1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS.2-Small earthquake hits Southern Calif. 3-Brain damage for Indonesia flood. 4-The snow piles up, and the West gets wet. 5-Japan starts disaster-alert system using satellites. 6-Violence erupts at Jerusalem holy site. 7-Palestinians celebrate Mecca agreement. 8-Canada finds no pathogenic flu in wild birds.
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 = Sat Feb 10 12:08 AM EDT
FEB 10,07 NO QUAKES YET
FEB 09,07
MAP 3.3 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 4.7 MOLUCCA SEA
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 4.6 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
MAP 2.5 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.6 PUERTO RICO
MAP 4.3 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.1 EASTERN TURKEY
MAP 3.3 CENTRAL ALASKA
FEB 08,07
MAP 3.0 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.5 KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA
MAP 2.7 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 5.0 SUMBAWA REGION, INDONESIA
MAP 5.3 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.1 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 3.2 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.1 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.9 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 5.2 CARLSBERG RIDGE
MAP 2.9 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 4.8 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 5.2 NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
MAP 2.5 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 5.2 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 3.1 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.1 UTAH
MAP 2.7 COLORADO
MAP 5.4 KURIL ISLANDS
MAP 2.8 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 3.3 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Small earthquake hits Southern Calif. Fri Feb 9, 12:59 AM ET
OCOTILLO WELLS, Calif. - A small earthquake rattled northeast San Diego County on Thursday, although no damage or injuries were reported. The magnitude-4.3 temblor struck at 7:33 p.m. and was centered five miles north of Ocotillo Wells and 13 miles east of Borrego Springs, according to a preliminary report from the U.S. Geological Survey.There were no reports of injuries or damage, a dispatcher at the San Diego County sheriff's department said.The area is about 65 miles east of San Diego, near the Imperial County border.
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.
Brain damage for Indonesia flood victim by Nabiha Shahab
Fri Feb 9, 10:38 AM ET
JAKARTA (AFP) - A man in the Indonesian capital has suffered brain damage and cannot speak after being infected by the contaminated flood waters that have inundated the city, reports said. The 61-year-old and another person were diagnosed with leptospirosis or Weil's disease, a bacterial illness usually caught from contact with water contaminated by the urine of infected rats.The case has underlined fears of a disease outbreak in and around Jakarta, where half a million people have been forced out of their homes by the worst flooding here in years. At least 50 people have died.Many people have had no choice but to wade through the filthy waters which swept through the city, and children have been seen swimming in the streets despite the health risk.Sarnata, who uses only one name, was admitted to hospital on Thursday morning in the acute stage of leptospirosis, the official Antara news agency said. His kidneys were damaged and he was losing consciousness.Sarnata has entered the third stage of the disease. He cannot speak because his brain is damaged, the agency quoted Nazir, a doctor at a Jakarta hospital, as saying.
There are three stages of leptospirosis, with early stages showing high fever, muscle pains, red eyes ... the worst will damage the brain and can be irreversible, the doctor said. There was no word on the second person's case.Leptospirosis, which causes high fever and painful joints, is treated with antibiotics. It is rarely fatal, although kidney or liver failure, or meningitis, can result.Hygiene and clean water supplies remain a problem as flood waters begin to recede and people return to tidy up their sodden homes.Water supplies were disrupted after part of Jakarta had its electricity cut for safety reasons when floods began to cover the capital last week, although the situation is slowly returning to normal.The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said it was setting up equipment in the north of the city capable of supplying 240,000 people with clean drinking water.
Many people have not had access to safe water for a week and we are concerned that the lack of safe water could lead to an outbreak of diseases among children, UNICEF representative Gianfranco Rotigliano said.UNICEF and aid groups were also providing other needed supplies to flood victims.
We are distributing hygiene and food packs to flood victims in Jakarta, Indonesian Red Cross spokeswoman Aswi Nugroho told AFP.On Monday we will start distributing disinfectants and also spray neighbourhoods that are beginning to clean up their environment, she said.The aid group was also helping to supply drinking water to some of the worst-hit areas of Jakarta.Several countries and non-governmental organisations have offered assistance, including former colonial power the Netherlands, the European Union, Australia and the United States.Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar has blamed the floods on excessive construction on natural drainage areas, but city governor Sutiyoso said it was a cyclical natural phenomenon.
The snow piles up, and the West gets wet Wayne Verno, Meteorologist, The Weather Channel Fri Feb 9, 7:46 AM ET
With low pressure remaining northeast of the Great Lakes, and high pressure situated over the north Plains, the flow of cold air across the eastern Great Lakes will continue to result in a persistent lake effect snow bands over western New York State. This lake effect snow band has been ongoing since the start of the week, and recent repots have indicated that some locations have picked up between 70 and 100 inches of snow. With the lake effect snow band continuing today, it will osculate between Watertown and Syracuse, with some locations seeing snowfall rates of 3 to 5 inches per hour, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and gusty winds. Locally, an additional foot or more will accumulate today. An active weather pattern will remain across the West through the weekend, as a series of weather disturbances continue to pump moisture into the area. The wave of rain impacting California this morning, will spread into the interior Pacific Northwest, with higher elevation snows on the increase. Another disturbance will bring more rain, heavy at times, to central and northern California Saturday, affecting areas from San Francisco, north though Portland and Seattle. Some locations, especially over California, could see an inch or more of rain, while several inches of snow could accumulate in the mountains.
Japan starts disaster-alert system using satellites Fri Feb 9, 3:52 AM ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan, one of the world's most seismically active nations, on Friday began an alert system using satellites to instantly transmit warnings of natural disasters, such as tsunami, to speed up evacuations. Tremors occur in Japan at least every five minutes, and the country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher.Last month, a powerful Pacific earthquake prompted widespread tsunami warnings, although only small waves hit Japan.
The new system, called J-ALERT, will send disaster warnings from the Meteorological Agency via satellite to city and town offices, automatically activating warning sirens and emergency broadcast systems. Until now, local officials have had to activate these systems themselves after receiving warnings.By getting information out more quickly, we'll be able to evacuate faster, saving lives, a Fire Agency official said.
However, in the system's first test on Friday morning, information sent from the agency to a town in western Japan arrived correctly but wasn't broadcast automatically due to a computer software problem. The software was restarted, and a second test succeeded.Initially, the system will operate in 10 prefectures and four towns. The agency hopes to eventually extend it to all local areas, but no timetable has been set.Warnings will be issued for tsunamis and volcanic eruptions along with other extreme weather conditions, and information about earthquake strength will be sent more quickly than before. In future, the agency also hopes to be able to issue warnings of earthquakes just before they occur.In the case of a tsunami warning, loudspeakers will broadcast warnings telling people to evacuate to high ground.From later this summer, the agency plans to include information from the prime minister's office on missile launches or attacks on national territory.But the Fire Agency official added that even the best warning system was useless if people did not obey it.Only a small number of people evacuated after last month's tsunami warning, which was prompted by an 8.2 magnitude earthquake in the northern Pacific.We can make sending the warnings faster, but getting people to evacuate is a separate problem, the official said.If they don't understand and heed the warnings, the system is meaningless.
Now the scriptures that a week in Israel history is 7YEARS. (7 YR TRIBULATION)
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
Isn"t this interesting it comes from the same Person whos name was changed to Israel,(JACOB) and Israel and Jerusalem is the places dealt with in Daniel 9:24-27.
GENESIS 32:27-28
27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
DANIEL 9:24-27
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people (ISRAEL) and upon thy holy city,(JERUSALEM) to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks,(7X7=49 YRS) and threescore and two weeks:(62X7=434 YRS) the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come (ROMANS IN AD 70) shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (69x7=483 YRS TO THIS POINT, THE FINAL 7 YR TREATY IS IN THE NEXT VERSE TO FULFILL THE 490 YEARS OF DANIELS PROPHECY.
9:27 And he (THE FUTURE ROMAN PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3RD TEMPLE DESECRATED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.(WW3)
Violence erupts at Jerusalem holy site By DALIA NAMMARI, Associated Press Writer FEB 09,07
JERUSALEM - Anger over Israeli construction to repair a damaged ramp near a disputed Jerusalem holy site erupted into violence Friday as police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse thousands of rioting Muslims. Protests spread across the Arab world, with demonstrators accusing Israel of plotting to harm Islamic shrines. Israeli officials accused Palestinians of distorting the project to rally their fractious population against the Jewish state. They insist that the replacement of the ramp, which was damaged in a 2004 snowstorm, would not harm the holy site about 200 feet away.We have nothing to hide and yet extremist elements with a hateful agenda have cynically provoked violence by deliberately spreading mistruths about what we're doing," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.Known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, the compound has repeatedly been a flashpoint for violence between Israel and the Palestinians, and there were fears the unrest could spread.The compound is home to the golden-capped Dome of the Rock shrine and Al Aqsa mosque and is believed to be the site where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jews venerate the compound as the site of their biblical temples, and one of its outer walls known as the Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism.
Small protests against the renovation began as soon as work started this week. They became violent after Friday prayers, when Muslims at the compound began throwing rocks at police stationed outside, according to Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby.About 200 riot police streamed onto the compound, scuffling with some of the 3,000 Muslim worshippers. Clouds of tear gas rose up at the holy site, and stun grenades set off sharp booms.Outside the compound, near Lion's Gate, hundreds of teenagers who had been barred from the mosque hurled stones, iron bars, vegetables and at least one firebomb at police, authorities said. Police responded with stun grenades.Jewish worshippers were evacuated from the Western Wall plaza at the foot of the compound as a precaution.The situation grew especially volatile when 150 protesters barricaded themselves inside Al Aqsa. But police did not enter the mosque, and the protesters began leaving 90 minutes later, following negotiations between police and Muslim representatives.The melee slightly injured 17 protesters and 19 police officers, and 17 rioters were arrested, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Officers shut all the gates leading to the complex, and disconnected loudspeakers that they said were used to incite worshippers.
Three hours after the initial clash, police and demonstrators still played cat and mouse in the narrow alleyways and on the rooftops of the nearby Old City.But in other areas of the Old City, the scene was calm. Ten pilgrims speaking Russian and carrying wooden crosses walked down the Via Dolorosa, the path Christians believe Jesus took to his crucifixion.There is no justification for what they did today, and we think it was pre-orchestrated to bring fears to the spirits of the worshippers angry about the Israeli dig, said Adnan Husseini, chairman of the Waqf, the Muslim trust that oversees the shrine.In the West Bank, youths hurled stones at Israeli security forces at a major checkpoint leading into Jerusalem and near the town of Qalqiliya. South of the town of Bethlehem, Israeli troops fired rubber bullets at Palestinians rioting over the work at the holy site, slightly wounding three. No clashes erupted in a demonstration in the West Bank town of Hebron.And in the northern Israeli town of Nazareth, about 5,000 Israeli Arabs marched to oppose the work at the mosque.
In Egypt, thousands of anti-riot police beat and chased dozens of protesters into side alleys and streets to prevent them staging a mass demonstration at Al-Azhar Mosque following Friday prayers. Witnesses said dozens of protesters were detained.Hundreds of Palestinians staged a sit-in at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, carrying pictures of Al Aqsa and chanting anti-Israeli slogans. Hundreds of Islamic fundamentalists also protested in the Lebanese port city of Sidon, while 3,000 Palestinians chanted anti-Israel slogans during a march in Syria's Yarmouk refugee camp. In Jordan, about 2,000 worshippers marched in protest after Friday prayers, calling for the government to close down the Israeli Embassy in Amman and send its ambassador home. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, appealed to Israel to stop the work on the ramp. It has potential to disturb the most respected mosque for Muslims all over the world, said Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda. We urge Israel to stop its archaeological excavation works around the holy Al Aqsa mosque.Mohammed Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem, blamed Israel for the violence Friday. I don't know what impact this aggression will have on the Palestinian territories, but past experience has shown that every time there were clashes at the mosque, it engulfed the other parts of the West Bank and Gaza, he said by telephone from inside the compound.
When Israel opened a tunnel alongside the compound in 1996, it touched off clashes that killed 80 people. In 2000, when then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site, the ensuing riots were followed by years of violence. AP reporters Dalia Nammari in Jerusalem, Ben Curtis in Cairo, Egypt, Shafika Mattar in Amman, Jordan, and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.
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)
Palestinians celebrate Mecca agreement By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 9, 12:41 PM ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Gazans rejoiced in the streets to celebrate a Hamas-Fatah power-sharing deal they hope will avert civil war, but Palestinian officials preached patience Friday, saying implementing the agreement would be a challenge. The agreement received a muted response from American and European officials, who said it was too early to decide whether to lift the crippling international sanctions on the Hamas-led government.The rivalry between Hamas and Fatah began last year when Hamas won parliamentary elections and formed a Cabinet, splitting power with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. The friction between the two groups paralyzed the government and eventually exploded into fighting that killed more than 130 Palestinians.The two sides have tried unsuccessfully for months to reach a deal amid the violence. The success conclusion of an agreement in Saudi Arabia on Thursday sparked elation among people in Gaza.We have left behind all those black days forever and started a new page on a new government and a new way in Palestine, Abbas said.
Celebratory gunfire could be heard in several parts of Gaza City and fireworks lit up the sky. Some drivers flew both green Hamas flags and yellow Fatah banners from their cars.For four or five days we've been holding our breath. God willing, this is a permanent agreement, not a temporary truce, said Mahmoud Qassam, 27, a fish vendor in Gaza City. We hope this will lead to lifting the siege, a reference to the economic sanctions.The West demanded that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist, accept past peace agreements with the Jewish state and renounce violence in order to escape the sanctions.Hamas has refused those demands. The platform of the coalition government agreed to on Thursday says only that the government pledges to respect" previous deals, instead of committing to them, as Abbas initially demanded. It makes no reference to recognizing Israel or renouncing violence, and it remains unclear whether the U.S. and Israel will be ready to deal with the new coalition.
U.S. and Israeli acceptance is crucial to the deal's success. Unless they are convinced Hamas has sufficiently moderated, the West is unlikely to lift the sanctions, and it will be difficult to advance the peace process.Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino thanked Saudi King Abdullah for bringing the parties together but said we have not actually seen the agreement.Clearly the violence ... has served no one and, in fact, it's only served to kill many innocent people. And so we hope that the violence that has ebbed, that that will hold off. And then when we get a chance to look at the agreement in more detail, then we'll be able to say more at that point, Perino said.The Quartet of Middle East negotiators — including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and top European Union officials — held a conference call Friday to discuss the agreement, the EU said.EU spokeswoman Emma Udwin said all parties agreed that there was a need to take the time to consider, to see what the agreement is and how it is going to be implemented, before deciding on lifting the embargo.
Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin reiterated the international community's conditions, but did not make clear whether the deal would satisfy Israel. Israel would not have a more authoritative response before its weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, she said.Israeli Cabinet Minister Isaac Herzog told Army Radio that the government would read the agreement with a magnifying glass to see whether it met the international conditions.British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett on Friday welcomed the ongoing efforts to end the violence but also said Britain would need to study these proposals carefully and discuss them with our European and other partners.At stake is roughly $1 billion a year in frozen aid from foreign donors in addition to approximately $500 million in withheld tax revenues collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinians. The embargo has crippled the Palestinian government's ability to function, though the West and Israel have funneled millions of dollars through Abbas' office to prevent a complete collapse of the government.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in Paris that inclusion of the term respect ... is a step in the right direction, toward full adherence to the demands of the international community that we hold dear, including in particular the recognition of Israel.Ahmed Youssef, a political adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, said Saudi Arabia had promised the Palestinians $1 billion in aid — which would mitigate the effects of the embargo — but the donation could not be confirmed. Many Arab governments have failed to meet previous pledges of aid to the Palestinians. Under the deal signed in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Haniyeh will remain prime minister and Hamas will get a total of nine portfolios, compared to six for Fatah. Nine other Cabinet posts will go to independents and smaller factions. The vital post of interior minister, which would control the security forces, is to go to an independent, because Hamas and Fatah were each reluctant to see the other faction hold the ministry. Young men danced to the beat of drums, carrying each other on their shoulders.
Today is a feast, Maysra Balawi, 24, said late Thursday as he tried to steer his car through jammed streets. It is the first happy protest I have seen in Gaza.Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri, speaking from Gaza, cautioned patience in celebrating the agreement. It will be a great challenge to translate the agreement into reality on the ground and to prevent those seeking to spoil the Palestinian unity, he said, without elaborating. Signaling that thorny issues remain unresolved, al-Masri said a Hamas militia that has repeatedly clashed with security forces will not be disbanded.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
Canada finds no pathogenic flu in wild birds Fri Feb 9, 11:36 AM ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's second annual wild bird survey for avian influenza has concluded with no findings of highly pathogenic strains of bird flu, including the Asian strain of H5N1, the government announced on Friday. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it had tested more than 12,000 birds, migratory and resident, live and dead, across Canada. Additional sampling was conducted in Iceland, where North American and European birds mingle, it said.Similar to the 2005 results, the 2006 survey found various avian influenza subtypes, including H5 subtypes. Finding bird flu viruses in wild birds is not unexpected, as these commonly circulate with little or no impact on the health of the birds or other species, it said.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
ARAB MK NEW FLAG ANTHEM
1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS.2-Rains bring fresh floods to Indonesia. 3-Mozambique PM issues flood warning amid evacuation appeal. 4-More and more lake effect snow, bitter cold. 5-Heavy snow shuts airports, causes disruption in Britain. 6-Catastrophe bonds: a market answer to hail or high water. 7-Israel weighs Old City project Webcast. 8-Iran to hit U.S. interests if attacked. 9-Palestinian factions to resume talks. 10-Ethiopian Jews: Stop Bringing in Falash Mura. 11-European Union to open four embassies in Central Asia countries. 12-The Arabs Want the Overpass to
Collapse, to Keep Jews Out. 13-New Arab Minister Wants New Anthem and Flag.
