The Death of Senator Edward Kennedy

The Financial Times wrote on August 26:

“Edward Kennedy, who died on Tuesday night from the consequences of a brain tumour at the age of 77, surely found political and personal redemption in the end. He did not fulfil the ambitions of his dynastic family by becoming president of the United States, as one brother did and as another might have, both victims of the assassin’s bullets, but he became a lion of the US Senate, liked and admired by friend and foe alike.

“His legislative record, touching domestic subjects as vital as immigration, healthcare and education, was second to none. As the country drifted to the right over the past 30 years, his was the distinctive and loudest voice of the liberalism born in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Yet, as politics became more bitterly partisan, he worked across party lines, forming alliances with the most improbable opponents…

“His hand appeared to be in virtually every piece of legislation, aided by a staff that was, and is, widely reckoned to be unmatched in talent on Capitol Hill. His principal causes remained immigration, lifting the minimum wage, healthcare, education, the environment and everything to do with the administration of justice.

“And for all his reputation as the leading liberal, he made practical friendships and relationships across the aisle – with Senator John McCain of Arizona on immigration reform and with the staunchly conservative Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah on judicial matters. He even helped steer President Bush’s ‘no child left behind’ education act through the Senate, though he subsequently became critical of its implementation and, in his view, under-funding. That apart, he had little truck with the administration’s overall policies, voting against authorising the war in Iraq and frequently eviscerating everything the justice department did, especially when Alberto Gonzales was attorney general.

“… when Ted Kennedy endorsed Mr Obama, not Hillary Clinton, for the Democratic presidential nomination in the early spring of 2008, there was clearly the sense of the passing of the liberal torch…”

Haaretz wrote on August 26:

“President Shimon Peres on Wednesday expressed deep sorrow on behalf of Israel at the death of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy… Peres said that… ‘Kennedy was a clear friend of Israel the whole way, and in every place that he could help us he did help’… Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also expressed his condolences, calling Kennedy a great friend of Israel and the Jewish people. He added that Kennedy protected human rights, and was the son of a distinguished family who stood by Israel, even in difficult times, during his many years of service in the Senate…

“During his nearly half century in the chamber, Kennedy became known as one of Washington’s most effective senators, crafting legislation by working with lawmakers and presidents of both parties, and finding unlikely allies. At the same time, he held fast to liberal causes deemed anachronistic by the centrist ‘New Democrats,’ and was a lightning rod for conservative ire. He helped enact measures to protect civil and labor rights, expand healthcare, upgrade schools, increase student aid and contain the spread of nuclear weapons.”

Bild Online wrote on August 26:

“US Senator Edward Kennedy… served in the senate for 47 years and his passing has left a massive hole in Washington’s political life. ‘Time’ magazine wrote in 2006 that Ted Kennedy had affected the life of every American… He was branded a socialist by his political enemies, and feared for his enormous influence in Washington. To his allies he was a figurehead and torchbearer of liberalism and respected by all…

“At the start of his Senate career he was badly injured in a plane crash and was forced to recover on the sidelines for six months. He later said that his experiences of the American health system after the crash led him to fight for universal healthcare…”

The Wall Street Journal added on August 26:

“The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts is not only a personal loss for many of his Senate colleagues, but it also leaves Democrats short a key vote as they attempt to pass major legislation in the coming months, including a health care overhaul. Before his death, Kennedy wrote a letter to Massachusetts political leaders asking them to change the succession rules so as not to have a prolonged vacancy until a special election can be held early next year…

“In his request, Kennedy asked state leaders to give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick the authority to appoint a temporary seat-filler until the election can be held… Initially, the request was met with a lukewarm response and none of the key lawmakers publicly embraced the plan. But on Tuesday, Senate President Therese Murray signaled… that she is now open to such a request.”

Brown’s Deal With Gaddafi Over Release of Convicted Libyan Terrorist

The Guardian wrote on August 23:

“Gordon Brown faced fresh questions tonight after it emerged that he discussed with Colonel Gaddafi detailed conditions for the Lockerbie bomber’s return nearly six weeks ago, while senior Labour figures warned of an economic backlash from angry Americans ‘costing our country dear’.

“Downing Street released the text of a cordial letter sent to the Libyan leader on the day that Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was released, asking that the event be kept low key because a ‘high-profile’ ceremony would distress his victims and their families. But critically the letter also refers to a meeting between the two leaders six weeks earlier at the G8 summit in Italy, adding that ‘when we met [there] I stressed that, should the Scottish executive decide that Megrahi can return to Libya, this should be a purely private family occasion’ rather than a public celebration.

“… the new letter, addressed to ‘Dear Muammar’ and signed off by wishing him a happy Ramadan, suggests that the decision was well enough advanced and Brown well enough briefed to set terms for a homecoming – albeit unsuccessfully. A jubilant Libyan crowd, some waving Scottish flags, greeted Megrahi at the airport…

“Tonight the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, redoubled calls for the government to release official records of conversations about the release, as Gaddafi increased the embarrassment by publicly thanking ‘my friend Brown, his government, the Queen of Britain, Elizabeth, and Prince Andrew who all contributed to encouraging the Scottish government to take this historic and courageous decision’.

“The scale of fury in America was laid bare in a vitriolic letter from the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller – who as a justice department lawyer led the investigation into the bombing – describing the release in a scathing letter to [Scottish justice minister]MacAskill as a ‘mockery of the rule of law’ and of the victims’ grief.

“… public anger at scenes of the convicted bomber receiving a hero’s welcome has prompted demands from ordinary Americans for economic reprisals… Senior Scottish Labour figures say that MacAskill’s references in his original statement last week to the compassion of Scotland’s people had turned the entire country, which earns £260m a year through American tourists, into an economic target…”

Merkel World’s Most Powerful Woman

The Netzeitung reported on August 20:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel was named the world’s most powerful woman for the fourth year running in a report released on Thursday by US business magazine Forbes… The ranking is based on influence and economic clout… As the head of Europe’s largest economy, Merkel excels in both of these areas.

“‘Merkel is the only woman at the head of a G8 economy, so she is a big power in Europe and has a big GDP at her disposal,’ commented Mary Ellen Egan, Executive Managing Editor… ‘She makes the top because she is the highest ranking woman according to office, and also because of the amount of money she controls. She is very well-regarded as a leader,’ added Egan… Merkel has been instrumental in cementing relations with Russia, and promoting the Nord Stream gas pipeline project to carry Russian gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea, the magazine said.

“There was no change in the top three this year, with Sheila Bair, US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman in second place again, followed by last year’s 3rd-placed woman, PepsiCo Chief Executive Indra Nooyi.”

Netanyahu in Germany

Deutsche Welle reported on August 27:

“The construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands must be stopped, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a meeting in Berlin… while Merkel expressed a willingness to consider the sanctions [against Israel], she also reiterated calls from the Palestinians and US President Barack Obama to halt the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem… But Netanyahu told reporters that ‘no decision has been made.'”

Islamist “Holy War” Against Germany?

The Netzeitung reported on August 21:

“With just over a month to go before Germany’s general election, daily newspaper Die Welt reported on Friday that an unprecedented number of Islamist videos encouraging holy war against the country have flooded the internet. Most recently, two Moroccan brothers from Bonn have appeared in terrorist propaganda videos online. The two men… are thought to be currently in hiding on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan…

“The latest wave of propaganda attacks began in January with videos published by another German of Moroccan origin… The newspaper reported that the 31-year-old… appears on a video announcing in German that he would ‘blow himself up for Allah.’ His appearance in an al-Qaida video… has reportedly caused concern for the German security services. In it he makes a specific reference to September’s election as the point when the German people will decide their own fate.

“‘Recently, more people have been travelling from Germany to “terror camps”,’ Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning told the newspaper. He said this trend poses a threat not only to the German armed forces stationed in Afghanistan ‘but also for us in Germany.'”

Ten African Leaders Meeting in Ethiopia Push Against West

Reuters wrote on August 24:

“African leaders will ask rich nations for $67 billion PER YEAR to mitigate the impact of global warming on the world’s poorest continent… Ten leaders are holding talks at AFRICAN UNION (AU) HEADQUARTERS IN THE ETHIOPIAN CAPITAL to try to agree a common stance…

“Earlier this year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called on rich countries to compensate Africa for warming, arguing that pollution in the northern hemisphere may have caused his country’s ruinous famines in the 1980s…

“Africa is the region most at risk from warming and is home to 15 of the 20 most vulnerable countries [according to a report]… Developing nations accuse the rich of failing to take the lead in setting deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and say they are trying to get the poor to shoulder more of the burden of emission curbs without providing aid and technology. A new climate treaty is due to be agreed” at a U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

… and Now — Practicing Homosexuals as Lutheran Ministers…

USA Today wrote on August 22:

“Leaders of the nation’s largest Lutheran church voted Friday to allow sexually active gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy. Gays and lesbians are currently allowed to serve as ministers in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America only if they remain celibate. The proposal to change that passed with 68% approval…

“The final decision on whether to hire gay clergy in committed relationships will lie with individual congregations. Some critics of the proposal have predicted its passage could cause individual congregations to split off from the ELCA, as has been the case with other Christian denominations, including the Episcopal Church…

“Katrina Foster, a pastor in the Metropolitan New York Synod, pointed out that the church has ordained women and divorced people in violation of a literal interpretation of scripture.”

So, rather than correcting a wrong, the Lutherans felt it was more expedient to add insult to injury in allowing for additional wrongs.

Unprecedented Dangerous Expensive “Voluntary” Massive Swine Flu Vaccinations

The Washington Post wrote on August 23:

“Government health officials are mobilizing to launch a massive swine flu vaccination campaign this fall that is unprecedented in its scope — and in the POTENTIAL FOR COMPLICATIONS. The campaign aims to vaccinate at least half the country’s population within months. Although more people have been inoculated against diseases such as smallpox and polio over a period of years, the United States has never tried to immunize so many so quickly.

“But even as scientists rush to test the vaccine to ensure it is safe and effective, the campaign is lagging. Officials say only about a third as much vaccine as they had been expecting by mid-October is likely to arrive by then, when a new wave of infections could be peaking. Among the unknowns: how many shots people will need, what the correct dosage should be, and how to avoid confusing the public with an overlapping effort to combat the regular seasonal flu…

“‘This is potentially the largest mass-vaccination program in human history,’ said Howard Markel, a professor of medical history at the University of Michigan…

“The vaccine effort carries political risks for the Obama administration… The campaign is haunted by memories of the government’s ill-fated 1976 effort to vaccinate against swine flu. The epidemic fizzled, but the vaccine was given to 40 million people and blamed for causing a rare paralyzing disorder known as Guillain-Barré Syndrome…

“‘This is an overreaction,’ said Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center, which OPPOSES MANY VACCINE POLICIES. ‘There is no national security threat here. Why are we operating like this? This is not polio. This is not smallpox’…

“Authorities are adamant that vaccination will be VOLUNTARY… To address concerns of pregnant women and parents with young children, some vaccine is being produced without a MERCURY ADDITIVE… Schools considering giving shots to children are making plans to get PERMISSION FROM PARENTS…

“The federal government has spent close to $2 billion to buy up to 195 million doses of vaccine AND ADJUVANT, including the standard shots and the newer FluMist nasal spray vaccine… The government is prepared to buy enough to vaccinate EVERY PERSON — 600 million doses all together — if the pandemic or demand warrants it. That could increase the cost to $5 BILLION FOR THE VACCINE alone. It would cost at least $9 BILLION to ADMINISTER the vaccine to the ENTIRE POPULATION…

“Experts also worry the swine flu will divert attention from the seasonal flu, which can cause serious illness. Officials will launch the seasonal flu vaccine campaign Sept. 10 — about a month early in the hopes of vaccinating as many people as possible before the swine flu campaign. The more people who get both vaccines, the less likely the swine flu virus will mingle with one of the others to produce a more dangerous mutant…”

Backwards Approach on Circumcision

The New York Times wrote on August 24:

“Public health officials are considering promoting routine circumcision for all baby boys born in the United States to reduce the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS… Experts are also considering whether the surgery should be offered to adult heterosexual men whose sexual practices put them at high risk of infection. But they acknowledge that a circumcision drive in the United States would be unlikely to have a drastic impact: the procedure does not seem to protect those at greatest risk here, men who have sex with men.

“Recently, studies showed that in African countries hit hard by AIDS, men who were circumcised reduced their infection risk by half. But the clinical trials in Africa focused on heterosexual men who are at risk of getting H.I.V. from infected female partners… There is little to no evidence that circumcision protects men who have sex with men from infection.

“Observational studies have found that uncircumcised men have higher rates of other sexually transmitted diseases like herpes and syphilis, and a recent study in Baltimore found that heterosexual men were less likely to have become infected with H.I.V. from infected partners if they were circumcised.”

Rather than not engaging in illicit sex, public health officials recommend circumcision instead, so people can continue engaging in illicit sex. We need to understand that circumcision was never a health law–otherwise it would still be in effect today and God would have enforced it for Gentiles, which He did not. The New Testament makes it very clear that Christians are no longer required to be circumcised or to circumcise their children–even though they ARE required to abide by real health laws, such as refraining from eating pork, fat or blood. 

How Evolutionists Justify Their Ignorance

The Times wrote on August 22:

“While most non-fundamentalist Christian traditions have largely accepted evolution, Islam was still much more hostile, [Professor Richard Dawkins] said [who is a strong believer in and supporter of the evolution hypothesis]. ‘It’s the fact that Islam teaches the Koran is the literal word of God, unlike most Christian sects, which say the Bible is LARGELY SYMBOLIC. That could well be the cause’…

“Professor Dawkins’ new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, brings together the scientific evidence that shows the theory of evolution to be true. He hopes to convince those who espouse creationism because they are IGNORANT OF SCIENCE…”

The West–A Culture of Death

The following article was written from a Greek/Russian Orthodox Church perspective. Even though clearly subjective and biased, it includes interesting facts and thoughts worthy of consideration.

The Pravda wrote on August 20:

“From the early 1800s, the West, in an affront to God, has moved ever more rapidly into a culture of death and destruction, away from the teachings of Christ… The foundation of this was laid by the Augustinian theories of Just War. This created an atmosphere that condoned murder, even if under strict circumstances.

“… the wars that the Orthodox peoples [following the teachings of the Greek/Orthodox Church] have fought have always been viewed AS A SIN, as the shedding of human blood is a grave sin… To that end, an Orthodox soldier who has shed blood is UNCLEAN and thus must cleanse himself through prayer and fasting, seeking the FORGIVENESS OF GOD for what was done…

“The range of who should die was widened. Starting in the 1800s and reaching full strength in the first half of the 1900s was the eugenics movements, out to breed the perfect human being…  Abortion… the murder of God’s most precious gift, became a standard…

“Homosexuality, too, was brought in as an affront to God, destroying the traditional family, mutating the moral standings of children and breeding a hedonistic, self destructive life style…

“Suicide is self murder… In Russian, our word for suicide is… quite literally: self-murder. We do not have the right to terminate the gift of life that God gave us. Just because we live in pain does not mean that we do not live to fulfill some aspect of God’s plan. The pain is a test of our faith in God, something to work through and to continue to seek to serve God. As such, suicide, self-murder, is an escape of our responsibilities before God…

“Many of these concepts are alien to our cultures, many others were imported with the Marxist revolution and we are still suffering their ill effects. On abortion, Russia, which still allows it, has curtailed it to the first 12 weeks and there is much pressure to end this murder fully. Euthanasia is illegal in Russia. Eugenics is also something that never took root…”

France’s Plague of Bee-Eating Hornets

The Telegraph wrote on August 19:

“The bee-eating hornets, instantly recognisable by their yellow feet, are rapidly spreading round France and entomologists fear that they will eventually cross the Channel and arrive in Britain. Hundreds of the insects attacked a mother on a stroll with her five-month-old baby in… southwestern France… They then pursued two passers by and two Dutch tourists on bikes. The victims were treated in hospital for multiple stings, which are said to be as painful as a hot nail piercing the skin…

“The Vespa velutina, which grow up to an inch in length, is thought to have arrived in France from the Far East in a consignment of Chinese pottery in late 2004… Denis Thiery, an Asian hornet specialist at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, said there was nothing to halt their spread. ‘From one nest discovered in 2004, there were 2,000 in the Bordeaux area in 2007. Today there are probably several thousand in surrounding departments,’ he said. ‘According to our studies, they are able to settle in 50 per cent of the country. The European hornet is no match for them, with only a few hundred individuals per nest compared to several thousand for the yellow-footed hornets…’

“Besides the risk to humans, the hornets have decimated France’s already dwindling bee population. Squadrons of the insects hover over hives and pick off hapless honeybees in mid-air. A handful can destroy a nest of 30,000 bees in just a couple of hours… Beekeepers suspect that the creatures are also massacring other indigenous insect species….”

The US Economy

More US Banks Fail… Shrinking the FDIC’s Fund Even More…

The Associated Press reported on August 22:

“Guaranty Bank became the second-largest U.S. bank to fail this year after the Texas lender was shut down by regulators and most of its operations sold at a loss of billions of dollars for the U.S. government to a major Spanish bank. The transaction approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. marked the first time a foreign bank has bought a failed U.S. bank. The bank failure, the 10th largest in U.S. history, is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $3 billion…

“The FDIC also announced Friday the closures of Internet-based ebank, located in Atlanta… First Coweta, based in Newnan, Ga… and CapitalSouth Bank, based in Birmingham, Ala… Those failures are expected to cost the insurance fund an estimated $63 million for ebank, $48 million for First Coweta and $151 million for CapitalSouth Bank.”

Another sign of the times–foreign banks take over US banks, and in light of the figures in the article above, the FDIC’s insurance fund would only be at a level of about $3.4 billion.

Raising Taxes…

Reuters reported on August 21:

“The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion… The White House budget office will also lower its deficit forecast for this fiscal year, which ends September 30, to $1.58 trillion from $1.84 trillion next week AFTER REMOVING $250 BILLION SET ASIDE FOR BANK BAILOUTS…

“Politically, the deficit has been an albatross for Obama… who is pushing forward with plans to overhaul the U.S. healthcare industry — an initiative that could cost up to $1 trillion over 10 years… Many economists think it is unlikely the government can curtail spending, which means TAXES WOULD HAVE TO GO UP to cover the rising costs of providing retirement and healthcare benefits to aging Americans… Obama has promised not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $250,000 a year.”

… Or Cutting Entitlements

The Financial Times wrote on August 21:

“The US government… must finance spending this year that will be almost double tax receipts, while reassuring buyers of Treasuries that PRINTING DOLLARS is only a temporary measure… retaining the confidence of debt buyers worried about unsustainable borrowing will require CUTTING ENTITLEMENTS to Social Security and healthcare for America’s ageing population…”

On August 23, The Associated Press confirmed fears that the government will cut, somehow, social security benefits:

“Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won’t be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn’t happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.

“By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly.”

More Bad Economic News–“Deeper” Recession Ahead

Bloomberg wrote on August 25:

“U.S. unemployment will surge to 10 percent this year and the budget deficit will widen to $1.5 trillion next year, reflecting a ‘deeper recession’ than previously expected, White House budget chief Peter Orszag said. The Office of Management and Budget also forecasts that the U.S. economy will shrink 2.8 percent this year…

The Financial Times added on August 25:

“Tuesday’s sharply upgraded forecasts for growth in US national debt over the [next] decade could hardly have come at a worse time for Barack Obama… fears of the Great Depression have receded only to be replaced by mounting concern over the country’s long-term creditworthiness… In particular, prospects for enacting Mr Obama’s proposed $1,000bn (€700bn, £610bn) 10-year expansion in healthcare coverage this autumn are beginning to look dicey given the projected rise in the national debt of more than $9,000bn in the next decade…

“David Walker, head of the Peterson Foundation and former head of the General Accountability Office…  is among a growing body of observers who believe America’s deteriorating debt position could have consequences for the country’s national security – even compromising its superpower status…”

The Uncertain Future of the US Dollar

The Wall Street Journal wrote on August 26:

“On Tuesday, the Obama administration added fuel to concerns about the dollar, saying the U.S. will run a cumulative budget deficit of $9 trillion over the next 10 years, $2 trillion more than it had previously projected.

“‘That’s going to be negative for the dollar,’ says Adam Boyton, a currency analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in New York. President Barack Obama also reappointed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, whose efforts to rescue the economy have… entailed pumping large amounts of freshly created dollars into the financial system…”

FDIC Insurance Fund Facing Disaster of Apocalyptical Proportions

The Associated Press wrote on August 15:

“Regulators on Friday shut down Colonial BancGroup Inc., a big lender in real estate development that marked the biggest U.S. bank failure this year, and a small bank in Pennsylvania [Dwelling House]. The closures boosted to 74 the number of federally insured banks that have failed in 2009… The FDIC estimates that the cost to the deposit insurance fund from the failure of Dwelling House will be $6.8 million. The failure of Colonial is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $2.8 billion. The 74 bank failures nationwide this year compare with 25 last year and three in 2007.

“As the economy has soured – with unemployment rising, home prices tumbling and loan defaults soaring – bank failures have cascaded and sapped billions out of the deposit insurance fund. It now stands at its lowest level since 1993, $13 billion as of the first quarter…

“The number of banks on the FDIC’s list of problem institutions leaped to 305 in the first quarter – the highest number since 1994 during the savings and loan crisis – from 252 in the fourth quarter. The FDIC expects U.S. bank failures to cost the insurance fund around $70 billion through 2013.

“The May closing of struggling Florida thrift BankUnited FSB is expected to cost the insurance fund $4.9 billion, the second-largest hit since the financial crisis began.”

If you do the math, these figures are staggering, alarming and nightmarish and absolutely apocalyptical:

If the FDIC had only $13 billion in its insurance fund in its first quarter (January-March 2009), but if the bail-out of Florida’s BankUnited in May will cost $4.9 billion; the bail-out of Pennsylvania’s Dwelling House $6.8 million; and of Colonial Bank $2.8 billion, then the fund would be at a level of approximately just about $6.4 billion.

Reader’s Digest Plans to File For Pre-Arranged Bankruptcy

Reuters reported on August 17:

“Reader’s Digest Association Inc, whose namesake magazine has been a staple of dentists’ offices for generations, said on Monday it planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for its U.S. businesses as part of a prearranged plan with lenders to cut debt by 75 percent…

“The bankruptcy would take the form of a prearranged filing, which comes after a company has already reached deals with lenders to reduce debt. The deal, if approved by a bankruptcy court, would allow Reader’s Digest to slash its debt load to $550 million, from the current $2.2 billion. The arrangement would also allow the company to reduce its annual interest payments on remaining debt to less than $80 million from about $145 million…”

The Dollar Will Weaken Even More

Bloomberg wrote on August 19:

“Pacific Investment Management Co., the world’s biggest manager of bond funds, said the dollar will weaken as the U.S. pumps ‘massive’ amounts of money into the economy. The dollar will drop the most against emerging-market counterparts… The greenback is losing its status as the world’s reserve currency…  There is no viable immediate alternative to the U.S. dollar for now as the euro region lacks a political union…”

But what will happen when Europe HAS achieved its political union?

President Obama Loses “Messianic Status Over Health Care”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on August 18:

“US President Barack Obama has lost his messianic status in the row over health care reform, say German media commentators… [He] has made a key concession on his planned health-care reform… He has signalled retreat on a proposed provision under which consumers could choose from health insurance sold by the federal government as well as those marketed by private companies.

“‘The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,’ the president told a town hall-style audience in Grand Junction, Colorado, on Saturday. ‘This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.’ Obama’s team is now suggesting a non-profit cooperative insurance system, in a bid to overcome the innate aversions many Americans have towards government involvement…

“The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

“‘The 44th president, once revered as a messiah, is shrinking back to human proportions. This normalization… has been caused by the row over how to improve America’s health-care system. Obama has given up core elements of his most important reform plan in the face of sometimes aggressive, even fired-up protests… Many of Obama’s most glowing supporters are sensing betrayal. The president himself is interpreting his concession as realpolitik. Given the resistance, even from conservative members of his own party, he prefers a modest reform to none at all… But he must take care that his greatest election promise isn’t hacked to little pieces by a revolt by America’s right wing, or through a salami tactic where he himself is wielding the knife’…

“The center-left Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel writes:

“‘America’s mistrust of government is refreshing in some areas, but not when it comes to health care. Health cover[age] for the average citizen in the US against illness and its consequences is worse than in Germany, and they have to pay significantly more for it… Obama is realizing what his nation will and won’t accept. There’s likely to be a health reform in the end. But the overhaul that gets majority backing in the end won’t resemble what he promised in the election campaign.'”

Chuck Norris–“Whom Are We Kidding?”

In a truly thought-provoking editorial, dated August 11, which was published by Human Events.com, actor Chuck Norris wrote the following:

“I decided to research the reasons so many are opposed to Obamacare to separate the facts from the fantasy. What I discovered is that there are indeed dirty little secrets buried deep within the 1,000-plus page health care bill.

“Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is about the government’s coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child care and development. It’s outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading ‘home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children.’ The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

“The bill says that the government agents, ‘well-trained and competent staff,’ would ‘provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains … modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices,’ and ‘skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development.’

“Are you kidding me?! With whose parental principles and values? Their own? Certain experts’? From what field and theory of childhood development?… Do we really believe they would contextualize and personalize every form of parenting in their education, or would they merely universally indoctrinate with their own?

“Are we to assume the state’s mediators would understand every parent’s social or religious core values on parenting? Or would they teach some secular-progressive and religiously neutered version of parental values and wisdom? And if they were to consult and coach those who expect babies, would they ever decide circumstances to be not beneficial for the children and encourage abortions?

“One government rebuttal is that this program would be ‘voluntary.’ Is that right? Does that imply that this agency would just sit back passively until some parent needing parenting skills said, ‘I don’t think I’ll call my parents, priest or friends or read a plethora of books, but I’ll go down to the local government offices’? To the contrary, the bill points to specific targeted groups and problems, on Page 840: The state ‘shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families.’

“Are we further to conclude by those words that low-income families know less about parenting? Are middle- and upper-class parents really better parents? Less neglectful of their children? Less needful of parental help and training? Is this ‘prioritized’ training not a biased, discriminatory and even prejudicial stereotype and generalization that has no place in federal government, law or practice?

“Bottom line: Is all this what you want or expect in a universal health care bill being rushed through Congress? Do you want government agents coming into your home and telling you how to parent your children? When did government health care turn into government child care?

“Government needs less of a role in running our children’s lives and more of a role in supporting parents’ decisions for their children. Children belong to their parents, not the government. And the parents ought to have the right — and government support — to parent them without the fed’s mandates, education or intervention in our homes…

“Government’s real motives and rationale are quite simple, though rarely, if ever, stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations. That is done by seizing parental and educational power, legislating preferred educational methods and materials, and limiting private educational options. It is so simple that any socialist can understand it. As Josef Stalin once stated, ‘Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.'”

And as the late journalist Robert Novak, who died on August 18, said so accurately: “Always love your country — but never trust your government!”

Health Care Bill — No Matter What?

