Navajo Confront an Increase in New H.I.V. Infections

By DAN FROSCH

Published: May 19, 2013

GALLUP, N.M. — A surge in H.I.V. infections on the Navajo reservation here has doctors and public health workers increasingly alarmed that the virus that causes AIDS has resurfaced with renewed intensity in this impoverished region.

A report released last month by the federal Indian Health Service found that there were 47 new diagnoses of human immunodeficiency virus on the reservation in 2012, up 20 percent from 2011. Since 1999, new H.I.V. cases among Navajo are up nearly fivefold, the report found. The tally of new cases from last year represents the highest annual number recorded among the tribe by the health agency.

“I’m scared to death,” said Dr. Jonathan Iralu, an infectious disease specialist who runs an H.I.V. clinic in this dusty town where old trading posts and ramshackle motels line the main drag on the edge of Navajo land, not far from the Arizona border. “The numbers show there is a dangerous rise, and the time to act is now, before it’s too late.”

Dr. Iralu, who compiled the report, remembers hearing the stories from former colleagues about the late 1980s when AIDS first struck the reservation. Navajo men would walk into the Indian Medical Center in Gallup sick with a fever or a cough, and a few days later they would be dead.

In the period after that, Dr. Iralu, a Harvard-educated doctor who moved here from Boston, treated a small number of Navajo men with H.I.V. each year and lost nearly a third of them.

As with other groups in the United States, infection rates on the reservation leveled off and deaths dropped, with help from new treatments and outreach seeking to cut through the stigma about AIDS among tribal members.

But over the past few years, the H.I.V. numbers on Navajo land have crept up. That increase, Dr. Iralu said, can be partly attributed to the infection being detected earlier, thanks to years of H.I.V. education programs and more routine screening.

But Dr. Iralu and other health workers also said the virus was now being transmitted from one tribal member to another, a disquieting trend. In past years, Navajo were thought to have contracted the disease mostly in cities and returned with it.

And though the numbers are still comparatively low — there are about 200 Navajo patients tracked by area clinics — the challenges of prevention are amplified in a place where sex is still rarely discussed publicly and infection is often hidden from loved ones.

Melvin Harrison, the executive director of the Navajo AIDS Network, which provides services for tribal members with H.I.V., said that of the 65 people his group treats, a majority have not told family or friends.

“That’s how big the stigma is here,” he said. “They are afraid of rejection.”

Mr. Harrison said that when he first started working on H.I.V. education in the 1980s, Navajo elders cautioned him not to talk openly about H.I.V. for fear that he would “wish” it upon the tribe.

Even now, he said, old cultural mores prevail, and gay Navajo men, who make up around 75 percent of the network’s clients, keep relationships private.

According to the recent report, men who have sex with men accounted for nearly half of the new cases.

One Navajo man, who contracted H.I.V. from his partner in 2001, recalled how his mother refused to hug him and served him food on plastic plates when she found out he was infected.

The man, 48, who did not want to be identified because he had not told his entire family, said his mother eventually came to embrace him after he explained the ways H.I.V. could and could not be transmitted.

But the man has not told his three brothers that he has H.I.V. because he fears they will shun him. “I don’t think I’ll ever tell them,” he said. “I don’t want to be pushed out of their lives.”

The intimacy of reservation life, where a hospital receptionist might be a relative or a nurse a close friend, can be a barrier to swift treatment and prevention. Mindful of those challenges, the Indian Health Service allocated $5 million over the past three years for communities to create H.I.V. prevention, treatment and education programs.

“H.I.V. in Indian country is very different than the rest of the world,” said Dr. Susan V. Karol, the agency’s chief medical officer. “Our communities are very small, and that can lead to people avoiding stigma, rather than getting the care they need.”

The tribe’s health department, the Navajo AIDS Network and Dr. Iralu’s clinic have all started outreach efforts, running public service messages in Navajo, promoting awareness through social media and distributing condoms.

Philene S. Herrera, who runs the tribe’s H.I.V. prevention program, said the recent report showed that more people were being screened. But, she said, it also conveyed the need to work to bring the infection rate down.

Data from the Indian Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show why early detection is critical. From 1998 to 2005, new infection rates among American Indians were not much higher than those of whites and were lower than blacks and Hispanics. But the chances of survival after an AIDS diagnosis were lower among Indians than in any other racial group.

It is unclear why this dynamic exists, Dr. Iralu said. But lower rates of routine H.I.V. screening and higher rates of co-morbidity, like diabetes and drug and alcohol abuse, are likely factors.

On a wall in the clinic’s hallway, a banner implores people to get tested. A fresh-faced Navajo man in a cowboy hat stares solemnly ahead, an empty road behind him disappears into the horizon.

“I’m afraid that if we wait too long,” Dr. Iralu said, “it could turn into a true epidemic.”

By MICHAEL WINES

Published: May 19, 2013

HASKELL COUNTY, Kan. — Forty-nine years ago, Ashley Yost’s grandfather sank a well deep into a half-mile square of rich Kansas farmland. He struck an artery of water so prodigious that he could pump 1,600 gallons to the surface every minute.

Last year, Mr. Yost was coaxing just 300 gallons from the earth, and pumping up sand in order to do it. By harvest time, the grit had robbed him of $20,000 worth of pumps and any hope of returning to the bumper harvests of years past.

“That’s prime land,” he said not long ago, gesturing from his pickup at the stubby remains of last year’s crop. “I’ve raised 294 bushels of corn an acre there before, with water and the Lord’s help.” Now, he said, “it’s over.”

The land, known as Section 35, sits atop the High Plains Aquifer, a waterlogged jumble of sand, clay and gravel that begins beneath Wyoming and South Dakota and stretches clear to the Texas Panhandle. The aquifer’s northern reaches still hold enough water in many places to last hundreds of years. But as one heads south, it is increasingly tapped out, drained by ever more intensive farming and, lately, by drought.

Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers.

And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis — decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet.

On some farms, big center-pivot irrigators — the spindly rigs that create the emerald circles of cropland familiar to anyone flying over the region — now are watering only a half-circle. On others, they sit idle altogether.

Two years of extreme drought, during which farmers relied almost completely on groundwater, have brought the seriousness of the problem home. In 2011 and 2012, the Kansas Geological Survey reports, the average water level in the state’s portion of the aquifer dropped 4.25 feet — nearly a third of the total decline since 1996.

And that is merely the average. “I know my staff went out and re-measured a couple of wells because they couldn’t believe it,” said Lane Letourneau, a manager at the State Agriculture Department’s water resources division. “There was a 30-foot decline.”

Kansas agriculture will survive the slow draining of the aquifer — even now, less than a fifth of the state’s farmland is irrigated in any given year — but the economic impact nevertheless will be outsized. In the last federal agriculture census of Kansas, in 2007, an average acre of irrigated land produced nearly twice as many bushels of corn, two-thirds more soybeans and three-fifths more wheat than did dry land.

Farmers will take a hit as well. Raising crops without irrigation is far cheaper, but yields are far lower. Drought is a constant threat: the last two dry-land harvests were all but wiped out by poor rains.

In the end, most farmers will adapt to farming without water, said Bill Golden, an agriculture economist at Kansas State University. “The revenue losses are there,” he said. “But they’re not as tremendously significant as one might think.”

Some already are. A few miles west of Mr. Yost’s farm, Nathan Kells cut back on irrigation when his wells began faltering in the last decade, and shifted his focus to raising dairy heifers — 9,000 on that farm, and thousands more elsewhere. At about 12 gallons a day for a single cow, Mr. Kells can sustain his herd with less water than it takes to grow a single circle of corn.

“The water’s going to flow to where it’s most valuable, whether it be industry or cities or feed yards,” he said. “We said, ‘What’s the higher use of the water?’ and decided that it was the heifer operation.”

The problem, others say, is that when irrigation ends, so do the jobs and added income that sustain rural communities.

“Looking at areas of Texas where the groundwater has really dropped, those towns are just a shell of what they once were,” said Jim Butler, a hydrogeologist and senior scientist at the Kansas Geological Survey.

The villain in this story is in fact the farmers’ savior: the center-pivot irrigator, a quarter- or half-mile of pipe that traces a watery circle around a point in the middle of a field. The center pivots helped start a revolution that raised farming from hardscrabble work to a profitable business.

Since the pivots’ debut some six decades ago, the amount of irrigated cropland in Kansas has grown to nearly three million acres, from a mere 250,000 in 1950. But the pivot irrigators’ thirst for water — hundreds and sometimes thousands of gallons a minute — has sent much of the aquifer on a relentless decline. And while the big pivots have become much more efficient, a University of California study earlier this year concluded that Kansas farmers were using some of their water savings to expand irrigation or grow thirstier crops, not to reduce consumption.

