“I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days”
(Daniel 10:14)

Make Thee Understand

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CNN

'Horrible': Christian churches across Egypt stormed, torched

By Sarah Sirgany and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN

August 16, 2013 -- Updated 0908 GMT (1708 HKT)

Egypt's churches looted and torched

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

A Christian church southwest of Cairo is attacked, state news says

Moderate Muslims put out fire at one church, halted other attacks, church staff say

A Coptic Orthodox Church leader says 52 churches have been attacked in 24 hours

Bishop: "It's about burning churches to initiate a response that spirals into greater violence"

Kafr Hakim, Egypt (CNN) -- For 67 years, the Virgin Mary Church has been a peaceful refuge for Shenouda El Sayeh, much like the Giza province village of Kafr Hakim where it rests and where he has lived all those years.

But, as he swept its floors on Thursday, it was painfully obvious things had changed.

The night before, a mob -- chanting against Coptic Christians such as El Sayeh and calling for Egypt to become an "Islamic state" -- had torched and looted the Virgin Mary Church.

"I didn't expect this to happen," El Sayeh said.

He's not alone. Christians all around Egypt are cleaning up in the aftermath of a spate of attacks, which came on the country's deadliest day since the 2011 revolution that overthrew longtime President Hosni Mubarak.

Bishop Angaelos, the Cairo-born head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, said he was told by colleagues in Egypt that 52 churches were attacked in a 24-hour span that started Wednesday, as well as numerous Christians' homes and businesses.

Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told CNN he had confirmed attacks on at least 30 churches so far, in addition to the targeting of church-related facilities, including schools and cultural centers.

Those churches reportedly set ablaze Wednesday included St. George Church in Sohag, a city south of Cairo on the Nile River.

And the new day brought new attacks. Prince Tadros Church in Fayoum, which is southwest of Cairo, was stormed and burned Thursday night, according to the official Middle East News Agency.

This and other attacks have been blamed by some on supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement which backs recently deposed President Mohamed Morsy. Government efforts to clear the group's Cairo protest camps resulted in gruesome scenes in the capital: Egypt's health ministry says that at least 580 people were killed and more than 4,000 injured amid clashes involving security forces and Morsy supporters.

Against this backdrop, it may be some time before it's established what group, if any, is behind the church attacks, and how coordinated this violence has been.

Until then, Christians in Egypt are left to try to put things back together, as well as to attempt to make sense of what's transpired.

As Dalia Ziada of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, told CNN: "This is horrible to happen in only one day."

'A very dangerous game to play'

Egypt will have much to deal with if, and when, things do settle down. Once that happens, Angaelos says that a proper investigation of the church attacks should follow -- especially since, he feels, the sheer scale of incidents suggests they were orchestrated, rather than a byproduct of chaotic unrest.

"We would want the people who have done it to be brought to justice because I think they are trying to do something which is much more dangerous," he said.

"It's not just about burning churches, it's about burning churches to initiate a response that then spirals into even greater violence -- and that is a very, very dangerous game to play."

The targeting of churches and Christian properties was not unexpected, Angaelos said, given the tensions in Cairo and elsewhere and in light of escalating attacks on Coptic Christians in recent weeks.

The growing threat led him last week to issue a statement warning of "a very real risk upon the life of every Christian." Pope Tawadros II, the church's leader in Egypt, also suspended weekly public events for fear of attacks on Christian congregations.

But the warnings didn't prevent the violence, nor did security efforts to protect churches and Christian communities, according to Ibrahim.

Said Angaelos, "The ferocity and the speed with which it all happened ... was quite surprising."

Burning of books

A Bible Society of Egypt statement posted online Wednesday reported the "complete burning and destruction" of its bookshops in the cities of Assiut and Minia, in southern Egypt.

"Fortunately we were closed today, fearing such an attack, so none of our staff were injured," wrote Ramez Atallah, the society's general director. "The attackers demolished the metal doors protecting the bookshops, broke the store windows behind them and set the bookshops on fire."

Other stores and parked cars on those streets were also destroyed, he said.

"It is important to underline that -- while some Christian properties have been the victim of this violence -- they are by no means the only ones targeted," Atallah said.

"This is an attack against the state by a violent minority in an attempt to destabilize the nation."

CNN iReporter Amir Beshay, from Cairo, helped draw up a list of Christian churches and properties reportedly targeted.

On it are sites in Alexandria, Arish, Assiut, Beni Suef, Cairo, Fayoum, Gharbiya, Giza, Minya, Qena, Sohag and Suez. They include churches and schools, as well as homes and businesses belonging to Coptic Christians. CNN has not been able independently to verify the reports.

Asked about the attacks on churches Wednesday, U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the United States was deeply concerned. "We will continue speaking out against this and continue talking to all parties and all sides about renouncing this violence, about moving forward with a democratic process."

Daniel Sinclair, director of communications at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said the group was "deeply concerned at the unwarranted and continuing targeting of the Coptic community. We urge the government to ensure comprehensive security to all Egyptians, regardless of their religion."

Long history in Egypt

Egypt's Christian minority has been the target of a number of attacks in recent years. The bombing of a major church in Alexandria in January 2011 killed 21 people and sparked worldwide condemnation.

The situation has only become worse since Egypt's popular revolution overthrew former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, said Angaelos.

"In the past two-and-a-half years, we've had more deaths of people just because they are Christians than in the last 20 years," he said, adding that this had not triggered violent retaliation.

He hopes for forgiveness and reconciliation among all Egyptians going forward, to help build a unified country.

Christians have been in Egypt since the 1st century and were, for centuries, the majority. Some 90% of Coptic Christians still live in the country, he said, making up the largest Christian community in the Middle East.

Angaelos puts the proportion of Christians in Egypt at 15 to 20% of the population. The CIA World Factbook says 10% of Egypt's population is Christian, while the Pew Research Center, which says firm numbers are hard to come by, puts the figure at about 5%.

Back in Kafr Hakim, Atia Ghattas told CNN his family's houses were attacked on the same night the church was looted. There was incitement against the Coptic community through the mosques in the area, he said.

Father Boktor Saad, of Kafr Hakim's Virgin Mary Church, said he believes that a small group of extremists were responsible for inciting groups to attack his church.

But, he and other church staff said, not everyone participated, and some non-Christians prevented the situation in that village from getting worse.

They credited moderate Muslims with putting out the fire at Virgin Mary, and halting further attacks on Coptic Christians' homes and shops.

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LifeSiteNews.com

World leaders should unite to end anti-Christian persecution, Vladimir Putin says

BY HILARY WHITE

Thu Aug 01, 2013

MOSCOW, August 1, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Vladimir Putin has urged the world’s political leaders to stop the violent persecutions against Christians that have erupted in many Middle Eastern countries.

Speaking at a meeting with Orthodox Christian leaders in Moscow last week, the Russian President said he noted “with alarm” that “in many of the world’s regions, especially in the Middle East and in North Africa inter-confessional tensions are mounting, and the rights of religious minorities are infringed, including Christians and Orthodox Christians.”

“This pressing problem should be a subject of close attention for the entire international community,” Putin said. “It is especially important today to make efforts to prevent intercultural and interreligious conflicts, which are fraught with the most serious upheavals.”

Putin praised the growth of cooperation between the Orthodox Churches and the Russian state, saying, “We act as genuine partners and colleagues to solve the most pressing domestic and international tasks, to implement joint initiatives for the benefit of our country and people.”

The Russian Federation recently passed legislation making it illegal to promote homosexuality as normal, a move that, while condemned by many European leaders, was strongly supported by the Orthodox Church.

Putin added Thursday that the Church was giving Russians a moral compass when so many were looking for help. “Today when people are once again searching for moral support, millions of our compatriots see it in religion,” he said. “They trust the wise, pastoral word of the Russian Orthodox Church.”

He added that it was the Church that was ultimately responsible for the development and rise of “culture and education” in Russia over the last 1,000 years. “The adoption of Christianity became a turning point in the fate of our fatherland, made it an inseparable part of the Christian civilization and helped it turn into one of the largest world powers,” Putin said.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, said at the same meeting that the attempts to push Christians out of Syria would lead to a “civilization catastrophe.” Kirill and other Orthodox leaders have been critical of the lack of response to the crisis facing Christians in the Middle East by US and other Western leaders.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

The meeting was held with the leaders of all 15 Orthodox Churches to commemorate the 1,025th anniversary of the “Baptism of Russia” – the official adoption of Christianity and establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kievan Rus by Prince Vladimir in 988 A.D.

Orthodox leaders at the meeting also condemned the growing secularist suppression of Christian freedoms in non-Muslim countries like Britain, where “gay marriage” has just been created.

Metropolitan Hilarion, the Russian Orthodox Church’s chief ecumenical officer, said “secularization in disguise of democratization” is leading Western nations toward totalitarianism. He spoke of a “powerful energy today [that] strives to finally break with Christianity, which controlled its totalitarian impulses during 17 centuries.”

Metropolitan Hilarion said, “Eventually, it unconsciously strives to set up an absolute dictatorship that demands total control over each member of society. Don’t we move to it when ‘for the sake of security’ we agree to obligatory electronic passports, dactyloscopy [fingerprint identification] for everyone, and photo cameras occurring everywhere?”

He highlighted the attempt to create same-sex “marriage” in France, which he called an attempt to make “immorality normal,” saying, that the French government has “consciously and demonstratively ignored demands of people and used tear gas to disperse them.”

Later, at a reception in Kiev, Putin and Patriarch Kirill took part in a prayer service with Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych. He urged the leaders of Ukraine to turn towards a greater unity with Russia, and away from its overtures to the European Union, citing a natural cultural and spiritual relationship that is not present with the heavily secularist EU.

Patriarch Kirill added that it is the Orthodox religion that creates genuine unity between Slavic peoples. “Our ancestors adopted the Christian faith and, together with it, a system of values and morals…that no historical upheavals were able to destroy,” he said. Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians have a shared spiritual foundation that unites them more than their national boundaries divide them.

Patriarch Kirill said of the same-sex “marriage” fad sweeping the Western world, “This is a very dangerous apocalyptic symptom, and we must do everything so that sin is never validated by the laws of the state in the lands of Holy Rus, because this would mean that the people are starting on the path of self-destruction.”

Today, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, blasted the Russian government for its law banning gay propaganda, calling it “hateful.”

Baird said that the Canadian delegation was among those governments that tried to dissuade the Russian leadership not to adopt the law that outlaws all attempts to normalize homosexuality or other forms of non-traditional sexuality, especially to children.

“This mean-spirited and hateful law will affect all Russians 365 days of the year, every year. It is an incitement to intolerance, which breeds hate. And intolerance and hate breed violence,” Baird told the Canadian Press today.

The comments follow an announcement by Russia’s sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, who said the law would be enforced against athletes and visitors to Russia during next year’s winter Olympic games.

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The Telegraph

Fracking 'threatens God's glorious creation'

The Church of England has told parishioners that fracking causes environmental problems and risks lasting harm to “God’s glorious creation”.

The Cuadrilla Resources site in Lancashire Photo: PA

By James Kirkup, Deputy Political Editor

13 Aug 2013

The warning has been issued to Anglicans in Lancashire, where significant work to extract gas and oil by fracking has been proposed.

The Diocese of Blackburn has published a leaflet for its flock, telling them that for Christians, fracking presents “a choice between economic gain and a healthy environment.”

The church's decision to highlight potential downsides of fracking comes as Conservative ministers step up efforts to sell the technology to voters as an economic necessity.

Fracking, which involves fracturing rocks deep underground with water and chemicals to extract oil and natural gas, has sharply cut US energy bills and imports.

Ministers say it could do the same for Britain, but campaigners and local residents are opposing fracking in several counties, warning that it does environmental harm.

The Church leaflet appears to endorse such concerns, saying: “Fracking causes a range of environmental problems.”

The leaflet does not explicitly commit the church to a clear position for or against fracking.

But its focus is on the potential for lasting environmental damage and urges believers to consider their Christian duty to act as "stewards of the earth".

It says: "The time we spend thinking, praying and acting now to protect our drinking water, and the rest of God’s glorious Creation cannot compare with the time succeeding generations could potentially spend trying to make good what will likely happen if we in the church remain uninformed and silent."

Fracking is untested and potentially harmful, the leaflet says: “A relatively new technique to extract natural gas from previously unreachable depths is prompting a rush to drill, despite virtually no history as to its environmental impact."

The leaflet does mention economic arguments for fracking, but hints that environmental concerns should trump the "temptation" to make such gains.

The prospect of profit from fracking “has lured landowners to sign or contemplate signing leases to drill on their land. This is one way they can retain their land and make money, and money in today’s world seems to count for more than environmental stability,” it says.

“The rush to benefit from the gas-drilling bonanza is an obvious temptation for many and this, of course, raises the question of how consideration for God the Creator enters into the decision-making process.”

A spokesman for Blackburn Diocese said that the leaflet was intended to inform parishioners about the complex issues involved in fracking, and not to persuade them to oppose the technology.

“Whilst the Church of England does not have an official line in any of these particular aspects of the debate, it, together with other faith communities, does have an obligation, under God, to bring a different perspective into the debate,” he said.

“This stems from a sincere conviction to take seriously the challenges of caring for God’s fragile creation. To that end, the church believes it has a responsibility to inform its parishioners of these theological and ethical perspectives to enable them to reflect and respond accordingly.”

David Cameron has pledged to make the case for fracking in all parts of the UK, but the cause has encountered resistance in Northern Ireland.

Mark Durkan, the environment minister in Belfast’s devolved administration, has said that the case for fracking has not yet been made.

Mr Durkan, who would have to approve any fracking project in Northern Ireland, said he was not yet convinced.

“I am not going to make any decision until all the facts and scientific evidence are established. To do otherwise would be reckless and irresponsible,” he said “Do we need to extract shale gas? Can it be done safely? Would it be done responsibly? These are the responsible questions. All facts are not in. The scientific evidence is far from being established.”

“The nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” Revelation 11:18

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Globel Research

Fukushima: Uncontainable

By Stephen Lendman

Global Research, August 13, 2013

Japan’s apocalypse continues. Emergency conditions persist. No end in sight looms. Fukushima’s radioactive discharges can’t be stopped. They continue. They’re uncontainable.

At issue is by far the worst environmental disaster in history. It’s multiples worse than Chernobyl. It’s an unprecedented catastrophe. It’s reason enough to abolish nuclear power.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, about 300 tons of radioactive groundwater flow into the Pacific daily.

It’s done so since Japan’s March earthquake and tsunami triggered Fukushima’s meltdown.

Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) says water’s getting over and around “chemical walls.” It can’t be stopped. Three Fukushima reactors suffered meltdowns. A fourth was badly damaged.

The worst fear remains. Unit Four’s structural integrity was seriously undermined. It contains hundreds of tons of highly radioactive water.

If an earthquake or other natural disaster occurs, its fuel rods almost certainly will catch fire. Radioactive emissions will follow. They’ll compound what’s already disastrous.

Emissions will continue longterm. They’ll circle the planet. They cause catastrophic harm.

Since March 2011, Tepco estimates around 20 to 40 trillion radioactive tritium becquerels leaked into the Pacific. So have large cesium and strontium discharges. They continue. They’re much more dangerous.

According to nuclear expert Arnie Gunderson, “(t)he horse is already out of the barn.” Leakage continues since earthquake and tsunami struck.

Radioactive water contaminates the Pacific. Gunderson’s “experience with underground water is that – if it is serious at the ocean, it is more serious” on land.

Japanese officials proposed erecting a barrier. At issue is preventing water from reaching the Pacific. Whatever’s done “is two years too late and will be too late by the time” construction’s finished, said Gunderson.

A barrier’s not the solution. It causes another problem. “If the water can’t go anywhere into the Pacific Ocean, it is going to build up onsite, which means that the nuclear reactors themselves will become unstable.”

“The water can pull underneath the nuclear buildings and if there is an earthquake, in fact the nuclear buildings could topple. So, by solving one problem, they are creating another problem.”

Gunderson believes contaminated water will keep discharging for at least 20 to 30 years. It’s the most radioactive water he ever experienced.

Cost is another issue. Cleanup involves around half a trillion dollars, says Gunderson. Most important is human health.

Epidemic cancer levels are certain. And not just in Japan. In early July, Fukushima’s former chief operator, Masao Yoshida, died of esophogeal cancer.

He was 58. Tepco lied saying his death was unrelated to radiation exposure. Japanese children are experiencing a shocking 40% rise in thyroid irregularities.

Experts expect much higher numbers ahead. Fukushima’s an ongoing disaster. It persists. It’s not ending. It’ll continue for decades.

According to Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) president Arjun Makhijani:

“Fukushima continues to be an emergency without end – vast amounts of radioactivity, including strontium-90 in the groundwater, evidence of leaks into the sea, the prospect of contaminated seafood.”

“Strontium-90, being a calcium analog, bioaccumulates in the food chain. It is likely to be a seaside nightmare for decades.”

It’s much more dangerous than cesium 137 and 134. It’s at levels 30 times higher.

“So to give you an idea of the level of contamination, if somebody drank that water for a year, they would almost certainly get cancer.”

“So that’s one problem. The other is the defenses to hold back this water from the sea seem to be overcome.”

“So now the contaminated waters, 70,000, 80,000 gallons, are flowing into the sea every day.”

“(S)ome of it will disperse and dilute. Some of it goes into the sediment, and some of it is taken up by the life in the sea.”

“And the unfortunate thing about strontium especially is that it bioaccumulates in algae. It bioaccumulates in fish.”

“It targets the bone, because it’s like calcium. And so this is a problem. We don’t have measurements far out to sea.”

“The Woods Hole Institute has done some surveys. And they were surprised by how much continuing radioactivity they found, but no clear explanation yet.”

The effect on human health’s expected to be devastating. It’s already bad. It’s getting progressively worse. The genie’s out of the bottle. No end in sight looms.

Strontium-90 and cesium are both perilous. “(S)ince strontium-90 is more mobile and also more dangerous biologically, (it) behaves like calcium, so it goes to the bone.”

“It also bioaccumulates in the base of the food chain and algae. Ultimately because it does bioaccumulate and there is quite a lot of strontium, you could have a large part of the food chain near Fukushima being contaminated.”

If pregnant women ingest contaminated water, fish or other food, “the outcomes could be worse than cancer because then you’re talking about a much more compromised child in the sense of having a compromised immune system – it makes you more vulnerable to all kinds of diseases.”

Makhijani doesn’t know how Tepco can handle the problem. It’s uncontrollable.

“It’s very, very unclear to me how they are going to be able to get at this molten fuel, extract it from the bottoms of these highly damaged buildings and package it for safer or less dangerous storage or disposal.”

“This is an accident that’s shockingly not stopping.” It’s certain to worsen. It’s unchartered territory.

It affects the region. It’s humanity’s worst environmental nightmare. Nuclear rain affects North America and Europe.

Obama’s an unabashed nuclear power promoter. He wants more reactors built. He wants licenses for aging poorly maintained plants with poor safety records extended. He wants them operating unregulated.

He’s recklessly endangering Americans. He talks clean energy alternatives. Policy measures spurn them. He fronts for corporate favorites.

He’s captive to a destructive industry. He risks a Fukushima-type disaster on US soil. He risks millions of American lives. He’s mindless of potential dangers.

Nuclear power’s inherently unsafe. Einstein called it a hellova way to boil water. It does so through massive heat. It turns it into steam. It powers an electricity generating turbine.

According to anti-nuclear activist Karl Grossman:

Avoiding potentially catastrophic accidents “requires perfection and no acts of God.” Humans and technology aren’t perfect. Natural and other disasters happen.

“We can’t eliminate them. But we can – and must – eliminate atomic energy.” Otherwise it’ll eliminate us.

Nuclear expert Helen Caldicott’s clear and unequivocal, saying:

“As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction.”

“If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced.”

It doesn’t get any clearer than that.

A Final Comment

Coverup and denial followed Chernobyl’s disaster. Helen Caldicott called doing so “the most monstrous coverup in the history of medicine.”

The death toll was many multiples greater than reported. Estimates range up to a million or more.

The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) translated thousands of Russian articles and papers. It added “revised and updated contributions.”

“Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster,” NYAS said.

“According to the authors, official discussions from the (IAEA) and associated (UN) agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments.”

Fukushima far exceeds Chernobyl. Millions of lives are threatened. Perhaps future independent studies will explain. They’ll be too little to late to help victims.

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Global Research

The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves

The Slaves That Time Forgot

By John Martin

Global Research, January 27, 2013

They came as slaves; vast human cargo transported on tall British ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men, women, and even the youngest of children.

Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. They were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.

We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we? We know all too well the atrocities of the African slave trade.

But, are we talking about African slavery? King James II and Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s famed Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor.

The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.

During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.

Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.

As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.

African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling). If a planter whipped or branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African. The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude.

In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women (in many cases, girls as young as 12) to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion. These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves. This practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades and was so widespread that, in 1681, legislation was passed “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale.” In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large slave transport company.

England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century. Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew would have plenty of food to eat.

