News, Prophecy and other

[Shammu]

Iran Says It's Moving to Expand Enrichment

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran intends to enrich uranium on a scale hundreds of times larger than its current level, the country's deputy nuclear chief said Wednesday, signaling its resolve to expand a program the international community insists it halt.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran for the first time had succeeded on a small scale in enriching uranium, a key step in generating fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb. The
U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all enrichment activity because of suspicions the program's aim is to make weapons.

Iran's small-scale enrichment used 164 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas to increase its proportion of the isotope needed for the nuclear fission at the heart of a nuclear reactor or a bomb.

Deputy Nuclear Chief Mohammad Saeedi said Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at its facility in the central town of Natanz by late 2006, then expand to 54,000 centrifuges, though he did not say when.

"We will expand uranium enrichment to industrial scale at Natanz," Saeedi told state-run television.

Saeedi said using 54,000 centrifuges will be able to produce enough enriched uranium to provide fuel for a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant like one Russia is finishing in southern Iran.

In theory, that many centrifuges could be used to develop the material needed for hundreds of nuclear warheads if Iran can perfect the techniques for producing the highly enriched uranium needed.

Iran, which has made no secret of its plans to ultimately expand enrichment to around 50,000 centrifuges to fuel reactors, is still thought to be years away from a full-scale program.

Still, concerns grew Tuesday when Ahmadinejad announced Iran's enrichment success in a nationally televised ceremony, saying the country's nuclear ambitions are peaceful and warning the West that trying to force Iran to abandon enrichment would "cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians."

IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei arrived in Tehran on Wednesday night to talks aimed at defusing tension over Iran's nuclear program.

"The time is right for a political solution and the way is negotiations," ElBaradei told journalists at the airport.

At the United Nations, China called on Tehran to suspend enrichment, but China and Russia reiterated their opposition to any punitive measures against Iran.

The IAEA is due to report to the Security Council on April 28 whether Iran has met its demand for a full halt to uranium enrichment. If Tehran has not complied, the council will consider the next step. The U.S. and Europe are pressing for sanctions, a step Russia and China have so far opposed.

Iran's announcement quickly drew condemnations.

Russia criticized the announcement Wednesday, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin saying, "We believe that this step is wrong. "

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated Moscow's firm opposition to any military action against Iran.

Denouncing Iran's successful enrichment of uranium as unacceptable to the international community, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.N. Security Council must consider "strong steps" to induce Tehran to change course.

Rice also telephoned ElBaradei to ask him to reinforce demands that Iran comply with its nonproliferation requirements when he holds talks in Tehran on Friday.

"This is not a question of Iran's right to civil nuclear power," she said. "This is a question of ... the world does not believe that Iran should have the capability and the technology that could lead to a nuclear weapon."

Rice did not call for an emergency meeting of the Council, saying it should consider action after receiving an IAEA report by April 28. She did not elaborate on what measures the United States would support, but economic and political sanctions are under consideration.

In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government said Iran's announcement was cause for concern.

"It is another step in the wrong direction by Iran," German government spokesman Thomas Steg said.

French government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope urged Iran "to respect its obligations" and stop nuclear activities.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he was "seriously concerned" by Ahmadinejad's announcement.

Israel's military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, cautioned that it will take some time before Iran achieves nuclear capability. "I think things will change in this process and we shouldn't see this as a foregone conclusion," he told Army Radio.

The chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon "within three years, by the end of the decade."

Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani — a powerful figure in the country's clerical regime — warned in an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai Al-Aam that pressuring Iran over enrichment "might not have good consequences for the area and the world."

Rafsanjani, who heads the body that arbitrates between the parliament and the clerical hierarchy, said planned talks between Iran and the United States on stabilizing Iraq could lead to discussions on the nuclear dispute.

"If the talks on Iraq go in the right direction, there might be a possibility for that issue," Rafsanjani told the Al-Hayat daily. "There have been many cases where big and wide-ranging decisions had small beginnings."

Iranian and U.S. officials have insisted the talks will deal only with Iraq. So far, no date for the talks has been set.

Rafsanjani and other Iranian officials, meanwhile, reiterated that the country's nuclear ambitions were peaceful.

"There is no worry as we will not threaten anyone," Rafsanjani said as he arrived in Damascus on Wednesday, according to Syria's official news agency.

Iran resumed research on enrichment at Natanz in February.

Iran is pressing for further negotiations with the IAEA or with Western countries, hinting that it could agree to keep its enrichment program on a small scale under IAEA inspection without giving it up entirely.

