FRANCE OFFERS TO BROKER PEACE

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.

TORNADO TOUCHES DOWN NORTH OF LONDON ONTARIO
http://www.londontopic.ca/article.php?artid=9745

Tornado touches down north of London
LondonTopic.ca 06/23/2008

A rope-like side-winding tornado was captured on video by Londoner Brittany Bryans as she and her family drove from St. Marys to London early Sunday evening (June 22).Photo by Brittany Bryans, LondonTopic.ca A London family traveling back from St. Marys Sunday evening (June 22) got a close up look at some wicked weather, and manage to capture a tornado on video which reportedly touched down in the area of Bryanston just north of London.The footage (seen below) was captured just before 7 p.m., when Brittany Bryans, 22, Jeff Muir, 26, and their 10-month-old son Logan, spotted the rope-like, side-winding tornado twisting its way across the sky in the area of the Science Hill Country Club golf course while driving back to their north London home.

Slammed by tornadoes, 2 Kansas towns form bond Mon Jun 23, 2:10 PM ET

GREENSBURG, Kan. - Residents of this town nearly wiped off the map by a tornado are extending assistance to another Kansas community struck by a twister a year later. Greensburg, in southwest Kansas, was mostly destroyed by a tornado that rated 5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale — the highest level measured — on May 4, 2007. Chapman in north-central Kansas was struck by a lower-scale EF3 tornado earlier this month.Greensburg Mayor Bob Dixson says that while the destruction in Chapman might not have reached the level of that in his city, residents have suffered the same trauma.Whether things are 1 percent damaged or 100 percent, it's still devastating, Dixson said. Our hearts sank when we saw what they were going through. Our prayers went out to them.He said several Greensburg residents have set aside their own rebuilding efforts and gone to Chapman to help.The Greensburg twister killed 11 people in the town of 1,400. A year later, about half the population remained, many living in a mobile home park set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.About 40 new homes were built to energy efficient, environmentally friendly specifications.Dixson said Greensburg officials also have been sharing advice for rebuilding Chapman, also a town of 1,400.

We feel blessed by all the assistance we had here, and we wanted to reciprocate somehow, he said.Tony Frieze, the school superintendent in Chapman, said Greensburg's support has been helpful.They've all been through this, so they know what we're going through here, Frieze said.Restoring the school system is particularly important, said Tom Corns, owner and president of Greensburg State Bank.If it's not, families will leave and there will be little chance of them coming back, he said.

Midwest floodwaters could linger for weeks Mon Jun 23, 1:54 PM ET

CHICAGO (AFP) - The worst of the flooding that has ravaged the midwestern United States is nearly over, but it will be weeks before the murky water recedes in many areas, the National Weather service warned Monday. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Indiana due to the heavy rains and deadly storms which swept through the region in recent weeks.Early estimates place the damage in the billions as roads were washed out, rail and barge traffic shut down and millions of acres of crops were swamped.Scores of levees collapsed or were overtopped by the rushing waters which swallowed entire towns.The extreme weather which began May 25 and included a series of deadly tornadoes claimed the lives of 22 people, 17 of whom were in Iowa.More than 11 million people in nine midwestern states were affected by the flooding and extreme weather, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said.The worst of it is likely over ... for the bulk of the people, said Steve Buan, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service.All the tributary rivers of the Mississippi above St. Louis, Missouri have now crested, Buan said, but it will take three more days before the towns down river know whether their levies will hold.The river is expected to rise by about another six inches (15 centimeters) in areas up to 150 miles (240 kilometers) downstream.A lot of these rivers won't go back below flood stage until mid-July, Buan told AFP. It's going to take a long time to dry out.

Residents keep fighting rising Mississippi River By CHERYL WITTENAUER, Associated Press Writer JUNE 24,08

WINFIELD, Mo. - With a few days to go before the last stretch of the bloated Mississippi River reaches its crest, people toiled around the clock Monday to reinforce levees already strained and saturated from the pressure of the rising water. Officials in Lincoln County asked for volunteers to help fill 50,000 sandbags to fortify the 2 1/2-mile-long Pin Oak levee, an earthen berm that was so waterlogged that it was like walking on a waterbed, said county emergency management spokesman Andy Binder. Federal officials said they couldn't be sure it would survive through the river's crest at Winfield later in the week.They have a serious condition on their hands, Travis Tutka, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers chief of dam safety, said late Monday afternoon. This will be quite a test of that levee.If it breaches, the river will swamp 100 homes in east Winfield, as well as 3,000 acres of farm fields, several businesses and a city ballpark. A muskrat burrowed a hole in the soft ground during the night, releasing a geyser of water, and officials said it took nearly six hours to choke off the leak.There is no guarantee of performance, but we're fighting the good fight, Tutka said.

Only a handful of residents remained in east Winfield on Monday, after emergency workers went door to door urging them to evacuate. Among the holdouts was Sherman Jones, 56, who was all alone in his house except for his dogs, Mugsy and Junior.There is no place to go but the high school. I am not going to leave til my feet are wet, Jones said. It's been a rough year, but we'll get through it.In Foley, north of Winfield, floodwaters late Monday were filling the higher part of town. The east side of Foley was already submerged.

