Venezuelan Seeks to Revive Anti-Chavez Movement
NEWSMAX:
They range from wealthy businessmen to boisterous students and poor single mothers, jammed together 10,000 strong in a stadium, chanting “change is possible!” and shoving forward to greet the man who is challenging President Hugo Chavez’s grip on power.
There’s a problem, however: Leopoldo Lopez can’t run for office.
Like many of Chavez’s opponents, some of whom are in jail or have fled the country, Lopez is barred as a candidate because of a government corruption probe against him.
It’s a tactic critics say Chavez uses to put his opponents’ political ambitions on indefinite hold as he heads into next year’s congressional elections and his own re-election campaign in 2012.
[...]
Investigators: Terrorist wore suicide underwear made by top AQ bombmaker in Yemen
by Ed Morrissey, HOT AIR:
Once again, the reaction to a terrorist attack has been to penalize everyone else instead of getting serious about the actual threat. The US should have started emulating El Al after 9/11, whose security screening uses expert analysis and questioning, as well as heightened scrutiny where it belongs. I wrote this over three years ago:
[...]
Cross the river, burn the bridge
By MARK STEYN:
Last week, during a bit of banter on Fox News, my colleague Jonah Goldberg reminded me of something I’d all but forgotten. Last September, during his address to Congress on health care, Barack Obama declared:
“I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.”
Dream on. The monstrous mountain of toxic pustules sprouting from greasy boils metastasizing from malign carbuncles that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is not the last word in “health” “care” but the first. It ensures that this is all we’ll be talking about, now and forever.
Government can’t just annex “one-sixth of the US economy” (ie, the equivalent of annexing the entire British or French economy, or annexing the entire Indian economy twice over) and then just say: “Okay, what’s next? On to cap-and-trade…” Nations that governmentalize health care soon find themselves talking about little else.
In Canada, once the wait times for MRIs and hip surgery start creeping up over two years, the government distracts the citizenry with a Royal Commission appointed to study possible “reforms” which reports back a couple of years later usually with recommendations to “strengthen” the government’s “commitment” to every Canadian’s “right” to health care by renaming the Department of Health the Department of Health Services and abolishing the Agency of Health Administration and replacing it with a new Agency of Administrative Health Operations which would report to a reformed Council of Health Policy Administrative Coordination to be supervised by a streamlined Public Health Operations & Administration Assessment Bureau. This package of “reforms” would cost a mere 12.3 gazillion dollars and usually keeps the lid on the pot until the wait times for MRIs start creeping up over three years.
[...]
2009: The year of living fecklessly
By Charles Krauthammer:
On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not just reject President Obama’s latest feckless floating nuclear deadline. He spat on it, declaring that Iran “will continue resisting” until the United States has gotten rid of its 8,000 nuclear warheads.
So ends 2009, the year of “engagement,” of the extended hand, of the gratuitous apology — and of spinning centrifuges, two-stage rockets and a secret enrichment facility that brought Iran materially closer to becoming a nuclear power.
We lost a year. But it was not just any year. It was a year of spectacularly squandered opportunity. In Iran, it was a year of revolution, beginning with a contested election and culminating this week in huge demonstrations mourning the death of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri — and demanding no longer a recount of the stolen election but the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship.
Obama responded by distancing himself from this new birth of freedom. First, scandalous silence. Then, a few grudging words. Then relentless engagement with the murderous regime. With offer after offer, gesture after gesture — to not Iran, but the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” as Obama ever so respectfully called these clerical fascists — the United States conferred legitimacy on a regime desperate to regain it.
[...]
The New World Order ‘Is Already Underway’
SPIEGEL:
SPIEGEL: Do you truly believe that Christian faith and the uncompromising pursuit of profit can be reconciled?
Green: The pursuit of profit must be guided by morals, because not everything the market considers legal is also legitimate. If we accept capitalism, we must also accept this challenge. That’s where religion, among other things, plays a role.
SPIEGEL: Your fellow banker Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, recently said that he was doing God’s work. How did you feel about that?
Green: I prefer not to comment on Blankfein.
SPIEGEL: How often do you experience naked greed in your industry?
Green: Very often. But the overwhelming majority of people want to be convinced that their work makes sense and has a purpose. Profits alone are pointless. This also applies to bank employees. In this sense, all cultures and religions are very similar. However, working for the common good, coming up with an effective social welfare system — all of this also needs functioning banks too.
[...]
Three terrorists killed in Nablus
THE JERUSALEM POST:
In a joint operation with the Shin Bet overnight Friday, IDF soldiers in the West Bank gunned down three terrorists who murdered Rabbi Meir Chai in a shooting attack near Shavei Shomron on Thursday.
Special forces surrounded the Nablus homes of the three Aksa Martyrs Brigades operatives in an attempt to arrest them. However, when the men did not heed calls to leave their homes, the troops opened fire and killed them.
None of the soldiers were hurt in the operation.
[...]
Also overnight Friday, three Palestinians who had apparently tried to infiltrate Israel from the northern Gaza Strip were killed by IDF troops.
Soldiers identified several people crawling near the Gaza border fence and alerted a helicopter, which opened fire and killed them. Weapons were discovered near the men’s bodies.
RELATED:
The BBC version which is being picked up everywhere: Six Palestinians killed in West Bank, Gaza attacks
‘This Is a Frightening New Side of Barack Obama’
posted by JammieWearingFool:
No offense intended to New York Post reporter Charles Hurt, but the behavior of Barack Obama is not showing us a “new side” of him. This is who he’s always been. You don’t sit in the “church” of Jeremiah Wright for two decades and not be angry and resentful toward America. You do not write books with Bill Ayers and learn how to love America. Trashing America in nearly every speech isn’t anything new for Obama.
This is who he is and who he’s always been. Bitter, angry and resentful.
[...]
Christmas Brings New Opportunities to Criticize Israel
CNSNews.com:
As the Christian world prepares to mark the birth of Jesus Christ, the little town of Bethlehem has once again become a platform for Palestinians and their allies to use the seasonal spotlight to score political points against Israel.
[...]
We’re Staying, We’re Praying; Get Used to It
By Deborah C. Tyler, AT:
There are three kinds of faith: faith in God, faith in oneself, and faith in life. Think of these as building blocks. When the United States was founded, the big block on the bottom of the pile was faith in God. However, something happened through the course of American history: The blocks got restacked, and faith in self, or egocentrism, settled into the first position. Faith in self is very important, but it makes a poor foundation because it is not a perception of perfection. And the ego is shifty, so the other blocks tend to become unstable or fall off. As egocentrism became foundational, the spiritual and moral belief systems of our society turned upside-down. Day became night, dark became light, and the unthinkable became commonplace.
[...]
Climategate: How To Follow the Money
by Charlie Martin:
There’s big money in climate.
That became strikingly obvious in Copenhagen. The conference itself cost in the neighborhood of $30 million, but that was only the visible tip of the melting iceberg. Add to that the celebrities, the demonstrators, the congressional delegations, and the corporate displays, and you can bet something closer to $60 million was really spent on the conference — along with, of course, a carbon footprint the size of Morocco’s. The one significant outcome of the Copenhagen conference was an agreement to continue the international market in carbon offset trading that would otherwise have expired in 2012 and to prevent a crash in the carbon credits market.
It appears that most of the participants saw the money spent as an investment.
To see why, we need to look at the way Kyoto has turned into cash for many of the biggest names in the climate change world, and to do that we need to understand how the whole carbon trading scheme works.
[...]
Hark the Herald Angels Sing!
Hark the herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled”
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
“Christ is born in Bethlehem”
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”Christ by highest heav’n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”
Palestinian Christian Suffering
by Dr’ Alex Grobman, Israelnationalnews.com:
The Christian holiday season is the time to publicize the real “moment of truth” about Christian Arabs’ suffering under the PA. Up to now, for the most part, Church leaders have remained silent about Muslim abuses.
On December 11, 2009, Palestinian Christian leaders issued a 13 page document known as “Kairos Palestine-2009: A moment of truth.” Having “reached a dead end” because of the “Israeli military occupation,” the leaders appealed to churches worldwide to treat Israel as they had apartheid South Africa by divestment and economic boycott.The authors of this document include anti Israel Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Lutheran Bishop of Jerusalem Munib Younan, Archbishop of Sebastia Atallah Hanna from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, so this distorted description of the plight of Christian Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria is no surprise.
