July 15 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen discusses economic progress and employment gains in the United States. She speaks in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told lawmakers the central bank must press on with record monetary stimulus to combat persistent job-market weakness.
“There are mixed signals concerning the economy,” Yellen said in response to questions during testimony to the Senate Banking Committee today. “We need to be careful to make sure that the economy is on a solid trajectory before we consider raising interest rates.”
While her “overall view is more positive,” Yellen said low wages are one sign of “significant slack” in labor markets, even after the jobless rate fell to an almost six-year low. In unusually emotive language for a central banker, she talked about the “psychological trauma” suffered by the unemployed and their families.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon vowed on Wednesday that Israel will continue its operation in Gaza until Hamas understands that it was a mistake to fire rockets towards Israel.
"Even at this hour, Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza continue to fire missiles and rockets at Israel and try to carry out terror attacks,” he told a graduation ceremony of the National Defense College in the Galilee.
"As of last Monday, IDF forces have been operating by land, by sea and especially by air, and have dealt the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip a serious blow,” added Ya’alon.
The troops, he stressed, “are extracting a very heavy price from Hamas and will continue to do so until quiet is restored to the southern part of the country and other parts of Israel. The Hamas leaders who are hiding underground and use Gaza residents, women and children as human shields should know this.”
Ya'alon said that IDF forces, in a joint effort with the Israel Security Agency (ISA), continue to severely damage Hamas and its infrastructure.
“So far, government institutions, manufacturing facilities, weapons, launching sites, rockets, senior commanders’ homes, tunnels and more have been destroyed,” he said. “Terrorists were killed. The IDF activity is systematic and aims to strike Hamas in such a way that when its leaders examine the extent of the destruction and damage brought about them, they will understand that it was a mistake to attack Israel.”
“We will continue to act decisively and firmly until peace and security are restored to Israel,” concluded Ya’alon.
Earlier Wednesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a similar warning to Hamas.
"Those who shoot at us are not looking for a political solution, they want the destruction and disappearance of Israel," Netanyahu stated Wednesday afternoon. "We have only one answer for them: we will fight you and defeat you."
"Israel must take immediate action to defend itself, as any normal country would do against terrorists who commit war crimes," he added.
The world economy is just as vulnerable to a financial crisis as it was in 2007, with the added danger that debt ratios are now far higher and emerging markets have been drawn into the fire as well, the Bank for International Settlements has warned.
Jaime Caruana, head of the Swiss-based financial watchdog, said investors were ignoring the risk of monetary tightening in their voracious hunt for yield.
“Markets seem to be considering only a very narrow spectrum of potential outcomes. They have become convinced that monetary conditions will remain easy for a very long time, and may be taking more assurance than central banks wish to give,” he told The Telegraph.
Mr Caruana said the international system is in many ways more fragile than it was in the build-up to the Lehman crisis. Debt ratios in the developed economies have risen by 20 percentage points to 275pc of GDP since then.
Credit spreads have fallen to to wafer-thin levels. Companies are borrowing heavily to buy back their own shares. The BIS said 40pc of syndicated loans are to sub-investment grade borrowers, a higher ratio than in 2007, with ever fewer protection covenants for creditors.
The disturbing twist in this cycle is that China, Brazil, Turkey and other emerging economies have succumbed to private credit booms of their own, partly as a spill-over from quantitative easing in the West.
Their debt ratios have risen 20 percentage points as well, to 175pc. Average borrowing rates for five-years is 1pc in real terms. This is extemely low, and could reverse suddenly. “We are watching this closely. If we were concerned by excessive leverage in 2007, we cannot be more relaxed today,” he said.
“It may be the case that the debt is better distributed because some highly-indebted countries have deleveraged, like the private sector in the US or Spain, and banks are better capitalized. But there is also now more sensitivity to interest rate movements."
The BIS warned it is annual report two weeks ago that equity markets had become "euphoric". Volatility has dropped to an historic low. European equities have risen 15pc in a year despite near zero growth and a 3pc fall in expected earnings. The cyclically-adjusted price earnings ratio of the S&P 500 index in the US reached 25 in May, six points above its half-century average. The Tobin's Q measure is far more stretched than in 2007.
“Overall, it is hard to avoid the sense of a puzzling disconnect between the markets’ buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally,” it said.
Mr Caruana declined to be drawn on when the bubble will burst. "As Keynes said, markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent,” he said.
The BIS says prolonged monetary stimulus in the US, Europe, and Japan has led to a leakage of liquidity, contaminating the rest of the world. The rising powers of Asia are no longer able to act as a firebreak – as they did after the Lehman crash –and may themselves now be a source of risk.
Emerging markets have racked up $2 trillion in foreign currency debt since 2008. They are a much larger animal than they were during the East Asia crisis of the late 1990s, so any crisis would do more damage. “The ramifications would be particularly serious if China, home to an outsize financial boom, were to falter," it said.
BIS officials doubt privately the whether China can avoid a ‘hard landing’, fearing that the extreme credit growth over the last five years must lead to a financial reckoning. They also doubt whether the aftermath will in the end be easier to deal with in a state-controlled banking system where the Communist Party controls the credit levers.
The annual report suggested that China’s $4 trillion of reserves are a Maginot Line defence. It noted US was also a large external creditor in the 1920s, as was Japan in the 1980s, before each went into deep crisis. “Time and again, in both advanced and emerging market economies, seemingly strong bank balance sheets have turned out to mask unsuspected vulnerabilities that surface only after the financial boom has given way to bust,” it said.
The BIS is the doyen of world’s financial institutions, created in Basel in 1930 to clean up the mess left by German reparations payments under the Versailles Treaty. It has since evolved into the bank of central banks, and lately the bastion of monetary orthodoxy. It issued a crescendo of warnings in the build-up to the Lehman crisis, implicitly rebuking the US Federal Reserve and others for holding interest rates too low, which in their view robs economic growth from the future.
