Yaakov Katz and Jpost.com staff
Israel successfully launched the Amos 3 communications satellite from Kazakhstan Monday morning.
Takeoff had originally been slated for last week, but was postponed until Monday due to a failure in its launching system.
The satellite, which joins the Amos 1 and 2 in space, will provide high-quality broadcasting and communications services to Europe, the Middle East and the East Coast of the United States.
Army Radio reported Monday that Amos 3 will eventually replace Amos 1.
The satellite was built by Israel Aerospace Industries's MBT Space Division and is to replace the Amos 1, which was initially intended to operate for 11 years but has already been orbiting the Earth for 12.
The new satellite has a predicted operating life of 18 years and will carry a 250 kg. payload, compared to 160 kg. for the other Amos satellites. It is to be placed in a geostationary orbit, 36,000 km. from Earth.
In January, Israel launched the TecSar satellite, the first of its kind developed here, and one of the world's most advanced space systems. The TecSar can create high-resolution images using advanced radar technology called Synthetic Aperture Radar.
In addition to the TecSar and ...   more »

The Sea of Galilee, Israel's main source of fresh water, is dropping rapidly and could reach the dreaded "black line" - below which it is impossible to pump out any more water - in just three months.
According to experts cited in The Jerusalem Post Sunday, this past well-below average winter rainfall, which followed several similarly dry years, and is being aggravated by successive heat waves already experienced this year, is threatening the country with the worst water shortage it has ever known.
Over the week-long Passover holiday the Galilee - known in Israel as Lake Kinneret - dropped by an alarming six centimeters.
Israel's only other fresh-water reservoirs - two mountain acquifers - have also been badly depleted in recent years, and can only go down to a certain level before sea-water pressing in underground from the Mediterranean makes its water brackish and unfit for human consumption.
While Israel is building desalination plants to make sea water palatable, progress on these is painfully slow when seen against the rapidly-growing water need.
Original Source
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Likud official infers Temple Mount not Jewish holy place

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 Printer-friendly version By Stan Goodenough
October 17, 2007

The head of the Likud Party's foreign relations department gave a massive boost to the claims of Islam - Israel's most implacable enemy - Tuesday when he inferred that Jerusalem's Temple Mount was not sacred to the Jewish people.

Arab and other Muslim leaders and clerics, who assert that the hill is Islam's third holiest site, have long and fiercely maintained that the Jews have no historical connection or claim to the outcrop the Bible calls God's "holy hill."
While secular Jews often appear content to limit their "right" to the Western Wall, Israelis who have the fear of the Lord and who know that their nation's First and Second Temples were built on top of the mount will not agree to relinquishing it to the followers of another god.
Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the United States, and traditionally a right thinker on Israeli security issues, told a meeting of the Foreign Press Association that the Likud - which is led by former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - could allow an Arab or Muslim country to administer the site for ...   more »

By Stan Goodenough
The future of Israel's Golan Heights appears to be suddenly under renewed threat as reports during the Passover week that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had offered to give them to Syria in exchange for peace were quickly followed Sunday by Syrian demands for an Israeli guarantee of a complete pullout from the plateau.
According to the Qatari newspaper al-Watan, Syrian President Bashar el-Assad told Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Damascus demands a written commitment by Israel of the Jewish state's willingness to fully relinquish the Golan.
Assad said Israel's refusal thus far to make such a pledge meant that the time has still not come for peace.
Olmert, who spent some of his Passover vacation on the Heights, refused to deny Syrian claims reported on April 24 that he had messaged Assad via Erdogan that the Golan was up for grabs.
In September 2006, Israeli newspapers quoted Olmert as saying: "As long as I serve as prime minister the Golan Heights will remain in our hands because it is an integral part of the State of Israel."
Biblically part of the Land of Israel, and included in the inheritance of the Israelite half-tribe of Manasseh, the ...   more »

By ALIA IBRAHIM
BEIRUT, LEBANON - Abu Omar, a money changer and father of 11 who lives in Beirut, has bought at least 10 firearms since the beginning of last year. "Everything I can put my hands on and I can afford, I buy. I never sell," he said. "Now is a time for buying arms."
Many Lebanese, increasingly worried about the country's political paralysis devolving into violence, are preparing themselves in the same way. One measure of their anxiety is the price of small arms: An AK-47 that went for $75 to $100 a year ago now costs somewhere between $600 and $1,000.
Even larger, outdated arms are gaining value, including rocket-propelled grenade launchers that were once considered the "garbage of weapons," said Ghassan Qarhani, a former fighter familiar with the arms market. Today, RPG launchers cost $500, up from $50, he said, noting that they are useful for street warfare.
Civil war
Political tension has been rising in Lebanon since 2006, when opposition ministers resigned from Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's Cabinet. A stalemate between the government, backed by the U.S. and Europe, and opposition forces led by the Shiite Hezbollah movement, which is allied with Syria and Iran, ...   more »