[...]
Psalm 1
Psalm 1
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Even in Bethlehem, Palestinian Christians are suffering under Muslim intolerance
By DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL, WSJ:
Meet Yussuf Khoury, a 23-year old Palestinian refugee living in the West Bank. Unlike those descendents of refugees born in United Nations camps, Mr. Khoury fled his birthplace just two years ago. And he wasn’t running away from Israelis, but from his Palestinian brethren in Gaza.
Mr. Khoury’s crime in that Hamas-ruled territory was to be a Christian, a transgression he compounded in the Islamists’ eyes by writing love poems.
“Muslims tied to Hamas tried to take me twice,” says Mr. Khoury, and he didn’t want to find out what they’d do to him if they ever kidnapped him. He hasn’t seen his family since Christmas 2007 and is afraid even to talk to them on the phone.
Speaking to a group of foreign journalists in the Bethlehem Bible College where he is studying theology, Mr. Khoury describes a life of fear in Gaza. “My sister is under a lot of pressure to wear a headscarf. People are turning more and more to Islamic fundamentalism and the situation for Christians is very difficult,” he says.
[...]
Lutherans Denounce Israel, Just in Time for Christmas
by Mark D. Tooley, FrontPage:
Led by a Palestinian Lutheran bishop, 16 Palestinians Christians have blasted Israel in a new declaration that the 4.9 million Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is obligingly disseminating.
“We…declare that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is a sin against God and humanity because it deprives the Palestinians of their basic human rights, bestowed by God,” asserted the “Kairos Palestine Document. “It distorts the image of God in the Israeli who has become an occupier just as it distorts this image in the Palestinian living under occupation.” Not content to criticize the Jews, the manifesto also excoriates Christians who support Israel. “We declare that any theology, seemingly based on the Bible or on faith or on history, that legitimizes the occupation, is far from Christian teachings, because it calls for violence and holy war in the name of God Almighty, subordinating God to temporary human interests, and distorting the divine image in the human beings living under both political and theological injustice.”
[...]
What an utter inversion of the truth. These people know nothing and their hate appears motivated either by anntisemitism or a tragic ignorance of history. May God forgive them. As for judging and condemning Christians like me, well, I urge them to recant their libel and repent. Then they should read a book. They could try the Bible, rather than Mein Kampf.
Obamacare a pallbearer for American freedom?
Monty Pelerin, AT:
“The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control.” (Benjamin Tucker)
There is no better way to describe the so-called health care plan than Tucker’s quote. It is not about improving health care; it never was. Oh there may be some dim bulbs in Congress that truly believe they have improved the country and the health system with their latest efforts. But sincerity is not an excuse for stupidity. Reality does not give a damn about good intentions.
The majority in Congress knows exactly what this bill means for them and medical care in this country. For them, it opens up the potential for total control of the citizenry.
[...]
The Prosecution of Rifqa Bary
By Pamela Geller, AT:
There is a war of attrition going on in the Rifqa Bary case. Rifqa is the girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her family in fear for her life — and the Islamic machine is attempting to wear her down, grind her down by constant mental abuse. The persecution is so obvious, and yet so mundane that no one seems to take notice. The banality of evil.
Some sources say that a Muslim psychiatrist was assigned to Rifqa while she was in Florida, where she fled from her Ohio home (now she has been returned to Ohio, where she is in foster care.) How cruel and inhuman. And Omar Tarazi, the CAIR-linked lawyer for Rifqa’s parents, asked the court to hold her in contempt to force her to attend counseling sessions with a Muslim counselor. The counselor that her parents were demanding she see also filed an affidavit in support of Rifqa being held in contempt. Psychological abuse, that’s what that was.
The Barys’ lawyer had also demanded that all the Christmas cards sent to Rifqa in the Christmas card campaign for Rifqa that I originated at my website AtlasShrugs.com be banned and seized. Rifqa has received hundreds, perhaps thousands of cards — and the Islamic machine saw every one of them as a threat. They wanted Rifqa isolated from everyone except those who will break down her resistance and run roughshod over her conscience and her religious freedom. The judge ruled against them on that one Tuesday. But the fact that it was even an issue was the real issue.
