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‘Germany believes Iran could have nuclear bomb within 6 months’
HAARETZ
By Assaf Uni,
Iran is capable of assembling an atomic bomb within six months, German intelligence analysts told the German weekly newsmagazine Stern.
“If they want to, they will be able to set off a uranium bomb within six months,” an analyst with Germany’s intelligence service, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), told the magazine.
German intelligence officials told Stern believe Iran has “mastered” every stage of uranium enrichment and that they have activated enough centrifuges to produce sufficient quantities of weapons-grade uranium for at least one atomic bomb.
“Nobody would have thought this possible some years ago,” an intelligence official told Stern.
The UN Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on Tehran for defying its demands to suspend uranium enrichment.
Some analysts say Iran may be close to having the required material for producing a bomb, but most say the weaponization process would then take one to two years due to technical and political hurdles.
“Weaponizing” enrichment would not escape the notice of UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), unless it was done at a secret location.
Until now there have been no indications of any such covert diversion, a point made by the IAEA’s incoming director-general shortly after his election earlier this month.
Current IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has said it is his “gut feeling” that Iran is seeking at least the capability to build nuclear weapons, in order to protect itself from perceived regional and U.S. threats.
Libyan leader: Peaceful nuclear program should be encouraged
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says Iran should be encouraged to pursue its nuclear program as long as it is for peaceful purposes.
Gadhafi was addressing Wednesday’s opening session of a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik. The 118-nation group includes Iran.
He said it is “unjust” to stop Iran from enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, but that it must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
The United States and Israel say Iran is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying its program is for generating power.
Libya in 2003 abandoned its own program to develop nuclear and chemical weapons.
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Rising national debt may be the next economic crisis
USA TODAY
By Tom Raum
The country first got into debt to help pay for the Revolutionary War. Growing ever since, the debt stands today at a staggering $11.4 trillion – equivalent to about $37,000 for each and every American. And it’s expanding by over $1 trillion a year.
The mountain of debt easily could become the next full-fledged economic crisis without firm action from Washington, economists of all stripes warn.
“Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently told Congress.
Higher taxes, or reduced federal benefits and services – or a combination of both – may be the inevitable consequences.
The debt is complicating efforts by President Obama and Congress to cope with the worst recession in decades as stimulus and bailout spending combine with lower tax revenues to widen the gap.
Interest payments on the debt alone cost $452 billion last year – the largest federal spending category after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense. It’s quickly crowding out all other government spending. And the Treasury is finding it harder to find new lenders.
The United States went into the red the first time in 1790 when it assumed $75 million in the war debts of the Continental Congress.
Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, said, “A national debt, if not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”
Some blessing.
Since then, the nation has only been free of debt once, in 1834-1835.
The national debt has expanded during times of war and usually contracted in times of peace, while staying on a generally upward trajectory. Over the past several decades, it has climbed sharply – except for a respite from 1998 to 2000, when there were annual budget surpluses, reflecting in large part what turned out to be an overheated economy.
The debt soared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic stimulus spending under President George W. Bush and now Obama.
The odometer-style “debt clock” near Times Square – put in place in 1989 when the debt was a mere $2.7 trillion – ran out of numbers and had to be shut down when the debt surged past $10 trillion in 2008.
The clock has since been refurbished so higher numbers fit. There are several debt clocks on websites maintained by public interest groups that let you watch hundreds, thousands, millions zip by in a matter of seconds.
The debt gap is “something that keeps me awake at night,” Obama says.
He pledged to cut the budget “deficit” roughly in half by the end of his first term. But “deficit” just means the difference between government receipts and spending in a single budget year.
This year’s deficit is now estimated at about $1.85 trillion.
Deficits don’t reflect holdover indebtedness from previous years. Some spending items – such as emergency appropriations bills and receipts in the Social Security program – aren’t included, either, although they are part of the national debt.
The national debt is a broader, and more telling, way to look at the government’s balance sheets than glancing at deficits.