Elsewhere in the hard-hit county a few dozen miles northwest of St. Louis, National Guard soldiers patrolled levees looking for soft spots.Down river in Grafton, Ill., Mayor Richard Mosby said about 20 homes and businesses were flooded — but no more were expected to be affected if the Mississippi crests as forecast just a few inches above Monday's level.The river was not expected to complete its crest at Winfield and Grafton until Thursday and Friday, according to the federal river forecast issued Monday afternoon.Upriver, where the river already had crested, officials nervously stood watch Monday as they waited for the danger to recede. Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, the Army Corps' chief of engineers, toured Clarksville on Monday afternoon and said he was most concerned about agricultural levees up and down the river.I think what they have is holding well, Van Antwerp said. Now, it's a matter of getting the water off of it.Not far from the Iowa state line, the river was down a few inches at Canton after cresting Sunday at 27 feet — less than a foot short of the record set during the Great Flood of 1993. Jeff McReynolds, the city's emergency management director, said a voluntary evacuation request remained in place in the town of roughly 2,500.We were right up there to our nostrils for about 24 hours, McReynolds said. The concern from our operations center is they (residents) have seen the crest, and think the river has come down and want to move back into their homes.Illinois Emergency Management Agency officials said National Guard soldiers, prison inmates and others kept piling sandbags Monday on the Sny levee, a 52-mile barrier near Quincy, Ill., as the river crested Monday and started to recede.Down river from Quincy, the levee at Hannibal, Mo., was holding the slowly falling river out of the boyhood hometown of Samuel Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain. Marion County Emergency Management Director John Hark said the city was already planning for its National Tom Sawyer Days, the early July festival celebrating Twain's work.Hark said that with the river dropping, he could focus on other things that might discourage tourists — such as high gas prices. The flood, I think, is easier, he said. Associated Press writers Betsy Taylor in St. Louis and Don Babwin in Chicago contributed to this report.

China tornado wrecks 650 homes, kills just one person Sat Jun 21, 10:15 PM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A tornado in China tore up 650 houses in just five minutes and damaged nearly 1,000, state media said on Sunday, but only one person died. The tornado touched down in the eastern province of Anhui on Saturday, causing 18.5 million yuan ($2.7 million) in losses.Forty-five people, including eight seriously wounded, were taken to hospital after the tornado hit in Lingbi county, Xinhua news agency said.One 76-year-old villager died on the way to hospital.More than 20,000 people were affected by the tornado and 950 were relocated, Xinhua said.(Reporting by Nick Macfie; Editing by Valerie Lee)

SCHWATZ SHOCKED BY CAL FIRES
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8483488&ch=4226716&src=news

WILDFIRES NEAR FAIRFIELD BURNS 4000 ACRES
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=4226712&cl=8479864&src=news

Lightning sparks 800-plus fires in California By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer JUNE 24,08

SAN FRANCISCO - Firefighters from neighboring states arrived to help Monday after an unprecedented lightning storm sparked more than 800 wildfires, from Big Sur to wine country to Humboldt County. Thousands of firefighters battled the blazes on the ground and from the air and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was alarmed by the number of fires that kept erupting.He said he was told late Sunday evening that the state had 520 fires, and he found it quite shocking that by morning the number had risen above 700.Moments later, a top state fire official standing at Schwarzenegger's side offered a grim update: The figure was actually 842 fires, said Del Walters, assistant regional chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All but a couple were in the northern part of the state.This is an unprecedented lightning storm in California, that it lasted as long as it did, 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes, Walters said. We are finding fires all the time.

The assistance, mostly firefighting aircraft, arrived Monday from Nevada and Oregon after being requested over the weekend. Schwarzenegger said he had enlisted the help because you can never prepare for 500 or 700 or 800 fires all at the same time.Part of the reason for the swelling number of wildfires was that local and state officials were still counting after the fierce thunderstorm Friday night that touched off the blazes.We didn't get real lucky with this lighting storm, Walters said. It wasn't predicted — which often happens with these storms that come in off the Pacific, there's no history of the weather as it approaches the shore — and so we got hammered.In Mendocino County alone there were 110 fires, with just 17 contained.Two of the biggest fires had each charred nearly 6 square miles.One started in Napa County and quickly moved into Solano County, and threatened about 250 homes about 40 miles southwest of Sacramento, said Kevin Colburn, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It was 60 percent contained Monday.

The other was in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, about 160 miles north of Sacramento, and threatened about 1,200 homes. The largest of the fires threatened about 1,200 homes, and several youth camps and forced evacuations. The governor declared a state of emergency in Monterey and Trinity Counties on Monday.Along the coast in the Los Padres National Forest, a 2,000-acre wildfire burning south of Big Sur since Saturday forced the evacuations of 75homes and businesses, destroyed one house and threatened hundreds of others.It also led to an emergency airlift Sunday of eight endangered California condors. U.S. Coast Guard helicopters transported the seven juveniles and one adult bird from a wildlife center to the Monterey Airport.A second fire in the Los Padres burned more than 57,000 acres and has injured nine firefighters.

Two blazes about 25 miles south of San Jose had forced hundreds of residents to flee over the weekend, but most were being allowed to return Monday. One fire was 90 percent contained and the other 50 percent.In southern Arizona, two new human-caused wildfires were burning Monday but not threatening homes. A 700-acre fire in the Rincon Mountains east of Tucson was fully contained. Lightning sparked that fire.

DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE 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.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) 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 KINGS OR NATIONS).

Latin America could halt EU trade talks over return directive LEIGH PHILLIPS 23.06.2008 @ 09:29 CET

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, has warned that trade talks between the European Union and the Andean Community could be suspended if the 27-member bloc pushes ahead with its new immigration law.We could even suspend those negotiations. What do we have to talk about with a union of countries that criminalises immigrants? asked the Ecuadorean leader during a radio programme on Saturday (21 June), according to Reuters.Latin American leaders are worried about the human rights of migrants in Europe and the remittances the send home. (Photo: European Commission)It will be very hard to talk business and ignore human rights.

Latin American leaders have ramped up the rhetoric against the new EU 'return directive' that allows clandestine migrants to be detained for up to 18 months and face a five-year travel ban after being deported.Mr Correa, whose nation currently holds the Andean Community of Nations' rotating presidency, referred to the new law as the hate directive.The trade bloc, made up of Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia, launched trade and co-operation talks with the EU last year. Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay are also associate members as of 2005.Latin America's other trade bloc, Mercosur, has also expressed its misgivings. The bloc's secretary-general, Carlos Alvarez, has also criticised the return directive for violating human rights.Last week, Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, threatened to disrupt oil exports to Europe over the controversial new immigration measures.Although the country only supplies some 400,000 barrels a day to Europe, as opposed to the 1.4 million it delivers to the United States, European leaders have said the move is unwarranted.EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana called Mr Chavez's threat totally disproportionate on Friday (20 June).Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero told reporters at the EU summit of heads of state in Brussels on the same day he believes the Latin American leaders do not understand the new rules.

