Congressional Democrats on the US House Judiciary Committee quashed 25 amendments to the hate crimes bill H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act including an important amendment protecting freedom of religion before sending the bill to the House of Representatives for a vote.

According to the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), Congressional Democrats rammed through the hate crimes bill defeating all 25 Republican amendments, which would have clarified the bill's language, included other special groups under hate crimes protections, and ensured Christians would not be prosecuted for expressing religious convictions opposed to homosexuality.

Republicans offered proposals to protect other categories of citizens on the basis that other groups were particularly vulnerable and deserving of added protections if homosexuals were going to be a protected class.
However, a dispute over an amendment offered by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) revealed that H.R. 1592 will have severe limitations on First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion in America.

The Pence amendment read: Nothing in this section limits the religious freedom of any person or group under the constitution, meaning Christians and any other religious group that professed its beliefs against homosexual behavior would not suffer persecution for their convictions.A number of Republicans then spoke in support of the need for such an amendment.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) asked, "If a minister was giving a sermon, a Bible study or any kind of written or spoken message saying that homosexuality was a serious sin and a person in the congregation went out and committed a crime against a homosexual would the minister be charged with the crime of incitement?"

Chairman John Conyers and Congressional Democrats kept evading the issue, providing reasons why they could not accept the amendment until Rep. Lundgren demanded, "What is your answer? Would there be incitement charges against the pastor?" At that point Democrat Congressman Artur Davis from Alabama candidly said, "Yes."

By refusing to accept this amendment the Democrats on this committee have proven their purpose, TO REMOVE FREEDOM OF RELIGION FROM THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, concluded Rev. Lou Sheldon, Chairman of TVC, who attended the day-long proceedings with TVC CEO Andrea Lafferty.

Rather than prosecute all crimes equally as motivated by hate, H.R. 1592 would grant the federal government sweeping and entirely subjective authority to regulate the thoughts, words and actions of American citizens who could be accused of "hate crimes" by opposing the lifestyle of a special class of citizens.

As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.

The volume of theories "is totally mind-boggling," said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. With Jeffrey S. Pettis, an entomologist from the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Cox-Foster is leading a team of researchers who are trying to find answers to explain "colony collapse disorder," the name given for the disappearing bee syndrome.

"Clearly there is an urgency to solve this," Dr. Cox-Foster said. "We are trying to move as quickly as we can."
Dr. Cox-Foster and fellow scientists who were here at a two-day meeting to discuss early findings and future plans with government officials have been focusing on the most likely suspects: a virus, a fungus or a pesticide.

About 60 researchers from North America sifted the possibilities at the meeting. Some expressed concern about the speed at which adult bees are disappearing from their hives; some colonies have collapsed in as little as two days. Others noted that countries in Europe, as well as Guatemala and parts of Brazil, are also struggling for answers.

"There are losses around the world that may or not be linked," Dr. Pettis said. The investigation is now entering a critical phase. The researchers have collected samples in several states and have begun doing bee autopsies and genetic analysis.

So far, known enemies of the bee world, like the varroa mite, on their own at least, do not appear to be responsible for the unusually high losses.

Genetic testing at Columbia University has revealed the presence of multiple microorganisms in bees from hives or colonies that are in decline, suggesting that something is weakening their immune system. The researchers have found some fungi in the affected bees that are found in humans whose immune systems have been suppressed by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or cancer.

The attack was made on a type of vehicle that the Prince will use, and took place in a part of the country where he is due to be deployed as early as next month. The two died when their Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb the first time that British soldiers had been killed in a Scimitar as a result of enemy action. The Army fears that extremists deliberately chose the vehicle knowing that the Prince is a troop leader for a Scimitar-equipped unit.

Prince Harry faces a kidnap threat from insurgents, who have become active this month even within bases used by the British Army in southern Iraq. Security has been tightened at Camp Sparrowhawk, a base in Maysan Province used by reconnaissance units such as Prince Harry's.

The eleventh-hour review about sending Prince Harry to the area follows an alarming rise in attacks this year. Of the 17 British personnel to be killed in 2007, 11 died in the last month. Prince Harry, 22, has been trained to take command of four Scimitars when his unit, A Squadron The Blues and Royals, part of the Household Cavalry, is sent to Iraq. The attack has also raised further concerns that the presence of Prince Harry might increase the risk of casualties during his six-month deployment.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army who made the decision to send Prince Harry to Iraq after consultation with Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, will make the final judgment. He has about a week to decide whether to stick to his original decision or to keep him at home. Defence sources said that the review of the decision would continue "right up until Prince Harry is due to leave for Iraq".