According to the Treasury Department, which updates the number “to the penny” every few days, the national debt was $11,518,472,742,288 on Wednesday.
The overall debt is now slightly over 80% of the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.
By historical standards, it’s not proportionately as high as during World War II, when it briefly rose to 120% of GDP. But it’s still a huge liability.
Also, the United States is not the only nation struggling under a huge national debt. Among major countries, Japan, Italy, India, France, Germany and Canada have comparable debts as percentages of their GDPs.
Where does the government borrow all this money from?
The debt is largely financed by the sale of Treasury bonds and bills. Even today, amid global economic turmoil, those still are seen as one of the world’s safest investments.
That’s one of the rare upsides of U.S. government borrowing.
Treasury securities are suitable for individual investors and popular with other countries, especially China, Japan and the Persian Gulf oil exporters, the three top foreign holders of U.S. debt.
But as the U.S. spends trillions to stabilize the recession-wracked economy, helping to force down the value of the dollar, the securities become less attractive as investments. Some major foreign lenders are already paring back on their purchases of U.S. bonds and other securities.
And if major holders of U.S. debt were to flee, it would send shock waves through the global economy – and sharply force up U.S. interest rates.
As time goes by, demographics suggest things will get worse before they get better, even after the recession ends, as more baby boomers retire and begin collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.
While the president remains personally popular, polls show there is rising public concern over his handling of the economy and the government’s mushrooming debt – and what it might mean for future generations.
If things can’t be turned around, including establishing a more efficient health care system, “We are on an utterly unsustainable fiscal course,” said the White House budget director, Peter Orszag.
Some budget-restraint activists claim even the debt understates the nation’s true liabilities.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, established by a former commerce secretary and investment banker, argues that the $11.4 trillion debt figures does not take into account roughly $45 trillion in unlisted liabilities and unfunded retirement and health care commitments.
That would put the nation’s full obligations at $56 trillion, or roughly $184,000 per American, according to this calculation.
Moscow ‘red lines’ Georgian regime
FROM WND
Russian military exercise feared prelude to invasion
Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin,the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
 Training session for Georgian troops (U.S. Air Force photo) |
Moscow has drawn a new “red line” in its confrontation with the regime of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili by calling for its end, just as Russia is preparing for its annual military exercise – which last year was used to invade Georgia, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The military exercise to counter terrorism, called Kavkaz-2009 or Caucasus-2009, will run from June 29 to July 6 with more than 8,500 troops, up to 200 battle tanks, 450 armored vehicles and some 250 artillery systems deployed to the North Caucasus. The North Caucasus consists of those regions of southern Russia that include North Ossetia, Dagestan and Ingushetia.
The exercise comes on the heels of a just-completed three-week military exercise in Georgia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, amid strong protests from Moscow.
Announcement of the Kavkaz-2009 exercise comes just as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in recent days that a “red line” would be drawn in dealing with the “current regime in Tbilisi.” Tbilisi is the capital of Georgia.
Moscow regards Saakashvili’s regime as a “terrorist organization,” a comment which has prompted some observers to speculate that Kavkaz-2009 could be used as a way to eliminate the Georgian “terrorist” threat.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
Just as in Kavkaz-2008, Russian troops and equipment operating in the North Caucasus for Kavkaz-2009 could move rapidly and set up staging areas in the Georgian breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to facilitate an invasion of Georgia proper.
The Kremlin has labeled Saakashvili’s regime as “terrorist” due to its perception that Tbilisi initiated the attack on one of Georgia’s breakaway provinces, South Ossetia, last year. While analysts suggest it was all a setup by the Russians, Georgia’s actions prompted Russian troops already gathered for Kavkaz-2008 to be diverted operationally to repel what it perceived was Georgian “aggression” on South Ossetia.