Maybe we need to explain exactly to the president of Venezuela what this directive (EU law) consists of, he said.The Latin American leaders however are not simply concerned about the human rights of undocumented workers. The remittances sent back to poor countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia are an important source of income and driver of development.Last year, immigrants in Europe, the US and Japan sent money back to their families in Latin America and the Caribbean amounting to just under €43 billion, more than the region receives from foreign direct investment or development assistance combined. Some 15 percent of that comes from western Europe. Monies from Spain amounting to 36 percent of all global remittances to Bolivia.The leaders say that it makes no sense for Europe to continue to send aid while cutting off remittances from immigrants.
Last week, the directive was also sharply criticised by the UN and Amnesty International.

African migrants make border attempt during penalty shoot-out

Meanwhile, in related news, Spanish media are reporting that a crowd of some few dozen African migrants attempted to push their way past a border post that guards Melilla, an autonomous Spanish city in Morocco.Co-ordinating the manoeuvre to coincide with the penalty shoot-out between Spain and Italy in the Euro 2008 quarter finals on Sunday (22 June), the migrants were nonetheless held back by Spanish and Moroccan police guards.According to Spanish media, the migrants used sticks and stones against the border guards, infamous for having shot some 14 migrants attempting to bypass the frontier in 2005.It is the first such attempt by African migrants since 2006, when another migrant was killed trying to make his way into the European Union.

Doubts emerging over Poland's Lisbon ratification
PHILIPPA RUNNER 23.06.2008 @ 09:23 CET

Poland is emerging as another potential problem for Lisbon Treaty ratification, with the office of the president - who has yet to sign off on the document - beginning to publicly argue that the EU pact is dead following the Irish No.There are a lot of indications that...the Lisbon Treaty today doesn't exist in a legal sense because one of the [EU] countries rejected its ratification, presidential aide Michal Kaminski told Poland's Radio ZET on Sunday (22 June).The EU constitution ended its life after the French and Dutch referendums in 2005, he explained by way of comparison. Conservative MP Przemyslaw Gosiewski - from the president's Law and Justice party - took the same line on the radio talk-show.In my opinion - as a lawyer - we have the same situation as after Holland and France...the rules on ratification of the [Lisbon] treaty unequivocally state that after the Irish rejection, it has not been ratified, he said.

The Polish parliament approved Lisbon in April with prime minister Donald Tusk at last Friday's EU summit calling for EU-wide ratification to continue, while adding he was not responsible for Polish president Lech Kaczynski's decision.Nine Polish liberal and Socialist MEPs in an open letter last week also urged Mr Kaczynski to sign. But socialist SLD party leader Wojciech Olejniczak warned in Sunday's radio debate that the president may not play ball.Let's not deceive ourselves, the president won't sign this treaty. The president is an opportunist, he said. The presidential signature has also been made conditional on finalising a new competencies deal with the government which would give both parliament and Mr Kaczynski's office an oversight role on future EU negotiations.

Fifteen out of 27 EU states have so far definitively ratified the Lisbon pact, with the Czech republic the biggest opponent to continuing the process after 53 percent of Irish people voted No in the only referendum on the text.UK ratification was called into question late last week after London's High Court warned the treaty cannot become law until it rules on a legal challenge by eurosceptic millionaire Stuart Wheeler, despite the British queen having given her Royal Assent.

Europe needs clarity

Commenting on the situation in German magazine Bild at the weekend, Luxembourg leader Jean-Claude Juncker said that in the future, Europe-wide referendums may be needed to give clarity to the mandate for further EU integration.I am open towards the idea of Europe-wide referendums...it could become a reasonable tool, also for the basic question: Do you want to be a member of the European Union and for this renounce the needed [national] competences? he said. We would get clarity. In the EU, are 50 percent of the people convinced that we need more Europe? The latest opinion surveys in regional French newspapers gave contradictory indications on feelings in one of Europe's largest founding nations, three years after the EU constitution debacle. A CSA poll for Le Parisien/Aujourd'hui en France this weekend showed 56 percent of people would vote Yes for Lisbon if they had the chance, while an IFOP survey for the Sud-Ouest journal said 53 percent would vote No.

Brussels' voluntary lobbyist register under fire
LEIGH PHILLIPS 23.06.2008 @ 18:50 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Lobbyists who try to influence European legislation on behalf of corporations, industry associations, trade unions and NGOs are being encouraged to sign up to a public register of their activities, launched on Monday (23 June) by the European Commission.But civil society groups have slammed the registry, unveiled after years of consultations and discussions. The scheme, they believe, has less than no value, as it is voluntary and does not contain the names of lobbyists, which campaigners say will make it impossible to track influence in Brussels.The commission started off over three years ago with worthy ideas for an EU lobby register, but the end product is proof that commercial lobbyists have excessive influence in Brussels, said Jorgo Riss of ALTER-EU, a coalition of NGOs campaigning for lobbying transparency in Europe.Organisations that sign up to the register have to indicate the policy areas in which they are engaged in lobbying and disclose some financial information . They will also have to list the names of their clients. However, there is no requirement that lobbyists have to register.

Clean and dirty lobbying

This means the lobbyists who want to tell you what they're up to will tell you, and those who don't, won't, warned Craig Holman, from US transparency group Public Citizen, speaking to reporters ahead of the launch.Indeed, having the choice of registering or not is actually an advantage for lobbyists, said Erik Wesselius of Corporate Europe Observatory. They can sign up to the register when they are doing clean lobbying that no one would worry about, and not sign up to it when engaged in more sensitive, dirty lobbying.

They also worry that the rules for financial disclosure are weak. Organisations are to register how much they are spending lobbying on behalf of a client within bands of €50,000. Lobbyists in the United States however must register every €7000 they spend.