Over the past two months, farmers in three parts of Taiwan have reported most of their bees gone, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported. Taiwan's TVBS television station said about 10 million bees had vanished in Taiwan.

A beekeeper on Taiwan's northeastern coast reported 6 million insects missing "for no reason", and one in the south said 80 of his 200 bee boxes had been emptied, the paper said. Beekeepers usually let their bees out of boxes to pollinate plants and the insects normally make their way back to their owners. However, many of the bees have not returned over the past couple of months.

Billions of bees have fled hives in the United States since late 2006, instead of helping pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees also have been reported in Europe and Brazil.

Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said homosexuals did not face discrimination in his country, responding to an EU parliament vote to send a mission to Poland to investigate recent anti-gay comments by senior officials.
"Nobody is limiting gay rights in Poland," Kaczynski told reporters hours after the vote. "However, if we're talking about not having homosexual propaganda in Polish schools, I fully agree with those who feel this way," he said. "Such propaganda should not be in schools; it definitely doesn't serve youth well." "It's not in the interest of any society to increase the number of homosexuals that's obvious."

The EU parliament called on Polish authorities to publicly condemn and take measures against declarations by officials "inciting discrimination and hatred based on sexual orientation." The assembly asked the EU's anti-racism center in Vienna to look into "the emerging climate of racist, xenophobic and homophobic intolerance in Poland," and to determine whether the bloc's anti-discrimination rules were being violated.

The resolution sponsored by the Socialists, Liberals and Greens but largely opposed by conservative lawmakers was likely to strain EU- Poland relations further. Since joining the EU in 2004, Poland has clashed with the bloc on a variety of issues, from the environment to the economy.

The vast majority of Poland's 38 million people are members of the Roman Catholic church, which considers homosexual behavior sinful. Kaczynski's Law and Justice party, which won parliamentary elections in September 2005, has stressed Catholic values. The party governs with the small, right-wing League of Polish Families, which is militantly anti-abortion and anti-gay rights.

The Democrat-dominated US Senate on Thursday passed legislation which set a timeline for the recall of US troops from Iraq, where the US has been engaged in a bloody war since March 2003. US President George W Bush has vowed to veto the law.

Howard, a staunch Bush supporter who has also committed troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, said the vote by the US Congress was "probably not helpful to the general situation in Iraq." "I think it is wrong, and I don't think it is doing anything other than giving great comfort and encouragement to Al-Qaeda and the insurgency in Iraq," Howard said.

"They are looking at all this, they read newspapers, they see it on television and they say, 'The American domestic resolve is weakening, therefore we should maintain our resolve.' "If there is a perception of an America defeat in Iraq, that will leave the whole of the Middle East in great turmoil and will be an enormous victory for terrorism."

The US bill, passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, comes against the background of plunging public support for the war which has claimed the lives of more than 3,300 US servicemen and women.

Cliques of the ultra-violent Latin American MS-13 gang have been identified in 42 U.S. states, according to the director of an FBI task force, speaking at a conference here. Another violent group, the 18th Street Gang, is in 37 states, said Brian Truchon, director of the FBI MS-13 National Gang Task Force, or NGTF.

"One thing we figured out with the on-going cases was that Los Angeles is our starting point," Truchon stressed. "When the gang migrates throughout the U.S., there is always a road back to L.A. From L.A., there is always a road back to Central America."

The FBI has identified 13 core cities for MS-13 in the U.S.: Los Angeles, Washington, Baltimore, New York, Houston, Charlotte, Sacramento, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Omaha, Newark and Boston.
The FBI has found foreign connectivity from MS-13 and the 18th Street Gang back to El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.

"Gang members in a prison in El Salvador are able to reach out from prison and kill gang members in L.A.," he said. "We find a great deal of movement and communication between gang members in the U.S. and their counterparts in Mexico and El Salvador," Truchon said. "We believe that MS-13 controls the smuggling corridors along the Mexican border, for both drugs and weapons," Trias told the conference.

"MS 13 is not going away," Trias said. "We are seeing second generation MS-13 members and MS-13 recruitment is increasing. We also see signs of a more formal criminal structure developing within MS-13, both in the United States and in Central America."

Now die-hard supporters are renewing their push for the audacious plan -- a $65 billion highway project that would link two of the world's most inhospitable regions by burrowing under a stretch of water connecting the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean.

Russians and Americans alike made their pitch for the project in Moscow on Tuesday, at a conference titled "Megaprojects of Russia's East.""It's time to rewrite the old slogan 'Workers of the world unite!'" said Walter Hickel, a former governor of Alaska and interior secretary under U.S. President Richard Nixon. "It's time to proclaim, 'Workers -- Unite the world!'"

