US HOUSING SLUMP FUELS CRASH FEARS

1-Hurricane John menaces Mexican resorts. 2-Feeble Ernesto headed for Carolinas. 3-Chavez vows solidarity with Syria against U.S., Israel. 4-Israel First in Multiple Births; Moslem Births - Down. 5-EU suffering from 'general fatigue', says France. 6-US housing slump fuels crash fears.

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;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
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.

Hurricane John menaces Mexican resorts By Karina Tejada
Wed Aug 30, 3:34 PM ET

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - Hurricane John grew into a dangerous Category 4 storm just off Mexico's Pacific coast on Wednesday, threatening beach resorts with heavy rain and searing winds and blowing down trees in Acapulco. Home to some 1 million people, Acapulco had sea surges of up to 10 feet. Emergency workers were on alert for mudslides and flash floods as John trekked along the coast, packing winds of 135 mph (215 kph), with higher gusts.The Miami-based National Hurricane Center upgraded John to Category 4, the second-strongest hurricane grade and capable of extensive damage if it hits the coast directly.

It said John had drifted slightly closer to the coast and could gain even more punch over the next 24 hours.Emergency workers were most immediately worried about Ixtapa, Zihuatanejo and Manzanillo, which are popular with U.S. and Canadian sailfish fishermen.

Nadya Velas of the civil protection agency in Guerrero state, said there were no plans to evacuate tourists or residents for the moment.But we are ready for any scenario.On its current track, John could slam directly into the plush beach and golf resort of Los Cabos on the tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula later this week.We're watching it real closely. Everyone's taking it very seriously,said Minerva Saenz, who charters boats out to tourists in Los Cabos for deep sea fishing trips.Although there has been no major damage so far, hotels warned guests of the possible dangers.

REFUGEES

If a hurricane comes, they are no longer guests, they are refugees,said Jean Louis Magron, the resident manager of the Dreams Los Cabos Suites, a big hotel on the beach.Last October, Hurricane Wilma smashed up Cancun and other beach resorts on Mexico's Caribbean coast, causing massive damage, sucking away large stretches of beach and stranding tens of thousands of tourists in makeshift shelters for several days.A hurricane warning was in effect on Wednesday from the steel-making port of Lazaro Cardenas to Cabo Corrientes, further northwest.While the center of John is forecast to remain just offshore, hurricane force winds are still expected to reach the coast within the warning area,the National Hurricane Center said.John was moving slowly northwest parallel to the coast on Wednesday afternoon, about 70 miles southwest of Lazaro Cardenas.

Category 4 hurricanes can destroy mobile homes, deal major damage to lower floors of structures close to the shore. Land lower than 10 feet above sea level may be flooded and require massive evacuations.Rainfall of 4 to 8 inches, with isolated deluges of 12 inches, was possible along the coast in the warning areas.The U.S. hurricane center warned that rain could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides over areas of mountainous terrain. The storm formed on Monday and became a Category 1 hurricane early on Tuesday before being upgraded two notches inside a few hours. (Additional reporting by Chris Aspin and Gunther Hamm)

Feeble Ernesto headed for Carolinas By Jim Loney
1 hour, 8 minutes ago

MIAMI (Reuters) - Ernesto plodded across Florida on Wednesday, soaking a state relieved that the once-menacing cyclone had fizzled a year after destructive Hurricane Katrina. With its winds flagging as it limped northward over the Florida peninsula, the U.S. National Hurricane Center stripped Ernesto of tropical-storm status and downgraded it to a tropical depression.Ernesto, the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season's fifth storm, could regain some strength when it moves off northeast Florida into the Atlantic Ocean.

Forecasters expected it to curve back into land along the South Carolina coast on Thursday.A tropical storm warning was in effect from central Florida to Cape Lookout, North Carolina, but a hurricane watch for coastal areas of the Carolinas was lifted as the storm appeared incapable of regaining the 74 mph (119 kph) winds needed for hurricane status.At 5 p.m. (2100 GMT), Ernesto's sustained winds were about 35 mph (56 kph), the hurricane center said. The center of the system was still over Florida, about 55 miles south-southwest of Cape Canaveral.

