ISRAEL DENIES IRAN STRIKE READY

1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS. 2-Forecasters Place Islands Under Flash Flood Watch. 3-Malaysia flood toll at 17 as fresh rains hit. 4-Rain, heat and wind: robots go to blazes. 5-Mandelson Presses U.S. for Political Commitment on WTO Accord. 6-New Rabbinical Restrictions Against Hareidi Women´s Careerism. 7-Israel Denies Reports it Has Plans for Strike on Iran Nuclear Facility. 8-Bunker-buster strike planned for Iran's nukes.

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EARTHQUAKES

MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS (USGS)

Update time = Mon Jan 8 7:00:02 UTC 2007

JAN 08,07
MAP 2.7 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 2.8 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.6 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 5.3 SOLOMON ISLANDS

JAN 07,07
MAP 2.7 ALASKA PENINSULA
MAP 3.9 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 4.6 FIJI REGION
MAP 5.0 SOUTH OF ALASKA
MAP 3.1 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 3.4 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 3.0 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 2.8 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.0 MAULE, CHILE
MAP 5.0 MYANMAR
MAP 3.1 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 2.5 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 3.1 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.9 KURIL ISLANDS
MAP 3.0 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 2.7 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.8 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 3.3 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.7 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 4.4 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.7 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 3.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.2 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.7 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 2.8 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 5.0 NORWEGIAN SEA
MAP 5.0 GUAM REGION
MAP 3.4 NEVADA

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

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.

Forecasters Place Islands Under Flash Flood Watch
Brent Suyama, Managing Editor TheHawaiiChannel.com
Sun Jan 7, 12:46 PM ET

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for all of the Hawaiian Islands on Sunday until Wednesday. A Kona low northwest of the state is expected to hit by Sunday night, forecasters said. A Kona low usually brings moisture from south of the islands.Thunderstorms could strike the islands over night on Sunday, the NWS said. The forecasters predicted heavy downpours.

They warned residents, particularly those near streams, to be prepared for possible flooding.Sign up for severe weather alerts here at TheHawaiiChannel.com and stay with KITV 4 Island Television News for the latest weather updates.

Malaysia flood toll at 17 as fresh rains hit Sun Jan 7, 8:12 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - The death toll from floods in Malaysia has risen to 17 as fresh heavy downpours forced hundreds to evacuate in the country's north and the eastern state of Sabah.

The latest victim was a elderly man in Kota Marudu town in northern Sabah, where intermittent rain fell over the weekend, said Malaysia's crisis and disaster management chief.Che Moin Umar said conditions were expected to worsen in the coming days, with heavy rains forecast over the country's northern states.It will deteriorate ... I cannot say much whether it will be like Malacca and Johor, Che Moin told AFP, referring to two southern states worst hit by Malaysia's flood crisis so far.We are preparing for the worst-case scenario, he added.The meteorological department Sunday issued its highest red stage warning for heavy rains in the northern states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Perlis, Kedah, Penang, Perak, and central Pahang state until Wednesday.Moderate rain will also continue in Sabah into the week, it said.Che Moin said authorities had evacuated more than 150 people in Kelantan and Terengganu after rains on Saturday night sparked flooding.

Some 200 people were also evacuated over the weekend from the town of Beaufort in Sabah, he said.Conditions are easing in Johor, which has seen 15 of the 17 fatalities, although 16,455 people evacuated from the floods were still sheltering in relief centres on Sunday, said Malaysia's Bernama news agency.The number of people sheltering in relief centres nationwide peaked at 90,000 in the last week of December.Johor authorities said Sunday that it would cost some 60 million ringgit (17.08 million dollars) to repair flood-damaged infrastructure such as bridges, Bernama reported, as Health Minister Chua Soi Lek warned of dengue outbreaks.
There is a likelihood that we will see a sudden surge in the number of dengue cases in another two weeks if no effort is made to clean up the areas and rid them of stagnant water pools, Chua was quoted as saying from Johor.Victims have blamed the flash floods, the worst in decades, on environmental degradation and poor development planning.

FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS

REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

Rain, heat and wind: robots go to blazes
Daniella Miletic - January 8, 2007 (The Age)

EVERY 10 minutes, severe-weather experts receive emails with bushfire updates from eight of their most important firefighters: robotic weather stations that operate in some of the state's most remote areas.

