The threat of crippling snow looks to be less for England as the storm track is too far southeast. However, there will be plenty of snow in this part of Europe the next 7-10 days and we can all argue with each other on which was worse, the cold or snow. I am starting here because I appear I was overdone yesterday on the late week snow threat. It is going to snow, but not as much a I thought in over such a wide area. There will be areas that have their deepest winter snowcover in many years by the 10th.

But for the continent as a whole, this next week to 10 days will be as severe as any in the past 20 years. I hear talk of it being the worst in 100 years; I don’t know about that, since I had not researched back that far. One could have snuck in without me seeing it. But the winter, as I opined earlier is going to one overall that will remind us of what Dickens would write about.

Overall, the storm is moving farther south and east and that spares England from the widespread extreme event (Again most places are going to get significant snow over the next week to 10 days, but the specific storm threat is something I believe I erred on. I am sure my detractors will come after me… which amuses me since most of them had no idea this kind of winter was on the way in the first place.) However farther southeast, it means the snowcover spreads back south again and it may even snow a second time on the Riviera… isn’t that Nice?

Overall, for the continent, it’s the second surge, and worse than the first, of weather that leads to more hardship than the general European public was lead to believe would happen from the non private sources.

Source: Accuweather

Climate change is bringing freezing temperatures to poor villages where families have long existed on the margins of survival. Now some must choose whether to save the animals that give them a living, or their children

For alpaca farmer Ignacio Beneto Huamani and his young family, life in the Peruvian Andes, at almost 4,700m above sea level, has always been a struggle against the elements. His village of Pichccahuasi, in Peru’s Huancavelica region, is little more than a collection of small thatched shelters and herds of alpaca surrounded by beautiful, yet bleakly inhospitable, mountain terrain.

The few hundred people who live here are hardened to poverty and months of sub-zero temperatures during the long winter. But, for the fourth year running, the cold came early. First their animals and now their children are dying and in such escalating numbers that many fear that life in the village may be rapidly approaching an end.

In a world growing ever hotter, Huancavelica is an anomaly. These communities, living at the edge of what is possible, face extinction because of increasingly cold conditions in their own microclimate, which may have been altered by the rapid melting of the glaciers.

A consequence is that Quechua-speaking farmers and their families, who have managed to subsist for centuries at high altitude, believe they may not make it through the next southern winter.

There have been warnings from meteorologists in Peru that this month will see the Huancavelica region hit by the worst weather conditions in years with plunging temperatures, floods and high winds. The weather is already claiming lives; last month seven people died and scores were treated in hospital after torrential rain caused flash flooding in Ayacucho, the capital of the neighbouring region.

The cold is tipping Pichccahuasi into a spiralling decline brought on by pneumonia, bronchitis and hunger.

Although designed to withstand the cold, Huamani’s house is crumbling and his roof, half-collapsed from the snowstorms that battered the village last June and July, offers scant protection from the freezing wind and rain.

His family, including four young children, sleep on wet ground night after night. His children have not yet recovered from illnesses from this year’s winter and he is terrified that they won’t be resilient enough to endure further freezing weather.

He points to his youngest son, aged two, who trails after him, soaking wet and racked with bouts of coughing, as he goes about his work

“All the children here are sick, they all have breathing problems,” he says. “The problem is there is too much cold, too much rain. We have had no time to recover from last winter before it has begun again. There is nothing I can do.”

Climate change campaigners and development NGOs say that the failure of Copenhagen has signed the death warrant for hundreds of thousands of the world’s poorest and that a quarter of a million children will die before world leaders meet again to try to thrash out another deal at the United Nations next climate change conference in Mexico in December. Among them may be these children of the high mountains.

Enduring prolonged sub-zero temperatures is a matter of course for Peru’s indigenous mountain people, many of whom live at more than 3,000m above sea level. Scores die every year from the cold, but in recent years the number of people succumbing to the freezing temperatures has triggered talk of a national crisis.

This year the neighbouring district of Puno saw a severe spike in child mortality as the winter brought months of high winds and relentless ice storms. Government figures record that more than 300 children died in Puno in May last year from the cold; NGOs say that the figure was probably much higher.

Local government officers in Huancavelica could not provide figures for how many children died here last year, but admit that child mortality is rising in the region.

“There have been many dead children. I don’t know how many, but there are more and more and mainly the deaths have been from pneumonia,” says Rafael Rojas Huanqui, regional director for the Defensa Civil, the national disaster protection agency. “They have no resilience of any kind to deal with the weather getting colder.”

