Bizarre Twist in Disappearance of Malaysian Airplane
Breitbart wrote on March 16:
“As the possibility… grows that Malaysia Airlines flight 370 may have been hijacked and taken to a hidden location, Israeli authorities are preparing for the possibility that the hijackers might attempt to use the Boeing 777 to mount an attack. According to the Times of Israel, Israel’s Channel 2 has revealed that Israeli air defenses have been boosted, and approaching civilian aircraft will be asked to identify themselves far earlier.
“Though the flight was presumed at first to have crashed, whole or in pieces, into the ocean, passive satellite transmissions from the aircraft suggest that it made a deliberate course change and may have headed north into central Asia. Pakistan has already said that the flight never registered on its radar, but at least one expert has suggested the flight could have landed in Bangladesh, whose air defenses presumably would be weaker.
“Though the possibility that the Boeing 777 could be used in a terror attack is mere speculation, it is evidently being taken seriously by Israel. A plane filled with nuclear material would not need to be in Israeli airspace long to do catastrophic damage, even if shot down…”
The Washington Times wrote on March 16:
“The disappearance this month of a Malaysian jetliner was a result of ‘an intentional, deliberate act,’ the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said as more details emerged Sunday about the circumstances behind Flight 370. ‘This was not an accident. It was an intentional, deliberate act to bring down this airplane,’ Rep. Michael T. McCaul, Texas Republican, said on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ adding that mysteries about the plane’s disappearance continue to develop….
“Mr. McCaul said no evidence suggests terrorism but such a possibility shouldn’t be ruled out. He said the investigation is pointing toward actions on the part of the pilot and co-pilot, but the motivation and the intent are unclear. The scheduled destination was Beijing, but the plane could have been diverted north toward Kazakhstan or, more likely, south toward Australia and Indonesia, he said. ‘Now, two scenarios are here,’ he said. ‘One is the plane ran out of fuel and landed in the ocean… The other one is, it landed in a country like Indonesia, where it could be used later on as a cruise missile, as the 9/11 hijackers did.’…
“Rep. Mike Rogers, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the possibility of terrorism was being investigated.”
CNN wrote on March 18:
“A law enforcement official told CNN Tuesday that the aircraft’s first turn to the west was almost certainly programmed by somebody in the cockpit. There is no indication of when the coordinates were entered into the computer. It could have been done during the flight or, as is more common, during preflight preparations, the official said… a leading theory from Malaysian investigators [claims that the] missing plane veered off course in a deliberate act by someone who knew what they were doing. But investigators still don’t know who was at the controls, or why whoever was flying the plane apparently took it far from its original destination.”
Newsmax reported on March 19:
“Iranian intelligence officials may be behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 earlier this month, former El Al Airlines security chief Isaac Yeffet says… ‘They will land [the aircraft] in [a]place that nobody will know… Yeffet, who is also a former member of the Israeli Secret Service, believes the two passengers traveling with stolen passports may be a key part of the mystery, despite authorities discounting their culpability.
“‘With them [was] an Iranian man [who] said [he] was a businessman but this Iranian went to purchase three tickets for the three of them and paid cash,’ he said. ‘Who pays cash money, in the last 20 years, to purchase three tickets… For us, it’s immediately a suspicious sign. They boarded the flight without any difficulty and I am afraid if they had the plan to hijack the aircraft, inside the aircraft they will have more people to assist them.’
“Yeffet does not believe the Bejing-bound airliner, which had 239 passengers aboard, crashed into the sea. ‘If it was in the water we would find debris. History shows us that aircraft that crash in [the] ocean will be found immediately… if not the same day then the next day,’’ he said.”
Subsequently, it was claimed that debris from the crashed plane might have been located floating in the Indian Ocean.
John Kerry Betrays Israel
Breitbart wrote on March 14:
“On Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress that it would be a ‘mistake’ to insist that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state as a condition of a peace agreement. That statement was a complete reversal of recent promises by Kerry and by President Barack Obama, and effectively makes a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians impossible. Yet the news was completely buried by the mainstream U.S. media… perhaps because journalists are disinclined to document the failure of Obama’s peace push, or perhaps because a story about him breaking a promise is nothing new.”
