Foreign

Iran’s Leader Threatens to Level Cities if Israel Attacks

March 21, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Iran’s leader said in a speech that the country would annihilate the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa if it were attacked by Israel, and criticized the U.S. over nuclear talks.

The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all key decisions in Iran, says Israel is too small to be called an enemy, and that the United States is the “center of animosity” toward the Islamic republic.

“Sometimes, leaders of the Zionist regime threaten us. They threaten to take military action. They are not in the size to be put in the list of Iranian nation’s enemies,” Khamenei said in comments broadcast live on state TV.

In a strong warning to Israel, Khamenei said that if Israel attacked Iran, the “Islamic Republic will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.”

He made the comments on Thursday to a crowd in northeastern Iran on the first day of the new Persian calendar year. His speech in the city of Mashhad was broadcast live on state radio.

Israel, which is believed to have the only nuclear weapons arsenal in the Mideast, has threatened to take military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to stop Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

In the speech, Khamenei said he’s not opposed to direct talks with the U.S. to resolve its nuclear standoff with the West.

But he added that he’s not optimistic that such talks would yield results unless Washington stops imposing sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

“The Americans constantly send messages to us through various ways, saying let’s hold (bilateral) talks on the nuclear issue,” Khamenei said. “I’m not optimistic on these talks. Why? Because our previous experiences show that dialogue, in the logic of American gentlemen … means let’s sit down and talk so that you (Iran) accept our views. This is not dialogue. This is imposition and we won’t give in to it.”

Iran is living under stepped-up Western sanctions that include a total oil embargo and banking restrictions that make it increasingly difficult for Iran’s Asian customers to pay for oil deliveries. Iran’s income from oil and gas exports has dropped by about 50 percent as a result of sanctions.

Khamenei said the U.S. has sent messages to Tehran, sometimes in writing, saying it is willing to hold bilateral talks with Tehran separately from the negotiations Iran is holding with five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.

“I’m not optimistic about these talks, but I’m not opposed to it either,” he said.

However, Khamenei said the best way to resolve the standoff would be for the West to recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium and agree to a monitoring process to ensure that it won’t be used for weapons.

“Iran only wants that the world recognize its enrichment right which is its natural right,” he said.

Khamenei said there is no reason why Tehran should trust the U.S. when Washington doesn’t trust Tehran.

“We have repeatedly told you that we are not after nuclear weapons. You say you don’t believe us. Why should we believe you? When you are not ready to accept an honest and logical remark, why should we accept your words that have been disproved many times?” he asked.

Khamenei alleged that the U.S. wants the nuclear issue to remain unresolved so it will continue to have basis for the sanctions, which he said have harmed, but not crippled the Iranian economy.

“Yes, sanctions have had an effect. If they (U.S.) want to be happy, let them be,” he said.

“Our economy suffers from the problem of being dependent on oil,” he said. “We have to distance our economy (from oil dependence).”

Published March 21, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cyprus Lawmakers Reject Bill to Nationalize Bank Deposits

March 19, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

NICOSIA, Cyprus – Lawmakers in Cyprus rejected a bill Tuesday that aimed to seize part of residents’ bank deposits in order to qualify for an international bailout.

Zero lawmakers voted in favor of the bill, and 36 voted against it.

Earlier Tuesday, The government amended its initial proposal to shield small savers from the plan, which aims to raise euro5.8 billion ($7.5 billion) in return for euro10 billion ($12.9 billion) from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. The total bailout money would go to prop up the country’s banks and public finances.

But even the modification, which will allow those with up to euro20,000 ($25,858) in the bank to escape the confiscation, opposition to the bill remained strong. Four parties and an independent deputy, accounting for 34 of the total 56 seats in Parliament have all said they recommend voting against the bill. The bill needs 29 votes to pass.

With the bill is rejected, Cyprus’ international bailout is now endangered, raising the very real possibility that Cypriot banks could collapse, and the country could face bankruptcy and may even have to leave Europe’s single currency.

Officials have said a “Plan B” should be sought in case the bill is rejected.

Under the amendment, people with between euro20,000 and euro100,000 in the bank would pay a tax of 6.75 percent on their deposits, and those with higher amounts would pay euro9.9 percent. In the initial proposal agreed on in Brussels late Friday, there would have been no exemptions for those with small amounts in the bank.

The plan has been met with fury in Cyprus and has sent jitters across financial markets.

In a heated debate, lawmakers spoke of “raw blackmail” from Europe in forcing Cyprus into the deal, while hundreds of protesters gathered outside Parliament chanting anti-government slogans.

Banks on the island nation will stay shut until Thursday in an effort to prevent a bank run.

In a sign of the scale of disagreement over the deposit charge, the country’s central bank governor, Panicos Demetriades, recommended that no accounts below euro100,000 be touched. That level represents the amount of savings that are supposed to be insured if a bank collapses.

“The credibility of, and trust in the banking sector depends on this,” said Demetriades, who conceded that he expects at least 10 percent of deposits to be withdrawn when the banks eventually re-open.

Failure to pass the bill could mean no bailout money from the eurozone and IMF and lead to Cyprus’s bankruptcy, which could reignite concerns in financial markets over the single currency’s future. That would likely put deposits in the country’s banks under even more threat.

Although Cyprus is the smallest eurozone country to be bailed out, the details of the plan sent shockwaves through the single currency area as it was the first time savers’ banks accounts have been directly targeted. Other bailed out countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal have raised funds by imposing new taxes.

Proponents of the deposit seizure argue that this way gets foreigners who have taken advantage of Cyprus’s low-tax regime to share the cost of the bailout of the banks, which have been hit hard by their over-exposure to bad Greek debt.

About a third of all deposits in Cypriot banks are believed to be held by Russians.

Finance Minister Michalis Sarris was flying to Moscow Tuesday afternoon to meet with his Russian counterpart.

Andreas Charalambous, a senior official at the ministry, said the aim is to extend repayment of a euro2.5 billion loan Russia granted Cyprus in late 2011 when the country could no longer borrow from international markets.

He said Cyprus was also looking for “potential interest for further investment in the country.”

Opponents say a blanket charge on people’s bank accounts will hurt ordinary Cypriots more, and could shake the confidence of all in the country’s banking sector. And by going after deposits, European policymakers have set a precedent that could be repeated in the future. The worry of bank runs across Europe lies at the heart of market concerns.

Charalambous said Cypriot authorities believe depositors should be protected, but that a wholesale exemption for those below euro100,000 would mean a “disproportionate” burden on large savers, and a “very detrimental” knock-on effect on economic growth.

“Because of the size of the estimated (bailout) needs, the burden on those above euro100,000 would be such that it would again impact small people because it would destroy the ability of the country to attract foreign investment,” Charalambous said.

In a Monday night teleconference, eurozone finance ministers concluded that small depositors should not be hit as hard as others. They said Cyprus should stagger the seizures more, but insisted that the overall take should stay the same.

President Nicos Anastasiades, who was elected less than a month ago, told German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday night that “the possibility of reducing the requirements from self-raised funds is being explored,” a Cypriot government spokesman said.

The two leaders were expected to speak again on Tuesday, he added.

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund which is participating in Cyprus’s bailout, said in Frankfurt that the IMF was “extremely supportive of the Cypriot authorities’ intentions to introduce more progressive rates in the one-off tax.”

Published March 19, 2013 / Associated Press

Cyprus’ Decision to Seize Bank Deposits

March 19, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

PARIS – Lawmakers in Cyprus are still scrambling for a way to raise €5.8 billion ($7.5 billion) to help pay for an international bailout of the country’s banks and government.

A plan to seize up to 10 percent of people’s savings has been met with fury and it has raised concern, if not panic, in the rest of Europe about the security of bank deposits in times of financial turmoil.

On Tuesday, Cypriot lawmakers are scheduled to vote a revised plan that would not be so burdensome for people with less than €100,000 in the bank. Any plan must be approved by the other eurozone countries, which would then commit €10 billion in rescue loans to Cyprus.

Banks in Cyprus will remain shut until Thursday to give political leaders time to hash out a deal.

Here’s a look at the plan and the problems it may pose.

HEY, HOW CAN THEY DO THAT?

