Chuck Baldwin
George W. Bush was twice elected President of the United States with great assistance from evangelical Christians, who, almost universally, believed he was a born-again believer. Many still hold onto that belief. In fact, evangelical Christians compose the bulk of the ever-shrinking base of support Bush has left. This is due almost exclusively to this belief that Bush is a born-again Christian.
As a minister of the Gospel for more than three decades, I have witnessed professing Christians do and say just about anything one would associate with unbelief. In fact, nowadays the line dividing believers and unbelievers seems practically nonexistent.
I've known unbelievers who are far kinder and more compassionate than many professing believers. In fact, professing Christians are sometimes even meaner and more cantankerous than unbelievers. (Don't get me wrong: I've known many unbelievers who were as mean as rattlesnakes, too.)
Another paradox to me is how so many professing believers (including pastors) seem to lack the spiritual discernment to understand even the simplest principles. This is especially true regarding the principles of freedom and national independence. One would assume that knowledge of the Scriptures, along with the aid of the Holy Spirit, would cause believers ...   more »

London-based Palestinian daily quotes Abbas aide as saying, Israel and Palestinians have agreed to transfer control of parts of Old City in Jerusalem to Jordan as part of future peace agreement
Roee Nahmias
Israel and the Palestinians have agreed that the Temple Mount as well as other parts of the Old City in Jerusalem will be under Jordanian control as part of a future peace deal, a Palestinian daily reported on Monday.
The London-based al-Quds al-Arabi reported that President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reached the agreement during recent talks in Jerusalem. Under the arrangement, the Old City's Arab residents will be granted Jordanian citizenship.
The newspaper did not say whether Israel would keep control of Jewish holy sites and neighborhoods in the Old City.
The arrangement will make the Jordanian monarchy a guardian of holy Muslim shrines in Jerusalem.
The plan's details and implementation will be supervised by Jordan, Israel, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations, the newspaper said.
The report comes a day after remarks by Vice Premier Haim Ramon that Abbas and Olmert will discuss the status of Jerusalem during the US-sponsored talks in November.
Ramon said it was in Israel's interest to ...   more »

Knesset convenes for first meeting of winter session; Olmert says Israel must move ahead with peace talks, while fighting Gaza terror. Opposition leader Netanyahu warns: Giving away parts of West Bank would enable Hamas to fire rockets at Tel Aviv
Amnon Meranda Latest Update:  10.08.07, 18:25 / Israel News 
One hundred and twenty Knesset members convened Monday for the opening meeting of the Knesset’s winter session.
The main issue on the agenda was the US-backed peace conference scheduled to take place in November. “Important decisions are before us,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during his speech before the Knesset Members.
“Even in times of test, of arguments, conflicts must be dealt with in a relevant manner and with mutual respect. It isn’t about a struggle between good and evil,” the prime minister continued.
"We must give negotiations a chance. Israel has excellent excuses to justify stagnation in the talks. I don't mean to look for excuses. I'm determined to give a chance to a meaningful diplomatic process, jointly with Abu Mazen (PA President Mahmoud Abbas). Any other alternative would mean a devastating demographic struggle."
Olmert added that, "The road to an agreement is still long and paved with obstacles and ...   more »

By H.Varulkar*
 To view this Inquiry and Analysis in HTML, visit: "What is the daily schedule of the Syrian citizen during power outages? At
night, naturally, he spends his evening by candlelight or by the light of a
flashlight, and if neither are available, there's nothing wrong with moonlight
either. In this way, our ridiculous authorities aspire to restore the
productivity to our troubled souls. As we know, the light of the moon revives
our souls and enriches our imagination, and it has the power to transform us
into silver-tongued lovers or poets. The afternoon is the worst time for a
serious power outage – especially in the middle of a burning hot summer. The
hours between one and four or five transform one from a keen-sensed poet into a
crazed murderer... You curse your mother and your father who brought you into
Syria."(1) 
- Ahmad Mawloud Al-Tayyar, a resident of the city of Al-Raqqa,
describes life in Syria under electricity outages
Since early summer 2007, Syria has been suffering from a severe electricity
crisis, the worst in many years. Recurring power outages last four to 10 hours a
day, and this has obviously affected the lives of Syria's citizens, ...   more »

by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
 The Palestinian Authority (Fatah) daily newspaper’s political cartoon today illustrated a prayer for the killing of Americans. A Muslim is shown kneeling in prayer facing a US B-2 Stealth Bomber. The words of his prayer are encased in missiles aimed at Americans:
"Allah, scatter them!”
“And turn their wives into widows!”
“And turn their children into orphans!”
“And give us victory over them!”
This curse for the death of Americans is a special prayer for Al-Qadr Night (the 27 th day of Ramadan, noted in the corner of the cartoon), when Muslims customarily pray in mosques throughout the night.
This continues the identification by the PA and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction with those who fight and kill Americans. The most recently published 12 th grade PA schoolbooks, for example, call those who fight American soldiers in Iraq "brave resistance.”

