In December, leading Israeli rabbis launched a new push to curtail Internet use among ultra-Orthodox Jews, emphasizing that their longstanding ban on Web surfing applied to sites geared toward the Haredi community as well. They threatened stricter penalties than ever before for those who disobeyed. But rather than showing their power, the battle against Haredi Internet use has exposed the rabbis' weakness, as large parts of the community resolutely remain online. Meanwhile, blogs written by Haredim who have theological doubts or misgivings about their closed society have flourished. Such sites are widely understood to have revolutionized strictly Orthodox society, exposing its leaders to previously unimaginable scrutiny. - HAARETZ.com

China has halted its military cooperation with the U.S. and threatened this week to sanction American companies involved in selling arms to Taiwan. Beijing's sharp reaction came after Washington announced a $6.4 billion weapons deal to Taiwan. It is something of a role reversal. Usually, it has been the U.S. sanctioning China. But now, China is pushing back on a raft of contentious issues, from Washington's efforts to seek sanctions against Iran to President Obama's plan to meet Tibet's exiled religious leader the Dalai Lama. - NPR.org

SATIRE - The White House attempted to quell alarm over two interlopers who somehow breached security to attend a state dinner for the prime minister of India this week. Although Tareq and Michaele Salahi were not on the initial guest list, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "They do appear on the retro guest list, thus negating any national security threat." The retro guest list, the White House spokesman explained, is prepared after the event to reconcile guest projections with actual results. Tareq Salahi wore a black tuxedo, which grants him an automatic "Level 3 clearance", said Gibbs. His wife, a slim, blonde woman, wore a red and gold sari and may have been "mistaken for a Bollywood star." Gibbs noted that Michaela Salahi "gave every appearance of being a celebrity" and so slipped the Secret Service cordon, under "the standard Obama administration protocol for dealing with famous people, actors, singers, models and such." - WASHINGTON EXAMINER.com

The current holder of the rotating European Union presidency, Sweden, has put together a draft document calling for the division of Jerusalem between Israel and a future Palestinian state. (Click through to read draft). -HAARETZ.com

The UN is currently marking the historic date of November 29 1947, the day in which it approved the partition plan separating Israel into two states – Jewish and Arabic. But while in Israel the date is celebratory, as it marks the end of the British mandate and the beginning of independent rule, the UN headquarters in New York and Geneva are holding ceremonies of mourning and solidarity with the Palestinian people. Israel has traditionally boycotted the debates due to their one-sidedness, but in recent years has changed its tune. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, is scheduled to speak before the assembly Tuesday and condemn the UN tradition of memorializing the date on which Israel was given a state as a day of mourning. -YNET NEWS.com

It's not often that a photographer can literally stand inside of his camera. But Shaun Irving, who has transformed a truck into a giant, mobile camera obscura, does it all the time. And he says it's the largest, mobile camera in the world. It's a simple construction: There's a small hole with a lens on one side of the truck's lightproof interior. This lens projects an upside-down and backward image on the opposite wall. On that wall, Irving hangs 4-by-8-foot sheets of photo paper, which, when exposed to 5-30 second exposures, serve as giant negatives. He then takes his jumbo negatives to a darkroom, or just a room that's dark, and processes them. The whole process, he says, takes anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours. - NPR.org

Excerpt from "Going Rogue": I just wasn't ready; my sisters were the ones who could handle this, not me. Did I have enough love and compassion in me to do this? Don't you have to be wired a little differently to be gifted with the ability to raise a special-needs child, a child who isn't “perfect” in the eyes of society? I didn't know if I should be ashamed of myself for even thinking these things. I read that almost 90% of Down syndrome babies are aborted — so wasn't that a message that this is not only a less-than-ideal circumstance, but also one that it is virtually impossible to deal with? Now, just a couple of hours into this new world, I could not get my arms or heart around it. That fleeting thought descended on me again, not a consideration so much as a sudden understanding of why people would grasp at a quick “solution”, a way to make the “problem” just go away. But again, I had to hold on to that seed of faith. - LIFE NEWS.com

In the northeast part of Bejing, not far from the old Friendship Hotel, stands a boxy little cinema specializing in anime. A nondescript building on a nondescript thoroughfare, it's hardly a place a tourist would notice, much less a visiting president. Yet had Barack Obama wanted to understand something of the real China, his time would have been better spent there. At 10 a.m. Sunday, more than 500 members of Shouwang church gathered at the cinema for a service. Shouwang, founded in 1993 by pastor Jin Tianming, is one of the city's largest unregistered churches and counts around 800 regular members. But until last weekend, they had never once been able to meet in such large numbers in an indoor space in Beijing. Shouwang is what is known in China as a "house" church, meaning that it is an unregistered entity in a country where all religious groups are supposed to report to the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Chinese and foreign observers alike believe the number of Chinese belonging to underground churches may now exceed 100 million people. That figure has grown rapidly as more and more Chinese, particularly well-educated city dwellers, turn away from Communist Party atheism. - WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Irish finally said yes, and the Poles did Saturday, but the EU reform treaty still has a huge hurdle to clear. A "no" from the lone holdout — Czech President Vaclav Klaus — could cripple plans to transform Europe into a global player. At stake for Europe are lofty plans for new posts of EU president and foreign minister, a streamlined decision-making process, and more powers to the European Parliament. Treaty negotiators say the reforms are needed to make the EU function more effectively in line with its rapid growth eastward since 2004. Klaus argues that the treaty gives too much power to Brussels and strips individual countries of their sovereignty by removing their veto power and replacing it with majority voting. - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS