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Israelis, Palestinians likely to back compromise, even if they won't do so happily Amos Oz Published: 07.31.07, 16:40 / Israel Opinion The division between Gaza under Hamas rule and the West Bank under the moderate camp presents a historic opportunity to achieve peace between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas' cabinet. The Olmert and Abbas cabinets alike accept the principle of two states for two people, the notion of land for peace, and the approach that advocates ending the Israeli occupation. There are still many disputed matters but none that create an abyss between the two sides. Intense negotiations are likely to...

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton recently unveiled HillaryCare 2.0 and promoted it in Michigan. While it may be a slimmed-down version of her original nationalized health care plan, it maintains the original's focus on federal bureaucracy over lowering costs and access, says Devon Herrick, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. At the heart of her "new" plan is the idea that government should consider requiring individuals to have health coverage. Sen. Clinton wants to accomplish this in a number of ways: ** Forcing insurers to accept all applicants regardless of health status and reining in direct-to-consumer drug...

Ahmadinejad: “the Zionists are the incarnation of Satan” TEHERAN - the Zionists are the incarnation of Satan, declared the president Iranian, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who pays two days an official visit in Sudan, brought back Thursday the Iranian official agency, Irna. “The Zionists are the real incarnation of Satan”, affirmed Wednesday Mr. Ahmadinejad, which declared on several occasions these last months that Israel was to disappear. “The mode Zionist was created by the British and was formed by the Americans; it commits crimes in the area with their support”, it added at the time of a meeting with Sudanese monks....

Palestinian prime minister delivers speech on internal issues, accuses Abbas of isolating government. However, he also conveys message to Israel: If Palestinian state is established within 1967 borders, Hamas will aggress to long-term hudna. Meanwhile, Abbas calls for end to Gaza fighting Ali Waked Latest Update: 12.19.06, 19:12 Hamas is ready for a ceasefire with Israel if a Palestinian state is established, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech delivered Tuesday afternoon. Haniyeh's speech dealt mainly with internal issues. He responded to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' call for elections in the Palestinian Authority and called for unity in...

UN Human Rights Council's Israel Spotlight Continues (CNSNews.com) - The U.N. Human Rights Council has ended its third session having spent more time focused on Israel than on all 191 other U.N. member states put together. According to statistics drawn up by the Hudson Institute's Eye on the U.N. project, the Geneva-based body dedicated nine hours during the Nov. 27-Dec. 8 session to Israel, compared to six hours spent on discussing other country-specific situations in the rest of the globe. The rest of the time was spent on issues not specifically relating to individual states, it said. The HRC was...

Between Sept. 11, 2001, and his State of the Union Address in 2002, George W. Bush had America in the palm of his hand. But in that speech, Bush blew it. Singling out Iran, Iraq and North Korea as state sponsors of terror seeking weapons of mass destruction, Bush yoked them together in an "axis of evil" and issued this ultimatum: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's...

Special UN envoy on human rights in PA says in special report Israel's actions in territories can be described as 'ethnic cleansing,' adds three-quarters of Gaza population depend on food aid for survival Ali Waked and Reuters Published: 09.26.06, 19:28 United Nations Human rights envoy to the Palestinian territories John Dugard has published a report Tuesday where he does not shy away from sharply criticizing Israel and the West for the situation in Gaza. "Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison for Palestinians and have thrown away the key," he said, adding that "in other countries this process...

Washington — It couldn't have come at a worse time for U.S. Republicans trying to get re-elected in mid-term elections in November on the strength of their national security efforts. Part of a comprehensive spy report finished in April and leaked last weekend said the U.S. invasion of Iraq helped create a new generation of Islamic radicals and increased the global terrorism threat. That's the opposite of what President George W. Bush has been telling Americans for weeks in pre-election speeches and it could have a significant impact on whether the party retains control of Congress this fall.

Three retired U.S. Army Officers address a congressional committee on the war in Iraq in starkly harsh words Monday. “I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq,” retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste told a forum conducted by Senate Democrats. A second military leader, also a retired two-star general, Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically.” A third officer, retired Col. Paul X. Hammes, joined Batiste and Eaton in testimony before the Democratic Policy...

