Saturday, April 05, 2014

America unites with the papacy



As America, the land of religious liberty, shall unite with the papacy in forcing the conscience and compelling men to honor the false sabbath, the people of every country on the globe will be led to follow her example.

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Thursday, April 03, 2014

Queen Elizabeth meets privately with Pope Francis


CBS NewsApril 3, 2014, 10:27 AM




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A week after Pope Francis welcomed President Obama to the Vatican, he has another high-profile visitor: Britain's Queen Elizabeth.







CBS News' Mark Phillips said the meeting between the Pope and The Queen is a bit of a happy accident. The Queen was supposed to come to Italy before Francis became pope, but the trip had to be postponed. So instead, there is a meeting between two of the world's iconic figures

Queen Elizabeth doesn't travel much anymore. She's about to turn 88. Her husband Prince Philip, who's 92, has had a series of health issues lately. But his day-trip to Italy is a full day.

Officially, this is a visit with the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. He's a friend of the queen's and enticed her to drop by saying she could also squeeze in a chat with the pope.


Queen Elizabeth -- now in the sixth decade of her reign -- has met five popes.



 

42 Photos
Royal Life: Queen Elizabeth II through the years

This is being billed as an informal encounter, a chance for a cup of tea, and not in the elegant setting of the Apostolic Palace, but in a meeting room elsewhere in the Vatican. Pope Francis still seems to prefer less ostentatious venues for the exercise of papal power.


There's been a well worn path to Francis' door since his election. President Obama was there just last week. Russian President Vladimir Putin was here late last year. It can be useful for a politician of whatever stripe to be seen with a pope with this kind of popularity.


And Vatican writers -- like Massimo Franco -- see another reason.


"The church, the catholic church, is coming back on the international stage as a mediator so its a key position for all the leaders all the west to come and greet the pope," he said.

To see Mark Phillips' full report, watch the video in the player above

© 2014 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



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U.S. created a Cuban Twitter to overthrow government - report


By Jose Pagliery @Jose_Pagliery April 3, 2014: 11:41 AM ET






Cuba's own Twitter service, ZunZuneo, was actually a secret U.S. plot to undermine the island's communist government, AP reports.


NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
The U.S. government secretly created a Twitter-like social media service to subvert Cuba's communist government, according to an investigative report by the Associated Press.

The AP says U.S. government officials developed an app called ZunZuneo -- named after the chirping sound of a hummingbird -- to cause social unrest.

U.S. efforts to undermine the Castro regime in Havana are nothing new. There was a poison cigar, an exploding seashell, lethal pills and a fungus-ridden diving suit. But cooking up a tech startup with -- literally -- revolutionary intentions? That's something else.

To get around Cuba's iron grip control on technology and outside influence via the Internet, ZunZuneo was a low-tech version of Twitter (TWTR) fed by cell phone text messages, the AP reported.

Related story: Google tries to NSA-proof Gmail

The goal was obvious: recreate the sort of pro-democracy, Twitter-empowered protests that fueled the Arab Spring in 2011 and toppled corrupt governments in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere.

The project had up to 40,000 subscribers in 2011, but it disappeared by mid-2012 amid pressure by the Cuban government. The AP cited sensitive documents and several anonymous interviews with private contractors who signed on for the covert operation.

The most startling aspect of the revelations is that the entire project wasn't run by spies in the Central Intelligence Agency. Instead, it was masterminded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which distributes humanitarian aid.


The U.S. State Department did not immediately provide comment to CNNMoney.






ZunZuneo is only the latest in a long, combative history between the United States and Cuba. During his years in power, Fidel Castro often warned the Cuban people that the "Yankee imperialist invaders" were trying to subvert his government. There was 1961's Bay of Pigs, in which CIA-trained Cuban exiles attempted a heavily-armed beach invasion that was botched by their U.S. backers. A U.S. senate committee in 1975 revealed eight separate CIA attempts to assassinate Castro.

In recent decades, the U.S. government has adopted a more passive approach to Cuba, including the funding of Radio y Televisión Martí, a service that delivers pro-democracy discourse to the island from its base in Miami, Fla. The Cuban government has tried to jam those signals with limited success.

The launch of ZunZuneo was timed to coincide with more relaxed Cuban laws on technology and communication. Cubans couldn't legally buy a computer until 2007. They were prohibited from owning mobile phones until 2008. And access to the Web is scant, usually available at expensive Internet cafés.

Related story: Zuckerberg calls Obama to complain about NSA

ZunZuneo might have been a secret government project, but its existence comes as no surprise, said Jorge Duany, director of Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University in Miami. Yet he questions whether the attempt ever had a chance of success.

Authoritarian surveillance in Cuba is pervasive and hyperlocal -- every residential block has a government-appointed official who reports any questionable activities or anti-government sentiment.

"I wouldn't expect a sudden massive explosion of people going to the streets of people fighting for change or asking for a major regime change yet," he said.


First Published: April 3, 2014: 11:00 AM ET


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Fort Hood shooter was Iraq vet being treated for mental health issues




By Ray Sanchez and Ben Brumfield, CNN
updated 11:57 AM EDT, Thu April 3, 2014



STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Lopez was in treatment for several conditions
He received treatment and medication for depression, anxiety
He was undergoing the diagnosis process for PTSD
He served in Iraq and said he sustained a traumatic brain injury


(CNN) -- [Breaking news alert, 11:53 a.m.]

Ivan Lopez passed a background check when he recently bought a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun near Killeen, Texas, according to U.S. law enforcement officials. he was found to have no criminal history that would disqualify him from the purchase, and the gun store did what was required, according to law enforcement officials who reviewed the records.

[Previous story, 11:34 a.m.]

Ivan Lopez's friendly smile apparently gave no hint of a history of depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders.

The Iraq war veteran was being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder before he opened fire at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas on Wednesday. He took his own .45-caliber handgun onto the sprawling base and killed three people and wounded 16 more before taking his own life -- leaving authorities to piece together what in his background and medical treatment could have triggered a new round of bloodshed at the same Killeen base where an officer killed 13 people in 2009.

Lopez, a 34-year-old specialist, served four months in Iraq and was undergoing treatment for mental health issues.

A native of Puerto Rico, he was married with a young child and moved to the post in Killeen in February from another military installation. He moved into an apartment there with his wife and their daughter a little more than a week before the shooting.




Fort Hood shooting



Fort Hood's families

They appeared to be a normal couple, said neighbor Xanderia Morris. "They would smile whenever they'd see someone," she said.



Lt. General: Don't know shooter's motive



Fort Hood's families



Life inside Fort Hood

There aren't indications that this was a terrorist act, but officials said they won't rule anything out until the investigation is over.

Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, the post's commanding general, told reporters late Wednesday there were reports of an argument.

"Obviously, we are digging deep into his background, any criminal or psychiatric history, his experiences in combat," he said. "All of the things you would expect us to do are being done right now."

Based on publicly released details, interviews with neighbors and conversations with law enforcement and other sources, here's what is known so far about Lopez:

Combat history:

He served for four months as a truck driver in Iraq in 2011, Army Secretary John McHugh told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, without naming Lopez. His records "show no wounds, no direct involvement in combat ... or any injury that might lead us to further investigate battle-related TBI (traumatic brain injury)," McHugh said. Lopez enlisted in the Army in June 2008 as an infantry soldier, later becoming a truck driver, McHugh said.