As a member of the euro currency, Cyprus can to raise or lower taxes whenever it wants. It isn’t the first time that a eurozone nation has raised taxes to cope with mounting debt and to prop up struggling banks. Residents of Greece, Portugal and Ireland — all bailout recipients — have seen their tax bills skyrocket in recent years as those countries tried to reduce their debts. But Cyprus is charting new ground here, and there could be legal — and political — challenges.

AND HOW EXACTLY WILL IT WORK?

Banks have already acted to seal off the amount of the levy — a 6.75 percent tax on deposits under €100,000 and 9.9 percent on those above — so depositors can’t access it. Banks will remain closed until Thursday to avoid a rush of withdrawals while lawmakers finalize the move. They will vote on Tuesday, but some are seeking modifications, mainly to lower the tax rate on deposits under €100,000. To do that, however, they have to raise the rate for the larger depositors, since the overall scheme has to raise a total of €5.8 billion.

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED BEFORE?

So far in the euro crisis, depositors have been protected. But European countries have taxed bank deposits before. In the 1990s, Italy levied a tax on every bank account to stave off the collapse of its lire currency. The rate, however, was miniscule — 0.06 percent — compared to what Cyprus is enacting. Iceland — another island with an outsized financial sector, although worse weather — also relied on depositors to prop up its banks. When the crisis hit there in 2008, Iceland protected its domestic deposits but reneged on deposit insurance for overseas, Internet-based accounts held by British and Dutch. Those two governments stepped in to help their citizens to the tune of $5 billion. The U.K. and the Netherlands sued Iceland unsuccessfully in a European court to get their money back, but Iceland has nevertheless started to repay some of that money.

European officials are promising this Cyprus is a unique case, and they are right in one aspect: Cypriot banks are overwhelmingly funded by deposits, not bondholders. So it wouldn’t have been very fruitful to go after bondholders.

WHO IS AFFECTED?

All people with money in Cypriot banks — except those with money in Greek branches, which will be sold to Greek banks. EU and IMF creditors clearly wanted to protect struggling Greece, but perhaps also saw that Greece is the most likely place in the eurozone for a bank run. Protecting depositors there minimizes that possibility. Of the more than €68 billion on deposit in Cypriot banks, foreigners hold about 40 percent — and most of those are Russians. Cyprus could have only gone after non-EU depositors, but it may have been hard to distinguish between Cypriot and Russian savers, said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. That is because many Russians have dual citizenship and many Russian businesses are registered on the island. Kirkegaard said Cypriots may paradoxically welcome this measure since the government just managed to widen its tax base to include a lot of Russians; the taxes levied in Greece, Portugal and Ireland were for residents alone to shoulder.

WHY DID CYPRUS NEED A BAILOUT?

Cyprus built its economy in recent years by becoming a financial center, much the way Ireland and Iceland before it did. Its banks offered Internet accounts to foreigners, were renowned for their service, provided substantial privacy to clients and had very low taxes. It worked so well that Cyprus’ banking industry ballooned to nearly eight times the country’s gross domestic product at the height of the boom. In December, it was still more than seven times Cyprus’ €17.5 billion GDP. Russians — looking for warmer climes, lower tax rates and shared culture in the form of Orthodox Christianity — are thought to hold the majority of those accounts, with about €20 billion in the island’s banks.

But Cyprus’ banks held a lot of Greek debt and suffered significant losses when they took a writedown of those bonds as part of the Greek bailout. Much of Cyprus’ bailout money will be used to recapitalize Cypriot banks to prevent them from collapsing. Like other eurozone countries, Cyprus has also seen its deficit and debt explode as growth has ground to a halt. And with the banking system so large, the government wouldn’t have been able to bail it out even in a healthy economy.

WHY DO RUSSIANS KEEP SO MUCH MONEY IN CYPRUS?

Russian businessmen have preferred to place their savings in offshore jurisdictions, partly to escape political uncertainty and corruption in Russia. Cyprus offers a 10 percent corporate tax rate and relatively stable political situation. Cyprus is also believed to be a top destination for money-laundering. It is much safer for a corrupt Russian official to keep proceeds from illegal activities abroad, hiding information about their fortunes and holdings away from the prying eyes of Russian banking regulators. Russian officials estimated that about $49 billion, which is equivalent to 2.5 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, was wired to foreign accounts illegally last year.

WHAT HAS THE MARKET REACTION BEEN?

Stock markets and the euro dropped on Monday but not too much. Kirkegaard says that the decision to tap depositors indicates that the European Central Bank is confident that the risk of a bank run elsewhere in the eurozone is low — and by excluding Greek branches of Cypriot banks, they have reduced the possibility even further.

But Heather Conley, director of Europe program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says it’s hard to know the far-reaching implications of this one-off deal. The “exceptions” created to solve Europe’s debt crisis are adding up, she said. And some investors may look at this late-night, three-day-weekend deal and see what she saw: a dress rehearsal for a country dropping out of the euro.

___

Published March 19, 2013 / Associated Press / AP Writer Menelaos Hadjicostis contributed to this report from Nicosia, Cyprus.

UN Reopens Talks on NRA-opposed Arms Treaty

March 18, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Negotiators will reconvene this week to try to hammer out a landmark U.N. treaty designed to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade amid objections from a bipartisan group of legislators and the most powerful gun-rights lobbying group in the U.S.

Governmental representatives will meet in New York starting Monday to try to reach consensus on the Arms Trade Treaty, which would require all countries to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms and to regulate arms brokers.

The draft treaty under consideration does not control the domestic use of weapons in any country, but it would prohibit states that ratify the treaty from transferring conventional weapons if they would violate arms embargoes or if they would promote acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

In considering whether to authorize the export of arms, the draft says a country must evaluate whether the weapon would be used to violate international human rights or humanitarian laws or be used by terrorists, organized crime or for corrupt practices.

Many countries, including the United States, control arms exports, but there has never been an international treaty regulating the estimated $60 billion global arms trade. For more than a decade, activists and some governments have been pushing for international rules to try to keep illicit weapons out of the hands of terrorists, insurgent fighters and organized crime.

Hopes of reaching agreement on what would be a landmark treaty were dashed last July when the United States said it needed more time to consider the proposed accord — then Russia and China also asked for a delay.

The National Rifle Association has portrayed the treaty as a threat to gun ownership rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The politically controversial issue of gun regulations has re-emerged since a gunman opened fire on Dec. 14 at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children and six educators.

Last July, the NRA’s CEO Wayne LaPierre told the U.N. that “the NRA wants no part of any treaty that infringes on the precious right of lawful Americans to keep and bear arms.” He added that “any treaty that includes civilian firearms ownership in its scope will be met with the NRA’s greatest force of opposition.”

On Thursday, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., introduced a bipartisan resolution opposing the treaty, which states the proposal “places free democracies and totalitarian regimes on a basis of equality” and represents a national security threat.

“As the greatest defender of liberty and freedom in the world – and we have been for the last 236 years – why would we ever sit down with bad actors and let them decide what our policy will be going forward? [It is a] bad, bad idea. It doesn’t make sense,” Kelly said at a press conference Thursday.

An identical companion resolution was introduced last week by Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, according to Kelly’s office.

Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement Friday that the United States looks forward to working with other countries to reach consensus on an Arms Trade Treaty “that helps address the adverse effects of the international arms trade on global peace and stability” by helping to stem the illicit flow of weapons across borders.

He stressed that the U.S. will not support a treaty that would be inconsistent with U.S. law and the right of Americans under the Constitution to bear firearms, or a treaty that would impose new requirements on the U.S. domestic trade in firearms and U.S. exporters.

“The United States could only be party to an Arms Trade Treaty that addresses international transfers of conventional arms solely,” Kerry said.

Kerry said that while the international arms trade affects every country, more than 100 nations don’t have a system for controlling international arms transfers.

“We support a treaty that will bring all countries closer to existing international best practices, which we already observe, while preserving national decisions to transfer conventional arms responsibly,” he said.

Kerry said that means responsible nations should have control systems that reduce the risk that conventional arms transfers will be used “to carry out the world’s worst crimes, including those involving terrorism, and serious human rights violations.”

Amnesty International’s Deputy Executive Director Frank Jannuzi said President Barack Obama “must not be cowed or intimidated by the U.S. gun lobby and the NRA.”

