Posted May 15, 2012 by LifeSite News

As if China needed any more negative press on their barbaric One Child Policy after blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng’s dramatic escape from house arrest, multiple news outlets are now reporting that South Korean officials have seized thousands of capsules and pills that reportedly contain the powdered flesh of fetuses and babies. The stomach-turning story is that, since August, over 17,000 of these capsules have been seized from smugglers attempting to bring them in from—you guessed it—China.

First it was details of forced sterilizations, grotesque forced abortions that included women being strapped to chairs while the butchers of Chinese officialdom tore their offspring from their womb, and babies being drowned in buckets. Now reports indicate that cannibalistic capsules were created in factories where the corpses of Chinese babies were chopped like meat, dried out on stoves, and ground into powder. The purpose of these capsules? In a myth akin to the idea that sex with a virgin could cure AIDs, apparently some believe that consuming a dead child can ward off disease. Another report that I desperately hope is inaccurate indicates that they could be used as sexual performance enhancers, grotesquely completing this hellish horror story—have sex, kill the resulting baby, and then use the killed baby to enhance sex.

My greatest fear upon reading these reports was that people would no longer have the capacity to be shocked and repulsed. After all, until a concerted pro-life boycott ended the practice last month, PepsiCo was using aborted fetal cell lines to develop flavour enhancers. The biotech company utilizing these “flavour programs,” Senomyx, is still used by corporations such as Kraft Foods and Nestle. These facts have been public knowledge for some time, and yet there has been minimal if any public reaction to this abhorrent practice outside of the pro-life community.

It’s easy to bemoan the increasing reports of atrocities against the very young coming out of China. One might rightly note that in the Confucian China of the past, a child falling into a well would be rescued. But in today’s Communist dystopia a child is more likely to get dropped down a well than pulled out. But are we in Canada any better?

The pro-“choice” movement must admit the hideous slippery slope that their worldview has pushed us down. If abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, for any or no reason, should remain legal, then what is wrong with utilizing the remains of these pre-born innocents? If they aren’t human, then surely we can use their severed limbs for some productive purpose? If not for making sure our junk food tastes good, then perhaps as sexual performance enhancers?

The fact that this is all grotesque should be clear to all. Surely we can still recognize that the remains of human beings should not be used as some sort of cannibalistic pick-a-part. And perhaps, if we can recognize that truth, we can recognize that it is abhorrent to turn living humans into corpses in the first place.  (read more)

Posted May 14, 2012 by CNS News

NATO’s summit in Chicago this month – the first on  U.S. soil in 13 years – will be the biggest in its history, with some 60  countries and organizations represented, but Israel will not be among  them, the alliance has confirmed.

Turkey, NATO’s only Muslim member and a country whose government is  openly hostile towards Israel, has vetoed Israel’s participation in  other NATO activities, but both NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh  Rasmussen and Obama administration officials insist that Israel was not  blocked from the May 20-21 summit.

There had never been any intention to invite Israel in the first place, they say.

Rasmussen at a press conference in Brussels late last week attributed  Israel’s absence to the fact that it has not taken part in NATO  military operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo.

“Israel has not been invited to attend the summit because Israel is  neither a participant in ISAF, nor in KFOR,” he said, using the acronyms  for the International Security Assistance Force and the Kosovo Force.  “So for the very same reason I can also clearly state that no-one has  blocked an invitation because it’s not been an issue.”

Israeli troops would not be welcome in either ISAF or KFOR since both  are in Muslim-majority territories and both forces have Muslim  countries among the contributors.

Still, Israel is a member of one of NATO’s main “partnership”  initiatives, the Mediterranean Dialogue, whose other members are Egypt,  Algeria, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

“Partnerships” with non-members is one of three key themes for  Chicago event, and in his annual report delivered in January, Rasmussen  highlighted the importance in the months ahead of seeking “a stronger  relationship with the broader Middle East and North Africa region,  principally by strengthening the Mediterranean Dialogue and Istanbul  Cooperation Initiative. Allies will work closely with partners from the  region to see how they can work better together to address common  security challenges.”

(The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative is another NATO partnership,  involving Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.)

Non-member countries that have been invited to the summit include  Qatar, the UAE, Jordan and Morocco. Rasmussen said they would  participate “because they have contributed in a significant way to our  operations.”

