US-Pakistan rift widens

A rift between the US and Pakistan appears to be widening at the Nato summit in Chicago – a dangerous development that could undermine Barack Obama's hopes for an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The US has said repeatedly that Pakistan holds the key to the future of the region but relations between Obama and President Asif Ali Zardari have deteriorated in a standoff over supply routes to Afghanistan.
Pakistan closed the routes after a US air strike killed two dozen Pakistani troops in November.
Obama is refusing to see Zardari, possibly because he arrived in Chicago without a deal in his pocket on reopening the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to US transport. A White House spokesman said no bilateral meeting between Obama and Zardari at the Nato summit was scheduled.
Instead Pakistan is making a series of demands in return for reopening the supply routes, including a review of the US policy of drone attacks against targets inside Pakistan and a public apology for the killing of its troops.
Zardari was invited late to the two-day Nato summit, which will be dominated on Monday by discussion of the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan by 2014 and the retention of a modest armed presence in the county for a decade after that.
The Obama administration had high hopes that Zardari would arrive in Chicago prepared to announce the opening of supply routes essential to Nato. Zardari, in talks with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, made a series of demands, offering to reopen the supply routes only if the US was prepared to pay a higher charge for each vehicle using it, doubling the tariff from $250 to $500 per vehicle. Sources later said Pakistan may be demanding up to $5,000 per vehicle. Zardari also wants a public apology for the killings.
The fact that Zardari had to settle for a meeting with Clinton rather than the president is in itself a snub.
General John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, told reporters at a briefing: "There have been some very positive indications of late with the government in Islamabad about an interest in entering into negotiations, which I think you're all aware of, to open the ground line of communications. I can't tell you when that will occur – obviously sooner is better than later."
A Pakistan presidential spokesman said Zardari told Clinton he wanted "to find a permanent solution to the drone issue as it not only violated our sovereignty but also inflamed public sentiments due to innocent civilian casualties". The US is using drone attacks on suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members.
The Obama administration is angry over the demand for increased payments given the level of aid America is already giving to Pakistan. US officials frequently portray Pakistan as pivotal to a peaceful resolution of the Afghanistan conflict.
The Nato summit is on course to agree details of a phased withddrawal of the 130,000 international troops over the next two and a half years and to announce millions in dollars to maintain Afghan forces after 2014.
Pakistan has a crucial role in Afghanistan because of its close ties to the Taliban and other insurgent groups challenging the Afghanistan government.
Pakistan will regard it as a humiliation that Obama refused to grant Zardari a bilateral meeting, particularly as he met President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in Chicago on Sunday an hour before the Nato summit opened.
The Obama administration has expressed regret over the killing of the Pakistan troops but is reluctant to issue an apology, concerned this will be portrayed by Republicans as a sign of weakness.
The Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said on Sunday that Nato realised it could not solve Afghanistan's problems without including Pakistan in the solution. He expressed hope the supply route issue would be resolved soon.
With the route through Pakistan closed, Nato has had to use supply routes to the north of Afghanistan, which are slower and more costly.
The White House national security spokesman, Ben Rhodes, asked at a press conference if Zardari had gone to Chicago under the misconception he would see Obama, replied that Obama's schedule was busy. He said issues such as the reopening of supply lines were not normally dealt with at presidential level. Rhodes said: "The invitation to attend this summit was extended by Nato of course. We obviously supported that. It's important for Pakistan to be here because as we contemplate the future of the region, they are obviously going to be a part of that picture.
"What I would say is, frankly, the types of issues that are being worked through about the reopening of the supply lines are not the type of issues that get hammered out at the presidential level. These are things that working-level negotiating teams sit down and address."
Rhodes did not anticipate a bilateral meeting between Zardari and Obama.

