(AgapePress) – One of the biggest cities in the United States has voted to cut its ties with the Boy Scouts. In a unanimous vote last night, the Los Angeles City Council said it will no longer support the Scouts because of the group’s exclusion of homosexuals and atheists.
WASHINGTON (BP)–Religious leaders issued two documents April 17 rejecting radical environmentalism and supporting a biblical approach to ecological stewardship.
DALLAS (BP)–The Baptist General Convention of Texas is openly discussing whether or not to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention and leaders have raised the possibility that the BGCT could create a new Baptist denomination at its annual meeting in October.
The latest edition of Biblical Archaeology Review asks an interesting question: Did some ancient Jews observe the Zodiac and worship Helios, the Greek sun god? Raiders News Update believes 2 Kings 23: 11 and similar verses prove this to be true–but what does this mean?
Sixteen young people were arrested recently in Algeria for possessing Bibles and other Christian literature, according to a report by ZENIT (August 3, 2001). Ranging in age from 20 to 31 and members of a Christian denomination from central Algeria, the 16 were arrested on July 26 in Cap Falcon, 450 kilometers (280 miles) west of Algiers.
Deputy Commander of “Force 17,” Muhammad Dhamrah,(1) A.K.A, Abu Awdh in an interview with Al-Hayat [London, August 17, 2001]:
“…Independence will be realized only through sacrificing. We have prepared thousands, tens of thousands, martyrs in order to regain our land and for the return of the refugees. I derive my strength from this people, rather than from the security coordination or from promises made by the CIA. I feel safe, as many others do, among my people. I am not worried. I am very optimistic that victory will come.”
The prolonged Palestinian intifada continues to fuel a growing wave of anti-Semitism worldwide, as Jew haters are becoming ever more brazen in the build-up to the United Nations World Conference on Racism in Durban next week. The UN conference was originally designed as a forum to address the lingering ills of racial hatred, but has now become a rallying point for those who seek to vilify the Jewish people.
The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday is trying to wind up a heated open debate on the PLO’s renewed demand for an international “protection force” in Palestinian areas, but the measure seems doomed to failure yet again after the US stiffened its opposition to an “unworkable” and “one-sided” resolution.
Tensions increased over recent days in the disputed Har Dov region along the Israeli-Lebanese border, after Hizb’Allah forces set up a roadblock just outside the divided border village of Ghajar.
In recent days, Hamas Sheikh Ahmed Yassin has defended Islamic suicide bombings as a “democratic right,” a leading Egyptian newspaper urged Palestinians to kill Israelis everywhere, and Saddam Hussein has called on Jordan to open its borders to Iraq’s 6.5 million volunteer army recruited to “liberate Jerusalem.”
ICEJ NEWS – 08/22/2001 Amid approving shouts from spectators, a Palestinian Authority security court in Gaza this week sentenced to death a 24-year-old half-retarded Arab man for suspected “collaboration” with Israel. The condemned man, Khaled al-Oukka, simply smiled as the sentence of death by firing squad was read out, a reaction his father said was due to his retardation. He joins at least six other recently convicted “informers” on death row. At least seven more alleged spies have been slain by vigilante groups in recent weeks, including the body of one found in a garbage dump in the Bethlehem area … Read more
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak delivered on Monday his most outspoken comments yet on the violent Palestinian intifada since it drove him from office last February, insisting there should be no more negotiations with PLO chief Yasser Arafat.
Last May, evangelical pastor Juan Carlos Villegas was kidnapped and held for 12 days by the National Liberation Army in war-torn Colombia. They forced him to walk for many hours each day so that neither the Colombian Army nor the paramilitaries could find them. Several times they threatened him with death.
AUSTIN, Texas, August 16 (Compass) — Colombian pastor Enrique Gómez was released unharmed on August 11 after being held hostage for six months by Colombian guerrillas.
SAN DIEGO, CA, WED., AUG. 15, 2001 – Three California women are suing Planned Parenthood to force the nation’s largest provider of abortions to reveal scientific evidence of a substantial link between induced abortion and increased risk of breast cancer, it was announced today by the Thomas More Law Center, a national, public-interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Israeli tanks and bulldozers on Monday night rumbled into Jenin, prime breeding grounds for Islamic suicide bombers, in a temporary show of force that furious Palestinian officials branded a “declaration of war.” When the IDF seemed poised to make a similar incursion into the Bethlehem area on Tuesday night to quell incessant gunfire at Jerusalem, it appears PLO chief Yasser Arafat was pressured into ordering his Tanzim militia to cease fire.
ICEJ NEWS – 08/15/2001 The leading newspaper of the Palestinian Authority reported on its front page on Monday that “the [Israeli] occupation is using naked women to hunt down intifada youth.” The official PA daily Al-Hayat al-Jadidah claimed that last Friday, during a clash at the Karni Junction in Gaza, a female IDF soldier suddenly appeared on top of a tank. “She started to take off her clothes in front of the demonstrators until she was [nearly] naked. Some of the protesters said they were disgusted by it, while others said the Zionist soldier made rude gestures at them,” the … Read more
In an article published on Monday in the Palestinian weekly AL-MANAR, a leading Palestinian journalist advocates the use of biological or chemical weapons to create a “balance of terror” with Israel.
A militant fundamentalist group from Idaho is spreading terror across the Midwest-and federal troops are siding with the attackers.
During the past few months, numerous Israeli commentators, columnists, academics, politicians, intellectuals, authors and other opinion makers from across the political spectrum, have written articles regarding their disillusionment with the Palestinians in general, with Yasser Arafat in particular, and with the Oslo process as a whole. Most articles pointed fingers at the Palestinian side, and accused it of deceiving and misleading the Israeli public and government.