In response to the economic crisis ravaging Spain, approximately 420,150 people have emigrated from Spain since January, according to the National Statics Institute (INE).
54,912 of those that have left are Spanish citizens — meaning that over 10,000 have left since earlier estimates this summer. That's also a 21.6 percent increase from 2011, according to ABC.
For the first time in history, the net migration flow was negative in all of Spain's autonomous communities, according to multiple Spanish news outlets.
The balance was last positive overall in 2009, when only 35,302 Spanish citizens left the country.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/half-a-million-people-leaving-spain-2012-10#ixzz29SupyUyc
(CNSNews.com) – HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher says he’s “consistently pro-death” – and “not one of those people who thinks all life is precious.”
Even dogs can create life, he said in an Oct. 7 interview on satellite radio.
Maher explained his views on life and death when Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and host of StarTalk Radio, raised the death penalty.
“You support the death penalty, according to my notes,” Tyson said. “Isn’t it largely Republican? They may not have birthed the idea, but?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Maher said. “I mean I have a lot of ideas that you might consider conservative. But I feel like on that, I’m just consistent, like the pope is consistent. The pope is consistently pro-life; I’m consistently pro-death.”
“I am for the death penalty, although I do believe in more DNA testing,” Maher continued. “My motto is, ‘Let’s kill the right people.’ I’m pro-choice. I’m for assisted suicide. I’m for regular suicide. I’m for whatever gets the freeway moving. That’s what I’m for.”
“It’s too crowded,” Maher continued. “So, the planet is too crowded and we need to promote death.”
“When I look at the Venn diagram of people who are pro-death penalty and pro-choice, I don’t think they intersect,” Tyson replied. “You may be the lone person in the world at that intersection.”
“Absolutely not, I’ve met plenty of people who have the same feelings,” Maher said.
“I’m not randomly going around the street saying, ‘Hey we’re going to kill you,’” he said. “I mean we’re talking about people who’ve earned it. But as I say, you know, kill the right people. Kill the right people.”
Maher then detailed how his views on abortion tie into his “pro-death” stance. “I’m just not one of those people who thinks all life is precious, you know? I bet you a lot of people wouldn’t say that, but if you’re pro-choice, maybe that’s really what you’re thinking anyway.”
“I mean this is the big controversy that Rick Santorum brought up,” Maher said. “He does not like prenatal testing because he says that leads to abortion, because people find out that they’re going to have a child who is not normal in some way and they have an abortion because they don’t want to raise a child with severe challenges.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that -- to not bring someone in the world whose life is going to be so miserable in so many ways, so severely compromised,” Maher said.
“I mean it’s not that hard to create life, it’s teeming everywhere. It’s something a dog can do.”
CNS
Iranian police, termed “Iran’s Gestapo” by a Christian news site, has arrested between 100 and 400 Christians and thrown them into prisons.
Firouz Khandjani, a council member of the 'Church of Iran' house church movement, told the Christian BosNewsLife website, "We have learned that at least 100, but perhaps as many as 400 people, have been detained over the last 10 days.”
He said massive arrests of men and women included the break-up ofchurch services held by evangelical Christians in three cities, including Tehran. "We know that many have been forced to say they will no longer attend church services in exchange for freedom,” he said.
"They are of several movements. But it has become clear that Protestant Christians are now viewed as enemy number one of the state," according to Khandjani. "We need urgent prayers.”
One of at least five members of the Church of Iran in the city of Shiraz who were arrested last Friday is Mohammed Roghangir, known locally as 'Brother Vahid', who led a house church service attended by some 15 people.
"We are also concerned about sister Roxana Forughi as this is the second time she is being detained,” Khandjani added.
Iranian Christians said they were taken to Plak 100, the notorious detention center of Iran's Intelligence Ministry.
Khandjani confirmed reports that seven Christians received suspended five-year sentences last week for "action against the national security," after they were already jailed for up to three weeks in Rasht, some six years ago.
The latest reported crackdown comes on the eve of Monday’s trial of five Christian converts detained in Adel-Abad prison eight months ago following a raid on a house church in Shiraz.
