15 TRUCK FIRE IN LA TUNNEL

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.

Haiti floods leave 45 dead Sat Oct 13, 2:12 AM ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) - At least 45 people have died in the poverty-stricken island of Haiti as homes were swept away in floods triggered by heavy rain, the interior ministry said Friday. Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told AFP 23 bodies had been found Thursday in Cabaret, just north of the capital, and 12 were missing after floodwaters hit their hillside homes, sweeping them away in the current.The water carried off people living in houses built on the hillside, sweeping them into the town, the minister said.More than 6,000 people have had to leave their flooded homes in Cabaret, where neighborhoods have been completely submerged, witnesses told radio stations in Port-au-Prince.

The mountainous and impoverished Caribbean island nation faces regular flash-flooding during the rainy season. Deforestation, which heightens the risk of flooding, is rife as the poor collect every scrap of wood for cooking.Civil protection authorities said thousands of families were displaced and hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged across the country. Roads were swamped and plantations wiped out.Farming has been particularly affected and numerous crops have been destroyed, Bien-Aime said.Apart from Cabinet, further casualties were reported in other villages after more than a week of rain. The ministry said the provisional death toll for the whole of the country was at least 45.The government released funds to send food and beds to the stricken areas and the United Nations has offered to help. It already has thousands of peacekeepers in the country, whose problems were compounded by violent political strife in recent years.

In eastern Cuba, just west of Haiti, civil defense officials evacuated more than 18,000 people amid flooding concerns from the same weather system, which damaged at least 1,000 homes there.And in Nicaragua at least 1,000 were evacuated in the Chinandega region of the northeast, were a flood alert was issued, emergency services told AFP. Heavy rain there has caused major rivers to flood their banks.

MUSLIM NATIONS

EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

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,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)

Rice worried by Putin's broad powers By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer OCT 13,07

MOSCOW - The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has amassed so much central authority that the power-grab may undermine Moscow's commitment to democracy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday. In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development, Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma, said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.Telephone messages left with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov were not immediately returned Saturday evening.The top American diplomat encouraged the activists to build institutions of democracy. These would help combat arbitrary state power amid increasing pressure from the Kremlin, she said.

The U.S. is concerned about the centralization of power and democratic backsliding ahead of Russia's legislative and presidential elections in December and March. Putin will step down next year as president. He has said he would lead the ticket of the main pro-Kremlin party in the parliamentary elections and could take the prime minister's job later.Rice sought opinions and assessments of the situation from eight prominent rights leaders.
I talked to people about the coming months and how they see the coming months. How these two elections are carried out will have an effect on whether Russia is making the next step on toward democracy, Rice said after the private sessions at Spaso House, the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Moscow.Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday received a chilly reception from Putin and senior Russian officials on U.S. proposals for cooperating on a missile defense system in Eastern Europe that Russia vehemently opposes.But as she has in the past, Rice declined comment on Putin's possible political future and said she did not raise the matter in her official discussions.Although she would not speculate about Putin's ambitions, Rice said there were signs that whatever transition occurs could be smooth.

To the degree that anyone can predict, it looks like it will be fairly stable, she said. But, I would just caution that change is change.Earlier, Rice said she hoped the efforts of rights activists would promote universal values of the rights of individuals to liberty and freedom, the right to worship as you please, and the right to assembly, the right to not have to deal with the arbitrary power of the state.In the meeting with business, media and civil society leaders, Rice said she was especially interested in talking about how you view (the) political evolution of Russia, the economic evolution of Russia.

Russia is a country that's in transition and that transition is not easy and there are a lot of complications and a lot of challenges, Rice said. If Russia is to emerge as a democratic country that can fully protect the rights of its people, it is going to emerge over years and you have to be a part of helping the emergence of that Russia.Participants in the meetings said they outlined their concerns but that she did not offer any judgments about the state of human rights and democracy under Putin.Lyudmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group told the Interfax news agency her organization sees the purposeful construction of an authoritarian society and an onslaught on the people's rights, elections are being turned into farce, and human rights and opposition organizations are experiencing pressure.
Alexander Brod, head of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, said the discussions touched on authoritarianism and the crisis of human rights. He said he disagreed with the opinion that we had a flourishing democracy in the 1990s and that we have a setback now.
Not all is ideal in America, either. We see protests against the war in Iraq and violations of human rights on the part of security services and violations of human rights in countering terrorism, Brod said.

