eChurch Blog

Sometimes, there is an anger that consumes. It burns from an outrage and an impotence that is so strong it threatens to cripple the soul and the tongue. You wonder how anyone could be so incredibly stupid as to believe the lies; you fight the desire to surrender in the face of such ignorance and absurdity.
You wonder how anyone could be so incredibly stupid.

And then, when you are nearing the height of your despair, you find the strength to rally one more time and beg the world to just think, just consider, just put two and two together and once, just once, actually come up with four and not some random number. There really are times when the absurd really is absurd, the lie really just another attempt to blur the truth. It really is that simple.

The first recorded case in which Jews were accused of sacrificing human victims appears in the writings of Apio, a Greek, in the 1st century. He claimed that Jews were sacrificing Greek victims in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Absurd then, absurd now – and yet, it was believed.

The next documented case appears more than a thousand years later when a 12-year old Christian boy named William was murdered and his mutilated body was found. According to one witness, he was last seen alive entering the house of a Jewish family; and thus, the entire Jewish community of Norwich was declared guilty.

Jews were accused of murdering and crucifying the boy. The only evidence came from a servant who claimed to have “with one eye only, caught sight through a crack in a door of a boy fastened to a post.” This vision was seen as she was “bringing some hot water at her master’s order.” Absurd then, absurd now – and yet believed enough to justify murder, pillage, ruin.

The death of William stirred up pogroms and eventually led to the massacre of large numbers of Jews in Norwich and elsewhere, culminating in the expulsion of Jews from England for 400 years. I doubt William’s blood was ever avenged, his real murderers brought to justice, but the child was given sainthood; the Jews falsely accused of his death received no justice either.

Blood libels against Jews became more common after William’s death and stretched through the centuries. Despite great inventions and modernization, man’s basic capacity to hate never really diminished. Even in the 20th century, in Russia and in post-World War II Poland, there were accusations that Jews murdered Christians in order to harvest their blood for some sacrilegious reason. Never mind what Jewish law prescribes, never mind the facts. It was a blood libel built on hatred, and it has thrived among the ignorant and the so-called enlightened equally.

A more recent, high profile claim occurred in December 1984, when the Saudi Arabian delegate (President of the World Muslim Congress at the time) Dr.Ma’ruf al-Dawalibi , spoke before the United Nations Human Rights Commission Conference on Religious Tolerance (and isn’t that a joke by itself?). The “esteemed” gentleman from Saudi Arabia explained anti-Semitism through the centuries, to quote “Dr.” al-Dawalibi, “But why? Let them answer this question themselves. The Talmud says that any Jew who does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jew will be damned forever.”

Of course, the Talmud doesn’t say that and of course, al-Dawalibi couldn’t prove that it does, but that isn’t the point of a blood libel. The damage is done merely in the stating of the lie.

And so it continues today. Yes, that’s right – 2009, Sweden.

Just a few days ago, a prominent Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet (which claims to be Sweden’s largest newspaper, with 1.5 million readers), perpetrated the latest blood libel. Aftonbladet published a story claiming that the Israeli army kidnaps and kills Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. The Swedish story purports to be based on “Palestinian sources”; and I would laugh if I weren’t so outraged; I would surrender to despair if I weren’t so infuriated.

There is no evidence, no proof – in an article the paper later claimed was an “opinion” piece. Certainly we can all agree it was not journalism.

I want to rage and call them idiots; I want to laugh at their incredible stupidity. But most of all is the sick feeling that settles deep inside as the government of Sweden responds. They refuse to condemn this blood libel, merely suggesting the newspaper was practicing “freedom of speech”, which is, the Swedish are quick to remind us, important in their “democracy.” This is, of course, the same Swedish government that shut down Internet servers of those who had published the Danish cartoons interpreted by some as anti-Muslim.

Interestingly enough, the Swedish government ignores the fact that we too have a democracy, but even here, there are things that are not allowed to be said, lies not permitted to be published. We do not allow Holocaust denial, which is a crime in other democracies as well. It is recognized that in denying truth and perpetrating lies, danger and hatred is promoted.

You cannot, according to US law, rise up and scream, “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and you cannot slander and libel the innocent without repercussions. What I want is for all of Israel’s soldiers to sue the Swedish paper in a  class action suit for libel.