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
Update time = Fri Feb 9 12:07 AM EDT
FEB 09,07 NO QUAKES YET
FEB 08,07
MAP 2.5 KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA
MAP 2.7 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 5.0 SUMBAWA REGION, INDONESIA
MAP 5.3 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.1 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 3.2 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 5.2 CARLSBERG RIDGE
MAP 2.9 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 4.8 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 5.2 NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
MAP 2.5 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 5.2 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 3.1 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.1 UTAH
MAP 2.7 COLORADO
MAP 5.4 KURIL ISLANDS
MAP 2.8 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 3.3 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
FEB 07,07
MAP 2.5 WASHINGTON
MAP 5.7 SOUTHERN PERU
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.5 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.6 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.5 OFF THE COAST OF SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA
MAP 3.1 SOUTH DAKOTA
MAP 2.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.2 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 TEXAS PANHANDLE REGION
MAP 4.8 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.0 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 GEORGIA, USA
Rains bring fresh floods to Indonesia By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer Thu Feb 8, 6:24 AM ET
JAKARTA, Indonesia Residents working in waist-high mud salvaged family photos from
washed-out neighborhoods as fresh rains Thursday triggered more flooding,compounding the misery for hundreds of thousands forced from their homes. A week after the Indonesian capital was struck by the worst floods in recent memory, waters had receded in many middle-class districts, but conditions remained grim in narrow riverside alleys where the city's poor live.At least 53 people were killed in the floods, while some 84,000 others have been treated for ailments including itchy skin, coughs or common colds resulting from contact with dirty water or exposure, the Health Ministry said.In cramped and damp emergency shelters, mothers breast-fed babies close to piles of rotting garbage. Food and medicine appeared to besufficient in several places visited Thursday, but authorities warned the spread of disease was possible.The rain comes in, the wind comes in, but we are stuck, said Muhammad Nahrowi, one of 5,000 people crammed into a school close to the hardest-hit districts.Some 40 percent of areas previously flooded in the city of 12 million people were still submerged in muddy water, said Rustam Pakaya, chief of the Health Ministry's crisis center, citing data from aerial surveillance.
The government said between 240,000 and 400,000 people were still unable to return home.City officials have to start cleaning the debris if they want to prevent the spread of diseases, Pakaya said.
Overnight rain sent waters up to more than 3 feet coursing back into some areas, underscoring the challenges facing city authorities as they try to clean its streets and restore basic services.We spent yesterday mopping and scrubbing and now the waters have come again, said Haji Jajan, 52, as women and children peered from second-floor balconies at the steadily rising waters. I'm tired, but what can we do? More downpours were forecast for the capital in coming days, and authorities warned flooding was possible until the rainy season ends at the end of next month.Floods also occurred outside the capital, with some 106,000 acres of rice paddies and several villages, farms and businesses in west Java province in knee-high water, said a meteorologist who uses the single name Kiki.The floods in Jakarta hit hardest in tightly packed riverside districts in Jakarta accessible only by foot and where whole families often live in a single room. Many houses were washed away or badly damaged.
Large areas of one such district, Kampung Pulo, remained under water Wednesday.
Residents trudged through filthy waters to the main road to pick up food and water. Where floods had receded, thick mud several feet deep in places meant homes were still unlivable.I would move if I could, but for that you need money, said Atoy Mansori, who is unemployed, as he and other residents recovered what they could from their homes.Indonesia is hit by deadly floods each year, and Jakarta is not immune. But this year's have been the worst in recent memory, with some 100,000 homes, shops and businesses swamped in rich and poor areas alike.
Mozambique PM issues flood warning amid evacuation appeal by Jerome Cartillier Thu Feb 8, 8:57 AM ET
MAPUTO (AFP) - Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Diogo has warned that torrential rains could wreak more havoc than heavy floods in 2001 when nearly 1,000 people died, as authorities urged people to start evacuating. It's really a dramatic situation and there is a possibility of emergency, Diogo told reporters in Maputo, adding that the swelling waters of the Zambezi river in the centre of the country were of particular concern.If the Zambezi river continues growing, the situation can be worse than in 2001. Because, as opposed to 2001, the situation is happening when the rainy season is not yet at its peak.Incessant downpours have lashed Mozambique since the start of the year, claiming 29 lives, flooding vast swathes of the coastal nation and rendering more than 46,000 homeless.
Authorities in the central town of Tete, bearing the brunt of the flash floods, urged people living along the banks of the Zambezi to leave their homes but the call went largely unheeded, residents told AFP by telephone Thursday.
Meanwhile, the National Water Directorate said the water levels on the Zambezi were flowing above the danger level, forcing the management of the giant Cahora Bassa dam to increase the outflow of water to prevent the dam from bursting.Cahora Bassa, built during Portuguese colonial rule, is one of Africa's largest hydroelectric projects.Located on the Zambezi River, the dam has created a 2,000-square-kilometre (800-square-mile) artifical lake which stretches to the point where the borders of Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge. It produces some 2,000 megawatts of power annually.The national water directorate said the dam's management had started discharging more than 6,000 litres of water per minute from Wednesday, which is higher than the level of discharge during the devastating 2001 floods.According to the National Institute of Calamities Management, 29 people have died thus far in flash flooding or from electrocution and about 46,500 people have seen their homes washed away.
Amarildo Romao, a 31-year-old journalist living in flood-washed Tete, told AFP: The situation is very dramatic.
It is not raining in town but there is a lot of rain coming from Zumbo, the area where the Zambezi enters Mozambique from Zambia and Zimbabwe.The downtown hotels are all flooded ... The wine, oil and soap factories are also partially flooded.People who live on islands on the Zambezi have all moved away. Their houses are also flooded.The upper sections of Tete, where most of the residential areas are located, have been largely untouched by the rising waters.Prime Minister Diogo meanwhile underlined that the impoverished country, which is emerging from the ashes of a 16-year civil war which ended in 1992, was better prepared to tackle floods this time around.There is a huge difference. In 2001, our early warning systems were not working so well. There has been a vast improvement, she said, adding the top priority for the government would be the evacuation of those living on the banks of the river.The prime minister however said it was too early to launch a call for international help or declare a natural disaster.
More and more lake effect snow, bitter cold Wayne Verno, Meteorologist, The Weather Channel Thu Feb 8, 8:06 AM ET
Northeast
Lake effect snow bands will continue to persist off Lakes Erie and Ontario, with the heaviest band occurring east of Lake Ontario. Locally, an additional foot or more of snow will fall in some locations of western New York. Scattered snow showers and flurries will also occur from north of Pittsburgh, through the Buffalo and Burlington areas, with mostly sunny skies expected elsewhere. Afternoon high temperatures today will range from the upper teens across Buffalo and Burlington, to the lower 20s across Pittsburgh. Upper 20s to lower 30s can be expected from Boston and New York, south through Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Also, as high pressure builds in from the west, and this interacts with low pressure situated north of the Great Lakes, windy conditions will develop across all of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast today. Winds of 20 to 30 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph, will be possible. The chilly weather, along with persistent lake effect snow showers, will continue into Friday.
Midwest
With high pressure building south across the northern Plains, winds may become a bit more aligned to support lake effect snow showers across the northern and central Great Lakes today, including Upper and western Lower Michigan.
Locally, 6 to 12 inches could accumulate in persistent snow bands. A few snow showers may also break out across the northern and High Plains today, as a weather disturbance slides southeast. Accumulations here will be light; generally an inch or less. Temperatures will remain very cold, with afternoon highs ranging from the single digits and teens from Fargo and Minneapolis, to Chicago and Cleveland, to the 20s and 30s from Rapid City and Omaha, through Kansas City, St, Louis, and Louisville. Very low wind chills will also persist over the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, with readings, especially this morning, running between 20 and 30 below. The chance for light snow showers will persist across the High Plains into Friday, along with lake effect snow showers over the northern and central Great Lakes.
West
Unsettled weather will continue for the next several days across the west, as a flow of moisture and series of weather disturbances continues to affect the region. A stationary front across the northern Rockies will increase the chance for snow across the higher mountains. Accumulations of 6 to 12 inches will be likely, with locally higher amounts. A new storm system will approach western and northern California today, with rain showers increasing this afternoon. Tonight, the rain will become steady and heavy at times from San Francisco, through Sacramento and Redding, while higher elevations snows will increase across the Serra Nevada, where several inches could accumulate.
Warm temperatures will persist over southern California and the Southwest, with areas from Los Angeles to Phoenix seeing readings in the 70s and 80s. Areas including Denver, Salt Lake City, and Seattle will see temperatures in the 40s today. The chance for rain will continue over central and northern California into Friday, with rain also increasing over the Pacific Northwest. Higher elevation snows will also continue.
South
In the wake of a weak cold front that has slipped across the Deep South, cooler conditions can be expected today from Charlotte and Atlanta, westward through Memphis and Dallas. Afternoon highs today will range from the lower 50s from Charlotte and Atlanta, to the Upper 30s to Upper 40s from Memphis to Dallas. The warmer temperatures will be confined to south of the cold front, with upper 60s and lower 70s common from Houston and New Orleans, to Orlando. A weak weather disturbance will trigger a few areas of light sleet or freezing drizzle this morning from Little Rock, to Memphis, to Tupelo; otherwise expect a few light rain showers or sprinkles across the Lower Mississippi River Valley this afternoon. These light rain showers or sprinkles will spread across the Gulf Coast and Southeast into Friday, otherwise dry and cool conditions will continue. The warmest temperatures will remain confined to the Coastal areas and Florida.
Heavy snow shuts airports, causes disruption in Britain by Phil Hazlewood FEB 08,07
LONDON (AFP) Airline passengers bore the brunt of unusually heavy snow in England and Wales Thursday, which forced the temporary closure of runways at several airports and caused disruption on roads and rails.
Between 10 and 15 centimetres (four and six inches) of snow fell overnight on large parts of southern and central England and Wales, with about five centimetres on London but the adverse weather eased later in the day.Just three weeks ago, Exeter in south-west England recorded temperatures of 15.5 degrees Celsius (59.9 degrees Fahrenheit), in what was the warmest January since 1921 and the fifth warmest since records began almost 350 years ago.It's one of the most significant snowfall events in this part of the country for several years, Keith Fenwick, a forecaster at the country's Met Office weather centre, told AFP about the affected areas.
The last such significant snowfall was in December 2000, he said.
The snow - an increasingly rare event outside of mountainous areas of Britain - forced London's City, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted airports to shut their runways for several hours.Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff airports also closed their runways as snow fell thickest outside London. Up to 10 centimetres of snow came down on the Welsh capital.London's Heathrow Airport remained open, but about 32 mainly short-haul flights were cancelled, a spokesman said.Elsewhere, schools were closed and traffic crawled while London's underground train network and some mainline train services suffered delays and disruptions.Snowdrifts forced road closures in mid-Wales and a snow plough was even seen clearing a path through the trendy north London district of Islington as the Highways Agency warned motorists to avoid all but essential journeys.Although the wintry weather moved northwest towards Manchester and Liverpool later in the day, the Met Office warned of freezing fog and black ice possible in areas already hit by snow.
We're not completely out of the woods yet, said Fenwick.
David Frost, the head of the British Chamber of Commerce, claimed transport disruptions would cost the economy up to 400 million pounds (605 million euros, 788 million dollars) because commuters would be hardest hit.Like many, he said that unlike other countries who have snow on a regular basis, Britain's travel infrastructure was ill-equipped to deal with it because it now fell so rarely.Jack Straw, Leader of the House of Commons, appeared to agree, admitting to MPs that Britain needed to be better prepared.It is extremely important we upgrade our efforts all the time to defy the weather which after all, not withstanding a day's snow, is much more moderate than many other countries who frankly are able to cope a bit better, he said.Across the English Channel heavy snow caused disruptions in the Netherlands and Belgium, with several runways closed at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport and Dutch rail running fewer trains.
Traffic at Schiphol, one of Europe's busiest airports, was cut to some 30 flights an hour from the usual 60-70. Flights were also delayed at Brussels airport and traffic build-ups occurred around the Belgian capital and in the hilly Ardennes region to the south, where more than 20 centimetres of snow were recorded. In northern France, Eurostar and other high-speed trains were delayed by a diversion caused by a rail that fractured north of Arras because of the cold, the French SNCF railways company said.
Catastrophe bonds: a market answer to hail or high water by Isabelle Tourne FEB 08,07
NEW YORK (AFP) - Facing the prospect of more volatile world weather patterns, especially devastating hurricanes, the financial markets have developed a new instrument to spread the risk: catastrophe bonds. Demand for catastrophe bonds, which are marketed to offset the financial risks of insuring against a mass storm or earthquake, has grown explosively in recent years, according to Rodrigo Araya, a vice president at the Moody's rating agency.Such bonds, which are usually sponsored by insurers, offer yields above average interest rates to investors if a natural disaster does not occur over a given period.But if a storm hits and an insurer must pay out claims, the bond investor loses everything, including the interest and principal.Catastrophe bond issues grew to almost two billion dollars in value in 2005, prior to Hurricane Katrina ravaging the US Gulf coast, but today the market for such instruments is worth almost five billion dollars.The so-called cat bond market debuted during the 1990s, and grew after Hurricane Andrew triggered the collapse of over 60 insurance firms, spurring insurers to radically rethink their risk management.
Transferring the financial risk of insurance to the financial markets seemed like an ideal solution.Such bonds have found favor with hedge funds and offered money managers new avenues in which to diversify their complex investment portfolios.Cat bonds also offer insurers and reinsurers a way to spread their risks against a sudden liquidity crunch in the wake of vast storm, some of which rack up billions of dollars in property damage.And the market has not been diminished despite Katrina's late 2005 obliteration of New Orleans and the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, and the resulting 50 billion-dollar damage bill.Last year, (there were) almost no catastrophe hurricanes, investors did not suffer any significant losses, so they paid well, so there is more demand, Araya said.The cat bond market has attracted the likes of Wilbur Ross, an American billionaire who made a fortune turning around troubled firms and who recently created a firm specializing in catastrophe risks.What we're betting on is that the perceived risk exceeds the actual risk, Ross said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.
According to Mark Azzopardi, the head of BNP Paribas' insurance and pension operations, for a given rating level, the investor is not taking more risk with a cat bond, just different risks which help to diversify their portfolios.He said cat bonds can be issued for all manner of natural disasters, to protect against severe wind risks in the United States or a Japanese earthquake.Some cat bond advocates say they have arrived on the market just in time.Peter Levene, chairman of the London-based Lloyd's insurance market, warned an audience of insurance executives in Washington last month that global insurers are facing the risk of a 100-billion-dollar mega-catastrophe twice the size of Katrina.And Warren Buffett, the savvy US billionaire whose interests include insurance assets, has said the losses from Katrina alone had cost his insurance groups some 2.5 billion dollars. The demand for cat bonds is expected to pick up ahead of this year's Atlantic hurricane season which traditionally runs from June to November.
Israel weighs Old City project Webcast By MARSHALL THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer THU FEB 08,07
JERUSALEM - The Israel Antiquities Authority is considering broadcasting real-time, 24-hour video from a contentious Jerusalem holy site in a bid to allay Muslim fears the shrine will be harmed by repair work, an official said Thursday. Muslim leaders ridiculed the idea, and Israeli police were on heightened alert before Friday Muslim prayers at the site, imposing travel restrictions and planning for a helicopter to hover overhead.Israel says it needs to replace a centuries-old earthen ramp leading to the hilltop compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, which was damaged heavily in a 2004 snowstorm. It has promised the work would not harm Islamic shrines at the site, some 60 yards away, but those assurances have not calmed Muslim outrage over the project.Lawmaker Israel Hasson said he proposed installing cameras so all the Arab world would be able to see everything that goes on there.
The Antiquities Authority said it was looking into how much the Webcast would cost.
The Antiquities Authority is looking into the possibility of installing Internet cameras ,to show that we are working with full transparency, and to show that we aren't digging ,not under Temple Mount, not on the way to Temple Mount and far from Temple Mount.
Adnan Husseini, chairman of the Waqf, the Muslim trust that oversees the complex, rejected the proposal as ridiculous.This is a historical place, and their machines are destroying it, Husseini said. The Israelis have to stop the work and let the Waqf do the renovations.The ramp leads to the outer wall of the hilltop compound. But the Waqf claims jurisdiction over it because it touches the mosque complex.The hilltop — home to the Al Aqsa mosque and the golden-capped Dome of the Rock shrine — is Islam's third-holiest shrine. Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from the site. It also is the site of the original retaining walls of the second Jewish temple, including the Jewish shrine called the Western Wall.UNESCO criticized the renovation and called on Israel to suspend any action that could endanger the spirit of mutual respect until such time as the will to dialogue prevails once again.The eight-month construction project has provoked small-scale protests since it began Tuesday.On Thursday, about 100 Palestinians briefly blocked an entrance to the Old City, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The protesters dispersed peacefully after police ordered them to do so, Rosenfeld said.But Raed Salah, a leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, warned of a religious war as he scuffled with police outside the shrine Wednesday. Salah, who was briefly detained for police questioning, declared Friday Al Aqsa Day and called on Israeli Muslims and Palestinians to attend weekly prayers at the shrine.
