News, Prophecy and other

[Soldier4Christ]

Prime Minister Olmert accessory to murder?
Politicians demand probe following WND story rifles given to Abbas used to attack Jews


TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli officials should be tried as accessories to murder for facilitating the transfer in recent days of a cache of American weapons to Force 17, the presidential guard units of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Abu Yousuf, a senior member of Force 17, told WND in an exclusive interview last week the weapons will be shared with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and utilized for attacks against Jews. He hinted the weapons already were used in two shooting attacks the past few days that killed one Israeli civilian and wounded another.

Many Force 17 gunmen are well known to also be members of the Al Aqsa Brigades, an offshoot of Abbas' Fatah party that is responsible for scores of recent suicide bombings, shooting attacks and rocket firings at Israel.

WND broke the story the weapons transfer was coordinated by the Unites States. Palestinian officials said Abbas quietly requested the weapons from the U.S. in talks that involved Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

The weapons cache included 3,000 American-made M-16 assault rifles and over one million rounds of ammunition, Palestinian officials involved in the transfer told WND. Media reports had stated the transfer, which was credited to Israel, consisted of 370 assault rifles and an unspecified amount of bullets.

Olmert announced last week he had approved the shipment of weapons and ammunition, explaining the transfer was meant to bolster Abbas' Fatah party in recent clashes against Hamas. The shipment reportedly originated in Jordan and needed Israel's approval for transport.

"I did this because we are running out of time and we need to help Abu Mazen," Olmert told reporters this past Tuesday.

Yesterday, the leadership of Manhigut Yehudit, a faction of the opposition Likud party, announced in a statement it "sees the prime minister, the defense minister, the justices of the High Court of Justice, and any officer and soldier involved in the transfer of weapons to the murderer Abu Mazen (Abbas) and his gang as accessories to the murder of Jews."

The faction called on all Israeli officials involved in the weapons transfer to be tried in court.

Officials involved in the weapons transfer told WND the cache was driven through Jordan to the Allenby Bridge, the border station between Jordan and Israel. The officials said a U.S. government representative was present at the Allenby Bridge and oversaw the transfer of the shipment across the border, where it was then driven by a convoy protected by the Israeli Defense Forces and delivered to Force 17 representatives in Ramallah and at the Erez Crossing, the main checkpoint between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

It was unclear as of press time if the American weapons originated from U.S. military stockpiles in Iraq, which borders Jordan.

Abbas guard: New weapons to be fired at Jews

Force 17 senior member Abu Yousuf told WND the weapons his group received will be fired at Israelis.

"These weapons will not be used in an internal war but against Israelis," he said. "Force 17 is proud that we were the first to lead the Palestinian people during tough times such as resistance operations [against the Israeli army during large-scale operations in northern Samaria in 2002]. We will also be the first to lead the Palestinians in the current struggle against Israeli occupation."

Several Force 17 members, including Yousuf, also are members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Yousuf himself previously participated in anti-Israel terrorism, including recent shootings, attacks last month against Israeli forces operating in Ramallah and a shooting attack in northern Samaria in December 2000 that killed Benyamin Kahane, leader of the ultranationalist Kahane Chai organization.

After the Kahane murder, Yousuf was extended refuge by Yasser Arafat to live in the late PLO leader's Ramallah compound, widely known as the Muqata. Yousuf still lives in the compound.

Abbas last week appointed Mahmoud Damra to head Force 17. Damr is on Israel's most wanted list of terrorists. He was offered shelter in Arafat's compound in Ramallah in 2002 after Israel accused him of masterminding a string of terrorist attacks.

Israeli security officials say that since September 2000, Damra has led a terror cell based in Ramallah that has carried out deadly attacks, including shootings at Israeli vehicles, attacks against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and the planting of roadside bombs.

Yousuf told WorldNetDaily Israel facilitated the transfer of Israel transferred the weapons to his Force 17 unit "for its own political purposes. We are not concerned with the reasons. The weapons will not be used against our brothers, only [against] Israelis."

Sources close to the Al Aqsa Brigades told WND the assault rifles transferred to Force 17 already were used in two separate anti-Israel shooting attacks in recent days. One attack killed a 35-year-old Israeli Arab on a major West Bank highway on the outskirts of Jerusalem this past Sunday. Israeli security officials say the shooters likely mistook the victim for a Jew. The second attack, which occurred Tuesday on the same highway, lightly wounded an Israeli.

Yousuf refused to confirm whether the new weapons were used in the recent spate of highway shootings, but he hinted the information was accurate. He told WND members of Al Aqsa Brigades live with him in the Muqata and that "resistance tools" are shared regularly.

The IDF yesterday arrested a Force 17 member, Nasser Abin al-Hafez, in connection with the shootings. Al-Hafez was found in Ramallah near the Muqata.