What I want is to believe this is an isolated incident of idiocy, and yet I can’t. According to Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, Holland’s largest newspaper, Die Telegraaf, has just published an interview with a woman who claims that swine flue and other diseases are created by a Jewish conspiracy in order to kill large numbers of people. Absurd then, absurd now, and yet people believe.

And Radio Sweden is apparently as credible as Aftonbladet, airing a program that once again claims Israel killed Mohammed Al-Dura, the 11-year-old child in Gaza whose death was widely claimed to have been caused in the midst of a gunfight between Palestinian and Israelis. Of course, independent agencies, including German and other studies, have proven this story false, but that won’t stop Radio Sweden. And there again is the anger, bitter enough to taste. How stupid, these people? How ignorant, how wrong.

And slowly comes the truth – they hate us. It is as simple and as clear as that. They don’t like Jews in Sweden, do they? No, we aren’t the “poor Palestinians”, the underdogs, the supposed victims in their beautiful blue eyes.

The truth is there for all to see: they are as filled with hatred as the people of Norwich in the late 12th century, as backwards, as ignorant.

Jewish law is very clear, I want to tell these stupid people. Jews are not allowed to consume blood. Read the manual; it is there, so clear. That same IDF now accused of such atrocities has traveled the world to save others time and time again. We were among the first to reach earthquake victims in Turkey, tsunami victims in Indonesia. We dug in the rubble of Kenya to pull out victims when Islamic terrorists collapsed buildings.

Israeli soldiers do not murder people for their organs, you stupid, stupid Swedes. And the greatest shame, beyond the printing of the article, is that 1.5 million subscribers of the newspaper didn’t go to the offices of Aftonbladet and dump the paper on the curb outside their offices.

If today, Aftonbladet still has 1.5 million people buying their newspaper, then all of Sweden should be ashamed.

Israel ‘Super Gas’ Field is World’s Largest in 18 Months

(IsraelNN.com)

The Tamar gas field, 50 miles off the Haifa coast, keeps getting bigger with every report, and the gas discovery now is estimated to be the world’s largest in 18 months. The Scotland-based Wood Mackenzie research and consulting firm assessed the value of the field at $8 billion, approximately double that of local analysts.

The latest upside projection comes less than two weeks after another revised estimate that the reserves are 16 percent higher than previously thought.

Changing gas prices could make the gas worth anywhere between $3.5-$17 billion in the future, and partners in the offshore project are preparing for the first deliveries of gas in 2012. They have approved expenditures of $230 million for equipment and services to be provided by Noble Energy, a partner in the project, along with Israeli firms Delek Drilling, Avner Oil and Gas and Isramco.

The future impact of the gas field on the Israeli economy is enormous. “Few doubt that the country, which for decades has been dependent on importing nearly all of its energy needs, has entered a new era of far greater economic independence,” Business Week commented in its current issue.

Delek official Yitzchak Tshuva jubilantly announced after the discovery that Israel is on the road to energy independence. Tshuva and other project participants stated, “We have already sufficient Israeli natural gas to meet all of the country’s needs for many years, and we intend to continue searching in our many franchises off the Israeli coast.”

The area of the gas discovery has largely been unexplored, leaving open the possibility of more finds, perhaps even of oil. Delek Drilling’s Tzvi Greenfeld said, ”If we find more gas, then there is a greater chance Israel will become an exporter.”

The multi-billion infrastructure work for new sea-to-land gas lines and for a 500-kilometer long (311 mile) distribution network will create hundreds of jobs for engineers and workers. The move to gas from oil and coal will help diversify the economy, Ohad Marani, board chairman of the state-owned gas distribution network told Business Week.

The Finance Ministry will enjoy approximately $5 billion in royalties when gas starts flowing, estimates Gal Reiter, energy industry analyst at Clal Investments. Furthermore, Israel will drastically cut back the $5 billion it pays for fuel imports, leading to stronger balance of payments.

An era in which Israel will be more self-sufficient in energy needs also will help make the shekel more attractive. Cheaper foreign currencies will help lower the price of imports for consumers but could cause further problems for the exporters, whose profits are dented after income in dollars and euros is exchanged for shekels.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell concluded discussions lasting several hours Wednesday afternoon in London, without any formal agreement on American demands.

The Obama administration wants Israel to stop all building for Jews in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, a move that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has said is a condition for resumption of direct negotiations with Israel.

