1 - Special programming was aired on one night
Rating calculations are weekly averages based on nightly ratings provided by TVNewser with data by Nielsen Media Research. Numbers reflect Live and same day (DVR) data.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Ratings For The Week of December 20th
War News for Friday, December 31, 2010
NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from a roadside bombing in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Friday, December 31st.
Reported security incidents
Baghdad:
#1-7 Two Iraqi Christians have been killed in a new wave of apparently coordinated bomb attacks in the capital just two months after militants massacred 46 Christians in a church in the city. A total of 14 bombs were placed at different Christian homes late on Thursday, an interior ministry official said on Friday. "Two Christians were killed and 16 wounded" by the 10 bombs that went off, while security forces were able to carry out controlled detonations of four other devices, the official said.
#1: The only deadly attack was in the central district of Al-Ghadir, where a home-made bomb exploded at around 8:00 pm (1700 GMT), killing the two Christians and wounding three others.
#2: Most of the 14 bombs, which targeted Christian homes in a total of seven different areas of the city, were in Karrada in central Baghdad, the official said. Three devices wounded three Christians in that area, while all four of the controlled detonations were also in Karrada.
#3: Another bomb targeted a house in Al-Ilam neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, wounding one person.
#4: two bombs wounded four people in Dora in the south of the city.
#5: one bomb in Saidiya, also in the south, wounded two people.
#6: Another device targeted a Christian home in Yarmuk in western Baghdad, wounding one, and a house in Khadra,
#7: also in the west of the city, was targeted by a bomb that wounded two people.
Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Insurgents threw hand grenades into two homes in a Taliban provincial heartland Friday, killing a child and wounding six civilians. The Kandahar governor's spokesman, Zelmai Ayubi, said authorities were investigating why the two houses in Zhari were targeted in Friday's attack. Ayubi said the child was killed by the blast in one house, while those wounded in the second included another child and a woman.
#2: NATO said Friday that several insurgents and a child had been killed in fighting during a joint operation with Afghan forces targeting a Taliban logistics officer in a compound in Wardak province east of Kabul the previous day. The joint force came under fire Thursday from the compound and fired back, killing several insurgents, it said in a statement, without specifying how many. But it said the force found an injured child while securing the compound, and despite evacuating it to a NATO hospital, the child died of its wounds.
#3: To the north in Kunduz province, a joint force killed an insurgent and detained several suspects during an operation against a militant believed to make roadside bombs and suicide vests, and to use anti-aircraft guns against NATO and Afghan forces, the coalition said.
#4: At least two Australian soldiers have been injured in an attack by Taliban militants in the south Afghanistan province of Uruzgan, local officials say. The soldiers were diffusing an explosive device in the provincial capital of Trinkut on Friday when they came under attack, a Press TV correspondent reported, quoting local officials.
The Australian Defence Force said the first digger was wounded by 'a single shot fired from an unknown location and direction' on Thursday at about 5.12pm (AEDT). The second was hit by the shooter a short time later while securing a landing zone for an aero medical evacuation.
#5: A blast badly damaged a Nato oil tanker in the bordering town of Chaman in Balochistan on Friday. Official sources said unidentified people had planted an explosive device on the rear of the tanker. The device went of with a huge explosion when it reached near border with Afghanistan. Tanker caught fire because of blast. One person sustained injuries as fire also engulfed a nearby car.
#6: 'Two policemen were killed and two others injured when Afghan forces raided an important Taliban centre,' Faiz Mohammad Tawhidi, spokesman for the provincial governor, told the German Press Agency dpa. The raid was conducted by the police on Thursday night in Khoja Bahawodin district in the northern province of Takhar. 'Six suspected insurgents were detained in the operation,' he said.
#7: One passerby was killed and one wounded in a roadside bomb blast in the northwestern town of Lakki Marwat, police said. The blast took place near towns police headquarters.
Reported security incidents
Baghdad:
#1-7 Two Iraqi Christians have been killed in a new wave of apparently coordinated bomb attacks in the capital just two months after militants massacred 46 Christians in a church in the city. A total of 14 bombs were placed at different Christian homes late on Thursday, an interior ministry official said on Friday. "Two Christians were killed and 16 wounded" by the 10 bombs that went off, while security forces were able to carry out controlled detonations of four other devices, the official said.
#1: The only deadly attack was in the central district of Al-Ghadir, where a home-made bomb exploded at around 8:00 pm (1700 GMT), killing the two Christians and wounding three others.
#2: Most of the 14 bombs, which targeted Christian homes in a total of seven different areas of the city, were in Karrada in central Baghdad, the official said. Three devices wounded three Christians in that area, while all four of the controlled detonations were also in Karrada.
#3: Another bomb targeted a house in Al-Ilam neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, wounding one person.
#4: two bombs wounded four people in Dora in the south of the city.
#5: one bomb in Saidiya, also in the south, wounded two people.
#6: Another device targeted a Christian home in Yarmuk in western Baghdad, wounding one, and a house in Khadra,
#7: also in the west of the city, was targeted by a bomb that wounded two people.
Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Insurgents threw hand grenades into two homes in a Taliban provincial heartland Friday, killing a child and wounding six civilians. The Kandahar governor's spokesman, Zelmai Ayubi, said authorities were investigating why the two houses in Zhari were targeted in Friday's attack. Ayubi said the child was killed by the blast in one house, while those wounded in the second included another child and a woman.
#2: NATO said Friday that several insurgents and a child had been killed in fighting during a joint operation with Afghan forces targeting a Taliban logistics officer in a compound in Wardak province east of Kabul the previous day. The joint force came under fire Thursday from the compound and fired back, killing several insurgents, it said in a statement, without specifying how many. But it said the force found an injured child while securing the compound, and despite evacuating it to a NATO hospital, the child died of its wounds.
#3: To the north in Kunduz province, a joint force killed an insurgent and detained several suspects during an operation against a militant believed to make roadside bombs and suicide vests, and to use anti-aircraft guns against NATO and Afghan forces, the coalition said.
#4: At least two Australian soldiers have been injured in an attack by Taliban militants in the south Afghanistan province of Uruzgan, local officials say. The soldiers were diffusing an explosive device in the provincial capital of Trinkut on Friday when they came under attack, a Press TV correspondent reported, quoting local officials.
The Australian Defence Force said the first digger was wounded by 'a single shot fired from an unknown location and direction' on Thursday at about 5.12pm (AEDT). The second was hit by the shooter a short time later while securing a landing zone for an aero medical evacuation.
#5: A blast badly damaged a Nato oil tanker in the bordering town of Chaman in Balochistan on Friday. Official sources said unidentified people had planted an explosive device on the rear of the tanker. The device went of with a huge explosion when it reached near border with Afghanistan. Tanker caught fire because of blast. One person sustained injuries as fire also engulfed a nearby car.
#6: 'Two policemen were killed and two others injured when Afghan forces raided an important Taliban centre,' Faiz Mohammad Tawhidi, spokesman for the provincial governor, told the German Press Agency dpa. The raid was conducted by the police on Thursday night in Khoja Bahawodin district in the northern province of Takhar. 'Six suspected insurgents were detained in the operation,' he said.
#7: One passerby was killed and one wounded in a roadside bomb blast in the northwestern town of Lakki Marwat, police said. The blast took place near towns police headquarters.
The secret report of Fourth Reich in the EU
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| The 1944 Red House Report, detailing 'plans of German industrialists to engage in underground activity |
three-page, closely typed report, marked 'Secret', copied to British officials and sent by air pouch to Cordell Hull, the US Secretary of State, detailed how the industrialists were to work with the Nazi Party to rebuild Germany's economy by sending money through Switzerland.
They would set up a network of secret front companies abroad. They would wait until conditions were right. And then they would take over Germany
The industrialists included representatives of Volkswagen, Krupp and Messerschmitt. Officials from the Navy and Ministry of Armaments were also at the meeting and, with incredible foresight, they decided together that the Fourth German Reich, unlike its predecessor, would be an economic rather than a military empire - but not just German.
The Red House Report, which was unearthed from US intelligence files, was the inspiration for my thriller The Budapest Protocol.
in 1944 as the Red Army advances on the besieged city, then jumps to the present day, during the election campaign for the first president of Europe . The European Union superstate is revealed as a front for a sinister conspiracy, one rooted in the last days of the Second World War.