Qatar and the UAE took part in NATO’s mission in Libya last year,  while UAE and Morocco have also been involved in KFOR and Jordan and the  UAE have had roles in ISAF.

Rasmussen said the Chicago would be “the biggest summit in NATO  history,” and confirmed that the European Union and United Nations were  among those invited. Other non-members on the invitation list include  Russia (represented by a diplomat, not President Vladimir Putin), Japan,  South Korea, Afghanistan, Australia and New Zealand, as well as  aspiring NATO members Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Georgia.

Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-leaning  government, Turkey’s relationship with one-time ally Israel has soured  significantly, and Ankara has vaunted the steps it has taken in recent  years to block Israel’s cooperation with NATO.

As the alliance operates on the basis of consensus, members have the  ability to block decisions even though outside disputes are not supposed  to impact on NATO activities.

Turkey this year objected to Israel’s participation in a naval operation patrolling the Mediterranean, and last year threatened to use its veto if necessary to stymie an attempt by Israel by open a liaison office at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Last month, Turkish officials told local media that Ankara has  informed fellow NATO members that it will not endorse Israeli  participation in alliance events, including the Chicago summit. Turkish  Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was cited as having made this stance  clear during meetings in Brussels on April 18 attended by Secretary of  State Hillary Clinton.

The State Department at the time appeared reluctant to comment, even declining to say whether the U.S. – the host nation – would like Israel to take part in the summit.

Turkey’s Today’s Zaman daily late last week quoted a “senior  Turkish diplomatic source” as saying that had Israel been invited to  Chicago, Turkey would not have hesitated to veto its participation.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on  Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs  Phillip Gordon noted the summit’s focus on partnerships, and said “we  envision a particular focus on further engagement with partners in the  wider Middle East and North  Africa region.”

Asked by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) about the Israel issue, Gordon  addressed what he said had been a “misconception,” saying there had been  no invitation to Israel in the first place for Turkey to block.

Gordon acknowledged concerns about the Turkish-Israeli tensions.

“We regret that partnership activities at NATO with Israel are not  proceeding because of Turkish objections,” he said. “And we’ve been very  clear about that, that no country should bring bilateral disputes into  the alliance. We don’t accept that countries can pick and choose in  blocking partnership activities.”   (read more)

Posted May 15, 2012 by CNS News

A proposal by six Arab Gulf states to explore a  possible union drew an angry response in Iran, where lawmakers are  painting it as part of a plot to “annex” tiny Bahrain to Saudi Arabia.

Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreed at a summit in  Riyadh on Monday that their foreign ministers would study further a  Saudi-led proposal for a closer union that envisages political, economic  and military coordination, more open borders, and a centralized  decision-making body to replace the GCC secretariat.

Although the decision for further study – ahead of an extraordinary  summit at a yet-to-be-determined date – in fact delays the proposal,  Tehran is unhappy with what it says is an attempt, under the guise of  deeper regional integration, to “prevent the success of Bahrain’s  [Shi’ite-led] revolution.”

Senior Iranian lawmakers are meeting with foreign ministry officials  in Tehran on Tuesday to discuss the matter, Hossein Ebrahimi, vice  chairman of the parliamentary national security and foreign policy  committee, told the Fars new agency.

“We as representatives of the great Iranian nation strongly condemn  this unwise measure and stress that nations cannot be pacified through  force and political pressure,” 190 lawmakers said in a joint statement  Monday.

“The brave and faithful Bahraini people, especially the clerics, the  youth and women, have proved over the past 15 months that their Islamic  zeal, national patriotism, their fisted hands and the slogan of ‘Allah  is Great’ are more powerful than the aggressive powers, occupiers and  Saudi forces.”

The statement warned that what Iran considers a joint plot by the  Saudi and Bahraini governments to annex Bahrain would spread unrest into  Saudi Arabia. (The kingdom’s oil-rich eastern province is home to a  restive Shi’ite minority.)

Shi’ite Iran has championed the cause of Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority,  which amid political turmoil elsewhere in the Arab world stepped up  demands early last year for reforms from the Sunni monarchy that has  ruled for more than two centuries.

Bahrain, an island linked to Saudi   Arabia by a 16-mile causeway,  has a population of just over one million, more than a third of whom are  non-nationals. Shi’ites comprise about 70 percent of the Bahraini  population.