Milley said, "He was not wounded, according to our records." However, Lopez "self-reported" suffering a traumatic brain injury while deployed, he said.

Medical history:

Lopez was undergoing a variety of treatments for conditions including depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances, McHugh said. He was prescribed drugs that included Ambien, a sleep aid. Lopez was fully examined last month by a psychiatrist.

There was no record of any sign he was likely to commit violence against himself or others, according to McHugh. "So the plan (going) forward was just to continue to monitor and treat him as deemed appropriate," he said.

He was going through the process required to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder. "He was not diagnosed, as of today, with PTSD," Milley said. That process takes time.

Work history:

Lopez was transferred to Fort Hood from another unnamed base in February. He was assigned to the 13th Sustainment Command, which deals with the logistical responsibilities for the post. (It was one of two unit buildings where Lopez opened fire.)

Retired Army Maj. Gen. James "Spider" Marks expressed surprise at the transfer. Lopez should have remained at the other base for continuity of care, he said.

Lopez was not in the process of being transitioned out of the military, Milley said.

At one time, he was part of the National Guard in Puerto Rico, but he left the guard to join the Army, National Guard spokeswoman Ruth Diaz said Thursday.

Family history:

He was married and had a daughter, around 3 years old. Just over a week ago, the family moved into an apartment complex close to the base.

Neighbor Xanderia Morris described the Lopez family as a "typical, average family."

After the news of the shooting broke on television, the wife came out crying. "She said 'I'm just worried, I'm just worried,'" Morris said. "I tried to console her and comfort her, let her know everything was OK."

When television reports identified the shooter as Lopez, the wife was "hysterical," the neighbor said.

She was taken from the apartment by law enforcement officials, and was cooperating, an FBI source told CNN.

Gun used:

Lopez used a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol that he recently purchased in the area, Milley said. He didn't know how much ammunition Lopez was carrying.

"If you have weapons and you're on base, it's supposed to be registered on base," Milley said. "This weapon was not registered on base."

Motive:

That's the big unknown.

"There's no indication that this incident is related to terrorism, although we are not ruling anything out and the investigation continues," Milley said.

Could it have been an argument? "There are initial reports there may have been an argument in one of the unit areas, but no indication of an argument at the WTU," Milley said. WTU is the acronym for the Warrior Transition Command, where wounded, ill and injured soldiers are taught resilience skills.

He also couldn't say whether Lopez knew his victims.

READ: 4 dead, including shooter, at Fort Hood

READ: Obama: 'We're going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened'

CNN's Evan Perez, Ed Lavandera, Pam Brown and Josh Rubin contributed to this report.



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Recent earthquakes in Chile, Panama, California likely not related, experts say



7:58 PM, April 2, 2014




Chileans return home to survey damage after earthquake: After being evacuated from low-lying coastal areas, Chileans in the north return home to survey damage after Tuesday's magnitude 8.2 earthquake. Nathan Frandino reports.


Chileans return home to survey damage after earthq...



Magnitude 5.1 earthquake strikes Los Angeles


By Doyle Rice

USA TODAY






An 8.2-magnitude earthquake hit Chile late Tuesday, killing at least six people and generating tsunami waves that might ripple as far as Indonesia.




People walk along a cracked road in Iquique, northern Chile, on April 2, 2014 a day after a powerful 8.2-magnitude earthquake hit off Chile's Pacific coast. An 8.2-magnitude earthquake hit Chile late Tuesday, killing at least six people and generating tsunami waves that might ripple as far as Indonesia. / Aldo Solimano/AFP/Getty Images




Recent earthquakes in Chile, Panama and Southern California have people wondering. … Are they related?

Expert say it’s unlikely. “The odds are overwhelming that they’re not related,” said John Vidale, a seismologist with the University of Washington-Seattle, about the deadly magnitude-8.2 quake near Chile late Tuesday and the magnitude-5.8 quake near Panama on Wednesday.

The two quakes are too far apart -- more than 2,000 miles -- to be connected with each other, he said.

“There’s no way that last month’s Los Angeles quakes were related” to the ones this week in Central and South America, he said.

What all the quakes do share in common is their location along the notorious “Ring of Fire,” the world’s greatest earthquake belt, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Also known as the “circum-Pacific seismic belt,” the ring is found along the rim of the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand to Chile. It’s where 81% of the world’s largest earthquakes occur. This includes the catastrophic quake and resulting tsunami in Japan that killed thousands of people in 2011.

“There is no evidence of linkages in activity between different regions around the Ring of Fire,” said Robert Muir-Wood, a scientist with RMS, a catastrophe modeling firm.

The quakes also are probably not harbingers of a bigger one to come. “Most quakes have about a 5% chance of being followed by a bigger quake, most of the time just a little bigger,” Vidale said.

Chances of a bigger quake in these areas do not reach alarming levels, he said, “with the exception of Chile, where even aftershocks could be damaging and a bigger earthquake might be catastrophic.”

The 8.2 quake near Chile Tuesday evening was unusually strong, Vidale said.

“This earthquake is of a size that happens somewhere about once a year,” Muir-Wood said. “The location is no particular surprise -- the Chile subduction zone is the world’s most active, and northern Chile has not seen really big subduction zone earthquakes for some decades, unlike southern Chile.”

A subduction zone is a place where two plates of the Earth’s crust come together, one riding over the other.

Chile is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries because the Nazca tectonic plate just off the coast in the Pacific Ocean plunges beneath the South American plate, pushing the towering Andes mountains to ever-higher elevation. Nowhere along this fault is the pressure greater than in far northern Chile.

Despite the recent spate of quakes, Muir-Wood said, “activity overall has been quieter since 2011.” Worldwide, there are roughly 4,000 earthquakes each day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, most small and undetectable.

The quakes in the Los Angeles area last month were not that strong. “California has gone for an unusually long period without a significant earthquake loss,” Muir-Wood said.

On average, Southern California gets about 10,000 earthquakes each year, many too small to be felt, according to the USGS. That’s more than 27 a day.

Contributing: Associated Press


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Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Operation Paperclip




By on January 21, 2008


After WWII ended in 1945, victorious Russian and American intelligence teams began a treasure hunt throughout occupied Germany for military and scientific booty. They were looking for things like new rocket and aircraft designs, medicines, and electronics. But they were also hunting down the most precious “spoils” of all: the scientists whose work had nearly won the war for Germany. The engineers and intelligence officers of the Nazi War Machine.

The U.S. Military rounded up Nazi scientists and brought them to America. It had originally intended merely to debrief them and send them back to Germany. But when it realized the extent of the scientists knowledge and expertise, the War Department decided it would be a waste to send the scientists home. Following the discovery of flying discs (foo fighters), particle/laser beam weaponry in German military bases, the War Department decided that NASA and the CIA must control this technology, and the Nazi engineers that had worked on this technology.