Also yesterday Hamas condemned the U.S. for transferring the weapons to Abbas' Force 17. Hamas has been engaged the past few weeks in intense street battles with Fatah. Hamas demanded the Palestinian Legislative Council launch an investigation into the weapons transfer.

Hamas in a statement called the weapons transfer a "Zionist-American plot aimed at igniting a civil war in the Palestinian Authority by arming one side in the Palestinian conflict under the guise of arming the Presidential Guard."

The statement said the arms transfer was conducted under the IDF's full authorization.

[Shammu]

Rice warns N. Korea against missile test

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer 1 hour, 17 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leveled a warning Monday that "it would be a very serious matter and indeed a provocative act" if North Korea tested a long-range ballistic missile.

Rice's remarks came after Bush administration officials said North Korea has apparently finished loading fuel into a ballistic missile, the latest signs that the reclusive communist state will soon test a weapon that could reach the United States.

Testing would abrogate several North Korean commitments and "it would be taken with utmost seriousness," Rice said at a news conference.

U.S. intelligence indicates that the long-range missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2, is assembled and fully fueled, said two officials, who requested anonymity because the information comes from sensitive intelligence methods.

Rice cited North Korea's pledge of a missile moratorium in 1999 and its reiteration of the moratorium in 2002. She said North Korea also agreed in six-party negotiations not to test long-range missiles.

She said the United States was working very closely with its allies on the problem, but did not say what might be done if North Korea tested the missile.

The fueling reportedly gives the North a launch window of about a month. Unlike other preparatory steps the United States has tracked, the fueling process is very difficult to reverse, and most likely means the test will go ahead, one senior administration official said.

The precise timing is unclear, the official said.

The United States assumes North Korea would only perform a test, not fire the weapon as an act of war, and could claim afterward that it was launching a space mission, the official said. That would still be considered a violation of the moratorium North Korea has observed since 1999, the official said.

The test would probably take place over water, not land, and occur during daylight hours, the official said. North Korea is 14 hours ahead of the East Coast.

The United States would probably know "within seconds" that a launch had taken place, the official said.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman would not comment on whether U.S. intelligence indicates that the North Koreans are preparing for a possible missile launch. Whitman said the Pentagon uses the term "launch," instead of test, because of the possibility that the North Koreans have hostile intent.

Whitman would not say whether the United States might activate its missile defense systems in the event of a North Korean launch.

Although the three-stage Taepodong 2 could theoretically reach the U.S. West Coast, most experts think North Korea is still a long way off from perfecting the technology that would make the missile accurate and able to carry a nuclear payload.

Robert Zoellick, the departing deputy secretary of state, said North Korea's fueling of the missile became known only recently.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said he was holding preliminary consultations with Security Council members on steps that might be taken if North Korea fires a missile, "because it would obviously be very serious."

"But we don't really know what the North Korean intentions are at this point, so I think we need to wait for the event," he said.

"Obviously the first preference is that the North Koreans not light the missile off," Bolton said, noting that the United States, Japan, Australia, South Korea and other countries had urged North Korea to abandon any missile firing.

Aboard Air Force One with President Bush, White House spokesman Tony Snow declined specific comment on reports that the fueling is complete.

"North Korea has imposed a moratorium on launching missiles," Snow said. "We hope it will continue that moratorium and we hope it also will abide by commitments it made," last year to dismantle nuclear weapons and renounce further development of them.

Snow said President Bush has made some of the administration's recent telephone calls to more than a dozen heads of state about the indications of a coming launch.

Snow would not identify which leaders spoke with Bush. He also said U.S. officials have talked directly with North Korean representatives in New York, a reference to a diplomatic channel through the North's United Nations mission. Snow would not disclose contents of the discussion, but diplomats from numerous countries have been telling the North Koreans to back off any plans for a missile test launch.

North Korea referred to its missile program for the first time Monday, but has not said it intends to perform the test.

A North Korean state television broadcast, monitored in Seoul, South Korea, cited a Russian editorial on the missile and said the North "has the due right to have a missile that can immediately halt the United States' reckless aerial espionage activity."

The North has repeatedly complained in recent weeks about alleged U.S. spy planes watching its activities.

A test would be the North's first significant missile launch since a 1998 test that send a missile over Japanese territory. Pyongyang began a self-imposed test moratorium in 1999, even while continuing separate development of a nuclear weapons program.

North Korea says it needed nuclear weapons and a such potential delivery systems as a missile to counter what it claims are U.S. intentions to invade or topple the government. The United States has repeatedly denied any plans to invade.

Rice warns N. Korea against missile test

My note; If I remember right these missle can only remain fueled for 48 hours. After that the missle has to be un-fueled.