The BIS was vindicated, though not everybody agrees that it was right for the right reasons. Monetarists argue that the Great Recession was due to over-tightening into the downturn. This caused M3 broad money growth to collapse months before the banking crisis.
The BIS backed QE as an emergency measure in early 2009 to avert a deflationary spiral but has long since called for a return to sound money, and even rate rises. "The predominant risk is that central banks will find themselves behind the curve, exiting too late or too slowly," it said.
This has earned BIS a reputation for Austrian School ideology , accused of encouraging crude liquidation. The bank denies this, tracing the bank’s doctrines to the pre-Keynesian Swedish economist Knut Wicksell.
Wicksell posited a “natural rate of interest”. Holding rates too low creates a host of problems. While his model looks like the modern “Taylor Rule” used by the Fed and other central banks, it is different in crucial respects.
Confident in its cause, the BIS more or less indicts the central bank establishment of malpractice. "Policy does not lean against the booms but eases aggressively and persistently during busts. This induces a downward bias in interest rates and an upward bias in debt levels, which in turn makes it hard to raise rates without damaging the economy – a debt trap."
"Systemic financial crises do not become less frequent or intense, private and public debts continue to grow, the economy fails to climb onto a stronger sustainable path, and monetary and fiscal policies run out of ammunition. Over time, policies lose their effectiveness and may end up fostering the very conditions they seek to prevent," it said.
Basel's lonely call for discipline pits it against the Fed, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, and even Frankfurt these days. It prompted an unusually piquant riposte from London earlier this month. "Has monetary policy aided and abetted risk-taking? I hope so. That's why we did it," said the Bank of England’s chief economist Andy Haldane.
"It is good to have the debate,” said Mr Caruana gamely. Yet he refuses to back down. “There is something strange about fighting debt by incentivizing more debt."
He is now skirmishing on a fresh front, questioning the Fed's new enthusiasm for macro-prudential curbs as a first line of defence. "On their own there is little evidence that they can constrain financial imbalances. We don’t think macro-pro can serve as a substitute," he said.
Mr Caruana said the US recovery is not a vindication of monetary stimulus, but evidence that the best answer to "balance sheet recessions" is to clear away the dead wood and unlock resources for new technologies. “The Americans were quite aggressive in forcing recognition of losses and there was a very rapid recapitalisation of the banks. This is why it was successful. The role of quantitative easing is an open question.”
Mr Caruana dismisses the global deflation scare as alarmist, even though Sweden's Riksbank has just abandoned his camp and slashed rates to near zero to avert a Japanase-style trap. Deflation is very unlikely to happen in the West, he insists. Gently falling prices are typically benign in any case. "We should not exaggerate the role of deflation in history," he said.
The Great Depression is the exception, not the rule. Welfare systems and unemployment insurance now make such an outcome almost impossible. "In the 1930s the stabilizers were very different," he said.
Critics are unlikely to accept this assurance since Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Latvia have all gone through depressions over the last six years, and Italy, France and Holland are all close to debt-deflation. The concern is what would now happen to parts of Europe if there were a fresh downturn or an external shock. Debt ratios are higher than they were in the 19th Century. The "denominator effect" of deflation is therefore more destructive today.
The International Monetary Fund has hinted that it might be best for the world to chip away its debt mountain with a few years of inflation, as the US did in late 1940s and early 1950s, armed with financial repression.
Asked whether he would support this form of loss recognition for creditors, Mr Caruana came close to choking. “It must be clearly resisted,” he said.
(CNN) — The road was melting.
Extreme heat from thermal features at Yellowstone National Park, created by the active volcano below the park, caused oil to bubble on a road surface Wednesday and damage it.
Park crews had to close and repair the 3.3-mile loop road that takes visitors past White Dome Geyser, Great Fountain Geyser and Firehole Lake.
Blame it on the Yellowstone Volcano.
Yellowstone National Park — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — sits atop one of the world’s largest volcanoes, and some of the thermal spots have damaged the popular Firehole Lake Drive. The park features over 10,000 thermal spots, about half the world’s known thermal spots.
Although the volcano is active — evidenced by the thermal features and 1,000 to 3,000 earthquakes annually — park officials don’t expect a catastrophic eruption anytime in the next 1,000 or even 10,000 years.
Yellowstone’s first supervolcanic eruption occurred 2.1 million years ago, and there were other Yellowstone supereruptions 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago.
The park has instruments monitoring the volcano throughout the park, and there would be plenty of warning — weeks or even months — if an eruption were going to occur.
In the meantime, enjoy the park! Maintenance crews quickly repaired the road, and it was reopened to visitors Saturday.
Report: Terrorists Offer 10 - Year Truce
Jul 16th, 2014
Daily NewsArutz Sheva
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues
Troops amassing at the border with Gaza
Flash 90
Palestinian Arab sources reported Wednesday that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have drafted a ceasefire offer that would involve a 10-year truce with Israel.
The terrorists want all crossings into Gaza opened, and an international airport to be opened in Gaza. The Rafah crossing is to be opened up to international traffic, under UN supervision, with international observers along the borders.
There is no official confirmation of the offer and it is being greeted with skepticism, as more of a trial balloon than an actual offer.
Other articles in the alleged proposal include the withdrawal of IDF tanks from areas they entered in Operation Protective Edge; a complete removal of the blockade on Gaza; an international sea port; no more flights by Israeli aircraft over Palestinian territory and expansion of the fishing zone to 10 km from the shoreline.
In addition, the terrorists demand that Israel release the terror prisoners who were freed in the Shalit deal and re-arrested in Operation Brother's Keeper.
Other terrorist conditions: Israel will be obliged not to interfere with the activity of the Palestinian unity government, and industrial zones along the border will be rebuilt and renovated.
Just one week ago, reports began to surface that residents of Mosul, Iraq – a town captured by the terrorist jihadi group Islamic State (formerly Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS) – had returned to normal life and were even happier with the jihadist leadership than the Iraqi government. Reports this week indicate otherwise.