Government troops and warplanes pounded al-Qaida positions in southern Yemen on Wednesday, killing at least 29 militants as part of a ramped up campaign against the group, military officials said.
Al-Qaida-linked fighters have taken over a swath of territory and several towns in the south, including the Abyan provincial capital of Zinjibar, in the past year, pushing out government forces and setting up their own rule. In recent weeks, the army has launched a concerted effort to dislodge the militants from their strongholds - and is closely coordinating with U.S. troops who are helping guide the operations from inside Yemen.
On Wednesday, Yemeni airstrikes hit a farm in Moudia, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the town of Lawder in Abyan, where al-Qaida fighters were holed up, killing at least 16 militants including top local commander Samir al-Fathani, officials said.
Witnesses said plumes of smoke drifted over the site, which was littered with the charred wreckage of two destroyed vehicles.


Al-Fathani's brother, Abdel-Monem al-Fathani, was involved in the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000 and was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Abyan in late January.
The fighting is part of a four-front offensive the military began Tuesday, using warplanes and heavy artillery to clear the way for an assault by ground troops on towns where al-Qaida fighters are either operating or in control. For the first time, Yemen's army is receiving direct help from U.S. troops, who are operating from a desert air base near the main battle zones to help coordinate assaults and airstrikes, according to Yemeni officials.
The officials said it was the most direct American involvement yet in the country's expanding campaign against al-Qaida's branch in Yemen, which has been blamed for directing a string of unsuccessful bomb plots on U.S. soil from its hideouts in the impoverished country at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
The U.S. has strongly backed Yemen's new president, Abed Rabbo Hadi, who took power in February as part of a U.S.-backed deal that pushed authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, once a U.S. ally, out of office. Hadi has since vowed to make the fight against al-Qaida a priority.
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed an executive order allowing the Treasury Department to freeze the U.S.-based assets of individuals who the White House says "threaten the peace, security and stability" of Yemen. The order was meant as a deterrent against future action and does not immediately levy any penalties against specific people or organizations.
The Yemeni military has enlisted the support of tribal militiamen in its campaign against al-Qaida. Fighting alongside government forces Wednesday, militiamen killed 13 militants who were trying to retake a strategic hilltop, Youssef Mountain, overlooking Lawder. Two militiamen were killed in the fighting, officials said.
On another front in Zinjibar, hit-and-run gunbattles between government troops and al-Qaida fighters left four soldiers dead, according to a military hospital official.
Also, a security official said a Jordanian surgeon was arrested on suspicion he was heading to Zinjibar to join al-Qaida.
All of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.
The fighting in Abyan, particularly around the town of Jaar, has resulted in scores of civilian casualties, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday. It did not provide numbers.
"We are extremely concerned about the increasing number of casualties and about allegations of airstrikes in civilian locations," said Eric Marclay, the head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen.
The ICRC called on all parties to distinguish between civilians and fighters, and protect health care workers operating in the areas.
In the last three months, the ICRC said it tended to around 100,000 internally displaced people and residents in Abyan, providing them with food and other material.

Christians, Jews to unite against Islam?

Christians, Jews to unite against Islam?



The Coliseum, where thousands upon thousands of "Judaeis" have been massacred by the Roman emperors, became for one night an arena for alliance between Christians and Jews against “odium fidei,” or religious hatred.

Last Wednesday in Rome, Jewish leaders for the first time rallied alongside Christians in a candlelit vigil to denounce the attacks in the Middle East and Africa. It was “interfaith” or “ecumenical” dialogue at its best. Forget the theological questions, which remain unsolvable. There is an urgent mutual solidarity about the single most defining issue of our time: religious freedom.
 It is about the right to life of Jews and Christians in an Islamicized Middle East. Speaking at the Coliseum, Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni slammed Western “indifference” surrounding the massacre of minorities in the Middle East.