Since their arrests, the five been confined in cells housing dangerous criminals on charges of "creating illegal groups", "participating in a house church service", "propagation against the Islamic regime" and "defaming Islamic holy figures through Christian evangelizing," Iranian Christians said.
Iranian Pastor Behnam Irani potentially faces the death penalty for the "apostasy” of abandoning Islam.
The news site estimates there are at least 100,000 evangelical Christians in Iran, based on numbers provided church groups.
Israel national News
NEW YORK — There is a real danger that the “nightmare” euro crisis could destroy the European Union and Germany should either step up to fix it or step out of the currency union altogether, fund manager George Soros said on Monday.
The crisis “is having tremendous impact in the state of affairs, it is pushing the EU into a lasting depression, and it is entirely self-created,” said Soros, Chairman of Soros Fund Management.
“There is a real danger of the euro destroying the European Union. The way to escape it is for Germany to accept … greater commitment to helping not only its interests but the interests of the debtor countries, and playing the role of the benevolent hegemon,” he said at a luncheon hosted by the National Association for Business Economics.
Germany should act as the leader of the union such as the United States was for the free world after the Second World War, Soros said.
The influential fund manager floated another solution to the crisis that has gone on for more than two years: Germany could leave the euro, “and the problem would disappear in thin air,” as the value of the euro declines and yields on the bonds of debtor countries adjust.
The notion that governments are “riskless” is the main false assumption underlying the euro zone, Soros said, adding it could be corrected by introducing Eurobonds.
“But that has become politically unacceptable by Germany,” he added.
Soros also weighed in the Chinese economy, saying the country’s growth is slowing because household spending as a percentage of the world’s second largest economy is waning.
“The growth model which has worked is running out of steam because consumption as a percentage of GDP has fallen” to one- third of output from half, Soros said. Central bankers “will have to modify the growth model and somehow allow the household sector to have a bigger share of the total.”
China’s economy expanded 7.6% in the second quarter from a year earlier, the least in three years. The IMF this month cut its estimate for China’s 2012 growth to 7.8%, which would be the weakest pace since 1999, from 8%.
Soros said the unprecedented actions global central banks have taken to stimulate growth are necessary to “prevent a depression,” yet the “big open question” is whether they can exit the stimulus programs when the economy rebounds without spurring inflation. The programs include three rounds of so- called quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank holding its main rate at a record low 0.75%.
“They are engaged in a very delicate two-phase maneuver,” Soros said. “First is to increase the quantity of money available and then eventually they’ll have to reduce it when the economy resumes a faster rate of growth.”
“It’s conceivable that it can be done but it hasn’t yet been done,” Soros said. “Until then the possibility that eventually you could have a much greater inflation at some point is a very real one.”
Financial Post
This time, it really happened. The Knesset dissolved itself late Monday night, ahead of elections on January 22, 2013.
The final reading of the bill to dissolve the Knesset passed with 100 in favor and none opposed, over five months after it passed a nearly identical bill in its first reading before opposition leader Shaul Mofaz (Likud) joined the coalition at 2 a.m.
Although the final vote on the bill had not taken place by late Monday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reassured the public at a faction meeting: “This time it’s final. We are going to elections.”
The Knesset approved the final reading for legislation dissolving itself in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
On Monday afternoon, the Knesset held a celebratory opening meeting for the 18th Knesset’s fifth winter session, as mandated by law.
Netanyahu asked the public to re-elect him in his speech, listing his government’s achievements, including encouraging economic growth, building the southern border fence and establishing a cyber-defense force.
The prime minister also included a dig at former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who, according to a Jerusalem Post/Smith Research poll, would have a chance at winning the election should he return to politics.
“We didn’t initiate any unnecessary wars. There were no wars at all in my seven years as prime minister,” Netanyahu said. “The reason there were no wars is because we showed strength.”
The prime minister complimented his former bitter rival MK Amir Peretz (Labor), who ran against Netanyahu’s current strongest challenger Labor chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich in the party leadership race. First, Netanyahu commended Peretz for initiating the Iron Dome missile defense system, and soon after, he said his government enacted a policy that used to be Peretz’s campaign slogan – minimum wage of over $1000 per month.