But as I researched and wrote the novel, I realised that some of the Red House Report had become fact.
Nazi Germany did export massive amounts of capital through neutral countries. German businesses did set up a network of front companies abroad. The German economy did soon recover after 1945.
The Third Reich was defeated militarily, but powerful Nazi-era bankers, industrialists and civil servants, reborn as democrats, soon prospered in the new West Germany
Is it possible that the Fourth Reich those Nazi industrialists foresaw has, in some part at least, come to pass?
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| SS chief Heinrich Himmler with Max Faust, engineer with Nazi-backed company I. G. Farben |
The Red House Report was written by a French spy who was at the meeting in Strasbourg
The industrialists gathered at the Maison Rouge Hotel waited expectantly as SS Obergruppenfuhrer Dr Scheid began the meeting. Scheid held one of the highest ranks in the SS, equivalent to Lieutenant General. He cut an imposing figure in his tailored grey-green uniform and high, peaked cap with silver braiding. Guards were posted outside and the room had been searched for microphones.
There was a sharp intake of breath as he began to speak. German industry must realise that the war cannot be won, he declared. 'It must take steps in preparation for a post-war commercial campaign.' Such defeatist talk was treasonous - enough to earn a visit to the Gestapo's cellars, followed by a one-way trip to a concentration camp.
But Scheid had been given special licence to speak the truth – the future of the Reich was at stake. He ordered the industrialists to 'make contacts and alliances with foreign firms, but this must be done individually and without attracting any suspicion'.
The industrialists were to borrow substantial sums from foreign countries after the war.
They were especially to exploit the finances of those German firms that had already been used as fronts for economic penetration abroad, said Scheid, citing the American partners of the steel giant Krupp as well as Zeiss, Leica and the Hamburg-America Line shipping company.
But as most of the industrialists left the meeting, a handful were beckoned into another smaller gathering, presided over by Dr Bosse of the Armaments Ministry. There were secrets to be shared with the elite of the elite.
Bosse explained how, even though the Nazi Party had informed the industrialists that the war was lost, resistance against the Allies would continue until a guarantee of German unity could be obtained. He then laid out the secret three-stage strategy for the Fourth Reich.
In stage one, the industrialists were to 'prepare themselves to finance the Nazi Party, which would be forced to go underground as a Maquis', using the term for the French resistance.
Stage two would see the government allocating large sums to German industrialists to establish a 'secure post-war foundation in foreign countries', while 'existing financial reserves must be placed at the disposal of the party so that a strong German empire can be created after the defeat'.
In stage three, German businesses would set up a 'sleeper' network of agents abroad through front companies, which were to be covers for military research and intelligence, until the Nazis returned to power.
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| Auschwitz |
'The existence of these is to be known only by very few people in each industry and by chiefs of the Nazi Party,' Bosse announced.
'Each office will have a liaison agent with the party. As soon as the party becomes strong enough to re-establish its control over Germany
The exported funds were to be channelled through two banks in Zurich , or via agencies in Switzerland which bought property in Switzerland
The Nazis had been covertly sending funds through neutral countries for years.
Swiss banks, in particular the Swiss National Bank, accepted gold looted from the treasuries of Nazi-occupied countries. They accepted assets and property titles taken from Jewish businessmen in Germany
Swiss economic collaboration with the Nazis had been closely monitored by Allied intelligence.
The Red House Report's author notes: 'Previously, exports of capital by German industrialists to neutral countries had to be accomplished rather surreptitiously and by means of special influence.
'Now the Nazi Party stands behind the industrialists and urges them to save themselves by getting funds outside Germany and at the same time advance the party's plans for its post-war operations.'
The order to export foreign capital was technically illegal in Nazi Germany, but by the summer of 1944 the law did not matter.
More than two months after D-Day, the Nazis were being squeezed by the Allies from the west and the Soviets from the east. Hitler had been badly wounded in an assassination attempt. The Nazi leadership was nervous, fractious and quarrelling.
During the war years the SS had built up a gigantic economic empire, based on plunder and murder, and they planned to keep it.
A meeting such as that at the Maison Rouge would need the protection of the SS, according to Dr Adam Tooze of Cambridge University
He says: 'By 1944 any discussion of post-war planning was banned. It was extremely dangerous to do that in public. But the SS was thinking in the long-term. If you are trying to establish a workable coalition after the war, the only safe place to do it is under the auspices of the apparatus of terror.'
Shrewd SS leaders such as Otto Ohlendorf were already thinking ahead.
As commander of Einsatzgruppe D, which operated on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1942, Ohlendorf was responsible for the murder of 90,000 men, women and children.
A highly educated, intelligent lawyer and economist, Ohlendorf showed great concern for the psychological welfare of his extermination squad's gunmen: he ordered that several of them should fire simultaneously at their victims, so as to avoid any feelings of personal responsibility.
By the winter of 1943 he was transferred to the Ministry of Economics. Ohlendorf's ostensible job was focusing on export trade, but his real priority was preserving the SS's massive pan-European economic empire after Germany
Ohlendorf, who was later hanged at Nuremberg Germany
But Ohlendorf, who was also chief of the SD, the Nazi domestic security service, protected Erhard as he agreed with his views on stabilising the post-war German economy. Ohlendorf himself was protected by Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS.
Ohlendorf and Erhard feared a bout of hyper-inflation, such as the one that had destroyed the German economy in the Twenties. Such a catastrophe would render the SS's economic empire almost worthless.
The two men agreed that the post-war priority was rapid monetary stabilisation through a stable currency unit, but they realised this would have to be enforced by a friendly occupying power, as no post-war German state would have enough legitimacy to introduce a currency that would have any value.
That unit would become the Deutschmark, which was introduced in 1948. It was an astonishing success and it kick-started the German economy. With a stable currency, Germany
The German industrial conglomerates could rapidly rebuild their economic empires across Europe .
War had been extraordinarily profitable for the German economy. By 1948 - despite six years of conflict, Allied bombing and post-war reparations payments - the capital stock of assets such as equipment and buildings was larger than in 1936, thanks mainly to the armaments boom.
Erhard pondered how German industry could expand its reach across the shattered European continent. The answer was through supranationalism - the voluntary surrender of national sovereignty to an international body.
But before the common market could be set up, the Nazi industrialists had to be pardoned, and Nazi bankers and officials reintegrated. In 1957, John J. McCloy, the American High Commissioner for Germany
The two most powerful Nazi industrialists, Alfried Krupp of Krupp Industries and Friedrich Flick, whose Flick Group eventually owned a 40 per cent stake in Daimler-Benz, were released from prison after serving barely three years.
Krupp and Flick had been central figures in the Nazi economy. Their companies used slave labourers like cattle, to be worked to death.
The Krupp company soon became one of Europe 's leading industrial combines.
The Flick Group also quickly built up a new pan-European business empire. Friedrich Flick remained unrepentant about his wartime record and refused to pay a single Deutschmark in compensation until his death in July 1972 at the age of 90, when he left a fortune of more than $1billion, the equivalent of £400million at the time.
'For many leading industrial figures close to the Nazi regime, Europe became a cover for pursuing German national interests after the defeat of Hitler,' says historian Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, an adviser to Jewish former slave labourers.
'The continuity of the economy of Germany and the economies of post-war Europe is striking. Some of the leading figures in the Nazi economy became leading builders of the European Union.'
Numerous household names had exploited slave and forced labourers including BMW, Siemens and Volkswagen, which produced munitions and the V1 rocket.
Slave labour was an integral part of the Nazi war machine. Many concentration camps were attached to dedicated factories where company officials worked hand-in-hand with the SS officers overseeing the camps.
Like Krupp and Flick, Hermann Abs, post-war Germany Germany
By 1942, Abs held 40 directorships, a quarter of which were in countries occupied by the Nazis. Many of these Aryanised companies used slave labour and by 1943 Deutsche Bank's wealth had quadrupled.
Abs also sat on the supervisory board of I.G. Farben, as Deutsche Bank's representative. I.G. Farben was one of Nazi Germany's most powerful companies, formed out of a union of BASF, Bayer, Hoechst and subsidiaries in the Twenties.
It was so deeply entwined with the SS and the Nazis that it ran its own slave labour camp at Auschwitz , known as Auschwitz III, where tens of thousands of Jews and other prisoners died producing artificial rubber.