The London talks apparently paved the way for more talk, next time with Abbas, who said in Ramallah that he is open to a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu when they attend the opening of the General Assembly at the United Nations next month.

After the meeting in London, both leaders continued to present optimistic statements about “progress” towards a resumption of direct PA-Israeli negotiations, which in effect have been conducted with the United States as a proxy for the PA. The discussions between Mitchell and the Israeli leader are a continuation of American attempts to keep all sides talking, despite statements from both sides that seem to make any agreement impossible.

However, Abbas said in Ramallah on Wednesday that there may be talks but not any negotiations, adding that he is “determined to establish an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital,” without letting Israel exercise sovereignty over any land that was restored to the Jewish State in 1967.

Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated Tuesday that Israel will not give up sovereignty over Jerusalem and will not stop all construction. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in an interview with the London Times, said that the PA will be a de facto state within two years, regardless of Israel’s position.

Both he and Abbas have refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, a condition that Prime Minister Netanyahu has said is a necessity for an agreement.

Following the four-hour meeting in London, Prime Minister Netanyahu boarded a plane for Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, set for Thursday.

Methodists Say No to Lutheran Gay Clergy

Lutheran ministers who are in same-sex relationships will not be allowed to serve as clergy in United Methodist congregations despite the new full communion agreement between the two denominations.

Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, made clear on Wednesday that UMC’s ban on noncelibate gay clergy still stands.

“Our Book of Discipline on that subject did not become null and void when they took that vote,” said Palmer, according to the United Methodist News Service. “It still applies to United Methodist clergy.”

Palmer was referring to the highly publicized vote last week by the chief legislative body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to approve a resolution allowing gays and lesbians in “life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships” to be ordained.

The controversial vote took place a day after ELCA delegates overwhelmingly adopted a full communion agreement with The United Methodist Church.

Full communion is not tantamount to a merger, church officials said. Instead, under the pact each church acknowledges the other as a partner in the Christian faith, recognizes the authenticity of each other’s baptism and Eucharist, and is committed to working together toward greater unity.

The two denominations also express mutual recognition of ordained ministers for service in either church, according to the agreement. Some UMC leaders have already expressed eagerness to share clergy in underserved areas, as reported by the United Methodist News Service.

Although the agreement recognizes full interchangeability of all ordained ministers, UMC congregations will not be accepting partnered homosexuals from the ELCA.

As Palmer stressed, “the doctrine, polity and standards of ministry of the respective denominations in any full communion agreement are not wiped out when one denomination does something.”

Last year, the highest legislative body of The United Methodist Church rejected changes to its constitution and voted to uphold its ban against the ordination of practicing homosexuals. United Methodists continue to hold that homosexual practice is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Michael Trice, an ecumenical officer of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, noted that if partnered homosexuals in the ELCA want to serve in a United Methodist congregation, The United Methodist Church can say to them “we are sorry but that does not fit our protocols.”

“Unity does not require uniformity in all cases,” said Trice. “It requires faithfulness to the Gospel, honesty with our Christian partners, and wherever we can share a sense of mission and service in the world.”

The agreement with the ELCA is UMC’s first full communion relationship outside the Methodist tradition. The ELCA, meanwhile, has full communion pacts with The Episcopal Church, Moravian Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ.

Erdogan and the Christians. Few Promises, Zero Action

ROME, August 27, 2009 – Samuel Huntington called Turkey “Janus-faced,” you never know if it’s a friend or enemy of the West.

The same thought must have come to mind for Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, when last August 15 he welcomed Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a visit to the orphanage and monastery of Saint George Koudounas on the Princes’ Islands in the Marmara Sea.

It was the first time that a Turkish prime minister had gone to the Princes Islands, traditionally inhabited by Christians, and to a building, the orphanage, which after being requisitioned by the Turkish authorities was ruled to belong to the ecumenical patriarchate by the court of Strasbourg in June of 2008.

During his visit, Erdogan, accompanied by four of his ministers, had lunch with Bartholomew I and with representatives of the religious minorities in Turkey – Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Jewish, Syriac Orthodox, and Catholic – to whom he made guarantees against all forms of religious and ethnic discrimination.

“My neighbor must be met with love, because he is also a creature of God,” Erdogan said, citing a maxim from the Mevlevi Shiite confraternity, which emerged on Konya in the 13th century, with some elements taken from Christianity.

