Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reshuffles cabinet

BBC News, 15 July 2013

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New transport minister Lisa Raitt (right)
 is among the current cabinet members
to change posts

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has unveiled a major cabinet reshuffle in the wake of an expenses scandal that has hit his party's popularity.

Among the eight new ministers announced on Monday were four women.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird are among those to keep their posts.

Mr Harper first announced the changes on Twitter, where he said he was "proud to be naming four new strong, capable women to the Ministry".

The shuffle also comes as Mr Harper and the current Conservative government prepares for the 2015 election.

On Monday, the prime minister said the appointments would "carry our new agenda forward".

Housing expenses fiddle

Among the new cabinet members are Labour Minister Kellie Leitch, Heritage Minister Shelly Glover, Public Works Minister Diane Finley and Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, who replaces a recently resigned Vic Towes.

Several existing cabinet members also changed posts. Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson swapped jobs.

Leona Aglukkaq leaves behind the environment brief to become health minister, while Lisa Raitt, the former labour minister, will now handle transport.

Four Canadian senators have faced scrutiny since December for their official expenses.

The Senate's internal economy committee has demanded hefty sums be repaid by Conservative Senator Mike Duffy, Liberal Senator Mac Harb and Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau, who is on a leave of absence over a separate matter - a criminal complaint of assault and sexual assault.

Senator Pamela Wallin resigned in May from the Conservative caucus over an ongoing audit into her travel expenses.

Mr Harper has said he had no knowledge of his chief-of-staff's decision to give Sen Duffy C$90,000 ($86,000; £57,000) to repay improperly claimed housing expenses.

Court documents show the chief of staff told three other employees in the prime minister's office.

Canadian senators are appointed on the advice of the prime minister and may serve in the Senate until age 75.

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This Election Will Clear the Way for Obama  – Nov 5, 2012 (Archangel Michael channeled by Linda Dillon)

".... GW: Wonderful. Thank you again, Michael.

Maybe a question I’d like to kind of know personally, for me, a geopolitical question about Canada, is Canadian Prime Minister Harper in containment? Can we expect a shift in his actions, or will events have to occur to bring a change in governance?

AAM: Harper is in middle containment. He is not in severe containment, but he is in mid-containment. And so there will be a change of heart there as well, and a change of heart in the rigorous nature of his policies. ...."

Obama hails results of latest China-US talks

Want China Times, Xinhua 2013-07-13

Obama at a White House meeting with two Chinese co-chairs of this round of
 S&ED, Vice Premier Wang Yang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi. (Photo/Xinhua)

US President Barack Obama on Thursday praised the positive results of the just-concluded fifth China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), vowing to work with Beijing to build a new type of relationship.

Obama made the remarks at a White House meeting with two Chinese co-chairs of this round of S&ED, Vice Premier Wang Yang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi.

Wang and Yang conveyed to Obama a verbal message from Chinese President Xi Jinping, with whom Obama held a historic summit at the Annenberg estate in California on June 7-8.

In the message, Xi also lauded the achievements of this round of annual S&ED talks, adding that, in the next phase, the two sides should advance the China-US.ties in the direction set by the Annenberg summit, through actively expanding bilateral, regional and global cooperation, and properly handling sensitive issues concerning each other's vital interests.

Xi reiterated the hope that China and the United States will wholeheartedly push forward bilateral relations based on mutual respect and win-win cooperation.

Obama expressed his appreciation to Xi for his important message, while praising the two sides for the results of the two-day S&ED talks that started Wednesday. Saluting the Annenberg summit with Xi as a huge success, he expressed his full confidence in the future development of bilateral ties.

Wang and Yang noted that the latest S&ED talks have reached a series of important consensus on some pressing issues, including climate change, energy security, cyber security, trade and investment promotion and financial cooperation, thanks to the personal push by the two presidents and the hard work of both teams.

The construction of a new type of major-country relationship, a consensus reached at the Xi-Obama summit, not only reflects the common wish of the international community, but also conforms to the fundamental interests of both countries, they added.

Standing at a new starting line of the bilateral ties, China is willing to work together with the United States to deepen practical cooperation in various areas, properly manage disputes and frictions, and advance bilateral ties, they said.

The two sides also exchanged views on issues including the situation on the Korean peninsula, Cyber security, and territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas.

Treasury secretary Jack Lew, left, laughs as Wang Yang 

speaks to the media. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

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UN human rights chief says whistleblowers need protection

RT.com,  July 13, 2013

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.(Reuters / Susana Vera)

In her first reference to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s case, UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay has called on all countries to protect the rights of those who uncover abuses and stressed the need to respect the right for people to seek asylum.

Commenting on the fugitive former US intelligence contractor, who is presently wanted by the US for leaking classified details of its surveillance programs, Pillay noted that undue surveillance could amount to an infringement of human rights.

“National legal systems must ensure that there are adequate avenues for individuals disclosing violations of human rights to express their concern without fear of reprisals," said Pillay.

"Snowden's case has shown the need to protect persons disclosing information on matters that have implications for human rights, as well as the importance of ensuring respect for the right to privacy,” she added.

Snowden appeared with human rights activists during a press event at Sheremetyevo International Airport on Friday, during which he expressed thanks for “all offers of support or asylum I have been extended,” which so far include Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

At the same time, Snowden indicated that he would seek asylum from Russia, at least for the time being, until such time as travel to Latin America would be possible.

A man looks in Moscow on July 12, 2013, at a computer screen displaying a
photo US National Security Agency (NSA) fugitive leaker Edward Snowden.
(AFP Photo / STR)

Meanwhile, the White House warned Russia not to offer the former intelligence contractor a “propaganda platform,” while the US ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, called a member of the humans rights delegation on Friday and asked her to pass on a message to Snowden that he was not considered a whistleblower by the US, reports the Guardian

The US is currently attempting to extradite Snowden to stand trial on charges of espionage. Pillay, however, stated on Friday that even legitimate national security concerns had to be weighed against proper safeguards, in tacit support of Snowden’s case.

"While concerns about national security and criminal activity may justify the exceptional and narrowly-tailored use of surveillance programs, surveillance without adequate safeguards to protect the right to privacy actually risks impacting negatively on the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms," she said.

Pillay referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which stipulate that no one may be subject to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence.

Reliable information regarding human rights violations on the part of an intelligence agency were most likely to come within the agency itself, according to testimony by a former UN expert on human rights in counter terrorism cited by Pillay.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously stated during a July 1 press conference that Edward Snowden might remain in Russia, but only under the condition that he stops divulging sensitive US government information.

“If he wants to remain here there is one condition – he should stop his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners,” Putin said.

During Friday’s press conference, Snowden indicated that he would once again seek to remain in Russia, in compliance of the Kremlin’s terms.

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Malala delivers defiant riposte to Taliban militants as UN hails 'our hero'

'They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed,' says Malala, 16, at UN to push campaign for girls' education

guardian.co.uk, Ed Pilkington in New York, Friday 12 July 2013

Malala Yousafzai spoke at the UN in New York on her 16th birthday, a day
now dubbed Malala Day. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP

When the Taliban sent a gunman to shoot Malala Yousafzai last October as she rode home on a bus after school, they made clear their intention: to silence the teenager and kill off her campaign for girls' education.

Nine months and countless surgical interventions later, she stood up at the United Nations on her 16th birthday on Friday to deliver a defiant riposte. "They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed," she said.

As 16th birthdays go, it was among the more unusual. Instead of blowing out candles on a cake, Malala sat in one of the United Nation's main council chambers in the central seat usually reserved for world leaders.

She listened quietly as Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, described her as "our hero, our champion"; and as the former British prime minister and now UN education envoy, Gordon Brown, uttered what he called "the words the Taliban never wanted her to hear: happy 16th birthday, Malala".

The event, dubbed Malala Day, was the culmination of an extraordinary four years for the girl from Mingora, in the troubled Swat valley of Pakistan. She was thrust into the public glare after she wrote a pseudonymous but later celebrated blog for the BBC Urdu service describing her experiences struggling to get an education under the rising power of Taliban militants.

By 11 she was showing exceptional determination, calling personally on the US special representative to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to use his influence to combat the Taliban's drive against education for girls. By 14, she was on the radar of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who put her forward for the international children's peace prize, and by 15 she became the youngest Nobel peace prize nominee in history.