When they could work no longer, or were verbraucht (used up) in the Nazis' chilling term, they were moved to Birkenau. There they were gassed using Zyklon B, the patent for which was owned by I.G. Farben.
But like all good businessmen, I.G. Farben's bosses hedged their bets.
During the war the company had financed Ludwig Erhard's research. After the war, 24 I.G. Farben executives were indicted for war crimes over Auschwitz III - but only twelve of the 24 were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms ranging from one-and-a-half to eight years. I.G. Farben got away with mass murder.
Abs was one of the most important figures in Germany
Abs was put in charge of allocating Marshall Aid - reconstruction funds - to German industry. By 1948 he was effectively managing Germany
Crucially, Abs was also a member of the European League for Economic Co-operation, an elite intellectual pressure group set up in 1946. The league was dedicated to the establishment of a common market, the precursor of the European Union.
Its members included industrialists and financiers and it developed policies that are strikingly familiar today - on monetary integration and common transport, energy and welfare systems.
When Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of West Germany, took power in 1949, Abs was his most important financial adviser.
Behind the scenes Abs was working hard for Deutsche Bank to be allowed to reconstitute itself after decentralisation. In 1957 he succeeded and he returned to his former employer.
That same year the six members of the ECSC signed the Treaty of Rome, which set up the European Economic Community . The treaty further liberalised trade and established increasingly powerful supranational institutions including the European Parliament and European Commission.
Like Abs, Ludwig Erhard flourished in post-war Germany Germany
But the German economic miracle – so vital to the idea of a new Europe - was built on mass murder. The number of slave and forced labourers who died while employed by German companies in the Nazi era was 2,700,000.
Some sporadic compensation payments were made but German industry agreed a conclusive, global settlement only in 2000, with a £3billion compensation fund. There was no admission of legal liability and the individual compensation was paltry.
A slave labourer would receive 15,000 Deutschmarks (about £5,000), a forced labourer 5,000 (about £1,600). Any claimant accepting the deal had to undertake not to launch any further legal action.
To put this sum of money into perspective, in 2001 Volkswagen alone made profits of £1.8billion.
Next month, 27 European Union member states vote in the biggest transnational election in history. Europe now enjoys peace and stability. Germany
But the Red House Report is a bridge from a sunny present to a dark past. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, once said: 'In 50 years' time nobody will think of nation states.'
This Weekend's Programming 1/1/11
SATURDAY, January 1, 2010 – NEW YEAR’S DAY
SANJAY GUPTA, MD – Airs Saturday 7:30AM – 8:00AM
CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviews actor and advocate Michael J. Fox who speaks candidly – and sometimes humorously - about his experience with Parkinson’s disease, his foundation’s funding of a landmark study to identify biomarkers of the disease’s progression, and the need for more participation in clinical trials to more rapidly test and develop drugs that can slow or stop the progression of the disease.
FAVORITES IN FOCUS – AIRS SATURDAY 2:00PM – 3:00PM
Showcasing pieces from each of the “In Focus” series’ during the year, “Favorites in Focus” brings us the stories behind the headlines, on topics ranging from the economy to military issues to giving back. Hosted by Tom Foreman, this compelling hour of television is full of the quality storytelling the award-winning “In Focus” photojournalist team is known for.
ALMIGHTY DEBT: A BLACK IN AMERICA SPECIAL – AIRS SATURDAY 3:00PM – 5:00PM
Every leading indicator – unemployment, income, wealth, educational attainment, homeownership and foreclosures – demonstrates that the African-American financial foundation is crumbling at rates that are comparatively worse than other segments of the U.S. population. Reported by anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien, and told through experiences of members of the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens (FBCLG) in New Jersey, the first 90-minutes of this special explores how an institution central to African-American communities for generations is helping its 7,000 parishioners survive the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Following the documentary, a dynamic town hall discussion moderated by O’Brien will feature founder and senior pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes, clinical social worker and public relations executive Terrie Williams, syndicated columnist Michelle Singletary, FBCLG senior pastor Rev. Dr. DeForest Soaries, pollster Cornell Belcher and others.
TOXIC TOWNS, USA – A DR. SANJAY GUPTA SPECIAL – AIRS SATURDAY 5:00PM – 6:00PM
Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports a year-long investigation into one town’s struggle for survival amidst 14 chemical plants. More than 8 in 10 residents of tiny Mossville, Louisiana, report serious health problems such as cancers and kidney disease and claim the toxic chemicals in the air, soil and water are making them sick. Gupta challenges manufacturers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explain how residents can live safely in the shadow of chemical plants that spew tons of cancer-causing agents into the atmosphere every year.
LOSING LENNON – COUNTDOWN TO MURDER – AIRS SATURDAY 6:00PM – 7:00PM
CNN anchor John Roberts traces the final three months of the life of the remarkable artist and musician John Lennon, founding member of music supergroup, The Beatles. Roberts traces a detailed timeline of the events leading up to Lennon’s assassination by Mark David Chapman outside of Lennon’s apartment building, the Dakota, in New York City on December 8, 2010. The documentary includes new interviews with John Lennon’s oldest son Julian Lennon, record producer/friend Jack Douglas, exclusive audio interviews of Chapman and his wife, as well as the medical team that tried to save Lennon.
IN AMERICA: GARY & TONY HAVE A BABY – AIRS SATURDAY 7:00PM – 8:00PM
Gary Spino and Tony Brown have fought for gay rights all of their lives, but these days one of the most radical things a gay person can do is form a traditional family -- and that’s precisely what they want. Soledad O’Brien follows Gary and Tony on their struggle to have a baby that has a biological and legal connection to both of them. They spend a small fortune hiring an egg donor and a surrogate, and face a string of court battles. But all the medical miracles and legal maneuvering can’t guarantee the approval of the people around them… or even a baby.
HER NAME WAS STEVEN – AIRS SATURDAY 8:00PM – 10:00PM
Steven Stanton had a loving wife, beloved child, and an influential job as the City Manager of Largo, Florida. Then, the local newspaper revealed his decision live life as a woman. That revelation led to a raucous press conference followed by a televised City Council vote to remove Stanton as City Manager. Suddenly, Steven Stanton was thrust into a glaring national spotlight, while at the same time beginning a long, emotional and physical journey to become Susan Stanton. This two-hour film follows Stanton’s two-year transition through self-discovery, setbacks, challenges and self-acceptance.
TALIBAN – AIRS SATURDAY AT 10:00PM – 11:00PM
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interviews Norwegian journalist, author and film maker Paul Refsdal about his unprecedented journey behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. No Western journalist has ever spent as much time with the Taliban, with as unrestricted access, as Refsdal. Refsdal’s film and Cooper’s incisive interview form this documentary of a band of unrelenting and unrepentant Taliban fighters at war, preparing weapons, coordinating attacks, praying, and interacting with their families. It’s a journey that ended in Refsdal’s own kidnapping and harrowing escape.
ATLANTA CHILD MURDERS – AIRS SATURDAY 11:00PM – 1:00AM
Almost thirty years after the murders of more than 25 black children, teens and young adults, CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien investigates the nearly two-year siege of fear that gripped the city of Atlanta. Although Wayne Williams continues to profess his innocence from behind bars, with his arrest and conviction, he was described as both a “monster” – and the nation’s first Black serial killer. In his first television interview in 10 years, O’Brien has exclusive access to Williams and examines new evidence to offer viewers a new look at the persistent doubts, and decide for themselves who was responsible for all those lost young lives.
SUNDAY, January 2, 2010
LOSING LENNON – COUNTDOWN TO MURDER – AIRS SUNDAY 1:00AM – 2:00AM AND 5:00AM – 6:00AM
CNN anchor John Roberts traces the final three months of the life of the remarkable artist and musician John Lennon, founding member of music supergroup, The Beatles. Roberts traces a detailed timeline of the events leading up to Lennon’s assassination by Mark David Chapman outside of Lennon’s apartment building, the Dakota, in New York City on December 8, 2010. The documentary includes new interviews with John Lennon’s oldest son Julian Lennon, record producer/friend Jack Douglas, exclusive audio interviews of Chapman and his wife, as well as the medical team that tried to save Lennon.