Jewish eschatology contains many references to an alliance between Esau (Rome, the Christian West) and his father-in-law Ishmael (Islam) against the Jewish people. Historically, it has proven to be correct.
In the Islamic world, Jews paid racist taxes, had to wear an article of clothing that set them apart from Muslims, were prohibited from building synagogues, were required by law to take a subservient role in business partnerships with Muslims and were, by law, second-class citizens. It was the “golden age.”
In the Christian world, Jews could not own land, lived in ghettos, occupied only certain niches in the economy and were despised as the “killers of Christ." Yet today, Christians and Jews both live under the shadow of Islamic fundamentalism; in a world threatened by jihad, they are true partners.
A new report from one of the world's most respected NGO, Open Doors, shines a spotlight on the oppression of Christians in Muslim lands. It addresses the diminution, subjugation, emasculation, conversion, massacre and deportation of the indigenous Christians who came under the rule of Muhammad’s faithful.
The survey demolishes the mainstream media’s obfuscation. With the only exception being North Korea, an atheistic nightmare where 70,000 Christians are held in ghastly camps, 9 of the 10 worst persecutors of Christians are Islamic countries (Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Iran, Maldives, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Iraq and Pakistan.) Of the 50 countries on the Open Doors’ list, 35 are Muslim (the Palestinian Authority is listed, but not Israel.)

Islamic groups recently issued an ultimatum to the Christians in Nigeria: “You have three days to leave, or you’ll die.” Over 13,750 Christians have already been killed in Nigeria since the introduction of Sharia laws in 2001. Some 500 Christians have been slaughtered since last December and 300 churches have been demolished.

Israel a Christian haven

Islam’s supersessionary doctrine catalyzes destruction, oppression and hemorrhaging of Christians in eastern lands. While there were moments of laxity in applying this domination, Islam did not recoil from razing churches in ancient Damascus and slaughtering Christians in the Sub-Saharan plateau, inflicting atrocities in Aleppo or Mesopotamia.

While the West is now endlessly focused on “Islamophobia,” a potential genocidal Christianophobia is spreading through Islamic lands. And as the rally in the Coliseum has clearly shown, it pairs up with another kind of hatred: Judeophobia.

Today there is only one country in the Middle East in which Christian numbers are not declining but continues to increase: Israel. The Jewish State hosts a multitude of Christian creeds, confessions and cultures.

Meanwhile, Yasser Arafat and Ahmed Yassin, Ayatollah Khomeini and Hassan Nasrallah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden relentlessly linked the wanton murder of Jews with the liquidation of Christianity. They don’t see Jerusalem as an urban terrain of conflict, but as a sweeping religious symbol of historical significance.
This week, the Coliseum catalyzed the two most important litmus tests we are facing today: The dormant anti-Jewish genocidal demons lurking in the shadows of the Middle East and of the civilized veneer of the West, and the invisible eastern Christians who are going extinct. After the Rome rally, the Jews should expect the same Christian solidarity next time that a rocket hits a school in Ashkelon or a settler family is slaughtered in the hills of Samaria.
Christians should see Israel as the first line of Western defense in the battle for non-Muslim survival and prosperity in the world. The sagacious American author Eric Hoffer, longshoreman-philosopher from San Francisco, gave voice to a profound and tragic Holocaust-related 20th-century truth: “I have a premonition that will not leave me, as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us.”

Religious sect erects billboards

The time is finished’: Religious sect erects billboards in Toronto ahead of the ‘transformation’

A billboard on Bloor Street West in Toronto shows Jose Luis De Jesus. The sect leader's followers believe he is the incarnated Christ

ST. CATHARINES, ONT. — Doris Rosado watches her teenage daughters, Ninette and Kiara Mongrut, get the numbers “666” tattooed on their wrists, beaming with pride. The number typically conjures up biblical symbolism tied to the Antichrist, but this St. Catharines, Ont., family belongs to a obscure Christian sect for which “666” is a positive symbol of their group’s messianic leader.
“They wanted to do it,” Ms. Rosado, 45, said at the St. Catharines tattoo parlour where her daughters were inked. “But now it’s more important because we’re counting down… I’m so proud.”
For this family, and other members of Growing in Grace International, these tattoos are a way of demonstrating their faith as true believers of Jose de Luis de Jesus — who they fervently believe is the second coming of Jesus Christ — before a day of reckoning they believe will wipe out most of humanity.

