Isaiah. 17 
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts. 4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. 5 And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the LORD God of Israel. 7 At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to ...   more »

Advisors to Syrian President Bashar Assad are pressuring him to respond to the alleged IAF attack by "landing a blow to an Israeli target," the Kuwait-based Al-Jareeda reported Wednesday. According to the report, Israel targeted long-range missile batteries that were brought to Syria from Iran. The report said five IAF fighter jets carried out the attack.
Israel Radio quoted the Kuwaiti paper to the effect that the group advocating a military response is being spearheaded by Assad's brother in law, who has met in recent days with senior Hizbullah and Hamas officials in an effort to draw up an operation plan.
The Kuwaiti paper also reported that the Syrian army has begun drafting reservists from the armed corps, missile corps and anti-aircraft units, and quoted "sources in the know" who said the draft was a response to Israel raising its level of readiness in the north.
According to a report by The Nazareth-based al-Sinara newspaper Wednesday, the IAF targeted a joint Syrian-Iranian missile base in northern Syria. Reportedly, the Iranian-funded installation was razed to the ground.
The report claimed its information was gleaned from an "Israeli source."
An official in the Bush administration told the New York Times Wednesday that ...   more »

CNN: U.S. pleased by Israel's Syria flyover 
The United States reportedly is pleased by Israel's alleged incursion of Syria last week.
The report followed Syria's charge that Israeli warplanes invaded its airspace Sept. 6 and dropped ordnance -- an allegation that Israeli and U.S. officials declined to confirm or deny.
According to CNN, the Americans believe that the operation may have involved Israeli ground troops as well as aircraft, and that the incursion may have targeted weapons supplied by Iran and passing through Syria en route to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
CNN quoted a U.S. source as saying the Israeli airstrike "left a big hole in the desert" in Syria.
Original Source


 

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Washington official says Israeli surveillance shows possible Syrian nuclear installation stocked by North Korea, Israeli Arab newspaper claims target of alleged raid last week was Syrian missile base financed by Iran
Israel believes that North Korea has been supplying Syria and Iran with nuclear materials, a Washington defense official told the New York Times. “The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left,” he said.  
Threat  
Syria warns flyovers will have tragic consequences / Roee Nahmias  
Damascus warns that international community's silence on Israel's violation of Syrian airspace will have tragic consequences    
The official added that recent Israeli reconnaissance flights over Syria revealed possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials estimate might have been supplied with material from North Korea.  
Meanwhile on Wednesday the Nazareth-based Israeli Arab newspaper The Assennara cited anonymous Israeli sources as saying that Israeli jets "bombed a Syrian-Iranian missile base in northern Syria that was financed by Iran... It appears that the base was completely destroyed."
According to the Times, American officials confirmed Tuesday that Israeli jets launched an airstrike inside Syria. Sources said that Israel struck at least one target in northeastern Syria, but ...   more »

Committee appointed by Chief Rabbinate of Israel forbids Jews from participating in annual Feast of Tabernacles parade, attended by thousands of Christian tourists, fearing missionary influences
Neta Sela
Every year at the annual Sukkot parade, thousands of tourists and Israelis stroll down Jerusalem's streets smiling and waving flags from around the world.  
This year, however, an official committee appointed by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has banned Jews from participating in the parade, fearing missionary influences, Ynet has learned.  
The committee presented its conclusions to members of the rabbinical council, which includes chief rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger. The two chief rabbis approved the edict, and it is expected to become official soon.  
The annual Sukkot parade is organized by the Jerusalem municipality and other official bodies. In addition, the committee barred participation in various events planned by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem at the Jerusalem International Convention Center in celebration of the holiday.  
The rabbinate claims to have good reason to believe that at the two events – the parade and the convention – Christian missionaries plan to solicit Jewish participants to convert to Christianity under the guise of amicability toward Israel and the ...   more »

Israel allows Muslims to pulverize antiquities as media, archeologists barred
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – A Jewish group representing hundreds of U.S. synagogues says it is "incomprehensible" that Israel is allowing a Muslim dig on the Temple Mount and has demanded Prime Minister Ehud Olmert immediately halt the blasting of a massive trench and allow archaeologists to inspect the site.
Members of the Waqf, the Islamic custodians of the Mount, are using bulldozers to carve on Judaism's holiest site a massive trench that reportedly is destroying antiquities from what archaeologists believe is a wall from the Second Jewish Temple.
Israel has barred archaeologists from inspecting the artifacts, believed to be from the outer courtyard of the Second Temple. If verified, the wall would be the most significant Jewish Temple find in history.
"It is incomprehensible that the State of Israel would allow for a non-Jewish religious entity that denies the very existence of the two Temples to be entrusted with digging on the Temple Mount. Such inconsistent and distorted principles signify a lack of sensitivity towards our own land and history," stated a letter to Olmert from the National Council of Young Israel.
The Council represents more than 150 community ...   more »

by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) The Palestinian Authority's Maan news agency has published a copy, in Hebrew, of PM Olmert's agreement to expel tens of thousands of Jews and replace them with a Palestinian state.
The report states that Israel has agreed to begin destroying Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria immediately following the US-sponsored international summit this coming November.
The PA claims that the document's eight points represent the principles of agreement between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, in anticipation of the upcoming Middle East summit.
The document begins by stating that Israel and the PA are to immediately enter a process "that will lead to the formation of two states, Israel and Palestine, side by side," and are "to reach understandings of the type detailed below."  The eight points upon which Olmert and Abbas undertake to agree are the following:
1. Israel will end the occupation of the West Bank within an agreed-upon time period. The retreat and the evacuation of the settlements will occur gradually and in several stages. Each area that is evacuated will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority, which will instill law and order there.  The existence of a regime in ...   more »

