2,400 AND CLIMBING IN CYCLONE

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.

Bangladesh cyclone death toll at 2,400 By PARVEEN AHMED, Associated Press Writer NOV 19,07

BARGUNA, Bangladesh - The death toll from Bangladesh's most devastating storm in a decade climbed to at least 2,400 on Monday and relief officials warned the figure could jump sharply as rescuers reach more isolated areas. Teams from international aid organizations worked with army troops in a massive rescue effort that drew help from around the world. Rescue workers cleared roads of fallen trees and twisted roofs to reach remote villages, but tents, rice, water and other relief items were slow to arrive. Hungry survivors, thousands of whom were left homeless, scrambled for food.The official death toll from Tropical Cyclone Sidr reached 2,407 on Monday, according to the Disaster Management Ministry.District officials compile the figures, which are far from precise, based on reports from police, public hospitals, military officials, relief workers and aid agencies, said Mohammad Golam Mostafa of the Disaster Management Ministry.The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, said that it believed the toll could hit 10,000 once rescuers reach islands off the coast of the low-lying river delta nation.

Mohammad Abdur Rob, chairman of the society, said the estimate came from the assessments of thousands of volunteers taking part in the rescue operations across the battered region.We have seen more bodies floating in the sea, Zakir Hossain, a fisherman from the country's southwest said, after reaching shore with two decomposing bodies he and other fishermen had found.Squatting in a muddy field with his wife, 45-year-old farmer Asad Ali said their 5-year-old daughter, the couple's only child, had been fatally crushed beneath their toppled thatched hut in Barguna, one of the hardest-hit districts.He said a helicopter had dropped packages of food but he had received little assistance. Mobs swarm below the helicopters every time one is spotted.I've been here waiting for hours for something to eat, he said. What I've got so far are a few cookies. Not enough.Government officials defended the relief efforts and expressed confidence that authorities are up to the task.We have enough food and water, said Shahidul Islam, the top official in Bagerhat, a battered district close to Barguna. We are going to overcome the problem.Disaster Management Secretary Aiyub Bhuiyan met Sunday with representatives from the United Nations and international aid groups to discuss the emergency response.

We have briefed them about what we need immediately, Bhuiyan told reporters.The government said it has allocated $5.2 million in emergency aid for rebuilding houses. Many foreign governments and international groups have pledged to help, including the United States, which offered $2.1 million and the United Nations, which promised $7 million.A U.S. military medical team is already in Bangladesh and two Navy ships — the USS Essex and USS Kearsarge — each carrying at least 20 helicopters and tons of supplies, will be made available if the Bangladesh government requests them, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.The German government offered $731,000, the European Union with $2.2 million and the British government with $5 million. France pledged $730,000 in aid, while the Philippines announced it would send a medical team.
The Rome-based World Food Program was rushing in food, and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society was sending thousands of workers to stricken areas. Pope Benedict XVI called for every possible effort to help our brothers who have been so sorely tested during his traditional Sunday blessing from the Vatican. Many evacuees crowded onto ferries and trudged down sludge-filled roads to return home for the first time since the storm hit Thursday.

I have had no news of my family since Wednesday, as the mobile phones are down, said Golam Rasul, who was traveling to see his mother and brother in Bagerhat district. Many survivors returned to find their bamboo-and-straw huts flattened, their roofs missing, their crops ruined. We tied the corners of our tin roof to coconut trees with ropes, so it wouldn't fly away but our kitchen was destroyed and many trees around fell, said Shafiqul Islam, who works at a roadside gas station near Madaridpur, another hard-hit coastal district. Thanks to an effective early warning system, at least 1.5 million coastal villagers fled to shelters before the storm. But Islam and his family chose to stay at home. We didn't think it would be so bad, but when the wind roared over us, it was very scary. We huddled together under the bed, he said. Sidr's 150-mph winds smashed tens of thousands of homes in southwestern Bangladesh and ruined thousands of acres of crops. Every year, storms batter Bangladesh, a country of 150 million, often killing large numbers of people. The most deadly recent storm was a tornado that leveled 80 villages in northern Bangladesh in 1996, killing 621 people. Only two people were killed in Bangladesh by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was spawned off Indonesia's Sumatra island by a magnitude-9 earthquake, hitting a dozen countries and killing at least 216,858, according to government and aid agency figures considered the most reliable in each country. Hurricane Katrina, the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history, killed 1,600 people across the Gulf Coast, destroyed or severely damaged more than 200,000 homes and made more than 800,000 people homeless overnight. Associated Press writers Julhas Alam and Farid Hossain in Dhaka and Pavel Rahman in Barguna contributed to this report.

EARTH DESTROYED WITH THE EARTH

GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

From The TimesNovember 19, 2007
Was Noah’s flood a sign of climate change devastation to come?Yepoka Yeebo Noah’s flood may have been responsible for the birth of modern civilisation across Western Europe, according to research.

A deluge 8,000 years ago in what are now the Balkans is believed by some to have given rise to the biblical story. It is being seen as a model for the social upheaval that may result from sea-level rises caused by climate change. The research, led by Chris Turney, a geologist at the University of Exeter, found that as early farmers from the Balkans travelled west because of the flooding, their culture replaced that of the hunter-gatherer tribes that they encountered. As they settled around Italy and France, they established farming communities, which eventually led to the growth of villages, towns and cities. People living in what is now southeast Europe must have felt as though the whole world had flooded, Professor Turney said. This could well have been the origin of the Noah’s Ark story. Entire coastal communities would have been displaced, forcing people to migrate in their thousands.

Those most affected by the flooding would have lived on low-lying land around the shores of the Black Sea. Professor Turney said that the rise in sea level 8,000 years ago is roughly in line with that expected between now and the end of the century. It’s quite a sobering thought, he said. Something of the order of 145 million people are living within a metre of sea level today. This research shows how rising sea levels can cause massive social change. Eight thousand years on, are we any better placed to deal with rising sea levels? Before the flood, the early farmers seemed disinclined to migrate. They didn’t expand any further across Europe, Professor Turney said. It looks like they just stopped.The flood occurred at the end of the last Ice Age when the Laurentide ice sheet covering much of North America collapsed, releasing vast amounts of water and increasing global sea levels by up to 1.4 metres. As the sea rose, it breached a ridge across the Bosphorus in Turkey, that dammed the Mediterranean and had, up to that time, cut off the Black Sea, which was a freshwater lake. Over 34 years the Black Sea filled and overflowed. Scientists from Britain and Australia simulated the Mediterranean and Black Sea shorelines before and after the sea-level rise. The research, published today in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, estimates that almost 73,000 square kilometres (28,000 square miles) of land would have been lost, displacing 145,000 people.

Environment | 17.11.2007
Climate Change as Frightening as Science Fiction Movie

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The IPCC report said global warming is manmade and already taking place
Proof of humans' impact on warming the earth's atmosphere is unequivocal, and the world faces a moral obligation to fight climate change, according to the final report by the United Nations' leading climate council. The worst-case scenario envisaged by the report was as terrifying as created in doomsday films, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie, he said. But they are even more terrifying, because they are real.The 23-page document by the UN-backed panel of scientists, issued Saturday, Nov. 17, contained the strongest warnings yet on climate change and answered many of our questions on climate change, the secretary general said.

IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri pointed out several findings, including the threat rising sea levels posed to small island nations and hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying deltas as well as more infectious diseases and the destruction of coral reefs.Ban Ki-moon Had recently been on a trip to see ice shelves breaking up in Antarctica. We need a new ethic by which every human being realizes the importance of the challenge we are facing and starts to take action through changes in lifestyle and attitude, he said. Every country in the world has to be committed to a shared vision and a set of common goals and actions that will help us move toward a much lower level of emissions.Ban added that the international community would now have to transform its way of doing things in order to save the treasure of our planet.The final report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is essentially a summary of three reports compiled by more than 2,000 scientists and issued by the IPCC earlier this year.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the report was a milestone in our scientific knowledge about climate change and the grave threats global warming poses to the planet.The report's findings amount to a stark warning that the world must act fast to slash greenhouse gas emissions if we are to prevent climate change from reaching devastating levels, he said in a statement. The good news is that it also shows that deep emission cuts are both technologically feasible and economically affordable.Climate change won't spare any regions of the world, the IPCC report said
Governments haggled for five days over the wording of this final IPCC document, which environmentalists say will serve as a manual on how to tackle global warming and set the tone for a crucial UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia next month.We cannot afford to leave Bali without such a breakthrough, Ban said, referring to a conference running on the Indonesian island from Dec. 3-14, tasked with setting a strategy for deepening cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.Government representatives at the Bali conference are expected to negotiate a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrialized countries to make targeted commitments on curbing their greenhouse gases and expires in 2012.