Police issued a 10-day restraining order barring Salah from entering the Old City.
Israeli police remained on heightened alert Thursday, with about 2,000 officers deployed throughout the Old City and nearby areas in Arab east Jerusalem.Rosenfeld said that at least as many officers would be deployed Friday, the Muslim holy day, when mosque attendance is at its highest. Police said they would put up roadblocks in the area and fly over the site in a helicopter.Rosenfeld said an order barring West Bank Palestinians from the Al Aqsa compound would be extended to Friday prayers. Since construction began, access has been restricted to Israeli Arabs and east Jerusalem residents over 45. Israel has controlled the compound since 1967, when it captured east Jerusalem from Jordan, but has left its administration largely to Jordan and the Palestinians. When Israel opened a tunnel alongside the compound in 1996, it touched off clashes that killed 80 people. In 2000, when then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site, the ensuing riots were followed by years of
violence.
Iran to hit U.S. interests if attacked By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer FEB 08,07
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader said Thursday that if the United States were to attack Iran, the country would respond by striking U.S. interests all over the world — the latest sharp exchange in an escalating standoff between the two countries. The comments by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came on the same day that another top official, Tehran's ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, warned in a column in The New York Times that efforts to isolate Iran would backfire on the United States, increasing sectarian tensions in the volatile Middle East, including Iraq.The United States is reaping the expected bitter fruits of its ill-conceived adventurism, he said.But rather than face these unpleasant facts, the United States administration is trying to sell an escalated version of the same failed policy. It does this by trying to make Iran its scapegoat and fabricating evidence of Iranian activities in Iraq, he said.
The United States and Iran have been in an increasingly tense standoff over Tehran's nuclear program. The tensions have worsened recently because of U.S. allegations of Iranian influence in Iraq.The United States has denied it has any plans to strike Iran militarily but has sent an additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf in what U.S. officials call an effort to show strength in the face of rising Iranian regional influence.
Speaking to a gathering of air force commanders, Khamenei said: The enemy knows well that any invasion would be followed by a comprehensive reaction to the invaders and their interests all over the world.In another sign of the tensions, Iran's intelligence minister also said the government had detected a network of U.S and Israeli spies, and had detained a second group of people who planned to go abroad for espionage training, state television reported.
It gave few details.The allegation comes just a few days after an Iranian diplomat was detained in Baghdad in an incident that Iran blamed on U.S. forces. The Americans have denied involvement in the diplomat's detention.Also Thursday, Gen. Ali Fadavi, a navy commander in the Elite Revolutionary Guard, said Iransuccessfully test-fired a cruise missile over the Oman Sea and the northern Indian Ocean. Iran routinely tests missiles.The missile, with a 217-mile range and a 1,100-pound warhead, was fired in low-level flight from a launcher, Fadavi told state-run radio. The missile can detect its target quickly and destroy any type of warship, he said.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the United States did not see the missile test as a direct assault on our ships.Iranian leaders often speak of a crushing response to any U.S. attack. While the remarks are seen as an attempt to drum up national support, Iran's position on Iraq and its nuclear program has provoked harsher international and especially U.S. pressure in recent months.President Bush has ordered American troops to act against Iranians suspected of being involved in the Iraqi insurgency in addition to deploying the second carrier. The U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions because of Iran's refusal to cease uranium enrichment, and is due to consider strengthening later this month.Some people say that the U.S. president is not prone to calculating the consequences of his actions, Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state television, but it is possible to bring this kind of person to wisdom.U.S. policymakers and analysts know that the Iranian nation would not let an invasion go without a response, Khamenei added.
Last week, a publication called Sobh-e Sadegh, the official publication of the Revolutionary Guards, also warned against American attacks, pointing out that because the U.S. has large numbers of troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, central Asia and Europe, it would be easy to kidnap Americans in retaliation.In his column, Zarif said Bush's plan to send an additional 21,500 troop to Iraq can only be expected to worsen tension and increase the possibility of unintended escalation. He called instead for intensified regional cooperation on Iraq, saying a proposed meeting next month of Iraq's neighbors in Baghdad would be a good place to begin.In his talk Thursday, Khamenei also addressed rumors about his health — a subject that is rarely discussed openly in Iran. Last month, there was speculation his health had deteriorated seriously. Enemies of the Islamic system fabricated various rumors about death and health to demoralize the Iranian nation, but they did not know that they are not dealing with only one person in Iran. They are facing a nation, Khamenei said.
Palestinian factions to resume talks By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer FEB 08,07
MECCA, Saudi Arabia - Rival Palestinian factions drew close to an agreement Thursday over the outlines of a power-sharing government in which the militant Hamas group would promise to respect peace deals signed with Israel, officials said. But the deal raises the question of whether any government that emerges from the Mecca conference will be accepted by the United States and Israel.
They have demanded that Hamas explicitly recognize Israel and renounce violence, which the militant group has so far refused to do.Unless they feel Hamas has sufficiently moderated its stance, the United States is unlikely to lift a crippling international financial boycott of the Palestinian government and Israel will not open peace talks with a new Palestinian government.Delegates from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' mainstream Fatah movement and Hamas negotiated until 3 a.m Thursday, then resumed talks midmorning in closed-door meetings that lasted throughout the day, trying to reach a deal. An agreement is vital to averting a civil war between the factions: Many Palestinians fear that without a strong enough agreement in Mecca, fighting that has killed dozens in past months could grow even stronger.A Hamas delegate said the political outlines of an agreement for a coalition government between Fatah and Hamas would be announced later Thursday.
Now we are forming the principles of the agreement. Tonight we are going to announce an agreement in principle on forming a national unity government, the delegate told the Associated Press.He said the outlines of the new government's political platform would be announced, including a provision by which the factions including Hamas would respect previous peace deals between the Palestinians and Israel. The delegate spoke on condition of anonymity because he was giving the information before the formal announcement.They will also be based on a document drawn up last summer by Hamas and Fatah activists jailed in Israeli prisons. That document calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.If Hamas joins a government that adopts that document, it would be the militant group's most concrete commitment ever to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict though Hamas has said that would not necessarily mean recognizing Israel.The vague provision for Hamas to respect past deals may fall short of the explicit terms demanded by the United States and Israel.Moreover, it appeared Hamas and Fatah still have been unable to agree on who would take up the vital post of interior minister in the coalition government. The interior minister would control security forces which each faction has been loathe to see fall into the other's hands.
Maher Mekdad, a member of the Fatah delegation, said the two sides had reached an agreement on the division of Cabinet posts. The interior minister would be an independent: Hamas would propose a list of candidates and President Mahmoud Abbas, head of Fatah, would approve one of them, Mekdad told the Associated Press.That result may fall short of the solid, comprehensive deal Saudi Arabia had hoped for when it called the summit, held in a palace in Mecca overlooking Islam's holiest site the Kaaba, the cube-shaped shrine that all Muslims face when they pray.The summit is a last-ditch attempt to resolve the turmoil that has shaken the Palestinians and the peace process with Israel since Hamas won January 2006 elections and formed a government. The U.S. and the West slapped the boycott on funding to Hamas' government and Israel refused any negotiations with it, though it has held talks with Abbas.Meanwhile, the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah has grown bloodier, and many fear that without a deal in Mecca, the factional fighting could turn to outright civil war.Saudi Arabia, a powerful U.S. ally, may have to play a role in selling any agreement to the West.
So far, Washington has publicly backed Israel's stance reiterated by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipo Livni on Wednesday that a Palestinian government must explicitly renounce violence and accept the right of Israel to exist.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are due to meet on Feb. 19 in Jerusalem for talks intended to revive the peace process.Abbas had asked Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal to sound out the Americans on whether respect the accords is acceptable, a Fatah delegate said. Abbas is ready to give Hamas a blank check on the wording so long as the Americans will buy it, a Fatah delegate said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad bristled at the pressure on the militant group to recognize Israel, saying doing so would not necessarily lead to the Palestinians' ultimate goal of a state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Recognizing Israel is not like the staff of Moses (a magic wand) by which we can solve all the crises, he said. We want to ease the Palestinian people suffering (from the boycott), but that is not going to be done with any price ... The international community cannot force the Palestinian people to follow all its conditions.In Gaza, people waited anxiously for the talks to produce results. Gunmen added sandbags and other reinforcements to their positions on streets and rooftops in Gaza City. More than 30 people were killed and over 200 wounded in four days of fighting that ended with a truce, called for the Mecca talks, on Sunday. The imprisoned Fatah militant leader Marwan Barghouti sent an e-mail from an Israeli jail that warned: If the dialogue currently taking place in Mecca fails, history will have no mercy on those who took part, and they will not soon be forgiven by the Palestinian people.
Ethiopian Jews: Stop Bringing in Falash Mura
By Gil Ronen and Hana Levi Julian (INN) FEB 08,07
Spiritual leaders of the Ethiopian Jewish community have called on government officials to stop bringing members of the the Falash Mura community to Israel. Ethiopian kessim (high priests) and rabbis charged Monday at a conference in Rehovot that many of the Falash Mura conduct Christian missionary activity within the Ethiopian immigrant community.
Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews attended the Ending Missionary Activity in the Community conference, a fact that attests to the depth of concern over the issue.The Falash Mura are said to be the descendants of Ethiopian Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity several generations ago. According to members of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel, the Falash Mura have no desire to return to the Judaism of their ancestors.We came [to Israel] to be Jews, said the community leaders. We weren’t different from the Christians in skin color we were different from them only because of our Judaism. The missionary activities have crossed red lines and could set the community aflame and cause bloodshed, they warned.
The conference appointed a committee led by the kessim, which will create a list of missionaries as well as a map of the Christian missions in each city, and submit them to the Interior Ministry. The community’s leaders intend to ask the Interior Ministry to bar Falash Mura from marrying Jews and block their burial in Jewish cemeteries.Israel has absorbed more than 100,000 Ethiopian Jews and Falash Mura in the past 20 years. Currently 300 Ethiopians are being brought to Israel each month.
Ethiopian Israeli advocacy groups are demanding that the number be increased to 600 and that Jewish aid services in Ethiopia be extended to an additional 7,800 people.
European Union to open four embassies in Central Asia countries
08.02.2007, 12.52
LONDON, February 8 (Itar-Tass) - The European Union plans to open four embassies in Central Asian countries. The diplomatic offices will be opened in Astana (Kazakhstan), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Dushanbe (Tajikistan) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). This initiative is voiced in a document submitted by Germany that presides over the EU to member-countries. The document says that the EU’s goal is to establish special relations with Central Asian states, mainly in energy. Germany also proposes concrete projects – the construction of a new gas pipeline from Central Asia along the Caspian seabed to the EU. The EU plans to engage heavy financial resources to support its breakthrough to Central Asia. The existing mandates of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank will be expanded.
The Arabs Want the Overpass to Collapse, to Keep Jews Out
By Hillel Fendel (INN) FEB 08,07
MK Eldad: The Mughrabi Gate struggle is not over a bridge, but over the principle of Jewish presence. Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (National Union) says that if the State of Israel is not able to carry out safety maintenance work at the Western Wall plaza, it means that we are on a dangerous path towards disappearing from the political map of the Middle East.Speaking with Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine, Eldad said, The struggle is over the preservation of the only Temple Mount gate left out of Wakf [Muslim Authority] hands and in Jewish hands.The Arabs actually want the Mughrabi Gate passway to collapse, Eldad said, so that they will be able to close the only gate that is under Jewish control. That will end the era of Jewish visitation rights to the Temple Mount. They have been waiting for this for a long time, and that's why they don't want us to refurbish it.The bridge in question leads from the plaza leading to the Western Wall up to the Temple Mount, and is considered a safety hazard in its current condition. Israel's Antiquities Authority is carrying out archaeological works there in anticipation of its refurbishing. Arabs around the country have taken advantage of the situation to accuse of Israel of trying to destroy the Temple Mount complex, and have called for a response sharper than the previous intifadas.
It's true, Eldad said, that the original sin was when the Jewish People, immediately after the Six Day War in 1967, ceded its hold on the Temple Mount in an unholy alliance between the Chief Rabbinate and Moshe Dayan - each side for its own reasons - but now the danger is that the Arab sovereignty on the Temple Mount will spill over to the Western Wall plaza, and from there to other places.
Then-Defense Minister Dayan, just days after Israel's liberation of the Old City, informed the Muslims running the Temple Mount that they could continue to run the mosques there - and later went further by preventing Jewish prayer all over the Mount. It was evident that if we did not prevent Jews from praying in what was now a mosque compound, Dayan later wrote, matters would get out of hand and lead to a religious clash... As an added precaution, I told the chief of staff to order the chief army chaplain to remove the branch office he had established in the building which adjoins the mosque compound.Eldad said that the Arabs' objective is to acquire a veto right over what the State of Israel can do on its property, wherever the Arabs feel the area is a sensitive and explosive holy Moslem site. He noted that the Arabs openly demand the rights of a national minority in a joint state. Israel cannot allow itself to live under threats and blackmail every time it wants to do something necessary or in keeping with our national and historic rights.
New Arab Minister Wants New Anthem and Flag
15:56 Feb 08, '07 / 20 Shevat 5767
(IsraelNN.com) Israel's first Arab Cabinet minister, Raleb Majadle, said that the Jewish state should change its anthem and flag. These were made and meant for the Jews, and did not take the Arab minority into account, he told the The New York Times. If Israel wants to integrate us fully, then we need an anthem and flag that can do that, but it must be by agreement.The Labor party minister did not directly reject recent calls by Arab academics calling for Israel to drop its definition as a Jewish state. The fact is that Israel is a Jewish State, a state with a Jewish majority. Can we change that reality with words? he said.Muslim and Bedouin leaders have urged their constituents in the past several years to change that reality by multiplying quickly and creating an Arab majority in Israel without force. Arabs already constitute a majority in the Galilee outside of Haifa and in the triangle east of Netanya and Kfar Saba. Bedouin polygamy, permitted by Israeli authorities on the grounds of religious freedom, has propelled Bedouins from less than 15,000 people 50 years ago to more than 150,000 today, representing close to 40 percent of the population in the Negev.
Collapse, to Keep Jews Out. 13-New Arab Minister Wants New Anthem and Flag.
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.
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FEB 09,07 NO QUAKES YET
FEB 08,07
MAP 2.5 KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA
MAP 2.7 UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA
MAP 5.0 SUMBAWA REGION, INDONESIA
MAP 5.3 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 5.1 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 3.2 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 5.2 CARLSBERG RIDGE
MAP 2.9 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 4.8 MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
MAP 5.2 NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
MAP 2.5 NORTHERN ALASKA
MAP 5.2 CENTRAL MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
MAP 3.1 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.1 UTAH
MAP 2.7 COLORADO
MAP 5.4 KURIL ISLANDS
MAP 2.8 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 3.3 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 2.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
FEB 07,07
MAP 2.5 WASHINGTON
MAP 5.7 SOUTHERN PERU
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.5 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.6 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.5 OFF THE COAST OF SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA
MAP 3.1 SOUTH DAKOTA
MAP 2.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.2 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 TEXAS PANHANDLE REGION
MAP 4.8 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.0 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 GEORGIA, USA
Rains bring fresh floods to Indonesia By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer Thu Feb 8, 6:24 AM ET
JAKARTA, Indonesia Residents working in waist-high mud salvaged family photos from
washed-out neighborhoods as fresh rains Thursday triggered more flooding,compounding the misery for hundreds of thousands forced from their homes. A week after the Indonesian capital was struck by the worst floods in recent memory, waters had receded in many middle-class districts, but conditions remained grim in narrow riverside alleys where the city's poor live.At least 53 people were killed in the floods, while some 84,000 others have been treated for ailments including itchy skin, coughs or common colds resulting from contact with dirty water or exposure, the Health Ministry said.In cramped and damp emergency shelters, mothers breast-fed babies close to piles of rotting garbage. Food and medicine appeared to besufficient in several places visited Thursday, but authorities warned the spread of disease was possible.The rain comes in, the wind comes in, but we are stuck, said Muhammad Nahrowi, one of 5,000 people crammed into a school close to the hardest-hit districts.Some 40 percent of areas previously flooded in the city of 12 million people were still submerged in muddy water, said Rustam Pakaya, chief of the Health Ministry's crisis center, citing data from aerial surveillance.
The government said between 240,000 and 400,000 people were still unable to return home.City officials have to start cleaning the debris if they want to prevent the spread of diseases, Pakaya said.
Overnight rain sent waters up to more than 3 feet coursing back into some areas, underscoring the challenges facing city authorities as they try to clean its streets and restore basic services.We spent yesterday mopping and scrubbing and now the waters have come again, said Haji Jajan, 52, as women and children peered from second-floor balconies at the steadily rising waters. I'm tired, but what can we do? More downpours were forecast for the capital in coming days, and authorities warned flooding was possible until the rainy season ends at the end of next month.Floods also occurred outside the capital, with some 106,000 acres of rice paddies and several villages, farms and businesses in west Java province in knee-high water, said a meteorologist who uses the single name Kiki.The floods in Jakarta hit hardest in tightly packed riverside districts in Jakarta accessible only by foot and where whole families often live in a single room. Many houses were washed away or badly damaged.
Large areas of one such district, Kampung Pulo, remained under water Wednesday.
