THE EU MUST ACT WITH TROOPS

1-Hundreds evacuated from Ohio, 2-ceasefire is possible and necessary Vatican. 3-Hezbollah fires new Rockets into Israel. 4-Bush blair back Mulinational force. 5-The EU must act with Troops.

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Hundreds evacuated from Ohio flooding By M.R. KROPKO, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 28, 7:15 PM ET

EASTLAKE, Ohio - Fast-rising water gushed into homes early Friday in suburban Cleveland, chasing people to rooftops to await boat rescues as 10 inches of rain raised the Grand River 11 feet above flood level. We think everybody got out. But we cannot be certain, warned fire Capt. Ken Takacs, who estimated 600 residents were evacuated along the river, which curves around three sides of Painesville.In Eastlake, between Cleveland and Painesville along Lake Erie, the Coast Guard searched for a man reported missing while checking on his boat at a marina near the Chagrin River.A deluge hit the area Thursday and early Friday, but by midday the sun broke through and flood waters began to recede. The weekend forecast called for clear weather.

Gov. Bob Taft declared a state of emergency in Lake County, helping the state provide resources to respond to the flooding and assist with recovery.The evacuations in Painesville included 10 to 12 people rescued from condo and apartment rooftops by boat crews operating in 15 feet of water, Takacs said.Some people had to drop from second-floor windows, and in one case a large front-end loader nudged a rescue boat through a tough current to reach a woman who uses a wheelchair, Takacs said.Jeanette Fattori, 57, and her husband fled their Eastlake home with only their prescription medication.I thought we were going to drown. It was just filling up our basement and the only way we got out of there was in a small boat with people from the fire department, Fattori said at a Red Cross shelter.

Kevin Ford, 37, said the water flooded the bottom floor and garage of the Painesville condo he shares with his mother.We had two vehicles, appliances and furniture and they're probably all destroyed. I saw a refrigerator floating,he said.Flooding severely damaged many of the riverfront condos and apartments, but there were no immediate damage estimates, Takacs said.

Cease-fire Is Possible and Necessary, Says Vatican
Friday, 28 July 2006, 11:21 am,Article: www.zenit.org
Archbishop Lajolo Comments on Conference Over Lebanon

VATICAN CITY, JULY 27, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The results of the crisis talks in Rome regarding Lebanon were significant, said the Vatican secretary for relations with states, even though an immediate cease-fire was not achieved.Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, in an interview today on Vatican Radio, analyzed the results of the conference Wednesday. He attended the meeting as an observer.
With regards to a call for an immediate cease-fire, unanimity among the participants was not achieved because some countries maintained that an appeal would not have produced the desired effect,the Vatican representative said. And it was felt more realistic to express a commitment to achieve without delay a cessation of hostilities, a commitment which can, in fact, be maintained.An immediate suspension of hostilities is possible, and, therefore, necessary,he added.

Archbishop Lajolo stated that the position of those who maintain that conditions must first be created so that any truce is not once again violated, is only apparently one of realism, because those conditions can and must be created with means other than the killing of innocent people.In this connection, the archbishop considered "problematic" the fact that in the final declaration -- written by the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and Italy's foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema -- limited itself to inviting Israel to exercise the greatest restraint.By its nature, this call has a certain inevitable ambiguity, while respect for the innocent civilian population is a precise and binding duty,Archbishop Lajolo said.

Positive points

The archbishop pointed out, however, four positive elements of the conference: the commitment made by various countries to help Lebanon; the request for an international force, under the mandate of the United Nations, to support the regular Lebanese army in security matters; the commitment to send humanitarian aid; and the resolution of the participants to follow further developments in Lebanon. The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who on Wednesday evening received Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in the Vatican, after the conclusion of the conference, said today in comments to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera that he was disappointed by the lack of an agreement on an immediate cease-fire.We are before a humanitarian problem of the first order and in its solution all men of good will should find a way to cooperate,said Cardinal Sodano, who will leave office in September.The integrity of Lebanon must also be safeguarded, but obviously today priority must be given to human lives,added Cardinal Sodano. He emphasized that Benedict XVI is following the events in Lebanon with great concern. ZE06072706

Hezbollah fires new rockets into Israel By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago

TYRE, Lebanon - Hezbollah launched a new kind of rocket Friday that made the deepest strike into Israel yet, rattling Israelis as their warplanes and artillery targeted guerrillas in attacks on apartment buildings and roads. Lebanese officials said about 12 civilians died in the day's fighting; Israel said it killed 26 militants, raising to about 230 the total number killed in the campaign.