“It is our view that this political regime has committed a crime and we will have nothing common with this (regime),” Medvedev said at a news conference. “At the same time, after elections, which will take place in Georgia sooner or later, we surely will be ready to return to discussions of various issues if the Georgian people elect a new leadership capable of maintaining a friendly dialogue with Russia and with close neighbors of the Georgian state – peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”
Following the successful Russian invasion of Georgia last August, Moscow immediately gave diplomatic recognition as independent states to the governments of the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
For the most part, the international community does not recognize them as independent states but as provinces of Georgia. According to observers, Russia’s quick recognition was in response to that given by the U.S. and other European countries in February 2008 to the breakaway Muslim province of Kosovo in Serbia, an action Moscow vehemently opposed.
The “red line” threat against the Georgian regime of Saakashvili also comes at the same time Moscow has vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have extended the U.N. observer mission in Georgia.
Moscow’s veto of the 16-year-old U.N. observer mission’s mandate in Georgia also removes the mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation, or OSCE, in Europe by June 30. The OSCE is comprised of some 56 nations, including the U.S. and Russia, involved in conflict prevention and crisis management.
“With both the U.N. and OSCE missions given the chop, there will be no independent observers around the conflict zones of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and there will be no mechanism for ensuring that minor incidents don’t deteriorate into wider fighting,” said Lawrence Sheets, Caucasus project director for the International Crisis Group, or ICG, that monitors world trouble spots.
For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now
Feisty new Christian history magazine – free!
FROM WND
Leben is fastest-growing publication of its kind
 Leben Christian Magazine |
Were the Founding Fathers Christians? Certainly not, according to the revisionists who have been rewriting America’s history schoolbooks. But neither were they all committed believers. The truth is that there was a battle raging for the hearts and minds of the new-born Republic in 1776 that continues to our present day.
That story, and many like it, are told powerfully and eloquently in the pages of a quarterly magazine of Christian history and biography called Leben. Each issue is a virtual collector’s item, lavishly illustrated, intelligently written and bringing to its readers stories of courage and faithfulness you simply won’t find anywhere else.
For a limited time, you can sample a six-month subscription to Leben absolutely free.
Leben Editor Wayne Johnson says the uplifting and inspiring stories in each issue of the magazine are out there – but just a little hard to find.
“The stories already exist,” he told WND. “This is our actual history. It’s just a matter of poring through centuries-old books and records and piecing the narratives together.”
He says many of the stories found in Leben once were common knowledge in America. But decades of secularization have erased them from the country’s collective memory banks.
“Some of them have been systematically buried for generations,” he said. “In other cases, we simply have better tools today to uncover and piece together facts using modern technology and the Internet. For example, we routinely correspond with small museums and libraries in Europe, and around the world for that matter, who share our passion for uncovering these unique and often quite amazing facts, stories, old woodcuts, paintings, etc. all of which we tie together to bring our readers a ‘you are there’ experience.”
Leben is what Johnson calls a “labor of love” of the students, faculty and friends of City Seminary in Sacramento, California.
“The seminary founded Leben five years ago as a way of teaching future pastors the importance of knowing the sacrifices and faithfulness of those who have gone before us,” explained Johnson. “Although the seminary is a very conservative evangelical school, the magazine has been widely embraced by readers coming from a broad range of denominational backgrounds. The church today is divided along so many fissure lines, but we can all celebrate the labors and sacrifices of the missionaries, patriots and martyrs who have gone before us. I think that’s why Leben seems to cross so many denominational barriers.”
And what about the name?
“Leben is a German word meaning ‘life,’ and was chosen not only because it is about the lives of those who have gone before us, but as a testimony to our new life in Christ,” Johnson said. “The seminary has its roots in the old Protestant churches of Switzerland and Germany, as well as the Pennsylvania Dutch settlers, and that probably gives us a slight bias in our story selection, but our goal is to produce a magazine that the believing church can embrace.”
Order your free six-month subscription to Leben now.
