Anti-Putin protesters form a 10-mile human chain around Moscow

"We believe that Russia will not withstand six more years of political winter," opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov said.

Thousands of protesters held hands to form a 10-mile human chain encircling central Moscow on Sunday to keep up the pressure on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he prepares to extend his rule for six more years.

Putin, who was Russia's president from 2000 to 2008, is running for a third, now six-year term in a March 4 election. He is expected to win easily against four Kremlin-approved challengers, but an unprecedented wave of protests has undermined his image as a strong leader who rules with broad public support.

Sunday's protest appeared to have drawn close to the 34,000 people that opposition activists estimated were needed to complete the chain along the Garden Ring, a wide road that makes a loop around the city center. Almost all of the people standing in the wet snow wore the white ribbons that have become a symbol of the peaceful anti-Putin protest movement.

Young Putin supporters also were out on sections of the Garden Ring on Sunday. Wearing heart-shaped red signs around their necks that said "Putin loves everyone," they handed out similar ribbons in imitation of the protesters. Some passers-by refused to take the pro-Putin ribbons, which had stripes of white, blue and red like the national flag.

The Garden Ring was the scene of protests on two previous Sundays, when hundreds of people drove cars decorated with white ribbons and balloons as others waved from the sidewalks and overpasses as they went by, horns blaring.

These demonstrations have helped the protest movement maintain momentum between the huge rallies in Moscow that have drawn tens of thousands of people.

The protests began in December following a parliamentary election that saw widespread vote rigging to boost the results for Putin's party. Many Russians were already steaming over Putin's announcement in September that he and President Dmitry Medvedev intended to swap jobs. The presidential election was presented as a formality.

No longer willing to tolerate Putin's system of "managed democracy," the protesters have demanded fair elections in which opposition candidates are free to take part. Some protesters have called for Putin to step down.

Participants in Sunday's demonstration held up white signs in the shape of a car's license plate that said, "We'll drive out Putin." The number on the plate was 04 03 12, the date of the election.

After the demonstration ended, about 1,000 of the activists moved to a square near the Kremlin where festivities were underway for Maslenitsa, or Butter Week. The holiday, similar to Carnival in the West, precedes Lent in the Orthodox Christian calendar and ushers out the winter.

"We believe that Russia will not withstand six more years of political winter," opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov said. "Everything will freeze completely. Therefore, we have to do everything we can to prevent that."

The protest ended with the activists releasing bunches of white balloons.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/anti-putin-protesters-form-a-10-mile-human-chain-moscow-article-1.1028786#ixzz1nX4RVffm 'Don't turn away from Allah': Rise of Conservative Islam - RT

VANUNU'S PHOTOS OF DIMONA

VANUNU'S PHOTOS OF DIMONA - 1985

Mordechai Vanunu brought his camera to work in late 1985, shortly before leaving his eight-year stint as a technician at Israel's nuclear weapons factory at Dimona.
Acting on his conscience, he carefully took about 60 photos of the top-secret labs and unique production processes involved. When some of these photos were originally published in the London Sunday Times' exposé, they confirmed his eyewitness testimony about the extent of Israel's nuclear weapons program and revealed Israel to be one of the world's top nuclear powers. To this day, the Israeli government refuses international inspection of Dimona and continues to deny the existence of its nuclear arsenal. [click here for more of Vanunu's story: archive/story.html]
While their publication resulted in Vanunu being locked away for an 18-year prison sentence, his photographs of Israel's nuclear weapons factory - a bold statement against nuclear secrecy and for the abolition of nuclear weapons - are here for all to see.
Click on the thumbnail views below to see the full-size photos in this selection.

	1) Looking inside a glove box for tooling nuclear materials
	2) Looking from outside into a glove box
	3) Control panel
	4) Control panel
	5) Control panel for lithium 6 production
	6) Control panel
	7) Workshop
	8) Looking inside a glove box at lathe for turning precision shaped pieces of plutonium or other components.
	9) Laboratory model of nuclear weapons core
	10) Looking inside a glove box at models of bomb components or containers for nuclear materials
	11) Outside of glove box
	12) Plutonium separation plant control room
	13) Shielded viewing portal for observing nuclear reactions
	14) Production model of nuclear weapons core
	15) Production model of nuclear weapons core

SOURCE:

