A couple of months ago, I had an appointment with a new doctor, just hours before I had to fly to the States. We didn't know each other, this new doctor and I, but he seemed like a nice guy. I was in a rush, and needed to get back home to pack. All I wanted was my prescription, so I could get meds before I got on a fifteen hour flight to LA.
But he was in a kind of friendly mood. “Why you going to the States?” he wanted to know. “Work,” I said, not terribly effusively. “What do you do?” I was feeling way too lousy to explain what the Mandel Foundation does, and referring him to our website seemed a bit obnoxious (and wouldn’t help me get meds). So I lied, a bit, and said, “I write.” “What do you write about?” he persisted. Really not wanting to have this conversation, looking hungrily at the printer which I was praying would soon spew out a prescription, I said, “About the future of Israel.” At which, he looked up from his keyboard, turned to me and said, “Oh, you write short stories.”
I laughed, and he did, ...   more »

Settlers have appealed to American Jews to save their communities by buying homes in the West Bank and renting them out to young families at affordable rates to help solidify Israel's hold on the area.
In a dramatic appeal that showed how the absence of government-assisted construction in the West Bank has stunted growth, settlers have warned American Jews that otherwise Judean and Samarian residents, particularly young couples, could leave.
They have asked United States Jews to financially fill in the gap left by the Israeli government, which at one time massively subsidized West Bank housing. Such help trickled to a slow stop this decade and finally dried out this year, settlers said.
On February 25 settlers will be in Teaneck, New Jersey hoping to entice ideological Americans to buy homes in places like Karnei Shomron, Eli, Otniel, Kiryat Arba and Shiloh.
"Almost all communities in Yesha (Judea and Samaria) are full, with no possibility of accepting new young couples or families," said the Amana Settlement Movement in a letter to potential American buyers.
"If we don't find a solution now, we will create our own population freeze, which may, in turn, begin a phenomenon unknown before in Yesha, that ...   more »

Mission Network News
CWNews.com –Gaza (MNN) -- Christians in Gaza are asking believers around the world to pray for them. Palestinian Authority (PA) police of the Fatah party have seized the six-story Gaza Baptist Church building.
President of Open Doors USA Carl Moeller says, "They've taken it over as a military out-post in their gun battle with the Hamas. This situation is just terribly tragic because for so many Christians that remain in Gaza, this was their only bright light. This was their hope."
That hope has turned to questions, Moeller says. "They're wondering what's becoming of that building as it's now being used by the forces of the Palestinian Authority and of course it'll make it a target for Hamas attacks."
Fatah authorities forcibly took over the building, however no one was injured. According to Moeller the Palestinians are losing a lot. "It's a six story building that houses not only the church, but a mammogram clinic. On the ground floor, there's a public library and then there's a hostel for people who are visiting."
Pastor of the Gaza Baptist Church Hanna Massad is devastated. "He's seen the international restrictions on the economy (which) has affected everyone. He's seen ...   more »

The excavation work and bridge construction near the Mugrabi ramp have turned into the Battle of Armageddon, as happens every time the Temple Mount and its environs are involved. Who can withstand the temptation to get involved in the religious-national conflict embodied in the Temple Mount, a conflict that has already been compared to a ticking bomb with apocalyptic powers of destruction?
“And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.”
Rev 11:1
Since the work there - whose goal is to replace a pedestrian bridge that links the Western Wall with the Mugrabi Gate - began, many have joined the commotion. The first to jump on the opportunity were leaders of the Islamic movements in Israel, headed by Sheikh Raed Salah.
The Islamic figures in Israel long ago turned themselves into the “defenders of Al-Aqsa” and they were the spirit behind the massive construction in the Temple Mount compound over the last few years. Now they are standing at the head of the very public struggle against Israel, which allegedly intends in the bridge work “to undermine ...   more »