[Shammu]

N Korea threatens to ‘wipe out’ US forces
Web posted at: 6/19/2006 4:48:50
Source ::: AGENCIES

Seoul • North Korea yesterday threatened to “mercilessly wipe out” US forces in case of war during a national meeting to mark leader Kim Jong-Il’s 42 years’ work at the ruling party.

The threat, in a ruling party report carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), came as North Korea was reportedly preparing to test-fire a long-range missile despite strong protests from the United States and its allies.

Choe Thae Bok, a ranking Workers’ Party official, said Washington was “hell-bent on provocations of war of aggression” in the report to mark the 42nd anniversary of Kim’s start at the party, KCNA said.

“If the enemies ignite a war eventually, the Korean army and people will mercilessly wipe out the aggressors and give vent to the deep-rooted grudge of the nation,” Choe was quoted as telling the meeting.

North Koreans are customarily advised to watch the televised event, according to Seoul officials.

Japanese and South Korean media said North Korea was planning a missile test for this week.

North Korean technicians have already reportedly assembled a multi-stage Taepodong-2, with a range of 3,500 km to 6,000 km.

CBS News reported that South Korea’s ambassador to the US, Lee Tae-sik, had told Korean correspondents in Washington that Pyongyang may have fuelled a missile already. “Satellite photos confirmed scores of fuel tanks near the missile launch pad,” he said. “We are not sure whether they had already completed fuelling or located (the tanks) there to fuel it.”

South Korea, which seeks to reconcile with N Korea after decades of hostility since the 1950-1953 Korean War, has urged Pyongyang to abandon any plans to test-fire the missile.

But South Korea maintained its usual level of military alert yesterday despite the news reports about an imminent missile test launch. “The military is on the same level of alert as usual. There has been no upgrade in the military alert yet,” a defence ministry spokesman said.

Japan warned North Korea yesterday of “a harsh response” from Tokyo and Washington if it went ahead with the launch of a long-range missile.

Amid reports that a launch was imminent, a Japanese official quoted by the Sankei Shimbun daily said North Korea’s leadership had told people to raise the flag at 0500 GMT and monitor television for a “message to the people”.

The time came and went without any reports of a missile test.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said North Korea’s reported instruction might not be linked to the missile launch, saying it could be preparations for another national event. “On June 18 last year, North Korea also told its people to watch an evening television report,” the official told Yonhap.

Japan’s Jiji Press news agency reported that Japanese Defence Agency officials had concluded that a launch was not imminent, but that monitoring would continue.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said in a television interview his country would seek an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council if Pyongyang went ahead with a test.

He voiced concern about the possibility of a missile landing on Japan, but toned down a remark made in an earlier interview that Japan would automatically regard this as an attack. “We will not right away view it as a military act,” he said.

He also stopped short of saying what Japan and the US would do in the event of a launch. But he said: “The responses will be rather harsh”.

North Korea shocked the world in 1998 by firing a missile without any warning over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.

North Korea last year declared it had nuclear weapons. Pyongyang has boycotted six-way talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programme since November, after the US imposed sanctions on the North for alleged counterfeiting and money-laundering.

N Korea threatens to ‘wipe out’ US forces

[Shammu]

Prosecutor urges death penalty for Saddam

By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 12 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The prosecution demanded the death penalty for Saddam Hussein in its closing arguments Monday, saying he showed "no mercy" in the killings of women and children during a crackdown on Shiite Muslims in the 1980s.

After a three-week recess, the defense gets to sum up its case, then a panel of judges will begin weighing the fate of the ousted leader and his seven co-defendants.

A U.S. official close to the court said the judges could take around 60 days in their deliberation, meaning verdicts would likely be announced in late September or early October. The official spoke on condition on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the court.

If Saddam is convicted and sentenced to death by hanging, it could be months more for the verdict to be carried out. The defendants have the right of appeal — and Saddam faces a second trial, for a military campaign against Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s that killed some 100,000 people.

No date for that trial has been set, and Iraqi officials have not said what would happen if the appeals from the first trial case — which began last October — ran out while the second was still going on.

The courtroom was largely silent throughout Monday's three-hour session as chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi delivered his final arguments in the trial over the 1980s crackdown on the Shiite town of Dujail. Saddam, dressed in a black suit, sat calmly alongside his fellow defendants and occasionally took notes.

Al-Moussawi reviewed the evidence against each man, then concluded by asking for the death penalty against Saddam, his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim, who was the head of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former senior regime member.

"The prosecution asks for the harshest penalty against them, because they spread corruption on earth, they showed no mercy even for the old, for women or for children, and even the trees were not safe from their oppression," he said. "The law calls for the death penalty and this is what we ask be implemented."

"Well done," Saddam muttered sarcastically.

