Should current decline continue, Israel would cease to exist
Elyakim Haetzni
A miser who tried to skimp on his horse gave him less and less to eat everyday, but the horse continued to haul. When the horse finally dropped dead the man wondered why. "I got him used to not eating after all."  
For years the Israeli health system has been cutting back. A plan for antibiotic resistant bacteria from four years a go was trashed. The population is growing but not the number of beds. Then came the Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria and patients are running from the hospitals. The Israeli health system's horse is dying.  
For years a psychological war has been waged against the reserve army, its power was being diminished, and its ground combat operations underestimated. Overall, the defense budget is being cut back, because ostensibly "peace equals security," and peace is bought in exchange for land. During the last war - this horse also collapsed.  
'The flying object'
For years, brainwashers have been trying to convince us that there is no value to land in "an era of rockets" and that the horse - the IDF - is "strong" and has no problem ...   more »

Israel should immediately cease work on an access path to a holy site in Jerusalem, the United Nations said Wednesday.
The Israel Antiquities Authority wants to repair the walkway to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. A wooden bridge provides temporary access.
(Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press)
Although the work does not threaten the site, the UN acknowledged, "Israel should at once stop excavations and consult on a final plan with Muslim religious authorities and other parties," a release said. It was based on a report by experts with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
However, the Israeli Antiquities Authorities said it has exclusive jurisdiction, and needs to control access to the site. Moreover, there have been no talks between Israeli authorities and the Muslim religious authority, the Islamic Waqf, since 2000.
Israel began in February to work on a new walkway up to the compound that includes holy sites sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
Known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, the work is intended to replace an old earthen ramp that partially collapsed in a snowstorm three years ago.
The walkway is the only access point to the Haram al-Sharif ...   more »

Monday, March 12, 2007
By Tim Webb
Paying for goods with notes and coins could be consigned to history within five years, according to the chief executive of Visa Europe.
Peter Ayliffe said that, by 2012, using credit and debit cards should be cheaper and more convenient than cash.
Some retailers could soon start surcharging customers if they choose to buy products with cash, because of the greater cost of processing these payments, he warned.
Visa Europe briefed the British Retail Consortium last month on new " contactless" cards that can be waved in front of a scanner to make small payments.
However, the consortium dismissed this vision and claimed that card processing fees, which regulators are investigating, are still too high.
One member of the consurtium said that the estimated "interchange" fee charged to retailers amounts to some 4p for each transaction.
Nick Mourant, treasurer at Tesco, said: "There is a duopoly between Mastercard and Visa in the UK. Their setting of fees is anti-competitive."
Original Source

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By Youssef M. Ibrahim      
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The historian Bernard Lewis once characterized Muslim fundamentalism's vision of democracy as: ''one man, one vote, one time."
With this in mind, one reads with amazement a passionate essay describing the "Moderate Muslim Brotherhood" in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs, flagship of the influential Council on Foreign Relations. Its authors argue that America should talk with the leaders of this vast pan-Arab organization, whom they conclude believe in some form of democracy.
This is a recurrent theme in forays by well-intentioned scholars and journalists anxious to find an alternative to a clash of civilization between the West and Islam. In the past few years, these Lawrence of Arabia explorers have attempted to show hair-splitting differences between bloody-minded jihadists such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri — a former top leader of the Brotherhood — and more docile Brotherhood types, who speak English, wear suits, and inhabit apartments, not caves. These moderates, the article states, include some who are "Shakespeare admirers."
Based on dozens of interviews with Ikhwan leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world and Europe, the Foreign Affairs authors declared that the Ikhwan movement "would honor democratic processes" ...   more »

By Stan Goodenough
Mar 15, 2007
American evangelical leader John Hagee took a powerful message of support for Israel to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s 2007 policy conference in Washington DC earlier this week.
“I want to say this as clearly and as plainly as I can possibly say it,” he emphasized, his booming voice filling the auditorium.
“Israel you are not alone. There are 50 million Christians standing up and applauding the State of Israel.”
Hagee, pastor of the 18,000 member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, and founder of the newly-formed national organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI), repeatedly triggered standing ovations from the crowd.
“It’s a new day in America,” he cried.
“The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awakened. Millions of Christians across America consider the Jewish people the apple of God’s eye; the chosen people; a cherished people.”
These Christians, standing with America’s five million Jews on behalf of Israel, had powerful potential to shape the future and were “a match made in heaven.”
Hagee said CUFI was spreading quickly across the United States, its goal being to ensure “that Congress knows that the matter of Israel is no longer just a Jewish issue....   more »

One in 3,800 donors in the L.A. area tested positive for Chagas, a deadly disease that is mainly found in Latin America.
By Rong-Gong Lin II, Times Staff Writer
March 15, 2007 
A little-known but potentially deadly parasite from Latin America has become one of the latest threats to the blood and organ supplies in the United States, especially in Los Angeles, where many donors have traveled to affected countries, health officials say.
Last year, two heart transplant patients at different Los Angeles hospitals contracted the parasitic disease, called Chagas, causing health authorities to issue a national bulletin. Within months, both patients subsequently died, although not directly from Chagas, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The parasite, which is generally passed to humans from a blood-sucking insect that looks like a striped cockroach, can feed over years on tissues of the heart and gastrointestinal tract. After decades, tissues can be eroded so much that the organs fail.
Insect transmission of the parasite in the United States is rare, but public health and blood bank officials have been concerned about its increasing prevalence in the blood supply.
In 1996, using an experimental test, the American Red Cross ...   more »