California Gas Stations Shut as Oil Refiners Ration Supplies

Gasoline station owners in the Los Angeles area including Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) are beginning to shut pumps as the state’s oil refiners started rationing supplies and spot prices surged to a record.

Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) stopped selling gasoline on the spot, or wholesale, market in Southern California and is allocating deliveries to customers. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) is also rationing fuel to U.S. West Coast terminal customers. Costco’s outlet in Simi Valley, 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles, ran out of regular gasoline yesterday and was selling premium fuel at the price of regular.

The gasoline shortage “feels like a hurricane to me, but it’s the West Coast,” Jeff Cole, Costco’s vice president of gasoline, said by telephone yesterday. “We’re obviously extremely disheartened that we are unable to do this, and we’re pulling fuel from all corners of California to fix this.”

Spot gasoline in Los Angeles has surged $1 a gallon this week to a record $1.45 a gallon premium versus gasoline futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s the highest level for the fuel since at least November 2007, when Bloomberg began publishing prices there. On an outright basis, the fuel has jumped to $4.3929 a gallon.
Prices Jump

Gasoline at the pump gained 8.3 cents to $4.315 a gallon in California yesterday, according to AAA.com, 53.1 cents more than the national average of $3.784. In Los Angeles the price was $4.347. Gasoline futures for November delivery on the Nymex rose 14.34 cents to settle at $2.9429 a gallon, after falling yesterday to a 10-week low. Retail price movements tend to lag behind those of futures.

“Product supply in California has tightened, especially in Southern California, due to refinery outages,” Bill Day, a Valero spokesman at the company’s headquarters in San Antonio, said by e-mail.

Exxon’s Torrance refinery is restoring operations after losing power Oct. 1. Phillips 66 (PSX) is scheduled to perform work on gasoline-making units at its two California refineries this month, two people with knowledge of the schedules said. A Chevron Corp. (CVX) pipeline that delivers crude to Northern California refineries was also shut last month due to elevated levels of chloride in the oil.

San Francisco

Spot California-blend gasoline, or Carbob, in San Francisco surged 30 cents to $1.40 a gallon over futures, also the highest level since at least 2007, at 4:03 p.m. New York time.

Low-P, a gasoline station in Calabasas, California, 30 miles west of Los Angeles, stopped selling unleaded gasoline Oct. 2 and ran out of high-octane and medium-octane fuel yesterday, John Ravi, the station’s owner, said by phone yesterday. Ravi said he posted an “Out of Gasoline” sign on each pump and took down the prices outside his shop.

“I can get gas, but it’s going to cost me $4.90 a gallon, and I can’t sell it here for $5,” Ravi said. “If you come here right now, I’ve got some diesel left. That’s all. My market is open, but no gas.”

“We’re going to start shutting pumps Friday,” Sam Krikorian, owner of Quality Auto Repair inNorth Hollywood, said by phone yesterday. “Gas is costing me almost $4.75 a gallon with taxes. There’s no sense in staying open. The profit margins are so low it’s not worth it.”

’Squeeze is On’

“The squeeze is on, and people are doing desperate things,” Bob van der Valk, an independent petroleum industry analyst in Terry, Montana, said by e-mail yesterday. “The mom- and-pop gas stations are having to close down from either not being able to obtain gasoline from their regular distributor or cannot afford the break-even price of almost $5 per gallon.”

Costco is working on a plan to alert its members as gasoline runs out at the company’s stores “so customers don’t have to guess where to go,” Cole said. The company will sell whatever premium gasoline it has stored for regular gasoline prices wherever supplies run out, he said.

“Costco is a membership warehouse club with a relationship based on trust,” he said. “We’re not delivering what the members asked us to deliver, and that’s not acceptable to us. So we’re doing whatever we can to fix it.”

Short-Term Problem

Van der Valk called the price surge a “a short-term problem.” Wholesale costs should start falling as Exxon’s refinery returns to normal operations and other plants finish maintenance.

The California Independent Oil Marketers Association, a Sacramento-based group that represents wholesale and retail fuel marketers, asked the state yesterday to expedite a waiver that would allow refiners to produce and sell winter-grade fuel, Jay McKeeman, a spokesman for the association, said by telephone yesterday.