Those emails from the edges of Victoria's bushfires are sent by satellite to the Bureau of Meteorology, where they are decoded and passed on to firefighters. Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Stuart Ord said the new solar-operated machines — known as portable automatic weather stations — are being used this bushfire season to help plan the assault on flames in the state's north-east and Gippsland region.The stations, which cost about $40,000 each, detect wind speeds and directions, rainfall, solar radiation, temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity.

Mr Ord said the eight machines were moved to the worst-affected fire areas.

They give localised weather conditions from the edge of a fire, so they are far more precise accounts than from permanent weather stations further away, Mr Ord said.Severe-weather meteorologist Monica Long said the stations were compact and easy to set up.

We know that we can put them anywhere, and that they will pick up what's happening, and we will be able to get the reading no matter how remote the terrain is, she said.Ms Long said staff placed the stations as close to the fire front as possible. Sometimes they were dropped in by helicopter if locations were difficult to get to by road.We are forecasting for lots of specific locations, particularly in areas where there is a lot of difference in elevation … like in the alpine region, where there are a lot of ridges and troughs and valleys where we don't have any fixed stations.

Country Fire Authority spokesman Matt Fraser said the stations were a key weapon in the fight against bushfires. Their most important function was their detection of wind change.Ms Long said Victoria was the first to adopt the technology last year, but South Australia, Western Australia and NSW were keen to buy stations.Although mostly used for bushfires, the technology was versatile, Ms Long said. Last year the stations were used to help track and predict wind changes during the locust outbreak.

Mandelson Presses U.S. for Political Commitment on WTO Accord
By Jennifer M. Freedman JAN 7,07

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson called for a strong new political commitment between the U.S. and EU to revive global trade negotiations that collapsed six months ago or risk delaying an accord for years. Mandelson will meet U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab in Washington tomorrow following talks between President George W. Bush and European Commission President Jose Barroso. The two trade officials are seeking ways to invigorate the talks with joint U.S.-EU leadership and use the narrow window between now and Easter to successfully complete the negotiations, the commission said in a statement. World Trade Organization negotiations broke down in July over disagreements on how to curb rich nations' aid to farmers. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has pressed larger governments to be more flexible, calling concessions by the EU, the U.S., India and Brazil vital to reviving the talks.

While negotiators resumed technical work in October, Lamy said last month that governments have failed to offer real changes in numbers of what they're prepared to concede. Governments have already agreed, in principle, to the biggest cuts in farm commodity tariffs ever in global trade talks and to eliminate export subsidies for agricultural goods. The commission says it's willing to improve its offer by adding substantially to the 39 percent it submitted a year ago. Europe is ready to add more than 10 percentage points and get within close reach of the average farm tariff cut demanded by developing countries, 51.5 percent, the commission said.

Real Cuts Needed

In return, the EU wants the U.S. to make real cuts to trade-distorting farm subsidies to levels near to those demanded by developing countries. This would mean a budget cut of about $8 billion from current ceilings of $23 billion, according to the commission, the 27-nation group's executive arm. The quiet, constructive bilateral contacts of the last few months have made clear to us all the possible outline of a final deal, Mandelson said. We now need the added momentum of political leadership from the highest level.

Trade talks may stall until 2009 unless negotiators clinch an accord before Bush's negotiating mandate from Congress expires in July, Lamy has said. Last week, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez kicked off the administration's drive for a renewal of its trade negotiating authority, which compels Congress to approve or reject trade agreements that the president negotiates without amending them. A deal would inject at least $96 billion into the world economy, the World Bank estimates. It may also lead to the creation of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of new trade annually -- an important boost to the U.S. and European economies, the commission said. Failure to wrap up a trade accord would handicap a global economy already faced with rising inflation, oil-price volatility and a slowing U.S. housing market, the International Monetary Fund said in September. To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer M. Freedman in Brussels at jfreedman@bloomberg.net.

New Rabbinical Restrictions Against Hareidi Women´s Careerism
By Gil Zohar JAN 07,07 (INN)

Rabbis' new restrictions on hareidi-religious women pursuing academic degrees will impair the ability of teachers to earn a living and support their families. Regulations by Israel’s Ministry of Education requiring a significant portion of the instructors who teach would-be educators to have a master’s degree or doctorate have set off a chain of events likely to lead to growing poverty in the hareidi-religious sector. Since there are a limited number of eligible hareidi professors with second or third degrees, hareidi education students have been exposed to a wide variety of teachers - leading hareidi rabbis to take action against what they perceive as unacceptable foreign influences.Thus the Rabbinical Committee on Education, the official body that sets educational policy for most of the hareidi community’s institutions, has issued new guidelines cancelling all academic programs resulting in a bachelor's degree. As well, a significant number of courses will be downgraded and a large number of lecturers will be fired.