There was only one problem: it was illegal. U.S. law explicitly prohibited Nazi officials from immigrating to America — and as many as three-quarters of the scientists in question had been committed Nazis. Convinced that German scientists could help America’s post-war efforts, President Harry Truman agreed in September 1946 to authorize “Project Paperclip,” a program to bring selected German scientists to work on America’s behalf during the “Cold War”

However, Truman expressly excluded anyone found “to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism or militarism.”

The War Department’s Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) conducted background investigations of the scientists. In February 1947, JIOA Director Bosquet Wev submitted the first set of scientists’ dossiers to the State and Justice Departments for review.

The Dossiers were damning. Samuel Klaus, the State Departments representative on the JIOA board, claimed that all the scientists in this first batch were “ardent Nazis.” Their visa requests were denied. Wev was furious. He wrote a memo warning that “the best interests of the United States have been subjugated to the efforts expended in ‘beating a dead Nazi horse.’” He also declared that the return of these scientists to Germany, where they could be exploited by America’s enemies, presented a “far greater security threat to this country than any former Nazi affiliations which they may have had or even any Nazi sympathies that they may still have.”

When the JIOA formed to investigate the backgrounds and form dossiers on the Nazis, the Nazi Intelligence leader Reinhard Gehlen met with the CIA director Allen Dulles. Dulles and Gehlen hit it off immediately. Gehlen was a master spy for the Nazis and had infiltrated Russia with his vast Nazi Intelligence network. Dulles promised Gehlen that his Intelligence unit was safe in the CIA.

Apparently, Wev decided to sidestep the problem. Dulles had the scientists dossier’s re-written to eliminate incriminating evidence. As promised, Allen Dulles delivered the Nazi Intelligence unit to the CIA, which later opened many umbrella projects stemming from Nazi research. (MK-ULTRA / ARTICHOKE, OPERATION MIDNIGHT CLIMAX)

Military Intelligence “cleansed” the files of Nazi references. By 1955, more than 760 German scientists had been granted citizenship in the U.S. and given prominent positions in the American scientific community. Many had been longtime members of the Nazi party and the Gestapo, had conducted experiments on humans at concentration camps, had used slave labour, and had committed other war crimes.

In a 1985 expose in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Linda Hunt wrote that she had examined more than 130 reports on Project Paperclip subjects–and every one “had been changed to eliminate the security threat classification.”

President Truman, who had explicitly ordered no committed Nazis to be admitted under Project Paperclip, was evidently never aware that his directive had been violated. State Department archives and the memoirs of officials from that era confirm this. In fact, according to Clare Lasby’s book Operation Paperclip, project officials “covered their designs with such secrecy that it bedevilled their own President; at Potsdam he denied their activities and undoubtedly enhanced Russian suspicion and distrust,” quite possibly fuelling the Cold War even further. A good example of how these dossiers were changed is the case of Wernher von Braun. A September 18, 1947, report on the German rocket scientist stated, “Subject is regarded as a potential security threat by the Military Governor.”

The following February, a new security evaluation of Von Braun said, “No derogatory information is available on the subject…It is the opinion of the Military Governor that he may not constitute a security threat to the United States.” Here are a few of the 700 suspicious characters who were allowed to immigrate through Project Paperclip.


ARTHUR RUDOLPH;

During the war, Rudolph was operations director of the Mittelwerk factory at the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camps, where 20,000 workers died from beatings, hangings, and starvation. Rudolph had been a member of the Nazi party since 1931; a 1945 military file on him said simply: “100% Nazi, dangerous type, security threat..!! Suggest internment.”

But the JIOA’s final dossier on him said there was “nothing in his records indicating that he was a war criminal or an ardent Nazi or otherwise objectionable.” Rudolph became a US citizen and later designed the Saturn 5 rocket used in the Apollo moon landings. In 1984, when his war record was finally investigated, he fled to West Germany.


WERNHER VON BRAUN;

From 1937 to 1945, von Braun was the technical director of the Peenemunde rocket research center, where the V-2 rocket –which devastated England–was developed. As noted previously, his dossier was rewritten so he didn’t appear to have been an enthusiastic Nazi.

Von Braun worked on guided missiles for the U.S. Army and was later director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He became a celebrity in the 1950s and early 1960s, as one of Walt Disney’s experts on the “World of Tomorrow.” In 1970, he became NASA’s associate administrator.


KURT BLOME;

A high-ranking Nazi scientist, Blome told U.S. military interrogators in 1945 that he had been ordered 1943 to experiment with plague vaccines on concentration camp prisoners. He was tried at Nuremberg in 1947 on charges of practicing euthanasia (extermination of sick prisoners), and conducting experiments on humans. Although acquitted, his earlier admissions were well known, and it was generally accepted that he had indeed participated in the gruesome experiments.

Two months after his Nuremberg acquittal, Blome was interviewed at Camp David, Maryland, about biological warfare. In 1951, he was hired by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to work on chemical warfare. His file neglected to mention Nuremberg.


MAJOR GENERAL WALTER SCHREIBER;

According to Linda Hunt’s article, the US military tribunal at Nuremberg heard evidence that “Schreiber had assigned doctors to experiment on concentration camp prisoners and had made funds available for such experimentation.” The assistant prosecutor said the evidence would have convicted Schreiber if the Soviets, who held him from 1945 to 1948, had made him available for trial.

Again, Schreiber’s Paperclip file made no mention of this evidence; the project found work for him at the Air Force School of Medicine at Randolph Field in Texas. When columnist Drew Pearson publicized the Nuremberg evidence in 1952, the negative publicity led the JIOA, says Hunt, to arrange “a visa and a job for Schreiber in Argentina, where his daughter was living.” On May 22, 1952, he was flown to Buenos Aires.


HERMANN BECKER-FREYSING and SIEGFRIED RUFF;

These two, along with Blome, were among the 23 defendants in the Nuremberg War Trials “Medical Case.” Becker-Freysing was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for conducting experiments on Dachau inmates, such as starving them, then force-feeding them seawater that had been chemically altered to make it drinkable. Ruff was acquitted (in a close decision) on charges that he had killed as many as 80 Dachau inmates in a low-pressure chamber designed to simulate altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet. Before their trial, Becker-Freysing and Ruff were paid by the Army Air Force to write reports about their grotesque experiments.


GENERAL REINHARD GEHLEN;

It was five years after the end of WW2 but one of Hitler’s chief intelligence officers was still on the job. From a walled-in compound in Bavaria, General Reinhard Gehlen oversaw a vast network of intelligence agents spying on Russia. His top aides were Nazi zealots who had committed some of the most notorious crimes of the war. Gehlen and his SS united were hired, and swiftly became agents of the CIA when they revealed their massive records on the Soviet Union to the US.

Gehlen derived much of his information from his role in one of the most terrible atrocities of the war: the torture, interrogation and murder by starvation of some four million Soviet prisoners. Prisoners who refused to cooperate were often tortured or summarily executed. Many were executed even after they had given information, while others were simply left to starve to death. As a result, Gehlend and members of his organization manoeuvred to make sure they were captured by advancing American troops rather than Russians, who would have executed them immediately.

Two months before Germany surrendered in 1945, the Gehlen organization made its move. “Gehlen and a small group of his most senior officers carefully microfilmed the vast holding on the USSR in the military section of the German army’s general staff. They packed the film in watertight steel drums and secretly buried it in remote mountain meadows scattered throughout the Austrian Alps.