Vladimir Lukin, the government-appointed human rights ombudsman, was quoted by Interfax as saying he told Rice that human rights should be discussed in a dialogue rather lecturing in a doomsday style. The State Department frequently has criticized what Washington regards as creeping authoritarianism among Putin and other top Russian leaders. Its most recent human-rights report on Russia notes continuing centralization of power in the Kremlin, a compliant legislature, political pressure on the judiciary, intolerance of ethnic minorities, corruption and selectivity in enforcement of the law, and media restrictions and self-censorship. Rice and Gates later met with Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov for talks on trade and economic relations, including negotiations for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization. Moscow and Washington signed a trade agreement last November that removed the last major obstacle in Moscow's 13-year journey to join the 149-member group. Moscow must still conclude other outstanding bilateral deals and assuage the European Union's concerns about energy supplies. The Russian government press service said Zubkov also pressed the Americans to work to abolish the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The 1974 measure ties Russia's trade status to whether it freely allows Jewish emigration.

Iran calls on Muslims to boycott peace conference By Parisa Hafezi OCT 13,07

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's top cleric urged Muslim countries on Saturday to boycott a U.S.-sponsored international peace conference on Palestinian statehood next month. Opposition to Israel is one of the cornerstones of belief of Shi'ite Iran, which backs Palestinian and Lebanese Islamic militant groups opposed to peace with the Jewish state.When Palestinians consider this conference as deceitful and refuse to participate, how can Muslim countries take part in that?" Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a sermon broadcast live on state media.Other (Muslim) countries also should consider it a deceitful conference.

The United States is optimistic Palestinians and Israelis will agree to a joint document on the tough issues that divide them before the conference in November.Washington has backed the idea of a small territorial exchange between Israel and a future Palestine so that Palestinians would be compensated for Jewish settlement blocs that would remain under Israeli control in any peace deal.Negotiations on core issues such as the borders of a Palestinian state and the future of Jerusalem and millions of Palestinian refugees broke down in 2001 amid surging violence. Since its 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran refuses to recognize Israel.Under the name of seizing peace, Americans are trying to impose their will on Palestinians. This conference's aim is to rescue the Zionist regime (Israel), Khamenei said..

Iran's most powerful authority also said the United States and its western allies were to be blamed for instability and the bloodshed in Iraq.The occupiers of Iraq are the ones to be blamed for the insecurity in Iraq. They are not capable or they do not want to establish security in Iraq, he said.The United States and Israel accuse Iran of interference in Iraq, through backing Shi'ite militias, and of sponsoring terrorism, including the Palestinian group Hamas and Hezbollah. Tehran denies the charges.The United States and Iran, who have not had diplomatic ties since shortly after Iran's revolution, are also embroiled in a deepening rift over Tehran's nuclear program, which the West says is a cover to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies it.Khamenei, the spiritual heir of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who led Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, addressed tens of thousands of worshippers who gathered at a large mosque in Tehran to mark the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday ending the Ramadan fasting month in Iran.America and its allies are responsible for ... human and political catastrophe in Iraq, he said.

This Week with Rabbi Eckstein
October 11, 2007
Dear Friend of The Fellowship,

Each spring, Israel celebrates Jerusalem Day, commemorating the reunification of the city under Israeli rule following the 1967 Six Day War. It is a joyous occasion a day set aside to reflect upon the significance of this ancient and Holy City to the Jewish people, and to celebrate the fact that, after thousands of years, it is once again the capital of a sovereign Jewish state.Just last week, another Jerusalem Day was observed throughout the Arab and Muslim Middle East. Supposedly meant to rally support for Palestinians and reaffirm the importance of Jerusalem to Muslims, it was instead little more than another occasion for hostile governments to issue hateful verbal attacks and threats against Israel.

These attacks were especially vicious. Speaking before a crowd shouting “death to Israel” in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a speech calling Israel’s existence an insult to human dignity. In Gaza, an Islamic Jihad terrorist leader declared, Israel is a cancerous tumor that has sprouted in the region, but we will continue the jihad and the resistance until Jerusalem is liberated. At a rally in the Syrian capital of Damascus, a banner read, Palestine is ours, from the sea to the river.Meanwhile, as her enemies come together to call for her destruction, Israel continues to seek peace. Recent news reports say that Israel is even considering giving the Palestinians control over parts of Jerusalem. This shows again that Israel is operating in good faith and is prepared to make painful sacrifices for real, lasting peace. However, Palestinian leadership has yet to show a similar willingness to compromise and fulfill commitments made at the negotiating table. For that reason, there is every reason for Israel to carefully consider the possible implications of such a transfer, to proceed with extreme caution, and to ensure that any agreement reached with the Palestinians on Jerusalem requires them to follow through on their promises.