The new IPCC report makes clear that global warming is a man-made phenomenon and is already taking place. It warns of catastrophic and unavoidable consequences if the atmosphere warms by more than 2degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F). Global temperatures have already risen about 0.7 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years.

Global warming can only be slowed

The UN council said greenhouse gas emissions needed to drop by at least 50 percent by 2050 To prevent that, the level of carbon dioxide in the world's atmosphere must start dropping by 2020. By 2050, global emissions must be 50 percent to 65 percent below 2000 levels. The IPCC has already said global warming cannot be stopped, only slowed.Melting glaciers and loss of snow in Alpine regions as well as thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost shows that climate change is already on the march, the IPCC report said.Some of the newer elements of the report include one combined graphic that at a glance lays out specifically what levels of greenhouse gases lead to what rises in temperatures -- and what consequences each temperature rise could have on society.

Environmental groups pleased

Representatives from environmental protection groups appeared pleased with the study's results.The strong message of the IPCC can't be watered down -- the science is crystal clear, said Hans Verolme, director of environmental group WWF's Global Climate Change Program. The hard fact is we have caused climate change, and it's also clear that we hold the solution to stop global warming in our hands,The IPCC was last month awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with former US Vice President Al Gore, for raising awareness of the threat of climate change.DW staff (sms)

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

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.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

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.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

The dollar's decline: from symbol of hegemony to shunned currency By Andy McSmith 17 November 2007

The decline of the dollar, symbol of US global hegemony for the best part of a century, may have become so entrenched that some experts now fear it is irreversible.After months of huge and sustained turmoil on the money markets, lack of confidence in the world's totemic currency has become so widespread that an increasing number of international traders are transferring their wealth to stronger currencies such as the euro, which recently hit its highest level against the dollar.An American businessman over here who is given the choice would take anything but the dollar, David Buik of Cantor Index said yesterday. I would want to be paid in yen, and if not yen then the euro or sterling.Matthew Osborne, of Armstrong International, added: The majority would say sterling. There are a few dealers in the City who may take the view that they'll take dollars now, while they're cheap, and hold on to them for 12 months.But the problem is so serious that there are people who in July or August might have been thinking, I'm paid in dollars, how annoying for whom it's now a question of, Do you have a job; do you have a bonus?

The collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US, which is fuelling the dollar unrest, has already brought down one British bank, Northern Rock, and has forced others to declare vast losses. Yesterday, just as it appeared that the dollar might have finally reached its floor, there was another warning that the sub-prime crisis is going to get worse. The US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, warned an international business summit in South Africa: The sub-prime market, parts of it will get worse before it gets better. Huge numbers of US homeowners are still cushioned by introductory interest rates set when they took out loans in 2005 or 2006, he said. When these introductory offers run out, their interest payments will increase, setting off another wave of defaulting and repossessions. And the dollar is enduring its rockiest spell in recent memory.Kenneth Froot, a Harvard university professor and former consultant to the US Federal Reserve, warned yesterday: Part of the depreciation [of the dollar] is permanent. There is no doubt that the dollar must sink against periphery currencies to reflect their increase in competitiveness and productivity.Professor Riordan Roett, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told Bloomberg News: There is a loss of confidence in the dollar and the US. It may only reflect the widespread dismay with the Bush administration, but it is obvious that the next administration, of either party, will have a steep uphill struggle. As well as reaching its lowest level against the euro, which has been trading at more than $1.47, the dollar has also fallen to its lowest level against the Canadian dollar since 1950, sterling since 1981, and the Swiss franc since 1995.Its plight was made still worse by a jarring signal from China that it was switching to other currencies. Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, told a conference in Beijing: We will favour stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly.