[...]
Government accused of encouraging people to report each other for ‘hate crimes’
By Christopher Hope, Telegraph [UK]:
The Government has been accused of pursuing a campaign to encourage members of the public to report their neighbours for committing so-called ‘hate’ crimes.
Ministers have drawn up plans to encourage people to lodge complaints about hate crimes, which they say are being under-reported.
Police have set up special units to investigate allegations, while the Crown Prosecution Service has established ‘scrutiny panels’ to look through previous cases to improve on their hit-rate in failed prosecutions.
Since Labour came to power, ministers have increased categories of ‘hate’ crimes from simply covering racism to include religious aggravation, homophobia and ‘transphobic’ offences.
The result has been a seven-fold increase in prosecutions for hate crimes over the past decade, from 1,602 crimes in 1998/9 to 11,624 in 2008/9.
However, campaigners are now accusing ministers of intensifying their pursuit of hate crime offenders and of allowing prosecutors to go “fishing” for offences, opening them up to accusations of sometimes criminalising apparently innocent remarks and comments.
[...]
Sure sounds familiar …
We’ll Have To Cancel Christmas. And the Children Have Been So Good This Year
Tim Cavanaugh, Reason:
U.S. Census Bureau has new housing starts and completions up from October to November, but way, way down from the same period in 2008 — which you may recall, was not a banner year for U.S. real estate.
More to the point, new home sales are heading back off the cliff, or rather are heading off another cliff after they fell off the original cliff that was, um, higher up the grade, then kept rolling down, even though houses don’t have wheels… Anyway, new housing sales are dropping sharply.
Calculated Risk has a chilling tale of the widening ratio of existing to new home sales, and why that ratio is ominous for housing-related economic activity of all kinds.
Meanwhile, real estate is plagued by all the same problems it had yesterday and will continue to have, in even larger portions, tomorrow: collapsing mortgage availability, a shadow inventory approaching 2 million units, the commercial real estate hyperpocalypse, and cockamamie government interventions designed to keep house prices inflated at all costs.
Keep in mind that real estate is supposed to be what’s leading this economic recovery we keep hearing about.
[...]
Anthropogenic Global Warming is a Farce
By Alexander Cockburn:
Many of the landmines in the CRU e-mails tend to buttress longstanding charges by skeptics (yours truly included) that statistical chicanery by professor Michael Mann and others occluded the highly inconvenient Medieval Warm Period, running from 800 to 1300 AD, with temperatures in excess of the highest we saw in the 20th century, a historical fact that makes nonsense of the thesis that global warming could be attributed to the auto-industrial civilization of the 20th century. Here’s Keith Briffa, of the CRU, letting his hair down in an e-mail Sept. 22, 1999: “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. … I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago.”
[...]
An argument in favour of bombing Iran
Tom Gross, NP:
This morning, for the first time to my knowledge, the New York Times — which as everyone knows is, alas, America’s most influential newspaper — has agreed to run an article explicitly calling for the American bombing of Iran’s nuclear program (and the “sooner the better” it says).
The article, by Alan J. Kuperman, director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas, is dry and academic and long (it runs to two pages online) and there are much better arguments to be made for such a move, but it is significant nonetheless as it might finally open up liberal public opinion in America to this possibility.
The last paragraph of the article read:
[...]
2010: The year of bankrupt gov’ts
Ralph Peters, NY Post:
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. But he only comes for kids — not for governments that have bragged, borrowed and spent their way into bankruptcy. Two Thousand Ten is going to belong to the Grinch.
For spendthrift governments around the world, the new year’s going to bring massive defaults. The new globalization may be the globalization of a second wave of financial crises.
The world economy is not convalescing. It’s just been pumped full of unaffordable medicines. Borrowing madly, countries as diverse as Greece and Dubai have been buying time, not fiscal health.
[...]
For Their Next Trick . . .
By JOHN FUND, WSJ:
Look for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to try to circumvent the traditional conference committee process by which the different versions of health care reform passed by each house will be reconciled. If so, it will be the latest example of violating principles of transparency and accountability in the single-minded pursuit of legislative victory.