Sad indeed. The Jewish press did run the story, of course, shaming the US mass media. For instance, Haaretz wrote on March 13:
“U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Thursday that it is problematic for people to continue raising the issue of whether Palestinians would agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state… Kerry added that the issue was resolved in 1947, referring to UN Resolution 181 that divided Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs, and reminded of former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in 1988.
“According to the report, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said last week that the U.S. considers Israel as a Jewish state, but doesn’t require the Palestinians to do so. Kerry adopted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state back in December during a visit to Israel, and later turned to the Saudis and Jordan asking them to support Palestinian recognition. Last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made it clear there was ‘no way’ he would recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and later the Arab League came out in support of his statement.”
America’s back-paddling on the issue of the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state only shows its total lack of decisive leadership. Another example can be seen in America’s unsuccessful attempts to accomplish anything in regard to the Ukraine crisis. Note the next articles.
The Crimea Debacle —“Heim ins Reich” [“Back Home into the Empire”]
BBC News wrote on March 16:
“[97 %] of voters in Crimea have supported joining Russia… in a disputed referendum… Russia’s Vladimir Putin has said he will respect the Crimean people’s wishes. Many Crimeans loyal to Kiev boycotted the referendum, and the EU and US condemned it as illegal…
“Sergei Aksyonov, Crimea’s leader installed last month after the Russian takeover, celebrated the referendum on stage in Simferopol. Backed by the Russian national anthem, Russian flags, and the personnel of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, he told supporters that Crimea was ‘going home’… Some 58% of people in Crimea are ethnic Russian, with the rest made up of Ukrainians and Tatars. Most of the Tatars that the BBC spoke to said they had boycotted the vote, and felt that life under the Kremlin would be worse…
“The Tatars were deported to Central Asia by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. They were only able to return with the fall of the Soviet Union and many want to remain in Ukraine. But the referendum did not have an option for those who wanted the constitutional arrangements to remain unchanged. Voters were asked whether they wanted to join Russia, or have greater autonomy within Ukraine.
“Away from the Crimea region, unrest continued in the south-east Ukrainian city of Donetsk. Pro-Russian protesters stormed the prosecutor’s building shouting ‘Donetsk is a Russian city’, and then broke into the local security services headquarters for the second time in two days…”
Putin might very well use this “unrest” for justification of continued occupation of additional parts of Ukraine, knowing that the West sees no options to stop him. Ultimately, Russia and Ukraine will combine their military forces AGAINST the EU.
Crimea Parliament Declares Independence from Russia
BBC News wrote on March 17:
“Crimea’s parliament has formally declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the Russian Federation…
“According to the declaration approved by Crimean MPs, the region: becomes an independent state and applies to formally join Russia, with some autonomy; will adopt the Russia rouble as its currency within a month; will move to Moscow time (GMT+4 and two hours ahead of Kiev time) on 30 March; [and] will offer Crimean soldiers the chance to join Russian military.”
Putin Signs “Treaty” of Accession with Crimea; Declares Kiev as Mother of all Russian Cities
The Washington Post wrote on March 18:
“Invoking the suffering of the Russian people and a narrative of constant betrayals by the West, President Vladimir Putin declared Tuesday that Russia was within its rights to reclaim Crimea, then signed a treaty that did just that. Putin, defiant in the face of U.S. and European pressure, dispensed with legal deliberation and announced a swift annexation of Crimea, as if to put Europe’s most serious crisis in decades beyond the point where the results could be turned back…
“Putin declared that Russia has no interest in expanding its hold within Ukraine… But he also said that Russia would always be ready to stand up for the rights of fellow Russians living in other countries. He mentioned, seemingly in passing, that Russians in eastern Ukraine, in the cities of Kharkiv and Donetsk, had been subject to the same sort of abuse at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists that he said had led him to act on Crimea…
“He also touched on Russians’ roots in the Ukrainian heartland, in a way that many Ukrainians may not have found reassuring. ‘We sympathize with the people of Ukraine,’ he said. ‘We’re one nation. Kiev is the mother of all Russian cities.’…”
Following the signing of the “treaty,” violence erupted in Crimea. According to Deutsche Welle, dated March 18, “Ukraine’s military says a base in Crimea has been stormed with one serviceman killed… The Ukrainian premier says the crisis has now become a military one… Kyiv [Kiev], which blamed Russia for the attack, authorized Ukrainian troops to use weapons if necessary to defend themselves… ‘Today, Russian soldiers began shooting at Ukrainian servicemen,’ said Yatseniuk. ‘This is a war crime.’” CNN added that “Ukraine’s defense ministry authorized its forces to open fire.”
