ETERNAL FLAME NEWS

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

China:Spying Devices Installed In Hong Kong Cars

By Albert Ding & Matthew Robertson
Epoch Times Staff

For years now Chinese authorities have been installing spying devices on all dual-plate Chinese-Hong Kong vehicles, enabling a vast network of eavesdropping across the archipelago, according to a Hong Kong newspaper.

The report in Apple Daily states that the recording devices began being installed as “inspection and quarantine cards” in July 2007. They were installed without charge by the Shenzhen Inspection and Quarantine Bureau on thousands of vehicles.

Smugglers were the first to note something strange about the devices. A source told Apple Daily that after the cards were installed mainland authorities had no trouble picking off the cars carrying illicit goods.

“For every ten cars we ran we only had [smuggled goods] in three or four to reduce the risk, but the border agents caught all of them. The accuracy was unreal!” Apple Daily quoted the smuggler saying.

The device, no larger than a PDA, is taped onto the vehicle’s front window. Protective tape covers the screws, presumably to prevent tampering—though it didn’t stop Apple Daily from removing the devices, taking them to experts for inspection, and presenting pictures of them splayed open on their website, with neat graphics indicating the various internal components.

Apple Daily says they took the device to a university professor and a private investigator, both of whom attested to the espionage potential of the units.

Zhang Dawei, identified as “a private investigator of over 30 years,” took a look at the device’s internal structure and told the Daily that the card could certainly be used for eavesdropping.

An Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong, Zheng Liming, took apart one of the devices and confirmed that it can listen in on conversations.

And the range is extensive, he said. “The signal receiving range is up to 20km, which means if the device installer wants to, they can listen even when the vehicles are in Hong Kong,” he said.

Two of the regions in Hong Kong where the device can transmit data back to China are Sha tin and Tuen mun.

Much cheaper chips can be used to check inspection status for simple border crossings, Zhang said, “But this device uses chips commonly found in Bluetooth and voice recording devices, designed for receiving voice transmission.”

He thus thought it “very likely” that they were being used for surveillance.

The Daily interviewed several Hong Kong drivers to gauge their reactions; predictably, they were often irate.

Ms. Deng, who operates a real estate business, said: “Even if we hired a maid, we are not allowed to install a surveillance camera in her room due to privacy issues! You can’t just do whatever you want.”

senior manager in an unidentified company noted that those who qualify for the dual license plate usually have some financial clout. If their business conversations in the car were recorded and the information shared, he said, it may be enough to send people bankrupt.

HKBusiness.net, an online news site, says that businesses that invested more than $1 million in mainland China and paid more than 30,000 yuan in tax over the past year qualify for a dual license plate.

Apple Daily quotes a source saying there are at least 20,000 cars with dual license places, and tens of thousands of trucks and buses.
Read More From The Epoch Times

Massachusetts Parent Outraged Over School conducting Sex Surveys On Students Without Parental Consent

Bob Kellogg - OneNewsNow - 6/14/2011 3:55:00 AM
A Massachusetts mother has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education because her children's school conducted a sex survey without parents' written consent.

Fitchburg Memorial Middle School conducts the survey with "passive" parental consent in most cases, which means consent forms are sent home with students, but most parents never see them.

"What the schools say is that [if] they don't receive the note back with the parents saying they can't do it, they go ahead and do it anyway," reports John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute.

So the explicit surveys are given to students as young as 10 or 11 years old, asking questions about sexual behavior that many students have probably never engaged in and may not even understand.

"Here's the problem -- I think kids will probably go on the Internet and see what those things mean," Whitehead warns. "So I think just asking these questions raises some things that children should not be thinking about. If I asked these same questions in my neighborhood to local kids, the police would be at my door in 30 minutes, suspecting me to be a pedophile."

He concludes that "presuming" parents have given their tacit permission violates the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment. So The Rutherford Institute has proposed a policy that would require the school to obtain written parental consent.

Harold Camping Hospitalized After Having Stroke Loses Ability To Speak

Sun, Jun. 12 2011 01:15 PM EDT
By Audrey Barrick | Christian Post Reporter

Harold Camping, who said Judgment Day would begin on May 21, was hospitalized this week after suffering a stroke.

According to the Oakland Tribune, the Family Radio president was taken to the hospital Thursday night.

As of Friday, Camping's neighbor told the Tribune that the 89-year-old preacher was doing OK. His speech, however, appears to be slurred.

