THIRD TEMPLE PREPS BEGIN

REBUILT 3RD TEMPLE (THE EU DICTATORS TEMPLE)

REVELATION 11:1-2
1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

DANIEL 9:27
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.

REBUILT 4TH TEMPLE (THE TRUE MESSIAHS TEMPLE)

ZECHARIAH 6:12-13
12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD:
13 Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.

ISAIAH 60:9-10
9 Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the LORD thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.
10 And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee.

ISAIAH 2:1-5
1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

MARK 11:9-10,15-17
9 And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:
10 Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.
15 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
16 And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.
17 And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.

EZEKIEL 40 TO 48 IS THIS 4TH TEMPLE TO BIG FOR THE MOUNT I BELIEVE TO BE BUILT 25 MILES FROM JERUSALEM.

MYSTERY OF THE COPPER SCROLL AND THE ARK
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/347306.aspx

Third Temple preparations begin with priestly garb
By DANIELLE KUBES JULY 3,08

Wearing a turban and a light blue tunic threaded with silver, a man stands in a workshop in Jerusalem's Old City beside spools of white thread affixed to sewing machines. A painting of high priests performing an animal sacrifice beside the First Temple illustrates the function of the room. A workshop for making priestly garments is inaugurated in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem's Old City on Monday.

On Monday, the Temple Institute started preparing to build a Third Temple on Jerusalem's Mount Moriah, the site of the Dome of the Rock and the Aksa mosque, by inaugurating a workshop that manufactures priestly garments. After Efrat Chief Rabbi Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a Kohen himself, gets measured for his own set of Kohanim garments, Aviad Jeruffi, the clothing's designer, strums To Ascend to the Temple Mount on his guitar in celebration. Priestly garments have not been worn since the destruction of the Second Temple by Rome in 70 CE and cannot be functional until a Third Temple is constructed. Kohanim, priests directly descended from Moses's brother Aaron, are recognized by the Institute as such if their paternal grandfather observed the tradition. Today, they have special religious responsibilities; in days of yore they performed the most significant duties within the Temple. Approximately one-third of the commandments in the Torah cannot be accomplished without a temple, including the obligations of the Kohanim. But a Third Temple seems a flighty dream with nightmarish political implications to many, as both a shrine, the Dome of the Rock, and the Aksa mosque, Islam's third holiest structure, currently stand on the Temple Mount. Rabbi Yehuda Glick, director of the Temple Institute, says he assumes Muslims will be supportive when the Temple is ready to be built: We already have some Muslims who are secretly in touch with us, he says. When the Temple is rebuilt, Kohanim must wear the proper outfit to perform their obligations, Glick continues. Each set has a turban, tunic pants and belt and is individually tailored at a cost of NIS 2,500.

If it were a bathrobe for watching SNL [Saturday Night Live], it would not be worth it. But we're talking about people who have a very strong yearning for working in the Beit Hamikdash [Temple], says Glick. Years of diligent research was needed to create the garments in conformance with Jewish law. Special flaxen thread was imported from India and overseas travel was necessary to obtain the correct colors for the clothes, including to Istanbul, to purchase mountain worms from which the correct shade of crimson is derived.

The secret of the correct shade of blue has been lost since the destruction of the Second Temple, as the identity of chilazon, the snail from which it was extracted, was uncertain until the Ptil Tekhelet nonprofit organization identified it as the murex trunculus, aka hexaplex trunculus, the banded dye-murex found near the Mediterranean Sea. The Temple is not a message [just for] the Jewish people. It reunites the world all around one central prayer house. All the prophets say that at the End Times all the nations will be coming to Jerusalem and take part of building [the Temple], Glick says.

FALSE TEACHERS,PROPHETS,DECIEVERS

MATTHEW 24:4-5,11,24-25
4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
25 Behold, I have told you before.

1 TIMOTHY 4:1-2
1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

MARK 13:22-23
22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.
23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.