Subsequently, on March 19, Reuters reported: “Russian troops and unarmed men stormed Ukraine’s naval headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Wednesday and raised the Russian flag.”
John Kerry Fails in Ukraine Crisis
Prior to the “referendum,” Deutsche Welle reported on March 14:
“Talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry have failed to resolve differences over Crimea… ‘We have no common vision of the situation. Differences remain,’ Lavrov said…”
The referendum was of course a manipulated effort to justify Russia’s continued occupation of the Crimean peninsula, but while it is true that a majority of Russians living there wanted to be annexed by Russia (one is reminded of the vast majority of Austrians supporting Austria’s Anschluss to Nazi Germany), it is also true that the Russian military apparatus employed terror measures to “persuade” the people of Crimea NOT to vote against Russian occupation, as the next articles show.
NATO Allies Criticize USA
The Washington Times wrote on March 18:
“NATO members criticized Washington for getting caught off guard by Russia’s military buildup… Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski told Mr. Biden directly that Russia’s actions should not have come as a surprise, given Moscow’s significant increase in military spending… Estonian President Toomas Ilves told Mr. Biden that Russia’s action in Crimea should be a wake-up call… Mr. Biden tried to reject the suggestion that the U.S., in the midst of defense cutbacks, was allowing Russia to gain a strategic advantage…
“Mr. Ilves also sounded a note of discontent about the U.S.-led response with sanctions… In Congress, Republicans increased their calls for the administration to consider sending military aid to Ukraine and to reassess the U.S. relationship with Russia.”
Russia’s Terror Regime in Crimea
The New York Times wrote on March 14:
“With a mix of targeted intimidation [and] an expansive military occupation by unmistakably elite Russian units… Crimea has been swept almost instantaneously into the Kremlin’s fold. This has happened well ahead of the referendum… Organizers of counterprotests have been threatened and in some cases disappeared…
“Crimean journalists have been ordered not to describe the soldiers on their soil as Russian or to use the word ‘occupation.’ And foreign and local journalists have been beaten and had their materials confiscated by uniformed men who are not officially connected to any government.
“Civilian airline flights to and from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, have been blocked. The Berkut riot police, disbanded in February under accusations of brutality by Ukraine, the state they once served, have regrouped in Crimea, where they stand as enforcers of the new authorities’ will. All the while, Ukrainian government centers are blockaded by a mix of Russian troops and men identifying themselves as their supporters.
“… the Kremlin… has ensured that most anyone who might publicly resist secession is marginalized or discouraged…”
These methods are indeed similar to Gestapo activities in Germany prior to, and during World War II. And as the world did nothing then, so nothing is being done now. Chancellor Merkel of Germany placed Russia and the world on notice that European military actions are not an option. Even though some concerned German residents with Ukrainian roots hit the streets on Saturday to voice their disapproval of Putin’s occupation tactics, many short-sighted Germans are apparently indifferent as to what is happening in Ukraine and don’t seem to care whether or not a WORLD WAR breaks out. Indeed, this world is sound asleep.
Bloomberg reported on March 16: “Russia has deployed about 60,000 troops along the Ukrainian border, the government in Kiev said. Ukraine closed border crossings to Russia and will mobilize as many as 15,000 volunteers in the next 15 days to defend the nation, officials said today.”