The new rabbinic ruling is likely to dramatically impact on hareidi women in the workplace, many of whom earn a living as teachers. They will no longer be able to pursue academic degrees in education in Beit Yaakov, Israel's largest chain of educational institutions for women. The ruling is likely to limit their future earning capabilities, as teachers with advanced degrees earn more - and can find
more jobs - than those without them.The cancellation resulted from a growing concern among rabbis that hareidi women were being taught inappropriate materials, or were being instructed by professors too far removed from a religious outlook.For some reason, we have found, in recent years, that courses are taught by foreign lecturers, ran an editorial in Bayit Ne’eman, the women’s supplement of Yated Ne'man, Israel's largest circulation hareidi newspaper. Some of these lecturers belong to the Mizrachi stream, and others, to great shame, are secular through and through... there is danger here of contamination.The entry of large numbers of hareidi women into the workforce followed the bankruptcy in 1992 of Olympia & York Developments - the privately-owned Toronto, Canada-based real estate firm whch was building the huge Canary Wharf project in London, Britain. As a result, the Reichmann family, the billionaire patrons who had subsidized much of Israel's hareidi world, were compelled to curtail their once vast philanthropy.

In addition, the sharp budget cuts suffered by the hareidi population under Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have also had their effect on the hareidi families, leading more women to see employment outside the home.Thus was engendered a subtle revolution in the hareidi sector in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and elsewhere. Pressed to support their Torah-studying husbands and large families, increasing numbers of ultra-Orthodox women joined the workforce, a trend endorsed by several key rabbis and seen by many as essential to the community’s economic health.The recent decree against higher education, described as an earthquake by the Yated Ne’eman newspaper, was issued by a group of rabbis who set the community’s educational policies, and was led by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv of Jerusalem (pictured above).Rabbi Elyashiv, 96, is the paramount leader of Israel's Lithuanian non-Hasidic hareidi Ashkenazi Jews (sometimes called by the old label of misnagdim) who regard him as the posek ha-dor (decisor of the generation), the modern leading authority on halakhah, or Jewish law.

The ruling, said Bar Ilan University’s Prof. Menachem Friedman, one of Israel’s leading authorities on the hareidi community, is an extreme move but nonetheless in step with socioeconomic trends sweeping the hareidi community for years.The hareidi leaders, Friedman told The New York Jewish Week, are gradually losing control of their followers, as their society increasingly depends for its survival on women, traditionally cast as mothers and homemakers, earning a living by interacting with Israeli society at large.

In an interview with Yated Ne’eman, unnamed conservative sources in the hareidi community claimed that the move was a response to a growing aspiration for careerism among women, a trend, the sources said, that was against religious principles.It cannot be, Rabbi Eliyashiv told Yated Ne’eman recently, that teachers who are supposed to educate the daughters of Israel and teach in ‘Beit Yaakov will take all sorts of courses, without the great rabbis being involved in every detail of what is being taught and who is teaching. Without supervision and a direct setting of the curriculum, it is inevitable that courses might be littered with words of heresy.

Prior to the cancellations, graduates of Beit Yaakov’s high schools would enroll in teachers’ seminaries, obtaining a certificate allowing them to teach in hareidi educational institutions after two years, and another certificate enabling them to become teachers in any Israeli educational institution after three.

Until now, most women pursued a fourth year of study, which awarded them the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree, a distinction that allows teachers to advance professionally and increase their salary.The new decree effectively cancelled the fourth-year option, and may have an indirect effect on the third-year route as well.Further, the new decree specifies that women who have already completed the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree would be at a disadvantage if they apply for a job at any institution affiliated with Beit Yaakov.Sarah Ziv, director of the department of teacher training in the Ministry of Education, told the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz that while the academic courses were designed in full coordination with the hareidi rabbis, it is obvious that we will not give up the demand that whoever teaches education have a master’s degree in the field.

