Varda Branfman
My best writing is in my journal. Closed to the world, but completely open for my eyes and Hashem’s. A place for dreams, visions, dialogues, regrets, memories, remorse, resuscitations, conflict resolutions, agendas, lists, letters written—mailed—and received without leaving the page. Chaotic garden of tall weeds and blossoms hidden in the undergrowth.
If it weren’t for my journals, whole blocks of the past would be consigned to oblivion. The question of what really happened can never be finally answered, but layers of interpretation remain. In rereading them, I keep finding valuable clues to futures I am in the process of mapping.
I began to journal at the age of l6. Out of desperation. I needed to tell a story that would otherwise remain embedded in my psyche as “trauma,” a roadblock to my feeling anything again. I stumbled on the idea of writing out the story in order to hear it resonate and find its meaning. The writing in my new journal book gave me comfort when nothing else could. So the practice of journal writing stayed, not only to record the unpleasant, but also to celebrate the beauty I found everywhere I looked. And I discovered that the ...   more »

By:  Avraham Shmuel Lewin 
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are expected to issue a joint declaration during the Annapolis conference, expected to take place the last week in November, that would pave the way for negotiations on core issues including Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
That was the consensus view conveyed to members of the Rabbinical Congress for Peace who met with several lawmakers at the Knesset Monday. MK Benny Alon (National Union) told the rabbis that as a member of the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee he attended a closed-door meeting last month with Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin. "Diskin warned us that one of the items that will be brought up at Annapolis – and Olmert agrees to it – will be handing Nablus and Jenin over to the Palestinians and classifying them as Area A – which means they will be closed to the IDF.
"He said that if this happens, it won’t be long before those areas become like Gaza, with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in rocket range. Hamas has already begun gaining control and turning it into another Gaza as it is."
MK and former Knesset speaker Reuven (Ruby) ...   more »

By Amos Harel
tags: Israel, Mahmoud Abbas  
Syria is holding firm on its demand that the Golan Heights be among the items on the agenda of the upcoming Middle East peace conference scheduled to take place in late November at Annapolis.
Amid speculation that Washington could soon dispatch official invitations to the summit, Syria's Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah al-Dardari told BBC radio Wednesday that, "When such an invitation, and if such an invitation should come, it should include an agenda with the Golan Heights clearly placed on that agenda. If not, why should we be there in Annapolis?"
Asked whether the conference could achieve any kind of peace deal without Syria, Dardari said: "Definitely not... No peace without Syria in the Middle East." 
Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence believes that the U.S-sponsored summit is likely to fail, and that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas might step down as a result.
Abbas reportedly views the Annapolis conference as the last opportunity to resuscitate the peace process. If he does go home in the wake of a failure of the talks, without a successor acceptable to Fatah, Abbas' departure would create a lacuna in the Palestinian leadership and increase Hamas influence.
According ...   more »

By DPA 
PRAGUE - Neo-Nazis are determined to march through Prague's historic Jewish Quarter on the anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass program despite a court order banning their demonstrations, the extremists said Thursday on their website.
The city is now bracing for a Saturday evening of tension and street fights as Prague's Jewish groups, politicians and human-rights activists plan to gather in the district to commemorate victims of the pogrom and bar the neo-Nazis from marching there.
"We are not afraid of them," Jewish Liberal Union deputy chairwoman Jirina Novakova said. 
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg are due to privately meet with Prague Jewish leaders before the commemoration, the Foreign Ministry said.
Officials said that some 1,400 state and city police would be deployed to the streets to maintain order and break up the banned march.
"It will depend on what will happen on the spot," police spokeswoman Eva Brozova said.
The Prague Municipal Court Thursday ended a two-months legal battle over the protest registered by a group whose founders are according to police and human-rights activists "known supporters" of neo-Nazi movements in the Czech Republic.
The police detained the group's leading ...   more »