Normally I smile at naivete - it is often a charming character trait, and when you came across it, it can brighten a dull day. If I thought that Dave Biggart's letter, Yes 2ID Cards, simply reflected naivete, I would have smiled - but so many mis-statements or potentially dangerous misapprehensions on this subject that appear in print need to be challenged.
To deal with gross factual inaccuracies first: the government's plans for ID cards do not include any provision for medical records and will not replace the driving licence, and a national database for DNA will not in any way aid medical research. If kept as proposed, it overturns the fundamental legal principle of innocent until proven guilty - it would work on the basis of a presumption that all of us are guilty until eliminated from enquires by the DNA test.
Beyond that, there are a number of issues about ID cards which need to be examined, but I would like simply to look at two.
Will they work? The government's track record here is well known - the NHS computer system in England is several billion pounds over budget and several years behind schedule, and as he ...   more »

The Business Journal of Phoenix - 1:39 PM MST Monday, September 10, 2007by Mike SunnucksThe Business Journal
The Bush administration announced Monday it is granting $66.2 million to reduce congestion and improve freight flow on several so-called NAFTA highways.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is allocating the money so it can work with state and local governments and the private sector on six interstate highways, with projects including the addition of bypasses and trucks-only lanes. Five of those highways connect to or run near the Mexican or Canadian borders:
Interstate 15, which runs from San Diego through part of northwest Arizona all the way to the Canadian border.
Interstate 10, which runs near the Mexican border from California through Arizona to Florida.
Intestates 95, which runs from Florida through the northeastern U.S. to Canada.
Interstate 5, which runs from the California-Mexico border through Oregon to the Washington-Canada border.
Interstate 69, which free-trade backers hope to turn into a NAFTA superhighway, connecting an existing freeway between Indianapolis and Canada to a proposed highway running south into Texas and splitting to connect with Mexican border crossings at Laredo, Brownsville and McAllen.
The only nonborder highway getting grant money from the Bush administration ...   more »

Computer networks were classified
Federal Government will not comment
New Zealand confirms foreign hacking
CHINA has allegedly tried to hack into highly classified government computer networks in Australia and New Zealand as part of a broader international operation to glean military secrets from Western nations.
The Howard Government yesterday would neither confirm nor deny that its agencies, including the Defence Department, had been subject to cyber attack from China, but government sources acknowledge that thwarting such assaults is a continuous challenge.
"It's a serious problem, it's ongoing and it's real," one senior government source said.
Western intelligence experts say that China has also targeted the US, Canada, Germany and Japan as part of its global intelligence-gathering effort.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday confirmed that foreign intelligence agencies had tried to hack into government computer networks, but said they had not compromised top-secret data banks.
"The assurance I've been given by intelligence agencies is that no classified information has been at risk at all," Miss Clark said.
"We have very smart people to provide protection every time an attack is tried. Obviously we learn from that.
"What I can stress is that absolutely no classified information has ever been ...   more »

 President Vladimir Putin dissolved Russia's government Wednesday and then quickly nominates Viktor Zubkov, a Russian Cabinet official who oversees the fight against money laundering, to be the new prime minister.
Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the State Duma, said Putin nominated Zubkov, who heads the Federal Financial Monitoring Service and who served under Putin when the two worked in the city administration of St. Petersburg in the early 1990s.
Earlier Wednesday, in a major political shakeup, Putin dismissed Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and dissolved his cabinet, paving the way for Putin to name a new head of government.
Most observers had expected that the new premier would be the leading contender to succeed Putin when he steps down after March elections.
But Zubkov had not been even considered as a contender.
A Kremlin source told FOX News that Zubkov was not Putin's choice to be the next president of Russia.
The newspaper Vedomosti, citing unidentified Kremlin officials, reported that Sergei Ivanov, a first deputy prime minister and a leading contender to succeed Putin, could be appointed to replace Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.
Another first deputy prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, who is a top executive at natural gas monopoly OAO Gazprom, ...   more »

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Russia has delivered a belligerent message of defiance to the West after army generals claimed to have tested "the father of all bombs".
Putin quick to pick Russian prime minister
Peter Foster blog: Bombs and bombast
Developed in secret, the unchristened bomb, a vacuum device capable of emitting shockwaves as powerful as a nuclear weapon, was unveiled with great theatre on state television's main evening broadcast.   
A mushroom cloud rises over a plain as Russia’s military test their latest weapon
Boasting that the weapon had "no match in the world," ORT First Channel television showed a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber dropping its payload over a testing ground, followed by a massive explosion.
Pictures of what appeared to be crumpled multi-storey apartment blocks were also broadcast.
Although there was no independent verification of the Russian military's claim, the test is likely to cause further consternation in the West after a series of bellicose statements by the president, Vladimir Putin.
According to Russian generals, the bomb is four times more powerful than the American Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb or MOAB.
advertisementBetter known as the Mother of All Bombs, the MOAB is a descendent of the ...   more »

By James Rosen
A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime, FOX News confirmed Tuesday.
Germany — a pivotal player among three European nations to rein in Iran's nuclear program over the last two-and-a-half years through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions supported by the United States — notified its allies last week that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to support the imposition of any further sanctions against Iran that could be imposed by the U.N. Security Council.
The announcement was made at a meeting in Berlin that brought German officials together with Iran desk officers from the five member states of the Security Council. It stunned the room, according to one of several Bush administration and foreign government sources who spoke to FOX News, and left most Bush administration principals concluding that sanctions are dead.
The Germans voiced concern about the damaging effects any further sanctions on Iran would have on the German economy — and also, according to diplomats from other countries, gave the distinct impression that they ...   more »