A shift to growing corn, a much thirstier crop than most, has only worsened matters. Driven by demand, speculation and a government mandate to produce biofuels, the price of corn has tripled since 2002, and Kansas farmers have responded by increasing the acreage of irrigated cornfields by nearly a fifth.

At an average 14 inches per acre in a growing season, a corn crop soaks up groundwater like a sponge — in 2010, the State Agriculture Department said, enough to fill a space a mile square and nearly 2,100 feet high.

Sorghum, or milo, gets by on a third less water, Kansas State University researchers say — and it, too, is in demand by biofuel makers. As Kansas’ wells peter out, more farmers are switching to growing milo on dry land or with a comparative sprinkle of irrigation water.

But as long as there is enough water, most farmers will favor corn. “The issue that often drives this is economics,” said David W. Hyndman, who heads Michigan State University’s geological sciences department. “And as long as you’ve got corn that’s $7, then a lot of choices get made on that.”

Of the 800 acres that Ashley Yost farmed last year in Haskell County, about 70 percent was planted in corn, including roughly 125 acres in Section 35. Haskell County’s feedlots — the county is home to 415,000 head of cattle — and ethanol plants in nearby Liberal and Garden City have driven up the price of corn handsomely, he said.

But this year he will grow milo in that section, and hope that by ratcheting down the speed of his pump, he will draw less sand, even if that means less water, too. The economics of irrigation, he said, almost dictate it.

“You’ve got $20,000 of underground pipe,” he said. “You’ve got a $10,000 gas line. You’ve got a $10,000 irrigation motor. You’ve got an $89,000 pivot. And you’re going to let it sit there and rot?

“If you can pump 150 gallons, that’s 150 gallons Mother Nature is not giving us. And if you can keep a milo crop alive, you’re going to do it.”

Mr. Yost’s neighbors have met the prospect of dwindling water in starkly different ways. A brother is farming on pivot half-circles. A brother-in-law moved most of his operations to Iowa. Another farmer is suing his neighbors, accusing them of poaching water from his slice of the aquifer.

A fourth grows corn with an underground irrigation system that does not match the yields of water-wasting center-pivot rigs, but is far thriftier in terms of water use and operating costs.

For his part, Mr. Yost continues to pump. But he also allowed that the day may come when sustaining what is left of the aquifer is preferable to pumping as much as possible.

Sitting in his Ford pickup next to Section 35, he unfolded a sheet of white paper that tracked the decline of his grandfather’s well: from 1,600 gallons a minute in 1964, to 1,200 in 1975, to 750 in 1976.

When the well slumped to 500 gallons in 1991, the Yosts capped it and drilled another nearby. Its output sank, too, from 1,352 gallons to 300 today.

This year, Mr. Yost spent more than $15,000 to drill four test wells in Section 35. The best of them produced 195 gallons a minute — a warning, he said, that looking further for an isolated pocket of water would be costly and probably futile.

“We’re on the last kick,” he said. “The bulk water is gone.”

Lack of Water Has Lasting Effects in Kansas and Texas 

By DAVID E. SANGER and NICOLE PERLROTH

Published: May 19, 2013

WASHINGTON — Three months after hackers working for a cyberunit of China’s People’s Liberation Army went silent amid evidence that they had stolen data from scores of American companies and government agencies, they appear to have resumed their attacks  using different techniques, according to computer industry security experts and American officials.

The Obama administration had bet that “naming and shaming” the groups, first in industry reports and then in the Pentagon’s own detailed survey of Chinese military capabilities, might prompt China’s new leadership to crack down on the military’s highly organized team of hackers — or at least urge them to become more subtle.

But Unit 61398, whose well-guarded 12-story white headquarters on the edges of Shanghai became the symbol of Chinese cyberpower, is back in business, according to American officials and security companies.

It is not clear precisely who has been affected by the latest attacks. Mandiant, a private security company that helps companies and government agencies defend themselves from hackers, said the attacks had resumed but would not identify the targets, citing agreements with its clients. But it did say the victims were many of the same ones the unit had attacked before.

The hackers were behind scores of thefts of intellectual property and government documents over the past five years, according to a report by Mandiant in February that was confirmed by American officials. They have stolen product blueprints, manufacturing plans, clinical trial results, pricing documents, negotiation strategies and other proprietary information from more than 100 of Mandiant’s clients, predominantly in the United States.

According to security experts, the cyberunit was responsible for a 2009 attack on the Coca-Cola Company that coincided with its failed attempt to acquire the China Huiyuan Juice Group. In 2011, it attacked RSA, a maker of data security products used by American government agencies and defense contractors, and used the information it collected from that attack to break into the computer systems of Lockheed Martin, the aerospace contractor.

More recently, security experts said, the group took aim at companies with access to the nation’s power grid. Last September, it broke into the Canadian arm of Telvent, now Schneider Electric, which keeps detailed blueprints on more than half the oil and gas pipelines in North America.

Representatives of Coca-Cola and Schneider Electric did not return requests for comment on Sunday. A Lockheed Martin spokesman said the company declined to comment.

In interviews, Obama administration officials said they were not surprised by the resumption of the hacking activity. One senior official said Friday that “this is something we are going to have to come back at time and again with the Chinese leadership,” who, he said, “have to be convinced there is a real cost to this kind of activity.”

Mandiant said that the Chinese hackers had stopped their attacks after they were exposed in February and removed their spying tools from the organizations they had infiltrated. But over the past two months, they have gradually begun attacking the same victims from new servers and have reinserted many of the tools that enable them to seek out data without detection. They are now operating at 60 percent to 70 percent of the level they were working at before, according to a study by Mandiant requested by The New York Times.

The Times hired Mandiant to investigate an attack that originated in China on its news operations last fall. Mandiant is not currently working for The New York Times Company.

Mandiant’s findings match those of Crowdstrike, another security company that has also been tracking the group. Adam Meyers, director of intelligence at Crowdstrike, said that apart from a few minor changes in tactics, it was “business as usual” for the Chinese hackers.

The subject of Chinese attacks is expected to be a central issue in an upcoming visit to China by President Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas Donilon, who has said that dealing with China’s actions in cyberspace is now moving to the center of the complex security and economic relationship between the two countries.

But hopes for progress on the issue are limited. When the Pentagon released its report this month officially identifying the Chinese military as the source of years of attacks, the Chinese Foreign Ministry denied the accusation, and People’s Daily, which reflects the views of the Communist Party, called the United States “the real ‘hacking empire,’ ” saying it “has continued to strengthen its network tools for political subversion against other countries.” Other Chinese organizations and scholars cited American and Israeli cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities as evidence of American hypocrisy.

t the White House, Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said Sunday that “what we have been seeking from China is for it to investigate our concerns and to start a dialogue with us on cyberissues.” She noted that China “agreed last month to start a new working group,” and that the administration hoped to win “longer-term changes in China’s behavior, including by working together to establish norms against the theft of trade secrets and confidential business information.”

In a report to be issued Wednesday, a private task force led by Mr. Obama’s former director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, and his former ambassador to China, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., lays out a series of proposed executive actions and Congressional legislation intended to raise the stakes for China.

“Jawboning alone won’t work,” Mr. Blair said Saturday. “Something has to change China’s calculus.”

The exposure of Unit 61398’s actions, which have long been well known to American intelligence agencies, did not accomplish that task.

One day after Mandiant and the United States government revealed the P.L.A. unit as the culprit behind hundreds of attacks on agencies and companies, the unit began a haphazard cleanup operation, Mandiant said.

Attack tools were unplugged from victims’ systems. Command and control servers went silent. And of the 3,000 technical indicators Mandiant identified in its initial report, only a sliver kept operating. Some of the unit’s most visible operatives, hackers with names like “DOTA,” “SuperHard” and “UglyGorilla,” disappeared, as cybersleuths scoured the Internet for clues to their real identities.

In the case of UglyGorilla, Web sleuths found digital evidence that linked him to a Chinese national named Wang Dong, who kept a blog about his experience as a P.L.A. hacker from 2006 to 2009, in which he lamented his low pay, long hours and instant ramen meals.

But in the weeks that followed, the group picked up where it had left off. From its Shanghai headquarters, the unit’s hackers set up new beachheads from compromised computers all over the world, many of them small Internet service providers and mom-and-pop shops whose owners do not realize that by failing to rigorously apply software patches for known threats, they are enabling state-sponsored espionage.

“They dialed it back for a little while, though other groups that also wear uniforms didn’t even bother to do that,” Kevin Mandia, the chief executive of Mandiant, said in an interview on Friday. “I think you have to view this as the new normal.”