The group, which they say has branches in five Canadian cities and members in more than 130 countries, believes that on June 30 (or July 1 across the international dateline), their Texas-based leader and his followers will be transformed, said Alex Poessy, the group’s bishop in Canada.
To spread the word, Growing in Grace put up billboards in Toronto this week featuring Mr. de Jesus.
“That day, the body of Jose de Luis de Jesus, who is a human like you and me, his flesh is going to be immortal…. He’s going to be living forever. And that will happen to him, but also his followers.”

All those that are not believers are going to be destroyed.”

Growing in Grace International is not the first to prognosticate that the so-called end of the world will come this year. The Mayan calendar famously picks Dec. 21, 2012.

Courtesy of The Government of God

Jose Luis De Jesus, leader of Growing in Grace International

But Mr. de Jesus also predicts that the “transformation” will endow him, and his loyal followers, with superpowers, such as the ability to fly and walk through walls, said Axel Cooley, the bishop’s daughter.
“[We can] run and not get tired. Go through fire and not get burned…. I could be talking to you right now, and then I could go through that wall. So, you’ll know there is a difference,” Cooley said.
The global economy will collapse as currency markets “fail” and governments around the world will be forced to resign. These predictions are based on biblical passages, she adds.
“The world’s not going to end. What is going to end is the system…. All the governments and the currencies will fall. The new government of the 666 will take over,” she said.
The group’s billboards feature a picture of Mr. de Jesus, with such messages as “666, number of wisdom” or “Countdown to the transformation June 30, 2012.” The group is eyeing billboard locations in Ottawa and Kitchener as well, she said. Growing in Grace has also put up billboards in at least 10 countries, including the U.S., Brazil and Puerto Rico, Ms. Cooley said.
Mr. de Jesus, whom followers lovingly call “Dad,” had a vision in 1973 while living in Massachusetts of two angels coming to him. “The body of Christ manifested in Jose de Luis de Jesus, and all of a sudden, that’s when he knew,” Ms. Cooley said.
By 1986, he founded Growing in Grace, or Cresciendo en Gracia, in 1986 in Puerto Rico. His teachings are based on the writings of the Apostle Paul, Ms. Cooley says.
The group has come under fire and accused of being a cult.
Regina Albarracin of Pembroke Pines, Fla., whose son Alvaro became estranged from his family after he joined Growing in Grace, said its members are “brainwashed.”

What kind of people believe this kind of stuff ?
Questions have also been raised about the funds flowing from followers into Growing in Grace’s coffers.
The church had been paying $144,000 a year in alimony to de Jesus’ first wife, considering it part of his salary, according to a 2007 article in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Also, donations from followers in Colombia went to a Colombian bank account in Jose Luis de Jesus’ name, the Sun-Sentinel reported. De Jesus said the Colombian bishop controlled the money earmarked for churches there. However, he also said some of the money went to de Jesus’ wife, including about $60,000 for a condominium.
Canadian member Ana Guevara, 20, brushes the cult claims off.
“All our lives have been enriched with this…. If we were a cult, then I guess we’re a pretty awesome cult. Because it’s teaching you how to live happy. How to live in a good mood,” says Ms. Guevara, whose family is also part of Growing in Grace.
The group has roughly 200 members in Canada, including branches in Toronto, St. Catharines, Montreal and Calgary. Its newest branch is in Vancouver, which officially opened in March, Mr. Poessy said.
Ontario Growing in Grace members congregate in hotel conference rooms for what they call “tracings.” During a tracing in January in Niagara Falls, a few dozen members sat in rows of padded chairs facing a screen. The sermon-like Spanish broadcast was streamed live online, beaming in images from other members’ gatherings around the world. Members listened to speakers and sang along with the hymns.
“We’re the ones who will live eternally,” they sang in Spanish.
Usually, Mr. de Jesus addresses his followers during the tracings. But on April 22, his 66th birthday, he gave his last speech before retreating from public view.
In a video posted on YouTube and on their website, cegenglish.com, Mr. de Jesus called for his followers to enter into the final countdown until, he says, their government will come into power. “A government where we will govern everything with a perfect order. This is my last farewell for you. The time is finished… We will see each other soon in Armageddon.”
Dr. Lorne Dawson, a University of Waterloo sociologist and religious studies professor who specializes in new religious movements, says that when a religious group sets a deadline, it is a sign that the “movement is starting to run into trouble.
“It’s a strong indicator that their authority is slipping, they’re losing followers, not acquiring followers at a level that they used to … and nothing galvanizes a group and galvanizes attention like a new mention of an apocalypse.”
Last year, California preacher and evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping infamously said that the world would end on May 21, 2011. When the day passed without incident — after many of his followers sold off all their belongings — Mr. Camping apologized for the faulty predictions, and subsequently retired.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have prophesied that the world would end eight times, as recently as 1975. The Church Universal and Triumphant, a new age religious group from the U.S., forecast that nuclear war would strike in 1990, says Dr. Dawson.
Even after their prophecies failed, such groups continued to survive at a similar level, or become even stronger, he said. “The leader will quickly come up with an explanation, rationalize, and that rationalization will be spread quickly to all of the membership … and gear them up for another prophecy down the line,” Dr. Dawson said.
Common explanations include blaming the members who doubted, or that the prophecy happened on another spiritual plane, he added.
Growing in Grace members, however, insist their prediction will come true, and their transformation is on its way.
They cite recent erratic weather patterns and global economic woes as signs that change is afoot.
“We are sure that it’s going to happen,” said Mr. Poessy.

