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An International Missionary Outreach Dedicated to Evangelizing the Lost and Equipping the Church for Discernment

Weekly News In Review

December 25 - 31, 2005
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The following articles were posted at www.understandthetimes.org this past week:

Government monitors radiation levels at 100 Muslim mosques, homes, sites
ID card back in play
Papal Official Wants to Divide Jerusalem
Pope calls for "new world order"
Russia and US in the Throes of a New Arms Race
Orthodox Jews Disrupt Messianic Worship Service
Group protests NBC's dysfunctional 'Christians'
Israel's Military Intelligence Chief Says Hezbollah Using Russian-Made Missiles
Brit Jew marries dolphin Till death do us part?

Article: Signs of the Times

December 24, 2005 - Government monitors radiation levels at 100 Muslim mosques, homes, sites

The search for nukes in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government has been monitoring radiation levels at more than 100 mosques, homes, businesses and other sites in and around the nation's capital and at least five other cities since Sept. 11, 2001, providing further evidence law enforcement officials suspect terrorists have secreted nuclear or radiological weapons inside the country.

WorldNetDaily first reported on al-Qaida's decade-long plans to detonate nuclear devices in seven major U.S. cities simultaneously in an operation it calls "American Hiroshima."

Al-Qaida's prime targets for launching nuclear terrorist attacks are the nine U.S. cities with the highest Jewish populations, according to captured leaders and documents.

As reported last week in G2 Bulletin, Osama bin Laden is planning what he calls an "American Hiroshima," the ultimate terrorist attack on U.S. cities, using nuclear weapons already smuggled into the country across the Mexican border along with thousands of sleeper agents.

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Article: One World Government

December 26, 2005 - ID card back in play

Everyone should be made to carry a national ID card as fears mount of a terrorist strike in Melbourne, a Herald Sun survey has found.

More than two in five said not enough was being done to protect Australia from the threat of terrorism. And two-thirds thought it was time for all Australians to carry national identity cards.

Prime Minister John Howard put a national ID card back on the agenda in mid-2005, as a possible weapon against terrorism, 18 years after a similar Labor plan was quashed.

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Article: Israel and the Last Days

December 25, 2005 - Papal Official Wants to Divide Jerusalem

The Arab League and a Vatican official separately, but simultaneously, are campaigning for Israel to divide Jerusalem. The PA recently asked to the Pope to help make the capital part of a new state.

The Arab League has joined Palestinian Authority (PA) officials in exploiting Israel's policy of not allowing Arabs in Jerusalem, who are Israeli citizens, to vote in the PA legislative elections scheduled for January 25.

It told the French news agency AFP that the ban would solidify Israel's claim that the entire capital is part of the country. AFP termed the predominantly Arab neighborhoods of the city "occupied east Jerusalem."

The papal representative in Israel, Nazareth native Michael Sabbah, told reporters, "This [partition] wall must not exist. One day it will not exist. The Palestinian people should regain their liberty and land with a state and a capital and the Israeli people should have security."
His statements are in opposition to previous Vatican statements, which have suggested that Jerusalem be established as an international city.

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Article: One World Government

December 26, 2005 - Pope calls for "new world order"

Pope Benedict, in his first Christmas address, on Sunday urged humanity to unite against terrorism, poverty and environmental blight and called for a "new world order" to correct economic imbalances.

The Pope made his comments to tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered under umbrellas in a rainy St Peter square for his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message and blessing.

In his address, telecast live from the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica to tens of millions of people in nearly 40 countries, he also urged his listeners not to let technological achievements blind them to true human values.

He said humanity should look to the Christ child for encouragement in times of difficulty and fear.

"A united humanity will be able to confront the many troubling problems of the present time: from the menace of terrorism to the humiliating poverty in which millions of human beings live, from the proliferation of weapons to the pandemics and the environmental destruction which threatens the future of our planet," he said.

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Article: Wars and Rumors of War

December 27, 2005 - Russia and US in the Throes of a New Arms Race

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union embarked on the most massive military buildups in history. Part of President Reagan's strategy for winning was to entice the Soviets into a competition it could never even hope to win. A communist economy by its very nature is ill-equipped to compete with a free-market, capitalist system whether its foreign trade or weapons technology.

And so, slowly the Soviet economy became a basket case due to the communists desire to exceed America in an enormously expensive arms race.

After the Cold War, with the Soviet threat gone and with Democrat President Bill Clinton in the White House, terms such as "the peace dividend" became commonplace within the Washington Beltway and in the mainstream news media. No longer was the political establishment interested in defense, and the new agenda for the US was domestic.