Hezbollah's launching of the new weapon unnerved Israelis, 500,000 of whom are already living in northern shelters because of rocket bombardments. The rocket firing was also likely to escalate a conflict now in its 18th day, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heading back to the Middle East this weekend to make a second attempt to resolve the crisis.The guerrillas said they used the Khaibar-1 — named after the site of a historic battle between Islam's Prophet Muhammad and Jewish tribes in the Arabian peninsula — to strike the Israeli town of Afula.

With this, the Islamic Resistance begins a new stage of fighting, challenge and confrontation with a strong determination and full belief in God's victory,Hezbollah said in a statement.Five of the rockets crashed into empty fields outside Afula, causing no injuries. Still, Israel deployed a Patriot interceptor missile battery north of Tel Aviv, believing the area could be in range of Hezbollah's barrages.Israel said the Khaibar-1 rockets were renamed, Iranian-made Fajr-5s. They have four times the power and range of Katyusha rockets, making them able to hit Tel Aviv's northern outskirts.Hundreds of Katyushas have hit northern Israel in the current fighting, including 96 on Friday, one of which hit a hospital. The Afula strike came two days after Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed his guerrillas would fire rockets beyond Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, which has been hit repeatedly in the conflict.A top U.N. peacekeeping official said he thought the war could continue until the end of August and voiced fears Israel would flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy the port of Tyre neighborhood by neighborhood if Hezbollah rockets keep slamming into the Jewish state.

At U.N. peacekeeping headquarters in Naqoura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hezbollah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Haifa.

Although possessing overwhelming firepower, Israel has made no threats to destroy Lebanese cities and villages. Israel has stressed that it is not fighting the Lebanese people or government, but will go after Hezbollah wherever it finds the militants.Rice's second trip to the region comes as diplomatic efforts are solidifying into two sharply divided camps. Most agree on the idea of bringing international forces into the south to end Hezbollah's decade-long free rein here — but still unresolved is how and when.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions, said possible elements of a Rice proposal to resolve the crisis included an international agreement on a U.N.-mandated multinational force, disarming Hezbollah and integrating the guerrilla force into the Lebanese army; urging Hezbollah to return Israeli prisoners; a commitment to resolve border issues and an international reconstruction plan for Lebanon.

Many Europeans and Arab countries are increasing the pressure for an immediate cease-fire first, followed by a plan to tackle the complicated issues of a force to curb the Shiite guerrillas.In Beirut, Hezbollah signed on to a peace package that includes strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming the guerrillas, the government said.The agreement, reached at a Cabinet meeting, was the first time that Hezbollah has agreed to a proposal for ending the crisis that includes the deploying of international forces.The package falls short of American and Israeli demands in that it calls for an immediate cease-fire before working out details of a force and includes other conditions. But European Union officials said it forms a basis for an agreement.

The uncertainty allowed the offensive to persist with a new dimension of destruction emerging — the environment. Beaches in Beirut were black with oil spilled from a power station that was blasted by Israel two weeks ago and was still burning. In the south, rescue workers dug through the rubble of bombed houses, looking for bodies.Early Saturday, two Israeli air raids destroyed a bridge on the Orontes river in the Bekaa Valley, largely cutting off the town of Hermel from the rest of the country. There were no casualties, residents said.Late Friday, the Israeli army said it killed 26 Hezbollah guerrillas in fighting for the Shiite town of Bint Jbail. The army did not report Israeli casualties, but Israel Radio said six soldiers were wounded. Hezbollah has verified 35 guerrilla casualties. The competing claims could not be resolved independently.

Hezbollah said its guerrillas attacked Israeli troops on a ridge overlooking Bint Jbail and in Maroun al-Ras, a nearby villages that Israeli troops overran last weekend. The guerrillas said five Israeli soldiers were wounded. Eight Israelis died fighting for control of Bint Jbail on Wednesday, the highest toll of the campaign. Bint Jbail had the largest Shiite community along the border; it was known as the capital of the resistance during Israel's 1982-2000 occupation because of its vehement support for the Shiite Hezbollah. The Israel army said a half-million Israelis were living in shelters in northern Israel. U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland told CNN that 800,000 Lebanese had fled or were caught in crossfire. The Israeli offensive began after Hezbollah guerrillas killed three soldiers and captured two others in a cross-border raid into Israel. The war with Hezbollah opened a second front for Israel, which was already battling Palestinians in Gaza after Hamas militants seized a soldier in a cross-border raid June 25.

