Friday 28 February 2014

JOHN KERRY OPENS THE DOOR TO EXTENDING PEACE TALKS BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS!

John Kerry Opens Door To Extending Peace Talks

Diplomat Scales Down Expectations as April Deadline Nears

By Reuters

Published February 26 
Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged on Wednesday he hopes at best to get Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a “framework” for a peace agreement by April 29, but that a final deal could take another nine months or more.
Kerry brought the two sides back into negotiations on July 29 after a three-year gap and, at the time, said that “Our objective will be to achieve a final status agreement over the course of the next nine months.”
As that deadline has approached, U.S. officials appear to have scaled back their ambitions, saying they are trying to forge a “framework for negotiations” as a first step though they still hope to hammer out a full agreement by April 29.
“For months now, we’ve been saying we’re trying to get a framework. We have understood what we can get within this time period,” Kerry told reporters in what appeared to be his most explicit admission that a final agreement is not possible by April 29.
“We are trying to get the framework … If we have used these seven months thus far to get an understanding of where the parties are and to be able to shape the final negotiation, then we get into the final negotiation,” Kerry added.
“So I don’t think anybody would worry if there’s another nine months, or whatever it’s going to be, to finish up but that’s not defined yet,” he said.
While U.S. officials have declined to say what might go into such a framework, it appears likely to be a sort of outline of possible outcomes on the core issues of borders, security, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
Kerry, who met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris last week, declined to offer an assessment of where the talks are.
“I wouldn’t be pursuing it if I didn’t think it was worthwhile,” he said. “I hope we are not wasting our time,” he said.
“I hope very much that we are able to get both parties to do what is necessary to enter the most critical stage of this, which is the final phase, the final status negotiation … around a framework which is clear and defined.”


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/193501/john-kerry-opens-door-to-extending-peace-talks/#ixzz2ucI0xgQO

PALESTINIANS REJECT THE US PUSH FOR PEACE TALKS BEYOND APRIL!! NO GREAT SURPRISE THERE THEN!!

Palestinians reject US push for peace talks beyond April

AFP 
US Secretary of State John Kerry (left) meets with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on January 4, 2014
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Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - A senior Palestinian official on Thursday rejected US moves to extend an April deadline for nine months of hard-won talks with Israel to culminate in a framework peace deal.
"There is no meaning to prolonging the negotiation, even for one more additional hour, if Israel, represented by its current government, continues to disregard international law," Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
"If there was a committed partner, we wouldn't even have needed nine hours to reach that deal," he said.
Erakat was responding to comments by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that more time would be needed and that he hoped first to agree a framework to guide further talks.
It was Kerry who coaxed the two sides back to the negotiating table in late July, after a three-year hiatus.
"Then we get into the final negotiations. I don't think anybody would worry if there's another nine months, or whatever it's going to be... But that's not defined yet," said Erakat, who according to Palestinian sources is to meet with Kerry within days.
Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said last month that he expected the timeframe to be lengthened.
"We are now trying to reach a framework to continue negotiations for a period beyond the nine months some thought would suffice for reaching a permanent accord," he said.
US President Barack Obama is to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House next week when he is expected to renew pressure on his guest to rein in the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
And Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will be meeting with Obama on March 17 to review the peace talks and discuss efforts to "strengthen the institutions that can support the establishment of a Palestinian state," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Thursday.
Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported that Netanyahu's cabinet had quietly begun a de facto freeze on expanding settlements outside the major Jewish population centres.
The paper said the move was revealed to a West Bank settler leader in a conversation with Cabinet Secretary Avihai Mandelblit.
"We’ve received instructions from the political level not to move ahead on (construction) plans beyond those for the settlement blocs,” it quoted Mandelblit as telling Jordan Valley settler David Elhayani.
Israeli army radio reported last week that Washington was expected to demand a partial settlement freeze when Kerry unveils his formula for extending the peace talks.
Israel has so far resisted persistent pressure from its key ally to renew a one-time, 10-month partial freeze on new West Bank building, which expired in late 2010, contributing to the collapse of the last round of peace talks.
Construction moratorium
A moratorium is fiercely opposed by hardline partners in Netanyahu's fractious coalition and by many in his own right-wing Likud party.
"We shall not freeze construction," Housing Minister Uri Ariel of the far-right Jewish Home party said last week.
"There is no way the prime minister would order that there will be no tenders issued outside the settlement blocs," he said.
Both the Palestinians and the international community consider all Israeli construction on land it seized in the 1967 Middle East war to be a violation of international law.
Right-wing Israeli MPs rounded on US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro this week, accusing Washington of pro-Palestinian bias in the peace talks.
A recording of the closed-door meeting was leaked to media, prompting an apology from the MPs -- for the leak rather than the sentiments expressed.
Following the leak, the two lawmakers who had organised the meeting telephoned Shapiro to apologise that the "private conversation was made public," thanking him for a "good and productive meeting."
Shapiro has, in fact, publicly supported the Israeli demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as the Jewish state, a demand vigorously opposed by the Palestinians, who said after talks between Kerry and Abbas in Paris last week that the secretary of state's proposals were unacceptable.
The Palestinians fear that recognising Israel as a Jewish state would prejudice the right of return they claim for Palestinian refugees as well as the rights of Arab Israelis.