Asked for a comment, Bartholomew I told Asia News: “Erdogan’s presence was an honor for us, and it gave us an opportunity to present our problems directly, although he already knows about them. We invited the prime minister to the see of the ecumenical patriarchate and to Halki, and Erdogan thanked us for the invitation.”

Halki is another island, the site of the seminary of theological formation for the ecumenical patriarchate, which was closed by the Turkish authorities in 1971. Last June 10, in Brussels, Olli Rehn, the European Union commissioner for enlargement and therefore also overseeing the possible entry of Turkey, stated that this entry is conditional in part on the reopening of the Halki seminary.

Erdogan has until December of 2009 to present the authorities in Brussels with an account of the progress that Turkey has made in meeting the standards necessary for entry into the EU. For the patriarchate, this is one more reason to hope that the theological seminary of Halki will finally be reopened and resume its functions.

Unfortunately, however, “Janus” has repeatedly frustrated expectations, showing this and other religious minorities in Turkey not its friendly face, but its hostile one.

Regarding the patriarchate, for example, the Turkish state continues to decline to recognize its religious “ecumenicity.” It treats it as a local body established for the worship of the Greek Orthodox, headed by a leader who must be born a Turkish citizen, devoid of legal personality and therefore also of the right to property. The annihilation of the patriarchate – which in Turkey today has been reduced to a few more than 3,000 faithful – has so far shown no serious signs of turning around.

This also applies to the other Christian minorities. The most substantial community, that of the Armenians, was decimated less than a century ago by a genocide that the authorities in Ankara refuse to acknowledge, and today there are just a few tens of thousands of them left, out of a population of more than 70 million inhabitants, almost all of them Muslim. There are about 25,000 Catholics, with six bishops, 10,000 Syriac Orthodox, and 3,000 Protestants of various denominations.

Like Erdogan, but not for the same reasons, all of these religious minorities have high hopes for Turkey’s entry into the European Union. For them, this entry would mean the recognition of room for freedom that they fear will otherwise continue to be significantly limited.

In Europe itself, however, their reasoning receives little consideration. Some governments there, including those of Italy and Germany, are in favor of Turkey’s entry into the EU, while others, like that of France, are against it. Nonetheless, both sides are thinking in terms of national interest. Calculations involving the oil and gas pipelines that originate in Turkish-speaking, Muslim countries in central Asia, and pass through Turkey, take precedence over those concerning religious freedom.

Against this background, the position of the Holy See also appears two-faced.

On the one hand, Vatican diplomacy takes into account both the expectations of the Catholics and the other religious minorities in Turkey, and the geopolitical factors seen as favoring its entry into the EU. The man most candid in expressing this cautiously optimistic view has been Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state, in an interview with “La Documentation Catholique” at the beginning of 2007.

Having stated that the Catholic Church has no “special power to promote the entry of Turkey into Europe, or to veto this,” Bertone said in the interview that “without Turkey, Europe would no longer benefit from that bridge between East and West which this country has always been in the course of history. [...] Leaving Turkey outside of Europe also risks fostering Islamist fundamentalism within the country.”

On the other hand, however, Church authorities are also sensitive to the opposing dangers that the entry of Turkey into the European Union could bring: not a beneficial integration of Turkey into Europe, but a “catastrophe” for a continent that has renounced its Christian identity.

The word “catastrophe” is in the title of a book that contains the most incisive overview of these objections. Published in Italy this year, the book was written by historian Roberto de Mattei, vice president of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and director of the magazine “Radici Cristiane.” It is entitled “La Turchia in Europa: beneficio o catastrofe?”, and opts decisively for the second of these two hypotheses.

In effect, the historical precedents are not encouraging. Modern-day Turkey was one of the most vital areas of Christianity during its first centuries, and still at the beginning of the 20th century, after centuries of Ottoman rule, it still had deep imprints of this Christian identity, and numerous faithful. Over a few decades, these imprints have also been nearly wiped out by the combined pressure of the exaggerated secularism of Kemal Atatürk and of the Islamist resurgence that ultimately came to power with Erdogan.

Benedict XVI is fully aware of these dangers. When he went to Turkey in November of 2006, it was just a few months after the killing of a Catholic priest, Andrea Santoro, who was shot to death by an Islamist fanatic while he was kneeling in prayer in the little church of Trabzon.