The Associated Press wrote on August 20:

“Publicly, President Barack Obama is still calling for a bipartisan bill to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Privately, Democrats are preparing a one-party push, which they feel is all but inevitable. Obama urged religious leaders Wednesday to back his proposals, and he prepared for a pep talk to a much larger audience of liberal activists, whose enthusiasm is in question. Polls continued to show slippage in support for the president’s approach, although Americans expressed even less confidence in Republicans’handling of health care.”

President Obama Wants to Repeal Federal Marriage Law

USA Today wrote on August 17:

“President Obama insisted Monday he still wants to scrap what he calls a discriminatory federal marriage law, even as his administration angered gay rights activists by defending it in court… Justice Department lawyers filed new papers Monday seeking to throw out a lawsuit brought by a gay couple challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. Gay rights groups say that by doing so, the administration is failing to follow through on campaign promises made by Obama last year to work to repeal the law… The Clinton-era law denies federal recognition of gay marriage and gives states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

“Obama said he plans to work with Congress to repeal the law, and said his administration ‘will continue to examine and implement measures that will help extend rights and benefits’ to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender couples under existing law. The government says in its court filing that it will defend the statute in this case because a reasonable argument can be made that the law is constitutional… Justice lawyers have argued that the act is constitutional and contend that awarding federal marriage benefits to gays would infringe on the rights of taxpayers in the 30 states that specifically prohibit same-sex marriages.”

According to some news reports, while the Justice Department filed papers asking to enforce the marriage law, President Obama filed a separate document pointing out that he considers the law to be discriminatory.

Scotland Angers the USA

AFP wrote on August 20:

“The terminally-ill Libyan convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was released on compassionate grounds from jail in Scotland Thursday, sparking joy in Tripoli but fury from the United States…

“Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the only person convicted for downing a US passenger jet that killed 270 people, left Greenock Prison in a convoy headed for nearby Glasgow airport, where a Libyan plane [in fact, one of Moammar Gadhafi’s private planes] was waiting. His release came barely an hour after Scotland’s justice minister announced that he was being freed because he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and has less than three months to live…

“But the gesture was immediately condemned by the US government. ‘The United States deeply regrets the decision by the Scottish Executive to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi,’ a White House statement said… US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US lawmakers and relatives of the American dead had also fiercely opposed the move.

“The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, was the worst terrorist attack committed in Britain… Seven US senators wrote to the Scottish government demanding that Megrahi — convicted in 2001 after a trial held under Scots law at a special court in the Netherlands — serve out his sentence in Britain.

“Following the release, Megrahi was expected to be back with his family in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan which starts Friday. The decision comes amid thawing relations between Libya and Britain, which were arch-enemies in the 1980s and 1990s. Libya has the largest proven oil reserves of any country in Africa, much of it still untapped, and British firms including BP and Shell have signed major exploration deals in the country in recent years. Saad Djebbar, a lawyer who has worked with the Libyan government on the case, told BBC radio that freeing Megrahi would be a huge boost to relations between Britain and the whole Arab world.”

Deutsche Welle added on August 20:

“In the background of all the legal proceedings there has been the combination of money, oil and politics. Without a doubt, oil is a very big part of the Libyan economy… Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was among the first politicians to become involved in helping British Petroleum (BP) and Shell win exploration acreage in Libya. Also, the release of al-Megrahi eases the tensions between Britain and Libya so that business may pick up. It should come as no surprise then that some of the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombings have intimated that a deal had been struck.”

Outrageous Criminal Prosecution of Florida School Administrators for Praying

CNN reported on August 17:

“Two Florida school administrators face contempt charges and possible prison time for saying a prayer at a school luncheon. Pace High School enacted a decree in January banning officials from promoting religion at school events. Frank Lay, principal of Pace High School, and Athletic Director Robert Freeman are accused of violating a consent decree banning employees of Santa Rosa County schools from endorsing religion. They face a non-jury trial September 17 before U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers. The statute under which they are charged carries a maximum penalty of up to six months in prison, subject to sentencing guidelines…
 
“On January 28, ‘Lay asked Freeman to offer a prayer of blessing during a school-day luncheon for the dedication of a new fieldhouse at Pace High School,’ according to court documents. ‘Freeman complied with the request and offered the prayer at the event. It appears this was a school-sponsored event attended by students, faculty and community members.’

“Attorneys from Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group helping defend Lay and Freeman, said in a written statement that attendees included booster club members and other adults who helped the field house project, all ‘consenting adults’…

“‘It is a sad day in America when school officials are criminally prosecuted for a prayer over a meal,’ said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the law school at Liberty University, founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. ‘It is outrageous and an offense to the First Amendment to punish a school official for a simple prayer.’ Liberty Counsel said it is challenging the consent decree, maintaining that it ‘unconstitutionally infringes on the rights of teachers, administrators and students’…”

Afghanistan–The Long and Winding Road…

USA Today wrote on August 17:

“Obama [said] on Monday that the United States didn’t choose to fight in Afghanistan but was forced to invade that country to stop future Sept. 11-type attacks at home… Obama warned Americans that the battle there will be neither quick nor easy.”

The Los Angeles Times added on August 17:

“President Obama today renewed his commitment to dismantling Al Qaeda in Afghanistan — a struggle he said was ‘fundamental to the defense of our people’… ‘This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity,’ Obama told the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars conference… ‘Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.'”

“Afghanistan Is a Disaster”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on August 17:

“In a SPIEGEL interview, former German Defense Minister Volker Rühe [member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party] speaks in bold terms about how politicians in Berlin have failed [in Afghanistan] and why Germany needs to use all of its military might in the country.”

We are quoting the following excerpts from Mr. Rühe’s comments:

“This mission [in Afghanistan] is a disaster — for NATO, for Germany and for the soldiers dying in the Hindu Kush. If Defense Minister Jung and Peter Struck, the parliamentary leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), are really hoping that we will stay in Afghanistan for 10 more years, then we are really in for a nightmare…

“Over the next two years, we should engage ourselves with all our might, and then we should initiate a withdrawal. The Americans will do exactly the same thing because Obama wants to get re-elected. But in Germany there has not been a serious debate about this once during the election campaign… The parties should finally express their opinions about Afghanistan in precise terms — but they all lack the courage to do so… If we say that we are going to stay for another 10 years, the Afghans are not going to be in any particular rush to stand up on their own two feet…

“In the Balkans, the real issue is democracy in Europe. But that kind of nation-building is not going to work in Afghanistan. If you walk up to someone in the Hindu Kush and explain to them that you are trying to introduce democracy in Afghanistan, they will laugh themselves silly… It is not in the interest of Germany or NATO to get themselves tied down there for another 10 years. The alliance needs to once again focus itself on tasks in the European field of activity, such as the Middle East…

“[For the next two years, Germany] should think about improving our equipment. For example, we shouldn’t abstain from using certain weapons just because they might look too war-like. But, more than anything, we need to assume more responsibility. Whenever the French or the British fall into danger, we need to be the ones to help them out, even if it’s in the hard-fought southern part of the country. Loyalty to the alliance demands it… remember, we are involved in a military conflict. Our soldiers are not armed development workers…”

The Real Afghanistan

Deutsche Welle wrote on August 18:

“Afghanistan’s election campaign has been marked by violence and corruption…

“The Taliban, who have promised to disrupt elections with a campaign of terror, have shown they can strike wherever they want… since the US-led invasion in 2001 and the toppling of the Taliban regime, the insurgents are again on the rise and have a presence in 70 percent of the country…

“From flying to campaign rallies in government helicopters to brokering power deals with warlords, and pardoning drug traffickers, Karzai is pulling out all the stops to secure his re-election… In the past few days Karzai has also passed a law which is effectively selling out women’s rights in the hope of winning the conservative vote.”

As NBC’s Today Show reported on August 18, women can be criminally prosecuted and jailed when they run away from their abusive and violent husbands. Many women are in jail right now for “adultery,” even though they were raped. When the NBC reporter asked the prison jailer how he can in good conscience continue to “guard” these innocent women, he answered, “This is a Muslim country.” According to NBC’s report, the new law endorsed by Karzai allows husbands to beat their wives–even with chains–without any fear of penalty.

Iran’s True Intentions

WorldNetDaily wrote on August 17:

“Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei yesterday called on Muslim nations around the world to unite militarily in response to the imminent coming of Islam’s messianic savior – the Mahdi. Khamenei, through his spokesman Ali Saeedi, specifically beckoned the nations of Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan to join together with Iran in preparation for the Mahdi’s soon coming.

“The purpose of uniting now, a report in Al Arabiya explained, is to fight Israel and the U.S. – seen as the two greatest obstacles to the coming of the Mahdi and the age of Islamic ‘justice’ that would ensue. ‘We have to train honest forces that can stop the obstacles that may hinder the coming of the Mahdi like the United States and Israel,’ Saeedi stated. Saeedi also emphasized that the Iranian revolutionary guard possessed a special religious authority to prepare the way for the Mahdi…

“With news arriving this past week that Iran now has the capability to develop nuclear weapons, the Mahdist conference and this call for Islamic unity under the banner of the Mahdi takes on an added dimension of interest… While some Muslims have emphasized the peaceful nature of the Mahdi’s reign, many in Iran obviously disagree… In [his] work Imam al-Mahdi, the Just Leader of Humanity, Ayatollah Ibrahim al Amini, professor at the Religious Learning Center at Qom… states, ‘The Mahdi will offer the religion of Islam to the Jews and Christians; if they accept it they will be spared, otherwise they will be killed.'”

Hidden Complications of Swine Flu Vaccines?

The British paper, Mail-On-Line, wrote on August 15:

“A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter… It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine. GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal…

“Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects, especially on children, are unknown. It is being developed by pharmaceutical companies and will be given to about 13million people during the first wave of immunisation, expected to start in October…

“There are concerns that there could be a repeat of what became known as the ‘1976 debacle’ in the US, where a swine flu vaccine killed 25 people – more than the virus itself. A mass vaccination was given the go-ahead by President Gerald Ford because scientists believed that the swine flu strain was similar to the one responsible for the 1918-19 pandemic, which killed half a million Americans and 20million people worldwide.

“Within days, symptoms of GBS were reported among those who had been immunised and 25 people died from respiratory failure after severe paralysis. One in 80,000 people came down with the condition. In contrast, just one person died of swine flu. More than 40million Americans had received the vaccine by the time the programme was stopped after ten weeks. The US Government paid out millions of dollars in compensation to those affected.

“The swine flu virus in the new vaccine is a slightly different strain from the 1976 virus, but the possibility of an increased incidence of GBS remains a concern.”

DNA Credibility Undermined

The New York Times wrote on August 18:

“Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person…

“Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, said the findings were worrisome. ‘DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,’ she said. ‘We’re creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology’…

“From a pooled sample of many people’s DNA, the scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To prepare a DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. They said that a library of 425 different DNA snippets would be enough to cover every conceivable profile.”

Earthquakes in Japan–Is the Big One Coming?

Bloomberg wrote on August 14:

“The three earthquakes that rattled Tokyo this week increased concerns among residents that the first major temblor in 86 years, the so-called Big One, may soon strike the world’s biggest city… The last major earthquake to strike Tokyo and its environs was in 1923, when as many as 142,000 people were killed… some seismologists have long forecast the city may be devastated again by a temblor…

“The city of about 27 million sits adjacent to three major fault lines, situated on the boundary of two tectonic plates, the Philippine and the Eurasian. Japan experiences a fifth of the world’s quakes annually. Of those fault lines, the Nankai Trough has been the source of most concern among seismologists since 1979 because they believe the area of the trough closest to Tokyo is most likely to generate a quake of magnitude-8 in the near future.

“That zone produces a major quake every 118.8 years on average and the last one, which was magnitude 8.4, was in 1854… A magnitude-8 earthquake would be 178 times more powerful than the 6.5 temblor three days ago… A 7.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido in July 1993 produced a tsunami with waves as high as 30 meters.”

The Wall Street Journal added on August 17 that another 6.8 earthquake hit off Japan’s southern coast on Monday, which resulted in a Tsunami warning.”

Terror Attacks in Russia

Deutsche Welle reported on August 17:

“A deadly suicide bombing in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia has been condemned by the European Union… Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded swiftly to what he described as an ‘act of terror that could have been averted,’ and fired Ingushetia’s interior minister…

“As the gray smoke settled over the twisted rubble, burned cars and blast crater, the attack stoked fears that Ingushetia was replacing Chechnya as the next battleground in southern Russia. Ingushetia, along with the rest of the Caucasus region, has seen a spike in violence in recent months, with Islamic separatists launching regular attacks on politicians and police officers.

“Last Wednesday Ingushetia’s construction minister was brazenly shot to death in his own office. And Monday’s bombing comes just four days after the Kremlin announced that Ingushetia’s President Yunus-Bek Yevkurkov would be returning to work while still recovering from injuries sustained in a bomb attack against him in June.

“Yevkurov blamed Islamic militants for the attack. ‘The militants have carried out this terrorist attack with the aim of destabilizing the situation in the region,’ he said through his spokesman.”

The Wall Street Journal added on August 17:

“The attack poses a serious challenge to the Kremlin and its policies in the largely Muslim North Caucasus, which is home to scores of different ethnic groups that have at various times battled Russian forces or fought among themselves… Rights groups and Caucasus experts have warned that arbitrary arrests, torture and killings by security forces are fueling resentment and turning the sympathies of some of the civilian population to rebel fighters.”

Russia Meddles in Abkhazia

The EUObserver wrote on August 14:

“The EU has said that Russia is contributing to instability in South Caucasus by treating Georgian separatists in Abkhazia as if they were a real country. ‘Vladimir Putin has paid a visit to the Georgian region of Abkhazia without prior consent of the Georgian authorities. The EU does not consider this visit compatible with the principle of territorial integrity nor helpful for international efforts to stabilise the region,’ the Swedish EU presidency said in a statement on Thursday (13 August)…

“Regional tension was highlighted the same day when two people died in a bomb explosion in the Abkhazian town of Gagra… The EU last month issued a similarly critical statement after Russian president Dmitry Medvedev went to South Ossetia…

“Russian troop numbers have… climbed to over 3,600 in Abkhazia over the past 12 months, with Mr Putin on Wednesday announcing he would spend a further €350 million on expanding military and border installations in the territory… Some analysts see Russian strategy in Georgia as designed to repel US military encroachment into its old sphere of influence…”

USA and Britain Knew About Hitler’s Plan to Exterminate the Jews

United Press International reported on August 17:

“The Vatican’s newspaper says the United States and Britain knew about Adolf Hitler’s plans to exterminate the Jews, but did nothing to stop him. L’Osservatore Romano, quoting from the diary of then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., said the British and American governments ignored, downplayed or suppressed intelligence reports about the extermination plans, The Times of London reported Monday.

“In contrast, Pope Pius XII tried to save as many Jews as he could through clandestine means, the L’Osservatore article said. The dispatch is Vatican’s latest effort to restore the reputation of Pope Pius, whose unwillingness to denounce the Nazis publicly resulted in accusations of anti-Semitism and earned him the moniker ‘Hitler’s Pope.’

“The article quoted Morgenthau as saying that as early as August 1942, the U.S. government ‘knew that the Nazis were planning to exterminate all the Jews of Europe,’ The Times said. In his diary, Morgenthau wrote of a telegram, dated Aug. 24, 1942, and passed on to the U.S. State Department, that relayed a report of Hitler’s plan to kill between 3.5 million and 4 million Jews.

“The article also cited a British Foreign Office message that warned of ‘the difficulties of disposing of any considerable number of Jews should they be rescued from enemy occupied territory,’ advising against allocating money for the project.”

Incredible–$550 Million for Additional Government Passenger Jets!

The Wall Street Journal wrote on August 10:

“Bipartisan opposition is emerging in the Senate to a plan by House lawmakers to spend $550 million for [eight] additional passenger jets for senior government officials… The plan to upgrade the fleet of government jets… has also sparked criticism from the Pentagon, which has said it doesn’t need half of the new jets.

“‘The whole thing kind of makes me sick to my stomach,’ said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) in an interview Sunday. ‘It is evidence that some of the cynicism about Washington is well placed — that people get out of touch and they spend money like it’s Monopoly money.’ Several other senators said they share the concerns and will work to oppose the funding for the jets when the legislation is taken up by the Senate in September…

“The tension over the jets is erupting just as lawmakers embark on the high season for government travel. Traditionally, August is the busiest travel period of the year, since Congress usually recesses for a month. Since 1995, House lawmakers have disclosed a total of $6.2 million in travel expenses for all the months of August…”

The Ongoing Expensive Afghan War

The Washington Post wrote on August 9:

“As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war. Since the invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago, the United States has spent $223 billion on war-related funding for that country… The costs are almost certain to keep growing…

“‘We will need a large combat presence for many years to come, and we will probably need a large financial commitment longer than that,’ said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations… The expansion of the Afghan security force that the general will recommend to secure the country ‘will inevitably cost much more than any imaginable Afghan government is going to be able to afford on its own,’ Biddle added…

“The task that the United States has taken on in Afghanistan is in many ways more difficult than the one it has encountered in Iraq, where the U.S. government has spent $684 billion in war-related funding… Unlike in Iraq, where Obama has established a timeline for U.S. involvement, the president has not said when he would like to see troops withdrawn from Afghanistan.”

USA and Arabs vs. Israel

Reuters reported on August 6:

“The United States has asked Israel to freeze West Bank settlement for a year to prod Arab countries to take steps towards normalising relations with the Jewish state… The issue has opened the widest rift in US-Israeli relations in a decade and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said peace negotiations with Israel, suspended since December, cannot resume until settlement activity ceases.

“Kuwait and Jordan said last week in Washington that Israel should fulfil its obligations before peace talks can resume. Saudi Arabia accused the Jewish state of not being serious about peace with the Palestinians…”

The Effect of Europe’s Moslems on Europe’s Policy

Israel National News wrote on August 10:

“A high birth rate among Muslim immigrants to Europe will make followers of the religion a majority of the population in many European Union countries in less than 40 years… Previous forecasts of population changes already have proven to be too low, and the baby boom already is changing the face of European society…

“Europe’s Muslim population has more than doubled since 1980 and will double again in less than six years… The high population numbers are the result of Europe’s open immigration policies that have attracted Muslims from poorer countries and whose birth rate is far higher than those of European non-Muslims… The number of Muslims in Europe today is far above 15 million and may be as many as 25 million…

“Long-term effects of the growing Muslim population may be felt in foreign relations, particularly with the United States, but immediate changes have been implemented in areas concerning Islamic law, known as Sharia. Last year, the British government quietly allowed Muslim religion courts to rule on Muslim civil cases concerning divorces, financial disputes and domestic violence, creating fears that Muslims will establish a legal system parallel and with equal authority as the British legal system. Muslim clerics responded that Jewish courts also are allowed to operate.”

More Powers for the German Army?

Deutsche Welle wrote on August 9:

“[German Defense Minister] Franz Josef Jung has called for a constitutional amendment giving the German armed forces an enhanced role in operations to release hostages. Under existing law, German police are responsible for hostage situations…

“The minister cited the recent episode involving German container ship the Hansa Stavanger, which was hijacked with 24 crew on board, including five Germans, off the coast of Somalia four months ago. He said that in the time it took a German police team to deploy to the Horn of Africa the situation had worsened. Only five pirates had boarded the ship initially, but their numbers eventually swelled to around 35, he noted…

“Jung said the amendment should not only apply to international operations but also to certain domestic cases in which the German armed forces were better suited to handle a situation. The Hansa Stavanger was eventually released four months after being captured when the Hamburg-based shipping company that owns the ship paid a 1.9-million-euro ransom.”

Europe Condemns Iran’s Show Trials

The EUObserver wrote on August 10:

“Sweden’s EU presidency has criticised Iran for putting on trial British and French embassy staff… Relations between the EU and Tehran have deteriorated following the protests, with the Iranian government accusing European diplomats of secretly helping opposition activists.

“In reaction to Saturday’s events, Stockholm expressed ‘concern over the ongoing trial in Tehran in the aftermath of the elections, including against two EU Member State embassy employees and one EU citizen. Actions against one EU country – citizen or embassy staff – is considered an action against all of EU, and will be treated accordingly. The EU will closely follow the trial and demand that the persons will be released promptly,’ it said.

“London and Paris also spoke out against the trial. British foreign minister David Miliband criticised the ‘unjustified charges’ against a member of embassy staff… [He] said the trial in Tehran was the ‘latest Iranian provocation’ which ‘only brings further discredit on the Iranian regime’… The trial on Saturday was the second judiciary proceeding against the protesters. Last week, more than 100 people, including leading reformers, appeared in court in Tehran on charges including conspiracy…”

Internet of Low Interest for Many Elderly or Unemployed Europeans

The EUObserver wrote on August 5:

“Almost half of Europeans [43 %] use the internet every day but one third – mainly the elderly, the unemployed or people in rural areas – have never used the web… seventy five percent use it… at least once a week…

“With 114 million subscribers, the EU is the largest world market for fixed broadband access. Half of European households and more than 80 percent of European businesses have a fixed broadband connection… But while broadband is technically available to 90 percent of EU households only 50 percent use it in practice, with mainly low-income families opting out. Low usage rates are also seen among the 65 to 74 age group, economically inactive people and people with low levels of education.”

From a Science Fiction Novel–Cloud Ships to Change Climate???

On August 7, The Telegraph wrote the following:

“The ‘cloud ships’ are favoured among a series of schemes aimed at altering the climate… The project, which is being worked on by rival US and UK scientists, would see 1,900 wind-powered ships ply the oceans sucking up seawater and spraying minuscule droplets of it out through tall funnels to create large white clouds. These clouds, it is predicted, would reflect around one or two per cent of the sunlight that would otherwise warm the ocean, thereby cancelling out the greenhouse effect caused by Carbon Dioxide emissions. The unmanned ships would be directed by satellite to areas with the best conditions for increasing cloud cover, mainly in the Pacific and far enough away from land so as not to affect normal rainfall patterns…

“The Royal Society is expected to announce that the decade-old cloud ship plan is one of the most promising. The Copenhagen Consensus Centre… examined the various plans and found the cloud ships to be the most cost-effective. They would cost $9 billion (£5.3 billion) to test and launch within 25 years, compared to the $250 billion that the world’s leading nations are considering spending each year to cut CO2 emissions, and the $395 trillion it would cost to launch mirrors into space. At present, British and American teams are seeking funding to launch sea trials…

“Another scheme considered by the Copenhagen Consensus Centre is one to mimic the effects of volcanic eruptions in shielding the sun’s rays with a chemical haze and creating a global cooling effect that can last for over a year… However, the scheme would cost $230 billion and could not be reversed, unlike the cloud ships scheme.”

Global Warming–Con…

The Las Vegas Review Journal wrote August 9:

“… as leaders including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger encourage investments in alternative energy, their policy prescriptions could face serious headwinds from changing public opinions. Recent surveys show Americans cooling to global warming, and they’re even less keen on environmental policies they believe might raise power bills or imperil jobs…

“The number of Americans who say the media have exaggerated global warming jumped to a record 41 percent in 2009, up from 35 percent a year ago. The most marked increase came among political independents, whose ranks of doubters swelled from 33 percent to 44 percent. Republican doubters grew from 59 percent to 66 percent, while Democratic skeptics stayed at around 20 percent.

“What’s more, fewer Americans believe the effects of global warming have started to occur: 53 percent see signs of a hotter planet, down from 61 percent in 2008. Global warming placed last among eight environmental concerns Gallup asked respondents to rank, with water pollution landing the top spot.”

… and Pro…

Deutsche Welle wrote on August 10:

“Delegations from 192 countries are meeting in Bonn to continue negotiations towards a global climate deal, which is to be finalised at a much-anticipated UN meeting in Copenhagen in December. At the recent G-8 summit in the earthquake-devastated Italian town of L’Aquila, developed nations, including the US, promised to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius by 2050. However, climate experts and environmental groups say even two degrees is far too high and would have cataclysmic consequences…

“Despite the hundreds of pages of suggestions, solid commitments from UN member nations have not been forthcoming. Disputes continue about who should do what and in what time frame. There are also questions about who should provide financing for developing nations so that they can also combat the effects of climate change… Developed nations have been reluctant to agree to concrete commitments without the support of developing nations, especially China and India…”

Dangerous Antiviral Drugs to Children for Swine Flu

BBC News reported on August 10:

“Research has cast doubt on the policy of giving antiviral drugs to children for swine flu. Work in the British Medical Journal shows Tamiflu and Relenza rarely prevent complications in children with seasonal flu, yet carry side effects…

“While the latest study shows that antivirals can shorten the duration of normal seasonal flu in children by up to a day and a half, it also shows that they have little or no effect on asthma flare-ups, ear infections or the likelihood of children needing antibiotics. But the drugs can cause unpleasant side effects, such as vomiting with Tamiflu. There is also the risk that widespread use of the drugs will mean the flu virus will develop resistance to them.

“For most children aged between 1 and 12, the risks associated with taking the drugs may well outweigh any benefits, say the researchers. They say parents with sick children should make sure they get lots of rest and enough fluids and that they should contact their doctor if the child’s condition gets worse. In most cases, swine flu is a relatively mild disease…

“Co-researcher Dr Carl Heneghan, a GP and clinical lecturer at Oxford University, said the current policy of giving Tamiflu for mild illness was an ‘inappropriate strategy.’ He said: ‘The downside of the harms outweigh the one-day reduction in symptomatic benefits’…

“A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Whilst there is doubt about how swine flu affects children, we believe a safety-first approach of offering antivirals to everyone remains a sensible and responsible way forward. However, we will keep this policy under review as we learn more about the virus and its effects…'”

Jury Duty–America’s Compulsory Service

The Daily Herald wrote on August 10:

“‘Jurors are defending the very cornerstone of our justice system,’ said Sam Amirante, a former Cook County Circuit Court judge now in private practice in Palatine. ‘Their duty is no less important than those soldiers who are dying in Afghanistan to protect our freedom.’ Since Congress abolished the military draft more than 30 years ago, jury service remains the country’s only remaining compulsory service. ‘Jury duty is the one occasion today when an American can be drafted into service,’ said attorney Clarence Burch…

“Yet, most people treat a jury summons like the onset of flu season: hoping the bug passes them by… Prospective jurors typically cite a medical condition, role as a primary caregiver for a child or economic hardship when they’re looking to get out of jury duty… and the law allows the courts to excuse people for those reasons…

“Any juror who advocates the death penalty in all circumstances likely would be excluded for cause… The same would hold for a juror who refuses to impose the death penalty under any circumstances…

“Experts say there’s no such thing as a prosecutor’s or a defense’s juror. Moreover, stereotypes related to gender, education level, economic status, residence, political affiliation, religion don’t necessarily hold…

“Judges and attorneys can do their part by adhering to a reasonable schedule, stipulating to certain facts or issues, keeping sidebars to a minimum, ruling on controversial issues in advance and streamlining cross examination…”

Will Jews Build Another Temple in Jerusalem?

No Historic Evidence for the First Two Jerusalem Temples?

The Jerusalem Post wrote on July 28:

“There is a persistent narrative by the Islamists to deny any past Jewish presence on what they call Haram al-Sharif. Like the cult centers of Mecca and Medina, they call it the Noble Sanctuary rather than the Temple Mount. The propaganda is spreading throughout the Arab world, and would deny any legitimacy to our claim to have experienced the destruction of two Temples on the site. All the evidence, the propaganda goes, is written by Jews and is therefore suspect…

“Our own history is so ingrained in us, and our belief in the First and Second Temples so deeply inscribed in our hearts that it is difficult to think of an answer to these charges. But there are answers that don’t depend on our own literature.

