UK – Christianity Could Die Out Within A Century
More than half of Britons think Christianity is likely to have disappeared from the country within a century, according to a survey.
Research by the Orthodox Jewish organisation Aish found that just over a third of people thought religions like Christianity and Judaism would still be practiced in Britain in 100 years’ time.
Although four in 10 people said they would choose to be a member of the Christian religion, almost the same number said they would rather practice no religion at all.
Buddhism however, proved more attractive than both Islam and Judaism, and was chosen by nine per cent of those questioned.
Jihad Declared on Jerusalem Pride Parade
June 26, 2008 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
Posters hung throughout ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods allegedly signed by man imprisoned for attempting to murder parade participants in 2006, call on community to ‘fight against will of evil to make abomination parade’
Less than 24 hours before the Jerusalem Pride Parade kicks off, authorities are growing increasingly concerned of possible acts of violence at the hands of extremist groups.
Poster hung throughout the capital’s streets called on Jerusalem’s residents to “commit their souls” against “the abomination parade” and stone those taking part in it.
The posters were allegedly signed by Yishai Schlissel, who stabbed and wounded three participants of the May 2006 Jerusalem Pride Parade. He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 12 years in prison. It is unclear, however, whether his signature is genuine. The identity of those behind the posters remains unknown.
“I call on those loyal to the king to commit their souls, their freedom, and their being to fight against the will of the evil to have an abomination parade,” the letter said. “Now is the time of reckoning – who will be faithful to the King and who will abandon the battle out of personal interests.”
Meanwhile, right wing activists have launched complex preparations for the parade. The ultra-Orthodox public was called on to attend a rally in Jerusalem’s Shabbat Square, scheduled to take place during the parade itself.
Russia Steps Up Arctic Claim
The competition for claims over the resource-rich Arctic is intensifying.
A Russian general has said his country’s military will hold training exercises in the region, following similar manoeuvres by US forces.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Shamanov, an officer in charge of combat training, has told the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda that planning for exercises in the Arctic region is underway.
He says those plans were put in train after a number of foreign leaders questioned Russia’s territorial claims to the Arctic Ocean shelf, an area believed to hold enormous volumes of natural resources, including oil.
Lt Gen Shamanov is quoted as saying modern wars are won and lost long before they start.
Last year Russia dramatically highlighted its claims to the Arctic, by using two submarines to drop a national flag under the North Pole.
Utilities Being Cut Off In Record Numbers for Families Who Can’t Afford To Pay Bills
As skyrocketing food and gasoline prices strain budgets, utilities are disconnecting many more customers who fall behind on their bills, and even moderate-income households are getting zapped.
Electricity and natural gas shutoffs are up at least 15% in several states compared with last year. Totals for some utilities have more than doubled.
“We’re seeing a record number of shutoffs,” says Mark Wolfe, head of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which represents programs that subsidize energy bills.
An NEADA survey this month shows 8% of four-member households earning $33,500 to $55,500 have had their power turned off for non-payment. “It’s hitting people in the suburbs with two cars and two kids,” Wolfe says.
The disconnects are rising as warm-weather power bills increase, some state moratoriums on winter shutoffs expire, and rates are climbing in many states.
Astronomers May Be On Verge of Finding Earth’s Twin
June 25, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
Since the early 1990s, when the first planets outside of our solar system were detected orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257, astronomers have identified nearly 300 such worlds.
However, most of them are gas giants called “hot Jupiters” that orbit close to their stars because, simply, they are easier to find.
“So far we’ve found Jupiters and Saturns, and now our technology is becoming good enough to detect planets smaller, more like the size of Uranus and Neptune, and even smaller,” said one of the top planet hunters on this world, Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley.
Marcy, Boss and other scientists are optimistic that within the next five or so years headlines will be splashed with news of a near twin of Earth in another star system.
“What is amazing to me is that for thousands of years humans have gazed at the stars, wondering if there might be another Earth out there somewhere,” Boss told SPACE.com. “Now we know enough to say that Earth-like planets are indeed orbiting many of those stars, unseen perhaps, but there nevertheless.”