Furthermore, financial disclosure is stricter for public interest lobbying efforts, such as those from environmental groups or human rights advocates than for those who attempt to influence legislation on behalf of corporations.For-profit lobbying organisations are asked to report approximate figures related to lobbying expenditure, while public interest organisations are asked to provide figures for their organisations' total budgets.The European Public Affairs Consultancies' Association (EPACA) – the trade association for Brussels lobbyists, however, welcomed the registry, and said in a statement it will encourage its members to sign up.

Peer pressure

Commission vice-president Siim Kallas, responsible for the European Transparency Initiative (ETI), which led to the development of the registry, said: A voluntary solution suits all expectations in the best way.Where before we had nothing, he added. This is much more than a self-regulating system.Asked by reporters what would make lobbyists sign up to the system, a commission spokesperson replied that peer pressure and the potential damage to their reputation from not doing so would be effective.The commission is ready to trust the profession, said the EU executive in a statement. The commission argues that a mandatory register would actually end up with fewer lobbyists signed up, as any obligatory mechanism would require legislation, which in turn would have to include tighter legal definitions. Thus a much narrower definition of who is a lobbyist would apply.Nonetheless, when commissioner Kallas launched the ETI in 2005, he had said People [should be] allowed to know who [lobbyists] are, what they do and what they stand for and he publicly criticised voluntary registries.

Secretary-general accused of watering down Kallas ambitions

Jorgo Riss, of ALTER-EU said he applauded Mr Kallas' initial ambitious goals and that the commissioner had been very sincere in wanting to achieve them. Instead, he blamed the commission's top civil servant, secretary-general Catherine Day, for the more modest aims of the final product, and accused her of effectively usurping vice-president Kallas.Once the secretary-general got her hands on it, the goals were watered down considerably.A spokesperson for Ms Day, however, strongly denied ALTER-EU's accusations. It's simply not true, commission spokesperson Mark Grey told the EUobserver. The secretary-general was requested to assist the vice-president with the practical implementation of the database.There was never any question of this being taken out of the competence of vice-president Kallas, he added.

One-stop shop

In May, the European Parliament voted to tighten up the rules governing the lobbyists via a mandatory scheme, requiring those seeking to influence officials in the EU's three main institutions to register themselves and provide income details.The resolution, passed by an overwhelming majority of euro-deputies, suggests that lobbyists must adhere to a code of conduct and face sanctions, such as being barred from an institution, if they flout the rules.

The commission is expected to launch an inter-institutional working group this summer to investigate the development of a 'one-stop shop' establishing a common registry for the main EU institutions – the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

Mubarak, Olmert to discuss Gaza truce by Ron Bousso
JUNE 24,08

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert travels to Egypt on Tuesday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak focused on the Gaza truce and Cairo's efforts to mediate a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas. The meeting in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh was announced by Olmert's office just hours after the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold last Thursday following months of bloodshed.Both sides have since observed the truce as Palestinian militants halted all rocket fire at the south of Israel, which in turn ended its raids across Gaza and started easing its punishing blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory.Egypt played a key role in the talks as Israel rejects direct contact with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which it blacklists as a terrorist group.The deal earned Olmert heavy domestic criticism for not making the truce conditional upon Hamas releasing army Corporal Gilad Shalit, abducted two years ago in a deadly cross-border raid.Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have vowed that the truce deal included an explicit commitment by Hamas to make progress in the talks on Shalit's release in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians jailed in Israel.Without progress, Israel said it would not agree to the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.Olmert and Mubarak will tie some loose ends of the truce and will discuss the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli official told AFP.

Olmert's special envoy for the prisoner exchange deal, Ofer Dekel, also planned to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for a new round of talks on a prisoner swap with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who mediates between Israel and Hamas.Israel knows it will have to pay a heavy price for Shalit's release and free many Palestinian terrorists, said a senior defence official, who asked not to be named.Shalit's parents on Sunday asked Israel's Supreme Court to instruct the state not to open the Rafah crossing before Gilad, 21, is released or before Hamas vows to release him.The state prosecution said in its reply to the Supreme Court that following the agreement, intensive talks on a prisoner exchange deal were expected to begin this week.Such talks would have been impossible without reaching the agreement on a ceasefire, the state said in a letter to the court.Israel also insisted that under the agreement Egypt would do its utmost to halt weapons smuggling from the Sinai peninsula into Gaza, an issue that has strained ties between the two states which have a 1979 peace treaty.

Berlin conference prepares groundwork for Palestinian state JUNE 24,08

BERLIN (AFP) - An international conference in Berlin on Tuesday aims to help Palestinians create their own state through grassroots security measures like putting policemen on the beat and building courthouses. But the one-day conference, attended by 41 countries and due to be followed in the evening by a meeting of the Middle East Quartet a week after a truce between Israel and Hamas, is focused only on helping the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and does not cover the Gaza Strip.The Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million people, has been subject to a near-total Israeli blockade since the seizure of power a year ago by the Islamist Hamas, which the international community refuses to talk to until it renounces violence and recognises Israel's right to exist.The EU Police Mission in the Palestinian Territories (EUPOL COPPS), set up in 2005to train the Palestinian police force, will call on donor nations gathered in Berlin to earmark 187 million dollars to help the PA.

The cash, which comes out of a total of seven billion dollars pledged to the PA in Paris in December, is not aimed at tackling militants but at building up the basic infrastructure needed for a functioning state, organisers said.The projects include training criminal and traffic police and building police stations, prisons and courts, as well as a forensics lab.The conference's key aim is to emphasize the commitment of the international community to the development of policing and justice in the PA, said Colin Smith, a retired British officer who heads the EU training mission.The Palestinian police are a capable police force that has a great deal of skills. What they lack is capacity, equipment and infrastructure, he said in Ramallah, political capital of the occupied West Bank, on Tuesday.

They do a remarkable job with very little.

A German foreign ministry spokesman said Berlin was confident the conference would produce substantial results both in terms of financing and in expanding EUPOL COPPS and widening its scope of activities into the justice sector.Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad is to head the Palestinian delegation to the German capital, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was also due to attend.