General William Donovan and Allen Dulles of the CIA were tipped off about Gehlen’s surrender and his offer of Russian intelligence in exchange for a job. The CIA was soon jockeying with military intelligence for authority over Gehlen’s microfilmed records–and control of the German spymaster. Dulles arranged for a private intelligence facility in West Germany to be established, and named it the Geheln Organization. Gehlen promised not to hire any former SS, SD, or Gestapo members; he hired them anyway, and the CIA did not stop him. Two of Gehlen’s early recruits were Emil Augsburg and Dr. Franz Six, who had been part of mobile killing squads, which killed Jews, intellectuals, and Soviet partisans wherever they found them. Other early recruits included Willi Krichbaum, senior Gestapo leader for south-eastern Europe, and the Gestapo chiefs of Paris and Kiel, Germany.

With the encouragement of the CIA, Gehlen Org (Licio Gelli) set up “rat lines” to get Nazi war criminals out of Europe so they wouldn’t be prosecuted. By setting up transit camps and issuing phoney passports, the Gehlen Org helped more than 5,000 Nazis leave Europe and relocate around the world, especially in South and Central America. There, mass murderers like Klaus Barbie (the butcher of Lyons) helped governments set up death squads in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and elsewhere.


KLAUS BARBIE;

Known as the Nazi butcher of Lyons, France during World War 2, Barbie was part of the SS that was responsible for the death of thousands of French people under the German occupation.


HEINRICH RUPP;

Some of Rupp’s best work was done for the CIA, after he was imported in Operation Paperclip. Rupp has been convicted of bank fraud. He was an operative for the CIA and is deeply involved in the Savings and Loan scandals. A federal jury has indicated they believe testimony that Rupp, the late CIA Director William Casey – then Reagan’s campaign manager, and Donald Gregg, now U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, flew with George Bush to Paris in 1980, during the election in which Bush was on the ticket with Ronald Reagan. The testimony states that three meetings were held on October 19 and 20 at the Hotel Florida and Hotel Crillion. The subject? According to the court testimony, the meetings were to sabotage President Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign by delaying the release of American hostages in Iran. The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, right after Reagan and Bush were sworn into office. Iran was promised return of its frozen assets in the United States and the foundation for the Iran-Contra deal was set into motion.


LICIO GELLI;

Head of a 2400 member secret Masonic Lodge, P2, a neo-fascist organization, in Italy that catered to only the elite, Gelli had high connections in the Vatican, even though he was not a Catholic. P2′s membership is totally secret and not even available to its Mother Lodge in England. Gelli was responsible for providing Argentina with the Exocet missile. He was a double agent for the CIA and the KGB. He assisted many former Nazi high officials in their escape from Europe to Central America. He had close ties with the Italian Mafia. Gelli was a close associate of Benito Mussolini. He was also closely affiliated with Roberto Calvi, head of the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank. Calvi was murdered. Gelli’s secret lodge consisted of extremely important people, including armed forces commanders, secret service chiefs, head of Italy’s financial police, 30 generals, eight admirals, newspaper editors, television and top business executives and key bankers – including Calvi, Licio Gelli and others in P2 were behind the assassination of Pope John Paul 1.

The central figure in Europe and South America that linked the CIA, Masonic Lodge, Vatican, ex-Nazis and several South American governments, the Italian government and several international banks was Licio Gelli. He, with Klaus Barbie and Heinrich Rupp, met with Ronald R. Rewald in Uruguay to arrange for the Argentine purchase of the French-made Exocet missile, used to devastating effect against the British in the Falkland Islands.

Who is Gelli and why was he so important?

To understand Gelli, one must understand the complex post war years of Europe. The biggest threat to Europe in pre-war times was Communism – it was the great fear of Communism that gave birth to the Fascists and the Nazis. Though both sides were dreaded, the Fascists represented right-wing government, while the Communist represent left-wing government. It was the right-wing that the United States and the Catholic Church desired over Communism – because Communism would destroy the capitalistic system. This is why the CIA and the Vatican had go through with Operation Paperclip. The Nazis had massive amounts of Soviet intelligence, had infiltrated Communist partisans, and were in no way going to be given up to the Soviet Union.

Gelli worked both sides. He helped to found the Red Brigade, spied on Communist partisans and worked for the Nazis at the same time, a double agent. He helped establish the Rat Line, which assisted the flight of high ranking Nazi officials from Europe to South America, with passports supplied by the Vatican and with the full acknowledgment and blessing of the United States intelligence community. While on one hand, the U.S. participated in the war crime tribunals of key Nazi officials and maintained an alliance with the Communist Soviet Union, secretly, the U.S. was preparing for the cold war and needed the help of Nazis in the eventual struggle the U.S. would have with the Soviet Union. Gelli’s agreement with U.S. intelligence to spy on the Communists after the war was instrumental in saving his life. He was responsible for the murder and torture of hundreds of Yugoslavian partisans.

The Vatican provided support to Nazis and Fascists because the Communists were the real threat to the Church’s survival. The Italian Communists would have taxed the Church’s vast holdings and the Church has had a dismal experience with Communist governments throughout the world – where religious freedom was stamped out.

Gelli was well connected with the Vatican from the days of the Rat Line and he worked for American intelligence, as well. Gelli formed the P-2 Masonic Lodge-which did not follow the direction of any Grand Lodge-and it was supplied with a sum of $10 million a month by the CIA. Its membership was a Who’s Who in the intelligence, military and Italian community. So prominent was Gelli’s influence, that he was even a guest of honour at the 1981 inauguration of President Ronald Reagan.

Gelli used blackmail in order to gain prominent members of his P-2 lodge, its membership is estimated at 2400 members, including 300 of the most powerful men in the Western World.. He was a close friend of Pope Paul VI, Juan Peron of Argentina, Libyan dictator Qaddafi, and many high officials in the Italian and American governments – he is also reported to have had some financial dealings with the George Bush for President campaign.

Gelli and his P-2 lodge had staggering connections to banking, intelligence and diplomatic passports. The CIA poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Italy in the form of secret subsidies for political parties, labour unions and communications businesses. At the same time the Agency continued its relationship with far- right and violent elements as a back-up should a coup be needed to oust a possible Communist government. This covert financing was exposed by the Prime Minister of Italy in a speech to Parliament. He indicates that more than 600 people in Italy still remain on the payroll of the CIA. Licio Gelli was an ardent Nazi and a perfect asset of the CIA. As part of Reinhard Gehlen’s intelligence team, he had excellent contacts. Licio was the go between for the CIA and the Vatican through his P2 Lodge.

Project Paperclip was stopped in 1957, when West Germany protested to the U.S. that these efforts had stripped it of “scientific skills.” There was no comment about supporting Nazis. Paperclip may have ended in 1957, but as you can see from Licio Gelli and his international dealings with the CIA in Italy/P2, and Heinrich Rupp with his involvement in October Surprise, the ramifications of Paperclip are world-wide. The Nazis became employed CIA agents, engaging in clandestine work with the likes of George Bush, the CIA, Henry Kissenger, and the Masonic P2 lodge. This is but one of the results of Operation Paperclip. Another umbrella project that was spawned from Paperclip was MK-ULTRA.