The hackers now use the same malicious software they used to break into the same organizations in the past, only with minor modifications to the code.

While American officials and corporate executives say they are trying to persuade President Xi Jinping’s government that a pattern of theft by the P.L.A. will damage China’s growth prospects — and the willingness of companies to invest in China — their longer-term concern is that China may be trying to establish a new set of rules for Internet commerce, with more censorship and fewer penalties for the theft of intellectual property.

Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google, said Friday that while there was evidence that inside China many citizens are using the Web to pressure the government to clean up industrial hazards or to complain about corruption, “so far there is no positive data on China’s dealings with the rest of the world” on cyberissues.

Google largely pulled out of China after repeated attacks on its systems in 2009 and 2010, and now has its Chinese operations in Hong Kong. But it remains, Mr. Schmidt said, a constant target for Chinese cyberattackers.

By Matt Kwong of MSN News

A new scourge of Tawny crazy ants from South America are invading homes across the Southern U.S., annoying residents and threatening the local ecosystem.

They move in dense mobs, they hide in crevices and they’re quickly displacing fire ants as the new insect pest for homeowners in the South.

They’re Tawny crazy ants, and, as their name suggests, they’re driving people up the wall.

Researchers with the University of Texas who have been tracking the populations now say the invasive insects originally from South America have spread so widely in the Southern U.S. that they could eventually displace fire ants.

That could come at a big environmental cost and throw the ecosystem out of whack, warned Ed LeBrun, a research associate with the Texas invasive species research program at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in the College of Natural Sciences.

If the foreign omnivorous insects formerly classified as Nylanderia fulva don’t attack and kill other native species, their big appetites could end up starving off the competition.

“Just the general reduction of arthropod abundance means the base of the terrestrial food chain has been suppressed, and that will cascade to all kinds of things,” LeBrun said.

“The suppression of herbivorous insects might, over the long term, change the character of the plant community as well.”

‘OPPORTUNISTIC NESTERS’

The study by LeBrun and his colleagues was published in the latest edition of the peer review journal Biological Invasions.

To give an idea of just how dense the Tawny crazy ant populations are compared to other species, LeBrun said that in his samples of an area, he found abundances were “about two orders of magnitude greater than all the other ants combined.” That means 100 times.

And then there’s the annoyance factor.

LeBrun describes the Tawny crazy ants, which are native to Argentina, southern Brazil and Paraguay, as “opportunistic nesters.”

Compared to relatively demure fire ants, the crazy ants aren’t shy about inviting themselves into homes, he said.

“Fire ants don’t come into structures,” he said. “So they make a mound in your yard, and as long as you don’t step on that mound, you don’t interact. These things, on the other hand, they come in and they cause a lot more aggravation generally.”

The ants also have a tendency to nest inside electrical circuits and have shorted out pumps and wells for rural land owners.

Homeowners in some of the 21 counties in Texas and 20 counties in Florida that have reported infestations are so fed up, many would prefer to welcome back the fire ants. The ants have also been reported in Mississippi and Louisiana, mostly in wetter regions.

LeBrun said the crazy ants were first discovered in America around 2002, when pest control operator Tom Raspberry was called to a Houston home to eradicate a population of the insects.

“He treated it, but it did no good. Then he stopped and looked at the ant and realized it was something he’d never seen before,” LeBrun said.

HITCHING RIDES WITH HUMANS

LeBrun noted that the Tawny crazy ants don’t have a large wind dispersal, so their spread rate is typically limited locally. Once a local colony is established, it spreads only about 200 meters in a year. That means the ant populations are probably not spreading naturally on their own, but are likely hitching rides with unsuspecting humans.

“They nest in small cavities on the ground, cardboard, potted plants, a piece of rotted wood, structures like RVs,” LeBrun said. “So people travelling to areas that have these ants or taking things elsewhere need to be really vigilant in making sure there’s no ants that are moving these things around.”

LeBrun said he and his colleagues still want to find out the extent of the Tawny crazy ants’ ability to spread, as the impact they have on the local environment will depend on how dense their populations can get in a given area.

On the positive side, unlike fire ants, the Tawny crazy ants don’t sting.

“They’re a much larger annoyance, but that’s a plus,” LeBrun said.

Muhammad al-Dura, the Palestinian child who appeared to have been gruesomely killed at his father’s feet in Gaza on September 30, 2000 — as filmed in iconic footage that helped fuel the Second Intifada — was not harmed by Israeli forces and did not die in the exchange of fire, according to an Israeli government report released Sunday, three days before a French court rules on a related matter.

“Contrary to the report’s claim that the boy was killed, the committee’s review of the raw footage showed that in the final scenes, which were not broadcast by France 2, the boy is seen to be alive,” the Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy report stated regarding the television report.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who tasked the ministry with assembling the report in 2012, said the accusations aired on France 2 were “a manifestation of the ongoing, mendacious campaign to delegitimize Israel.”

Minister of International Affairs and Strategy Yuval Steinitz called the accusations baseless and said the affair was “a modern-day blood libel against the State of Israel.”

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The 55 seconds of edited footage, filmed two days after Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, contributed to the October 2000 protest in which 13 Arab citizens of Israel were killed and quickly became the defining image of the second Palestinian intifada uprising and terror war against Israel.

The picture of al-Dura, apparently dead across his father’s knees, was shown for days on Arab and international TV stations and was cited as inspiration by both Osama bin Laden and the killers of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Israel initially did not dispute that IDF troops had inadvertently killed the child. “It could very much be — this is an estimation — that a soldier in our position, who has a very narrow field of vision, saw somebody hiding behind a cement block in the direction from which he was being fired at, and he shot in that direction,” the IDF’s southern commander Maj. Gen. Yom-Tov Samia said at the time.

Only months later did the army complete an investigation that it said showed with certainty that, if al-Dura was killed, it could not have been from shots fired from the IDF position.

Sunday’s report embraces what is known as the maximalist approach, asserting that not only was al-Dura not killed by IDF bullets but that, at the end of the raw footage, he was categorically alive. “Contrary to (France 2 reporter Charles) Enderlin’s claim, the raw footage shows clearly that in the final scenes, the boy is not dead. In the final seconds of the footage, the boy raises his arm and turns his head in the direction of (cameraman Talal) Abu-Rahma in what are clearly intentional and controlled movements. This should have been readily-apparent to Enderlin. Yet rather than reconsidering the claim before producing the report, or providing viewers with the full picture so that they could fairly judge the credibility of his declaration that ‘Muhammad is dead’, Enderlin edited out these last scenes from the report, thereby creating the false impression that the footage substantiated his claims.”

The committee’s report, issued by the Director General of the ministry, Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, who heard presentations from a leading electro-optics professor, a physicist and a former deputy head of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute among others, found an array of inconsistencies and contradictions.

State-owned France 2′s raw footage, as shot by Palestinian cameraman Abu-Rahma, shows no sign of blood on the wall, ground, or barrel, the report stated. Reporters brought to the scene on October 1, however, were shown large blood stains in the vicinity of the barrel.

In addition, the report noted that no bullets, from either the father or the son, were ever produced; the time of admission to Shifa Hospital –10 a.m. — was well before the incident at Netzarim Junction occurred; and the 45-minute-long incident was oddly not noticed by any of the other reporters or cameramen in the area.

France 2 reacted to the government report saying it was prepared to assist Israel should it seek to exhume al-Dura’s body, expressing surprise that Israel had not contacted the station prior to the report’s publication.

Enderlin could not be reached for comment on Sunday evening. The veteran reporter tweeted shortly after the report was released that neither he, nor the Palestinian witnesses to the event, had been asked to appear before the committee.

Kuperwasser’s report comes in advance of an anticipated May 22 ruling in a Paris Court of Appeals, where France 2′s bureau chief Enderlin sued Philippe Karsenty, a French Jew, for defamation. Karsenty wrote publicly that Enderlin should be fired for his broadcast of the confrontation at the Netzarim junction, which Karsenty called “a media hoax.”

Professor Richard Landes, a Boston University medievalist who runs the Al Durah Project, agreed with Karsenty and said that “Enderlin should retire in disgrace.”

“He not only edited out critical footage that undermined the story he wanted to tell,” — of Israeli troops killing Palestinian children — “but once the story hit and inspired horrific violence, he doubled down and tried to protect his reputation instead of re-examining his work, as a journalist with integrity should do,” Landes told The Times of Israel.