During his trip to Turkey, Benedict XVI did not say a single word about the entry of this country into the European Union. And the international press interpreted this silence as assent, confirmed by a few comments made by Erdogan after his meeting with the pope. But there is no reason to think that Joseph Ratzinger has softened, as pope, the strong reservations that he  expressed on this matter before being elected successor of Peter.

Ratzinger spoke out in this topic twice, within a short span of time, during the summer of 2004. The first time was in an interview with Sophie de Ravinel, for “Le Figaro Magazine” on August 13:

“Europe is a cultural continent, not a geographical one. It is its culture that gives it a common identity. The roots that have formed it, that have permitted the formation of this continent, are those of Christianity. [...] In this sense, throughout history Turkey has always represented another continent, in permanent contrast with Europe. There were the wars against the Byzantine empire, the fall of Constantinople, the Balkan wars, and the threat against Vienna and Austria. That is why I think it would be an error to equate the two continents. It would mean a loss of richness, the disappearance of culture for the sake of economic benefits. Turkey, which is considered a secular country but is founded upon Islam, could instead attempt to bring to life a cultural continent together with some neighboring Arab countries, and thus become the protagonist of a culture that would possess its own identity but would also share the great humanistic values that we should all acknowledge. This idea is not incompatible with close and friendly forms of association and collaboration with Europe, and would permit the development of unified strength in opposition to any form of fundamentalism.”

The second time, he was speaking to the pastoral workers of the diocese of Velletri, on September 18:

“Historically and culturally, Turkey has little in common with Europe; for this reason, it would be a great error to incorporate it into the European Union. It would be better for Turkey to become a bridge between Europe and the Arab world, or to form together with that world its own cultural continent. Europe is not a geographical concept, but a cultural one, formed in a sometimes conflictual historical process centered upon the Christian faith, and it is a matter of fact that the Ottoman empire was always in opposition to Europe. Even though Kemal Atatürk constructed a secular Turkey during the 1920′s, the country remains the nucleus of the old Ottoman empire; it has an Islamic foundation, and is thus very different from Europe, which is a collection of secular states with Christian foundations, although today these countries seem to deny this without justification. Thus the entry of Turkey into the EU would be anti-historical.”

As pope, Benedict XVI has always demonstrated that he has at heart, more than the political destiny of Turkey, the fate of the Christians of that country and the efforts at reconciliation between the Church of Rome and the ecumenical patriarchate, relations with which are excellent.

But all the same, the Holy See is also a political player. And concerning the entry of Turkey into the European Union, there is a middle way between those for and those against, which the Vatican seems increasingly inclined to support.

It is the stance that Cardinal Bertone himself hinted at in the cited interview with “La Documentation Catholique”: not the complete integration of Turkey into Europe, but participation on a strictly economic level.

Damien Thompson – The Telegraph

James MacMillan calls on Tablet editor to resign

“If England has not been invaded since 1066, it is because foreigners dread having to spend a Sunday there.”

So noted a retired British Army officer in a French work of fiction from the 1950s, a time when Sundays in the UK were a bit different from how they are now.

Even in the early 1990s, it was a day that most commonly began with church worship, followed by roast lunch with the family and time at home together.

For many people today, that is still the norm, but a piece of legislation that is 15 years old this week has made Sundays generally more active.

Although some shops had defied the law, the 1994 Sunday Trading Act allowed all smaller shops in England and Wales to open all day. Larger ones are still restricted to six hours of business between 10am and 6pm and cannot open on Easter Sunday.

In Scotland, shops determine their own hours although – as they can south of the border – people working in retail and betting can opt out of working on Sundays if they wish.

The trading act was passed despite stiff resistance from trade unions, religious groups and even some large stores such as Marks and Spencer and Waitrose. Eight years earlier, attempts by Margaret Thatcher to deregulate Sunday trading led to her only Parliamentary defeat during her time as prime minister.

So when the law was finally passed, it was a huge step, says Professor Jeremy Baker, of ESCP Europe Business School.

“Sunday was a very symbolic day. It was a religious day and even for those people who are not religious it was a family day, a home day. So the idea of going out to the shops on this home day was genuinely shocking to people.