Obviously, putting any part of the Holy City in the wrong hands could have devastating consequences for Israel. No one understands this better than Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. He has written a new book called “The Fight for Jerusalem” that I strongly recommend to help you stay informed and stand firm in your support for Israel.Ambassador Gold shows how Jerusalem has become the battleground in an increasingly heated conflict between the West and radical Islam. He highlights the historical and biblical connections of Jews and Christians to Jerusalem, and documents how Islamists are destroying precious archeological artifacts in an attempt to convince the world that those connections are merely myths. The Fight for Jerusalem also provides insight into how Jerusalem is seen as the launching pad for global jihadism. You can purchase this important book from our catalog and when you do, proceeds will go to fund The Fellowship’s lifesaving programs that benefit Israel and Jewish people worldwide.

I believe that Gold’s book makes a compelling case that we are witnessing a pivotal time in history. Now, more than ever, we need to heed the ancient words of the psalmist: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels (Psalm 122:6). Please join me today in this prayer for the Israel and the Holy City, which my friend, former Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon, called, “the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

With prayers for shalom, peace,
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS

Hamas warns Abbas peace talks a trap By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer Sat Oct 13, 1:39 AM ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas' top leaders in Gaza and Syria warned the moderate Palestinian president Friday not to fall into the trap of an upcoming U.S.-sponsored peace conference with Israel. Ismail Haniyeh, who was deposed as Palestinian prime minister after Hamas violently seized Gaza in June, urged President Mahmoud Abbas to mend his rift with the Islamic militant group and criticized him for planning to attend the peace conference next month.Don't fall into the trap of the coming conference. Don't make new compromises on Jerusalem, on our sovereignty, Haniyeh said, speaking to thousands of cheering supporters for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday.Hamas' Syria-based supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, echoed the warning in his own holiday message, accusing Israel and the U.S. of taking advantage of the Palestinian rift to try to wrest concessions in peace negotiations.

Abbas retaliated for Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip by expelling the group from his government and setting up his own administration in the West Bank. Mashaal urged Abbas to accept the Islamists' invitations for dialogue.Abbas and his allies will find out that they are pursuing nothing but a mirage, Mashaal said on Hamas radio.Israel and the Palestinians hope to present the contours of a final peace accord at the conference, tentatively set for Annapolis, Md., at the end of November.Israel has been pressing for a vaguely worded document that would gloss over the toughest issues — borders, control over disputed Jerusalem and a solution for Palestinian refugees who lost their homes in the 1948 war that followed Israel's creation.Palestinians prefer a detailed preliminary agreement with a timetable for creating a Palestinian state.

But Thursday, a key Palestinian negotiator said agreement on peace was near, adding that he doubted the U.S. would convene the conference if the two sides did not agree in advance on outlines for an accord.We have never been closer to achieving the end game than we are now, negotiator Saeb Erekat said.In an interview with Israel's Channel 10 TV, Erekat discounted Hamas' ability to sabotage a peace accord. He acknowledged that Abbas' Fatah movement was not strong enough to retake Gaza by force, but insisted once you produce an end game agreement, Hamas is down without firing a shot.Although Abbas says he has authority over Gaza, in practice he has little influence there.Haniyeh, who now heads the Hamas government in Gaza, received a hero's welcome from the crowd when he arrived at the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City with around 20 black-uniformed bodyguards for festive prayers.He told supporters that Abbas could not negotiate without Hamas' support.Don't go to conference when you don't have the power card in your pocket — and the power card is Hamas, Haniyeh told his supporters.Gaza's international isolation, empty shelves and bitter internal rivalries cast a pall over the Eid al-Fitr holiday — meant to be one of the happiest dates on the Muslim calendar.Israel has barred the entrance of all goods to the territory except humanitarian aid, and Western governments have imposed a financial boycott.Deepening the misery are ongoing clashes between the Israeli military and Gaza militants who fire rockets almost daily into Israel.

Hamas said one of its fighters was killed and five other people were wounded in an Israeli ground missile attack early Saturday. The Israeli military said troops targeted a squad that had launched a rocket attack on Israel.Because tensions between members of Hamas and Fatah in Gaza remain high, Hamas security forces were deployed in the streets to keep order during the holiday. Even Friday's prayers were divided along factional lines, with separate locations for supporters of Gaza's Hamas rulers and their rivals from Abbas' Fatah.

