Here is the announcement: Ascent to Temple Mount

Join Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit this Sunday, 19 Shvat (February 12) for our monthly ascent to the Temple Mount. We will thank G-d for our success in the primaries and pray for the future. Meet at the entrance gate to the Kotel at 7:30 after all halachic preparations, immersion in the mikvah, and non-leather shoes. If you have any questions on the proper preparations, please contact a qualified halachic authority or The Temple Institute.

THE MOSLEM RESPONSE [http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18944]

JERUSALEM “ Members of the Israeli right-wing Likud party Thursday called to storm al-Aqsa mosque next Sunday to build the alleged temple on the ruins of the mosque, according to Israeli right wing websites. Several websites of the Israeli right wing published an announcement on behalf of the Likud party, calling on thousands of the Likud members to storm al-Aqsa mosque along with a delegation headed by Moshe Feiglin, who ran against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for leadership of the party and received 25% of the votes of party members.

The announcement said: “We call upon everyone to go up the Temple Mound, the Haram Ash-Sharif, one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, to declare a proper leadership which insures our full control of the mount in order to build the temple on the ruins of al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Aqsa Institute for Waqf and Heritage, in a statement, said that these calls to break into al-Aqsa Mosque reflect the Israeli occupations hidden intentions against the mosque. It called upon the entire Islamic nation and Arab world to uphold their responsibilities against the Israeli intransigence.

THE MOUNT IS THE HOLIEST SITE IN JUDAISM AND IS THE PLACE JEWS TURN TOWARDS DURING PRAYER. Among Sunni Muslims the Mount is widely considered to be the third holiest site in Islam, Revered as the Noble Sanctuary.

[This last paragraph was later deleted – because it admits that the Temple Mount is Holy to the Jews. Ed]

Vatican officials then met with representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Ramallah. The talks were co-chaired by Monseignor Ettore Balestrero, the Holy See’s Under-Secretary for Relations with States, and by Palestinian minister, Ziad Al-Bandak. The basis for the new Vatican-PLO agreement is a memorandum signed by Palestinian and Vatican officials in 2000 and which repeated the Vatican’s call for AN INTERNATIONAL MANDATE to preserve “the proper identity and sacred character” of Jerusalem. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WANTS ISRAEL RELINQUISHING SOVEREIGNTY AT THE WESTERN WALL AND THE TEMPLE MOUNT.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, recently asked to place holy places under Vatican authority or “international custody” saying: “The Holy See has always accepted that which was set by Resolution 181 on 29 November 1947 - which declared that Jerusalem must be the object of special regime under the auspices of the international community”. Instead of making blatantly political agreements with the Arabs, Catholic leaders should cooperate with the Jews and recognize that the only way to guarantee religious freedom is by maintaining the unity of Jerusalem under Israeli sovreignity.

There is a deep reason for Vatican opposition to Israel’s possessing the Old City. The Roman Catholic Church believes Israel’s right to be the Kingdom of God ended forever with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Roman Legion in 70 CE. Israel’s rebirth challenged Catholicism’s “Kingdom of God” when Jerusalem “the eternal” became the capital of Israel in 1967. The world must ensure that Har Habayit, the Temple Mount, where humanity received the gift of one God, King David raised a sanctuary for the Ark of the Covenant and King Solomon and Herod built the Temples, does not fall into the hands of genocidaires and looters.

A high-level group of experts has asked the Government to clarify its position on whether it intends to develop "incapacitating chemical agents" for a range of domestic uses that go beyond the limited use of chemical irritants such as CS gas for riot control. The experts were commissioned by the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of sciences, to investigate new developments in neuroscience that could be of use to the military. They concluded that the Government may be preparing to exploit a loophole in the Chemical Weapons Convention allowing the use of incapacitating chemical agents for domestic law enforcement.

The 1993 convention bans the development, stockpiling and use of nerve agents and other toxic chemicals by the military but there is an exemption for certain chemical agents that could be used for "peaceful" domestic purposes such as policing and riot control. The British Government has traditionally taken the view that only a relatively mild class of irritant chemical agents that affect the eyes and respiratory tissues, such as CS gas, are exempt from the treaty, and then only strictly for use in riot control.

But the Royal Society working group says the Government shifted its position to allow the development of more severe chemical agents, such as the type of potentially dangerous nerve gases used by Russian security forces to end hostage sieges. "The development of incapacitating chemical agents, ostensibly for law-enforcement purposes, raises a number of concerns in the context of humanitarian and human-rights law, as well as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)," the report says.