[...]
New Peer-Reviewed Paper Demolishes Fallacious Objection: “Aren’t There Vast Eons of Time for Evolution?”
ENV:
When debating intelligent design (ID), there are countless times I’ve heard the old objection, “But aren’t there millions of years for Darwinian evolution?” Perhaps there are, but that doesn’t mean the Darwinian mechanism has sufficient opportunities to produce the observed complexity found in life. Darwin put forward a falsifiable theory, stating that his mechanism must work by “numerous successive slight modifications.” Michael Behe took Darwin at his word, and argued in Darwin’s Black Box that irreducible complexity refuted Darwinian evolution because there exist complex structures that cannot be built in such a stepwise manner. Darwin’s latter day defenders responded to Behe by effectively putting Darwinism into an unfalsifiable position: they put forth wildly speculative and unlikely appeals to indirect evolution. Largely based upon “exaptation,” these scenarios required that complex biological systems be built by spontaneously “co-opting” or borrowing multiple parts within the cell to suddenly to perform wholly different functions in an entirely new system. The only evidence for such speculative scenarios is typically “protein homology,” or sequence similarity between one part and another. The mere remote possibility of such a story is said to salvage evolution from falsification by Behe’s arguments.
But is “mere possibility” sufficient justification to assert “scientific plausibility”? A new peer-reviewed article in Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling asks just this question. The abstract states:
[...]
Media Matters Throws Hostage Gilad Shalit Under The Bus
by Andrew Marcus, Big Government:
Once again, Media Matters’ evil twin – Media Matters Action Network – has penned a horribly offensive anti-Israel blog post: Compassion for Gilad Shalit Is Commendable But Easy [December 22, 2009 3:24 pm ET by MJ Rosenberg]
The gist of the entry is that anyone can feel compassion for hostage Gilad Shalit, but it takes a real humanitarian to feel compassion for Hamas.
Reading the first paragraph is like pulling back the curtain for a frightening peek into the ethically barren back room of Media Matters:
The year ends with Israel obsessively focusing on the captured soldier, Gilad Shalit. He has been held by Hamas for over three years and, with the help of Israel’s sensationalist media, the entire country seems to be in a fury over the boy’s continued captivity.
Wow! Israel is “obsessed” with their citizen being held hostage by an Islamist-terrorist group, all thanks to Israeli tabloid journalism paying too much attention to the subject. This is awfully dismissive of a nation’s grief over the fate of one of its own citizens, but what is the fate of one Jew worth when people are suffering somewhere else? To Media Matters, apparently very little [emphasis added]:
[...]
Media Matters is sick and so are its patrons.
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
The Voice of the Martyrs, Canada
http://www.persecution.net
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
A weekly news and prayer digest on the Persecuted Church.
Please note: Due to the holidays, there will be no Persecution &
Prayer Alert on December 30. Beginning in January 2010, The
Persecution & Prayer Alert will be released on Thursdays.
***********************************
In this week’s edition: reports from Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and
India with updates from Iraq, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan
***********************************
1. Christian murdered by his Muslim friends in Pakistan
Patras Masih was gunned down by three of his Muslim friends on
December 3 in Karol village, Punjab Province, Pakistan after he
refused to recant his Christian faith. On December 1, four of Patras’s
childhood Muslim friends — Sohail Muhammad, Imran Muhammad, Amir
Muhammad, and Anees Mahammad — asked Patras to buy them alcohol,
which Muslims are prohibited from buying or consuming in Pakistan.
Locally brewed liquor can be acquired in the country, but it is
sometimes fatally toxic; 14 people in the province have reportedly
died from drinking toxic liquor in December alone. Among the victims
was one of Patras’s four friends, Anees, who passed away on December
3. Following his death, Sohail, Imran, and Amir visited Patras at his
home and accused him of killing Anees by offering him a toxic drink.