“You were supposed to spend the time at home, however boring it was. It was considered to be good for you. You were showing loyalty to the family.”

The act helped to develop a new shopping culture and a new leisure pursuit, he says, but at a cost.

“Going to the shops became an event, even if you didn’t buy anything, because you’d go and you’d walk around and have coffee. The shopping mall as a new city centre was very much accelerated by the law.”

But the shopping boom that followed is now coming back to haunt the country in recession, says Mr Baker, because there are just too many shops.

Shops in many towns and villages remain closed on Sundays, and in those areas little has changed. Public transport still has a Sunday timetable all over the country, while most banks and theatres remain closed.

But shopping malls and city centres are as busy as any other day. More than half the population regularly goes shopping on a Sunday, which means that hundreds of thousands of people have to work.

Where retail led, pubs followed. A year after the trading act, pubs were allowed to open all day on a Sunday. Previously they had to close between 3pm and 7pm.

The proliferation of televised football on Sundays – there are sometimes more top-level matches on a Sunday than a Saturday – provided pubs with an added attraction. Horse racing, cricket and rugby have followed its example.

It all means that Sundays are losing their intended meaning, says John Roberts, director of the Lord’s Day Observance Society, because when God created the world he set aside one day that was different. It was also the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

“We’ve lost family life and one of the reasons we’ve lost it is that we have lost the principle that Sunday was for the family. There’s a moral, social and economic element to this. I love sport but I reject the need for sport on a Sunday because people need a break. There are six other days to watch football.”

One of the weaknesses of society is that people are not meeting together and eating together, he says.

“If mum is working and dad is down the pub and the other members of the family somewhere else, then family life is sliced through. And the country will never ever get back to stability until it gets back to valuing the family.”

Peter Lynas, of Keep Sunday Special, thinks the law was a compromise that has worked reasonably well.

“It has retained a certain distinction to Sundays but at the same time it respects the rights of people who want to go shopping and those that don’t.”

His concern is that the opt-out that the act gave to workers who didn’t want to work on Sundays is not being enacted, and his group is calling for a “family day” for parents to be given a statutory day off at the weekend, if they want one.

But feminist Kathy Lette, author of the novel To Love, Honour and Betray, says Sundays are much more fun now than in 1988, when she moved to England from Australia.

“Let me tell you, Sundays back then were about as interesting as watching Albanian daytime television – as riveting as watching hair recede. Sundays broke my only commandment – thou shalt not bore.”

It has definitely made life easier for working mothers, she says, because trying to fit in the food shop after work or on a busy Saturday is an ordeal.

“Working mums need options – and Sunday shopping has been a life saver.”

I must admit, I do find humans quite odd.

‘Artificial trees’ to cut carbon

Engineers say a forest of 100,000 “artificial trees” could be deployed within 10 to 20 years to help soak up the world’s carbon emissions.

The trees are among three geo-engineering ideas highlighted as practical in a new report.

The authors from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers say that without geo-engineering it will be impossible to avoid dangerous climate change.

The report includes a 100-year roadmap to “decarbonise” the global economy.

No silver bullet

Launching the report, lead author Dr Tim Fox said geo-engineering should not be viewed as a “silver bullet” that could combat climate change in isolation.

He told BBC News it should be used in conjunction with efforts to reduce carbon emissions and to adapt to the effects of climate change.

Many climate scientists calculate that the world has only a few decades to reduce emissions before there is so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that a dangerous rise in global temperature is inevitable.

The authors of this report say that geo-engineering of the type they propose should be used on a short-term basis to buy the world time, but in the long term it is vital to reduce emissions.

They define two types of geo-engineering. Nem Vaughan of University of East Anglia said: “The first category attempts to cool the planet by reflecting some of the sunlight away. The problem with this is that it just masks the problem.”

“The other type of geo-engineering is to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it.”

Hundreds of options

The team studied hundreds of different options but have put forward just three as being practical and feasible using current technology.

A key factor in choosing the three was that they should be low-carbon technologies rather than adding to the problem.

Dr Fox told BBC News: “Artificial trees are already at the prototype stage and are very advanced in their design in terms of their automation and in the components that would be used.

“They could, within a relatively short duration, be moved forward into mass production and deployment.”

The trees would work on the principle of capturing carbon dioxide from the air through a filter.