“Everybody is concerned about what might happen,” he said. “The real question is: How long is this going to last and what can the state do?”

California’s summer-blend fuel requirements are in effect in Southern California until Oct. 31. The Reid Vapor Pressure, or RVP, limits are lifted in other areas of the state as early as Sept. 30.

The state Air Resources Board and Energy Commission are evaluating fuel supplies and haven’t decided on the waiver, Dave Clegern, a spokesman for the air board in Sacramento, said by e- mail.

‘Losing Money’

The independent gas station owners are typically the first to run out of fuel and shut their pumps when spot prices surge because they often lack long-term contracts to buy from fuel suppliers at set prices, McKeeman said.

Jim Li said yesterday that he may stop selling gasoline at his independent station, Best Auto Care, in San Francisco. He’s charging $4.59 a gallon for the fuel, “and I’m still losing money,” he said.

Wholesale prices are “going up so quick that there’s not even any margin to make any money at all,” he said by telephone.

California-grade, or CARB, diesel in Los Angeles climbed 0.5 cent to 16.5 cents a gallon above heating oil futures on the Nymex. The fuel in San Francisco was unchanged at a premium of 17 cents a gallon versus futures.

Jet fuel in Los Angeles increased 0.37 cent to a premium of 11.25 cents a gallon against futures, the highest since Sept. 19.



Bloomberg

Dragon Flood Eugenics

Joseph Herrin (10-02-2012)




Eugenics Congress Logo

The principles by which Satan and his disciples operate are hidden in plain sight. Anyone with the inclination can discover reams of information about the U.S. government’s propaganda machine, the Committee on Public Information, which was utilized during World War I to gain the cooperation of the American public. There are also existent today books by pioneers in the field of modern public relations that lay out clearly the rationale behind this field of labor and the practices by which the public might be induced to align with the will of their unseen masters. The writings of men such as Walter Lippman, Ivy G. Lee, and Edward Bernays, provide a window through which one might view the practice of government and corporate interests that is everywhere practiced today.

One thought common among these men, which is apparent in their writings, is that they believed there is an elite class of mankind who are superior to the masses. This small minority are viewed as superior to the average man, and uniquely qualified to exercise governance over others.

Walter Lippman, who was the dean of American journalists, is the man who invented the phrase manufacture of consent. He described the manufacture of consent as a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government... The reason is, again, the stupidity of the average man. The common interests, he said, very largely elude public opinion entirely, and they can be managed only by a specialized class whose personal interests reach beyond the locality.
[Source: Noam Chomsky, http://www.chomsky.info/talks/19890315.htm]

The world informed by “public relations” will be but a “smoothly functioning society,” where all of us are guided imperceptibly throughout our lives by a benign elite of rational manipulators...

Lippman had arrived at the bleak view that “the democratic El Dorado” is impossible in modern mass society, whose members - by and large incapable of lucid thought or clear perception... - were not equipped to make decisions or engage in rational discourse.
[Source: Introduction to Propaganda, Mark Crispin Miller]

An universal thought among these men was that of an elite group of illuminated men who existed and stood out from among the rabble of mankind as the capstone rests atop a pyramid. Over and over, the statements of these men reveal a conceit present in their minds. This is not surprising, for this was the same failing present in Lucifer when he transgressed and wanted to raise his throne above that of others.

I Timothy 3:2-6
An overseer, then, must be above reproach... and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.

It is to be considered that the men who pioneered the modern field of public relations, or propaganda, developed their theories and practices during a period of time when the field of Eugenics had gained international popularity. Eugenics was described as “the self-direction of human evolution.” One of the base principles upon which Eugenics rested is that there are both superior and inferior human beings. Intelligence, physical ability, natural beauty, morality (criminal behavior, or the lack thereof),and many other factors were assessed to determine the value of a human life.