Also present will be Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Arab League secretary general Amr Mussa, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Quartet envoy Tony Blair and 23 foreign ministers including Russia's Sergei Lavrov.The conditions for a peaceful solution are better today than they have been in the last 10 years, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at an Israeli-European security forum ahead of the conference.But he added that for violence to stop and for a two-state solution to become reality it was vital that the Palestinians themselves are in a position to create more security.More security for the Palestinians also means more security for Israel ... Only when people in Israel and the Palestinian territories start to see an improvement in their lives will they put their trust in talks, he said.Volker Perthes from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs agrees, saying that the establishment of a functioning state is vital for Israel too.The conference is all about helping the Palestinians stand on their own two feet, so that ordinary citizens feel confident that the anarchy is over, that statehood is coming, Perthes told AFP.However by ignoring the Gaza Strip the conference risks being more symbolic politics that serious state-building, said Margret Johannsen from the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at Hamburg University. But the Gaza Strip will be on the agenda at a meeting of the Middle East Quartet -- comprising the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia -- that according to German government sources was to take place in Berlin following the conference.

Arab countries to foot half the bill for Lebanese Palestinian camp Mon Jun 23, 4:58 PM ET

VIENNA (AFP) - Four Gulf states will foot around half of the bill of rebuilding a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon destroyed last year during clashes between Islamist militants and the Lebanese army, Lebanon's prime minister said Monday. The contribution made by the four Arab Gulf States -- Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates -- will be about 50 percent and the remainder will be made by the international community, Fuad Siniora told a news conference here.Arab and European leaders were meeting in the Austrian capital to raise funds for the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon which was reduced to rubble during clashes between Islamist militants and the Lebanese army last year.Siniora did not give any concrete figure with regard to the four states' contribution. His spokesman Aref al-Abed told AFP that the countries would meet in Riyadh on July 1 to fix the exact sum.At the same time, Western countries promised on Monday to contribute 122 million dollars, the spokesman said.According to estimates by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 450 million dollars (290 million euros) in all are needed to rebuild Nahr al-Bared and 15 nearby villages.Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad had said earlier that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) would contribute around 10 million dollars.

And he told the news conference that if a solution to the Palestinian question is to be found by the end of the year, then the international community must make sure that Israel puts an end to its policy of colonising the Palestinian territories.Speaking on behalf of the European Union, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that Europe would contribute 45 million dollars to the reconstruction of the camp, noting that the 27-nation bloc had already provided 500 million euros in aid to the Palestinians.In addition to Siniora and Ferrero-Waldner, Arab League chief Amr Mussa and Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik also attended the conference.Siniora said in an interview with the Austrian daily Der Standard published Monday that his country always carried a disproportional share of the burden, referring to the 400,000 Palestinians who live in some 13 refugee camps around Lebanon.This conference is an opportunity to put this matter in the right context, to understand the extent of the problem, he added.Israel still does not accept the Palestinians' rights, including their right to return. Just as it still does not accept the Arab peace initiative, he noted.The Lebanese government has two priorities: to address the refugees' humanitarian needs and to provide the resources for reconstruction, Siniora's spokesman Abed said in a statement.Improving their quality of life and ensuring their basic rights is closely dependent on the enforcement of law, order and security, he added.The Nahr al-Bared crisis has illustrated the danger of extremism and lawlessness as a source of overall instability for Lebanon, and the urgent need to exercise state authority over the entire Lebanese territory.

The fighting between the army and Fatah al-Islam militants broke out at the camp on May 20 and many refugees were relocated to Beddawi, around 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Nahr al-Bared, causing tension with people there.More than 450 people -- about 300 militants and 168 soldiers -- were killed in the bloody clashes before the army crushed the rebel uprising and regained control of the camp on September 2. According to Lebanese estimates reconstruction could total 249 million dollars. A first donors conference held in September raked in 55 million dollars in emergency aid.

Condoleezza Rice arrives for Palestinian conference Mon Jun 23, 4:49PM ET

BERLIN (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived Monday in Berlin for international talks aimed at bolstering the Palestinian criminal-justice system and promoting the broader peace talks with Israel. Speaking on the plane to Berlin, Rice told reporters that the international conference in Support of Palestinian Civil Security and the Rule of Law here is part of efforts to help Palestinians build a future state.The meeting in the German capital is the latest in a series that seeks to spur on the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that were revived by Rice and President George W. Bush at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland last November.The talks, following a donors meeting in Paris and private sector development gathering in Bethlehem, are aimed at getting the Palestinians in a position for statehood by building their institutions, Rice said.In Berlin, delegates will try to nurture a fully-fledged criminal justice system that involves more than just training Palestinian police and helping them deploy in West Bank cities.This is really about trying to find the technical expertise to help the Palestinians organise the other aspects of security, Rice said.You really can't have an effective seurity effort if you don't have police stations, if you don't have prisons, if you don't have a court system that can be seen to be free and fair, she stated.

Rice also said she will also discuss the peace process with her counterparts from Russia, the United Nations and the European Union -- which all form the quartet which launched the roadmap for peace in 2003.Aiming to establish a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel, the roadmap is the basis for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that were revived in Annapolis.Rice expected the quartet to discuss Israel's new indirect talks with Syria and efforts to bolster president Mahmud Abbas's moderate Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip, which the radical Hamas movement seized in June last year.But she said she hoped the world community does not lose focus of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, which she says have reached a more advanced stage and in which US diplomats have invested most of their energy.

LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)

JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS

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.

DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.

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 11:36-40
36 And the king shall do according to his will;(EU PRESIDENT) and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS A EUROPEAN JEW) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(HES A MILITARY GINIUS) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds (CONTROL HEZBOLLAH,AL-QUAIDA MURDERERS ETC) with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south(EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR PROTECTING ISRAELS SECURITY) and the king of the north(RUSSIA) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.

JERUSALEM DIVIDED

ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.

JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.