The three told him that they would spare his life only if he converted
to Islam. When Patras refused to do so, he was shot multiple times in
the chest. According to Patras’s father, Gulzar, his Muslim friends
had tried to pressure him to convert several other times, but Patras
always refused. Gulzar stated, “My son bravely refused to recant
Christianity and clung to Christ. He bravely embraced martyrdom.” The
local police have registered a murder case against the three, but they
remained at large at last report. (Source: Compass Direct)
Pray for the Masih family during this difficult time. Ask God to show
Himself to the family of Anees Mahammad as they grieve. Pray that
Patras’s Muslim friends will come to know Christ through his example
of steadfast faith. You can post a prayer of solidarity for the Masih
family on our Persecuted Church Prayer Wall at
http://www.persecution.net/prayerwall.
To find out more about how Christians suffer in Pakistan, go to
http://www.persecution.net/pakistan.htm.
***********************************
2. Iranian authorities attack Christmas gathering, arrest two
Christians
Fifteen security police and undercover plain-clothes officers attacked
a Christmas gathering of more than 70 newly converted Christians in
the city of Karaj, Iran on December 17. Officers photographed and
videotaped the believers and also confiscated Bibles, Christian books
and a computer. The Christians were told they must be available during
the period leading up to formal and legal interrogations and that they
must appear before legal prosecutors when ordered. Two of the leaders
of the group, Kambiz Saghaee and Ali Keshvar-Doost, were arrested. At
last report, they remained in detention at an undisclosed location and
their families had neither been able to contact them nor received
confirmed information from police about their whereabouts. (Source:
Farsi Christian News Network)
Pray for the release of Kambiz Saghaee and Ali Keshvar-Doost. Pray
that the new converts who attended this meeting will grow stronger in
their faith in Christ. Pray for safety for Iranian believers
celebrating the birth of Jesus as many must gather in secret to avoid
attention from authorities.
For more information on the plight of Iranian Christians, go to
http://www.persecution.net/iran.htm.
***********************************
3. Militant Muslims destroy church building in Indonesia
A mob of approximately 1,000 Muslims attacked a church building under
construction in Bekasi Regency, near Jakarta, the capital city of
Indonesia. At midnight on December 17, the Muslims arrived at the
Church of Saint Albert, some on bikes and some on foot, and stormed
into the building, carrying banners and tanks of kerosene. One witness
reported hearing them shout, “Destroy ! Destroy it!
Replace the church with mosque!” The Muslims damaged bricks, broke
lights, uprooted newly planted trees and set the building on fire. No
one was injured in the attack, but damage amounted to around 60
million rupees (approximately $6,700 CAD). Local Christians were
planning to use the nearly completed building for a Christmas Mass
service. Following the attack, a leader of the church’s construction
committee shared, “Even though our chapel was attacked we are not
afraid. We will continue the construction of this chapel until its
completion.” (Sources: AsiaNews, Union of Catholic Asian News)
Pray that these believers will not be discouraged but continue to
rest secure in the joy and provision of Christ. Pray for peace to
reign in their hearts this Christmas. Pray that Indonesian Christians
will be emboldened by the Holy Spirit to share the Truth of the Lord
(Acts 1:8). You can post a prayer for Christians in Indonesia on our
Persecuted Church Prayer Wall at
http://www.persecution.net/prayerwall.
For more information on trials facing believers in Indonesia, go to
http://www.persecution.net/indonesia.htm.
***********************************
4. A call to action and prayer for Christians in Orissa, India
The Voice of the Martyrs in Canada is a member of the Religious
Liberty Partnership (RLP), a collaborative effort of Christian
organizations in over a dozen countries to raise awareness of
religious liberty issues around the world. Two years after an outbreak
of mob violence against Christians in Kandhamal district, Orissa
state, India (see http://www.persecution.net/in-2008-01-03.htm), the
RLP remains deeply concerned for believers there and is requesting
united prayer for justice, reconciliation and peace in the area.
The RLP urges you to remember our suffering brothers and sisters in
Orissa by praying specifically for them this Christmas season. In
particular, we encourage you to use the following prayer from Mgr.
