our understanding is grounded in facts and common sense,” Kerry said: This regime held custody of those weapon stockpiles, had the rockets to use them and was capable of doing so. “Basic humanity is offended by this crime and even more by the attempts to cover it up.
Kerry added:  “We have additional information about these attacks. It is being reviewed with our partners and will be released in the coming days.”

Livni 'undermining Israel's Interests' in Talks
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Gil Ronen
Categories: Today's Headlines;Peace Process

Daily newspaper Maariv reported Tuesday that there are differences of opinion and approach between the two heads of Israel's negotiating team in talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA) - Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and Attorney Yitzhak Molcho, who represents Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

While Livni wants large negotiation teams and a signing of a permanent status deal at the end of the nine months allotted to the “peace process” negotiations, Molcho is opposed to this approach and at this point is interested only in reaching an agreement on principles regarding the core issues.

However, the differences between the two run even deeper, according to Maariv's Eli Berdenstein.

“According to information that has been brought to the attention of the prime minister,” he writes, “while it is true that in the formal meetings with the Palestinians that Livni conducts alongside Molcho she is careful to stick to the official line set by Netanyahu, outside of these meetings, in the conversations Livni holds with American elements or in side conversations with the Palestinians, Netanyahu and Molcho have been hearing that she has been departing from the official line and making statements from which it appears that Israel is ready to give up on its principles even at this stage.”

According to these reports, Livni has said in various conversations that Israel is willing to compromise in Jerusalem, to withdraw from Judea and Samaria and to uproot communities. Netanyahu thinks that Israel should not give up its best cards in the early stages of negotiations, when it is not clear what the PA is willing to cede in terms of security arrangments.

“In Netanyahu's vicinity,” the reporter explains, “there is a feeling that the Americans, whom Israel is making every effort not to bring into the negotiations room, are eagerly using Livni's statements in their conversations with the Palestinians and thus weakening Israel's position in the talks."

Livni's bureau told Maariv: “There are close and good working relations between Minister Livni and Attorney Molcho. In addition, as we have said in the past, we do not and will not give any kind of comment on the content of the negotiations, and this should not be seen as a denial or a confirmation of the claims.”

Let the Headlines Speak
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Ethiopian-Israelis to protest end of aliya tomorrow
While the remaining Falash Mura are not Jewish according to traditional religious definitions, among them, many activists say, are individuals who would qualify as Jewish under the law of return, which stipulates that one only need have a grandparent who is Jewish to qualify. However, it may not be that simple, as too much time has passed and insufficient documentation exists to prove a Jewish genealogy to the satisfaction of the Interior Ministry.  

Russia warns of 'catastrophic consequences' if Syria hit
"Attempts to bypass the Security Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.  

"The speaker made clear that before any action is taken, there must be meaningful consultation with members of Congress, as well as clearly define
“You know, privately there are a lot of Democrats that tell me that they are just distressed over what Obama has done to the health care industry and to jobs. They are afraid to say anything about it because of recriminations, because this regime fights back. I mean, this regime does not take internal criticism at all, just like they try to eliminate all conservative opposition.” Limbaugh also said “it could be curtains” for any member of the Democratic Party who decides to go public with the “slightest disagreement or problem with what Obama’s doing” to the health care industry.  

Boehner to White House: Consult Congress before any Syria action
"The speaker made clear that before any action is taken, there must be meaningful consultation with members of Congress, as well as clearly defined objectives and a broader strategy to achieve stability," Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement.  

Earthquake Rattles Northern Nevada
The unexpected shake lasted about 15 seconds, but it made a big enough impact to have people talking. While no injuries were reported...it was more than just a small rumble for some people in the valley.  

US gave Saddam blessing to use toxins against Iranians
As Washington ponders over whether to hammer Damascus over unidentified use of toxic agents in Syria, declassified CIA documents reveal that 25 years ago the US actually indulged ruthless Saddam Hussein to use chemical warfare gases in war with Iran. The recently declassified documents at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, suggest that the US was closely following the use of chemical weapons by the Saddam Hussein’s regime both against the enemy in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and against Iraq’s Kurdish population, reports Foreign Policy magazine.  

Massive Dolphin Die-Off Could Be From Measles-Like Virus
Some 70 miles away, dolphins are turning up dead along the Jersey shore and other coastal communities and, at this point, the cause still remains largely unknown. More than 200 dolphins have washed ashore since June and many have ended up on UPenn’s New Bolton Center research tables where veterinarians look to find an answer. The UPenn lab was specifically called upon for this task due to close ties with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center (MMSC) in Brigantine, NJ, which handled many of the deceased creatures that turned up on nearby shorelines.  

New Chinese Bird Flu May Be Worse Than H7N9 Virus
A team of Hong Kong researchers found the virus in about 25 percent of the fowl sampled, many of which also had the H7N9 virus. By testing the H7N7 virus on ferrets, the researchers found that it can be transmitted to mammals. “If (we) let this H7N7 continue circulating in chickens, I am sure that human infection cases will occur,” study co-author Guan Yi at the University of Hong Kong told AFP.  

Skirting the ground: How the West will attack Syria
The British Daily Mail newspaper revealed on Monday the American-British target list in Syria and the forces likely to participate in a military operation – be it a short or a long one – in the torn Arab country.  