Huancavelica has always been one of Peru’s most deprived regions, with 80% of families, largely indigenous farmers living at heights of up to 5,000m, subsisting below the poverty line.

The changing weather has come on top of a lack of basic health services, animal diseases, rising food prices and a declining availability of water.

Since 2007, children’s acute respiratory infections have increased by 30% and staple food production has fallen by 44%. Latest figures show that one in 10 children do not live to see their first birthday.

Ignacio Huamani says that the main problem his village faces is a lack of water, as more extreme temperatures mean there is no grass or drinking water for the alpaca that people breed for wool and meat. “If the alpaca die, then we all die,” he says. He works with his neighbours to build shelters for the alpaca to give some protection from the elements, but he is fighting a losing battle.

Since 2007, alpaca mortality in Huancavelica has more than doubled, with pregnant animals aborting their calves, a huge psychological as well as economic blow to people who rely on their ability to keep their herds alive.

Any money the village has is spent on trying to keep their animals from dying. NGOs and children’s groups working in the area warn that in such desperate situations, the lives of alpaca become more valuable than those of children.

“The welfare of children is sidelined because the situation is so bad that everything has become about the survival of the animals, both for the families themselves and the agencies who are trying to support them,” says Teresa Carpio, director of Save the Children Peru. She expects to see child mortality in the region rise this year.

“In the west we tend to think that children take priority above all else, but when there is this level of desperation, children can be the last to get the attention they so badly need – until it is too late.”

Four hours’ drive away in the larger community of Incahuasi, a health clinic is full of women and children waiting to see a visiting nurse. Helen dos Santos trained in nearby Ayacucho, but unlike most other locally trained health workers has stayed to work in the region. Now she spends her week travelling on foot between villages, walking for up to five hours a day.

“It’s always been poor here, but now the situation is getting critical,” she says. She points to the 20 or so children lined up in the waiting room. “All of these children are malnourished, some very dangerously so, and winter is still five months away.

“I don’t have any strong antibiotics to give them, only aspirin. I can’t even refer them to the hospital in Huancavelica because nobody has enough money to pay for transport there and the men here are reluctant to spend on anything but the animals.”

Rojas Huanqui says the regional government is working hard to strengthen health systems with more doctors and nurses in “most” of the villages, but admits that the state has been unable to deliver the basic services required.

“I’m not going to deny that it’s really hard to supply the great amount of villages there are, and they are used to getting everything for free, so the progress that the government makes is limited, but we do need to implement stronger medicines up in the villages that need it most,” he says.

There is anger among Huancavelica’s mountain people at what they see as the inaction of regional and central government. Although aid packages and clothing bundles arrive with the onset of winter, it does not compensate for what these people believe is the ambivalence of the authorities to their fate.

“We can only put ourselves in God’s hands, because nobody else is helping us,” says Carolina Flores, a mother of six whose six-month-old daughter is dangerously ill with pneumonia. “Our men have gone and talked to people in the government and told them what is happening to us, but they do nothing. We are not important to them, so we die up here and nobody helps us.”

For how long the mountain people are prepared to wait for action remains to be seen. After hundreds of years of systematic discrimination, there are signs that indigenous people across Peru are prepared to fight what they consider to be threats to their survival.

Last July, dozens of indigenous protesters were killed and scores injured when riots broke out in Bagua Grande in the Amazonas region over claims that the government was giving away land to oil and gas drilling. The relationship between Peru’s indigenous people and the government of the president, Alan García remains tense.

Those working with indigenous populations in Huancavelica are warning that governments cannot expect people in threatened villages to accept their fate lying down.

“The conduct of the authorities in relation to Peru’s Quechua mountain communities is similar to the one they take to indigenous communities throughout the country, which is to ignore their problems because they don’t believe that they are a priority,” says Dr Enrique Moya, the former dean of Huamanga University, who now works with local NGOs which are running support programmes in the region.

“Religion is still a strong sedative in these communities, but although the first reaction to what they are facing might be fatalism – the feeling that they are in God’s hands – we are starting to see a change.

“The difficulty is that the government only reacts when things turn violent, so I think what we have here is potentially an area of great conflict, because no matter how used to poverty they are, these people won’t be left to die.”

Source: The Guardian

His prediction coincided with American media reports that the recent renewed unrest in the streets of Iran has made the regime more susceptible to sanctions designed to discourage it from developing nuclear weapons.

Photo: Danny Ayalon Ayalon said that both Russia and the United States agree that Iran must be stopped from achieving the capability of manufacturing a nuclear weapon, a view that represents a turnaround for Moscow, which has a major investment in Iran’s nuclear development.

Iran issued a warning of its own on Saturday, setting a one-month deadline for the West to accept its own proposals concerning nuclear inspections. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki threatened that it will accelerate the level of enrichment for its nuclear fuel if the West does not agree to its suggestions.

“We have given them an ultimatum. There is one month left and that is by the end of January,” he said. The United States has expressed doubts about Iran’s ability to produce uranium.

Meanwhile, Iran said it will stage another “large-scale military exercise” next month to prepare for a possible attack on its nuclear reactors.

Source: Israël National News

“I would like to underline the importance of the choices of individuals, families and local administrations in preserving the environment.

“An objective shared by all, an indispensable condition for peace, is that of overseeing the earth’s natural resources with justice and wisdom,” he said.

Calling for an end to war and in particular the suffering of children, the 82-year-old, German-born pontiff said there was “a close link” between respect for mankind and respect for nature.

“If humanity shames itself, it damages its environment”, Benedict said.

He appealed for “investment in education with the objective not only to transmit technical and scientific concepts, but also a broader and deeper ‘ecological responsibility’ based on respect for humanity, human rights and fundamental duties”.

The Pope has built on the legacy of his predecessor, John Paul II, in putting the environment high on the Vatican’s agenda.

Last month, in a message sent to heads of state and international organisations, Benedict called on rich nations to acknowledge responsibility for the environmental crisis and to rein in consumerism.

He gave his address a week after a 25-year-old woman with a history of mental problems knocked him to the ground during Christmas Eve mass.

He was unhurt in the fall and has kept up his busy holiday schedule.

source: Daily Telegraph

Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation.

Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. Temperatures may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours, the National Weather Service in Tampa said on its Web site.

“This is a pretty significant cold snap,” Matt Keefe, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. “This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop.” He said the jet stream, which normally keeps the coldest air north of the Hudson Bay in Canada, is centered over parts of Alabama and Mississippi. “The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week,” he said.

Tonight will be the coldest and offer the highest chance of crop damage, Keefe said.

Frigid in Jacksonville

Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. Typically, Jacksonville doesn’t dip below 42 degrees this time of year, said Alan Reppert, a meteorologist for AccuWeather.com. Orlando’s normal low is 50 degrees, he said. Reppert said temperatures in Florida tomorrow night and through Jan. 5 might be as cold or colder than tonight.

The Miami area will see temperatures as much as 13 degrees below seasonal norms, meteorologist Keefe said earlier.

The next freeze may come next week when another wintry blast may push temperatures as much as 20 degrees below normal for the central Plains through northwestern Florida, Reppert said. From Houston across to Atlanta could be 20 degrees colder than normal by the morning of Jan. 8, he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month estimated Florida’s orange crop will be 0.7 percent smaller than earlier forecast because adverse weather reduced fruit size.

In New York, overnight lows may be 22 degrees, with wind chills dropping the experience to single digits. Philadelphia may see a low of 20 degrees, Keefe said. Washington may slip to 19 degrees, he said.

source: Business Week

The freezing weather brought chaos yesterday as snow created treacherous driving conditions and caused a number of sporting events to be cancelled.

Northern England was deluged with up to 6cm of snow while heavy falls occurred in eastern Scotland with 9cm recorded lying on the ground in Edinburgh last night.

The Met Office warned of icy roads across the UK and heavy snow in Yorkshire, northeast England and parts of Scotland today.

The Arctic conditions are set to last for the first half of the month – with fresh snowfall, severe frosts and ice on the roads.

Last night the mercury plummeted to minus 17C in Braemar, Aberdeenshire, as temperatures of minus 15C were predicted in parts of Scotland and Northern England over the next 10 days.

The transport network suffered under the strain of the freezing conditions as a number of rail lines closed in Scotland and more than 40 bumps and crashes were recorded on the roads.

An army of gritters have been working around the clock to keep the carriageways clear.

Motorists were warned of hazardous driving conditions as many people headed home after the long Christmas break.

Lancashire Police said a male passenger in a Citroen car died in a crash on the M55 motorway near Blackpool yesterday morning and a handful of third round FA Cup ties were called off.

In East Sussex, a teenage driver and a female passenger were seriously injured when their car hit a patch of ice and crashed into a tree on a country road.