TALIBAN – AIRS SUNDAY AT 2:00AM – 3:00AM
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interviews Norwegian journalist, author and film maker Paul Refsdal about his unprecedented journey behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. No Western journalist has ever spent as much time with the Taliban, with as unrestricted access, as Refsdal. Refsdal’s film and Cooper’s incisive interview form this documentary of a band of unrelenting and unrepentant Taliban fighters at war, preparing weapons, coordinating attacks, praying, and interacting with their families. It’s a journey that ended in Refsdal’s own kidnapping and harrowing escape.
ATLANTA CHILD MURDERS – AIRS SUNDAY 3:00AM – 5:00AM
Almost thirty years after the murders of more than 25 black children, teens and young adults, CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien investigates the nearly two-year siege of fear that gripped the city of Atlanta. Although Wayne Williams continues to profess his innocence from behind bars, with his arrest and conviction, he was described as both a “monster” – and the nation’s first Black serial killer. In his first television interview in 10 years, O’Brien has exclusive access to Williams and examines new evidence to offer viewers a new look at the persistent doubts, and decide for themselves who was responsible for all those lost young lives.
SANJAY GUPTA, MD – Airs Sunday 7:30AM – 8:00AM
CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviews actor and advocate Michael J. Fox who speaks candidly – and sometimes humorously - about his experience with Parkinson’s disease, his foundation’s funding of a landmark study to identify biomarkers of the disease’s progression, and the need for more participation in clinical trials to more rapidly test and develop drugs that can slow or stop the progression of the disease.
STATE OF THE UNION WITH CANDY CROWLEY – Airs Sunday 9:00AM – 10:00AM, NOON – 1:00PM
Topic: GOP politics, the government reform committee
Guest: Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA
Guest anchor: Ed Henry
HOW TO LEAD – A SPECIAL EDITION OF FAREED ZAKARIA GPS – Airs Sunday 10:00AM – 11:00AM and 1:00PM – 2:00PM
In these times of crisis, America needs leaders who are not just good, but great. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviews titans in business, government, and academia for insights on power, persuasion, command, and decision making. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, corporate turnaround king Lou Gerstner, Yale University president and economist Rick Levin, and former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman talk to Zakaria about how to lead, and what qualities it takes to do it right.
RELIABLE SOURCES – Airs 11:00AM – NOON
Topic: New book, today’s media culture, press coverage of President Obama
Guest: Dick Cavett, Former Talk Show Host, "The Dick Cavett Show"
Host: Howard Kurtz
All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things CNN and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.
SANJAY GUPTA, MD – Airs Saturday 7:30AM – 8:00AM
CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviews actor and advocate Michael J. Fox who speaks candidly – and sometimes humorously - about his experience with Parkinson’s disease, his foundation’s funding of a landmark study to identify biomarkers of the disease’s progression, and the need for more participation in clinical trials to more rapidly test and develop drugs that can slow or stop the progression of the disease.
FAVORITES IN FOCUS – AIRS SATURDAY 2:00PM – 3:00PM
Showcasing pieces from each of the “In Focus” series’ during the year, “Favorites in Focus” brings us the stories behind the headlines, on topics ranging from the economy to military issues to giving back. Hosted by Tom Foreman, this compelling hour of television is full of the quality storytelling the award-winning “In Focus” photojournalist team is known for.
ALMIGHTY DEBT: A BLACK IN AMERICA SPECIAL – AIRS SATURDAY 3:00PM – 5:00PM
Every leading indicator – unemployment, income, wealth, educational attainment, homeownership and foreclosures – demonstrates that the African-American financial foundation is crumbling at rates that are comparatively worse than other segments of the U.S. population. Reported by anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien, and told through experiences of members of the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens (FBCLG) in New Jersey, the first 90-minutes of this special explores how an institution central to African-American communities for generations is helping its 7,000 parishioners survive the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Following the documentary, a dynamic town hall discussion moderated by O’Brien will feature founder and senior pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes, clinical social worker and public relations executive Terrie Williams, syndicated columnist Michelle Singletary, FBCLG senior pastor Rev. Dr. DeForest Soaries, pollster Cornell Belcher and others.
TOXIC TOWNS, USA – A DR. SANJAY GUPTA SPECIAL – AIRS SATURDAY 5:00PM – 6:00PM
Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports a year-long investigation into one town’s struggle for survival amidst 14 chemical plants. More than 8 in 10 residents of tiny Mossville, Louisiana, report serious health problems such as cancers and kidney disease and claim the toxic chemicals in the air, soil and water are making them sick. Gupta challenges manufacturers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explain how residents can live safely in the shadow of chemical plants that spew tons of cancer-causing agents into the atmosphere every year.
LOSING LENNON – COUNTDOWN TO MURDER – AIRS SATURDAY 6:00PM – 7:00PM
CNN anchor John Roberts traces the final three months of the life of the remarkable artist and musician John Lennon, founding member of music supergroup, The Beatles. Roberts traces a detailed timeline of the events leading up to Lennon’s assassination by Mark David Chapman outside of Lennon’s apartment building, the Dakota, in New York City on December 8, 2010. The documentary includes new interviews with John Lennon’s oldest son Julian Lennon, record producer/friend Jack Douglas, exclusive audio interviews of Chapman and his wife, as well as the medical team that tried to save Lennon.
IN AMERICA: GARY & TONY HAVE A BABY – AIRS SATURDAY 7:00PM – 8:00PM
Gary Spino and Tony Brown have fought for gay rights all of their lives, but these days one of the most radical things a gay person can do is form a traditional family -- and that’s precisely what they want. Soledad O’Brien follows Gary and Tony on their struggle to have a baby that has a biological and legal connection to both of them. They spend a small fortune hiring an egg donor and a surrogate, and face a string of court battles. But all the medical miracles and legal maneuvering can’t guarantee the approval of the people around them… or even a baby.
HER NAME WAS STEVEN – AIRS SATURDAY 8:00PM – 10:00PM
Steven Stanton had a loving wife, beloved child, and an influential job as the City Manager of Largo, Florida. Then, the local newspaper revealed his decision live life as a woman. That revelation led to a raucous press conference followed by a televised City Council vote to remove Stanton as City Manager. Suddenly, Steven Stanton was thrust into a glaring national spotlight, while at the same time beginning a long, emotional and physical journey to become Susan Stanton. This two-hour film follows Stanton’s two-year transition through self-discovery, setbacks, challenges and self-acceptance.
TALIBAN – AIRS SATURDAY AT 10:00PM – 11:00PM
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interviews Norwegian journalist, author and film maker Paul Refsdal about his unprecedented journey behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. No Western journalist has ever spent as much time with the Taliban, with as unrestricted access, as Refsdal. Refsdal’s film and Cooper’s incisive interview form this documentary of a band of unrelenting and unrepentant Taliban fighters at war, preparing weapons, coordinating attacks, praying, and interacting with their families. It’s a journey that ended in Refsdal’s own kidnapping and harrowing escape.
ATLANTA CHILD MURDERS – AIRS SATURDAY 11:00PM – 1:00AM
Almost thirty years after the murders of more than 25 black children, teens and young adults, CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien investigates the nearly two-year siege of fear that gripped the city of Atlanta. Although Wayne Williams continues to profess his innocence from behind bars, with his arrest and conviction, he was described as both a “monster” – and the nation’s first Black serial killer. In his first television interview in 10 years, O’Brien has exclusive access to Williams and examines new evidence to offer viewers a new look at the persistent doubts, and decide for themselves who was responsible for all those lost young lives.
SUNDAY, January 2, 2010
LOSING LENNON – COUNTDOWN TO MURDER – AIRS SUNDAY 1:00AM – 2:00AM AND 5:00AM – 6:00AM
CNN anchor John Roberts traces the final three months of the life of the remarkable artist and musician John Lennon, founding member of music supergroup, The Beatles. Roberts traces a detailed timeline of the events leading up to Lennon’s assassination by Mark David Chapman outside of Lennon’s apartment building, the Dakota, in New York City on December 8, 2010. The documentary includes new interviews with John Lennon’s oldest son Julian Lennon, record producer/friend Jack Douglas, exclusive audio interviews of Chapman and his wife, as well as the medical team that tried to save Lennon.