WASHINGTON - Retired military officers on Monday are expected to bluntly accuse Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public. "I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said in remarks prepared for a hearing by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. A second witness, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, is...

Britain's top law-and-order official warned Muslim parents on Wednesday to watch their children closely for signs of extremism. Home Secretary John Reid told an audience of Muslims in London that they must do their part in a "battle of values," the Home Office said. Reid's words infuriated an angry listener, who began to yell back at the minister during his speech and had to be escorted out of the room. "There is no nice way of saying this," Reid said, according to extracts from his speech released in advance. "These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your...

CAIRO (AFP) - The Arab League has called on the United Nations Security Council to find a new mechanism to relaunch the Middle East peace process, at the opening of a meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo. Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said the League would call on the Security Council "to review the peace process... and to find a new and effective mechanism to activate it, based on Security Council decisions and the Arab peace initiative." The 2002 Arab initiative proposed a full normalization of relations with Israel in the exchange for the return of all...

'Arab vision' to advance peace process Arab League, PA, other Arab states meet to formulate Arab vision for peace in Middle East Roee Nahmias Published: 09.03.06, 14:11 The Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Arab League are holding intensive talks in recent days in an attempt to formulate an "Arab vision" for advancing the peace process. The final document is to be delivered to the United Nations Security Council at the end of the month, according to the east Jerusalem-based al-Quds newspaper. Hisham Yousef, head of the office of the Arab League's director-general, said...

World-renowned intellectuals publish open letter to make it clear that world is not ignoring what is happening in the Middle East. Surprisingly, it's us they blame When the war began in northern Israel and the Gaza operation was expanded, Palestinian director and actor Juilano Mar Hamis sent out an e-mail asking who would paint the “Guernica” of Lebanon. Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” which shows the results of the Nazi bombing of Guernica in Spain, is still considered a symbol of the destruction and devastation that war leaves in its wake. According to Mar Hamis, his e-mail was intended to awaken the...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday told arch-foe Israel to "pack up" and move somewhere outside the Middle East, the state news agency IRNA reported. "I advise them to pack up and move out of the region before being caught in the fire they have started in Lebanon," said Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the Jewish state to be relocated elsewhere on the planet. Iran refuses to recognise Israel and opposes any two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ahmadinejad has in the past called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" or relocated as far away as Alaska. Israel...

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an "act of war," the last pillar of Bush's Middle East policy collapsed. First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush's dictum: The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran. Now, Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon – smashing airport runways,...

Where are the Christians? But what Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian. But where are the Christians? Why is Pope Benedict virtually alone among Christian leaders to have spoken out against what is being done to Lebanese Christians and Muslims? When al-Qaida captured two U.S. soldiers and barbarically butchered them, the U.S. Army did not smash...

My country has been "torn to shreds," said Fouad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon, as the death toll among his people passed 300 civilian dead, 1,000 wounded, with half a million homeless. Israel must pay for the "barbaric destruction," said Siniora. To the contrary, says columnist Lawrence Kudlow, "Israel is doing the Lord's work." On American TV, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says the ruination of Lebanon is Hezbollah's doing. But is it Hezbollah that is using U.S.-built F-16s, with precision-guided bombs and 155-mm artillery pieces to wreak death and devastation on Lebanon? No, Israel is doing this,...

Killing of civilians in Lebanon is likely to subject Israeli soldiers to war crime trials in international courts, UN human rights high commissioner says The continuation of Israel's operation in Lebanon and the rising civilian death toll is likely "could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control," Louise Arbour, the high commissioner for human rights, told the New York Times. “International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligations to protect civilians during hostilities,’’ she said. “Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians,” she said...

Conservative intellectuals and commentators who once lauded Bush for what they saw as a willingness to aggressively confront threats and advance U.S. interests said in interviews that they perceive timidity and confusion about long-standing problems including Iran and North Korea, as well as urgent new ones such as the latest crisis between Israel and Hezbollah. "It is Topic A of every single conversation," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that has had strong influence in staffing the administration and shaping its ideas. "I don't have a friend...