According to outlets like NBC and Vice, life in Mosul had returned to a relative calm, and ISIS's ability to provide water and electricity was winning over the Sunni population of the city. Also under their control were the food and necessary goods of the city, as Mosul is fully controlled and surrounded by the terrorist group. In a report Monday, the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) notes that ISIS has begun using its rationing system against Christians and Shiites, denying them basic needs.
Their report, based on an Arabic report in the outlet Ankawa, claims that government workers in the city were explicitly told not to give rations to Christians and Shiites. One worker in particular told the outlet that he "was warned that if he gives rations to Christians and Shiites he will be charged and prosecuted according to sharia law."
ISIS has committed violent acts against Christians in Mosul before, particularly attacking and destroying the tomb of the prophet Jonah. It has also begun converting Christian areas of prayer into Muslim properties. AINA reports that the cross above the St. Ephrem Cathedral in Mosul has been removed, with photos showing that the cross is no longer visible on top of the cathedral's dome. St. Ephrem Cathedral is the seat of Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese in Mosul.
Christians have fled Mosul in droves, attempting to reach Kurdish territory, where they are accepted, or pass through the country's borders to other areas. One factor that may be triggering the denial of rations – which would essentially starve Christians to death – is the fact that Christians who fled are returning to Mosul. A report from Charisma News notes that many who fled the city have decided to return, finding no other suitable refuge. An organization working with Christians in Iraq tells the news outlet that, in speaking to Christian families, "some families mentioned it is better to die at home than staying on streets."
The ecumenical movement towards a one–world religion seems to gaining traction fast, with the meeting of mainstream protestant church leaders warming up to the Vatican in an effort that purports to work toward tearing down the ‘walls of division’ between Catholics and Protestants.
In a recent report, ChristianNews.net reported that two controversial TV preachers, Kenneth Copeland and James Robison recently met Pope Francis with the aim of working together towards this goal. Copeland and Robison are two religious leaders in northeast Texas known for drawing huge crowds to their services and events, and who were a part of leading the group identifying as a “delegation of Evangelical Christian leaders” in its meeting with the Roman Catholic pontiff late last month. Copeland heads Kenneth Copeland Ministries and Eagle Mountain International Church, while Robison is said to be an “apostolic elder” at Gateway Church and co-hosts the Life Today TV program.
Copeland and Robison are both reported to have visited Pope Francis at the Vatican in late June for nearly 3 hours of “prayerful discussion” as described in Robison’s blog post. “We continued in such glorious fellowship that words could never begin to describe it,” he wrote. “I am fighting back tears even as I write, so glorious was the manifest presence of Jesus.”
Robison was afterward quoted as describing the meeting as “an answered prayer”, a “supernatural gathering” and “an unprecedented moment between evangelicals and the Catholic Pope.” Said Robison: “This meeting was a miracle…this is something God has done. God wants his arms around the world. And he wants Christians to put his arms around the world by working together…The world is suffering…We as Christians have too much love to share without fighting one another.”
Copeland reportedly also shared similarly positive sentiments about the visit. According to Robison’s blog post, Copeland “lovingly” spoke “a few words of encouragement” to Pope Francis, afterward praying for him.
These leaders are not the first mainstream protestant leaders to have warmed up to the Roman Catholic church and the papacy. As previously reported, megachurch speaker Joel Osteen similarly met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in early June. After the meeting, Osteen praised the Pope’s attempts to make the church “more inclusive.”
It is noteworthy that certain other Christian leaders have also been making similar moves towards inclusivity of Islam, in what is now being commonly described as the creation of “Chrislam”, a merger of Christianity and Islam. This movement has been initiated or embraced by other leaders representing Christendom as well. Examples were provided in an earlier edition of Prophecy News Watch in March and April.
What should be made of these efforts to unite Christians with non-Christians and Protestants with Catholics? Unity of mind and purpose is so powerful that even God had to intervene to scuttle an attempt to build a tower from earth to heaven (Genesis 11:1-9). However, is unity to be had at all costs, or it to be based on truth? Clearly , in what is considered to be Jesus longest prayer on earth, he yearns for unity in the body of Christ, as recorded in John 17: 11,21-23:
•"that they may be one, as we are" (11)
•"that they all may be one" (21)
•"that they also may be one in us" (21)
•"that they may be one, even as we are one" (22)
•"I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one" (23)
In view of Jesus passionate prayer for unity, should we not all be eager to hop onto the unity bandwagon? Only in very qualified circumstances. Jesus was clearly referring to unity in the faith, not outside of it. Evangelical outreach.org expounds on this:
“…In contrast to all of this, there is also a false unity offered and promoted by the devil! The counterfeit would like to combine all who merely profess a belief in Jesus Christ under one religious banner of tolerance. They seem to think we should unite on things like the Lord’s Prayer. They also believe doctrine is not important… truth regarding the plan of salvation is pre-eminent over unity with other religious people! Therefore, to unify at the expense of truth is NOT from God. That is not Christian unity, but the devil’s false unity. Furthermore, Paul risked Christian unity with Peter to maintain truth, when Peter was in error! See Gal. 2:11-21.”
So where exactly have Protestants found common purpose with the Roman Catholic system, given the glaring foundational differences in doctrine, approach and perspective? It is instructive that to begin with, as was recently reported by nowtheendbegins.com, that the Pope recognizes no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church. In which case, the protestant leaders seeking unity are not aware of this, or are prepared to sacrifice key doctrinal beliefs at the altar of religious inclusivity for all.
The Bible says, in Ephesians 2:8, 9 that “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”Does the Catholic church believe this? Nowtheendbegins.com goes on to quote a sermon delivered by the pope on June 25th, in which he emphasizes a gospel of salvation by works: “…The Christian belongs to a people called the Church and this Church is what makes him or her Christian, on the day of Baptism, and then in the course of catechesis, and so on… We have received the faith from our fathers, from our ancestors, and they instructed us in it.” In other words, you cannot come to God directly through prayer and faith in God through Jesus Christ, but only through following the rites and traditions of the Catholic Church as handed down by the ancestors.
