|
|
The Weekly News In
Review
Newsletter is a
compilation of the news articles that have appeared
on the Understand The Times website during the
previous week.
 |
|
|
September 9 - Starch 'fuel of human evolution'
Article: Creation/Evolution - Creation Evolution Debate
Compared with
primates, humans have
many more copies of a gene essential for
breaking down calorie-rich starches,
Nature Genetics reports.
They discovered
humans carry extra
copies of a gene, called AMY1,
which is essential for making the
salivary enzyme amylase that digests
starch.
The researchers
believe our earliest
human ancestors began searching for
new food sources other than the
ripe fruits that primates eat.
He
said it was impossible to
conclude that the introduction of starchy
foods into the diet lay behind the
emergence of larger brains in humans.
"Lots of things differ between ourselves
and our closest relatives and apart from
the difficulty of establishing the
relative places in the evolutionary
sequence of any of these, the assumption
that there is any one fundamental to such
change is dubious.
Read More ....
|
|
|
|
|
September 11 - Russia tests 'most powerful non-nuclear bomb'
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
The Russian military has
successfully tested what it
described as the
world's most powerful non-nuclear
air-delivered bomb, Russia's state
television reported Tuesday,
the latest show of the nation's military
muscle amid chilly relations with
the United States.
Channel
One television said the new
ordnance, nicknamed the "dad of all
bombs" is four times more powerful
than the US "mother of all bombs."
The
statement reflected the Kremlin's
efforts to restore
Russia's global clout and rebuild
the nation's military might. The
muscle-flexing comes at a time when
ties with Washington have become
strained over US criticism of Russia's
backsliding on democracy, Moscow's
vociferous protests against US missile
defense plans and rifts over global crises.
While the
American bomb is equivalent to 11
tons of TNT, the Russian one is equivalent
to 44 tons of regular explosives.
The Russian
weapon's blast radius is 300 meters, or
990 feet, twice as big as that of the US
design, the report said.
Channel One said that the temperature
in the epicenter of the Russian bomb's
explosion is
twice as
high as that of the US bomb.
Booming oil prices have allowed Russia
to
steadily increase military spending
in recent years, and the Kremlin has taken
an increasingly assertive posture
in global affairs.
Read More ....
|
|
|
|
|
September 11 - U.S. Officials Begin Crafting Iran Bombing Plan
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
WASHINGTON -
A recent decision by German officials to
withhold support for any new sanctions
against Iran has pushed a broad
spectrum of officials in Washington to develop
potential scenarios for a military attack on
the Islamic regime, FOX
News confirmed
Tuesday.
Germany - a pivotal player among three
European nations to rein in Iran's nuclear
program over the last
two-and-a-half years through a mixture of
diplomacy and sanctions supported
by the United States - notified its allies last
week that the government of
Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to
support the imposition of any further
sanctions against Iran that could be
imposed by the U.N. Security
Council.
It
stunned the room, according to one of
several Bush administration and foreign
government sources who spoke to FOX
News, and left most Bush administration
principals
concluding that sanctions are
dead.
The
discussions are now focused on two
basic options: less invasive scenarios
under which the U.S. might blockade
Iranian imports of gasoline or exports of
oil, actions generally thought to
exact too high a cost on the Iranian people
but not enough on the regime in
Tehran; and full-scale aerial
bombardment.
On
the latter course,
active consideration
is being given as to how long it
would take to degrade Iranian air
defenses before American air superiority
could be established and U.S. fighter jets
could then begin a systematic
attack on Iran's known nuclear
targets.
Read More ....
|
|
|
|
|
September 11 - Great Iranian nation has clear message for salvation of humanity
Article: Islam
President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that
the Iranian nation is of a great
civilization with clear message for
salvation of humanity.
He said in
his address to nationwide conference of the
Islamic Revolution Guards
Corps (IRGC) commanders that
neither
the terrorists nor the arrogant powers are
capable of guiding the
mankind.
The
president likened the
stand-off between Iran and the
arrogant powers to 'light and darkness'.
"Despite a 28-year campaign the
domineering powers
unleashed against Iran
including the eight-year imposed war on Iran and
economic sanctions, Iran has made eye-catching
progress in the field of science
and technology."
He said that
the government follows guidelines of
Supreme leader of the Islamic
Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on
Iranian nuclear program and
said that thanks God
Iran acquired full know-how on
civilian nuclear technology and is
currently a nuclear state.
Ahmadinejad said that the
balance of power has tilted in
Iran's favor and certain Western
governments have voiced
interest in dialogue with Iran as a powerful
country.
Read More ....
|
|
|
|
|
September 12 - CCN/The Catholic Times: Million-dollar ad campaign hits streets with ultimate faith, life questions
Article: Ecumenical Movement - Misc.