Original Source

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Yedioth Ahronoth and Dahaf Institute survey reveals 52% of Israeli Jews willing to change Jerusalem's status as part of a permanent peace agreement with Palestinians, but 61% believe Israel should remain city's sovereign
Ynet
Despite the ongoing political discussion over the creation of fringe neighborhoods in Jerusalem, most Israelis are in no hurry to back the changes suggested by Vice Premier Haim Ramon and Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman in the capital's status-quo.
According to a poll carried out by Dr Mina Tzemach and the Dahaf Institute among the Jewish asult population in Israel and published by Yedioth Ahronoth Tuesday, while most Israeli Jews are against changing the current situation in Jerusalem, many are willing to consider changes the status-quo of the city's holy places.
Struggle for Jerusalem 
When asked whether or not Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could achieve a public mandate allowing him to change Jerusalem's status as part of a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians, 52% of those taking part in the poll said they would lend their support to such a move if 80% of the ministers were behind it.
Some 22% said they would support the move should a referendum be held, 10% would ...   more »

Etgar Lefkovits
Any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will require the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in all of east Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Adnan Husseini told The Jerusalem Post Monday.
The comments by Husseini, who previously served as director of the Wakf (Muslim religious trust) that administers the Temple Mount, highlighted the immense gap between the parties regarding Jerusalem, and cast doubt on whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's longstanding proposal to cede Arab neighborhoods on the city's periphery as part of a final peace agreement could serve as basis for such an accord.
"The outline for Jerusalem is very clear," Husseini said. "East Jerusalem is for the Palestinians and west Jerusalem is for the Israelis."
A division of the city that would leave Jewish neighborhoods under Israeli control and put Arab neighborhoods under Palestinian control was at the core of then-US president Bill Clinton's peace plan that Yasser Arafat rejected seven years ago at Camp David.
Husseini said that he had "no information" about a reported agreement between Olmert and PA President Mahmoud Abbas that would give Jordan control over parts of the Old City - including the Temple Mount - as part ...   more »

By Tim Shipman
British defence officials have held talks with their Pentagon counterparts about how they could help out if America chose to bomb Iran.
Gordon Brown 'will back air strikes on Iran'
The man who stands between US and new war
Michael Burleigh: Drum beaters for Iran war should think again
Washington sources say that America has shelved plans for an all-out assault, drawn up to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities and take out the Islamist regime.
The US is planning a strike on Iran's Revolutionary Guards
The Sunday Telegraph has learned that President Bush's White House national security council is discussing instead a plan to launch pinpoint attacks on bases operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds force, blamed for training Iraqi militants.
Pentagon officials have revealed that President Bush won an understanding with Gordon Brown in July that Britain would support air strikes if they could be justified as a counter-terrorist operation.
Since then discussions about what Britain might contribute militarily, to combat Iranian retaliation that would follow US air strikes, have been held between ministers and officials in the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence.
Vincent Cannistraro — who served as intelligence chief on Ronald Reagan's ...   more »

By Diana West    
 I wasn't going to write about Ramadan in official Washington this fall season not again. But I just can't resist.
First, there are all the holiday trappings of this by-now annual column such seasonal staples as my all-time favorite "war on terror" quotation from Abu Qatada, the al Qaeda-linked cleric. I just love to trot it out around Ramadan after President Bush has said something utterly ignorant about Islam meaning peace, or, addressing the Muslim pooh-bahs he always has in to the White House for a fast-breaking Iftar dinner, about how the jihadists have "twisted" Islam.
"I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in the Koran that justifies jihad violence in the name of Islam," Abu Qatada said about six years ago. "Is he some kind of Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Koran?" Ah, me. Good stuff.
Then there's the holiday excitement of combing through the White House Iftar dinner guest list looking for unindicted co-conspirators. Since I had to put this column together before White House Iftar 2007, I turned to White House Ramadans past, reading through the president's old speeches-2001 through 2006 to see if I'd ...   more »

By JULIE MASON
In separate rooms on overlapping morning hours at the National Press Club this week, two very different groups were launching the next rounds in the simmering immigration fight.
In the Zenger Room, named for German immigrant John Peter Zenger, who helped establish free speech law, Californians for Population Stabilization released a study claiming there are 20 million to 38 million illegal immigrants in America, not the 12 million the federal government says.
"Immigration is in a state of anarchy," organization member James Walsh, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service lawyer, fervently told the room. "Not chaos, anarchy."
Two doors down in the Murrow Room, named for American broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, the Spanish-language network Telemundo debuted a series of upbeat public service announcements urging their audience to register and vote.
News anchor Jose Diaz-Balart said Telemundo wants to leverage the passion from last year's immigration rallies into a stronger turnout among Latinos, who historically vote at disproportionately low rates.
"Hispanics in the U.S. will now have a way to channel all that frustration and do some good," Diaz-Balart said.
Whether the two groups were aware of each other, neither side let on. But each represents emerging new ...   more »