The proposed 110-kilometer tunnel would be the longest in the world. It would also be the linchpin for a 6,000-kilometer railroad line stretching from Yakutsk -- capital of the gold- and mineral-rich republic of Sakha, which is roughly the size of India -- through extreme northeastern Russia, in waters up to 54-meters deep and into the western coast of Alaska. Winter temperatures there routinely hit minus 70 degrees Celsius.

By comparison, the undersea tunnel that is currently the world's longest -- the Chunnel, linking Britain and France -- is only 50-kilometers long. That raises the prospect of some tantalizingly exotic routes -- train riders could catch the London-Moscow-Washington express, conference organizers suggested.

On Tuesday the number of £2 million homes reached a record high. There are a thousand up for sale this week at that price or more, and some are changing hands in only 48 hours. It is just amazing how much people are charging for homes, said one estate agent. You can almost name your price now.

On Wednesday KKR, the private equity firm, bid £11 billion for Boots. Unless every analyst has missed something, that sum is out of all proportion to the high street chemist's real value.

Is this balloon just going to keep floating up and up? All balloons eventually lose air. The only question is when. The current spate of takeovers, mergers and other deals going on in the City can be read in two ways. On the one hand, there is a lot of money around looking for a home.

The City is channelling much of the cash that is generated by Chinese growth and Russian/Middle Eastern oil, and it is gushing up through London like a giant geyser. On the other, I can't help thinking that the financiers seem to be sprinting ever faster to do ever-larger deals and rake in ever-larger management fees, in case the golden age fizzles out tomorrow.

In today's Financial Stability Report, the Bank of England finds that the UK financial system remains highly resilient. But it also says that the strong and stable economy has encouraged financial institutions to expand further their business activities and to extend their risk-taking . . . this has increased the vulnerability of the system as a whole to any abrupt change in conditions. Let's not forget a basic rule: you don't make gazillions without taking risks. That people are taking bigger and bigger risks to get a return, because everyone is doing it, should worry us all.

I will tell you how to become rich, Warren Buffett once said. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful. So do buy that flat if you can but as an insurance policy, not an investment. It may be wise to do what the rich do: hedge.

Tests will allow the couples to take the unprecedented step of selecting embryos free from a gene that carries a heightened risk of the cancer but does not always cause it. The move will reignite controversy over the ethics of embryo screening.

An application to test for the BRCA1 gene was submitted yesterday by Paul Serhal, of University College Hospital, London. It is expected to be approved within months as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has already agreed in principle.

Opponents say that the test is unethical because it involves destroying some embryos that would never contract these conditions if allowed to develop into children. Even those that did become ill could expect many years of healthy life first. Some critics fear that the tests move society farther down a slope that will lead ultimately to the creation of designer babies chosen for looks or intelligence.

However, the first patients say that the technology will allow them to spare their children a devastating genetic inheritance. One couple in their twenties, who would only be named as Matthew and Helen, have lost three generations to breast cancer.

Last year, The Timesrevealed the conception of Britain's first"designer baby", screened as an embryo for inherited cancer. The baby has since been born healthy, free from the gene carried by her mother that would have given her a 90 per cent chance of developing retinoblastoma, an eye tumour.

I have in my hands a copy of the eagerly awaited Inter-Ministerial Committee to Re-Examine Yom Kippur Practices report. The reexamination is in response to widespread demands, led by liberals and the secular media, to loosen the Yom Kippur restrictions, which have become a major stumbling block for non-Jewish immigrants who want to convert to Judaism.

Transcripts of interviews with these immigrants reveal that many abandoned the conversion process because of the adamant attitude of the rabbinic courts. The immigrants, most of whom are Russian, were willing to accept Judaism, but balked when told about Yom Kippur.

"These restrictions are 3,500 years old. Why should I have to deny myself food and drink for 24 hours?" asked one potential convert. "This is the 21st century, not primitive times," said another. "These uncaring rabbis force things upon us, refusing to compromise. If they cared, they would not prohibit food for a full day."

OTHER IMMIGRANTS stated they were willing to go along with other unreasonable demands, such as forswearing bread and eating tasteless matza for the entire Pessah week, and even to suffer the resultant stomach problems. "We were even willing to celebrate that other festival by eating cold soup in an unheated Succa during chilly autumn nights. But these harsh Yom Kippur demands are the last straw. The rabbis obviously do not welcome us."

Others complained that though they love the benefits that Israel gives its immigrants, these religious demands are cruel and unusual. "Not only would we not be able to eat, but also not to drink. Have we left one Gulag to enter another? We pleaded with these medieval rabbis, but they would not budge. Do they not know that it is dangerous to go without water? One could become dehydrated."

Other immigrants were shocked to discover that the Yom Kippur prayers take several hours at night, and then continue from sunrise to sunset the entire next day. "Even Russian Easter services take only a fraction of that time. And one may eat on Easter!"

The event, which began on Monday, is being held under the auspices of the Arab League and brings together regional liaison officers from participating Arab countries. It marks the fourth time the boycott officers have met in the past 18 months. Ostensible US allies such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia are among the countries taking part.

This is likely to evoke irritation in Washington, as US officials have been pressing Baghdad and Riyadh to end their enforcement of the embargo, which bars trade with Israel or dealing in Israeli-made goods. As The Jerusalem Post revealed last week, the Saudis continue to implement the boycott of Israel in violation of a pledge made to the Bush Administration in November 2005. On the basis of that pledge, Washington agreed to the desert kingdom's request to accede to the World Trade Organization.

According to reports in the Syrian press, the participants at this week's conference are planning to add an undisclosed number of foreign firms to the blacklist they maintain of companies that do business with Israel.
Presiding over the meeting is Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League Muhammad Soboh, who praised Syria in his opening remarks for playing host to the boycott office.

Although the Arab League has its headquarters in Cairo, the organization's Office for the Boycott of Israel has been based in the Syrian capital since its establishment in 1951. Various speakers at the conference underlined the importance of the embargo on Israel as a means of pressuring the Jewish state to make diplomatic concessions.

"The Arab boycott of Israel will remain an influential tool and strong backer of the Palestinian people until the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital and the restoration of all the occupied Arab territories," Muhammad al-Ajami, director of the Syrian Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the official Syrian news agency SANA.

Other participants in this week's parley include Syria, Sudan, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Libya, Lebanon, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia and Yemen. Egypt and Jordan, both of which have signed peace treaties with Israel, are not participating in the meeting.

President Hu was speaking at a meeting of the Communist Party Politburo, which pledged to impose firmer propaganda controls on the net. The move is the latest in a series of crackdowns on China's estimated 137 million net users.

In January President Hu said officials must nurture a healthy online culture. "Development and administration of internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, and adhere to correct propaganda guidance," the Politburo meeting resolved, reported China Central Television (CCTV).

During the last week, a campaign in China's media has highlighted the negative impact of indecent internet content. CCTV has broadcast daily reports showing students and their parents protesting about the harm such content caused. The number of internet users in China grew by almost 24% last year and now one tenth of the population is thought to be online.

The drive to clean up the internet follows directives earlier this year aimed at "purifying" television broadcasts, including demands that stations reserve prime-time slots for "ethically inspiring TV dramas" and clampdowns on talent shows. The steps are seen by some as signs the party is tightening its grip on information dissemination before its sensitive 17th congress.

One is the scientist who has become a household name for his strident defence of Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution. The other is the fertility expert who has become a familiar figure on our television screens as presenter of shows on anything from the human body to making babies.

Now Richard Dawkins and Lord Winston are set to have a spectacular public clash when the IVF pioneer launches a strongly worded criticism of Professor Dawkins's attacks on religious belief. Lord Winston has condemned Professor Dawkins - nicknamed "Darwin's rottweiler" - for what he called his "patronising" and "insulting" attitude to religious faith and said he was in danger of damaging the public's trust in science.

His particular target is Professor Dawkins's latest book, The God Delusion, in which he asserts that belief in God is irrational and profoundly harmful to society. In the book - a bestseller when it was published last year - Professor Dawkins says that belief in a supernatural creator is a delusion, and quotes Robert Pirsig's dictum that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."

Lord Winston, a practising Jew, will argue for a more conciliatory approach to religion in a lecture at the University of Dundee tonight entitled The Science Delusion. "The reason I've called it The Science Delusion is because I think there is a body of scientific opinion from my scientific colleagues who seem to believe that science is the absolute truth and that religious and spiritual values are to be discounted.

"Some people, both scientists and religious people, deal with uncertainty by being certain. That is dangerous in the fundamentalists and it is dangerous in the fundamental scientists." Describing some neo-Darwinists as "extremely arrogant", he said: "I think people begin to think that scientists like to believe they can run the universe."

Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. So Amazon doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

Congress must keep the Internet free and open by voting for meaningful and enforceable Network Neutrality--the Internet's First Amendment.