A third teenager was also hurt when the black Peugeot 207 veered off the A26 at Boarshead, between Crowborough and Eridge, just before 11pm on Friday.

The Highways Agency said there had been 46 bumps and incidents on the road network across England by 4pm.

Six vehicles crashed in Greater Manchester on the M6 near Orrell shortly after 10.30am, causing long delays.

Poor driving conditions were reported on the M60, M602 and the M66. Snake Pass, which runs between Manchester and Sheffield, was also closed.

A Highways Agency spokesman said: “The very cold, wintry weather is making driving conditions difficult, particularly in the North West of England and we are focusing on keeping our network flowing as much as possible during this severe weather.

“Our winter fleet has been working flat out and will continue to treat the network as long as the cold weather continues.

“Our advice to drivers is to drive according to the conditions; and that even when roads are treated they should still be negotiated with care.”

The AA said that by 4pm it had dealt with more than 11,000 breakdowns. On a normal Saturday the AA would expect to be called to 8,000 breakdowns, a spokesman said.

Police closed two junctions on the M9 in Scotland after it was “inundated” with snow showers.

Drivers unable to continue with their journeys abandoned their cars, causing further problems on the road, a Lothian and Borders Police spokesman said.

In Dumfries and Galloway, the A701 Dumfries to Edinburgh Road from Moffat was also closed because of drifting snow, and traffic was diverted on to the A74, A702 and A701.

The north of Scotland was also affected by the weather, with a warning that the situation was likely to worsen by today.

The unclassified Kishorn to Applecross (Beal na Ba) road was shut due to snow, and most other roads were affected by snow and ice.

A Northern Constabulary spokesman said a number of minor collisions had already occurred due to slippery conditions and people should only travel when necessary.

Inverness Airport continued to be affected by intermittent snow falls and ice on the runway and was also closed.

Network Rail said two lines north of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands had been closed due to the weather.

From Tuesday until next weekend heavy snow showers are expected in Scotland, the North of England, London and eastern England.

Brendan Jones, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: “It is going to be very, very cold across the country. Bar the odd coastal site temperatures will remain below freezing everywhere every night.

“Ice on pavements and roads will be a problem for the next 10 days. People should be prepared for the conditions because there is a limit to what gritting can do.

“Rain, sleet and snow will cause ice to form even when surfaces have already been gritted.”

Last month was the coldest December on average since 1996, MeteoGroup said.

Three people died after being caught in avalanches, three others were killed in a crash on a snowy stretch of motorway and a woman died after her car smashed into a pond as the cold snap tightened its grip.

Source: Daily Mail

According to the German N24 newsservice the German Weatherservice expecteds wintery weather until
the end of the month.

The Central Asian state lobbied hard for a one-year term as leader of the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a post which President Nursultan Nazarbayev – Kazakhstan’s leader for 20 years – sees as a source of national pride.

The ninth largest country in the world won backing for its bid from the United States and major European nations, in what critics called a cynical attempt to improve relations with a major oil and gas exporter, thus helping to reduce the West’s reliance on Russian energy.

Kazakhstan pledged to liberalise its laws on media, political parties and elections ahead of its term as chairman of the OSCE, but most analysts dismiss the changes made as merely cosmetic and some say the situation has actually got worse in recent months.

In September Kazakhstan’s leading activist, Yevgeny Zhovtis, was jailed for four years for his involvement in a fatal car crash, after a trial that rights groups said was deeply flawed.

In December prominent journalist Gennady Pavlyuk from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, a critic of the Kazakh government, died in the Kazakh city of Almaty after being thrown from a sixth floor window. Last week, a Kazakh reporter who covered Mr Pavlyuk’s death for Kyrgyz media was found stabbed to death in his flat in Almaty.

The European Union and United States have expressed their “concern” over the killing of Mr Pavlyuk, and the OSCE has acknowledged the stains on the rights record of Kazakhstan, which is also plagued by cronyism and corruption.

“We have concerns about the situation of human rights, media and other areas . . . throughout the region, including Kazakhstan,” said Janez Lenarcic, director of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, adding that “clearly there is a challenge for the incoming chairmanship – whether they will be able to lead by example”.

New York-based Human Rights Watch was more forthright in a November statement. “Since the OSCE-participating states decided to give Kazakhstan the 2010 chairmanship, the human rights situation in the country has deteriorated rather than improved,” it said.

“Minimal reform steps in February 2009 . . . were outweighed by the adoption of restrictive amendments to media and internet laws, restrictions in practice on peaceful demonstrations and protests, and the use of national security interests to justify incommunicado detention and denial of access to legal counsel.”