"The only thing that's affected is his speech," the neighbor said.

An official update on Camping's health is expected by Family Stations Inc. on Monday.

Camping, whom many Christians consider a false prophet, is infamous for his doomsday predictions. Most recently, he predicted that the rapture of true believers would occur on May 21, 2011, and that the rest of the world would suffer the beginning of Judgment Day.

Millions of dollars were spent on billboards and other advertisements around the country to warn people about the "guaranteed" coming of Judgment Day.

When the big earthquake or the rapture didn't occur on May 21, Camping remained silent in his Alameda, Calif., home for days and then appeared to the media two days later to explain what happened.

While the media and the public expected an apology or admission of mistake, Camping provided a new revelation he had. Judgment Day did come on May 21, he maintained, but it came spiritually and not physically. The world is now under judgment, he said. He moved the rapture date to Oct. 21, which is also the day he says the world will come to an end.

Over the past couple of weeks, Camping has been bombarded by angry and disappointed calls on his Open Forum radio program.

Some told him they spent their savings, trusting that his prediction would be right, and others indicated they lost their faith.

Obama Discusses Scale Of Afghanistan Pullout

By Peter Nicholas and Lisa Mascaro, Los Angeles Times

June 13, 2011

Reporting from Washington—

The Obama administration opens an internal debate this week on the size of a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan amid growing doubts in Congress about the cost and purpose of the decade-long war and public pressure to bring it to a rapid end.

President Obama is expected to announce next month the size and pace of a drawdown he promised in December 2009, when he rolled out a strategy that included adding 30,000 U.S. troops in hopes of breaking the Taliban's momentum.

He will reach a decision on the number in deliberations with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Gen. David H. Petraeus, who are known to favor a small initial reduction in the 100,000-strong troops on the ground, and other officials who want to move more quickly.

Obama has given few hints on which way he is leaning, but the ground may be shifting in favor of a much smaller military footprint. Gates is retiring at the end of the month. Petraeus is moving to the CIA, where he will no longer have direct influence over the size of the military force.

And with Washington focused on trimming the federal deficit, the White House is coping with a wave of public frustration over a conflict that is costing $120 billion a year.

Ending the war is one of the few ideas to attract bipartisan backing on Capitol Hill. Last month, 204 House members voted for an amendment that would have required the administration to come up with an accelerated deadline for pulling out of Afghanistan, the strongest expression of disaffection with the war since operations began in late 2001.

The amendment by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) would have compelled Obama to report within 60 days on an exit strategy, including a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops and handing off military operations to the Afghan government.

Although the measure did not pass, it captured 42 more votes than a similar proposal in July. Support ranged from the traditional antiwar left to "tea party" conservatives upset about the cost of the war.

Most of those who supported the amendment were Democrats, including the entire House Democratic leadership. Among them was the No. 2 Democrat in the House, Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who had been a reliable supporter of the war in previous years.

"It is essential that we fight the smartest war possible against terrorists — but it is fair to ask how a massive troop presence in Afghanistan continues to help us accomplish that goal," Hoyer said in a speech before the vote.

The number of Republicans who supported the amendment increased to 26 — nearly triple the total from the last vote.

Lawmakers say they've lost their appetite for an expensive conflict at a time of high deficits and other priorities closer to home. They cite the death of Osama bin Laden last month, and they contend that mercurial Afghan President Hamid Karzai is not a reliable partner. Some question the wisdom of committing resources to Afghanistan when Pakistan and Yemen may be bigger hotbeds of terrorist activity.

During a confirmation hearing Wednesday for Ryan Crocker, Obama's nominee for ambassador to Afghanistan, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a close White House ally, captured the sense of impatience. "While the U.S. has genuine national security interests in Afghanistan, our current commitment in troops and in dollars is neither proportional to our interests nor sustainable," Kerry said.

Obama's habit is to split the difference when confronted with competing pressures. Past practice suggests he may opt for a small initial reduction followed by a series of more aggressive withdrawals culminating in the formal handoff of security responsibilities to the Afghans in 2014. McGovern and others who met with the president at the White House recently said they did not get the impression he would order a major troop reduction right away.
Read More from LA Times

Salt Lake City's NBC Station Refuses To Air "Play Boy Club" Tv Show

By Lisa de Moraes, Published: June 13

The NBC station in Salt Lake City has informed the network that it will not air the new series “The Playboy Club” because the affiliate does not want to be associated with the Playboy brand.

