Oh Jesus, Is this a problem?

Seized from smugglers, the leather-bound 'gospel' which Iran claims will bring down Christianity and shake world politics

• The text, written on animal hide, is thought to be an authentic version of the Gospel of Barnabas, one of Jesus's disciples
• It was discovered by Turkish authorities in 2000 during an anti-smuggling operation
• 'Laughable' Iranian report claims the book states that Jesus was never crucified and He predicted the coming of the Prophet Muhammad
• The Vatican has made an official request to view the text

By ROB PREECE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 12:18 EST, 24 May 2012 | UPDATED: 15:33 EST, 24 May 2012

A leather-bound religious text, thought to date from the fifth century but discovered only 12 years ago, will cause the collapse of Christianity worldwide, Iran has claimed.

The book, written on animal hide, was confiscated during an anti-smuggling operation in Turkey's Mediterranean region in 2000.

Turkish authorities believe it could be an authentic version of the Gospel by Jesus's disciple Barnabas, and an Iranian press report has claimed that its contents will trigger Christianity's downfall by proving that Islam is the final and righteous religion.

Ancient: The discovery of this leather-bound text will cause the collapse of Christianity worldwide, Iran has claimed

Others have dismissed the Iranian claims as 'laughable' anti-Christian propaganda.

The Basij Press claims the text was written in the 5th or 6th century and it predicted the coming of the Prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam.

It says the Christian world denies the existence of such a gospel.

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Basij claims that Chapter 41 of the Gospel reads: 'God has hidden himself as Archangel Michael ran them (Adam and Eve) out of heaven, (and) when Adam turned, he noticed that at top of the gateway to heaven, it was written "La elah ela Allah, Mohamad rasool Allah,"' meaning Allah is the only God and Mohammad his prophet.

The Iranian report claims that the text states that Jesus was never crucified and that He himself predicted Muhammad's coming.

The book, written in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, even predicts the coming of the last Islamic messiah, the report adds.

Saintly: Turkish authorities believe the book could be an authentic version of the Gospel of Barnabas, pictured

Turkish authorities seized the text in 2000 in a crackdown on a gang who were charged with smuggling antiquities, illegal excavations and the possession of explosives.

But excitement at the find only peaked in February this year, when it was reported that the Vatican had made an official request to view the book.

It is not known whether the request was granted.

Its origins are unknown, but National Turk reported that the book had been kept in the Justice Palace in the Turkish capital, Ankara, and was being transferred under armed police guard to the city's Ethnography Museum.

The Basij report suggests that the discovery is so immense that it will shake world politics.

'The discovery of the original Barnabas Bible will now undermine the Christian Church and its authority and will revolutionize the religion in the world,” it states.

Safe keeping: The book was stored in Ankara's Justice Palace after it was confiscated from smugglers

'The most significant fact, though, is that this Bible has predicted the coming of Prophet Mohammad and in itself has verified the religion of Islam.'

Although Turkish authorities believe the text to be genuine, other observers have questioned its authenticity.

Erick Stakelbeck, a terrorism analyst and a close observer of Iranian affairs, told WND.com: 'The Iranian regime is committed to stamping out Christianity by any means necessary, whether that means executing Christian converts, burning Bibles or raiding underground churches.'

Phil Lawler, writing on the Catholic Culture website, described the claim as a 'laughable Iranian challenge to Christianity'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149227/Gospel-Barnabas-cause-Christianitys-collapse-Iran-claims.html#ixzz1vqXHtacg

Shameless Bias By Omission

http://www.mrc.org/bozells-column/shameless-bias-omission
By
 L. Brent Bozell III
You’d think the largest legal action in American history in defense of religious liberty would be a major news story. But ABC, CBS, and NBC don’t judge news events by their inherent importance as relates to the future of our freedoms. They deliver the news according to a simple formula: Does it, or doesn’t it, advance the re-election of Barack Obama?

If it doesn’t, it isn’t news.
 On May 21, 43 Catholic dioceses and organizations sued the Obama administration over its ridiculously narrow idea of how a “religious institution” can be defined under their ObamaCare law. Never has the Catholic Church – or any order, for that matter – undertaken something of this magnitude. It’s truly jaw-dropping that ABC and NBC completely ignored this action on their evening newscasts, while “CBS Evening News” devoted just 19 seconds to this historic event.

No, let’s be blunt: They spiked the news.