The warning was reinforced by a Chinese central bank vice-director, Xu Jian, who said the dollar was losing its status as the world currency.China has stockpiled £700bn worth of foreign currency, and has only to decide to slow its accumulation of dollars to weaken the currency further. Last month, in a humiliating turn of events, the central bank in Iraq, four years after the United States invaded, stated that it wished to diversify reserves from a reliance on dollars.Korea's central bank has urged shipbuilders to issue invoices in the local currency and take precautions against the weakened dollar, and three of the world's big oil exporters, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, are demanding payment in euros rather than dollars. Iran insisted that Japan should make all its payments for oil in yen, rather than dollars.Warren Buffet, who is reputedly the richest man in the world, was asked on the US network CNBC last month what he thought was the best currency in the world to own now. He answered: Not the US dollar.The Wall Street Journal ran an online poll asking people which currency, they would prefer to be paid in. The euro came top, ahead of sterling, with others such as the Canadian dollar, yen and Swiss franc trailing far behind. One respondent wrote: Being an expat in Europe with a European employment contract, I am paid in euros, and happy to get paid in euros, and shop in the US, just as long as the cycle lasts through my retirement, so I can pick up pension in Europe and retire in the US.The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates twice since September to revive the US economy, but the cuts – combined with the possibility that more were on the way – made the dollar less attractive to investors. Yesterday, it recovered slightly when one Federal Reserve banker, Randall Kroszner, dampened speculation about further interest rate cuts, saying that rates were low enough to get the economy through a rough patch.

Problems with the greenback, combined with cheap air fares, have encouraged more Britons to go shopping across the Atlantic. British tourists spent £785m in New York last year, the city's marketing and tourism organisation said yesterday. There were 1,169,000 visitors to New York from the UK in 2006, with 54 per cent going for four to seven nights and 31 per cent staying for two to three nights. They spent an average of £112 a day. The average age of the UK visitor is 40.Christopher Heywood, director of tourism PR for NYC & Company, said he expected the dollar crisis to attract yet more British shoppers. The savvy traveller who's coming here for the shopping can really get a bargain. They're coming with one suitcase and leaving with two or three, he said.We have people coming over here even for weekend trips to shop for the famous brand names. People are coming for the department stores that everyone around the world knows, but also for the boutique stores out of the centre of Manhattan, anything from Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue to Bleecker Street in the West Village and SoHo.

OPEC interested in non-dollar currency By SEBASTIAN ABBOT, Associated Press Writer
Sun Nov 18, 6:46 PM ET

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that OPEC's members have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a worthless piece of paper.His comments at the end of a rare summit of OPEC heads of state exposed fissures within the 13-member cartel — especially after U.S. ally Saudi Arabia was reluctant to mention concerns about the falling dollar in the summit's final declaration.The hardline Iranian leader's comments also highlighted the growing challenge that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, faces from Iran and its ally Venezuela within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper, Ahmadinejad told reporters after the close of the summit in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. He blamed U.S. President George W. Bush's policies for the decline of the dollar and its negative effect on other countries.Oil is priced in U.S. dollars on the world market, and the currency's depreciation has concerned oil producers because it has contributed to rising crude prices and has eroded the value of their dollar reserves.All participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency, Ahmadinejad said. Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the U.S. dollar ... to form the basis of our oil trade.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez echoed this sentiment Sunday on the sidelines of the summit, saying the empire of the dollar has to end.Don't you see how the dollar has been in free-fall without a parachute? Chavez said, calling the euro a better option.Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah had tried to direct the focus of the summit toward studying the effect of the oil industry on the environment, but he continuously faced challenges from Ahmadinejad and Chavez.
Iran and Venezuela have proposed trading oil in a basket of currencies to replace the historic link to the dollar, but they had not been able to generate support from enough fellow OPEC members — many of whom, including Saudi Arabia, are staunch U.S. allies.Both Iran and Venezuela have antagonistic relationships with the U.S., suggesting their proposals may have a political motivation as well. While Tehran has been in a standoff with Washington over its nuclear program, left-wing Chavez is a bitter antagonist of Bush. U.S. sanctions on Iran also have made it increasingly difficult for the country to do business in dollars.
During Chavez's opening address to the summit on Saturday, the Venezuelan leader said OPEC should assert itself as an active political agent. But Abdullah appeared to distance himself from Chavez's comments, saying OPEC always acted moderately and wisely.