A Mexican customs facility planned for Kansas City's inland port may have to be considered the sovereign soil of Mexico as part of an effort to lure officials in that country into cooperating with the Missouri development project. Despite adamant denials by Kansas City Area Development Council officials, WND has obtained emails and other documents from top executives with the KCSmartPort project that suggest such a facility would by necessity be considered Mexican territory – despite its presence in the heartland of the U.S.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), signed by President Bush with Mexico and Canada in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005, was fundamentally an agreement to erase our borders with Mexico and Canada. As I have documented below, the SPP “working groups” organized within the U.S. Department of Transportation are signing trilateral memoranda of understanding and other agreements with Mexico and Canada designed to accomplish the open borders goal incrementally, below the radar of mainstream media attention, thereby avoiding public scrutiny. Congress is largely unaware that SPP exists, let alone knowledgeable about the extensive work being done behind the scenes...

Foreclosures rising with debt, job losses Adjustable rate mortgages surprise some homeowners By BECKY YERAK Chicago Tribune CHICAGO - Foreclosures on home mortgages are on the way up. Nationally, foreclosures are up 38 percent, higher than in any quarter of last year, property tracker RealtyTrac said. The numbers are even grimmer in the Midwest. Michigan and Ohio, battered by automotive-related job losses, together recorded 45,000 mortgages entering some stage of foreclosure in the first quarter. Those are increases of 91 percent and 39 percent, respectively, compared with last year's fourth quarter. There are many reasons for the growing number of...

Dan Betzer and Louie - "Tell The Bible Classics Volume 3"

WASHINGTON - National Guard troops tapped for duty on the border with Mexico will not chase down illegal immigrants but instead will play behind-the-scenes roles in support of border guards, officials said Monday. Among the tasks they are likely to perform over the coming year: training federal Border Patrol guards, building barriers near the border, improving roadways, providing support for aerial and ground surveillance, analyzing and sharing intelligence, and providing communications systems and transportation, the officials said. The intent is to deepen the Guard's existing support for law enforcement agencies — but only temporarily. Several thousand Guard troops are likely...

Defending the borders! Speaking the language! Lifting the culture! It's the SAVAGE NATION!!!

Scathing report issued by Phycisians for Human Rights organization says Palestinian healthcare system collapsing because of aid cuts, Israel curfews; report warns Israel will be held responsible for collapse by international community The Palestinian health system is facing meltdown as a result of international aid cuts and the curfew imposed by Israel on the Palestinian Authority, part of its effort to boycott the Hamas government. The latest humanitarian alarm was sounded on Tuesday in a report by the Physicians for Human Rights organization – a non-profit organization whose goal is to safeguard health-related rights of people living in Israel and...

Chaos, poverty and desperation on this side of the Green Line is not a recipe for salvation in Israel. Israel over the years has been, through design, instrumental in bringing the occupied Palestinian territory to its current catastrophic situation. All along, Israel was, and still is, working to annex more and more Palestinian territory and water resources. To this end, it employs all means to make sure of two things: One, the territory it annexes is empty of Palestinians, two: that the Palestinians remain so weak that they do not pose any strategic threat to Israel. Most recently, this has...

Palestinian Authorty Deputy Prime Minster Nasser Abu-Shayer said late Wednesday that Hamas adopting the 2002 Saudi peace plan, which calls for peace with Israel following an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, would be conditional on Israel recognizing the Hamas-led PA government. A report published on the organization's website said that Hamas was weighing the Saudi initiative, but had not taken a final decision, Israel Radio reported. According to the terms of the peace plan, in addition to reestablishing the 1967 borders, Israel would be required to dismantle the West Bank settlements and allows Palestinians the right of return. Hamas...

In reconciliatory interview with Britain's Times newspaper, Palestinian Foreign Minister al-Zahar hints at Hamas willingness to recognize Israel, expresses willingness to meet with Western leaders Hamas is prepared to discuss the concept of a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict that would recognize Israel's right to exist, the Palestinian foreign minister said in comments published on Friday. Mahmoud al-Zahar, who is also a senior Hamas leader, said he wanted clarification on the two-state proposal from the "Quartet" Of Middle East mediators - the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia. Hamas, which swept parliamentary elections in...