Nahum Shahaf, the physicist who initiated and headed the IDF’s investigation into the incident, and who ruled in 2000 that if al-Dura was killed he could not have been shot by the IDF soldiers at the scene — a finding that was largely ignored even in Israel at first – bemoaned the time that has elapsed and the absence of his name in the report, but said, “it’s important that they published it and it’s important that it came out three days before the court ruling in France.

Lazar Berman contributed to this report.

Headlining the US tour are 10 rare fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, some of which have never been displayed

By Matt Lebovic May 19, 2013, 10:46 pm

BOSTON – Not since the Babylonian Exile have so many ancient Israelite artifacts left the Holy Land together.

Called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by organizers, the most comprehensive assemblage of Israeli antiquities ever sent abroad opened at Boston’s Museum of Science on Sunday. Headlining the US tour are ten rare fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, some of which have never been displayed.

Concealed in Judean caves for almost 2,000 years, the Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest known version of the Hebrew Bible. They were discovered by a Bedouin goat herder in 1947, just months before Israel declared independence. More than 900 manuscripts were eventually uncovered near Qumran, close to the Dead Sea, including copies of the Bible and sectarian writings.

Hosting the fabled scrolls would be an event in itself for most museums, but the Israel Antiquities Authority went several steps further to create “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life in Ancient Times,” which will show in Boston through October.

More than 600 objects from ancient Israel – some of them freshly unearthed – fill small galleries surrounding the exhibit’s main event: a 25-foot diameter Communal Scroll Table housing the fragments themselves. Diverse artifacts illustrate the lives of ancient Israelites, including their jewelry, coins, shoes and weapons. Though focused on Biblical times, the exhibit includes artifacts from as recent as the British Mandate.

The exhibit’s timeline focuses on the Biblical period, but there are even some findings from the British Mandate. (photo credit: Matt Lebovic/Times of Israel)

All objects are original – not one replica appears – and some of them have yet to be published by archaeologists. Next to the scrolls, top billing goes to a three-ton stone from Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Visitors are allowed to touch the stone and – in keeping with tradition – leave notes to God for eventual transport to Israel.

“The artifacts and rare texts brought here from Israel offer a tantalizing glimpse of daily life in ancient Israel, a vital cultural crossroad,” said Paul Fontaine, the museum’s vice president. “The scrolls help us understand the attitudes and aspirations of a people who lived two thousand years ago. They help us all appreciate a culture that continues to influence our own,” he said.

The Dead Sea Scrolls open a window onto what historians see as the transition between ancient times and the modern era. Maintained by the Essenes, an obscure Second Temple-era Jewish sect, manuscripts shed light on the beginnings of Christianity and ways in which Judaism evolved during the centuries. Some historians have called the scrolls the “evolutionary link” between Judaism and Christianity.

Next to the scrolls, top billing goes to a three-ton stone from Jerusalem’s Western Wall. (photo credit: Matt Lebovic/Times of Israel)

The manuscripts date from 250 BCE to 68 CE, almost 1,000 years older than the next oldest copies of the Bible discovered. Beyond proving the Bible’s centrality during Hellenistic and Roman times, the scrolls supply previously unknown stories about Noah and Abraham, as well as psalms attributed to Joshua and King David.

On a more esoteric note, the “Manual of Discipline” and “War Scroll” have kept scholars busy for decades, as have the so-called apocryphal texts about the world’s end.

By partnering with Boston’s Museum of Science and – later this year – Salt Lake City’s Leonardo Museum, “Ancient Life” curators seek to highlight the role of archaeology and preservation in elucidating the distant past. Artifact presentations skew toward the scientific, with emphasis on the Dead Sea Scrolls’ painstaking and sometimes perilous reconstruction.

Some of Israel’s top antiquities experts are in Boston this week to offer perspectives on “Ancient Life” during the scrolls’ first visit to New England. The museum partnered with Brandeis University to offer educational programming during the scrolls’ five-month sojourn in Boston, a city once called “New Jerusalem” by Puritan founders.

For decades after their discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls were inadvertently damaged by preservationists, said Pnina Shor, an expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

The Dead Sea Scrolls (photo credit: courtesy)

Almost unfathomably, 1950s-era photographs show cigarette-smoking scientists attaching scroll fragments to plates with adhesive tape. Well-intended but harmful efforts caused “gelatinization” and other damage to the priceless scrolls, culminating with the IAA’s creation in 1989 to – in part – reverse the trend.

Tasked by Israel’s Antiquities Law with safeguarding more than 30,000 known archaeological sites, the IAA employs 500 archaeologists and conservators. New sites are discovered every year, often at the start of construction projects such as Jerusalem’s Givati Parking Lot dig at the City of David.

In keeping with the Museum of Science’s mission, a “hands-on” archeology laboratory will engage young visitors through October. The museum’s planetarium will explore “Stars Over the Dead Sea” to illustrate the evolving role of astronomy in mapping history. Museum visitors can also learn about NASA-style spectral imaging, used to decipher damaged scrolls and monitor their condition.

Tellingly, the ten featured scroll fragments will be switched out with new pieces in 90 days, the maximum time conservationists allow for display.

Boston’s Science Museum promotes a hands-on approach. (photo credit: Matt Lebovic/Times of Israel)

The exhibit’s chronology starts in the Iron Age, when Israelites settled the hill country of ancient Canaan. Limestone capitals from the First Temple Period and Roman burial ossuaries reside near a four-room house recreated from the time of King Herod, builder of the Western Wall and Masada fortress.

On a smaller scale, “Ancient Life” boasts a stone stamp seal bearing the figure of an archer and ancient Hebrew signature. Other tiny objects include pottery heads of “pillar” figurines and fragments of leather phylacteries, called teffilin in Hebrew.

Of particular interest to archaeology buffs will be a number of artifacts uncovered during recent digs at the City of David, just south of Jerusalem’s Old City walls. Finds include a high-quality goblet, decanter and jug, as well as part of a cult stand bearing a nude male dating to the 10th century BCE.

Curators spent four years assembling artifacts that would speak not only to the Bible, but also to everyday life in ancient Israel. Household items include limestone measuring cups, a boxwood comb and a 2,000-year-old gold earring inlaid with pearls and emeralds.

“Our goal is for people to be able to see what life was like beyond and behind the objects,” said Risa Levitt Kohn, exhibit co-curator.

‘Our goal is for people to be able to see what life was like beyond and behind the objects,’ said Risa Levitt Kohn, Boston Dead Sea Scroll exhibit co-curator. (photo credit: Matt Lebovic/Times of Israel)

Arranged chronologically, the 600 artifacts provide tangible evidence of events described in the Bible. A marble slab carved with a menorah dates to the Second Temple’s destruction and includes the plea, “One God, help Judah the Elder.” Four-horned pottery alters attest to domestic Israelite religion practiced alongside Temple rituals in Jerusalem.

To prepare for the exhibit, Museum of Science director and president Ioannis Miaoulis visited Israel two years ago, including Jerusalem’s Shrine of the Book with its Dead Sea Scrolls. During an advance preview of “Ancient Life” last week, Miaoulis called the exhibit’s meticulous and inspiring presentation a “comparable experience” to visiting the scrolls in Jerusalem’s Israel Museum.

The exhibit closes with God’s injunction to Abraham, as recorded in Genesis: “Stay in this land for a while and I will be with you and will bless you.”

More than 3,000 years later, Abraham’s descendants unearth biblical treasures almost every day of the year, shedding light on the lives and beliefs of history’s “People of the Book.”

If you like action, suspense, and mystery, check out newly released novel by Lyn Leahz, Soul Deceiver, BOOK ONE in the Eternal Soul Series. Recommended by Walid Shoebat & Joel Richardson .. It’s a page turner! CLICK HERE to find out more!

6:51 PM, May 19, 2013| News

KUSA- Colorado Springs police say a homemade bomb found just blocks from a park and an elementary school would have caused a lot of damage if it had exploded.

Someone spotted the device in the 600 block of North 24th Street just before 10 Sunday morning. Police responded and determined it was an actual bomb made with commercial fireworks. The same materials were used in the bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon last month.

“It was made from commercial grade fireworks and as many people are aware of now with the Boston bombings where there were commercial fireworks used the powder in those are very sensitive,” Sgt. Chris Areseneau with the Colorado Springs Bomb Squad said. “It’s very dangerous somebody could have definitely been hurt if it would have gone off when they were around.”

The bomb squad rendered the device safe without detonating it. They’re hoping to pull fingerprints from the device and use them to identify a suspect.

Anyone with information about the case should contact the Colorado Springs Police Department Communications Center at 719-444-7000.

(KUSA-TV © 2013 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

If you like action, suspense, and mystery, check out newly released novel by Lyn Leahz, Soul Deceiver, BOOK ONE in the Eternal Soul Series. Recommended by Walid Shoebat & Joel Richardson .. It’s a page turner! CLICK HERE to find out more!