This is the worst example of shameless bias by omission I have seen in the quarter-century history of the Media Research Center. We recall the Chinese communists withholding from its citizenry for 20 years the news that the U.S. had landed on the moon, because it reflected poorly on their government. Never, never would the U.S. “news” media behave thusly.

They just did.
 This is not an honest mistake. It was not an editorial oversight by the broadcast networks. It did not occur too late for the evening deadline. This was a deliberate and insidious withholding of national news to protect the “Chosen One” who ABC, CBS and NBC have worked so hard to elect and for whom they are now abusing their journalistic influence. Even when CBS mentioned  the suit ever-so-briefly, like so many others, they deliberately distorted the issue by framing it as a contraception lawsuit when it is much broader, a religious freedom issue – and they know it.

 This should be seen as a very dark cloud on Obama’s political horizon. The Catholic Church, with 60 million Americans describing themselves as Catholic, has unleashed legal Armageddon on the administration, promising “we will not comply” with a health law that strips Catholics of their religious liberty. If this isn't “news,” then there's no such thing as news.

 This should be leading newscasts and the subject of special, in-depth reports. So what trumped this story? ABC led their evening broadcast and devoted an incredible three minutes and 30 seconds to the sentencing of the Rutgers student who spied on his gay roommate with a web camera. NBC aired an entire story on a lunar eclipse. Both CBS and NBC devoted their first three and a half minutes to prostate-cancer screening.

 Catholic taxpayers who help fund National Public Radio were also ignored on the evening newscast with that sad joke of a title – “All Things Considered.”
If only some deceased priest had been accused of sexual improprieties in 1953…then Catholics would be seen as newsworthy. These “news” operations can’t argue these are more important stories than the loss of religious freedom in America.

The print press isn't much better. For the Washington Post, there was a little one-column story buried on page A6. That fishwrap known as USA Today had a really tiny headline and 128-word item at the very bottom of A2. The New York Times had a perfunctory 419-word dispatch on page A17.

 Two pages later, the Times defined as “news” what it prefers to report on Catholics: “2 Philadelphia Priests Punished in Sexual Abuse Cases.” The paper noted one priest has been suspended from ministry for two years and the other had been placed on leave in December based on abuse that occurred about 40 years ago. This wasn’t really “news” as a current matter, but this is always and everywhere the bigoted narrative the Times prefers to perpetuate.

 Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops used the word “horror” to describe what Team Obama is mandating. On the only broadcast show to give Catholics some coverage, CBS This Morning anchor Charlie Rose asked Dolan if the White House misled him on this issue. Dolan began by saying he hesitated to question the president’s sincerity – even though anyone who heard Obama’s 2009 commencement speech at Notre Dame about “honoring the conscience” of his opponents on abortion has proven he is completely insincere.

The cardinal said “I worry, Charlie, that members of his administration might not particularly understand our horror at the restrictive nature of this exemption that they're giving us, that for the first time that we can remember, a bureau of the federal government seems to be radically intruding into the internal definition of what a church is. We can't seem to get that across.”

He’s not finding much help getting anything across from those supposed “mediators” of the national press corps.

How Westmoreland Lost Viet Nam

It is China’s fault that The Pentagon buys counterfeit sensitive electronic parts

China fake parts 'used in US military equipment'

The failure of a single electronic part in any military plane could pose safety and national security risks and imposes higher costs on the Pentagon, the report said

Continue reading the main story

Vast numbers of counterfeit Chinese electronic parts are being used in US military equipment, a key Senate committee has reported.

A year-long probe found 1,800 cases of fake parts in US military aircraft, the Senate Armed Services Committee found.

More than 70% of an estimated one million suspect parts were traced back to China,the report said.

It blamed weaknesses in the US supply chain, and China's failure to curb the counterfeit market.

The failure of a key part could pose safety and national security risks and lead to higher costs for the Pentagon, the committee said.

US servicemen rely on a variety of "small, incredibly sophisticated electronic components" found in night vision systems, radios and GPS devices and the failure of a single part could put a soldier at risk, the report said.

It highlighted suspect counterfeit parts in SH-60B helicopters used by the Navy, in C-130J and C-27J cargo planes and in the Navy's P-8A Poseidon plane.

After China, the UK and Canada were found to be the next-largest source countries for fake parts.

Continue reading the main story'Avoiding scrutiny'

The committee criticised China for failing to shut down counterfeit manufacturers and said that committee staff wanting to travel to China for the investigation had not been granted visas.

"Counterfeit electronic parts are sold openly in public markets in China," the report said.