TALIBAN – AIRS SUNDAY AT 2:00AM – 3:00AM
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interviews Norwegian journalist, author and film maker Paul Refsdal about his unprecedented journey behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. No Western journalist has ever spent as much time with the Taliban, with as unrestricted access, as Refsdal. Refsdal’s film and Cooper’s incisive interview form this documentary of a band of unrelenting and unrepentant Taliban fighters at war, preparing weapons, coordinating attacks, praying, and interacting with their families. It’s a journey that ended in Refsdal’s own kidnapping and harrowing escape.
ATLANTA CHILD MURDERS – AIRS SUNDAY 3:00AM – 5:00AM
Almost thirty years after the murders of more than 25 black children, teens and young adults, CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien investigates the nearly two-year siege of fear that gripped the city of Atlanta. Although Wayne Williams continues to profess his innocence from behind bars, with his arrest and conviction, he was described as both a “monster” – and the nation’s first Black serial killer. In his first television interview in 10 years, O’Brien has exclusive access to Williams and examines new evidence to offer viewers a new look at the persistent doubts, and decide for themselves who was responsible for all those lost young lives.
SANJAY GUPTA, MD – Airs Sunday 7:30AM – 8:00AM
CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviews actor and advocate Michael J. Fox who speaks candidly – and sometimes humorously - about his experience with Parkinson’s disease, his foundation’s funding of a landmark study to identify biomarkers of the disease’s progression, and the need for more participation in clinical trials to more rapidly test and develop drugs that can slow or stop the progression of the disease.
STATE OF THE UNION WITH CANDY CROWLEY – Airs Sunday 9:00AM – 10:00AM, NOON – 1:00PM
Topic: GOP politics, the government reform committee
Guest: Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA
Guest anchor: Ed Henry
HOW TO LEAD – A SPECIAL EDITION OF FAREED ZAKARIA GPS – Airs Sunday 10:00AM – 11:00AM and 1:00PM – 2:00PM
In these times of crisis, America needs leaders who are not just good, but great. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviews titans in business, government, and academia for insights on power, persuasion, command, and decision making. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, corporate turnaround king Lou Gerstner, Yale University president and economist Rick Levin, and former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman talk to Zakaria about how to lead, and what qualities it takes to do it right.
RELIABLE SOURCES – Airs 11:00AM – NOON
Topic: New book, today’s media culture, press coverage of President Obama
Guest: Dick Cavett, Former Talk Show Host, "The Dick Cavett Show"
Host: Howard Kurtz
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Coming to the End of the Year
Below are notes from the two Christmas Eve services.
I'm still catching up, including dealing with a toothache yesterday by seeings two dentists and having a root canal procedure all in an afternoon! At that pace it's going to be a very productive New Year!
--Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor
When we come on Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we are doing something that feels increasingly anachronistic. An evangelical group published a survey this week that suggests fewer people actually DO anything religious at Christmas, even if they say "Jesus is the reason for the season."
But I dare to believe that those of us who see ourselves on a spiritual journey will continue to come to Christmas Eve services because it's here in sharing the stories, singing the carols, lighting the candles, and partaking in Communion that we find "Light for the Journey."
If you drop by our church web page, you'll see the phrase, along with a reference to John 1:4 ". . . the life was the light of all people . . " Of course the phrase is a reference to the Incarnation story which I read from the Prologue to the Gospel of John. And it's also a reference to our church's commitment as a "More Light" Presbyterian Church, welcoming people of all sexual orientations. For me, the deepest and most inclusive meaning of the phrase "Light for the Journey" is how it describes the way on person can inspire and encourage another on the path of life. Each one of us can be a light-bearer for people who are living in a land or a time of shadows. And that's why I will continue going to Christmas Eve worship as long as I can get out of my house.
I have a story from you from Robert Fulghum. He has a habit. Whenever anyone asks, at the end of a lecture (or any other context), “Does anyone have any questions?” Fulghum always asks “What is the Meaning of Life?” The question always gets the same response: laughter. But he continues to ask, as he says, “You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I’d really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask.”
One Summer Fulghum was taking a seminar on the Island of Crete at an institute dedicated to human understanding and peace, especially between Germans and Cretans. An improbable task, given the bitter residue of wartime.
The site is important, because it overlooks the small airstrip at Maleme where Nazi paratroopers invaded Crete and were attacked by peasants wielding kitchen knives and hay scythes. The retribution was terrible. The populations of whole villages were lined up and shot for assaulting Hitler's finest troops.
High above the institute is a cemetery with a single cross marking the mass grave of Cretan partisans. And across the bay on yet another hill is the regimented burial ground of the Nazi paratroopers. The memorials are so placed that all might see and never forget. Hate was the only weapon the Cretans had at the end, and it was a weapon many vowed never to give up. Never ever.
Against this heavy curtain of history, in this place where the stone of hatred is hard and thick, the existence of an institute devoted to healing the wounds of war is a fragile paradox. How has it come to be here? The answer is a man. Alexander Papaderos.
A doctor of philosophy, teacher, politician, resident of Athens but a son of this soil. At war's end he came to believe that the Germans and the Cretans had much to give one another -- much to learn from one another. That they had an example to set. For if they could forgive each other and construct a creative relationship, then any people could.
To make a lovely story short, Papaderos succeeded. The institute became a reality -- a conference ground on the site of horror -- and it was in fact a source of productive interaction between the two countries. Books have been written on the dreams that were realized by what people gave to people in this place.
By the time Fulgham went to the institute, Alexander Papaderos had become a living legend. One look at him and you saw his strength and intensity -- energy, physical power, courage, intelligence, passion, and vivacity radiated from this person. And to speak to him, to shake his hand, to be in a room with him when he spoke, was to experience his extraordinary electric humanity. Few men live up to their reputations when you get close. Alexander Papaderos was an exception.
Picture the scene: At the end of the week-long seminar, as people were preparing to leave. Papaderos asked, “Are their any questions?” Fulghum responded, “What is the Meaning of Life?” People laughed, but not Papaderos. He raised his hand and quieted the class. Looking deeply into Fulghum’s eyes, he pulled out of his wallet a small round mirror. He said, “I will answer your question.”
“When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.
I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine- in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
I kept the little mirror and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game, but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But that light, truth, understanding, knowledge are there, and will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.
I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world-into the most-shadowed places in the hearts of people and change some things in a few. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is the meaning of my life.
You may, if you choose, give meaning to life by what you do and what you are. You will make a difference in the world if you let your light shine. You can turn Christmas into a year-round reality if you take the little mirror from the offering plate and let it remind you that the light of Christ journeys with you every day. Amen.
(story from the book, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, by Robert Fulghum, the same guy who wrote All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
"Holy Night, Blessed Night" Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor
What makes a night holy? What makes a night blessed? (read words from cover)
Tonight we can welcome Jesus to be born into our lives. Let me invite you to close your eyes… Imagine yourself as a tiny baby about to be born.
It’s dark; it’s peaceful; it’s safe; and it’s getting crowded.
Now imagine you are born!
You stretch,... take a deep breath—your very first! You look around, and everything you see
and hear and smell and taste and touch is new and wonderful.
Imagine being held in loving arms. Imagine feeling safe and warm and content.
Now, be yourself again, and open your eyes
You are here, surrounded by God’s family.
Look around: Every person you see is much like you:
wanting to be loved, wanting to give love, wanting life to be new and exciting and joyous.
Every person you see is precious to God,
as precious as a newborn baby, as precious as every other part of creation, as precious as you.
Now imagine that you are holding a baby tenderly in your arms. (cradle an imaginary baby.)
Imagine that you are rocking the baby gently.
Gaze into the baby’s eyes.
Think of the hopes and dreams that you have for this child.
Now imagine that you are holding the Christ Child—baby Jesus
Imagine that what you are holding is every hope and dream you have ever had.
Imagine you are holding the hopes and dreams of every person on earth.
Imagine you are holding God’s hopes.
(Pause)
And now let us stop imagining.
Let us really and truly hold close our hopes and dreams for God’s peace on earth.
Let us really and truly love one another as God loves us.
Let us truly welcome the newborn Christ into our lives as we sing one verse of Away in a Manger!
I'm still catching up, including dealing with a toothache yesterday by seeings two dentists and having a root canal procedure all in an afternoon! At that pace it's going to be a very productive New Year!
--Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor
Christmas Eve 10 PM "Light for the Journey"
Before Matthew and Luke and John sat down to write their stories of Jesus' birth, they made sure to visit the Department of Gospel Publishing and apply for an official Evangelist's License. The license gave them permission to use their imagination in rearranging experience to improve a story, so long as it served the standard of Truth-in-the-larger-sense. The truth of poetry and parable do not compete with the truth of science or the courtroom. They trusted us to know the difference.When we come on Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we are doing something that feels increasingly anachronistic. An evangelical group published a survey this week that suggests fewer people actually DO anything religious at Christmas, even if they say "Jesus is the reason for the season."
But I dare to believe that those of us who see ourselves on a spiritual journey will continue to come to Christmas Eve services because it's here in sharing the stories, singing the carols, lighting the candles, and partaking in Communion that we find "Light for the Journey."
If you drop by our church web page, you'll see the phrase, along with a reference to John 1:4 ". . . the life was the light of all people . . " Of course the phrase is a reference to the Incarnation story which I read from the Prologue to the Gospel of John. And it's also a reference to our church's commitment as a "More Light" Presbyterian Church, welcoming people of all sexual orientations. For me, the deepest and most inclusive meaning of the phrase "Light for the Journey" is how it describes the way on person can inspire and encourage another on the path of life. Each one of us can be a light-bearer for people who are living in a land or a time of shadows. And that's why I will continue going to Christmas Eve worship as long as I can get out of my house.
I have a story from you from Robert Fulghum. He has a habit. Whenever anyone asks, at the end of a lecture (or any other context), “Does anyone have any questions?” Fulghum always asks “What is the Meaning of Life?” The question always gets the same response: laughter. But he continues to ask, as he says, “You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I’d really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask.”
One Summer Fulghum was taking a seminar on the Island of Crete at an institute dedicated to human understanding and peace, especially between Germans and Cretans. An improbable task, given the bitter residue of wartime.
The site is important, because it overlooks the small airstrip at Maleme where Nazi paratroopers invaded Crete and were attacked by peasants wielding kitchen knives and hay scythes. The retribution was terrible. The populations of whole villages were lined up and shot for assaulting Hitler's finest troops.
High above the institute is a cemetery with a single cross marking the mass grave of Cretan partisans. And across the bay on yet another hill is the regimented burial ground of the Nazi paratroopers. The memorials are so placed that all might see and never forget. Hate was the only weapon the Cretans had at the end, and it was a weapon many vowed never to give up. Never ever.
Against this heavy curtain of history, in this place where the stone of hatred is hard and thick, the existence of an institute devoted to healing the wounds of war is a fragile paradox. How has it come to be here? The answer is a man. Alexander Papaderos.
A doctor of philosophy, teacher, politician, resident of Athens but a son of this soil. At war's end he came to believe that the Germans and the Cretans had much to give one another -- much to learn from one another. That they had an example to set. For if they could forgive each other and construct a creative relationship, then any people could.
To make a lovely story short, Papaderos succeeded. The institute became a reality -- a conference ground on the site of horror -- and it was in fact a source of productive interaction between the two countries. Books have been written on the dreams that were realized by what people gave to people in this place.
By the time Fulgham went to the institute, Alexander Papaderos had become a living legend. One look at him and you saw his strength and intensity -- energy, physical power, courage, intelligence, passion, and vivacity radiated from this person. And to speak to him, to shake his hand, to be in a room with him when he spoke, was to experience his extraordinary electric humanity. Few men live up to their reputations when you get close. Alexander Papaderos was an exception.
Picture the scene: At the end of the week-long seminar, as people were preparing to leave. Papaderos asked, “Are their any questions?” Fulghum responded, “What is the Meaning of Life?” People laughed, but not Papaderos. He raised his hand and quieted the class. Looking deeply into Fulghum’s eyes, he pulled out of his wallet a small round mirror. He said, “I will answer your question.”
“When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.
I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine- in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
I kept the little mirror and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game, but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But that light, truth, understanding, knowledge are there, and will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.
I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world-into the most-shadowed places in the hearts of people and change some things in a few. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is the meaning of my life.
You may, if you choose, give meaning to life by what you do and what you are. You will make a difference in the world if you let your light shine. You can turn Christmas into a year-round reality if you take the little mirror from the offering plate and let it remind you that the light of Christ journeys with you every day. Amen.
(story from the book, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, by Robert Fulghum, the same guy who wrote All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
Outline for 5 PM Meditation (based on Whole People of God curriculum)
"Holy Night, Blessed Night" Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor
What makes a night holy? What makes a night blessed? (read words from cover)
Tonight we can welcome Jesus to be born into our lives. Let me invite you to close your eyes… Imagine yourself as a tiny baby about to be born.
It’s dark; it’s peaceful; it’s safe; and it’s getting crowded.
Now imagine you are born!
You stretch,... take a deep breath—your very first! You look around, and everything you see
and hear and smell and taste and touch is new and wonderful.
Imagine being held in loving arms. Imagine feeling safe and warm and content.
Now, be yourself again, and open your eyes
You are here, surrounded by God’s family.
Look around: Every person you see is much like you:
wanting to be loved, wanting to give love, wanting life to be new and exciting and joyous.
Every person you see is precious to God,
as precious as a newborn baby, as precious as every other part of creation, as precious as you.
Now imagine that you are holding a baby tenderly in your arms. (cradle an imaginary baby.)
Imagine that you are rocking the baby gently.
Gaze into the baby’s eyes.
Think of the hopes and dreams that you have for this child.
Now imagine that you are holding the Christ Child—baby Jesus
Imagine that what you are holding is every hope and dream you have ever had.
Imagine you are holding the hopes and dreams of every person on earth.
Imagine you are holding God’s hopes.
(Pause)
And now let us stop imagining.
Let us really and truly hold close our hopes and dreams for God’s peace on earth.
Let us really and truly love one another as God loves us.
Let us truly welcome the newborn Christ into our lives as we sing one verse of Away in a Manger!
China To Cut Exports Of Rare Earth Minerals
CHINA NEWS - In a recent decision by the Chinese government, it has been declared to cut the export of rare earth minerals by 10% in 2011. China is the biggest exporter of rare earth minerals and many manufacturers from all over the world are largely dependent on it for these minerals for the producing electronic goods such as TVs and PC monitors.
It is reported that China has taken 97% market share of the world's known supply of the goods, whereas the Us mined none last year.
Rare earth minerals are essential to manufacture electronic devices and other semiconductor appliance. These are the collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table: scandium, yttrium, and some fifteen lanthanides.
Second to China there are two Australian organizations, which are about to mine rare earth minerals, acquiring more than 10% on the news.
Australia's Lynas Corp is the richest known deposit of minerals has gained momentous growth in last year with 10.8%, while another Australian company Arafura rose 11.1%.
The US expressed its concern about China's stiff decision to restraints on rare earth materials, antimony and tungsten, and probably could file a case against the country at the World Trade Organization.
In Septemberr, China stopped exporting minerals to Japan after a friction over a territorial dispute, but later resumed the export.
China has been cut export of rare earth minerals over past several years because of its large domestic demand.
A Commerce Ministry spokesman has also said that due to environmental concern, China is contemplating to cut down its supply side too, reining in exploration, production and exports.China Will Cut Exports Of Rare Earth Minerals
UAE: Court sets precedent for death penalty application
ABU DHABI -- The emirate's highest court has ordered a convicted murderer to be retried under an alternative Islamic school of legal thought that may allow for him to be sentenced to death.
The ruling by the Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation is a legal precedent in a case in which the killer was sentenced by two lower courts to 15 years in prison, instead of the death penalty, because he was a Muslim and the victim was not.
Abu Dhabi courts and the Federal Supreme Court hear cases under the Maliki school of Islamic legal thought, which includes rulings that a Muslim who murders a non-Muslim cannot face execution.
In this case, the Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation ordered it be tried under Hanafi teachings, the only Sunni school of jurisprudence that calls for the death penalty if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim.
The current case, from 2008, involved a Sudanese Muslim man who murdered a Christian woman from Ethiopia by stabbing her 17 times.
The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance found him guilty of premeditated murder, sentenced him to 15 years in prison and ordered him to pay Dh100,000 in blood money.
The Abu Dhabi Court of Appeals upheld the sentence and public prosecutors appealed the case to the Court of Cassation.
Prosecutors presented two main arguments. They said it was in the interest of the country to try Muslims and non-Muslims under Hanafi to ensure equality for all residents. They also said the victim was a legitimate resident and therefore entitled to protection, security and sanctity for her "blood, honour and money".