47 minutes of abortion sting video released
FROM WND
Pro-lifers challenge Planned Parenthood to be equally open
The full 47 minutes of a video done by Live Action Films revealing Indianapolis Planned Parenthood staff members covering up a reported statutory rape has been released, along with a challenge from pro-life activists for the abortion industry leader to be equally open.
The video, available on the Live Action Films website, reveals in real time the sequence of events highlighted in an earlier edited release.
As WND reported at the time, the video shows a staff member for Planned Parenthood counseling a “pregnant 13-year-old” to avoid mandatory statutory rape reporting laws by suggesting the patient look into the states that surround Indiana.
In Indiana, sex involving an adult and a 13-year-old is a felony, and any time a minor under 14 is involved, law enforcement must be contacted immediately. However, the video released by LiveActionFilms.org reveals a counselor suggesting how the requirements can be avoided.
Just days earlier, the organization unveiled a video about a pro-life activist, 20-year-old Lila Rose, going into a Bloomington, Ind., Planned Parenthood facility undercover where a “nurse” ignored the apparent felony of a young teen pregnant by a 31-year-old and coached the “patient” to protect the assailant.
Now Live Action has released the full 47-minute video of the undercover operation in Indianapolis, with the unedited footage showing the story in real time as clinic employees met Rose, again posing as a 13-year-old, and heard her describe how a 31-year-old man had impregnated her.
 Lila Rose |
“Once in the counseling room, a Planned Parenthood nurse assured Rose that she would not report the statutory rape and instructed her how to obtain a secret abortion across state lines,” the organization said.
But Rose also challenged Planned Parenthood to show transparency.
Citing a letter released earlier, Rose called on Betty Cockrum, president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, to release the company’s data on how often it provides birth control, pregnancy testing, STD testing and abortion services to minors under the age of 14 and how often it has reported these cases to Child Protective Services.
The organization has not responded, Rose said.
“If Planned Parenthood has concern for the children of Indiana, as they claim, why don’t they disclose the statistics that will help law enforcement apprehend the scope of the problem?” Rose said. “We are willing to be open and transparent about our methods and activities because we have nothing to hide.
“Can Planned Parenthood of Indiana say the same?”
The organization eventually may have no choice. Rose said state authorities in Indiana now may open an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s handling of statutory rape cases.
The video is part of Live Action Films’ Mona Lisa Project, which across the summer of 2008 documented inside information about the abortion industry.
The project says despite “a consistent pattern of lawlessness and abuse, Planned Parenthood receives over $300 million from taxpayers.”
The tax-exempt “nonprofit” also netted $100 million in profits last year.
One Planned Parenthood staff resigned following release of the Indianapolis video. When the similar video was released from the Bloomington, Ind., Planned Parenthood, one employee was fired.
Rose, who already was honored for her pro-life work this year, also recently was named the 2008 Person of the Year by Operation Rescue.
“Lila Rose exemplifies the new wave of pro-life activism and best reflects Operation Rescue’s own efforts to expose illegal conduct in our nation’s abortion mills,” Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said.
“Her work has helped raise public awareness of the seedy underbelly of the abortion industry and has helped to launch criminal investigations that we pray will eventually hold out-of- control abortionists accountable for their criminal acts,” he said.
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U.N. grants status to homosexual-rights groups
FROM WND
By Matt Sanchez
Opponents fear loss of sovereignty, ties to pedophilia advocates
 United Nations New York |
The U.N. recently accorded two homosexual-rights groups “consultative status,” raising opposition from pro-family advocates who see the move as a weakening of national sovereignty that could result in lowering the age of consent for homosexual sex.
U.N. watchdogs also cite homosexual-rights groups’ historical alignment with organizations advocating pedophilia.
The U.N.’s Economic and Social Council, the organ facilitating international cooperation on standards-making and problem-solving in economic and social issues, has accepted COC Netherlands and the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transexuals and Bisexuals of Spain.
This “means we can join the efforts at the U.N. to address human rights violations against people with an alternative sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Björn van Roozendaal, COC Netherlands international advocacy officer.