Of course, Ukraine alone has NO military chance against Russia, and since the West made it clear that it will not militarily intervene, Ukraine is as good as gone.
Crimea Just the Beginning
The Financial Times wrote on March 16:
“Crimea is now occupied by Russia – in violation of all norms of international law and treaties signed by Moscow itself. Russia is rapidly emerging as a rogue state…
“Crimea is a tasty slice of historic Russia – a region with the best resorts, beautiful scenery and strategically important military bases. Whoever controls Crimea controls the Black Sea… The invasion of Crimea cannot be explained with concern for the Russian-speaking people of Crimea. Russia’s rulers do not even care about their own people, robbing them cynically. Why would they suddenly care about their kinsmen in Crimea? And nobody has oppressed the Russians in Crimea…
“Mr Putin’s goals are far beyond the Crimean peninsula. First, Moscow’s rulers are terrified that Ukraine’s Maidan protest movement could replicate itself in Russia. The fate of Viktor Yanukovich, the ousted Ukrainian president, frightens them. They are also frightened by the tough anti-communist spirit of the Maidan. The revolution is taking place amid collapsing monuments to Soviet leaders: Lenin, Kirov, Dzerzhinsky. But in neighbouring Russia, 25 years after the ban of the Communist party, Grandpa Lenin is still resting in his mausoleum on Red Square, his monuments still stand. In Russia, we have a metamorphosis of the Communist order; in Ukraine, a decisive parting from it.
“This scares the KGB officers in charge of Russia today. It is also one of the reasons why the Russian media has branded the Maidan participants ‘fascists’. It is a logic familiar to many older Russians: if you oppose the Soviet Union, you are a fascist. Such was the custom in the Stalinist era; it has been now reborn…
“Second, Mr Putin is well aware of the Brezhnev doctrine – the principle of limited sovereignty of the involuntary allies of what was then the Soviet Union. The USSR kept its satellites on a leash, the length of which could [be] adjusted according to taste… But even more important is the belief that, in the countries of the former Soviet Union, it is Moscow that must define the rules of the game. Ukraine, like Poland in 1981, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Hungary in 1956, rose up against this principle of limited sovereignty. And the Russians want to bring Ukraine to heel, just as they did with its western neighbours…
“So the occupation of Crimea is only a means for the current political regime in Russia – a means towards goals that are extremely dangerous for Europe, for Ukraine and for the Russian people itself.”
Der Spiegel Online added on March 19:
“It’s not only in Crimea where Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing with fire, but also in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the people in the economically powerful region speak Russian and reject the new government in Kiev.”
Consequences of Putin’s Invasion
Breitbart wrote on March 17:
“Russia has pushed the ‘reset’ button all right, resetting history and geography to take the Crimea back, while the U.S. and the European Union do virtually nothing… The weakness of the west in facing the Russian seizure of the Crimea is likely to have a significant geopolitical effect, both in the short term and long term. Here are five of the most likely consequences of the ‘Crimea reset’:
“1. China advances claims over territory and airspace. An aggressively nationalist China was already moving to broaden its air defenses and its claims to the Senkaku Islands, despite U.S. plans to ‘pivot’ from the Middle East to the western Pacific. It will now be even more assertive, knowing there are few consequences.
“2. Al Qaeda steps up its attempts to create an Islamic caliphate. The Obama administration, having dispatched Osama bin Laden, has left Al Qaeda to expand across Africa and the Middle East. Those hoping to establish an Islamic state in the ruins of Syria and Iraq will be encouraged by the failure of the west to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine, because the artificial borders of the Middle East seem even more vulnerable now.
“3. Israel plans for completely unilateral action on Iran. It is clearer than ever before that the Obama administration has no ability to enforce its own ‘red lines’ and no will to risk armed conflict. Israel will likely set aside the task of obtaining U.S. approval for a pre-emptive strike on Iran and will make independent plans–perhaps in coordination with Saudi Arabia, which has likewise learned that Obama is not to be trusted.
