by Hillel Fendel(IsraelNN.com) The Temple Institute in Jerusalem announces the completion of the Tzitz, the High Priest's headplate - now ready for use in the Holy Temple.
The tzitz is made of pure gold, was fashioned over the course of a more than a year by the craftsmen of the Temple Institute, and is ready to be worn by the High Priest in the rebuilt Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
The words "Holy for G-d" are engraved on the headplate, in accordance with Exodus 28:36.  A short video clip presenting the tzitz can be viewed here.
Rabbi Chaim Richman, International Director of the Temple Institute, explained to Arutz-7 that until it can actually be used, the tzitz will be on view in the Institute's permanent exhibition display, together with other vessels and priestly garments fashioned for use in the Holy Temple by the Institute.  
Legal Aspects: Impurity and Hekdesh
Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, Director of the Institute, explained some of the Halakhic [Jewish legal] aspects of the fashioning of the vessels for the Temple. "For one thing," he said, "they are made in impurity - for now we are impure, and will remain impure until we are able to have a Red ...   more »

By ASSOCIATED PRESS  
Jordan's King Abdullah II inaugurated a new parliament Sunday with a call on Israel to relinquish war-won Arab lands, saying that would help peace and security to prevail in the volatile Mideast.
The king also urged for unity among feuding Palestinian factions, saying the time has come for statehood.
"We emphatically tell Israel that ending the occupation of Arab and Palestinian lands, withdrawing from there and implementing legitimate international resolutions are the only way to realize just, permanent and comprehensive peace," said the staunch US ally who maintains cordial relations with Israel under a 1994 peace treaty.
Abdullah said a peaceful Arab-Israeli settlement would "guarantee a safe future for the region's peoples and its coming generations."
Original Source
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    GAZA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Hamas movement's takeover of the Gaza Strip from the long-dominant Fatah movement led by moderate President Mahmoud Abbas in mid-June has impelled Israel and Abbas to speed final-status negotiations.
    Speaking to reporters at the end of the U.S.-host Mideast peaceconference in Annapolis on Nov. 27, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that Israeli and Palestinian leaders will formally launch their peace negotiations at a ceremony held at the White House on Nov. 28.
    President George W. Bush has invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas to the White House tomorrow to "inaugurate" the negotiations, said Rice.
    On Nov. 27, Bush opened the Annapolis conference by reading a joint statement, saying the Israeli and Palestinian sides agree "to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008."
    "I believe that now is precisely the right time to begin these negotiations" though the path of the talks will be difficult, Bush said.
    Nearly 50 countries and international organizations attended the Annapolis conference, the first such conference since the Bush administration took office seven years go.
    Speaking ...   more »

Lawmakers propose paying West Bank residents to go
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – In a significant sign of Israeli intentions following last week's U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit, Knesset leaders today said they would introduce a bill to compensate Jewish residents of the West Bank who relocate from the territory voluntarily before any Israeli evacuation from the area.
At last Tuesday's summit, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert committed to aim for the conclusion of an agreement with the Palestinians before President Bush leaves office next year, with Israel widely expected to evacuate large swaths of the West Bank, which borders Jerusalem and is within rocket range of Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport.
Leaders of the leftist Labor party, Olmert's major coalition partner, today said they would introduce the compensation bill, which will provide Israeli West Bank residents with financial assistance if they decide to voluntarily leave the territory. 
A statement by the Yesha Council of West Bank Jewish communities called the bill an attempt to "bribe" West Bank Jews.
"[Labor leader Ehud Barak] doesn't understand that the residents of Judea and Samaria will not sell their principles and devotion to the land of Israel for bribery and lucre."
Prior to Israel's evacuation ...   more »

The conclusion of the US-hosted Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland has further highlighted a growing rift within the Evangelical Christian community over the degree of support for Israel's biblical right to the lands between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. A day after the summit, the leaders of the three most prominent Jerusalem-based Evangelical ministries told The Jerusalem Post that the re-division of the holy city and the surrender of Israel's biblical heartland - an effective reversal of prophecy - are unacceptable concepts for Bible-believing Christians and Jews.
"The sanctity of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State is something very sacred which has both historical and religious associations for the Jewish people going back thousands of years," said International Christian Embassy Jerusalem director Rev. Malcom Heading. "We view any attempt to divide the city as a tragic wedge that is unacceptable."
Ray Sanders, executive director of Christian Friends of Israel, called Muslim claims to sovereignty over these lands, and especially Jerusalem, "preposterous," and said Israel was doing itself a great disservice by failing to more aggressively counter such allegations.
US-based Evangelical heavyweights such as John Hagee and Pat Robertson share the position of the Jerusalem ministries, ...   more »