Iran Says It's Moving to Expand Enrichment

[nChrist]

Dreamweaver Said:

So what religious behaviors are showing increased activity? According to Barna, the most prolific jump relates to adults' Bible reading during a typical week, outside of church. Eleven years ago, polls showed Bible readership at just 31 percent -- a 20-year low, says Barna. But a steady increase in the interim -- with a few years of stalled growth along the way -- has brought Bible readership in 2006 to 47 percent. "That's the highest readership level achieved since the 1980s," says the research group.

Brother, I'm convinced that daily Bible reading and prayer help Christians grow stronger than anything else. We must remember that faith comes by hearing, so it stands to reason that much of our spiritual strength in JESUS comes from feeding ourselves with the WORD of GOD. It really should become a matter of joy to study the Bible, and we should know that it's more important than eating food at the table. In all reality, GOD has prepared a table for us, and it's filled with spiritual blessings that HE wants to give us.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Philippians 4:6 NASB  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

[Shammu]

The Times     April 13, 2006

Iran is racing down nuclear route before UN can put up roadblock
Foreign Editor's briefing by Bronwen Maddox
IRAN’S sudden announcement this week that it has begun enriching uranium presents the world with two riddles.

First, is Iran now set on having a nuclear weapon? It says not. But the most plausible interpretation of its behaviour is that it wants to put itself within easy reach of one.

Secondly, can diplomatic pressure persuade it to drop those ambitions? A plausible answer is that the United Nations might eventually persuade it to freeze its work — but almost certainly not to scrap what it has achieved.

On that view, the best interpretation of this week’s events is that Iran is pressing ahead as fast as it can so that, if it does ever strike a deal, it surrenders as little ground as possible.

Yesterday the countries that have most energetically tried to persuade Iran to leave the nuclear road joined together to condemn its action.

It was important for the hopes of any diplomatic pressure that Russia and China, both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, added their voices to that declaration.

The United States, Britain and France, the other permanent members, have been vigorous in wanting to ratchet up pressure on Tehran, but Russia and China have held back. Iran has gone to great lengths to sign intricate and lucrative energy deals with Russia and China, and they stand to lose most if the UN moves towards sanctions.

Russia pointedly added yesterday that it believed that force could not resolve the dispute. Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister, said that military plans “could create a dangerous explosive blaze in the Middle East, where there are already enough blazes”.

Wang Guangya, China’s UN Ambassador, said “to talk about military and other sanctions will not be helpful”.

Weekend reports in the US suggested that the Bush Administration was keeping the option of military action open, at least in theory, even though President Bush dismissed the talk as “wild speculation”.

Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, said yesterday that the Security Council, which has told Tehran to halt all enrichment work by April 28, would need to “take strong steps to make certain (to) maintain the credibility of the international community”.

“When the Security Council reconvenes this month,” Ms Rice said: “I think it will be time for action. We can’t let this continue.”

Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, will arrive in Tehran today to seek full co-operation with the Security Council and IAEA.

Many analysts have argued that the provocative timing of the move, in the middle of the 30-day period set by the council for freezing the work, is an attempt to secure Iran’s position, and present a fait accompli.

Iran is likely to argue that it cannot be expected to give up all of a programme showing steady technical progress. “They clearly have no intention of stopping”, Gary Samore, proliferation expert at the MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, said.

Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, argued that “negotiating with a country to roll back” a programme was rarely successful — witness the success of North Korea in holding on to its work in the face of intense international pressure.

European officials believe that the best chance for diplomacy may be to force Iran into the position of rejecting an offer that all members of the Security Council regard as self- evidently reasonable.

One version of this has been mooted by British officials — that the five permanent members of the council, plus Germany, offer a return to talks provided that Iran freezes its enrichment and submits to all IAEA inspections.

Iran’s move this week appears designed to make even that attempt look out of date.

Iran is racing down nuclear route before UN can put up roadblock

[Shammu]

Al-Qaida Figure Backs Iraqi Insurgents

27 minutes ago

CAIRO, Egypt - No. 2 al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri praised insurgents in Iraq, particularly Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and called on all Muslims to support them in a video posted Thursday on the Internet.

The video was dated with an Islamic month corresponding to November 2005 — and al-Zawahri mentions an Oct. 23 earthquake that hit Pakistan and Afghanistan. But it appeared to be the first time the 28-minute video has been made public.

It was not clear why the video was not released soon after the date it was allegedly filmed. Al-Zawahri has appeared in at least three videotapes filmed since November, all of them aired on the Al-Jazeera news network. Thursday's video was posted on a Web forum used by Islamic militants to issue public statements and videos.

Reached Wednesday evening, two U.S. counterterrorism officials declined immediate comment.

In the footage, al-Zawahri appears sitting, wearing a white turban and a grey robe with a microphone pinned to it. An automatic weapon is leaning against a brown backdrop behind him.

