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"On Dec. 17, a mob of nearly 1,000 Muslims attacked a church building under construction in Bekasi Regency, near Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, according to VOM Canada. At midnight, Muslims arrived on bikes and on foot at the Church of Saint Albert. They stormed into the building, carrying banners and tanks of kerosene. One witness reported hearing them shout, "Destroy! Destroy it! Replace the church with mosque!" Muslims damaged bricks, broke lights, uprooted newly planted trees and set the building on fire. Praise God, no one was injured in the attack, but damage amounted to about 60 million rupees (approximately $6,235). Local Christians were planning to use the nearly completed building for a Christmas service. Following the attack, a leader of the church's construction committee said, "Even though our chapel was attacked, we are not afraid. We will continue the construction of this chapel until its completion." The Voice of the Martyrs actively supports persecuted believers in Indonesia by providing resources for churches and pastors and helping displaced believers rebuild their lives. VOM encourages you to pray that these believers will not be discouraged but will continue to rest in the joy and provision of Christ. Pray that Indonesian Christians will be emboldened by the Holy Spirit to share the truth of the Lord. "

"CHICAGO (AP) - A would-be terrorist tries to board a plane, bent on mass murder. As he walks through a security checkpoint, fidgeting and glancing around, a network of high-tech machines analyzes his body language and reads his mind. Screeners pull him aside. Tragedy is averted. As far-fetched as that sounds, systems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year. On Thursday, in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit, President Barack Obama called on Homeland Security and the Energy Department to develop better screening technology, warning: "In the never-ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary." The ideas that have been offered by security experts for staying one step ahead include highly sophisticated sensors, more intensive interrogations of travelers by screeners trained in human behavior, and a lifting of the U.S. prohibitions against profiling. Some of the more unusual ideas are already being tested. Some aren't being given any serious consideration. Many raise troubling questions about civil liberties. All are costly. "Regulators need to accept that the current approach is outdated," said Philip Baum, editor of the London-based magazine Aviation Security International. "It may have responded to the threats of the 1960s, but it doesn't respond to the threats of the 21st century." Here's a look at some of the ideas that could shape the future of airline security:"

"A nuclear Iran would set off an unprecedented arms race in the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon warned Wednesday. "A nuclear Iran would destroy the world order," Ayalon told a gathering in Jerusalem. "We would see a nuclear arms race which we have never seen before." Advertisement He urged the international community to form a "united front" against Iranian nuclear aspirations. Iran was an especially dangerous state to possess an atom bomb because of its "radical, fundamentalist" regime, its "extremist policy" and its support of Islamic militant factions, he charged. Tehran was "banking on driving a wedge between the different members of the security council and the international community. "Suffice to say that I take the American president and secretary of state at their word and they are right to say and to state that all options are on the table," Ayalon warned, alluding to the possibility of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities in case international sanctions failed. Speculation has been rife as to whether Israel is planning such a military strike and whether it would carry out such a plan even without US support. Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that they prefer tough international sanctions, but have equally often threatened that it would not rule out military action. "

"LONDON - New regulations that took effect Wednesday require skilled foreign workers who extend their stay in Britain to obtain identity cards containing biometric data, including finger prints and photographs. The UK Border Agency rules are part of the extended rollout of a 2008 program that will require all foreign workers who plan to stay in Britain six months or longer to obtain an ID card by April 2011. The rules apply only to workers from outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland. British officials say the ID cards for foreign workers will help combat illegal workers and illegal immigration and allow cardholders to establish their identity and immigration status, making it easier for them to access various benefits they are entitled to. The cards, in conjunction with workers' passports, can also be used to facilitate entry into Britain after trips abroad, officials said. Skilled workers are defined as those with a job sponsor who can establish their skills and earnings potential on a point-based system that also takes into account their English language ability."

"Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Clashes between Muslims and Christians in the central Nigerian city of Jos have killed more than 400 people and injured 4,000 more, a domestic human rights group said. Most of the fighting in three days of violence occurred in the city's poor neighborhoods where security forces arrived late, Shehu Sani, president of the Civil Rights Congress, said today by phone from Jos. Earlier, New York-based Human Rights Watch put the death toll at 216. Hospitals are overwhelmed and have run out of supplies to treat the injured, Sani said. Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan ordered the police and army to "immediately" contain the crisis, Aliyu Bilbis, minister of state for information, told reporters today in Abuja, the capital. The government is "greatly concerned, worried and disturbed" about the situation in Jos, he said. "This is not the first outbreak of deadly violence in Jos, but the government has shockingly failed to hold anyone accountable," Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in an e-mailed statement. The Nigerian government should investigate the cause of the violence and the excessive use of force by the security forces trying to quell the clashes and punish those responsible for the killings, the rights group said. Jonathan is overseeing the government response because President Umaru Yar'Adua has been in a Saudi Arabian hospital for almost two months receiving treatment for a heart ailment. Ethnic Groups While Muslim leaders reported 80 deaths yesterday, in addition to 71 who died in the first two days of fighting, Christian officials have counted 65 deaths, Human Rights Watch said, citing "credible reports" from the city. More than 5,000 people have fled their homes in the Plateau state capital, it said. Sani said the violence had displaced 60,000 people. "

"It has been a bleak winter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The credibility of the UN body came under attack days before the opening of the Copenhagen climate summit in December, when leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia appeared to show manipulation of temperature data used by the panel. Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, was forced to spend much of his time at the conference defending the integrity of the science contained in the panel's reports. Now it has been forced to apologise for including a highly alarmist claim in its most recent report that Himalayan glaciers were very likely to vanish by 2035. Most glaciologists believe the melting would take hundreds of years and some doubt that it will ever happen, pointing to evidence of glaciers advancing in the neighbouring Karakoram mountain range. The IPCC reports underpin every country's decisions about climate change. If the panel cannot be trusted, it becomes much more difficult to justify the global effort to cut greenhouse gases. That is why it is vital to place the allegations against the IPCC in context. While it is alarming that none of the 2,500 scientists who contributed to its 2007 report spotted the error, this is explained partly by it appearing in a single sentence on page 493. Climate sceptics around the world have spent two years scrutinising every claim made by the panel. So far they have identified one serious error; it seems unlikely that they will find many more. The IPCC should now re-check all the sources of statements in its report, but this process will not alter its conclusion that man-made emissions are very likely to be the main cause of global warming. "

"Iran is serious about developing a nuclear bomb and has the ability to produce a primitive, truck-sized version of the bomb this year, the German magaziner Der Spiegel reported on Monday. An intelligence dossier obtained by Der Spiegel shows that there is a secret military branch of Iran's nuclear research program that answers to Tehran's ministry of defense, according to the report. Officials who have read this document - which is currently under review by the U.S., Germany and Israel - claim that it shows that their nuclear program aimed at producing a bomb is well advanced. Advertisement The officials said to Der Spiegel that the truck-sized bomb which they are capable of producing will have to be compressed to a size that would fit into a nuclear warhead for the strategic threat potential they desire. Der Spiegel also wrote that Israel and the West were alarmed by the dossier's revelations, as Iran could reach the compressed level of a nuclear bomb between 2012 and 2014. Tehran has consistently denied that it is enriching uranium for weapons, claiming it is exclusively dedicated to the peaceful use of nuclear technology. Iran has often warned it would retaliate for any attack on its nuclear facilities, which the West suspects form part of a drive to develop bombs. Tehran denies the charge. U.S. and Israel have not ruled out attack of Iran's nuclear site"

"PositiveID (PSID) is to begin a study of its Health Link implantable microchip in diabetic, hypertensive and obese patients. The study -like everything else associated with the company formerly known as VeriChip - is bound to be controversial. The Health Link chip is implanted under a patient's skin. It can be scanned to access the patient's online medical records. The company's critics fear the chip will one day become mandatory, leading to a complete loss of medical privacy, or that Americans will be unable to receive healthcare unless they get chipped. BNET has noted that PositiveID also owns a credit monitoring and identity-theft prevention company, Steel Vault, and that it envisions its chips being linked to Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and employers. PositiveID linked credit monitoring and the Health Link chip in its most recent 10-Q. While PositiveID's press release gives few specifics, it indicates that the study will have something to do with the Health Link chip and customers of HealthScreenDirect, a company that offers screening for diabetes and high cholesterol. Its says the study will be: … a prospective, randomized, comparative clinical study that will seek to address improving disease management through the use of appropriate, concise, and up-to-date patient health information available to both practitioners caring for diabetic, hypertensive and obese patients and the patients themselves through the utilization of PositiveID's personal health record (Health Link) and an electronic medical records system. PositiveID CEO Scott R. Silverman said in the statement that the study will also advance the company's in-development glucose-sensing chip. Silverman is doubtless hoping that patients with the chip - and with their health records online - will have better outcomes in terms of managing their diabetes than those doing it the old-fashioned way. The unanswered question is why health record access - or even a microchip

"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?"