There is little question that the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if not more in the 17th Century) as the Africans did. There is, also, very little question that those brown, tanned faces you witness in your travels to the West Indies are very likely a combination of African and Irish ancestry. In 1839, Britain finally decided on it’s own to end it’s participation in Satan’s highway to hell and stopped transporting slaves. While their decision did not stop pirates from doing what they desired, the new law slowly concluded THIS chapter of nightmarish Irish misery.

But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience, then they’ve got it completely wrong.

Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from our memories.

But, where are our public (and PRIVATE) schools???? Where are the history books? Why is it so seldom discussed?

Do the memories of hundreds of thousands of Irish victims merit more than a mention from an unknown writer?

Or is their story to be one that their English pirates intended: To (unlike the African book) have the Irish story utterly and completely disappear as if it never happened.

None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to describe their ordeal. These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books conveniently forgot.

Irish enslavement

Wikipedia

While there has been some historical references of Irish enslaved in colonial America the main geographical area of Irish enslavement was the Caribbean. Montserrat is one of only a handful of sovereign states that celebrate St. Patrick's day as a national holiday. This is due to the large percentage of Irish descendants in the population. In fact, most Montserratans spoke Irish Gaelic until early 1900s. During the Cromwellian campaign in Ireland many Irish rebels and stubborn landowners and tenants were rounded up and sent to the Caribbean to work alongside African slaves on English owned plantations. Jamaica also received a sizeable proportion of Irish slaves. The Jamaican and Caribbean accents are believed to have originated from the Irish accent. It is far from uncommon to see street names with Irish surnames.

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RARE TAKE

Oops. - Matt

The Associated Press issued a formal retraction of a photo it published that claimed to show that a large lake had formed at the North Pole due to global warming.

In its retraction, the AP admitted that not only was the “lake” simply a small melt-pond but that it was natural, not due to global warming. The AP also admitted that the “lake” wasn’t even at the North Pole, explaining that the monitoring station where the photo was taken had drifted hundreds of miles to the south.

UPDATE: Full AP retraction

Editors, photo editors, and photo librarians – please eliminate AP photo NY109 that was sent on Saturday, July 27, 2013. The caption inaccurately stated that “the shallow metlwater lake is occuring due to an unusually warm period.” In fact, the water accumulates in this way every summer. In addition, the images do not necessarily show conditions at the North Pole, because the weather buoy carrying the camera used by the North Pole Environmental Observatory has drifted hundreds of miles from its original position, which was a few dozen miles from the North Pole.

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Los Angeles Times

Scientists say sugar at levels considered safe is harmful

University of Utah biology professor Wayne Potts, right, and a student set up a mouse barn for their study. (Lee J. Siegel / University of Utah)

By Mary MacVean

August 13, 2013, 2:29 p.m.

When mice were fed a diet that was 25% added sugars – an amount consumed by many humans – the females died at twice the normal rate and the males were less likely to reproduce and hold territory, scientists said in a study published Tuesday.

The study shows "that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic impacts on mammalian health," the researchers said in the study, published in the journal Nature Communications. "Many researchers have already made calls for reevaluation of these safe levels of consumption."

The study’s senior author, University of Utah biology professor Wayne Potts, said earlier studies fed mice sugars at levels higher than people eat in sodas, cookies, candy and other items. The current study stuck to levels eaten by people.

The mice lived in "seminatural enclosures," and the experimental and control groups lived in direct competition with each other. After being fed the two diets for 26 weeks, the mice lived for 32 weeks in mouse barns -- enclosures of 377 square feet ringed by three-foot walls. There were some nesting areas that were more desirable than others.

"Added sugars" are those added during processing or preparation, not those that occur naturally in fruit or milk. The scientists fed the mice a diet that got its added sugars from half fructose and half glucose monosaccharides, which is about what’s found in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), Potts said. The study, he said, was not set up to differentiate between the effects of different forms of caloric sweeteners.

The Corn Refiners Assn., a trade group, questioned the use of mice in the study, saying in a statement that the only way to know the effect in people would be to test people.

"Mice do not eat sugar as a part of their normal diet, so the authors are measuring a contrived overload effect that might not be present had the rodents adapted to sugar intake over time," the group said.

The trade group for the sugar industry, the Sugar Assn., said it was studying the research. But it maintained that the sweetener used in the study was crucial.

"Sugar and the various formulations of HFCS are molecularly different — they are not the same product, yet too often, and erroneously, HFCS is referred to as an 'added sugar.' " the statement said. "Only sugar is sugar."

