Gil Hoffman
Shas's Council of Torah Sages will convene at the home of party mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in Jerusalem's Har Nor neighborhood on Sunday night to consider leaving Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's coalition over the diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinians.
The council is not expected to authorize leaving the coalition at this stage, but the rabbis will likely decide to empower Yosef and Shas chairman Eli Yishai to leave the government when they see fit, without another meeting of the council.
Yishai will brief the rabbis about his meeting with Olmert last week and report what he hears from the Prime Minister's Office following Olmert's meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas earlier Sunday.
"The council meeting is a step on the way to leaving the coalition, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it will happen soon," a Shas official said Saturday night.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will meet at her Jerusalem office with representatives of the bereaved families and reserve soldiers who have repeatedly called upon Olmert to quit. Livni asked the group not to bring with them any politicians connected to them such as Tafnit leader Uzi Dayan.
"There is no political significance to the meeting," ...   more »

Justice for Jews from Arab Countries
January 17, 2008 - (New York, NY) Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC) is pleased that President George Bush raised the issue of Jews from Arab countries while on his official visit to Israel in early January. In an article headlined, "Bush aware of Jewish Refugee' Plight," The Jerusalem Post said the U.S. President was "very conscious" that Jewish refugees fled to Israel from Arab lands after the 1947-49 war, and that one of the points that came up in Bush's discussion was the number of Jewish refugees that were created in the period after 1948.
This report of President Bush's interest in the plight of Jews from Arab countries, comes after the December visit to the White House by Maurice Shohet, a long time member of JJAC's International Steering Committee. Joining Mr. Shohet at the White House were Professor Judea Pearl and Ruth Pearl, parents of slain Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, all of whom spoke to President Bush on the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab counties. This followed the recent Annapolis Peace Conference, where JJAC issued a declaration which stated, inter alia: "The exclusion and denial of rights and ...   more »

by Gerald A. Honigman
Ever since the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479-1425 B.C.E.), Gaza has been a major invasion route for Egyptians into the land of Canaan/Israel. Shoshenk I recorded the cities he crushed in Israel.
It appears that the Pharaohs accepted, for one reason or another, the settlement of the area along the coast between Egypt and Canaan by "the Sea Peoples," the Philistines--the Plishtim of the Hebrew Bible, non-Semitic immigrants from the Aegean Sea area around Crete whom the Jews called "the uncircumcised ones." Five cities in that coastal area, including Gaza, became their domain, for long a major headache for the Jews. David slew the warrior Goliath from another one of those cities, Gath; Samson had Philistine girlfriend problems; and so forth. The Hebrew Prophet Amos (9:7) proclaimed, "Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor (Crete)…? "
That last sentence above is especially interesting. If you really want to know the essence of Hebraic monotheism, read the Hebraic Prophets…such as the one above. So much for the Jews' ...   more »

Defense officials decide to seal off tourist sites near Egyptian border due to Palestinian breach of Egypt border; on Thursday, the army closed down borderline highwaynet
Hiking trails and tourist sites near the Egyptian border will be closed down as of Saturday night as a result of the Gaza border breach that saw Palestinian masses enter the Sinai, the IDF Spokesperson's Office said.  
On Thursday, the army sealed off Highway 10 along the border.     
The decision to temporarily seal off the area was taken by defense officials in order to boost the level of security in the area and better protect Israeli citizens. The defense establishment is concerned that terrorists may have taken advantage of the Gaza border chaos to cross into Egypt.  
The army called on Israelis to refrain from arriving at the areas closed off as a result of the heightened security threat.  
Sinai abductions feared
In addition to Thursday's road closure, the IDF adopted several other measures in order to boost the level of security along the border, military officials said.   
Security officials from the various defense establishment branches have been consulting to assess the situation, while the IDF has maintained contacts ...   more »

by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Jacques Gauthier, a non-Jewish Canadian lawyer who spent 20 years researching the legal status of Jerusalem, has concluded: "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, by international law."
Gauthier has written a doctoral dissertation on the topic of Jerusalem and its legal history, based on international treaties and resolutions of the past 90 years.  The dissertation runs some 1,300 pages, with 3,000 footnotes.  Gauthier had to present his thesis to a world-famous Jewish historian and two leading international lawyers - the Jewish one of whom has represented the Palestinian Authority on numerous occasions.
Gauthier's main point, as summarized by Israpundit editor Ted Belman, is that a non-broken series of treaties and resolutions, as laid out by the San Remo Resolution, the League of Nations and the United Nations, gives the Jewish People title to the city of Jerusalem.  The process began at San Remo, Italy, when the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I - Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan - agreed to create a Jewish national home in what is now the Land of Israel. 
San Remo
The relevant resolution reads as follows: "The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust... the administration of Palestine, within ...   more »

IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Monday evening at the inauguration ceremony of new head of National Center for Globalization Studies, "mankind's gravest need today is a global government."
Appreciating the services rendered by the former head of that center (formerly called the International Center for Dialogue among Civilizations), Dr. Mohammad Nahavandian, the President said that choosing Esfandiar Rahim-Masha'ie was "based on precise calculations, and in accordance with a plan for the center."
The president added, "The Center for Globalization Studies must be a very dynamic center, able to take long studies forward, thanks to the presence of thinkers and intellectuals from various academic fields, able to pursue globalization discussions throughout the world."
Pointing out that God has definitely been pursuing objectives in creation of man, he stressed, "Almighty Allah has drawn the horizons of man's blessed life in this world and how to achieve that objective, based on man's innate desires and in the framework of his social relations with the others."
The President emphasized, "Man is created to be a global creature, as all divine religions are global, and if he would be deprived of this aspect of his personality, neither anything would remain of his humanity, nor ...   more »

WASHINGTON: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, in an interview published Saturday, that Iran is "quite advanced" in its work on atomic weapons and may already be fashioning a nuclear warhead.
"We suspect they are probably already working on warheads for ground-to-ground missiles," Barak said in an interview with The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine.
He also suggested that Iranians "probably ... have another clandestine enrichment operation beyond the one in Natanz."
The remarks were in stark contrast the conclusion of a US National Intelligence Estimate released late last year that said Tehran had abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons as far back as 2003.
Barak sharply disagreed with this assessment. "Our interpretation is that clearly the Iranians are aiming at nuclear capability," he said. "It's probably true that ... they may have slowed down the weapons group in 2003, because it was the height of American militarism."
But he said Israel now believed that Iranians "are quite advanced, much beyond the level of the Manhattan Project."
He did not elaborate. The World War II-era Manhattan Project helped the United States develop the nuclear bombs that were dropped in August of 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  ...   more »

Iran has received nearly all of the initial nuclear fuel it needs for a power plant in the southern port of Bushehr with the arrival of a seventh shipment from Russia on Saturday, state media reported.
The 11-ton consignment of enriched uranium arrived at the light-water nuclear power plant Saturday morning. The final shipment of the fuel is expected at a "determined time," the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
"Of 82 tons of initial fuel needed for the Bushehr nuclear power plant, 77 tons have been shipped to Iran so far," it added.
Iran received the first shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia on Dec. 17 after months of dispute between the two countries, allegedly over delayed construction payments for the reactor.
Iran has said Bushehr, the oil-rich country's first nuclear reactor, will begin operating in the summer of 2008, producing half its 1,000-megawatt capacity of electricity.
Tehran heralded the first shipment as a victory, saying it proved its nuclear program was peaceful and not a cover for weapons development as claimed by the U.S. and some of its allies.
The U.S. initially opposed Russian participation in building the Bushehr reactor and supplying it with fuel, but reversed its position ...   more »

Iran continues to process uranium; gas is placed into centrifuges, becomes enriched uranium used for either producing electricity or manufacturing nuclear weapons depending on level of enrichment. New UN sanctions expected
An Iranian official said Sunday that the Islamic republic has increased its production to more than 300 tons of a gas used for uranium enrichment, a semiofficial news agency reported.  
The announcement comes as the UN Security Council is deciding whether to impose new economic sanctions against Iran for refusing to roll back its nuclear activities.   
Defense minister tells Washington Post Israel suspects Iran 'much beyond level of Manhattan Project'    
"The Isfahan uranium conversion facility is active, and it has produced more than 300 tons of UF6," otherwise known as uranium hexaflouride gas, the Fars news agency quoted Javad Vaidi, deputy of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, as saying in meeting to members of the Revolutionary Guards. The Fars news agency is considered close to the elite branch of Iran's military.
The central Iranian cities of Isfahan and Natanz house the heart of the Iran's nuclear program. In Isfahan, a conversion facility reprocesses raw uranium, known as yellowcake, into uranium hexaflouride gas. The gas is then ...   more »

North Korea is preparing to sell minisubmarines to Iran, according to Japan’s Sankei Shimbun. The minisubs wouldlikely be deployed in the strategic Straits of Hormuz through which much of the world's oil transits.
The newspaper reported Jan. 18 that North Korea is negotiating to sell the submarines in exchange for debts incurred by Pyongyang, quoting a source familiar with North Korea affairs.
The report said Iran is urging North Korea to upgrade existing North Korean small submarines as a way for Iran to bolster its naval power.    
“Perhaps, Iran needs to improve the performance of the submarines for the purpose of tightening security,” following growing tensions in Strait of Hormuz, the source said.
Negotiations between the two nations were held in February and July of last year.
The report said North Korea is believed to have some 50 small submarines.
Iran has several Russian-made Kilo-class submarines.
U.S. intelligence officials said Iran purchased gunboats from North Korea in 2002.
A U.S. official confirmed that North Korea is continuing to sell weapons to Iran but did not specify what type.
 Original Source