In another statement, the pope declares: “Dear friends, let us ask the Lord, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, for the grace to never fall into the temptation of thinking we can make it without others, that we can get along without the (Catholic) Church…you cannot love God outside of the Church; you cannot be in communion with God without being so in the Church.”
Is this what the Bible says? Who intercedes for Christians before God, is it Jesus or Mary? 1 Timothy 2:5-6 states categorically: For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time..
Acts 4:12 states: Nor is there salvation in any other (Jesus), for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
ChristianNews.net reported that when news of the ecumenical get-together at the Vatican was publicized, many Christians expressed disappointment, saying it was unwise for the evangelical leaders to meet with Pope Francis.
As the Apostle Paul said: Follow me as I follow Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). Anyone who does enough research will have to conclude that the differences between protestant and catholic doctrine are not subtle or trivial, but instead profound and irreconcilable.
The ongoing global ecumenical movement that seeks to unite all religions under the ruse that “all religions lead to God”, or that there are many paths that lead to heaven and salvation cannot be reconciled with Jesus’ own very categorical statement: Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6). This brings us to the pertinent rhetoric question asked in the Bible: Can two walk together, except they be agreed? (Amos 3:3).
Car damaged by Gaza rocket
Flash 90
The majority of the Israeli public is against a ceasefire with Hamas at this time, a poll conducted for Channel 2 News on Tuesday found.
53% of respondents said they opposed a ceasefire with Hamas, while 35% said they support it. 12% said they did not know or refused to answer.
At the same time, a majority of respondents were pessimistic about Operation Protective Edge bringing an end to the rocket fire from Gaza. 92% said they believe that the operation will not end the rocket fire, and only 6% said that they believe that Hamas would stop the rocket fire after the operation.
Respondents were also asked whether they were satisfied with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s performance over the past week. 53% said they were satisfied with Netanyahu's performance, compared to 35% who thought the Prime Minister’s performance during Operation Protective Edge was not satisfactory.
Results of the poll were made public as Netanyahu threatened a full ground invasion in the event that escalation from Gaza continues.
The comments came hours after Israel agreed to Egypt’s proposed ceasefire, but Hamas rejected it and continued to fire rockets, prompting Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to order the IDF to resume its airstrikes on Gaza.
"Hamas chose to continue the conflict and it will pay the price for it," said Netanyahu. "Anyone who tries to harm the citizens of Israel, Israel will hurt them."
"As long as there is no ceasefire, we will respond with fire [of our own]," he stressed.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman visited the southern city of Ashkelon on Wednesday afternoon, together with his Norwegian counterpart.
“We need a ground operation in order to ensure quiet,” Liberman said during his visit at a home hit by a missile.”We need to do all we can to neutralize Hamas’ abilities.”
"Dancing together with Arabs? Laughing together with them? These are the people I hated my whole life," says Chava, a Messianic Jewish girl who grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Israel.
Chava was part of a three-day gathering where she met with an estimated 1,000 Messianic Jewish and Arab Christian youth and young adults in Haifa. At a time when murderous kidnappings, violent riots and a developing war in Gaza are bringing racial tensions to boiling point, these young Messianic Jews and Arab Christians arrived at the conference still reeling with all the raw emotions of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"These young people came carrying a lot of hurt because of all the recent violence here in Israel," says Rick Ridings, organizer of the annual Elav conference. "Many of them thought that they had dealt with these feelings, but because of the kidnappings and killings they are in pain, on both sides."
For Chava, who grew up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish ghetto, it was the first time to be in such close quarters with Arabs. "I used to walk with my family to the Wailing Wall and pray that bad things would happen to the Arabs," she recalls. "We have this view that Arabs are bad people. But when I saw them praying to God, and heard them worshipping in Hebrew and then in Arabic, God touched my heart. These are the lost brothers and sisters I have been looking for all my life," she says.
Ridings, who has been organizing these gatherings since 2007, was not sure that any of the young Arabs or Jews would even want to be together during such difficult times. "I didn't know if any of the Palestinian Arabs would even be able, or want to come," he says. "Yet almost miraculously, given the heightened security, about 50 Palestinian believers were able to come."
"These were some of the most meaningful times I have seen at the conference," Ridings told Israel Today. "Perhaps the situation forced these young people to get over the things that normally cause problems. This was real, not just some canned program."
For many of the young believers this was the first time they had ever had a meaningful encounter with the other side. When an Arab believer who grew up in Gaza and a young Messianic Israeli shared their testimonies, it helped others to open up and talk about what they really feel, sharing honestly about what had happened in the army, or with friends killed by terrorists.
"As I washed the feet of my Arab sister, I was able to ask forgiveness for the way my family, and my people, look at them (Arabs)," says Chava. "To hear her say that she forgives me and loves me was so healing. It was the love from Yeshua, nothing else. I never had an Arab friend. Now I have daily contact with my sisters in Ramallah, Jordan and Lebanon," she smiles.
"After hearing my story," continues Chava, "an Arab girl came up to tell me that she hated religious Jews whenever she saw them. This was her first time meeting with someone who came from an Orthodox religious background. She ran to me and asked for forgiveness and asked me to pray for her that she would have more love for my people."
Ridings says that the vision for these gatherings is "to provide a safe environment for Jewish, Arab and Palestinian youth and young adults to have personal encounters with the Lord, to wait on him through worship and prayer, to grow in unity, and to be challenged to minister the Kingdom of God into every area of society."
On the last evening of the gathering, a young Messianic Jew shared about spending three months in Syria helping war refugees. The conference concluded with a call for the young people to go and share the powerful testimony of what Yeshua can do for our broken world.
Let the Headlines Speak
Jul 16th, 2014
Daily NewsFrom the internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues
Methane explosion? Meteorite crater? Scientists baffled by gigantic 262ft hole that has appeared at Siberia's 'End of The World'
An urgent expedition will leaves tomorrow to probe a giant crater that has appeared in gas-rich northern Siberia. Extraordinary aerial images show a mysterious hole which experts say may be up to 262 feet wide, in the Yamal Peninsula of northern Russia. 'A scientific team has been sent to investigate the hole and is due to arrive at the scene on Wednesday,' The Siberian Times has reported.