SEALs slam Obama for using them as 'ammunition' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137636/Osama-bin-Laden-death-SEALs-slam-Obama-using-ammunition-bid-credit.html#ixzz1tfijT4V2

Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign.
The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’.
In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took ‘the harder and the more honourable path’ in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words ‘Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?’ are then displayed.
Besides the ad, the White House is marking the first anniversary of the SEAL Team Six raid that killed bin Laden inside his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan with a series of briefings and an NBC interview in the Situation Room designed to highlight the ‘gutsy call’ made by the President.

Mr Obama used a news conference today to trumpet his personal role and imply that his Republican opponent Mr Romney, who in 2008 expressed reservations about the wisdom of sending troops into Pakistan, would have let bin Laden live.
‘I said that I'd go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him, and I did,’ Mr Obama said. ‘If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they'd do something else, then I'd go ahead and let them explain it.’
Ryan Zinke, a former Commander in the US Navy who spent 23 years as a SEAL and led a SEAL Team 6 assault unit, said: ‘The decision was a no brainer. I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call.
‘I think every president would have done the same. He is justified in saying it was his decision but the preparation, the sacrifice - it was a broader team effort.’
Mr Zinke, who is now a Republican state senator in Montana, added that MR Obama was exploiting bin Laden’s death for his re-election bid. ‘The President and his administration are positioning him as a war president using the SEALs as ammunition. It was predictable.’

Mr Obama has faced criticism even from allies about his decision to make a campaign ad about the bin Laden raid. Arianna Huffington, an outspoken liberal who runs the left-leaning Huffington Post website, roundly condemned it.
She told CBS: ‘We should celebrate the fact that they did such a great job. It's one thing to have an NBC special from the Situation Room... all that to me is perfectly legitimate, but to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.’
Campaigning in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mr Romney responded to a shouted question by a reporter by saying: ‘Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.’
A serving SEAL Team member said: ‘Obama wasn’t in the field, at risk, carrying a gun. As president, at every turn he should be thanking the guys who put their lives on the line to do this. He does so in his official speeches because he speechwriters are smart.
‘But the more he tries to take the credit for it, the more the ground operators are saying, “Come on, man!” It really didn’t matter who was president. At the end of the day, they were going to go.’
Chris Kyle, a former SEAL sniper with 160 confirmed and another 95 unconfirmed kills to his credit, said: ‘The operation itself was great and the nation felt immense pride. It was great that we did it.
‘But bin Laden was just a figurehead. The war on terror continues. Taking him out didn’t really change anything as far as the war on terror is concerned and using it as a political attack is a cheap shot.
‘In years to come there is going to be information that will come out that Obama was not the man who made the call. He can say he did and the people who really know what happened are inside the Pentagon, are in the military and the military isn’t allowed to speak out against the commander- in-chief so his secret is safe.’