The 10th of Tevet, a fast day which commemorates when the Babylonians first laid siege to Jerusalem, takes place this year on Wednesday, December 19th.
10th of Tevet
The Tenth of Tevet is one of the four fast days that commemorate dark times in Jewish history. The others are Tisha B'Av (the day of the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem), the 17th of Tammuz (the day of the breaching of the defensive wall of Jerusalem by Titus and the Roman legions in 70 CE), and the third of Tishrei (the day that marks the assassination of the Babylonian-appointed Jewish governor of Judah, Gedaliah ben Achikam. He was actually killed on Rosh Hashana but the fast day was advanced to the day after Rosh Hashana because of the holiday).
The Tenth of Tevet marks the onset of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylonia, and the beginning of the battle that ultimately destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon, and sent the Jews into the 70-year Babylonian Exile. The date of the Tenth of Tevet is recorded for us by the prophet Yechezkel, who himself was already in Babylonia as part of the first group of Jews ...   more »

As if political instability and rampant insecurity in the Middle East are not worrying enough, Israeli experts are warning that a major earthquake could strike the region at any time.
Three minor quakes over the past month have served as a reminder that Israel and the West Bank sit atop one of the most sensitive fault lines in the world, where earthquakes have a history of causing havoc.
"We can say with certainty that an earthquake of a magnitude of six on the Richter scale could take place in the coming years," said Yefim Gitterman from the seismology department at the geophysical institute of Lod, near Tel Aviv.
"It can happen tomorrow or in years to come," he said. "Statistically, there is a major quake every 80 years."
Under that assessment, Israel and the Palestinian territories should brace for a major earthquake soon, as the last one happened 80 years ago, on July 11, 1927, in British mandate Palestine when 300 people were killed in Jerusalem and Jericho.
A similar quake measuring seven on the Richter scale and with an epicentre in the Hula Valley, today in northern Israel up from the Sea of Galilee, devastated the town of Safed ...   more »

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$7.4 billion in pledges conditioned on PA reform program
By Aaron Klein
Mahmoud Abbas
JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority has concocted a scheme to fool international donors who pledged $7.4 billion at a funding conference yesterday into believing the PA is carrying out required security reforms, according to security sources and information obtained by WND.
International donors pledged the massive sum yesterday at a conference in Paris to bolster PA President Mahmoud Abbas following last month's U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit. At the peace talks, Israel committed to aim at concluding negotiations leading to a Palestinian state by the end of next year.
Some of the biggest donors announced their pledges at the start of yesterday's conference, attended by more than 60 countries.
The European Union said it would give $630 million to the PA next year, and Norway pledged $140 million a year for three years. Britain, France and Germany announced a combined $1.08 billion over three years.
The U.S. announced it is pledging about $555 million for 2008, including about $400 million in aid to Abbas that the White House asked Congress to approve last month.
The pledged money beat out PA expectations; Abbas' earlier announced he wanted to raise ...   more »

By Shahar Ilan,
The Knesset on Monday approved a law allowing the police to establish a huge database or search engine based on citizens' telephone numbers, including unlisted ones, as well as other communication data. It would be the broadest such database created by any Western police force.
The Knesset voted 35 to 5 to approve the bill on its second and third readings.
The new law will allow the police to request a judge's order to obtain such communications data on citizens, enabling the police to track a person's movements and all telephone calls.
The database will include: telephone numbers, including unlisted ones; names of mobile phone subscribers; serial numbers of mobile phones; and maps of antenna locations. The Knesset rejected a request to let the police receive lists of all Internet addresses in Israel.
A Ministry of Justice study found that there is no such database anywhere else in the Western world, and only Australia has a communications database for investigative purposes: but this database includes only phone numbers and subscribers' names.
In the case of serious crimes, the police can also receive, after court approval, a large amount of communication-related data. These would include a list of ...   more »

Interpol tip-off leads to arrest of four men from northern Israel accused of distributing pedophilic content online. Rise in reports of Israelis dealing in explicit material involving minors grew over past few weeks
Sharon Roffe-Ofir PIsrael News 
Dozens of Israelis across the country are distributing pedophilic content over the World Wide Web, so indicate reports coming from Germany and Spain via the international police organization Interpol. 
These reports ultimately reached the Israeli Police Department’s Northern District Fraud Unit, who arrested four suspects in this internet pedophilia ring. The four were questioned, and quickly confessed to distributing the illicit material. “This is obviously a sick and unnatural phenomena, and whoever engages in such activities probably does so due to disturbing events in his or her past,” said Northern Fraud Unit Director, Superintendent Aharon Gal-Or. 
Over the past few weeks there have been many reports of Israeli citizens distributing photos and movie of a sexual nature involving minors over the internet. “The system in place today is highly sophisticated. As soon as someone logs into the World Wide Web, a little flag pops up next to his user name indicating the country from where the illicit material is being sent,” noted Gal-Or. ...   more »

Saint Peter's Square nativity scene nixes stable for Joseph's workshop
Christmas eve visitors to St. Peter's Square at the Vatican expecting to see a traditional nativity scene will be surprised to find no stable, no manger, no hay, no sheep and definitely no Elvis.
In a move Vatican officials say is meant to "reflect a return to the story of the nativity as told by Matthew," Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus will be shown in Joseph's Nazareth carpentry workshop and not in the Bethlehem stable.
The presepe, or nativity scene, will feature three rooms, including the workshop, complete with "the typical work tools of a carpenter," a "covered patio" and the "inside of a pub with its hearth," the London Telegraph reported.
Moving the Christmas story 70 miles north from Bethlehem to Nazareth was inspired by Matthew 1:24-25 as rendered in the Catholic Bible translation:
"When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home; he had not had intercourse with her when she gave birth to a son; and he named him Jesus."
The King James Version of the same passage does not translate ...   more »