“Firstly Josephus. His account of his own period is good history. His description of contemporary buildings is borne out by archeology. He lived shortly after the death of Herod, and gives a vivid account of that ruler’s ruthless personality as well as his achievements in construction. But as Josephus was not alive at the time, what were his sources? His main source was Herod’s personal historian, Nicolaus of Damascus, a non-Jew who would have had no reason to invent the story of Herod rebuilding the Second Temple.

“Josephus mentions that there was a stone at the southwest corner of the Temple Mount from which one of the priests would blow the trumpet on Friday afternoons to announce the start of the Sabbath. That stone has been found, with the Hebrew inscription ‘Lebeit hatekia’ (to the place of trumpeting). No such stone would have graced the corner of a Roman temple.

“Furthermore, the existence of the Second Temple is made clear from the New Testament and the stories of Jesus within the Temple complex. But then, the Islamists would say, those Christian documents were also written by Jews, maybe by Jews with a new belief in a savior, but still Jews…

“So the external sources are slim, except for one piece of evidence that is hard and fast. And that is the large frieze on the Arch of Titus in Rome, showing the spoils of the Temple being carried by Jewish slaves through the Forum Romanum. The shapes of the menora and silver trumpets are clear. Trumpets appear everywhere in the Roman world, but there was no menora at that time at any place in the world except Jerusalem.

“Was this proof of a Temple on Haram al-Sharif? It’s pretty good evidence, but perhaps not enough for the Islamists, so let’s turn to their own sources.

“… the Koran itself now makes that clear. The prophet’s night journey is described in Surah 17: ‘Glory be to Him who made His servant go by night from the Sacred Temple [Mecca] to the farther Temple [Al-Aksa, Jerusalem], whose surroundings We have blessed…’ It goes on to say, ‘We solemnly declared to the Israelites: “Twice you shall commit great evil in the land… and We sent against you a formidable army which ravaged your land… and when the prophecy of your second transgression came to be fulfilled, We sent another army to afflict you and to enter the Temple, as the former entered it before…”‘

“Thus the Koran itself gives us the evidence of the destruction of the two Temples that had stood on the site of Al-Aksa. Nothing could be clearer.”

Vast Majority of Jews Want the Jerusalem Temple Rebuilt

WorldNetDaily wrote on August 1:

“Nearly two-thirds of Israelis say the time is right to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, according to a Ynet-Gesher survey. Even half of non-religious Jews favor rebuilding the Holy Temple – an idea politically unthinkable in Israel just 10 or 20 years ago…

“The poll was release[d] on the saddest day on the Jewish calendar – the fasting day of Tisha B’Av, or the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av. It commemorates a series of tragedies that befell the Jewish people all on the same day, most significantly the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, which occurred about 656 years apart on the same day…

“Aside from the destruction of the Jewish Temples, a remarkably large number of massive calamities befell the Jewish people on Tisha B’Av. Jewish rebellion leader Bar Kokhba’s famous revolt against Rome failed in A.D. 136. Following the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the razing of Jerusalem occurred the next year. The first crusade pogrom against Jews in Palestine began on that date in A.D. 1096… The Jews were expelled from Britain on Tisha B’Av in 1290 and were expelled from Spain that same day in 1492. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was crushed by the Nazis on that day in May 1943, resulting in the slaughter of about 50,000 Jews. Nationalists in Israel also mourn the removal of Jews from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which began the day after Tisha B’av…

“Israel recaptured the Temple Mount during the 1967 Six Day War. Currently under Israeli control, Jews and Christians are barred from praying on the Mount. The Temple Mount was opened to the general public until September 2000 when the Palestinians started their intifada by throwing stones at Jewish worshippers after then-candidate for prime minister Ariel Sharon visited the area. Following the onset of violence, the new Sharon government closed the Mount to non-Muslims, using checkpoints to control all pedestrian traffic for fear of further clashes with the Palestinians.

“The Temple Mount was reopened to non-Muslims in August 2003. It remains open, but only Sundays through Thursdays, 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and not on any Christian, Jewish or Muslim holidays… During ‘open’ days, Jews and Christian are allowed to ascend the Mount, usually through organized tours and only if they conform first to a strict set of guidelines, which includes demands that they not pray or bring any ‘holy objects’ to the site.

“King Solomon built the First Temple in the 10th century B.C. The Babylonians destroyed it in 586 B.C. The Jews built the Second Temple in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple in A.D. 70.”

Obama Against Rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple?

Israel National Radio wrote on July 29:

“While a majority of the American People support Israel, U.S. President Obama doesn’t want Israel to allow Jewish building even in [its] own capital city, Jerusalem. This means that Obama would not even let Israel build the Temple if it wanted to… Why does he act in a manner that is down right promoting ‘apartheid’ in not wanting people to build or live in certain areas, just because they are Jews?”

Saudi Arabia Won’t Compromise on Politics Involving Israel

Israel National News wrote on August 1:

“Saudi Arabia has thoroughly rejected appeals by U.S. President Barack Obama that the Arab world make modest gestures to Israel to show it is interested in advancing a regional peace that would include the establishment of a Palestinian Authority state within Israel’s current borders…

“The Saudi rebuff, which also ignored an appeal by more than 200 members of Congress for ‘gestures’ towards Israel, leaves President Obama with little room for maneuvering after his two-month-old demand that Israel freeze all building for Jews in eastern Jerusalem as well as in Judea and Samaria fell on deaf ears in Israel. American media and the Jewish community increasingly have criticized President Obama for going too far in trying to pressure Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and a close ally of the United States.”

Iran Waits for Green Light from Ayatollah to Build the Bomb

Times on Line wrote on August 3:

“Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times. The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader.

“A US National Intelligence Estimate two years ago concluded that Iran had ended its nuclear arms research programme in 2003 because of the threat from the American invasion of Iraq. But intelligence sources have told The Times that Tehran had halted the research because it had achieved its aim — to find a way of detonating a warhead that could be launched on its long-range Shehab-3 missiles.”

Ahmadinejad Sworn In Amidst Controversy in the EU

Deutsche Welle reported on August 5:

“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been sworn in as president of Iran, vowing his country will resist ‘oppressive powers.’ German politicians have condemned the EU’s attendance of the ceremony as international criticism continues. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of the US, France, Britain and Italy have refused to offer congratulations to Ahmadinejad on his re-election…

“Within the European Union, there had been strong criticism of Sweden’s plans to send its ambassador to attend the ceremony to represent the current EU council presidency. German politician Elmar Brok, who is also the foreign policy spokesman for the conservatives in the European Parliament, warned the EU should be more consistent in its criticism of Tehran… Eckhard von Klaeden, the foreign policy spokesman for Merkel’s CDU, said Sweden should have followed the example of most other EU countries by not sending their ambassador…”

Der Spiegel Online added on August 6:

“France and Sweden, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, both sent official envoys to the ceremony. Britain’s ambassador to Iran also attended… No other major Western powers sent representatives…

“In Thursday’s newspapers, German commentators debate… on where all this turmoil… could be leading.

“Conservative Die Welt writes: ‘… the fact that the ambassador of Sweden, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, participated in Ahmadinejad’s inauguration ceremony sends a completely wrong signal. There are reports of a supposed meningitis outbreak at Tehran’s Evin Prison, and relatives of demonstrators who have been killed are not being allowed to claim their bodies. But, while all this is going on, a representative of the EU is standing among a crowd of people congratulating Iran’s head of state — a very sleazy sight…’

“The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes: ‘… the confrontation between Iran and the West will surely escalate. Even if Mir Houssein Mousavi had become the new president, Iran would most likely not have given ground in the controversy over its nuclear program. But with Ahmadinejad at the top, any such backing down is completely unthinkable… The US Congress had put off passing new sanctions until after the elections — but it will surely pass them soon. And, in Israel, hardly a day goes by without more speculation on possible attack scenarios on the nuclear facilities in Iran.'”

 

Iran Continues to Suppress Freedom

Deutsche Welle reported on August 3:

“The mass trial of post-election protestors and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s confirmation of President Ahmadinejad’s re-election both underscore the disconnect of those in power in Iran… Anyone who was expecting or at least hoping that the officially announced results of the Iranian presidential elections might be reversed has now definitively been shown to be wrong. The incumbent and ostensible winner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been confirmed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei…

“Weeks of protest have had no impact. On the contrary, pressure from the government has grown. Demonstrations have been banned and violently broken up. News coverage of the protests has been suppressed. And most significantly, thousands of protest organizers and participants have been jailed and hundreds of them have been put on the stand in a mass show trial…

“But when instead of the three politicians, their staff members and demonstration organizers are put on the stand, this shows that those in power don’t feel comfortable with the situation. They know, just as everyone in the country does, that the recent protests weren’t a coup attempt controlled from abroad, but rather the expression of broad dissatisfaction – with the way the elections went but above all with the general conditions in the country.

“And they also know that the demonstrations were an external expression of an internal power struggle that remains unresolved. Ex-presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami, in particular, are calling for more freedom than they were ready or able to provide during their presidencies. As long as they continue to do so, the opposition will maintain a remnant of hope, but if they too are gagged or brought before court, then the violence could really escalate.”

Bill Clinton Frees American Journalists from North Korea

Der Spiegel Online wrote on August 5:

“Former US President Bill Clinton returns from North Korea Wednesday with two freed American journalists. German commentators wonder who really won this mini showdown and whether Clinton will be America’s new nuclear negotiator with the unstable pariah state… The women — Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32 — had been sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor for entering the country illegally and engaging in ‘hostile acts’ after having been arrested in March near China’s border with North Korea…

“Clinton arrived in Pyongyang in a private plane on Tuesday morning, where he was greeted by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, who is also North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator. He then attended a banquet hosted by Kim. North Korean media sources reported that the two had held wide-ranging talks and that Clinton had delivered a message from President Obama, although White House sources have called the latter assertion ‘not true’…

“This has been a great success for the Americans — and presumably a very expensive one, too. It’s still hard to tell what trade-offs Clinton carried with him in his bags… The US government has called Clinton’s mission ‘private,’ but that is nonsense…

“The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: ‘Clinton’s mission shows just how dangerous the United States believes that developments in North Korea to be. Kim Jong Il is visibly weak, and there are more and more credible reports claiming that he is terminally ill. Should he be forced to step down or even die, a power vacuum in North Korea could lead the entire Korean peninsula into a war made riskier by the fact that North Korea now has nuclear weapons. Other worrisome factors include that North Korea might not only sell its bomb-making know-how to others, but also even perhaps an explosive device or a so-called dirty bomb. There’s no shortage of potential buyers on the world market. US relations with North Korea are much worse today (than they were during Clinton’s presidency)…’

“The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: ‘The fact that Pyongyang was able to drive the price for freeing the journalists so high can confidently be described as a victory for Kim Jong Il…'”

European Army in the Making…

The EUObserver wrote on July 14:

“Most Europeans have probably never heard of the European Defence Agency, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this month. Yet, this little known EU agency has slowly created a basis for the development of common military projects… Like most developments in the area of European military co-operation, the work of the EDA is happening completely outside the view of the wider general public…

“The statement in the Constitution that ‘Member States shall undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities’ is directly linked to the establishment of the EDA. It has led many to doubt whether Europe intends to be a friendly military power… French President Sarkozy has argued that, ‘Europe cannot be a dwarf in terms of defence and a giant in economic matters.’ Then Greek Defence Minister Papantoniou said in 2003: ‘We [Europe] must strengthen our presence, especially in the defence field, in order for the United States to view us seriously.’ Curiously, he saw the main obstacle being ‘that after the Cold War there is no strong threat. We have to overcome this problem.’

“With Javier Solana, High Representative for the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), appointed the head of the EDA, the agency was guaranteed political support. ‘The need to bolster Europe’s military capabilities to match our aspirations is more urgent than ever. And so, too, is the need for us to respond better to the challenges facing our defence industries. This Agency can make a huge difference’, stated Solana…

“Britain doesn’t approve: ‘We don’t back a budget without seeing what we are paying for’, a British official was quoted as saying… The EDA has certainly developed as a key player, sometimes even a catalyst, in the broader area of European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) developments. It is too early to judge properly its real added value, however, or its potential as a cornerstone in the process of an increasingly militarised role for the European Union. Doubtless, structurally diverging national interests will continue to be a major barrier.

“The fact that the EDA has remained largely invisible to most people is deeply problematic. The referenda rejecting the Constitutional Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty showed the ambiguity and widely diverging, often negative, views of European citizens on the current state and proposed future of Europe — including its rapidly developing security and defence policies. Continuing on the road to further EU military integration, including the special role for the EDA, without broad public consultation and a serious public debate, risks further undermining trust in the wider European project.”

Russia Backs EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia

Deutsche Welle reported on August 5:

“In rare praise from Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday lauded the work of the EU monitoring mission in Georgia but said he remained opposed to any American participation in the initiative… The unarmed EU monitors were sent to the region in the wake of the conflict under a peace deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The 225 civilian observers patrol along the de facto borders of both Georgia’s pro-Moscow breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In July this year, EU foreign ministers agreed to extend the European Union Monitory Mission (EUMM) for another year to September 14, 2010…

“Tensions have escalated between Russia and Georgia in recent weeks as the one-year anniversary of their war looms. Russia has reacted with anger to a request by Georgia for the United States to join the EU monitoring mission. On Wednesday, Lavrov reiterated his opposition to Georgia’s request, saying it was aimed at putting US observers alongside the thousands of Russian soldiers stationed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. ‘The idea is absolutely clear and we honestly told this to our US colleagues,’ Lavrov said. ‘This is all about dragging Americans into Georgia and pitching them against the Russian military,’ he said.”

India on the Warpath…

The Financial Times wrote on July 30:

“India has plans to add about 100 warships to its navy over the next decade as it seeks to modernise its armed forces, and develop its low-cost shipbuilding capabilities. Captain Alok Bhatnagar, director of naval plans at India’s ministry of defence, said on Thursday that 32 warships and submarines were under construction in the country’s shipyards. Work on 75 more ships, including aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates and amphibious vessels, would begin over 10 years.”

Afghanistan’s War Without Solutions

AFP  wrote on August 1:

“The international military mission in Afghanistan has delivered ‘much less than it promised’ due to the lack of a realistic strategy, an influential [British] committee of lawmakers said Sunday. In a report, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said without a clear strategy stabilising Afghanistan had become ‘considerably more difficult than might otherwise have been the case.’

“Lawmakers criticised US policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan and warned the ‘considerable cultural insensitivity’ of some coalition troops had caused serious damage to Afghans’ perceptions that will be ‘difficult to undo’… Drone attacks by US forces in Pakistan have ‘damaged the US’s reputation’ while some of the blame for problems in the international mission in Afghanistan must be put on the Bush administration’s early focus on military goals, it said.”

Kenyan Birth Certificate of Obama?

WorldNetDaily wrote on August 2:

“California attorney Orly Taitz, who has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as president, has released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth and has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court for its authentication. The document lists Obama’s parents as Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Obama, formerly Stanley Ann Dunham, the birth date as Aug. 4, 1961, and the hospital of birth as Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.

“No doctor is listed. But the alleged certificate bears the signature of the deputy registrar of Coast Province, Joshua Simon Oduya. It was allegedly issued as a certified copy of the original in February 1964. WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appear to be identical…

“One of the issues Taitz must deal with will be the authentication of the document. Critics immediately jumped on the Feb. 17, 1964, date for the document, explaining that the ‘republic’ of Kenya wasn’t assembled until December of that year… But Kenya’s official independence was in 1963, and any number of labels could have been applied to government documents during that time period… Kenya became an Independent Republic, December 12, 1963…”

The following comment was posted, on August 3, on Orly Taitz’ blog site: “I happen to be Kenyan. I was born 1 month before Obama at Mombasa medical center. I am a teacher here at the MM Shaw Primary School in Kenya. I compared my birth certificate to the one that has been put on by Taitz and mine is exactly the same. I even have the same registrar and format. The type is identical. I am by nature a skeptical person. I teach science here and challenge most things that cannot be proven. So I went to an official registrar today and pulled up the picture on the web. They magnified it and determined it to be authentic. There is even a plaque with Registrar Lavenders name on it as he was a Brit and was in charge of the Registrar office from 1959 until January of 1964. The reason the date on the certificate says republic of Kenya is that we were a republic when the ‘copy’ of the original was ordered. I stress the word ‘copy.’ My copy also has republic of Kenya.”

WorldNetDaily reported on August 4:

“According to a posting in the Washington Independent, a ‘source’ said the Obama document was nothing more than an alteration of ‘certified copy of registration of birth’ from Australia… ‘There are striking similarities between this document and the one Orly Taitz is passing off as a “Kenyan birth certificate” for Barack Obama,’ the report said. ‘The design is identical, down to the seal at the top and the classifications (“Christian name,” etc) used for identifying the baby.

“‘The “registrar” on the Bomford document is G.F. Lavender. On the Taitz document, it’s E.F. Lavender,’ the critics continued.

“‘The “district registrar” on the Bomford document is J.H. Miller. On the Taitz document, it’s M.H. Miller.’ ‘What’s more likely – that two Kenyan bureaucrats shared last names with two Australian bureaucrats, and that the numbers on both certificates were identical? Or that someone used this document, available online for anyone who wanted to look, to forge the Obama “certificate?'” the Independent report asked. The Independent critique was among hundreds of challenges to the document raised as soon as it appeared.'”

“Lou Dobbs Is Right” — Or Isn’t He?

Newsmax wrote on August 3:

“The Associated Press is wrong and Lou Dobbs is right. This past weekend, the AP published a story entitled ‘CNN’s Dobbs Under Fire for Hosting “Birthers.”‘ The AP began their highly critical story on Dobbs: ‘He’s become a publicity nightmare for CNN, embarrassed his boss and hosted a show that seemed to contradict the network’s “no bias” brand.’ And what is Dobbs’ ‘crime?’ He has said on air that Obama should release his birth certificate and has had on his show guests who suggested Obama was born outside the U.S.

“Dobbs does not believe Obama was born outside the U.S., nor does Newsmax. The evidence indicates he was born in Hawaii. But the indisputable fact is that Obama has not released his birth certificate, which the state of Hawaii issues for all citizens born there… Instead, Obama’s campaign last year released only his Certification of Live Birth from the state of Hawaii, which is a document that offers a summarized version of the birth certificate. Even state residents born outside the U.S. can get one.

“During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Sen. John McCain quickly released his birth certificate when liberal bloggers raised questions about his eligibility to be president. McCain was born at a military hospital in Panama. Obama likewise could put the matter to rest by releasing his actual birth certificate, which would show, among other things, the place of his birth and the doctor who performed the birth procedure. This information is not provided on the Certification of Live Birth.

“As it stands, Obama is the only president in history whose birthplace is unknown to the public – a fact that would be stated on the actual birth certificate. Interestingly, his family has mentioned two different hospitals in Hawaii as the place of birth. Obama’s refusal to release his birth certificate does mean that Obama remains one of America’s most mysterious and opaque presidents ever. Obama, for example, has not released many other documents regarding his public and private life… Ironically, Obama accused the Bush White House of being ‘one of the most secretive administrations in our history,’ and chided then-Sen. Hillary Clinton for not releasing her White House schedules.”

More U.S. Banks Shut Down

CNNMoney wrote on July 31:

“Regulators shut down five regional banks Friday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said, bringing the total number of banks to fail in the United States to 69 this year. Friday’s bank closures will cost the FDIC fund $911.7 million, bringing the total cost for failed banks to $15.13 billion this year. That compares with $17.6 billion in all of 2008… The number of bank failures so far in 2009 has almost tripled last year’s total of 25.”

Health Care Bill Being Pushed Through?

The Financial Times wrote on July 31:

“Liberal and conservative Democrats on Friday pulled off a last-minute compromise on healthcare that will enable them to go into the summer congressional recess with the reform process still on track. Friday’s deal paves the way for a full House of Representatives vote in September. The bill, which would cost about $1,000bn over 10 years, would extend insurance to most of the almost 50m Americans currently lacking it, funded through savings within the healthcare system.

“Under the compromise, Medicare, the government programme for the elderly, would negotiate lower drugs costs directly with drugs companies and the savings would help to pay for a generous employer exemption, which conservative Democrats negotiated for small businesses… However, a similar compromise continues to elude the Senate, which is a much tougher hurdle for Barack Obama’s administration given that Democrats will need 60 out of the 100 votes in the upper chamber to prevent the Republicans from filibustering it.

“Bills in the House can pass by a simple majority. The Senate maths is complicated by the absence of Ted Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate health committee, who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer. Friday, Chris Dodd, the senator for Connecticut, who is standing in for Mr Kennedy, announced he was in the early stages of prostate cancer… On Thursday, Max Baucus, chairman of the pivotal Senate finance committee, said he would be unable to broker a bipartisan compromise before the August break. He set a new deadline of September 15.”

The New Health Care Proposals–What About Abortion?

The Associated Press reported on August 5:

“Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue. Federal funds for abortions are now restricted to cases involving rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother.

“Abortion opponents say those restrictions should carry over to any health insurance sold through a new marketplace envisioned under the legislation, an exchange where people would choose private coverage or the public plan. Abortion rights supporters say that would have the effect of denying coverage for abortion to millions of women who now have it through workplace insurance and are expected to join the exchange.

“Advocates on both sides are preparing for a renewed battle over abortion, which could jeopardize political support for President Barack Obama’s health care initiative aimed at covering nearly 50 million uninsured and restraining medical costs. The dispute could come to a head with House and Senate floor votes on abortion this fall, a prospect that many lawmakers would like to avoid.

“‘We want to see people who have no health insurance get it, but this is a sticking point,’ said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of pro-life activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. ‘We don’t want health care reform to be the vehicle for mandating abortion.’ The church can’t accept a public plan that covers abortion, he said… Since abortion is a legal medical procedure, experts on both sides say not mentioning it would allow health care plans in the new insurance exchange to provide unrestricted coverage.”

Will Middle-Class Americans Be Taxed for Health Care Overhaul?

The Associated Press wrote on August 2:

“President Barack Obama’s treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul… Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers both sidestepped questions on Obama’s intentions about taxes. Geithner said the White House was not ready to rule out a tax hike to lower the federal deficit; Summers said Obama’s proposed health care overhaul needs funding from somewhere…

“During his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly vowed ‘you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.’ But the simple reality remains that his ambitious overhaul of how Americans receive health care — promised without increasing the federal deficit — must be paid for.”

These kinds of promises sound all too familiar. We recall that former President George Bush Sn. stated during one of his political campaigns, when running for President: “Read my lips: No more taxes.” But when he had become President, that promise was swiftly forgotten. The sad part is, voters have become so familiar with the lies and broken promises of politicians that they don’t even get alarmed when another promise is being broken. That is why politics is such a “dirty business.”

25-Year-Old Graduate Student Ordered to Pay $675,000 for Illegally Downloading and Sharing 30 Songs

The Associated Press reported on July 31:

“A federal jury on Friday ordered a Boston University graduate student who admitted illegally downloading and sharing music online to pay $675,000 to four record labels. Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs… The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum’s case was $4.5 million. Jurors ordered Tenenbaum to pay $22,500 for each incident of copyright infringement, effectively finding that his actions were willful.

“The attorney for the 25-year-old student had asked the jury earlier Friday to ‘send a message’ to the music industry by awarding only minimal damages… [Tennenbaum] added he will file for bankruptcy if the verdict stands… Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, must pay $1.92 million, or $80,000 on each of 24 songs, after concluding she willfully violated the copyrights on those tunes…”

Serious Side-Effects to Swine Flu Drug

Times on Line wrote on July 31:

“More than half of children taking the swine flu drug Tamiflu experience side-effects such as nausea and nightmares, research suggests… The research by the Health Protection Agency emerged as Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said that swine flu infections ‘may have reached a plateau.’

“Releasing the latest figures, Sir Liam said that an estimated 110,000 new cases of the H1N1 virus were diagnosed by doctors in the week to Sunday. That did not include those using the new National Pandemic Flu Service for England to obtain antiviral drugs without seeing their GP. Sir Liam said that the deaths of 27 people in England were confirmed to have been linked to swine flu, compared with 26 last week. As of Wednesday morning 793 people were in hospital in England with the virus, and 81 were in intensive care.”

HIV Transmitted from Gorillas to Humans

AFP wrote on August 2:

“French virologists on Sunday said they had found a new subtype of the AIDS virus that appears to have jumped the species barrier to humans from gorillas. The new strain, found in a woman from Cameroon, West Africa, is part of the HIV-1 family of microbes that account for the vast majority of cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), they said. Until now, all have been linked to the chimpanzee…

“There are several theories that seek to explain how SIV entered humans. An infected animal bit a human, or a SIV-infected ape was butchered and sold for bushmeat, and the virus entered the bloodstream through tiny cuts in the hand, according to these hypotheses.

“AIDS first came to public notice in 1981, when alert US doctors noted an unusual cluster of deaths among young homosexuals in California and New York. It has since killed at least 25 million people, and 33 million others are living with the disease or HIV, the virus that destroys immune cells and exposes the body to opportunistic disease.”

The Mystery Surrounding President Obama’s Birth

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News and lawyers for John McCain’s presidential campaign claim that they investigated the issue of Barack Obama’s original birth certificate and are convinced that he is a natural-born U.S. citizen and therefore eligible to serve as American President. But WHAT, exactly, did O’Reilly and McCain lawyers investigate? WHAT did they examine?

WHY is the White House failing to convincingly put the issue to rest? Why are there so many misrepresentations and outright lies in regard to the matter? Why is CNN’s Lou Dobbs ordered to drop the matter, and why do some even call for his termination for simply addressing it? Those who ridicule the ever-growing number of Americans DEMANDING that President Obama release his original long-form birth certificate sound less and less convincing–and they appear to give more and more the impression, perhaps inadvertently, that something needs to be kept secret and hidden.

What IF Barack Obama was not a natural-born U.S. citizen, but born in Kenya, as some claim? The consequences would be unthinkable. Every piece of legislation which he signed would be invalid, and so would every appointment that he made. This would include his appointment of Joe Biden as Vice President. This would mean, until we have new elections, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, would be acting President.

The discussion was picked up by the European mainstream press. Der Spiegel Online published a German article on July 29, addressing the issue in its typically sarcastic way by making fun of conspiracy believers who question Mr. Obama’s claim that he was born in Hawaii. Nevertheless, until Mr. Obama releases his original long-form birth certificate, the debate is bound to continue.

Robert Gibbs’ Claims on President’s U.S. Citizenship

Politico 44 wrote on July 27:

“White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs once again dismissed conspiracy theories about the president’s citizenship in his daily briefing Monday, noting that proof of President Obama’s birthplace had been posted online and Obama’s citizenship had been demonstrated ‘ad nauseam.’ But Gibbs, sounding alternately bemused and exasperated, told White House reporters that conspiracy theories about the president’s birthplace would never go away…

“Attempting to put the issue to rest, once more, Gibbs assured reporters: ‘The president was born in Honolulu, in the 50th state of the greatest country on the face of the earth…There are 10,000 more important issues for people in this country to discuss, than whether or not the president is a citizen when it’s been proven ad nauseam.'”