But such dizzying global attention came at a price. Death threats followed her growing recognition, and on 9 October 2012, following a meeting of Pakistani Taliban leaders, the gunman was dispatched to remove what they called the "symbol of infidels and obscenity".

Multiple operations in Pakistan and the UK followed the attack on the bus, including the fitting of a titanium plate on her left forehead, and a cochlear implant to restore her hearing. She now lives with her family in Birmingham and does what the Taliban tried to stop her doing: goes to school every day. "I am not against anyone," she said in the UN chamber, having taken this day out from the classroom. "Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group."

Malala responded to the violence of the Taliban with her own countervailing force: words against bullets. "I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hand and he stands in front of me, I would not shoot him."

She spoke confidently, with only an injured eye and a slightly drooping left side of her face to hint at such fresh traumas. There was one other unstated allusion to the horror of her past: she wore a white shawl belonging to a woman who was also targeted by extremists but who, unlike Malala, did not survive to tell the tale: Benazir Bhutto.

"The extremists are afraid of books and pens," the teenager continued. "The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them."

She cited last month's attack on a hospital in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, and killings of female teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. "That is why they are blasting schools every day – because they were and they are afraid of change, afraid of the equality that we will bring to our society."

And she gave her own opposing interpretation of Islam to the Taliban's. "They think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would send girls to the hell just because of going to school. The terrorists are misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits. Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood. Islam says that it is not only each child's right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility."

Such ability to articulate what normally remains unarticulated – to give voice to young people normally silenced – has generated its own response. The "stand with Malala" petition, calling for education for the 57m children around the world who do not go to school, has attracted more than 4m signatures – more than a million having been added in the past few days.

At the start of her speech, Malala said: "I don't know where to begin my speech. I don't know what people would be expecting me to say."

She need not have worried.

Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages

guardian.co.uk, Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, Laura Poitras, Spencer Ackerman and Dominic Rushe, Thursday 11 July 2013

• Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism

• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch

• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls

• Company says it is legally compelled to comply

Skype worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect
video and audio conversations. Photograph: Patrick Sinkel/AP

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.

The documents show that:

• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;

• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;

• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;

• Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;

• Skype, which was bought by Microsoft in October 2011, worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video of conversations as well as audio;

• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport".

The latest NSA revelations further expose the tensions between Silicon Valley and the Obama administration. All the major tech firms are lobbying the government to allow them to disclose more fully the extent and nature of their co-operation with the NSA to meet their customers' privacy concerns. Privately, tech executives are at pains to distance themselves from claims of collaboration and teamwork given by the NSA documents, and insist the process is driven by legal compulsion.

In a statement, Microsoft said: "When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands." The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data "only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers".

In June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have "direct access" through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time. Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.

Since Prism's existence became public, Microsoft and the other companies listed on the NSA documents as providers have denied all knowledge of the program and insisted that the intelligence agencies do not have back doors into their systems.

Microsoft's latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to privacy with the slogan: "Your privacy is our priority."

Similarly, Skype's privacy policy states: "Skype is committed to respecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data, traffic data and communications content."

But internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-operation between the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing.

The latest documents come from the NSA's Special Source Operations (SSO) division, described by Snowden as the "crown jewel" of the agency. It is responsible for all programs aimed at US communications systems through corporate partnerships such as Prism.

The files show that the NSA became concerned about the interception of encrypted chats on Microsoft's Outlook.com portal from the moment the company began testing the service in July last year.

Within five months, the documents explain, Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chats

A newsletter entry dated 26 December 2012 states: "MS [Microsoft], working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal" with the issue. "These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012."

Two months later, in February this year, Microsoft officially launched the Outlook.com portal.

Another newsletter entry stated that NSA already had pre-encryption access to Outlook email. "For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption."

Microsoft's co-operation was not limited to Outlook.com. An entry dated 8 April 2013 describes how the company worked "for many months" with the FBI – which acts as the liaison between the intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley on Prism – to allow Prism access without separate authorization to its cloud storage service SkyDrive.

The document describes how this access "means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this – a process step that many analysts may not have known about".

The NSA explained that "this new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response". It continued: "This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established."