Kazakh officials insist their country is gradually strengthening democracy and rights protection, and fully deserves to lead the OSCE. In his New Year address, Mr Nazarbayev called the chairmanship “a very important sign of our country’s wide international prestige”. His nation’s reputation was not enhanced this week, however, when it was forced to deny reports that it was planning to sell purified uranium ore to Iran, a deal that would violate UN sanctions against Tehran.

Source: Irish Times

The 27-year-old man, who was not identified, wielded an ax and a knife and cracked a window at Westergaard’s home in Aarhus, said police spokesman Morten Jensen. A home alarm alerted police to the scene at 10 p.m., and they were attacked by the man, he said.

The officers shot the man in the right leg and left hand. He was hospitalized, but was not seriously injured, police said.

Danish intelligence officials said the suspect is connected to al-Shabaab, al Qaeda’s ally in east Africa.

The incident “once again confirms the terrorist threat that is directed against Denmark and against cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, in particular,” said Jakob Scharf, spokesman for the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, in a statement.

Westergaard’s caricature of Mohammed — which depicted the prophet wearing a bomb as a turban with a lit fuse — sparked an uproar among Muslims in early 2006 after newspapers reprinted the images months later as a matter of free speech. The cartoon was first published by the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.

At the time, Westergaard said he wanted his cartoon to say that some people exploited the prophet to legitimize terror. However, many in the Muslim world interpreted the drawing as depicting their prophet as a terrorist.

Over the years, Danish authorities have arrested other suspects who allegedly plotted against Westergaard’s life.

After three such arrests were made in February 2008, Westergaard issued a statement, saying, “Of course I fear for my life after the Danish Security and Intelligence Service informed me of the concrete plans of certain people to kill me. However, I have turned fear into anger and indignation. It has made me angry that a perfectly normal everyday activity which I used to do by the thousand was abused to set off such madness.”

Scharf said authorities have taken measures to ensure Westergaard’s safety, and that the protection has “proven effective.”

Source: CNN

That has pleased Israel, which wants strong action against the Islamic Republic as it continues to enrich uranium in defiance of international demands and has rejected US President Barack Obama’s outstretched hand.

The next step, according to Ambassador to the US Michael Oren, should be “imposing crippling sanctions” on the Teheran regime, which is in keeping with the pledge Oren said Obama made to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in May that the US would end the engagement phase toward Iran if it were unsuccessful by year’s end.

Oren told The Jerusalem Post that “there isn’t an Israeli view and an American view” on the Iranian question, but rather “one view.”

However, the Obama administration is showing signs that its approach to sanctions might not be in line with the “crippling” measures that Israel is expecting. Instead, a more calibrated approach has been emerging in which the US would press for another UN Security Council resolution this month and look at targeted sanctions rather than at disrupting Iran’s energy markets and other more broad-based moves.

In addition, the US has repeatedly stressed that the door to diplomatic engagement remains open, notwithstanding Obama’s pledge to review the process at the end of the year.

“The United States remains committed to a diplomatic resolution to the international community’s concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program,” a State Department official told the Post Thursday, though he added, “Unfortunately, thus far, our efforts have been rebuffed.”

He also said, “We would welcome Iran taking concrete steps to build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program,” particularly by “Iranian acceptance of the IAEA’s standing Teheran Research Reactor refueling proposal.”

That deal – in which Teheran would have sent most of its enriched uranium abroad for processing so that Iran could then use it for medical purposes – was worked out by global leaders in October, who gave Iran until Thursday to accept the deal. There have been reports, however, that Turkey is working to provide a compromise proposal even though the US has in the past ruled out any modification to the offer, which Iran has not approved.

American officials have several times referred to “consequences” Iran would face for rejecting the efforts at diplomatic solutions, and in recent days have spoken increasingly about the option of sanctions.

Along with the track of ongoing diplomatic efforts, “we are moving on the pressure track in consultation with others,” an administration official told the Post Thursday. “The United States will continue to implement its dual-track strategy to achieve its goal of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. We continue to consult with our partners on how we will give full meaning to the dual tracks.”

He added that “a variety of options are being explored” on implementing the latter track and that “the discussions are continuing.”

Earlier in the week, a senior US official fleshed out some of the approach on the pressure track, telling The Washington Post that the administration would like to use fine-tuned measures. “We have never been attracted to the idea of trying to get the whole world to cordon off their economy,” he said. “We have to be deft at this, because it matters how the Iranian people interpret their isolation – whether they fault the regime or are fooled into thinking we are to blame.”