Published on May 19, 2013

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In the last 24 hours the AMS has received confirmed reports about 4 unique fireball events all occurring near 4:00 AM UTC time. The most recent event occurred in Arkansas and Missouri on May 19th near 3:37 UTC. At the same time 3:37 UTC 4 witnesses reported a fireball in Arizona. The distance between these two locations would inhibit witnesses from observing the same fireball from both locations. On May 18th two large fireball meteors were also spotted within an hour of each other, one over the central east coast and another in Colorado. Below is a table of the events in question. American Meteor Society

If you like action, suspense, and mystery, check out newly released novel by Lyn Leahz, Soul Deceiver, BOOK ONE in the Eternal Soul Series. Recommended by Walid Shoebat & Joel Richardson .. It’s a page turner! CLICK HERE to find out more!

CNN Political Unit

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama comes out of what was arguably the worst week of his presidency with his approval rating holding steady, according to a new national poll.

But a CNN/ORC International survey released Sunday morning also indicates that congressional Republicans are not overplaying their hand when it comes to their reaction to the three controversies that have consumed the nation’s capital over the past week and a half. And the poll finds that a majority of Americans take all three issues seriously.

According to the survey, which was conducted Friday and Saturday, 53% of Americans say they approve of the job the president is doing, with 45% saying they disapprove. The president’s approval rating was at 51% in CNN’s last poll, which was conducted in early April.

“That two-point difference is well within the poll’s sampling error, so it is a mistake to characterize it as a gain for the president,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Nonetheless, an approval rating that has not dropped and remains over 50% will probably be taken as good news by Democrats after the events of the last week.”

The CNN poll is in-line with Gallup, which also indicated a very slight rise in Obama’s approval rating over the same time period. And Gallup’s daily tracking poll also indicated a slight upward movement of Obama’s approval rating over the past week. But as with the CNN poll, it was within that survey’s sampling error.

More than seven in 10 in the CNN poll say that the targeting by the Internal Revenue Service of tea party and other conservative groups that were applying for tax exempt status was unacceptable. While the White House and both parties in Congress are criticizing the IRS actions, congressional Republicans are depicting the controversy as a case of the federal government gone wild.

But more than six in 10 say that the president’s statements about the IRS scandal are completely or mostly true, with 35% not agreeing with Obama’s characterizations. And 55% say that IRS acted on its own, with 37% saying that White House ordered the IRS to target tea party and other conservative groups.

Only 42% of the public is satisfied with how the Obama administration has handled the September attack in Benghazi, Libya, which left the U.S ambassador to that country and three other Americans dead. Fifty-three percent say they are dissatisfied. But those numbers are virtually unchanged from November.

Republicans have ripped the administration for not providing adequate security for the Benghazi mission, botching the response to it, and misleading the public for political gain with the attack coming less than two months before last November’s presidential election.

According to the poll, 44% say statements made by the Obama administration soon after the attack were an attempt to intentionally mislead the public. Half of those questioned say those statements reflected what the Obama administration believed, at the time, had occurred.

But 59% now say that the U.S government could have prevented the attack in Benghazi, up 11 points from last November. And only 37% say that congressional Republicans are overreacting in their handling of the matter, with 59% saying they’ve reacted appropriately.

It’s the same story on the IRS controversy, with 54% saying the GOP in Congress has not overplayed its hand.

The White House has also been criticized by Congress for the Justice Department’s secret collection of phone records from the Associated Press as part of a government investigation into classified leaks. According to the poll, 52% say the Justice Department’s actions were unacceptable, with 43% saying they disagree.

Americans appear to be taking all three controversies very seriously, with 55% saying the IRS and Benghazi matters are very important to the nation and 53% saying the same thing about the AP case.

“More Republicans than Democrats or Independents say these three issues are very important to the nation, but even among Democrats, nearly half say the matters are very serious,” Holland adds.

Are Americans’ trust in the government shaken?

Only 43% say they have a great deal or some confidence in the people who run the federal government. But 56% say they have a great deal or some confidence in the system of government.

The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International between May 17-18, with 923 adults nationwide questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

– CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Related articles

• CNN Poll: Obama approval rating unharmed by controversies (washingtonpost.com)
• Obama approval rating holding steady (politico.com)
• Scandals Backfire on Republicans as Obama’s Approval Ratings Go Up (politicususa.com)

Tornadoes rip through Oklahoma

Are you experiencing severe weather in your area? Send photos and videos to CNN iReport. But please remember to stay safe.

(CNN) — Tornadoes touched down in two states on Sunday, ripping roofs off homes and turning trees to matchsticks, as severe weather swept the region.

A large “violent and extremely dangerous” tornado was spotted on the southwest side of Wichita, Kansas, moving northeast at about 30 miles per hour, the National Weather Service said.

A second confirmed tornado was seen near Edmond, Oklahoma, moving east at about 30 miles per hour, said the weather service. Another tornado was spotted in nearby Luther, Oklahoma, but it was not immediately clear whether that was the same twister.

A third tornado moving northeast at 40 miles per hour touched down near Wellston, Oklahoma, taking out power lines and damaging several homes, according to video from CNN affiliate KFOR. The affiliate’s helicopter pilot estimated the funnel cloud to be about a half-mile wide.

See funnel cloud in Oklahoma

See massive tornado in Kansas

Photos: Weather around the world

“It’s tearing up everything,” the pilot said. “Just ripping everything up in its sight.”

Aerial video from KFOR and CNN affiliate KOCO showed severe damage near Wellston and near Carney, Oklahoma. Roofs were ripped from homes, branches stripped from trees and roads were filled with debris.

The weather service did not mince words.

“You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter. Complete destruction of neighborhoods, businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying debris will be deadly to people and animals,” it said in its Kansas advisory.

No immediate reports of injuries or death have been made.

The twisters are part of a severe weather outbreak that is sweeping through parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, and possibly Iowa and Missouri as the storms move east.

Baseball-sized hail, wind gusts and tornadoes are threatening to pummel parts of the central Plains and Midwest through Monday.

Beyond the Midwest, other areas were already seeing severe weather on Sunday. In Atlanta, serious flooding was reported amid storms producing heavy rainfall.

Here’s a quick look at CNN meteorologist Melissa Le Fevre’s forecast for Monday:

Kansas

The surface front may stall on Monday, leading to showers and thunderstorms through the day. Localized heavy rainfall may lead to the need for flood watches and warnings.

Oklahoma

There is a threat for strong storms in the late afternoon. With the heavy rain that will occur through the weekend, flooding could become a problem Monday night.

Iowa

Showers and storms are expected to develop on Monday afternoon. Large hail is possible and though the tornado threat looks low, it cannot be ruled out.

Missouri

Flooding is expected to become an issue after localized heavy rainfall. Afternoon storms could produce large hail, damaging wind gusts and possible tornadoes. In St. Louis, storms will reorganize during the afternoon and evening hours. Threats include large hail, damaging winds and the possibility of tornadoes.

CNN’s Sean Morris and Alexandra Steele contributed to this report

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Richard Spencer
The Telegraph

Up to 380,000 barrels of crude oil were previously produced by wells around the city of Raqqa and in the desert region to its east that are now in rebel hands – in particular Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda off-shoot which is the strongest faction in this part of the country.

Now the violently anti-Western jihadist group, which has been steadily extending its control in the region, is selling the crude oil to local entrepreneurs, who use home-made refineries to produce low-grade petrol and other fuels for Syrians facing acute shortages.

The ability of Jabhat al-Nusra to profit from the oil locally, despite international sanctions which have hindered its sale abroad, will be particularly worrying to the European Union, which has voted to ease the embargo but at the same time wants to marginalise the extremist group within the opposition.

Read full article

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Mike Adams
NaturalNews
May 19, 2013

In the face of the outrageous IRS intimidation scandal now sweeping across America, gun control advocates are changing their tune. All of a sudden, the idea that the federal government could engage in tyranny against the People of America is no longer a “conspiracy theory.” It’s historical fact right in your face thanks to all the recent scandals now bursting onto the scene: IRS intimidation, secret targeting of non-profit groups for possible “thought crimes,” the Department of Justice seizing AP phone records and so on.

Just which liberals are changing their minds on all this? Piers Morgan, for starters. The man who once called Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America a “very stupid man” on live national television is suddenly reversing course. Here’s what Morgan now says in the wake of the IRS intimidation scandal:

“I’ve had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here saying to me, well the reason we need to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government, and I’ve always laughed at them. I’ve always said don’t be so ridiculous. Your government won’t turn itself on you. But actually when you look at this [IRS scandal]… actually this is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government. I think what the IRS did is bordering on tyrannical behavior, I think what the Department of Justice has done to the Associated Press is bordering on tyrannical behavior.”