A separate entry identified another area for collaboration. "The FBI Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) team is working with Microsoft to understand an additional feature in Outlook.com which allows users to create email aliases, which may affect our tasking processes."

The NSA has devoted substantial efforts in the last two years to work with Microsoft to ensure increased access to Skype, which has an estimated 663 million global users.

One document boasts that Prism monitoring of Skype video production has roughly tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012. "The audio portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete 'picture'," it says.

Eight months before being bought by Microsoft, Skype joined the Prism program in February 2011.

According to the NSA documents, work had begun on smoothly integrating Skype into Prism in November 2010, but it was not until 4 February 2011 that the company was served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general.

The NSA was able to start tasking Skype communications the following day, and collection began on 6 February. "Feedback indicated that a collected Skype call was very clear and the metadata looked complete," the document stated, praising the co-operation between NSA teams and the FBI. "Collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful addition of another provider to the Prism system."

ACLU technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype users. "In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their inability to perform wiretaps," he said. "It's hard to square Microsoft's secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-profile efforts to compete on privacy with Google."

The information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded sharing with the other two agencies.

The NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism, using software that "enables our partners to see which selectors [search terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism".

The document continues: "The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector…" As a result, the author notes: "these two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!"

In its statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said:

We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues. First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes.

Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren't valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate.

Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That's why we've argued for additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these important issues.

In a joint statement, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of National Intelligence, and Judith Emmel, spokeswoman for the NSA, said:

The articles describe court-ordered surveillance – and a US company's efforts to comply with these legally mandated requirements. The US operates its programs under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts, Congress and the Director of National Intelligence. Not all countries have equivalent oversight requirements to protect civil liberties and privacy.

They added: "In practice, US companies put energy, focus and commitment into consistently protecting the privacy of their customers around the world, while meeting their obligations under the laws of the US and other countries in which they operate."

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Secret US court's actions mired in controversy

Deutsche Welle, 10 July 2013

In the US, a special court decides in secret on government requests to monitor alleged terrorists. But some lawyers are concerned that post-9/11 reforms have undermined the judges' ability to keep state power in check.

Although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was originally designed to buttress US citizens' constitutional rights, the secret judicial body has repeatedly sanctioned a broad expansion of domestic snooping by the federal government in the past five years.

Traditionally, the court ruled on government applications that targeted specific individuals suspected of being foreign agents. But last month, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden revealed that domestic spying by the intelligence community has become increasingly indiscriminate.

Snowden leaked to the Guardian newspaper a secret court order, which had forced the telecom giant Verizon to open the phone records of its customers to the NSA. He later revealed the PRISM surveillance program, which collects and stores Internet communications in NSA databases in the hunt for terrorism suspects.

The NSA's surveillance programs
 increasingly pick up domestic
 communications

"The FISA court today spends a lot of time signing off on these general government surveillance programs, and for better or worse they're not in a position to look at individual cases to decide whether there is individualized suspicion," Stephen I. Vladeck, an expert on national security law with American University in Washington D.C., told DW.

Bulwark against abuse

In the 1970s, the Senate convened a committee to investigate illegal spying by US intelligence agencies on American citizens. Called the Church Committee, the investigation led to the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978.

Under that act, a court composed of seven judges would review executive branch requests to spy on suspected foreign agents operating in the United States. Acting in secret, the FISA court would protect sensitive national security information while at the same time acting as a check on government abuse.

"The purpose of the court was to provide a judicial branch check on authorized surveillance that had previously been done by the executive branch on its own authority," William C. Banks, director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse College of Law , told DW.

Post-9/11 amendments

Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, history's pendulum has swung toward more aggressive intelligence gathering in the United States. Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, passed by Congress shortly after the attacks, expands the government's authority to seize business records. The recent FISA court order forcing Verizon to hand over the phone records of its customers was justified under this provision.

For a period, the Bush administration sought to abandon the FISA system altogether, secretly conducting wiretapping without court order for some five years. The New York Times exposed the program in 2005. Ultimately, public pressure forced the White House to discontinue warrantless wiretapping two years later.