A secret laboratory was established and funded by CIA director, Allen Dulles in Montreal, Canada at McGill University in the Allen Memorial Institute headed by psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron. For the next several years Dr. Ewen Cameron waged his private war in Canada. What is ironic about Dr. Cameron is that he served as a member of the Nuremberg tribunal who heard the cases against the Nazi doctors.

When it was at its height in drug experiments, operation MK-ULTRA was formed. This was the brainchild of Richard Helms who later came to be a CIA director. It was designed to defeat the “enemy” in its brain-washing techniques. MK-ULTRA had another arm involved in Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) known as MK-DELTA. The “doctors” who participated in these experiments used some of the same techniques as the Nazi “doctors”. Techniques used by Dr. Cameron and previous Nazi scientists include electro shock, sleep deprivation, memory implantation, memory erasure, sensory modification, psychoactive drug experiments, and many more cruel practices.

Project Paperclip brought us MK-ULTRA. Paperclip ultimately brought in key players involved in the assassination of Pope 1, October Surprise (sabotage of Carter’s peace talks), and a great many other things still classified to this day. The results of Project Paperclip were devastating, and very far reaching. I guess that is what you would expect from collaborating with Nazis.

This research shows that the OSS/CIA that was formed in the National Security Act, the same agency that employed hundreds of Nazis, has been in alliance with the Vatican through various Agency connections such as Licio Gelli. The CIA/Vatican alliance that Assassinated Pope John Paul 1, JFK, and hundreds of dictators of 3rd world countries is the Illuminati.

The Bavarian Illuminati has been around for centuries in one way or another. It’s presence in the 20th century is the direct result of the Nazis. The Nazi connections to the occult and the Bavarian Thule Society were parallel to the American members of 33rd degree Freemasonry. When the Operation Paperclip was successfully executed, the Nazi element of the Bavarian Thule society was fused with the American members of Freemasonry to create the Illuminati.

Operation Paperclip, MK-ULTRA, October Surprise, and George Bush are all facets of the Illuminati, a group whose ideals are rooted in the occult, and dedicated to world domination.

Soon after the American Revolution, John Robinson, a professor of rural philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland and member of a Freemason lodge, said that he was asked to join the Illuminati. After studying the group, he concluded that the purposes of the Illuminati were not compatible with his beliefs.

In 1798, he published a book called “Proofs Of A Conspiracy,” which states:
“An association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all the existing governments…. The leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors.”

The CIA and the Vatican have rooted out all the religious establishments in the world. The CIA has overthrown and set up dictators under their control all over the world. The CIA and the Vatican have fulfilled the purpose of the Illuminati. The CIA and the Vatican are the Illuminati.

Dossier compiled by Agent Orange

http://www.trance-formation.com/index2.htm



One result of Operation Paperclip was the capture of cutting edge German military technology, such as the Ho-IX. Pictured above being assembled in its German factory, the planes hi tech composite construction was capable of absorbing radar waves. Making it in effect a forerunner of today’s stealth aircraft.

Bibliography:
1. It’s a Conspiracy! Michael Litchfield, Earthworks Press
2. Operation Paperclip, Clare Lasby, Athenaeum 1975
3. U.S. Coverup of Nazi Scientists, Linda Hunt, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
4. Acid Dreams, Martin Lee and Bruce Schlain, Grove Press
5. Journey Into Madness, Gordon Thomas, Bantam Books
6. Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, Merle Miller, New
York
7. Kiss the Boys Goodbye, by Monika Jensen-Stevenson and William Stevenson.
8. Inside Job – The Looting of America’s S&L, by Stephen Pizzo, Mary Fricker
9. In God’s Name, An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, by David A.Yallop.
10. The Crimes of Patriots – A True Tale of Dope. Dirty Money, and the CIA by Jonathan Kwitny.
11. Mengele – The Complete Story, by Gerald L. Posner and John Ware.
12. Blowback, America’s Recruitment of Nazis and its Effects on the Cold War, by Christopher Simpson.
13. Jury Says Story of Reagan-Bush Campaign Deal With Iran Is True, San Francisco Chronicle May 5, 1990.
14. Hawaii Scheme Cost Napans $500.000, Napa Register October 3, 1983.
15. The Vatican Connection by Richard Hammer
16. The Great Heroin Coup, Drug’s, Intelligence & International Fascism by Henrik Kruger
17. The Nazi Legacy by Magnus Linklater, Isabel Hilton, Neal Ascherson
18. The P-2 Time Bomb Goes Off, May 1984 The Economist

Further reading see:

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=121


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When the U.S. recruited Nazis for 'Operation Paperclip'




PBS NewsHour

Published on Mar 31, 2014

After World War II, the government recruited dedicated Nazis — the scientists behind Hitler's formidable war machine — to come to the U.S. to protect American interests during the Cold War. Jeffrey Brown talks to journalist Annie Jacobsen about her new book, "Operation Paperclip," which sheds light on this veiled national security program and confronts the moral conundrum of whitewashing the past.
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Senate Report Shows CIA Torture Ineffective

 

A Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation” is poised to elevate hostility between the two groups into an all-out war.


By Frederick Reese @FrederickReese | April 2, 2014
 



Protestors demonstrate the use of water boarding to volunteer Maboud Ebrahim Zadeh, Monday, Nov. 5, 2007, in front of the Justice Department in Washington. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)


In recent months, the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee have been in a perceived state of hostility. A disagreement over the CIA’s handling of the “enhanced interrogation” program under former President George W. Bush has evolved into a rare fight between a federal agency and its oversight board. The escalation of harsh words and allegations — including the Intelligence Committee accusing the CIA of illegal spying on, and hacking into the computers of the committee and vice versa — has turned the investigation into allegations of George W. Bush-era torture into an embarrassment for both the Democrat-ran Senate and the Obama White House.

A 6,300-page Senate Intelligence Committee report is set to add fuel to this spreading fire. As reported by The Washington Post, the classified, recently-concluded report alleges that the CIA knowingly misled the government and the American people about the severity and effectiveness of the “enhanced interrogation” program. The agency allegedly took credit for intelligence obtained without the use of “enhanced interrogation” and overstated the importance of information that “enhanced interrogation” did manage to extract.

“The CIA described [its program] repeatedly both to the Department of Justice and eventually to Congress as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives,” one U.S. official briefed on the report told The Washington Post. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the classified nature of the report. “Was that actually true? The answer is no.”

However, with the committee stating that it does not seek any administrative or criminal inquiries based on the findings of the report, and considering that the administration has already closed the door on seeking culpability in the question of the use of “enhanced interrogation,” the question begs to be asked: What is the net result of this investigation?

As this report will likely reignite the debate on the use of torture, it will also likely create a screaming match this election year between Republicans defending the actions of the last Republican president and Democrats defending their rationale for not prosecuting these “crimes against humanity.”


“Enhanced interrogations”

“Enhanced interrogations” refer to a set of interrogation methods involving torturous or physically- and mentally-stressing activities to coerce cooperation. It includes tactics such as inducing hypothermia, waterboarding and stress positioning, or positioning the body in such a way that extraordinary weight is supported by just one or two muscle groups, as in forcing someone to stand on the balls of his feet and making him squat low to the ground.