Here’s the video: (until YouTube bans it)

InfoWars.com, by the way, is now publicly challenging Piers Morgan to admit the U.S. government has become “fully tyrannical,” not just “bordering on tyrannical.” It begs the question: If using the IRS as a political weapon to intimidate people over thought crimes, books, Facebook posts and prayers isn’t full-on tyranny, what exactly will it take for Morgan to admit a full tyranny is now upon us? The government knocking on his door?

Joe Scarborough also admits gun owners were right all along

“I have been saying for months now… that I believe in background checks. After Newton, after Chicago, we need background checks. And my argument has been, don’t worry, background checks aren’t going to lead to a national registry. The government’s never going to create a national registry, right? … I don’t have to even complete my sentence, do I? My argument is less persuasive today because of these scandals. Because people say hey, if they do that with the IRS, asking people what books you read, then how can I trust them with information about my Second Amendment rights? This is DEVASTATING! This IRS scandal is devastating all across the board…”

Well yeah, Joe. This is what we’ve been warning you about all along, you see?

See the video here:

The core philosophy of liberals has just been shattered… government is not trustworthy and compassionate

To be a progressive / liberal person, you have to hold to the belief (i.e. have “faith”) that governments can never go rogue. Governments can never become tyrannies. Governments are always and forever trustworthy and compassionate.

Every progressive government policy logically follows from those core beliefs: government should regulate what people eat, control how businesses run themselves, monopolize national health care, grant amnesty to undocumented illegal immigrants, take all the guns away from the citizens and concentrate power into its own hands. This is all justified because you can trust the government, right? … RIGHT?

Enter exhibit A: The IRS intimidation scandal. The targeting of political enemies. Thought crimes. The IRS demands to know all your Facebook posts, the titles of the books you’ve recently read and even the contents of your PRAYER! The IRS then uses this information to selectively delay only the applications of non-profits that teach the Constitution, or patriotism, or are opposed to Obama. Can you say criminal corruption and total abuse of power? This is anti-American and traitorous!

Enter exhibit B: The Department of Justice, run by the nation’s top criminal Eric Holder, runs a vicious surveillance and secret police campaign against none other than the Associated Press. When the outrageous behavior of the DoJ comes to light, Eric Holder claims, “I know nothing! Nothing!” (Same story for Obama… they knew nothing!)

Exhibit C: The Benghazi narrative pushed by the White House is now obviously a total lie, and this lie strongly influenced the presidential debates and 2012 election. The Benghazi attack was actually a terrorist attack — and the White House knew it! But they covered it up, lied to the public, and even stood down U.S. forces to make sure the ambassador was killed so that he couldn’t spill the beans on the U.S. weapons transfers being made to terror groups in Syria.

What do exhibits A, B and C prove? That you can’t trust the government!

The illusion of trustworthy government has been destroyed

Now the illusion of trustworthy government has been completely shattered. If the IRS would selectively intimidate and threaten Constitutional groups it didn’t like, what else is the government capable of?

All of a sudden those of us who warned everybody about gun confiscation, FEMA camps and false flags don’t seem so outlandish anymore. Now almost everyone realizes the government is capable of ANYTHING. Especially the Obama administration, which respects no laws and no limits to its power. (Drone strikes, secret kill lists, the continued running of secret military prisons, bypassing Congress with executive orders, and so on.)

Now the Second Amendment makes total sense. Why do we even have a Second Amendment? The honest, blatant answer is so that as a last-ditch firewall against a tyrannical takeover, the American people can march on Washington with rifles in hand and shoot all the criminals dead. That is the essence of the Second Amendment — a last-ditch failsafe for liberty. The only real way to keep government in line, after all, is to make sure those who hold office know that if they become outright traitors to America and refuse to abide by the limits of government described in the Constitution, they might be shot dead by citizens who take their country back by force. (I’m not calling for such an action, by the way. I’m only explaining the historical context of the Second Amendment and what it really means.)

When citizens are well armed and have the power to do such a thing, that power should never actually be needed because the government fears the people and thus stays within the limits of power. But when the people are disarmed, the government fears nothing and so expands out of control, functioning as a rogue, tyrannical cabal of mobsters and criminals. Read your history books if you don’t believe me. This is the repeated story of government’s rise and fall throughout history.

Ultimately, this is why the Obama administration wants to take your guns away: Not to make the children safer but to make the citizens defenseless against government tyranny. And yes, that tyranny exists right now. The debate is over. The gun grabbers lost and the Second Amendment won.

Now, the Obama administration is permanently discredited, and the strength of the Second Amendment movement is stronger than ever. Just as it should be.

So I want to thank Piers Morgan, Joe Scarborough and all the other gun control advocates who are now rethinking the logic of their positions and concluding the government can’t be trusted after all. And if the government can’t be trusted, then it only follows that the citizens are the final defense against government tyranny. Furthermore, that role of citizen defense is only viable if the citizens are well-armed with rifles and hi-capacity magazines.

The more the government knows there are millions of law-abiding citizens who are armed and trained in rifle skills, the less that government is likely to overstep its limited powers and try to concentrate power in its own hands.

President Bashar Assad speaking during an interview on Syrian state television. Photo by AP

By Haaretz | May.19, 2013

Syria is making preparations to strike Tel Aviv in case Israel launches another attack on its territory, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

The Syrian army has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles, the report said, adding that it has received orders to strike central Israel in case additional attacks against Syria are carried out.

The Sunday Times said that the information was obtained by reconnaissance satellites that were tracking the Syrian forces. According to the report, Syria was deploying advanced Tishreen missiles which are capable of carrying a holf-ton warhead.

Israel, foreign media reported, was behind three attacks against targets in Syria in the past five months. The air raids, it was said, targeted shipments of weapons heading to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Israel refused to officially confirm the recent attacks.

On Wednesday, The New York Times quoted a senior Israeli official warning of further attacks against Syria in case Bashar Assad decides to take action against Israel. The official also said Israel is determined to prevent any transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that Syria would supply his organization with ‘game-changing weapons‘ in response to recent air raids near Damascus attributed to Israel.

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The other day I was at a birthday party hanging out with my roommate from college, his wife, and his 1-year-old baby. I don’t know how we got on the subject but we started talking about abortions.

Ultimately it came down to the age-old question: Are you pro-choice or are you pro-life?

My friend and his wife are pro-choice (by the way, they are dear friends of mine and I love them very much). I have to point this out because there are some people who think that you can’t love others who have a different opinion than you on this subject.

Read more and see the video!

Naghmeh rallies behind her husband as she organizes a special day of prayer. She invites all Churches across the U.S. and the world to join in this prayer event for Saeed Abedini, this Sunday.

Proverbs 31:8-9 tells us,

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Read her invitation and get all the details below!

My name is Naghmeh Abedini and I am writing to invite you to participate in a national day of prayer for my husband, Saeed Abedini, who is currently being held in a dangerous Iranian prison because of his Christian faith. Remember His Chains day of prayer and solidarity for Saeed will take place on the 13th anniversary of Saeed’s salvation and I hope to gather in prayer with hundreds of thousands of Christians around the world united in prayer for Saeed on that day.

When: May 19, 2013
The Vision to Share: What if thousands of church congregations took steps to “remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison” (Hebrews 13:3) by making a focused, unified effort to support Saeed and remember other persecuted Christians?

How you can participate:

· Read the paragraph below on May 19, 2013, telling Pastor Saeed’s story:

In July of 2012, a Christian pastor named Saeed Abedini left the United States for what was supposed to be several weeks as he continued his efforts to establish an orphanage in Rasht, Iran. As he was about to return home, he was pulled off of a bus by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and placed under house arrest. He remained under house arrest until September, when he was taken without warning to one of Iran’s most notorious prisons, where he has now been imprisoned for 236 days. He has broken no law, but has been charged for peacefully gathering with other Christians, a crime for which he has been sentenced to eight years in prison. For the last eight months, he has suffered beatings, threats, and torturous interrogations as Iranian authorities try to get him to renounce his faith in Jesus Christ. Pastor Saeed has stated in a letter from prison that they will never get this from him, and has described the joy that he has experienced as God gives him strength even through these intense sufferings. His wife, Naghmeh, remains in the United States with their two children and has invited churches around the nation to take a united stand in prayer and to call on God for his release.

· Share a 3-minute narration of Saeed’s inspiring and encouraging letter from prison with your congregations. A link to the video is provided here.