A day earlier, Saudi Arabia opposed a move by Iran on Friday to have OPEC include concerns over the falling dollar included in the summit's closing statement after the weekend meeting. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister even warned that even talking publicly about the currency's decline could further hurt its value.But by Sunday, it appeared that Saudi Arabia had compromised. Though the final declaration delivered Sunday did not specifically mention concern over the weak dollar, the organization directed its finance ministers to study the issue.OPEC will study ways and means of enhancing financial cooperation among OPEC ... including proposals by some of the heads of state and governments in their statements to the summit, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri said, reading the statement.Iran's oil minister went a step further and said OPEC will form a committee to study the dollar's affect on oil prices and investigate the possibility of a currency basket.We have agreed to set up a committee consisting of oil and finance ministers from OPEC countries to study the impact of the dollar on oil prices, Gholam Hussein Nozari told Dow Jones Newswires.Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said the committee would submit to OPEC its recommendation on a basket of currencies that OPEC members will deal with. He did not give a timeline for the recommendation. The meeting in Riyadh, with heads of states and delegates from 13 of the world's biggest oil-producing nations, was the third full OPEC summit since the organization was created in 1960. Abdullah tried to take the focus off the dollar debate, announcing the donation of $300 million to set up a program to study the effect of the oil industry on the environment. Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also agreed to donate $150 million each to the fund, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, said Sunday.

The run-up to the meeting was dominated by speculation over whether OPEC would raise production following recent oil price increases that have approached $100. But cartel officials have resisted pressure to increase oil production and said they will hold off any decision until the group meets next month in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. They have also cast doubt on the effect any output hike would have on oil prices, saying the recent rise has been driven by the falling dollar and financial speculation by investment funds rather than any supply shortage.
During his final remarks, el-Badri stressed he was committed to supply — but did not mention changing oil outputs. We affirm our commitment ... to continue providing adequate, timely, efficient, economic and reliable petroleum supplies to the world market, he said.

Saudi minister warns of dollar collapse
Saturday, 17th November 2007

The dollar could collapse if Opec officially admits considering changing the pricing of oil into alternative currencies such as the euro, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister has warned.Prince Saud Al-Faisal was overheard ruling out a proposal from Iran and Venezuela to discuss pricing crude in a private meeting at the oil cartel's conference.In an embarrassing blunder at the meeting in Riyadh, ministers' microphones were not cut off during a key closed meeting, and Prince Al-Faisal was heard saying: My feeling is that the mere mention that the Opec countries are studying the issue of the dollar is itself going to have an impact that endangers the interests of the countries. There will be journalists who will seize on this point and we don't want the dollar to collapse instead of doing something good for Opec.

After around 40 minutes press officials cut off the feed, which had been accidentally broadcast to the press room.Prince Al-Faisal added: This is not new. We have done this in the past: decide to study something without putting down on paper that we are going to study it so that we avoid any implication that will bring adverse effects on our countries' finances.Iran and Venezuela have argued that the meeting's final communique should voice concern about the level of the dollar, which has recently fallen to new record lows against the euro. They are pushing for oil to be denominated against a basket of currencies.The greenback also weakened slightly against the pound, although sterling's own recent weakness has pushed it down from $2.10 to $2.0457 during the week.

Nigerian finance minister Shamsuddeen Usman said that Opec could declare in the communique that: While underlining our concern for the continued depreciation of the dollar and its adverse impact on our revenues, we instruct our finance ministers to study the issue exhaustively and advise us on ways to safeguard the purchasing power of our revenues, of our members' revenues.Chancellor Alistair Darling will today urge his fellow finance ministers at a major G20 summit to increase investment in oil production and refinement.

Israel haven for new Bahai world order by Jennie Matthew
Sun Nov 18, 6:06 PM ET

HAIFA, Israel (AFP) - Dominating a holy mountain in Israel is the nerve centre of the world's fastest growing major religion, preaching global unity and world peace from one of the most troubled countries on earth. Founded less than 170 years ago, the Bahai faith believes that Persian-born prophet Bahuallah, who died in Israel, brought a message of unity, equality and world federation to save mankind from the plagues of the modern world.
The shrine to the Bab, a messenger whose mission prepared humanity for the coming of Bahuallah, the beautiful Bahai terraced gardens and classical-style World Centre in Israel's port city of Haifa are lauded by some as the eighth wonder of the world.Believers wait years to come on pilgrimage and 600 Bahais from more than 60 countries volunteer for unpaid service to administer the centre.