French President Sarkozy Says Jerusalem Should Be Divided
Speaking at a Bethlehem press conference Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Jerusalem should be divided, and called on Israel to dismantle the West Bank security fence.
After meeting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Sarkozy said that Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. “Can Jerusalem be held by one side alone? I don’t think so,” he said.
“The separation fence will not bring security to Israelis forever,” the French leader added. “The Israelis should secure themselves through a peace agreement with people who believe in peace, like the Palestinian president…there is no doubt that the best road to peace is through a diplomatic agreement.”
However, despite Sarkozy’s declarations, Palestinian sources told Ynet that neither France nor the European Union are expected to play a special role in the near future in promoting the peace process with Israel.
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Unprecedented Lightning Storm Sparks More Than 800 California Wildfires
More than 840 wildfires sparked by an “unprecedented” lightning storm are burning across Northern California, alarming the governor and requiring the help of firefighters from Nevada and Oregon.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was told late Sunday evening that the state had 520 fires, and he found it “quite shocking” that by Monday morning the number had risen above 700.
Moments later, a top state fire official standing at Schwarzenegger’s side offered a grim update. The figure was actually 842 fires, said Del Walters, assistant regional chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All but a couple were in the northern part of the state.
“This is an unprecedented lightning storm in California, that it lasted as long as it did, 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes,” Walters said. “We are finding fires all the time.”
Two of the state’s biggest fires had each charred nearly 6 square miles. One in Napa County quickly moved into Solano County, and threatened about 250 homes about 40 miles southwest of Sacramento, said Kevin Colburn, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It was 80 percent contained.
Bird Flu Mistaken As Dengue and Typhoid in Indonesia
Some cases of human bird flu in Indonesia have been variously misdiagnosed as dengue fever and typhoid, resulting in the late administration of drugs, a leading doctor in the country said on Friday.
Indonesia has had the highest number of human H5N1 cases in the world and while mortality rates are around 60 percent in other places, the figure is highest, or at 81 percent, in Indonesia.
Sardikin Giriputro, director of the Sulianti Saroso Infectious Disease Hospital in Indonesia, told an infectious disease conference in Kuala Lumpur that misdiagnoses and the late administration of drugs were partially responsible for the high mortality rates.
“It (H5N1) is misdiagnosed initially as dengue, bacterial pneumonia, typhoid and upper respiratory tract infection because of similar clinical features (symptoms),” Giriputro said.
Indonesia has had 135 confirmed human H5N1 cases from late 2003 to May 2008 and 110 resulted in deaths. The country reported two more confirmed cases this week, but these were not reflected in Giriputro’s figures.
Most Americans Don’t Believe Their Faith The Only Way
America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don’t feel their religion is the only way to eternal life — even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.
The findings, released Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don’t know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.
Among the more startling numbers in the survey, conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 57 percent of evangelical church attendees said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching.
In all, 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation shared that view, and 68 percent said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their own religion.
“The survey shows religion in America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only three inches deep,” said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion.
“There’s a growing pluralistic impulse toward tolerance and that is having theological consequences,” he said.
Magnitude 4.0 Earthquake Shakes Area Around Los Angeles
A magnitude-4.0 earthquake shook large parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties early Monday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
The temblor, which struck around 7:15 a.m., was centered 2 miles east of Loma Linda in San Bernardino County and occurred at a depth of 6 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The main shock was preceded by a pair of magnitude-2.6 foreshocks including one that hit 10 minutes earlier, California Institute of Technology seismologist Kate Hutton said.
“It was felt pretty much throughout the Inland Empire,” Hutton said, referring to the fast-growing region east of Los Angeles that includes San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
Hutton said it was too early to pin down which fault the quake occurred on. But she said the quake was close to the San Jacinto Fault, an active offshoot of the San Andreas Fault.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department had not received reports of injuries or damage, dispatch supervisor Shelby White said.