Most Americans do not understand the extent to which such thinking influenced both government policies and society in the United States in the early twentieth century. It is not uncommon to hear of such elitist doctrines when the subject of Nazi Germany and Aryan superiority is discussed. Yet, few discern how the very same elitist beliefs had infiltrated and spread throughout the United States prior to the war. In fact, Adolph Hitler obtained many of his ideas from, and expressed admiration for, many of the leaders of the Eugenics movement in America.



NAZI Eugenics Poster

The above poster reads “Wir stehen nicht allein” (We do not stand alone). This graphic depicts a Nazi propaganda poster from 1936, supporting Nazi Germany's 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring (a compulsory sterilization law). The couple is in front of a map of Germany, surrounded by the flags of nations which had enacted similar legislation. The flags on the left, of which the top one is for the United States, indicate nations that had enacted similar legislation. The flags on the right and bottom were of nations considering such legislation.

Does it surprise you that America was a world leader in the field of Eugenics, and that her government had passed laws, and established clinics, to both promote and enforce the principles of Eugenics. I would not be surprised to hear that you were taught nothing about the forced sterilization of Americans who were deemed unfit for breeding in your history lessons.




American Eugenics Clinic Bulletin Board

The various posters on this board read:

• This light flashes every 15 seconds. Every 15 seconds $100 of your money goes for the care of persons with bad heredity, such as the insane, feeble-minded, criminals, & other defectives.

• This light flashes every 16 seconds. Every 16 seconds a person is born in the United States.

• This light flashes every 7-1/2 minutes. Every 7-1/2 minutes a high grade person is born in the United States that will have the ability to do creative work& be fit for leadership. About 4% of Americans come within this class.

This last statement in particular, reveals the close correlation between the tenets of Eugenics and the mind of the propagandist. It was believed by both that only a small minority were fit to be leaders of mankind. Eugenics spread rapidly throughout the United States prior to World War II.

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those it thought unfit. Although compulsory sterilization is now considered an abuse of human rights, Buck v. Bell was never overturned, and Virginia did not repeal its sterilization law until 1974. The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States...

After the eugenics movement was well established in the United States, it spread to Germany. California eugenicists began producing literature promoting eugenics and sterilization and sending it overseas to German scientists and medical professionals. By 1933, California had subjected more people to forceful sterilization than all other U.S. states combined. The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by California's.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped develop and fund various German eugenics programs, including the one that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

Upon returning from Germany in 1934, where more than 5,000 people per month were being forcibly sterilized, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe bragged to a colleague:

"You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought . . . I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."

Eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin often bragged that his Model Eugenic Sterilization laws had been implemented in the 1933 Nuremberg racial hygiene laws. In 1936, Laughlin was invited to an award ceremony at Heidelberg University in Germany (scheduled on the anniversary of Hitler's 1934 purge of Jews from the Heidelberg faculty), to receive an honorary doctorate for his work on the "science of racial cleansing". Due to financial limitations, Laughlin was unable to attend the ceremony and had to pick it up from the Rockefeller Institute. Afterwards, he proudly shared the award with his colleagues, remarking that he felt that it symbolized the "common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of eugenics."

After 1945, however, historians began to attempt to portray the US eugenics movement as distinct and distant from Nazi eugenics.
[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States]

In 1923 Popular Science Monthly featured an article on Eugenics.




This astonishing article written by Arthur Capper, a U.S. Senator from Kansas, includes the following words.

The average American family of today is the result of haphazard mating. Men and women marry with little scientific thought as to their physical and mental fitness for bearing and rearing children. When the children come they too often are brought up in the same haphazard fashion in which the parents chose each other. It is any wonder that the number of mentally and physically unfit increases?...

Uniform state and national marriage laws promise to do much toward solving this problem, but we must rely upon education as the greatest force for obtaining the maximum benefit from such laws.

Sweeping reforms cannot be accomplished overnight. Only through conscientious, painstaking work can the standards of the American family be raised.
[Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=2igDAAAAMBAJ]

The entire article can be read at the link above.

As the world history books used in American public schools relate the atrocities of World War II when the NAZI party applied the principles of Eugenics with nationalistic zeal, it is never mentioned the role that American Eugenicists played in shaping NAZI doctrine. The expression “final solution” which Hitler used to describe the annihilation of entire races and groups of people was not coined by the Germans. The expression had been used for years in America as a reference to the forced sterilization, and euthanasia of “defectives.”