My parents worried because of the news on TV about bombs, but for me I was going to the holiest spot on the planet, said 24-year-old IT worker Bhojraj Parmar from India, a technician at the Bahai headquarters.Not even a two-and-a-half-hour interrogation by anxious Israeli security officials upon arrival put him off.I don't really mind, he said. I'm supposed to be cooperative with the government. It's for security.Numbering five million believers in every continent reading literature translated into more than 800 languages, the Bahai faith is growing faster than any other religion but Zoroastrianism with its some 200,000 adherents.Theirs is a vision of the world governed by a world legislature, world court and a world executive, all overseeing freedom of movement, disarmament and an international military to ensure peace.The central theme of Babaullah's social teachings is that humanity is one single race and the day has come for its unification into one global society, says a glossy English-language brochure.Far from creating a monstrous big brother, Bahais believe their faith is the most suited world religion to sustain modern, progressive society.They believe in promoting sexual equality, universal education and religious tolerance, and eliminating prejudice, extreme wealth and poverty, -- teachings that they say hold the answers to global warming, erosion of family life and racism.

An army of 80 paid gardeners keeps the 21 terraces on Mount Carmel next to the Mediterranean in tip-top condition. The gardens took 10 years to create, and along with two other buildings finished in 2000, cost 250 million dollars (170 million euros).

--Bahais admit 'irony' of preaching global unity in Israel --

Although they receive only modest stipends to cover food and basic expenses, Bahai volunteers describe their mission as life-changing or priceless.Kenneth Chadwick, 24, from Michigan, grew up in a Bahai household but his epiphany came as a student when he found himself briefly paralysed on the dorm-room floor after fervent prayer.

One week after graduation he came to Haifa as a volunteer.

For the first time, I understood what faith was, what love was. I felt what it was like to have a connection with God. It was a religious experience that completely changed my life. I felt like I was born again.Dressed smartly in a shirt and tie for his clerical work at the Universal House of Justice -- the nine-member, all-male world governing body, Chadwick is a serious young man whose hands tremble as he tries to explain his mission. Given that Israel has among the most insecure yet heavily-armed borders in the world in a region with no imminent prospect of disarmament, he acknowledges a certain irony over the location of the Bahai headquarters.

Parmar even sees Israel as a model for the Bahai world commonwealth.

I love Israeli people for the fact that they are very united. Israel wouldn't be a possibility if the Jewish people weren't united. We're grateful to Israelis. We wouldn't be here without them, he said. But the country, created 60 years ago as a Jewish state, is deeply opposed to any form of missionary activity. Anyone wishing to convert has to go abroad. Bahai spokesman Douglas Moore is not aware of any Israeli Bahais. It's enough for me that I'm Jewish. It's enough of a burden. Don't give me another, laughed Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, when asked if he thought about signing up after waxing lyrical about the Bahais' contribution to his city. I'm Jewish, I believe in my God. I don't care what they do, said Zehorit Barashar, a 22-year-old security guard who kicks out those who break the rules and wears a gun "to save these guys because Bahais do not carry weapons. The Bahai-Israel relationship is mutually beneficial. Bahais promise not to convert Israelis but provide a tourist magnet keeping the local economy afloat. Unlike Christian, Muslim and Jewish organisations, Bahais keep totally aloof from politics. And none of their institutions carry out aid work in Israel or the Palestinian territories.

Israel grants them freedom to run their World Centre.

We are very proud that the holiest place for the Bahais is situated in Haifa. The way they have done the whole area, the mountain, is outstanding. It is considered the eighth wonder of the world, said Yahav. The Bahai gardens are the main tourist attraction in Haifa, he said. Dignitaries and foreign ambassadors are invited to learn about the faith and asked for help to curb persecution in Iran, where more than 200 Bahais have been executed or killed since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Bahais believe in progressive revelation, that the world's great religions trace one divine plan from Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, to Bab and Babuallah in 19th-century Persia. The year 2007 is the Bahai year 167. Years are divided into 19 months of 19 days, with extra days before new year's day on March 21 devoted to gift-giving. There are nine holy days and a one-month sunrise to sunset fast. Not all are smitten. It's a bit too artificial, said Swiss tourist Egiolio Spada, pointing at the grass. For instance, if you look at the green it seems plastic.