"Haiti's history is a catalog of political disasters, one after the other. In one account of the nation's fight for independence from the French in the late 18th century, representatives of the nation are said to have made a pact with the Devil to throw off the French. According to this account, the Haitians considered the French as Catholics and wanted to side with whomever would oppose the French. Thus, some would use that tradition to explain all that has marked the tragedy of Haitian history -- including now the earthquake of January 12, 2010. Does God hate Haiti? That is the conclusion reached by many, who point to the earthquake as a sign of God's direct and observable judgment. God does judge the nations -- all of them -- and God will judge the nations. His judgment is perfect and his justice is sure. He rules over all the nations and his sovereign will is demonstrated in the rising and falling of nations and empires and peoples. Every molecule of matter obeys his command, and the earthquakes reveal his reign -- as do the tides of relief and assistance flowing into Haiti right now. A faithful Christian cannot accept the claim that God is a bystander in world events. The Bible clearly claims the sovereign rule of God over all his creation, all of the time. We have no right to claim that God was surprised by the earthquake in Haiti, or to allow that God could not have prevented it from happening. God's rule over creation involves both direct and indirect acts, but his rule is constant. The universe, even after the consequences of the Fall, still demonstrates the character of God in all its dimensions, objects, and occurrences. And yet, we have no right to claim that we know why a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti happened at just that place and at just that moment. The arrogance of human presumption is a real and present danger. We can trace the effects of a drunk driver to a car accident, but we cannot trace the effects of voodoo to an earthquake -- a

"And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven." -Luke 21:11 The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that has essentially destroyed the nation of Haiti has refocused attention on the prophecies about earthquakes in the last days that we find in the Scriptures. Yahshua (Jesus) told us that we would see an increase in earthquakes as we approached His coming and that this would be a clear sign that the end times was at hand. Could the unusual shaking that we are currently seeing around the world be an indication that we are approaching the time prophesied almost 2000 years ago? You see, unfortunately the Haiti earthquake is not an isolated incident. 2010 is already a banner year for major earthquakes. For example, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake shook the ocean floor between South America and Antarctica on Sunday. A magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit Guatemala's Pacific coast near the border with El Salvador on Monday, but fortunately it did not do much damage. There have already been five magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquakes in the area of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean so far in 2010. The annual average of worldwide earthquakes measuring 6.0 or greater is 152. If the current pace continues, we will see 260 in 2010. The earth is shaking my friends.

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Scores of U.S. troops landed on the lawn of Haiti's shattered presidential palace Tuesday to the cheers of quake victims and the U.N. said it would throw more police and soldiers into the sluggish global effort to aid the devastated country. The U.N. forces are aimed at controlling outbursts of looting and violence that have slowed distribution of supplies, leaving many Haitians still without help a week after the magnitude-7.0 quake killed an estimated 200,000 people. Looters were rampaging through a part of downtown Port-au-Prince even as the Security Council was voting to add 2,000 troops to the 7,000 military peacekeepers already in the country as well as 1,500 more police to the 2,100-strong international force. Haitians jammed the fence of the palace grounds to gawk and cheer as U.S. troops emerged from six Navy helicopters. "We are happy that they are coming, because we have so many problems," said Fede Felissaint, a hairdresser. Given the circumstances, he did not even mind the troops taking up positions at the presidential palace. "If they want, they can stay longer than in 1915," he said, a reference to the start of a 19-year U.S. military presence in Haiti - something U.S. officials have repeatedly insisted they have no intention of repeating. A full week after the quake, the capital's port remains blocked and the city's lone airport remains a chokepoint that the U.S. military is trying to expand. Tens of thousands of people sleep in the streets or under plastic sheets in makeshift camps. Relief workers say they fear visiting some parts of the city."