Waterboarding is a form of water torture in which a victim is immobilized on a downward-inclined table with a cloth covering his face while water is poured over the cloth. This triggers the gag reflex and causes the victim to think he is drowning. As the gag reflex can cause the victim to vomit, the procedure is potentially fatal. In World War II, the United States arrested and hanged Japanese soldiers accused of waterboarding, as pointed out by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during a 2007 Republican Presidential Primaries debate.

“Enhanced interrogations” were carried out in “black sites,” or secret detention facilities, spread throughout the Afghan and Iraqi war zones and within allied nations. In 2009, President Obama brought an end to such interrogation activities, and the CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense closed all of the “black sites.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report mentions undisclosed acts of terror that do not appear on the U.S. Department of Justice’s approved list of interrogation techniques, such as the repeated dunking of a terrorism suspect in Afghanistan in tanks of ice water.

Torture is recognized as a grave violation of basic human rights and is explicitly prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture and all four of the Geneva Conventions. However, due to the United States’ status as a veto-carrying permanent member of the Security Council, the agency charged with the enforcement of international law, the international community does not have the power to force the U.S. to obey these laws or punish the nation if it breaks them.


Differences in interpretation

Defenders of “enhanced interrogations” point to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida’s propagandist from 1999 to 2001. In 2003, Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in a joint CIA-Pakistan raid. In 2006, Mohammed left CIA custody and was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

According to early reports of the death of Osama bin Laden, news agencies reported that CIA interrogators were able to retrieve the pseudonym of one of bin Laden’s aides from Mohammed and Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Officials from the George W. Bush administration credited this information gathering to “enhanced interrogation.”

However, later reports indicated that waterboarding did not prompt Mohammed to reveal the information. Instead, he gave the information up under standard interrogation months before the military started the procedure. Mohammed’s disclosure occurred three years after the CIA waterboarded him 183 times. The Senate report indicated that the National Security Agency — not the CIA — was the most useful in securing intelligence that led to the death of bin Laden.

While the report’s favoring of the NSA over the CIA may reflect the current politics of the committee, which is trying to justify the NSA’s current surveillance apparatus as being both useful and essential for national security, it still points to the George W. Bush administration’s willingness to use violence to gather information, despite the fact that most experts agree that torture is not an effective means of gathering credible intelligence.

“The defenders of ‘enhanced interrogation’ believe it ‘saved American lives,’ yet never identified which life it saved,” Joseph Wippl, a former CIA officer and currently a professor of the practice of international relations, told MintPress News. “Had it really done so, I am confident that person or persons would have been identified.

“The debate about whether enhanced interrogation was effective against terrorists is the wrong debate. What if it was effective? Would you still engage in methods defined as torture — that is, ‘cruel, inhumane, degrading?’ Those methods of enhanced interrogation which can be defined as torture are wrong, even if justified by Justice Department memorandum, under all circumstances — even at the expense of American lives.”


Making amends


The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been working to expose the “enhanced interrogation” program, argues that the Obama administration must do four things in order to redress the fact that the U.S. submitted to the use of torture: fully investigate the use of torture and kidnapping by the federal government and prosecute those responsible; release the records documenting the planning and approval of the program; honor and pardon those service members that objected to the use of torture; and publicly apologize for what has happened and duly compensate the victims and their families. While there is no indication that the administration will agree to every term dictated by the ACLU, there are signs that the White House seeks disclosure on this issue.

“There needs to be a further accounting of what took place during this period, I think for Congress to examine ways that it can be done in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process that can sometimes break down and break it entirely along party lines, to the extent that there are independent participants who are above reproach and have credibility, that would probably be a more sensible approach to take,” President Obama said on April 21, 2009.

With the Senate Intelligence Committee set to vote Thursday on whether the report should be sent to the White House for declassification, this report may be the first step in the nation’s reconciliation with its use of torture. However, with the CIA fervently refuting its accounting, the report is more likely to result in in-fighting and political arguments than healing.


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Chile Lifts Tsunami Warning After 8.2 Quake





People are evacuated from their shelter after a tsunami alarm at Antofagasta city, north of Santiago on the southern Pacific coast, April 1, 2014.

VOA News

April 02, 2014

Tsunami warnings have been lifted for Chile's coastline, hours after a strong 8.2-magnitude earthquake killed at least six people in Chile and set off a small tsunami that prompted evacuations along the country's Pacific coast.

The earthquake late Tuesday was centered about 100 kilometers off Chile's northwestern coast. It caused landslides that blocked highways and widespread power outages.

President Michelle Bachelet has declared a state of emergency in the region. In a late-night address, she urged citizens to stay calm.



"Appropriate measures have been taken to protect their lives and their belongings. And the government will continue to work all the time that is necessary to confront this emergency and protect our citizens," she said.

Waves measuring about two meters hit the Chilean coast in the hours following the quake. No damage from the waves has been reported.

At least six people were reported dead after being crushed by collapsing walls or experiencing heart attacks.

Interior Minister Rodrigo Penailillo said about 300 inmates escaped a woman's prison in Iquique. He said troops have been deployed to prevent looting and round up the escapees.

Chile is one of the world's most earthquake prone countries. In 2010, a 8.8-magnitude quake rocked central Chile, killing more than 500 people and destroying 220,000 homes.

The region hit by Tuesday's quake had also experienced several smaller temblors in recent days, including a 6.0-magnitude earthquake on Sunday.




Residents take their belongings to higher ground after a tsunami alarm at Talcahuano city, south of Santiago, April 1, 2014.



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Earthquakes and Floods

Photo (Courtesy) http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/03/31/24-confirmed-dead-22-missing-in-Washington-mudslide/9941396316781/

The enemy has worked, and he is working still. He is come down in great power, and the Spirit of God is being withdrawn from the earth. God has withdrawn His hand. We have only to look at Johnstown [Pennsylvania]. He did not prevent the devil from wiping that whole city out of existence. [On May 31, 1889, an estimated 2,200 people lost their lives in the Johnstown flood when a dam broke after many days of heavy rains.] And these very things will increase until the close of this earth’s history.—Sermons and Talks 1:109 (1889).

The earth’s crust will be rent by the outbursts of the elements concealed in the bowels of the earth. These elements, once broken loose, will sweep away the treasures of those who for years have been adding to their wealth by securing large possessions at starvation prices from those in their employ. And the religious world, too, is to be terribly shaken, for the end of all things is at hand.—Manuscript Releases 3:208 (1891).

The time is now come when one moment we may be on solid earth, the next the earth may be heaving beneath our feet. Earthquakes will take place when least expected.—Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 421 (1896).

In fires, in floods, in earthquakes, in the fury of the great deep, in calamities by sea and by land, the warning is given that God’s Spirit will not always strive with men.—Manuscript Releases 3:315 (1897).


Before the Son of man appears in the clouds of heaven everything in nature will be convulsed. Lightning from heaven uniting with the fire in the earth will cause the mountains to burn like a furnace and pour out their floods of lava over villages and cities. Molten masses of rock thrown into the water by the upheaval of things hidden in the earth will cause the water to boil and send forth rocks and earth. There will be mighty earthquakes and great destruction of human life.—The S.D.A. Bible Commentary 7:946 (1907).