“For us, the issue is about the Playboy brand, something we believe is associated with pornography and something we don’t want to further in our programming,” Michelle Torsak, programming chief at station KSL, told The TV Column on Monday.

Torsak said that station execs had not yet seen the full pilot episode for “The Playboy Club” — just the four-minute-ish “sizzle reel” shown to station execs and advertisers in mid-May at NBC’s Upfront Week presentation in Manhattan.

The drama series, produced by Ron Howard/Brian Grazer’s Imagine Television (with 20th Century Fox TV), stars Eddie Cibrian as one of the patrons of the original Playboy Club in 1960s Chicago.

KSL’s decision “screams hypocrisy,” Salt Lake Tribune TV critic Scott Pierce said Monday, insisting that “The Playboy Club” pilot episode is far less “adult” than “every episode” of the long-running NBC series “Law & Order: SVU” — a series that KSL broadcasts.

Pierce, on a roll, also noted that KSL aired nearly 200 episodes of the now-defunct NBC sitcom “Will & Grace,” which, he snipped, “never met a dirty joke it didn’t like.”

But, Torsak emphasized to the TV Column, “It really is a brand question.”

“It’s entirely possible that the actual content [of ‘The Playboy Club’] is comparable to anything else on network television,” she said.

And in an interview with the Deseret News, Mark Willis, president and chief executive of the KSL parent company, Deseret Media Companies, went with: “We would never accept an ad from ‘The Playboy Club,’ just as we don’t accept ads for alcohol or gambling.”

The Deseret News is also owned by Deseret Media Companies which, in turn, is controlled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Despite all the “It’s the brand, stupid” talk, KSL — upon officially announcing its decision to its viewers in one of its newscasts Monday — explained that it had based its decision on its “long-term policy to screen programming for material which significant portions of our audience might find objectionable.”

Westboro Baptist Protests Fallen Soldiers Funeral But Are Drowned Out By Patriotic Protectors

Bikers revved their engines. Thousands of protesters waved American flags.

On one side of the street, the signs read: “Nashville: No place for hate” and “God loves Sgt. Kevin Balduf.”

On the other side, they read: “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God is your enemy.”

But beyond all that, inside the protective walls of a quiet church, lay a young man in Marine dress blues.

On May 12, Nashville native and Marine Sgt. Kevin Balduf, 27, was killed in combat in Afghanistan. Much closer to his home, Christian fundamentalists in Topeka, Kansas, planned their trip to protest his funeral.

News of Westboro Baptist Church’s plans lit up social media sites, resulting in a counter-protest of about 2,000 people Monday outside Woodmont Hills Family of God church on Franklin Pike. In less than 10 minutes, two hours before the funeral’s start, the three Westboro protesters took their leave.

Earlier Monday, the three protested outside Gordon Jewish Community Center in Bellevue and the Islamic Center of Nashville on 12th Avenue South. During their short protest of the Islamic center, someone slashed the tires on their rented SUV. Metro Police took a report, but no one has been charged.

Since a March Supreme Court ruling in favor of Westboro Baptist, counter-protesters have stepped up their efforts to shout the group down at soldiers’ funerals. America must allow “even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion for the court.

All but one justice sided with the church, which has stirred outrage with raucous demonstrations contending that God is punishing the military for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. The church was started in 1955 and regularly protests the funerals of soldiers nationwide.

The Topeka church didn’t respond to calls and emails requesting comment Monday, and the protesters left the funeral area without speaking to media.

Six hours before the afternoon funeral service, people filled the expansive church lawn and lined Franklin Pike to the Thompson Lane intersection.

The majority came by motorcycle. Others parked at the fairgrounds and nearby parking lots, shuttled to the church lawn by Rural/Metro Ambulances, a service donated by the private company. Others arrived on donated party buses.

Their mission was for Balduf’s family and friends coming to mourn to see only American flags, only patriotism, only a showing of gratitude for Balduf’s sacrifice.

“The counter-protest is a great example of freedom at work and America at its best,” said Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at Nashville’s First Amendment Center. “Instead of shutting them down or censoring them using the government, we have people who are willing to stand up and drown them out.