Chief Justice Al Siddiq Abulhassan Mohammed of the Court of Cassation agreed, overturned the sentence and sent the case back to the appeal court to be tried under Hanafi. The appellate court sentenced the man to death.
Court of Cassation rulings are binding on local courts, so judges in the emirate will be required to treat the murder of a non-Muslim in the same light as that of a Muslim. Murder cases are tried under Sharia, which requires the death penalty if the victim's family demands it.
Dr Ahmed al Kubaisi, the head of Sharia studies at UAE University, praised the ruling which he said considered the wider and long-term interests of the country as ordained by Sharia.
Dr al Kubaisi said Islamic law required judges to use their discretion when there was a conflict between justice and politics.
"In Islamic jurisprudence judges can announce that a person is sentenced to death in accordance with Sharia but should not be killed in consideration of politics," Dr al Kubaisi said. "In Islamic law the interests of the nation precede the interests of the individual.
"Justice that safeguards the interests of the whole nation is preferable to that which safeguards the interests of the individual. The ruling is completely sound according to Islamic law."
The Hanafi school is one of four schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam, and the oldest.
Hanafi scholars argue that Sharia requires the death penalty for all murderers regardless of their religious background. They note that an Islamic text that prohibits the killing of a Muslim for taking a non-Muslim life was meant to be applied only in times of war.
The Court of Cassation's ruling is final, and not subject to appeal.
Source: The National, December 30, 2010
War News for Thursday, December 30, 2010
Iraq's oil output up but snarls continue
Afghan hospital chief sacked following suicide attacks
Britain releases secret files on Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Disappearances With Reported Ties to Pakistan Worry U.S.
Advocacy group: 57 reporters killed in 2010
Reported security incidents
Baghdad:
#1: Chief of al-Madaen Criminal Court was wounded on Wednesday by a sticky bomb in southern Baghdad, according to a security source. “Judge Ahmad Baroud was seriously wounded when a bomb, stuck to his private car, went off in central al-Madaen market, southern Baghdad,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
#2: “Two Katusha rockets fell early on Thursday, first close to al-Zawraa Court in west Baghdad’s Mansour District, and the other on a square, not far from the same area, wounding five civilians and causing damage to a number of cars and nearby shops,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
#3: A roadside bomb wounded two civilians when it went off in Baghdads southern Doura district, police said.
#4: Armed men using silenced weapons attacked a police patrol in Baghdads western Amiriya district, wounding two policemen, police said.
Salman Pak:
#1: A bomb attached to the car of a local judge wounded him when it went off in Salman Pak, 30 km (20 miles) southeast of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.
Kirkuk:
#1: Gunmen killed a man in the garden of his house in northern Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Afghan and foreign forces killed at least five Taliban insurgents in assaults in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains, the former hideout of al- Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Afghan police and NATO officials said on Wednesday. Insurgents had recently begun gathering in the remote Tora Bora area in the province of Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan, to prepare attacks on Afghan and NATO troops, said provincial police chief Ali Shah Paktiawal. Afghan security forces and troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were conducting operations throughout the area to root out the insurgents, he said. Paktiawal said the attack killed at least five, and possibly seven, insurgents and took place in the Pachir wa Agam district of Nangarhar province overnight. ISAF said in a statement that an air strike had killed five insurgents in Pachir wa Agam, through which the Tora Bora mountains stretch. The strike was ordered against a "senior leader" believed to be responsible for planning and conducting attacks against Afghan and foreign troops.
#2: A roadside bomb blew up next to a minibus at a crowded intersection on a major highway in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least 14 civilians, officials said. The blast struck the minibus in the Lashkar Gah-Sangin district in Helmand province on the main road running from the city of Kandahar to Herat, said Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand governor's office. He said four others were wounded in the blast and that the dead included women and children.
#3: In an attack on one of the few calm provinces, the Taliban fired two rockets into Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. Master Sgt. Jason Haag, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, said "two indirect fire" hit Bagram.
#4: US forces clashed with terrorists in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, fending off a Taliban assault for the second time in as many days. US soldiers came under small arms fire on Wednesday morning as they set up a combat outpost in Kunar province, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The terrorists fired from a hillside and the US troops returned fire with rifles and artillery.
#5: A Pakistani government official say helicopter gunships pounded a militant hideout in the country's northwest, killing at least 20 suspected insurgents. Jamil Khan says the army launched the strike Thursday morning in the Chinarak area of the Kurram tribal region after receiving intelligence reports about insurgents gathering there. He says the choppers also destroyed an explosives-laden vehicle. Kurram is located near the Afghan border. Many Taliban militants escaping a Pakistan army operation in the nearby Orakzai tribal region are believed to have fled there.
#6: An Afghan civilian and an insurgent were killed in Helmand province on Wednesday during a clash between militants and ISAF troops, the force said. As foreign troops moved towards the insurgents position in Nad Ali district, they came across an Afghan civilian who said the militants had shot his daughter. The woman later died of her wounds, ISAF said
#7: Gunmen attacked two trucks carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, killing a driver, a senior government official said.
MoD: WO2 Charles Henry Wood
DoD: Cpl. Tevan L. Nguyen
Afghan hospital chief sacked following suicide attacks
Britain releases secret files on Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Disappearances With Reported Ties to Pakistan Worry U.S.
Advocacy group: 57 reporters killed in 2010
Reported security incidents
Baghdad:
#1: Chief of al-Madaen Criminal Court was wounded on Wednesday by a sticky bomb in southern Baghdad, according to a security source. “Judge Ahmad Baroud was seriously wounded when a bomb, stuck to his private car, went off in central al-Madaen market, southern Baghdad,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
#2: “Two Katusha rockets fell early on Thursday, first close to al-Zawraa Court in west Baghdad’s Mansour District, and the other on a square, not far from the same area, wounding five civilians and causing damage to a number of cars and nearby shops,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
#3: A roadside bomb wounded two civilians when it went off in Baghdads southern Doura district, police said.
#4: Armed men using silenced weapons attacked a police patrol in Baghdads western Amiriya district, wounding two policemen, police said.
Salman Pak:
#1: A bomb attached to the car of a local judge wounded him when it went off in Salman Pak, 30 km (20 miles) southeast of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.
Kirkuk:
#1: Gunmen killed a man in the garden of his house in northern Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Afghan and foreign forces killed at least five Taliban insurgents in assaults in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains, the former hideout of al- Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Afghan police and NATO officials said on Wednesday. Insurgents had recently begun gathering in the remote Tora Bora area in the province of Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan, to prepare attacks on Afghan and NATO troops, said provincial police chief Ali Shah Paktiawal. Afghan security forces and troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were conducting operations throughout the area to root out the insurgents, he said. Paktiawal said the attack killed at least five, and possibly seven, insurgents and took place in the Pachir wa Agam district of Nangarhar province overnight. ISAF said in a statement that an air strike had killed five insurgents in Pachir wa Agam, through which the Tora Bora mountains stretch. The strike was ordered against a "senior leader" believed to be responsible for planning and conducting attacks against Afghan and foreign troops.
#2: A roadside bomb blew up next to a minibus at a crowded intersection on a major highway in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least 14 civilians, officials said. The blast struck the minibus in the Lashkar Gah-Sangin district in Helmand province on the main road running from the city of Kandahar to Herat, said Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand governor's office. He said four others were wounded in the blast and that the dead included women and children.
#3: In an attack on one of the few calm provinces, the Taliban fired two rockets into Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. Master Sgt. Jason Haag, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, said "two indirect fire" hit Bagram.
#4: US forces clashed with terrorists in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, fending off a Taliban assault for the second time in as many days. US soldiers came under small arms fire on Wednesday morning as they set up a combat outpost in Kunar province, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The terrorists fired from a hillside and the US troops returned fire with rifles and artillery.
#5: A Pakistani government official say helicopter gunships pounded a militant hideout in the country's northwest, killing at least 20 suspected insurgents. Jamil Khan says the army launched the strike Thursday morning in the Chinarak area of the Kurram tribal region after receiving intelligence reports about insurgents gathering there. He says the choppers also destroyed an explosives-laden vehicle. Kurram is located near the Afghan border. Many Taliban militants escaping a Pakistan army operation in the nearby Orakzai tribal region are believed to have fled there.