Jannuzi added: “The unfettered trade of conventional arms has contributed to the deaths of more than 500,000, the displacement of millions, widespread rape and the recruitment and exploitation of children as soldiers. The global arms trade must be regulated, and the United States — the world’s largest exporter — should lead the way.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is confident that the U.N.’s 193 member states will overcome their differences during the upcoming negotiations and muster the political will to reach agreement on a treaty. The U.N. chief reiterated his support for a treaty that regulates international transfers of both weapons and ammunition and sets common standards for exporting states.

Kerry’s statement made no mention of the key issue of ammunition.

Jannuzi said the draft treaty in July had a provision that would ban the export of ammunition in cases where a country decided that the export of weapons was prohibited.

Published March 18, 2013 / FoxNews.com /The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Senator Claims Benghazi Survivors ‘told to be quiet’ by Administration

March 16, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an extensive interview with Fox News, alleged that the injured survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been “told to be quiet” and feel they can’t come forward to tell their stories — as he urged the House to subpoena the administration for details if necessary.

The South Carolina senator said he’s “had contact” with some of the survivors, calling their story “chilling.” He told Fox News that “the bottom line is they feel that they can’t come forth, they’ve been told to be quiet.”
The White House is denying any attempt to exert pressure on the surviving victims.

“I’m sure that the White House is not preventing anyone from speaking,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, when asked about the survivors.

But Graham said he thinks the administration is “trying to cover it up,” citing the valuable information the survivors hold.

“The best evidence of what happened in Benghazi is not a bunch of politicians in Washington trying to cover their political ass,” Graham said. “This is the people who lived through the debacle, and I’m going to do all I can to get them before the Congress and American people.”

He continued: “We cannot let this administration or any other administration get away with hiding from the American people and Congress, people who were there in real time to tell the story.”

Graham continued to voice concern about the inaccurate or incomplete accounts that came from the Obama administration in the days following the attack. He is among a handful of Republican lawmakers pressing for access to and more information about the survivors.

But he had pointed words for the House Republican leadership, as he urged them to issue subpoenas if the administration does not release the names of the survivors.

“To our leadership in the House, you’re gonna have to up your game on Benghazi,” he said.

For his part, Graham vowed to “make life difficult in the Senate” in order to get the information he wants, suggesting that would involve holding up nominations.

“(The public needs) to hear from people who were on the ground, their desperate situation. They need to understand from people who were there for months how bad it was getting and how frustrated they were that nobody would listen to them and provide aid when they were requested,” Graham said. “This is a story of an administration deaf and blind to the reality of what people were living with every day in Libya.”

He said they should be able to “tell their story without fear,” accusing the administration of “hiding from the American people and Congress the primary source of truth in Benghazi – people who lived through it.”

A congressional source tells Fox News that Hill staffers investigating the attack believe about 37 personnel were in Benghazi on behalf of the State Department and CIA on Sept. 11. With the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, about 33 people were evacuated. Of them, a State Department official confirmed there were three diplomatic security agents and one contractor who were injured in the assault — one seriously.

A diplomatic security source told Fox News the State Department diplomatic security agent who was in the most serious condition suffered a severe head injury during the second wave of the attack at the annex.
This agent was described as the likely State Department employee visited at Walter Reed Medical Center by Secretary of State John Kerry in January.

While not denying the details, the State Department official offered no comment on the nature of the injuries or whether the agent was visited by Kerry or Hillary Clinton before she left office.

Leading Republicans in the Senate and House have been calling on the State Department to identify the injured and make them available to congressional investigators. So far, they say their calls have gone unanswered.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said the administration has provided “zero” documents on the matter and has not provided names of those attacked.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., has gathered about 60 signatures in support of a select committee to investigate the Benghazi terrorist attack. Wolf has said the committee is the most thorough and efficient approach to resolving the lingering underlying questions rather than the competing and overlapping committee jurisdictions.

Wolf, along with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and leading Senate Republicans Graham, John McCain of Arizona, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire have pressed the State Department for answers.

Published March 15, 2013 / FoxNews.com / Fox News’ Bret Baier and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.

Egyptian Christians Describe Torture at the Hands of Libyan Captors

March 15, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

A group of Egyptian Christians who were detained in Libya where they had gone for work say they were tortured to the point they wanted to die.

The Copts, who were swept up last month in a raid on a Benghazi market and held on charges of proselytizing because they had Christian symbols on their stalls, told MidEast Christian News the para-police organization the Ansar el-Sharia forced them to make pro-Islam declarations and insult the late Coptic Pope Shenouda. The claims came a day after another Copt arrested in the roundup was buried after dying while in Libyan custody. His family says he was tortured, as well.

“I will never forget the torture my colleague, Matta Younan, suffered when he refused to say ‘Pope Shenouda was despicable,’” said Amgad Makar Zaki, 26, who had worked in Libya since 2003. The group of as many as 100 immigrants from neighboring Egypt was held for nearly a month before being deported back home.
Younan’s life was threatened and he was beaten over the head with a stick until a police officer told the torturers to stop.

“From time to time, an Islamic preacher came to tell us about Islam and question our Christian faith and the Bible,” added Zaki. “We constantly heard them shouting ‘Obama, Obama, all of us are Osama’, in reference to al-Qaeda’s late leader Osama bin Laden.”

Zaki told the news service the Libyan Islamists arrested the priest of a Benghazi Christian church, shaving his mustache and torturing him.

Copts, who make up as much as 10 percent of Egypt’s population, have demonstrated against the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi, saying it did little diplomatically to protect the rights of its Christian citizens who were working in Libya.

“I was deeply affected by the position of the Egyptian embassy,” said Zaki. “Some of us contacted the Egyptian ambassador to intervene and he said he could not do anything.”

Sherif Tawwab Nabil, a 15-year-old student, said his father went to work in Libya so he could provide for his family. The son relayed that while his father was selling clothes on a table in one of the markets in Benghazi, dozens of bearded men attacked the area and arrested Christians after checking their right hands for customary tattoos of the cross.

Atef Nadi Habib, a 33-year-old vendor from Minya, said Copts in Libya face violent oppression never seen during the reign of strongman Col. Muammar Qaddafi, who was ousted in a U.S.-backed revolution in 2011.

“I have worked in Libya for 13 years, and I hold a passport, a residence permit and all my documents are legal,” Habib said. “Conditions were stable, but suddenly the situation changed and Copts began to be subjected to constant threats.”

Habib said the tormentors forced the men to strip and repeat the phrase “Allahu Akbar.” He said the captives repeated the phrase ‘because God is great in all religions.’ But when they were ordered to state the two tenets of Islam – There is no god but Allah and Mohammad is His Messenger, they pronounced the first statement only until they were tortured further and relented.

Published March 15, 2013 / FoxNews.com

State Department Ducks Hearing on American Pastor Imprisoned in Iran

March 15, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The State Department ducked a hearing Friday that will focus on the case of imprisoned American pastor Saeed Abedini, just days after the leading U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council declined to specifically address the pastor’s case during a meeting on Iran’s human rights record.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the Capitol Hill commission holding the hearing, slammed the Obama administration for turning down the invitation to testify.

“It is amazing,” Wolf told FoxNews.com. “I can’t, almost, believe it.”

The hearing, which began Friday morning, focuses on the plight of religious minorities in Iran. Slated to testify are the group representing the Abedini family in the U.S. as well as Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh.

The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission reached out to the State Department last Friday in a bid to bring in a State Department witness to speak on the lead-off panel.

A Wolf aide said despite repeated attempts they didn’t hear back from the department until Thursday, when the department said no one was available.

Wolf voiced skepticism at the excuse. “The building is loaded with people,” he said of the State Department.

“The very fact that the United States government is not speaking out sends a very powerful message,” Wolf said.

Abedini converted from Islam to Christianity in 2000 and became a U.S. citizen in 2010 after he married his American wife. The Iranian government does not recognize his American citizenship, though it had enabled him to travel freely between both countries until this past summer, when he was pulled off a bus and placed under house arrest, according to his supporters.

The Obama administration has publicly called for Abedini’s release. But Naghmeh Abedini recently told Fox News that she has not received a phone call from President Obama or the secretary of state.