Though Obama has been more forceful in his criticism of the Iranian regime as the crackdown on opposition forces has turned bloodier in recent days, the administration doesn’t want to see sanctions policy hurt average Iranians or fuel the government’s anti-Western charges.

“There’s strong support for sanctions on regime figures. Beyond that it gets to be more complicated,” Iran expert Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said of popular Iranian attitudes toward such measures.

More targeted restrictions – on the Revolutionary Guard Corps and its economic enterprises in addition to the Iranian leadership – could also be an easier sell with many of the international countries that have at time been wary of sanctions.

The US is looking at leading another sanctions resolution through the UN Security Council once it reconvenes in the new year, a process that could take weeks or even months and in the past has resulted only in weak measures due largely to Russian and Chinese opposition.

Oren, speaking to the Post, expressed optimism over the possibility of such a resolution getting through. “All the indications we have are that the Russians are more cooperative now” on possible sanctions, though he indicated it wasn’t clear whether China, which imports a large quantity of Iranian oil, would also cooperate.

Oren also referred to several other paths that could be taken, including targeting the financial activities of the government, curbing the import of refined petroleum and limiting the ability of Iranian leaders to travel around the world.

The US Treasury has already been going after some financial companies that work with Iran, including winning a $217 million settlement with Lloyds TSB Bank and a $536m. global settlement with Credit Suisse in December because of prohibited dealings with Iran. And designating leaders as personae non grata would be in line with a more focused approach.

But stemming refined petroleum imports is the kind of measure that the White House and international community might balk at. Though bills to do just that have been wending their way through Congress, some legislators have privately said they would prefer measures more focused on the regime than the people. In addition, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, who sponsored the House bill, said he wanted to give time for the Security Council process to work before

source: Jerusalem Post

He is provocative in insisting on an outstretched hand, where others only see animosity.

His tangible results in the short time that he has been active – are few and far between. His greatest results have been created with words and speeches – words that remain in the consciousness of their audience and have long-term effects.

He comes from humble beginnings and defends the weak and vulnerable, because he can identify himself with their conditions.

And no we are not thinking of Jesus Christ, whose birthday has just been celebrated – - but rather the President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama.

For some time now, comparisons between the two have been a tool of cynical opinion that quickly became fatigued of the rapture that Obama instilled prior to and after the presidential election last year.

From the start, Obama’s critics have claimed that his supporters have idolised him as a saviour, thus attempting to dismantle the concrete hope that Obama has represented for most Americans.

The idea was naturally that the comparison between Jesus and Obama – which is something that the critics developed themselves – would be comical, blasphemous, or both.

If such a comparison were to be made, it would, of course, inevitably be to Obama’s advantage.

Today, his historic Health Reform is being passed through the American Senate – a welfare policy breakthrough that several of his predecessors have been unable to manage.

Despite all the compromises, it has finally been possible to ensure something so fundamental, as the right of every American not to be financially shipwrecked when their health fails them. Add to that the biggest ever financial support package in America’s history, a major disarmament agreement and the quickest-ever re-establishment of American reputation.

On the other hand, we have Jesus’ miracles that everyone still remembers, but which only benefitted a few. At the same time, we have the wonderful parables about his life and deeds that we know from the New Testament, but which have been interpreted so differently over the past 2000 years that it is impossible to give an unequivocal result of his work.

Obama is, of course, greater than Jesus – if we have to play that absurd Christmas game. But it is probably more meaningful to insist that with today’s domestic triumph, that he has already assured himself a place in the history books – a space he has good chances of expanding considerably in coming years.

Without, however, ever attaining the heavens….

Well dear Politiken what did your great leader do? Did he walked over water? No,he didn’t. Did he turned water into wine? No,he didn’t. Did he gave us world peace? No he didn’t. Did he brought us anychange? No he didn’t… What did he do? Mr ts? I will tell you. He is a great public speaker and he is suffering from the mistakes made by George Bush jr. He has inherited two wars and the US is loosing both. I do not believe in the change made by Obama because there isn’t any. How poor and desperate some are looking to a Messiah. Some are so desperate that they forget that 2000 years ago there was already one. He walked on water,He turned water into wine and tought us people how to forgive and how to lead our lives. for me it seems it’s Jesus who is bigger than Obama

source Politiken/Xandernieuws and others