Israeli tanks and troops pulled back to the Israel-Gaza border Friday after an unusually deadly incursion that killed 30 Palestinians over three days. The army said the withdrawal was temporary. On Israel's border with Lebanon, the United Nations decided to move 50 unarmed observers from their posts to the better-protected positions of 2,000 lightly armed U.N. peacekeepers after an Israeli bomb killed four observers this week. With medicine, food and shelter trickling into the war zone in southern Lebanon, Egeland called for a three-day truce to let help aid get in and enable thousands of civilians trapped in the heat of the battle to get out — a call that got no response. In Washington, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said they want an international force dispatched quickly to southern Lebanon. But they said any plan to end the fighting must address the long-term issue of disarming Hezbollah.

This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East, Bush said. Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region. French President Jacques Chirac said his country will press for the rapid adoption of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, increasing the pressure on the United States and Israel.

In southern Lebanon, Israeli missile strikes and artillery rained down around towns and roads targeting rocket sites and buildings believed connected to Hezbollah but wreaking destruction in populated areas. One airstrike flattened a house in the village of Hadatha, and six people inside were believed dead or wounded, the Lebanese state news agency reported. Hezbollah's al-Manar TV said all six were dead. Missiles destroyed three buildings in the village of Kfar Jouz near the market town of Nabatiyeh, apparently targeting the apartment of a Hezbollah activist. A Jordanian was killed in a nearby house, and the blasts collapsed a shelter, killing a Lebanese husband and wife.

Three women were killed in strikes on their homes in other southern villages, security officials said. A wounded woman was rushed to the hospital in the village of Ain Arab, and more people were believed trapped in the debris of a destroyed building there. An explosion, believed to be from Israeli artillery, hit a convoy evacuating villagers from Rmeish, lightly wounding a driver and a Lebanese cameraman for German TV news. Another strike hit a potato truck and a nearby car, wounding three. At least 445 people have been killed in Lebanon in the fighting, most of them civilians, according to a Health Ministry count Friday based on bodies taken to hospitals. But Lebanon's health minister estimated Thursday that as many as Lebanese 600 civilians have been killed, with other victims buried in rubble. On the Israeli side, 33 soldiers have died in fighting, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 19 civilians, the Israeli army said. AP Washington correspondet Katherine Shrader contributed to this report.

DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(EU) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.(THIS EU POLITICIAN COMES FROM THE OCCULT)
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.

DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.

REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU DICTATOR) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

DANIEL 7:7-8,23-24
7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
8 I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.

REVELATION 13:1-2
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

REVELATION 17:3,7,9-13
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.(VATICAN IN ROME)
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.(7TH WORLD EMPIRE, REVIVED ROME OR THE EU)
11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

Bush, Blair Back Multinational Force
By JENNIFER LOVEN , 07.28.2006, 01:11 PM

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday they want an international force dispatched quickly to the Mideast but said any plan to end the fighting must address long-running regional disputes to be effective. The leaders, standing side by side in the White House's East Room after meeting in the Oval Office, said they want to see a U.N. resolution introduced next week. Bush announced he was sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice back to the region on Saturday to negotiate the terms.

Bush said they envisioned a resolution providing a framework for the cessation of hostilities on an urgent basis and mandating the multinational force. This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East, Bush said. Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region. Bush and Blair remained united against many other European and Arab nations, by resisting calls for an immediate, unconditional end to Israel's campaign against Hezbollah militants that effectively control southern Lebanon.

This stance has been interpreted by Israel as a green light to continue its offensive as long as it takes to cripple the Shiite Muslim militant group.In Lebanon, Hezbollah and its Iranian and Syrian sponsors are willing to kill and use violence to stop the spread of peace and democracy,Bush said.They're not going to succeed. Bush said the plan developed by he and Blair would make every effort to achieve a lasting peace out of this process. Nothing will work, unless, as well as an end to the immediate crisis, we put in place the measures necessary to prevent it from occurring again,Blair said. "We take this opportunity to set out and achieve a different strategic direction for the whole of that region. Bush and Blair came together at the White House as consultations continue on the makeup and mandate of a possible international peacekeeping force to stabilize the more than 2-week-old situation along the Israeli-Lebanese border and help the Lebanese army establish control in the south where Hezbollah has near-autonomy. A senior State Department aide was in Europe. And U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan made plans to invite nations that might contribute troops to meet on Monday in New York, according to a United Nations official who spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made. Copyright 2006

The EU must act with Troops
28.07.2006 - 14:31 CET | By Michael Shtender-Auerbach (COMMENT)

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - The international conference in Rome on July 26 offered hope that a consensus could be reached on a plan that would end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. But the conference ended without a resolution, and the members of the European Union are scrambling to salvage their first diplomatic attempt to end the current crisis. The EU should not be discouraged; it is capable of conducting a pro-active foreign policy and has the ability to commit the necessary financial, diplomatic, and military resources to bring stability and peace to the region. The EU must act decisively as a counterbalance to US unilateralism by proposing a European solution to the current crisis. The failure of the talks has been blamed on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was under siege from the European and Arab state participants who were calling for an immediate cease-fire. Dr. Rice remained steadfast in her demand that any cease-fire must be preceded by the disarmament of Hezbollah.

In true diplomatic fashion, humanitarian and reconstruction aid were agreed upon, but the hypocrisy of Washington doling out reconstruction aid to Lebanon with one hand and missiles to Israel with the other did not go unnoticed. However, the chief problem is that the EU, which has an unprecedented opportunity to bring regional stability and an end to the deadly conflict between Israel and its neighbours, is holding back, as if it needs a permission slip from the United States before it can act.

EU must send troops

Unlike the US, whose inaction in the face of the widening catastrophe has squandered its bona fides as a negotiator for peace, the EU is still a credible broker in the region; Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority are members of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) - their relationship yields more than $45 billion in trade annually. The EU also has normalized diplomatic and trade relations with Iran, the implicit puppet-master of this proxy war.The European Union should consider the immediate dispatch of its EU Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) - invoking the EU Rapid Reaction Mechanism (RRM) - to southern Lebanon. The RRF is a European military force that can be triggered in situations of crisis and armed conflict,and falls under the auspices of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Its development was predicated on the idea that the EU needs a force that can act independently of US-led NATO missions. The RRF's mandate limits its deployment to six months, which would afford enough time for Europe to build a semi-permanent EU force like the one deployed in the Balkans, or ideally, the development and deployment of the Lebanese army to secure its own peace.

Moving in this direction is necessary for a number of reasons. For one thing, Dr. Rice's desire to see a US-led NATO force deployed to southern Lebanon with the charge of ridding the area of Hezbollah operatives entirely, involves NATO deployment for ninety days, after which a UN-sponsored force would take charge. However, France's president Jacques Chirac, who would support an EU force, opposes the idea of a NATO-led force, stating, As far as France is concerned, it is not NATO's mission to put together such a force..Whether we like it or not, NATO is perceived as the armed wing of the west in these regions, and as a result, in terms of image, NATO is not intended for this. Thus, if Washington continues to push for a NATO force, the Atlantic alliance is at risk of collapse. Moreover, the United Nations is not up to the task: UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, has failed to keep the peace, loses its mandate at the end of this month, and has already suffered casualties in this war.

Solana's vision short-sighted

Another solution that would not work is that proposed by Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief and former secretary general of NATO, who has proposed an international force made up of troops from Europe, Turkey, and the Arab states (which would be almost all Sunni). Dr Solana's vision is short-sighted and likely has more to do with a desire to pawn the manpower needed onto Turkey and Egypt, even though Egypt has categorically stated that it will not be a part of such a force.The other problem with Dr. Solana's vision is that by putting Sunni boots on Shia ground, the possibility of more bloodshed and wider scale conflict increases dramatically. In Iraq, radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has voiced his support for Hezbollah (which is a Lebanese Islamic Shi'ite group), and announced he is recruiting an army to deploy to southern Lebanon. The case for an EU force must also take into account Europe's refusal to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, which opens the door for direct negotiations with hopes for the possibility that an EU force can maintain the peace without firing a shot.Israel also has indicated willingness for a highly trained European force to be deployed as a stabilization entity in Lebanon. In fact, this is the second time in a year that Israel has requested EU military assistance.

Back in November 2005, Israel asked EU monitors to guard the Gaza/Egyptian border. While the EU monitors had no mandate to use force, Israel requested it. Israel realizes that it needs international support now more than ever, and the Europeans would be remiss to squander this opportunity. On Tuesday, August 1, the EU foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting to discuss how best to organize a UN-mandated international force; a force that, the EU must be reminded, is readily at their disposal.

There is no time to waste. As Terje Roed Larsen, the United Nation's chief envoy for Syrian/Lebanese issues, just said, I do not feel confident that this war between Israel and Hezbollah has peaked yet.The European Union must act before it is too late.

Michael Shtender-Auerbach writes on foreign policy for New York-based think-tank The Century Foundation, and is press director for the Security and Peace Initiative, Century's joint venture with the Center for American Progress.