YAAKOV KATZ and HERB KEINON
Despite international efforts to impose sanctions on Iran, the world does not yet appreciate the gravity of the Iranian nuclear threat, and "one miss" in its assessment has the potential to alter the international community's course of action and enable Iran to turn nuclear, Maj.-Gen. Benny Gantz, the IDF's incoming military attaché to the United States, has told The Jerusalem Post.
Gantz's warning was not referring specifically to the US National Intelligence Estimate, which was released two weeks ago and claimed Iran had stopped its development of a nuclear weapon. It was, however, the first public comment on Iran by a senior member of the IDF General Staff in the wake of the report's publication.
"The world understands [Iran is a problem], since [countries] are holding talks and imposing sanctions... but I am not sure that it understands the severity of the problem and its urgency," Gantz told the Post in an exclusive interview over the weekend at his office at the Kirya General Staff Headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Iran, he said, was a threat not just for Israel but for the entire world.
"Therefore, one miss can put us in a different place and ...   more »

By Elisabeth Rosenthal
ROME: In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.
The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food," particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
The agency's food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.
At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted, FAO records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world's total consumption - much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.
Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, ...   more »

By Jamie Glazov
Frontpage Interviews guest today is Jeffrey M. Epstein, the President of America’s Truth Forum. Mr. Epstein and his organization will be hosting the Exposing the Threat of Islamist Terrorism symposium on February 2, 2008 at the Ranch of the Lonesome Dove in Southlake , Texas .
FP: Jeffrey M. Epstein, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Epstein: Thank you, Jamie. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to discuss our mission – that is, educating America to the radical Islamist threat. Never before has our nation been infiltrated to this extent nor have we acquiesced, to this degree, in the face of such a determined and menacing enemy.
FP: Tell us about this symposium coming up. Who will be attending?
Epstein: First off, I’d like to announce that nationally-syndicated talk show host Roger Hedgecock recently joined our team and will be presenting in Dallas . Roger has a clear understanding of the subject matter, shares our concern for national security, and is looking forward to working with the other panelists.
America’s Truth Forum, in association with the Basics Project, produces conferences across the country which provide the public, as well as government agencies, with the opportunity to gather first-hand, fact-based knowledge ...   more »

State lining up to become 28th to limit unions to 1 man, 1 woman
Stacks of petitions ready for delivery to the state of Florida
More than 611,000 petition signatures have been verified by Florida's 67 counties, putting a proposed state constitutional amendment to limit marriage to one man and one woman on the 2008 election ballot.
"Today, the people of Florida have spoken. And they will speak again in November of 2008," said John Stemberger, chairman of the Florida4Marriage organization that supervised the petition effort.
"Their message will be timeless and clear – marriage is the union of one man and one woman," he said.
He said reaching the required number of petition signatures "is the next critical milestone in the effort to protect the institution of marriage in Florida. A super majority of Floridians believe, and the research clearly indicates, that children do best when raised by a mom and a dad."
In earlier elections, 27 other states have approved such amendments, many times replacing statutory language amendment supporters feared could be thrown out by a judge.  
Stemberger noted state officials confirmed that the number of verified signatures had passed the 611,009 that was required, but he ...   more »

'For all practical purposes, this is essentially a Muslim prayer room'
A Japanese garden on the campus of Normandale Community College in Minnesota
A Minnesota community college has "a Muslim place of worship" featuring "a schedule for Islam's five daily prayers," according to a local newspaper columnist who visited the campus.
Tax-supported Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn., also has a "sign requesting that shoes be removed" and a barrier that divides men's and women's "prayer spaces," writes Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
College officials denied it was anything more than a "meditation" room available for "all faiths."
The description of the facility, however, led one faculty member to tell Kersten the room is "unprecedented" and "goes beyond religious toleration."
"For all practical purposes, this meditation room is essentially a Muslim prayer room," said Chuck Chalberg of Normandale's history faculty.
WND has reported on "accommodations" for Muslims in public institutions, such as schools and airports, and the outrage triggered by the expenditure of public funds on a religion-specific facility.
At Normandale, Kersten reported, an "arrow informed worshippers of the direction of Mecca, and literature urged women to cover their faces."
She reported college officials converted a racquetball court into ...   more »

By Warren Smith
Oprah Winfrey will be letting out all the stops on her XM Satellite Radio program this coming year. Beginning January 1, 2008, “Oprah & Friends” will offer a year-long course on the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles.1 A lesson a day throughout the year will completely cover the 365 lessons from the Course in Miracles “Workbook.”
For example, Lesson #29 asks you to go through your day affirming that “God is in everything I see.”2 Lesson #61 tells each person to repeat the affirmation “I am the light of the world.”3 Lesson #70 teaches the student to say and believe “My salvation comes from me.”4
By the end of the year, “Oprah & Friends” listeners will have completed all of the lessons laid out in the Course in Miracles Workbook. Those who finish the Course will have a wholly redefined spiritual mindset—a New Age worldview that includes the belief that there is no sin, no evil, no devil, and that God is “in” everyone and everything. A Course in Miracles teaches its students to rethink everything they believe about God and life. The Course Workbook bluntly states: “This is a course in mind training”5 ...   more »