Tuesday June 24, 2008 France's Sarkozy offers in Israel to broker peace By Francois Murphy

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy put himself forward on Monday as a possible Middle East peace broker, offering in a speech to Israel's parliament to help reach agreement and mobilise French troops if necessary.France President Nicolas Sarkozy delivers a speech beside his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy at a meeting with the French community in Jerusalem June 23, 2008. (REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer)

I ask you to trust us because we want to help you, said Sarkozy, the first French president to address the Knesset since Francois Mitterrand in 1982.Since taking office a year ago, Sarkozy has broken rank with his predecessors by repeatedly describing himself as a friend of Israel, fostering closer ties with the Jewish state and reiterating that there can be no compromise on its security.

France is ready to provide its guarantee, ready to mobilise its diplomatic service, its resources, its soldiers, he said, without specifying what role French troops could play.Sarkozy said peace with the Palestinians was possible if Israel stopped all settlement activity, lifted the checkpoints that criss-cross the West Bank, ended a blockade of Gaza and accepted Jerusalem as capital of two states.Create the conditions for movement, Sarkozy told lawmakers, urging them to back a proposal for settlers to leave the West Bank in return for compensation and rehousing in Israel.There can be no peace without a halt to settlement activity, he said, condemning terrorism and telling Israel it was not alone facing what he said was a military Iranian nuclear programme.Israel has said it will press ahead with construction in settlement blocks it intends to keep in any final peace deal with the Palestinians. Palestinians fear such settlements will deny them a viable state in the West Bank.In a welcome address, Olmert praised Sarkozy but, in an apparent allusion to the dispute over settlement expansion, added: Not always do we see eye to eye on every detail.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed Sarkozy's comments on settlements and Jerusalem, a senior aide said.It's a speech that the Israeli leaders need to listen to, Saeb Erekat said.

OPENING

In a part of his speech prepared for delivery, Sarkozy said he was prepared to host various peace talks. Although he did not pronounce it, a senior French official said he stood by it.(France) is ready to organise on its soil all the talks that could lead to (peace), whether in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Syrian-Israeli dialogue, or the talks that will have to resume, one day soon I hope, between Israel and Lebanon, the text said.France takes over the European Union's rotating six-month presidency on July 1, and as such will be a member of the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators, along with Russia, the United States and the United Nations.It was not clear how any facilitation of talks by Sarkozy would affect the Quartet's envoy, Tony Blair.During his three-day state visit to Israel, which began on Sunday, Sarkozy has said an Israeli-Palestinian deal could be reached soon, a more optimistic view than most observers, who point to Olmert's weakness at home and divided Palestinians.Despite deep public scepticism, the United States, the main broker in talks between Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, hopes that a framework statehood deal can be achieved before President George W. Bush leaves office in January.An official close to Sarkozy said preoccupation with the U.S. presidential election campaign created a sort of an opening for anyone who wants to head into it in efforts to aid talks.The president's visit could give an indication of who could, in the coming months, say why not create a bigger role for the European Union under France's presidency?, he said.(Additional reporting by Emmanuel Jarry and Dan Williams)

INTERESTING STORIES COME OUT ABOUT OBAMA, BUT THAT SMOOTH TALKER GETS THROUGH THEM ALL.

ELECTION 2008 Obama: America is no longer Christian Democrat says nation also for Muslims, nonbelievers June 22, 2008 6:50 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein 2008 WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM – Some have been taking issue with largely unnoticed comments made last year by Sen. Barack Obama declaring the U.S. is no longer a Christian nation but is also a nation of others, including Muslims and nonbelievers.The comments have been recently recirculating on Internet blogs.Whatever we once were, we're no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers, Obama said during a June 2007 speech available on YouTube.At the speech, Obama also seemingly blasted the Christian Right for hijacking religion and using it to divide the nation:Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us, he said.Asked last year to clarify his remarks, Obama repeated them to the Christian Broadcast Network:I think that the right might worry a bit more about the dangers of sectarianism. Whatever we once were, we're no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers, Obama wrote in an e-mail to CBN News senior national correspondent David Brody.We should acknowledge this and realize that when we're formulating policies from the state house to the Senate floor to the White House, we've got to work to translate our reasoning into values that are accessible to every one of our citizens, not just members of our own faith community, wrote Obama.

Obama did clarify his statement about the Christian Right.My intention was to contrast the heated partisan rhetoric of a distinct minority of Christian leaders with the vast majority of Evangelical Christians – conservatives included – who believe that hate has no place in our politics.When you have pastors and television pundits who appear to explicitly coordinate with one political party; when you're implying that your fellow Americans are traitors, terrorist sympathizers or akin to the devil himself; then I think you're attempting to hijack the faith of those who follow you for your own personal or political ends, wrote Obama.

The Illinois senator's speech declaring the U.S. no longer Christian was met with little fanfare. But it has been getting some recent play.A television commercial that aired in South Dakota by a group calling itself the Coalition Against Anti-Christian Rhetoric juxtaposes the audio of Obama's no longer Christian statement over images of the presidential candidate dressed in Somali garb and a picture of Obama with his hands rested below his waist while other politicians place their hands over their hearts during the Pledge of Allegiance.It's time for people to take a stand against Barack Hussein Obama, declares the voiceover on the commercial.The Gateway Pundit blog took notice of Obama's speech about the U.S. being a nation also for Muslims and non-believers.This won't play well in the Bible Belt, commented the blog in a recent posting.Obama's campaign has long utilized faith as a central theme. The candidate's Christianity and his former membership in the controversial Trinity United Church of Christ have been much scrutinized.His comment about the Christian Right echoed similar statements made by Merrill A. McPeak, Obama's military adviser and national campaign co-chairman.As WND reported, in a 2003 interview with The Oregonian newspaper, McPeak seemed to compare evangelical Christians to the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah.The Oregonian interviewer asked McPeak whether there's an element within Hamas, Hezbollah, that doesn't want Israel to exist at all and always will be there? McPeak responded by comparing the two terror groups to radical Oregonians.There's an element in Oregon, you know, that's always going to be radical in some pernicious way, and likely to clothe it in religious garments, so it makes it harder to attack. So there's craziness all over the place.Oregon has a large evangelical Christian community.