"The Islamic nation must support the heroic mujahedeen (holy warriors) in Iraq, who are fighting on the very front line for the dignity of Islam," al-Zawahri said, waving his right hand toward the camera.

"And to my brother mujahedeen in Iraq, I say, Stay firm. Stay together. Your enemy has begun to falter, so don't stop pursuing him untill he flees defeated," he said.

He called on Muslims to support his "beloved brother" Al-Zarqawi, who heads al-Qaida in Iraq. "I have lived with him up close, and have seen nothing but good from him," al-Zawahri said.

Al-Qaida Figure Backs Iraqi Insurgents

[Shammu]

Top Shiite Cleric Raps Mubarak for Remarks

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 49 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - One of Shiite Islam's top clerics accused Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday of fueling sectarian tensions in the Middle East by saying Arab Shiites in Iraq and elsewhere are more loyal to Iran than to their home countries.

Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, in an interview with The Associated Press, said "some in the Muslim world" fear Shiite empowerment in any country.

Fadlallah was one of the highest-level Shiite figures in the region to speak out so far against Mubarak. The president's comments over the weekend angered Shiites and raised fears of a Sunni-Shiite rift across the Middle East at a time of increased sectarian violence in Iraq.

Fadlallah is the highest-ranking Shiite cleric in Lebanon and was believed to be the spiritual leader of the Hezbollah guerrilla group in the 1980s. He has followers in Iraq, the Gulf region and among Shiite communities in Pakistan and India. He is closely linked to Iraq's top Shiite politicians and top clerics.

On Wednesday, Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of Iraq — possibly the world's most influential Shiite cleric — also sent a letter to Mubarak through the Egyptian embassy in Beirut regarding his statements about the Shiites, according to Hamed al-Khafaf, al-Sistani's representative in Lebanon.

Al-Khafaf declined to provide details about the letter's contents.

Mubarak's made his remarks in an interview aired Saturday on the Al-Arabiya news channel.

"Definitely Iran has influence for Shiites," Mubarak told the Dubai-based station. "Shiites are 65 percent of the Iraqis. ... Most of the Shiites are loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they are living in."

He also said Iraq was on the brink of civil war.

Fadlallah said such talk only fuels prejudice against Shiites.

"We believe that obscuring the stance of Shiites ... can create a rift between Shiites and Sunnis," Fadlallah, 70, told the AP at his office in the southern Beirut Haret Horeik neighborhood.

"The loyalty of Shiites to their countries is not less than that of others. Such talk has no basis in reality. What is meant by it is to create a climate of agitation that amounts to telling the Sunnis 'Beware of the Shiite threat!'

"I think there are some in the Muslim world who are uncomfortable with the empowerment of the Shiites in any nation, and that's because of sectarian extremism or political anxieties," said Fadlallah, whose moderate views have, over the years, earned him the animosity of militant clerics in Iran as well as Iraq.

The empowerment of Iraq's majority Shiites after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime was the catalyst for reviving the centuries-old, but latent, Sunni-Shiite divide. It has alarmed Arab nations with sizable Shiite communities across the Gulf from Iran.

Beside Iraq, the only other Arab nation with a Shiite majority is Bahrain, a Gulf island kingdom ruled by a Sunni family. Arab nations with significant Shiite minorities include Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and
Syria.

A Sunni-Shiite rift would be potentially ruinous in a region already saddled by the Iraq conflict, the enduring Arab-Israeli conflict and an array of other chronic problems.

King Abdullah of Jordan spoke in the same vein in a newspaper interview published 16 months ago when he accused Shiite, but non-Arab, Iran of seeking to create a "Shiite crescent" in the Middle East that would include Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

In response to Mubarak's interview, Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government boycotted a Wednesday meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo to discuss Iraq and called on Mubarak to "reconsider" his position.

Muqtada al-Sadr, an influential Iraqi Shiite leader, blasted Mubarak's remarks Wednesday, saying in a statement that they "serve only the enemy, and try to ignite civil and sectarian war."

Mubarak's comments could not have come at a worse time.

Iraq, wracked by a Sunni-dominated insurgency since shortly after Saddam's ouster three years ago, has seen a dramatic surge of sectarian violence since a key Shiite shrine was bombed in February by suspected Sunni militants. The violence, together with the failure to form a unity government four months after elections were held, threaten to plunge the country into a Sunni-Shiite civil war.

Mubarak's charges also are likely to feed suspicions in Lebanon that Shiite leaders are too close to Iran. Tensions among the country's various groups already are heightened since last year's assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a Sunni.