Al-Moussawi also sought a death sentence for Awad al-Bandar, former head of Saddam's Revolutionary Court, which sentenced 148 Shiites to death. He said al-Bandar's actions "supported the crimes" committed by the others and asked that he be sentenced under articles of the Iraqi criminal code for premeditated murder, which calls for the death penalty.

The prosecutor asked for lenient sentences for three defendants — Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid, his son Mizhar Ruwayyid and Ali Dayih — saying they committed their "acts to carry out orders issued by their superiors."

He urged the release of the final defendant, Mohammed Azawi Ali, saying the evidence was not sufficient against him.

Many of Iraq's Shiite majority and Kurdish minority are eager to see Saddam and his cohorts executed in revenge for the oppression of their communities by his Sunni Arab-dominated regime.

But the perceived fairness of the trial will be a key question. Many Sunni Arabs see the court as a case of "victors' justice" carried out by the Shiites and Kurds who have dominated Iraq's government since Saddam's fall in 2003.

The defendants are charged with crimes against humanity for the crackdown after a shooting attack on Saddam's motorcade as he visited Dujail in 1982. They allegedly arrested hundreds of people, including women and children, tortured some to death and killed 148 in all.

In his arguments, al-Moussawi focused on countering the defense's argument that the sweep in Dujail was a justified response to what the defense called an attempt to kill Saddam by Shiite rebels backed by Iraq's enemy, Iran.

The prosecutor questioned whether the shooting was an assassination attempt — but said that even if it was, it consisted only of at most 15 shots that hurt no one.

"The response to this simple incident was a revenge attack in which excessive force was used ... a systematic, wide-scale attack against the civilian population," he said. "The events which took place in Dujail were crimes against humanity."

"Entire families were imprisoned, including old men, women and children ... They were taken to Mukhabarat headquarters in Baghdad, and they suffered from physical and mental torture, including electrical shocks," al-Moussawi said.

Forty-six people died from torture or the harsh conditions of imprisonment, he said.

The Revolutionary Court then sentenced 148 people to death after a "show trial in which the defendants did not appear and had no chance for defense," al-Moussawi said. Among the 148 were some of those already killed, and a number of children, he said.

The defense is to begin its final arguments July 10. First, a lawyer for each defendant will speak, then each defendant will have the opportunity to make a final statement. The process will likely take until around July 20, said the U.S. official close to the court.

Throughout the trial, the defense tried to argue that the crackdown on Dujail was justified, even while denying the scope of the sweep that the prosecution portrayed.

At one point, the defense put witnesses on the stand contending that some of the 148 were alive and that the prosecution might have fabricated parts of its case. Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman squelched that argument by arresting four defense witnesses and accusing them of perjury.

Prosecutor urges death penalty for Saddam

[Shammu]

New US church leader says homosexuality no sin
Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:30pm ET173

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.

Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year.

Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual.

"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.

"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."

Jefferts Schori's election seemed certain to exacerbate splits within a Episcopal Church that is already deeply divided over homosexuality with several dioceses and parishes threatening to break away.

It could also widen divisions with other Anglican communities, including the Church of England, which do not allow women bishops.

In the worldwide Anglican church women are bishops only in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. The Robinson issue has been particularly criticized in Africa where the church has a growing membership and where homosexuality is often taboo.

Jefferts Schori, who was raised a Roman Catholic and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialization in squids and oysters, supported the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history.

The 52-year-old bishop is married to Richard Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician. They have one daughter, Katharine Johanna, 24, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and a pilot like her mother.

Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions.

"The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -- there are rules in the Bible about those that we don't observe today," she said.

"The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings, and that's certainly the great message of Jesus -- to include the unincluded."

New US church leader says homosexuality no sin

[Shammu]

U.S. Keeps Mum on Warships in East Sea

The U.S. has declined to tell the South Korean military if one of its Aegis destroyers is plowing the East Sea with a view to intercepting a long-range ballistic missile North Korea is allegedly planning to launch.

Washington normally gives Seoul due notice when an aircraft carrier or Aegis ship is headed into Korea’s maritime operational zone, but it sometimes keeps quiet about ships it sends into international waters off North Korea. Military insiders say there is a good chance the U.S. already has an Aegis vessel in the East Sea.

Meanwhile, the U.S. started the largest military exercise in 10 years. The operation codenamed "Valiant Shield" takes place in waters surrounding Guam, with three aircraft carriers joining drills from Monday until Thursday. A spokesman of the U.S. Forces in the Pacific said the possibility that the missile situation in North Korea could have an effect on the drills cannot be ruled out.

U.S. Keeps Mum on Warships in East Sea

My note; I'll lay odd it is listening, for intellence.

[Soldier4Christ]

My note; I'll lay odd it is listening, for intellence.

..... and there ain't just one.