A tense calm is reported in the Old City of Jerusalem after clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians erupted at a contested holy site.
Dozens of people were hurt when police moved in to quell violent protests against excavation work in the area.
Skirmishes in other parts of the city have also been reported.
The violence flared over the digging work, which protesters say threatens the foundations of the al-Aqsa mosque - Islam's third holiest site.
The compound containing the mosque is also revered by Jews as the site of their biblical temples.
The BBC's Tim Franks, in the Old City, says the area may now have been cleared and sealed but elsewhere in East Jerusalem the police have said that Palestinian youths have been throwing rocks and petrol bombs.
He says the police themselves have been hitting back with stun grenades.
Stand-off
Palestinian Muslim clerics had called for a day of protest against the excavation works following days of rising tension.
Braced for possible violence, Israeli authorities had restricted entry to the mosque and deployed thousands of police in the Old City.
The clashes broke out after thousands of Palestinians attended Friday prayers at the mosque.
 SACRED TO MUSLIMS ...   more »

Police chief Franco says decision to break into Mount to quell Muslim riots was difficult but necessary. Police respond with stun grenades after rioters hurl stones, Molotov cocktails in protest of excavations near al-Aqsa Mosque
After police managed to contain Muslim riots near the Temple Mount in protest of Israeli excavations there, Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi explained the disturbances were sparked by a group of masked youths who managed to infiltrate the site despite the over-45 age restriction.
A week of tensions reached its peak Friday afternoon, when police forced their way into the Temple Mount compound, firing stun grenades at rioters who hurled stones, Molotov cocktails and metal shards at policemen shortly after Friday prayers ended.  
Five Arab youths were arrested outside the Old City, police said, for hurling stones and inciting for violence. A total of 17 arrests were made.  
A number of worshipers who barricaded themselves inside the al-Aqsa Mosque to avoid police arrest were convinced by Arab MKs to vacate peacefully after police officer promised not to arrest them for throwing stones.
Over 3,000 policemen were deployed in Jerusalem as police raised the level of alert. The controversial excavations were paused for the weekend, ...   more »

US presidential candidate: PA textbooks incite hatred, fail to educate
Yaakov Lappin
US Presidential candidate Senator Hilary Clinton has condemned Palestinian textbooks for school children, saying the texts indoctrinate children towards incitement, and fail to provide them with an education.  
"I believe that education is one of the keys to lasting peace in the Middle East and for this reason I am very concerned with these findings," Clinton was quoted as saying in a report released by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which monitors the Palestinian Authority for incitement to hatred and violence.  
"Ever since we first raised this issue some years ago there still has not been an adequate repudiation of incitement by the Palestinian Authority. It is even more disturbing that the problem appears to have gotten worse. These textbooks don't give Palestinian children an education, they give them an indoctrination," Senator Clinton said.  
In the press release, Itamar Marcus, head of PMW, said: "Teaching Palestinian children that the conflict is religious and not territorial will leave no possibility for compromise and could guarantee another generation of conflict."  
According to the PMW's report, "new Palestinian Authority textbooks for Grade 12 encourage students to see ...   more »

JACKSON, Miss. (BP)--Mississippi's Senate easily passed a bill Feb. 7 banning most abortions, becoming the first legislative body this year to adopt a measure challenging Roe v. Wade.
Other states, including South Dakota and Utah, also are considering abortion bans.
Mississippi's bill, which would ban abortion except in cases of rape, incest and to save the mother's life, passed with a bipartisan vote of 35-4. It now goes to the state House, which passed an abortion ban last year but may not view the bill so favorably this year. According to The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Steve Holland said he had no intention of considering the bill.
But Tanya Britton, president of Pro-Life Mississippi, applauded the bill's passage.
"Mississippi needs to go on record about its position on abortion so that there is no question that people in the state, No. 1, are pro-life and No. 2, do object vehemently to the taking of the life of any child," Britton told Baptist Press. "We know the harm that abortion does to women."
Pro-lifers are split over the strategy behind the bans, which supporters acknowledge will be challenged and struck down in lower federal courts as ...   more »