Ernesto has the potential to regain tropical storm strength on Thursday over the Atlantic,the hurricane center said.North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley activated 150 National Guard soldiers and said two rescue helicopters were standing by in case of flooding.

Neighboring South Carolina activated 240 National Guard troops on Tuesday.One of the greatest dangers will be flooded roads, Easley said.Do not drive in flood waters. Most deaths from flooding occur in automobiles.

FAR CRY FROM KATRINA

There appeared to be little cleanup needed in Florida. Tourists were allowed to return to the Florida Keys on Wednesday and state parks were reopened.Florida Power & Light, the state's largest electric company, said it had 7,500 customers without power and had restored service to 10,000 others. Schools across the region were set to reopen on Thursday.It was a far cry from encounters with hurricanes Wilma and Katrina last year. Wilma knocked out power to more than 90 percent of south Florida residents in October and caused $12 billion in damage.Katrina caused more than $500 million in insured losses in Florida before slamming into the Gulf coast on August 29, where it killed about 1,500 people, swamped New Orleans and caused $80 billion in damage.Ernesto's weakened state as it hit Florida was a puzzle to forecasters, who had predicted it could become a hurricane over the warm waters of the Florida Straits after bashing Cuba.

Despite sophisticated computers, storm-tracking aircraft, satellites and radar, forecasting the intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes lags 10 or 15 years behind forecasting a storm's future track, National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield said.

The intensity forecast is almost like putting a million-piece jigsaw puzzle together and some of those pieces to the puzzle don't have any color on them and some of those pieces are missing, he said. It's very, very difficult.Before hitting Cuba and Florida, Ernesto lashed Haiti, where officials blamed it for two deaths.

PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)

Chavez vows solidarity with Syria against U.S., Israel By Khaled Yacoub Oweis Wed Aug 30, 12:32 PM ET

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pledged solidarity on Wednesday with Syria in its struggle against Israel and the United States and predicted the demise of U.S. imperialism. Chavez, a harsh critic of U.S. foreign policy, also said he would seek a front-row seat if President George W. Bush accepted an invitation from Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a televised debate, adding he would be cheering on the Iranian president.Syria and Venezuela share the same firm positions and a resistance to imperialism and imperialist aggression,Chavez told a news conference after talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, speaking in Spanish through an Arab interpreter.This age will witness the end of American imperialism,he said, pointing a laser pen at a map of the world showing countries where Washington has intervened militarily or whose governments it has helped to topple over the last 50 years.

Chavez denounced what he called Israel's Nazi crimes in Lebanon during the recent war and said the Jewish state should pull its remaining troops out of that country and also out of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967.Nothing equals the Nazi crimes Israel has committed in Lebanon and against the Palestinians, said Chavez, who arrived in Syria on Tuesday evening from Malaysia.Chavez's popularity shot up across the Arab world after he ordered Venezuela's envoy to Israel home earlier this month to protest Israel's military offensive against Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Many civilians died in the fighting.He has threatened to break off diplomatic ties with Israel.

FIGHTING IMPERIALISM

Commenting on Iranian President Ahmadinejad's challenge to Bush on Tuesday to discuss the world's problems in a televised debate, Chavez said: I wish I could be sitting at the front row and watch Ahmadinejad deal Bush a knock-out blow.The White House has called the proposal a diversion.The U.N. Security Council has given Iran until Thursday to suspend its uranium enrichment program or possibly face sanctions.Ahmadinejad has shocked the West with his calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. He and Chavez established a warm rapport when the Venezuelan leader visited Tehran last month.Chavez, a robust ex-paratrooper, has courted other anti-U.S. leaders from Belarus to Cuba in recent months as he tries to build a broad global coalition against imperialism.After Chavez's talks on Wednesday with Assad at a hilltop palace overlooking both Damascus and the Golan Heights, the two countries signed a raft of deals on cooperation in sectors ranging from agriculture to oil.The United States imposed sanctions on Syria in 2004 for allegedly backing terrorism. Damascus shrugged off calls by Washington, Israel's chief ally, to pressure Hizbollah to accept Israel's demands during the recent war.