[Shammu]

..... and there ain't just one.

I kind of gathered that brother. Chances are their are 4-6 more ships. Cause an Aegis destroyer, don't travel by herself 

[ibTina]

New US church leader says homosexuality no sin
Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:30pm ET173

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.

Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year.

Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual.

"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.

"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."


Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions.

2 Timothy 4:3
For [2 Tim 3:1] the time will come when they will not endure [1 Tim 1:10; 2 Tim 1:13] sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires

           Ummm this is from THE Word of GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
         
                     In Christ.. Tina

[Shammu]

2 Timothy 4:3
For [2 Tim 3:1] the time will come when they will not endure [1 Tim 1:10; 2 Tim 1:13] sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires

           Ummm this is from THE Word of GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
         
                     In Christ.. Tina

AMEN Tina!!

[Shammu]

Norway building 'doomsday vault' to protect seeds

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- It sounds like something from a science fiction film -- a doomsday vault carved into a frozen mountainside on a secluded Arctic island ready to serve as a Noah's Ark for seeds in case of a global catastrophe.

But Norway's ambitious project is on its way to becoming reality. Construction began Monday on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, designed to house as many as 3 million of the world's crop seeds.

Prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland were to attend the cornerstone ceremony on Monday morning near the town of Longyearbyen in Norway's remote Svalbard Islands, roughly 620 miles from the North Pole.

Norway's Agriculture Minister Terje Riis-Johansen has called the vault a "Noah's Ark on Svalbard."

Its purpose is to ensure the survival of crop diversity in the event of plant epidemics, nuclear war, natural disasters or climate change, and to offer the world a chance to restart growth of food crops that may have been wiped out.

The seeds, packaged in foil, would be stored at such cold temperatures that they could last hundreds, even thousands, of years, according to the independent Global Crop Diversity Trust. The trust, founded in 2004, has also worked on the project and will help run the vault, which is scheduled to open and start accepting seeds from around the world in September 2007.

Oil-rich Norway first proposed the idea a year ago, drawing wide international interest, Riis-Johansen said.

The Svalbard Archipelago, 300 miles north of the mainland, was selected because it is located far from many threats and has a consistently cold climate.

Those factors will help protect the seeds and safeguard their genetic makeup, Norway's Foreign Ministry said. The vault will have thick concrete walls, and even if all cooling systems fail, the temperature in the frozen mountain will never rise above freezing due to permafrost, it said.

While the facility will be fenced in and guarded, Svalbard's free-roaming polar bears, known for their ferocity, could also act as natural guardians, according to the Global Diversity Trust.

The Nordic nation is footing the bill, amounting to about $4.8 million for infrastructure costs.

"This facility will provide a practical means to re-establish crops obliterated by major disasters," Cary Fowler, the trust's executive secretary, said in a statement, adding that crop diversity is also threatened by "accidents, mismanagement and shortsighted budget cuts."

Already, some 1,400 seed banks around the world, most of them national, hold samples of their host country's crops.

But these banks are vulnerable to shutdowns, natural disasters, war and lack of funds, said Riis-Johansen.

Storing duplicate seeds in the Svalbard vault is meant to offer a fail-safe system for the planet.

The idea of a global seed bank has been around since the early 1980s, but unresolved issues, such as ownership rights to genetic material, stalled it until the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization adopted the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in 2001.

While Norway will own the vault facility, countries contributing seeds will own the material they deposit -- much as with a bank safe deposit box. The Global Crop Diversity Trust will help developing countries pay the cost of preparing and sending seeds.

Norway building 'doomsday vault' to protect seeds

[Shammu]

CATHOLICS HEADED TOWARD A 'LAYMAN'S CHURCH'
By J. Grant Swank, Jr.
MichNews.com
Jun 19, 2006

The number of priests is declining. The Pope however cautions his congregations not to put in place of priests the laity for that could lead to an over reliance on laypersons and finally fade out the priestly presence.

However, parish after parish is discovering that it is forced to call upon laypersons to act on behalf of the church. The reason? There simply is no priest within miles.

In some cases, nuns are doing much of the priestly spiritual work. When nuns are not there, to whom can the congregations turn to but their own — laypersons?

In other words, the Vatican still proclaims the historic Catholic ideal — a church led by ordained priests. The reality however spells out another paragraph in local church life, that is, laypersons are left without ordained priests; but they are not left without their own lay commitments to the church.

"The number of permanent deacons has increased from 11,371 in 1995 to 15,027 in 2005. The United States has more deacons now than the rest of the world combined.

"A lay person, with the bishop’s approval, can conduct prayer services and distribute the Eucharist that a priest has previously consecrated, while deacons have the further ability to preach homilies.

