Torah Reading for the week of the gay parade:
Genesis 18:1-22:2Sodom & Gomorah
Etgar Lefkovits:  Oct. 30, 2006
Amidst mounting public opposition and threats of violence, Jerusalem police said Monday that they will reevaluate a permit given to hold a gay parade in the city next month.
The debate over the event, which is slated to take place on November 10, mirrors a similar controver
The burgeoning opposition to the local city parade has again united an unusual cross-party and inter-faith coalition of Conservative Orthodox Rabbis, Muslims, and Christians who call the event a deliberate affront and provocation to millions of believers around the world.
Supporters of the parade counter that freedom of speech enables them to hold the event in Jerusalem, as a symbol of tolerance and pluralism, even if theirs is the view of the minority of residents in the city.
The two-year-old public debate over the holding the international gay parade in Jerusalem in the last two years has only served to intensify the struggle over the local parade.
The local organizers of the event, still smarting over having to cancel two international parades in the city in as many years, have appealed to the High Court ...   more »

By Yusri Mohamed
ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt moved 5,000 more security forces near the Gaza Strip border on Saturday after an Israeli report said Israel may bomb tunnels used for smuggling weapons into Palestinian territories, an Egyptian official said.
"They requested reinforcements after the Israeli report and also citing fears of Palestinian militants breaching the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt," the official told Reuters in Cairo.
The 5,000 Egyptians were members of the police's central security force. They joined about 750 border guards already deployed along the area known as the Philadelphi Corridor, fearing the possible operation's impact on civilians living on the Egyptian side of the border.
The Israeli daily newspaper Maariv reported on Friday that precision-guided weapons would be used to penetrate deep underground in the hope of destroying the tunnel network that the Jewish state says riddles the area, which is 14 km (8.6 miles) long and approximately 100 metres (330 feet) wide.
The decision to use "smart" bombs may be a substitute to reoccupying the entire region, the newspaper said. Israel says it has been unable to control weapons smuggling into Gaza since it withdrew its forces from the coastal strip last ...   more »

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that the army was preparing an extensive operation in the Gaza Strip, with the government to make a decision on the offensive within days, an MP has said.
"The army is preparing for an even more extensive operation in the Gaza Strip," the prime minister was quoted by the source as telling parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee.  
"The government intends to reach a decision on the exact pattern of the operation in the coming days," Olmert was reported to have said.
At least 260 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed since current operations began late last June.
A government spokeswoman later tried to downplay Olmert's comments, insisting that Israel would continue along its current tack and that no significant tactical shift was afoot.
"Israel is determined to fight terror, not differently but continuously," spokeswoman Miri Eisen, who was inside the committee meeting while Olmert spoke, told AFP. "We won't change our mode of operation in the Gaza Strip and we will not go back to Gaza. We intend to continue our operation there and carry out pinpoint operations."
The prime minister reiterated insistence from top Israeli officials that the government ...   more »

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Coalition naval forces in the Persian Gulf are on watch for possible terror threats to oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Western naval officials said Friday.
A British navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said a threat from al-Qaida last month to target gulf oil terminals had resulted in stepped-up security and vigilance at Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura terminal, as well as a refinery in Bahrain.
Oil exports in the region were proceeding as normal, he said.
The British navy, part of the Italian-led Coalition Task Force 152 that patrols international waters off the Ras Tanura terminal, sent an e-mail warning on Friday asking merchant shippers in the region of Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia to be on alert for suspicious vessels or other activity.
Task Force 152 also contains ships from French, U.S., German and other navies. 
The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, said it was aware of the British warning.
“We support the recommendation that commercial mariners be especially vigilant while transiting the gulf,” Lt. Cmdr. Charles Brown said Friday in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.
Brown ...   more »

By The Associated Press  
Ships from the United States and five other countries will interdict a British vessel in the Persian Gulf on Monday in a mock interception of dangerous weapons technology, an exercise the U.S. expects nearby Iran to notice.
For the first time, an Arab nation, Bahrain, will participate in an exercise under the three-year-old proliferation security initiative. That U.S. program is aimed at getting countries to cooperate in halting shipments of materials that can be used for advanced weapons.
France, Italy, Britain and Australia also will participate in Monday's exercise, the 25th held under the initiative and the first held in the Persian Gulf. 
The practice interception comes as the United States is seeking support for UN sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program. On Friday, Iran stepped up its uranium enrichment program, according to a semiofficial news agency.
"From Iranian news reports we know the exercise got the attention of Iran," Robert Joseph, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said Friday.
The exercise also comes as the United States is urging northeast Asian countries for strict enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea, which detonated a nuclear explosion October 9. Those sanctions ...   more »

Human beings may be forced to be 'microchipped' like pet dogs, a shocking official report into the rise of the Big Brother state has warned.
The microchips - which are implanted under the skin - allow the wearer's movements to be tracked and store personal information about them.
They could be used by companies who want to keep tabs on an employee's movements or by Governments who want a foolproof way of identifying their citizens - and storing information about them.
The prospect of 'chip-citizens' - with its terrifying echoes of George Orwell's 'Big Brother' police state in the book 1984 - was raised in an official report for Britain's Information Commissioner Richard Thomas into the spread of surveillance technology.
The report, drawn up by a team of respected academics, claims that Britain is a world-leader in the use of surveillance technology and its citizens the most spied-upon in the free world.
It paints a frightening picture of what Britain might be like in ten years time unless steps are taken to regulate the use of CCTV and other spy technologies.
The reports editors Dr David Murakami Wood, managing editor of the journal Surveillance and Society and Dr Kirstie Ball, ...   more »

By The Associated Press and Haaretz Service  
Egypt is planning to deploy 5,000 additional troops along its border with the Gaza Strip in the event of a possible Israel Defense Forces operation against arms smuggling, an Egyptian source said late Saturday.
The additional force of mostly police officers will join the 750 officers and soldiers already deployed along the Philadelphi Route, a strip of land along the Egypt-Gaza border that has been used to smuggle weapons into the Palestinian Authority.
Officials in Jerusalem said early Sunday that Israel had been given no information regarding a planned increased Egyptian military presence at the Gaza border, Israel Radio reported. 
The officials said that Egypt had agreed to deploy 750 troops at the border, and would not deploy as many as 5,000 even if it were to buff up its forces, according to the radio.
The Egyptian source had said that the increased military and police presence was to serve as a precaution against possible IDF bombing of tunnels used for smuggling weapons into Gaza.
"We are monitoring the situation with concern, but we have yet to receive an official warning from Israel regarding an upcoming operation," said an Egyptian officer.
According ...   more »