President Bush signed the FISA
Amendments act in 2008

In lieu of its warrantless program, the Bush administration proposed a stopgap measure called the Protect America Act (PAA), which Congress passed in 2007. In addition to traditional FISA court orders targeting individuals, the legislation also gave the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) the authority to conduct broader surveillance activities for up to a year, focusing primarily on communications between the US and foreign countries.

After the PAA expired, the FISA Amendments Act was passed in 2008, which contained similarly broad provisions. And in 2012, President Obama reauthorized the FISA Amendments Act for another five years, essentially claiming ownership of the program.

"The idea was this would give them the ability to collect broader amounts of information and then they would follow minimization procedures (All data is first collected and then minimized, i.e irrelevant material is tossed out - the ed.)," Laura Donohue, director of the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law, told DW. "They would basically exclude information that did not really specifically relate to the investigation underway."

'End run around fourth amendment'

But these broad surveillance activities have raised constitutional concerns. Last February, Amnesty International USA filed a complaint in federal court. Amnesty argued that the government's expanded surveillance powers violate the fourth amendment of the US constitution, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

In response, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper argued that Amnesty did not have the standing to sue, because the human rights group could not demonstrate that it had been a target of surveillance. The Supreme Court agreed with Clapper and threw out the case.

Clapper argued that Amnesty had no
standing to challenge the government

"The problem is that the minimization procedures include using any information about criminal activity they may uncover," Donohue said of the surveillance programs. "So now what it's become is an end run around the fourth amendment, where there is no warrant required to collect the information, to find criminal behavior and then to prosecute."

Accountability and independence

There are also questions about the court's accountability and independence. The judicial body was expanded from seven to 11 judges by the Patriot Act. They are chosen by a single person, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and serve for a term of seven years. The FISA court judges are selected from federal district courts. Twelve of the 14 judges who have served this year were originally appointed to the federal bench by Republican administrations, according to Reuters news agency.

"One can reasonably ask whether that's a process that lends itself to an independent court," Vladeck said. "And whether the chief justices who have put judges on the FISA court have made the right kind of determinations."

Legal experts have also raised concerns about whether the FISA court proceedings are adversarial enough. The government's applications before the court are rarely turned down. According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the executive branch submitted 1,856 applications to the court in 2012. Not a single application was rejected.

Vladeck recommends attaching a special advocate to the court, whose sole job would be to challenge the government's applications. But he doubts that Congress has the stomach to reform the court.

"This is the very same Congress that reauthorized the FISA Amendments Act last year without batting an eye," he said. "So it's hard for me not to be skeptical."

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Welby calls for Church to join the sexual ‘revolution’

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned the Church of England that it had to face up to a “revolution” in attitudes to homosexuality.

The Telegraph, John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor,  05 Jul 2013

Mr Welby was enthroned earlier this month at Canterbury Cathedral
Photo: Getty Images

In his most widely anticipated address since taking over the leadership of the Church, the Most Rev Justin Welby insisted that it was now “absurd and impossible” to ignore an “overwhelming” change in social attitudes.

In a deliberate echo of Harold MacMillan’s 1950 speech which attacked apartheid in South Africa, the Archbishop warned church leaders that they needed to reassess their own attitudes to gay people – even if they do not “like it”.

While insisting he had no immediate plans to change policy on issues such as gay marriage, he announced a major campaign to curb anti-gay bullying in the Church of England’s more than 5,000 schools.

He is understood to have approached Stonewall, which led the campaign in favour of gay marriage, to invite it into church schools to teach up to a million children about homosexuality.

“We may or may not like it but we must accept that there is a revolution in the area of sexuality,” the Archbishop said.

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His comments, signalling a dramatic change in tone from the established church, came in his first address as Archbishop to the Church’s General Synod which is meeting in York as it attempts to come up with a new solution to the fiasco over women bishops.

In a wide-ranging address he said that Britain, like other countries, is living through a “time of revolutions” affecting the economic and political sphere but also in social attitudes.

He acknowledged a “radical” decline in religious affiliation, as borne out by the recent census and other polling, as well as an “overwhelming” shift in public attitudes on issues such as sexuality where “predictable attitudes” were disappearing.

But he insisted that the Church could benefit and even begin to grow again if it was willing to “respond radically and imaginatively” to a changing world.

The Archbishop, who visited Egypt last week, drew comparisons with the fast-moving situation in the country.