Israel First in Multiple Births; Moslem Births - Down
By Hillel Fendel(INN)

The Central Bureau of Statistics has found that some 100,000 Jewish babies were born in Israel in 2005, maintaining a steady rate, while some 34,000 Moslems were born - a drop of some 5.6%.

Other findings:
Israel is in first place in the world in multiple-baby births, largely because of the high rate of fertility treatments in the country. In 2003, 5% of all Jewish babies were born in multiple-baby births, compared with only 3.4% of Moslems. The number of such babies born in Israel has risen 29% over the past decade.

Moslem Births - Down
Of the 143,913 babies born in Israel in 2005, 70% were born to Jewish mothers, 24% - Moslem, 2% - Druze, and 1% - Christian Arab. The nearly 1% drop in births from the previous year was largly due to the 5.6% drop in Moslem births. After remaining at a
steady 4.6 or 4.7 births per Moslem woman for some 15 years, this rate has dropped sharply over the past five years to 4. The Jewish sector has remained steady for more than a decade at around 2.6-2.7 births per woman. The number of Druze births has dropped over the past 15 years from an average of 4.1 babies per woman to 2.6. The number of Christian births dropped from 2.7 per woman in 1996 to 2.2 last year.

Single Mothers
Among the Jewish births, 5.5%, or 5,498, were born to single mothers. In 2004, there were 6.6 births for every 1,000 single women, up from 3.6 fifteen years ago.

More Boys
For every 200 baby girls born in 2005, 211 male babies were born.

Young Mothers
In the past decade, the fertility of mothers under the age of 20 dropped by 19%, to a total of just over 4,100 births.In the past decade, the average age in Israel of a mother at her first birth rose by 17 months, to 26.6 years old.

REVELATION 6:1-2,13:1-3,7-9,16
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.(THIS IS THE EU DICTATOR)
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.(7 HEADS ARE THE 7TH WORLD EMPIRE IN HISTORY (THE EU) AS WELL AS THE VATICAN WHICH IS BUILT ON 7 HILLS. 10 HORNS ARE 10 KINGS THAT ARISE FROM THE EU, THEN #11 COMES ON THE SCENE BECOMES THE HEAD OF 3 OUNTRIES AND THEN THE EU DICTATOR, COMES FROM 1 OF THE 3 COUNTRIES THAT RULE FOR THIS TERM. I BELIEVE THE 3 COUNTRIES RULING AT THE TIME ARE SPAIN AND 2 OF THE ORIGINAL 6 THAT STARTED THE EU. FROM 1 OF THESE 3 COUNTRIES COME THE FUTURE EU DICTATOR PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION WHO GUARENTEES ISRAELS SECURITY FOR A LAND FOR PEACE 7 YEAR TREATY.
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.(THE JEWISH EU DICTATOR GETS HIS POWER FROM
SATAN,HE COMES FROM THE OCCULT).
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.(THE DICTATOR HAS A FALSE RESURRECTION. JUST LIKE JESUS HAD A LITERAL RESURRECTION THIS DICTATOR GETS MURDERED AT THE 3 1/2 YR MARK OF THR 7 YEAR TREATY AND COMES BACK TO LIFE. THIS IS HOW HE CAN
CLAIM TO BE GOD AND GET AWAY WITH IT AND CONTROL THE WHOLE EARTH.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

DANIEL 11:36-40
36 And the king shall do according to his will;(EU PRESIDENT) 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,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS A EUROPEAN JEW) 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:(HES A MILITARY GINIUS) 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 (CONTROL HEZBOLLAH,AL-QUAIDA MURDERERS ETC) with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south(EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR PROTECTING ISRAELS SECURITY) and the king of the north(RUSSIA) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships;
and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.

EU suffering from 'general fatigue', says France
30.08.2006 - 09:54 CET | By Honor Mahony(EU OBSERVER)

France's Europe minister has given a strongly pessimistic view of the state of the European Union suggesting it is suffering from general fatigue.Speaking at the annual gathering of French ambassadors on Tuesday (29 August), Catherine Colonna said the functioning of the union – and more generally the state of the union – appears worrying to me.It is not that there is a crisis, that is not the case, the European Union is rather suffering from a sort of illness of apathy, from general fatigue.