Note from Understand The
Times:
The fact that
this news item appears in a Roman
Catholic news agency verifies
that the Alpha Program and the Roman
Catholic Church are in
agreement to evangelize together.
MONTREAL, Canada (CCN/The Catholic
Times) -
Alpha Canada has launched a
national million-dollar advertising
campaign. Billboards, buses,
transit
shelters and car flags across the country are asking
"Is
there
more to life than this?"
The goal of the current
campaign
is to
invite people from all
denominations
to
attend an Alpha introductory session in their area this
September. The session will include a
meal, information about
the
program, followed by a talk that tackles the
misconceptions
of
Christian life, entitled "Christianity: boring,
untrue, and
irrelevant?"
"The Alpha course
was designed
primarily for non-
Christians,
non-
believers and people who have drifted away from the
Church,"
said
Daniel Bastien, Alpha regional director for Quebec.
The Alpha course, slated
to begin
in
Canadian churches the last week in September, is a
way for
people
to explore the Christian faith in a
relaxed
setting over 10 sessions. Each week, participants will
share
a meal and speak about diverse subjects.
Themes
include: "Who is Jesus?" and
"How can I make the most of the
rest of
my life?"
"I think Alpha is so
popular
because the course provides a unique
opportunity for real discussion around
spiritual matters.
There's
no preaching, and everyone's opinions and ideas are
valued," said Sally Start,
director Alpha Canada.
To date, more than 10
million
people
worldwide and about one million Canadians have
attended
Alpha.
Read More ....
|
|
|
|
|
September 13 - World Crops Could Decline 16 pct Due to Warming
Article: Signs Of The Last Times
WASHINGTON - Global warming could
send world
agriculture into serious decline by 2080 with
productivity collapsing in some
developing countries while it improves
in a few rich nations, a
study reported on Wednesday.
India,
Pakistan, most of Africa and most of Latin
America would be hit
hardest, said economist William Cline, the
study's author. The United States, most of Europe,
Russia and Canada would
probably see agricultural gains if climate
change continues on its
current course, the study found.
Overall, the world's agricultural productivity
was forecast to decline by
between 3 percent and 16 percent by 2080,
according to the study
published by the Washington-based Center for
Global Development and the
Peterson Institute for International
Economics.
Among developed
countries, Australia's outlook
was bleakest with predicted
declines in crop yields ranging between 16
percent and 27 percent.
In the developing world, fast-growing
India's
declines were forecast between 29 percent
and 38 percent while Sudan
and Senegal both had predicted crop declines
of more than 50 percent,
essentially a collapse of agricultural
productivity.
Read More ....
|
|
|
|
|
September 13 - US to attack Iran in 8-10 months
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
Germany's unwillingness to impose
further sanctions on Iran has
pushed the United
States closer towards a decision on
a military strike, FOX News reported
on Wednesday.
According to the report, Germany's
decision has spurred senior US army
officials to try and convince US Foreign
Secretary Condoleessa Rice to abandon once and for all
the diplomatic route of preventing a
nuclear Iran. The report further stated
that the date of preference for an attack
against Iran is in eight to 10
months - after the US presidential
candidates for both the Democrats and the
Republicans have been chosen, but
before the major presidential campaign
kicks off.
The report stated that
the attack
would be comprised of two main
strategies: cutting off the Iranian gas
supply, which the US hopes would
pressure the Iranian people towards
action against their government, and an aerial bombing
campaign, which would be meant to
paralyze Iranian defenses and allow
American bombers to destroy the nuclear
facilities.
Opponents to a military
strike claim that an attack would
require at least one week of intense
bombing, and that it would only set the
Iranian nuclear program back a few years,
the report said. Two other claims
of the opponents is that an American strike
would
provoke Iran into attacking Israel,
and that abandoning diplomatic
action would negatively impact Iraq and
the US troops stationed there.
Read More ....
|
|
|
|
|
September 12 - Ahmadinejad: Iran can help secure Iraq, Israel is 'cruel'
Article: Israel And The Last Days.
Iran wants
"peace and friendship for all," the
country's president said
Wednesday while again
denying Western assertions
his nation is pursuing nuclear weapons and
trying to destabilize Iraq.
But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
took a hard line against
Israel, calling it "an
invader" and saying it "cannot continue its
life."
He further claimed that Tehran
is a friend of Iraq -- maintaining "good
relationships" with the
Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions -- and "if
Iraq is not secure, we are the
first country that would be damaged."
"We can help solve many problems in
Iraq. We
can help secure Iraq. We can
help the attackers leave Iraq if the
American government and
British government correct themselves."
he said.
"Our bombs are dangerous, but
American bombs
are not dangerous?"
he asked.
"Israel is an
invader and is cruel,
and it hasn't got a united
public. All other nations are against it,"
he
said. "We do
not
recognize them. They are
attackers and illegal." | | |
