"In a luxury hotel at Suweima, on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, the Russians held a "Track II" conference this week designed to send a clear message to the Arab world: "We are back."
Medvedev talks alongside...
Medvedev talks alongside Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, not pictured, after they signed bilateral accords at the Presidential Palace in Cairo on Tuesday.
Photo: AP
The conference, covered widely in the Arab world but hardly at all in Israel, took place just weeks after the re-launch - after an absence of some 18 years - of an Arabic version of the Moscow News. It also comes at a time of diplomatic stagnation in the Middle East that has led to increased calls from many quarters - particularly the Palestinians and the EU - for various actors in the international community to step in and impose a solution on the parties.
Russia, obviously, wants to be one of these actors. Hence the two-day conference, part of the Valdai Discussion Club, put on jointly by the Ria Novosti, the Russian News and Information Agency funded by the government, and the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, the equivalent to the Council on Foreign relations in the US.
The organizers invited a slew of Mideast experts from Russia and the region - including Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the "State of Palestine," Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, with a couple of people from the UK, US and France thrown in for good measure - to discuss whether a comprehensive settlement is possible in the Middle East by 2020.
The hope of the conference, said Sergei Karaganov of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy at its outset, was to "generate fresh ideas." Forget about it. The real agenda, it seems, was to implant in the Arab public a sense that Russia has returned to the region and is a player.
Some 50 Arab media outlets covered the conference, according to its organizers, and Ria Novosti quoted Al Jazeera as saying, "This is perhaps the first large-scale
Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. East Coast faces the coldest night of the season as frigid air spills south and threatens agriculture in Georgia, Alabama and the orange crop in Florida.
Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation.
Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. Temperatures may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours, the National Weather Service in Tampa said on its Web site.
"This is a pretty significant cold snap," Matt Keefe, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. "This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop." He said the jet stream, which normally keeps the coldest air north of the Hudson Bay in Canada, is centered over parts of Alabama and Mississippi. "The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week," he said.
Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. The Miami area will see temperatures 12 degrees to 13 degrees below normal for this time of year, Keefe said.
Tonight will be the coldest and offer the greatest danger of crop damage, Keefe said. The next chance for freezing will come next week.
"n a sign of the growing confidence of the Chinese military, Admiral Yin Zhuo said that the country may set up a base in the Gulf of Aden in order to support missions against Somali pirates.
Since the end of last year, China has sent four flotillas to the Middle East in order to take part in anti-piracy operations together with US, European, Indian and Russian warships. The latest mission, which departed from China in October, involved two missile frigates.
Mr Yin said a permanent base in the region would help supply Chinese ships. "We are not saying we need our navy everywhere in order to fulfil our international commitments," he said, cautiously. "We are saying to fulfil our international commitments, we need to strengthen our supply capacity."
His words, which came just a few days after China rescued 25 sailors from Somali pirates, were posted in an interview on the Defence ministry website. China is reported to have paid a USD4 million (Pounds2.5 million) ransom to free the De Xin Hai, a coal carrier.
Mr Yin, who is a senior researcher at the navy's Equipment Research centre, pointed out that the first Chinese ships in the Gulf of Aden spent 124 days at sea without docking, a logistical challenge.
However, Chinese ships have since been permitted to dock at a French base.
"If China establishes a similar long-term supply base, I believe that the nations in the region and the other countries involved with the (anti-pirate) escorts would understand," he said. "I think a permanent, stable base would be good for our operations.""
"On Christmas Day, a Nigerian-born terrorist named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger airplane. Only the bravery of a fellow passenger prevented the catastrophe.
President Obama called the terror attempt a "systemic failure" on the part of American national security agencies. In particular, he blamed the CIA for the foul-up.
There is no doubt that the CIA should have done something more to prevent this attack. But, then again, President Obama has been keeping them busy-with global warming. Seriously.
According to the New York Times on Jan. 5, just a few days after Obama excoriated the CIA publicly, "The nation's top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government's intelligence assets-including spy satellites and other classified sensors-to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change."
This project, the Times reported, "has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends …"
While missing a potentially catastrophic terror attack is problematic, it's good to know that we've got the inside dossier on the mating habits of polar bears.
This isn't a shock coming from the "watermelon" Obama White House-green on the outside, red on the inside. The simple truth is that the Obama administration believes that the solution to global warming is the same as the solution to terrorism: Marxist-style global redistributionism."