She went on to say that this does not augur well for its future capacity to respond to the needs of its people.Nobody can understand why the Europeans are unable to help one another in an organised fashion in fighting forest fires or in coordinating the evacuations of their nationals from Lebanon,she pointed out.Ms Colonna, who used to be president Jacques Chirac's spokesperson, suggested three reasons for Europe's current situation.

Enlargement and globalisation

The first is the bloc's enlargement to take on countries from central and eastern Europe which has profoundly changed…the nature of the European project.She said that member states are happy to continue to pretend that the same European project is being pursued but just with more countries.Ms Colonna also highlighted globalisation – being a destabilising element for the classic European model – as another reason and a change in what is expected from the EU as the third reason.

There is practically no problem that arises that does not result in people turning towards Europe to see what it can do to resolve it,said the minister adding that the EU is not ready to respond.Can the European Union carry on at this pace for long? Can Europe even take crucial decisions any more,she asked before concluding: We need a more fundamental start, if we are to avoid the risk of the European Union
collapsing.Ms Colonna's warning comes just a day after president Chirac criticised Europe's foreign policy saying that it failed when it came to its response to Lebanon.The future of the European project is today predicated on Europe's ability to be a leading political player, the president told the same audience of ambassadors.

France's role in the EU

Their words also reflect a greater unease and lack of satisfaction with France's overall role in Europe.A founding member of the EU, it has been perplexed by the addition of the economically liberal new member states making it have to fight to preserve the French social model.It has also seen a decline in its overall influence as the EU expanded and a reduction in the use of the French language - which is strongly tied to the perception of the country's status.French voters last year also rejected the European Constitution, with fears about jobs and job security - embodied in an EU law on opening up the services market - seen as a large contributing factor to the vote.

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

US housing slump fuels crash fears
Foundering American property market could spark global slowdown worse than dotcom collapse Heather Stewart, economics correspondent,Sunday August 27, 2006,The Observer

The downturn in the US housing market will force businesses to slash 73,000 jobs a month in the new year and could be more damaging to the world economy than the dotcom crash, economists have warned.After official figures last week showed that the number of new homes sold in July was 22 per cent lower than a year earlier, while prices were almost flat, fears are mounting that the 'orderly' housing slowdown predicted by the Federal Reserve will become a full-blown crash.Things do seem to be getting worse very quickly. Freefall is a strong word, but I think it's the right one to use here,' said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital
Economics.House prices have been rising at unprecedented double-digit rates in recent years, giving homeowners massive windfalls and supporting a wave of investment in new construction. However, the number of unsold new homes is now at a 10-year high.

Ashworth reckons 30 per cent of all the jobs created since the end of the last recession in 2001 - 1.4 million - have been in sectors related to the housing market boom, from construction to DIY stores. As the boom runs out of steam, Capital calculates that 73,000 jobs a month will be lost.The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged for the first time in 18 meetings earlier this month, as chairman Ben Bernanke weighed the risks of high inflation and the threat to growth from the long-expected housing market crunch.

Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, predicts that the property slowdown will shave at least 2 percentage points off GDP growth next year, taking the US perilously close to recession, as construction spending plummets and homeowners lose the cushion of extra wealth that comes from rapid price rises.For a wealth-dependent US economy, the bursting of another major asset bubble is likely to be a very big deal,he said, warning that, with US fiscal and trade imbalances now larger than five years ago, the fallout for the rest of the world could be more devastating than the aftermath of the dotcom boom. A bursting of the property bubble
poses equally serious risks for America's key trading partners and for the rest of an increasingly integrated global economy,he added.

Anxieties about the fragile US housing sector come as analysts in the UK debate whether this month's rise in interest rates will dent prices here. Property website Hometrack will warn tomorrow that the so-called mini-boom that has buoyed the market in London over the past few months will be snuffed out by higher mortgage costs.Fionnuala Earley, group economist at Nationwide, said she believed the market could ride out the rate hike, but expects it to slow going into the new year. There are supportive factors: buy-to-let figures are strong, and immigration suggests there's going to be tenant demand, and there are property supply constraints,she said. 'But if the MPC's raising rates, it's a warning shot, and people are going to think again about whether they should move and whether they should stretch themselves.