Iran duped European Union negotiators into thinking it had halted efforts to make nuclear fuel while it continued to install equipment to process yellowcake -- a key stage in the nuclear-fuel process, a top Iranian negotiator boasted in a recent speech to leading Muslim clerics.

The Dubai Ports World deal is waking Americans up to a painful reality [...] we've abandoned the principles of tariff-based trade that built American industry and kept us strong for over 200 years. The old concept was that if there was a dollar's worth of labor in a pair of shoes made in the USA, and somebody wanted to import shoes from China where there may only be ten cents worth of labor in those shoes, we'd level the playing field for labor by putting a 90-cent import tariff on each pair of shoes. Companies could choose to make their...

Defense Minister Mofaz outraged by reports of uprooted Palestinians trees; orders investigation, says compensation possible If it turned out that Israelis were involved in the uprooting of olive trees belonging to Palestinians, the victims of the acts would receive compensation from the Israeli government, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Thursday. The subject of uprooted trees came up at a meeting between the defense minister, Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, and security officials. The meeting also dealt with Qassam rocket firings, and the situation on the northern border. In the course of the meeting, it was reported that over 1,000 olive...

Jeff Bewkes, newly appointed president of Time Warner and heir apparent to the mightiest throne in American media, has a substantial history of Democrat campaign contributions. According to NewsMeat, he's donated $35,000 to Democrats, $3,500 to the GOP, and $49,000 to special interests. The few "Republicans" he has donated to are McCain and Bob Packwood.

Ok so lets say you have some time to kill and want to try something new. Maybe youre strictly a Windows user and feel lfet out of the flame wars that erupt between KDE and Gnome people about which interface is better... Well here is your chance to start up flame wars about which windows interface is better... Emerge Desktop is an alternate shell for Windows 2000 and XP. you don't need it :-) Unless you like to customize your desktop and have a lighter interface. This is not a new feature introduced by Emerge Desktop. There are plenty of...

Israel should be "wiped off the map": Iran president Agence France-Presse | October 26, 2005 Posted on 10/26/2005 2:44:55 AM PDT by HAL9000 Original Article on FRKHALID MASHALThis cult is dangerous and should be dealt with now

FED UP Americans Revolt Against Illegal Immigration The American public is FED UP with the invasion of our sovereign nation by third-world outlaws from Mexico. Even Democrat politicians are finally getting the message: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MUST BE STOPPED NOW! Aspiring politicans who seize this issue will win in 2006 and 2008. Successful candidates must understand that: We are FED UP with the refusal of the federal government to secure our borders, opting instead to provide big business with slave labor in the form of illegals from Mexico. This irresponsible policy leaves our nation vulnerable to terrorism, and we are FED...

Iraqi sources have told a Saudi newspaper that al-Qaeda's man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been arrested. Al Watan daily said Sunday that the official announcement on the arrest was delayed until a new Iraqi government is in place. The purported arrest supposedly took place on the Iraqi - Syrian border, the report added. It should be mentioned that CNN aired on Saturday new pictures believed to show al-Zarqawi, who is America's most-wanted man in Iraq. The Saudi paper said that the arrest of al-Zarqawi was completed ahead the recent visit of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in...

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday that peace efforts with the Palestinians would be frozen if they do not crack down on militant groups in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed four people outside a Tel Aviv nightclub Friday. "There will be no progress politically, and I repeat no political progress, until the Palestinians carry out a determined campaign to destroy the terrorist groups and their infrastructure in the territories," Sharon said before his weekly Cabinet meeting.

Defense/Security Sharon to Pardon PA Official Who Planned School Bus Bombing 19:27 Jan 27, '05 / 17 Shevat 5765 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is poised to pardon two PA officials with proven ties to terrorism, including one of the planners of the fatal November 2000 bombing of an Israeli school bus. Rashid Abu Shabak, second-in-command of the PA Preventive Security Services in Gaza, is one of two senior PA officials wanted for their involvement in terror attacks whom PM Sharon has reportedly agreed to remove from Israel’s list of wanted terrorists. The other terrorist leader to be pardoned will be...