"Shoeb Khan kneeled in the foyer of Toronto's downtown convention centre Friday morning as he rifled through a package of flyers and booklets he had just been handed.
The 23-year-old Muslim student shoveled papers advertising Muslim clothing and products to the side before grabbing from a plastic bag a thick program guide outlining a weekend-long convention of the Muslim faith in Western Society.
Attending Toronto's Reviving the Islamic Spirit convention for the first time, he said he still wasn't sure what lectures he would attend, but had decided to attend after hearing a friend talk about it.
"I wanted to come and take it in for myself," said Mr. Khan, saying it opens a dialogue into North America's often tense relationship with his faith. "It is a really good time for introspection. It makes you think about a lot of things some people want to ignore.""
"The following video has one of the world's most influential people speaking on population control.
David Rockefeller and other individuals actually control much of our government's policies.
The are many people in the freedom movement who believe an individual's right to choose. Whether that choice is good or bad, it is up to that person to discern
The Agenda
From the studies I have done, the agenda is to kill off the weaker of the population. Keep the workers. Slavery will be back in the loop.
The people who are devising this agenda do not want strong-willed people who will tell the truth. My days are probably numbered.
Will you allow this group to pull "Hitler" style tactics on you?
Will you all start listening when your babies and your elderly family members start dying mysteriously?
There are others out there who are telling the truth. Will you all be as Sheeple and allow them to determine if or when you live or die?"
"A military strike on Iran could have the unintended consequence of stirring nationalist sentiment to the benefit of Tehran's hard-line government, U.S. General David Petraeus told Reuters.
Iran's June election gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term but sparked the worst internal crisis in the Islamic Republic's history, putting internal pressure on a government already facing the threat of more sanctions over its nuclear program.
"It's possible (a strike) could be used to play to nationalist tendencies," Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command region, which includes Iran, said in an interview this week.
"There is certainly a history, in other countries, of fairly autocratic regimes almost creating incidents that inflame nationalist sentiment. So that could be among the many different, second, third, or even fourth order effects (of a strike)."
Tensions over Iran's nuclear program have set off speculation that Israel could make good on veiled threats to hit its arch-foe pre-emptively. But Israel's envoy to Washington said in December the U.S.-Israeli dialogue on Iran has not reached the point of discussing the military option.
U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have warned that any strike on Iran would not stop the Islamic Republic from pursuing nuclear weapons. Instead, it would only delay Tehran, an opinion Petraeus said he shared.
Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told Congress on Tuesday that Iran was keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons but that it remained unclear whether Tehran had the political will to do so.
Petraeus, commenting on advances of Iran's nuclear program, said: "On the one hand, there is no question that there has been a continuation of various aspects of the nuclear program but I'm not sure it has always proceeded as rapidly as has been projected at various times."
GRADUAL BOOST IN DEFENSES
Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran was ready to send its enriched uraniu
"WASHINGTON-The U.S.'s top intelligence officials said Tuesday that an attempted al Qaeda attack on the U.S. in the next three to six months was "certain."
An official also said the Nigerian who allegedly attempted to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day was again cooperating with federal investigators. Republicans have accused the administration of squandering a chance to gain valuable intelligence from the suspect by using the civilian court system to charge him, instead of declaring him an enemy combatant and subjecting him to more interrogation.
Al Qaeda remains a significant threat to the U.S., the officials said, and the group's recent evolution in tactics includes dispatching individuals who can enter the U.S. without arousing suspicion, such as the man accused of attempting the Christmas Day attack.
Such tactics have created "a new degree of difficulty" for U.S. spies seeking to thwart the next attack, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Al Qaeda will remain intent on attacking in the U.S. at least until Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al Zawahiri, are killed or captured, Mr. Blair said.
Al Qaeda's many affiliates are also of great concern to the spy agencies. The Yemeni affiliate, which is believed to have directed the attempted Christmas Day attack, will continue to attempt additional attacks on the U.S., Mr. Blair said.
Militant groups in Pakistan are also coordinating their attacks with al Qaeda, which has led to an increase in terrorist attacks inside Pakistan as well as rising concerns the groups may expand their ambitions to attack outside Pakistan, officials said.