The epicenter was in Loma Linda, which has a population of 21,000 and is home to Loma Linda University and Medical Center.
Dad Grounds Daughter, But Court Overturns
June 24, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
A father in Canada grounded his daughter from a school trip because she disobeyed his orders to stay off the Internet, but a court overturned the punishment.
According to Agence France-Presse, Justice Suzanne Tessier in Quebec Superior Court ordered the grounding for the 12-year-old girl lifted, prompting the father’s lawyer, Kim Beaudoin, to warn, “Parents are going to be walking on egg shells from now on.”
The father had ordered his daughter, who was not identified by the report, to remain off the Internet. She didn’t, chatting on websites her father had tried to block and then posting “inappropriate” pictures of herself online using a friend’s Internet portal.
As punishment, the father refused to let her go on a scheduled school trip, so the 12-year-old went to Canada’s judicial system to get her way.
Pregnancy Pact Among 18 High School Girls Has Gloucester Town Reeling
June 22, 2008 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
When a 15-year-old girl at Gloucester high school in Massachusetts discovered she was pregnant earlier this year, she displayed no trace of fear or concern. Shown the results of her pregnancy test, she responded: “Sweet!” She then rushed off to tell her friends.
The girl was among a group of up to 18 Gloucester teenagers who may have made an apparent “pregnancy pact” that has stunned this decaying fishing community and sparked a renewed national debate about sex education in American schools.
The notion that girls as young as 14 might deliberately try to become pregnant has embarrassed school and health officials. It has also ignited a row about what exactly the girls were up to, and to what extent the religious beliefs of this predominantly white and Catholic corner of New England may have encouraged an unprecedented spike in teenage sexual activity.
In Gloucester last week, there was both shame and scorn as officials questioned the nature of the “pact” and teenagers shrugged their shoulders at a scandal that many seemed to view as the inevitable consequence of growing up bored.
“When you live in Gloucester, there’s nothing else to do but have babies,” sighed Josua Medeiros, 17, as he lounged on a bench near a town beach. But Alycia Mazzeo, who became pregnant at 14 and now has a seven-month-old daughter to look after, said she wished she had a chance to lecture her schoolmates about the realities of teenage motherhood. “It’s not all cute things like dressing up your baby,” she said.
100’s See UFO Over Wales – Police Helicopter Forced To Take Evasive Action
Hundreds of UFO sightings over Wales were reported yesterday after a mystery craft threatened a police helicopter.
The Sun was bombarded with calls from readers who also saw the UFO on the SAME night as the chopper drama in Cardiff.
And the mystery deepened as experts revealed airline pilots have spotted hundreds of UFOs over the nearby Bristol Channel this year.
We exclusively revealed yesterday how the helicopter’s three-man crew took evasive action to avoid being rammed by the UFO.
They then chased it to North Devon before giving up as fuel ran low.
Dawn Williams, 45, feared an Independence Day-style alien invasion when she spotted a sinister shape in the sky above Aberdare Country Park hours earlier, on June 8.
She said: “It came over the horizon and was travelling for about a minute and a half before it disappeared.
Russian Strategic Bombers Conduct Aerial Patrol Arctic, Atlantic
Four Russian strategic bombers are conducting an aerial patrol of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, the Itar-Tass news agency reported on Friday.
Two Tu-95 MS and two Tu-22 M3 took off from the Engels airbase in the Saratov region, said Air Force spokesperson Vladimir Drik.
“Teamwork of crews and different elements of flight training are being drilled during the flights, including the most complex one – midair refueling from Il-78 tanker planes,” he was quoted assaying.
Two tanker planes are taking part in the air patrol. Refueling in the air allows long-range planes to fly at least 24 hours.
All flights are being carried out in accordance with international norms, without violating the borders of other countries, Drik said.
Russia resumed strategic bomber patrols over remote areas last year, 15 years after the long-range maneuvers were suspended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russian strategic bombers have flown over the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, the Black Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
