by Tamar Yonah
I was sent this email by a friend of mine, who knows the son of the person who saw this....  yah, it's one of those stories, BUT, I did confirm it by calling New York and speaking directly with Rabbi Bloom, who should be, G-d willing, on my radio show next week to speak about this.  The original email was written I believe, by the Rav's son in law, Eliyahu Rubinovich.  Here is what was written in the email:
"Rabbi Shmuel Bloom of Agudath Israel of America is a busy man involved in important matters concerning Klal Yisroel.
Why would he, then, spend a considerable amount of hours traveling to look at bananas (all the way up north near Tiberias) during his recent trip to Eretz Yisroel?
A completely secular farmer whose produce is bananas decided that he would undertake to keep Shmitah this time around. He approached the Keren HaShviis for assistance and they stipulated that he would be registered in their program if he would also undertake to be personally Shomer Shabbos throughout Shmitah. He agreed. Keren HaShviis (Here, I was told by Rabbi Bloom, that it was actually the Otzar Bet Din of Bnei ...   more »

After months of media speculation, days of discussion and columns of commentary, the final report of the Winograd Commission on mistakes made in the prosecution of the 2006 Second Lebanon War will be released Wednesday evening Israel time.
Unlike the inquiry's interim report, released last April, the details made public on January 30 are not expected to shock Israelis, who have been saturated with information, including leaked details of its contents, every day since at least the start of the new year.
The interim report assigned responsibility for the major failures in the war to former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Halutz and Peretz no longer hold their positions: The former resigned last January - before the interim report was released - and the latter handed in his notice a few weeks after its release, after he had already been ousted from his position as Labor Party leader by former Prime Minister and current Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Olmert, however, retained his position despite a flood of criticism and numerous calls for his resignation.
While there was a lot of speculation back then that Winograd's final report ...   more »

By Barak Ravid 
Negotiations over Jerusalem may take center stage at Tuesday's meeting of the World Jewish Congress board of governors: Delegates from rightist political parties are trying to muster a majority for a resolution on the matter that would embarrass Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
At a meeting of the executive of the WJC's Jerusalem chapter on Monday, Yoav Blum, chapter vice chairman and a representative of the Likud Party, proposed submitting a resolution stating that "united Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Israel and must not be divided." But chapter chairman MK Shai Hermesh, of Olmert's Kadima Party, prevented a vote and closed the meeting.
In response, some delegates decided to submit the resolution on their own - but only if they are confident of a majority.
The WJC's battle over Jerusalem began three weeks ago, when organization president Ron Lauder - who is considered close to Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu - published an open letter urging Olmert to take world Jewish opinion into account during talks over Jerusalem. Olmert subsequently canceled his planned speech to the board of governors, which is meeting at the Inbal Hotel in the capital.
Olmert confirmed Monday the report in ...   more »

By DPA and Haaretz Services 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the West Wednesday to acknowledge Israel's "imminent collapse." Speaking to a crowd on a visit to the southern port of Bushehr, where Iran's first light-water nuclear power plant is being built by Russia, Ahmadinejad further incited his listeners to "stop supporting the Zionists, as [their] regime reached its final stage."
"Accept that the life of Zionists will sooner or later come to an end," the Iranian president said in a televised speech.
He added, "What we have right now is the last chapter [of Israeli atrocities] which the Palestinians and regional nations will confront and eventually turn in Palestine's favor."
Iran does not acknowledge Israel and Ahmadinejad has in the past sparked international outcry by referring to the systematic murder of six million Jews in World War II as a "myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
Iran is currently also mediating in the crisis over the Gaza Strip, where Israel has imposed a blockade on border crossings into the coastal territory, barring the entry of supplies into the already impoverished area. Last week, Palestinian militants blew holes in the barrier separating the Gaza Strip ...   more »

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - Barely a month into the new year, the military have already attracted a lot of attention. Following a mild verbal skirmish over ABM components after the holidays, Russian and foreign generals have decided to talk in the open.
In a move that mirrors recent discussion amongst Russia's own top brass, NATO's April summit in Bucharest is widely expected to discuss a report on a potential pre-emptive nuclear strike.
According to The Daily Telegraph, the authors of the report are convinced there is a real risk that terrorists could lay their hands on weapons of mass destruction in the near or immediate future. To counter this, the alliance may consider suppressing the enemy with nuclear weapons.
Though the report is likely to cause controversy in NATO countries, the authors appear to be merely echoing an idea originally broached by Russian Chief of General Staff Yury Baluyevsky. Speaking at a meeting of the Academy of Military Sciences on January 19, Gen. Baluyevsky declared that force should be used not only in the course of hostilities, but also to demonstrate the readiness of leaders to uphold their national interests. "We are not going to attack ...   more »

More security at US airports but The Sunday Times discovers flaws in the system
Chris Haslam
Security screening for arriving passengers has been stepped up yet again at American airports, but The Sunday Times has learnt of worrying flaws in new fingerprint-scanning technology.
Last week, Logan airport, in Boston, became the third US airport to install the 10-finger scanners. Dulles airport, which serves Washington, DC, began using the devices in November and Atlanta airport began this month. By the end of the year, the devices will be installed at every international airport in the USA, as well as at seaports and border crossings.
NonUS residents have had two fingers scanned on entry since 2004, but the Department of Homeland Security believes the 10-finger standard will allow easier identification of undesirables, based on full or partial prints left at the scene of a crime or collected from terrorist safe houses or battlefields.
Described by Identix, their manufacturer as “slap and roll” technology, the scanners require four scans to capture a full set of prints. These are then compared with more than 3.2m fingerprints held in the FBI and Department of Defense databases.
Identix claims that the scanner can perform its duties ...   more »

Watchdog: 'We want to expose and stop the manipulation'
By Jerome R. Corsi
U.S. central banks may have less than half the gold they claim to possess in their vaults, charges a watchdog group in an ad scheduled for publication in the Wall Street Journal this week.
As WND reported, the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, or GATA, claims the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury are surreptitiously manipulating the country's gold reserves by participating in undisclosed leases, according to an advance copy WND obtained of the ad running in Thursday's edition of the Journal.
GATA believes much of the borrowed gold out on lease will never be returned to the central banks.
"With the demand for gold so strong worldwide, it has become impossible to return much of the leased gold without driving the price to the moon," said GATA's chairman, William J. Murphy III.
"Most observers calculate central bank reserves are supposed to have about 30,000 tons of gold worldwide in their vaults, but we believe the amount of gold actually there may be more like 15,000 tons," Murphy said. "The rest of the gold is gone."
The U.S. Treasury denies the claim, insisting the stock is accounted for ...   more »

By Richard Cohen
Barack Obama is a member of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama's spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright's daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said "truly epitomized greatness." That man is Louis Farrakhan.
Maybe for Wright and some others, Farrakhan "epitomized greatness." For most Americans, though, Farrakhan epitomizes racism, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism. Over the years, he has compiled an awesome record of offensive statements, even denigrating the Holocaust by falsely attributing it to Jewish cooperation with Hitler -- "They helped him get the Third Reich on the road." His history is a rancid stew of lies.
It's important to state right off that nothing in Obama's record suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views or agrees with Wright when it comes to Farrakhan. Instead, as Obama's top campaign aide, David Axelrod, points out, Obama often has said that he and his minister sometimes disagree. Farrakhan, Axelrod told me, is one of those instances.
Fine. But ...   more »