In prepared testimony for Friday’s hearing, she plans to say she is “disappointed” with the U.S. government.

“I am disappointed that our president and our State Department have not fully engaged this case – disappointed that this great country is not doing more to free my husband, a U.S. citizen. We are both proud to be American citizens. And I expect more from our government,” she plans to say.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice which represents the family of the pastor, called the State Department’s decision not to attend “extremely troubling and offensive to the many who face life-threatening abuse at the hands of the Iranian government.”

“The State Department’s decision to snub this commission cannot be seen as anything less than a wanton disregard to stand up and speak out for those who cannot,” he said in a statement.

The hearing comes after the U.N. Human Rights Council held a meeting in Geneva on Monday that focused on Iran’s human rights record. At that meeting, the European Union delegation specifically called for the release of “prisoners of conscience,” including Abedini and others.

The U.S. representative, though, did not mention Abedini by name. Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe instead broadly criticized “the Iranian government’s ceaseless campaign of abuse” against those who dissent.

“We remind the government of Iran their obligation to allow individuals to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and association and to allow individuals and groups to maintain contact and cooperation with the mandates of this Council,” she said.

She also called the findings of a new report by the Special Rapporteur “serious” and “indicative of an ongoing and intensifying crackdown on human rights defenders and civil society actors.”

That report included a section on the Abedini case.

The State Department, when asked why Donahoe did not herself raise the Abedini case, noted that the U.S. delegation focused on that report, “which details the Iranian government’s ceaseless campaign of abuse against all who criticize or oppose it.”

A State Department official also said that in Geneva, “we made pointed reference to a number of our concerns regarding Iran, along with Syria, China, Cuba and North Korea.”

The official said religious freedom is a “top priority” of the administration, and the “White House and State Department have repeatedly and publicly called for Mr. Abedini’s release.”

“We continue to raise Mr. Abedini’s case with a variety of international actors to help raise awareness of his case and secure his release,” the official said.

But Wolf said the decision “not to even show up” at Friday’s hearing betrays what he described as “an inherent bias in the State Department against people of faith.”

Wolf wanted to hear from Suzan Johnson Cook, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, or an official in the human rights division. He said he specifically wanted to ask the witness what is being done to secure Abedini’s release.

The Obama administration has addressed his case in the past, when questioned by the press.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on March 7 that the administration is “deeply concerned that the Iranians have not yet granted access to him by our Swiss protecting power” and continues to believe “he should be released immediately.”

She has previously voiced concern about the fairness and transparency of his trial and claimed the administration is “actively engaged” in the case.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has said the same, and earlier this year he condemned “Iran’s continued violation of the universal right of freedom or religion.”

Abedini has been held in Iran’s brutal Evin prison since September of last year and was sentenced to eight years in prison in January – accused of evangelizing and threatening national security. The U.N. report said Abedini spent four weeks in solitary confinement and was subjected to tactics like sleep deprivation, after he was arrested in September. The report said he was then transferred to another ward where he was reportedly beaten and initially denied access to medical treatment.

His wife and their two children are in Idaho, though his wife traveled to Washington on Friday for the hearing.

Wolf said he can only assume the State Department’s message to Americans abroad is: “Just don’t get arrested in a foreign country.”

By Judson Berger / Published March 15, 2013 / FoxNews.com

ARGENTINE CARDINAL JORGE BERGOGLIO ELECTED POPE, WILL BE KNOWN AS POPE FRANCIS

March 13, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

White smoke billowed from the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel Wednesday, indicating the cardinals have selected a new pope after two days of voting.

Cardinals have elected a successor to Benedict XVI, who stunned the Catholic world last month by becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign. Crowds packing St. Peter’s Square were seen waving flags and were cheering the announcement as bells were ringing.

Chants of “Long live the pope!” arose from the throngs of faithful, many with tears in their eyes. Crowds went wild as the Vatican and Italian military bands marched through the square and up the steps of the basilica, followed by Swiss Guards in silver helmets and full regalia.

The new pope, who has yet to be identified, became the winner after receiving at least 77 votes, which is more than two thirds of the cardinals.

The new pope is expected to appear on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica within an hour of the vote, after a church official announces “Habemus Papum” — “We have a pope” — and gives the name of the new pontiff in Latin.

Currently inside St. Peter’s Basilica, the elected cardinal will have been asked “Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?”

After giving his approval, the new pope is then asked which name he would like to be called, and other cardinals will approach him to make acts of homage and obedience.

The new pope will also have to be fitted into new robes, and there will be some time taken for prayer and reflection.

Cardinal Protodeacon Jean-Louis Pierre Tauran, of France, will then step out on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and reveal the pope’s identity to the world.

Elected on the fifth ballot, the new pope was chosen in one of the fastest conclaves in years, remarkable given there was no clear front-runner going into the vote and that the church had been in turmoil following the upheaval unleashed by Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation.

The conclave also played out against revelations of mismanagement, petty bickering, infighting and corruption in the Holy See bureaucracy. Those revelations, exposed by the leaks of papal documents last year, had divided the College of Cardinals into camps seeking a radical reform of the Holy See’s governance and those defending the status quo.

The names mentioned most often as “papabile” — a cardinal who has the stuff of a pope — include Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan, an intellect in the vein of Benedict but with a more outgoing personality, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s important bishops’ office who is also scholarly but reserved like Benedict.

Brazilian Cardinal Odilo Scherer is liked by the Vatican bureaucracy but not by all of his countrymen. And Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary has the backing of European cardinals who have twice elected him as head of the European bishops’ conference.

On the more pastoral side is Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, the favorite of the Italian press, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the back-slapping, outgoing archbishop of New York who has admitted himself that his Italian is pretty bad — a drawback for a job that is conducted almost exclusively in the language.

For comparison’s sake, cardinals elected Benedict XVI on the fourth ballot in 2005 — but he was the clear front-runner going into the vote. Pope John Paul II was elected on the eighth ballot in 1978 to become the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi said it was a “good hypothesis” that the new pope would be installed next Tuesday, on the feast of St. Joseph, patron saint of the universal church. The installation Mass is attended by heads of state from around the world, requiring at least a few days’ notice.

Benedict XVI would not attend, he said.

Thousands of people braved a chilly rain on Wednesday morning to watch the 6-foot-high copper chimney on the chapel roof for the smoke signals telling them whether the cardinals had settled on a choice. Nuns recited the rosary, while children splashed in puddles.

The Vatican on Wednesday divulged the secret recipe used: potassium perchlorate, anthracene, which is a derivative of coal tar, and sulfur for the black smoke; potassium chlorate, lactose and a pine resin for the white smoke.

The chemicals were contained in five units of a cartridge that is placed inside the stove of the Sistine Chapel. When activated, the five blocks ignite one after another for about a minute apiece, creating the steady stream of smoke that accompanies the natural smoke from the burned ballot papers.

Despite the great plumes of white and black smoke that poured out of the chimney, neither the Sistine frescoes nor the cardinals inside the chapel suffered any smoke damage, Lombardi said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Former Administration Insider Skewers Obama National Security Team

March 13, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

An administration riven with infighting. A commander-in-chief given to “dithering” on critical wartime decisions. A suspicious and devious White House staff erecting a “Berlin Wall” around a secluded and standoffish president, shielding him from those advisers — particularly at the Department of State — willing to convey unpleasant truths.

It all sounds rather like the sensational literature that proliferated in the mid-to-late 1970s to chronicle the collapsed presidency of Richard Nixon — including the description of a White House “Berlin Wall,” originally applied, with great fanfare, to those much-maligned (and eventually imprisoned) Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.

Instead, it is President Obama’s turn to watch as former aides and journalists rush into print — with a warp speed that eluded the insider memoirists of the 1970s — their detailed and dishy accounts of the first Obama term.

A forthcoming book by former foreign policy aide Vali Nasr paints the above portrait, describing a president whose decisions “from start to finish were guided by politics.”