Tuesday 25 February 2014

THANK YOU, AND AN UPDATE FROM THE PHILIPPINES.

Dear Friends,

Thank you to those who were able to give and support the ministry in the Philippines for which David Hoyle raises funds. The following article below comes from Ariel who is one of the workers and greatly encouraged me today when I received it. I'm sure the report of God at work will do the same for you.....How great is our God, how great is His Name!
If you can would like to help these brothers in the please send any gifts to; 

 Mr David Hoyle, 39 Rydal Road, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG1 4SD

Marnatha! These dear brethren in the Philippines have a vibrant hope and expectancy for the soon return of the Lord Jesus.
BRIAN.
**************************** 
Shalom! Praise God for His wondrous works. Trust you are all well together with Mom Ann and also the ministry that God entrusted 
to you. Dad thank you so much for your constant prayers I knew you did it. Our trip in Midsalip was so successful, The Lord uses us
there to minister to our brethren and to reach out also some unbelievers for Christ. Our Pastor who is working in that place is so eager
and on fire for the Lord's ministry. I meet two person who was notorious killers in that place they are rebel soldiers and sometimes used
by some Politicians as Hitman a gun for hire job. But presently they are now born again and new creation in Christ. They are from tribal
people in Midsalip, A Subanen tribe. They testify about their conversion how they gave their lives to the Lord. Presently they are now
actively studying the word of God and zealous for the works of ministry. They are influence people of their tribe.So many tribal people saved and gave their lives to Jesus Christ. Through the effort of our Pastor that working in that area.
 
After my preaching during their 2nd year Thanksgiving Celebration there are 10 children that I prayed and dedicated to the Lord
through the request of their parents. Our local church in that area is growing.Please pray for our Pastor there namely Paterno Ruiz,
He needs more wisdom,knowledge and understanding.Also he increased in learning by the word of God.They join on our conference
this March. Let's pray also for their needs in their place, We are planning to plant another church in the neighboring barangay of the said
Town, In Midsalip. After our celebration also we conduct water baptism in Molave. Ten young people undergo in a water baptism.Glory to God.
Here I attached some photos taken during the said events. Dad Please pray for our mission trip in Butuan tomorrow , Instead we go to
Cebu,Camotes Island we refer to went in Butuan because I saw that they are more in needs and desperate. Take care always Dad.
Thank you so much for all your help and prayers for me and my family and the ministry as well.We miss you and we love you Dad.
Hope to see you and hear from you soon. God bless you more and more.I'll keep in touch again soon.
 