By Sandy Bauers
Inquirer Staff Writer
David M Warren / Inquirer Staff Photographer
A bee, laden with pollen. Honeybees pollinate more than $15 billion worth of U.S. crops, including Pennsylvania's apple harvest and New Jersey's cranberries and blueberries.Something is killing the nation's honeybees.
Dave Hackenberg of central Pennsylvania had 3,000 hives and figures he has lost all but about 800 of them.
In labs at Pennsylvania State University, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, and elsewhere in the nation, researchers have been stunned by the number of calls about the mysterious losses.
"Every day, you hear of another operator," said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, acting state apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. "It's just causing so much death so quickly that it's startling."
At stake is the work the honeybees do, pollinating more than $15 billion worth of U.S. crops, including Pennsylvania's apple harvest, the fourth-largest in the nation, worth $45 million, and New Jersey's cranberries and blueberries.
While a few crops, such as corn and wheat, are pollinated by the wind, most need bees. Without these insects, crop yields would fall dramatically. Agronomists estimate Americans owe one in three bites of food to bees.
The problem caps 20 years of honeybee ...   more »

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Red-faced officials at Canada's nuclear safety watchdog on Thursday said they were probing how a hacker had managed to litter its official Web site with dozens of color photographs of a nuclear explosion.
The Ottawa Citizen newspaper said every media release on the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's Web site had been labeled as a security breach on Wednesday. When opened, each document had a headline reading "For immediate release" and underneath was a large photo of an exploding atomic bomb.
"We are in discussions with the (Internet service) provider. When we were informed the Web site had been tampered with, we immediately disabled the media module," said commission spokesman Aurel Gervais, dismissing the suggestion that the hacker had been able to access secret information.
"The external Web site was the only Web site that was tampered with. There was no internal information that was compromised," he said. 
The media site at http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/media/ was working normally on Thursday.
The Citizen -- which published a color photograph of one of the tampered pages -- said the hacker had left a message saying "Please dont (sic) put me in jail ... oops, I divided by zero".
Original Source

   more »

Norway unveils 'Noah's Ark' of food        
The seed bank will not be affected by rising global temperature 
The design for an arctic "doomsday vault" to save seeds in the event of a global catastrophe has been unveiled in Norway. 
The vault, a repository for seeds that could be used to re-establish crops obliterated in a major disaster, is specifically designed to survive the effects of climate change, its designers said on Friday.
Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, said the structure would stay frozen for hundreds of years even if temperatures rise. 
It will be carved into the permafrost of a mountain near the North Pole so it will keep functioning if its refrigeration system fails. 
"In the midnight sun, it will look like a large diamond," said Magnus Bredeli Tveiten, project manager at the Directorate of Public Construction and Property. 
In winter, when the sun does not rise above the horizon, "it will glow into the darkness," he said. 
'Millions' of seeds 
Situated about 130 metres above current sea level in the Norway's Svalbard archipelago, the complex will not be affected if Greenland's ice sheet melts - which could increase sea levels by seven ...   more »

As many as 3,500 schools are taking fingerprints from pupils, often without their parents' permission, a new poll revealed yesterday.
Soaring numbers require pupils to undergo biometric identity checks before they can register in the mornings, buy canteen meals and use the library.
But the trend has prompted furious complaints from parents who are concerned their children's data will be stored on insecure databases.
Under current laws, schools do not have to seek parental consent before taking pupils' fingerprints, although they should notify them.
In an attempt to ease parental worries, schools are soon to be issued with new guidance urging them to gain permission as it is "best practice".
But campaigners claim the move does not go far enough and are demanding a change in the law to abolish biometric scanners completely from school premises.
While the Department for Education and Skills says it is unaware how many schools are using biometric data, an internet poll by a lobby group is now claiming 3,500 schools have bought the necessary equipment.
The Leave Them Kids Alone group said the schools had purchased the technology from two DfES-approved suppliers, suggesting the true figure could be even higher.
The collection of children's ...   more »