For the Iran-wary Gulf states – and the United  States – the stakes  are high: Strategically-located just 150 miles from the Iranian coast,  Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and U.S. Naval  Headquarters Central Command. It is also one of just four countries to  enjoy the status of “major non-NATO ally” of the U.S.

After sometimes violent protests, Bahrain in March 2011 invited  troops from Saudi Arabia and other neighbors to help restore stability.  Lower-level protests have continued periodically, and at least 50 people  are reported to have died as a result of the unrest. The government has  offered some concessions, but has also arrested hundreds of opposition  supporters.

The GCC, whose other four members are Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the  United Arab Emirates, has accused Iran of stoking the uprising in  Bahrain in the hope of seeing the monarchy replaced by a Tehran-friendly  Shi’ite regime. Apart from the sectarian links, Iran has longstanding  territorial claims to the island, and an advisor to supreme leader  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2007 described Bahrain as a “province” of  Iran.

Saudi King Abdullah’s proposal for a GCC union has been welcomed by  Bahrain’s King Hamad, who said on arrival in Riyadh Monday the plan was a  “response to changes and challenges that face us on international and  regional fronts.” Opposition groups in Bahrain, however, called for new  protests against the plan.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal told reporters at the end of  the summit that the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, even  if it developed into a closer union, had “nothing to do” with Iran.

The Saudi proposals remain vague, with some proponents suggesting a European Union-type arrangement.

Earlier attempts at integration among the 31 year-old GCC, including a  push for a common currency and customs union, have run into  difficulties, however.  (read more)

Posted May 15, 2012 by The Blaze

Hot on the heels of Egyptian presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi’s declaration that “The Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal…Today we can establish Sharia law because our nation will acquire well-being only with Islam and Sharia,” Egyptian lawmakers are again making news, and none of it is promising.

According to the Egypt Independent, MP Nasser al-Shaker of the Salafi-led Nour Party is citing notable Islamic scholars in justifying female genital mutilation (FGM) as a part of the “prophetic” Sunnah (a holy work of Islam).

For those unfamiliar with Egyptian politics– the Salafi party is even more fundamentalist than the Muslim Brotherhood, and they control nearly 24% of Egypt’s parliament.  These are the people who try to live their lives in the example of the earliest Muslims, and their marks on the world include Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Regarding FGM, MP Shaker reportedly remarked that former first lady Suzanne Mubarak was the driving force behind banning it, and, as everyone is well aware, the Mubaraks are long since persona non grata in Egypt.

Randa Fakhr Eddin of the Cairo Coalition Against Female Genital Mutilation replied to Shaker’s statements, saying there is no consensus on the law by senior scholars or Islamists, and that it was rejected in the 1990s as being a cultural habit rather than a religious practice.

The rejection didn’t seem to have much influence, however, since it is not only ultra-conservative Salafis who are involved in the practice.

In fact, the whole issue began after the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party started a charity initiative in the city of Minya, where they were accused of performing the wicked deed (they deny the allegations).

Female genital mutilation is widely practiced in Egypt and Sudan, along with many other African countries.  While most Arab and Islamic countries technically view it as a crime, there is rarely any intervention in the matter–the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population conducted a study in 2003, where they reported that 94.6% of married women had undergone FGM, and 69.1% of those women agreed to have the procedure performed on their daughters.  (read more)

Posted on May 15, 2012 by roanoke.com

Could the Ten Commandments be reduced to six, a federal judge asked Monday.

Would that neutralize the religious overtones of a commandments display that has the Giles County School Board in legal hot water?

That unorthodox suggestion was made by Judge Michael Urbanski during oral arguments over whether the display amounts to a governmental endorsement of religion, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by a student at Narrows High School.

After raising many pointed questions about whether the commandments pass legal muster, the judge referred the case to mediation – with a suggestion:

Remove the first four commandments, which are clearly religious in nature, and leave the remaining six, which make more secular commands, such as do not kill or steal.

Ever since the lawsuit was filed in September amid heated community reaction, school officials have said the display is not religious because it also includes historical documents such as the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

“If indeed this issue is not about God, why wouldn’t it make sense for Giles County to say, ‘Let’s go back and just post the bottom six?’” Urbanski asked during a motions hearing in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

“But if it’s really about God, then they wouldn’t be willing to do that.”

After delaying a ruling on the lawsuit, Urbanski directed attorneys on both sides to meet with Magistrate Judge Robert Ballou, who will lead mediation sessions in the coming weeks.