But some contend that Gibbs’ comments are simply untrue.

WND wrote on July 27:

“President Obama has still not provided simple, incontrovertible proof of his exact birthplace. That information would be included on his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate which Obama has steadfastly refused to release amid a flurry of conflicting reports. He has only proffered a ‘Certification of Live Birth’ to assert he was born in Hawaii, but many people remain unaware a child does not even have to be born in Hawaii to receive a COLB…

“WND has reported that at least two reports have cited Obama’s birth in Kenya. Wikipedia also was found to have been reporting on Obama’s birth in Kenya, before a series of scrubs placed his birth in Honolulu.

“That came on the heels of several online information sites changing the president’s supposed birthplace from one hospital in Hawaii to another… WND has yet to be able to identify any physician or medical attendant present at Kapi’olani in 1961 who can recall Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, giving birth to Barack Obama at the hospital or who can identify the name of the attending physician…

“Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama’s American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

“Other challenges have focused on Obama’s citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.”

Obama Born in Kenya?

Infowars.com wrote on July 14:

“Contained in an otherwise relatively mundane account of Obama’s recent visit to Ghana in the Daily Graphic news outlet is a sentence sure to raise eyebrows amongst people like journalist Jerome Corsi, who has been at the forefront of the Obama birth certificate scandal since well before the election. The full paragraph reads, ‘For Ghana, Obama’s visit will be a celebration of another milestone in African history as it hosts the first-ever African-American President on this presidential visit to the continent of his birth.’…

“In April a transcript from an interview with Obama’s step-grandmother was released in which she discussed being present at Obama’s birth in Mombasa, Kenya. ‘WND is in possession of an affidavit submitted by Rev. Kweli Shuhubia, an Anabaptist minister in Kenya, who is the official Swahili translator for the annual Anabaptist Conference in Kenya, and a second affidavit signed by Bishop Ron McRae, the presiding elder of the Anabaptists’ Continental Presbytery of Africa,’ reported Corsi. In his affidavit, Shuhubia asserts ‘it is common knowledge throughout the Christian and Muslim communities in Kenya that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born in Mombasa, Kenya.’”

Proofs for Obama’s Birth in Hawaii?

Politicalwire.com reported on July 24:

“David Weigel talked with Trevor Potter and other lawyers for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign who said that they did look into the Obama citizenship rumors and found them without merit. Said Potter: ‘To the extent that we could, we looked into the substantive side of these allegations. We never saw any evidence that then-Senator Obama had been born outside of the United States. We saw rumors, but nothing that could be sourced to evidence.

“‘There were no statements and no documents that suggested he was born somewhere else. On the other side, there was proof that he was born in Hawaii. There was a certificate issued by the state’s Department of Health, and the responsible official in the state saying that he had personally seen the original certificate. There was a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser, which would be very difficult to invent or plant 47 years in advance.'”

Was Original Long-Form Birth Certificate Destroyed…?

USA Today wrote on July 29:

“In an attempt to quash persistent rumors that President Obama was not born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, Hawaii’s health director reiterated Monday afternoon that she has personally seen Obama’s birth certificate in the Health Department’s archives:

“‘I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago’…

“Despite Fukino’s statements, the issue has continued to resonate from Capitol Hill to the national airwaves. Last week, CNN’s Lou Dobbs demanded Obama’s original birth certificate. CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein told staffers of Lou Dobbs Tonight that the issue is a ‘dead’ story…

“In an e-mail, the Times reported, Klein wrote that CNN researchers determined that Obama’s 1961 birth certificate no longer exists because Hawaiian officials had discarded paper documents in 2001 — a claim denied Monday by Hawaiian health officials. In 2001, Hawaii’s paper documents were reproduced in electronic format, but ‘any paper data prior to that still exists,’ Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said. Okubo would not say where Obama’s original birth certificate is but said, ‘We have backups for all of our backups.’

“A congressional resolution introduced by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of island statehood was delayed Monday. The resolution includes a clause noting Obama’s Hawaiian birthplace. The line ‘Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961’ appeared to be construed by birthers as a thinly veiled attempt to get Congress to affirm Obama’s U.S. citizenship, said Dave Helfert, an Abercrombie spokesman. As the issue came to a vote Monday, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., rose to object, saying there was not a quorum present. The House later voted 378-0 to approve the resolution. Bachmann voted in favor of the resolution.”

Lou Dobbs Ordered to Stop…

WorldNetDaily reported on July 27:

“Directly contradicting CNN chief Jon Klein – who ordered host Lou Dobbs to quit discussing President Obama’s birth certificate – the Hawaii Department of Health affirmed that no paper birth certificates were destroyed when the department moved to electronic record-keeping…

“Klein wrote in an email that CNN researchers found Hawaiian records were discarded in 2001 when the state’s records system went electronic. Therefore, Klein said, Obama’s original long-form birth certificate no longer exists.

“A computer-generated-abbreviated version that has been promoted on the Internet is the official record, he said. ‘It seems to definitively answer the question,’ Klein wrote. ‘Since the show’s mission is for Lou to be the explainer and enlightener, he should be sure to cite this during your segment tonite. And then it seems this story is dead – because anyone who still is not convinced doesn’t really have a legitimate beef.'”

Obama Approval Rates in Decline

The Rasmussen Reports wrote on July 30:

“The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 28% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -12. That’s the lowest rating yet recorded for President Obama…

“Forty-nine percent (49%) now say that America’s best days have come and gone. Just 38% believe they are still to come. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the country is heading in the right direction. Seventy-five percent (75%) want the Federal Reserve to be audited.”

New Health Care Plan — Small Business Under Attack

USA Today wrote on July 27:

“Now, what about this so-called mandate requiring small business owners to provide health insurance or face a government fine?… Under the House measure, employers with payrolls of more than $400,000 a year will be required to provide health insurance or pay an 8% penalty. Businesses whose payroll falls between $250,000 and $400,000 a year would pay a lesser penalty. Businesses with fewer than $250,000 in payroll would be exempt. A Senate version would exempt employers with fewer than 25 employees, and the fine for bigger companies not complying would be $750 fine per employee per year.

“Those are some scary numbers, especially in a recession. The administration says that insuring more people and providing a public option will bring the costs of insuring employees way down, thus making the mandate far more doable than it might otherwise look. Would it work? It better, because insuring people at today’s costs verges on impossible and penalties are the last thing we need.”

Health Care Vote Delayed…

AFP reported on July 29:

“President Barack Obama said Wednesday there will be no vote on his proposed reforms of the US healthcare system before autumn, a setback that is costing him more political capital with each passing day. ‘This bill, even in the best-case scenario, will not be signed — we won’t even vote on it probably until the end of September or the middle of October,’ he said…

“Lawmakers are going through bills in both houses of Congress with fine tooth combs amid fierce opposition from Republicans and divisions within the Democratic majority and between the Senate and the House of Representatives. Obama has pressed lawmakers to vote on the initial bills before departing on their summer recess August 7, but acknowledged that is unlikely to happen. He was not clear whether he expected a final vote or only a first vote on the bill by the end of September or mid-October.”

Fall of the Dollar

Bloomberg wrote on July 28:

“The dollar fell to the lowest level this year against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners… The Australian dollar advanced to the highest level since September against the U.S. currency… The euro climbed to a seven-week high against the dollar after Deutsche Bank AG said second-quarter profit rose 68 percent, beating analysts’ estimates… The U.S. currency fell 0.5 percent to 94.73 yen, extending its drop this month to 1.7 percent…

“Adding to pressure on the dollar, China’s Assistant Finance Minister… [said] that his government remains ‘concerned’ about the value of its U.S. assets. [His] remarks come after repeated public assurances by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that the U.S. is committed to reining in a record budget deficit once an economic recovery is secured. China is the biggest foreign investor in U.S. government debt…”

Obama Administration “Not Naive” About Iran?

The Associated Press reported on July 27:

“Israel hardened its insistence Monday that it would do anything it felt necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, just the ultimatum the United States hoped not to hear as it tried to nudge Iran to the bargaining table.

“U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reassured Israel that the new Obama administration was not naive about Iran’s intentions, and that Washington would press for new, tougher sanctions against the Iranians if they balk. He didn’t say what those might include.

“Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak used a brief news conference with Gates to insist three times that Israel would not rule out any response—an implied warning that it would consider a pre-emptive strike to thwart Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons…

“The question of how to deal with Iran’s rapid nuclear advancement has become a notable public difference between the new administrations in Jerusalem and Washington… Israel considers itself the prime target of any eventual Iranian bomb.”

“Crunch Time for Israel”

On July 28, John Bolton wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

“Defense Secretary Robert Gates[‘]… central objective was to dissuade Israel from carrying out military strikes against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. Under the guise of counseling ‘patience,’ Mr. Gates again conveyed President Barack Obama’s emphatic thumbs down on military force…

“Iran’s progress with nuclear weapons and air defenses means Israel’s military option is declining over time. It will have to make a decision soon, and it will be no surprise if Israel strikes by year’s end. Israel’s choice could determine whether Iran obtains nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future.

“Mr. Obama’s approach to Tehran has been his ‘open hand,’ yet his gesture has not only been ignored by Iran but deemed irrelevant as the country looks inward to resolve the aftermath of its fraudulent election. The hardliner ‘winner’ of that election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was recently forced to fire a deputy who once said something vaguely soothing about Israel. Clearly, negotiations with the White House are not exactly topping the Iranian agenda.

“Beyond that, Mr. Obama’s negotiation strategy faces insuperable time pressure. French President Nicolas Sarkozy proclaimed that Iran must re-start negotiations with the West by September’s G-20 summit. But this means little when, with each passing day, Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile laboratories, production facilities and military bases are all churning. Israel is focused on these facts, not the illusion of ‘tough’ diplomacy…

“Worse, Mr. Obama has no new strategic thinking on Iran. He vaguely promises to offer the country the carrot of diplomacy—followed by an empty threat of sanctions down the road if Iran does not comply with the U.S.’s requests. This is precisely the European Union’s approach, which has failed for over six years…

“Relations between the U.S. and Israel are more strained now than at any time since the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. Mr. Gates’s message for Israel not to act on Iran, and the U.S. pressure he brought to bear, highlight the weight of Israel’s lonely burden.

“Striking Iran’s nuclear program will not be precipitous or poorly thought out. Israel’s attack, if it happens, will have followed enormously difficult deliberation over terrible imponderables, and years of patiently waiting on innumerable failed diplomatic efforts. Absent Israeli action, prepare for a nuclear Iran.”

“Politicians Criticise EU-US Bank Data Talks”

The Local reported on July 27:

“Plans to share confidential banking data between the European Union and the US for anti-terrorism purposes have united disparate parts of the German political spectrum in opposition.

“EU foreign ministers today gave the go-ahead to European Commission president José Manuel Barroso to negotiate a deal with the US to allow their intelligence agencies access to the Swift system, which helps clear international banking transactions. German politicians have cried foul over the move.

“’It is unreasonable and excessive that banking data can be inspected without any criminal suspicion,’ environmentalist Green Party deputy parliamentary floorleader Jürgen Trittin said… ‘The federal government should not agree under any circumstances to allow this attack on principle of personal data privacy…’

“On the opposite end of the political spectrum, the head of the conservative Christian Social Union, sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), also denounced the measure. ‘That such a wide-reaching intervention into the personal privacy rights of citizens by the bureaucracy is possible, without the involvement of the European or German parliaments, is a scandal,’ said CSU head Horst Seehofer at a speech in Munich on Monday.

“An agreement between the US and EU could be in place by autumn. In addition to being able to monitor financial transactions that cross borders, the US government could also have access to data about purely domestic transactions, warned the German government’s commissioner for data privacy, Peter Schaar.”

“Blair Faces Resistance as Candidate for EU President”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 27:

“Tony Blair is facing louder criticism than anticipated in his bid to become the EU’s first president. Support for the former British prime minister appears to be waning in Berlin and Paris as resistance builds elsewhere in Europe. Is Blair losing his chance to become the man to call in Brussels?

“London’s bid to promote Tony Blair as a candidate to become the first ever President of the European Union is being met with unexpectedly vocal opposition in a number of European capital cities. The person serving as EU president will effectively be the international face of the 27 member countries and would lead regular summits of state and government leaders. The creation of the post is contingent on the ratification of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty…

“The office of the EU president will replace the current tradition of the rotating presidency, which sees a different member state taking over summit organizing responsibilities every six months…

“Left-leaning leaders in some European countries dislike Blair for the allegiance he showed to the US during the Iraq war. And pro-European conservatives and business-friendly parties oppose the idea of having a top EU [representative] from a country that refuses to introduce the euro or join the Schengen agreement on border-free travel within Europe.

“Leaders of the EU’s most powerful players — France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel — once promised Blair the job because he managed to prevent a difficult British referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. But insiders in Paris and Berlin warn that enthusiasm for Blair as president has since waned.”

“The Beast of Capitalism”

In reporting about the worldwide financial crisis, The Financial Times wrote on July 27: “Animal spirits rarely stay down for long.”

The paper continued:

“The fall in output in the current recession has been sharp. In the US, for example, gross domestic product fell at an annual rate of just above 6 per cent in the two most recent quarters. In Japan, GDP is down by nearly 9 per cent on its 2008 first-quarter peak. The latest UK data suggest output is nearly 6 per cent lower than a year ago, the sharpest fall since 1931.

“The conventional wisdom is that the steepness of the fall means the recession will be long, and that the recovery when it happens will be anaemic. In the UK, for example, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research argued last week that GDP per head would take five years to get back to pre-recession levels… In the US, the consensus among forecasters is that growth at or near trend will not resume until the second half of 2010 and that the 2008 second-quarter peak level will not be regained until the first half of 2011.

“As late as the autumn of 2008, economic forecasters in general were far too optimistic about 2009. Are these same forecasters now too pessimistic about recovery?… the current circumstances are unusual. But so was the Great Depression. There is some evidence to suggest that, after recession has reached a certain size or duration, recovery is then harder and more sluggish. Keynes’ animal spirits become depressed. But it takes an awful lot to depress them for more than a couple of years. Capitalism seems a pretty resilient beast.”

The Insanity of the Afghan War

The Telegraph wrote on July 27:

“Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has signalled the end of Operation Panther’s Claw, the bloody offensive by British troops to drive back the Taliban in Afghanistan… Twenty British personnel have been killed this month alone in Afghanistan – with 189 having died since the start of operations eight years ago…

“Foreign Secretary David… Miliband said ‘moderate’ members of the Taliban insurgency killing British forces in Afghanistan could be given seats in the Afghan government. He said that some members of the broad coalition of Islamic militants, tribal groups and hired fighters could be drawn into the Afghan political process.”

Germany’s Secret War in Afghanistan

The Local wrote on July 27:

“Rules of engagement for German forces in Afghanistan are being eased to allow soldiers to use their weapons more often. They will also be allowed to shoot at fleeing attackers, the Defence Ministry announced Monday…

“Until now, German soldiers were not permitted to shoot if their attackers had turned around and were fleeing. The ministry did not clarify if the change in policy had to do with a recently-launched offensive around Kundus in northern Afghanistan that includes over 300 German troops, the first offensive forces have taken part in since World War II.

“Germany’s involvement in foreign military operations, especially in Afghanistan, is extremely controversial with the German public. After the death of three soldiers last month, Jung, who belongs to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), refused to describe the fighting in Afghanistan as a war…

“’It’s incomprehensible why German soldiers in Afghanistan have, up until now, had less authority than a policeman in Germany,’ said Rainer Stinner with the pro-business Free Democratic Party. But he described Monday’s announcement as a change in policy that the government was not being completely open about…”

Germans Join Army Because of Recession

The Local wrote on July 27:

“Is economic adversity forcing eastern Germans to become ‘cannon fodder’ for the military?… Of the 6,391 soldiers on foreign missions, 3,143 are of eastern German background – about half, even though east Germans make up just one fifth of the population. Among the lower ranks, it is even worse: 62.5 percent are from the east. Yet easterners make up just 16.6 percent of officers. And none of the four generals on foreign deployments are from the east. The figures were made public shortly after three young German soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. The three soldiers came, respectively, from the eastern states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

“Rüdiger Göbel, a journalist with the leftist newspaper Junge Welt who recently earned a swift rebuke from the government for describing Ossis in the Bundeswehr as ‘cannon fodder,’ says the overrepresentation of eastern Germans in the military crystallises two pressing political issues in Germany: the unpopularity of Germany’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and economic stagnation in the east. ‘We got a huge response after we wrote about this issue,’ he told The Local. ‘The fact is, the majority of people in Germany are against the war in Afghanistan but the majority in the Bundestag support it’…

“It is hardly surprising that people from economically depressed areas will be overrepresented in the armed forces. It’s a phenomenon seen around the world. Saxon Greens MP Peter Hettlich, who obtained the Bundeswehr figures via parliamentary inquiry, compared the situation with the high proportion of African-Americans and Hispanics in the US military. In the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, he went so far as to say eastern Germans were being ‘exploited’ because of their economic situation.”

Habermas on European Army and Core Europe

The Irish Times wrote on July 29:

“There is something refreshingly honest about Jürgen Habermas’s take on the European Union. A critical supporter of the Lisbon Treaty, Germany’s leading philosopher, political scientist and public intellectual believes that Europe can and must do better. His new collection of essays, Europe, The Faltering Project, brings together a series of previously published papers and speeches on a wide range of philosophical, political, economic and cultural themes.

“At first glance there may seem to be little connection between Habermas’s reflections on the relationship between contemporary philosophy, religion and politics on the one hand, and the fate of national media in the era of corporate globalisation on the other. However, whether explicitly or implicitly, what binds these disparate essays together is the author’s desire to find better ways to regulate the market in what he argues is a post-national era…

“Habermas outlines his concerns with the current state of the European project and offers his tentative proposals for its future. He identifies three challenges. Corporate-led globalisation has undermined the ability of the nation state to regulate the market in the best interests of society. The rise of the US as the world’s sole superpower has produced a ‘reckless, hegemonic power politics’. In turn a ‘split within the West’ has emerged on defence policy, between the EU and the US and within the US itself, exemplified by the Iraq war.

“The response to each of these three challenges, argues Habermas, is to be found in deeper European integration. Effective regulation of capital can only take place at the supra-national level, requiring EU harmonisation of social, economic and fiscal policy. An alternative to the Washington Consensus demands a single European foreign policy promoting reform of global economic and political institutions such as the IMF and the UN. Ending US military unilateralism requires an EU army that can earn respect for European principles.

“… he argues for an end to the ‘convoy model’ of EU integration, ‘in which the slowest vehicle determines the speed’ allowing instead for core Europe to press ahead. Addressing the democratic deficit will require an end to the idea that ‘it is the privilege of the governments to decide the future destiny of Europe behind closed doors’. And it is here that the compelling logic of Habermas’s argument exposes its Achilles heel, as his desire for supra-national social democratic reform clashes with the undemocratic and neo-liberal reality that is the European Union today.”

Most Serious Rift Between Israel and USA

Reuters reported on July 19:

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he would not take orders over Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, rejected on Sunday a U.S. demand to halt plans to build more homes for Jews in the disputed area. New friction with Washington over the project to build 20 apartments in a part of Jerusalem captured by Israel in a 1967 war could deepen the most serious rift in relations between the two allies in a decade…

“‘We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem,’ Netanyahu said, calling the city Israel’s united capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally. ‘I can only imagine what would happen if someone would suggest Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods of New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a great international outcry,’ he told reporters at the weekly cabinet meeting. ‘We cannot accept this edict in Jerusalem.’

“Netanyahu and President Barack Obama are already at loggerheads over the U.S. leader’s call for Israel to freeze Jewish settlement on occupied land Palestinians want for a state…”

The Associated Press wrote on July 19:

“Israel on Sunday rejected a U.S. demand to suspend a planned housing project in east Jerusalem, threatening to further complicate an unusually tense standoff with its strongest ally over settlement construction… On Sunday, Netanyahu told his Cabinet there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in ‘unified Jerusalem.'”

WorldNetDaily added on July 19:

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was taken by ‘surprise’ by a U.S. demand over the weekend to immediately halt a Jewish construction project in eastern Jerusalem. ‘I was surprised by the U.S. move,’ Netanyahu was quoted by his advisers as saying yesterday. ‘In my conversation with [U.S. President Barack] Obama in Washington, I told him that I could not accept any limitations on our sovereignty in Jerusalem. I told him Jerusalem is not a settlement, and it has nothing to do with discussions on a freeze.’…

“The Obama administration has called for a halt to Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank in line with Palestinian claims on eastern Jerusalem as a future capital, even though the city was never a part of any Palestinian entity. The construction project at the center of attention, financed by Miami Beach philanthropist Irving Moskowitz, is located just meters from Israel’s national police headquarters and other government ministries and is a few blocks from the country’s prestigious Hebrew University, underscoring the centrality of the Jewish real estate being condemned by the U.S…

“Netanyahu explained an open city does not discriminate against Jewish housing and that Israel would not accept a stance that counters that civil right. ‘Israeli Arabs are not forbidden from buying houses in west Jerusalem, and Jews must be granted the same right in the eastern part of the city,’ he added.

“WND has confirmed that over the weekend the State Department summoned Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to urge him to reject a permit granted to Moskowitz’s housing project. Moskowitz purchased an eastern Jerusalem hotel. He plans to tear it down and build housing units in its place. The Jerusalem municipality earlier this month granted approval to the project, allowing for the construction of 20 apartments plus a three-level underground parking lot.”

“Americans Should Honor Their Agreements With Israel”

The Associated Press reported on July 21:

“Israel’s deputy prime minister said Tuesday the Obama administration’s call to freeze West Bank settlement construction undermines past agreements between the U.S. and Israel and damages American credibility. The comments by Dan Meridor underscored the growing rift between Israel and the U.S. over construction in the settlements. Meridor, a respected veteran of Israeli politics, is considered a moderate voice in the new Israeli government…

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not build any new settlements, but that construction must be permitted inside existing settlements to accommodate what he calls ‘natural growth’ in their populations. Nearly 500,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians as part of a future independent state.

“Israeli officials and former White House official Eliot Abrams have cited a series of written and oral understandings reached with the Bush administration that appear to permit limited settlement construction… ‘We never had an agreement with the previous administration. We had an agreement with America,’ [Dan Meridor] added. ‘The agreement we had with the Americans is binding on us and them … They should keep to the agreement.'”

The World Against Israel

Deutsche Welle reported on July 21:

“The presidency of the European Union – currently held by Sweden – released a statement on Tuesday urging Israel to refrain from ‘provocative actions in East Jerusalem,’ saying that ‘such actions are illegal under international law.’ The Middle East quartet – the EU, US, UN and Russia – called on Israel to halt West Bank settlements at a meeting in the Italian city of Trieste last month.

“The latest EU statement comes amid mounting international pressure on Israel over plans to build 20 apartments in East Jerusalem. The German government had on Monday already called on Israel to stop the project. ‘We see the continued settlement activities with great concern,’ said Jens Ploetner, foreign ministry spokesman in Berlin. He warned that the building of new settlements would hamper the peace process in the Middle East… France has summoned the Israeli ambassador in Paris to demand a halt to settlement building in East Jerusalem… Russia has also called on Israel to stop settlement activity…”

Anti-Semitism in Britain–“The Darkness Is Closing In”

The Jerusalem Post wrote on July 20:

“It has been a terrible month for Israel’s reputation in Great Britain. The government has announced a partial arms embargo in protest of Operation Cast Lead… The Guardian has featured commentaries promoting the apartheid analogy as well as accusing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of using Nazi language to defend settlement policy. The BBC and other media outlets have given massive coverage to the recent Breaking the Silence report slamming the IDF for committing ‘war crimes.’ Barely a day goes by without a new front being opened against the Jewish state… I for one have never seen a period like it. On Friday, the Guardian ran two anti-Israel opinion pieces on one and the same day…

“The Israel-haters smell blood, and they’re going in for the kill. It could be that we are on the threshold of a new era. But why now? The simplest explanation is that the relentless, unremitting stream of anti-Israeli invective that has been pumped into the public mind in Britain over the last decade or so was always going to reach critical mass at some point…

“The obvious question now is where next. With the partial arms embargo in mind, we should obviously be watching for an extension of formal sanctions. Outside the governmental sphere, it is a racing certainty that unions will renew efforts for trade and academic boycotts. Media hysteria will grow as each new assault on Israel’s integrity helps legitimize and validate the next. For the Jews of Britain, the prospect of increasing anti-Semitism against this backdrop is all too real. The darkness is closing in.”

Muslims Determined to Prevent Jews from Building a Temple

The “Daily Israel Report” wrote on July 20:

“The deputy chief of the Islamist movement in Israel Kimal Al-Khatib told thousands of children in a Saturday Islamist protest on the Temple Mount that the Jewish Temple will never be rebuilt. His speech was published in the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper Monday morning. ‘If the Jews think that their mourning will end and they will rejoice by destroying the Al-Aqsa mosque and building their Temple, we say to them that their dream will not be fulfilled and they will continue to mourn. Al-Aqsa is for Muslims only,’ he said.

“Al-Khatib was referring to the traditional period of mourning Jews commemorate every summer for the destruction of the Holy Temples on Tisha B’Av (The ninth of the Hebrew month of Av). The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, while the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque were erected in 691 and 705 CE.”

Will Israel Attack Iran?

Bild On Line wrote on July 21:

“The ‘Stern’ recently reported German intelligence sources as saying: ‘If they [Iran] wanted to they could test a nuclear bomb within half a year.’

“What is Iranian dictator Mahumd Ahmadinejad planning? He often brags about the threat of the bomb… And he has also stated that Iran wants to form ‘a new world order’…

“George Bush’s former American ambassador to the UN John Bolton wrote in the ‘Washington Post’: ‘Israel’s decision of whether to use military force against Tehran’s nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever. Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities.’

“But how will Israel react…? Israeli pilots have been training in the last few months for attacks on bunkers and are on high alert. Israel has bought 1000 bunker-busting bombs from America, each weighing 113 kilograms… In the Pacific Ocean, the Americans are training the Israeli army how to use Arrow 2 missiles which shoot down incoming rockets. Two Israeli warships have recently left for the Persian Gulf… US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said… that the opportunity for negotiating with Iran ‘will not remain open indefinitely’ – words which do not sound like the nuclear crisis will end very peacefully.”

Elections in Iran Just a Thinly-Veiled Military Coup?

BBC News reported on July 21:

“Iranian riot police are reported to have arrested a number of pro-reform protesters in Tehran after demonstrations turned violent. Police clashed with hundreds of people marching despite a ban on public gatherings since the disputed election in June, Reuters news agency said… The renewed street protests come shortly after Mr Mousavi issued one of his strongest critiques of Iran’s ruling elite since the election result was declared…

“Since the announcement that Mr Ahmadinejad had won June’s presidential election, Mr Mousavi – a reformist former prime minister of Iran – has received backing from several senior figures within the Iranian establishment. Among them are two former presidents, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami.