Tom Baldwin in Washington, James Hider in Jerusalem and Francis Elliott, Deputy Political Editor
Read Across the Pond: our US elections blog
A claim by President Ahmadinejad that Iran has 3,000 working uranium-enriching centrifuges sent a tremor across the world yesterday amid fears that Israel would respond by bombing the country’s nuclear facilities.
Military sources in Washington said that the existence of such a large number could be a “tipping point”, triggering an Israeli air strike. The Pentagon is reluctant to take military action against Iran, but officials say that Israel is a “different matter”. Amid the international uproar, British MPs who were to have toured the nuclear facility were backing out of their Iran trip.
Even before President Ahmadinejad’s announcement, a US defence official told The Times yesterday: “Israel could do something when they get to around 3,000 working centrifuges. The Pentagon is minded to wait a little longer.” US experts say 3,000 machines running for long periods could make enough enriched uranium for an atomic bomb within a year.
Israel responded by serving notice that it would not tolerate a nuclear Iran. “Talks never did, and never will, stop rockets,” said Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, after talks ...   more »

ABU DHABI — The U.S. Navy launched a series of exercises in the Gulf to enhance skills required in any war with Iran which, according to British press reports, could occur in early 2008.
The U.S. Fifth Fleet conducted a crisis response exercise that included amphibious, air and medical forces. The five-day exercise by the USS Wasp, led by Commander Task Force 59, was scheduled to end on Nov. 5.
The U.S. Fifth Fleet has been operating two strike groups in the Gulf. The USS Enterprise and USS Kearsarge have also been training in the region.
Britain plans to send an aircraft carrier, HMS Illustrious, to the region in early 2008. Illustrious would be accompanied by the Type 42 destroyer HMS Edinburgh and the Type 23 frigate HMS Westminster.
A British Defense Ministry spokesman said the Royal Navy deployment was not linked to the emerging Western crisis with Iran. But the London-based Daily Telegraph asserted that the ships might be preparing for war with Teheran in the first half of 2008.
"The purpose of the exercise is to continually improve the Fifth Fleet skills in completing complex missions that require capabilities broader than one ship or unit," U.S. Fifth Fleet ...   more »

In my book, Babylon or Jerusalem, I wrote that the Evil One hates a sound dose of patriotism (love for one's nation) as nationhood reminds him of how God thwarted his evil design - during the time of the building of the tower of Babel - to unite the whole of mankind in rebellion against God and His commandments. 
It was therefore God who authored nationhood by giving each group its own language. 
Today we see an intense effort by many philosophers, educators and politicians to erase this God-willed barrier of nationhood in order to unite mankind again as a grey, colorless mass, in essence against the Creator and His standards. The New Age movement is one of the leading proponents of this, emphasizing as it does that we are all essentially citizens of this global village and that we must relate to one another, not based on the narrow concept of nationhood or religion, but on the fact that we are all co-citizens of this one, united planet. 
Thus is nationality and nationhood increasingly belittled in favor for what one day soon will become a truly new world order under a one world government which will cause every man ...   more »

Sen. Charles Grassley Probes Possible Financial Wrongdoing by Six Televangelists
By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS
Acting on tips about preachers who ride in Rolls Royces and have purportedly paid $30,000 for a conference table, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said Tuesday he's investigating the finances of six well-known TV ministers.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said those under scrutiny include faith healer Benny Hinn, Georgia megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar and one of the nation's best known female preachers, Joyce Meyer.
Grassley sent letters to the half-dozen Christian media ministries earlier this week requesting answers by Dec. 6 about their expenses, executive compensation and amenities, including use of fancy cars and private jets.
In a statement, Grassley said he was acting on complaints from the public and news coverage of the organizations.
"The allegations involve governing boards that aren't independent and allow generous salaries and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls Royces," Grassley said.
"I don't want to conclude that there's a problem, but I have an obligation to donors and the taxpayers to find out more. People who donated should have their money spent as intended and in adherence with the tax code."
Those ministries ...   more »

WASHINGTON (AP) - Yellowstone National Park, once the site of a giant volcano, has begun swelling up, possibly because molten rock is accumulating beneath the surface, scientists report.
But, "there is no evidence of an imminent volcanic eruption," said Robert B. Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.
Many giant volcanic craters around the world go up and down over decades without erupting, he said.
Smith and colleagues report in Friday's issue of the journal Science that the flow of the ancient Yellowstone crater has been moving upward almost 3 inches per year for the past three years.
That is more than three times faster than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923, the researchers said.
"Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock," Smith said in a statement. "But we have no idea how long this process goes on before there either is an eruption or the inflow of molten rock stops and the caldera deflates again."
It's not unusual for ancient volcano sites like Yellowstone and Long Valley, Calif., to rise and fall, according to the researchers.
The Yellowstone volcanic field was produced by what the researchers described ...   more »