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Troops, doctors and aid workers flowed into Haiti on Monday even while victims of the quake that killed an estimated 200,000 people still struggled to find a cup of water or a handful of food. European nations pledged more than a half-billion dollars in emergency and long-term aid, on top of at least $100 million promised earlier by the U.S. But help was still not reaching many victims of Tuesday's quake - choked back by transportation bottlenecks, bureaucratic confusion, fear of attacks on aid convoys, the collapse of local authority and the sheer scale of the need. Looting spread to more parts of downtown Port-au-Prince as hundreds of young men and boys clambered up broken walls to break into shops and take whatever they can find. Especially prized was toothpaste, which people smear under their noses to fend off the stench of decaying bodies. At a collapsed and burning shop in the market area, youths used broken bottles, machetes and razors to battle for bottles of rum and police fired shots to break up the crowd. "I am drinking as much as I can. It gives courage," said Jean-Pierre Junior, wielding a broken wooden plank with nails to protect his bottle of rum. Even so, the U.S. Army's on-the-ground commander, Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, said the city is seeing less violence than before the earthquake. "Is there gang violence? Yes. Was there gang violence before the earthquake? Absolutely."' Keen said some 2,000 Marines were set to join 1,000 U.S. troops on the ground and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Monday he wants 1,500 more U.N. police and 2,000 more troops to join the existing 7,000 military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police in Haiti."

"World|Wed, Jan. 27 2010 11:45 AM EDT Islamic Militants in Somalia Murder Christian Leader By Simba Tian|Compass Direct News * Single Page * * E-mail * * Print * * RSS * * digg Facebook Twitter Stumble Reddit del.ico.us Buzz Share * * Text * G-bookmarks * Live * Technorati NAIROBI, Kenya (Compass Direct News) - Islamic extremists shot the leader of an underground church to death outside the capital city of Somalia this month and have threatened to kill his wife, his tearful widow told Compass. Having learned that he had left Islam to become a Christian, Somali militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab murdered 41-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Ali at about noon on Jan. 1, Amina Ibrahim Hassan said. He was killed sometime after leaving his home in Hodan, on the outskirts of Mogadishu, she said. She and other family members were not immediately aware that he had been killed. "We waited for him that day, but he did not turn up," said Hassan, who has since fled to Nairobi. "The following day, on Jan. 2, I was informed by the fellowship that my husband had been killed." Ali led an underground church. Christian sources said members of al Shabaab, said to have links with al Qaeda terrorists, had been monitoring Ali and his wife for indications that they had left Islam. Ali had organized New Year's Day festivities for Christians to take place in Medina, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) outside of Mogadishu. Al Shabaab extremists killed him after word of the planned party leaked to them, Hassan said. Hassan, who worked for a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) before leaving the country, said she received threatening calls from members of al Shabaab on Jan. 3. "We know who you are working for," Hassan said one extremist told her. "We also know your home and that you are a follower of the Christians, and we are going to kill you the way we killed your husband." Aware of the Islamic extremist

"In 2005, General Chi Haotian of China, its "Minister of National Defense" since 1993 to 2003, revealed in his speeches that in China's war on the U.S.A., from one-third to two-thirds of Americans would be poisoned or infected biologically by the Chinese, and their homes and property would be transferred over to Chinese settlers, since the Chinese (and not the Germans, as Chi stipulated in his speech) are the superior race and must have everything best in the world. Anyway, a slave state (China) has this advantage over a free country (the United States): it can reward (enrich!) 100 million or 200 million of its troops and its civilians with what those killed (poisoned and infected) Americans and their ancestors had been acquiring for the past two and a half centuries. In the United States , an American's betrayal of his country to China may well be seen to be his use of his freedom. This certainly applies to the U.S. Presidents, whose elections (which have little to do with the appointment of the prime minister in Britain) contradict the knowledge of mental ability, according to which the value of a thought may include its exclusivity: Einstein said that he was understood by seven people in the world. It was only owing to Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 that the Americans got the nuclear bombs before Hitler's Germany completed its nuclear project. "

"BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber mingling among Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad detonated an explosives belt Monday, killing at least 54 people, officials said. The bombing was the first major strike this year against pilgrims making their way to the southern city of Karbala to mark a Shiite holy day. It came as a security official warned of a possible increase in attacks by insurgents using new tactics to bypass bomb-detection methods. The bombing raises fears of an escalation of attacks as hundreds of thousands of Shiites head to Karbala to mark on Friday the end of 40 days of mourning following the anniversary of the death Imam Hussein, a revered Shiite figure. The bomber hid the explosives underneath an abaya - a black cloak worn from head to toe by women - as she joined a group of pilgrims on the outskirts of Baghdad's Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Shaab, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, Baghdad's top military spokesman. The bomber set off the blast as she lined up with other women to be searched by female security guards at a security checkpoint just inside a rest tent, al-Moussawi said. A police official said 54 people, including 18 women and 12 children, were killed and 117 were wounded. A hospital official confirmed the casualties. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Witnesses described a chaotic scene in the minutes after the blast. Raheem Kadhom, 35, said he was standing nearby when a huge fireball erupted among the pilgrims. Pilgrims were "on the ground, covered in blood and crying for help," he said. "Banners were all over the ground and covered in blood." The blast was so powerful it knocked some out of their slippers and shoes, which were scattered across the ground, he said, adding how people put the wounded in cars, taking them to hospitals rather than wait for ambulances. Despite an overall decline in violence in Iraq, al-Qaida and other Sunni extremists have routin

"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. "

"No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama's Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: "Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities."In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it. There are multiple reasons why this Obama decision is so deeply disturbing. First, the Obama order reverses a 1983 Reagan administration decision in order to grant Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, two key privileges. First, Obama has granted Interpol the ability to operate within the territorial limits of the United States without being subject to the same constitutional restraints that apply to all domestic law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. Second, Obama has exempted Interpol's domestic facilities -- including its office within the U.S. Department of Justice -- from search and seizure by U.S. authorities and from disclosure of archived documents in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. citizens. Think very carefully about what you just read: Obama has given an international law enforcement organization that is accountable to no other national authority the ability to operate as it pleases within our own borders, and he has freed it from the most basic measure of official transparency and accountability, the FOIA. The Examiner has asked for but not yet received from the White House press office an explanation of why the president signed this executive order and who among his advisers was involved in the process leading to his doing so. Unless the White House can provide credible reasons to t

"Saturday's 6.5 temblor off California's remote North Coast was the strongest to hit the state in six years, but it caused few injuries and little major damage aside from downed chimneys, broken windows and rattled nerves. But experts say it could have been far worse. Because the epicenter was located in solid rock about 25 miles offshore - and the rural region's population is scattered and resides primarily in wood-frame housing - damage was minimal for a quake of that size. The quake was also a powerful reminder that the area is the seismic capital of our state, yet its turbulence receives far less attention than quakes in the Bay Area and Los Angeles Basin. Every year at least 80 temblors with magnitudes over 3 are recorded off the Cape Mendocino coast, according to the University of California-Berkeley Seismology Laboratory. Humboldt County officials reported that more than two dozen residents sought emergency medical care, with only one serious injury - a broken hip. The picturesque city of Eureka, the hardest-hit community in the region, reported $12.5 million in structural damage, with 14 residents displaced. "On the whole, I think we dodged a bullet," said state Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro, D-Eureka. Most Californians are anxious about the San Andreas Fault, yet the so-called Cascadia subduction zone - which created Mount Lassen - is twice the length of the San Andreas and is believed capable Advertisement Quantcast of generating larger quakes than our notorious fault."

"It took years for liberalism's redistributive itch to create an income tax so steeply progressive that it prompts the flight from the state of wealth-creators: "Between 1990 and 2007," Voegeli writes, "some 3.4 million more Americans moved from California to one of the other 49 states than moved to California from another state." And the state's income tax - liberalism codified - intensifies the effects of business cycles on the state's revenue stream: During booms, the stream surges and stimulates government spending; during contractions, revenues dwindle but the new government spending continues. Voegeli says that if California's spending had grown no faster than population growth and inflation from 1992 to 2006, it would have been $65 billion less in 2006, and per capita government outlays then would have equaled not those of Somalia or Mississippi but of Oregon, which is hardly "a hellish paradigm of Social Darwinism." It took years for liberalism's mania for micromanaging life with entangling regulations to make California's once-creative economy resemble Gulliver immobilized by the Lilliputians' many threads. The state, which between 1990 and 2007 lost 26 percent of its factory jobs and 35 percent of its high-tech manufacturing jobs, ranks behind only New York, another of liberalism's laboratories, in the number of outward-bound moving vans. (emphasis added)"