Do ‘Atheists’ Actually Not Exist? Scientists Say All People Innately Believe in God
A number of scientists in recent years have stated that atheists might not actually exist, and that a belief in God is naturally ingrained into all people, prompting a recent article that is stirring discussion around the world.
Messianic Jews, Arab Christians Gather Amidst Violence and Anger
For many of the young believers this was the first time they had ever had a meaningful encounter with the other side. When an Arab believer who grew up in Gaza and a young Messianic Israeli shared their testimonies, it helped others to open up and talk about what they really feel, sharing honestly about what had happened in the army, or with friends killed by terrorists.
Obama Laughs, Fist Bumps Crossdresser for Saying He Has Sex With Men
“Equal rights for gay people!” he declared as he emphatically slapped the counter. “Are you gay?” Obama asked. “Only when I have sex,” Webb replied. He tells the Austin Chronicle that Obama then began laughing and offered his fist, saying, “Bump me.” But not everyone finds the exchange humorous, especially Obama’s reaction as the leader of the nation. “Obama never misses the opportunity to besmirch the office of president of these United States,” wrote Geoffrey Grider of Now the End Begins. “Fist-bumping with flaming homosexuals while making wildly inappropriate gay sex jokes? Sure! Obama has never met a low that he didn’t like.”
Report: Terrorists Offer 10-Year Truce
Palestinian Arab sources reported Wednesday that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have drafted a ceasefire offer that would involve a 10-year truce with Israel.
House votes to slash IRS tax enforcement budget
"The use of a government agency to harass, target, intimidate and threaten lawful, honest citizens was the worst form of authoritarianism," said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., author of an amendment to cut the IRS tax enforcement budget by $353 million. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., followed up with an amendment to cut $788 million more. The underlying bill already contained a $72 million cut from last year's $5 billion enforcement budget, bringing the total cut to $1.2 billion.
Israel warns Gazans to leave homes as Hamas urged to accept cease-fire
Israel warned thousands of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip Wednesday to “evacuate immediately” or face danger as its military continued its aerial offensive against Hamas, a day after the militant group rejected a cease-fire plan proposed by Egypt.
Proof: Progressivism is a death cult
I’d like to show how modern-day progressive ideology is actually a death cult – similar in every respect to the ancient rites of Baal and Dagan worship. I will only use a recent action of the Presbyterian Church USA leadership, hijacked by progressives, to make the point.
See where asteroids have hit Earth since 2001
Between 2000 and 2013, the sensors detected 26 explosions on Earth ranging in energy from one to 600 kilotonnes - but these were not caused by nuclear explosions, but rather by asteroid impacts.
Moderate 4.6 quake hits Japan, no tsunami warning
A moderate 4.6-magnitude earthquake hit the region that hosts Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant today, but there were no reports of damage and authorities did not issue a tsunami warning.
Typhoon Rammasun hits central Philippines as death toll rises
A typhoon has killed at least 10 people as it churned across the Philippines and shut down the capital Manila, cutting power and prompting the evacuation of almost more than 370,000 people. The eye of Typhoon Rammasun, the strongest storm to hit the country this year, passed to the south of Manila on Wednesday...toppling trees and power lines and causing electrocutions and widespread blackouts.
Obama's New Immigration Strategy 'Threatens Foundation of Our Constitutional Republic'
Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has warned all of his colleagues in Congress that President Barack Obama’s new immigration strategy—his plans to legalize millions of illegal alien adults through executive power—could destroy America as we know it. ...Sessions, Congress’s top immigration hawk, wrote in a letter that was hand-delivered to all 535 members of Congress on Monday...
Syria President Bashar al-Assad sworn in for third term
Bashar al-Assad has been sworn in for a third seven-year term as president of Syria, after an election last month that opponents dismissed as a "farce". State television broadcast what it said was a live ceremony from the presidential palace in Damascus. Mr Assad vowed to fight "terrorism" until security was restored to all of the country, but also promised to offer "national reconciliation" to opponents.
EU leaders may expand Russia sanctions
The EU has provisionally agreed to start listing Russian companies over the Ukraine crisis ahead of Wednesday’s (16 July) summit. Member states’ ambassadors at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday clinched a deal to alter the legal basis of the EU’s Russia blacklist to enable the bloc to target Russian firms which benefit from, or which are linked to, its aggression against Ukraine.
Report: Hamas proposes 10-year cease-fire in return for conditions being met
One day after an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire accepted by Israel, but rejected by Hamas...the terrorist organization proposed a 10-year end to hostilities... Hamas's conditions were the release of re-arrested Palestinian prisoners who were let go in the Schalit deal, the opening of Gaza-Israel border crossings...and international supervision of the Gazan seaport in place of the current Israeli blockade.
Hungry U.S. Power Plant Turns to Russia for Coal Shipment
Utilities in the U.S. are scrambling for coal, on pace to increase imports 26 percent this year, as railroad bottlenecks slow deliveries and electricity demand climbs with an improving economy. Russia, the world’s third-largest exporter of the fuel, will boost shipments 3.9 percent to 106 million metric tons this year, IHS Energy forecasts, part of President Vladimir Putin’s plan to expand Russia’s role in the global coal market.
Brics nations to create $100bn development bank
The leaders of the five Brics countries have signed a deal to create a new $100bn (£58.3bn) development bank and emergency reserve fund. The Brics group is made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The capital for the bank will be split equally among the five participating countries.
Iran minister floats nuclear talks extension
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has suggested that talks on Iran's nuclear programme could be extended beyond a 20 July deadline. After two days of talks in Vienna, he said progress had been made and "more time may help". Earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry said there had been "tangible progress" but differences remained.
Typhoon spares Manila, leaves 7 dead elsewhere
Typhoon Rammasun left at least seven people dead and knocked out power in many areas but it spared the Philippine capital, Manila, and densely populated northern provinces from being directly battered Wednesday when its fierce wind shifted slightly away, officials said.