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Microchips Everywhere: Boon for Retailers, Bane for Privacy Advocates
Here's a vision of the not-so-distant future:
--Microchips with antennas will be embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items -- and, by extension, consumers -- wherever they go, from a distance.
--A seamless, global network of electronic "sniffers" will scan radio tags in myriad public settings, identifying people and their tastes instantly so that customized ads, "live spam," may be beamed at them.
--In "Smart Homes," sensors built into walls, floors and appliances will inventory possessions, record eating habits, monitor medicine cabinets -- all the while, silently reporting data to marketers eager for a peek into the occupants' private lives.Science fiction?
In truth, much of the radio frequency identification technology that enables objects and people to be tagged and tracked wirelessly already exists -- and new and potentially intrusive uses of it are being patented, perfected and deployed.
Some of the world's largest corporations are vested in the success of RFID technology, which couples highly miniaturized computers with radio antennas to broadcast information about sales and buyers to company databases.
Already, microchips are turning up in some computer printers, ...   more »

By Sean Coughlan  
Three Digital Pigs  
A story based on the Three Little Pigs fairy tale has been turned down by a government agency's awards panel as the subject matter could offend Muslims.
The digital book, re-telling the classic story, was rejected by judges who warned that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues".
Becta, the government's educational technology agency, is a leading partner in the annual Bett Award for schools.
The judges also attacked Three Little Cowboy Builders for offending builders.
The book's creative director, Anne Curtis, said the idea that including pigs in a story could be interpreted as racism was "like a slap in the face".
'Cultural issues'
The CD-Rom digital version of the traditional story of the three little pigs, called Three Little Cowboy Builders, is aimed at primary school children.
But judges at this year's Bett Award said that they had "concerns about the Asian community and the use of pigs raises cultural issues".
The Three Little Cowboy Builders has already been a prize winner at the recent Education Resource Award - but its Newcastle-based publishers, Shoo-fly, were turned down by the Bett Award panel.
The feedback from the judges explaining why they ...   more »

Robert Reich warns a recession, or worse, could be coming.
Think the last few days have been bad for Wall Street and the rest of the world's markets? Hang on, things are probably going to get worse, says Robert Reich, President Clinton's former secretary of Labor and author of the recent book "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life." According to Reich, who currently teaches public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, the United States might even be headed toward a depression.
NEWSWEEK's Arlyn Tobias Gajilan talked to Reich about the Fed's surprise rate cut Wednesday, the "D word," the growing criticism of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and whether a stimulus package will include $500 check for each American. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Many investors had hoped for an interest-rate cut, but this cut's size and timing took people by surprise. Were you taken aback by the Fed's three-quarter basis-point cut, the largest single-day reduction in the Fed's history? And do you think it's necessary?
Robert Reich: Yes and yes. The Fed is clearly becoming aware of the serious potential of an economic meltdown. The size of the cut is larger than anyone expected because the Fed usually ...   more »

There were strange goings on at the farm today when a flock of sheep made their own version of a crop circle.
About 100 of the woolly creatures formed an orderly ring - baffling the farmer and passers-by.
But after hearing the roar of the boss's tractor the animals scattered like a group of naughty schoolboys.
Ewe must be joking: Sheep form a perfect ring in Herefordshire in a bid to copy crop circle
Photographer Russell Bird, who captured the amazing scene, said:"I was quite taken aback. I couldn't believe what I was seeing," he said.
I did see a dog worrying sheep nearby beforehand and the dog ran off round the hedge in a different field, so I don't know if they were discussing that."
Baa-rmy: A sheep yesterday enjoys some grass
Bizarrely, he then spotted another circle three fields away, but was unable to take a picture with both "formations" lasting around 10 minutes before dispersing.
Estate agent Mr Bird added of the scene in Kington, Herefordshire: "They moved around inside and were almost filling the gaps in.
"The only reason this circle came to an end was that the farmer came in with a tractor and some ...   more »

By Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent, and Reuters
NEW YORK - Under pressure from Syria, Libya is withholding support for a Security Council draft declaration which includes an unprecedented condemnation of Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.
The draft presidential declaration devised by the United States gained approval of 14 out of 15 member states that comprise the Security Council.
Sources at the UN told Haaretz that all 15 states were minutes from signing the non-punitive declaration which for the first time ever condemns ongoing Qassam fire at southern Israel from Gaza, when Syria pressured Libya's ambassador to the UN, Giadalla Ettalhi, who this month assumed the rotating presidency of the Security Council, to reconsider the bill at the last minute.
A decision on the draft statement is expected to be reached when the Security Council reconvenes on Monday. UN sources said Libya has requested time to discuss the declaration with other Arab states. The statement would also condemn other terrorist activities against Israel.
Sources at the UN headquarters in New York said the U.S. proposed the draft after a third day of discussions Thursday failed to produce agreement on a presidential statement about the situation in Gaza.
The draft ...   more »

President Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan's success in fighting terrorism is critical and any failure could impact on the West.
In an address to a British think tank, he called for support and encouragement not "criticisms and insinuations".
He outlined his strategy for defeating al-Qaeda and the Taleban, and securing Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
The president reiterated that delayed elections now due next month would be "free, fair, transparent and peaceful".
In his speech to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, he said: "I would ask anyone to give me how [the polls] can be rigged, and if anyone gives me any suggestion, I would be too glad to pass it onto the chief election commissioner for implementation."
 We have to win because if we lose I think it will have an impact on the region and the world, maybe in the streets of Europe
President Musharraf 
Parliamentary polls planned for January were postponed until 18 February after the opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated at a campaign rally.
The president insisted that his country was capable of carrying out a full investigation into her death.
He said that the assistance of detectives from the UK had ...   more »

By Caroline B. Glick      
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had his first reported telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Their conversation was a sign of the rising intimacy in Egyptian-Iranian relations in the wake of November's US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program. According to media reports, the two men discussed the situation in Gaza.
Their conversation brought immediate results. Wednesday Mubarak allowed Hamas to take control of the international border between Egypt and Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans streamed across the border. Mubarak maintained his faith with Ahmadinejad even after the US Wednesday afternoon began demanding that he reassert Egyptian control over the border. Wednesday evening Mubarak said that the border will remain open.
Wednesday's border takeover by Hamas was but the latest escalation of the Palestinian campaign for control over the international border. This campaign has been ongoing since Israel withdrew in 2005 and was sharply escalated after Hamas seized control over Gaza last June.
Many claim that Hamas's aim of attaching Gaza to the rest of the Arab world by opening its border with Egypt is good for Israel because it allows Israel to disengage completely from Gaza. And there is ...   more »

It was only last week that I read what first appeared to be the kind of headline you see when walking out a supermarket checkout, like "Man Has Two-Headed Baby" or "B-52 Found on Mars."
But this headline, "Scientist Clones Himself," was real. Samuel Wood, a researcher at Stemagen Corporation in La Jolla, Calif., plucked cells from his skin and injected them into donated eggs that had been treated to remove their own genetic material.
The eggs developed into very early stage embryos that were genetically identical to the scientist's own DNA. It wasn't the first time that scientific pride overtook scientific ethics – a cloned human embryo was created at Newcastle University in Great Britain, although it survived just a few days.
Dr. Wood, on the other hand, cloned himself for the express purpose of extracting the resulting embryo's stem cells, killing "himself" in the process.
It gets scarier and scarier: Two teams of researchers have been licensed to create a hybrid cow/human embryo for use in medical research to cure human diseases. The license was granted because the scientists said there was a shortage of human embryos for research.
The hybrids are 99 percent human and under the ...   more »

Scientists and industry have been working together to create a global surveillance network.  It naturally weights itself to provide greater coverage for greater populations, contains more distributed computing power than the entirety of NASA, doesn't cost a single tax dollar and people waste it all talking about 'Lost'.  Yes, you and your cellphone friends are part of one of the most powerful network in the world and researchers at Purdue University have found a more important use for it than arguing about where to eat lunch.
Their design converts your local coverage area into a vast radiation detection grid, capable of thwarting the modern-day boogieman of nuclear terrorism once and for all.  You might think adding a directional nuclear detection rig to your handset would make it even more expensive than an iPhone, not to mention ruining the line of your pocket, and you'd be right.  The key to the system is the universality of mobile phones throughout the civilized world - rather than complicated detection components, a simple, light and very cheap "hotter/colder" solid state sensor in each handset is enough.  Data transmitted from each to a central computer (and it turns out mobile phones can send data pretty ...   more »

BY SETH GITELL 
The nation's largest and most prominent mainline Protestant denomination, the 11 million-member United Methodist Church — whose members include both President Bush and Senator Clinton — is set to take up the issue of whether to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
The meeting, which is to be held on Friday in Fort Worth, Texas, will mark the highest level of consideration that the subject of economic divestment from the Jewish state has received within the Methodist denomination.
Key questions hanging over the event will be whether the church will decide to use its $16 billion pension fund as an economic tool against Israel, and whether divestment would shatter the church's traditional relationship with American Jews.If the church moves ahead with a divestment resolution on the national level, the denomination would become the largest Protestant group to embrace such a measure. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which has 2.4 million members, voted in favor of such a measure in 2004. Another important liberal denomination, the United Church of Christ, went in the other direction last summer when it opted to engage in a "balanced study" of the Middle East conflict.
"I would counsel ...   more »