TBN Kicks Jack Van Impe Off Their Network

TBN Told Jack Van Impe that if he were to discuss the topics he covered in this video clip that the network would stop airing his Weekly TV show. Jack went ahead and discussed the topics and did not compromise the Truth and Word of God and has now been kicked from TBN's Weekly show line up.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Pentecost Day a time of joy for many churches

By Bea L. Hines

bhines@MiamiHerald.com

On June 12, my church, like many other Christian churches around the world, celebrated Pentecost Day, otherwise known as the birthday of the Christian church. To many people, this was just another Sunday, a day to sit back and watch sports or just hand around with family and friends. Nothing wrong with that. It is good to fellowship with those we love.

However, Pentecost Day for me and millions of other Christians has a more significant meaning. We commemorate Pentecost Day because we believe that the "outpouring" of the Holy Spirit on believers is just as real today, as it was in the beginning of the Christian movement. Like the days of old, many believers still seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is a time of renewal, a time of seeking a closer walk with the Lord, a time of growth.

At my church, we started our celebration one week before Pentecost Day. And the week prior to that, those of us who could, met at church two days during the week for a noon-day prayer session and anointing led by our pastor, Bishop Walter H. Richardson.

For eight days leading up to Pentecost Day, we gathered at church (except Saturday), where we were refreshed with sermons, testimonials, words of admonishment, and music that must have had the angels joining in from Heaven.

Today (Monday after Pentecost Day) as I contemplate what the day means to me, I am touched just to know that I, a mortal woman, could be so loved by the Lord, that He would consider me worthy of receiving the Comforter (the Holy Spirit) in my heart and soul.

Over the years, since I first believed, I have needed the protection that only this blessed spiritual Gift could provide. It truly has been a Guide in my life, protecting me from dangers seen and unseen and surrounding me and my family with our very own angels, as we travel along life's journey.

On that first Pentecost Day, the Holy Spirit "filled" the hearts of the original 120 believers who praised and blessed God, as they sat waiting to be given The Gift. My prayer is that just as the Holy Spirit "filled" the hearts of those who waited for Him on that day, that my life will be filled with faith and good works so that I will be an inspiration to all I meet.

Weiner's Sex Addiction: Disease or Excuse?

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., is following in steps of many other public figures who have been caught in a sex scandal as he sought therapy Monday for his sexual Internet activities.

"I've made some pretty serious mistakes and I need to redeem myself and I'm working hard to try to get back to normal," said the New York Democrat, who recently admitted to tweeting lewd photos of himself to strange women.

It's a story line Americans are getting all too accustomed to -- powerful men falling to sexual temptation and blaming addiction.

In 2010, professional golfer Tiger Woods received professional help for his so-called addiction after his very public affair. He admitted at this year's Masters Golf Tournament that while therapy helps, it's not a cure.

"Just because I've gone through treatment doesn't mean it stops," he said. "I'm trying as hard as I possibly can each and every day to get my life better and better and stronger."

The big question: is sex addiction real? Some say it's a self-control problem, while others claim it's an actual psychological issue.

"We're not talking about people who just like a lot of sex. We're talking about individuals where sex controls their lives," Dr. Charles Samenow, a psychiatrist and professor at George Washington University, told ABC News.

Fourteen million Americans claim to have a sex addiction -- that's one in every 17 adults. Recovering addict Samantha Ciciora claims to be one of them.

"I had two affairs, and I hid them very well. My husband had no idea..." said the married mother of two.

"I realized that something was wrong more than early promiscuity in my life...when I really couldn't stop," Ciciora said.

She sought help at Treatment Centers for Sexual Addiction. The treatment includes a 12-step program and individual and group therapy.

Experts say the Internet makes temptation even greater for those with sexual addiction.

David Wilkerson's Wife Still Recovering After Crash

Rev. David Wilkerson's wife, Gwen Wilkerson, is making good progress at a skilled nursing facility, more than a month after surviving a car crash that killed her husband.

An update on the World Challenge website Monday said the orthopaedic surgeon working with Gwen is "very happy" with her recovery thus far. The family has continued to ask for prayer.

"The incredible outpouring of cards, calls, letters, emails (and) blogs on behalf of Gwen is so deeply heartwarming. The Wilkerson family thanks you," the June 13 post said.

Rev. Wilkerson and his wife were involved in a head-on collision with a tractor trailer April 27 in Texas. Pastor Wilkerson was pronounced dead on the scene.

After the crash, Gwen stayed in the intensive care unit of a local hospital until May 12. She underwent surgery to repair a broken hip during that time.

Gwen's son Gary urged prayer for her physical and emotional strength.

Earlier this month, Mrs. Wilkerson was released from an acute rehab center and placed in the current facility.