“4. Europe gets serious about fracking… the EU has realized that energy independence is vital to its security. It will start to reject pseudo-scientific ‘green’ arguments in favor of oil and gas development.
“5. Russia continues to challenge U.S. allies and create crisis. The Crimea crisis is hardly over, and may reach other parts of Ukraine, as well as NATO allies in Eastern Europe, as Putin tries the same trick again. He is also expanding Russian influence into Latin America…”
America Disappoints…
An article by The Associated Press, dated March 18, seems to support the concerns of Israel, stating:
“Israel cannot depend on the United States to lead any action against Iran’s nuclear program and can only rely on itself, the country’s defense minister said in remarks published Tuesday… the defense minister alleged American influence is waning in other parts of the world, such as Ukraine over the crisis there. ‘Weakness certainly does not pay in the world,’ he said. ‘… I hope the U.S. will come to its senses.’”
JTA added on March 19:
“In response, a [US] senior administration official told Israeli media, ‘We were shocked by Moshe Yaalon’s comments, which seriously call into question his commitment to Israel’s relationship with the United States. Moreover, this is part of a disturbing pattern in which the defense minister disparages the U.S. administration and insults its most senior officials. ‘Given the unprecedented commitment that this administration has made to Israel’s security,’ the unnamed official said, ‘we are mystified why the defense minister seems intent on undermining the relationship.’”
The Obama Administration seems to be delusional and sound asleep, not realizing reality. The USA imposed toothless sanctions on seven Russian and four Ukrainian officials, as well as a Russian bank, and the EU could only agree on 21 officials, while some had originally proposed to enact sanctions against at least 100 persons. Later, the EU added another 12 individuals to their list. None of the sanctions are targeting Putin. In fact, Putin laughed about and ridiculed them, while announcing sanctions in retaliation against U.S. White House officials and Senators. However, the EU and especially Germany might become bolder in their action. Note the next article.
Will Europe Impose Serious Sanctions?
Der Spiegel Online wrote on March 17:
“The EU has imposed new sanctions to prevent Vladimir Putin from further escalating the crisis in Ukraine. Berlin has played a leading role in the punitive actions, despite protests from the German business community. There’s no turning back for Merkel… Despite pressure from many European Union member states and the US, Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel initially managed to prevent swifter sanctions. They wanted to attempt to resolve the Crimean crisis through talks. The strategy ultimately failed because of Putin’s intransigence…
“Both the Americans and the Europeans have ruled out the possibility of a military response and instead want to strike Putin where he is most vulnerable: Russia’s economic dependency on the West… The main role here also continues to lie with Germany. The reason is simple: The country has very close business relations with Russia and has the greatest capacity to exert pressure… Economic warfare could prove expensive for Germany. And this puts Merkel in a difficult situation since she may be forced to push through political measures that harm her country’s business interests. Now that it has made a claim to leadership, Berlin can’t simply retract it.
“The sanctions the EU imposed against Russia on Monday in response to Sunday’s Crimea referendum remain moderate. The plan involves freezing bank accounts and issuing travel bans against 21 Russian and Crimean politicians. If Putin continues to escalate the situation, however, more decisive action could follow…
“The consequences would be serious — for both sides. Last year, Germany and Russia had trade in goods of close to €77 billion ($107 billion). Russia primarily supplies petroleum and natural gas to Germany. Germany, on the other hand, exports mechanical engineering products, medicines, trains and automobiles to Russia. More than 6,000 German companies are registered in Russia and, together, they have invested €20 billion in recent years. German chemical giant BASF has holdings in Siberian gas fields and Russian gas monopoly Gazprom obtained natural gas storage facilities in the state of Lower Saxony in exchange.