Syria says it will defend itself against attack
He said that Syria had two choices, either to surrender or to fight back, and it would choose the latter. He declined to elaborate or say to what specific means he was referring.  

Syria crisis: Russia and China step up warning over strike
Russia and China have stepped up their warnings against military intervention in Syria, with Moscow saying any such action would have "catastrophic consequences" for the region. The US and its allies are considering launching strikes on Syria in response to deadly attacks last week. The US said there was "undeniable" proof of a chemical attack, on Monday.  

Dem bill would trigger huge new taxes on guns, ammo
A pair of Democratic lawmakers are proposing steep new taxes on handguns and ammunition, and tying the revenues to programs aimed at preventing gun violence. Called the “Gun Violence Prevention and Safe Communities Act," the bill sponsored by William Pascrell, D-N.J., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., would nearly double the current 11 percent tax on handguns, while raising the levy on bullets and cartridges from 11 percent to 50 percent.  

Boy dies of plague in Kyrgyzstan
A 15-year-old herder has died in Kyrgyzstan of bubonic plague - the first case in the country in 30 years - officials say. The teenager appears to have been bitten by an infected flea. The authorities have sought to calm fears of an epidemic and have quarantined more than 100 people.  

US Inches Toward Decision on Syria
Administration officials, signaling they might not wait until U.N. inspectors finalize their own investigation, now say that the international community must respond to the use of chemical weapons. The comments from top U.S. officials on Monday signaled a shift in tone, with military action looking more likely than it did just a day or two ago.  

Mexico mudslides and flash flooding kill 14
More than a dozen people have died in eastern Mexico, in landslides triggered by heavy rain caused by tropical depression Fernand. Thirteen people were killed when mud engulfed their homes on hillsides in Veracruz state. Another man drowned after being swept away by fast-flowing floodwaters in neighbouring Oaxaca.  

U.S. will hit debt limit in mid-October, treasury secretary warns
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew is telling Congress that the U.S. government will hit its borrowing limit in mid-October and urged lawmakers to raise it before then. Lew said in a letter to Speaker John Boehner released Monday that the government is running out of accounting manoeuvres it has used to avoid hitting the US$16.7-trillion borrowing limit. He pressed Congress to act so Treasury can keep paying the government’s bills.  

Germany not keen to join France and UK in Syria strike
Germany has indicated it will not take part in any military strike on Syria, as France and the UK signal readiness to join a US-led intervention. Philipp Missfelder, the foreign affairs spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party, said in the Leipziger Volkszeitung daily on Tuesday (27 August) that: "The [German] army has, through its current international operations, already reached the breaking point."  

Attacking Israel would be self-destructive act for Assad
Washington is facing...pressure to punish the Syrian regime for last week’s chemical massacre...and the US...is likely planning its military strike. Any US military step will probably serve as a “slap” to the Syrian regime...Hence, it would be an act of self-destruction on Assad’s part to drag Israel into the conflict...would endanger the very existence of the embattled regime in Damascus.  

California Rim Fire showers ash on reservoir
A huge fire in and around California's Yosemite National Park has continued to spread and now covers almost 230 sq miles (600 sq km), officials say. The Rim Fire is now raining ash on a key reservoir that supplies water and hydro-electric power to San Francisco. City officials say they are moving water to lower reservoirs and monitoring supplies for contamination.  

Huge aquifer that runs through 8 states quickly being tapped out
Nearly 70 percent of the groundwater stored in parts of the United States' High Plains Aquifer — a vast underground reservoir that stretches through eight states, from South Dakota to Texas, and supplies 30 percent of the nation's irrigated groundwater — could be used up within 50 years unless current water use is reduced, a new study finds.  

Iran warns of grave consequences of Syria attack
Iran has warned a visiting top UN official of "serious consequences" for the region if there is international military action in Syria, foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi said Tuesday.  

Despite "Austerity" Greek Debt Is Rising At Its Fastest Rate Since March 2010
The total amount of Greek government debt outstanding has grown so much over the last 15 months that it has retraced over 60% of the 'haircut'-based reduction and has jumped a stunning 14.5% in that period.  

European Union Foreign Ministers Look To Create Super President For The European Union
This proposed new super president of the European Union would be the overall powerful leader of Europe with responsibility over Europe's economic matters, all foreign policy, and any European military operation. This report is almost like reading the prophetic scenario that can be found in Bible prophecy for the last days.  

Where’s Obama?: If I Had A Son, He’d Look Like One Of Those Bored Kids Who Shot Christopher Lane
The white victim’s name is Christopher Lane. The young man was an Australian native who was attending college in the United States on a baseball scholarship But 15-year-old James Edwards Jr. and his bored “niggas” were evidently so disgusted and enraged by Lane’s skin pigment that they pulled up behind him as he jogged and shot him in the back. Three days before the shooting, the suspect tweeted: "With my niggas when it’s time to start taken life’s"  

Girl Guide Christians Give in to Secular Oath
Aug 27th, 2013
Daily NewsThe Telegraph
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A group of Christian Girl Guides who refused to drop God from their traditional oath have bowed to pressure and agreed to use the new secular promise, despite more than 800 complaints about the oath from Guide members across the country.