“On Monday Mr Khatami called for a referendum on the legitimacy of the government. Only the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can organise a referendum, and he has already declared the election result valid…

“Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, which answers to the Supreme Leader, has described the election as a turning point. The head of the Guards’ political bureau said the election allowed the Guards to take power into their own hands. Our correspondent says many Iranians will see the Revolutionary Guards’ confidence as confirming their own fears that the outcome of the election was just a thinly-veiled military coup.”

“Thankful” Iraqis…

The Washington Post wrote on July 18:

“The Iraqi government has moved to sharply restrict the movement and activities of U.S. forces in a new reading of a six-month-old U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that has startled American commanders and raised concerns about the safety of their troops. In a curt missive issued by the Baghdad Operations Command on July 2 — the day after Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. troops to bases outside city centers — Iraq’s top commanders told their U.S. counterparts to ‘stop all joint patrols’ in Baghdad. It said U.S. resupply convoys could travel only at night and ordered the Americans to ‘notify us immediately of any violations of the agreement.’

“The strict application of the agreement coincides with what U.S. military officials in Washington say has been an escalation of attacks against their forces by Iranian-backed Shiite extremist groups, to which they have been unable to fully respond… The new guidelines are a reflection of rising tensions between the two governments. Iraqi leaders increasingly see the agreement as an opportunity to show their citizens that they are now unequivocally in charge and that their dependence on the U.S. military is minimal and waning…”

Continuing Challenges to Barack Obama’s Eligibility as President

WorldNetDaily wrote on July 16:

“Radio talk shows television programming, newspapers – even a liberal talk show host in New York and talk format icon Lou Dobbs – have begun taking note of the story long reported by WorldNetDaily over the doubts about and challenges to President Obama’s eligibility to occupy the Oval office. Lynn Samuels, longtime New York radio talker, even accused Obama of lying about his birth certificate.

“WND has been reporting – many times in solo fashion – on the issues that have been raised by multiple lawsuits contending that Obama does not qualify under the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that the president be a ‘natural born’ citizen. But now word is spreading, prompted by the case brought this week by an Army major scheduled for deployment to Afghanistan.

“In that case, which was dismissed today by a judge in Georgia, a reserve officer explained he had a right to question his deployment orders and know that the commander-in-chief is legitimate, or he would be exposing himself and any soldiers under him to extreme danger in overseas combat situations. Maj. Stefan Cook’s case was dismissed by the judge who noted the Pentagon had revoked the officer’s deployment orders, apparently resolving the dispute. The officer’s civilian employer also reported being pressured by the government to fire the officer.

“The story was reported on Sean Hannity’s program on Fox News. Hannity said the challenge to the deployment orders came after Obama ordered a surge in troops to Afghanistan. A report on the same challenge also appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

“And Orly Taitz, the attorney for Maj. Stefan Cook, was on the Lou Dobbs radio program, along with former U.S. Ambassador Alan Keyes, who was a presidential candidate on the ballot in 2008. Dobbs said he and his staff have ‘been working hard to figure out what’s going on.’ He said he’s found the Federal Election Commission does ‘nothing to validate … a candidate.’ Nor do the states, he said. Keyes said it rests upon judges and members of Congress, who have sworn an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, to do their duty and investigate questions or discrepancies.

“Dobbs suggested that many Americans believe simply being born to a mother who is a U.S. citizen automatically makes the newborn a citizen, but both Taitz and Keyes explained that under the immigration law in effect in the 1960s when Obama was born, an American woman married to a foreign national man had to have lived in the U.S. 10 years, at least five of which were after the age of 14, to pass along U.S. citizenship. Taitz pointed out Obama’s mother was too young to do that…

“WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama’s status as a ‘natural born citizen.’ The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, ‘No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.'”

“Chris Matthews Wrong on Obama Birth Certificate”

Newsmax wrote on July 22:

“MSNBC’s Chris Matthews got into a heated exchange with a congressman on his show Tuesday as he revisited the question of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate — or lack of one… Matthews seemingly undermined claims by some that Obama never has released his birth certificate, producing what Matthews said was a true copy of it. But Matthews made a false claim…

“The indisputable fact is that Obama has not released his birth certificate, which the state of Hawaii issues for all citizens born there. Instead, his campaign has released only his certification of live birth from the state of Hawaii, which is a document that offers a summarized version of the birth certificate.

“During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Sen. John McCain quickly released his birth certificate when liberal bloggers raised questions about his eligibility to be president. McCain was born at a military hospital in Panama. Obama likewise could put the matter to rest by releasing his actual birth certificate, which would show, among other things, the place of his birth and the doctor who performed the birth procedure. This information is not provided on the certificate of live birth.

“As it stands, Obama is the only president in history whose birthplace is unknown to the public – a fact that would be stated on the actual birth certificate. Interestingly, his family has mentioned two different hospitals in Hawaii as the place of birth…”

More Banks Fail… Insurance Fund at Lowest Level Since 1993

The Associated Press reported on July 18:

“Regulators on Friday shut two banks in California and two smaller banks in Georgia and South Dakota, boosting to 57 the number of federally insured banks to fail this year… As the economy has soured — with unemployment rising, home prices tumbling and loan defaults soaring — bank failures have cascaded and sapped billions out of the deposit insurance fund. It now stands at its lowest level since 1993, $13 billion as of the first quarter…

“The number of banks on the FDIC’s list of problem institutions leaped to 305 in the first quarter — the highest number since 1994 during the savings and loan crisis — from 252 in the fourth quarter. The FDIC expects U.S. bank failures to cost the insurance fund around $70 billion through 2013.”

Free Healthcare for Illegal Aliens?

Newsmax wrote on July 19:

“On Friday, Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health insurance to the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens when they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama…

“Republicans… point out that the Democrats, by refusing to accept the Heller amendment, would deny health agencies from conducting simple database checks to verify citizenship. Many states give illegals driver licenses, which will be sufficient to get free health care under the plan. Critics also contend that millions of illegals… already have counterfeit Social Security cards or other fraudulent documents. There is no enforcement mechanism in the legislation, experts say, to prevent illegals who use fake IDs to obtain jobs from also obtaining taxpayer-subsidized health insurance…”

Abortion and Eugenics–and the Mainstream Media Keeps Silent…

The Telegraph in the UK wrote on July 13:

“The mainstream media have been incredibly slow to pick up on a creepy comment by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a New York Times interview published today but flagged last week. In it, Ginsburg talks about Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalised abortion: ‘Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.’

“What?… And the (pro-choice) media haven’t exactly jumped on the story. Bloggers are incredulous. This is what Creative Minority Report had to say yesterday:

“‘Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments about using abortion as population control raised a lot of eyebrows in the blogosphere… Huge sites too like Hot Air featured the story prominently. Even Drudge ran with the story yesterday. But as of this morning the mainstream media have completely ignored the story about one of the most powerful people in the country essentially endorsing eugenics on populations ‘we don’t want to have too many of.’

“‘What the heck is going on here? What are we to make of the media’s complete silence on this issue? They don’t see a little eugenics between friends as a big deal? They thought it was taken out of context?…’

“You might think the New York Times might want to trumpet its exclusive. But the mindset of that… publication is so overwhelmingly liberal that it didn’t even realise it had a story on its hands.”

“America Is Leaving Itself Behind…”

The Wall Street Journal wrote on July 20:

“On present trends, most of Europe will soon have lower income tax rates than most of America. And now the European Union is stealing another competitive march on Washington, this time on a free trade deal with the world’s 13th largest economy, fast-growing South Korea. Last week Brussels and Seoul finished the outline of a new trade agreement, and the two sides will now write up the technical language to codify it. As for the pending U.S.-Korea trade agreement, Congress has done . . . nothing…

“Korea’s progress with the EU shows how risky U.S. delays are. The European Commission says the EU-Korea deal will eliminate $2.2 billion in duties Korea currently imposes each year on European goods — and cut duties and eliminate nontariff barriers on imports of European cars. American companies could gain similar benefits if only Congress would approve the U.S.-Korea pact.

“Across the globe, countries are moving ahead with similar bilateral trade deals, often giving their own national companies an edge over U.S. competitors. In a perfect world, all countries would be able to benefit from multilateral trade opening under the Doha Round. But for now bilateral deals are better than nothing, and America is leaving itself behind.”

“USA At the Edge of Catastrophe”

Newsmax reported on July 21:

“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says the United States needs a dramatic increase in defense spending or it will risk a national catastrophe — from a nuclear or biological attack — that could kill several million Americans… ‘We are today running very big risks in the name of saving a few billion dollars that may end up killing several million Americans. The time to fix that is before the disaster happens,’ he said… ‘We are living at the edge of a catastrophe, and we need to understand that’s exactly where we are… What we are faced with is not simply a problem, it is potentially catastrophic’…

“The greatest threat to the United States is a nuclear weapon… being detonated in a major city, Gingrich said. The second is a successful electromagnetic pulse attack that could knock out the entire electric grid, including all appliances, telephones, vehicles, and generators. Other dangers Gingrich listed include biological weapons; cyberattacks; unprotected assets in outer space; and dangers unknown, all of which he said have the potential of being weapons of mass destruction or disruption.”

Will Huge Future Tsunami Threaten West Coast of America?

ScienceDaily wrote on July 20:

“The potential for a huge Pacific Ocean tsunami on the West Coast of America may be greater than previously thought… The new research suggests that future tsunamis could reach a scale far beyond that suffered in the tsunami generated by the great 1964 Alaskan earthquake… The 1964 Alaskan earthquake – the second biggest recorded in history with a magnitude of 9.2 – triggered a series of massive waves with run up heights of as much as 12.7 metres in the Alaskan Gulf region and 52 metres in the Shoup Bay submarine slide in Valdez Arm…

“Lead author, Professor Ian Shennan, from Durham University’s Geography Department said… ‘Earthquakes can hit at any time of the day or night, and that’s a big challenge for emergency planners. A tsunami in this region could cause damage and threaten life from Alaska to California and beyond; in 1964 the effects of the tsunami waves were felt as far away as southern California and were recorded on tide gages throughout the Pacific Ocean.'”

Sarkozy for Global Environmental Authority

Deutsche Welle wrote on July 18:

“French President Nicolas Sarkozy made the call for a global environmental organization… Sarkozy didn’t give any indication of how he thought this new global organization should be laid out… The world already has a global environmental organization. It’s called the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), established in June 1972 as a result of the UN Conference on the Human Environment. 

“Part of the mandate of the UNEP is ‘to promote international co-operation in the field of the environment and to recommend, as appropriate, policies to this end.’ Almost every international agreement on the environment has come under the auspices of the UNEP, including the Kyoto Protocol. It is unclear how a new global environmental organization would really be different.”

The Dalai Lama for Financial Globalization…

Welt Online wrote on July 16:

“Buddhism, economics and management are all interconnected. The Dalai Lama believes the financial crisis is a moral crisis. He says he is a Marxist monk… [F]or the Tibetans [he is]  a divine king and [he has] many followers in the western world who idolize him…”

In an interview with the newspaper, the Dalai Lama stated:

“I am essentially a supporter of globalization… I still believe I am a Marxist monk… In the Marxist theory the focus lies on the just allocation of wealth. From a moral perspective this is a correct claim… The Chinese communists are communists without a communist ideology. But if you mean socialism, like it first existed in the Eastern Block and now in North Korea and Cuba, I believe it goes against human nature; it destroys creativity.”

Man-Made Global Warming–Yes or No?

The Telegraph wrote on July 11:

“Faced with a ‘consensus’ view which looks increasingly implausible, a fast-growing body of reputable scientists from many countries has been coming up with a ‘counter-consensus’, which holds that their fellow scientists have been looking in wholly the wrong direction to explain what is happening to the world’s climate. The two factors which most plausibly explain what temperatures are actually doing are fluctuations in the radiation of the sun and the related shifting of ocean currents.

“Two episodes highlight the establishment’s alarm at the growing influence of this ‘counter consensus’. In March, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has a key role in President Obama’s plans to curb CO2 emissions, asked one of its senior policy analysts, Alan Carlin, to report on the science used to justify its policy. His 90-page paper recommended that the EPA carry out an independent review of the science, because the CO2 theory was looking indefensible, while the ‘counter consensus’ view – solar radiation and ocean currents – seemed to fit the data much better. Provoking a considerable stir, Carlin’s report was stopped dead, on the grounds that it was too late to raise objections to what was now the EPA’s official policy.

“Meanwhile a remarkable drama has been unfolding in Australia, where the new Labor government has belatedly joined the ‘consensus’ bandwagon by introducing a bill for an emissions-curbing ‘cap and trade’ scheme, which would devastate Australia’s economy, it being 80 per cent dependent on coal. The bill still has to pass the Senate, which is so precisely divided that the decisive vote next month may be cast by an independent Senator, Stephen Fielding. So crucial is his vote that the climate change minister, Penny Wong, agreed to see him with his four advisers, all leading Australian scientists.

“Fielding put to the minister three questions. How, since temperatures have been dropping, can CO2 be blamed for them rising? What, if CO2 was the cause of recent warming, was the cause of temperatures rising higher in the past? Why, since the official computer models have been proved wrong, should we rely on them for future projections?

“The written answers produced by the minister’s own scientific advisers proved so woolly and full of elementary errors that Fielding’s team have now published a 50-page, fully-referenced ‘Due Diligence’ paper tearing them apart. In light of the inadequacy of the Government’s reply, the Senator has announced that he will be voting against the bill. The wider significance of this episode is that it is the first time a Western government has allowed itself to be drawn into debating the science behind the global warming scare with expert scientists representing the ‘counter consensus’ – and the ‘consensus’ lost hands down.”

Obama and Benedict Meet

The Associated Press reported on July 10:

Reuters reported on July 10:

“President Barack Obama promised Pope Benedict on Friday that he would do everything possible to reduce the number of abortions in the United States, the Vatican said… In a surprise move, the pontiff gave Obama a booklet explaining Vatican opposition to practices such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research, which Obama supports… The White House said Obama wanted to work together on a range of issues with the Vatican… the pope was ‘very impressed’ by Obama and… ‘extremely satisfied’ with the talks.

“Obama told the pope during a picture-taking session after the private part of the audience: ‘We look forward to a very strong relationship between our two countries.’ The pope also gave the president a copy of his latest encyclical, ‘Charity in Truth,’ which called for a ‘world political authority’ to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies…”

Abortions to Cleanse Unwanted Populations?

LifeSiteNews reported on July 9:

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems to have made a stunning admission in favor of cleansing America of unwanted populations by aborting them. In an interview with the New York Times, the judge said that Medicaid should cover abortions, and that she had originally expected that Roe v. Wade would facilitate such coverage in order to control the population of groups ‘that we don’t want to have too many of’…

“Justice Ginsburg’s remarks appear to align her expectations for abortion with those of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, and other prominent members of the 20th century’s eugenics movement. Sanger and her eugenicist peers advocated the systematic use of contraception, sterilization, and abortion to reduce the numbers of poor, black, immigrant and disabled populations…

“When the Supreme Court upheld the partial-birth abortion ban in 2007, Ginsburg wrote a scathing dissent, saying the court’s reasoning ‘reflects ancient notions about women’s place in the family and under the Constitution – ideas that have long since been discredited.'”

Abortion Can Never Be Right

Zenit reported on July 13:

“In an article published in March in the Vatican newspaper, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, spoke about the case of a young Brazilian girl who was repeatedly raped by her stepfather, and was expecting twins. In early March, an abortion was performed on the girl, who is just over 52 inches tall and weighs 79 pounds. The case drew even more controversy when Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife excommunicated the mother and all the members of the medical team, generating criticisms against the Church in Brazil.

“Archbishop Fisichella lamented the precipitous condemnation in such a morally delicate case. Referring to the excommunication ‘latae sententiae’ [automatically incurred at the moment of the act], he said that ‘such urgency and publicity was not necessary’… He stated that Archbishop Sobrinho’s ‘hasty’ reaction has caused resentment and has undermined the credibility of the Church’s teaching, ‘which in the eyes of many seems insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking in mercy’…

“[The clarification] affirms ‘that the Church’s teaching on procured abortion has not changed, nor can it change… In regard to ‘procured abortion in certain difficult and complex situations,’ the text [of the clarification] continued, ‘the clear and precise teaching of Pope John Paul II is valid:

“”It is true that the decision to have an abortion is often tragic and painful for the mother, insofar as the decision to rid herself of the fruit of conception is not made for purely selfish reasons or out of convenience, but out of a desire to protect certain important values such as her own health or a decent standard of living for the other members of the family. Sometimes it is feared that the child to be born would live in such conditions that it would be better if the birth did not take place. Nevertheless, these reasons and others like them, however serious and tragic, can never justify the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.”‘”

Gore for Global Governance

Climate Depot reported on July 10:

“Former Vice President Al Gore declared that the Congressional climate bill will help bring about ‘global governance.’

“‘I bring you good news from the U.S.,’ Gore said on July 7, 2009 in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by UK Times… ‘it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements’…

“Gore’s call for ‘global governance’ echoes former French President Jacques Chirac’s call in 2000. On November 20, 2000, then French President Chirac said during a speech at The Hague that the UN’s Kyoto Protocol represented ‘the first component of an authentic global governance’…

“In addition, calls for a global carbon tax have been urged at recent UN global warming conferences. In December 2007, the UN climate conference in Bali, urged the adoption of a global carbon tax that would represent ‘a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.'” 

“John Bolton: Strike on Iran Is Israel’s Only Option”

Newsmax reported on July 13:

“Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton asserts that with Iran’s hard-line regime still in control, Israel’s decision on whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities is ‘more urgent than ever.’

“The unrest that followed Iran’s disputed presidential election suggested that regime change could possibly be in the offing. But that prospect seems lost for the near future, or at least for as long as it will take Iran to produce a deliverable nuclear weapon, Bolton argues. ‘Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable,’ he declared in an article published in The Washington Post…

“Bolton insists Iran won’t negotiate in good faith, and further sanctions won’t prevent Iran from producing weapons when it chooses. ‘Time is too short, and sanctions failed long ago,’ he points out… ‘Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities… Otherwise, be prepared for an Iran with nuclear weapons, which some, including Obama advisers, believe could be contained and deterred. That is not a hypothesis we should seek to test in the real world. The cost of error could be fatal.'” 

USA and EU Give Iran Deadline of a Few Months

The Jerusalem Post reported on July 15:

“Just hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the US expected Iran to respond to diplomatic overtures regarding its nuclear program ‘now,’ the European Union issued a similar call, saying that the Islamic republic had but a few months to resolve the issue.

“Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the EU presidency, said the international community faces ‘difficult choices in the next … weeks or months, but not very much longer than that’ to force Iran to improve relations by backing off its nuclear program.” 

German Denials Raise Doubts

Reuters reported on July 15:

“Germany’s foreign intelligence agency BND denied a report in a magazine on Wednesday that its experts believe Iran is capable of producing and testing an atomic bomb within six months. The report, in German weekly Stern [which is known for its ACCURATE factual reporting], cited BND experts as saying Iran had mastered the enrichment technology necessary to make a bomb and had enough centrifuges to make weaponised uranium. It quoted one expert at the agency as saying: ‘If they wanted to, they could detonate an atomic bomb in half a year’s time.’

“But a BND spokesman said the article did not reflect the view of the agency, which is that Iran would not be able to produce an atomic bomb for years. ‘We are talking about several years not several months,’ the spokesman said.”

These self-serving denials are contradicted by many authorities and experts who claim that Iran has already reached–or is very close to reaching–capability to produce an atomic bomb.

No End to Bloody Afghan War

Reuters reported on July 15:

“The death toll for foreign troops in Afghanistan halfway through July equaled the highest for any month of the eight-year-old war… The soaring death toll was an outcome of U.S. President Barack Obama’s escalation strategy… More fighting lies ahead.” 

Swine Flu Resembles 1918 Flu Pandemic

Reuters wrote on July 13:

“The new H1N1 influenza virus bears a disturbing resemblance to the virus strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, with a greater ability to infect the lungs than common seasonal flu viruses, researchers reported on Monday. Tests in several animals confirmed other studies that have shown the new swine flu strain can spread beyond the upper respiratory tract to go deep into the lungs — making it more likely to cause pneumonia…

“The new swine flu virus has caused the first pandemic of the 21st century, infecting more than a million people, according to estimates, and killing at least 500…”

AFP added on July 13: “All countries will need access to vaccines against swine flu as the pandemic is ‘unstoppable,’ a senior World Health Organisation official said Monday.” 

US Budget Deficit Highest EVER

BBC News reported on July 13:

“The US budget deficit has moved above $1 trillion (£616bn) for the first time… The government stepped up spending to counter the recession, and the bailout of financial institutions has taken a huge chunk out of government finances. Falling tax revenues and unemployment benefit spending have also contributed. The figure compares with $455bn for the whole 2007/8 financial year…

“And the situation has led to increasing anxiety among the foreign buyers of US debt, including China… ‘These are mind boggling numbers,’ said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. ‘Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run.'” 

How Democrats Want to Enforce Health Care!

The Associated Press reported on July 15:

“House Democratic leaders, pledging to meet the president’s goal of health care legislation before their August break, are offering a $1.5 trillion plan that for the first time would make health care a right and a responsibility for all Americans. Left to pick up most of the tab were medical providers, employers and the wealthy…

“Under the House Democrats’ plan, the federal government would be responsible for ensuring that every person, regardless of income or the state of their health, has access to an affordable insurance plan. Individuals and employers would have new obligations to get coverage, or face hefty penalties.

“The legislation calls for a 5.4 percent tax increase on individuals making more than $1 million a year, with a gradual tax beginning at $280,000 for individuals. Employers who don’t provide coverage would be hit with a penalty equal to 8 percent of workers’ wages, with an exemption for small businesses. Individuals who decline an offer of affordable coverage would pay 2.5 percent of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan…

“The 1,000-page bill is unlikely to attract any Republican backing, and business groups and the insurance industry immediately assailed it as a job-killer… The House bill seemed unlikely to win broad backing in the Senate…”

Ahmadinejad Accuses Germany of Racism!

Deutsche Welle reported on July 13:

“The German government has rejected accusations from Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the murder of an Egyptian Muslim woman in a Dresden courtroom was evidence of the German government’s brutality. Ahmadinejad on Sunday demanded the United Nations impose sanctions against Germany and accused the West of applying double standards when it comes to human rights. The incident was proof for… the ‘brutality of the German government and clear evidence for corruption in the German justice system,’ said Ahmadinejad.

“Ahmadinejad added that while Berlin and Washington had plenty to say regarding events in Tehran following Iran’s presidential elections, no reaction had been registered regarding al-Sherbini’s murder. ‘We want condemnation from the United Nations Security Council and the imposition of sanctions,’ said the Iranian president.”  

Questions About Murder of Muslim Woman in German Courtroom

The Netzeitung wrote on July 13:

“The tragic events in Dresden last week have left several unanswered questions: How can a defendant stab a witness 18 times in a courtroom without anyone stopping him? How can the only person apparently able to intervene – her husband – end up seriously injured? And how is it that the police officer coming to the scene ends up shoot[ing] directly at the Egyptian husband and not the attacker?… Why does the death of a woman wearing a headscarf – who wasn’t the victim of a so-called ‘honour killing’ – spark so little interest in Germany?

“And why did the country’s politicians merely… shrug their shoulders for an entire week after the heinous deed?… A young woman Muslim, an educated and employed pharmacist, refuses to accept outrageous insult[s] such as ‘slut,’ ‘Islamist,’ and ‘terrorist’ from a xenophobic man and decides to defend herself in a court of law. After suing her tormentor he is convicted, but at a retrial he kills her… In this case, a well-educated young woman, married to [a] man working at the esteemed Max Planck Institute, died…

“Chancellor Angela Merkel has remained silent and Geert Mackenroth, Saxony’s justice minister, apparently only wants to use the incident to push for closed courtrooms in the state – even though public access to trials is one of the most important pillars of a modern legal system. Mackenroth, the former head of the German Association of Judges, once tried to justify police torture in Frankfurt…”

EU Condemns Murder of Russian Human Rights Activist

Deutsche Welle reported on July 16:

“Officials from the European Union have issued a series of strong condemnations of the murder of Russian human rights activist Natalya Estemirova of the group Memorial, whose body was found Wednesday… Estemirova’s murder ‘draws attention to the necessity of protecting human rights defenders in Russia,’ the Council’s statement added.

“The Council’s statement follows a similar condemnation from the EU Presidency, currently held by Sweden, which took over the rotating six-month presidency of the 27-nation bloc on July 1… The newly elected president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, also called on Moscow to investigate the murder…

“Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed Estemirova’s murder at a press conference following bilateral talks in Munich on Thursday. ‘The murder of our human rights activist is of course a very sad event,’ Medvedev said.  ‘In contrast to earlier incidences, it is clear in this case: the murder was connected to her activity (as an activist).’

“‘She spoke the truth and openly, sometimes toughly described some processes that happen in this country,’ Medvedev added. ‘That is the value of a rights activist – even if these things are not pleasant and uncomfortable for the authorities.’…

“Estemirova, who was thought to have been abducted hours earlier in the Chechen capital Grozny, worked for the leading Russian rights group Memorial which has exposed a string of abuses in the conflict-torn region and has accused the current Russian government of complicity.”

Split Coming Between Angela Merkel (CDU) and Bavaria’s CSU?

On July 12, Die Welt On Line wrote:

“The Bavarian allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel are set to defy her on tax policy and ratification of the EU’s Lisbon treaty, opening up cracks in the conservative camp ahead of a September election. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) have vowed to fight together to ensure her re-election.

“But the CSU also has an eye on its supporters in Bavaria and has shown it will not hesitate to break with Merkel and her CDU if it thinks it can score points closer to home. Tax policy is one area where the two parties diverge. While both have agreed to pursue tax cuts after the vote, Merkel has been adamant that the timing of such cuts should be left open…

“In addition to the tax issue, CSU leaders also agreed at the weekend to take a hard line on ratification of the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, German media reported. Germany is one of four countries, alongside the Czech Republic, Ireland and Poland, not to have ratified the treaty, which would streamline decision-making in the 27-nation bloc.

“Merkel had hoped, following a ruling by Germany’s Constitutional Court earlier this month, to rush legislation through parliament in September and get the treaty formally approved in the weeks before the election. But the CSU, which is traditionally sceptical of ceding powers to Brussels, appears intent on demanding legislative changes that could delay ratification beyond the Sept. 27 vote.

“‘One shouldn’t compromise on democracy by saying it should go fast,’ CSU leader Horst Seehofer told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper when asked about the timing of the treaty. A delay beyond the vote would be an embarrassment for Merkel and could embolden eurosceptic presidents in the Czech Republic and Poland, who have refused to sign off on the treaty until other EU members have approved it.” 

Does German Ruling on Lisbon Treaty Undermine European Unity?

The EUObserver wrote on July 15:

“European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has expressed concern at a judgement by Germany’s constitutional court on the Lisbon Treaty, fearing it could undermine the ‘European project.’ The possible implications of the 147-page ruling is slowly becoming clear after the initial relief expressed in Brussels that the EU’s new treaty was given the green light.

“Germany’s judges on 30 June said… that Germany’s highest court should have final say on interpretation of EU law allowing it to overturn judgements by the bloc’s highest court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ)… The ruling has also raised strong debate in Germany.”

Obama in Africa–Change or No Change?

