Tuesday, February 19, 2013
BBC: How Christianity Spread Throughout The Roman Empire (Europe) - VIDEO
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Monday, February 18, 2013
RUSSIA: Divers Find No Trace of Meteorite in Urals Lake
MOSCOW – Divers have completed examining Lake Chebarkul in the Chelyabinsk Region where a meteorite fragment had reportedly fallen but found no trace of the celestial body, a spokesperson for the Russian Emergencies Ministry said on Saturday.
“The ministry’s divers have completed examining the lake’s area but discovered no traces of the meteorite,” Irina Rossius said.
A flaming meteorite streaked across the sky and slammed into central Russia on Friday with a massive boom that blew out windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the city of Chelyabinsk, injuring more than 1,000 people in the area. According to the Health Ministry, 51 were hospitalized.
Officials are trying to determine where the fragments have landed. None have been recovered as of Saturday morning. Chelyabinsk Region Governor Mikhail Yurevich said earlier that one of the fragments had fallen into Lake Chebarkul.
Regional police attributed that information to local fishermen.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi: Advice for Monks (VIDEO)
- She gave us over the incarnate God-Logos (Logos = Word), the radiance of the glory of the Father, she gave Him over to us via her ever-virginity, as the perfect Human to reshape His whole creation. Her fatherly affection did not stop here; she gave us more blessings: Her most-holy garments in which she was enshrouded when she was holding in her arms her Holy Infant. Her motherly affection managed to preserve these garments complete and alive as a blessing for Christians and all people. But, as the Apostle (note from translator: St. Paul) today describes that all these were described in the Old Testament, in the word of the shadow, all these were contained inside the shadow of the Mosaic Law. All these symbolized her (the Mother of God).The gold goglet of manna, the entrance to the Holy of Holies and the rest that my memory now does not hold. All these symbols symbolized her. It was foreseen since then. The Holy Spirit, the great secret of this Lady, showed us via the formality and the legal shadow that this ever-virgin Lady will become the instrument of the global reshaping. And this was not enough for her. But, she guarded her most holy garments that she wore, and used to enshroude her Most Holy Infant with. She gave them over to us and they exist now, among us, tangible and alive. What else can we say now as an apology for our betrayal and unworthiness? Especially when among us the center of the global motherliness of the great mercy exists! Especially for us here in Mount Athos, and also in our Monastery, in this Holy Monastery, which was founded in the ancient times, and it prays so much for all people and Christianity.She made us worthy, via her Most Holy presence and Icon, to be here and be spiritually rich via her sympathy and mercy. When she confesses by herself, with her own mouth, the Queen of the Heavens and the earth, that my name is "The Queen of Heaven and earth" and I reside in Vatopaidi. What do we lack? When the Queen of the Heavens and the earth, the Lady of the whole creation, the Mother of God, confesses that she is not on the Heavens but she resides in Vatopaidi! How much consolation should we have! How much joy! How much reassuring hope of our purpose, since she lives with us! Her motherly affection! All these, dear brothers, should remain in our memory, alive, to strengthen us when the dark mazes of deviation and irrationality will confuse and upset us. We should not lose our courage; instead, having a firm hope and faith that she actively resides here among us, the Mother of mercy, the Mother of the God-Logos, the Mother of all Christianity and all Human Race.She is also the Mother of Vatopaidi. How much courage should we have now? How much hope! How much joy should we feel and how much persistence should we have when fighting the word of deviation that the devil via the fallen human nature and our selfishness will present to us. We will not withdraw. If God is with us, then who can harm us? If God makes us just then who can condemn us? (Romans 8,33-34). He promises us that he will never let us orphans: He will stay with us until He attracts us to Him.Because He does not want to stay alone. "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am" (John 17:24). In the place of the fatherliness, in the place of Divine agnation, we enter as sons of God, as brothers of Christ, to receive gifts that angels desire to have. The most bright angels that, on their shoulders, hold and glorify the Most Holy Divinity envy, because they are not worthy to receive what we received. And that is because we became His brothers and sons of the Father, while they are servants. My brothers, please don't forget these, because they will be the strongest fortifications in our fight against the irrationality and the deviation.
LIBYA, AFRICA: Libya arrests 4 foreigners suspected of trying to spread Christianity in Muslim nation
TRIPOLI, Libya — Four foreigners were arrested in Libya on suspicion of distributing books about Christianity and proselytizing, a Libyan police spokesman said on Saturday.
Police spokesman Hussein bin Hamid said the suspects were from South Africa, Egypt and South Korea, and one held both Swedish and U.S. nationality. The Swedish Foreign Ministry confirmed that a dual national Swedish-American citizen was arrested while traveling on a U.S. passport. The U.S. Embassy in Libya declined comment.