The CO2 would then be removed from the filter and stored. The report calls for the technology to be developed in conjunction with carbon storage infrastructure.

Dr Fox said the prototype artificial tree was about the same size as a shipping container and could remove thousands of times more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than an equivalent sized real tree.

Another of the team’s preferred methods of capturing carbon is to install what they term “algae based photobioreactors” on buildings. These would be transparent containers containing algae which would remove carbon dioxide from the air during photosynthesis.

The third option focuses on the reduction of incoming solar radiation by reflecting sunlight back into space. The report says the simplest way of doing this is for buildings to have reflective roofs.

The authors stress that all of these options will require more research and have called for the UK government to invest 10 million pounds in analysis of the effectiveness, risks and costs of geo-engineering.

Dr Fox said: “We very much believe that the practical geo-engineering that we are proposing should be implemented and could be very much part of our landscape within the next 10 to 20 years.”

‘Those who call for the destruction of Israel cannot go unchallenged’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday was presented with architectural plans for the Auschwitz death camp that were discovered in Berlin last year and will go on display in Israel.

The 29 sketches of the death camp that was built in Nazi-occupied Poland date back as far as 1941, and include detailed blueprints for living barracks, delousing facilities and crematoria, including gas chambers. The sketches are considered important to helping understand the genesis of the Nazi genocide.

They are initialed by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, and Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess.

“We cannot allow those who wish to perpetrate mass deaths, those who call for the destruction of the Jewish people or the Jewish state to go unchallenged,” Netanyahu said during a ceremony at the newsroom of German newspaper Bild.

Netanyahu didn’t explicitly mention Iran, but it was a clear reference to that country’s nuclear program which Israel assess as a grave threat.

Netanyahu thanked the paper, published by Axel Springer Verlag, for giving the documents to him to take back to Yad Vashem in Israel.

“There are those who deny that the Holocaust happened,” the prime minister said. “Let them come to Jerusalem and look at these plans, these plans for the factory of death.”

Netanyahu is being accompanied on his trip by Yossi Peled, an Israeli Cabinet minister who was hidden in Belgium by Christian parents after his parents were killed by the Nazis. Peled discovered he was Jewish at age 7, in 1948 – the year Israel was founded – and later moved there, eventually becoming a general in the armed forces.

The blueprints turned up in an apartment in Berlin in 2008; how they got there is not clear, but their authenticity has been verified by Germany’s federal archive.

While they are not the only original Auschwitz blueprints that still exist – others were captured by the Soviet Red Army and brought back to Moscow – they will be the first for Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, its chairman said.

“This set is a very early one, which was found here in Berlin, from the autumn of ’41,” Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said.

“It brings a better understanding of the whole process, and the intention of the planners of the complex, and from this perspective it is important.”

The blueprints were purchased from the unidentified finder by Germany’s Axel Springer Verlag, the publisher of top-selling Bild newspaper among others, and put on display in the company’s Berlin headquarters.

The publisher is now giving them to Yad Vashem for its permanent collection.

Shalev said they will be put on display at Yad Vashem on Jan. 27, 2010, as part of a special exhibit opening to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

The blueprints include general plans for the original Auschwitz camp, and also the expansion Auschwitz-Birkenau camp where most of the killings were carried out.

More than 1 million people, mostly Jews, died in the gas chambers or through forced labor, disease or starvation at the camp, which the Nazis built after occupying Poland.

Netanyahu is in Berlin for meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other officials.

Later, the Israeli leader is scheduled to visit a house on Berlin’s Wannsee lake that was the site of the Jan. 20, 1942, Wannsee Conference – a watershed in Nazi policy against Europe’s Jews.

The building now houses a museum documenting the Holocaust and the notorious meeting, which was once thought to be the point at which the Nazis decided to stop deporting and randomly killing Jews and instead to industrialize their murder.

Though debate continues, most historians now agree that the decision was made some months earlier – by Adolf Hitler himself, even though no written order from him has ever been found.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews had already been murdered by the time the 15 civil servants, SS and party officials met at Wannsee. It is now believed by many that Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Security Service and Security Police head, called the meeting to make sure everybody knew what Hitler wanted done and to establish SS oversight of the process.

Shalev said the blueprints showing that the construction of Auschwitz was already being planned in 1941 help to reinforce that argument.