If those discussions do not produce a settlement, Urbanski must decide whether the school board had religious intentions when it voted 3-2 last June to put the commandments back up after angry public reaction to their earlier removal.  (read more)

Posted on May 11, 2012 b y christianpost.com

We seem to be in an age of increasing government mandates that strike at the very core of the freedom of religion. The HHS Mandate in just one example of government mandates that disregard freedom of religion. The latest example comes from Hutchinson, Kansas, a small town northwest of Wichita. If the Hutchinson Human Relations Commission has its way, churches will be mandated to rent out their facilities for same-sex “marriage” ceremonies.

It started back in November, 2011, when a group called the Kansas Equality Commission asked Hutchinson to add the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to its non-discrimination ordinance. The Mayor asked the Hutchinson Human Relations Commission to study the idea and report back to the town within 90 days on its findings. The Human Relations Commission did study the issue and is recommending that the terms be added to the non-discrimination ordinance. In the process, it put together a document entitled an FAQ sheet. The sheet describes the practical effect of what would happen if these terms are added to the ordinance.

Some of the more chilling aspects of the change include requiring employers and places of public accommodation to allow people to use whatever restroom fits their “gender identity” at the time. The proposed changes define “gender identity” as “a gender-related identity, appearance, expression or behavior of a person, regardless of the person’s assigned sex at birth.” What this means is that an employer or a business owner must allow a male to use the women’s restroom if he has the “appearance” or expresses the “behavior” of a female.  (read more)

Posted on May 15, 2012 by cnsnews.com

Twenty years after a U.N. gathering in Rio de Janeiro hiked environmental concerns higher up the global agenda and laid the early groundwork for the Kyoto Protocol, tens of thousands of U.N. officials, government representatives and activists will head back to the Brazilian city this summer in an attempt to advance the “sustainability” cause.

In what the world body’s Division for Sustainable Development says will be the biggest conference ever organized by the U.N., some 135 heads of state and government (or their deputies) have committed to attend the June 20-22 Conference on Sustainable Development, dubbed “Rio+20.”

President Obama at this stage is not expected to attend, although he and visiting Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff agreed in a joint statement last month on “the importance of broad participation in the high-level segment of the conference.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has characterized Obama’s presence as “crucial.” Organizers had timed Rio+20 to follow on from a G20 summit in Mexico, in the hope this would smooth the way for leaders like Obama to attend by pairing up two events in one trip abroad.

But with his re-election campaign in full swing, the president is unlikely to want to attend what promises to be a politically-sensitive event.

(read more)

Posted on May 14, 2012 by wnd.com

The Obama administration has launched a new battle over water rights that threatens not only the the economies of arid Western states, which largely voted against him in the 2008 election, but their very existence.

WND reported last month that the federal government was creating obstacles for Tombstone, Ariz., to restore its water supplies following last year’s forest fire and monsoon-triggered floods in the nearby mountains. The federal government said crews could not use machinery to rebuild pipelines and spring-water collection systems.

Now, a letter contradicting longstanding federal practice asserts a claim to water in arid Western states, such as Utah, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, that supersedes all other authorities, including decisions by state water courts.

“Federal water rights are entitled to a form of protection that is broader than what may be provided to similarly situated state law rights holders,” states a letter from Julie Decker, the deputy state director in the U.S. Department of the Interior to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

The letter was objecting to state plans to do a routine “Designation of Adequate Water Supply,” which reviews water resources, rights and uses when changes are proposed.

Decker’s letter said water is not “legally” available for some users who may want to develop property in the area, because “the expressed federal reserved water right created by Congress is senior to all junior water users who initiate uses after the date of the establishment of the reservation.”

(read more)

Posted May 15th, 2012 from wnd.com

Iranian outlets have been claiming recently the United States has been forced to bow before Iran on its nuclear program, demonstrating the West’s abandonment of Israel and paving the way for the Islamic regime to annihilate the Jewish state.

While restating that Iran will demand ever more in the upcoming second round of talks with the 5+1 nations to be held this month in Baghdad, the Iranian media are now boasting that Israel has been abandoned by its allies and is in a dire bind.

One such editorial, published last week by Iran’s Keyhan newspaper, which is directly under the supervision of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated, “It can be said that within the last 60 years, this is the first time that the Zionist regime, since its illegal inception, has had to endure rejection by the West over its vision and interest in the region.”