The four were arrested in the eastern city of Benghazi on Tuesday and are under investigation for printing and distributing books that proselytize Christianity. Police said they found 45,000 books in their possession and that another 25,000 have already been distributed. Spreading Christianity is a crime in the predominantly Muslim North African county.
Bangladesh: Anti-Islamist blogger killed
A blogger who had been critical of Bangladesh's Islamist groups was killed in the capital late Friday, police said, a day after he attended a big rally against leaders of the country's largest Islamic party.
Protests championed by the country's bloggers have seen thousands of people take to the streets demanding the execution of leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami party who are under trial for war crimes. Clashes between police and Islamist protesters demanding the trials be halted have also rocked the capital.
Police found the body of Ahmed Rajib, 35 -- better known by his online identity Thaba Baba -- near his home in Dhaka's Pallabi suburb, with his head hacked apart with a machete.
"We recovered the machete. It is clear the attacker wanted to murder him. They did not touch his laptop or other valuable objects," police official Sheikh Motiur Rahman told AFP.
Police have not commented on a possible motive for the killing, but Rahman, citing Rajib's relatives, said the blogger played a large role in organising the anti-Islamist protests.
VATICAN: A new controversy - Vatican's New Bank Chief Has Military Ship Links
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican was drawn into a new controversy Friday after acknowledging that its bank's new president is also chairman of a shipbuilder making warships — a significant conflict for an institution that has long shunned ties to military manufacturing.
The Vatican announced to great fanfare that Pope Benedict XVI had signed off on one of the last major appointments of his papacy, approving Ernst von Freyberg as president of the Vatican's bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works.
The Vatican spokesman was caught off-guard, though, when a journalist noted that the German shipbuilder von Freyberg chairs, Blohm + Voss, is known for its military ship construction.
The Rev. Federico Lombardi demurred and defended the selection. He later issued a statement saying von Freyberg chairs a civilian branch of Blohm + Voss, which repairs and transforms cruise ships and builds yachts — but that the company is currently part of a consortium that is building four frigates for the German navy.
The Vatican and its bank have deep-rooted traditions of steering clear of investments in companies that manufacture weapons or contraceptives, in line with Catholic Church teaching.
Michael Brasse, spokesman for Blohm + Voss in Hamburg, said that von Freyberg is chairman of the executive board of Blohm + Voss Shipyards, a unit that concentrates on building civilian ships.
But before Blohm + Voss Shipyards and other non-military units of Blohm + Voss were sold in 2011 to Star Capital Partners, its military shipbuilding unit, Blohm + Voss Naval, had contracted with the German Defense Ministry for four new frigates. Blohm + Voss Naval subcontracted the actual construction of those vessels to Blohm + Voss Shipyards.
Though Blohm + Voss Naval is now known as ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems GmbH, and is entirely separate from the other Blohm + Voss units, the Shipyards unit is still constructing the frigates under the legacy contract.
After they are built, however, the company plans to concentrate entirely on non-military ships. Von Freyberg will remain its chairman while working for the Vatican.
"The focus of the business is for yachts, and on the repair side for cruise ships or the offshore oil and gas industry," Brasse said.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH: Meteorite Was Lord's Message
YEKATERINBURG, February 15 (RIA Novosti) – A meteorite which injured hundreds of people in Russia's Chelyabinsk Region on Friday was "the Lord’s message to humanity," a senior local clergyman said.
“From the Scriptures, we know that the Lord often sends people signs and warnings via natural forces,” Metropolitan of Chelyabinsk and Zlatoust Feofan said in a statement released on Friday.
"I think that not only for the Ural [regions] residents, but for the whole of humanity, the meteorite is a reminder that we live in fragile and unpredictable world,” the clergyman said.
He called on people to support each other and pray to God in thanks for saving the world from a devastating disaster.
Hundreds of people have sought medical aid after the meteorite hit Russia early on Friday. Thousands of buildings were affected by shock waves from the meteorite as it passed through the atmosphere at supersonic speed.
Many local residents will have to patch up their broken windows, with temperatures likely to drop as low as 17 degrees Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit) in the region overnight.
NASA: Largest meteor in more than 100 years (VIDEO)
"It looked like it was from a nuclear explosion," one witness said.
MOSCOW - People in a freezing industrial region of Russia saw a flash of blinding light before an explosion of flying glass Friday when a meteor streaked across the sky and blew up, injuring 1,100 people in what looked like a disaster out of a movie.
"I woke up hearing a blast. It felt like the whole building jumped up," said Igor Chudnovsky, a commercial director in the town of Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountain range. "I saw a light, it looked like it was from a nuclear explosion, like I had seen in documentaries."