The Financial Times wrote on July 12:

“Barack Obama has tapped into a strong desire for self-determination among Africans in his maiden speech on the continent, evoking the inspiration that Martin Luther King Jr drew from Ghana’s struggle for independence and stressing that history was on the side of Africa’s reformers.

“But public opinion on the continent is divided over whether the first African American US president can bring something new to the table beyond his inspirational personal history, and whether the strong emphasis he has placed on democratic and accountable government will be matched by effective support.

“Amid all the excitement in Ghana in the run-up to Mr Obama’s first state visit to Africa, an undercurrent of scepticism has also been present among African intellectuals with an eye on Washington’s record. This is fuelled by the perception that US interests will ultimately be driven by the same concerns: access to oil, and security and humanitarianism…”

Obama Not a Natural-Born U.S. Citizen?

WorldNetDaily reported on July 14:

“A U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida scheduled to report for deployment to Afghanistan within days has had his military orders revoked after arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.

“His attorney, Orly Taitz, confirmed to WND the military has rescinded his impending deployment orders. ‘We won! We won before we even arrived,’ she said with excitement. ‘It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate — and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!’ She continued, ‘They just said, “Order revoked.” No explanation. No reasons–just revoked’…

“Obama has maintained he was born in Hawaii…

“Other challenges have focused on Obama’s citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born. Complicating the situation is Obama’s decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.”

Obama Visits Slave Monument

Welt on Line wrote on July 12:

“U.S. President Obama got a glimpse on Saturday into one of the darkest chapters of Africa’s past — the transatlantic slave trade. Obama took his family for a poignant tour of Cape Coast Castle, a seaside fortress used by slave traders starting in the 17th century and which is now a monument to millions of Africans cast into slavery… He likened his tour of the slave castle to his visit last month to the site of the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald in Germany, saying ‘it reminds us of the capacity of human beings to commit great evil.’

“… the visit to Cape Coast was a look back at a darker era of African history for Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. His wife Michelle, who accompanied him on the tour along with their two daughters, is the descendant of Africans shipped to America as slaves.” 

President Obama in Russia

The Wall Street Journal reported on July 6:

“Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev reached a framework agreement to reduce their nuclear arsenals but left open a host of vexing issues in US-Russian relations… the widely anticipated agreements reached Monday are not likely to give [Obama] a big boost…

“The Russians are continuing to say they cannot reach a final agreement on a new treaty if the U.S. insists on deploying missile defense systems on Poland and the Czech Republic…”

Obama Challenges Russia

The Wall Street Journal wrote on July 8:

“President Barack Obama challenged Russians to bolster the rule of law, recognize the sovereignty and borders of its neighbors and rejuvenate its flagging democracy, even as he reassured the former Cold War adversary that the U.S. is committed to a ‘strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia’… But he demanded that Russia accept the rights of former Soviet clients Georgia and Ukraine to sovereignty, secure borders and independent foreign policies. He reiterated that Russia’s neighbors may join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if they meet membership criteria…

“There is little evidence of Obamamania in Russia. Although the audience was considered liberal by Russian standards, its reaction was subdued. The half-hour speech went uninterrupted by applause. The ovation at its conclusion was subdued… A poll last week found that… [three] quarters say the U.S. abuses its power to make Russia do what it wants…

“[Obama said:] ‘In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries.'”

Is Russia Preparing for War?

The Wall Street Journal wrote on July 3:

“… the Russian media are now abuzz with speculation about a new war in Georgia, and some Western analysts are voicing similar concerns. The idea seems insane. Nonetheless, the risk is real. One danger sign is persistent talk of so-called Georgian aggression against the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia recognized as independent states after the war last August… Independent Russian commentators… note that this has the feel of a propaganda campaign to prepare the public for a second war… The expulsion of neutral observers [by Russia] seems odd if Russia is worried about Georgian aggression. But it makes sense if Russia is planning an attack.

“What would the Kremlin gain? A crushing victory in Georgia would depose the hated Mr. Saakashvili, give Russia control of vital transit routes for additional energy resources that could weaken its hold on the European oil and gas markets, humiliate the U.S., and distract Russians from their economic woes…

“Moscow’s actions are not always rational… That is why it’s essential for the United States and the EU to respond now — by increasing their non-military presence in Georgia, expressing a strong commitment to Georgian sovereignty, and reminding Russia of the consequences of aggression.”

Pope Asks for World Authority

Der Stern Online reported on July 8 that Pope Benedict XVI, in his third encyclical letter–the highest form of papal teachings–pleaded for “a real world authority,” which would need to go far beyond the present UN, in order to tackle the economic world crisis and to secure world peace.

Its publication comes on the eve of Wednesday’s G8 meeting of world leaders at L’Aquila.

Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had already called for such a world authority. Benedict stated that it is now absolutely necessary to establish it.

The Associated Press reported on July 7:

“Pope Benedict XVI called Tuesday for a new world financial order guided by ethics, dignity and the search for the common good in the third encyclical of his pontificate… Benedict stressed he wasn’t opposed to a globalized economy, saying that if done correctly it has an unprecedented potential to redistribute wealth around the globe. But he warned that if badly directed and if the problems aren’t fixed, globalization can increase poverty and inequality and trigger the type of crisis under way.”

Mr. Obama Turns to the Pope

Israel National News wrote on July 5:

“U.S. President Barack Obama is turning to the Pope to back his vision of a new Arab state on all of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. The president told the Catholic Italian newspaper Avvenire, one week before a scheduled meeting with the Pope in Italy, ‘It [the Middle East] is a subject I am keen to discuss with the pope. I think he will share my approach.’

“President Obama has dug in his heels in insisting that Israel stop all building for Jews in Judea and Samaria, and the State Department has indicated that the ban should include all of Jerusalem that was restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967… President Obama faces stiff opposition from Arabs to make any concessions before Israel completely surrenders all of Judea and Samaria.”

Saudi Arabia Will Allow Israel to Use Airspace in Attack on Iran…

The Sunday Times wrote on July 5:

“The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu… that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites…

“Recent developments have underscored concerns among moderate Sunni Arab states about the stability of the repressive Shi’ite regime in Tehran and have increased fears that it may emerge as a belligerent nuclear power… The Israeli air force has been training for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear site at Natanz in the centre of the country and other locations for four years.”

Der Spiegel Online reported on July 7 that Saudi Arabia vehemently denied the report of the Sunday Times.

America Won’t Stand in the Way, Either…

The Associated Press reported on July 5:

“Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.”

Haaretz reported on July 6:

“Iran is ready to take real and decisive action if Israel attacks its nuclear facilities, a senior Iranian parliamentary official said Monday. The remarks… came after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden signaled that Washington would not try to prevent any such Israeli assault.”

… Even Though It’s Denied…

AFP wrote on July 6:

“State Department spokesman Ian Kelly rebuffed suggestions from reporters that Biden could be seen as giving the Jewish state a green light to attack Iran…”

The Jerusalem Post added on July 7:

“US President Barack Obama on Tuesday strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel a green light for such an attack, Obama answered: ‘Absolutely not.'”

Israel and the USA

The Washington Times wrote on July 7:

“One senior Israeli official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, told The Washington Times that Mr. Netanyahu determined that ‘it made no sense’ to press the matter after the negative response President Bush gave Mr. Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert, when he asked early last year for U.S. aid for possible military strikes on Iran.

“Israel is increasingly nervous that Iran is developing the capability to build a nuclear weapon, an intention Iran denies. However, Israel is unlikely to attack Iran without at least tacit U.S. approval, in part because that would require cooperation from the United States. At the very least, Israel likely would have to fly over Iraqi airspace, which is still effectively controlled by the U.S. Air Force.”

G-8 Leaders Set Deadline for Iran Resolution

Deutsche Welle reported on July 9:

“French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters at the summit in the central Italian city of L’Aquila that September’s meeting of the G-20 – the world’s 20 leading economies – would be the deadline for Iran to resolve its nuclear dispute with the West.

“‘We made an effort to accept that we will not reinforce sanctions immediately in order to bring everyone on board,’ Sarkozy said, in reference to Russia’s call for more time to consider fresh sanctions. ‘[The G-20 meeting in] Pittsburgh is the rendezvous. If there is no progress by then we will have to take decisions,’ he added. The G-20 combines major developing powerhouses like China with the G-8…

“The United States and Canada said the world’s main industrialized nations were growing increasingly impatient with Iran’s tactics. ‘All G-8 nations are united. There is a strong consensus at the table that unless things change soon, there will be further action,’ said Canadian spokesman Dimitri Soudas… The United States has had comprehensive sanctions in place for decades against Iran, but its European allies have been reluctant to impose sanctions, preferring to pursue diplomatic efforts…

“G-8 leaders also criticized the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown on anti-government protesters and the “unjustified” detention of journalists in Iran… Ahmadinejad himself was also the focus of G-8 concern over his frequent denials that the mass murder of Jews under Germany’s regime ever happened. ‘We condemn the declarations of President Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust,’ the eight leaders said in another joint statement.”

Saddam Feared Iran More Than USA

The Times wrote on July 3:

“Saddam Hussein allowed the world to believe that he had weapons of mass destruction because he feared the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran more than an American strike, according to declassified documents records of his interrogation. Saddam said that the dramatic increase in Iran’s weapons capabilities had left him feeling so vulnerable to the ‘fanatic’ mullahs next door that he would have been prepared to forge a security agreement with the United States to protect Iraq from regional threats. He warned that the effects of Iran’s unchecked rise ‘will be seen and felt in the future’.

“The revelation… supports the view of many regional experts that Saddam’s weapons bluff was aimed not at the West but at his old enemy Iran. Many analysts believe that the removal of Iraq as a bulwark against Iran has merely fuelled Tehran’s rise to its current hegemony in the Middle East. Iran and Iraq fought a devastating eight-year war from 1980 to 1988, in which Saddam was supported and armed by the United States.”

Mr. Biden Admits Mistakes…

ABC News reported on July 5:

“Big admission from Vice President Joe Biden today. ‘The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy,’ Biden [said during an ABC] exclusive ‘This Week’ interview in Iraq.

“Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package. The national unemployment rate has ballooned to 9.5 percent in June — the worst in 26 years…

“‘We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package,’ he said. ‘The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of money.'”

These statements by Vice President Biden are ridiculous. Even though Mr. Biden and the entire Obama Administration might have misread the economy and the signs of the times, there were voices warning about the inappropriate measures of the US government and the overly optimistic assessment of the economy. The truth is, however, that those voices were ignored or even demonized.

Big Banks Won’t Accept California’s IOUs

The Wall Street Journal wrote on July 7:

“A group of the biggest U.S. banks said they would stop accepting California’s IOUs on Friday, adding pressure on the state to close its $26.3 billion annual budget gap… After state leaders failed to agree on budget solutions last week, California began issuing IOUs — or ‘individual registered warrants’ — to hundreds of thousands of creditors. State Controller John Chiang said that without IOUs, California would run out of cash by July’s end.

“But now, if California continues to issue the IOUs, creditors will be forced to hold on to them until they mature on Oct. 2… When the IOUs mature, holders will be paid back directly by the state at an annual 3.75% interest rate…

“The group of banks included Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., among others. The banks had previously committed to accepting state IOUs as payment. California plans to issue more than $3 billion of IOUs in July.”

Irresponsibility of Obama Administration in Light of California Debacle

Bloomberg wrote on July 6:

“With California mired in a budget crisis… Controller John Chiang said the state planned to issue $3.3 billion in IOU’s in July alone… The California morass has Democrats in Washington trembling. The reason is simple. If Obama’s health-care plan passes, then we may well end up paying for it with federal slips of paper worth less than California’s. Obama has bet everything on passing health care this year. The publicity surrounding the California debt fiasco almost assures his resounding defeat…

“California has engaged in an orgy of spending, but, compared with our federal government, its legislators should feel chaste. The California deficit this year is now [about]… $26 billion. The U.S. federal deficit will be… almost 70 times larger. The federal picture is so bleak because the Obama administration is the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of the U.S…

“The Obama administration… is willing to abandon reason altogether to achieve its short-term political goals… Nobody believes that his unprecedented expansion of the welfare state will lead to enough economic growth. Nobody believes that it will pay for itself. Everyone understands that higher spending today begets higher spending tomorrow. That means that his economic strategy simply doesn’t add up…

“Back in the 1980s, Reagan’s own economist, Martin Feldstein, spoke up when he felt that the Reagan administration was pushing the deficit too far. Where are the economists with such character today?…”

Another US Economic Crisis Looming…

The Telegraph wrote on July 6:

“The US economy is lurching towards crisis with long-term interest rates on course to double, crippling the country’s ability to pay its debts and potentially plunging it into another recession, according to a study by the US’s own central bank… Tim Congdon, founder of Lombard Street Research, called [it] a ‘debt explosion’…

“A US crisis would have implications for the rest of the world, in any case… Mr Congdon said the study illustrated the ‘horrifying’ consequences for leading western economies of bailing out their banks and attempting to stimulate markets by cutting taxes and boosting public spending… Should the cost of raising or refinancing public debt in the markets double, ‘the debt could just explode’, he said…”

Germany Faces Largest Debt Growth in Its History

The Netzeitung reported on July 2:

“Germany is threatened with the largest debt growth in its history due to a fall in tax revenue because of the recession… The German state must borrow EUR 507 billion more before 2013… It will affect public spending on a federal, state and local authority level, and could raise the national debt to EUR 2 trillion. The new debts will be spread over the next few years, beginning with EUR 112 billion this year and EUR 132 billion in 2010.

“The debt increase means that Germany will be violating the EU’s Maastricht Treaty for the entire coming legislation period… If Germany’s national debt rose to EUR 2 trillion, the state would end up paying EUR 80 billion a year in interest alone – around one sixth of the current tax revenue.”

Honduras At the Brink…

The Associated Press reported on July 6:

“Already volatile Honduras slid toward greater instability after soldiers blocked an airport runway to keep ousted President Manuel Zelaya from returning, and protests that had remained largely peaceful yielded their first death…  Zelaya’s plane, on loan from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, arrived to find the runway blocked by military vehicles and soldiers… Zelaya instead headed for El Salvador…

“Honduras’ new government has vowed to arrest Zelaya for 18 alleged criminal acts including treason and failing to implement more than 80 laws approved by Congress since taking office in 2006. Zelaya also refused to comply with a Supreme Court ruling against his planned referendum on whether to hold an assembly to consider changing the constitution.

“Critics feared Zelaya might try to extend his rule and cement presidential power in ways similar to what his ally Chavez has done in Venezuela – though Zelaya denied that. But instead of prosecuting him or trying to defeat him at the ballot box, masked soldiers flew the president out of the country at gunpoint, and Congress installed Micheletti in his place.

“The military solution drew international condemnation… no nation has recognized the new government. President Barack Obama has united with Chavez and conservative Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in insisting on Zelaya’s return.”

Venezuela Blackmails Honduras

The New York Times reported on July 8, 2009:

“Venezuela’ s oil minister, Rafael Ramírez, confirmed Wednesday that his country had halted oil exports to Honduras. Mr. Ramírez said shipments of oil, which Venezuela has sold to Honduras at preferential prices, would not resume until that country’s ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, was reinstated. Mr. Zelaya is an ally of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Venezuela sends about 20,000 barrels of oil a day to Honduras…”

Is the World Supporting the Wrong Side in Honduras?

The Wall Street Journal wrote on July 6:

“Mr. Zelaya’s violations of the rule of law in recent months were numerous. But the tipping point came 10 days ago, when he led a violent mob that stormed a military base to seize and distribute Venezuelan-printed ballots for an illegal referendum…

“Hondurans have good cause for calling on divine intervention: Reason has gone AWOL in places like Turtle Bay and Foggy Bottom. Ruling the debate on Mr. Zelaya’s behavior is Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, who is now the reigning international authority on ‘democracy.’ Mr. Chávez is demanding that Mr. Zelaya be reinstated and is even threatening to overthrow the new Honduran president, Roberto Micheletti. He’s leading the charge from the Organization of American States (OAS). The United Nations and the Obama administration are falling in line.

“Is this insane? You bet… Hondurans had the courage to push back. Now Chávez-supported agitators are trying to stir up violence… This is a moment when the U.S. ought to be on the side of the rule of law, which the Honduran court and Congress upheld. If Washington does not reverse course, it will be one more act of appeasement toward an ambitious and increasingly dangerous dictator.”

Egypt Furious with Germany

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 7:

“A brutal murder in Germany last week has caused shockwaves in far-off Egypt. Thousands of mourners took to the streets of Alexandria on Monday to protest at the funeral of a pregnant Egyptian woman who was stabbed to death inside a German court in a crime that has provoked fury in her home country.

“Egyptian newspapers have given strong coverage to the death of Marwa al-Sherbini (32), describing the veiled woman as a ‘martyr in a headscarf’ and suggesting the killer was motivated by a hatred of Islam. Mourners chanted ‘Down with Germany’ and scuffled with police after prayers in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria for al-Sherbini, who was murdered on July 1 in a courtroom in Dresden, eastern Germany, by a German man of Russian origin…

“Al-Sherbini, mother to a three-year-old child and three months pregnant, was stabbed 18 times by the man she was testifying against during an appeal hearing, German prosecutors said… Her killer also stabbed her husband, who German police then mistook for the attacker and shot in the leg, prosecutors added. The husband is in hospital and has awoken from a coma…

“The killer… was appealing against a conviction for insulting Sherbini by calling her an ‘Islamist,’ ‘terrorist’ and a ‘slut’ when she asked him to make space for her son to go on the swings on a playground in Dresden, prosecutors said. He had been fined €780 and last Wednesday’s court session had been called to hear his appeal against the ruling…

“The Egyptian Pharmaceutical Association has called for a boycott of German-made drugs… Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, Egypt’s most senior cleric, called the attacker a murderer and said al-Sherbiny was a martyr. But he appealed for calm and said he hoped the murder wouldn’t harm the dialogue between the West and Islam. ‘It was an isolated case,’ he said.”

Ethnic Violence in China–Why?

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 7:

“It is still not clear exactly what sparked the worst ethnic violence China has seen in years… Rioting and violence in the Chinese province of Xinjiang has left over 150 people dead, hundreds more injured and thousands under arrest… Whatever the cause, the result was extreme inter-ethnic violence, with angry Uighurs beating Han Chinese in the streets, vehicles and businesses being burned. This led to an aggressive response by Chinese authorities…

“Germany may have more of a vested interest than most in the events as Munich is home to the largest population of Uighurs outside China…

“Business daily Handelsblatt writes: ‘Almost a year ago the tanks rolled into Lhasa; last Sunday cars and businesses were burning in Urumqi. The basic problem is that Beijing has never accepted its issues with its ethnic minorities as a political problem. Peking has not tried nearly hard enough to find a mutually acceptable solution… And this terrible situation in Urumqi only shows — once again — how fragile this Chinese super power really is… there are deep rifts right across this country. And how quickly the violence can escalate…’

“The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: ‘… It is only too clear that ethnic integration in China is experienced differently, by different races. What is also clear is that when those differences are ignored they make for the sort of situation that can explode into violence at any provocation’…

“The conservative daily Die Welt [states]: ‘… China is notorious for not being understanding of other cultures. Ethnic minorities have equal rights here but only on paper. Many Han Chinese treat their Uighur brethren with thinly disguised contempt and racist arrogance… The proverbial spark that set this violent fire had to do with the unexplained deaths of two Uighur factory workers. The fact that such a spark could set such a blaze in Urumqi, a historically multi-ethnic city in which Chinese, Uighurs, Kazakhs, Russians and Tartars have all lived peacefully together, does not bode well.'”

Ethnic Violence Continuing in China…

The Associated Press reported on July 8:

“Thousands of Chinese troops flooded into this city Wednesday to separate feuding ethnic groups after three days of communal violence left 156 people dead, and a senior Communist Party official vowed to execute those guilty of murder in the rioting in western China.

“Long convoys of armored cars and green troop trucks with riot police rumbled through Urumqi, a city of 2.3 million people. Other security forces carrying automatic rifles with bayonets formed cordons to defend Muslim neighborhoods from marauding groups of vigilantes with sticks.

“The crisis was so severe that President Hu Jintao cut short a trip to Italy, where he was to participate in a Group of Eight summit. It was an embarrassing move for a leader who wants to show that China has a harmonious society as it prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Communist rule.

“The heightened security came amid the worst spasm of ethnic violence in decades in Xinjiang… The region is home to the Uighur ethnic minority, who rioted Sunday and attacked the Han Chinese—the nation’s biggest ethnic group—after holding a protest that was ended by police.

“Officials have said 156 people were killed as the Turkic-speaking Uighurs ran amok in the city, beating and stabbing the Han Chinese. The Uighurs allege that trigger-happy security forces gunned down many of the protesters, and officials have yet to give an ethnic breakdown of those killed.

“More than 1,100 people were wounded in the violence… The ethnic hatred in Xinjiang appears to run so deep that many Uighurs won’t express sorrow for the Han Chinese who were attacked Sunday.”

Welt On Line added on July 8:

“Urumqi, Xinjiang’s regional capital, imposed an overnight curfew after thousands of Han Chinese stormed through its streets demanding redress and sometimes extracting bloody vengeance for Sunday’s violence…

“Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China. It is strategically located at the borders of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China’s largest natural gas-producing region.

“Xinjiang has long been a tightly controlled hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by an economic gap between many Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han migrants who now are the majority in most key cities, including Urumqi. There were attacks in the region before and during last year’s Summer Olympics in Beijing.

“But controlling the anger on both sides of the ethnic divide will now make controlling Xinjiang, with its gas reserves and trade and energy ties to central Asia, all the more testing for the ruling Communist Party.”

 

India to Launch First Nuclear Submarine

The Financial Times wrote on July 8:

“India is expected to launch a locally built nuclear-powered submarine later this month, making it one of only a handful of countries with the technology to produce such a vessel… The deployment of a nuclear-powered submarine would be a major step for the Indian navy, which is anxious to maintain its authority in the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. The submarine could allow New Delhi to develop a nuclear weapon strike capability from the sea.

“The submarine, the INS Chakra, has been produced at a cost of $2.9bn… and is expected to go into full service in two years’ time…

“India has plans to lease an Akula-class nuclear submarine from Moscow. It is also awaiting the delivery of a 30-year-old refitted Russian aircraft carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov. Additionally, India is building six French-designed Scorpene diesel submarines.

“The country lags behind China’s naval might in the region… Beijing [has] a fleet of eight nuclear submarines, some with ballistic missile capability, although it [lacks] an aircraft carrier. The Chinese navy has three times the number of combat vessels (about 630) as India and a personnel strength of 225,000 — five times that of the Indian navy.”

Swine Flu Pandemic Unstoppable

Bild On Line wrote on July 6:

“The head of the WHO has issued a grim warning about the swine flu pandemic gripping the world – the killer virus can’t be stopped! The UN body has revealed that the spread of the disease cannot be halted, but insisted that the majority of cases were mild and not life-threatening. Most sufferers would recover within a week without the need for any treatment, the BBC reported. But there is still a high risk, especially for pregnant women and people with existing health problems.

“World Health Organisation head Margaret Chan… paint[ed] a dark picture about the fight against the virus: ‘As we see today, with well over 100 countries reporting cases, once a fully fit pandemic virus emerges, its further international spread is unstoppable.’

“About 80,000 people have been infected so far in 100 countries, with more than 330 deaths recorded. And the future prognosis is bad – the WHO forecasts that up to two billion people will contract the H1N1 swine flu virus. In the UK alone, it is thought up to 100,000 new cases could be recorded a day by the end of the summer.”

Abuse of Copyright Law by Big Brother Society?

The Financial Times wrote on July 7:

“If you search for Elvis Presley in Wikipedia, you will find a lot of text and a few pictures that have been cleared for distribution. But you will find no music and no film clips, due to copyright restrictions. What we think of as our common cultural heritage is not ‘ours’ at all. On MySpace and YouTube, creative people post audio and video remixes for others to enjoy, until they are replaced by take-down notices handed out by big film and record companies. Technology opens up possibilities; copyright law shuts them down.

“This was never the intent. Copyright was meant to encourage culture, not restrict it. This is reason enough for reform. But the current regime has even more damaging effects. In order to uphold copyright laws, governments are beginning to restrict our right to communicate with each other in private, without being monitored.

“File-sharing occurs whenever one individual sends a file to another. The only way to even try to limit this process is to monitor all communication between ordinary people. Despite the crackdown on Napster, Kazaa and other peer-to-peer services over the past decade, the volume of file-sharing has grown exponentially. Even if the authorities closed down all other possibilities, people could still send copyrighted files as attachments to e-mails or through private networks. If people start doing that, should we give the government the right to monitor all mail and all encrypted networks? Whenever there are ways of communicating in private, they will be used to share copyrighted material. If you want to stop people doing this, you must remove the right to communicate in private…

“The world is at a crossroads. The internet and new information technologies are so powerful that no matter what we do, society will change… The technology could be used to create a Big Brother society beyond our nightmares, where governments and corporations monitor every detail of our lives. In the former East Germany, the government needed tens of thousands of employees to keep track of the citizens using typewriters, pencils and index cards. Today a computer can do the same thing a million times faster, at the push of a button. There are many politicians who want to push that button.

“… where technology opens up new possibilities, our intellectual property laws do their best to restrict them. Linux is held back by patents, the rest of the examples by copyright… Will we let our fears lead us towards a dystopian Big Brother state, or will we have the courage and wisdom to choose an exciting future in a free and open society?”

Cyber Attack on US Government

The Associated Press reported on July 8:

“A widespread computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of the Treasury Department, the Secret Service and other U.S. government agencies… Sites in South Korea were also affected, and South Korean intelligence officials believe the attack was carried out by North Korean… forces. The U.S. government Web sites, which also included those of the Federal Trade Commission and the Transportation Department, were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week… the fact that the government Web sites were still being affected three days after it began signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack.”

The Ark of the Covenant–Lost and Found and Lost Again…

WorldNetDaily reported on June 24:

“The patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia says he will announce to the world Friday [June 26] the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, perhaps the world’s most prized archaeological and spiritual artifact, which he says has been hidden away in a church in his country for millennia… ‘The Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia for many centuries,’ said Pauolos. ‘As a patriarch I have seen it with my own eyes and only few highly qualified persons could do the same, until now.’ According to Pauolos, the actual Ark has been kept in one church, but to defend the treasure, a copy was placed in every single church in Ethiopia…

“The idea that the Ark is presently in Ethiopia is a well-documented, albeit disputed, tradition dating back to at least 642 B.C… Ethiopians believe it is destined to be delivered to the Messiah when He reigns on Mount Zion – the Temple Mount in Jerusalem… Muslim scholars say it will be found near the end of times by the Mahdi – a messianic figure in Islam.”

But, not surprisingly, it was not supposed to be.

The Ethiopian Review wrote on June 27:

“Yesterday, millions were waiting to watch eagerly the Ark of the Covenant revealed. A day passed but it was not made public. ‘No, the ark is not going to be revealed. Nobody could touch it. If you do so, God will smite you,’ Aba Gebremedhin said… [He] also talked of building a museum in Axum… within two years… [In it] could also be placed the Ark of the Covenant, but this needs to be decided by the Holy Synod, the supreme body of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia [he said].”