Residents trudged through filthy waters to the main road to pick up food and water. Where floods had receded, thick mud several feet deep in places meant homes were still unlivable.I would move if I could, but for that you need money, said Atoy Mansori, who is unemployed, as he and other residents recovered what they could from their homes.Indonesia is hit by deadly floods each year, and Jakarta is not immune. But this year's have been the worst in recent memory, with some 100,000 homes, shops and businesses swamped in rich and poor areas alike.
Mozambique PM issues flood warning amid evacuation appeal by Jerome Cartillier Thu Feb 8, 8:57 AM ET
MAPUTO (AFP) - Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Diogo has warned that torrential rains could wreak more havoc than heavy floods in 2001 when nearly 1,000 people died, as authorities urged people to start evacuating. It's really a dramatic situation and there is a possibility of emergency, Diogo told reporters in Maputo, adding that the swelling waters of the Zambezi river in the centre of the country were of particular concern.If the Zambezi river continues growing, the situation can be worse than in 2001. Because, as opposed to 2001, the situation is happening when the rainy season is not yet at its peak.Incessant downpours have lashed Mozambique since the start of the year, claiming 29 lives, flooding vast swathes of the coastal nation and rendering more than 46,000 homeless.
Authorities in the central town of Tete, bearing the brunt of the flash floods, urged people living along the banks of the Zambezi to leave their homes but the call went largely unheeded, residents told AFP by telephone Thursday.
Meanwhile, the National Water Directorate said the water levels on the Zambezi were flowing above the danger level, forcing the management of the giant Cahora Bassa dam to increase the outflow of water to prevent the dam from bursting.Cahora Bassa, built during Portuguese colonial rule, is one of Africa's largest hydroelectric projects.Located on the Zambezi River, the dam has created a 2,000-square-kilometre (800-square-mile) artifical lake which stretches to the point where the borders of Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge. It produces some 2,000 megawatts of power annually.The national water directorate said the dam's management had started discharging more than 6,000 litres of water per minute from Wednesday, which is higher than the level of discharge during the devastating 2001 floods.According to the National Institute of Calamities Management, 29 people have died thus far in flash flooding or from electrocution and about 46,500 people have seen their homes washed away.
Amarildo Romao, a 31-year-old journalist living in flood-washed Tete, told AFP: The situation is very dramatic.
It is not raining in town but there is a lot of rain coming from Zumbo, the area where the Zambezi enters Mozambique from Zambia and Zimbabwe.The downtown hotels are all flooded ... The wine, oil and soap factories are also partially flooded.People who live on islands on the Zambezi have all moved away. Their houses are also flooded.The upper sections of Tete, where most of the residential areas are located, have been largely untouched by the rising waters.Prime Minister Diogo meanwhile underlined that the impoverished country, which is emerging from the ashes of a 16-year civil war which ended in 1992, was better prepared to tackle floods this time around.There is a huge difference. In 2001, our early warning systems were not working so well. There has been a vast improvement, she said, adding the top priority for the government would be the evacuation of those living on the banks of the river.The prime minister however said it was too early to launch a call for international help or declare a natural disaster.
More and more lake effect snow, bitter cold Wayne Verno, Meteorologist, The Weather Channel Thu Feb 8, 8:06 AM ET
Northeast
Lake effect snow bands will continue to persist off Lakes Erie and Ontario, with the heaviest band occurring east of Lake Ontario. Locally, an additional foot or more of snow will fall in some locations of western New York. Scattered snow showers and flurries will also occur from north of Pittsburgh, through the Buffalo and Burlington areas, with mostly sunny skies expected elsewhere. Afternoon high temperatures today will range from the upper teens across Buffalo and Burlington, to the lower 20s across Pittsburgh. Upper 20s to lower 30s can be expected from Boston and New York, south through Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Also, as high pressure builds in from the west, and this interacts with low pressure situated north of the Great Lakes, windy conditions will develop across all of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast today. Winds of 20 to 30 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph, will be possible. The chilly weather, along with persistent lake effect snow showers, will continue into Friday.
Midwest
With high pressure building south across the northern Plains, winds may become a bit more aligned to support lake effect snow showers across the northern and central Great Lakes today, including Upper and western Lower Michigan.
Locally, 6 to 12 inches could accumulate in persistent snow bands. A few snow showers may also break out across the northern and High Plains today, as a weather disturbance slides southeast. Accumulations here will be light; generally an inch or less. Temperatures will remain very cold, with afternoon highs ranging from the single digits and teens from Fargo and Minneapolis, to Chicago and Cleveland, to the 20s and 30s from Rapid City and Omaha, through Kansas City, St, Louis, and Louisville. Very low wind chills will also persist over the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, with readings, especially this morning, running between 20 and 30 below. The chance for light snow showers will persist across the High Plains into Friday, along with lake effect snow showers over the northern and central Great Lakes.
West
Unsettled weather will continue for the next several days across the west, as a flow of moisture and series of weather disturbances continues to affect the region. A stationary front across the northern Rockies will increase the chance for snow across the higher mountains. Accumulations of 6 to 12 inches will be likely, with locally higher amounts. A new storm system will approach western and northern California today, with rain showers increasing this afternoon. Tonight, the rain will become steady and heavy at times from San Francisco, through Sacramento and Redding, while higher elevations snows will increase across the Serra Nevada, where several inches could accumulate.
Warm temperatures will persist over southern California and the Southwest, with areas from Los Angeles to Phoenix seeing readings in the 70s and 80s. Areas including Denver, Salt Lake City, and Seattle will see temperatures in the 40s today. The chance for rain will continue over central and northern California into Friday, with rain also increasing over the Pacific Northwest. Higher elevation snows will also continue.
South
In the wake of a weak cold front that has slipped across the Deep South, cooler conditions can be expected today from Charlotte and Atlanta, westward through Memphis and Dallas. Afternoon highs today will range from the lower 50s from Charlotte and Atlanta, to the Upper 30s to Upper 40s from Memphis to Dallas. The warmer temperatures will be confined to south of the cold front, with upper 60s and lower 70s common from Houston and New Orleans, to Orlando. A weak weather disturbance will trigger a few areas of light sleet or freezing drizzle this morning from Little Rock, to Memphis, to Tupelo; otherwise expect a few light rain showers or sprinkles across the Lower Mississippi River Valley this afternoon. These light rain showers or sprinkles will spread across the Gulf Coast and Southeast into Friday, otherwise dry and cool conditions will continue. The warmest temperatures will remain confined to the Coastal areas and Florida.
Heavy snow shuts airports, causes disruption in Britain by Phil Hazlewood FEB 08,07
LONDON (AFP) Airline passengers bore the brunt of unusually heavy snow in England and Wales Thursday, which forced the temporary closure of runways at several airports and caused disruption on roads and rails.
Between 10 and 15 centimetres (four and six inches) of snow fell overnight on large parts of southern and central England and Wales, with about five centimetres on London but the adverse weather eased later in the day.Just three weeks ago, Exeter in south-west England recorded temperatures of 15.5 degrees Celsius (59.9 degrees Fahrenheit), in what was the warmest January since 1921 and the fifth warmest since records began almost 350 years ago.It's one of the most significant snowfall events in this part of the country for several years, Keith Fenwick, a forecaster at the country's Met Office weather centre, told AFP about the affected areas.
The last such significant snowfall was in December 2000, he said.
The snow - an increasingly rare event outside of mountainous areas of Britain - forced London's City, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted airports to shut their runways for several hours.Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff airports also closed their runways as snow fell thickest outside London. Up to 10 centimetres of snow came down on the Welsh capital.London's Heathrow Airport remained open, but about 32 mainly short-haul flights were cancelled, a spokesman said.Elsewhere, schools were closed and traffic crawled while London's underground train network and some mainline train services suffered delays and disruptions.Snowdrifts forced road closures in mid-Wales and a snow plough was even seen clearing a path through the trendy north London district of Islington as the Highways Agency warned motorists to avoid all but essential journeys.Although the wintry weather moved northwest towards Manchester and Liverpool later in the day, the Met Office warned of freezing fog and black ice possible in areas already hit by snow.
We're not completely out of the woods yet, said Fenwick.
David Frost, the head of the British Chamber of Commerce, claimed transport disruptions would cost the economy up to 400 million pounds (605 million euros, 788 million dollars) because commuters would be hardest hit.Like many, he said that unlike other countries who have snow on a regular basis, Britain's travel infrastructure was ill-equipped to deal with it because it now fell so rarely.Jack Straw, Leader of the House of Commons, appeared to agree, admitting to MPs that Britain needed to be better prepared.It is extremely important we upgrade our efforts all the time to defy the weather which after all, not withstanding a day's snow, is much more moderate than many other countries who frankly are able to cope a bit better, he said.Across the English Channel heavy snow caused disruptions in the Netherlands and Belgium, with several runways closed at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport and Dutch rail running fewer trains.
Traffic at Schiphol, one of Europe's busiest airports, was cut to some 30 flights an hour from the usual 60-70. Flights were also delayed at Brussels airport and traffic build-ups occurred around the Belgian capital and in the hilly Ardennes region to the south, where more than 20 centimetres of snow were recorded. In northern France, Eurostar and other high-speed trains were delayed by a diversion caused by a rail that fractured north of Arras because of the cold, the French SNCF railways company said.
Catastrophe bonds: a market answer to hail or high water by Isabelle Tourne FEB 08,07
NEW YORK (AFP) - Facing the prospect of more volatile world weather patterns, especially devastating hurricanes, the financial markets have developed a new instrument to spread the risk: catastrophe bonds. Demand for catastrophe bonds, which are marketed to offset the financial risks of insuring against a mass storm or earthquake, has grown explosively in recent years, according to Rodrigo Araya, a vice president at the Moody's rating agency.Such bonds, which are usually sponsored by insurers, offer yields above average interest rates to investors if a natural disaster does not occur over a given period.But if a storm hits and an insurer must pay out claims, the bond investor loses everything, including the interest and principal.Catastrophe bond issues grew to almost two billion dollars in value in 2005, prior to Hurricane Katrina ravaging the US Gulf coast, but today the market for such instruments is worth almost five billion dollars.The so-called cat bond market debuted during the 1990s, and grew after Hurricane Andrew triggered the collapse of over 60 insurance firms, spurring insurers to radically rethink their risk management.
Transferring the financial risk of insurance to the financial markets seemed like an ideal solution.Such bonds have found favor with hedge funds and offered money managers new avenues in which to diversify their complex investment portfolios.Cat bonds also offer insurers and reinsurers a way to spread their risks against a sudden liquidity crunch in the wake of vast storm, some of which rack up billions of dollars in property damage.And the market has not been diminished despite Katrina's late 2005 obliteration of New Orleans and the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, and the resulting 50 billion-dollar damage bill.Last year, (there were) almost no catastrophe hurricanes, investors did not suffer any significant losses, so they paid well, so there is more demand, Araya said.The cat bond market has attracted the likes of Wilbur Ross, an American billionaire who made a fortune turning around troubled firms and who recently created a firm specializing in catastrophe risks.What we're betting on is that the perceived risk exceeds the actual risk, Ross said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.
According to Mark Azzopardi, the head of BNP Paribas' insurance and pension operations, for a given rating level, the investor is not taking more risk with a cat bond, just different risks which help to diversify their portfolios.He said cat bonds can be issued for all manner of natural disasters, to protect against severe wind risks in the United States or a Japanese earthquake.Some cat bond advocates say they have arrived on the market just in time.Peter Levene, chairman of the London-based Lloyd's insurance market, warned an audience of insurance executives in Washington last month that global insurers are facing the risk of a 100-billion-dollar mega-catastrophe twice the size of Katrina.And Warren Buffett, the savvy US billionaire whose interests include insurance assets, has said the losses from Katrina alone had cost his insurance groups some 2.5 billion dollars. The demand for cat bonds is expected to pick up ahead of this year's Atlantic hurricane season which traditionally runs from June to November.
Israel weighs Old City project Webcast By MARSHALL THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer THU FEB 08,07
JERUSALEM - The Israel Antiquities Authority is considering broadcasting real-time, 24-hour video from a contentious Jerusalem holy site in a bid to allay Muslim fears the shrine will be harmed by repair work, an official said Thursday. Muslim leaders ridiculed the idea, and Israeli police were on heightened alert before Friday Muslim prayers at the site, imposing travel restrictions and planning for a helicopter to hover overhead.Israel says it needs to replace a centuries-old earthen ramp leading to the hilltop compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, which was damaged heavily in a 2004 snowstorm. It has promised the work would not harm Islamic shrines at the site, some 60 yards away, but those assurances have not calmed Muslim outrage over the project.Lawmaker Israel Hasson said he proposed installing cameras so all the Arab world would be able to see everything that goes on there.
The Antiquities Authority said it was looking into how much the Webcast would cost.
The Antiquities Authority is looking into the possibility of installing Internet cameras ,to show that we are working with full transparency, and to show that we aren't digging ,not under Temple Mount, not on the way to Temple Mount and far from Temple Mount.
Adnan Husseini, chairman of the Waqf, the Muslim trust that oversees the complex, rejected the proposal as ridiculous.This is a historical place, and their machines are destroying it, Husseini said. The Israelis have to stop the work and let the Waqf do the renovations.The ramp leads to the outer wall of the hilltop compound. But the Waqf claims jurisdiction over it because it touches the mosque complex.The hilltop — home to the Al Aqsa mosque and the golden-capped Dome of the Rock shrine — is Islam's third-holiest shrine. Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from the site. It also is the site of the original retaining walls of the second Jewish temple, including the Jewish shrine called the Western Wall.UNESCO criticized the renovation and called on Israel to suspend any action that could endanger the spirit of mutual respect until such time as the will to dialogue prevails once again.The eight-month construction project has provoked small-scale protests since it began Tuesday.On Thursday, about 100 Palestinians briefly blocked an entrance to the Old City, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The protesters dispersed peacefully after police ordered them to do so, Rosenfeld said.But Raed Salah, a leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, warned of a religious war as he scuffled with police outside the shrine Wednesday. Salah, who was briefly detained for police questioning, declared Friday Al Aqsa Day and called on Israeli Muslims and Palestinians to attend weekly prayers at the shrine.
Police issued a 10-day restraining order barring Salah from entering the Old City.
Israeli police remained on heightened alert Thursday, with about 2,000 officers deployed throughout the Old City and nearby areas in Arab east Jerusalem.Rosenfeld said that at least as many officers would be deployed Friday, the Muslim holy day, when mosque attendance is at its highest. Police said they would put up roadblocks in the area and fly over the site in a helicopter.Rosenfeld said an order barring West Bank Palestinians from the Al Aqsa compound would be extended to Friday prayers. Since construction began, access has been restricted to Israeli Arabs and east Jerusalem residents over 45. Israel has controlled the compound since 1967, when it captured east Jerusalem from Jordan, but has left its administration largely to Jordan and the Palestinians. When Israel opened a tunnel alongside the compound in 1996, it touched off clashes that killed 80 people. In 2000, when then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site, the ensuing riots were followed by years of
violence.
Iran to hit U.S. interests if attacked By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer FEB 08,07
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader said Thursday that if the United States were to attack Iran, the country would respond by striking U.S. interests all over the world — the latest sharp exchange in an escalating standoff between the two countries. The comments by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came on the same day that another top official, Tehran's ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, warned in a column in The New York Times that efforts to isolate Iran would backfire on the United States, increasing sectarian tensions in the volatile Middle East, including Iraq.The United States is reaping the expected bitter fruits of its ill-conceived adventurism, he said.But rather than face these unpleasant facts, the United States administration is trying to sell an escalated version of the same failed policy. It does this by trying to make Iran its scapegoat and fabricating evidence of Iranian activities in Iraq, he said.
The United States and Iran have been in an increasingly tense standoff over Tehran's nuclear program. The tensions have worsened recently because of U.S. allegations of Iranian influence in Iraq.The United States has denied it has any plans to strike Iran militarily but has sent an additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf in what U.S. officials call an effort to show strength in the face of rising Iranian regional influence.
Speaking to a gathering of air force commanders, Khamenei said: The enemy knows well that any invasion would be followed by a comprehensive reaction to the invaders and their interests all over the world.In another sign of the tensions, Iran's intelligence minister also said the government had detected a network of U.S and Israeli spies, and had detained a second group of people who planned to go abroad for espionage training, state television reported.
It gave few details.The allegation comes just a few days after an Iranian diplomat was detained in Baghdad in an incident that Iran blamed on U.S. forces. The Americans have denied involvement in the diplomat's detention.Also Thursday, Gen. Ali Fadavi, a navy commander in the Elite Revolutionary Guard, said Iransuccessfully test-fired a cruise missile over the Oman Sea and the northern Indian Ocean. Iran routinely tests missiles.The missile, with a 217-mile range and a 1,100-pound warhead, was fired in low-level flight from a launcher, Fadavi told state-run radio. The missile can detect its target quickly and destroy any type of warship, he said.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the United States did not see the missile test as a direct assault on our ships.Iranian leaders often speak of a crushing response to any U.S. attack. While the remarks are seen as an attempt to drum up national support, Iran's position on Iraq and its nuclear program has provoked harsher international and especially U.S. pressure in recent months.President Bush has ordered American troops to act against Iranians suspected of being involved in the Iraqi insurgency in addition to deploying the second carrier. The U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions because of Iran's refusal to cease uranium enrichment, and is due to consider strengthening later this month.Some people say that the U.S. president is not prone to calculating the consequences of his actions, Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state television, but it is possible to bring this kind of person to wisdom.U.S. policymakers and analysts know that the Iranian nation would not let an invasion go without a response, Khamenei added.