But members of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute accuse homosexual groups of attempting to weaken sovereignty and impose “gay rights” through a “well-coordinated” international stealth campaign tainted by associations with pro-pedophilia groups.
The pro-homosexual lobby consistently has attempted to advance through the U.N. since 1993, when an umbrella homosexual advocacy group, the International Lesbian Gay Association, or ILGA, achieved U.N. consultative status.
But after revelations that several ILGA members were pedophile organizations, the late Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina led a campaign to suspend ILGA’s U.N. status.
Four pro-pedophile groups were associated with ILGA.
- The American NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, advocates for intergenerational “consensual sexual relations.”
- The Dutch-based MARTINJN works “for acceptance of pedophilia and adult-child love relationships.”
- U.S.-based Project TRUTH
- The German Verein für Sexuelle Gleichberechtigung, or Association for Sexual Equality.
In 1994, the U.N. took the unusual step of suspending ILGA membership. ILGA then, by a vote of 214-30, voted out all of its pro-pedophile groups, except for VSG. The German group, however, later was suspended for its vocal support of NAMBLA.
Following the revelations and suspension of ILGA’s NGO consultative status, NAMBLA issued statements detailing its working relationship with ILGA and claimed to have helped draft ILGA’s constitution.
In 2003, IGLA petitioned to have its consultative status reinstated but was denied by a vote of 29 to 17.
Cameroon, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan, the U.S. and Zimbabwe cast votes against ILGA, while France, Germany and Romania voted for the organization.
Following the vote, a U.N. communiqué stated, “The vote in favor of not granting status to that NGO would reaffirm the will and commitment of the international community to protect children.”
In 2006, however, the U.N. granted consultative status to a gay-rights Danish group associated with ILGA-Europe.
Well-coordinated campaign
Responding to the newly granted status given the Spanish and Dutch group, Boris Dittrich, advocacy director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Program at Human Rights Watch, said “This vote ensures that two more voices will be raised to defend basic human rights at the U.N.”
But critics see a reason for concern in what has been called “well-coordinated international campaign.”
As director of government relation for Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute – which advocates for “the preservation of international law by discrediting socially radical policies at the United Nations and other international institutions” – Samantha Singson has worked on pro-life, pro-family international policy for over eight years.
Singson told WND there is a great concern for screening LGBT, or “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual,” groups for any ties to pedophilia.
“These nominations are getting a lot more scrutiny, because of the past affiliations,” she said.
Responding to the concern, Scott Long, director of the LGBT rights program for Human Rights Watch, wrote in a statement to WND, “ILGA has made clear that it supports the right of all children to be free of abuse, including sexual abuse.”
But it’s clear that none of the pedophile groups consider sex with a minor “abuse.” On the NAMBLA website, the association calls itself a “voice testifying to the benevolent aspects of man/boy love.”
Brend Varma, the human rights spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, told WND that Ban Ki-Moon will always advocate that “we believe in human rights for all people; specific policies towards sexual orientation throughout the world is a matter for the member states.”
Yet it’s not clear that “all people” includes all ages. In Canada, Israel, the UK and Australia, homosexual activists consistently have pushed for lowering age of consent laws, to align the homosexual age for consensual sex with that of heterosexuals.
International advocacy coupled with local activism could pressure governments to lower the age.
Piero Tozzi observed that the UK is particularly active in pushing for the inclusion of LGBT non-governmental organizations into the U.N. system.
In an interview with WND, Tozzi said the representatives from Egypt, Poland and Malta have been “very prepared” in defending their opposition to LGBT activism under the guise of “non-discrimination.”
Human Rights Watch’s Long criticized the Egyptian delegation for asking, “Is your organization forcing people to adopt a particular lifestyle that will lead to the eventual extinction of the human race?”
Long called the question “ridiculous.”
Singson said “non-discrimination” and “in the spirit of inclusion” have become “code terms for sneaking in pro-LGBT language into important international human rights documents.”