Last Day Events, pp.25,26.
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Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Atlanta archbishop apologizes over $2.2M mansion




By RAY HENRY 13 hours ago



View gallery




ATLANTA (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Atlanta apologized Monday for building a $2.2 million mansion for himself, a decision criticized by local Catholics who cited the example of austerity set by the new pope.

Archbishop Wilton Gregory recently moved into a nearly 6,400-square-foot (595-square-meter) residence. Its construction was made possible by a large donation from the estate of Joseph Mitchell, nephew of Margaret Mitchell, author of "Gone With The Wind," the Civil War epic that made his family wealthy. When Mitchell died in 2011, he left an estate worth more than $15 million to the archdiocese on the condition it be used for "general religious and charitable purposes."

Gregory said that he has received criticism over the spending in letters, emails and telephone messages.

"I am disappointed that, while my advisors (sic) and I were able to justify this project fiscally, logistically and practically, I personally failed to project the cost in terms of my own integrity and pastoral credibility with the people of God of north and central Georgia," Gregory said in a column posted on the website of the archdiocesan newspaper, The Georgia Bulletin.

"I failed to consider the impact on the families throughout the Archdiocese who, though struggling to pay their mortgages, utilities, tuition and other bills, faithfully respond year after year to my pleas to assist with funding our ministries and services," he added.

The Catholic leader said he will discuss the situation with several diocesan councils, including a special meeting of its finance council. If church representatives want the bishop to sell the home, Gregory said he will do so and move elsewhere.

The purchase of the sprawling home was part of a real estate deal made possible by money from Joseph Mitchell's estate.

In his will, Mitchell requested that primary consideration be given to the Cathedral of Christ The King, where he worshipped. The cathedral received $7.5 million for its capital fund and spent roughly $1.9 million to buy the archbishop's old home, according to tax records. Cathedral officials are planning to spend an additional $292,000 to expand Gregory's old home so its priests can live there, freeing up space on the cathedral's cramped campus.

After selling his home, Gregory needed a new residence.

The archbishop said that he made a mistake while designing a home with large meeting spaces and rooms for receptions and gatherings.

"What we didn't stop to consider, and that oversight rests with me and me alone, was that the world and the Church have changed," Gregory said.

He demolished the one-story home on Mitchell's property, which was donated to the church, and replaced it with a Tudor-style mansion. In January, a group of local Catholics met with the archbishop and asked that he sell the large home and return to his old residence. They cited the example of Pope Francis, who turned down living quarters in a Vatican palace and drives a simple car.

"The example of the Holy Father, and the way people of every sector of our society have responded to his message of gentle joy and compassion without pretense, has set the bar for every Catholic and even for many who don't share our communion," Gregory said.

___

Gregory's column in The Georgia Bulletin: http://www.georgiabulletin.org/commentary/2014/03/the-archbishop-responds/


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Britain: Same-Sex Couples Marry Under New Law



By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MARCH 29, 2014




Some gay couples in Britain waited decades for the right to get married. When the opportunity came, it took just a few minutes to make history, and Sean Adl-Tabatabai and Sinclair Treadway of London were among the first to marry as Britain’s new marriage law, approved last July, went into effect early Saturday. The two men married in front of about 100 guests at their local town hall in the London borough of Camden — one of several places holding late-night ceremonies to mark the occasion. It was a sign of a profound shift in attitudes in a country that little more than a decade ago had a law on the books banning the “promotion” of homosexuality. Same-sex marriage has been welcomed with enthusiasm by Britain’s Conservative-led government. Rainbow flags went up over two government buildings on Friday in what Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg called “a small symbol to celebrate a massive achievement.” 



Tanya Ward, right, and Nikki Pettit, among the first gay couples to legally marry in Brighton, were showered on Saturday. Credit Leon Neal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


A version of this brief appears in print on March 29, 2014, on page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Britain: Same-Sex Couples Marry Under New Law.

Top Adventist health leader calls for compassion, regardless of cause





Dr. Peter Landless, Health Ministries director of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, spoke on the need for compassion for those in gay and lesbian relationships in his address to the denomination's summit on sexuality. [photo: ANN]




Dr. Landless surveys medical evidence on causes, incidence of homosexuality

March 20, 2014 | Cape Town, South Africa | Adventist Review/ANN staff

The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s top health leader said there is no clear model to understand why some individuals are homosexual, saying it is a “complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors.”

In a plenary address yesterday at a denominational conference on sexuality, Dr. Peter Landless, the Adventist Church’s Health Ministries director, illustrated with both words and images the complexity of procreation and the genetic variances and disorders that sometimes occur.

He delivered his remarks at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in South Africa, where the Adventist world church is holding the summit, “In God’s Image: Scripture. Sexuality. Society.”

The four-day conference is addressing how the Seventh-day Adventist Church should respond to the experiences of homosexuality and alternative sexuality. Presenters have called attention to possible implications for the Church’s pastoral ministry to individuals, employment practices, the operation of its many educational systems, and management of its far-flung health system.

His address was a call for compassion to those in gay and lesbian relationships, and also a reaffirmation of the church’s biblical stance on marriage as being between one man and one woman.

Early on he offered a rebuke for a comment he had overheard in a convention center hallway: “I’ve even heard it said at this conference that we’re talking about ‘those people,” he said. “We’re talking about fellow people on the journey of life.”

Landless, who became director of the Adventist world church’s Health Ministries department last year, is a native of South Africa. Internationally known as a nuclear cardiologist, he previously worked at Johannesburg Hospital and served on the late President Nelson Mandela’s cardiology team. He is also an ordained minister with significant pastoral experience.

The physician began his address with a detailed overview of the procreation process and genetic variances that can occur. He gave an example of a child who was born intersexed—a condition known as Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia—and how the child’s father rejected him.

“If fathers and relatives [would] reject children born with such rare conditions, how about the church?” Landless asked the audience. “Should it be different?”

Homosexual men, he said, often have anatomical differences in their brains. Post mortem studies of homosexuals and heterosexuals have shown the differences, but it’s unclear whether the variation is causal or associated, Landless said, because the populations studied have been small. The differences show that many homosexual men have a larger superchiasmatic nucleas, which is involved in determining circadian rhythm, as well as larger anterior commissure, which communicates between the brain’s left and right hemispheres

Some researchers, Landless said are convinced there is a genetic component to homosexuality, with some searching for a “gay gene,” but there is no consensus on causes for homosexuality in either the medical literature or among professional psychologists. “The jury is definitely not resolved,” he said.

Homosexuals have slightly higher rates of increased non-communicable diseases, including hypertension and a higher cardiovascular age compared to their actual age. And lesbian women, Landless said, are 3.2 times more likely to die of breast cancer than heterosexual women.

“There are very significant health needs in the LGBT group,” Landless said. “We as Adventists are ideally equipped and situated to reach out to them. We as a church need to look to ourselves and understand, ‘Who is my neighbor?’”

Following Landless’ plenary session, several delegates said they appreciated his medical overview and his calls for both compassion and the church’s biblical standard to be upheld.