Nevertheless, WorldNetDaily added the following on June 26:

“Bob Cornuke, biblical investigator, international explorer and best-selling author… said Ethiopians consider the Ark to be the ultimate holy object, and the church guards the suspected artifact from the ‘eyes and pollution of man… In Ethiopia, their whole culture is centered around worshipping this object’… But according to a statement… by the webmaster for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, there is no chance that the religious leaders and people in the nation will give up their custody of what they believe is the Ark.”

The Apostle Paul’s Bones Found?

CNN reported on June 29:

“Scientific tests prove bones housed in the Basilica of St. Paul in Rome are those of the apostle St. Paul himself, according to Pope Benedict XVI. ‘Tiny fragments of bone’ in the sarcophagus were subjected to carbon dating, showing they ‘belong to someone who lived in the first or second century,’ the pope said in a homily carried on Italian television. ‘This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle St. Paul,’ Benedict said in Sunday’s announcement.”

As will be pointed out below, this tradition is neither “unanimous” nor “undisputed.” In fact, it is FALSE!

The Telegraph added on June 29:

“The announcement of the discovery was timed to mark the end of the ‘Pauline Year’ – 12 months in which the Roman Catholic Church has been celebrating the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of the ‘Apostle of the Gentiles’… The discovery of the bone fragments came shortly after the Vatican announced archaeologists had discovered what they believe is the oldest image in existence of Saint Paul, dating from the late 4th century, on the walls of catacomb beneath Rome.”

Der Stern wrote on June 30 that there is NO EVIDENCE that these were the bones of the Apostle Paul. Quite to the contrary, the magazine points out that the sarcophagus was only built in about 390 A.D., so that the bones could not have been placed there before. The magazine also asks how one can be sure that the bones which were found in that particular sarcophagus were the bones originally placed there, and that those bones were not later replaced.

Die Welt On Line added on June 30 that there can be no certainty that the bones are those of the Apostle Paul, and that experts DOUBT the accuracy of the Pope’s claim.

We can say that the excavated bones, allegedly belonging to a person who lived in the first or second century, are definitely NOT the bones of the Apostle Paul, even IF the age determination of the highly unreliable Carbon 14 method were correct in this case. The reason being, the Apostle Paul’s remains are NOT to be found in Rome.

Even the Catholic news agency Zenit admitted on June 28: “Despite the fact that the original tomb of St. Paul had been the object of profound devotion on the part of pilgrims from the beginning, over the centuries it disappeared from view and eventually could no longer be identified.” There are reasons for that development. For more information, please read our Q&A on the subject of the time and place of the Apostle Paul’s burial.

And Now… Unrest in Honduras

The Wall Street Journal wrote on June 29:

“Honduran soldiers rousted President Manuel Zelaya from his bed and exiled him at gunpoint Sunday to Costa Rica, halting his controversial push to redraw the constitution but spurring fresh concerns about democratic rule across Latin America… Mr. Zelaya called the action a kidnapping, and said he was still president. The U.S. and other countries condemned the coup. President Barack Obama said he was ‘deeply concerned’ and called on all political actors in Honduras to ‘respect democratic norms.’ Venezuela President Hugo Chávez, a close ally of Mr. Zelaya and nemesis of the U.S., said he would consider it an ‘act of war’ if there were hostilities against his diplomats. ‘I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert,’ Mr. Chávez said…

“Troops with riot shields continued to surround the presidential palace on Monday and armored military vehicles were parked in front… Honduras’s Supreme Court gave the order for the military to detain the president… Later, Honduras’s Congress formally removed Mr. Zelaya from the presidency and named congressional leader Roberto Micheletti as his successor until the end of Mr. Zelaya’s term in January…

“Mr. Micheletti is a member of Mr. Zelaya’s Liberal party. But he had opposed his plans for a referendum that could have led to overturning the constitution’s ban on re-election, allowing Mr. Zelaya to potentially stay in power past January, when his term ends…

“The Obama administration and members of the Organization of American States had worked for weeks to try to avert any moves to overthrow President Zelaya… The efforts accelerated over the weekend, as Washington grew increasingly alarmed… On Sunday, the U.S. embassy here tried repeatedly to contact the Honduran military directly, but was rebuffed. Washington called the removal of President Zelaya a coup and said it wouldn’t recognize any other leader.

“The U.S. stand was unpopular with Honduran deputies. One congressman, Toribio Aguilera, got prolonged applause from his colleagues when he urged the U.S. ambassador to reconsider. Mr. Aguilera said the U.S. didn’t understand the danger that Mr. Zelaya and his friendships with Mr. Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro posed. Retired Honduran Gen. Daniel López Carballo justified the move against the president, telling CNN that if the military hadn’t acted, Mr. Chávez would eventually be running Honduras by proxy. It was a common view Sunday…

“Latin America analysts said the Honduran coup will complicate President Obama’s efforts to re-engage a region where anti-Americanism has flourished in recent years. They said Mr. Chavez is likely to seize on the crisis to depict Central America as under attack… As a result, analysts said Mr. Obama will need to aggressively call for the reinstatement of President Zelaya, despite U.S. concerns that he is seeking to mirror Mr. Chávez’s campaign to secure limitless rule…

“Mr. Casas-Zamora [Costa Rica’s former vice president and a senior fellow at Washington’s Brookings Institution] and other regional analysts said the coup raised questions about just how much influence Washington actually has in Central America, given the Obama administration’s failed effort to avert it. Honduras receives more than $200 million in development aid from Washington annually.”

Reuters wrote on June 29:

“U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a ‘terrible precedent’ of transition by military force unless it was reversed… Despite Obama’s comments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the administration was not formally designating the ouster as a military coup for now, a step that would force a cut-off of most U.S. aid to Honduras. Under U.S. law, no aid — other than for the promotion of democracy — may be provided to a country whose elected head of government has been toppled in a military coup.”

The Associated Press wrote on July 1:

“The Obama administration said Wednesday it has suspended joint military operations with Honduras to protest a coup that forced President Manuel Zelaya into exile.”

Reuters added on July 2:

“Rejecting the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, Honduras’ interim leaders dug in for a fight on Thursday… In the worst crisis in Central America in a decade… a standoff… is testing U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration after he promised an era of better relations with the region.”

International Community Condemns Honduras “Coup”

The left-leaning magazine, Der Spiegel Online, wrote on June 30:

“This weekend’s coup in Honduras has been met with general international condemnation. Criticism of the putsch is coming from all sides of the political spectrum… Micheletti has not been recognized, various South American states have withdrawn diplomatic staff and halted trade. The United Nations has called for ‘a reinstatement of the democratically elected representatives of the country,’ the European Union wants to see ‘a swift return to constitutional normality’ and the US, which has strong military ties with Honduras, has also weighed in…

“The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:

“‘What makes this coup particularly bad is the complicity between the Honduran parliament and the local armed forces. Only hours after Zelaya was forced to leave the country, Congress presented a blatantly false letter of resignation from him… Zelaya himself wasn’t always a good democrat — he ignored, for example, the fact that the highest judicial office in his country had ruled against the referendum he planned to hold… In any case, a coup was clearly the wrong solution…’

“The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

“‘… this situation cannot be justified. It is the duty of centrist politicians everywhere to protest these actions… But they also need to take care that they are not dancing to the same tune that Zelaya’s local allies — leaders like Chavez, Ortega and Morales — are playing. Because the politics of those leaders actually have more to do with the bad old days in Latin America than any pure, new democratic order’…”

But not all are in agreement. Die Welt On Line wrote on June 30 about the “fairy tale of a coup in Honduras.” The paper stated that there was NO coup, but only the parliament-initiated removal of a president who was in the process, step-by-step, to usurp the constitution and bring about a coup himself. The paper also claimed that the violence in Honduras is perpetrated by pro-Zelaya demonstrators who were seen shooting at the police, and not vice versa.

Time Is Running Out For Iran

The Financial Times reported on June 27:

“Iran’s nuclear programme and its post-election crisis dominated talks this weekend among Group of Eight foreign ministers meeting in Italy, with a sense that time was running out for the international community to respond, diplomats said. The ministerial discussions, preparing a wide range of global issues for next month’s G8 summit, also revealed how little they understood of what was happening inside Iran and within the regime…

“Although Israel was not directly mentioned, the diplomats said there was an unspoken understanding of a danger that Israel might take military action against Iran’s nuclear sites if the international community did not make progress on the diplomatic front. The final G8 statement expressed deep concern over the proliferation risks of Iran’s ongoing nuclear programme and called on Iran to ‘seize this opportunity to give diplomacy a chance to find a negotiated solution to the nuclear issue.’ Diplomats said the coded language conveyed a message to Iran that non-diplomatic means – including possible military action – remained a risk it should consider… There was no discussion of drawing up further economic and financial sanctions against Iran…

“Iran has defied UN resolutions demanding that it halt its uranium enrichment programme… Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief who has led on-off nuclear negotiations with Iran, has a mandate to try to re-engage the Iranians, although it is not clear to whom he might talk. Mr Solana was prepared ‘to put more on the table,’ diplomats said, without giving details. But they did not expect Iran to re-enter talks in the near future…

“Western foreign ministers and Japan were relieved that Russia signed up to the final statement which deplored, but did not ‘condemn,’ the post-electoral violence in Iran and expressed ‘solidarity with those who have suffered repression while peacefully demonstrating’… Russia, with its close economic and military ties to Iran, was quick to congratulate Mr Ahmadi-Nejad on his re-election when he visited Russia after the vote.

“The G8 comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and US.”

EU Warns Iran

Deutsche Welle reported on June 28:

“The European Union agreed on Sunday that intimidation and harassment of European diplomatic staff by Iran in Tehran would be met with a ‘strong and collective response’… At least 25 people have been killed during crackdowns by Iranian police and religious militia in recent demonstrations… On Sunday, police arrested [nine] Iranians working for the British Embassy in Tehran, claiming they played a role in the post-election riots…

“The international community continues to voice alarm at the violent crackdown on opposition protesters in the election aftermath, but the Iranian government has hit back, accusing Western nations – particularly the United States, Britain, France and Germany – of meddling in the country’s internal affairs.”

EU “Unites” Against Iran

The Financial Times wrote on June 28:

“The European Union’s 27 nations on Sunday joined forces to condemn Iran’s detention of British embassy staff in Tehran, as tensions escalated between Iran and the west in the wake of the disputed elections. After Iran arrested nine local employees working at the UK embassy in Tehran, EU foreign ministers meeting in Corfu said they would respond firmly to any further ‘harassment or intimidation [by Iran] of foreign or Iranian staff working in embassies’… The seriousness of the diplomatic stand-off was underscored by the EU statement in which foreign ministers said they were becoming ‘seriously concerned’ about developments inside Iran… as of Sunday morning four of the nine staff had been released [In the meantime, seven were released.]. The EU statement demanded all should immediately be set free.

“Iranian media said the staff had been detained because of their ‘considerable role’ in instigating riots triggered by this month’s disputed election result… Iran has repeatedly claimed UK diplomats have been interfering in the country’s domestic affairs. Last week Iran forced two British envoys to leave the country, a decision that triggered an immediate tit-for-tat response by London.

“[David] Miliband [Britain’s foreign secretary] roundly rejected Iran’s allegations about the locally hired staff on Sunday. ‘These are hard-working diplomatic staff and the idea that the British Embassy is somehow behind the demonstrations and protests that have been taking place in Tehran in recent weeks is wholly without foundation,’ he said. The UK has been the focus of Iran’s diplomatic protests, partly because the US does not have an embassy in Iran.

“But the troubled relationship between the UK and Iran also has a long history, going back to British involvement in a 1953 coup in Iran… Iran’s leaders stepped up their attacks on the west on Sunday. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, denounced what he described as ‘interfering statements’ by western officials.”

The Financial Times wrote on June 30:

“Most of the European Union’s 27 member states will recall their ambassadors from Tehran as early as this weekend if the Iranian authorities refuse to free the [two remaining “detained”] British embassy employees… Amid continuing anger across Europe over the embassy arrests, senior EU diplomats said a co-ordinated diplomatic protest would take place ‘within days.'”

The EUObserver wrote on July 2:

“Iran says Europe is no longer qualified to hold nuclear talks due to its meddling with the post-election protests in the country, with Sweden, as the new EU presidency, calling up officials from the 27-member bloc to discuss the next diplomatic move.”

German Neo-Nazis Support Ahmadinejad

Netzeitung reported on June 25:

“Neo-Nazis in Germany are applauding the repression of protests in Iran and publishing statements supporting the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his hard-line government. Two extremist parties, the NPD and DVU, have managed to contort their racist thinking to embrace the Iranian leader because Ahmadinejad openly advocates the elimination of Israel…

“Censorship in Iran, which makes listening to music a risky business, and outlaws dancing in public, is praised by the NPD, which says the music could be considered decadent and subversive.”

No Irregularities in Iran Elections?

Haaretz reported on June 29:

“Iran’s top legislative body on Monday confirmed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the contested June 12 presidential recount. The Guardian Council’s official recount of the votes found… no irregularities in the election which brought about the largest protest on Iranian streets since the 1979 revolution. Protesters have claimed that the vote was imbued with massive fraud, but the legislative body has insisted that it was legitimate.”

The Times On Line wrote on July 2:

“Three of Iran’s most prominent opposition leaders flagrantly courted arrest yesterday by denouncing President Ahmadinejad’s Government as illegitimate, one day after the regime said that it would tolerate no more challenges to the election result… Mr Mousavi, 67, is living at home with his family in Tehran, with security and intelligence agents watching his every move. They have arrested most of his inner circle and made it progressively harder for him to communicate with his followers.

“Since Tuesday, when Iran’s Guardian Council declared that a partial recount had confirmed Mr Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election, hardliners have all but accused Mr Mousavi of treason…

“Forced from the streets by the security forces, Mr Mousavi’s supporters are also preparing a campaign of civil disobedience. They are talking of strikes, boycotting goods advertised in the state-controlled media, moving money out of government-controlled banks and giving money directly to the needy instead of government-controlled charities.

“Analysts say that anger will grow and could erupt at football matches, prayer meetings or anywhere that large numbers gather. They say that opposition supporters will go underground and stage lightning demonstrations. They also expect some elements to start launching violent attacks on government targets.

“In a possible sign of the regime’s anxiety Mr Ahmadinejad abruptly cancelled a visit to Libya for an African Union summit yesterday.”

Amidst Violence, Iraqis Happy to See US Troops Leave Cities

On June 29, USA Today wrote the following:

“It was just a week ago that two of his brothers were killed in a bombing in a crowded market, but Haider Abbas Ali put his sorrow aside Monday to celebrate the departure of most U.S. troops from the capital and other Iraqi cities. ‘Their presence has brought nothing good. It is long past the time for the Americans to leave,’ said Ali, who draped himself in an Iraqi flag as he danced with friends prior to Iraqi security forces taking control Tuesday.

“Thousands of Iraqis gathered in central Baghdad’s Zawra Park for a concert to mark the milestone that is part of a security pact that will also require all U.S. combat forces to leave Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010. A countdown clock on a state television channel ticked down at midnight. The Iraqi government has declared Tuesday National Sovereignty Day, six years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein…

“U.S. troops weren’t in sight in the capital Monday. Instead, Iraqi police and soldiers flooded the streets… Some U.S. troops will remain in the cities as trainers and advisers, but most of the 130,000 Americans in Iraq have been relocated to large bases outside urban centers.

“While Iraq celebrated the switch-over, violence continued. The U.S. military announced Monday that a soldier was killed in combat on Sunday, but his name was not released. More than 4,300 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began in 2003…

“Many Iraqis at the Zawra park celebration said they are glad to see Americans out of their neighborhoods, but some remain nervous about whether the Iraqi security forces are up to the task.”

House Approves Costly Climate Change Bill

Die Welt Online wrote on June 27:

“President Barack Obama scored a major victory on Friday when the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to slash industrial pollution that is blamed for global warming. The House narrowly passed the historic legislation to cut carbon emissions blamed for climate change, thus handing President Obama a hard-fought victory.

“The Democratic-controlled House passed the climate change bill, a top priority for Obama, by a vote of 219-212. As has become routine on major bills in Congress this year, the vote was partisan, with only eight Republicans joining Democrats for the bill. Forty-four Democrats voted against it.

“Climate change legislation still must get through the Senate. Senators were expected to try to write their own version but prospects for this year were uncertain. After the House vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hoped the Senate can pass a bill ‘this fall’…

“The bill requires that large U.S. companies, including utilities, oil refiners, manufacturers and others, reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases associated with global warming by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels. They would do so by phasing in the use of cleaner alternative energy than high-polluting oil and coal.

“At the core of the bill, which is around 1,500 pages long, is a ‘cap and trade’ program designed to achieve the emissions reductions by industry.”

Adoption of Climate Change Bill–Politics, Politics and More Politics

Politico wrote on June 25:

“The House of Representatives passed a sweeping climate-change bill Friday – a major victory for President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that left Republicans fuming about a ‘national energy tax’ they said would exacerbate the nation’s economic woes. The vote was extremely close…  the debate leading up to it was intense…

“Republicans accused the Democrats of ramming the bill through the House. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), managing the debate for his party, asked repeatedly if there was even a copy of the current version of the bill anywhere in the House chamber. Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher – sitting in the speaker’s chair although she’s already been confirmed as Obama’s undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security — repeatedly dodged the question.

“Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the bill’s sponsors, finally rose to say that a single copy of the current version of the bill was available at the speaker’s desk – and on the Internet, which members would have to leave the floor to access.

“That wasn’t good enough for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who delayed the roll call vote by reading page-by-page through a 300-page managers’ amendment Democrats added at around 3 a.m. Friday. Boehner seemed to relish the hour-long stunt, picking out the bill’s most obscure language and then pontificating about what it might – or might not – mean. Republicans laughed along with him and roared with applause when he was done.

“Before Boehner took the floor, Republicans asked the House to observe a moment of silence for Americans who would lose their jobs as a result of the bill. Democrats objected. Pelosi argued later that the bill would mean ‘jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.’

“Making his closing argument for the bill he co-sponsored, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) told his colleagues that they had ‘a unique historical opportunity’ to protect the nation’s national security, improve the environment and transform the economy… But in an impassioned speech of his own, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the cap-and-trade bill would exacerbate the recession, disproportionately hurt the poor and ‘hamstring’ U.S. industry. He was followed by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who called the bill a ‘great contribution to human kind’ and attacked Republicans for offering nothing but ‘negative political shots’…

“Throughout the day Friday, the House chamber had the feeling of a place where history was being made… Behind the scenes, the administration worked hard to help the Democratic leadership garner support for the legislation. Obama, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and other administration officials have been calling skeptical lawmakers from both parties for weeks. Energy adviser Carol Browner met with several on-the-fence lawmakers Thursday.”

And Still More Politics…?

Fox News wrote on June 29:

“A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming. The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin… argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined…

“According to internal e-mails that have been made public by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Carlin’s boss told him in March that his material would not be incorporated into a broader EPA finding and ordered Carlin to stop working on the climate change issue… Carlin told FOXNews.com on Monday that his boss, National Center for Environmental Economics Director Al McGartland, appeared to be pressured into reassigning him.

“Carlin said he doesn’t know whether the White House intervened to suppress his report but claimed it’s clear ‘they would not be happy about it if they knew about it,’ and that McGartland seemed to be feeling pressure from somewhere up the chain of command. Carlin said McGartland told him he had to pull him off the climate change issue…

“Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif… wrote a letter last week to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging the agency to reopen its comment period on the finding. The EPA has since denied the request… In a written statement, Issa said the administration is ‘actively seeking to withhold new data in order to justify a political conclusion.’

“‘I’m sure it was very inconvenient for the EPA to consider a study that contradicted the findings it wanted to reach,’ Sensenbrenner said in a statement, adding that the ‘repression’ of Carlin’s report casts doubt on the entire finding. Carlin said he’s concerned that he’s seeing ‘science being decided at the presidential level’…

“The controversy is similar to one under the Bush administration — only the administration was taking the opposite stance. In that case, scientist James Hansen claimed the administration was trying to keep him from speaking out and calling for reductions in greenhouse gases.”

Obamas Hold Gay Rights Reception

The Associated Press wrote on June 30:

“Countering criticism that he has done little to advance gay rights, President Obama commemorated the 40th anniversary yesterday of the birth of the modern movement by welcoming its leaders to the White House and reaffirming his commitment to their top priorities.

“’I will not only be your friend; I will continue to be an ally and a champion and a president who fights with you and for you,’ Obama told members of the core Democratic constituency as he and his wife Michelle hosted a cocktail-and-appetizer reception in the East Room marking the four decades since the police raid on New York City’s Stonewall Inn that spurred gay rights activism across the country.”

The Washington Post added on June 30 that Mr. Obama “also drew a parallel between the progress gays and lesbians have made in recent decades and the struggles of black Americans to win equality.”

U.S. Dollar Declines

Bloomberg reported on June 27:

“The dollar declined the most against the euro in a month and dropped versus the yen after China repeated its call for a new global currency… ‘The dollar’s status as a reserve currency is being questioned,’ said Benedikt Germanier, a foreign-exchange strategist in Stamford, Connecticut at UBS AG, the second- largest currency trader. ‘There are reasons to sell the dollar.’”

Stimulus Package Isn’t Working… Job Losses Increase…

The Financial Times reported on July 2:

“The US economy shed another 467,000 jobs last month, signalling aggressive government stimulus measures are failing to unshackle the labour force from the grips of the recession…

“The result was worse than economists predicted and pushed the unemployment rate from 9.4 per cent to 9.5 per cent… a 26-year high. Thursday’s figure shows further erosion from the previous month’s decline of a revised 322,000 drop and knocked wind from the notion that the pace of job losses might be slowing.”

Bloomberg added on July 2:

“Employers in the U.S. cut 467,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate rose and hourly earnings stagnated, offering little evidence the Obama administration’s stimulus package is shoring up the labor market.”

“We ARE in the Middle of a Financial Crash…”

CNBC wrote on July 2:

“The financial system is crashing… Nassim Taleb, author of ‘The Black Swan,’ told CNBC Thursday… ‘So if I’m going to forecast something, it is that it’s going to get worse, not better… What makes me very pessimistic [is] not seeing any leadership or awareness on parts of government on what has to be done.'”

California–From the Richest to the Poorest…

On June 29, the Financial Times reported the following:

“California… grapples with an unprecedented cash crunch and prepares to begin its new fiscal year deep in the red. Once the US’s richest state, California now has the dubious distinction of having the worst credit rating in the country…”

The Los Angeles Times reported on July 2:

“With budget negotiators at a loggerheads and California government facing a cash crisis, the state controller’s office will start printing IOUs this afternoon for the first time in 17 years. The presses are set to start at 2 p.m., churning out 28,742 IOUs worth $53.3 million that will be dispatched mostly to residents throughout the state still awaiting their income-tax refunds.

“A panel of state finance officials will meet this morning to set the interest rate for banks and other financial institutions that decide to accept the IOUs. Some banks have agreed to honor them, including Bank of America, which will do so until July 10…

“With the California economy hobbled, tax receipts waning and the budget deficit continuing to swell, the governor Wednesday declared a fiscal emergency, and ordered state workers to take a third unpaid furlough day each month. He also issued a new list of cuts to schools and public universities to address a deficit that his finance team now says has swelled to $26.3 billion.”

UK Crime Capitol of Europe

The Telegraph wrote on July 2:

“The United Kingdom is the violent crime capital [sic] of Europe [including in respect to murder] and has one of the highest rates of violence in the world, worse even than America… Analysis of figures from the European Commission showed a 77 per cent increase in murders, robberies, assaults and sexual offences… The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa… The figures combined crime statistics for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

China’s Economy in Grave Danger

The Telegraph wrote on June 28:

“China’s banks are veering out of control. The half-reformed economy of the People’s Republic cannot absorb the $1,000bn (£600bn) blitz of new lending issued since December… Fitch Ratings has been warning for some time that China’s lenders are wading into dangerous waters, but its latest report is even grimmer than… suspected… World trade… will not rebound fast in a world where the US savings rate has risen to a 15-year high of 6.9pc…

“So the [Chinese] regime is resorting to hazardous methods to keep excess factories humming: issuing a ‘Buy China’ decree: using a plethora of export subsidies; holding down the price of coke, bauxite, zinc and other resources to lower production costs (prompting a complaint from America and Europe); and suppressing the yuan, again. Protectionism is a risky game for a country that lives off global trade and runs a surplus…

“[China might be] repeating the US tariff blunder of 1930 that brought the world crashing down on Washington’s head… If the world’s biggest surplus state ($400bn) is too structurally deformed to help offset the demand shock as Western debtors retrench, we are trapped in a long deflation slump.”

Obama and Merkel Meet–“Much to Do About Nothing”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on June 27:

“During German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s White House visit on Friday, one thing topped the agenda: a show of friendship. US President Barack Obama praised Merkel to the hilt, while she returned the compliment. Politics were pushed into the background… The German-American agenda for the meeting was clear this time: A show of friendship — after all the reports of a cool relationship between Obama and Merkel, which have now started to appear in the US as well as the German media…

“The fact that Merkel had prevented Obama from speaking in front of the deeply symbolic Brandenburg Gate was now all forgotten. And the fact that Obama’s team had acted with some arrogance during his Dresden visit and for a long time had rejected the idea of a brief visit to the Frauenkirche was also ancient history…

“The issue that has seen the greatest tensions between the two leaders was hardly mentioned — the response to the global financial crisis and the German [skepticism] about America’s massive state spending that could culminate in an even bigger stimulus package and an even greater budget deficit… That left nothing but harmony in the East Room. The chancellor denied there were any differences with the new US president…

“However even a good natured Obama cannot dispel the worries of many Europeans that they are becoming more marginalized in Washington in the face of the many political problems and increasing number of hot spots around the world. When the German chancellor was presented with the Warburg Prize for her contribution to trans-Atlantic relations on Thursday evening in the Library of Congress, only one out of a possible 435 members of the House of Representatives bothered to turn up.”

You might want to listen to our new StandingWatch program, “America and Europe–Friends or Foes?” [posted on StandingWatch or YouTube] to learn more about the REAL relationship between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Merkel.

German Constitutional Court Gives Green Light for the Lisbon Treaty

The Financial Times wrote on June 30:

“Germany’s constitutional court gave a green light in principle to the Lisbon treaty on Tuesday but suspended its ratification until the German parliament had amended [domestic German] law governing its influence over European legislation… Despite the new hurdle, the ruling was greeted with relief by the government… Berlin is confident that the necessary amendments to its ratification laws can be expedited in the summer, fulfilling its commitment to ratify the treaty before 2010…

“The Bundestag, parliament’s lower chamber, on Tuesday revealed it had already convened an extraordinary session in August for an initial review of the legislative amendments. Final approval should take place on September 8… before the general election of September 27. The bill requires a two-thirds majority on both houses of parliament.”