2 TIMOTHY 3:13
13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

Thousands Follow Ex-Traffic Cop Who Says He's Jesus JULY 6,08

Two white robed men were standing there among them and said, Men of Galilee, why are you standing here staring the sky? Jesus has gone away to heaven. And some day, just as He went, He will return! — Acts 1:10-11

Deep in the heart of Siberia's birch forests lies one of the largest and most remote religious communes of the planet. More than 5,000 people have left their families and their homes to move here and join the Church of the Last Testament, which has more than 10,000 followers worldwide. The church centers on one man. He is known simply as Vissarion, meaning he who gives new life, or simply as the teacher, and he claims that he is Jesus Christ.I had heard about a self-proclaimed messiah in Siberia and I decided to try to find him myself. Getting to Vissarion's commune is not easy. From Moscow, the Russian capital, it is more than 2,000 miles and four time zones away. One begins by flying to Abakan, a bleak city near the Mongolian border, dotted with crumbling tsarist buildings and Soviet-style blocks. Driving through, I decided to ask residents whether they had heard of Vissarion and what they thought of him. Most people knew who he was, but they didn't seem to like him much.

It's a sect … He presents himself as a demi-God and it's all lies in my opinion, Sergei told me. Lena was equally skeptical: I heard they don't eat properly there. They grow vegetables and that's all they eat.Once you drive out of the city, the drab concrete of Abakan gives way to rich rolling plains, sparkling rivers and tiny hamlets. After a few hours on the road, we finally reached Petropavlovka, where more than 80 percent of the residents are members of the Church of the Last Testament.Life here is very basic. Vissarion's followers are strict vegetarians and they don't smoke or drink. The houses and churches are built from wood by hand and most of the energy comes from windmills and solar panels. At the followers' school, little boys are taught how to build model ships and young girls learn crochet and singing. With all the beautiful nature, it seemed an idyllic setting for a child to grow up in. But the portraits of Vissarion that adorned every wall were difficult to ignore. The Church of the Last Testament has abolished Christmas and replaced it with a new celebration on Vissarion's birthday. The biggest holiday of the year is Aug. 18, the anniversary of the teacher's first sermon. And a new calendar has been introduced which dates from the year of his birth, making this year 48.Vissarion was born Sergei Torop in 1961 and worked as a traffic cop up until his revelation. He started the Church of the Last Testament in 1991, the same year as the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a desperate and chaotic time for people. And after decades of religious oppression, suddenly thousands of new religions and sects burst onto the scene, all claiming to have the answers that people were so hungrily craving.

My Body Was Shivering Nonstop

The next day we continued driving, bumping along rutted roads thick with butterflies. Stopping at a river for a break, we met Siegfried Werner, who left his home in Germany to move here. Many of Vissarion's followers are educated people from different European countries. Some of them used to work as doctors, teachers and engineers. One was even the former Belorussian deputy railway minister. Werner explained to me, It's all about Vissarion. I had an experience when I went from Italy, he embraced me very warmly. He took my hands and then my heart spoke and that was the time when I never doubted again that he was the Christ.After three hours in the car the road ended and the journey on foot began. The four-mile trek through Siberian forest, or taiga as it is known, was brutal. Mosquitoes swarmed menacingly overhead and ticks were everywhere. Unsurprisingly, almost two-thirds of Vissarion's followers have been infected with Lyme disease. The group eschews modern medicine, relying instead on holistic remedies. One of Vissarion's 60 commandments declares, in most cases, illness is punishment for an inability to keep one's flesh in harmony with nature. During the 1990s there were reports that some of his followers had died after refusing medical attention.After hours of walking, we finally reach Abode of Dawn, a small settlement where 250 of Vissarion's most devout followers live. It's four miles to the nearest road and just a couple of miles below the teacher himself. At this point we were assigned minders who monitored our movements until we left. The villagers in the Abode of Dawn follow an almost entirely vegan diet, largely based on what they can grow themselves. When they move here, they give the church their pensions and whatever possessions they may have. In return they receive basics such as sugar, buckwheat and flour. No money is used within the community but they are given an allowance of 300 rubles, about $12, a month.

The followers here were even more zealous when talking about their teacher. I sat down with a group of women and asked about their first time meeting Vissarion.When I saw him the first time my soul recognized him. I could not cope with my emotions and my soul cried, It's him, it's him. He is on earth! Galina told me.It was as if a flood came down from the sky and my body was shivering nonstop! Tatyana added.Every day the women pore over his 10 volumes of teachings and five times a day a bell rings whereupon the followers turn to pray towards the mountaintop where Vissarion lives.Life here seemed visibly more cut off from society. The children are homeschooled. Every year a representative from the nearest school board visits to make sure that the children are being educated according to the national curriculum. The local government is tacitly supportive of Vissarion's group, although the Orthodox church has denounced them as a sect. In Siberia, where there is terrible alcoholism and a declining population, Vissarion's community is one of the very few that is healthy, hard-working and growing fast.