Top Shiite Cleric Raps Mubarak for Remarks

[Shammu]

White shirts, Stars and Stripes fill blocks of Mall
By Keyonna Summers, Gary Emerling and Amy Doolittle
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published April 11, 2006
Advertisement
Hundreds of thousands of immigration rights supporters descended on the Mall yesterday, urging lawmakers on Capitol Hill to legalize the nation's estimated 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens and to defeat a House bill aimed at making them felons.
    The Mall turned into an undulating sea of white shirts and American flags dotted with banners of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. Protesters said they wanted to promote peace and show their love for the United States while supporting their homelands.
    Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington, spoke to the crowd and prayed.
    "We are in a historic moment in our nation's history," he said. "Let us not now turn inward after all these centuries. We are all God's children, all brothers and sisters in his one human family."
    Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said at the rally, "We are a nation of immigrants. This debate goes to the heart of who we are as Americans."
    Organizers handed out blue signs that read, "We Are America," and small U.S. flags. Last week, they answered critics by discouraging the display of flags from Latin American nations.
    Organizers estimated the crowd size on the Mall at 500,000, at one point stretching from Seventh to 13th streets. More than 1 million marchers participated in more than 140 rallies across the country to observe the National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice. The District's Metropolitan Police Department did not provide crowd estimates.
    Moving to salsa beats, protesters chanted, "Today, we march, tomorrow, we vote," and held signs saying, "We are not criminals" and "God doesn't discriminate. Why do you?"
    Frank Raddish, founder and general director of the Capitol Hill Independent Baptist Ministries, was skeptical that the demonstration would have any influence on Congress or on Americans' views about illegal immigration.
    "Our politicians on Capitol Hill are acting very cowardly and they are trying to pass a very liberal immigration reform bill at the time of an election year to promote their own political futures," Mr. Raddish said.
    Federal law-enforcement authorities said it was impossible to determine how many of the protesters nationwide were undocumented, but they were confident that some illegal aliens were involved.
    "It's just impossible to know unless you sent agents to the rallies and asked every single person to prove they are legal residents," said a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official who asked not to be identified.
    He said ICE could not use its 5,500 investigators assigned to myriad cases to question more than 1 million protesters.
    Cristal Rodriguez, 17, a Mexican-Salvadoran student from Silver Spring, said she thinks the protests will "make a difference."
    "We have to go against these bills that are trying to make us look like criminals," said the Albert Einstein High School senior. "Friends, neighbors, people who go to my church, everybody is affected by this."
    Officials with CASA of Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group that helped plan the event, arranged 20 buses of high school students on spring break from Virginia and nine from Maryland.
    Montgomery County students who attended the rally were eligible to receive community-service credits toward their graduation requirements.
    Several blacks and Asians rallied alongside Hispanics.
    Huy Do, an immigrant from Vietnam, said he would receive community service credit from Albert Einstein High School, where he is a junior, but that he had another reason to attend the rally.
    "I just came down here to support all immigrant people," said Huy, 16. "It's my pleasure to support them and give them a chance for a better life."
    Montgomery Blair High School student Josephine Camara, 19, who emigrated from Guinea in Africa, said she identifies with the Hispanics.
    "For me, as an immigrant, I shouldn't sit home and say it's only for Hispanic people," she said. "I don't think the country will go forward without immigrants."
    Kate Mesch, 40, brought her daughters to the rally as a lesson on the United States.
    "We are so lucky just by chance to be here," she said. "But for the grace of God this could be our family trying to come to the U.S. I am a child of immigrants -- just a long time ago."

White shirts, Stars and Stripes fill blocks of Mall

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Apr. 13, 2006 7:15
N. Korea may resume nuke talks if assets released
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

North Korea is willing to resume international nuclear disarmament talks if the US lifts a freeze on disputed North Korean assets in a Macau bank, the North's top nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said on Thursday.

North Korea has refused to restart the talks unless the financial restrictions - imposed on a Macau bank and North Korean companies - are lifted, but Washington has maintained that the sanctions are unrelated to the nuclear talks and will stay in place.

"I will go to the negotiating table the moment I seize the assets with my hands," the North's nuclear envoy said in a news conference, hours before he was scheduled to leave Tokyo.

Kim's comments wrap several days of nuclear talks between the six nations trying to negotiate an end to North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

N. Korea may resume nuke talks if assets released

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Apr. 13, 2006 8:15
Pakistan strikes militia hideout, killing six
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan

Army helicopter gunships struck a suspected terrorist hideout in a tribal region of northwestern Pakistan, killing six suspects, including four foreigners, an intelligence official said Thursday.

There was no information available as to the identities or nationalities of the suspected foreigners. The two other men who were killed in the attack were local tribesmen, said an intelligence official.

Islamic insurgents - Arabs, Central Asian and Afghans suspected of having links with the Afghanistan's Taliban militia and al-Qaida - are believed to be in North and the adjacent South Waziristan tribal regions, where the strike occurred.