Olmert, Abbas narrow land gap By Adam Entous
Fri Oct 12, 12:48 PM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The gap is narrowing between Israeli and Palestinian leaders over the amount of territory Israel would hand over to a Palestinian state, people close to the talks said a month ahead of a U.S.-sponsored conference. But Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials say sketching the boundaries of a future state may be the easy part -- real progress, they say, depends on narrowing differences over the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, on which little progress can be discerned so far after closed-door meetings.Even vague talk of dividing the city has stirred opposition within Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's coalition cabinet.Israeli officials link easing their stance on Jerusalem -- which Israel wants to keep as its undivided capital -- to the Palestinians being prepared to soften their demand that refugees and their descendants be allowed to settle in Israel.

In this tortuous process, everything is difficult, everything is problematic. But Jerusalem and refugees are the most difficult issues, said Shlomo Ben-Ami, who was Israel's leftist Labor foreign minister when the last talks on the final status of a peace deal collapsed in 2001.Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have said little in public about talks they have held in recent months.Western officials have told Reuters Olmert has privately signaled a willingness to consider handing over 90-something percent of the occupied West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip, with additional land swaps, as part of a final peace deal.
That may put the two sides within a few percentage points of consensus on the territory issue ahead of the Annapolis meeting.

ARITHMETIC

Western officials said it was unclear whether Olmert's 90-something percent means he might match Israel's last and best offer before negotiations broke down in 2001. At that time, Prime Minister Ehud Barak accepted ideas floated by U.S. President Bill Clinton that would have produced a Palestinian state in 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of Gaza.Abbas's negotiating team considers the Clinton parameters and follow-up talks held in Taba, Egypt to be the basis for renewed negotiations with Olmert, Palestinian sources said.Abbas, in one of the rare public comments on the talks so far, said this week that a Palestinian state must have exactly as much land as that seized by Israel in the 1967 war.

Ben-Ami said: We don't need to invent the wheel ... These are the Clinton parameters. I don't see any other solution.But Olmert spokeswoman Miri Eisin said it would be wrong to see one past proposal as the one to guide future negotiations.U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Jerusalem and the West Bank Ramallah next week to press Abbas and Olmert to reach agreement on a joint document addressing core issues for the conference, which President George W. Bush hopes will launch a final push to end the 60-year-old conflict.We feel a growing sense of urgency from Washington, said a senior Israeli official. He said he feared Israel's security concerns were not being taken fully into account in Bush's rush for some sort of deal before leaving office in early 2009.They are eager to get results, the official said.

Desperation breeds foolishness.

Western officials said heavy U.S. pressure on its Israeli ally would make it very difficult for Olmert to offer less than Clinton's 97 percent figure for West Bank land. Yet that could also trigger a backlash from within his own coalition. Everyone wants peace but they don't want to pay the price, said Ben-Ami. The maximum Olmert can offer falls short of the minimum for the Palestinians. If he makes proposals that are more far-reaching, he will lose his coalition.

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.

15-truck pileup closes Calif. freeway
10 injured, at least one missing after fiery accident in L.A. County tunnel - Oct. 13: At least 10 people were injured in a chain-reaction pileup in Los Angeles County. NBC's Patrick Healy reports. MSNBC

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. - Smoke leaked from both ends of a tunnel early Saturday after a 15-truck pileup on a rain-slicked Southern California freeway left 10 people injured and at least one missing, authorities said. Fire Inspector Jason Hurd said the accident — the wreckage of which stretched for half a mile — began when two trucks collided late Friday and started a chain reaction in Interstate 5’s southbound truck-only tunnels that run under the regular freeway near the intersection with the Antelope Valley Freeway. Twenty people evacuated the fiery tunnel on foot, including the 10 injured, Hurd said, and five trucks were stuck inside. One truck driver was unaccounted for, and authorities were worried that more may be missing. We’re going to have to do a very methodical search, Deputy Chief John Tripp told KABC-TV. There could be unfortunately more people that were not able to escape.

Authorities said eight had minor injuries and two had moderate injuries, ranging from moderate burns to neck and back injuries. All 10 injured were taken to local hospitals. Smoke poured from both sides of the tunnel through the night. The majority of the flames had been doused by about 5 a.m., but firefighters had to stay out of the tunnel because of fears that fire damage could lead to its collapse. The tunnel may be structurally compromised, so we’re fighting the fire from outside right now, Tripp said. The freeway in northern Los Angeles County was expected to be closed all day Saturday, authorities said.