The editorial, written by Sadollah Zarei, a columnist for the hard-line paper, said that within the last three months, Israeli officials, after reports that America is on the verge of accepting the Iranian nuclear program, have made several trips to Washington, where on one trip they met for 10 days with U.S. officials to try to change President Obama’s decision to accept Iran’s nuclear program. They were unsuccessful.

“The ramifications of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s defeat in the face of Obama’s policies have been a breakdown in Israel’s usurper regime, where now many within its own government have spoken against its own prime minister, claiming Iran is a rational regime and not after the bomb,” Zarei wrote.

While Israel’s government is in disarray internally, the editorial said, the West is forced to watch Iran’s victory in nuclear negotiations.

The question now is why the West has changed its policies toward Iran, the editorial said. It could have continued with the same old policies of confrontation.

The answer, the editorial said, is that “in the last year, two important events have taken place. One has been the Islamic Awakening (the Arab Spring) in the region, which is based on the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran and has the West quite worried and concerned; the other is the events in Egypt, which, despite all the analysis by the West, have turned into an Islamic movement with Sharia laws. These two events have forced the West to rethink its approach toward Iran.”

As a result, Israel is backed into a corner, alone without its allies, the editorial said.

Zarei concluded that Israel has been weakened drastically with what is happening in Egypt, which has collapsed part of Israel’s regional security.

“With diminishing support for Israel and with the (upcoming) collapse of the monarchy in Saudi Arabia,” Zarei claims, “there won’t be any obstacles left facing Iran with its policy of annihilation of Israel.”

Posted May 15th from WND.com

After a five-year immigration halt, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has given permission to a community of Indian citizens who believe they are one of the “lost tribes” of Israel to move to the Jewish state.

“We had a major breakthrough, and thank God, the Aliya [immigration to Israel] is set to resume this summer, and we hope and pray to bring the first batch of 50 families, or about 250-300 Bnei Menashe immigrants, to Israel by the end of August,” said Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel, which is behind the initiative.

Shavei, based in Jerusalem, hopes to bring to the Jewish state the remaining 7,000 Indian citizens who believe they are the Bnei Menashe, the descendants of Manasseh, one of biblical patriarch Joseph’s two sons and a grandson of Jacob.

Already Freund’s group helped facilitate the immigration of over 1,700 Bnei Menashe, with successive Israeli governments allowing and then halting the process. In 2007, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s administration put the kibosh on the process, which is now being reopened.

Shavei plans to bring 50 Bnei Menashe families to Israel this summer with hopes of transplanting the remaining tribe members from India to Israel in the next few years.

The original batches of Bnei Menashe to arrive here came as tourists in an agreement with Israel’s Interior Ministry. Once in Israel, the Bnei Menashe converted officially to Judaism and became citizens.

But diplomatic wrangling halted the immigration process in 2003, with officials from some Israeli ministries refusing to grant the rest of the group still in India permission to travel here.

To smooth the process, Freund at the time enlisted the help of Israel’s chief rabbinate, who flew to India in 2005 to convert members of the Bnei Menashe, a process stopped last year by India.

Freund then coordinated with the Israeli government the arrival of batches of a few hundred Bnei Menashe as tourists who would later convert, but that process was halted in July 2007.

Tribe members live in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, to which they say they were exiled from Israel more than 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire.

According to Bnei Menashe oral tradition, the tribe was exiled from Israel and pushed to the east, eventually settling in the border regions of China and India, where most remain today. Most kept customs similar to Jewish tradition, including observing Shabbat, keeping the laws of Kosher, practicing circumcision on the eighth day of a baby boy’s life and observing laws of family purity.

In the 1950s, several thousand Bnei Menashe say they set out on foot to Israel but were quickly halted by Indian authorities. Undeterred, many began practicing Orthodox Judaism and pledged to make it to Israel. They now attend community centers in India established by Shavei Israel to teach the Bnei Menashe Jewish tradition and modern Hebrew.

Freund sees the Bnei Menashe immigration as biblical, quoting from Isaiah 43:5, which states, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.”

“Those words,” Freund says, “are coming to life before our eyes.”

“I think this is a very historic project,” he added. “It is the closing of an historical circle. It is the return of a lost tribe of Israel after 27 centuries of exile, and it is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.”