Pakistan strikes militia hideout, killing six

[Shammu]

Apr. 13, 2006 6:07
Aussie PM denies knowledge of oil-for-food deal
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday that his senior advisers did not alert him to a string of warnings that Australia's monopoly wheat exporter was paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq's Saddam Hussein to secure contracts under the UN's discredited oil-for-food program.

Howard, who spent just 50 minutes on the stand, was the most senior of three government ministers to testify this week at a so-called Royal Commission into alleged bribes paid to Baghdad by the Australian Wheat Board. All three denied being told of the multimillion-dollar corruption accusations until UN officials began investigating the company, now known as AWB Ltd.

Howard is the first prime minister to appear at such a high-level inquiry since former Labour leader Bob Hawke testified at a probe into Australia's intelligence agencies in 1983.

Aussie PM denies knowledge of oil-for-food deal

[Shammu]

Apr. 13, 2006 6:19
Al-Qaida's No. 2 praises al-Zarqawi
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri, in a video posted Thursday on the Internet, praised insurgents in Iraq - particularly Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - and called upon all Muslims to support them.

Although the video was dated with an Islamic month corresponding to November 2005 - and al-Zawahri mentions an October 23 earthquake that hit Pakistan and Afghanistan - it appeared to be the first time the 28-minute video has been made public.

It was not clear why it was not released soon after the date it was allegedly filmed. Al-Zawahri has appeared in at least three videotapes filmed since November, all of which aired on the Al-Jazeera news network. Thursday's video was posted on a Web forum used by Islamic insurgents to issue public statements and videos.

In the footage, al-Zawahri appears sitting, wearing a white turban and a gray robe with a microphone pinned to it. An automatic weapon is leaning against a brown backdrop behind him.

"The Islamic nation must support the heroic mujahedeen (holy warriors) in Iraq, who are fighting on the very front line for the dignity of Islam," al-Zawahri said, waving his right hand toward the camera.

"And to my mujahedeen brothers in Iraq, I say, Stay firm. Stay together. Your enemy has begun to falter, so don't stop pursuing him until he flees defeated," he said.

He called upon Muslims to support his "beloved brother" Al-Zarqawi, who heads al-Qaida in Iraq. "I have lived with him up close, and have seen nothing but good from him," al-Zawahri said.

Al-Zawahri - Osama bin Laden's deputy in al-Qaida, who is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan - said he was making the video to mark the fourth anniversary of the December 2001 battle of Tora Bora, in which US forces besieged bin Laden and al-Qaida fighters in mountainous caves of Afghanistan.

He denounced Bush as the "Caesar of Washington" and accused him of lying about progress in the war on terror.

"Bush, son of Bush, eliminating Israel is the duty of every believer," al-Zawahri said. "Beggarly clerics ... and every bankrupt propaganda machine is trying to convince the people to bring change by peaceful means, but the Islamic nation knows that its path is jihad (holy war) and the bearing of arms."

"By God, we're supposed to stick to peaceful means while the enemies of Islam engage in every violent, barbaric and base action and Israel is armed to the teeth with every sort of conventional and non-conventional weapon?" he said.

"If we commit to peaceful action, they will demand we adhere to international laws and treaties that mean nothing to them. If we adhere to that, they will ask us to impose constraint on what they call terrorism and war on Israel. Then if we adhere to that, they will demand we recognize Israel and establish normal relations with it," he said.

He pointed to Israeli opposition to Hamas' entering Palestinian elections. He did not mention Hamas' victory in the voting, a possible indication the video was made before the January elections.

In the last al-Zawahri video, aired on March 4 he congratulated Hamas on its victory and offered support.

Al-Zawahri appeared in two other videos in January. On January 19, bin Laden released an audiotape, parts of which were aired on al-Jazeera. It was the first message from the al-Qaida leader in more than a year.

Al-Qaida's No. 2 praises al-Zarqawi

[Shammu]

MTV Pokes Fun at Jesus' Crucifixion
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
April 13, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - As Christians around the world prepare for Easter, magazine readers in Germany were confronted this week by full-page advertisements depicting Jesus, wearing a crown of thorns but descended from the cross, enjoying a television program.

"Laughing rather than hanging around," (Lachen statt rumhaengen) reads the tagline of the ad, which has drawn strong protests in Germany, where two-thirds of the population identifies as Christian.

The ad promotes MTV's plan to broadcast a cartoon lampooning the pope and Vatican hierarchy. The series, Popetown, was considered too controversial to be aired in Britain, and it caused an uproar in the one country where it has appeared, New Zealand.

Coming at a time when the dust has yet to settle from the furor over newspaper cartoons caricaturing Mohammed, the row has prompted some Germans to ask why their faith should be an easy target.