“Without special chemicals from Germany, it would be difficult for Russia to refine its crude oil. It would be a shattering blow to supplies for Putin’s massive country if Merkel were to turn the screws on Germany-Russian economic relations. At the same time, Germany’s business community would also have to assume some severe losses…
“It is unlikely that such punitive measures would go unanswered by Russia; Putin has not been shy about threatening retaliation. A senator with his United Russia party is now calling for the expropriation of foreign companies doing business in the country. Moscow could respond by freezing bank accounts held in Russian banks as well as seizing assets…
“In Berlin, all officials can do is guess at just how far Putin might be willing to go… high-ranking diplomats believe it is… conceivable that Moscow might attempt to destabilize other regions like the Baltics or the Caucuses by using economic pressure or the presence of strong Russian minorities in countries in those places…”
Ukraine—Not All As It May Seem
The EUObserver reported on March 18:
“With Russia’s ratification of the Crimea bill to be completed by the end of next week, the annexation looks like a fait accompli. But there are fears Putin will go further. He also told MPs that ethnic Russians in the Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Kiev are ‘still’ appealing for his help and he described Kiev as the ‘mother of all Russian cities … ancient Russia, our common source.’
“He has amassed military forces on Ukraine’s north and eastern borders. If he is going to absorb Crimea, he will also need to take control of the electricity and water infrastructure which feeds it and which is located on the Ukrainian mainland…
“Yushchenko… warned the West that all may not be as it seems in Ukraine. Some Russian media reports say Yushchenko’s old rival, former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, cut a deal with Putin – to give him Crimea in return for helping her to regain power… Yushchenko said it is ‘quite strange’ that Ukraine’s Tymoshenko-dominated government has done nothing to secure the Crimean electricity and water infrastructure on the mainland.
“He said it is equally strange Ukraine did not close its border with Russia to stop Russian nationals from going to pro-Russia rallies in Donetsk and Kharkiv. ‘I belong to this group of people [who believe there is a Putin-Tymoshenko deal],’ Yushchenko said. ‘This is one of the biggest mysteries for Europeans … The line of relations between these two people have been significantly underestimated and Europe risks falling into their traps,’ he added.”
Ukraine Crisis–Parallel with the Crimean War of 1853…
Der Spiegel Online wrote on March 14:
“The Crimean War of 1853-1856… which ultimately consumed well over half a million lives, began when Russia sent 80,000 troops into the Ottoman-controlled Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Russia argued that it had the right and obligation to act as the guardian of orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire, much as it today claims the right to safeguard the interests of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine…
“NATO, as the alliance formed to protect Western interests in the Cold War, is focused firmly on the global balance of power, just as the Crimean coalition was in the 1850s. NATO and the EU are not coextensive and not identical in their interests. When the Americans, the Poles and the Baltic states proposed the extension of NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine in 2008, France and Germany objected, just as Prussia refused to join the anti-Russian Western coalition of 1854-5…
“The Ukrainian emergency is a reminder of how quickly events can undo the best-laid plans and produce unforeseen constellations…”
The Bible warns that oblivious people will be caught by surprise when they are being hit by another World War…which will threaten to annihilate all human life on this planet.
Libya Is Falling Apart… and Western Powers and Media Are Much to Be Blamed
The Independent wrote on March 16:
“Without a central government with any real power, Libya is falling apart. And this is happening almost three years after 19 March 2011 when the French air force stopped Mu’ammer Gaddafi’s counter-offensive to crush the uprising in Benghazi. Months later, his burnt-out tanks still lay by the road to the city. With the United States keeping its involvement as low-profile as possible, Nato launched a war in which rebel militiamen played a secondary, supportive role and ended with the overthrow and killing of Gaddafi.
“A striking feature of events in Libya in the past week is how little interest is being shown by leaders and countries which enthusiastically went to war in 2011 in the supposed interests of the Libyan people. President Obama has since spoken proudly of his role in preventing a ‘massacre’ in Benghazi at that time. But when the militiamen, whose victory Nato had assured, opened fire on a demonstration against their presence in Tripoli in November last year, killing at least 42 protesters and firing at children with anti-aircraft machine guns, there was scarcely a squeak of protest from Washington, London or Paris.