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars. US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement. The Iranians have no doubt who is responsible – Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms, including MEK, MKO and PMI.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describes what Iranian leaders believe is a close relationship between Israel's secret service, the Mossad, and the People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States. “The relation is very intricate and close,” said Mohammad Javad Larijani

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] was forced to increase the amount of cooling water being injected into the No 2 reactor after its temperature soared to 73.3C earlier this week. By Tuesday night, the temperature had dropped to 68.5C at the bottom of the reactor's containment vessel, where molten fuel is believed to have accumulated after three of Fukushima Daiichi's six reactors suffered meltdown after last year's tsunami disaster.

The temperature at the bottom of the No 2 reactor vessel had risen by more than 20C in the space of several days, although it remained below the 93C limit the US nuclear regulatory commission sets for a safe state known as cold shutdown. Tepco said it had also injected water containing boric acid to prevent a nuclear chain reaction known as re-criticality.

He also claimed that Argentina was ready to go to war against a British “invasion”. His outburst came in the wake of an astonishing tub-thumping speech by Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. She lambasted Britain’s “militarisation” of the South Atlantic and vowed to make a formal complaint to the United Nations against Britain after the decisions to send the Prince and one of the Navy’s most modern destroyers to the South Atlantic territory.

Speaking to a local radio station, Mr Puricelli said: “What the British have got to understand is that we tolerate them in the Falklands but if any armed English force invades Argentine territory, have no doubt we will exercise our legitimate right to self-defence and we have the capacity to do so.”

His onslaught was the latest in the deepening row over the ownership of the islands ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War this year. Earlier this week, President Kirchner told an audience of Argentine veterans of the Falklands War: “I have instructed our foreign minister to protest at the UN against the militarisation of the South Atlantic which implies a grave risk for international security.” Her threat to report Britain to the UN followed a series of angry demonstrations in Buenos Aires against British rule in the islands.

Downing Street officials yesterday warned that contingency plans were in place for the defence of the Falkland Islands. A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said: “We are not militarising the South Atlantic. Our defensive posture in the Falklands remains the same.”

He claims reduced solar activity will end up causing the earth to cool down in years to come rather than get hotter. “The climate catastrophe is not occurring,” he said. “In my experience as an energy expert, I learned that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is more of a political than a scientific body. As a rapporteur on renewable energy, I witnessed how thin the factual basis is for predictions that are made at the IPCC.”

Vahrenholt said views laid out in his book The Cold Sun will “will make me enemies in all camps”. He claims new studies have “seriously questioned” the impact of carbon dioxide on global warming. “CO2 alone will never cause a warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century,” he added. “The realisation that the global warming trend is coming to a halt makes it even more compelling. This is a very important development.”

It is what can happen if you join a fixed exchange system, then take out very large debts in what amounts to a foreign currency, and then have simultaneous monetary and fiscal contraction imposed upon you. Germany discovered this on the Gold Standard when it racked up external debt from 1925 to 1929 (owed to American bankers) in much the same way as Greece has done.

When the music stopped – ie, when the Fed raised rates from 1928 onwards – Germany blew apart in much the same way as Greece is blowing apart. This is not a cultural or anthropological issue. It is the mechanical consequence of capital flows into a country that cannot handle it, as Germany could not handle it in the late 1920s. By the way, Greeks work an average 42 hours a week, one of the highest in Europe. Just want to put the record straight on that.

Democratic Governor Chris Gregoire is expected to sign the measure into law next week. It comes a day after a California court declared a ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. Same-sex weddings are already legal in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, DC. Legislators in the state of New Jersey are expected to vote on the matter next week and gay marriage could appear on the ballot in Maine in November.

Following the introduction of domestic partnership laws in Washington in 2007, the laws were expanded to include "everything but marriage" in 2009. In October, a survey conducted by the University of Washington found that 43% of respondents would support gay marriage legislation. A further 22% said they supported equal rights for same-sex couples, without calling the union "marriage".

The VAT rate for food and drink rose from 13 percent to 23 percent in September to comply with EU-IMF Troika demands. The revenue effect has been overwhelmed by the contraction of the economy. Overall tax receipts fell 7 percent year-on-year. This is a damning indictment of the EU-imposed strategy. Greece is chasing its tail. The budget deficit is stuck near 8 percent to 9 percent of GDP because the economic base is shrinking so fast.