Republican lawmakers also pressed Mr. Blair and FBI Director Robert Mueller on the decision to read Miranda rights to the alleged Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, rather than submit him to further interrogation. Both officials said that decisions on whether to read a terror suspect his rig
"FAYETTEVILLE, West Va.-Perched on a platform 50 feet above the ground in a big hemlock named Fern, Geoff Elliott points to an unwelcome Asian import: a little bug known as the hemlock woolly adelgid.
Small fuzzy white nymphs cling to the undersides of hemlock branches throughout the grove of trees. Both nymphs and adult adelgids can work quickly to destroy hemlocks 150 feet tall.
"This tree is believed to be somewhere between 200 and 300 years in age and can be taken out by the adelgid in as little as two to four years," says Mr. Elliott, a tour guide for Adventure West Virginia Resort LLC, which operates zip-line tours through the treetops. The company is trying to educate visitors about the dangers of the invasive insect as it diminishes the landscape the business relies on.
"Without any action we could lose the species," said Mark Whitmore, a forest entomologist at Cornell University. He described the hemlock as a "keystone species," because it provides shade that cools streams so fish can survive as well shelter for birds and animals. Losing it would be like "having all your front teeth fall out," he said.
As global trade has mounted, more goods are coming in from overseas, sometimes bringing with them the accidental cargo of destructive bugs and plants. An estimated 500 million plants are imported to the U.S. each year, and shipments through one plant inspection station doubled to 52,540 between 2004 and 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today, about 30 new invasive insects are discovered annually in the U.S., up sharply over the last decade, the USDA says. "
"India launches biometric census
Indian President Pratibha Patil fills in a census form (1 April 2010)
The full results of India's national census will be released in mid-2011
India is launching a new census in which every person aged over 15 will be photographed and fingerprinted to create a biometric national database.
The government will then use the information to issue identity cards.
Officials will spend a year classifying India's population of around 1.2 billion people according to gender, religion, occupation and education.
The exercise, conducted every 10 years, faces big challenges, not least India's vast area and diversity of cultures.
Census officials must also contend with high levels of illiteracy and millions of homeless people - as well as insurgencies by Maoists and other rebels which have left large parts of the country unsafe.
President Pratibha Patil was the first person to be listed, and appealed to fellow Indians to follow her example "for the good of the nation".
"Everyone must participate and make it successful," she said in Delhi. "
""Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. "And where I go you know, and the way you know." Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." John 14:1-7"
"The Word of God is filled with encouraging Bible verses, which is one reason why it would be well for us to spend time reading the Bible daily. By meditating on key Bible verses we can find comfort and hope to get us through trying times. With that said, you will find several encouraging Bible verses below that you can reflect on for encouragement, and even use as a means to encourage others who might be troubled at heart.
Encouraging Bible Verses
Bible Verses to Remember
"God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, Even though the earth be removed, And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though its waters roar and be troubled, Though the mountains shake with its swelling." (Psalms 46:1-3 NKJV)"
"Standing with the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon as the war with Hamas continues
DID ISRAEL JUST BLINK, OR WIN?: Olmert declares unilateral cease-fire
January 16, 2009...7:21 am
BIBLE PROPHECY AND GAZA WAR
"Is there a connection between Bible prophecy and the war in Gaza right now?"
I'm getting asked that everywhere I travel here in the epicenter. It's an intriguing question, and there are two quick answers - no, and yes.
1.) No, there is no specific passage of Scripture that points to this specific war between Israel and terrorists in Gaza in the "last days," though there are certainly some passages that are evocative of the current conflict. The Lord once said through the Hebrew Prophet Amos, for example, "I will send fire upon the wall of Gaza and it will consume her citadels….I will even unleash My power upon Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines will perish." But this was fulfilled between 760 and 750 B.C.
2.) That said, the current war between Israel and the terrorist leaders and fighters of Hamas in Gaza could be preparing the way for the coming "War of Gog and Magog" described in Ezekiel 38-39. In that prophecy (as well as chapters 36 and 37), Ezekiel says that:
1. The State of Israel will be resurrected in the last days
2. Jews will pour back into the Holy Land after centuries of being scattered in exile all over the world
3. By God's grace, the Jews will rebuild the ancient ruins in the land of Israel
4. By God's grace, the Jews will see the land of Israel blossom and bear fruit like never before"