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave his army orders Sunday to crush militants in the Gaza Strip and accused new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas of failing to lift a finger to stop attacks. "The current situation is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue," Sharon said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. "The Tsahal (army) and the security forces have received orders to operate without any limits on time or their modus operandi to act against the terrorist organisations. "These instructions will remain valid as long as the Palestinians fail to lift even...

Anytime religion is mentioned within the confines of government today people cry, "Separation of Church and State". Many people think this statement appears in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution and therefore must be strictly enforced. However, the words: "separation", "church", and "state" do not even appear in the first amendment. The first amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." The statement about a wall of separation between church and state was made in a letter on January 1, 1802, by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association...

TALKING: Author and behavioral geneticist Dean Hamer talks at his home in Washington. (Washington Post photo by Juana Arias) Are humans programmed to worship? Author says people have genetic propensity toward religious belief By Bill Broadway The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- Dean Hamer has received much criticism for his new book, "The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired Into Our Genes." [snip]

Sr. Rita of the Benedictines sent this to us...it is quite amazing! Please pass it along. Blessings. Allen ODonnell ----- Original Message ----Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 8:12 AM - Subject: Fw: THE MISSING DAY ...mind boggling. THE MISSING DAY For all the scientists out there, and for all the students who have a hard time convincing these people regarding the truth of the Bible, here's something that shows God's awesome creation, and that He is still in control. Did you know that the space program is busy proving that what has been called "myth" in the Bible is true?...

For a lot of people, the Bible and mathematics are dry subjects, but not for Edwin Sherman – he believes he's found how the two fit together. Sherman, founder of the Isaac Newton Bible Code Research Society and a professional mathematician, is convinced that the Hebrew Bible contains coded messages that are evidence of God's authorship of the Bible. His book, "Bible Code Bombshell: Compelling Scientific Evidence that God Authored the Bible," describes numerous examples of encoded phrases and sentences that are both lengthy and relevant to the text where they were found.

New York (AsiaNews/CWN) – Anthony Flew, the British scholar who has been one of the world's most proponent of atheism, has conceded that scientific evidence points to the existence of God. A prolific writer and energetic lecturer who has advanced atheist arguments throughout his long academic career, Flew made his dramatic concession at a conference in New York in which he recanted the ideology of a lifetime conceding that there is scientific evidence for the existence of God. Flew said that the latest biological research “has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce...

NEW YORK -- A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God -- more or less -- based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday. At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.

Old Palafox Street is an aging, two-lane stretch of road running through the middle of Pensacola, Florida. To the east of Old Palafox, the next major road is Interstate 110 and in between those thoroughfares rests the sprawling campus of Pensacola Christian Academy, quickly followed by the even more sprawling campus of Pensacola Christian College. Both campuses are crammed with spotlessly maintained buildings and grounds. They stand out starkly amid the visible economic decline that surrounds them. The area is littered with empty, boarded-up buildings and abandoned strip malls. Less than a mile north of the Academy on Old Palafox...

Is Darwin winning the battle, but losing the war? As soon as one challenge to the teaching of evolution is beaten in the courts, another emerges to take its place. The current contender is “intelligent design,” a theory that according to advocates at the Discovery Institute “makes no religious claims, but says that the best natural evidence for life’s origins points to design rather than a process of random mutation and natural selection.”

BOOKS OF THE TIMES 'LIVING HISTORY' A 'Zone of Privacy' With Calculated Polish By MICHIKO KAKUTANI Two leitmotifs run through Hillary Rodham Clinton's wildly hyped new memoir, "Living History." One has to do with her changing hairstyles, which are discussed in detail at least a half dozen times, as they morphed with Madonna-like frequency from long to short, from frizzy to hair-banded to carefully coiffed. The other has to do with Mrs. Clinton's penchant for blaming enemies, from political opponents to a "vast right-wing conspiracy," for her and her husband's failures and travails. The first underscores the chameleonlike quality she's...