Mexico southern border control so far just talk
Mexico is promising to stem the flow of Central American migrants to the United States by tightening control at its notoriously porous Guatemalan border. But messages from the country's top two leaders in little more than a week have provided few details on how. And the scene on the ground is business as usual.
Iraq names moderate Sunni parliament speaker in move to break political deadlock
Iraqi politicians named a moderate Sunni Islamist as speaker of parliament on Tuesday, a long-delayed first step towards a power-sharing government urgently needed to save the state from disintegration in the face of a Sunni uprising.
A supporter of gay marriage waves a rainbow flag outside the Utah State Capitol. Photo: AP
Less than 3 per cent of the US population identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported in the first large-scale government survey measuring Americans’ sexual orientation.
The National Health Interview Survey, which is the government’s premier tool for annually assessing Americans’ health and behaviours, found that 1.6 per cent of adults self-identify as gay or lesbian, and 0.7 per cent consider themselves bisexual.
The overwhelming majority of adults, 96.6 per cent, labelled themselves as straight in the 2013 survey. An additional 1.1 per cent declined to answer, responded “I don’t know the answer” or said they were “something else”.
The figures offered a slightly smaller assessment of the size of the gay, lesbian and bisexual population than other surveys, which have pegged the overall proportion at closer to 3.5 or 4 per cent. In particular, the estimate for bisexuals was lower than in some other surveys.
The inclusion of the sexual-orientation question in an influential survey used to guide government funding and research decisions was viewed as a major victory for the gay community, which has struggled with a dearth of data about its special health needs.
“This is a major step forward in trying to remedy some of these gaps in our understanding of the role sexual orientation and gender identity play in people’s health and in their lives,” said Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute, a research centre at the University of California at Los Angeles that studies the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population.
Begun in 1957, the US health interview survey comprises a wide range of questions, on topics including medical care, vaccinations and tobacco use. The data is collected for the CDC by the Census Bureau, which conducts interviews with thousands of Americans across the country. It is highly regarded because of its large sample size — it comprised 33,557 adults between the ages of 18 and 64 for the most recent survey — and because of its methods, which include face-to-face interviews and some follow-up telephone queries.
A few other federal surveys ask about sexual orientation but are not large enough to provide data that can be generalised to the country as a whole, government health officials have said.
The information released by the CDC offers an initial analysis through the lens of sexual orientation on measures critical to public health, such as smoking, drinking and health insurance status.
It did not find a broad pattern suggesting that one group was less healthy overall than any other group, said Brian Ward, the researcher for the report. Echoing other studies, it found that, compared with straight people, gays were more likely to smoke and to have consumed five or more drinks in one day at least once in the past year. Straight women were more likely to consider themselves in excellent or very good health than women who identified as lesbian.
But gays were more likely to have received a flu shot than straight people, and gay men were less likely to be overweight than straight men.
In some cases, the more notable disparities were experienced by bisexuals. People who identify as being attracted to both sexes are more likely to have experienced psychological distress in the past 30 days than straight people, the survey showed.
“We just don’t know much about bisexuality right now, and we’re finally starting to do some research in that area,” said Judy Bradford, director of the Centre for Population Research in LGBT Health at the Fenway Institute in Boston. The study may prompt more scrutiny of this understudied population, she said.
In their report, CDC researchers acknowledge that their estimate of the size of the bisexual population differs from those in other studies. A national estimate from the 2008 General Social Survey — which is funded by the National Science Foundation, a federal agency dedicated to the advancement of nonmedical science — estimated that 1.1 per cent of the population identified as bisexual. Other surveys suggest the number of bisexuals roughly matches the number of gays.
“There’s a variety of factors that could come into play, and we don’t have an answer right now,” Ward said. “It’s something we are looking at.”
The survey did not ask about gender identity, which is a more complicated topic than sexual orientation. Previously, officials had discussed including the question in future surveys. But Ward said Monday that there were no immediate plans to add such a question.
The difficulty stems partially from the large sample size needed, experts said. One challenge is that there are more than 200 terms used by people who identify as a different sex than the biological one they were born as, Bradford said.
Some people who have completed gender reassignment surgery may no longer consider themselves transgender but rather a member of their new sex, she said. Others may be offended by terms such as “transsexual,” which was once routinely used but in some circles is now considered pejorative.
The broader 2013 National Health Interview Survey data set was released publicly on June 30. It contains more information for researchers interested in studying other measures of health by sexual orientation, such as cancer rates or disabilities.
Mount Fuji, or Fujisan as it is known in Japanese, is the highest point on the archipelago (rising to 3,776 metres) and the national emblem, immortalised in countless etchings. In June last year Unesco added it to the World Heritage list as a “sacred place and source of artistic inspiration”. But it is still an active volcano, standing at the junction between the Pacific, Eurasian and Philippine tectonic plates. Though it has rarely stirred in recorded history, it is still potentially explosive.
The Tohoku – or Great East Japan – earthquake on 11 March 2011 triggered a devastating tsunami, which in turn caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. According to a Franco-Japanese study published by Science (PDF), the magnitude-9 tremor also increased the pressure on Mount Fuji. “Our work does not say that the volcano will start erupting, but it does show that it’s in a critical state,” says Florent Brenguier, a researcher at the Institute of Earth Sciences (IST) in Grenoble, France, and lead author of the publication, to which the Institute of Global Physics (IPG) in Paris also contributed.
Adopting a novel approach, the scientists carried out a sort of giant echo-scan of the bowels of the Earth, based on the huge mass of data recorded after the mega-quake by Japan’s Hi-net system, the densest network in the world, with 800 seismic sensors. They focused on signals commonly known as seismic noise, the result of constant interaction between ocean swell and “solid” earth. In the past such data has generally been dismissed as background interference.
UN envoy Robert Serry
Flash 90
Israel has accepted a request by UN envoy Robert Serry to enact a six-hour "humanitarian ceasefire" starting Thursday morning.