“He contrasted the physiological picture of what healthy looks like and also the full extent of what brokenness can look like,” said Audrey Andersson, executive secretary of the denomination’s Trans-European Division, based in England. “People can choose how they respond to others’ brokenness.”

Onaolapo Ajibade, executive secretary of the denomination’s West-Central Africa Division, based in Cote d’Ivoire, said since there is no known cause of homosexuality, there is no “cure.”

“In the meantime we have to adopt a Christian approach,” Ajibade said. “Since we don’t know the cause, we have to be sympathetic.”

Before coming to the summit, Ajibade said he questioned whether it was worth the effort and cost.

“Originally I thought this summit was not needed, but having come here and having listened to all the presentations, I’m convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that it is worth it,” he said. “The church is making a spiritual step to equip us to be able to help our brothers and sisters who are in this state.”

Daily news bulletins from the summit provided by Adventist Review and Adventist News Network (ANN) will be available at adventistreview.org and news.adventist.org.

 Source: "Adventist News Network"
 
Copyright © 2014, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists


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Social Justice, A Christian Duty?





Kimberley Tagert-Paul

“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17, NIV).

George Muller took this Bible verse to heart. As a result, more than 10,000 orphans in Bristol, England no longer had to call the street their home.

Muller didn’t start out following what the Bible had to say. By the time he was 14, he was known as a thief, a liar, a gambler and a drunk. But all of that changed when he was invited to a religious meeting and there, seeing the power of Jesus Christ, opened his heart to the Savior.

Muller took the Bible’s words quite literally. Many lives were changed as a result. He and his wife, Mary, started a work that transformed the times in which they lived (mid 1800s). He never went into debt to pay for their orphanage or the needs that the children had. He depended on a solid prayer life and believed every prayer would be answered. They were. Sometimes, remarkably, at the last possible minute.

Muller took social justice as a serious part of his Christian life. Should we?

The Bible tells us the answer, the only answer we need. Verse after verse tells us we have a duty to protect others, to defend the poor, to take care of the needy. The Old Testament is full of instructions on how exactly we are to meet the needs of others. Jesus made sure the message was continued in the New Testament, summing up the law in Mathew 7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (NIV).

Man’s greatest need is to be reconciled with his Savior. In trying to do that, we often want to beat them over the head with the Gospel. We try to run our agenda up flagpoles for all to see. We even print our message on bumper stickers for all to read. Sometimes those things might actually work, but often they have the opposite effect than the one we are trying to reach them with.

So how do we fight for social justice without hurting our cause?

The simplest way is to love. Love was the reason Jesus came to restore God’s character to man. What had we misunderstood about His character? Simply that God is love. We can analyze it, dissect it, study it for hours on end, but the result will be the same: God is love. And if love is at the very root of His character, shouldn’t it be at the root of ours?

Love is not a noun; it is a verb. It is an action word. Being a Christian calls for action, not overreaction. It calls us to be faithful and diligent about caring for the needs and rights of others. Social justice is simply that—realizing that all people have rights and that each human deserves dignity, the same as we desire for ourselves. Isn’t that what Mathew 7:12 tells us?

Helen Keller may have been blind in sight, but she was wise with words when she said, “Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained.”

Can we trust God to take care of injustice? Will His coming make everything right? Of course the answer is "yes". Until then, we, as Christians, have a responsibility to care for our brothers, even though they may not yet see their need for a Savior. Because if we do, they may just see that need and find everything they will ever need in Him.

This article originally appeared in Accent magazine January-March, 2013.


Source:  "Adventist News Network"

Copyright © 2014, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists


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Adventist professor’s devotional series urges appropriate conversation about sex





John Nixon, professor of Religion and Spirituality at Southern Adventist University, offers a morning devotional during the Adventist Church’s sexuality summit in Cape Town last week. The “In God’s Image: Scripture. Sexuality. Society.” summit explored the biblical response to human brokenness. [photo: Ansel Oliver]




Reclaim ‘spirituality of sexuality,’ Nixon says at Cape Town summit

March 25, 2014 | Cape Town, South Africa | Adventist Review/ANN staff

No other denomination today is “better positioned” to reclaim the “spirituality of sexuality” than the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a theology professor said at the church’s sexuality summit in Cape Town last week.

In a series of morning devotionals, John Nixon, professor of Religion and Spirituality at Southern Adventist University, said dysfunctional attitudes toward sex among Christians are the result of “alien influences” that “undermine and distort” the teachings of Jesus.

We’ve been lax in teaching Christian sexuality in our churches, schools and homes. This is the root of the sexual crisis we are now facing. Even the word ‘sex’ spoken from the pulpit makes us uncomfortable,” Nixon said.

“The spectrum of teaching about sex in the church is limited to extremes—love without sex (abstinence) and sex without love (promiscuity). The Bible rejects them both,” he told delegates at the church’s “In God’s Image: Scripture. Sexuality. Society” summit at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in South Africa.

A brief historical overview helped explain how broken attitudes toward sex gained a foothold in the church. Hellenistic thought, Nixon said, pitted the spiritual world against the material world; thus a “good” soul was trapped in an “evil” body with sinful desires. Christian writings and practices of the second and third centuries A.D. reveal an obsession with asceticism, or severe physical debasement as a measure of spirituality. Saint Augustine (354-430 A.D.) argued that all sin was rooted in sexuality and advocated procreation only without recreation.

Asceticism glorified hardships and taught that because the body was evil, all physical enjoyment should be eschewed, including sex within marriage. This notion encouraged the practice of celibacy among Christians, Nixon said.

“The vestiges of this philosophy still exist in our church,” Nixon said. “For many of us, there is still something a little suspicious about sexual pleasure, even in marriage. Engage in it, we think, but don’t have too much fun.”

But God does not forbid or even “just tolerate” sex, Nixon said. “He celebrates it in the context of pure, genuine love between husband and wife.”

Indeed, the union of husband and wife within the “sacred institution of marriage” is a full expression of the plural image of God,” he said, citing Genesis 1:26 and 27. “We are relational creatures made to complement each other. Sex is not just an act; it is part of our beings,” Nixon said.

“We do not teach a divided human nature—a soul trapped in a body. We teach a holistic nature. Sex, which is physical, also impacts the spirit and mind,” Nixon said.

Still, challenges persist in teaching biblical sexuality in homes, schools and churches—especially in a world that views any act between consenting adults as permissible, he said. On Adventist college campuses, Nixon said he has observed that students are increasingly concerned about gender identity and often view sexual choices through the lens of social justice.

All too often, he said, the Adventist Church has chosen silence rather than engaging in the conversation. “Our children learn about sex from the world. They grow up in a world of alternative sexuality as the ‘new normal.’ Sex [for them] is about self-gratification, about the happiness I am entitled to,” Nixon said.

He told the story of Joseph recorded in Genesis to illustrate that chastity and celibacy are indeed attainable goals. Joseph, he said, demonstrated integrity and faithfulness even in the face of major temptations.

“Sexual sin lends itself to secrecy where no one sees, but private moments are the ones that reveal true character,” Nixon said.

Adventist parents, teachers and pastors have the responsibility to pass on a healthy view of sex within the parameters of heterosexual marriage, he said.

“May God help us to fulfill that responsibility.”
 
Copyright © 2014, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists


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