One of the methods that was commonly suggested to get rid of "inferior" populations was euthanasia. A 1911 Carnegie Institute report mentioned euthanasia as one of its recommended "solutions" to the problem of cleansing society of unfit genetic attributes. The most commonly suggested method was to set up local gas chambers. However, many in the eugenics movement did not believe that Americans were ready to implement a large-scale euthanasia program, so many doctors had to find clever ways of subtly implementing eugenic euthanasia in various medical institutions. For example, a mental institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk infected with tuberculosis (reasoning that genetically fit individuals would be resistant), resulting in 30-40% annual death rates. Other doctors practiced eugenicide through various forms of lethal neglect.

In the 1930s, there was a wave of portrayals of eugenic "mercy killings" in American film, newspapers, and magazines. In 1931, the Illinois Homeopathic Medicine Association began lobbying for the right to euthanize "imbeciles" and other defectives. The Euthanasia Society of America was founded in 1938.

Overall, however, euthanasia was marginalized in the U.S., motivating people to turn to forced segregation and sterilization programs as a means for keeping the "unfit" from reproducing.
[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States]

Repeatedly one notes names such as Rockefeller and Carnegie being behind the push to implement an Eugenics program in America. The super rich see themselves as superior to the rest of mankind. They believe they alone are qualified to judge which people have value and which do not. If you do a search of the Internet you will find that many of the wealthiest men in America, and throughout the world, are promoters of population limits, and are seeking ways to decrease world population. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have both committed billions to reducing world population, Buffet being a big supporter of Planned Parenthood. Bill Gates considers Warren Buffet to be a personal mentor, and likely had some influence upon Gate’s decision to contribute to Planned Parenthood, as well as serve on its board of directors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llAG5V7x17A&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMd0mGlKDEw&feature=related

After the atrocities of World War II became known, the practice of Eugenics in America suffered a great blow. Even though various states continued to practice forced sterilization into the 1960s, the practice of Eugenics was forced into hiding. In some instances it simply disguised itself as something else.

One of the chief proponents of Eugenics in America was Margaret Sanger. Many recognize her as being the founder of Planned Parenthood. It was formerly called The American Birth Control League. If any doubt that the ultimate goals of Planned Parenthood are other than the goals of Eugenics, to lower the number of undesirables in the population, they need only look at where the majority of Planned Parenthood’s clinics are located. They are in areas of high populations of poor and ethnic races.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, more than 43 percent of African-American pregnancies end in abortion. Although African-Americans represent only 12 percent of the American population, they account for almost 35 percent of all abortions. In Mississippi, for example, while African-Americans represent only 37 percent of the population, they account for 73 percent of the state’s abortions. More than 78 percent of Planned Parenthood’s abortion centers are in or near minority communities.
[Source:http://www.reformedblacksofamerica.org/downloads/Abortion_by_race_Bradley.pdf]

Abortions are much more common among minority women in the U.S. In 2000-2001, the rates among black and Hispanic women were 49 per 1,000 and 33 per 1,000, respectively, vs. 13 per 1,000 among non-Hispanic white women.
[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States]

Margaret Sanger is championed as a pioneer of women’s reproductive rights. The truth is that she was a racist, a bigot, and held to abominable views about the sanctity of human life. Following are a few of her own statements.

We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities (Sounds like a description of Barack Obama). The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
[Source: Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976]

Today eugenics is suggested by the most diverse minds as the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.

I think you must agree ... that the campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims (sounds like ‘final solution’) of eugenics... Birth control propaganda is thus the entering wedge for the eugenic educator.

As an advocate of birth control I wish... to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feebleminded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation.

On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.
[Source: Margaret Sanger. "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda." Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5]

People of God, do you see the deep work of deception that has been done? Millions of black and minority women in America flock to Planned Parenthood clinics that have been strategically located in their neighborhoods. They are told that Planned Parenthood cares for them, is a champion of their freedoms, and a supporter of their reproductive rights. Yet, the actual truth is that this organization was founded to remove from the population those who were deemed by its founder to be “unfit” and “inferior classes.” What great cunning Satan has exercised to deceive the nations! It is astonishing to behold.