#6: An Afghan civilian and an insurgent were killed in Helmand province on Wednesday during a clash between militants and ISAF troops, the force said. As foreign troops moved towards the insurgents position in Nad Ali district, they came across an Afghan civilian who said the militants had shot his daughter. The woman later died of her wounds, ISAF said
#7: Gunmen attacked two trucks carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, killing a driver, a senior government official said.
MoD: WO2 Charles Henry Wood
DoD: Cpl. Tevan L. Nguyen
The cost of American spying network 31 billion dollars
The unprecedented network involves local police, state and military authorities feeding a growing database on thousands of US citizens and residents, even though many have never been charged with breaking the law, the Post reported, citing numerous interviews and 1,000 documents.
The apparatus breaks new ground in the United States — where domestic security measures traditionally have faced legal limits — and raises questions about safeguards for privacy and civil liberties.
There was no immediate comment on the report from the Department of Homeland Security, which has built up the network with billions of dollars in grants to state governments since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The effort is driven by concerns about “homegrown” terrorism, with a spate of recent cases involving US
The information compiled on Americans is supposed to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but the program’s efficacy remains unclear while rights groups worry about the effect on civil liberties, the Post wrote.
“It opens a door for all kinds of abuses,” Michael German, a former FBI agent at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the paper. “How do we know there are enough controls?”
The domestic apparatus includes 4,058 federal, state and local organizations, with at least 935 created since the 2001 attacks or newly focused on counter-terrorism, the paper wrote.
The FBI maintains a database of profiles on tens of thousands of Americans reported to be “acting suspiciously,” and local and state police started contributing to the files two years ago.
Some 890 state and local agencies have filed 7,197 reports, but there have been no convictions yet in any of the cases, the paper said.
Under current plans, the new Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, or SAR, will ensure that a central database will one day contain files sent in by all of the country’s police departments.
The network has local police working as intelligence “analysts” without the extensive training of FBI or CIA officers.
Some police departments have hired instructors with hardline views who portray the country’s Islamic community as overrun with radical extremists, the paper wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security told the newspaper it was working on guidelines for local authorities seeking out terrorism experts.
The Post investigation also revealed that technologies and methods developed for use in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now being employed by law enforcement agencies in the United States
These include hand-held fingerprint scanners, biometric data devices and unmanned aircraft monitoring the border with Mexico and Canada
The cost of the domestic spying network is difficult to measure, but the Department of Homeland Security has provided in grants since 2003
The case of Oliver Wendell Holmes
The best illustration turns out to be a 1927 case known as Buck vs. Bell
when the political fight broke out over Sonia Sotomayor's assertion that a judge's ethnic and socioeconomic background might actually influence how he or she interprets the law, I cracked the history books to find support for that fairly obvious point.
Holmes, perhaps the most revered of all Supreme Court justices, was always proud of his opinion in Buck vs. Bell , which upheld a Virginia
Before we reconsider Buck vs. Bell
The attack is based partially on a speech she delivered at UC Berkeley Law School in 2001. Challenging a notion attributed to former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that "a wise old man and a wise old woman" on the Court should come to the same legal conclusion, Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
For conservatives, that's the money quote. Yet Sotomayor developed this idea with greater nuance. She acknowledged that people of "different experiences or backgrounds" are often quite capable of "understanding the values and needs of people from a different group." But she endorsed the view that "in any group of human beings there is a diversity of opinion because there is both a diversity of experiences and of thought."
Mumbai-style" terror attack against targets in London
On December 20th British authorities are charging nine men arrested with preparing to carry out a "Mumbai-style" terror attack against targets in London
"I have today advised the police that nine men should be charged with conspiracy to cause explosions and with engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism with the intention of either committing acts of terrorism, or assisting another to commit such acts," said Sue Hemming, head of the Crown Prosecution Service Counter Terrorism Division.
The men are being charged under Britain
The plotters, mainly of Pakistani origin but also including some Bangladeshis, lived throughout the United Kingdom Stoke-on-Trent . Two other suspects, Mohammed Moksudur Rahman Chowdhury and Shah Mohammed Lutfar Rahman, were from London
"Last week's raids are said to have come after several months of surveillance and monitoring by police and MI5 officers," the Guardian reported. The operation was the most high-profile anti-terror raid in Britain since April 2009, when 12 men were detained across northern England Sweden 's first suicide bomber, Taimour Abdulwahab Abdaly, was radicalized while living and studying in the British town of Luton
the great dirty secretes of A I G company
Some may be surprised to learn that AIG is a subsidiary of American International Corporation (AIC) and the parent has a most interesting history. AIC has succeeded in remaining invisible and does that by relying on secrecy because that’s how its founders liked it. John D. Rockefeller, Sr., of Robber Baron fame, started the company in 1910. Other Barons of industry joined John D.; Andrew Mellon, J.P. Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. Other American industrialists and bankers also joined the AIC venture. The reason such an illustrious group of giants came together was that knew the financial clout they could exert together would bring them even more wealth, but more importantly, power; at a time when there were few government restrictions interfering with business.
Rockefeller, the oil man, knew that Russia would become of major importance because of the discovery of oil in Baku near the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan Baku United States Europe to Rothschild.
In order to succeed in Russia Rockefeller realized the Tsar had to go.
Rockefeller, Morgan, Mellon and their banker friends were already well on their way to creating a central federal bank owned by them and getting the US to enact a national income tax to repay what the United States would soon owe to that privately-owned central bank. Taking over Russian oil was something else.
The Rockefeller group of business giants met in New York
It is an unfortunate reality that but for the interference of the Robber Barons the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution would not have succeeded. With the help of Rockefeller and his equally greedy merry men the Tsar was overthrown. To cement their power the Bolsheviks shot and killed the Tsar and his family enabling the well-financed Bolsheviks to depose the Romanov dynasty.
After this bit of history it may be asked who, or what, exactly, is American International Corporation? Jon Christian Ryter has written:
“AIC is one of the two largest corporations ever formed. The other is Standard Oil, which was broken apart by US District Court Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis on August 3, 1907. At 4 p.m. on May 15, 1911, the US Supreme Court upheld the Landis judgment, and what was one behemoth oil giant became seven behemoth oil giants—with the Rockefeller family as the primary shareholders in all of them (otherwise known as 'the seven sisters'). The government would ultimately learn from its Standard Oil mistake because when the Reagan-era Supreme Court broke up Ma Bell, AT&T was forced to sell-off the breakaway companies.”
AIC personnel comprised executives brought into the company who were trusted associates from each partner's own commercial ventures. Rockefeller, Mellon, Morgan and Carnegie masterminded the creation of AIC and built the corporation similar to Standard Oil with secrecy layers that made it very difficult to be scrutinized.
Among those brought into AIC was Frank Vanderlip from Rockefeller's National City Bank, one of the seven people who would not only help write the Federal Reserve Act legislation, but he would also be instrumental in getting congress to enact the 16th Amendment* by promising them fame and fortune, or threatening them with failure if they didn’t go along. Vanderlip was on the board of AIC along with such luminaries who served at various points of time throughout AIC's century-old life, like Thomas Vail, CEO of AT&T, Percy Rockefeller (one of John D.’s brothers), James A. Stillman (a Rockefeller in-law), Pierre DuPont, and George H. Walker, maternal grandfather of George H.W. Bush.
At one point Robert S. Lovett joined the board and became a key advisor to President John F. Kennedy. Lovett advocated ignoring the 2nd Amendment and disarming the American people as the first step in creating global government.
“Other founding directors included manufacturer Cyrus McCormick; railroad executive James J. Hill; Edwin S. Webster (Stone's partner); investment banker Otto Kahn, meat-packer Ogden Armour; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Taft, Beekman Winthrop; Henry Smith Pritchett, president of the Carnegie Corporation; and Joseph P. Grace, then a Standard Oil chemist. He developed petrochemical products from crude oil. Also, banker Charles H. Sabin; W.E. Corey, head of US Steel; James Cash Penney, founder of J.C. Penney; and Charles A. Coffin, who replaced Thomas Edison as CEO of General Electric.” (Jon Christian Ryter)
“In 1918, Forbes published his first list of the 30 richest America
The Robber Barons wanted a world without borders with a common currency with which to trade anywhere in the world; a global economy with a global government.
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