Let me just add that it makes little difference whether or not Lucas Papademos secures triparty agreement today – or soon – for a debt deal. The Greek parliament still has to vote and there is a sauve qui peut mood among MPs who don’t want to be stoned to death (metaphorically) by the polloi – hoi or otherwise. Professor Yannis Varoufakis told me this morning that PASOK suupport has dropped to 8 percent in the polls from 47 percent when elected. New Democracy is down to 18 percent.

Where are voters going? To parties that are not very friendly to Angela Merkel. The hard Left in various forms is running at around 35 percent. So what happens in the April elections? Does anybody think that the new government will comply with the Merkel-Troika Diktat, and continue complying until 2020 when the country will still be prostrate with a public debt of 120 percent of GDP – if all goes perfectly?

April is the inflexion point.

Although there will be little explanation of today's decision until the minutes of the meeting are published in a fortnight, the MPC is likely to justify any increase in QE against a backdrop of falling inflation, a weak economy and uncertain outlook. There have been a number of upbeat UK economic indicators for January in recent days, but the economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter according to official data and the prospect of a return to recession hangs in the balance.

"More QE by the Bank of England is still odds-on, despite overall survey evidence that suggests that the UK economy enjoyed some pick-up in activity in January," said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight. Mr Clarke said: "The Bank of England will feel vindicated that extraordinary monetary policy easing, both here and by the ECB, is having the desired effect on growth. Stronger growth prospects are exactly what the Bank wanted to see, so should not be discouraged by this."

Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, coined the phrase “zone of immunity” to define the circumstances under which Israel would judge it could no longer hold off from an attack because Iran’s effort to produce a bomb would be invulnerable to any strike. But judging when that moment will arrive has set off an intense debate with the Obama administration, whose officials counter that there are other ways to make Iran vulnerable.

Senior Israeli officials, including the foreign minister and leader of the Mossad, have traveled to Washington in recent weeks to make the case that this point is fast approaching. American officials have made reciprocal visits to Jerusalem, arguing that Israel and the West have more time and should allow sanctions and covert actions to deter Iran’s plans.

The Americans have also used the discussions to test their belief, based on a series of public statements by Israeli officials, that an Israeli strike against Iran could come as early as spring, according to an official familiar with the discussions.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50 billion tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall. The study is the first to survey all the world's icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less then previously estimated, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

Bristol University glaciologist Professor Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said: "The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero."

The melting of Himalayan glaciers caused controversy in 2009 when a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mistakenly stated that they would disappear by 2035, instead of 2350. However, the scientist who led the new work is clear that while greater uncertainty has been discovered in Asia's highest mountains, the melting of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern.

The scientists are careful to point out that lower-altitude glaciers in the Asian mountain ranges – sometimes dubbed the "third pole" – are definitely melting. Satellite images and reports confirm this. But over the study period from 2003-10 enough ice was added to the peaks to compensate.

The options are being prepared in the event President Barack Obama were to call for them. Two senior administration officials who spoke about the review to CNN emphasized that US policy for now remains the use of non-military options. The focus on diplomatic options was underscored by the US ambassador to the United Nations in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. "Before we start talking about military options, we very much want to ensure that we have exhausted all the political, economic and diplomatic means at our disposal," Ambassador Susan Rice said on CNN's “Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

The president has also said that the US is working on non-military options first. "I think it is very important for us to try to resolve this without recourse to outside military intervention, and I think that's possible," Mr Obama said in an interview with NBC News that aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday. But the military is beginning to look at what can be done.

Fanning a political firestorm, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner joined an outcry from religious leaders and social conservatives over a requirement that health insurance plans, including those at Catholic hospitals, charities and universities, offer birth control to women.

Seeking to ease a controversy that has roiled the 2012 presidential race, White House spokesman Jay Carney appeared to leave the door open to compromise. He said Mr Obama was sensitive to religious beliefs on contraception and hoped to find a way to implement the rule that can "allay some of the concerns." But Mr Obama, at a meeting with Senate Democrats, reaffirmed his decision and was "not equivocating," Senator Frank Lautenberg, who attended the closed-door session, told Reuters.

Republicans have seized upon the issue, seeing a chance to paint Mr Obama as anti-religion and put him on the defensive at a time when signs of economic improvement appear to have energized his re-election bid. "This attack ... on religious freedom in our country cannot stand and will not stand," Mr Boehner vowed in a speech on the floor of his chamber.

The escalating fight centers on a provision in the 2010 healthcare law that requires health insurance to cover basic birth control services for women - even at Catholic charities, hospitals and universities. Catholic bishops contend the policy infringes on religious liberty because the church does not condone the use of birth control pills or other contraceptives.