Nasr was a rising academic star, one of the leading scholarly voices on Iran and the Mideast, when the late Richard Holbrooke tapped him, at the dawn of the Obama administration, to join Holbrooke at a newly created office of the State Department: SRAP, short for Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

‘The president had a truly disturbing habit of funneling major foreign-policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisors whose turf was strictly politics.’ – Vali Nasr, former foreign policy aide

The voluble, outsized Holbrooke, one of the most celebrated diplomats of his age, always on the short list to become secretary of state but never chosen for the job, was expected to bring his formidable talents — and ego — to bear on the problem of integrating more fully the often contradictory policies applied to the two nations so central to U.S. counterterrorism and national security.

But by the time he died from a ruptured aorta, in December 2010, Holbrooke had been systematically marginalized by the Obama White House, Vasr writes. Due out next month, Vasr’s book “The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat” (Doubleday) depicts Holbrooke and his boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, waging an often unsuccessful battle to pierce the “Berlin Wall” and present their views to the president. The book charges that White House aides used targeted leaks and other means to “undermine” Holbrooke — and worked hard to cut Clinton out of critical policymaking, too.

“Those in Obama’s inner circle, veterans of his election campaign, were suspicious of Clinton,” Nasr writes in an excerpt published on ForeignPolicy.com. “Even after Clinton proved she was a team player, they remained concerned about her popularity and feared that she could overshadow the president. … Had it not been for Clinton’s tenacity and the respect she commanded, the State Department would have had no influence on policymaking whatsoever.”

State Department spokesmen pushed back hard against Nasr’s charges. “We have an excellent working relationship with our White House and interagency colleagues,” Patrick Ventrell told reporters at the March 4 press briefing. “So we really stand behind the record of the progress we’ve made in Afghanistan.”

Ventrell’s boss, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, said at the March 8 briefing that she “would reject … completely” the notion that Holbrooke had been sidelined by the National Security Council. “If you know Richard Holbrooke at all,” she told reporters, “you know that he was a formidable force in that job, as he had been in all previous jobs.”

Perhaps most arresting, however, is Nasr’s portrayal of President Obama. The commander-in-chief is depicted here as “dithering” on key Afghan war decisions, tasking national security aides with the same questions, rephrased in minor ways, over and over. Nasr also casts Obama as quick to abandon foreign policy promises made on the campaign trail and too reliant on individuals unqualified to weigh in on foreign policy.

“The president had a truly disturbing habit,” Nasr writes, “of funneling major foreign-policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisers whose turf was strictly politics. … His actions from start to finish were guided by politics. … It was no surprise that our AfPak policy took one step forward and two steps back.”

Donald Camp, a retired Foreign Service officer who served under three presidents, worked on AfPak policy as both the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia and as senior director for that region on the Obama National Security Council. Camp told Fox News that the excerpts from Nasr’s book appear to show that the author was perhaps unduly colored by the experiences of his boss, Holbrooke.

“President Obama is very much — was very much involved in those days in making Afghanistan and Pakistan policy,” Camp said in an interview this month. “And I believe that he sought out all views; and there were differing views in the interagency (process), and he made the final decision.”

Camp took specific issue with Nasr’s allegation that then-National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones improperly offered Pakistan a civilian nuclear deal, similar to the kind that the U.S. negotiated with India over several years, in exchange for Islamabad escalating its counter-terrorism efforts. Camp said he traveled with Jones to Islamabad, and that the general knew better than to imagine such a deal could pass muster with the U.S. Congress. “It was just not in the cards,” Camp told Fox News, “and James Jones would not have made that kind of proposal.”

Jones did not respond to requests for comment.

By James Rosen / Published March 12, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Iran Puts Five Christians on Trial for Their Faith

March 11, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Five Iranian Christian converts who were detained late last year will reportedly begin trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court this week, according to a human rights group following the case.

The five men were among seven arrested in October when security forces raided an underground house church in the city of Shiraz during a prayer session. They will be tried at the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz’s Fars Province on charges of disturbing public order, evangelizing, threatening national security and engaging in Internet activity that threatens the government, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a religious persecution watchdog group.

“Judging from recent cases, it is likely that, at the very least, those detained may face lengthy prison sentences,” said CSW spokesperson Kiri Kankhwende.

According to Kankhwende, the crackdown against Christian converts and house churches parallels a general increase in repression against many, including journalists, religious and cultural minorities and others as the government is leading up to June’s presidential elections.

The five imprisoned men, Mohammad Roghangir, Surush Saraie, Eskandar Rezaie, Shahin Lahooti and Massoud Rezaie are members of the Church of Iran denomination, one of the country’s largest house church movements.

“There has been a noticeable increase in the harassment, arrests, trials and imprisonments of converts to Christianity, particularly since the beginning of 2012,” Kankhwende said. “Any movement that differs from or offers an alternative to orthodox Shia Islam, and any persons who chooses to follow an alternative belief system, are interpreted as a challenge to the very state itself.”

The underground church network has been rapidly growing in Iran as a place where converts from Islam to Christianity can pray as they are forbidden to attend services at formal churches.

Alongside the growing network of home churches has been the increase in violent crackdowns and raids on these communities and arrests made on Christian converts, among them the internationalized case of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, held for almost three years on charges of apostasy and more recently American Pastor Saeed Abedini who is currently serving an eight-year sentence for evangelizing and threatening national security.

“House churches are growing because the converts have nowhere else to go,” said Tiffany Barrans, international legal director at the American Center for Law and Justice,

“When you’re a convert to Christianity in Iran, you can’t go worship at the church on the corner, because conversion is not acceptable. If they were allowed to go to an official place of worship, there wouldn’t be a house church movement,” Barrans said.

“Essentially they have created the house church problem and now use it to persecute its own people.”

Barrans and the ACLJ are also the U.S.-based family attorneys for Pastor Saeed Abedini, held in Iran’s notoriously brutal Evin prison since September 2012 as his wife and two young children fear for him at their home in Idaho.

More than a decade ago, Abedini worked as a Christian leader and community organizer developing Iran’s underground home church communities for Christian converts who are forbidden from praying in public churches. He was arrested in 2005, but released after pledging never to evangelize in Iran again. When he left his wife and two kids in Idaho last summer to return to Iran to help build a state-run, secular orphanage, Iranian police pulled him off a bus and imprisoned him.

After months of imprisonment without any notice of charges, Abedini was sentenced at the beginning of this year to eight years in prison, as his family and attorneys continue to pressure the State Department and other public and private groups to facilitate his release.

Under Shariah, or Islamic law, a Muslim who converts to Christianity is on a par with someone waging war against Islam. Death sentences for such individuals are prescribed by fatwas, or legal decrees, and reinforced by Iran’s Constitution, which allows judges to rely on fatwas for determining charges and sentencing on crimes not addressed in the Iranian penal code.

All religious minorities in Iran, including Bahais, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians, have faced various forms of persecution and political and social marginalization throughout the regime’s 30-year reign. But the government saves its harshest retribution for those who have abandoned Islam.

By Lisa Daftari / Published March 11, 2013 / FoxNews.com

US Missile Shield Defends Against Ballistic Threats

March 10, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

A missile flies toward U.S. air space in the dark of night. The threat is detected from outer space, and a missile soars in response out of the Pacific Ocean — and within minutes the threat is vaporized.

This is no movie: It’s just an ordinary day for the U.S. Navy, which is actively testing the might of a system designed to keep the homeland safe.

Using space-based satellite sensors orbiting the Earth, the Navy’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMD) recently achieved its first live-fire medium-range ballistic missile intercept.

In mere minutes the target was vaporized, one missile striking another like a bullet hitting a second bullet in flight.

Aegis-equipped ships can simultaneously attack targets on land, ships and submarines, all while automatically unleashing defenses against enemy aircraft and missiles threatening the fleet, forces or homeland. And the system will remain robust despite budget cuts from sequestration: On Tuesday, March 5, Lockheed Martin was awarded a five-year, $100.7 million contract to maintain and upgrade the Aegis combat system.

Testing
In the wee hours of Valentine’s Day at 4:10 a.m. ET, the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii launched a medium range ballistic missile that headed northwest over the Pacific Ocean — the 30th test of the system since 2002.

Up in outer space, the Space Tracking and Surveillance System detected and tracked the “threat.” It sent the data back down to Earth to the USS Lake Eerie out at sea.