Judea Pearl:My son was killed by anti-Zionists,not anti-Semites

Judea Pearl, father of the late reporter Daniel Pearl, addressed the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, on February 13, regarding the “state of anti-Semitism.”
The program opened with a moment of silence in memory of his son Daniel Pearl, Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and then, brutally murdered by his abductors.
Addressing the crowd, Judea Pearl said he believes his son “was murdered by anti-Zionists, not anti-Semites.”
Pearl argued that, “anti-Zionism is a strain of hate that is far more dangerous to Jews than anti-Semitism,” the Forward reported. Anti-Semitism, he said, is like a “disease” in which “the anti bodies are known.”
However, anti-Zionism, he said, is “the worst form of racism.”  Unlike overt anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism “hides itself in the cloak of political debate…. [it] is worse…. harder to fight.  It comes in a camouflage that allows it to penetrate vital tissue undetected… like at our universities.”
Anti-Zionism, he continued, “targets the most vulnerable part of the Jewish people, the 6 million people of Israel. It condemns them to eternal statelessness in a very bad neighborhood,” which, ultimately, makes it “morally appalling and strategically harder to fight.”
In response to a question posed by a member of the audience, asking Pearl to state his thoughts regarding Jews who are anti-Zionists, he responded, “That’s easy. It’s a ticket for social acceptance.”

EPA's Christian Ministry- Evangelical Environmental Network

Abortion doesn’t cause a minor reduction in brain development; it stops it — dead. It doesn’t cause temporary, almost undetectable reduction in neurological development. It kills 1.2 million every year in America. Not 1 in 1,000 but over 1 in 5 pregnancies in America end in abortion (22%). Since 1973, because of abortion, over 54 million babies in this country have been dead on arrival. 

An environmental group claiming to represent the stewardship concerns of evangelical Christians handed pro-abortion politicians and the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency a huge present just before Christmas. On December 21, as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (photo) announced the agency’s long-awaited stringent new regulations on mercury, the Rev. Mitchell C. Hescox, President and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), was standing alongside her to show his organization’s support.

Moreover, EEN announced it had just completed a quarter-million-dollar radio, television, and billboard advertising campaign in nine states and the District of Columbia aimed at convincing evangelical and Catholic voters that supporting the new EPA regulations is the “pro-life” position they should be urging their Senators and Congressmen to take. Incredibly, the EEN ads bestow a “pro-life” label on politicians with a voting record 100 percent in favor of abortion — because they support the new mercury regulations. Rev. Hescox explained his presence at the EPA press gathering:

For many it might seem highly unusual for an evangelical Christian to stand alongside EPA Administrator Jackson this morning. I am standing with her today because we agree on the need to protect children from mercury. Christians are called to protect life, it's sacred, and evangelicals take very seriously the Biblical belief that life begins at conception.
Click here to read the entire article.

An environmental group claiming to represent the stewardship concerns of evangelical Christians handed pro-abortion politicians and the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency a huge present just before Christmas. On December 21, as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (left) announced the agency’s long-awaited stringent new regulations on mercury, the Rev. Mitchell C. Hescox, President and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), was standing alongside her to show his organization’s support.
Moreover, EEN announced it had just completed a quarter-million-dollar radio, television, and billboard advertising campaign in nine states and the District of Columbia aimed at convincing evangelical and Catholic voters that supporting the new EPA regulations is the “pro-life” position they should be urging their Senators and Congressmen to take. Incredibly, the EEN ads bestow a “pro-life” label on politicians with a voting record 100 percent in favor of abortion — because they support the new mercury regulations.
Rev. Hescox explained his presence at the EPA press gathering:
For many it might seem highly unusual for an evangelical Christian to stand alongside EPA Administrator Jackson this morning. I am standing with her today because we agree on the need to protect children from mercury. Christians are called to protect life, it's sacred, and evangelicals take very seriously the Biblical belief that life begins at conception.
"It’s for the Children”
“It’s for the children.” “It’s for the handicapped.” “It’s for the elderly.” “It’s for the asthmatics and respiratory patients.” “It’s for the environment.” “It’s for the polar bears.” “It’s for the planet.” Whenever politicians and bureaucrats get ready to usurp vast new and costly powers, they can be counted on to find a justification calculated to resonate with their targeted constituency. Children are one of the most frequent props exploited by the political class to promote their programs, knowing that few people wish to go on record opposing something that will, ostensibly, benefit or protect children. In presenting his pro-EPA position, EEN’s Rev. Hescox grabbed with gusto for the “It’s for the children” prop. Hescox continued at the EPA press conference:
The unborn are the weakest members of our society. We must protect them and insure their right to an abundant life. Currently 1 in 6 babies are born with harmful levels of mercury in their blood. The largest source of domestic mercury emissions are coal-fired electric utilities and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards promulgated today will provide significant reductions, over 90%, of the mercury contained in the coal that is burned.
Leaving aside for a moment EEN’s statistical claims regarding mercury pollution — which are wildly off base, according to a number of scientific studies — the organization’s redefinition of what constitutes an authentic “pro-life” position is something quite astounding.
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., founder and national spokesman of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, takes serious issue with the EEN position, calling it “Machiavellian” and “Orwellian.”
“If the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) has its way, some members of Congress with 100% pro-abortion records will be able to boast that they’re pro-life, and others with 100% pro-life voting records won’t,” warns Dr. Beisner, a theologian, ethicist, and economist.
Beisner continues:
Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin (both D-MI) both had 100% pro-abortion voting records in the 110th Congress (2007–2008). Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (both R-Maine) and David Pryor (D-Ark.) all had 78% pro-abortion voting records. Yet EEN’s ads give voters the impression that all are pro-life or “sensitive to pro-life concerns” because they support EPA’s proposed new mercury limits.
In EEN’s one-minute radio spots, Tracey Bianchi, a Chicago-area pastor, says, "I expect members of Congress who say they are pro-life to use their power to protect that life, especially the unborn. … The EPA's mercury regulations were created specifically to protect the unborn from the devastating impacts of mercury which causes permanent brain damage in the unborn and infants." In the Michigan ads she says, “That’s why I’m counting on Senators Levin and Stabenow to defend the EPA’s ability to protect the unborn from mercury pollution. … Please thank Senators Levin and Stabenow for their leadership, and let them know you support continued efforts to keep the unborn safe from mercury pollution.” Ads mentioning supporters of EPA’s mercury limits in other states contain similar language.
“Pro-life,” as defined by opposition to abortion, would unequivocally describe just 2 out of the 13 politicians mentioned in the ads — Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), and Cong. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), both of whom had 100% pro-life voting records. (Maybe we could throw in Sen. Lamar Alexander [R-Tenn.], with his 88% pro-life voting record.) Yet the ad targeting Ohio states, “I’m grateful that Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur voted to defend the EPA’s ability [to] clean up dangerous mercury pollution. But I’m disappointed that Congressman Bob Latta voted against protecting the unborn from this poison.… Please contact Congresswoman Kaptur to thank her, but tell Congressman Latta that being pro-life means protecting the unborn from mercury pollution."
The EEN ads say, “I expect members of Congress who say they are pro-life to use their power to protect that life, especially the unborn. … The EPA's mercury regulations were created specifically to protect the unborn from the devastating impacts of mercury which causes permanent brain damage in the unborn and infants.”
Dr. Beisner points out that the statistical claims of EEN and the EPA do not stand up to scrutiny: “The truth, as documented in The Cost of Good Intentions: The Ethics and Economics of the War Against Conventional Energy, is that not 1 in 6 but about 1 in 1,000 American babies is exposed to mercury at a level above the EPA’s ‘reference dose’ of 5.8 parts per billion,” he notes. “Further, no harm has been detected at any level below 85 parts per billion (over 14 times higher than the ‘reference dose’) — a level studies indicate is not found in any American babies. Even at that level, the observable harm is not death or even grave impairment but a temporary, almost undetectable delay in neurological development — one so small it’s overshadowed by normal variation, one that disappears in nearly all by age 7.”
Further, the path from power-plant emissions to baby’s blood is obscure at best, Beisner notes. Most of the mercury in infants’ blood comes from natural sources, meaning reducing power-plant emissions would have little or no effect on infants’ health.
First, Do No Harm“Ironically,” says Beisner and the Cornwall Alliance, “EPA’s new mercury restrictions not only won’t save any lives, they’ll cost lives. Lots of them. How many? About 2,500 to 4,250 every year.”
How would the EPA regulations cause these deaths? Beisner notes that economic studies indicate that every additional $10 million to $17 million in annual regulatory costs accounts for one extra death in the United States. EPA’s mercury plan will force an increase in electricity prices of about 11.5%. Since the average price per megawatt-hour for electricity in 2009 was $99.80, and the nation used about 3.7 billion megawatt-hours, and so we spent about $369.26 billion on electricity, that 11.5% increase means EPA’s plan will cost the U.S. economy about $42.5 billion. Divide that by $10 million or $17 million per life, and you get 2,500 to 4,250 extra deaths per year.
In short, EEN says it’s pro-life to support a policy that will cause about 2,500 to 4,250 extra deaths per year, but not pro-life to oppose it.
There is another very big problem with EEN’s new “pro-life” definition that should be obvious, but which Beisner explicitly exposes. “The risk from mercury and the risk from abortion aren’t in the same ballpark,” he says. “They’re not even in the same universe." He continues:
Abortion doesn’t cause a minor reduction in brain development; it stops it — dead. It doesn’t cause temporary, almost undetectable reduction in neurological development. It kills 1.2 million every year in America. Not 1 in 1,000 but over 1 in 5 pregnancies in America end in abortion (22%). Since 1973, because of abortion, over 54 million babies in this country have been dead on arrival.
Nevertheless, Beisner notes, “EEN insists that politicians who support the continued intentional massacre of over a million babies a year can proudly wear the pro-life label — and pro-life voters can conscientiously vote for them — so long as they support EPA’s plan to impose new restrictions on mercury emissions. The audacity of EEN’s campaign is breathtaking.”
Breathtaking yes, but not surprising. EEN seems to have been launched precisely to divide, confuse, and neutralize as many pro-life activists and churches as possible, by, among other things, playing upon the environmental concerns and fears people have and by conflating environmental issues with traditional pro-life issues.
Thus, EEN has been in the forefront of promoting fears of catastrophic anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming, or AGW, among evangelical Protestant schools and congregations. Global Warming and the Risen LORD: Christian Discipleship and Climate Change, a book by Rev. Jim Ball, EEN’s executive vice president, is highly touted by EEN, which says it “shows us that global warming is one of the major challenges of our time, but one that can be overcome by following the Risen LORD.”
The book carries an endorsement blurb by none other than Al Gore, who writes: "My friend Rev. Jim Ball has written an important new book that explores the connection between solving the climate crisis and evangelical Christianity.”
EEN is also a major promoter of the controversial new Green Bible — endorsed by the Sierra Club — that purports to provide a scriptural basis for Christian environmental activism under the rubric of “creation care.”
Where is EEN getting the funding for its media campaigns and other activities? EEN did not return calls from The New American regarding this matter, and their website does not provide any funding details. However, Dr. Beisner notes that “EEN received a $50,000 grant last July from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund ‘to elevate the voice of the evangelical community in its efforts to protect the Environmental Protection Agency.’ And Rockefeller Brothers (which gave EEN $200,000 in 2009 to support its global warming campaign) is a long-time supporter of abortion on demand as a means of population control.”