No one should believe that people of wealth like the Rockefellers and Carnegies, or people with a Malthusian worldview such as Margaret Sanger, have repented of their aims and beliefs. The list of donors to Planned Parenthood read like a Who’s Who of the rich and famous. Furthermore, the aims of a global elite are inscribed in stone on a megalith that was dedicated on March 22, 1980 outside Elberton, Georgia. This monument is known as The Georgia Guidestones.



Georgia Guidestones

At the top of the Georgia Guidestones are the words, “Let these be guidestones to an age of reason.” This expression occurs on each of the four sides of the capstone, written in Babylonian Cuneiform, Sanskrit, Greek, and Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

On the four massive granite pillars are inscribed ten guiding principles, or ten commandments. Some have referred to these as the ten commandments of the New Age Movement. They could be described as the ten commandments of the New World Order, or the ten guiding principles Satan has delivered to mankind. This is a blasphemous mockery of the ten commandments Yahweh delivered to Moses on tablets of stone. Following are the ten commandments found on the Georgia Guidestones.

MAINTAIN HUMANITY UNDER 500,000,000
IN PERPETUAL BALANCE WITH NATURE

GUIDE REPRODUCTION WISELY —
IMPROVING FITNESS AND DIVERSITY

UNITE HUMANITY WITH A LIVING
NEW LANGUAGE

RULE PASSION — FAITH — TRADITION
AND ALL THINGS
WITH TEMPERED REASON

PROTECT PEOPLE AND NATIONS
WITH FAIR LAWS AND JUST COURTS

LET ALL NATIONS RULE INTERNALLY
RESOLVING EXTERNAL DISPUTES
IN A WORLD COURT

AVOID PETTY LAWS AND USELESS
OFFICIALS

BALANCE PERSONAL RIGHTS WITH
SOCIAL DUTIES.

PRIZE TRUTH — BEAUTY — LOVE —
SEEKING HARMONY WITH THE
INFINITE

BE NOT A CANCER ON THE EARTH —
LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE —
LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE

These commandments can be broken down into four categories. (1) Governance and the establishment of a world government, (2) Population and reproduction control, (3) The environment and man's relationship to nature, and (4) Spirituality. Consider the first two of these commandments:

MAINTAIN HUMANITY UNDER 500,000,000
IN PERPETUAL BALANCE WITH NATURE

GUIDE REPRODUCTION WISELY —
IMPROVING FITNESS AND DIVERSITY

These words reveal that the principles of Eugenics continue to be held as sacred to the ruling elite. What I would impress upon you is that there is an extremely wealthy, and immensely powerful, yet invisible cabal of men and women who as the apostles of Satan are seeking to bring forth a New World Order according to Luciferian principles. These ones have always seen themselves as superior to the rest of mankind, and believe they alone are fit to rule.

Democracy is a deception. Democracy is being promulgated throughout the world because the invisible powers have discovered how to deceive and manipulate the masses to do their bidding. The masses believe they are actively engaged in establishing policy, and directing the course of their nations, but this is mere delusion. The truth is that an elite have been guiding the course of national policy quite apart from any consideration of the mass of humanity.

These same ones will soon foment wars, create famines, sow pestilence, and implement a long planned design to reduce world population by the death of billions of people. The Bible affirms that billions will die in the great tribulation of the last days.

Matthew 24:21-22
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.

Satan is no lover of mankind. He comes with great wrath to kill, steal and destroy.

Revelation 12:12
Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.

With great cunning Satan will induce the nations to wage war upon one another. He will by fear and deception persuade men to receive vaccines that will lead to sterility, sickness, and death. Already, huge international companies are engineering seeds that will not reproduce, and are genetically modifying crops that will lead to cancers and failing health for millions. All the while they will trumpet how very good these things are for mankind.

People of God, I would not trust a man such as Bill Gates who would use his immense wealth to decrease the number of mankind. He pretends to be a philanthropist, but I believe he will in the end be revealed to be a disciple of Thomas Mathus, the father of the depopulation movement.

All children who are born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the death of grown persons…. Therefore … we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. “Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlement in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they are doing a service to mankind by protecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders.
[Source: Thomas Malthus, from which we derive the expression “a Malthusian catastrophe.”]

Margaret Sanger agreed with Malthus. She believed that true philanthropy was misguided. She condemned those charities that sought to aid the “unfit” members of society.

Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying... demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism... [Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant ... We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.
[Source: Margaret Sanger. The Pivot of Civilization, 1922. Chapter on "The Cruelty of Charity," pages 116, 122, and 189. Swarthmore College Library edition]

The pride and conceit of Satan always leads to a despising of mankind. The saints of God need to be wise as serpents as they walk through this world. There are many, who like Satan presenting the forbidden fruit to Eve, pretend to be concerned for mankind’s welfare. Yet death is in their hands.

Joseph Herrin

Hundreds of Arabs assault guards at Temple Mount

Following the conclusion of Friday prayers at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, hundreds of Arabs threw stones at security guards in the area. Police charged through the Mughrabi Gate in the Old City and fired stun grenades to disperse the angry mob.

Unconfirmed Palestinian reports suggested that several people were lightly injured.

Police officials, having restored calm, said that they would arrest some of the stone throwers in the coming days.

Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites of Israel Shmuel Rabinovitch expressed shock following Friday’s violent demonstration, assessing that it was meant to prevent Jewish worshippers from praying in the area during Sukkot. He said that it was up to the police to arrest those who “wish to harm the delicate fabric of the holy sites in the Old City, and to harass worshippers.”

Rabbi Rabinovitch called on the public to continue observing the holiday at the Western Wall.

On Thursday, a confrontation at the Temple Mount plaza led to six arrests as a group of Muslim worshipers threatened Jewish visitors to the site.

According to a police spokesperson, about 30 Muslims began chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) and tried to attack a group of Jews who were visiting the site. Police broke up the altercation, and arrested five Arabs and one Jew.

The Temple Mount, holy to both Jews and Muslims, is closely monitored in order to defuse potential tensions between Muslim worshipers and Jewish and international visitors.

The plaza is under the management of the Islamic Wakf, with Israeli police responsible for security. Under Israeli rules aimed at keeping the peace at the volatile site, Jews are allowed to visit but not to worship there.

The Times of Israel

Powerful CCTV cameras which can track faces from more than half a mile away

Powerful CCTV cameras which can recognise and track faces from more than half a mile away could breach human rights laws, a top Government adviser has warned.

The UK's first surveillance commissioner, Andrew Rennison, has issued a stark warning to the Government by saying that advances in CCTV technology risk turning Britain into a Big Brother society.

He warned of a 'public backlash' unless proper steps were taken to regulate the proliferation of 16-megapixel HD cameras with the potential to pick out a face and then match it against a database of images of wanted people.



Watched: The new CCTV cameras could breach human right's laws due to their advanced technology



Futuristic: This graphic shows how the advanced CCTV technology works

Mr Rennison said the cameras are being rolled out up and down UK cities without members of the public being consulted.

‘The technology has overtaken our ability to regulate it,’ he told the Independent.

‘I'm convinced that if we don't regulate it properly - ie the technological ability to use millions of images we capture - there will be a huge public backlash.

‘It is the Big Brother scenario playing out large. It's the ability to pick out your face in a crowd from a camera which is probably half a mile away.’

Research being carried out into automatic facial recognition technology by the Home Office has achieved a 90 per cent success rate and is still improving, Mr Rennison said.