The Deutsche Welle broadcaster quoted Joachim Herrmann of the Christian Social Union party as saying that MTV would have thought twice before poking fun in a similar way at Muslims.

"It is not acceptable that the Christian faith in particular is dragged into the dirt just because it is easier and less dangerous," he said, calling for MTV to pull both the series and the "tasteless" ads.

Christians believe Jesus is God incarnate and that he died on a cross to redeem mankind and then rose from the dead three days later. Those events are marked this weekend, the highlight of the Christian calendar.

Germany is the home country of the present pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI.

The German Bishop's Conference said it had not given up hope that dialogue with MTV management would result in the screening being canceled.

The bishops said the magazine ad was "a provocation for Germany's Christians just a few days before Good Friday and Easter."

Munich Archbishop Cardinal Friedrich Wetter said in a separate statement the ad was deeply hurtful to believing Christians.

A German Christian magazine, Verse One, has instituted an online protest and boycott campaign.

"After the events surrounding the Mohammed cartoons we had thought there was agreement that media should show consideration for the religious feelings of believers, whether Muslims, Jews, Buddhists or Christians," said Verse One publisher Birgit Kelle.

"Obviously we were mistaken."

Kelle, a Protestant, said the issue did not concern "our Catholic brothers and sisters" alone. If Christians did not defend themselves - with arguments, not force - "this will never stop."

MTV said the series was satire and should be treated as a work of art. It planned to go ahead with showing it in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as scheduled early next month.
'Spoiled brat'
"Banned from TV, damned by the church, and brought to you in devilishly uncensored form," runs the tagline on the Popetown website, promoting the program on DVD.

The series portrays the pope as an uncontrollable, infantile character who pogo-sticks around a Vatican populated by corrupt, money-grabbing cardinals.

The 10-episode series originally was commissioned by BBC television, but after strong protests the BBC decided against going ahead with the scheduled broadcast in 2004.

The one country where the series has been shown is New Zealand, where a youth-oriented channel, C4, shrugged off protests by Catholic bishops and aired it last year.

In an unusual move, the Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC) urged the country's half a million Catholics to boycott C4 and other stations owned by the Canadian broadcaster CanWest, and also to target companies advertising on the channels.

In a letter read out in parishes across the country, the bishops said the pope was depicted "as a cretinous, dirty, spoiled brat, and the curial cardinals as venal and dishonest," according to a statement made available by Catholic spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer Thursday.

The letter also said the program implied that one Vatican-based priest had "a predilection ... for exotic animals in a way that suggests moral degeneration of an appalling kind."

C4 said it did not believe the series was offensive to a significant proportion of the population, and continued to air it.

Freer said Thursday that various organizations and individuals had lodged complaints with New Zealand's statutory Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA), claiming that Popetown breached "decency, good taste and fairness." All had failed.

The NZCBC's own complaint was still awaiting a decision, although the BSA did, late last month, reject a request by the bishops to have their complaint aired in full and formal hearings.

The bishops had argued that increased public interest as a result debates about the Mohammed cartoons justified such hearings.

"The possible political and economic consequences of the Danish cartoons incident clearly demonstrate what is at stake is not the outcome of an academic debate on the rights and freedoms of the media," the NZCBC said in a statement.

"The matter has now become far too serious to be dealt [with] without fair consideration and debate."

The BSA said the Mohammed cartoons were not relevant to the case under consideration. And although it accepted that the wider issue had become a matter of intense debate, it turned down the request for formal hearings.

C4 was in the firing line again earlier this year over yet another program that many New Zealand Christians found offensive - an episode of the South Park cartoon series that featured a menstruating statue of the Virgin Mary.

Again, Catholic bishops called for a boycott, and again C4 went ahead despite protests not just from Catholics but also Protestants and adherents of other faiths.

Freer said the NSCBC was preparing a further complaint to the BSA about the South Park episode.

The offending South Park program earlier aired on the Comedy Central in the U.S., prompting one Catholic organization to describe it as "one of the most vile TV shows ever to appear."

[Shammu]

Iran's Nuclear Announcement Could Impact South Asia
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
April 12, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - Amid growing resistance at home to a historic nuclear cooperation deal with the U.S., India's government now faces an additional headache as a result of Iran's announcement on Tuesday that it has successfully enriched uranium.

A further escalation of tensions over Iran's nuclear program could boost opposition in the U.S. Congress to the Indo-U.S. nuclear accord, Indian media observed Wednesday.

Under the deal - which requires congressional approval - the U.S. will supply India with fuel and technology for its nuclear energy sector, in return for steps to place its civilian nuclear facilities under international safeguards.

Political analysts say the deal forms part of a significant shift in international affairs as the world's two biggest democracies move from decades of Cold War chill to a natural, strategic and mutually-beneficial alliance.

President Bush on Monday reiterated another touted advantage, saying the accord aimed to help India "diversify away from fossil fuels." Nuclear power is regarded as a "clean" alternative to energy sources that emit pollutants blamed for climate change.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, visiting New Delhi this week, said of the deal "I think strategically it represents one of the most thoughtful new approaches to foreign policy in maybe 25 years."

Hagel told a press conference he expected Congress to approve the nuclear agreement, but probably not until after November's mid-term elections.

That optimistic assessment notwithstanding, the agreement is highly controversial because it entails special treatment for India despite that country's covert program to acquire nuclear weapons, culminating in successful tests in 1998.

The U.S. and allies suspect Iran is clandestinely trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian program. Tehran argues that India is being rewarded despite having carried out secretively in the past activities that Iran is now being accused of - and denies.

Iran on Tuesday announced that it had joined "the nuclear countries of the world" by successfully enriching uranium, but once again insisted the aim was to generate power, not build nuclear weapons.

The announcement comes halfway through a 30-day period the U.N. Security Council has given Iran to freeze enrichment.

Iran's "act of defiance" may provide "fresh ammunition" for opponents of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, the Calcutta Telegraph fretted.

It may also complicate matters for India in another way, should the Iranian move result in a stepped-up Western push for sanctions.

India's stance in such a scenario will be closely watched. American lawmakers are leery of New Delhi's longstanding ties with Tehran and want to see India side with the U.S. in the ongoing dispute.

But India's decision to vote in favor of an IAEA board resolution referring Iran to the Security Council angered Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's left-wing political allies.

Singh is coming under growing pressure, both over the posture towards Iran and the nuclear deal with the U.S.

Left-wing parties, whose support Singh depends on to govern, have spearheaded the criticism, but on Tuesday the official opposition Hindu nationalist BJP called on the government to scrap the agreement.

BJP president Rajnath Singh called it "an insult" to his country, saying some of the conditions were not good for India's security.

What about Pakistan?

Concerns that an accord with India would send the wrong signals to rogue states like Iran features strongly in arguments by non-proliferation experts who are lobbying Congress on the India agreement.

Another concern voiced by such experts is how Pakistan - India's historical rival and a fellow nuclear weapons power since 1998 - may respond to the Indo-U.S. deal.

The agreement requires India to separate its military and civilian nuclear facilities and place the civilian ones under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

But although the White House argues that this will "prevent diversion of technology and materials to India's military program," some experts disagree.

Australian academic Sandy Gordon of the Center for Transnational Crime Prevention, debating the merits of Australia selling uranium to China or India, notes that "any sale into the civil program will automatically free up scarce domestic uranium resources for the military program."

Gordon calls arguments about civil-military separation "at best naive and at worst self-serving."

In a recent letter to the chairmen and ranking Democrats on the Senate foreign relations committee and House international relations committee, a group of U.S. non-proliferation experts warned that "as the agreement now stands, American cooperation could indirectly help India increase substantially its bomb-producing capabilities."

They urged Congress to authorize the sale of nuclear goods to India "only when the president is able to certify that India has stopped producing fissile material for nuclear weapons as a matter of policy."

Any deal that could advance India's nuclear weapons arsenal will raise alarm in Pakistan.

In their letter, the experts headed by Nonproliferation Policy Education Center executive director Henry Sokolski argued that aspects of the Indo-U.S. agreement "could well cause Pakistan to boost its own fissile material production and to seek additional nuclear help from China."

On Monday, Pakistan's Daily Times reported that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf may sign a civilian nuclear technology agreement with China during a scheduled June visit to Beijing.

It said the move came after the U.S. declined to enter into an accord with Pakistan like the one it has signed with India.

China already has close military ties with Pakistan and allegedly provided Islamabad with the know-how to build missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

[Shammu]

Harvard study tells parties to court 'religious centrists'

By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 13, 2006

College students are becoming more religious, and it's affecting their political views, according to a new Harvard University survey of this potentially influential voting bloc. "Religious centrists" rule, according to the university.

    A full 70 percent say religion plays an important part in their lives, with a quarter saying their spirituality has increased at college. Six out of 10 say they are concerned about the moral direction of the country, according to the poll of 1,200 students from across the country, conducted March 13 to 27 and released Tuesday.

    "Religion and morality are critical to how students think about politics and form opinions on political issues," said Jeanne Shaheen, a former New Hampshire governor and director of Harvard's Institute of Politics, which conducted the poll.

    The Harvard study advises political parties to woo the spiritually inclined, a demographic that the popular press mostly deemed the exclusive territory of the "religious right" in the past two presidential elections.

    "This analysis foreshadows the 2008 general election campaign for president where religious centrists, nearly a quarter of the student vote, will be the critical swing vote ... and likely the most influential group in American politics for years," according to the survey.

    Attracting the elusive youth vote with hip text messages and celebrities is already a serious business among multiple partisan interest groups: 12 million voters ages 18 to 24 went to the polls in the 2004 presidential election, up 25 percent since 2000. But the groups are after larger prey. The young population is a behemoth demographic: There are 71 million Americans who are younger than 30, and they are a target.

    "Generation Y is large, increasingly active and up-for-grabs politically," F. Christopher Arterton of George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management said last month after releasing the school's new analysis of innovative voter initiatives aimed at the young and restless.

    The Harvard researchers had their own unorthodox methods. Using a "political personality test," the pollsters divided the youth vote into subsets that bend ideological barriers and create a number of political hybrids, they say.

    Overall, the youthful voting bloc is 32 percent Democrat, 24 percent Republican and 41 percent independent or unaffiliated. In addition, 44 percent are "traditional" liberals and 16 percent "traditional" conservatives, with two more identifications thrown into the mix: religious centrists and secular centrists.

    Just who are these religious centrists? According to Harvard, they are optimistic about the future, politically engaged and deeply concerned about the moral direction of the United States. They also are protective of the environment; support universal health care and free trade, and draw the support of young Hispanics and blacks.

    Secular centrists, in the meantime, are optimistic but do not factor religion into their thinking. They support abortion and homosexual rights and are least likely to vote.

    A breakdown of collegiate party preferences reveals further complexities. Republicans are composed of 34 percent traditional conservatives, 30 percent religious centrists, 20 percent secular centrists and 16 percent who consider themselves traditional liberals.

    Among Democrats, 59 percent are traditional liberals, 24 percent are religious centrists, 9 percent secular centrists and 7 percent are traditional conservatives.

    The new labels may portend some more flexible thinking on the part of anxious political consultants.

    "Party identification is misleading, antiquated and only tells a small part about the beliefs of an individual," according to the survey, which advised Democrats not to cede issues of morality to the Republican Party and admonished Republicans to focus on issues beyond the "?'Big Three' -- abortion, stem-cell research and gay marriage."

Harvard study tells parties to court 'religious centrists'

[Shammu]

Russia Falls Short on Nuclear Weapons Obligations — U.S. Diplomat

Created: 13.04.2006 11:44 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:44 MSK, 15 hours 51 minutes ago

MosNews

A U.S. diplomat has said that Russia has failed to fulfill its commitments to reduce non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe and added that the two nations still have disagreements over the U.S.-funded effort to dismantle Russia’s nuclear stockpiles, the Associated Press reported.

“We believe that Russia has not completely fulfilled the Russian side of the presidential nuclear initiative,” said Stephen G. Rademaker, acting assistant secretary of state for arms control, referring to a U.S.-Russian initiative of the early 1990s which envisaged cuts in the number of tactical nuclear weapons.

Moscow has insisted it has made good progress on the issue. Rademaker also said Washington and Moscow still had differences over access to Russian nuclear facilities under a U.S.-funded program to help dismantle Moscow’s Cold War arsenals.

“One of the practical challenges in implementing these programs is to strike a balance between our need for accountability and Russia’s need to be satisfied that its national security is being protected,” Rademaker told a news conference during a visit to Russia.

Russia Falls Short on Nuclear Weapons Obligations

[Shammu]

Putin in Favour of Independent Palestinian State

Created: 13.04.2006 16:09 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:09 MSK, 11 hours 25 minutes ago

MosNews

Click here

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is interested in the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

“Our country is interested in achieving a fair and comprehensive settlement in the Middle East,” Putin said as he received credentials from foreign ambassadors on Thursday.

“We believe that it is necessary to resume the peace process on the basis of the roadmap plan and to move steadily towards the final destination — the creation of an independent Palestinian state that would peacefully coexist with Israel,” he said.

“Relations of mutual respect have linked the people of Russia and Palestine, and our country is interested in the achievement of a just and comprehensive Middle East settlement,” Putin said.

“From now on Russia is ready to assist Palestine, the Palestinian cabinet and the Palestinian government, headed by Mahmud Abbas,” the president concluded.

A Palestinian Ambassador to Moscow Backer Abdel Munem, who took office on March 14 after the parliamentary elections, stressed that Russia has always supported Palestinians and praised mutual dialogue between the two countries.

Russia began to be perceived as a key negotiator in Palestine, after Hamas, treated as a terrorist organization in West, won the parliamentary elections in the Authority. Putin himself invited a Hamas delegation to Moscow, and although he did not meet the visitors himself, they were able to hold talks with senior Russian officials.

Putin in Favour of Independent Palestinian State