· Pray for Pastor Saeed and his family. Pastor Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh, has asked that we pray for the following three things in particular:

1. Saeed’s health. That the Lord would heal him from the internal bleeding and protect him from those who seek his life.

2. That Saeed would continue to shine the light of Jesus in prison. Ephesians 6:18-20 : “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”

3. Prayer for our family. The Lord would give us continued peace and Grace as we trust Him with what the future holds.

4. Prayer that the Lord would use this to bring salvation to many, including the Muslims in the middle east.

· Promote #savesaeed and @savesaeed.org using social media. When Pastor Saeed found out about #savesaeed, he was deeply encouraged by the Church’s support. At www.savesaeed.org, please add your voices to the hundreds of thousands of people who have already signed the petition calling for his release.

· Spread the news of Saeed’s plight by having church members share his story with three friends or family members.

Will you and your affiliated congregations join us in a unified effort to support Saeed on May 19th? In order to effect the most widespread participation possible, please also consider inviting at least 3 other pastors of different congregations to join you in this effort. When Paul was a prisoner for the gospel, he asked the church to “remember his chains” (Colossians 4:18). As a church body, let’s do the same for Saeed, whose unwavering devotion to the gospel of Christ has resulted in his bearing those same chains. We must pray for Saeed and the millions of Christians who are persecuted for the gospel all around the world.To our faithful God be the glory,

Naghmeh Abedini

You can also find the Prayer Event page on Facebook

Saturday, May 18, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes | Natural News

(NaturalNews) The scandal surrounding the Internal Revenue Service‘s illicit, politically-motivated scrutiny of conservative, patriot, Tea Party and pro-Israel groups continues to expand daily, as more information is learned about its depth, breadth and scope.

In addition to delaying tax-exempt status for these organizations, the IRS also demanded donor rolls and printouts of Facebook posts to determine who was contributing to the organizations and what sort of information they were putting out in regards to the current administration, and what books people were reading, according to a Politico review of documents from 11 of the targeted groups.

That review “shows the agency wanted to know everything – in some cases, it even seemed curious what members were thinking,” the website reported. “The review included interviews with groups or their representatives from Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere.”

Some tea party groups even worried they’d be punished for followers’ Facebook comments, Politico reported – a chilling prospect, given the huge First Amendment implications of any such shenanigans.

If you like action, suspense, and mystery, check out newly released novel by Lyn Leahz, Soul Deceiver, BOOK ONE in the Eternal Soul Series. Recommended by Walid Shoebat & Joel Richardson .. Find out why! CLICK HERE 

Questions, questions, questions

In a long-awaited Treasury Department inspector general report, investigators said the IRS did decide internally that some of those questions being asked of conservative groups were way out of line – especially requests for donor rolls.

Per Politico:

The report shows that top IRS officials put a stop to some of the questions in early 2012, including the ones that asked tea party groups who their donors were, what issues were important to them and whether their top officers ever planned to run for office. And they told the investigators they planned to destroy the donor lists that had already been sent in.

However, interviews with members of the targeted groups show a much larger – and sinister – portrait, and one that extends far beyond the rudimentary language in the IG report. In that regard, investigators say only that the IRS “requested irrelevant (unnecessary) information because of a lack of managerial review, at all levels, of questions before they were sent to organizations seeking tax-exempt status.”

Toby Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party, told the website, “They were asking for a U-Haul truck’s worth of information.”

So intrusive and ridiculous the demand for information that some groups seeking tax-exempt status simply gave up in frustration.

The IG report noted that many of the groups were asked to provide resumes of their top officers as well as interview descriptions with media outlets. One organization was asked by the agency to provide “minutes of all board meetings since your creation.”

Investigators said some IRS letters to groups sought copies of their web pages, social media postings and blog posts. Each letter also carried an ominous warning about “penalties of perjury,” which seriously intimidated the targeted groups who were also being asked about “future activities, like future donations or endorsements,” said Politico:

In one instance, the American Patriots Against Government Excess was asked to provide summaries or copies of all material passed out at meetings. The group had been reading The 5000 Year Leap by Cleon Skousen and the U.S. Constitution.

Marion Bower, president of that organization, sent a copy of both of them to the IRS. “I don’t have time to write a book report for them,” she told the website.

Trying to excuse the inexcusable

As usual, there are apologists for this kind of behavior. Not surprisingly, some of them are lawyers.

University of California-Irvine law professor and election law expert Rick Hasen told Politico that it was the tax agency’s job to make sure groups applying for tax-exempt status were not primarily involved in campaign activities: “So it has taken a murky rule and tried to resolve disputes about status in some cases using a very fact-intensive and intrusive inquiry.”

Continuing, he said, “It would be far better for the IRS – or even better, Congress – to have a bright line rule about who has to disclose what and keep the IRS out of this line of inquiry. For example, make every group regardless of tax status disclose major donors funding election ads to the FEC. That’s it. Then there would be no reason for political groups to take the (c)(4) status and the pressure would be off the IRS.”

But that doesn’t explain why only groups of a particular political persuasion were targeted – which makes the IRS actions look very much like some of the agency’s personnel were purposefully twisting the rules to the benefit of the party of President Obama.

This scandal continues to unfold, and we’ll be on top of it.

Related articles

• NaturalNews – IRS Demanded Facebook Posts, Book Titles, Names Of Donors During Politically-Motivated Targeting Of Non-Profits – 19 May 2013 (lucas2012infos.wordpress.com)
• Treasury Department IG J Russell George 54 Page IRS Tax Scandal Report Full Text (americanfreedombybarbara.com)
• IG On IRS Scandal: ‘Clear Evidence’ of Wrongdoing (cnsnews.com)
• Tea Party Groups Set to Sue IRS (pjmedia.com)

A lot has been said and written, but this promises to break the case wide open!

Ambassador Stevens carried through the streets of Benghazi for 5 hours while US media alleged he was being helped to the hospital? More Obama White House lies!

There have been many theories and accusations about the Benghazi fiasco that not only cost Ambassador J. Christian Stevens his life, but the lives of his staff and one Navy Seal body-guard as well. This action which led to a complete conflagration of terrorist attacks against US diplomatic buildings throughout the Middle East and North Africa still remains largely uninvestigated by the government, unprosecuted by AG Eric Holder’s Depart of Justice, and refuses to bring the guilty parties to justice while many know the truth and are not coming forward. Even though President Obama is implicated in this oversees tragedy still the truth has not emerged.

That has all changed. Finally, an authoritative figure with the proper credentials has stepped up to the plate to tell the true story of what did happen without the lies and cover-ups that have so far kept those guilty of murder from standing trial. The admission on the part of this man will likely blow the Benghazi scandal wide open and lead to arrests if we can get our legal system to act as it should. That, however, is a big if.

Related: Read Letter: Special Ops Vets Demand Benghazi Congressional Investigation

The story as it truly unfolded

According to a report from the Washington Times, retired 4 Star Admiral James Lyons reveals the entire plot that led to the deaths of Americans in Libya that could have been prevented, who gave the orders, and why events took place as they tragically did. Admiral James Lyons is probably the highest ranking figure ever to intervene in a federal government criminal case, and testify. Thanks to this man’s dedication to his country and the truth, we will finally know the truth and who was responsible.

In his words Lyons says that the attack on Benghazi was a bungled kidnapping attempt to be perpetrated upon Ambassador Stevens. This was to appear to be a hostage exchange for a terrorist prisoner who was to be released in trade for a supposedly captured US ambassador. The trade would have been for Omar Abdel Rahman an international prisoner, known as the Blind Sheikh.

This apparent abduction by terrorists of our ambassador and then negotiated trade for the Blind Sheikh would have been the “October Surprise” that would have elevated President Obama’s flagging popularity and boosted his approval ratings for a re-election. A dramatic prisoner exchange that saved our ambassador’s life However, something went horribly wrong. A cunning and illegal bit of treachery by the Obama White House turned into something entirely different. Obama’s October surprise turned into a carnage orchestrated by the White House itself as the President, Leon Panetta, and CIA Director, David Petraeus watched via a UAV real-time feed as a 7 hour attack on the Benghazi Embassy raged. Reportedly, stand down orders were given several times to different units within striking distance.

A plot of pure deception

With what should have been only a staged kidnapping of Ambassador J. Christian Stevens, instead, Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty refused a stand down order and began doing their job of protecting the ambassador using force. Immediately the well-trained Seals began inflicting heavy casualties upon the terrorists who thought they were merely in a cake walk to abduct Ambassador Stevens without mishap. As a result of the plan going awry, a massive attack arose from the anger of the terrorists who felt they had been betrayed by President Obama. In the aftermath of the battle which saw Navy Seal Glen Doherty was killed after the embassy had been overrun along with the ambassador’s staff. Ambassador Steven’s whose body showed up 5 hours later at a Benghazi hospital supposedly overcome by smoke as the initial press reports indicated was, in fact, raped, tortured, and dragged around Benghazi in retaliation for the botched Obama White House plan.