With our Love and Prayers,
 
Ariel, Aileen, David Leeniel and the Twins

Friday 21 February 2014

BIBLE BAN SPREADS ACROSS SCHOOLS AND HOTELS! WHERE WILL IT END? WE ARE SURELY IN THE LAST DAYS BEFORE THE LORD RETURNS TO REMEDY THIS SICK WORLD OF OURS!

Bible Ban Spreads Across Schools/Hotels
February 19, 2014 | Tom Olago

Instances of attempts to ban and destroy copies of the Holy Bible are increasingly coming to light. This is being done in the name of constitutional violation, and religious neutrality. This trend demonstrates the determination of atheists and secular humanists to silence the truth and power of the Bible as far as they can.
The Washington Times reported in mid January that the Wisconsin public university system removed all its copies of the Gideon Bible from the campus conference center, after the Freedom From Religion Foundation complained of a constitutional violation. Following this, Administrators with the University of Wisconsin-Extension decided to remove from the Lowell Center all 137 copies of the Bible — a normal fixture at guest rooms and in hotels around the nation.
Gideons International gives the Bibles for free to any hotel that wants them, as a means of winning “the lost for Christ,” according to their website. They also distribute Bibles in schools and colleges, prisons and jails, hospitals, and medical offices.

“Permitting members of outside religious groups the privilege of placing their religious literature in public university guest rooms constitutes state endorsement and advancement of these Christian publications,” said FFRF attorney Patrick Elliot, in a letter of complaint, UPI reported. And on the group’s website, he wrote that “while private hotels may choose to put any type of literature they want in their guest rooms, state-run colleges have a constitutional obligation to remain neutral toward religion.”In response, a UW-Extension spokesman said in a letter: “We reviewed the concern raised about the placement of Bibles in our guest rooms and decided to remove them. We want to make sure all guests are comfortable in our lodging.”
In a similar but separate incident, the Blaze.com in a report titled: “University Hotel Bans Bibles in Bedside Tables After Atheists Deem Them ‘Unwelcome Religious Propaganda’ states:
“Guests staying at the Iowa State University’s Hotel Memorial Union will soon notice something missing from their hotel rooms. Starting March 1, the Bibles that have traditionally been placed in nightstands will be permanently pulled from every room… after a guest reportedly complained to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a church-state separatist group, decrying the Bibles as “unwelcome religious propaganda in the bedside table.”

The atheist activist group argued that the hotel, which is part of Iowa’s public university system, was unconstitutionally endorsing Christianity by placing Bibles and not other religious texts in each of its 52 rooms, WHO-TV reported. Hotel Memorial Union will now make the books available in its downstairs library and reading room.
In a letter sent late last month from Freedom From Religion Foundation staff attorney Patrick Elliot to Richard S. Reynolds, director of the Memorial Union, the atheist group asked that the Bibles be banned. Reynolds reportedly complied and the organization has since praised the decision. “We’re delighted to see reason and the Constitution prevailing,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “We can all sleep easier knowing secularism is being honored at our public universities.”

According to a Charisma News report in August of 2013, schools in the Niagara area of Canada were similarly forced to change their policies on distributing Gideon Bibles, following a challenge by an atheist.
Rene Chouinard reportedly took his case to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario after he complained about Bibles being handed out at his daughter’s school. Chouinard said it was biased for his primary-school-aged daughter to be offered religious literature, after he received a permission slip for her to be given a Bible. Chouinard was then denied requests for atheist material to be distributed by the school.
David Wright, associate chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, found in his decision that allowing only the Gideons to distribute literature in Niagara schools was discriminatory. He ruled that schools in the Niagara area could only hand out Gideon Bibles if they develop a new policy that would allow the distribution of atheist material. Mr. Wright said that if the school board “is prepared to distribute permission forms proposing the distribution of Christian texts to committed atheists, it must also be prepared to distribute permission forms proposing the distribution of atheist texts to religious Christians.”
These developments are a sad testament of the spiritual decline of North America and many other supposedly Christian nations. Satan knows that the economic and military might of a great nation and all her blessings, can only be sustained through Godliness. Proverbs 14:34 reads “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people”. The account of Israel in the Old Testament testifies of this. When the children of Israel walked in God’s ways, abundant blessing awaited them. When they fell into sin and rebellion, untold judgment and suffering befell them. This seems to be the same path that will render North America weak or even irrelevant in the prophesied global power plays preceding the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ.
It is still noteworthy that despite all these attempts to silence the Bible and replace it with atheism, secularism and humanism, the Bible still remains both the best-selling and highest distributed Book of all time. Opponents of the Bible seek to discredit, belittle and destroy it.  Yet, although Bible hater’s graves continue to daily litter the landscape of time, the Bible triumphantly lives on. Jesus Christ so aptly put it when He said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away (Matthew 24:35).

Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/February19/196.html#PkHTgyBtlP88RKPW.99

Thursday 20 February 2014

BOYCOTTING ISRAEL'S GOODS? THEN BE PREPARED FOR SOME SIGNIFICANT LIFESTYLE CHANGES!

Boycotting Israel’s Goods? Be Prepared For Some Significant Lifestyle Changes!
February 19, 2014 | Christine Pasciuti
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You may be surprised to learn that many of your favorite products used daily in your home and at your job, are produced and manufactured in, yes, Israel! And the entities behind the brand names happen to do business in an area of the tiny nation—East Jerusalem and the West Bank—where contentious disputes over historical land rights between Israelis and Palestinians have escalated to, well, Biblical proportions.
Arising out of this heated debate is a sweeping contagion of concrete boycotting actions being carried out against the companies who are doing business in this region and who directly or indirectly benefit Israel. When reviewing the vast innovative contributions Israeli companies continue to make in all aspects of research, development and production of goods the world heavily relies on, it becomes quickly evident that these products benefit all of us, and one has to ask if broad scale participation in these boycotts is nothing short of proverbially “cutting off your nose to spite your face”.
Proctor & Gamble, the producer of Pampers, is one of the largest clients of Avgol Nonwoven Industries, a diaper products company that operates a plant in the West Bank Settlement area of Ariel, and represents half of their sales.

Intel, whose processors can be found in 80 percent of the world’s computers, runs plants in Kiryat Gat, a former Palestinian village site, and has reportedly invested $2.7 billion for upgrades at the plant sites, where new chips are being developed to make computers lighter and faster. The company has invested a total of $10 billion in Israel, and in return, has received more than $1 billion in Israeli government grants.
Last month, Motorola, signed a $100 million deal with Israel for encrypted smartphones that will be supplied to Israeli soldiers and security personnel. In addition, the electronics giant is providing surveillance equipment used around Israeli settlements, along its separation barrier, and at the Israel-Gaza border.
Computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard (HP) provides biometric technology for Israeli ID cards and at Israeli checkpoints, and uses service providers located in Israeli settlements.
Cosmetics (Ahava), lingerie (Victoria’s Secret), hummus (Tribe and Sabra), burgers (McDonalds), automobiles (Volvo), not to mention thousands of other products that contain or use Israeli-developed technology, including iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, Skype, computer firewalls, and Microsoft XP, are being exported all over the planet.