EEN’s political bedfellows, financial sources, and duplicitous campaigns should cause all concerned to question both its pro-life bona fides and its integrity as a Christian ministry. 

 "An endorsement blurb by none other than Al Gore, who writes: "My friend Rev. Jim Ball has written an important new book that explores the connection between solving the climate crisis and evangelical Christianity.”???

Rex Mundi (the Illumined Global Ruler) will soon arise.

Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder! über'm Sternenzelt
Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.

The Two Witnessess

1 Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff and I was told, 
"Come and measure the temple of God and the altar, 
and count those who are worshiping in it.

2 But exclude the outer court of the temple; do not measure it, 
for it has been handed over to the Gentiles, 
who will trample the holy city for forty-two months.

3 I will commission my two witnesses to prophesy 
for those twelve hundred and sixty days, wearing sackcloth."

4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands 
that stand before the Lord of the earth.

5 If anyone wants to harm them, 
fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies. 
In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain.

6 They have the power to close up the sky 
so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying. 
They also have power to turn water into blood 
and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish.

7 When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss 
will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them.

8 Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, 
which has the symbolic names "Sodom" and "Egypt," 
where indeed their Lord was crucified.

9 Those from every people, tribe, tongue, 
and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, 
and they will not allow their corpses to be buried.

10 The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts 
because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth.

11 But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. 
When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them.

12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, 
"Come up here." So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.

13 At that moment there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell in ruins. 
Seven thousand people were killed during the earthquake; 
the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

14 The second woe has passed, but the third is coming soon.

15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet. 
There were loud voices in heaven, saying, 
"The kingdom of the world now belongs to our Lord and to his Christ, 
and he will reign forever and ever."

16 The twenty-four elders who sat on their thrones before God 
prostrated themselves and worshiped God

17 and said: "We give thanks to you, Lord God almighty, who are and who were. 
For you have assumed your great power and have established your reign.

18 The nations raged, but your wrath has come, 
and the time for the dead to be judged,

and to recompense your servants, the prophets, 
and the holy ones and those who fear your name, the small and the great alike, 
and to destroy those who destroy the earth."

19 Then God's temple in heaven was opened, 
and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.

There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, 
and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a violent hailstorm.