"Rather than acknowledging the problem and moving aggressively to shut down counterfeiters, the Chinese government has tried to avoid scrutiny," it added.

But the report said that use of Department of Defense programmes such as the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP), designed to log suspected fake parts, were "woefully lacking".

Between 2009 and 2010 the GIDEP only received 217 reports relating to suspected fake counterfeit components, the majority of which were filed by just six companies, it said. Only 13 reports came from government agencies.

The report also said that in some cases the US defence department had reimbursed contractors for the costs they incurred as a result of their failure to spot fake components in their own supply chain - giving companies no incentive to weed out counterfeits themselves.

But it praised the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law on 31 December 2011 by President Barack Obama, which aims to stop counterfeit parts from entering the country and would cut down on sourcing components from unknown suppliers.

The report's focus on China comes as the US is beginning the task of "pivoting" its defence strategy towards the Asia-Pacific region.

The Pentagon is also preparing to absorb about $450bn (£285bn) of cuts over the next decade.

But it could face cutbacks of a further $500bn if mandatory across-the-board spending cuts come into effect at the end of 2012, after Congress failed to reach a deficit reduction plan last year.

BBC

______________________________________

Pity the Woman in Afghanistan that believed things would get better.

AFGHANISTAN

'They are living in hell'

Massouda Jalal, Afghanistan's former Minister for Women's Affairs, talks to DW about the plight of women in Afghanistan and her plans to form a political party focused on women's affairs.

In 2004, Massouda Jalal - then Afghanistan's Minister of Women's Affairs - stepped down from her post to run against former boss Hamid Karzai in the country's presidential elections.

Though she lost by a wide margin, the sheer fact that a woman ran for the highest office was enough to give her contemporaries hope that women's rights - arguably the war-torn nation's biggest sore spot - would finally, with US influence, come to fruition.

On a recent blustery day in Kabul, with a turquoise animal-bring scarf wrapped tight around her head, Jalal was perched on the sofa at her home near the capital's diplomatic area.

Just three weeks later, the Taliban would unleash a series of coordinated attacks in the neighborhood, raising fears that Afghanistan will return to its old, more traditional ways once American troops leave in 2014.

One of the biggest concerns is a slide in women's rights. A report released in March by Oxfam International said that 87 percent of Afghan women have experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse.

Jalal, who runs the nonprofit Massouda Jalal Foundation from her living room, is trying to stem the tide. She is not alone. The former minister hopes to start a female-centric political party in the next few years. In a cupboard, she already has stacks of paper - half of the 10,000 signatures needed to bring it to motion.

DW: What's early reaction been to the idea of a female party?

Massouda Jalal: We'll focus on women. People have been bringing in their registration cards. It [could] give them safety, security, position.

What does it say about your country that women have been immolating and self-harming in greater numbers than ever, even with the US here?

The perpetrators of immolation are further in power. There's no courage on the victim's part to approach the law. There's a certain fear that has not been broken. The way out is for us to stop terror groups, empower women, and push them into politics. We must give them power.

And education? Especially as it concerns their own bodies.

Women who immolate don't realize they'll be covered in burns for the rest of their lives. I met one woman who had self [inflicted] burns down one side and burns from hot water thrown by her husband down the other side of her body. And then he burned her with acid.

How do you even begin to get women to the next level?

We have to bring transformation to the relationships between men and women. We need access to psychological healthcare for women. We need to put our constitution into practice. We have to make our political power gender-sensitive. The world should be helping the Afghan people get rid of terrorism and give us a civil government with women and men participating equally.

President Karzai said recently that a man has a right, in certain cases, to beat his wife.

It's a constitutional crisis. It's saying, 'you [women] are secondary.' Sharia law empowers males.

But in some houses, women actually have more power financially, right?

There are more than one million male addicts in Afghanistan, and in these families women are the breadwinners. And they take care of the children. But they still do not have basic rights.

As women become better educated, is their social situation deteriorating?

All these years and $300 billion [in aid], so why is the situation for women getting worse and worse? They are living in hell - they don't expect happiness. Even if there are more women now in school and working in an industry like media, there is more pressure - and the best opportunity always goes to the man. And he has the ability to marry another women, so we are disposable. Sixty to 80 percent of marriages are still forced, but I haven't heard of one perpetrator being brought to justice in a child marriage. Violence is rising. Within the tribal structure, there is very little place for women. It's a male-dominated social and political structure.