"Canon law gives preference to the deacon as parish leader and, ‘Some bishops use deacons as the first line of replacement’ in priestless parishes. ‘And the fact that they are ordained has ecclesiastical significance.’

"Deacon John Bresnahan of Lynn, Mass., said, ‘What needles deacons in some dioceses is there’s a push to use lay administrators’ rather than tap the diaconate.

"‘One of the biggest arguments you hear for ordaining women is the shortage of priests,’ he said. ‘Well, the number of deacons is up. Let’s look at this positively and use them,’" per Gail Besse via National Catholic Register at http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=20205

Feminists are itching to take over Catholic pulpits. The Vatican resists their moves at every turn. Therefore, the reasonable turn is to ordain deacons to see through the work of the priests, that is, utilizing the commitment of ordained deacons as fully recognized priests.

It could very well be that future reality of priests diminishing to practically a zero level will force the hand of ordained deacons acting out all the duties of the ordained priests. Why not?

According to Stephen Bates of the Guardian: "Father Radcliffe, now a monk in Oxford but tipped by some as a leader of the Catholic Church in England, said: ‘It is clearly the case that in many parts of the world celibacy has actually largely broken down — in many countries in Latin America, parts of Africa, to some extent in the United States.

"If it turns out to be the case that it is being largely ignored or bypassed, then a very negative witness is being given; and so we have to ask is it possible now — either we have to provide celibate priests with considerably more support or we have to explore the possibility of them being married."

In addition, I have another suggestion. It is that ordained deacons be permitted to become the married priests.

"I’d bet a nickel to a donut that you’re a priest-wanna-be," I offered the newly ordained Catholic deacon.

We were seated in his dining room. His wife sat alongside him, smiling knowingly.

It did not take long for this Maine Lakes Region college professor to respond. "I guess you're 'right on'," he laughed heartily. With that, he showed me his ordination photos — prayers by clergy, congratulations from friends, priests greeting family. John surely was one proud fellow.

When I came upon Ken, another ordained deacon, both he and his wife were exceptionally pleased that in his retirement years he could serve his church as a deacon.

Since then, John has become Catholic chaplain at Maine Youth Center. Ken has become executive of the Knights of Columbus in another state. Both are beaming with fulfillment.

So there you have it, I thought. They are ordained to ministry. They are married.

A Lakes Region practicing Catholic shared with me: "With what's going on in my church, I wonder what's going to be the end result."

I posited that with the statistics of priests taking a downturn, it just could be a practical move to see those ordained as deacons becoming full-fledged priests. "Seems like history is taking a stand on this issue," I suggested.

The next time I attended Mass, I read Father Richard P. McBrien’s candid column, "Gays in the Priesthood." It was published in Maine's Catholic weekly, "Church World" (April 4, 2002, page 16).

This popular Catholic university professor stated forthrightly: "In recent weeks (there has been) increased expressions of antipathy toward gay priests, of whom there are surely thousands in the United States alone. Even though prominent psychiatrists and psychologists have been reminding us on television . . .that there is no necessary link between homosexuality and pedophilia, the popular view to the contrary still holds sway in many parts of the Church and in society at large. In such precincts the solution is easy: Get rid of gay priests and we’ll finally be rid of this horrible problem of sexual abuse of children.

"Surprisingly the starkest expression of this view emanates from one of the highest sources in all central administration of the Catholic Church: Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the pope’s official liaison with the media and psychiatrist by training. The Vatican spokesman has questioned whether homosexuals can validly be ordained, comparing the situation of a gay priest who may not realize that he is gay to that of a gay man who marries a woman while also unaware of his sexual orientation.

"Dr. Navarro-Valls pointed out that just as such a marriage can be annulled on the grounds that it was invalid from the start, so, too, the ordination of a gay man might similarly be declared invalid. A few priests have privately observed that, if this were actually to happen, the Roman Catholic Church might lose two-thirds of its priests under the age of 45 and some bishops as well. At the same time, many of its seminaries could be emptied of all but a handful of students."

Well, I mused, all the more it sounds reasonable to celebrate ordained deacons as full-fledged priests, thus alleviating the dwindling priest supply while at the same time putting into full-time ministry dedicated married servants of the church.

It would also open up the priesthood to more consecrated heterosexuals who presently shy away from the calling due to scandal attached to the priesthood.

CATHOLICS HEADED TOWARD A 'LAYMAN'S CHURCH'

[Shammu]

Iran has till end June to answer proposal

* Iran ready to limit nuclear programme: report

VIENNA: EU Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana has told Iran that world powers expect an answer by June 29 to their offer of nuclear talks in return for Tehran’s suspending uranium enrichment, diplomats said on Monday.

“June 29 (when G8 foreign ministers are to meet in Moscow) is more or less a deadline,” a senior European diplomat said.