Jessica Hupp
It’s no secret that the dollar is on a downward spiral. Its value is dropping, and the Fed isn’t doing a whole lot to change that. As a result, a number of countries are considering a shift away from the dollar to preserve their assets. These are seven of the countries currently considering a move from the dollar, and how they’ll have an effect on its value and the US economy.
Saudi Arabia: The Telegraph reports that for the first time, Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates along with the US Federal Reserve. This is seen as a signal that a break from the dollar currency peg is imminent. The kingdom is taking “appropriate measures” to protect itself from letting the dollar cause problems for their own economy. They’re concerned about the threat of inflation and don’t want to deal with “recessionary conditions” in the US. Hans Redeker of BNP Paribas believes this creates a “very dangerous situation for the dollar,” as Saudi Arabia alone has management of $800 billion. Experts fear that a break from the dollar in Saudi Arabia could set off a “stampede” from the dollar in the Middle East, a region that ...   more »

Tens of thousands of householders are today preparing for some of the worst coastal floods in decades.
Sea levels could rise up to 9ft this morning along part of the East Coast, putting lives at risk.
Sea defences in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft could be breached around 7am, sending a torrent of salt water into the towns.
• Eight severe flood warnings issued by Environment Agency
• Surge expected to hit east coast in next 12 hours
• Police on standby to evacuate homes
• Dartford Creek and Thames barriers closed
Why resorts are facing the flood
Police and fire services were last night preparing to evacuate thousands of homes. Householders were stocking up on sandbags and emergency provisions.
The Norfolk Broads, Essex and northern Kent could also be hit, and the entire coast from Immingham in Humberside to Margate in Kent has been told to be on alert.
The Environment Agency, which issued eight severe flood warnings, last night said it was "gravely concerned" about the threat.
Gordon Brown called a meeting of the emergency Cabinet committee Cobra to prepare for his third major flood crisis since taking office in the summer.
The tidal surge is being caused by ...   more »

Richard Esposito and Vic Walter Report:
 The FBI is warning that al Qaeda may be preparing a series of holiday attacks on U.S. shopping malls in Los Angeles and Chicago, according to an intelligence report distributed to law enforcement authorities across the country this morning. (Click here for full text.)
The alert said al Qaeda "hoped to disrupt the U.S. economy and has been planning the attack for the past two years."
Law enforcement officials tell ABCNews.com that the FBI received the information in late September and declassified it yesterday for wide distribution. 
The alert, like similar FBI and Department of Homeland Security terror alerts issued over the past five years at holiday times, raised questions about the credibility of the information.
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The bulletin acknowledges that U.S. intelligence officers are uncertain as to whether the information is real, and intelligence officers say there is a concern that it could be "disinformation."
Law enforcement officials at three different agencies told ABCNews.com the FBI alert was ...   more »

Death by stoning, church bells banned, new protection tax for all non-Muslims
Madonna and Britney Spears stoned to death? Bars and clubs closed down? Church bells banned? That's just a taste of what Americans have to look forward to if terrorists ever took over the U.S. and imposed Islamic law, according to a new book.
In one chapter of the recently released "Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, JIhadists Reveal their Global Plans – to a Jew!" author and WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein petitioned Mideast terror leaders to describe day-to-day life in the U.S. if al-Qaida won the war on terror.
"Once Islam dominates, anyone living inside the Islamic state must abide by our rules. There is no choice. You will abide or face the punishment," said Muhammad Abdel-El, the spokesman and a senior leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terror organization.
Sheik Abu Saqer, a prominent Gaza-based preacher, a founder of the Sword of Islam terror group and a subscriber to the ideology of al-Qaida, explained if Islam controls the U.S., all American women, whether Muslim or not, must cover their hair.
"This is the demand of our religion. Being and walking naked doesn't ...   more »