Dobson accuses Obama of distorting Bible By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer Mon Jun 23, 9:38 PM ET

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement's biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution. The criticism, to be aired Tuesday on Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program, comes shortly after an Obama aide suggested a meeting at the organization's headquarters here, said Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Focus on the Family.The conservative Christian group provided The Associated Press with an advance copy of the pre-taped radio segment, which runs 18 minutes and highlights excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. Obama mentions Dobson in the speech.Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Obama said. Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's? referring to the civil rights leader.

Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application.Folks haven't been reading their Bibles, Obama said.Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament.I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology, Dobson said.... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.Joshua DuBois, director of religious affairs for Obama's campaign, said in a statement that a full reading of Obama's speech shows he is committed to reaching out to people of faith and standing up for families. Obama is proud to have the support of millions of Americans of faith and looks forward to working across religious lines to bring our country together, DuBois said.Dobson reserved some of his harshest criticism for Obama's argument that the religiously motivated must frame debates over issues like abortion not just in their own religion's terms but in arguments accessible to all people.

He said Obama, who supports abortion rights, is trying to govern by the lowest common denominator of morality, labeling it a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution.Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies? Dobson said. What he's trying to say here is unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.The program was paid for by a Focus on the Family affiliate whose donations are taxed, Dobson said, so it's legal for that group to get more involved in politics.

Last week, DuBois, a former Assemblies of God associate minister, called Minnery for what Minnery described as a cordial discussion. He would not go into detail, but said Dubois offered to visit the ministry in August when the Democratic National Convention is in Denver.A possible Obama visit was not discussed, but Focus is open to one, Minnery said.McCain also has not met with Dobson. A McCain campaign staffer offered Dobson a meeting with McCain recently in Denver, Minnery said. Dobson declined because he prefers that candidates visit the Focus on the Family campus to learn more about the organization, Minnery said.Dobson has not backed off his statement that he could not in good conscience vote for McCain because of concerns over the Arizona senator's conservative credentials. Dobson has said he will vote in November but has suggested he might not vote for president. Obama recently met in Chicago with religious leaders, including conservative evangelicals. His campaign also plans thousands of American Values House Parties, where participants discuss Obama and religion, as well as a presence on Christian radio and blogs.

Stocks end mostly lower as oil prices advance By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer Mon Jun 23, 5:37 PM ET

NEW YORK - Stocks stalled Monday, ending mostly lower after rising oil prices and ongoing worries about the financial sector gave investors little reason to buy a day ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting. Disappointment that Saudi Arabia is not boosting production by more than 200,000 barrels a day sent oil prices higher, fanning concerns about inflation. Light, sweet crude rose $1.38 to settle at $136.74 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.Energy companies rose but sectors like airlines and financials logged sizable losses.With little economic data arriving, investors focused on the price of oil and the Fed's two-day meeting, which lets out on Wednesday. Most investors expect the central bank to keep its key federal funds rate on hold, and in its economic statement, emphasize the rising threat of inflation.

Denis Amato, chief investment officer at Ancora Advisors in Cleveland, questions how the Fed will balance weakness in areas of the economy like the financial sector with concerns about the weak dollar and the rising inflation that low interest rates cause.We think the Fed is sort of in a quandary here ... if they raise rates, they run the risk of having some negative impact on the economy and if they don't raise rates, they run the risk of negatively influencing the dollar. That trend is driving up oil, which is impairing the economy, he said.The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.33, or less than 0.01 percent, to 11,842.36.

Broader stock indicators ended mixed after a day of back-and-forth trading. The Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up 0.07, or 0.01 percent, to 1,318.00, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 20.35, or 0.85 percent, to 2,385.74.But the market's overall direction was downward. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 4.09 billion shares compared with a heavy 5.15 billion seen Friday, when stocks fell sharply and several types of options contracts expired.

Bond prices were narrowly mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, was at 4.17 percent, the same as late Friday. The dollar rose against most other major currencies, while gold prices fell.You've got the Fed and some key economic reports coming out this week, especially with housing, and that has kept things quiet, said Todd Salamone, director of trading at Schaeffer's Investment Research. People are going to be on the sidelines to see what the next Fed action or words are.The modest moves Monday followed a rough week that ended with a sharp pullback Friday amid worries about the financial and automotive sectors and a resurgence in oil prices. The major indexes dropped by more than 1.5 percent Friday, and the Dow fell more than 200 points to close at its lowest level since March.The financial sectors' woes continue: Citigroup Inc. is in the midst of cutting its investment banking staff by 10 percent, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is also eliminating jobs, The Financial Times reported. Citigroup fell 75 cents, or 3.9 percent, to $18.55, and Goldman fell $5.18, or 2.8 percent, to $178.59.Amato contends that troubles in sectors like the financials are severe enough that they will spill over to other areas of the economy and send the broader stock market lower.

You can't have a functioning economy with all the banks under that much extreme pressure, he said.Other names in the sector declined as investors fretted about the overall well-being of the financials.

Bank of America Corp. fell $1.22, or 4.5 percent, to $25.88; the stock hit a 52-week low of $25.83. American International Group Inc. logged a 52-week low of $30.12 and finished down $1.80, or 5.6 percent, to $30.30.The rise in oil after the weekend summit punished sectors like airlines and rewarded companies focused on energy. United Airlines' parent UAL Corp. fell $1.07, or 15 percent, to $6.09, while Delta Air Lines Inc. slid 68 cents, or 12 percent, to $5. But energy names like Exxon Mobil Corp. advanced $2.79, or 3.3 percent, to $87.70, while Haliburton Co. rose $2.98, or 6 percent, to $53.01 and set a 52-week high of $53.11. United States Steel Corp. rose $8.23, or 4.5 percent, to $191.02 after a Goldman Sachs analyst wrote in a note to investors that the company is best poised among steel makers to benefit from higher prices.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 5.92, or 0.82 percent, to 719.81. Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 0.61 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.83 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 0.17 percent, and France's CAC-40 edged up 0.05 percent. On the Net: New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com
Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com

