Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day, Part 2






Spiritual Ministries Mind Spirit Body Vibrational Medicine Research, Healing and Education Center.
Honor To Father God and Our Earth Fathers
June 21,2009
Rev. Tonie C. Wallace Dream-Founder and Director
Jada Stone - Associate Director-Contributing Writer

Dear All One Family:

I found another email posting this morning from Asian Woman...it is really pretty good and as well, another associated press news release on North Korea's disgust with United States over South Korea...

So even though it is Father's Day...Our President has so much on his table, could we all pray that Our Heavenly Father will keep him in Guidance, faith and protection...please, thank you?

I told all that I didn't know why the voters in Iran were a protesting because both leaders were almost on the same page as each other...obviously that couldn't be the case. I have no idea what news casters were a throwing that on our listening and imagining table...

For today I discovered that the older guy is what they are a wanting and an end to social, religious and financial devastation...

Please pray that Our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus and Holy Spirit will allow His will for His children in Iran...to be done..."Not my will, not my will, but thine be done in me."

So contained below is news from the Associated Press...many such as myself have lost their favorite channels and gained a few of them that they had greatly missed such as I, yet all in all, when one has to play the remote control game of trying to catch a satellite beam to get a good visual picture game...as much as I have...sometimes just a leaving the set off, especially when it is filled with so much horrendous happenings all over the world...these two news story came in today on President Obama's plate already over flowing...

Be Blessed Always
Love, Light and Peace
Tonie





Life's Gifts Are In Disguise


A young man was getting ready to graduate college.
For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted.

As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car.
Finally, on the morning of his graduation his father called him into his private study.
His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him.
He handed his son a beautiful wrapped gift box.

Curious, but somewhat disappointed the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible.
Angrily, he raised his voice at his father and said, "With all your money you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the holy book.

Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business.
He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him.
He had not seen him since that graduation day.
Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son.

He needed to come home immediately and take care things.
When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart.

He began to search his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago.
With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages.

As he read those words, a car key dropped from an envelope taped behind the Bible.
It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired.
On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...PAID IN FULL.

How many times do we miss Life's gifts because they are not packaged as we expected? .


This Father's Day, tell your Dad how much you love him!


Be The Best Father In The World,


By NASSER KARIMI and WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writers Nasser Karimi And William J. Kole, Associated Press Writers – 2 mins ago
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's government said Sunday it arrested the daughter and four other relatives of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the country's most powerful men, in a move that exposed a rift among the ruling Islamic clerics over the disputed presidential election.

State media also reported at least 10 more deaths, bringing the official toll for a week of confrontations to at least 17. State television inside Iran said 10 were killed and 100 injured in clashes Saturday between demonstrators contesting the result of the June 12 election and black-clad police wielding truncheons, tear gas and water cannons.

Police and members of the Basij militia took up positions in the afternoon on major streets and squares, including the site of Saturday's clashes. But there was no word on any new clashes Sunday.

State-run Press TV reported that Rafsanjani's eldest daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, and four other unidentified family members were arrested late Saturday. On Sunday evening, it said the four others had been released but that Hashemi remained in detention.

Last week, state television showed images of Hashemi, 46, speaking to hundreds of supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. He alleges fraud in the June 12 election, which the government said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won.

After Hashemi's appearance, hard-line students gathered outside the Tehran prosecutor's office and accused her of treason, state radio reported.

The arrests are the strongest sign yet of a serious divide among Iran's ruling clerics.

Rafsanjani, 75, heads two powerful institutions. One of them, the cleric-run Assembly of Experts, has the power to monitor and remove the supreme leader, the country's most powerful figure. The second is the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.

The assembly has never publicly reprimanded the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since he succeeded Islamic Revolution founder Aytollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. But the current crisis has rattled the once-untouchable stature of the supreme leader with protesters openly defying his orders to leave the streets.

Underscoring how the protesters have become emboldened despite the regime's repeated and ominous warnings, witnesses said some shouted "Death to Khamenei!" at Saturday's demonstrations — another sign of once unthinkable challenges to the virtually limitless authority of the supreme leader.

Rafsanjani was deeply critical of Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign and has the potential to lead an internal challenge to Khamenei.

His daughter's arrest came as something of a surprise: In his Friday sermon to tens of thousands of worshippers, Khamenei praised Rafsanjani as one of the architects of the revolution and an effective political figure for many years. Khamenei acknowledged, however, that the two have "many differences of opinion."

Khamenei has accused foreign media of making "malicious" attempts to portray a schism among the ruling clerics. At Friday's prayers, he acknowledged that all four presidential candidates "have differences, but all of them belong to the system."

Iran's regime continued to impose a blackout on the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But fresh images and allegations of brutality emerged as Iranians at home and abroad sought to shed light on a week of astonishing resistance to hard-line Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.

The New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said scores of injured demonstrators who had sought medical treatment after Saturday's clashes were arrested by security forces at hospitals in the capital.

It said doctors had been ordered to report protest-related injuries to the authorities, and that some seriously injured protesters had sought refuge at foreign embassies in a bid to evade arrest.