"We live in a time of revolutions,” he said.

“And the trouble with revolutions is that once they start no-one knows where they will go.”

Turning to the “many revolutions” underway in Britain, he said: “The cultural and political ground is changing, there is a revolution.

“Anyone who listened to much of the Same Sex Marriage Bill Second Reading Debate in the House of Lords could not fail to be struck by the overwhelming change of cultural hinterland. Predictable attitudes were no longer there.

“The opposition to the Bill - which included me and many other bishops - was utterly overwhelmed, with amongst the largest attendance and participation and majority since 1945.

“There was noticeable hostility to the view of the churches”.

He admitted that it had been “close to the bone” to evidence of young gay people driven to suicide because of uncaring attitudes from churches.

“In some things we change course and recognise the new context.

“In others we stand firm because truth is not set by culture, nor morals by fashion.

“But let us be clear, pretending that nothing has changed is absurd and impossible.”

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, said: “Of course we will always help an education provider in helping to tackle homophobic bullying in schools and there are already several dozen Church of England schools working with Stonewall.

“But the cynic would be tempted to think perhaps that the Archbishop is trying to distract attention from his failure to engage gay people - when they requested it over the issue of marriage.”

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Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon: Regarding homosexuality or transsexuals. WHY are they the way they are and WHY are they not accepted in mainstream society?

Answer: [From the Kryon Office]

There is often a tremendous amount of information on subjects that are not necessarily part of the on-line magazine Q&A database. Kryon has been channelling for fourteen years, with 9 books covering many, many topics. Homosexuality was one of them from the very beginning. Please see our "Books index page" for subjects contained in the Kryon books: [http://www.kryon.com/direct.html]

An excerpt from Kryon Book 6, page 306

Question from the book: Dear Kryon, I am gay, and an enlightened man. I live in an American society that barely tolerates me, and actually has some laws against my way of life. The church I used to belong to cast me out as being evil and anti-God. I don't feel that I am violating some Human ethic. My love is as true as any heterosexual, and I am a light worker. Tell me what I should know.

Answer from the book: Dear one, less than two generations from now, there will be those who find this book and laugh at the quaintness of this very question. Before I answer, let me ask you and those reading this to examine a phenomenon about Human society and "God."

Thirty years ago, interracial marriage was considered to be wrong by the laws of God. Now your society finds it common. The spiritual objections around it were either dropped or "rewritten" by those divinely inspired and authorized to do so. Therefore, your actual interpretations of the instructions from God changed with your society's tolerance level--an interesting thing, indeed, how the interpretations of God seem to change regularly to match a changing culture!

The truth, of course, is that you find yourself in a situation that is known to create a test for you. Right now, in this time, you have agreed to come into your culture with an attribute that may alienate you from friends and religious followers. You have faced fear of rejection and have had to "swim upstream," so to speak, just as an everyday life occurrence. Your contract, therefore, has been set up well, and you are in the middle of it. Additionally, like so many like you, you have a divine interest in yourselves! You feel part of the spiritual family. What a dichotomy indeed, to be judged as evil by those who are the high spiritual leaders--interpreting God for today's culture.

Now I say this: What is your intent? Is it to walk with love for all those around you and become an enlightened Human Being in this New Age? Is it to forgive those who see you as a spiritual blight on society? Can you have the kind of tolerance for them that they seem not to have for you? Can you overlook the fact that they freely quote their scriptures in order to condemn you, yet they don't seem to have the love tolerance that is the cornerstone of their own message?

If the answer is yes, then there is nothing else you must do. Your INTENT is everything, and your life will be honored with peace over those who would cause unrest, and tolerance for the intolerable. Your sexual attributes are simply chemistry and setups within your DNA. They are given by agreement as gifts for you to experience in this life. Look on them in this fashion, and be comfortable with that fact that you are a perfect spiritual creation under God--loved beyond measure--just like all humans. But then you know that, don't you?

Egypt: The Next President

Published on Mar 21, 2013

This 12 years old boy is just stunningly, incredibly smart. Listen to him as he excoriates the Muslim Brotherhood, relentlessly dissecting their power grab for Egypt.

12-year-old Egyptian Ali Ahmed

Photo: YouTube

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