Raphael Cheenath, the Catholic Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar in
Orissa, in your churches on Christmas Day:
“Gracious Father, Lord of all the earth, we praise you for the gift
of Jesus Christ, sent into the world to break down the dividing walls
of hostility. Have mercy upon those in Orissa who are suffering. Give
them the peace and the justice that they crave, and cause the walls of
bitterness and hatred in Orissa to be torn down. Comfort those who
have been bereaved, counsel those who have been traumatised, provide
for those who have lost everything. Give them the grace to forgive and
confidence in your gracious favour. Do not let us forget them, our
brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate the coming of the
Prince of Peace and look forward to his coming again in glory.”
For the full RLP report, “Orissa: A call to action and a call to
prayer,” please visit http://www.bit.ly/4Grwlm.
To find out more about the persecution of Christians in India, go to
http://www.persecution.net/india.htm.
***********************************
5. Update: More bomb attacks on churches in Mosul, Iraq
Two separate bombs struck churches in Mosul, Iraq on the morning of
December 23. At approximately 11:00 a.m., a bomb was detonated near
the Syrian Orthodox church of St. Thomas. Elsewhere in the city, three
people were killed — one Christian and two Muslims — when a bomb
hidden in a cart of vegetables exploded outside the Chaldean church of
St. George. These attacks are the latest in a series of bombings in
the city in recent months, including incidents on November 26 (see
http://www.persecution.net/iq-2009-12-02.htm) and December 15 (see
http://www.persecution.net/iq-2009-12-16.htm). The recent bombings,
just two days before Christmas, have intensified fears among Mosul’s
Christian community, yet many Iraqi believers remain unshaken in their
commitment to serving Christ. “The message of peace and hope announced
by angels remains our best wishes for Christmas for the entire
country,” said Louis Sako, the archbishop of Kirkuk. “We want to work
together to build peace and hope in the hearts of all men and women of
Iraq.” (Sources: AsiaNews, AFP)
Pray for those who have lost loved ones in these attacks. Pray for
healing for those injured. Pray that the presence and peace of Jesus
will sustain Iraqi believers and compel them to share God’s Truth with
their Muslim neighbours.
For more information on the suffering of Iraqi Christians, go to
http://www.persecution.net/iraq.htm.
***********************************
6. Update: Religious communities in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan face
registration deadline
Many religious communities in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan have not yet
re-registered with authorities, as required by restrictive religion
laws that were passed in both countries earlier this year (see
http://www.persecution.net/az-2009-06-10.htm and
http://www.persecution.net/tj-2009-04-01.htm). If religious
communities fail to register by January 1, 2010, they will be
considered illegal.
As of December 16, only about 100 of the 534 religious communities in
Azerbaijan that previously had registration statuses have
re-registered. Amendments to the Religion Law will require communities
to provide an increased range of information when applying for
registration and to obtain approval to build or rebuild worship
places. Additional amendments include a ban on the sale of religious
literature in unapproved locations and on religious activity outside
registered addresses.
In Tajikistan, fewer than half of the religious communities in the
country have been re-registered. The highly restrictive Religion Law
imposes state censorship on all religious literature, bans state
officials from being among the founders of a religious community,
requires state approval to invite foreigners for religious visits or
to travel abroad for religious events, and restricts children’s
religious activity and education. (Source: Forum18)
Pray that authorities in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan will respect
freedom of religion. Pray that Christians in former Soviet republics
will echo Peter’s sentiment and be determined to obey God regardless
of what man says (Acts 5:29).
To find out more about the hardships Christians face in Azerbaijan
and Tajikistan, go to http://www.persecution.net/azerbaijan.htm and
http://www.persecution.net/tajikistan.htm.
***********************************
The Persecution & Prayer Alert is a ministry of The Voice of the
Martyrs, Canada. (Mailing address: P.O. Box 117, Port Credit,
Mississauga, Ontario L5G 4L5)
Tel. (905) 670.9721. Website: http://www.persecution.net
Contacts: Adele Konyndyk & Erin Vandenberg
Media falsely reporting Bethlehem Christmas
By Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily:
Like clockwork, every year at this time reporters file misleading and, in some cases, outright false reports about the state of Christmas in Bethlehem.
They claim Israeli policies have wreaked havoc on the city’s economy and that Israel is responsible for the massive flight of Christians from Bethlehem. Yet the news media completely ignore Muslim intimidation and get their facts wrong on documented history and the true state of affairs in this ancient town.