These companies are being systematically targeted by The BDS, a Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement which has been around since 2005, and is adding fuel to the fire with its influence on popular discontent with Israel and the group’s increasing pressure on businesses and governments throughout Europe to take more concrete action.
The movement has some “legs” to it, due to the worsening public opinion of Israel in Europe. According to a 2013 BBC poll, favorability ratings dropped 8 percent in both Spain and Germany, to single digits. And only 14 percent of citizens in the UK expressed a positive view of Israel, despite Britain being the first European country to formally support the establishment of a Jewish state.
The European Union, long known to disagree with Israel’s policies concerning its settlement territories in the West Bank, has recently stepped up its rhetoric and actions by promoting and participating in the BDS-led boycott of goods produced and companies operating in the disputed settlements region of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The seemingly concerted effort has moved beyond mere symbolic gesturing.
Israel has begun to experience the “bite” of these latest efforts to sanction the Holy Land. The EU is Israel's No. 1 trading partner and accounts for almost a third of its total trade. Jordan Valley produce in particular has been a successful export to the European continent, but it is grown and harvested on land that a growing number of European consumers believe Israel illegally confiscated in 1967, taking control of land and water resources that should belong to the Palestinians.
What does the arid Jordan Valley region produce? More than a third of the world's Medjool dates, nearly all of Israel’s grape exports, and an abundance of peppers and herbs.                                                                                                                                                                                                           
David Elhayani, farmer and mayor of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, reports that Jordan Valley farmers lost about 14% of revenue last year—an estimated $29 million—because they had to find new markets for their exports. Russia is one such alternative, but prices there are 20% - 60% lower. Pepper exports to Western Europe have ceased altogether, and consumer pressure is forcing a phasing out this year of grape exports as well.
The rising opposition to Israel, especially over the last six months, by a number of European banks, pension funds, legislators and even engineering firms, has the Jewish nation’s leaders more seriously reexamining a threat they once scoffed at.
On Feb. 9, a special meeting of government ministers was convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to counter the growing economic boycott with a solid strategy, which included the recommendation by one minister for a $28 billion aggressive media and legal campaign.
Though last year's drop in Jordan Valley exports represented a scant 0.01 percent of total Israeli exports for the year, concern is mounting that the increasing opposition to Israeli policies portends an ever greater displeasure with the actual existence of the tiny nation.

Yitzchak Mayer, who served as Former Israeli Ambassador to Belgium and Switzerland during the 1990s, noted,   "Sanctions are also what we Israelis should fear most – disenchantment of the world with the very idea that Jews are entitled to have a state of their own."
A recent endorsement in a Superbowl ad by Jewish actress Scarlett Johansson of SodaStream, the home soda maker that operates a factory in the West Bank, handed the BDS movement fresh ammo. When asked to stop supporting Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land with her endorsement, Ms. Johansson instead refused calls and publically praised the factory for being a refuge of coexistence that provides jobs to hundreds of Palestinians. An international boycott campaign was quickly launched against the soda maker, and the actress faced enough criticism for her endorsement that she was forced to step down as a global ambassador for the humanitarian agency Oxfam.

Palestinian workers at the factory however, largely sided with the actress. One such young worker in Azzariah, a West Bank town separated from job opportunities in Jerusalem by the concrete Israeli separation wall, told reporters, “Before boycotting, they should think of the workers who are going to suffer.” This man previously earned 20 shekels ($6) per day plucking and cleaning chickens. SodaStream now pays him nearly ten times that amount, and provides transportation, breakfast and lunch.
BDS co-founder and human rights activist Omar Barghouti, responded by suggesting that the SodaStream boycott has “... led to mass education of the public everywhere about the illegality of Israel's settlements, Israel's denial of Palestinian rights, and, crucially, the need to boycott companies producing in settlements as a minimal measure of ending complicity in grave violations of human rights."
Businesses operating in East Jerusalem/West Bank Settlements have faced increasing sanctions from EU lawmakers, let alone from non-governmental organizations opposed to Israeli policies.
Last summer, the EU stated it would no longer provide funds through its Horizon 2020 research and innovation program—EU’s largest—which can allocate up to € 80 billion ($109 billion) over a 7 year period, to businesses operating in the settlement areas.
In January, the largest Dutch pension fund PGGM—worth $200 billion and one of the world’s largest—divested from five of the top Israeli banks, stating that it would be nearly impossible for them to stop providing financing for settlements in the occupied region.