The EUObserver added on June 30:

“Germany’s highest court on Tuesday ruled that the EU’s new treaty is compatible with German law, so long as the role of the national parliament in EU decision-making is strengthened. ‘The German constitution says yes to the Lisbon treaty, but on a national level the parliament has to have a stronger say in EU matters’, vice-president of the German constitutional court, Andreas Vosskuhle, said… The court in Karlsruhe also said that the treaty and the German constitution would not allow the creation of an ‘EU federal state…”

Deutsche Welle reported on June 30:

“German opponents of the Lisbon Treaty [a group of about 50 lawmakers seeking to stop the Treaty] had argued that the document undercuts German sovereignty. They say that the country’s constitution would be subject to European law… Supporters of the Lisbon Treaty dismiss such fears, and insist that Germany and Europe would become more democratic and more transparent.

“German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble… says the treaty would protect the German constitution, not undermine it. Schaeuble says the [German] constitution’s preamble, dating from 1949, states that Germany wants to be an equal member of a unified Europe which works towards world peace. ‘From the beginning, this constitution was BASED ON EUROPEAN UNITY,’ he says.”

Der Spiegel Online added on June 30:

“Chancellor Merkel welcomed the court’s decision, saying that it was ‘a good day for the Lisbon Treaty’… German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier… said that he was pleased that the court had found the treaty to be ‘completely compatible’ with the [German] constitution. He predicted that the Lisbon Treaty would come into force by early 2010 at the latest.

“If the German Constitutional Court had ruled against Lisbon, it would likely have killed the treaty. It would have given the Czech Republic and Poland a reason not to ratify it and it also could have derailed plans to hold a second referendum on the EU reform in Ireland in early October.

“European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso welcomed the German ruling. ‘I am confident we can complete the process of ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon in all countries by the autumn,’ he said.”

The Future of Europe–Back to the Core?

Der Spiegel wrote on June 29:

“In times such as these, with no end to the financial crisis in sight, the rotation of the EU Presidency makes one thing patently clear: The European Union needs clearer structures, more integration, and better foreign representation. Moreover, the Czech tenure has revealed that smaller EU countries are not up to the daunting coordination and leadership tasks that a crisis of this magnitude requires… In the financial crisis as in the gas dispute, all eyes were focused once again on the heavyweights in the European Union, namely on Germany and France, without whom no significant European contribution would have been possible at the G-20 summit in April…

“As of July it is Sweden’s obligation… Foreign Minister Carl Bildt is striving to make Georgia, and perhaps Moldova as well, into ‘model nations’ of successful EU engagement. Both countries have sunk into war and unrest in recent months and are practically demanding European intervention… Bildt… would like to position the European Union as a player in the Middle East… He would like to… represent the European Union as an international role model at the Copenhagen climate conference at the end of the year…

“Should the Lisbon Treaty be ratified, Sweden will quickly set clear priorities for the formation of the European foreign service and, accordingly, for the formulation of the responsibilities of both the High Commission for Foreign and Security Policy as well as of the future European Presidency. Both entities should be given as much space and capacity as possible within the European system…”

EU Renders Most Important Decision of the Year

Der Spiegel wrote on June 19:

“Friday’s deal in Brussels paving the way forward for a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland is the most important decision taken in Europe this year. The treaty, which will bring widespread reforms to the European Union and give its institutions greater power, could… go into effect before the end of the year… Then the EU would get a president, a foreign minister and the role of the European Parliament would be strengthened considerably.

“Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen announced the referendum would be held during the first week of October. Public opinion polls currently indicate that Irish voters would likely approve the Lisbon Treaty this time around, following their rejection in a first referendum one year ago. Cowen said the European Council had given Ireland ‘firm legal guarantees’ and that he was ‘confident we now have a solid basis to go to the Irish people and to ask them again for their approval for Ireland to ratify the treaty so that Europe can move on.’

“The EU has provided guarantees to Ireland that it will remain independent in determining tax policies, military neutrality and abortion law (Ireland has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion policies). The sovereignty guarantees are expected to be anchored in EU law as a treaty protocol in the mid-term future…

“The history of the Lisbon Treaty is a long one. It has been five [years] since EU leaders approved the text of the European constitution in Rome. After the constitution was rejected in two referenda in France and the Netherlands, the draft landed in the waste bin. Under German leadership, however, the text was brought back to life in its current incarnation as the Treaty of Lisbon.

“The streamlined treaty was supposed to have gone into effect at the end of 2008. However, another referendum got in the way. Irish voters said ‘no’ and the EU was thrown into yet another crisis. This time the other leaders made it clear that they would not accept the ‘no’ vote. They immediately began to consider how and when a second referendum could be held in Ireland.

“One year on, it looks like that referendum will soon take place. The mood in Ireland seems to be favorable: The financial crisis has made people think much more positively about the EU. And now the guarantees of sovereignty have given Cowen further arguments in favor of the treaty.

“There were tough negotiations at the summit over those guarantees. Cowen surprised the other EU leaders on Thursday when he said he would need the guarantees entrenched in the treaty. A declaration by the Council would not suffice… It was pure blackmail — but the EU leaders had little choice but to accept those terms. No one can even consider the Lisbon Treaty failing again…

“Ireland is not alone in not having ratified the Lisbon Treaty. The Czech Republic, Poland and Germany still haven’t done so. Germany, for example, must first wait for a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court on Lisbon’s legality. However, these are regarded as much lower hurdles than Ireland.”

Merkel and Obama “Are Not Getting Any Warmer…”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on June 23:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel is traveling to Washington this week to discuss the financial crisis and climate change with US President Barack Obama — two issues where Germany and the US are deeply divided…

“When US President Barack Obama recently met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden, he… remained true to the program at first. But then he unexpectedly asked ‘Angela’ why, exactly, she didn’t want Turkey to be accepted into the European Union. Merkel was taken aback. She had to think on her feet and quickly come up with an answer for an issue on which she had no pre-prepared comments. It became clear to her, once again, that this president is a challenge, both for Merkel and for German politics as a whole…

“A clash of cultures is raging between Berlin and the United States on the issue of financial policy… The German chancellor… considers the Americans’ offensive monetary policy to be dangerous… A few hours after the encounter between Merkel and Obama, Ben LaBolt, a White House press spokesman, told a colleague about the difficult relationship between the two leaders. ‘They are not getting any warmer,’ he said…

“Obama’s visits to Dresden and Buchenwald also ruffled some feathers in Germany. The US president’s advance team, which had been sent to help prepare for the trip, made a negative impression on the Germans through their coarse language and overbearing behavior. German officials were shouted at, treated like schoolchildren and told to wait their turns… As it is, the US president in person is by no means the charming and smiling character many have come to expect from his television appearances. He cultivates a cool style or, as one of the members of the delegation describes it, ‘an almost unfeeling style.'”

Deutsche Welle added on June 24:

“Ms Merkel arrives in Washington on Thursday and meets Mr Obama on Friday. It will be their third meeting in less than a year. Ms Merkel hosted the US president in Dresden three weeks ago. Yet in spite of frequent meetings and delight among Germans at Mr Obama’s election, the rapport between the old allies has deteriorated in recent months… ‘The chancellor is not interested in joining the competition for who gets along best with Obama,’ a senior aide said on Wednesday…

“Economic policy is not the only source of tension. While Berlin has long been critical of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, it has rejected US requests to take detainees. It has also dragged its feet on committing troops to Afghanistan… Other matters have conspired to poison the atmosphere. German officials said last month the US Treasury’s role in talks between Berlin and General Motors over the future of Opel, its German arm, had been offhand and unhelpful.

“While Mr Obama had only planned to tour the Buchenwald concentration camp during what had been billed as a private visit this month, Ms Merkel insisted he go to Dresden, the Baroque city razed by US and UK bombers in 1945. Their first clash goes back before Mr Obama’s election last summer, when Ms Merkel vetoed his plan to make a speech before the Brandenburg gate. The address was moved a mile west to the victory column.”

Europe Caught Between Rock and Hard Place on Iran

Deutsche Welle wrote on June 19:

“With mass demonstrations continuing since the announcement of the presidential election results in the Iranian capital and other cities despite a government crackdown, many observers inside and outside the country had hoped that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would make an effort of reconciliation in his traditional Friday sermon. Instead, Khamenei defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declaring him the clear winner of the election and urged the opposition to end its protests.

“That puts the West in a terrible bind, says Nicola Pedde, Director of Globe Research, a Rome-based think tank focusing on the Middle East. ‘We can do nothing. If you support the reformists, the Iranian government will say that the opposition is supported by agents of foreign governments. And if you stay silent it can be interpreted negatively as support for the government.’

“Paul Luft, founder of the Center for Iranian Studies at Durham University, agrees that Western countries should stay out of what he describes as an internal conflict… If the West is perceived to be meddling in Iran’s domestic affairs, that could help unite the Islamists, says Luft…

“But other experts argue that the West can’t just stand by and let events unfold, but must make a concerted effort to support the democracy movement in Iran… ‘The West shouldn’t prematurely recognize Ahmadinejad as the winner of the election’, says Jamsheed Faroughi, Head of Deutsche Welle’s Farsi service. Instead, Western countries should demand new elections in Iran under independent, international supervision. ‘If Ahmadinejad really won the election by a landslide as the official results claim, then what is the government afraid of?’

“It is crucial that Europe doesn’t just remain on the sidelines this time, argues Bernd Kaussler, an Iran expert at James Madison University… Kaussler admits that Europe is in a difficult position, but says it could lose all of its credibility with reform-minded Iranians if it doesn’t act now… Kaussler agrees with Faroughi that the West should not recognize Ahmadinejad as the winner of the election. While the EU and the US shouldn’t endorse his opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi in order not to meddle too much in Iranian affairs, they should highlight human rights violations and demand freedom of expression in Iran. ‘It could start with the European Parliament issuing a resolution claiming solidarity with the Iranians.'”

The article also published the following chart, explaining more fully the rather complicated Iranian governmental system or power structure.

Exiled Son of Shah Warns of Nuclear War

AFP wrote on June 22:

“The exiled son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, warned Monday of dire consequences for the volatile Middle East and the rest of the world if the popular uprising in Iran is crushed. The defeat of the movement protesting the outcome of presidential elections… would not only threaten global stability but could lead to nuclear war, Pahlavi [said].”

Iran Plays Hardball–Attacks Britain…

USA Today reported on June 23:

“Iran’s rulers stiffened their stance against protesters Tuesday, firmly rejecting demands to annul the election over fraud allegations, setting up a special court for detained demonstrators and keeping troops in riot gear on the streets to break up any gatherings. Iran also expelled two British diplomats Tuesday after bitterly accusing Britain of meddling and spying… During Friday prayers at Tehran University, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out against Western countries he said were displaying their ‘enmity’ against the Islamic state, ‘and the most evil of them is the British government’…

“In a boost for the embattled regime, Russia said Tuesday that it respects the declared election result. But France summoned Iran’s ambassador to express concern about what it called ‘brutal repression’ of protesters in Tehran.”

The Telegraph reported on June 24 that “Britain… was throwing out two Iranian diplomats in response to Tehran’s expulsion of two British diplomats.”

The Times wrote on June 25:

“In a briefing to heads of foreign missions in Tehran this week, Manochehr Mottaki, the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran… reserved his severest criticism for Britain. In what must rank as one of the most idiotic statements made by a serving Foreign Minister of an Iranian Government, Mr Mottaki charged that ‘they [the British Government] sent planes full of passengers to Iran with special intelligence and security ambitions’…

“The madness does, of course, have some method attached to it. It… plays to a particular constituency in Iran, which still sees Britain as the root of all evil.”

… and the USA

Reuters reported on June 25:

“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused President Barack Obama on Thursday of behaving like his predecessor toward Iran and said there is not much point in talking to Washington unless Obama apologizes. Obama said on Tuesday he was ‘appalled and outraged’ by a post-election crackdown, and Washington withdrew invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend U.S. Independence Day celebrations on July 4, stalling efforts to improve ties with Tehran…”

The Times added on June 25:

“Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela who is an ally of Mr Ahmadinejad, [said about the demonstrations in Iran], ‘People are in the streets, some are dead, they have snipers, and behind this is the CIA, the imperial hand of European countries and the United States.'”

The irony is that, according to Western reports, Iran might be using terrorists from Hamas and Hezbollah to brutally suppress the demonstrations in Iran.

Iran’s Turmoil Unsettles the Middle East

The Wall Street Journal wrote on June 24:

“The turmoil in Iran is threatening to reshape the balance of power in the Middle East, denting the Islamic Republic’s regional standing and spooking some Arab regimes with the specter of similar people-power uprisings. Whether or not the protests over Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential election endanger President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the Islamic Republic itself, the crisis — Iran’s gravest internal challenge since the 1979 Islamic revolution — has already triggered repercussions well beyond the country’s borders…

“Iran-backed movements that the U.S. considers terrorists, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian lands… [put] moderate Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the defensive. But, over the past week, the vivid TV images of Iranian security forces and Basij militias beating and killing unarmed protesters, including women, on the streets of Tehran have punctured the Islamic Republic’s carefully constructed image as a champion of the oppressed masses…

“Even Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders used to praise Mr. Ahmadinejad’s radical views, seems dumbfounded by the upheaval. ‘People are confused about what’s happening in Iran,’ says the head of the brotherhood’s political bureau, Essam el Erian. On one hand, he explains, many Arabs share Mr. Ahmadinejad’s hostility to Israel and the U.S. Yet, he adds, they also admire the courage of Iranian protesters and can relate to their cause, because elections in most Arab countries are either falsified or not held at all…

“Arab governments seem equally at a loss over how to react to the Iranian protests. In Bahrain, a Shiite-majority country ruled by a Sunni royal family, the government, seemingly fearful of provoking Tehran, this week temporarily closed the nation’s oldest newspaper, Akhbar al Khaleej. The reason: a column, written by a government-appointed member of the country’s legislature that attacked Mr. Ahmadinejad and Iran’s theocratic system. In nearby Saudi Arabia, as well as in Egypt, state media gave relatively little prominence to Iranian protests.

“But the Saudi-backed al Arabiya satellite TV channel… was airing such sympathetic coverage of pro-democracy campaigners in Iran that the Iranian regime shut down the network’s Tehran bureau…

“In Palestine, Iran is the key supporter of Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip and fought a bloody war against Israel in January. Palestinians have long been grateful to Iran for its unflinching support against Israel… The supporters of Hamas ‘will remain sympathetic to Iran no matter what,’ estimates Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian Authority government minister and peace negotiator… In Lebanon, Hezbollah… has been even more defensive of the Iranian regime, and more scornful of pro-Mousavi protesters… Hezbollah remains a formidable force, and turmoil in Iran is unlikely to weaken its hold over Lebanon’s large Shiite community…”

Israel and Iran–Is Nuclear Apocalypse Inevitable?

On June 22, Der Spiegel Online published an article on Iran and Israel, with the following headline: “HEADING FOR A NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE.” It continued with the following question: “Is War between Iran and Israel Inevitable?”

The magazine went on to say:

“There is every indication that the coming nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran — if, indeed, they begin in the next few months with Ahmadinejad still Iranian president — will end in a stalemate by the end of the year. If that happens, US President Barack Obama will push for tougher sanctions against Tehran in early 2010, with the reluctant support of the Russians and Chinese. The leadership in Tehran will interpret this as an aggressive act and will likely speed up its uranium enrichment, meaning that Iran will only be a few months away from having the capability to build a nuclear bomb. At some point next spring, things could have proceeded so far that the Israelis could decide, even without Washington’s approval, to launch attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities. The entire Middle East would see thousands of casualties, and the consequences for the global economy would be devastating.

“To understand what motivates the Iranian president and the Israeli prime minister, and what convictions guide their policies, it is important to examine the deeply religious ideas that shape both Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu and practically destine them to clash with each other: the theology of the [fundamentalist] Islamic Haqqani school and the Jewish concept of Amalek…

“The so-called Mahdists [of the Haqqani school] around… Ahmadinejad believe that their Twelfth Imam disappeared from the face of the earth in the 9th century because Allah the Almighty hid him to put mankind to a test. They also believe that this Twelfth Imam, or Mahdi, will return to the earth… The Mahdi… will create a paradise on earth for believers and condemn blasphemers to eternal damnation. But he will only return when the world has undergone a catharsis, a whirling, gigantic, cleansing upheaval…

“In a face-to-face conversation, Ahmadinejad can be polite, even charming… But he also has a different, mystical side. He considers himself chosen. In a meeting with Iranian members of parliament, Ahmadinejad claimed that he was surrounded by a light when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and that the light silenced the leaders of other countries in the audience during his speech…

“Benjamin Netanyahu… has repeated his mantra that the Iranian nuclear program is the greatest threat Israel has confronted ‘since its creation in 1948.’ The liberal and consistently well-informed Israeli daily Haaretz wrote: ‘Politicians in touch with Netanyahu say he has already made up his mind to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations’ — apparently without Washington’s approval.

“What could make the Israeli prime minister feel so confident that he is doing the right thing, given the potentially serious consequences of such a military strike, which could range from Iran firing missiles at Tel Aviv to a wave of Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist attacks, not to mention the damage this would do to Israel’s relations with the United States, whose backing is critical to its survival?…

“When American author and Israel expert Jeffrey Goldberg recently asked a Netanyahu confidant to explain this fixation, he simply replied: ‘Think Amalek.’… In a biblical context, Amalek was the grandson of Esau who, with his tribal warriors from Canaan, launched a treacherous and unprovoked attack on the Hebrews as they were traveling to the Holy Land, Eretz Israel. In a broader sense, the term Amalek refers to the existential threat to Judaism at all times, under all circumstances and by all enemies… Those who, like Netanyahu, see Iran’s nuclear program as Amalek’s arsenal of weapons, are not just entitled, but are in fact obligated, to take preventive measures to destroy it…

“Is a coming war virtually unavoidable?…  the signs are currently pointing to stormy weather ahead…”

The Threat of North Korea

The Associated Press reported on June 22:

“President Barack Obama assured Americans in an interview broadcast Monday that the U.S. is prepared for any move North Korea might make, amid reports that Pyongyang is planning a long-range missile test to follow up its provocative nuclear test last month. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered additional protection for Hawaii as a precaution, though experts say North Korea doesn’t yet have a ballistic missile that can reach Hawaii and has not mastered mounting a nuclear bomb on a long-range missile. Still, North Korea declared itself a ‘proud nuclear power’ and warned it will strike if provoked… The U.S…. has 28,500 troops in South Korea…”

The Associated Press added on June 24:

“North Korea has said it would consider interception of its ships a declaration of war, and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to start another Korean War… The warning came on the eve of the 59th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. The brutal fighting ended after three years in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula divided and in a state of war.”

No Peace in Iraq!

BBC News reported on June 25:

“At least 69 people have been killed by a bomb blast in the eastern Sadr City area of Baghdad… More than 130 people were also reported to have been injured in the blast, one of the worst in Iraq this year. It comes less than a week before US soldiers pull out of all Iraqi cities, a move the US said would not be affected by a recent surge in violence… Under an agreement with the Iraqi authorities, most of the 133,000 US troops in Iraq are due to leave the country’s cities and towns and withdraw to military bases by 30 June. Combat operations across Iraq are due to end by September 2010 and all US troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011…

“The attacks are the latest in a violent week in Iraq. On Monday, at least 29 people were killed in attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere… In the largest attack of the year, more than 70 people died in a truck bombing in Kirkuk on Saturday. But Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said the violence will not delay the withdrawal which, he said, would ultimately be a triumph for the country.”

War in Afghanistan

Deutsche Welle reported on June 25:

“German Defense Minister Jung has insisted that Germany is not fighting a war in Afghanistan, rejecting calls for such an admission after three German soldiers died in the country this week. The parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, Reinhold Robbe, on Wednesday called on the German government to recognize it was fighting a war in Afghanistan…

“Around 700 German troops are based in the Kundus region in the north of Afghanistan, a region previously considered relatively safe. Taliban fighters have become increasingly active in a region around Kundus known as Char Dara, where Tuesday’s attack took place. In June alone there were 30 Taliban attacks on German soldiers, putting the soldiers under daily fire…

“Germany has the third-largest contingent in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, with about 3,380 troops. Despite US pressure to contribute troops to the more restive southern provinces where members of NATO and US soldiers have been fighting the Taliban since the 2001 invasion that ousted the group from power, the German army has focused on the Regional Command North…”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on June 25:

“Germany’s military presence in Afghanistan is deeply unpopular at home. But even after spending seven years there and losing 35 soldiers, many German politicians still refuse to call it a ‘war.’ German commentators argue Thursday that the government is afraid to tell the truth…

“The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: ‘… Afghanistan is the Bundeswehr’s first wartime deployment…’

“The Financial Times Deutschland writes: ‘… There is no doubt that the number of people in Germany who disapprove of the mission in Afghanistan is very high… When the Bundeswehr is getting into firefights with Taliban militants on an almost daily basis, and when soldiers are dying in these exchanges, then that is war… The fact that the government still refuses to acknowledge this isn’t merely disrespectful to the soldiers putting their lives on the line in the Hindu Kush to defend Germany. It’s also completely useless in terms of political strategy.’

“The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes: ‘It would help if the Defense Ministry would just… be clear for once about why it is so adamant about not using the term “war”… the government’s insistence on using vague terminology makes it sound like it’s afraid of the truth.'”

California’s Tax Increases

SF Gate wrote on June 23:

“To help balance its budget, California has reduced the state tax credit for dependents. The change will increase a family’s California taxes for 2009 by about $210 per dependent compared with 2008… At issue is the exemption you get for each person listed on your tax return… If you are in this boat and would rather not face a big tax bill early next year, you could pay more state tax this year, either by increasing the amount withheld from your paycheck or – if you are self-employed – by making bigger estimated quarterly tax payments…

“At the same time it slashed the dependent credit, the state also raised all tax rates by one-quarter of 1 percent… The state sent new tax-withholding tables reflecting this change to employers in April. Employers should have started using them in May. Many employees will have been underwithheld for the first four months of the year. That means a slightly bigger tax bill (or smaller refund) when they file their 2009 taxes…”

Healthcare Promises Just That–Empty Words?

The Associated Press reported on June 24:

“President Barack Obama left the door open to a new tax on health care benefits Wednesday… ‘I don’t want to prejudge what they’re doing,’ the president said, referring to proposals in the Senate to tax workers who get expensive insurance policies. Obama, who campaigned against the tax when he ran for president, drew a quick rebuff from one union president… It was the latest in a series of signs of presidential flexibility…”

Is the Great Depression Coming…?

Newsmax.com wrote on June 23:

“Is Obama leading the nation into an economic train wreck? Dick Morris, one of America’s astute political observers, the person Time magazine called the most influential man in America, says, ‘Yes!’ Morris reveals that Obama’s policies and clear shift toward socialism will actually lead the country toward a 1930s-style Great Depression. In his newest blockbuster book ‘Catastrophe’ Dick lays out the shocking economic data — much of which has been hidden by the major media. Dick also reveals how Obama’s massive deficit spending will cause a tidal wave of inflation — which will shock the economy — at some point in the near future.”

Huckabee Attacks Establishment Republicans

Newsmax.com wrote on June 24:

“Signaling wider dissensions in the Republican ranks, former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is slamming the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) for endorsing Gov. Charlie Crist over another, more conservative Republican in Florida’s open Senate race… ‘I’m disgusted that they would take a position in a hotly contested race when you have a quality candidate like Marco Rubio, who was the youngest Speaker in the Florida House,’ Huckabee told The Hill. ‘This is not just some nameless, faceless guy that decided to throw his name in, who had no chance and no credibility.’

“He continued: ‘I thought that their endorsement not only was premature, but was outrageous. And they ought to get behind the guy who would do a whole lot more, in my mind, to unite and fire up Republicans, and that’s Marco Rubio. The establishment Republicans have made this endorsement for the same reason that they’re in so much trouble,’ Huckabee said. ‘They go out there and support stuff like TARP bills and stimulus packages, pork-barrel spending and huge debt, and they wring their hands and act like, “This is not good, but we don’t have a choice.”‘

Ron Paul Attacks Obama and Congress

Newsmax.com wrote on June 24:

“U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, says he was dismayed that Congress passed the war supplemental appropriations bill so easily last week. ‘An economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress and this administration,’ Paul said during his weekly radio address Monday…

“Mocking the idea that Obama was a ‘peace candidate,’ Paul pointed out that his administration will be sending another $106 billion it doesn’t have ‘to continue the bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq…’ Paul noted that many of his congressional colleagues who previously voted with him in opposition to every war supplemental request under the Bush administration seem to have changed their tune…

“The emergency supplemental appropriations bill sends… $660 million to Gaza… $555 million to Israel… $310 million to Egypt… $300 million to Jordan… $420 million to Mexico… $889 million to the United Nations for so-called ‘peace-keeping’ missions… $1 billion overseas to address the global financial crisis outside U.S. borders… [and] $8 billion to address a potential pandemic flu, which [Paul] said could result in mandatory vaccinations ‘for no discernable reason other than to enrich the pharmaceutical companies’…”

Obama and Bush–Two of a Kind?

Der Spiegel Online wrote on June 25:

“The occupant of the White House may have changed recently. But the amount of ill-advised ideology coming from Washington has remained constant. Obama’s list of economic errors is long — and continues to grow. The president may have changed, but the excesses of American politics have remained. Barack Obama and George W. Bush, it has become clear, are more similar than they might seem at first glance.

“Ex-President Bush was nothing if not zealous in his worldwide campaign against terror, transgressing human rights and breaking international law along the way. Now, Obama is displaying the same zeal in his own war against the financial crisis — and his weapon of choice is the money-printing machine. The rules the new American president is breaking are those which govern the economy. Nobody is being killed. But the strategy comes at a price — and that price might be America’s position as a global power.

“In his fight against terrorism, Bush had the ideologue Dick Cheney at his side… Obama’s Cheney is named Larry Summers… President Barack Obama follows him like a dog does its master… Summers [said]  that the way to bring about an end to the crisis was — more confidence, more credit and more debt… Experts and non-experts alike were perplexed… Summers was unable to supply an adequate explanation for how a crisis caused by frivolous lending was going to be solved through yet more frivolity…

“Just as the US public initially rallied behind the war President Bush — even to the point of re-electing him — Americans have now thrown their support behind the debt president Obama. The mistakes of the Bush administration are now widely accepted. The mistakes of the Obama administration are still not recognized as such…

“According to conservative forecasts, Obama’s policies could end up being three times as expensive as US expenditures during World War II. If one calculates using today’s prices, America spent $3 trillion for the war. Obama’s budgetary calculations for the decade between 2010 and 2020 assume additional debt of $9 trillion.

“American borrowing in 2009 comprises about half of Obama’s budget. The country is living beyond its means — and it still would have been even if it weren’t for the economic crisis…

“Many believe that when the crisis ends, borrowing will automatically fall. The truth is that it could climb afterwards… Washington would need to spend several times more than it is now just to service current pension entitlements and the free, state-funded medical care provided to senior citizens. In addition, Obama has promised to introduce healthcare coverage for America’s close to 46 million uninsured…

“… trust in the gravitas and reliability of the United States has suffered to such a great degree that fewer and fewer foreigners are purchasing its government bonds…

“The supply of money has increased by 45 percent in the last three years and there has not been a corresponding rise in hard assets or production. That imbalance will eventually make itself felt in the form of inflation. The dollar, which has already lost 40 percent of its value against the euro since 2000, would then devaluate and its reputation would be further diminished…”