Last week, a publication called Sobh-e Sadegh, the official publication of the Revolutionary Guards, also warned against American attacks, pointing out that because the U.S. has large numbers of troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, central Asia and Europe, it would be easy to kidnap Americans in retaliation.In his column, Zarif said Bush's plan to send an additional 21,500 troop to Iraq can only be expected to worsen tension and increase the possibility of unintended escalation. He called instead for intensified regional cooperation on Iraq, saying a proposed meeting next month of Iraq's neighbors in Baghdad would be a good place to begin.In his talk Thursday, Khamenei also addressed rumors about his health — a subject that is rarely discussed openly in Iran. Last month, there was speculation his health had deteriorated seriously. Enemies of the Islamic system fabricated various rumors about death and health to demoralize the Iranian nation, but they did not know that they are not dealing with only one person in Iran. They are facing a nation, Khamenei said.
Palestinian factions to resume talks By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer FEB 08,07
MECCA, Saudi Arabia - Rival Palestinian factions drew close to an agreement Thursday over the outlines of a power-sharing government in which the militant Hamas group would promise to respect peace deals signed with Israel, officials said. But the deal raises the question of whether any government that emerges from the Mecca conference will be accepted by the United States and Israel.
They have demanded that Hamas explicitly recognize Israel and renounce violence, which the militant group has so far refused to do.Unless they feel Hamas has sufficiently moderated its stance, the United States is unlikely to lift a crippling international financial boycott of the Palestinian government and Israel will not open peace talks with a new Palestinian government.Delegates from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' mainstream Fatah movement and Hamas negotiated until 3 a.m Thursday, then resumed talks midmorning in closed-door meetings that lasted throughout the day, trying to reach a deal. An agreement is vital to averting a civil war between the factions: Many Palestinians fear that without a strong enough agreement in Mecca, fighting that has killed dozens in past months could grow even stronger.A Hamas delegate said the political outlines of an agreement for a coalition government between Fatah and Hamas would be announced later Thursday.
Now we are forming the principles of the agreement. Tonight we are going to announce an agreement in principle on forming a national unity government, the delegate told the Associated Press.He said the outlines of the new government's political platform would be announced, including a provision by which the factions including Hamas would respect previous peace deals between the Palestinians and Israel. The delegate spoke on condition of anonymity because he was giving the information before the formal announcement.They will also be based on a document drawn up last summer by Hamas and Fatah activists jailed in Israeli prisons. That document calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.If Hamas joins a government that adopts that document, it would be the militant group's most concrete commitment ever to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict though Hamas has said that would not necessarily mean recognizing Israel.The vague provision for Hamas to respect past deals may fall short of the explicit terms demanded by the United States and Israel.Moreover, it appeared Hamas and Fatah still have been unable to agree on who would take up the vital post of interior minister in the coalition government. The interior minister would control security forces which each faction has been loathe to see fall into the other's hands.
Maher Mekdad, a member of the Fatah delegation, said the two sides had reached an agreement on the division of Cabinet posts. The interior minister would be an independent: Hamas would propose a list of candidates and President Mahmoud Abbas, head of Fatah, would approve one of them, Mekdad told the Associated Press.That result may fall short of the solid, comprehensive deal Saudi Arabia had hoped for when it called the summit, held in a palace in Mecca overlooking Islam's holiest site the Kaaba, the cube-shaped shrine that all Muslims face when they pray.The summit is a last-ditch attempt to resolve the turmoil that has shaken the Palestinians and the peace process with Israel since Hamas won January 2006 elections and formed a government. The U.S. and the West slapped the boycott on funding to Hamas' government and Israel refused any negotiations with it, though it has held talks with Abbas.Meanwhile, the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah has grown bloodier, and many fear that without a deal in Mecca, the factional fighting could turn to outright civil war.Saudi Arabia, a powerful U.S. ally, may have to play a role in selling any agreement to the West.
So far, Washington has publicly backed Israel's stance reiterated by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipo Livni on Wednesday that a Palestinian government must explicitly renounce violence and accept the right of Israel to exist.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are due to meet on Feb. 19 in Jerusalem for talks intended to revive the peace process.Abbas had asked Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal to sound out the Americans on whether respect the accords is acceptable, a Fatah delegate said. Abbas is ready to give Hamas a blank check on the wording so long as the Americans will buy it, a Fatah delegate said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad bristled at the pressure on the militant group to recognize Israel, saying doing so would not necessarily lead to the Palestinians' ultimate goal of a state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Recognizing Israel is not like the staff of Moses (a magic wand) by which we can solve all the crises, he said. We want to ease the Palestinian people suffering (from the boycott), but that is not going to be done with any price ... The international community cannot force the Palestinian people to follow all its conditions.In Gaza, people waited anxiously for the talks to produce results. Gunmen added sandbags and other reinforcements to their positions on streets and rooftops in Gaza City. More than 30 people were killed and over 200 wounded in four days of fighting that ended with a truce, called for the Mecca talks, on Sunday. The imprisoned Fatah militant leader Marwan Barghouti sent an e-mail from an Israeli jail that warned: If the dialogue currently taking place in Mecca fails, history will have no mercy on those who took part, and they will not soon be forgiven by the Palestinian people.
Ethiopian Jews: Stop Bringing in Falash Mura
By Gil Ronen and Hana Levi Julian (INN) FEB 08,07
Spiritual leaders of the Ethiopian Jewish community have called on government officials to stop bringing members of the the Falash Mura community to Israel. Ethiopian kessim (high priests) and rabbis charged Monday at a conference in Rehovot that many of the Falash Mura conduct Christian missionary activity within the Ethiopian immigrant community.
Hundreds of Ethiopian Jews attended the Ending Missionary Activity in the Community conference, a fact that attests to the depth of concern over the issue.The Falash Mura are said to be the descendants of Ethiopian Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity several generations ago. According to members of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel, the Falash Mura have no desire to return to the Judaism of their ancestors.We came [to Israel] to be Jews, said the community leaders. We weren’t different from the Christians in skin color we were different from them only because of our Judaism. The missionary activities have crossed red lines and could set the community aflame and cause bloodshed, they warned.
The conference appointed a committee led by the kessim, which will create a list of missionaries as well as a map of the Christian missions in each city, and submit them to the Interior Ministry. The community’s leaders intend to ask the Interior Ministry to bar Falash Mura from marrying Jews and block their burial in Jewish cemeteries.Israel has absorbed more than 100,000 Ethiopian Jews and Falash Mura in the past 20 years. Currently 300 Ethiopians are being brought to Israel each month.
Ethiopian Israeli advocacy groups are demanding that the number be increased to 600 and that Jewish aid services in Ethiopia be extended to an additional 7,800 people.
European Union to open four embassies in Central Asia countries
08.02.2007, 12.52
LONDON, February 8 (Itar-Tass) - The European Union plans to open four embassies in Central Asian countries. The diplomatic offices will be opened in Astana (Kazakhstan), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Dushanbe (Tajikistan) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). This initiative is voiced in a document submitted by Germany that presides over the EU to member-countries. The document says that the EU’s goal is to establish special relations with Central Asian states, mainly in energy. Germany also proposes concrete projects – the construction of a new gas pipeline from Central Asia along the Caspian seabed to the EU. The EU plans to engage heavy financial resources to support its breakthrough to Central Asia. The existing mandates of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank will be expanded.
The Arabs Want the Overpass to Collapse, to Keep Jews Out
By Hillel Fendel (INN) FEB 08,07
MK Eldad: The Mughrabi Gate struggle is not over a bridge, but over the principle of Jewish presence. Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (National Union) says that if the State of Israel is not able to carry out safety maintenance work at the Western Wall plaza, it means that we are on a dangerous path towards disappearing from the political map of the Middle East.Speaking with Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine, Eldad said, The struggle is over the preservation of the only Temple Mount gate left out of Wakf [Muslim Authority] hands and in Jewish hands.The Arabs actually want the Mughrabi Gate passway to collapse, Eldad said, so that they will be able to close the only gate that is under Jewish control. That will end the era of Jewish visitation rights to the Temple Mount. They have been waiting for this for a long time, and that's why they don't want us to refurbish it.The bridge in question leads from the plaza leading to the Western Wall up to the Temple Mount, and is considered a safety hazard in its current condition. Israel's Antiquities Authority is carrying out archaeological works there in anticipation of its refurbishing. Arabs around the country have taken advantage of the situation to accuse of Israel of trying to destroy the Temple Mount complex, and have called for a response sharper than the previous intifadas.
It's true, Eldad said, that the original sin was when the Jewish People, immediately after the Six Day War in 1967, ceded its hold on the Temple Mount in an unholy alliance between the Chief Rabbinate and Moshe Dayan - each side for its own reasons - but now the danger is that the Arab sovereignty on the Temple Mount will spill over to the Western Wall plaza, and from there to other places.
Then-Defense Minister Dayan, just days after Israel's liberation of the Old City, informed the Muslims running the Temple Mount that they could continue to run the mosques there - and later went further by preventing Jewish prayer all over the Mount. It was evident that if we did not prevent Jews from praying in what was now a mosque compound, Dayan later wrote, matters would get out of hand and lead to a religious clash... As an added precaution, I told the chief of staff to order the chief army chaplain to remove the branch office he had established in the building which adjoins the mosque compound.Eldad said that the Arabs' objective is to acquire a veto right over what the State of Israel can do on its property, wherever the Arabs feel the area is a sensitive and explosive holy Moslem site. He noted that the Arabs openly demand the rights of a national minority in a joint state. Israel cannot allow itself to live under threats and blackmail every time it wants to do something necessary or in keeping with our national and historic rights.
New Arab Minister Wants New Anthem and Flag
15:56 Feb 08, '07 / 20 Shevat 5767
(IsraelNN.com) Israel's first Arab Cabinet minister, Raleb Majadle, said that the Jewish state should change its anthem and flag. These were made and meant for the Jews, and did not take the Arab minority into account, he told the The New York Times. If Israel wants to integrate us fully, then we need an anthem and flag that can do that, but it must be by agreement.The Labor party minister did not directly reject recent calls by Arab academics calling for Israel to drop its definition as a Jewish state. The fact is that Israel is a Jewish State, a state with a Jewish majority. Can we change that reality with words? he said.Muslim and Bedouin leaders have urged their constituents in the past several years to change that reality by multiplying quickly and creating an Arab majority in Israel without force. Arabs already constitute a majority in the Galilee outside of Haifa and in the triangle east of Netanya and Kfar Saba. Bedouin polygamy, permitted by Israeli authorities on the grounds of religious freedom, has propelled Bedouins from less than 15,000 people 50 years ago to more than 150,000 today, representing close to 40 percent of the population in the Negev.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
RICE PALESTINIAN STATE
1-WORLD QUAKES LAST 2 DAYS.2-Mozambique floods kill 29, thousands left homeless. 3-Lake Ontario snow band re-energized. 4-Arctic cold wave in US dumps heavy snow in northeast. 5-Russia's defence minister lays out ambitious plans for new weapons purchases. 6-Rival Palestinian leaders meet in Mecca.7-Second worker tested from bird flu-hit British farm. 8-Rice summit will lead to Palestinian state? 9-Iran's Guards launch Gulf war games: state media. 10-Olmert associate: Offer to European task force to run Judea and Samaria. 11-Why not an EU-led trusteeship?
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 = Thur Feb 8 12:09 AM EDT
THURS FEB 8,07 NO QUAKES YET
FEB 07,07
MAP 2.5 WASHINGTON
MAP 5.7 SOUTHERN PERU
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.5 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.6 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.5 OFF THE COAST OF SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA
MAP 3.1 SOUTH DAKOTA
MAP 2.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.2 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 TEXAS PANHANDLE REGION
MAP 4.8 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.0 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 GEORGIA, USA
FEB 06,07
MAP 3.2 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.7 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 2.9 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 3.2 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 4.6 TAJIKISTAN
MAP 2.5 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 3.0 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 4.9 GUATEMALA
MAP 4.6 GUERRERO, MEXICO
MAP 2.6 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.4 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.6 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 2.7 PUERTO RICO
MAP 2.8 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 2.6 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 3.1 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 3.0 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.1 GUATEMALA
MAP 3.0 SAN JUAN URBAN AREA, PUERTO RICO
MAP 4.0 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
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.
Mozambique floods kill 29, thousands left homeless Wed Feb 7, 7:18 AM ET
MAPUTO (Reuters) - Floods in Mozambique have killed 29 people and wrecked thousands of homes after torrential rain and hurricanes swept through the country in the past two weeks, the government said on Wednesday.
It said it had warned thousands of people living by the country's main rivers, including the lower banks of the Zambezi which runs from southern Angola across southern Africa to the Indian Ocean, to evacuate.Strong winds, flooding and rains... have caused 29 deaths, total destruction and partial destruction of 4,677 houses, 111 classrooms, 4 health posts serving 46,500, the Mozambique government said in a statement printed by Maputo daily newspaper Noticias.
The floods hit both northern and southern regions after rain and heavy winds battered the country for the past two weeks.We are facing a situation that is likely to reach alarming proportions, the statement said, adding regions near the country's main rivers were at particular risk.Noticias said thousands of people living in high-risk areas had defied government orders by not evacuating the area.Authorities from Mozambique, Angola and Zambia last month warned of a humanitarian crisis after deadly floods submerged towns, devastated crops and left thousands of villagers without shelter, food or water.
More than 700 people died in Mozambique in 2000 and 2001 when heavy flooding swept through the central and southern regions of the former Portuguese colony.
Lake Ontario snow band re-energized B. Bernard, Meteorologist, The Weather Channel FEB 07,07
The seemingly semi-permanent snow band streaming off the eastern end Lake Ontario has become re-energized this afternoon. The intense band will meander north and south between Fulton and Watertown through tomorrow, spitting out 2 to 3 inches per hour in the core of the band. By the time the event is over later this week, a few spots likely will have been buried in over 100 inches of snow. Along the edges of the band, where winds are strongest, blizzard conditions are expected at times.
Elsewhere today, there are no winter weather warnings in effect (advisories only).
Arctic cold wave in US dumps heavy snow in northeast FEB 07,07
WASHINGTON (AFP) - An Arctic cold wave gripping the central and northeastern United States is dumping heavy snow in New York and other states near the Great Lakes, the National Weather Service said. It's still pretty darn cold in the mid-section of the country and the east, particularly in the northeast, Dennis Feltgen, an NWS meteorologist, told AFP.Temperatures are 10 to 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) below normal in the frigid front that moved in last week and was expected to last through the weekend, he said.The big chill is roaring in from the Arctic door wide open, he said. Relief should come by early or mid-week next week when the air flows shift, bringing in warmer air from the Pacific.
Temperatures this winter, though unseasonably cold, are not record-breaking, he said.The harshest cold weather on Wednesday was in the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois, he said.Lake-effect snow, produced by cold air blowing over the warmer Great Lakes, had dumped big snows, he said.In Oswego, New York, lake-effect snow was expected to drop between six to 10 inches (15-25 centimeters) during the day. CNN television network reported that 62 inches (158 centimeters) had fallen in the past five days in the city on the eastern end of Lake Ontario.In Chicago, a high temperature of near 15 degrees F (minus nine Celsius) was forecast, with a wind-chill factor bringing it to between minus five and zero.The Windy City, on the shores of Lake Michigan, saw scores of road accidents from fender-benders to 30-vehicle pileups Tuesday on slick roads, the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported. At least one death was attributed to icy roads.
The influence on the US of a moderately strong El Nino, which had an unusual warm winter in many states, has weakened in the last few weeks, he said.El Nino is an occasional seasonal warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean that upsets normal weather patterns from the western seaboard of Latin America to East Africa, and potentially has a global impact on climate.El Nino was expected to play only a marginal role in US weather by March and April, Feltgen said.
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)
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame
burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Russia's defence minister lays out ambitious plans for new weapons purchases Published: Wednesday, February 7, 2007 | 1:12 PM ET Canadian Press: VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's defence minister laid out an ambitious plan Wednesday for building new intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and possibly aircraft carriers, and set the goal of exceeding the Soviet army in combat readiness.Sergei Ivanov's statements appeared aimed at raising his profile at home ahead of the 2008 election in which he is widely seen as a potential contender to
succeed President Vladimir Putin. But they also seemed to reflect a growing chill in Russian-U.S. relations and the Kremlin's concern about U.S. missile defence plans.Ivanov told parliament that the military would get 17 new ballistic missiles this year - a drastic increase over the average of four deployed annually in recent years. The purchases are part of a weapons-modernization program for 2007-2015 worth about five trillion rubles (C$225 billion).
The plan envisages the deployment of 34 new silo-based Topol-M missiles and control units, as well as another 50 such missiles mounted on mobile launchers by 2015; Russia so far has deployed more than 40 silo-based Topol-Ms.Putin and other officials have described the Topol-M as a bulwark of Russia's nuclear might for years to come, and said it can penetrate any prospective missile defences.
Last week, Putin dismissed U.S. claims that missile defence sites it hopes to establish in Poland and the Czech Republic were intended to counter threats from Iran, and said Russia would respond by developing more efficient weapons systems.In 2002, Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush signed a treaty obliging both sides to cut their strategic nuclear weapons by about two-thirds by 2012, down to 1,700 to 2,200 missiles. But Russian-U.S. ties have worsened steadily since then over disagreements on Iraq and other global crises, and U.S. concerns about an increasingly authoritarian streak in Russia's domestic policy.