Serry submitted the request to both the Israeli government and Hamas on Wednesday evening in order to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip; while Israel accepted immediately, Hamas has yet to respond.
It comes as efforts continue to broker a more long-term truce after Hamas rejected an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement Tuesday morning, and responded by escalating its rocket fire against Israeli civilians. One Israeli man, 38-year-old father of three Dror Hanin, was killed in a mortar attack near the Erez Crossing bordering Gaza as he handed out food packages to Israeli soldiers.
Since then, both terrorist rocket fire and Israeli military strikes on Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza have continued with renewed intensity.
In all, terrorists have fired 1,350 rockets at Israel since the start of Operation Defensive Edge eight days ago, including nearly 100 on Wednesday as of 22:00.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, announced at a press conference on Tuesday that he “recommends” an extension of the deadline set for the world powers to reach an agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program.
Zarif said, “We perhaps need some more time,” and added that representatives of the world powers “tend” to agree that more time is necessary. That being said, he expressed hope that all sides involved will succeed in reaching an agreement prior to the deadline, slated for this coming Sunday.
Last week’s emergency surveillance legislation may have sounded like something out of George Orwell’s novel 1984, but was cited as yet another real-life example of states trying to control their citizens.
It’s been 65 years since Orwell described a fictional dystopian world of surveillance and manipulation by so-called Big Brother, and experts claim over the next decade this fiction is about to become fact.
The Net Threats report from Pew Research Centre details how, by 2025, the web will be governed by a system heavily influenced by governments, large corporations, and security services all trying to control our behaviours.
This could mean what we buy, read, watch and share will be restricted, and our surfing history stored for future use.
More than 1,400 experts, including analysts, editors and professors, were canvassed for their opinion.
According to their responses, they believe actions by nation-states to maintain security and political control will lead to more blocking, filtering and segmentation of the internet.
Trust will be weakened, as a result of revelations about government and corporate surveillance - and this will likely increase surveillance in the future.
And commercial pressures will affect the flow of information, and make the web less open - a threat campaigners for net neutrality already fear following debates over internet fast lanes.
Paul Saffo, managing director at Discern Analytics and consulting associate professor at Stanford University, said that by 2025 'the pressures to balkanise the global internet will continue and create new uncertainties.
'Governments will become more skilled at blocking access to unwelcome sites.’
Dave Burstein, editor of Fast Net News, added: ‘Governments worldwide are looking for more power over the net, especially within their own countries.
‘Britain, for example, has just determined that ISPs block sites the government considers ‘terrorist’ or otherwise dangerous.
'This will grow. There will usually be ways to circumvent the obstruction, but most people won’t bother.’
The main criticism of such plans, and the main issue surrounding the data obtained, is its impact on privacy.
Raymond Plzak, from The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said: ‘The inconsistent protection of privacy, whether private information is voluntarily provided or not, as well as the inconsistent protection against exploitation will continue to be the bane of connected environment.’
He continued that if local, regional, national and international private and public sector companies fail to join forces and accept a universal way of handling these privacy issues, sharing data and being connected will become more limited by 2025.
This will also have an impact on preventing content being shared around the world.
In 1984, character Winston Smith is told to edit reports and control the flow of opinion using the government's language Newspeak, and experts feel this is already happening, in places such as North Korea.
And they predict that, by 2025, this will become more common place, and widespread across the West too.
‘The increased Balkanisation of the internet is a possible outcome of the [Edward] Snowden revelations, as people seek to develop systems that are less accessible by the NSA, GCHQ and so on,’ said Professor Kate Crawford, a research scientist at the MIT Center for Civic Media.
‘Meanwhile, the dominant content companies may seek ever more rigorous ways to prevent the flow of copyright content within and across borders.’
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden recently condemned the UK's plans for an emergency surveillance bill, voicing concerns about the lack of public debate, fear-mongering and what he described 'as increased powers of intrusion'.
Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S pushed forward with plans to let internet service providers charge content companies for faster and more reliable delivery of their traffic to users.
The controversial 'fast lane' rules received heavy criticism from many companies that do business online, along with open internet advocates.
Under the plans for priority usage, Netflix for example, could pay extra to use fast lanes to get the maximum amount of bandwith to its customers.
At the heart of net neutrality is an open internet in which all data being sent from websites to customers is treated the same, regardless of size or destination.
All this traffic is given the same priority along the same lanes and no site is given preferential treatment.
Although it seems like a fair model, in which sites that use the most bandwith pay the most money, campaigners claim it will drastically impact on industry competition.
Experts, including Glenn Edens, director of research in networking, security, and distributed systems at PARC said: ‘Network operators’ desire to monetise their assets to the detriment of progress represents the biggest potential problem.'
A post-doctoral researcher, who was not named in the report, continued: ‘We are seeing an increase in walled gardens created by giants like Facebook and Apple.
'Commercialization of the internet, paradoxically, is the biggest challenge to the growth of the Internet. Communication networks’ lobbying against net neutrality is the biggest example of this.’
Earlier today, the Internet Association wrote to the Federal Communications Commission claiming that broadband providers could turn the internet into 'a pay-for-priority platform more closely resembling cable television than today's onternet.'
The group, which represents Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, and others, urged the Commission to protect its open and neutral architecture, which is the force behind the internet's success.
PJ Rey, a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Maryland, added that by 2025: ‘It is very possible we will see the principle of net neutrality undermined.
‘In a political paradigm where money equals political speech so much hinges on how much ISPs and content providers are willing and able to spend on defending their competing interests.
'Unfortunately, the interests of everyday users count for very little.’
While a former chair of an IETF working group concluded : 'Corporate influence on the political process will largely eliminate the public’s freedom to do as they please on the internet.
'I would like to see the internet come to be regarded as a public utility, as broadcast spectrum was, but I think the concentration of power is too extreme for that degree of freedom to happen.'
It is difficult to find any segment of American society that is not embroiled in the debate over homosexual “marriage”. From our public schools to the country’s highest courts, homosexual marriage and associated rights dominate the Nation’s discourse.