The ship processed the threat data and launched a Raytheon-made SM-3 Block IA missile, a defensive weapon that can destroy short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

In mere minutes the target was vaporized, one missile striking another like a bullet hitting a second bullet in flight. The impact is like a 10-ton truck traveling at 600 mph colliding with a wall, Raytheon says.

Ballistic Missile Threat
Over the past five years, more than 1,200 ballistic missiles have been added to the world’s arsenal, according to the Missile Defense Agency. The total outside the United States, NATO, Russia and China has now risen over 5,900 missiles.

The MDA estimates that hundreds of missiles and launchers are within range of deployed U.S. forces right now.

Advanced ballistic missile technology is now far more widely available to countries hostile to the U.S., and the threat of hostile non-state groups is growing.

Iran’s short and medium range missile stockpile has grown, for example. In August 2012, Iran revealed a new upgraded short-range ballistic missile called Fateh-110 or Conqueror.

In 2009, the Revolutionary Guards tested the Shahab-3 and Sajjil rockets, believed to have ranges of approximately 1,240 miles, meaning they could strike targets in Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf.

North Korea’s Taepodong-1 could reach Japan and South Korea — as well as U.S. bases, like Okinawa in the region. The Taepodong-2 has a 25 percent greater range, and if eventually successful could reach the U.S. homeland. Its first launch in 2006 appeared to be a failure and its second appearance in 2009 fared no better.

But a leaked 2011 U.N. report seemed to suggest Iran and North Korea were swapping notes on ballistic missile development.

U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System
American missile defense technology is designed to meet ballistic missile threats at all ranges from short to long, thanks to a “layered defense.”

The BMD system has three main components: detection, interception, and a communications and battle management network.

For target detection and tracking, there are networked sensors and ground- and sea-based radars in addition to the space-based sensors.

Ground- or sea-based interceptors launch missiles to destroy the target.

The third piece, the network, provides commanders with links between the sensors and the interceptor missiles.

Space-based detection and tracking is particularly important because it allows a larger area to be defended. It also enables threats to be intercepted at a longer range than if only ground-based detection systems were used.

Almost one year ago in April 2011, the first successful use of the space-based sensors was demonstrated.

Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense
Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense is the sea-based component of BMD.

To defend the homeland, Aegis ships patrol, detect and track ballistic missiles. The ships provide data to other Navy BMD ships and ground-based Midcourse Defense interceptors like Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

As of November 2012, there were 26 Aegis BMD combatants, comprising cruisers and destroyers, assigned to both the Pacific and Atlantic Fleet.

The MDA and the Navy are working together to increase the number of Aegis ships.

By Allison Barrie / War Games / Published March 07, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Ballet dancer turned defense specialist Allison Barrie has traveled around the world covering the military, terrorism, weapons advancements and life on the front line. You can reach her at wargames@foxnews.com or follow her on Twitter @Allison_Barrie.

Hundreds of Christians Clash with Pakistani Police after Homes Burned by Muslim Mob

March 10, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

LAHORE, Pakistan – Hundreds of Christians protesting the burning of their homes by a Muslim mob over alleged blasphemous remarks made against the Islam’s Prophet Muhammad clashed with police on Sunday in eastern and southern Pakistan.

Around 150 people have been arrested for setting dozens of Christian houses on fire in the eastern city of Lahore after a non-Muslim was accused of making offensive comments about the prophet, police said.

Christians across the country rallied against the incident, but the main demonstrations were in Lahore, the southern port city of Karachi, the capital, Islamabad, and the adjoining city of Rawalpindi.

The Christian demonstrators blocked a main highway in Lahore and police fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters who demanded assistance from the government, said police official Malik Awais. He said the protesters damaged several vehicles, uprooted a fence along the road and burned an electricity generator.

Seven policemen were injured when the protesters pelted them with stones, he said. He said the police, who used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd, detained six of the protesters.

Government spokesman Pervaiz Rasheed promised the government would help hem rebuild their houses, but the Christians expressed dissatisfaction with the way the government was handling the incident.

“I have been robbed of all of my life’s savings,” Yousuf Masih said, standing close to his burned house. He said the government’s announcement that it would give 200,000 rupees ($2,000) compensation to each family was a joke.

Awais, the police officer said, the protesters demanded the government raise the compensation amount from 200,000 rupees ($2,000) to 1 million rupees ($10,000).

In Karachi, more than 1,000 protesters blocked a road in a main market and damaged about 25 vehicles, said police officer Ali Raza. He said some of the protesters also attacked 10 shops and looted valuables and cash. He said the police beat back the protesters and fired tear gas shells to disperse them. At least two protesters were taken into custody, he said.

The protests are a response to an incident that began on Friday after a Muslim accused a Christian man of blasphemy — an offense that in Pakistan is punished by life in prison or death. On Saturday, a mob of angry Muslims rampaged through the Christian neighborhood in Lahore, burning about 170 houses.

The Christian man is in police custody pending an investigation into the allegations. Those who rioted are being investigated for alleged arson, robbery, theft, and terrorism, said police officer Abdur Rehman.

The Pakistani police usually arrest rioters to tamp down public anger, but those accused are rarely convicted and the law is often misused to settle personal disputes and rivalries.

Akram Gill, a local bishop in the Lahore Christian community, said the incident had more to do with personal enmity between two men — one Christian and one Muslim — than blasphemy. He said the men got into a brawl after drinking late one night, and in the morning the Muslim man made up the blasphemy story as payback.

Such accusations of blasphemy in the past have prompted huge crowds to take the law into their own hands. Once an accusation is made it’s difficult to get it reversed, partly because law enforcement officials and politicians do not want to be seen as being soft on blasphemers.

According to Human Rights Watch, there are at least 16 people on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy and another 20 are serving life sentences.

Last year, there was a rare reversal of a blasphemy case. A teenage Christian girl with suspected mental disabilities was accused of burning pages of the Quran. But she was later released after a huge domestic and international outcry about her treatment. A local cleric where she lived was arrested and accused of planting the pages in her bag to incriminate her, a rare example of the accuser facing legal consequences. However, he was later freed on bail.

Also on Sunday, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed a foreign militant who was riding on horseback in Datta Khel in North Waziristan, according to three Pakistani intelligence officials who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Published March 10, 2013 / Associated Press

North Korea vows nuclear attack on US, saying Washington will be ‘engulfed in a sea of fire’

March 7, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

Reprinted from article published March 07, 2013, FoxNews.com

North Korea amplified its threatening rhetoric as the U.N. Security Council approved new sweeping sanctions, vowing to launch a first-strike nuclear attack against the United States and threatening to engulf Washington in a “sea of fire.”

An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for “a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors” because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.

At a mass rally in Pyongyang on Thursday, Army Gen. Kang Pyo Yong told the crowd that North Korea is ready to fire long-range nuclear-armed missiles at Washington.

“Intercontinental ballistic missiles and various other missiles, which have already set their striking targets, are now armed with lighter, smaller and diversified nuclear warheads and are placed on a standby status,” Kang said. “When we shell (the missiles), Washington, which is the stronghold of evils, …. will be engulfed in a sea of fire.”

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice reacted to the warnings Thursday, saying North Korea will “achieve nothing” with threats and provocations.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The vote Thursday by the U.N.’s most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea’s closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message to North Korea that the international community condemns its ballistic missile and nuclear tests — and its repeated violation of Security Council resolutions.

The new sanctions are aimed at making it more difficult for North Korea to finance and obtain material for its weapons programs.

North Korean threats have become more common as tensions have escalated following a rocket launch by Pyongyang in December and its third nuclear test on Feb. 12. Both acts defied three Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology and from importing or exporting material for these programs.

North Korea accused the U.S. of leading efforts to slap sanctions on North Korea. The statement said the new sanctions would only advance the timing for North Korea to fulfill previous vows to take “powerful second and third countermeasures” against its enemies.

The statement said North Korea “strongly warns the U.N. Security Council not to make another big blunder like the one in the past when it earned the inveterate grudge of the Korean nation by acting as a war servant for the U.S. in 1950.”

North Korea demanded the U.N. Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led U.N. Command that’s based in Seoul and move to end the state of war that exists on the Korean Peninsula, which continues six decades after fighting stopped because an armistice, not a peace treaty, ended the war.