While NASA estimated the meteor was only about the size of a bus and weighed an estimated 7,000 tons, it exploded with the force of 20 atomic bombs.
Luckily, "the atmosphere absorbed the vast majority of that energy," said Amy Mainzer, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The meteorite arrived just hours before an asteroid named the 2012 DA14 was due to come within 17,000 miles of Earth at 2:24 p.m. ET, a record close-approach for an asteroid this size.
Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, called the back-to-back celestial events an amazing display.
"This is indeed very rare and it is historic," he said on NASA TV. "These fireballs happen about once a day or so, but we just don't see them because many of them fall over the ocean or in remote areas. "
RUSSIA: Putin orders assistance after meteor explodes over Ural Mountains
"Every effort should be made to objectively estimate the damage. People have been injured. Assistance must be provided to them immediately," Putin said in a statement posted on the Kremlin's website.
Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov said the meteor, observed at 07:20 Moscow time (0320 GMT) near Chelyabink, injured more than 520 people, including 12 children.
Some 300 houses, 12 schools, and a number of factories were damaged, the minister said.
The explosions broke an estimated 100,000 square meters of glass in Chelyabink, a city of 1 million about 1,500 km east of Moscow, officials said.
The meteor -- estimated to be about 10 tons -- entered the Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 54,000 kph and shattered about 30-50 km above the ground, the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
It released the energy of several kilotons above the Chelyabinsk region, the academy said.
TURKEY: Erdogan 'Islamizing' Turkish Airlines
(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, FEBRUARY 14 - A plan by flag-carrier Turkish Airlines to lengthen female flight attendants' skirts to well below the knee has sparked protests from secular society, and even a congressional inquiry.
Recently leaked photos of designer Dilek Hanif's new, unflattering flight attendant uniforms - hemlines 15 cms below the knee, ''Islamic'' raincoats to the ankles in Ottoman-style red and blue fabrics, fez-like hats - have sparked a wave of protest on social media and among the country's secular, European components. ''They look like Kuwaiti or Saudi Arabian airlines,'' lamented designer Vural Gokcayli. ''They should reflect Turkey, and that's not what Turkey is like.'' The new uniforms, said Kilicdaroglu, ''damage the image of Turkey'', a country that has been a experiencing a 10-year economic boom, and which is striving to present itself as a bridge between Europe and Asia, West and East.
Turkey, Greece to expand cooperation
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| Greek FM Avramopoulos (L) and his Turkish counterpart Davutoğlu vow to boost relations. AA Photo |
Turkey and Greece have laid down a road map ahead of next month’s second meeting of the High-Level Cooperation Council, with the foreign ministers of both countries meeting Feb. 15 to conduct preparations for the gathering.
“Keeping in mind the current differences and problems, we know that we have to struggle against them. We think that we have to invest on substantial opportunities between us,” Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said at a press conference with his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoğlu.
“[While] boosting good relations between Turkey and Greece, we want to create a model network of relations for the region and for the eastern Mediterranean,” the Greek minister said.
The prime ministers of Turkey and Greece will sign a number of agreements, which Avramopoulos thinks will consolidate friendship and cooperation and benefit the people of both countries.
MARY MAGDALENE (2000) - Watch FREE FULL Movie (great movie)
Genres : Drama, History
Director : Raffaele Mertes
Cast : Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Massimo Ghini, Giuliana de Sio, Gottfried John, Nathalie Caldonazzo, Roberta Armani
Friday, February 15, 2013
USA: Christopher Dorner Conspiracy Theories Abound As Body In Cabin Remains Unidentified (VIDEO)
The ballad of Christopher Dorner may have ended Wednesday in a hail of bullets in the snowy California mountains. Or did it?
As the country waits for officials to identify the body found near Big Bear Lake, a resort town outside of Los Angeles, the conspiracy theories that have been swirling about the accused cop-killer's saga have reached a fever pitch.
Reddit has been blowing up with various theories, including one that surfaced Wednesday pointing to a possible discrepancy in where and when Dorner's wallet and ID were found.
Gawker pointed out that Dorner's wallet has been reported at three different locationsthroughout the course of the manhunt: Lindbergh Field, also known as San Diego International Airport; the San Ysidro Port of Entry at the U.S.-Mexico border and the burning cabin.
The site's Cord Jefferson points out that it's possible Dorner had multiple IDs. It's also possible the media misreported the evidence, or, alternatively:
There's the possibility that the wallet skeptics have found the one flaw in a carefully scripted police conspiracy, and that the police made a conscious decision to lie to everyone about finding Dorner's wallet in multiple places, in an effort to...well, it's not clear why the police would do that. General mayhem?