You're one of the most visible women in Afghanistan, and at one time one of the most powerful. I assume you received threats.

When I was Minister, there was an attack every day - I didn't sleep one good night. There's very few women now in the Palace, they mainly belong to extremist parties.

Interview: Karen Leigh, Kabul, Berlin
Editor: Rob Mudge

DW

Creative Causes of the World Unite!

Radicalization is driven in large part by victimization narratives, whether it's a fear of Big Brother watching, big banks looting, big government seizing one's guns, or a big, global war on Islam. A document like FM 3-39.40 is read as confirming the worst fears of an unusually wide spectrum of political dissenters, radicals, and would-be violent extremists from the right, left, and "other." Gasoline, meet match.

Energy Savings Blown in the Wind?

Electricity bills set to rise to pay for wind farm subsidies

Household electricity bills will rise by as much as a quarter to pay for wind farms and other forms of renewable energy, according to a new report.

Photo: PA

By Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter

8:00AM BST 20 May 2012 TELEGRAPH

The study challenges the Government’s claims that energy bills will actually fall in the next eight years because of energy efficiency savings.

The Coalition is relying on the savings to offset the price increases caused by renewable energy subsidies. Those extra costs are added on to household bills in the form of consumer subsidies.

This week the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will publish its draft energy bill, setting out how it plans to reform the electricity 

market and reduce the cost to households.

These include the Green Deal, which will provide loans to fund loft and wall insulation; the roll-out of 'smart’ meters to help control and monitor energy consumption; and the improvement in the energy efficiency of kettles and other appliances.

But a study of the Government’s own figures by the Renewable Energy Forum (REF), a specialist renewable energy consultancy, has accused DECC of deliberately misleading the public.

REF claims its analysis of the Government’s own figures shows that two-thirds of households, about 17 million in all, will be worse off - even if energy efficiency targets are met in full.

In a 54-page report published tomorrow [Monday], REF will conclude: “DECC has made unrealistic assumptions about the use of energy efficiency measures to offset the costs to households, but even on those optimistic assumptions 65 per cent of households will still be net losers.

“In fact there is every reason to suppose that the efficiency measures will not live up to these expectations and that costs have been understated.”

REF estimates that the UK’s climate change policies - which promote wind farms and other forms of renewable energy - will be responsible for 'major increases’ in the retail price of electricity and gas.

It estimates that electricity prices on domestic bills will rise by 27 per cent by 2020 and by 34 per cent on bills for medium-sized companies. Gas prices will rise by seven per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

The row over the cost of renewable energy - especially wind farms - has caused tensions in the Coalition with DECC run by first Chris Huhne and then Ed Davey, both of them Liberal Democrats.

Earlier this year, 101 backbench Tory MPs wrote to David Cameron demanding that the £400 million a year subsidies paid to the onshore wind turbine industry be “dramatically cut”. In all, REF estimates that £1.5 billion a year is paid out in subsidies for all forms of renewable energy - including on and offshore wind - and that figure will rise to £8 billion a year by 2020.

A DECC spokesman said obtaining a “diverse energy portfolio is crucial for our energy security and to shield our homes and businesses from the sort of price shocks that we’ve seen filter through into our energy bills as a result of rocketing global gas prices”.

The spokesman added: “We are going to revolutionise the energy efficiency of millions of homes and businesses across the nation through the Green Deal which will launch later this year.”

DECC has insisted that energy bills will begin to fall from next year and will be reduced by seven per cent - or £94 - by 2020 because of new energy efficiency policies.

Germany at the Crossroads

Simon Winder: Germans only wanted peace and love – now everybody blames them

The euro was an act of self-denial. They cashed in the mark for the greater good

SIMON WINDER

 

 

FRIDAY 18 MAY 2012 INDEPENDENT

Even five years ago, the idea that the relationship between Germany and Greece could become a source of woe would seem laughable. You could pick any other two European countries (Poland and Portugal; France and Denmark) with no more nor less grounds for tension. But there is now a terrible pall over Europe, with political leaders needing to take decisions for which there is little historic precedent, and in the doubly unattractive context of each option being a bad one. Whether the decision proves to be bad but with a good final outcome, or bad but with a catastrophic outcome, there is no question that the first policy round will be deeply hated.

This unlikely conjunction of Berlin and Athens makes us scramble for a historical context – and what there is, alas, is very discouraging. The German state has made a cult of prudence, hard work, provincialism and rectitude which is utterly admirable in itself, but sometimes unbearably annoying to outsiders. Indeed, almost everything about Germany is simultaneously mystifying and annoying to outsiders.