1/3RD OF SHIPS DESTROYED

REVELATION 8:8-9
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

PHILIPPIANS FERRY DISASTER
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8435580&ch=4226714&src=news

HUNDREDS STILL MISSING IN SHIP WRECK
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=8467668&ch=4226714&src=news

Divers find bodies in sunken Philippine ferry By Romeo Ranoco JUNE 24,08

SIBUYAN ISLAND, Philippines (Reuters) - Divers found bodies floating inside a ferry that sank in the central Philippines with over 800 people on board, a navy spokesman said on Tuesday, confirming grim fears. When they tried to enter the vessel they saw several corpses floating in the airpocket, Lieutenant Colonel Edgard Arevalo told Reuters.He said it was unclear how many bodies were there because it was dark.The bodies, still wearing lifevests, were trapped inside the Princess of the Stars when it went belly up off the central island of Sibuyan in waves as big as houses during Saturday's typhoon.Arevalo said the coast guard planned to bore a hole inside the 23,824 tonne vessel to retrieve the corpses.

Drilling will have to be done cautiously because the ship is estimated to have around 100,000 liters of bunker fuel still on board.A U.S. military ship, the USNS Stockham, with helicopters on board, was on hand to help with rescue efforts.Princess of the Stars was resting upside down with the tip of its bow above the water and its stern resting on the bottom of the sea, easily visible from shore.So far at least 33 people have been found alive out of 864 passengers and crew on board.Typhoon Fengshen, which has weakened to a tropical storm over the South China Sea, pounded the Philippines at the weekend with gusts of up to 195 kph (120 mph).It is currently swirling towards southern China, where it is expected to dump more rain on already flood-ravaged regions in the next few days.

THE LATEST TRAGEDY

Aside from the ferry disaster, possibly the worst in the Philippines in over 20 years, at least 155 people were killed, largely by drowning, in a torrent of floods in the south and centre of the archipelago, according to the Red Cross.The sixth typhoon to hit the archipelago this year badly damaged the country's already shoddy infrastructure, washing away thousands of homes as well as roads and bridges.In Iloilo, the province worst hit by Fengshen, over 200,000 people were forced to evacuate, the Red Cross said.

Fengshen had weakened to a tropical storm over the South China Sea by Mid Tuesday, but authorities in China's coastal province of Guangdong ordered local governments to prepare disaster relief work.

Fengshen was expected to bring more rain to already flood-ravaged southern and eastern China as it makes landfall near Shantou in Guangdong province on Wednesday, according to the tropical storm monitoring website Tropical Storm Risk (http://tsr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk).

Complicating ferry rescue efforts, the coast guard admitted on Tuesday that another vessel, a cargo ship, had also sank in the vicinity of the Princess of the Stars on Saturday. Officials said 3 people died, 6 survived and 17 were missing from the second ship and it was difficult to determine if swollen corpses recently washed up were from this vessel or the Princess of the Stars.

Shipping tragedies are a common event in the Philippines, an archipelago of over 7,000 islands where safety rules are poorly implemented and substandard vessels ply dangerous waters. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, on a state visit to the United States, has ordered a review of maritime regulations and authorities have suspended the operations of the ferry's owner, Sulpicio Lines, which has been involved in three other major shipping disasters in the past 21 years. What all these cases, including the latest tragedy, indicate is that there is a very low regard for the value of human life, a very loose and relaxed set of rules on clearances for sailing and possible irregularities in the issuance of such clearances, said an editorial in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. In 1987, the Sulpicio-owned Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker killing more than 4,000 people in the world's worst peacetime sea tragedy.(Writing by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by David Fox)

Saudi summit delivers rise in oil production
RENATA GOLDIROVA 23.06.2008 @ 09:26 CET

In the face of the continued surge in oil prices, Saudi Arabia - the world's largest oil producer - has agreed to raise its production to some 9.7 million barrels a day by the end of July.

The announcement came shortly before 35 countries met for crisis oil talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday (22 June). Global leaders at the Jeddah oil summit reached no consensus as to what is behind skyrocketing fuel prices. (Photo: wikipedia)The price of oil has doubled in the past year, coming close to $140 a barrel in June. Oil accounts for some 37 percent of EU energy consumption.

It is the policy of Saudi Arabia to satisfy the market need when there is a need, the kingdom's deputy oil minister, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, was cited as saying by Bloomberg. But the prince insisted that an increase in supply will not necessarily lower prices. He blamed the current trend on market speculation.

The view was backed by Chakib Khelil, the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), by saying: The price is disconnected from fundamentals. It is not a problem of supply.Other OPEC members such as Iran, Venezuela and Libya blame the weak dollar as well as US military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq for the surge in oil prices. Oil-producing countries and consuming states continue to disagree over what constitutes the main driving force behind current price hikes.According to US energy secretary Samuel Bodman, the record prices are a result of fast growing demand, especially from emerging economies such as China and India. The market needs three to four million barrels a day of spare oil production capacity compared to the current two million barrels, he said. UK prime minister Gordon Brown issued the similar message, saying: Anyone looking at it knows there is more demand than supply, and it is the same if you look at future years due to the rise of China, India, Asia.So whatever the impact of speculative forces, the real issue, the concrete problem is how demand can be brought into line with supply, he added. UK leaders have also pushed for alternatives to oil, namely nuclear and renewable energy, and invited the Gulf States to invest some of its $3 trillion in oil revenues in Western renewable technologies, the Guardian reports. I urge all oil producers to rigorously break down old barriers standing in the way of new strategic initiatives, Mr Brown was cited as saying by the BBC, stressing that his country is committed to realising some 15 percent of its energy needs from green sources by 2020. EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs, for his part, has called on oil producing countries to increase both production and investment in new production capacity. Consuming countries, in his view, should push strongly for energy efficiency, ensure that emergency stocks are at high levels, and combat market speculation. With determined action on all these fronts, we can bring the price of barrel to a reasonable level, Mr Piebalgs said in Jeddah. The UK will hold a follow-up oil summit later this year, most likely in October.