In a statement, Potts said mice were "an excellent mammal to model human dietary issues" because they’ve been living with people and eating the same food for thousands of years.

The Utah researchers noted that consumption of added sugars increased in the American diet by 50% from the 1970s to about 2008, primarily because of the higher consumption of HFCS. (The intake has since been declining, and the Sugar Assn. said consumption of sucrose has decreased by 35% in the last four decades.)

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise us to limit our total intake of added sugars, fats and other "discretionary calories" to 5% to 15% of total calories consumed every day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that from 2005 to 2010, we got 13% of our total calories from added sugar.

The male mice controlled 26% fewer territories and produced 25% fewer offspring, the scientists said. The lower reproduction levels could be the result of a decreased ability to defend their territories, the researchers said. The diet did not affect weight.

Potts said he has reduced the amount of "refined sugar" he eats and has suggested his family do the same.

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NaturalNews

Sacred herb turmeric may make at least 14 pharmaceutical drugs utterly obsolete

by: Jonathan Benson

August 15, 2013 by: Jonathan Benson You may have already heard about the many amazing healing properties of the spice turmeric, which is also sometimes referred to as curcumin. But did you know that literally thousands of published, peer-reviewed studies conducted and compiled over the years lend credence to the notion that turmeric works the same as, or even better than, at least 14 pharmaceutical drugs currently on the market?

It is true, and thanks to the diligent work of GreenMedInfo.com's Sayer Ji in compiling this valuable information, it is now available publicly for the benefit of your and your family's health. Many of the most commonly prevalent chronic illnesses, it turns out, can be prevented, treated, and even cured using turmeric, so you will want to pay attention. Here are seven drugs and classes of drugs that science shows can be effectively replaced with turmeric:

1) Statin drugs for cholesterol. Popular cholesterol drugs like Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) and Crestor (rosuvastatin) are completely unnecessary when taking standardized doses of curcuminoids extracted from turmeric, according to a 2008 study published in the journal Drugs in R & D. Researchers found that in patients with endothelial dysfunction, the underlying blood vessel pathology that leads to atherosclerosis, turmeric extract worked at least as good as the drugs at reducing inflammation and relieving oxidative stress in type 2 diabetics.

2) Corticosteroid drugs. Millions of people receive steroid injections every year to treat the inflammation associated with conditions like arthritis and even cancer. But a 1999 study published in the journal Phytotherapy Research found that turmeric's primary antioxidant, curcumin, works just as well as steroid medications in the treatment of inflammatory eye disease. Several studies released in the years following found similar benefits for other inflammatory diseases commonly treated with steroids.

3) Antidepressants. Besides their copious side effects, antidepressant drugs like Prozac (fluoxetine) and Paxil (paroxetine) are extremely risky, as they can actually make depression symptoms worse for some people. But why even bother to use them when turmeric has been shown to effectively reduce depressive behavior the same or even better than these dangerous drugs?

4) Blood thinners. People at high risk of heart attack or stroke, or who require blood-thinning drugs to avoid these and other cardiovascular events, may simply be able to take turmeric instead. This suggestion is based on a 1986 study published in the journal Arzneimittelforschung, which found that curcumin has similar anti-platelet and prostacyclin modulating effects as aspirin, the blood-thinning drug of choice for many conventional doctors.

5) Anti-inflammatory drugs. Aspirin is also commonly prescribed for other inflammatory conditions, as is ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, and a number of other pain pills. But these may be unnecessary as turmeric was shown in a 2004 study published in the journal Oncogene to exert similar anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative activity, particularly against cancer cells, as these drugs.

6) Chemotherapy drugs. The cancer industry would have us all believe that chemotherapy drugs are one of the few methods we have at our disposal to treat cancer. But a 2007 study published in the International Journal of Cancer found that curcumin works just as well as oxaliplatin (Eloxatin) at treating colorectal cancer.

7) Diabetes drugs. Not only is turmeric a viable contender in treating diabetes, a 2009 study published in the journal Biochemistry and Biophysical Research Community found that it works up to 100,000 times better than the popular diabetes drug Metformin at increasing glucose uptake. Turmeric also helps suppress glucose production in the liver at least as well as the most popular diabetes drugs on the market today.

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Until next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions

“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth.”
(Genesis 1:29)

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