The Russian leadership believes that a nuclear parity with the United States is vitally important because it allows it to conduct an equal dialogue on other issues, said an independent military analyst, Alexander Golts.A rising tide of oil revenues has enabled Russia to boost defence spending following a squeeze on the military in the 1990s. The question now is whether the industries are capable of producing what the military needs, Ivanov said.
Rival Palestinian leaders meet in Mecca By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer FEB 07,07
MECCA, Saudi Arabia - Rival Palestinian leaders began crucial talks Wednesday in Islam's holy city, vowing to reach an agreement and avert civil war, a key step toward resuming the peace process with Israel.
Many Palestinians fear factional fighting will intensify if the Mecca talks fail. Gunbattles have killed more than 30 people in the days before a truce began Sunday, and there were new treats of revenge attacks in Gaza on Wednesday.In a sign of unity, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah faction, rode to Mecca in the same car for the first day of talks. Saudi and Palestinian officials have said intense negotiations will continue until a deal is hammered out.We came here to agree and we have no other option but to agree, Mashaal told the inaugural ceremony in a palace overlooking the Kaaba, the shrine that all Muslims face in their daily prayers.
Saudi King Abdullah arranged the talks between Mashaal and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the moderate Fatah party. But the Saudis did not attend, having repeatedly said there would be no outside interference in the negotiations.The king's sponsorship of the talks and his choice of venue show the Saudis' strong desire to produce a breakthrough in the Palestinian conflict, which Arabs have long accused their leaders of neglecting.Abbas said he and his Fatah delegation had told their supporters that we will not leave this holy place until we have agreed on everything good, with God's blessing.I tell our people to expect good news, and I hope this (meeting) will not be mere words in the air, he said.
Mashaal turned to Abbas and said they both had to tell their supporters to respect the truce that took effect Sunday.We want to give a message to the nation, and the world, to create a positive atmosphere for these talks, Mashaal said.But tensions persisted in Gaza. Hamas militants warned of new violence unless Fatah officers accused of being behind an attack last week on an Islamic university were handed over by the end of the day. Hamas also blamed Fatah for the slaying of one of its members in a shooting Tuesday night — though the attack may have been part of clan warfare that has overlapped the political battles.
In a sign of the general hope that the Mecca talks will deliver a breakthrough, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Tuesday that he, Abbas and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Feb. 19 in Jerusalem.
Abdullah held separate talks with the two delegations after their arrival in Jiddah on Tuesday. Earlier Wednesday, Mashaal, Palestinian Prime Ministers Ismail Haniyeh and other members of the Hamas delegation called on Abbas in Jiddah.Hamas delegate Abdel Rahman Zaidan described the meeting as positive and said it was clear Abbas shares with Hamas the desire to reach an agreement.Hamas and Fatah have held numerous discussions on a coalition government, but talks have foundered on the composition of the government and its stance on agreements signed with Israel. Hamas has long refused to recognize the peace accords Israel reached with the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Fatah is the major member.In the first round of talks, the two sides agreed to set up committees to deal with each part of their disputes.
Beyond ending Palestinian infighting, a deal on power-sharing is vital for any resumption of the peace process. Israel has refused any talks since Hamas formed a government following January 2006 elections, and the West imposed a financial blockade on the Palestinian government because of Hamas' refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said her country would not accept any Palestinian government that does not explicitly renounce violence and accept Israel's right to exist. Abbas, a moderate who was elected separately, wants an agreement on a coalition government in which Hamas will give some degree of recognition to previous peace agreements with Israel to allow a resumption of talks and an end to the embargo. But Hamas is worried about where a Mecca agreement might lead in talks with Israel. Who can guarantee that we will not be making a mistake if we give concessions, as the PLO has done? a member of the Hamas delegation, Mohammed Nazal, said in an interview from Jiddah.
Will we get an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital? he said, referring to the long-cherished goals of both Fatah and Hamas. The talks are also a test of Saudi diplomacy. Normally the kingdom prefers to work behind the scenes, but it is taking an assertive role in trying to resolve the Palestinian conflict, as well as the war in Iraq and the dispute in Lebanon. Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Amr, said the Fatah delegation wanted Abdullah to play a direct role in the talks because he has the respect of the two parties.The Saudis fear that the Shiite-Sunni tension reflected in the Iraqi and Lebanese disputes could erupt and destabilize the whole region. The kingdom itself has a significant Shiite minority.The Saudis also want to stem the influence of mainly Shiite Iran, its longtime rival, which has a hand in all three conflicts. Iran has funneled millions of dollars to Hamas and Hezbollah and has enormous influence among the Shiite parties in Iraq. In a sign of its concern, Saudi Arabia has even opened contacts with Iran to cooperate in easing tensions in Iraq and Lebanon. At the same time, Saudi Arabia sees the revival of the Israeli-Arab peace process as vital to calming the Mideast. What's going on in the land of Palestine serves only the enemies of the Islamic nation, Abdullah told Abbas on Tuesday, according to the Saudi News Agency. Associated Press Writer Salah Nasrawi in Cairo contributed to this report.
Israel weighing force against Hezbollah By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 7, 11:24 AM ET
JERUSALEM - Israel's defense minister on Wednesday accused Syria of allowing the rearmament of Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and said Israel has the right to act forcefully against the Shiite militia to counter the threat. Defense Minister Amir Peretz's comments came days after Israel said it discovered four bombs in northern Israel recently planted by Hezbollah guerrillas. The Israeli claim, denied by Hezbollah, immediately raised tensions along the volatile border.Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war last summer before a U.N.-brokered cease-fire took hold. Under the truce, thousands of Lebanese government troops and international peacekeepers patrol the border to maintain calm. The cease-fire also bars armed Hezbollah fighters from the border area and calls for a halt in unauthorized
weapons transfers to the guerrilla group.Speaking to visiting U.S. Jewish leaders, Peretz said Syria, Hezbollah's main ally, is continuing to allow weapons shipments to the group to cross its border with Lebanon.We can't under any circumstances ignore the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Hezbollah, Peretz said. While Israel remains committed to the cease-fire, he said, we reserve the right to protect the citizens of the state of Israel and we will do this forcefully without any compromises.
In Beirut, a Hezbollah official declined comment.
Syria is Hezbollah's closest ally, and Israel accuses the Damascus government of providing weapons to the group and allowing arms from the guerrillas' other main supplier, Iran, to pass through its territory to Lebanon.The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot on Wednesday said Syria recently transferred Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles to Hezbollah in violation of the cease-fire agreement. The report cited unidentified senior political sources.During a trip to Moscow in October, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed concern that Russian missiles were reaching Hezbollah through third parties.
At the time, Russia's defense minister said his government had settled the matter with Israel.Peretz gave no firm evidence of the weapons transfers and did not specify what would provoke Israeli military action in Lebanon. But he said this week's discovery of the bombs along the border showed how critical the situation has become.Israeli military officials said the bombs were planted in recent days, under the cover of bad weather. If true, it would mark a violation of the cease-fire and indicate a failure by the international peacekeepers to prevent new attacks on Israel.Hezbollah denied the allegation, saying the explosives were planted months ago before the war. U.N. officials are looking into the Israeli report.
Peretz has come under heavy criticism for his handling of the war, which has widely been perceived as a failure by the Israeli public. Israel attacked Hezbollah on July 12 after the group infiltrated Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two others.Despite an advantage in firepower, the army failed to accomplish the two main goals set by Israeli leaders destruction of Hezbollah and rescuing the two captured soldiers. It also was unable to prevent Hezbollah from raining thousands of rockets onto northern Israel.A total of 159 Israelis were killed, including 39 civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets.
More than 1,000 people were killed on the Lebanese side, according to tallies by government agencies, humanitarian groups and The Associated Press.The count includes 250 Hezbollah fighters that the group's leaders now say died during Israel's intense air, ground and sea bombardments in Lebanon. Israel has estimated its forces have killed 600 Hezbollah fighters.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
Second worker tested from bird flu-hit British farm FEB 07,07
LONDON (AFP) - Doctors are carrying out tests on a second person who worked at a British factory farm where the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected, public health officials said. The announcement from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) came just hours after it revealed that a vet said to have been involved in clearing up at the turkey farm plant had tested negative for the disease.We are not expecting any workers to test positive for avian flu as they have followed all the necessary precautions in terms of protective clothing, hygiene measures and have been offered antiviral drugs, said HPA flu expert Doctor Jonathan Van Tam.We are, however, expecting to see a number of workers with symptoms caused by other non-flu respiratory viruses over the coming week as this is the time of year when we see an increase in these infections.We will asses these cases as they occur and expect to be carrying out more testing through the course of this week.The HPA added that the results of the test on the second worker would be released Thursday.
The first was put in an isolation unit in a hospital in Nottingham, after suffering mild respiratory problems but has now been allowed to go home, the HPA said earlier.This man, named by British media as Gordon Young, was a state vet said by Sky News television to have taken blood samples from the 159,000 birds gassed at the farm in Holton, Suffolk, after H5N1 was confirmed Saturday.The highly virulent strain of H5N1 has killed at least 160 people worldwide, most of them in southeast
Asia.The farm is run by Bernard Matthews, Europe's biggest turkey producer.Vets completed a cull of all birds at the plant on Monday.Movement restrictions for poultry are still in place around the farm and the wider area.
Rice summit will lead to Palestinian state?
Chief negotiator expects meetings this month to result in bold moves
Posted: February 7, 2007 - 11:08 a.m. Eastern - By Aaron Klein - WorldNetDaily.com
JERUSALEM – The Palestinians are expecting a summit slated for later this month mediated by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to lead to final status negotiations and the establishment of a Palestinian state, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told WND in an interview today. I seriously believe Israel and the Palestinians will use the summit to move in the direction of final status negotiations and a solution, because I think we are realizing the only way to create peace is a Palestinian state, Erekat said. Erekat was referring to a trilateral summit planned for Feb. 19 and announced yesterday by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The talks will include Olmert, Rice and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert described the summit as a significant bid to restart long stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Israeli and Palestinian diplomatic sources told WND Olmert is expected to use the summit to offer Abbas far-reaching concessions. Asked if he expects the summit to pave the way toward an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, Erekat replied, I don't want to create any expectations, but I will say I believe the summit will bring about bold and strategic initiatives in the direction of a Palestinian state.
The new momentum created by the summit comes after WND broke the story last month that, according to top European and Egyptian diplomatic sources, Israel has been conducting behind-the-scene negotiations to hand over most of the West Bank to Abbas' security forces. The sources, who said they were directly involved in behind-the-scene negotiations, said one proposal being considered is for the EU and Jordan to supervise the transfer of the northern West Bank to Abbas' security forces, which reportedly are receiving aid, weapons and training from the U.S. The sources said major changes in Israeli-Palestinian affairs are expected within a few weeks to two months.
According to an aide to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, speaking on condition of anonymity, there will be a historic political evolution and movement in negotiations in the next few weeks and few months, unseen since the Camp David peace talks in 2000.During the Camp David talks, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem. According to the diplomatic sources, still being debated in the purported West Bank negotiations is the role of Hamas, which leads the PA and maintains the majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament. Negotiations between Abbas and Hamas leaders for a national unity government have mostly fallen through. So far, Hamas has refused to recognize Israel but recently offered a 10-year truce with the Jewish state. In a series of interviews last week, Hamas leaders told WND that during any 10-year truce period they would build a large Palestinian army and plan for the destruction of Israel. Olmert yesterday said he would negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes the Hamas terror group as long as Hamas recognizes Israel.
Olmert's office denied the WND reports on negotiations to evacuate the West Bank.
There were no negotiations regarding a West Bank withdrawal. This would go contrary to other things we have said in the recent past, said Olmert's spokesperson, Miri Eisin. Perhaps the officials talking to WorldNetDaily were referring to general expectations for movement in the Israeli-Palestinian arena,Eisin said.
But the European and Egyptian sources stood by their statements that Israel agreed in principal to transfer West Bank security control to Abbas. Israeli leaders previously have denied reports of pending withdrawals only to later carry them out. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, elected in 2001 on a platform against unilateral withdrawal, at first denied media reports Israel was planning to evacuate the Gaza Strip but later announced his Gaza withdrawal plan. Olmert was elected prime minister on the platform of carrying out a withdrawal from the West Bank, but after this summer's Lebanon war, he has stated a West Bank withdrawal would not occur. Olmert in August called the policy of unilateral withdrawal a failure and said it was no longer relevant. But he can argue handing the West Bank to Abbas in an agreement is not unilateral. Contradicting Olmert, Israeli Interior Minister Roni Bar-On of Olmert's Kadima party said last summer, The withdrawal plan is not dead,
though its implementation has been postponed. The plan is now on the shelf or in the freezer, but when the time comes it will be accessed.
Olmert's party proposes handing West Bank to Europe
At Israel's prestigious Herzliya Conference last month, Knesset Member Shlomo Breznitz, reportedly a close confidante of Olmert, said the West Bank should be transferred temporarily to the Europeans and that most of the territory's Jewish communities should be evacuated. The only way to get out of the impasse is to transfer the territories, for a limited time, to an international mandate, that will run them until the establishment of a Palestinian state, said Breznitz at the conference. The Herzliya Conference is attended by Israel's top leadership and regularly maps out the country's agenda for the coming year. In 2004, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip at the conference. Breznitz told Israel's Maariv daily newspaper the West Bank should be transferred to the European community and not the U.S. because, he said, after the invasion of Iraq, America lost its status as an honest broker in the view of the Palestinians and the Arab states.
Breznitz said his West Bank transfer proposal received a warm reception from European and Palestinian officials. I have reason to believe, and I don't want to expand on this, that the Palestinians will support the proposal. Ambassadors and diplomatic representatives from European countries who were shown the proposal also believe that without international help it will not be possible to resolve the conflict, said Breznitz. According to the Israel Resource News Agency, Olmert regularly consults with Breznitz and is known to spend vacation time with the Breznitz family.
Israelis against West Bank withdrawal
Several recent public opinion polls showed the majority of Israelis now oppose a West Bank withdrawal. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan have expressed reservations about withdrawal plans, fearing terrorism can spill over into their respective countries. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. It had occupied a small section of Lebanon's border with Israel following repeated attacks by Palestinian terrorists in the area.
Since the withdrawal, Hezbollah has staged numerous attacks against Israel, including rocket bombardments of civilian population centers, raids against military outposts and ambushes and kidnappings of Israeli troops. Hezbollah built an arsenal in south Lebanon of more than 13,000 short- and medium-range rockets capable of hitting central sections of the Jewish state Israel withdrew last August from the Gaza Strip. Since then, rockets have been fired almost daily into nearby Jewish communities, Hamas has been elected to power and both Israeli and Palestinian officials have stated al-Qaida has infiltrated the territory. Israel says the Palestinians have smuggled hundreds of tons of heavy weaponry into Gaza and are preparing for a large-scale confrontation.
Iran's Guards launch Gulf war games: state media Wed Feb 7, 7:51 AM ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched two days of war games on Wednesday in the Gulf and Sea of Oman, state media reported. State television said the exercises by the air and naval units of the Guards were to raise ... combat preparedness.The United States and Iran are at loggerheads over Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington says is aimed at building atomic bombs, and over Iraq, where U.S. officials say Iran is backing militants. Tehran denies both charges.
Washington has ordered a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, a move regarded as a warning to Iran.Missile interception and test firing will be included in the war games, state television said, showing footage of divers jumping out helicopters and a warship at sea.When asked by a state radio reporter about what hardware had been tried out, the Guards' air force commander Hossein Salami suggested tests included equipment related to the Russian-made TOR-M1 anti-aircraft missile system.
It did not appear to involve firing those missiles.
Last month, Russia said it had completed delivery of the TOR-M1 system to Iran. Washington said the sale undermined regional security. Moscow says the missiles are only short-range and purely defensive.Military experts say Iranian forces are no technological match for the U.S. military but could still cause havoc in the Gulf and the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a choke point through which two fifths of the world's traded oil passes.Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that Washington was not planning for war with Iran.The Revolutionary Guards is an ideological wing of the Islamic Republic's armed forces and has a separate command structure to the regular military.
EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) 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.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
Obviously nobodies excited about this story but me and other Prophecy watchers. Daniel clearly says the EU will be the ones that guarentee Israels security, not the U.S.A, this story should be picked up by all the lukewarm Media. Instead WorldNetDaily is the only other source I see about EU troops coming to Gaza. And since the Bible says this will be a Land for Security deal, this fits right into
Prophecy.
Olmert associate: Offer to European task force to run Judea and Samaria
By David Bedein January 25, 2007 Israel Insider
A freshman member of the Israeli Knesset Parliament, Prof. Shlomo Breznitz of the Kadima Party, a close associate of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has offered a plan that would hand over the administration of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to a European task force until the establishment of a Palestinian state. The plan would involve destroying most of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, as Jewish communities were destroyed in the Katif sector of Gaza and in the Northern Samarian area of Samaria in a matter of less than two weeks during August, 2005. MK Breznitz, 70, a professor of psychology who specializes in situations of stress, couches his plan in terms of friendly terms such as realignment and settler relocation in the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that will not be demolished, even though there is a freeze on all new housing in all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The Olmert couple often spends their vacations with the Breznitzes, and the prime
minister often consults him.
The only way to get out of the impasse is to transfer the territories, for a limited time, to an international mandate, that will run them until the establishment of a Palestinian state, said Breznitz, whose plan was presented Wednesday at the Herzliya Conference on security matters held each year in Israel. Breznitz's proposal refers to international involvement like that which led to stability being restored in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the European task force is in place.