“There is a tendency for LGBT advocates to change terms like ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ to the ambiguous ‘partner,’” she said.
“We’ve even had lively debates about the term ‘family’ vs. ‘families,’ a term that could include same-sex arrangements, she added.
“There’s a crisis in human rights,” said Singson. “Countries agree to universal rights, but they get something entirely different when they agree to recognize these groups.”
Hiding teen ‘rapes’ continues at Planned Parenthood
FROM WND
3rd video showing assault on ’15-year-old’ brings no report
By Bob Unruh
A new video released by the same people who caught Planned Parenthood businesses in Indiana ignoring an apparent case of statutory rape in their rush to offer a juvenile an abortion now have released a video about the Margaret Sanger Center in Tucson, Ariz., where a nurse apparently has done the same thing.
An undercover pro-life activist who visited the Tucson Planned Parenthood business, explaining she was 15 and her boyfriend was 27, was told how to go to court to obtain an abortion without having her parents notified, and was encouraged not to have her 27-year-old “boyfriend” along when she appeared in court.
The video was posted on YouTube by Live Action Films, which had posted videos earlier revealing the results of its undercover investigations in Indiana.
A spokeswoman for the Planned Parenthood business in Tucson told WND officials “are aware” of the film.
“Currently, we’re looking into it. We do take this very seriously,” said spokeswoman Jo Nestor.
The video from Live Action Films explained that in Arizona, sex between an adult and a 15-year-old is a felony, and “if an adult-child sexual relationship is revealed, law enforcement must be contacted immediately.”
The video reveals how an undercover activist goes into the clinic, identifies herself as Lizzie and provides an age of 15. Her “boyfriend’s” age of 27 also is revealed.
The Planned Parenthood worker, whose identity was not immediately revealed, started describing abortion procedures and costs.
The worker promised to give the “patient” the “paperwork” to take to court to obtain a judicial bypass on a parental notification requirement.
She also suggested, “when you go in to see the judge that you dress up nicely, you know, you want to look mature… I am not saying like a grown women, like an old woman, but, you know, just mature that you know what you are getting into.”
 Lila Rose |
The age of the boyfriend again was raised.
“Is he not a minor?” the Planned Parenthood nurse, who identifies herself as Araceli, asks. When UCLA student Lila Rose, in her undercover role, says, “He’s 27,” the nurse urges the girls not to bring him to the hearing: “I wouldn’t take him with me, no. I mean: don’t take him.”
The hidden-camera footage results are the work of Rose and her friend, Jackie Stoller.
The two also were integral in obtaining statements from two Planned Parenthood businesses in Indiana that involved similar suspected illegal activity.
The video is the third to be released in a national undercover probe called the “Mona Lisa Project.”
It focuses on Planned Parenthood workers’ response to reports of statutory rape.
In the cases released to date, Planned Parenthood clinics hide the identity of the statutory rapist and offer secret abortions.
“These videos demonstrate that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, is entrenched in an organization-wide policy of circumventing state law and covering up the sexual abuse of young girls,” said Rose, Live Action’s president.
In the Indiana cases, both clinics either suspended or fired employees, and state prosecutors have begun investigating, Live Action officials said.
“Our footage gives the Arizona public and law enforcement a rare window into Planned Parenthood’s ruthless abortion-first ideology,” Rose stated. “With abortion as their first and only solution for the abuse victim, Planned Parenthood assists sexual predators by violating the very Arizona state laws that protect children.”
The Sanger Center in Tucson is named after Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who, according to Answers.com, once suggested Congress set up a “Parliament of Population” whose goal would be “to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population.”
The webside source said when Germany adopted the principles of eugenics to create a “master race,” Sanger failed to denounce the Nazi tactics. In a letter, she wrote, “The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics….”
She included among her beliefs that there are instances when there should be forced prevention of child-bearing.
“The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind,” she said, according to the website.
WND previously reported on the earlier videos, which remain available at Live Action Films.