[...]
Where Did These Guys Come From?
Victor Davis Hanson:
In short, we have a traditional statist bent on redistribution (Obama’s words, not mine), updated with the postmodern belief that race/class/gender oppressions require government affirmative reactions (which also abroad explains why we reach out to enemies and shun allies), all energized by an ends justify the means Chicago bare-knuckles apparat.
And?
These true believers, then, don’t really care that the Blue Dogs (if such really exist) bite the dust in 2010, if Harry Reid goes up in smoke, or indeed, if Barack Obama is reelected. Instead, they will institutionalize an agenda that will affect America for generations, move it sharply to the left, and earn a spot in the academic pantheon of American heroes.
Asking why would Obama & Co. be so self-destructive to push through an array of proposals that have no more than 45% of the public’s support is like asking whether the English Prof who teaches incomprehensible Foucauldian theory worries whether he has only 2 students, or whether the well-off union boss is all that upset that membership has sunk to 30% of the workforce, or multimillion-dollar-earning Sarah Palin-interviewing Katie Couric is worried about her sinking ratings, or whether the New York Times columnists are upset that their mother paper is broke with subscription and readership down, and laying off thousands of blue-collar employees.
Instead, for the true believer, it is all about the self, and the sense of the self—and damn all other considerations. (We saw that with Jimmy Carter as well; that he destroyed liberal Democrat politics for a generation meant nothing; that he won prizes and jet-setted the world for thirty years meant everything. For these people, it is always about them—all the time. Let us eat cake as they end up liberal icons for the duration).
[...]
The ‘Guardian’ fixes anti-Israeli title
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST:
The Guardian issued an admittance on Tuesday that it should not have used the headline “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs,” for a report it published on Monday alleging the harvesting of organs by specialists at the Abu Kabir forensic institute. The UK paper also changed the headline of the piece in its Internet edition to “Doctor admits Israeli pathologists harvested organs without consent,” thus averting it from being yet another reported instance of malicious Israeli handling of dead Palestinians, to a somewhat mundane instance of medical malpractice.
[...]
Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?
Andy McCarthy, NRO:
You just can’t make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.
Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol’s property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.
[...]
J Street and its Saudi friends
Clarice Feldman, AT:
Lenny Ben-David details the interrelationships between Soros funded-J Street Project, James Zogby and the Saudis, in their effort to destroy Israel.
J Street is the front group of make-believe Israeli supporters that Obama relies on to cover for his clearly anti-Israeli policies.
It is sadly ironic that Jewish voters overwhelmingly supported this Administration and they are getting in return a health care bill which will restore quotas to medical school (and ancillary health support schools) and an unremittingly anti-Israeli foregin policy.
[...]
Now They Tell Us: CBO Double Counted Medicare Savings
By Philip Klein, American Spectator:
After allowing Democrats for weeks to argue that their Medicare cuts would both help finance the new health care legislation and extend the solvency of Medicare, the Congressional Budget Office explained today that the bill could do one or the other, but not both at the same time.
The new memo, released after Democrats have already secured 60 votes, reads:
[...]
Obama Chooses Christmas Eve as Night of Darkness For Free World
By Judi McLeod:
There may be an ornament with the face of China’s evil Mao Zedong on the White House holiday tree, but for many of the rest of us there’s an elephant right in our living room.
The elephant in our living room is what moseyed in when the mainstream media took a holiday and the mask of President Barack Obama began to crack. How long have we known in our hearts that Obama is not an American? How long have we known that even though he professes to be one, Obama is not a Christian, nor even a Christian sympathizer and that his actions over the last year prove he is not a benevolent president.
[...]
The Communists Behind Obama’s Health Care Goals
by John Perazzo, FrontPage:
The polls have been clear for quite some time: By a substantial margin, Americans oppose the efforts of Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats to enact a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, one that would greatly expand the federal government’s role.
Significantly, the President’s deeply held positions on healthcare were derived largely from the influence of a politically aggressive group of longtime Marxists whose worldviews were consistent with those Obama had already developed from other radical influences in his life. But before we examine who those particular Marxists were, let us establish, with certainty, what Obama’s long-term objectives for healthcare actually are.
[...]
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