According to Breznitz's proposal, this step, which he calls an international greenhouse, would be led by the European community, not the US, which because of its involvement in Iraq, has lost its status as an honest broker in the view of the Palestinians and the Arab states.He proposes that Israel gradually leave most areas of Judea and Samaria, and that most of the settlements be evacuated based on the format that was proposed on the eve of elections in the realignment plan, and some of which would be relocated to settlement blocs. The Israeli army would be replaced by a European task force and would number tens of thousands of soldiers.
The proposal calls for the presence of a European task force in the territories that is not limited in time, and it would end its role only after its goals were met. He stressed that this is not a solution that would be forced on the Palestinians and that its implementation would be dependent on their consent, and noted, I have reason to believe, and I don't want to expand on this, that the Palestinians will
support the proposal. Ambassadors and diplomatic representatives from European countries who were shown the proposal also believe that without international help it will not be possible to resolve the conflict.
Background: The European task force
On December 1st, 2003, this reporter interviewed European Parliamentarian MP Graham Watson, who made a presentation concerning the future role of the European Task Force in the Middle East at the Geneva Initiative Conference in Geneva. This was a gathering that was organized by Israeli opposition leader Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs who also conceptualized Israel's unilateral surrender of territories during the Oslo process between 1993 and 1995, and in Israel's withdrawal in the year 2000 from Southern Lebanon. MP Watson presented the concept of the European Task Force, relying on the Bosnian model. MP Watson explained that the European Task Force saw its role as the exclusive protector of the Palestinian Arab entity, and that any and all Israeli presence beyond the 1967 lines would be viewed by the European Task Force as illegal and criminal in nature. MP Watson was adamant that no Israeli incursion into Palestinian areas patrolled by the European Task Force would be tolerated, and a European Task Force would play an active role in the dismantlement of Jewish communities established by Israel since 1967 including Jerusalem. MP Watson mentioned the Bosnian experience, where troops of the European Task Force had dismantled and relocated people who had been living in homes and communities for more than forty years. This relocation was done by force.
Updated Jan. 31, 2007
Why not an EU-led trusteeship?
By SHLOMO BREZNITZ
From the Israeli perspective, attempts to find a way out of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have been stymied by a conceptual contradiction never faced before. On the one hand, there is a broad consensus among the Israeli public that ruling over the Palestinians is causing the country lasting damage and should end as soon as possible. Kadima, the main component of the government coalition, ran on the platform of a major unilateral withdrawal from most areas of the West Bank.
On the other hand, the outcome of our painful withdrawal from Gaza indicates that repeating this in the West Bank would be suicidal.
With Hamas's rise it became clear that Israel's Gaza disengagement was not only misperceived, but exploited. No responsible leader would consider exposing practically all of Israel to the kind of Kassam attacks being experienced today by areas near Gaza. The Palestinian side has clearly demonstrated that unilateral withdrawal is not an option. However, even if an Israeli withdrawal were coordinated with the Palestinians, this would not guarantee peace for the simple reason that there is hardly any central Palestinian authority capable of imposing its will. The Palestinian political landscape abounds in a variety of militias and is splintered to a degree that makes it ungovernable by any of the groups contending for leadership. Thus the conceptual contradiction:
Israel wants out, but yielding these areas to a chaotic array of groups without a responsible central authority is impossible. Unfortunately, the status quo is not a viable option either, since the radicalization of the area is further fueled by the Arab-Israeli conflict. In short, we are stuck. THE DIFFICULTY of the Palestinian position is probably even greater. With Hamas heading the government, its political isolation is almost complete. The schism between the PA president and prime minister, and their respective supporters, spills ever more frequently into bloodshed. The alliance of Hamas with Iran and its leadership in Syria is increasingly perceived as serving the goals of extremists rather than the needs of the Palestinian people. The hopes of many Palestinians for nationhood, whether through the road map or by any other reasonable plan, seem more remote than ever.
What is needed is a central authority in Palestine that will make it possible for Israel to withdraw without prejudice to its security. In the absence of such authority the various attempts to negotiate between the parties will inevitably fail. That means some kind of trusteeship for Palestine, as articulated by Martin Indyk in a 2003 Foreign Affairs article. At that time, the US might have been a natural choice to serve this function; but in the current political environment it is, unfortunately, unrealistic. On the other hand, the EU, which has a paramount strategic interest in resolving the conflict in our region, is better suited to this role. With large Muslim minorities residing in Europe, the Israel -Palestinian problem further fuels discontent and extremism in these countries. Consequently, Europe could serve its interests and the region's by providing a political incubator for Palestine and, as in the case of Bosnia, prepare it for full independence. This political incubator is in the interest of all parties, including the EU, and could be initiated by a joint Israeli-Palestinian request. In no way does it harm US interests in the region; quite the contrary. Such a framework could revive the road map and allow it to move forward.The transition from political incubator rusteeship to full statehood is achievable depending on how quickly progress can be made. Likewise, the deeper European involvement, the greater the prospect of success.
The EU's main goal would be to pacify the situation on the ground (in effect achieving the first stage of the road map), help build democratic institutions necessary for independence and effectively manage how foreign aid is spent in order to dramatically increase the quality of life for Palestinians.
At some stage during this process the EU would also facilitate bilateral discussions between Palestine and Israel toward final resolution of all outstanding issues. The details for such an effort need to be fleshed out, but, in the final analysis, the only way forward is this sort of radical intervention that would create an incubator allowing the development of Palestinian statehood. The writer is a Kadima Knesset member and serves on the Foreign Relations and Security Committee.
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 = Thur Feb 8 12:09 AM EDT
THURS FEB 8,07 NO QUAKES YET
FEB 07,07
MAP 2.5 WASHINGTON
MAP 5.7 SOUTHERN PERU
MAP 2.5 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.5 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.5 CENTRAL ALASKA
MAP 2.6 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.5 OFF THE COAST OF SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA
MAP 3.1 SOUTH DAKOTA
MAP 2.8 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 3.2 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 TEXAS PANHANDLE REGION
MAP 4.8 FIJI REGION
MAP 3.0 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 2.5 GEORGIA, USA
FEB 06,07
MAP 3.2 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 2.7 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 2.9 VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP 3.2 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 4.6 TAJIKISTAN
MAP 2.5 BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP 3.0 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 4.9 GUATEMALA
MAP 4.6 GUERRERO, MEXICO
MAP 2.6 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP 3.4 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 3.6 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 2.7 PUERTO RICO
MAP 2.8 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 2.6 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
MAP 3.1 FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
MAP 3.0 SOUTHERN ALASKA
MAP 4.1 GUATEMALA
MAP 3.0 SAN JUAN URBAN AREA, PUERTO RICO
MAP 4.0 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
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.
Mozambique floods kill 29, thousands left homeless Wed Feb 7, 7:18 AM ET
MAPUTO (Reuters) - Floods in Mozambique have killed 29 people and wrecked thousands of homes after torrential rain and hurricanes swept through the country in the past two weeks, the government said on Wednesday.
It said it had warned thousands of people living by the country's main rivers, including the lower banks of the Zambezi which runs from southern Angola across southern Africa to the Indian Ocean, to evacuate.Strong winds, flooding and rains... have caused 29 deaths, total destruction and partial destruction of 4,677 houses, 111 classrooms, 4 health posts serving 46,500, the Mozambique government said in a statement printed by Maputo daily newspaper Noticias.
The floods hit both northern and southern regions after rain and heavy winds battered the country for the past two weeks.We are facing a situation that is likely to reach alarming proportions, the statement said, adding regions near the country's main rivers were at particular risk.Noticias said thousands of people living in high-risk areas had defied government orders by not evacuating the area.Authorities from Mozambique, Angola and Zambia last month warned of a humanitarian crisis after deadly floods submerged towns, devastated crops and left thousands of villagers without shelter, food or water.
More than 700 people died in Mozambique in 2000 and 2001 when heavy flooding swept through the central and southern regions of the former Portuguese colony.
Lake Ontario snow band re-energized B. Bernard, Meteorologist, The Weather Channel FEB 07,07
The seemingly semi-permanent snow band streaming off the eastern end Lake Ontario has become re-energized this afternoon. The intense band will meander north and south between Fulton and Watertown through tomorrow, spitting out 2 to 3 inches per hour in the core of the band. By the time the event is over later this week, a few spots likely will have been buried in over 100 inches of snow. Along the edges of the band, where winds are strongest, blizzard conditions are expected at times.
Elsewhere today, there are no winter weather warnings in effect (advisories only).
Arctic cold wave in US dumps heavy snow in northeast FEB 07,07
WASHINGTON (AFP) - An Arctic cold wave gripping the central and northeastern United States is dumping heavy snow in New York and other states near the Great Lakes, the National Weather Service said. It's still pretty darn cold in the mid-section of the country and the east, particularly in the northeast, Dennis Feltgen, an NWS meteorologist, told AFP.Temperatures are 10 to 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) below normal in the frigid front that moved in last week and was expected to last through the weekend, he said.The big chill is roaring in from the Arctic door wide open, he said. Relief should come by early or mid-week next week when the air flows shift, bringing in warmer air from the Pacific.
Temperatures this winter, though unseasonably cold, are not record-breaking, he said.The harshest cold weather on Wednesday was in the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois, he said.Lake-effect snow, produced by cold air blowing over the warmer Great Lakes, had dumped big snows, he said.In Oswego, New York, lake-effect snow was expected to drop between six to 10 inches (15-25 centimeters) during the day. CNN television network reported that 62 inches (158 centimeters) had fallen in the past five days in the city on the eastern end of Lake Ontario.In Chicago, a high temperature of near 15 degrees F (minus nine Celsius) was forecast, with a wind-chill factor bringing it to between minus five and zero.The Windy City, on the shores of Lake Michigan, saw scores of road accidents from fender-benders to 30-vehicle pileups Tuesday on slick roads, the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported. At least one death was attributed to icy roads.
The influence on the US of a moderately strong El Nino, which had an unusual warm winter in many states, has weakened in the last few weeks, he said.El Nino is an occasional seasonal warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean that upsets normal weather patterns from the western seaboard of Latin America to East Africa, and potentially has a global impact on climate.El Nino was expected to play only a marginal role in US weather by March and April, Feltgen said.
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)
EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame
burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Russia's defence minister lays out ambitious plans for new weapons purchases Published: Wednesday, February 7, 2007 | 1:12 PM ET Canadian Press: VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's defence minister laid out an ambitious plan Wednesday for building new intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and possibly aircraft carriers, and set the goal of exceeding the Soviet army in combat readiness.Sergei Ivanov's statements appeared aimed at raising his profile at home ahead of the 2008 election in which he is widely seen as a potential contender to
succeed President Vladimir Putin. But they also seemed to reflect a growing chill in Russian-U.S. relations and the Kremlin's concern about U.S. missile defence plans.Ivanov told parliament that the military would get 17 new ballistic missiles this year - a drastic increase over the average of four deployed annually in recent years. The purchases are part of a weapons-modernization program for 2007-2015 worth about five trillion rubles (C$225 billion).
The plan envisages the deployment of 34 new silo-based Topol-M missiles and control units, as well as another 50 such missiles mounted on mobile launchers by 2015; Russia so far has deployed more than 40 silo-based Topol-Ms.Putin and other officials have described the Topol-M as a bulwark of Russia's nuclear might for years to come, and said it can penetrate any prospective missile defences.
Last week, Putin dismissed U.S. claims that missile defence sites it hopes to establish in Poland and the Czech Republic were intended to counter threats from Iran, and said Russia would respond by developing more efficient weapons systems.In 2002, Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush signed a treaty obliging both sides to cut their strategic nuclear weapons by about two-thirds by 2012, down to 1,700 to 2,200 missiles. But Russian-U.S. ties have worsened steadily since then over disagreements on Iraq and other global crises, and U.S. concerns about an increasingly authoritarian streak in Russia's domestic policy.
The Russian leadership believes that a nuclear parity with the United States is vitally important because it allows it to conduct an equal dialogue on other issues, said an independent military analyst, Alexander Golts.A rising tide of oil revenues has enabled Russia to boost defence spending following a squeeze on the military in the 1990s. The question now is whether the industries are capable of producing what the military needs, Ivanov said.
Rival Palestinian leaders meet in Mecca By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer FEB 07,07
MECCA, Saudi Arabia - Rival Palestinian leaders began crucial talks Wednesday in Islam's holy city, vowing to reach an agreement and avert civil war, a key step toward resuming the peace process with Israel.
Many Palestinians fear factional fighting will intensify if the Mecca talks fail. Gunbattles have killed more than 30 people in the days before a truce began Sunday, and there were new treats of revenge attacks in Gaza on Wednesday.In a sign of unity, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah faction, rode to Mecca in the same car for the first day of talks. Saudi and Palestinian officials have said intense negotiations will continue until a deal is hammered out.We came here to agree and we have no other option but to agree, Mashaal told the inaugural ceremony in a palace overlooking the Kaaba, the shrine that all Muslims face in their daily prayers.
Saudi King Abdullah arranged the talks between Mashaal and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the moderate Fatah party. But the Saudis did not attend, having repeatedly said there would be no outside interference in the negotiations.The king's sponsorship of the talks and his choice of venue show the Saudis' strong desire to produce a breakthrough in the Palestinian conflict, which Arabs have long accused their leaders of neglecting.Abbas said he and his Fatah delegation had told their supporters that we will not leave this holy place until we have agreed on everything good, with God's blessing.I tell our people to expect good news, and I hope this (meeting) will not be mere words in the air, he said.
Mashaal turned to Abbas and said they both had to tell their supporters to respect the truce that took effect Sunday.We want to give a message to the nation, and the world, to create a positive atmosphere for these talks, Mashaal said.But tensions persisted in Gaza. Hamas militants warned of new violence unless Fatah officers accused of being behind an attack last week on an Islamic university were handed over by the end of the day. Hamas also blamed Fatah for the slaying of one of its members in a shooting Tuesday night — though the attack may have been part of clan warfare that has overlapped the political battles.
In a sign of the general hope that the Mecca talks will deliver a breakthrough, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Tuesday that he, Abbas and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Feb. 19 in Jerusalem.
Abdullah held separate talks with the two delegations after their arrival in Jiddah on Tuesday. Earlier Wednesday, Mashaal, Palestinian Prime Ministers Ismail Haniyeh and other members of the Hamas delegation called on Abbas in Jiddah.Hamas delegate Abdel Rahman Zaidan described the meeting as positive and said it was clear Abbas shares with Hamas the desire to reach an agreement.Hamas and Fatah have held numerous discussions on a coalition government, but talks have foundered on the composition of the government and its stance on agreements signed with Israel. Hamas has long refused to recognize the peace accords Israel reached with the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Fatah is the major member.In the first round of talks, the two sides agreed to set up committees to deal with each part of their disputes.
Beyond ending Palestinian infighting, a deal on power-sharing is vital for any resumption of the peace process. Israel has refused any talks since Hamas formed a government following January 2006 elections, and the West imposed a financial blockade on the Palestinian government because of Hamas' refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said her country would not accept any Palestinian government that does not explicitly renounce violence and accept Israel's right to exist. Abbas, a moderate who was elected separately, wants an agreement on a coalition government in which Hamas will give some degree of recognition to previous peace agreements with Israel to allow a resumption of talks and an end to the embargo. But Hamas is worried about where a Mecca agreement might lead in talks with Israel. Who can guarantee that we will not be making a mistake if we give concessions, as the PLO has done? a member of the Hamas delegation, Mohammed Nazal, said in an interview from Jiddah.
Will we get an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital? he said, referring to the long-cherished goals of both Fatah and Hamas. The talks are also a test of Saudi diplomacy. Normally the kingdom prefers to work behind the scenes, but it is taking an assertive role in trying to resolve the Palestinian conflict, as well as the war in Iraq and the dispute in Lebanon. Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Amr, said the Fatah delegation wanted Abdullah to play a direct role in the talks because he has the respect of the two parties.The Saudis fear that the Shiite-Sunni tension reflected in the Iraqi and Lebanese disputes could erupt and destabilize the whole region. The kingdom itself has a significant Shiite minority.The Saudis also want to stem the influence of mainly Shiite Iran, its longtime rival, which has a hand in all three conflicts. Iran has funneled millions of dollars to Hamas and Hezbollah and has enormous influence among the Shiite parties in Iraq. In a sign of its concern, Saudi Arabia has even opened contacts with Iran to cooperate in easing tensions in Iraq and Lebanon. At the same time, Saudi Arabia sees the revival of the Israeli-Arab peace process as vital to calming the Mideast. What's going on in the land of Palestine serves only the enemies of the Islamic nation, Abdullah told Abbas on Tuesday, according to the Saudi News Agency. Associated Press Writer Salah Nasrawi in Cairo contributed to this report.
Israel weighing force against Hezbollah By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 7, 11:24 AM ET
JERUSALEM - Israel's defense minister on Wednesday accused Syria of allowing the rearmament of Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and said Israel has the right to act forcefully against the Shiite militia to counter the threat. Defense Minister Amir Peretz's comments came days after Israel said it discovered four bombs in northern Israel recently planted by Hezbollah guerrillas. The Israeli claim, denied by Hezbollah, immediately raised tensions along the volatile border.Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war last summer before a U.N.-brokered cease-fire took hold. Under the truce, thousands of Lebanese government troops and international peacekeepers patrol the border to maintain calm. The cease-fire also bars armed Hezbollah fighters from the border area and calls for a halt in unauthorized
weapons transfers to the guerrilla group.Speaking to visiting U.S. Jewish leaders, Peretz said Syria, Hezbollah's main ally, is continuing to allow weapons shipments to the group to cross its border with Lebanon.We can't under any circumstances ignore the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Hezbollah, Peretz said. While Israel remains committed to the cease-fire, he said, we reserve the right to protect the citizens of the state of Israel and we will do this forcefully without any compromises.