Obama hands over Libya to Al Qaeda

Was this just a freak occurrence that belies the true nature of dealings in Libya with American diplomatic efforts, just one glitch in normal standard operating procedure? No, according to former Admiral Lyons and many others such as Glen Beck, who have all uncovered evidence that lead to much more sinister deeds being undertaken. Evidence of a working relationship between the US and its alleged terrorist enemies had already delivered Libya to the Al Qaeda terrorist organization through infiltration of the government, media, and general society prior to the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi that toppled the dictator last year. That the US has worked with Al Qaeda awarding them security contracts for all US embassies and consulates as well as border protection has instead allowed Libya to become a haven for numerous terrorist operators who have automatic access to Libya’s territory to carry out their training. All this with the support and blessing of the Obama administration. This is not only unthinkable, but beyond excuse or rationalization. There should already be indictments for many in the state department, in the DOJ, all the way up to the oval office, yet, so far nothing has been done.

Treason plain and simple

It goes even farther than that. Evidence indicates that Ambassador Stevens was being used as an arms dealer to supply Jihadists in the region to support yet another uprising in Syria. Just prior to the murder of our ambassador, he was trying to locate guns that had been walked across Libya’s border to other countries just as the ATF had done in operation Fast and Furious on the border of Mexico. These are not the actions of inexperience or bad intelligence. They are the actions of traitorous intention. President Obama will, no doubt, be linked to these deaths and operations if Congress will only act, and do its duty in prosecuting a treasonous president who is endangering national security.

There is no where else for a Congressional investigation to turn other than naming the conspirators, determining when officials knew, and assembling the evidence that murder was committed on behalf of the White House to silence those who knew and could testify. Through out the Obama presidency over the last four years the administration has master minded operations that have caused numerous controversies and crises.

When will the GOP take action?

The Republicans have missed opportunities to discredit the President, to impeach Obama in the wake of waging war against Libya without Congressional approval, and allowed executive privilege to  quash subpoenaed demands for evidence on Fast and Furious never released by AG Eric Holder. John Boehner, Speaker of the House, has refused to exercise initiative whenever the GOP could have used much-needed momentum to stem the tide against the incessant assaults against state’s rights, constitutional rights, and the traditional institutions of America. Will the recent damning evidence now uncovered over the Benghazi fiasco thanks to Admiral James Lyons be implemented to convict the President of potential high treason, or will we see yet another case of criminal acts ignored and hidden at the expense of the American people? If you bother to take interest and act as a responsible citizens contact your congressman and demand action!

If you like action, suspense, and mystery, check out newly released novel by Lyn Leahz, Soul Deceiver, BOOK ONE in the Eternal Soul Series. Recommended by Walid Shoebat & Joel Richardson .. It’s a page turner! CLICK HERE to find out more!

Israel News – Joseph Wouk

The conflict of interests between the U.S. and Russia over Syria is closely linked to an issue that has recently slipped down the priority ranks but is expected to take center stage again soon – the Iranian nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Photo by Reuters

The recent developments in Syria have been overshadowed by the direct clash of interests between the United States and Russia, in which Israel plays a minor, if inadvertent, role.

While Washington continues to hesitate over the degree of force needed to affect regime change in Damascus, Moscow, which does not believe that toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad will necessarily benefit the Syrian people, continues to warn against its possible replacement by a Sunni extremist government.

On the strategic level, even after the publication of images of the latest atrocities in Syria and the new accusations of use of chemical weapons, Russia has two goals: To keep the regime in place for as long as possible, since it maintains its hold on Tartus as Moscow’s private port in the Mediterranean Sea, and to subvert U.S. influence in the region.

At the same time that it prepares to host an international conference on Syria in June, Russia finds it comfortable to also flex its muscles over the three aerial strikes in Syrian territory that have been attributed in the foreign media to Israel. That is the reason for the current talk of deliveries, not yet completed as far as is known, of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to persuade the Russians to halt the deal signaled the start of a new war of leaks between Washington and Moscow. Every day a different U.S. news outlet receives information about the worrying scope of Russian assistance to Assad’s regime. Of particular concern to Israel, in addition to the S-300 surface-to-air missiles, are an advanced version of the high-precision Yakhont shore-to-ship missiles and the punched-up presence of Russian warships in the waters surrounding Tartus.

There is probably little Israel can do to scotch the Russian-Syrian arms deal. Even assuming that Iran will keep prodding Assad to help it in getting armaments to Hezbollah, Israel may have already used up most of its ammunition. The temptation to intervene militarily to halt munitions smuggling is always great: Intelligence officials will say they have precise information and cannot promise the same quality of intelligence after the advanced weapons systems have crossed the border into Lebanon. The pressure on the leadership to approve additional operations targeting arms shipments will be significant.

On the other hand, there’s no guarantee that the paralysis that gripped Assad after the previous strikes will continue forever. A senior Israeli official responded in The New York Times on Wednesday to Syrian and Hezbollah threats to take action against Israel after the third strike, in late April, with a direct threat to take down the Assad regime. But that is not what Israel wants. Among the myriad dispiriting options in Syria it is the current situation, however unappealing, that is presumably the least terrible.

On Saturday, The Times of London reported a senior Israeli intelligence official as saying that Assad was preferable to the rebels. Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, writing in Foreign Affairs earlier this month, even went so far as to call Assad “Israel’s man in Damascus.”

Iran: The next chapter

The complex political battle surrounding Syria is closely linked to another issue, one that seems to have slipped down the priority ranks slightly in the past few months, namely Iran’s nuclear program. It’s been some months since Israel has explicitly threatened to attack Iran. The lull is partly due to the wintry weather, thought to further complicate aerial strikes on that country. It might also be linked to understandings reached between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama during the latter’s March visit to Israel.

But that doesn’t mean the Iran chapter is behind us. It’s only a delay, until next month’s presidential election in Iran. America told Israel: Let’s wait for the election. If the ayatollahs’ regime tries to skew the results, as in 2009, perhaps another “green revolution” will break out in Iran, and perhaps this time it will, with inspiration from the Arab Spring, be more effective.

And even if the Iranian regime does survive, as is likely, the political and economic pressure on the country might finally convince the country’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to at least consider temporarily suspending the nuclear program in exchange for an easing of the international sanctions. If nothing happens, Washington has hinted, perhaps we will need to take direct action against Iran on our own.

Israel does not entirely trust this veiled promise from the United States, mainly in light of the White House’s embarrassing hesitancy over Syria and limp response to North Korea’s nuclear muscle-flexing. The Obama administration has been caught up in a series of public-relation disasters since the start of the president’s second term. All of this must suggest to Netanyahu that once again he has been left to fix the Iranian nuclear problem alone.

The prime minister will certainly not take comfort in a new report released on Friday by the Rand Corporation, that dares to ask the question that must not be raised in polite society: What will the region look like after Iran achieves nuclear capabilities? The veteran U.S. think tank, which often works for the government, says that obtaining nuclear weapons will further Iran’s national security goals, deter Israel and the United States from an attack in Iran, lead to greater instability in the region and increase the likelihood of war, whether by accident or as the result of a series of misunderstandings between Tehran and Jerusalem.

All of the obstacles that stood in the way of an Israeli attack on Iran last year will be relevant this year as well: The Obama administration is opposed to unilateral action from Israel, technocrats in Israel are against it, and there is a new, political obstacle in the form of Netanyahu’s main coalition partner in the new government, Finance Minister Yair Lapid. Lapid’s civil and economic agenda has no room for war with Iran. Nevertheless, it’s a safe bet that within a month, after the dust of the Iranian election settles, the issue of the ayatollahs’ nukes will once again claim center stage.

If you like action, suspense, and mystery, check out newly released novel by Lyn Leahz, Soul Deceiver, BOOK ONE in the Eternal Soul Series. Recommended by Walid Shoebat & Joel Richardson .. It’s a page turner! CLICK HERE to find out more!

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• Muddled Israeli-US policies on Assad set stage for Golan offensive against Israel (warsclerotic.wordpress.com)
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• Unmoved By Israel, Russia Will Send Top Air-Defense System To Assad (vineoflife.net)
• Putin Ups the Ante: Sends ‘Ship Killing Missile’ To Syria (fortunascorner.wordpress.com)
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