"The arrest of citizens seeking care for wounds suffered at the hands of security forces when they attempted to exercise rights guaranteed under their own constitution and international law is deplorable," said Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the campaign, denouncing the alleged arrests as "a sign of profound disrespect by the state for the well-being of its own people."

"The government of Iran should be ashamed of itself. Right now, in front of the whole world, it is showing its violent actions," he said.

Thousands of supporters of Mousavi, who claims he won the election, squared off Saturday against security forces in a dramatic show of defiance of Khamenei.

Iran has also acknowledged the deaths of seven protesters in clashes on Monday.

State media also reported a suicide bombing at the shrine of Khomeini on Saturday killed the attacker and injured five other people.

There was some confusion about the overall death toll. English-language Press TV, which is broadcast only outside the country, put the toll at 13 and labeled those who died "terrorists." There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

Amnesty International cautioned that it was "perilously hard" to verify the casualty tolls.

"The climate of fear has cast a shadow over the whole situation," Amnesty's chief Iran researcher, Drewery Dyke, told The Associated Press. "In the 10 years I've been following this country, I've never felt more at sea than I do now. It's just cut off."

Iran has imposed strict controls on foreign media covering the unrest, saying correspondents cannot go out into the streets to report.

Reporters Without Borders said 23 journalists were arrested over the past week. The British Broadcasting Corp. said Sunday that its Tehran-based correspondent, Jon Leyne, had been asked to leave the country. The BBC said its office remained open.

Also Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held a news conference where he rebuked Britain, France and Germany for raising questions about reports of voting irregularities in hardline Ahmadinejad's re-election — a proclaimed victory which has touched off Iran's most serious internal conflict since the revolution.

Mottaki accused France of taking "treacherous and unjust approaches." But he saved his most pointed criticism for Britain, raising a litany of historical grievances and accusing the country of flying intelligence agents into Iran before the election to interfere with the vote. The election, he insisted, was a "very transparent competition."

That drew an indignant response from British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who "categorically" denied his country was meddling. "This can only damage Iran's standing in the eyes of the world," Miliband said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Iran anew to conduct a complete and transparent recount.

In Washington on Saturday, President Barack Obama urged Iranian authorities to halt "all violent and unjust actions against its own people." He said the United States "stands by all who seek to exercise" the universal rights to assembly and free speech.

Obama has offered to open talks with Iran to ease a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze, but the upheaval could complicate any attempts at outreach.

Republican senators criticized Obama on Sunday for not taking a tougher public stand in support of the protesters, with one saying the president had been "timid and passive."

Israeli President Shimon Peres applauded Iran's pro-reform protesters Sunday, saying the young should "raise their voice for freedom" — an explicit message of support from a country that sees itself as most endangered by the hard-line government in Tehran.

Saturday's unrest came a day after Khamenei sternly warned Mousavi and his backers to all off demonstrations or risk being held responsible for "bloodshed, violence and rioting." Delivering a sermon at Friday prayers attended by tens of thousands, Khamenei sided firmly with Ahmadinejad, calling the result "an absolute victory" that reflected popular will and ordering opposition leaders to end their street protests.

Mousavi did not directly reply to the ultimatum.

His camp, meanwhile, denied reports that he had proclaimed himself ready for martyrdom on Saturday.

"Mousavi has never said this," his close ally, Qorban Behzadiannejad, told the AP. Mousavi's Web site also said statements that Mousavi was preparing for death were inaccurate.

____

Kole reported from Cairo. Associated Press Writers Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Sebastian Abbot in Cairo contributed to this report.


By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 38 mins ago
SEOUL, South Korea – A U.S. Navy destroyer is tailing a North Korean ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons toward Myanmar in what could be the first test of new U.N. sanctions against the North over its recent nuclear test, a leading TV network said Sunday.

The South Korean news network YTN, citing an unidentified intelligence source in the South, said the U.S. suspects the cargo ship Kang Nam is carrying missiles and related parts. Myanmar's military government, which faces an arms embargo from the United States and the European Union, has reportedly bought weapons from North Korea.

YTN said the U.S. has deployed a destroyer and is using satellites to track the ship, which was expected to travel to Myanmar via Singapore.

South Korea's Defense Ministry, Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report. Calls to the U.S. military command in Seoul were not answered late Sunday.

The ship is reportedly the first North Korean vessel to be tracked under the new U.N. sanctions.

Two U.S. officials said Thursday that the U.S. military had begun tracking the ship, which left a North Korean port Wednesday and was traveling off the coast of China.

One of the officials said it was uncertain what the Kang Nam was carrying, but that it had been involved in weapons proliferation before. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked since North Korea defiantly conducted its second nuclear explosion on May 25. It later declared it would expand its atomic bomb program and threatened war to protest the U.N. sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear test.

The sanctions toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea and authorize ship searches in an attempt to thwart its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect vessels on the high seas "if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo" contains banned weapons or material to make them, and if approval is given by the country whose flag the ship sails under.

If the country refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel "to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities."

President Barack Obama said the sanctions will be aggressively enforced after talks Tuesday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington. Obama also reaffirmed the U.S. security commitment to South Korea, including nuclear protection.

In its first response to the summit, North Korea's government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said Obama's comments revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.

"It's not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion," it said in a commentary published Saturday.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. The U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons there.

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