Prime Minister Ehud Olmert remains committed to the dismantling of Jewish West Bank settlements, but the scope of removal depends on whether Hamas recognizes Israel, Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Saturday.
Olmert shelved the unilateral approach after last summer's war with Hizbullah; Israel had unilaterally pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, and the withdrawal was widely seen as a seed for the 2006 war, sparked by a Hizbullah cross-border attack on Israel.
Asked Saturday whether the dismantling of settlements was still on the government's agenda, Peres told Channel Two: "Settlements will be removed, yes. Not all settlements, and I'm not even sure that most of the settlements (will be removed)."
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ATHENS, Greece - Archaeologists have discovered extensive remains of what is believed to be an ancient marketplace with shops and a religious center at the southern edge of Athens, the Culture Ministry said Friday. The finds, in the coastal neighborhood of Voula, date from the 4th or 5th century B.C.
"It is a very large complex," the ministry said. "It was a site of rich financial and religious activity, which was most probably a marketplace."
Marketplaces - or agoras - teemed with shops, open-air stalls and administrative buildings, and were the financial, political and social center of ancient Greek life.
Archaeologists believe the complex belonged to the municipality of Aexonides Halai, among the largest settlements surrounding ancient Athens.
The main building was a hollow square with a rock-cut reservoir in the center. The building had 12 rooms - probably shops - and a small temple with an open-air altar.
Finds included large quantities of pottery, coins and lead weights that would have been used in transactions by traders.
Last month, archaeologists discovered an ancient theater in the northwestern Athens suburb of Menidi.
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Although a new public relations campaign has been launched to convince Congress and the American people that open homosexuality would be good for the United States' armed services, a group that assesses military preparedness says such a policy shift would seriously damage future U.S. military capabilities.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Preparedness, told WND yesterday that proponents of the new congressional plan to open the armed services to self-proclaimed homosexuals are using a skewed poll to support their arguments. The plan comes from U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., and would overturn existing law, which states "the unique circumstances of military service" support "the prohibition against homosexual conduct" as well as those "persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces' high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion."
But forcing the military to provide an open door to those who choose the homosexual lifestyle would threaten the recruiting potential for the military, she said.
Donnelly told WND that Congress went all through the issue in 1993, when Bill Clinton was president, and ultimately affirmed the legal ban on homosexuals in the military. Clinton responded to that political ...   more »

Richard Owen in Rome
Read Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith weblog
An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”.
Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, 78, who retired as Archbishop of Bologna three years ago, quoted Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), the Russian philosopher and mystic, as predicting that the Antichrist “will convoke an ecumenical council and seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions”.
The “masses” would follow the Antichrist, “with the exception of small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants” who would fight to prevent the watering down and ultimate destruction of the faith, he said.
The Pope traditionally withdraws from public view during the first week of Lent, conducting “spiritual exercises” in retreat with close advisers.
The choice of Cardinal Biffi raised eyebrows in the Vatican, given his sometimes eccentric views. The cardinal gave a warning of the coming of the Antichrist during his two decades as the Archbishop of Bologna, and said that an “invasion” of Muslim immigrants was undermining Europe’s Christian values.
Cardinal Biffi said that the Antichrist was not necessarily a person but “the ...   more »

 The new, lavishly illustrated book – described by its marketer as a "postmodern" edition of the Bible – takes Darwin's theory of evolution as gospel and presents Jesus as being born, "not to a virgin, but to a gorilla."
According to Ruth Rimm, Bronx school teacher and book artist, her version of the Scriptures – titled "Lost Spiritual World" – "explores the emergence of a new global spirituality that mixes the best of each wisdom tradition with the latest findings in psychology, quantum physics, neuroscience, and linguistics."
It is a "Bible for skeptics, seekers, and people of different faiths."  
The first volume in the series – which will eventually present the Torah, Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist sutras, and Sufi mysticism – covers the Gospel of Mark.
Rimm, however, includes parables not found in Mark, such as the Parable of the Dolphin, the Parable of the Snow Leopard and the Parable of the Gorilla, which are illustrated in a series of irreverent videos to be made available on YouTube as part of the book's marketing campaign.
The Parable of the Gorilla begins with a Renaissance painting of Mary and baby Jesus. The voice over by a standup comedian begins: He was ...   more »