This is particularly the case with the British, who have been tricked for years into accepting ever greater insecurity, stagnant wages, and an ever more chaotic, flimsy and semi-privatised state under the impression that it is a bold vision of the future. Meanwhile just a short hop away over the North Sea there is a country with a much larger GDP where public services are excellent, the trains are clean and fast, yet shops close at weekends and the idea of 24/7 working seems outlandish and rather sad. But it would be very rare for a German actively to volunteer incredulity at how Britain does things. This would be considered bad form in any but the most drunken context.

It is as though the lessons of the 1940s have been learned so thoroughly that anything at all which might smack of bossiness or preaching would have everyone running for the hills thinking the Nazis are back. This neutered quietism is, of course, very attractive up to a point, but it is dangerously at odds with the way the euro has evolved.

The currency was viewed by Germans and other European visionaries as the full stop that would end the nightmarish historical experience of the 20th century. It stemmed from an anti-nationalism which has sadly proved just as mystical and pathetic as nationalism itself. The German vision was of the great euro project being hauled forward by the peoples of Europe, shoulder to shoulder. But the hauling turns out to have been somewhat voluntary – with some countries seemingly unaware that there was any hauling to be done. And no political authority was ever created that would force equal responsibility. Instead of being supported by a spread of talent, the euro steadily distorted and undermined the less big and strong economies, with everyone throwing aside their own hauling ropes and allowing themselves just to be pulled along by the Germans.

This has resulted in small, almost resourceless Spanish municipalities borrowing as though they were located in a precision-engineering hub of Baden-Württemberg: which, in financial terms of course, they are. Only economic growth could hide this – but this was growth akin to a runner on a running machine who, the moment the machine suddenly shuts down, is impaled on the digital display panel.

Greece is in the most terrible position, because the distortion has been the most extreme. Clearly the Greek political class has been crazily improvident and corrupt, but it is very hard to imagine how in any democratic system it would have been possible to resist what was on offer. It has been part of the evasive feebleness of the arguments around the euro to imply that this is something to do with "Mediterranean" fecklessness. The Germans are rightly identified as savers not spenders; they tend towards a type of licensed extravagance. They will allow themselves the expensive car or the foreign holiday but allied firmly to financial frugality.

Surely, though, a point must come when so many European countries are being blamed for being Mañanaland scroungers that there must be a suspicion of something more systemic at work – weren't places like Spain viewed until recently as dynamic, modern, shaking off the past and so on?

Greek localism is, oddly, of a related, if different kind to Germany's. Greece has been battered, threatened, traumatised and occupied. A very significant part of that was, of course, carried out by Germany in the 1940s. It is not really surprising that this uncomfortable fact has bobbed up and become a standard point made by Athens demonstrators. But it is profoundly shocking because the whole idea of the euro was to banish such history.

The tragedy for the Germans is that they viewed the euro as their great, healing gift to the rest of Europe, an act of self-denial in which they cashed in their totemic Deutschmark for the continent's greater good. That this, combined with the dilemma that throwing more money at the crisis (without a parallel jump to political union) is unthinkable for the Germans, has resulted in such gusts of anti-German hatred in Greece that it is a nightmarish parody of what was meant to happen. The nature of Greek indebtedness and the euro's structure meant decisions which lie at the heart of sovereignty fell exclusively in the hands of Frankfurt and Berlin. Quite by accident, and without an ounce of intent or malice by Berlin, Greece has (like Ireland) become a German colony – and it is not a colony which has a future.

The idea of Europe as this enormous, borderless playground of economic opportunity is now held up to the Greeks as a sort of mockery: they are hideously trapped in a sovereign space which has no sovereignty. But the Germans too find themselves in a hideous trap. They never even meant to engage with Greece – it was a minor aspect of an I-want-to-teach-the-world-to-sing fantasy about saying goodbye to the old Europe of bullying and division. The coming days and weeks will require Germans to do something they cannot do: take charge and quickly build a proper political structure to underpin the euro's economic structure.

This would convert Greece from a German colony to a German county, but even writing this makes it clear it will never happen. The only logic therefore has Greece rejoining its non-euro neighbours. But the impact is incalculable – and we have no historical precedent to even provide some illusion of cheerfulness.

Simon Winder is the author of Germania: A Personal History of Germans Ancient and Modern