In anticipation of the resolution’s adoption, North Korea earlier in the week threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Dictator Hugo Chavez Dead

March 5, 2013 By Editor Leave a Comment

The dictator of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has died.

It was reported in the Venezuelan press earlier today that their president was suffering from a complication of infection, a normal result of the chemotherapy that the strongman was receiving for cancer.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced the sudden and unexpected death of the anti-American dictator this afternoon, claiming that the infection may have been the result of US skulduggery.

While freedom loving people around the globe could only hope that a despot like Chavez would meet with an untimely death, it is now yet to be seen if the people of Venezuela manage to throw off the shackles of totalitarianism and install competent leadership.

PUBLIUS

The “Mormon Effect”

February 22, 2013 By Editor 345 Comments

During the 2012 presidential campaign, that awesomely deep well of perpetual wisdom, Alec Baldwin, proclaimed that if Barack Obama were not black, his vote total would have been 20 percent higher.

People of real intelligence realize that the opposite was probably true: if he had been white, his vote total would have been 20 percent lower. The African-American voting bloc combined with enough whites suffering from liberal guilt guaranteed a higher vote total for Obama.

The truth of the matter is, if Mitt Romney had not been a Mormon, his vote total might very well have been significantly higher.
In fact, according to a Gallop poll released in June of last year, while 4 percent of people said they would not vote for a black president, a full 22 percent said they would not vote for a Mormon. In fact, only atheists and gays ranked higher.

So Baldwin probably had it backwards, which he usually does, so that comes as no surprise.

What did come as a surprise to me is why people would have such negative views of Mormons. I have known lots of them in my life, and in most cases they have been hard-working, kind, generous family-oriented people—just the kind of people this country used to value (and maybe that’s the problem right there.)

Mormons have intrigued me ever since Mike Huckabee back in 2007 claimed that Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers. With the recent election over, I decided to check out Mormons a bit more.

My hope in doing this was to explain to readers who Mormons are and whether or not 22 percent of the people were justified in opposing having a Mormon president.

But instead I’m going to share an intriguing bit of Mormon theology I learned that I think makes them perhaps the most politically wise human beings on the planet. Ironically, this story stems from that Huckabee quote about the relationship between Jesus and the devil, but the lesson to be learned is one that, regardless of our political or religious views, we would all be wise to consider.

So here’s what I learned: Mormons, unlike most other Christian sects, believe that all humans lived a life before mortality. They call this the pre-existence or pre-earth life. At birth a veil is placed over our minds so that we don’t remember it (you’ll see why in a minute).

In this pre-earth life, we were all in the presence of God as His spirit children. Jesus was there—the first-born of God’s spirit children, and a leader in the councils in Heaven. Lucifer was also there, and was another leader among the children of God. He was called a “son of the morning.”

At some point in this existence, the Father called all of His children together to explain how things worked. All of His children would have to leave His presence and come to earth for a period of testing. The goal was to see if we would live a righteous life even when we had to live by faith, as we would no longer be able to remember God or heaven (that’s the reason for the veil).

If we would live a righteous life, we would be given the opportunity to return and live with God forever. Otherwise we would forfeit that chance, because no unclean thing can live in God’s presence. However, God knew that we would all make mistakes, so he would provide a Savior for the world. This Savior would live a sinless life, and because of that, he would qualify to pay for the sins of the world through what would be called the “Atonement.” If people would sincerely repent of their sins, then the Atonement would essentially erase their sins, and they could still return and live with God. The Father called for volunteers to be this savior, and two stepped forward: Jesus and Lucifer.

Lucifer said that he would be the savior and he would force everybody to live righteously, thus guaranteeing that all of God’s spirit children would return to Him in heaven [and he, Lucifer would receive all the credit/glory]. Jesus said that He would follow the Father’s plan and allow God’s children their free agency [and all the glory would go to God]. They could choose for themselves whether to live righteously and take advantage of the Atonement or whether to live in sin and forfeit the opportunity to return and live with God.

God rejected Lucifer’s plan, causing Lucifer to rebel and declare war on God. One-third of God’s spirit children joined Lucifer in this rebellion. In the end, the rebellion failed and Lucifer and his followers were cast out of heaven. They came to earth without bodies and now, continuing the war they started in heaven, they tempt men to do evil to one another and lose out on the chance to return to God. [Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:9; Isaiah 14:12]

PAY ATTENTION HERE; THIS IS THE GOOD PART

Now, any traditional Christians reading this will see similarities to their own belief system. Most traditional Christians believe that Lucifer lived in heaven as an angel, but then declared war on God and was cast out. However, the causes for that war are not necessarily clear in traditional Christian theology.

That is where Mormon theology is so intriguing. For Mormons, the greatest of all battles, the war in heaven, was fought over LIBERTY—or as they call it, “free agency.”Lucifer wanted to take it away, while God demanded that humans have it.

Although a Mormon might balk at my making comparisons between their religious beliefs and modern politics (and as I said earlier, every Mormon I’ve ever known was a very good person, so I apologize to any I offend), I see a direct correlation here. For a Mormon, the battle for liberty is not unique to this life; it is the core battle of the ages. Lucifer lost the war in heaven (he really thought he could beat God?), but the war continues on earth. So seeing the government become more and more tyrannical is not just a political concern; it’s a fundamental, eternal concern.

I’m inspired by this Mormon theological idea: God intended for humans to be free to make our own choices and live with the consequences of those choices. The Founding Fathers of this country said essentially the same thing in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evidence, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

My study of Mormonism has not only given me newfound respect for this people and their religion; it has also made me evaluate my own attitude towards the liberty that seems to be slipping through all of our fingers. Is this just something that is nice to have, and for which I thank the Founding Fathers? Or is it really something that is endowed by God, and that He expects me to fight for. According to Mormon theology, I already fought for this once. The fact that I’m here says that I was on God’s side in the war in heaven, and fought for liberty.

A Mormon might ask, why should any of us be less willing to fight for it here than we were there?

Reprinted from “SMART MORMONS,” By Mike Jensen, January 22, 2013

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The Tree of Liberty is Dying—Is Civil War Coming?

Is Obama Targeting LDS Canneries?

Mormons and Progressivism: United Order vs. Socialism

The Spirit of Antichrist Permeates Our Nation

Susan Rice Drops Out of Running for Secretary of State

December 13, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Embattled U.N. ambassador Susan Rice is dropping out of the running to be the next secretary of state after months of criticism over her repeated misrepresentations about events that led to the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador and others in Benghazi.

“Today, I made the decision that it was the best thing for our country, for the American people that I not continue to be considered by the president for nomination of secretary of state,” Rice said.

Rice has been under intense fire for mischaracterizing the 9/11 assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, as a spur-of-the-moment response to an anti-Muslim film. “What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video,” Rice had said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and a number of other news programs five days after the attack.

“Opportunistic extremist elements came to the consulate as this was unfolding. They came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are readily available in post-revolutionary Libya, and it escalated into a much more violent episode,” she told the American people in the name of the Administration, while she and other authorities were well award that the opposite was true–that the attacks were carried out by Muslim extremist terrorists.

Ambassador Rice will be grilled by congressional committees attempting to get at the truth of the terrorist attack and subsequent coverup over the next several days.

PIBLIUS

‘Islamization’ of Paris – a Warning to the West

November 1, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Friday in Paris. A hidden camera shows streets blocked by huge crowds of Muslim worshippers and enforced by a private security force.

This is all illegal in France: the public worship, the blocked streets, and the private security. But the police have been ordered not to intervene.

It shows that even though some in the French government want to get tough with Muslims and ban the burqa, other parts of the French government continue to give Islam a privileged status.

An ordinary French citizen who has been watching the Islamization of Paris decided that the world needed to see what was happening to his city. He used a hidden camera to start posting videos on YouTube. His life has been threatened and so he uses the alias of “Maxime Lepante. ”

Lepante’s View

His camera shows that Muslims “are blocking the streets with barriers. They are praying on the ground. And the inhabitants of this district cannot leave their homes, nor go into their homes during those prayers.”

“The Muslims taking over those streets do not have any authorization. They do not go to the police headquarters, so it’s completely illegal,” he says.

The Muslims in the street have been granted unofficial rights that no Christian group is likely to get under France’s Laicite’, or secularism law.