One case revealed a staff member for Planned Parenthood counseling a “pregnant 13-year-old” to avoid mandatory statutory rape reporting laws by suggesting the patient look into the states that surround Indiana.
Another showed a “nurse” ignoring the apparent felony of a young teen pregnant by a 31-year-old and coached the “patient” to protect the assailant.
Rose, who has been honored for her pro-life work, also recently was named the 2008 Person of the Year by Operation Rescue.
“Lila Rose exemplifies the new wave of pro-life activism and best reflects Operation Rescue’s own efforts to expose illegal conduct in our nation’s abortion mills,” Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said.
Europe’s $57 billion plan to put windmills in the ocean
Sep 16
Posted by Chris Thomas
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Paris – Wind is the fastest growing renewable energy in Europe – making up a third of new energy here, with 20 turbines added every working day in 2008, according to EU statistics.
What the European wind energy industry now wants is to expand – offshore. Ocean winds are a stronger and more predictable form of energy than the ones on land, and the industry is pushing a $57 billion investment to allow broad-winged turbines to spin at sea.
Offshore wind is “absolutely” a significant new resource, argues Walt Patterson, an associate at Chatham House and author of “Keeping the Lights On,” adding that “the big question mark is not sticking the stuff in the ocean, but how to get the electricity ashore.”
A report released in Stockholm Monday by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) argues that offshore turbines could provide 10 percent of Europe’s energy by 2020 – avoiding some 200 tons of C02 emissions.
Currently, 11 sets of the wind-powered turbines are circling off Europe’s shores, with 21 under construction, mostly in Great Britain. At the moment they only contribute about .02 percent of Europe’s electricity needs.
EU energy czar Andris Piebalgs backed the EWEA’s ambitious plans to harness ocean winds, saying in Stockholm that the European commission is “committed to doing everything we can to support offshore wind developers and make sure their… projects come to fruition.”
The EWEA Stockholm wind conference, called “Oceans of Opportunity,” comes at a time when Europe is focusing on climate control and job creation. Offshore turbines are also seen as a solution to complaints from Europeans who do not want the gargantuan turbines in their backyards.
Complaints and hurdles
But people also have complaints about turbines at sea. Complaints that the turbines ruin ocean views have slowed US efforts to get a project started off the coast of Massachusetts. The US has virtually no offshore wind energy, though the Obama administration has started to work on the issue.
There are also economic limitations, since electricity produced by offshore turbines is more expensive to deliver to consumers. There are also maintenance concerns involving storms at sea and corrosion from salt water. Mr. Patterson says the biggest hurdle is making the power deliverable.
“It’s a chicken and egg question, really,” says Patterson. “If you are the industry, do you wait for the cables to be laid on the ocean floor, or do you build the fields and then hope they are laid?”
The industry was boosted by a recent EU law requiring that 20 percent of Europe’s energy be obtained fromrenewable sources by 2020. Some 15 European states are planning offshore projects, according to the EWEA report. “There is huge developer interest in offshore wind power,” Arthuros Zervos, president of EWEA, said in a statement Monday. “The scale of planned projects is far greater than most people realize.”
Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported on Monday that Germany is about to begin construction of a wind farm 12 miles off its Baltic coast that German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said would produce 12,000 megawatts of electricity, bringing Germany “closer to our goal of producing 25,000 megawatts offshore by 2030.”
This week the American electric giant GE, which produces nearly a quarter of the turbines for wind power worldwide, said it will enter the offshore market for the first time.
The Financial Times reported Monday that GE is expected to invest “hundreds of millions” in developing offshore turbines. The FT reported that GE “is also buying ScanWind, a small Norwegian-Swedish turbine company for 18 million, giving it access to new turbine technology, tested in harsh conditions on the coast of Norway.”
The EWEA in Stockholm presented data asserting that all of Europe’s energy needs could one day be met by eight fields of turbines roughly the size of 10,000 square kilometers, off the coasts of EU states.
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