The G8 foreign ministers will be preparing a G8 summit in St Petersburg, Russia, to be held from July 15-17. The diplomat said that Solana had given the Iranians this unofficial deadline when he presented them with a package of possible trade, security and technology benefits, on behalf of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States on June 6 in Tehran. “Solana said that. That this was the deadline,” for answering the world powers proposal, the diplomat said.

A second diplomat stressed that the timing remained flexible, as the goal was to get a positive response from Iran. “If they ask for a little bit more time, I’m sure that we will give it to them,” the diplomat said. US President George W Bush on Monday warned Iran of “progressively stronger political and economic sanctions” if Tehran refuses to freeze sensitive nuclear activities in return for talks.

The Western diplomat said: “We’re anticipating a reply before the June 29 meeting.”

The diplomats said that Solana was trying to arrange a meeting with Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani before then. “We’re expecting a partial answer without a full suspension,” a Western diplomat said, adding that this “won’t be good enough.” Iran has insisted that it was not given any deadline.

Iran is ready to limit its nuclear programme but will not suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for international talks, the Financial Times reported on Monday citing regime insiders.

“Around 70 percent of senior people may be prepared, under pressure, to accept an eventual limit on the number of centrifuges (for enriching uranium),” one of the two anonymous sources was quoted as saying. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has always favoured a just and equal dialogue with no preconditions,” state television quoted Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying in a meeting with Iran’s top officials and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday.

Nevertheless, the president also described the offer as “a step forward” and said a counteroffer was being prepared.

Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said that Iran could produce a nuclear bomb within five years if it is allowed to enrich uranium on an industrial scale. agencies

Iran has till end June to answer proposal

[Shammu]

 The Dirty Secret of China's Economy

By Brian BremnerMon Jun 19, 8:08 AM ET

The 2008 Beijing Olympics is being billed as one of those glorious defining moments in history that will signal China's arrival as an economic power. But what if the global media pack and the millions of tourists who descend on China two years from now take away a less-than-flattering impression of the Middle Kingdom?

Yes, China is a remarkable growth story. But it is also fast becoming an ecological wasteland, home to world-class smog, acid rain, polluted rivers and lakes, and deforestation. Environmental problems play a role in the death of some 300,000 Chinese people each year, according to World Bank estimates.

China's torrid growth statisticsthe mainland clocked 10%-plus growth in the first quarteralso mask the huge economic costs of this evolving environmental crisis. On June 5, China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) issued a report that the mainland's pollution scourge costs the country roughly $200 billion a year, or some 10% in gross domestic product, from lost work productivity, health problems, and government outlays. That is a staggering admission.

Deep Impact China, of course, isn't the first high-speed developing economy to grapple with the tradeoffs between prosperity that lifts millions out of poverty and environmental damage that degrades living standards [see BusinessWeek.com, 2/27/06, "Is Beijing Greedy for Oil?"]. Think of Japan in the 1960s. What's different is China's outsized impact on the global environment.

China's economy is only about one-fifth the size of the U.S, but is already the second biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, second only to the U.S. China's emissions jumped 33% during a 10-year period ended in 2002, according to the latest World Bank figures. A miasma of dirty air from China is spreading across East Asia and even reaching the West Coast of the U.S.

There is no denying that Chinese President Hu Jintao's government takes the problem seriously. Not only is it bad for the mainland's international image, but it could be an explosive political issue later in the decade if left unresolved.

Renegade Polluters Pan Yue, vice-minister of SEPA, predicted last summer at an environmental conference in Beijing that "the pollution load of China will quadruple by 2020" if nothing is done. Some 20% of the population lives in "severely polluted" areas, according to SEPA estimates, and 70% of the country's rivers and lakes are in grim shape, figures the World Bank.

Changing all this will require a tremendous amount of political focus by Beijing. It will need to crack down on environmental renegades inside Chinese industry, encourage a move from high-sulfur coal as the mainland's primary energy source, and push to secure the most environmentally friendly technologies from abroad (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/22/05, "A Big Dirty Growth Engine").

The "policy elite has realized that China, with its huge scale of economic development and emissions, cannot consume energy and pollute the earth the way traditional economies have done in the past," says Wenran Jiang, director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, Canada, who made a presentation on climate change in early June to Chinese and World Bank officials.

Pressure To Comply The good news is that some effective measures can be taken without huge outlays of government spending. Last November, for instance, China agreed to expand a promising pilot program, dubbed GreenWatch, started in 1998, from 22 cities to nationwide by 2010. The program is designed to expose the worst industrial polluters by publicly disclosing once-confidential information on factory emissions, and by ranking companies on their environmental performance.