“It says people have the right to share any belief they want, any religion,” Lepante explained. “But they have to practice at home or in the mosque, synagogues, churches and so on.”

Some say Muslims must pray in the street because they need a larger mosque. But Lepante has observed cars coming from other parts of Paris, and he believes it is a weekly display of growing Muslim power.

“They are coming there to show that they can take over some French streets to show that they can conquer a part of the French territory,” he said.

France’s Islamic Future?

If France faces an Islamic future, a Russian author has already written about it. The novel is called “The Mosque of Notre Dame, 2048,” a bestseller in Russia, not in France.

French publisher Jean Robin said the French media ignored the book because it was politically incorrect.

“Islam is seen as the religion of the poor people, so you can’t say to the poor people, ‘You’re wrong,’ otherwise, you’re a fascist,” Robin explained.

The book lays out a dark future when France has become a Muslim nation, and the famous cathedral has been turned into a mosque.

Whether that plot is farfetched depends on whom you ask. Muslims are said to be no more than 10 percent of the French population, although no one knows for sure because French law prohibits population counts by religion.

But the Muslim birthrate is significantly higher than for the native French. Some Muslim men practice polygamy, with each extra wife having children and collecting a welfare check.

“The problem of Islam is more than a problem of numbers,” said French philosopher Radu Stoenescu, an Islamic expert who debates Muslim leaders on French TV. “The problem is one of principles. It’s an open question. Is Islam an ideology or just a creed?”

“It doesn’t matter how many there are,” he aded. “The problem is the people who follow Islam; they’re somehow in a political party, which has a political agenda, which means basically implementing Sharia and building an Islamic state.”

In Denial or Fed Up

From the 1980s until recently, criticizing or opposing Islam was considered a social taboo, and so the government and media effectively helped Islam spread throughout France.

“We were expecting Islam to adapt to France and it is France adapting to Islam,” Robin said.

About the burqa controversy, one French Muslim man told a reporter that Europeans should respect Muslim dress. One Parisian woman wearing a headscarf said “the veil is in the Koran” and “we only submit to God and nobody else.”

But even if many government elites are in France are in denial over Islam, the people in the streets increasingly are not. Some have become fed up with what they see as the growing Islamization of France.

They’ve started staging pork and wine “aperitifs,” or cocktail parties in the street. They’re patriotic demonstrations meant to strike back against Islam. Another national demonstration is planned for Saturday, Sept. 4.

A Warning to the West

The French parliament debated the burqa law in this year. Jean-Francois Cope, president of the Union for a Popular Movement political party, has a warning for the West and for America.

“We cannot accept the development of such practice because it’s not compatible with the life in a modern society, you see,” he said. “And this question is not only a French question. You will all have to face this challenge. ”

For more insight on the slide toward a post-Christian Western society, check out Dale Hurd’s blog Hurd on the Web.

For more insight on ‘Islamization’ around the world, check out Stakelbeck on Terror.

Reprinted from CBN.com

By Dale Hurd, CBN News Sr. Reporter

Swiss Arm Borders for EU Collapse

October 28, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

In a revealing move the Swiss Defense Ministry is beefing up its military presence to defend Swiss borders against a massive influx of refugees from Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and other European Union countries on the brink of collapse.

As a result of 1) skyrocketing national debts and 2) a silent invasion by Muslims from the Middle East, EU nations are facing escalating threats of violence and civil unrest from those within their borders.

Many of Europe’s top earners have already moved their savings and wealth out of national banks and into safer Swiss banks to protect them from local financial collapse or confiscation by socialist governments taking over the various members of the EU. Swiss security experts concede that Switzerland is generally considered a safe haven from the looming social collapse and resulting chaos of its neighbors, and say that the recent moves of the Defense Ministry reflect its growing unease with conditions in the failing countries.

Switzerland is not a member of the EU, and promotes a hard-working, capitalist society. As a result, the Swiss enjoy unemployment rates below 3%. Switzerland also requires that every able-bodied male of military age be armed and trained, meaning it has one of the largest armies in the world relative to the size of its population. It can quickly mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops if the need arises.

At a time when the American president is doing his best to transform the US into a EU-like nation, voters would do well to scrutinize that model more closely before casting the deciding vote.

PUBLIUS

Final Debate – Rewriting History

October 23, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

The presidential contenders met Monday evening for the final debate before the elections. Their respective strategies were revealed early – Obama would attempt to paint Romney as a cowboy on foreign policy and Romney would avoid confrontations and maintain his 6% lead in the polls.

As the 90 minute debate played out, the subject drifted away from foreign policy on several occasions, with both sides conceding that America must have a strong economy before it can project its values around the world. During those exchanges Obama misrepresented Romney’s positions several times, as has been the theme of his entire campaign. He also blatantly misrepresented his own positions on a few occasions, which causes observers to scratch their heads, because fact-checking these matters is quite easy.

The truth of Obama’s foreign policy is that he has been a sympathetic advocate of Muslim expansionism in the Middle East and elsewhere, and has thrown our ally Israel under the bus every chance he’s had. Obama has also diminished America’s standing in the international community by projecting weakness, resulting in the firestorm that is the Middle East and northern Africa. He and his allies in the senate have ensured a $ trillion reduction in the military budget if Romney and republicans are not voted in to replace democrats.

At one point in the debate Obama tried to paint Romney as anti-American auto industry, claiming that he was against helping Detroit through its financial woes. Indeed, Obama-Biden have often made the claim that Romney wanted to let the auto industry go into bankruptcy. The FACT is that Obama-Biden let them go through bankruptcy. In the process, Obama intervened and directed the bankruptcy court to ignore the claims of the secured creditors, and to validate the unsecured claims of Obama’s union cronies—a reversal of bankruptcy law. The unions walked away with billions of taxpayer dollars, and the secured creditors who invested heavily in the auto industry walked away broke—a mistake no one will be willing to repeat, no doubt.

When Romney pointed out that his position had been to help Detroit pay off its creditors in a workable bankruptcy action and prop it up afterward with government guarantees, Obama flatly denied the claim, saying it was untrue. The FACT is that Romney outlined his policy in a 2008 New York Times editorial, writing, “The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.”

Similarly, Obama disputed Romney’s claims about his education program successes while he was the governor of Massachusetts—simply denying that those gains were made under Romney’s watch or that the state paid college tuition for those in the top 25% of their high school classes was instituted by Romney. The FACT is that Romney was correct, and Obama was wrong in his assertions.

Despite Obama’s mocking tone and untrue assertions, the final presidential debate seems to have done little to impact the outcome of the race. Obama supporters will believe that he won the debate, and Romney supporters will believe that Romney won. Undecideds appear to be viewing the debates through the filter of the economy. What hasn’t changed is Romney’s rise in the polls, with Gallop and Rasmussen both reflecting a 5 or 6 point national lead for Romney, and substantial gains in the last few swing states.

PUBLIUS

Netanyahu Urges Americans to Vote for Romney

September 17, 2012 By Editor 5 Comments

In an unprecedented direct appeal to US voters on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged American voters to elect a president willing to draw a “red line” with Iran. Everyone with any understanding of the political landscape understands that this is an unmistakeable endorsement of Mitt Romney.

In our article on Saturday, Why Catholics and Jews Should Support Romney (September 15, 2012), we enumerated the many reasons why American Jews and Catholics should reject the blistering rebukes against their religious interests by President Barack Hussein Obama and embrace the GOP candidate, Mitt Romney. It turns out that the Israeli Prime Minister agrees.

Prime Minister Netanyahu bolstered his plea with comparisons of Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes to domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh, saying that it would be foolish to believe either one has honorable intentions while stocking up on components for WMDs.

Indeed, President Barack Hussein Obama has entirely ignored the many requests of America’s strongest ally in the Middle East since taking office, and has shown distinct and unmistakable favoritism for Muslims and Islamic extremists in the region. With more than 20 Muslim nations now storming America’s embassies, murdering our diplomats, and violently protesting our presence, many GOP leaders are drawing comparisons between the current administration and the similarly naive and flawed administration of President Jimmy Carter–who was overwhelmingly denied a second term by American voters for very similar reasons.

PUBLIUS

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