However, slowly and methodically Russia's steel-eyed leader Vladamir Putin began to rebuild and expand his nation's arsenal and its fighting forces. This new phase in Russia's military buildup has created fear in some quarters in the US that a new arms race exists. Recently the Russians deployed a nuclear ballistic system that their generals made clear could render US anti-missile defense systems ineffective, according to reports in the European news media.

While Americans and Europeans celebrated the Christmas holiday, the Russian army activated a large number of Topol-M class missiles that can fit nuclear warheads and travel 6,000 miles, while rapidly switching their trajectory in order to neutralize any US- or European-based interception device.

As usual, the news media in the US is so busy bashing the Commander-in-Chief regarding the Iraqi conflict and President Bush's tactics for combating terrorism, that they've failed to report on the Russian advances in weaponry and the accompanying hawkish rhetoric of the Russian military commanders. In addition, most of the media have chosen to ignore the Russian buildup because the liberal take on the Cold War was that it was a result of a misunderstanding between two superpowers. During the height of the Cold War liberals -- some like Senator John Kerry who are still in power -- were more concerned over how many missiles and weapons we had. That mindset continues and it does no good for the liberal establishment and their media echo chamber to allow the American people to learn that their old enemy is quietly gearing up for a second arms race or worse -- a new Cold War.

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Article: Israel and the Last Days

December 28, 2005 - Orthodox Jews Disrupt Messianic Worship Service

(Compass) - Orthodox Jews disrupted a Messianic congregation's worship service in the Israeli town of Beersheba on Saturday (December 24).

During the service, two young women from the nearby town of Arad in the southern Negev were to have been baptized. As the service was beginning, more than 300 orthodox Jews, including many children, gathered and entered the private property of the Nachalat Yeshua Messianic Congregation.

According to the congregation's pastor, Howard Bass, the orthodox were first welcomed to stay and attend the service. Then they started to move around, dance, sing and overturn chairs and tables.

...When the demonstrators discovered the baptismal pool, they went wild and started to throw objects in the pool, Bass said. He himself was also thrown in the water, breaking his multi-focal glasses in the fracas.

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Article: Perilous Times

December 28, 2005 - Group protests NBC's dysfunctional 'Christians'

A pro-family group has launched a protest campaign against a new NBC drama featuring a troubled, pill-popping Episcopal priest who is the father of a dysfunctional family.

"The Book of Daniel," written by a homosexual, is being promoted as the only show on television in which Jesus appears as a recurring character and the only network prime-time drama series with a regular male "gay" character, a 23-year-old Republican son, says the American Family Association, which has an online petition.

Touted as the riskiest show of the year, it includes a wife who relies on mid-day martinis, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter. At the office, the priest's lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law.

...The priest, Daniel Webster, played by veteran actor Aidan Quinn, regularly talks with a manifestation of Jesus, played by Garret Dillahunt.

..."I'm not making fun of Jesus," he said. "I never want to poke fun at religion or at Jesus. These characters are very spiritual people. They believe in God, they believe in Christ as their savior, and I think that's wonderful."

Kenny described himself as being "in Catholic recovery," with an interest in Buddhist teachings about reincarnation.

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Article: Israel and the Last Days

December 29, 2005 - Israel's Military Intelligence Chief Says Hezbollah Using Russian-Made Missiles

Projectiles that were fired into Israel by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah last month were made in Russia and sold to Syria, the head of Israeli army intelligence said.
"Hezbollah is using rocket-propelled grenades that were bought by Syria from Russia," Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, was quoted by AP as saying.

Israel has frequently accused Syria of backing Hezbollah and has asked Russia to ensure that weapons it makes do not reach the hands of anti-Israeli groups. Hezbollah is included on the U.S. State Department's list of terror organizations, in part for its attacks against Israel.

"The real faces of Russia and Syria have been revealed," Zeevi-Farkash said. "They buy weapons with the commitment not to transfer them and then these weapons are brazenly used against us."

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Article: Perilous Times

December 29, 2005 - Brit Jew marries dolphin Till death do us part?

An unusual wedding ceremony was held in the southern resort town of Eilat on Wednesday, as Sharon Tendler, a 41-years-old Jewish millionaire from London married her beloved Cindy, a 35-years-old dolphin, Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.

...'I'm not a pervert'

And so on Wednesday afternoon, the thrilled bride, wearing a white dress, walked down the dock before hundreds of astounded visitors and kneeled down before her groom, who was waiting in the water.

Cindy, escorted by his fellow best-men dolphins, swam over to Tendler and she hugged him, whispered sweet nothings in his ear, and kissed him in front of the cheering crowd.

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