“The Wannsee conference … was a kind of coordination,” Shalev said. “The process of the Final Solution started to be implemented a few months before it, so the plans that were found from late ’41 are more evidence.”

A large yellowed plan, dated April 30, 1942, and titled general building plan concentration camp Auschwitz provides a wider view, showing the barracks but also roads, other buildings, and the outlying area.

Another drawing dated Oct. 14, 1941, shows the plans for construction of a Waffen SS prisoner of war camp with rows of what appear to be barracks. A notation in the bottom right says it was drafted by a prisoner, Nr. 471.

Soprano: Isabel Bayrakdaraian, Sinfonietta Cracovia, conducted by John Axelrod.

Taken from “HOLOCAUST – A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz”. For the first time since its liberation, permission was granted for music to be heard in Auschwitz and a number of leading musicians were brought there to perform music for the film.

Church fights on as bishop threat grows

By Alex Stevenson

The Church of England has rejected suggestions from Jack Straw it will give up its seats in the House of Lords without a fight.

Ending the association would be a “retrograde step”, a spokesman told politics.co.uk, after heavy hints from the justice secretary yesterday that bishops may no longer be welcome.

Mr Straw told an Unlock Democracy seminar the exclusive presence of the Church of England among Britain’s religions in parliament was “anomalous” but refused to indicate whether he believed, in a predominantly elected House of Lords, their historic place should be protected.

He said he hopes a transition to an elected House of Lords will take place over three parliamentary cycles, meaning the decision on whether to go to an 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected chamber will not have to be taken for some years.

Straw supports 15-year limit on peers

“My own guess is the Church of England may come to a view [over the next ten years] that it is not appropriate for bishops to be in the legislative chamber,” the justice secretary suggested.

But the Church has vigorously rejected that view.

“This is a guess which has no basis in what the Church of England has said thus far,” the spokesman for the Church added.

“The Church has been consistent in challenging the case for a wholly elected chamber and in arguing that if there is a move to a partly elected chamber, bishops should remain, albeit in reduced numbers if the size of the second chamber is substantially reduced.”

Last year’s white paper on Lords reform appeared to commit to the ongoing relevance of bishops to the legislative process. It backed the “fundamental constitutional principle” of the “relationship between the crown, parliament and Church that underpins the fabric of our nation”.

Issue brief: House of Lords reform

That contrasted with Mr Straw’s views as expressed yesterday. He said: “It doesn’t follow if you have an established church they have to have a place in the legislative parliament.”

The lords spiritual have sat alongside the lords temporal since the dawn of Britain’s parliament, whose customs were established before the 16th century Reformation and establishment of the Church of England.

Ending the link between parliament in the Church would “weaken” the nature of the establishment, but not end it, the Church believes.

A growing movement in British society disagrees with the ongoing relevance of bishops to the Lords, however.

The British Humanists’ Association opposes both the privileged position of the Church of England in parliament and the relevance of a religious voice to the lawmaking process.

Responding to Mr Straw’s comments, it pointed out that only one country other than Britain retains specified places for religious figures in its lawmaking bodies – Iran.

“Allowing the continuation of this privilege as a purely symbolic commitment to establishment – when its removal would not affect the establishment of the Church of England in any way – is an affront to democratic principles,” a spokesperson told politics.co.uk.

“To claim as the government has that bishops are uniquely qualified to provide ethical and spiritual insights – and therefore should retain their right to sit in the second chamber – is factually incorrect and offensive.”

The fundamental question of relevance is likely to shape the future of the 26 lords spiritual still permitted to sit in parliament’s second chamber by virtue of their ecclesiastical offices.

The Church of England spokesman added: “Bishops in the Lords help connect the second chamber with the people, parishes and regions of England, not just their own worshippers.

“In an age where the role of religion in shaping social and moral attitudes is increasingly recognised to be highly significant, the idea of shaping the second chamber on a purely secular model would be a retrograde step.”

Mr Straw appeared to acknowledge the extent of the challenge facing those who wish to achieve a 100 per cent elected chamber yesterday.

Speaking generally, he said: “Getting this through at the next stage is going to be a hard. They’ll argue on grounds of practicality… or on the bishops. These arguments will work themselves out in the wash.”

Focusing on the bishops question, he added: “Never underestimate the strength of feeling among not just the established church, but other faith communities.”