"Russia's Turning Muslim, Says Mufti" is the startling headline in the Times of London today. Ravil Gaynutdin, head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, announced that Russia's population of 144 million contains 23 million ethnic Muslims - and not, as the census indicates, 14.5 million, or, as the Orthodox Church estimates, nearer to 20 million. An estimated 3-4 million Muslims are migrants from former Soviet regions, including 2 million Azeris, 1 million Kazakhs, and several hundred thousand Uzbeks, Tajiks and Kyrgyz.
Plus, Russians of Orthodox background are converting to Islam. (For one important case, see the story of Viacheslav Sergeevich Polosin.) The Orthodox church claims 80 million adherents, but observers say the real number is about half that, and falling.
And more: while the Orthodox population is in demographic decline, the Muslim population is surging. Although the total Russian population dropped by 400,000 in the first half of 2005, it increased in 15 regions, such as the Muslim republics of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia. The birth rate is 1.8 children per woman in Dagestan, versus 1.3 for Russia as a whole. Male life expectancy is 68 in Dagestan, versus 58 for Russia.
The Times observes that this growth in ...   more »

Paul Edwards
The Golden Compass is Book One of a fantasy trilogy written by English author Philip Pullman in the late 1990s called His Dark Materials. Philip Pullman is an unapologetic militant atheist. For example, in a 2001 interview with the Washington Post, Pullman said: “I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.”
The title for the trilogy comes from a line in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Pullman views his trilogy as a re-telling of Milton’s poem (which means that His Dark Materials is in reality Pullman’s re-telling of the Genesis story in fantasy form). Interest in the series has been revived as New Line Cinema is set to release their theatrical version of The Golden Compass on December 7—just in time for the holiday movie season.
The preemptive strike from the conservative Christian community, led by William Donahue of The Catholic League and Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, has become more of a story than the release of the film itself. Donahue views the movie as an attack on Roman Catholicism, denouncing as “pro-atheist” both the movie and the book upon which it is based. He’s calling for a boycott of the film. In a ...   more »

Outraged by Muhammad teddy bear flap, minister names pig after Islamic prophet
By Joe Kovacs
An American evangelist has jumped into the fray over the fate of a British teacher facing calls for death over a teddy bear named "Muhammad."
Bill Keller, host of LivePrayer, has posted a video on YouTube featuring a pink, toy pig named Muhammad after the Muslim prophet.
Bill Keller of LivePrayer has named this toy pig after the Muslim prophet
"Indeed Muhammad was a man of murder," the pig, voiced by Keller himself, states in the video. "He was a pedophile, having a wife at the age of six. And I came to find out that the Quran really is nothing more than a book of fairy tales."
Keller, a vocal critic of Islam, made the video in response to the case of Gillian Gibbons, who was sentenced to 15 days in a Sudan jail after being convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her student to call a teddy bear "Muhammad."
Gibbons was moved to a secure location in Khartoum last week after street demonstrators called for her death.
Gillian Gibbons
If Gibbons had been found guilty of inciting religious hatred and showing contempt for ...   more »

By Roger Highfield
Fresh fears have been raised over the safety of cooked foods as a wide-ranging study found for the first time that a common chemical caused by frying, roasting or grilling can double the risk of cancer in women.
How to cut your acrylamide levels
NHS to extend breast cancer screening
Over half of new mothers who die 'are obese'
Five years ago, scientists sparked a worldwide alert when they disclosed that many household foods contain the substance acrylamide, which was thought to be a probable cause of the disease.  
The EU has now advised people to
avoid burnt toast or golden brown chips
Now a study involving 120,000 people - half of whom were women - has established a direct link between consumption of the chemical and the incidence of ovarian and womb cancer.Research has shown that acrylamide is found in cooked foods such as bread, breakfast cereals, coffee and also meat and potatoes which had been fried, baked, roasted, grilled or barbecued.
The Dutch study found that women who absorbed more acrylamide were twice as likely to develop ovarian or womb cancer as those who ingested a smaller amount.
The higher amount eaten by the women ...   more »

By Katherine Noyes
For users who do have GPS cell phones, My Location can actually complement it, Google said. "My Location kicks in faster than GPS in most cases, so you can access your location even faster on the map," wrote Mike Chu, software engineer on the Google mobile team, on the team blog. "It also works reliably indoors (unlike GPS) and doesn't drain your phone battery at the rate that GPS does."
Leading entrepreneurs like Hugo Burge of hereorthere.com recognize that: "The right domain name is the difference between success and failure. On the Internet your domain name is your real estate." Thousands of business owners like Burge rely on BuyDomains.com to secure high-performance domains.
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)  on Wednesday announced version 2.0 of Google Maps for mobile featuring a beta version of its new "My Location" service that serves as an alternative to GPS  technology.
Rather than relying on global positioning satellites for identifying a mobile user's location, My Location uses cell tower ID information to provide users with their approximate location, helping them determine where they are, what's around them and how to get there, Google said.
The result is that users who don't have GPS-enabled mobile ...   more »