“Coincidentally, it was last week that Al-Jazeera broadcast the final episode in a three-year investigation of the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people in 1988. For years this was deemed to be Gaddafi’s greatest and certainly best-publicised crime, but the documentary proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of carrying out the bombing, was innocent. Iran, working through the Palestinian Front for The Liberation of Palestine – General Command, ordered the blowing up of Pan Am 103 in revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by the US navy earlier in 1988…
“This is not to defend Gaddafi, a maverick dictator who inflicted his puerile personality cult on his people, though he was never as bloodthirsty as Saddam Hussein or Hafez al-Assad. But the Nato powers that overthrew him – and by some accounts gave the orders to kill him – did not do so because he was a tyrannical ruler. It was rather because he pursued a quirkily nationalist policy backed by a great deal of money which was at odds with western policies in the Middle East. It is absurd to imagine that… the real objective of the war was to replace Gaddafi with a secular democracy…
“Libya is imploding. Its oil exports have fallen from 1.4 million barrels a day in 2011 to 235,000 barrels a day. Militias hold 8,000 people in prisons, many of whom say they have been tortured. Some 40,000 people from the town of Tawergha south of Misrata were driven from their homes which have been destroyed… Libya is a land of regional, tribal, ethnic warlords who are often simply well-armed racketeers exploiting their power and the absence of an adequate police force. Nobody is safe: the head of Libya’s military police was assassinated in Benghazi in October while Libya’s first post-Gaddafi prosecutor general was shot dead in Derna on 8 February. Sometimes the motive for the killing is obscure, such as the murder last week of an Indian doctor, also in Derna, which may lead to an exodus of 1,600 Indian doctors who have come to Libya since 2011 and on whom its health system depends.
“Western and regional governments share responsibility for much that has happened in Libya, but so too should the media. The Libyan uprising was reported as a simple-minded clash between good and evil. Gaddafi and his regime were demonised and his opponents treated with a naïve lack of scepticism and enquiry. The foreign media have dealt with the subsequent collapse of the Libyan state since 2011 mostly by ignoring it, though politicians have stopped referring to Libya as an exemplar of successful foreign intervention…”
Evidence for a Big Bang?
The Associated Press reported on March 18:
“Researchers say they have spotted evidence that a split-second after the Big Bang, the newly formed universe ballooned out at a pace so astonishing that it left behind ripples in the fabric of the cosmos… The discovery ‘gives us a window on the universe at the very beginning,’ when it was far less than one-trillionth of a second old, said theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University, who was not involved in the work. ‘It’s just amazing,’ Krauss said. ‘You can see back to the beginning of time.’”
As we explain in our free booklet, “The Theory of Evolution—A Fairy Tale for Adults,” the big bang theory is by no means an accurate explanation of the beginning of the universe. However, what it does admit is that the universe HAD a beginning! With this admission, it totally contradicts the Theory of Evolution. The Bible tells us of course WHY the universe had a beginning. It had a beginning and did not always exist BECAUSE GOD created it: “In the beginning, God created the heavens—the universe—and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
Pope Benedict and Pope Francis
Zenit wrote on March 19:
“Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s private secretary, has disclosed that Pope Francis asked his predecessor to write down a critique of the interview he gave the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica last August. The German archbishop, who is also Prefect of the Papal Household under Pope Francis, told the German television channel ZDF over the weekend that, after the interview was published in September, the Pope gave him the interview, instructing him to take it to Benedict XVI so he could ‘read it and write down any criticism he may have.’
“The Pope Emeritus ‘did his homework,’ Archbishop Gänswein continued. ‘He read it and, in accordance with his successor’s request, he did indeed offer some thoughts and some remarks on certain comments or certain questions on which he thought something additional could perhaps be said in another context.’…
“The interview drew controversy, especially over the Pope’s comments on abortion, contraception and same-sex ‘marriage’ … Archbishop Gänswein said the Francis and Benedict ‘have a very good relationship,’ adding that ‘clearly they are in accordance with regard to the substance… There is a marked and visible difference with regard to presentation…’”
It was also reported that both popes are expected to be present and participate in the upcoming sanctification ceremony for the canonization of Pope John Paul II in April.