Big brother: Mr Rennison warns that the high definition cameras' ability to perform facial recognition is an intrusion into the public's privacy. This is a file picture of a Metropolitan Police operations room

THE GROWTH OF CCTV IN BRITAIN

There are believed to be around 1.85 million CCTV cameras in the UK
At least 51, 600 CCTV cameras are controlled by local authorities
More than 100,000 cameras are installed in secondary schools and academies in England, Wales and Scotland
More than 200 schools use CCTV in bathrooms and changing rooms
Local authorities have spent 515m on CCTV operations in the past four years
It is thought Britain is home to 20 per cent of the world's population of CCTV cameras
The average Londoner is captured on a CCTV camera more than 300 times a day

He is expected to report back to Parliament with any concerns over how CCTV and automatic number plate recognition systems are being used.

His concerns were today echoed by civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch.

However, the organisation claimed Mr Rennison needed to be given more power from the Government to clampdown on CCTV.

Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties at the campaign group said: 'The Commissioner is absolutely right to warn about the risks of new CCTV technology.

'However, the Home Office has undermined the Commissioner from the start by giving him absolutely no powers to do anything.

'Proper regulation of CCTV needs someone to have the power to inspect cameras and punish those breaking the law.

If the Home Office is serious about this issue then the surveillance camera commissioner needs proper powers to protect our privacy.'



Support: Civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch also echoed Mr Rennison's concerns. But the organisation claimed he needed to be given more power from the Government to clampdown on CCTV




Concerns: Research being carried out into automatic facial recognition technology by the Home Office has achieved a 90 per cent success rate and is still improving, Mr Rennison said

Mr Rennison called on lawyers to help ensure surveillance techniques remained in line with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which protects private and family life.

He told the Independent: ‘I don't want the state to carry on and start pushing the boundaries. Let's have a debate - if the public support it, then fine. ‘

'If the public don't support it, and we need to increase the regulation, then that's what we need to do.'

A Home Office spokesperson said: 'Used properly, CCTV can be a valuable tool in the fight against crime. But for too long the system has grown and developed in the absence of any proper framework or oversight.

'That is why we’ve appointed Andrew Rennison as the Surveillance Camera Commissioner to drive the adoption of a new code of practice. He will empower the public to shine a light on those who operate camera systems in public places, challenging them to show the use of these systems is justified, proportionate and effective.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2212051/Powerful-CCTV-cameras-track-faces-half-mile-away-breach-human-rights-laws.html#ixzz28L9sRs4o

'Iran will overcome currency conspiracy'

DUBAI - Iran will defeat an enemy "conspiracy" against its foreign currency and gold markets, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday, following violent protests that forced the closure of Tehran's grand bazaar.

Riot police fought demonstrators and arrested money changers in and around the bazaar on Wednesday during demonstrations triggered by the collapse of the rial, which has lost around a third of its value against the dollar over the last week.

Protesters called President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a traitor because of what many say is his serious mismanagement of the economy, which has also been badly hit by Western sanctions imposed over its nuclear program.

But there has so far been no public criticism of Iran's most powerful authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"Iran is overcoming the psychological war and conspiracy that the enemy has brought to the currency and gold market and this war is constantly fluctuating," Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, an adviser to Khamenei, said in a report by the semi-official Fars news agency.

"The arrogant powers, in their crude way, think that the nation of Iran is ready to let go of the Islamic revolution through economic pressure but we are establishing Iran's economic strength," he said.

Haddad Adel is an ally of Khamenei and father-in-law to his son Mojtaba.

Most of the bazaar remained shut on Thursday with police patrols in evidence. Analysts say any further discontent could spread quickly if it is allowed to gain a foothold.

Business associations said the bazaar would reopen on Saturday with security forces present. It is traditionally closed on Fridays.

The bazaar, whose merchants were influential in bringing an end to Iran's monarchy in 1979, wields significant influence and this week's unrest is a clear signal that the economic hardship already faced by many Iranians is also being felt by merchants.

Jerusalem Post

World food prices near crisis levels

World food prices rose in September and are moving nearer to levels reached during the 2008 food crisis.

The United Nations food agency reported on Thursday that the worst drought in more than 50 years in the United States had sent corn and soybean prices to record highs over the summer, and, coupled with drought in Russia and other Black Sea exporting countries, raised fears of a renewed crisis.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) price index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, rose 1.4% in September, mainly due to higher dairy and meat prices.

"It's highly unlikely we will see a normalisation of prices anytime soon," said FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian.