Netanyahu also delineated the condition to join his coalition, should he be reelected, which is support for his planning and construction reform.
“In the current term, my coalition partners and the opposition prevented the reform, which would have helped solve the housing crisis, from passing,” he stated.
At the beginning of the winter session’s opening meeting, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin pointed out that in the last decade, “a prime minister fell victim to direct election, a prime minister fell into a coma, and a prime minister fell because he was suspected of crimes.”
He said that unlike in past elections, the current government lasted four years and initiated a legitimate election.
Based on what happened in the past, Rivlin added, “it is no wonder that the public has lost faith in reasons for elections.”
According to Rivlin, the upcoming election is especially important because it is issues-based, specifically focusing on the economy.
President Shimon Peres said the election is a time to set goals for the future. He called for campaigns to be respectful and be a “brainstorm” for Israel’s future, rather than “arguing for the sake of arguing.”
Jerusalem Post
When Apple purchased fingerprint security startup Authentic this summer, many began speculating that its biometric technology could make its way to the iPhone 5. Of course, the iPhone 5 announcement came and went without so much as a peep about biometric identification. But a handful of patent applications, especially one published Thursday, indicate Apple is certainly exploring the idea.
How a biometric sensor could be discreetly placed on an iPhone.
This latest patent, ambiguously titled “Devices and Methods for Providing Access To Internal Component,” describes how “an image capture device, a strobe flash, a biometric sensor, a light sensor, a proximity sensor, or a solar panel” could be hidden under a display window that could selectively become transparent or opaque depending on if the component is being used. This enables additional components to be added to the device without leading to a “cluttered” or unattractive appearance.
Although such technology could give future iOS devices a super slick appearance whether they’re glass, aluminum, or heck, even Liquidmetal, it’s the mention (and illustrations) of biometric sensors that piqued our interest.
Biometrics is not a new area of invention for Apple. In 2010 for example, Apple was granted a patent for a method for fingerprint identification on a tablet device. This patent was originally filed way back in 2005, before the iPhone or iPad publicly existed.
Realistically implementing any sort of biometric identification is actually a bit of a feat.
“You have to have the right software, powerful enough for all these background calculations on the fly, and a very robust and low latency network to grab all that information and authenticate it,” IHS analyst Wayne Lam told Wired. “The current technology is kind of not very user-friendly and not very accurate.” Thus, so far we’ve seen biometrics only in limited scenarios in limited markets, such as enterprise laptops. However, biometric technology has been more widely deployed in Japanese products.
But since fingerprint-level security isn’t really necessary outside of enterprise or government sectors, Apple could take a different approach. “What Apple may do with some of the IP from the firm they acquired is integrate it into the natural use scenario,” Lam said. Indeed a patent granted Tuesday for a two-step unlock homescreen could be one such application. And fingerprint scanning is not just useful for security; it could also be used to easily allow multiple profiles on a single mobile device.
Even if that is the end goal, and even if this is something Apple is actively working on, we would likely not see finished applications of this technology for years — if ever.
Wired
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Mohammed Badie called on Muslims worldwide to liberate Jerusalem by means of jihad, according to AFP.
In his weekly message to supporters, Badie reportedly asserted that “The jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims,” stressing that the city's conquest “will not be done through negotiations or at the United Nations.”
The Brotherhood's Supreme Guide has in the past called on Arab forces to confront Israel and for the international community to pressure the “Zionist government to withdraw from the land of Palestine.”
In a written statement issued in May to commemorate the "Nakba," a term meaning catastrophe used by Palestinians and other Arabs to describe Israel’s creation in 1948, Badie demanded that “The international community rectify the historic injustice [of Israel's birth]" and claimed that Muslims had "begun the era of liberation of all peoples, first of all the Palestinian people, [suffering from] the worst occupation known to man – the Zionist occupation.”
Badie also previously vowed that if the Muslim Brotherhood ever rose to power in Egypt, it would work to sever relations with Israel. "We are certainly not happy with the illegitimate marriage between Cairo and Tel Aviv," he said.
"Once we rise to power we will change many things in Egypt's policy, starting with the country's relations with Israel which have caused us great harm."
Jerusalem Post