In Beirut, a Hezbollah official declined comment.
Syria is Hezbollah's closest ally, and Israel accuses the Damascus government of providing weapons to the group and allowing arms from the guerrillas' other main supplier, Iran, to pass through its territory to Lebanon.The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot on Wednesday said Syria recently transferred Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles to Hezbollah in violation of the cease-fire agreement. The report cited unidentified senior political sources.During a trip to Moscow in October, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed concern that Russian missiles were reaching Hezbollah through third parties.
At the time, Russia's defense minister said his government had settled the matter with Israel.Peretz gave no firm evidence of the weapons transfers and did not specify what would provoke Israeli military action in Lebanon. But he said this week's discovery of the bombs along the border showed how critical the situation has become.Israeli military officials said the bombs were planted in recent days, under the cover of bad weather. If true, it would mark a violation of the cease-fire and indicate a failure by the international peacekeepers to prevent new attacks on Israel.Hezbollah denied the allegation, saying the explosives were planted months ago before the war. U.N. officials are looking into the Israeli report.
Peretz has come under heavy criticism for his handling of the war, which has widely been perceived as a failure by the Israeli public. Israel attacked Hezbollah on July 12 after the group infiltrated Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two others.Despite an advantage in firepower, the army failed to accomplish the two main goals set by Israeli leaders destruction of Hezbollah and rescuing the two captured soldiers. It also was unable to prevent Hezbollah from raining thousands of rockets onto northern Israel.A total of 159 Israelis were killed, including 39 civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets.
More than 1,000 people were killed on the Lebanese side, according to tallies by government agencies, humanitarian groups and The Associated Press.The count includes 250 Hezbollah fighters that the group's leaders now say died during Israel's intense air, ground and sea bombardments in Lebanon. Israel has estimated its forces have killed 600 Hezbollah fighters.
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
Second worker tested from bird flu-hit British farm FEB 07,07
LONDON (AFP) - Doctors are carrying out tests on a second person who worked at a British factory farm where the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected, public health officials said. The announcement from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) came just hours after it revealed that a vet said to have been involved in clearing up at the turkey farm plant had tested negative for the disease.We are not expecting any workers to test positive for avian flu as they have followed all the necessary precautions in terms of protective clothing, hygiene measures and have been offered antiviral drugs, said HPA flu expert Doctor Jonathan Van Tam.We are, however, expecting to see a number of workers with symptoms caused by other non-flu respiratory viruses over the coming week as this is the time of year when we see an increase in these infections.We will asses these cases as they occur and expect to be carrying out more testing through the course of this week.The HPA added that the results of the test on the second worker would be released Thursday.
The first was put in an isolation unit in a hospital in Nottingham, after suffering mild respiratory problems but has now been allowed to go home, the HPA said earlier.This man, named by British media as Gordon Young, was a state vet said by Sky News television to have taken blood samples from the 159,000 birds gassed at the farm in Holton, Suffolk, after H5N1 was confirmed Saturday.The highly virulent strain of H5N1 has killed at least 160 people worldwide, most of them in southeast
Asia.The farm is run by Bernard Matthews, Europe's biggest turkey producer.Vets completed a cull of all birds at the plant on Monday.Movement restrictions for poultry are still in place around the farm and the wider area.
Rice summit will lead to Palestinian state?
Chief negotiator expects meetings this month to result in bold moves
Posted: February 7, 2007 - 11:08 a.m. Eastern - By Aaron Klein - WorldNetDaily.com
JERUSALEM – The Palestinians are expecting a summit slated for later this month mediated by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to lead to final status negotiations and the establishment of a Palestinian state, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told WND in an interview today. I seriously believe Israel and the Palestinians will use the summit to move in the direction of final status negotiations and a solution, because I think we are realizing the only way to create peace is a Palestinian state, Erekat said. Erekat was referring to a trilateral summit planned for Feb. 19 and announced yesterday by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The talks will include Olmert, Rice and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert described the summit as a significant bid to restart long stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Israeli and Palestinian diplomatic sources told WND Olmert is expected to use the summit to offer Abbas far-reaching concessions. Asked if he expects the summit to pave the way toward an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, Erekat replied, I don't want to create any expectations, but I will say I believe the summit will bring about bold and strategic initiatives in the direction of a Palestinian state.
The new momentum created by the summit comes after WND broke the story last month that, according to top European and Egyptian diplomatic sources, Israel has been conducting behind-the-scene negotiations to hand over most of the West Bank to Abbas' security forces. The sources, who said they were directly involved in behind-the-scene negotiations, said one proposal being considered is for the EU and Jordan to supervise the transfer of the northern West Bank to Abbas' security forces, which reportedly are receiving aid, weapons and training from the U.S. The sources said major changes in Israeli-Palestinian affairs are expected within a few weeks to two months.
According to an aide to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, speaking on condition of anonymity, there will be a historic political evolution and movement in negotiations in the next few weeks and few months, unseen since the Camp David peace talks in 2000.During the Camp David talks, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem. According to the diplomatic sources, still being debated in the purported West Bank negotiations is the role of Hamas, which leads the PA and maintains the majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament. Negotiations between Abbas and Hamas leaders for a national unity government have mostly fallen through. So far, Hamas has refused to recognize Israel but recently offered a 10-year truce with the Jewish state. In a series of interviews last week, Hamas leaders told WND that during any 10-year truce period they would build a large Palestinian army and plan for the destruction of Israel. Olmert yesterday said he would negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes the Hamas terror group as long as Hamas recognizes Israel.
Olmert's office denied the WND reports on negotiations to evacuate the West Bank.
There were no negotiations regarding a West Bank withdrawal. This would go contrary to other things we have said in the recent past, said Olmert's spokesperson, Miri Eisin. Perhaps the officials talking to WorldNetDaily were referring to general expectations for movement in the Israeli-Palestinian arena,Eisin said.
But the European and Egyptian sources stood by their statements that Israel agreed in principal to transfer West Bank security control to Abbas. Israeli leaders previously have denied reports of pending withdrawals only to later carry them out. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, elected in 2001 on a platform against unilateral withdrawal, at first denied media reports Israel was planning to evacuate the Gaza Strip but later announced his Gaza withdrawal plan. Olmert was elected prime minister on the platform of carrying out a withdrawal from the West Bank, but after this summer's Lebanon war, he has stated a West Bank withdrawal would not occur. Olmert in August called the policy of unilateral withdrawal a failure and said it was no longer relevant. But he can argue handing the West Bank to Abbas in an agreement is not unilateral. Contradicting Olmert, Israeli Interior Minister Roni Bar-On of Olmert's Kadima party said last summer, The withdrawal plan is not dead,
though its implementation has been postponed. The plan is now on the shelf or in the freezer, but when the time comes it will be accessed.
Olmert's party proposes handing West Bank to Europe
At Israel's prestigious Herzliya Conference last month, Knesset Member Shlomo Breznitz, reportedly a close confidante of Olmert, said the West Bank should be transferred temporarily to the Europeans and that most of the territory's Jewish communities should be evacuated. The only way to get out of the impasse is to transfer the territories, for a limited time, to an international mandate, that will run them until the establishment of a Palestinian state, said Breznitz at the conference. The Herzliya Conference is attended by Israel's top leadership and regularly maps out the country's agenda for the coming year. In 2004, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip at the conference. Breznitz told Israel's Maariv daily newspaper the West Bank should be transferred to the European community and not the U.S. because, he said, after the invasion of Iraq, America lost its status as an honest broker in the view of the Palestinians and the Arab states.
Breznitz said his West Bank transfer proposal received a warm reception from European and Palestinian officials. I have reason to believe, and I don't want to expand on this, that the Palestinians will support the proposal. Ambassadors and diplomatic representatives from European countries who were shown the proposal also believe that without international help it will not be possible to resolve the conflict, said Breznitz. According to the Israel Resource News Agency, Olmert regularly consults with Breznitz and is known to spend vacation time with the Breznitz family.
Israelis against West Bank withdrawal
Several recent public opinion polls showed the majority of Israelis now oppose a West Bank withdrawal. The leaders of Egypt and Jordan have expressed reservations about withdrawal plans, fearing terrorism can spill over into their respective countries. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. It had occupied a small section of Lebanon's border with Israel following repeated attacks by Palestinian terrorists in the area.
Since the withdrawal, Hezbollah has staged numerous attacks against Israel, including rocket bombardments of civilian population centers, raids against military outposts and ambushes and kidnappings of Israeli troops. Hezbollah built an arsenal in south Lebanon of more than 13,000 short- and medium-range rockets capable of hitting central sections of the Jewish state Israel withdrew last August from the Gaza Strip. Since then, rockets have been fired almost daily into nearby Jewish communities, Hamas has been elected to power and both Israeli and Palestinian officials have stated al-Qaida has infiltrated the territory. Israel says the Palestinians have smuggled hundreds of tons of heavy weaponry into Gaza and are preparing for a large-scale confrontation.
Iran's Guards launch Gulf war games: state media Wed Feb 7, 7:51 AM ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched two days of war games on Wednesday in the Gulf and Sea of Oman, state media reported. State television said the exercises by the air and naval units of the Guards were to raise ... combat preparedness.The United States and Iran are at loggerheads over Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington says is aimed at building atomic bombs, and over Iraq, where U.S. officials say Iran is backing militants. Tehran denies both charges.
Washington has ordered a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, a move regarded as a warning to Iran.Missile interception and test firing will be included in the war games, state television said, showing footage of divers jumping out helicopters and a warship at sea.When asked by a state radio reporter about what hardware had been tried out, the Guards' air force commander Hossein Salami suggested tests included equipment related to the Russian-made TOR-M1 anti-aircraft missile system.
It did not appear to involve firing those missiles.
Last month, Russia said it had completed delivery of the TOR-M1 system to Iran. Washington said the sale undermined regional security. Moscow says the missiles are only short-range and purely defensive.Military experts say Iranian forces are no technological match for the U.S. military but could still cause havoc in the Gulf and the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a choke point through which two fifths of the world's traded oil passes.Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that Washington was not planning for war with Iran.The Revolutionary Guards is an ideological wing of the Islamic Republic's armed forces and has a separate command structure to the regular military.
EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) 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.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
Obviously nobodies excited about this story but me and other Prophecy watchers. Daniel clearly says the EU will be the ones that guarentee Israels security, not the U.S.A, this story should be picked up by all the lukewarm Media. Instead WorldNetDaily is the only other source I see about EU troops coming to Gaza. And since the Bible says this will be a Land for Security deal, this fits right into
Prophecy.
Olmert associate: Offer to European task force to run Judea and Samaria
By David Bedein January 25, 2007 Israel Insider
A freshman member of the Israeli Knesset Parliament, Prof. Shlomo Breznitz of the Kadima Party, a close associate of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has offered a plan that would hand over the administration of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to a European task force until the establishment of a Palestinian state. The plan would involve destroying most of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, as Jewish communities were destroyed in the Katif sector of Gaza and in the Northern Samarian area of Samaria in a matter of less than two weeks during August, 2005. MK Breznitz, 70, a professor of psychology who specializes in situations of stress, couches his plan in terms of friendly terms such as realignment and settler relocation in the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that will not be demolished, even though there is a freeze on all new housing in all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The Olmert couple often spends their vacations with the Breznitzes, and the prime
minister often consults him.
The only way to get out of the impasse is to transfer the territories, for a limited time, to an international mandate, that will run them until the establishment of a Palestinian state, said Breznitz, whose plan was presented Wednesday at the Herzliya Conference on security matters held each year in Israel. Breznitz's proposal refers to international involvement like that which led to stability being restored in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the European task force is in place.
According to Breznitz's proposal, this step, which he calls an international greenhouse, would be led by the European community, not the US, which because of its involvement in Iraq, has lost its status as an honest broker in the view of the Palestinians and the Arab states.He proposes that Israel gradually leave most areas of Judea and Samaria, and that most of the settlements be evacuated based on the format that was proposed on the eve of elections in the realignment plan, and some of which would be relocated to settlement blocs. The Israeli army would be replaced by a European task force and would number tens of thousands of soldiers.
The proposal calls for the presence of a European task force in the territories that is not limited in time, and it would end its role only after its goals were met. He stressed that this is not a solution that would be forced on the Palestinians and that its implementation would be dependent on their consent, and noted, I have reason to believe, and I don't want to expand on this, that the Palestinians will
support the proposal. Ambassadors and diplomatic representatives from European countries who were shown the proposal also believe that without international help it will not be possible to resolve the conflict.
Background: The European task force
On December 1st, 2003, this reporter interviewed European Parliamentarian MP Graham Watson, who made a presentation concerning the future role of the European Task Force in the Middle East at the Geneva Initiative Conference in Geneva. This was a gathering that was organized by Israeli opposition leader Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs who also conceptualized Israel's unilateral surrender of territories during the Oslo process between 1993 and 1995, and in Israel's withdrawal in the year 2000 from Southern Lebanon. MP Watson presented the concept of the European Task Force, relying on the Bosnian model. MP Watson explained that the European Task Force saw its role as the exclusive protector of the Palestinian Arab entity, and that any and all Israeli presence beyond the 1967 lines would be viewed by the European Task Force as illegal and criminal in nature. MP Watson was adamant that no Israeli incursion into Palestinian areas patrolled by the European Task Force would be tolerated, and a European Task Force would play an active role in the dismantlement of Jewish communities established by Israel since 1967 including Jerusalem. MP Watson mentioned the Bosnian experience, where troops of the European Task Force had dismantled and relocated people who had been living in homes and communities for more than forty years. This relocation was done by force.
Updated Jan. 31, 2007
Why not an EU-led trusteeship?
By SHLOMO BREZNITZ
From the Israeli perspective, attempts to find a way out of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have been stymied by a conceptual contradiction never faced before. On the one hand, there is a broad consensus among the Israeli public that ruling over the Palestinians is causing the country lasting damage and should end as soon as possible. Kadima, the main component of the government coalition, ran on the platform of a major unilateral withdrawal from most areas of the West Bank.
On the other hand, the outcome of our painful withdrawal from Gaza indicates that repeating this in the West Bank would be suicidal.
With Hamas's rise it became clear that Israel's Gaza disengagement was not only misperceived, but exploited. No responsible leader would consider exposing practically all of Israel to the kind of Kassam attacks being experienced today by areas near Gaza. The Palestinian side has clearly demonstrated that unilateral withdrawal is not an option. However, even if an Israeli withdrawal were coordinated with the Palestinians, this would not guarantee peace for the simple reason that there is hardly any central Palestinian authority capable of imposing its will. The Palestinian political landscape abounds in a variety of militias and is splintered to a degree that makes it ungovernable by any of the groups contending for leadership. Thus the conceptual contradiction:
Israel wants out, but yielding these areas to a chaotic array of groups without a responsible central authority is impossible. Unfortunately, the status quo is not a viable option either, since the radicalization of the area is further fueled by the Arab-Israeli conflict. In short, we are stuck. THE DIFFICULTY of the Palestinian position is probably even greater. With Hamas heading the government, its political isolation is almost complete. The schism between the PA president and prime minister, and their respective supporters, spills ever more frequently into bloodshed. The alliance of Hamas with Iran and its leadership in Syria is increasingly perceived as serving the goals of extremists rather than the needs of the Palestinian people. The hopes of many Palestinians for nationhood, whether through the road map or by any other reasonable plan, seem more remote than ever.
What is needed is a central authority in Palestine that will make it possible for Israel to withdraw without prejudice to its security. In the absence of such authority the various attempts to negotiate between the parties will inevitably fail. That means some kind of trusteeship for Palestine, as articulated by Martin Indyk in a 2003 Foreign Affairs article. At that time, the US might have been a natural choice to serve this function; but in the current political environment it is, unfortunately, unrealistic. On the other hand, the EU, which has a paramount strategic interest in resolving the conflict in our region, is better suited to this role. With large Muslim minorities residing in Europe, the Israel -Palestinian problem further fuels discontent and extremism in these countries. Consequently, Europe could serve its interests and the region's by providing a political incubator for Palestine and, as in the case of Bosnia, prepare it for full independence. This political incubator is in the interest of all parties, including the EU, and could be initiated by a joint Israeli-Palestinian request. In no way does it harm US interests in the region; quite the contrary. Such a framework could revive the road map and allow it to move forward.The transition from political incubator rusteeship to full statehood is achievable depending on how quickly progress can be made. Likewise, the deeper European involvement, the greater the prospect of success.
The EU's main goal would be to pacify the situation on the ground (in effect achieving the first stage of the road map), help build democratic institutions necessary for independence and effectively manage how foreign aid is spent in order to dramatically increase the quality of life for Palestinians.
At some stage during this process the EU would also facilitate bilateral discussions between Palestine and Israel toward final resolution of all outstanding issues. The details for such an effort need to be fleshed out, but, in the final analysis, the only way forward is this sort of radical intervention that would create an incubator allowing the development of Palestinian statehood. The writer is a Kadima Knesset member and serves on the Foreign Relations and Security Committee.
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