Parmjit Singh, head of the food and drink sector at London law company Eversheds, said higher prices would place further pressure on squeezed international food supply chains.

"Manufacturers and producers will naturally want to pass on increased costs to their clients but they will meet with stiff resistance from retailers who are reluctant to increase checkout prices for increasingly value-conscious customers," Singh said.

FAO's index is below a peak reached in February 2011, when high food prices helped drive the Arab spring uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa, but current levels are very close to those seen in 2008, which sparked riots in poor countries.

The Guardian

Thousands of Christians march in Jerusalem in support of Israel

Waving blue and white Israeli flags, thousands of evangelical Christians from around the world filled streets of downtown Jerusalem on Thursday in a show of support for the Jewish state.

The annual march during the week-long Jewish Sukkot holiday brings together Christians from dozens of countries.

Evangelical Christians are known as strong supporters of Israel, providing financial help and political backing, especially in the U.S.­ Even so, their hard-line views toward Palestinians and suspect religious motivations make some moderate Israelis and Jews abroad uncomfortable.

"This is the real United Nations," said Sheila Hakes, 41, from Alabama. "Israelis are our brothers and sisters, so we must protect them from Iran and evil," a reference to Iran's suspicious nuclear program, adding, "Jesus will come here again."

Evangelical support for Israel is rooted in Christian Zionism, which calls for the return of Jewish exiles to the Holy Land to fulfill Biblical prophecies. Over the past several decades, key figures in the evangelical movement have lobbied the U.S. government to give greater support for Israel.

Thursday's event was organized by the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem, a group that promotes ties between Israel and the world's Christian communities. The group also sponsored a conference this week that drew more than 5,000 people from nearly 90 countries, including 25 parliamentarians from various nations.

Another prominent group, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, said it raises more than $110 million a year for charitable causes in Israel.

This strong relationship could be important in a U.S. ­election year. Evangelicals make up a powerful voting bloc, and some cast their votes based on a candidate's position toward Israel. That is likely to help Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who has frequently criticized Obama's foreign policy, saying the president has "thrown Israel under the bus."

One of this week's participants, U.S.­ Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican from Arizona, used the conference to criticize Obama's Mideast policy. The American president has had a frosty relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, disagreeing over key issues like Jewish settlements in the West Bank and how to confront Iran's nuclear program.

"It breaks my heart to see the president of the United States reserve more criticism for Israel for building homes in their capital city than he does for [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad for building nuclear weapons with which to threaten the peace and security of the entire free world," Franks said.

The relationship between evangelical Christians and Israel isn't without its wrinkles. Many Israelis are troubled by what they suspect is the source of the unqualified support - a belief by some evangelical groups in an apocalyptic battle between good and evil in which Jesus returns, and Jews either accept Christianity or perish.

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish former mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski, refused to accept funds from evangelical Christians for fear of their proselytizing. His successor, the current mayor, Nir Barkat, has revoked the policy, but some skepticism still persists.

Moderate Israelis are also uneasy with evangelical backing, as the Christians back the hard-line nationalist Israeli camp that opposes giving up control of any of the West Bank, though the majority of Israelis favor creation of a Palestinian state there, and even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a veteran hawk, has grudgingly accepted that.

Israel's relations with Christians have also been strained by a series of recent vandalism attacks, including this week, in which anti-Christian graffiti was spray-painted on churches and monasteries.

Israel has about 155,000 Christian citizens, less than 2 percent of its 7.9 million population, but the repeated defacing of their sacred sites has shocked the country and drawn official condemnation. Extremist Jewish settlers, angry over what they consider pro-Palestinian policies by the Israeli government, are suspected.

Speaking to reporters, Israeli Cabinet Minister Yuli Edelstein dismissed the vandalism as the work of "a few crazies" and thanked participants for supporting Israel. He said the conference "allays the feeling in Israel that the world is against us."

Leia Vaks, a 28-year old Israeli who handed out snacks at the colorful parade, said she was pleased by the turnout ."This shows the world that Israel isn't alone," she said, smiling.

Haaretz