A Facebook page called Christopher Dorner Death Conspiracy even questions how any ID could have been found if the fire was reportedly so intense the body was unidentifiable.
It's not surprising that Dorner "Truthers" have come out of the woodwork in droves this week -- after all, similar theories abounded following the Sandy Hook massacre -- but it is worth mentioning that mainstream media have taken notice.....
READ MORE >>>>
Thursday, February 14, 2013
GERMANY: 74-Year-Old German Woman Convicted of ‘Hate Speech’ Against Muslims
Frank had taken part in a Munich protest of Stürzenberger’s small conservative and anti-Islam party Die Freiheit against a proposed Islamic center/mosque in Munich (the Zentrum für Islam in Europa—München or ZIE-M). Although Frank is not a member of DF, Stürzenberger describes her as “one of the most zealous collectors of signatures” for a DF-led petition drive to stop ZIE-M. As quoted by Stürzenberger, Frank’s sign referenced the Ottoman Empire’s September 12, 1683 defeat at the siege of Vienna, a historic turning point in driving back a Muslim advance into Europe, and sarcastically stated that the “Turks then peacefully bombarded Vienna.” Frank’s sign also sarcastically described the allied troops of Austrians, Poles, and various German contingents who relieved the siege as the “original Nazis.”
BULGARIA: St Valentine in play as Bulgarian Orthodox Church nears election of new Patriarch
One could be forgiven for mistaking a Bulgarian Orthodox Church metropolitan’s public attack on celebrating Saint Valentine’s Day for an election speech as the church nears the election of a new Patriarch.
On February 15 and 16 2013, the church’s governing body, the Holy Synod, will name three of its number as the shortlist of election candidates. On February 24, an electoral college made up mainly of clergy with minority representation for laity will choose the new Patriarch by secret ballot at a meeting in Sofia.
With two weeks to go before the election, it remains unclear whether the rival factions in the upper ranks of the church have achieved a deal on the shortlist, let alone who should succeed the late Patriarch Maxim.
On February 14, Bulgaria traditionally celebrates Trifon Zarezan, a vine-pruner of legend, on a day dedicated to the drinking of red wine. The church customarily joins in the celebration, irrespective of the fact of Trifon Zarezan’s pagan origins.
But for Galaktion, “Saint Trifon” being superseded – especially among the young – by St Valentine was a matter for indignation.
“Can you set aside a day for love? You have to love every day. Christians should love each other at all time, not just on Valentine’s Day, which is hardly a Christian holiday,” Galaktion said at a church service at the St Trifon Chapel in Harmanli, before going on to a vine-pruning ceremony.
Meanwhile, Varna Metropolitan Kiril, currently acting chairman of the Holy Synod – in effect, the acting Patriarch – confirmed his availability to be Patriarch.
Kiril is among the majority in the Holy Synod who were formerly agents for the communist-era secret service State Security and has made headlines for his alleged taste for an opulent lifestyle, famously including the Lincoln hybrid he uses as his vehicle.
Kiril was responding to the public confirmation a day earlier by Lovetch Metropolitan Gavril that he was available for election.
Gavril is one of three members of the Holy Synod who did not work for State Security. The other two are not eligible for election as Patriarch, Plovdiv Metropolitan Nikolai because he is younger than 50, and Dorostol Metropolitan Amvrosii because he has been in charge of a diocese for less than the required five years.
Kiril, speaking on February 9, said that it was God who would choose the Patriarch, through the electoral college.
Gavril, speaking on February 8, said that he would not refuse becoming Patriarch, “if it happens at the behest of God”.
Gavril was speaking at a ceremony at which he was named an honorary member of the Chamber of Engineers. Before his church career, he completed a university course in road construction.
The event, also somehow reminiscent of a campaign trail stop, could have done the Lovetch Metropolitan no harm. He is especially popular among followers of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church who would prefer it to be headed by someone other than a former State Security agent, and he has the added attraction of no tie to the controversy about the awarding of the “Archon” title to wealthy business people whose reputations are the subject of public discussion.
As to public input, as at February 10, with five days to the shortlisting process, there is no reliable public opinion poll about whom the laity wish to head the church.
But a Facebook page set up for the purpose has Gavril clearly in the lead, with 2152 votes, leaving Metropolitan Yoaniki of Sliven trailing with a distant 723 votes and Neofit of Rousse with 646.
Kiril has only 103 votes but is doing better than Galaktion – the one who does not like St Valentine – who is second-bottom with 37 votes.
But then, it is hardly a scientific poll, and nor does it take into account the affirmation by church leaders that the ultimate decision will be made by God.
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