Looking high and low, Robbin Thorp can no longer find a species of bumblebee that just five years ago was plentiful in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon.
Thorp, an emeritus professor of entomology from the University of California at Davis, found one solitary worker last year along a remote mountain trail in the Siskiyou Mountains, but hasn't been able to locate any this year.
He fears that the species — Franklin's bumblebee — has gone extinct before anyone could even propose it for the endangered species list. To make matters worse, two other bumblebee species — one on the East coast, one on the West — have gone from common to rare.
Amid the uproar over global warming and mysterious disappearances of honeybee colonies, concern over the plight of the lowly bumblebee has been confined to scientists laboring in obscurity.
But if bumblebees were to disappear, farmers and entomologists warn, the consequences would be huge, especially coming on top of the problems with honeybees, which are active at different times and on different crop species.Bumblebees are responsible for pollinating an estimated 15 percent of all the crops grown in the U.S., worth $3 billion, particularly those raised in greenhouses. Those ...   more »

Iranian news outlet claims nuclear experts packed their bags Friday, increasing speculation of imminent U.S., Israeli attack
Paul Joseph Watson
Iranian and Israeli news outlets are reporting that Russia has evacuated its entire staff of nuclear engineers and experts who were working at the Bushehr nuclear reactor, increasing speculation that the United States is preparing an imminent military attack on Iran.
According to the Khorramshar News Agency, which represents ethnic Arabs in opposition to Ahmadinejad's regime who live near the reactor, the Russians packed their bags and left on Friday.
DEBKAfile offers three different scenarios to explain the sudden withdrawal of the experts.
) Russian-Iranian negotiations about how work will proceed on Bushehr have again hit a roadblock. This is highly unlikely because Vladimir Putin is set to visit Iran later in the month to sign a set of nuclear accords.
b) The Russians have learned that an Iranian attack against American interests in the Persian Gulf or Israel is imminent. This is extremely doubtful because any preemptive Iranian attack would give Israel and the U.S. the pretext they are desperately searching for to launch a devastating bombing campaign.
c) Moscow or Tehran have been tipped off that an attack ...   more »

By Michel Chossudovsky
Note: Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of a broader Middle East war. Please indicate the source and copyright note.
Quoting official sources, the Western media is now confirming, rather belatedly, that the Bush Administration's war plans directed against Iran are "for real" and should be taken seriously.
According to official statements, "punitive bombings" directed against Tehran could be launched within the next few months.
The diplomatic mode has been switched off:  The Pentagon is said to be "taking steps to ensure military confrontation with Iran" because diplomatic initiatives have allegedly failed to reach a solution.
These diabolical statements come within barely a couple of weeks following the release of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report. The later confirms unequivocally that Iran's nuclear program is of a civilian nature and that Iran has neither the intention nor the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons: 
Article IV (1): These modalities cover all remaining issues and the Agency [meaning IAEA] confirmed that there are no other remaining issues and ambiguities regarding Iran's past nuclear program and activities.
Article IV (3): The Agency's delegation is of ...   more »

By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
In a timely decision, Azerbaijan recently (mid-March) granted NATO the permission to use two of its military bases and an airport to "back up its peace-keeping operation in Afghanistan" including support for NATO's "supply route to Afghanistan".  NATO's special envoy Robert Simmons insists that the agreement has nothing to do with US plans to wage aerial bombardments on Iran.
Media sources in Baku have intimated that this timely agreement is directly related to ongoing US-Israeli-NATO war plans. Its timing coincides with US naval deployments and war games in the Persian Gulf. The airport and two military bases are slated to be "modernized to meet NATO standards". Washington has confirmed in this regard that it would "support the modernization of a military airport  in the framework of the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) signed between Azerbaijan and NATO.
Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan released a statement to the effect that  "Azerbaijan's territory will not be at the disposal of any country for hostile acts against neighbours [Iran] " (See Mardom Salari (Farsi), BBC translation, 5 April 2007).
This announcement by the Azeri Defense Ministry was in response to an off-the-cuff statement by US Undersecretary of State ...   more »

by Dana Gabriel
The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) would essentially give United Nations control of what happens on, over, and under the world's oceans. This would include seven-tenths of the worlds surface. Former President Ronald Regan was opposed to it, but years later some changes were made and it was signed by then President Bill Clinton. He had hoped that it would be ratified, but because of intense opposition, it never made it to the Senate floor. After several attempts under George W. Bush's presidency, it now appears as if it has the support to go to vote and pass. President Bush, the State Department, and the Department of Defense are now all pushing for its ratification. Proponents of LOST insist that it is necessary in order to protect U.S. interests in the world's oceans. The truth is that the U.S. already honors many of its provisions and ratifying the treaty would seriously encroach on American sovereignty and give the UN more power and authority over our own affairs.
Currently, 155 nations have ratified LOST with the U.S. being the only one out of the major powers not to do so. LOST will establish a comprehensive set of ...   more »