Indeed, perusing the aisles of many” so called” Christian books, finds an increasing number of titles addressing the battle over homosexual “marriage” and the Christian’s response to the issue.
A Pew research poll from 2013 reveals a gradual move toward acceptance of homosexual marriage by not only mainline Catholic and Protestant denominations, but now in increasing numbers, by conservative Evangelicals.
Many of the largest Christian publishers are coming out with books supporting same-sex relationships.
These books are serving to widen the divide between supporters and resisters of the trend.
All of this indicates that Christian publishing may be the next” battleground” in America's explosive debates about homosexual marriage.
One of the most polarizing books to hit the shelves this year was, God and the Gay Christian: the Biblical Case in Support of Same Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines, published by Convergent Books a sister imprint of Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group.
In this book, Vines attempts to overturn the traditional Christian view that God condemns the practice of homosexuality, even within the confines of committed “same sex relationships.”
In a rebuttal of the revisionist views expounded in Vine’s book, Albert Mohler, president the Southern Baptist Theological seminary warns that Vine’s book seeks to “overthrow two millennia of Christian moral wisdom.”
Mohler goes on to propose that Evangelical Christianity is facing a watershed moment in the debate over the acceptance of “sexual sins” in the church.
In mid-May, in response to the publication of Vine’s book, the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) forced Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group to resign its membership in the organization.
Jerry Johnson, the CEO and president of NRB," wrote ”This issue comes down to NRB members producing unbiblical material, regardless of the label under which they do it."
Not only did the NRB forbid members from publishing such books, but refuses to be professionally associated with publishers that do.
However, the NRB’s decision is not stemming the tide of new books being developed by other publishers.
Howard Books, a Christian imprint of Simon and Schuster, is set to release Facing the Music: Discovering Real Life, Real Love, and Real Faith by Jennifer Knapp. Knapp, a Grammy nominated Christian musician, “came out” as a Lesbian.
Howard Books is not a member of NRB, but the publisher is a member of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA). Mark Kuyper, president and CEO of the ECPA, insists that publishing books affirming same-sex relationships would not be grounds for removal from the ECPA because it would not violate the ECPA's statement of faith.
And so the battle inside conservative, Evangelical Christianity will continue to occupy center stage, as the issue is debated in the print media, the courts, and in the church pews around the nation.
The final outcome is uncertain, but if the battle over same-sex relationships being fought among conservative Christians is won by the pro-homosexual advocates among them, the larger cultural war will be all but over.
Session of the BRICS summit in Brazil
© REUTERS/ Paulo Whitaker
22:54 15/07/2014
FORTALEZA, July 15 (RIA Novosti) - The BRICS countries' role in international affairs is increasing with the block's gaining more and more weight, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session of the BRICS summit in Brazil's Fortaleza Tuesday.
"Our countries are playing a more significant role in the international arena," Putin said.
"Thanks to Russia's and China's firm stance in the UN Security Council, supported by other BRICS members, we have managed to prevent an international invasion in Syria, to reach the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons," Putin stressed.
The leaders of the five largest emerging world economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are meeting in the Brazilian cities of Fortaleza and Brasilia July 15-16 to discuss global issues on cooperation in trade, investment, credit and finances. The next BRICS summit will be held in Russian city of Ufa on July 9-10, 2015.
Following Israel’s attacks in Gaza, the Hamas terrorist organization published a proposal for a ceasefire.
According to the conditions publicized by Channel 2, Hamas will hold fire for ten years in exchange for the release of terrorists previously released in exchange for Gilad Shalit but rearrested after the three boys were abducted and murdered. Hamas also demands that all border crossings leading into Gaza be opened, and that Israel not attempt to disrupt any activity of the Palestinian Authority’s unity government.
Syrian President Bashar Assad spoke at a ceremony inaugurating him as President for the third time. During his speech, Assad slammed the position of Arab countries, with respect to the current situation in Gaza. “Why are they not supporting Gaza with money and with weapons? Why are they not sending their soldiers over there?”
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman
Flash 90
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman is continuing to call for a ground invasion of Gaza, implicitly criticizing the government's official position during a visit to the embattled southern city of Ashkelon with his Norwegian counterpart.
"A normal summer for our children can only be ensured with a ground operation in Gaza," Liberman said.
But he qualified his statement by adding that the IDF would not necessarily need to fully "reoccupy" the Arab areas of the Gaza Strip.
"We don't need to rule there, but to ensure that the terrorists of Hamas will flee or die," he added.
Those comments echoed remarks Liberman made yesterday, during a similar visit with his Italian counterpart to the city of Ashdod. Liberan is the msot prominent of several government officials to publicly criticize Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to hold off on a ground offensive in Gaza, continuing to focus on airstrikes to wear Hamas and other terrorist groups down.
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon was fired yesterday for his fierce criticism of the government, with Netanyahu accusing him of abusing his position during a military operation.
Meanwhile, the IDF continues with its airstrikes on terrorist targets, after Hamas rejected a ceasefire offer Tuesday.
Medical sources in Gaza said that an Israeli Air Force missile killed three men travelling in car in Khan Yunis; the IDF identified them as terrorist operatives and confirmed it carried out a surgical strike on the vehicle.
Following the strike terrorists continued to fire rockets at Israeli civilians, directing a barrage of missiles at southern communities, including the city of Be'er Sheva. The Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted at least seven rockets over the town of Ofakim, and three more rockets landed in open areas, according to military sources.
Another barrage was directed towards the Sedot HaNegev region bordering Gaza, with one rocket striking a house in a Jewish village close and two more falling in open areas. Considerable damage was inflicted on the house, but fortunately there were no injuries.
At approximately 9:20 Wednesday morning Hamas fired a large salvo of rockets at the GreaterTel Aviv area in central Israel. Four rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome.
Sirens and explosions sounded throughout Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, Petah Tikva, Herzliya, Raanana and Kfar Shemaryahu.
There were no report of injuries, but nine people were treated for shock in Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, Holon, Petach Tikva and Kfar Saba.