Last September, a Dutch engineering firm cancelled plans to build a sewage treatment plant in East Jerusalem, and a Dutch water company parted ways this past December with Israel’s national water carrier because of its operations in the West Bank.
Then just last month, Germany announced it wouldn’t renew research grants for Israeli entities conducting business beyond the ‘Green Line’, a loosely recognized border that existed prior to Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem and West Bank land during the 1967 war. This was the first move by an individual EU member to set standards for academic research to be applied to private companies.
Israel's 2008-09 war against Hamas-run Gaza ignited demonstrations in Europe and pushed EU lawmakers to deter from a once cooperative relationship with Israel that included economic incentives and the elimination of trade tariffs.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated that Israel will not be swayed by an economic boycott, and noted the expanding trade relations Israel has gained with developing nations such as Mexico and China. Last year, exports to Asia were nearly on par with US-Israel trade.
The gaining momentum in the boycott movement will surely play into simmering frustrations already affecting current peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, and is likely to be a thorn in the side of hope for a peaceful resolution. The players are numerous, the stakes are high, and resentments run deep on all sides.
Yet many hold to their faith and wait for the coming Biblical ‘Peace Deal’, believing that the Lord God sees and knows all, and that not a single fragment of frenzied activity in this conflict will put a dent in God’s ultimate miraculous plan for the Holy Land, its people, and for all who hold fast to His Word.

Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/February19/193.html#GpiMjltFosCV4lkX.99

Tuesday 18 February 2014

JOHN KERRY STATES THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS PERHAPS THE WORLD'S MOST FEARSOME WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION!

John Kerry: Climate Change Is 'Perhaps The World's Most Fearsome Weapon Of Mass Destruction'!

Posted: Updated: 
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JAKARTA, Feb 16 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Indonesians on Sunday that man-made climate change could threaten their entire way of life, deriding those who doubted the existence of "perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction".

Kerry described those who do not accept that human activity causes global warming as "shoddy scientists" and "extreme ideologues", and said big companies and special interests should not be allowed to "hijack" the climate debate.

Aides said Kerry had chosen Indonesia for the first of what is to be a series of speeches on the topic this year partly because, as an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, it is particularly at risk from rising sea levels.

"Because of climate change, it's no secret that today Indonesia is ... one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth," Kerry told an audience of students at a high-tech U.S.-funded cultural center at a Jakarta mall.

"It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire way of life that you live and love is at risk."

In the middle of a trip to Asia and the Middle East, Kerry argued that it made no sense for some nations to act to stem climate change while others did nothing.

"Think about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It doesn't keep us safe if the United States secures its nuclear arsenal while other countries fail to prevent theirs from falling into the hands of terrorists," he said.

"The bottom line is this: it is the same thing with climate change. In a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction."

Kerry's public push takes place against a backdrop of a negotiation among nearly 200 nations about a possible new global treaty on climate change that is scheduled to be agreed next year and to address greenhouse gas emissions from 2020.


U.S.-CHINESE COOPERATION

In Beijing on Friday, Kerry announced that China and the United States, the world's largest emitters of such gases, had agreed to intensify information-sharing and policy discussions on their plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions after 2020.

U.S. officials made clear they hope that the example of two countries historically on different sides of the debate working together might inspire other nations to do more.

The global scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have said it is at least 95 percent probable that human activities, led by the burning of fossil fuels, are the dominant cause of global warming since the 1950s.

However, some sceptics argue that a rise in global temperatures is due to natural variability or other non-human factors.

The fact that temperatures have risen more slowly in the past 15 years despite a continued rise in greenhouse gas emissions has also emboldened those who question the need for urgent action.

Kerry, who faces a politically tricky decision at home on whether to allow Canada's TransCanada Corp to build the Keystone XL pipeline over the opposition of environmental groups, had little patience for such sceptics in his speech.

"We just don't have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation," he said. "I'm talking about big companies that like it the way it is, that don't want to change, and spend a lot of money to keep you and me and everybody from doing what we know we need to do.

"We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists ... and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact," he said. "The science is unequivocal and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand." (Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Kevin Liffey)