The decision is bound to have much influence on other fervently Orthodox streams. The Gerrer (Gur) sect, for example, one of Israel’s largest hasidic sects, has traditionally aligned itself with whatever the Rabbinical Committee on Education, which is hareidi but not hasidic, has decreed. It is still unclear how other hasidic rabbis — including the fifth Belzer Rebbe Yissachar Dov Rokeach, who has traditionally been more open to secular education — will react.According to Bar Ilan’s Friedman, the decree is likely to have far-reaching implications, ones that will likely exacerbate the already grim economic situation of the haredi community. When you deny an entire society the ability to fit in with the modern economy, you deny it of its only mean of surviving in modern life, he said. Friedman added that the move is likely to put a greater strain on Israeli society as a whole, as less hareidi earning power will mean less contributions toward pension funds and more strain on the system at large.I’m an Israeli patriot, he said, and a Jewish patriot, and I’m weeping for the state and for these women.

Israel Denies Reports it Has Plans for Strike on Iran Nuclear Facility
By Robert Berger - Jerusalem - 07 January 2007 (VOA News)

Israel is denying a report in a British newspaper that the country has drawn up secret plans to target Iran's nuclear facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Speculation has been rife about an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran since the Iranian president threatened to destroy the Jewish state. Robert Berger reports from the VOA bureau in Jerusalem. Israel's Foreign Ministry denied a report in London's Sunday Times that said the Israeli air force is training for a tactical nuclear strike on uranium enrichment facilities in Iran. Quoting Israeli military sources, the paper said the secret plan involves using low-yield nuclear bunker busters. The report said Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 3,000-kilometer round-trip flight to Iranian targets.

But, in a brief statement, the Foreign Ministry said Israel prefers diplomacy, including full implementation of U.N. sanctions on Iran.At the same time, Israel believes those sanctions are not strong enough. Israeli analyst Cameron Brown:They are very, very light sanctions, and very limited in scope. Sanctions that have been imposed are totally insufficient to convince the Iranians that the price is far too high to bear, Brown says.Brown says what is needed is a series of sanctions .that are going to have to become much, much more comprehensive, and going to have to be much more penetrating, if they are going to have any chance of success at all, he says.More than a year ago, the Iranian president threatened to wipe Israel off the map, and, since then, Israeli officials have said repeatedly that they cannot allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. The Israeli air force destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, but an attack on Iran is much more complicated. Iran's nuclear facilities are spread out and fortified deep underground in concrete. Therefore, some experts believe the only way Israel can destroy Iran's nuclear facilities is with tactical nuclear weapons.

NUCLEAR WAR-FEAR - Bunker-buster strike planned for Iran's nukes
Israelis training for tactical atomic weapons against Tehran's uranium-enrichment facilities January 6, 2007 - 8:00 p.m. Eastern - WorldNetDaily.com

The Sunday London Times is reporting that Israel has drawn up secret plans to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy uranium-enrichment sites in Iran.

Two Israeli air force squadrons have been training for a mission against an enrichment plant in Natanz using low-yield nuclear bunker busters, Israeli military sources told the Times. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. WND reported Israel's training against a mock-up of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant in March 2005. Tactics included raids by Israel's elite Shaldag commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from the 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs purchased from the U.S. to penetrate underground facilities. Today's Times story reveals two other sites that would be targeted with conventional weapons: a heavy water plant at Arak capable of producing bomb-grade plutonium and a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, where 250 tons of gas for the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels.

The plan calls for conventional laser-guided bombs opening tunnels at Natanz, with mini-nukes following close behind, exploding underground and limiting the area affected by radioactive fallout. Thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium enrichment at the Natanz site. Scientists agree that contamination from the bunker-busters would be limited, but tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be still be released, they say. Three potential routes – one over Turkey – have been selected for the mission. Israeli pilots have been training in recent weeks by flying mock runs between Israel and Gibralter in anticipation of the 2,000-mile round-trip flight to Iran. As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished, said one of the Times sources.

A growing consensus in Israel's military says conventional strikes may no longer be adequate to destroy enrichment facilities built beneath 70 feet of concrete and rock. While tactical atomic weapons are prominently featured in the current planning, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would reportedly be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the U.S. declined to intervene. Pentagon sources were skeptical that the U.S. would give approval to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Israel sought U.S. approval after the event for the 1981 airstrike that crippled Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak and one source said it would probably do so again. Israel believes Iran would be constrained from retaliation with its Shehab-3 ballistic missiles by fear of a second strike. This is not the first time Israel's planning for a strike on Iran has been reported. As WND reported in December 2005, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered defense forces to plan for a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities by the end of March 2006 – the time intelligence sources were saying Tehran would be able to begin producing nuclear weapons. Israel – and not only Israel – cannot accept a nuclear Iran, Sharon warned. We have the ability to deal with this and we're making all the
necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation.