Two planes carrying 600 new immigrants from France land at Ben-Gurion Airport, marking biggest aliyah event since beginning of year. More than 3,000 olim expected to arrive from France by end of 2007
Yael Branovsky
"When I got on the plane on the way to Israel, I immediately felt calm and secure. In France I was always worried when my children went on the underground on their own, or even just wandered the streets. I always dreamt of immigrating to Israel; I feel safe here," Jacklyn Benishu said Wednesday morning after landing in Israel as a new immigrant.  
Benishu arrived with 600 other new immigrants from France on two planes which landed at Ben-Gurion Airport in the morning. 
The two planes, one from Paris and one from Marseilles, marked the biggest aliyah event since the beginning of the year.  
Officials at the Jewish Agency for Israel, which organized the event with AMI (Aliyah et Meilleure Integration), said that this year has seen a 10 percent rise in the number of new immigrants from France compared to the previous year, making 2007 a record year for French aliyah.
More than 3,000 olim are expected to come to Israel, as ...   more »

'All it takes is for someone to say my feelings were hurt'

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Posted: July 25, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Bob Unruh
A website featuring comments by, for and about "principled conservatism" is being investigated by the Canadian government, and could be fined or ordered shut down for some postings about Islam and homosexuality.
Connie Wilkins, who with Mark Fournier runs Canada's Free Dominion site and posts articles, comments and blogs on a wide range of issues, said she just was notified by the nation's Human Rights Commission about the investigation.  
The Human Rights Commission is appointed to investigate complaints that "hate speech" or other illegal activity has been detected, and issue rulings or recommendations to the national Human Rights Tribunal, which has yet to find any defendant innocent in such a case.
The scenario bears a close resemblance to the situation feared by opponents in the United States should a pending "hate crimes" legislation be approved by Congress and signed into law by the president. It would essentially provide an enhanced penalty for a range of crimes if someone perceives they are being targeted for being part of a recognized population segment, such as the homosexual community. ...   more »

Moscow, July 22: Russian government has submitted a bill to the State Duma banning 39 sectors for foreign investment in the country, including natural monopolies, the defence sector, aerospace and the nuclear sector.
Under the bill, submitted in the lower house of parliament, a foreign company or a Russian firm willing to buy more than a 50 per cent stake in an enterprise from the list, or half of the seats on its board of directors or management committee, must get a permit from a regulatory body.
Foreign companies would be allowed to buy less than 25 per cent of the shares in a strategic enterprise, Vedomosti newspaper reported.
A government commission headed by the Prime Minister would grant or deny permits, acting in accordance with the instructions barring foreign investors from companies that have development licences for projects involving state secrets, export defence products, or state defence contracts.
However, foreigners might be allowed to buy such companies if they pledged to continue supplying weapons at agreed prices.
In the case of companies fulfilling projects involving state secrets, only Russians with a clearance permit may sit on the said company's managing bodies after its acquisition by a foreign investor.
Russian ...   more »

Moral paralysis" is a term that has been used to describe the inaction of France, England and other European democracies in the 1930s, as they watched Hitler build up the military forces that he later used to attack them.
It is a term that may be painfully relevant to our own times.
Back in the 1930s, the governments of the democratic countries knew what Hitler was doing — and they knew that they had enough military superiority at that point to stop his military buildup in its tracks. But they did nothing to stop him.
Instead, they turned to what is still the magic mantra today — "negotiations."
No leader of a democratic nation was ever more popular than British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain — wildly cheered in the House of Commons by opposition parties as well as his own — when he returned from negotiations in Munich in 1938, waving an agreement and declaring that it meant "peace in our time."
We know now how short that time was. Less than a year later, World War II began in Europe and spread across the planet, killing tens of millions of people and reducing many cities to rubble in Europe ...   more »

The USS nuclear carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65), en route for the Persian Gulf, entered the Mediterranean Sea Monday July 23 for joint maneuvers with the French Charles De Gaulle carrier. Rafale M fighters took off from its deck, touched down briefly on Enterprise runways and returned to the parent ship. This is the first time ever that French fighter-bombers have landed on an American carrier and used its facilities.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East and Washington sources say that the closely integrated maneuver is part of the growing cooperation between the Bush administration and the new Nicolas Sarkozy presidency on burning Middle East issues.
DEBKAfile’s sources have previously pointed to a dramatic opening-up of interchanges between Paris, Tehran and Hizballah. They now affirm that this new track was launched with tacit approval from Washington.
Saturday, July 28, on the heels of the joint naval-aerial exercise, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner is due in Beirut for a visit prepared by France’s former ambassador in Damascus, Jean-Claude Cousseran. Early next week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrive in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Rice will also visit Jerusalem and Ramallah.
The contours are thus emerging of a division ...   more »

A crowd of 100 stunned stargazers brought a town centre to a standstill when five mysterious UFOs were spotted hovering in the sky.
Drinkers spilled out of pubs, motorists stopped to gawp and camera phones were aimed upwards as the five orbs, in a seeming formation, hovered above Stratford-Upon-Avon for half an hour.
The unidentified flying objects lit up the otherwise clear night sky above Shakespeare's birthplace in Warwickshire on Saturday.
Exclusive: Watch the extraordinary UFO footage here
Although Air Traffic Control reported no unusual activity, some witnesses were convinced they were witnessing an extra-terrestrial spectacle.
Crowds gathered to gawp at the strange lights that hovered silently over Stratford for 30 minutes
The strange episode started just after 10.30pm, when the lights were seen hovering slowly over the town before three of them formed a triangular shape with one positioned just to the right.
A few minutes later a fifth came into view travelling towards the others at breakneck speed before slowing down and stopping a short distance away.
Sceptics dismissed the UFOs as nothing more than hot air balloons, fireworks or even lanterns which had broken loose from a local rugby club.
Others, however, claimed the speed and agility ...   more »

By Bob Unruh
The Internal Revenue Service has lost a lawyer's challenge in front of a jury to prove a constitutional foundation for the nation's income tax, and the victorious attorney now is setting his sights higher.
"I think now people are beginning to realize that this has got to be the largest fraud, backed up by intimidation and extortion and by the sheer force of taking peoples property and hard-earned money without any lawful authorization whatsoever," lawyer Tom Cryer told WND just days after a jury in Louisiana acquitted him of two criminal tax counts.
And before you consign him to the legions of "tin foil hat brigades" who argue against paying taxes, and then want payment to explain how to do that, he addresses the issue up front.
"These snake oil peddlers have conned millions of dollars out of many well-intended patriots and left a trail of broken lives in their wake. … These charlatans should be avoided, not only because they will lead you to bankruptcy and prison, but because by association they discredit those who are telling the truth," he said.
The truth, he said, is where he comes in, with the launch of a new ...   more »

Tripoli, 26 July (AKI) - France and Libya have signed an accord to build a nuclear reactor for sea water desalinisation and clinched deals on military-industrial and research cooperation, as well as cultural, scientific and technical assistance. The two countries also signed a partnership agreement on health, illegal immigration, counter-terrorism.
The deals were sealed late on Wednesday by French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Libyan leader, Muammer Gaddafi. They came just a after Sarkozy's wife, Cecilia, and his top aide, Claude Gueant, helped negotiate an agreement between Libya and the EU to release the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who had been sentenced to death for allegedly infecting more than 400 Libyan children with AIDS. The EU has stated that no money has been paid to Libya.
The French anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire slammed the civilian nuclear energy deal, describing it as "irresponsible" and "unjustifiable bartering". The group accused Sarkozy of working to build up a "nuclear trust" with French companies Areva, Alstom and Bouygues.
"The nuclear deal will allow these companies to boost their business in Libya, especially by building nuclear power stations," it said.
"Sea water desalinisation is merely a subterfuge to attempt to justify nuclear ...   more »