The idea is that public pressure on the laggards will yield improvement. Some sort of pressure is desperately needed in China, where 60% of companies violate mainland emission rules, according to data compiled by World Bank senior environmental economist Hua Wang, who wrote a recent paper on the program. Similar approaches launched in the mid-1990s by the Philippines and Indonesia improved corporate emission law compliance by 50% and 24%, respectively, Hua points out.

Relocating heavy industries like steel away from population centers is another option. In early 2005, for instance, the government ordered Beijing-based steelmaker Shougang Group to wind down its iron and smelting operation in the capital by 2007 and transfer the facilities out of the city. Shougang plants, mainly fueled by coal, belch out 18,000 tons of dust and contaminants a year.

Plan For Nuclear While China can't do much about its ravenous energy demand, it could do a far better job of shifting to cleaner technologies and using its power more efficiently. China consumes more than three times the world energy average to produce one dollar of gross domestic product4.7 times the average for the U.S., 7.7 times the average for Germany, and 11.5 times the average for Japan [see BusinessWeek.com, 4/11/05, "China's Wasteful Ways"].

Beijing has mapped out a plan that calls for hiking reliance on natural gas from 3% to 10% by 2020. Plants fired by gas burn fuel twice as efficiently as turbines fired by coal, which now accounts for two-thirds of China's fuel. The plan also calls for building 30 new nuclear reactors. Cummins (NYSE:CMI - News) imports and makes diesel engines for mainland buses that are 30% more efficient than gas engines.

Royal Dutch Shell Group (RD.) is licensing technology to fertilizer plants that converts coal into synthetic gas, which burns more efficiently. General Electric (NYSE:GE - News) is making a killing selling gas turbines. And both GE and Veolia, of France, are marketing technologies that will harness the methane gas produced from decomposing garbage and sewage, as well as the huge amounts of gas that escape from China's coal mines.

Profit Or Pride? That said, there are some inside the Chinese government who think the country should get rich first and leave the environmental clean-up for another day. Skeptics wonder whether post-Olympics Beijing will lose interest.

"The world will either benefit from a responsible rising China or it will suffer from a China that continues to pursue profits at the expense of the climate and environment," says the University of Alberta's Jiang. It will also make a critical difference to the lives of millions of ordinary Chinese citizens.

The Dirty Secret of China's Economy

[Shammu]

German paper doubts Gaza beach reports

German newspaper casts doubt on Palestinian claims that IDF shell killed seven family members on Gaza beach. How come Hadil Ghalia was seen wearing dry clothes after the Gaza beach attack when she was reported to have been swimming?
Ynet

While three major British newspapers published reports contradicting Israel's claims that its military was not responsible for the murder of seven members of the Ghalia family on a Gaza beach over a week ago, a German newspaper casts doubt on the authenticity of pictures taken soon after the bloody incident.

German daily Sued Deutsche, said pictures taken by Zakaria Abu Irbad, 36, a cameramen with the Palestinian independent news agency Ramattan, contradict Palestinian claims that an IDF shell killed the Ghalia family and point to the possibility that the event was staged to hold Israel responsible.

Irbad was the first journalist to arrive at the s cene after the attack and Ramattan sold footage of Hadil weeping on the beach by her dead father to all major news broadcasters.

The newspaper said in footage of the beach taken by an IDF drone at the time of the attack, five craters left by IDF artillery shells could be seen, but that 250 meters away people could also be seen.

The paper said it is strange that although shells exploded 250 meters away from a beach site where Palestinian families congregated, no one was seen running away or panicking.

Irbad told the newspaper he was told of the attack by paramedics who guided him to the scene.

But no paramedics are seen until later in the footage, raising suspicions that he was first to reach the scene.

Moreover, if Irbad was the first to get to the scene, why were most bodies covered by sheets? Who was there first to cover the bodies? The newspaper asked.

'Did girl give instructions to cameraman?'

The newspaper also doubts Irbad's claim that Hadil was not injured because she was in the water when the shell exploded. His footage show her dry and fully clothed.

Another question raised by the newspaper is a shot of a man carrying a rifle next to the dead body of Hadil's father. The newspaper said in earlier footage, the same man was seen lying on the beach among the injured.

The footage also shows paramedics in green clothes and a dozen of bearded men looking for evidence. The newspaper asks whether the men are Hamas affiliates and wonders why they were preoccupied with collecting evidence rather than helping the injured.

Did Hamas men hide evidence from the scene, as claimed by eyewitnesses interviewed by Israeli broadcasters?

The newspaper said Irbad evaded most of the questions addressed to him.

Asked why he didn't try to calm Hadil instead of filming her he said: "She asked me to film her. She wanted to be seen next to her father to show the world the crimes that Israel is committing."

The newspaper finally asks: "Did the shocked 10-year-old girl, who had lost her father minutes earlier, give the cameraman direction instructions?"

German paper doubts Gaza beach reports