A Man of Few Words

On Sunday the community congregates early to begin the rituals of the holy day. Followers from Petropavlovka and other villages make the journey to see their teacher for the day. People dress up for the occasion.The day begins with a steep walk up the mountain to where Vissarion lives. At the top of the mountain, the followers gather at an altar and sing songs and pray. Standing amongst them, the intensity of their fervour was palpable.As the liturgy drew to a close I felt excited. We were getting closer to meeting Vissarion. It was finally time.My first impression seeing the teacher was that he did actually look how one might imagine Jesus. With his long hair, flowing white robes and kind smile, he looked the part. But as the interview began, my feelings soon changed.

I asked him to tell me some of the principals of his religion. After a good 20 second pause, he replied, The same as all other religions have. People should learn how to love each other. I asked him what he enjoyed to do every day and what he thought the most important philosophy to live by was. Each question provoked the same long pause followed by a monosyllabic reply.Finally I asked him the question I had traveled all this way to ask: Are you Jesus Christ?

It's not necessary to answer this, he told me.

I asked whether he believed in Judgment Day,

There is a time, a certain period of time, during which the destiny of the whole human society will be decided. This period is going on already.He would not elaborate on what will happen at the end of the period of judgment, nor on when that would be.The next few questions I asked provoked the same truculent answer, That doesn't interest me. So I finished by asking if he had anything that did interest him that he would like to communicate to our viewers and to Americans.His reply, I am not interested to tell them anything. Their time has not yet come.It seemed that the interview was over before it began. I hadn't expected Jesus to be a man of so few words. Leaving, I noticed a quad bike parked in front of his house. It seemed ironic that he was zipping around while his followers trekked up and down the mountain. Traveling back to civilization, I marvelled at the zeal of Vissarion's followers. What did they see that I did not? Or what did I see that they did not? I felt inexplicably disappointed.Yet the numbers of Vissarion's followers continues to grow as more and more people abandon their lives and flock to this remote corner of the world, and to this chameleon of a man. Vissarion? The Teacher? Jesus Christ? Or perhaps just Sergei Torop, the self-proclaimed messiah of Siberia.

WELL MY BIBLE TELLS ME THE WORLD GOES ON FOREVER, 2012 IS JUST ANOTHER DATE, ITS SURE NOT THE END OF THE WORLD LIKE THESE FALSIES CLAIM.

Will the World End in 2012? Thousands Worldwide Prepare for the Apocalypse, Expected in 2012 By CHRISTINE BROUWER July 3, 2008

Two years ago, Patrick Geryl, then 51, quit his job as a laboratory worker for a French oil company. He'd saved up just enough money to last him until December 2012. After that, he thought, he wouldn't need it anyway. Unprecedented catastrophe will precede the end of the world in 2012, believers say, such as massive earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions, among other calamities.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)Instead, Geryl, a soft-spoken man who had studied chemistry in his younger years, started preparing for the apocalypse. He founded a survival group for likeminded men and women, aimed at living through the catastrophe he knew was coming.

He started gathering materials necessary to survive — water purifiers, wheelbarrows (with spare tires), dust masks and vegetable seeds. His list of survival goods runs 11 pages long. You have to understand, there will be nothing, nothing left, Geryl told ABC News from his home in Antwerp, Belgium. We will have to start an entire civilization from scratch.Drop in Penguin Pop. a Sign of Ocean WoesEarth 2100: This Century Our Last?Cult Leader Gains Trust, Steals WivesThat's because Geryl believes the world as we know it will end in 2012. He points to the ancient Mayan cyclical calendars, the longest of which last renewed itself approximately 5,125 years ago and is set to end again, supposedly with catastrophic consequences, in 2012. He speaks of the ancient Egyptians, who, he claims, saw 2012 as a year of great change too. And he points to science: NASA predicts a sharp increase in the number of sunspots and sun flares for 2012, he said, sure to cause electrical failures and satellite disruptions. All this adds up, Geryl said, to unprecedented catastrophe. First, a polar reversal will cause the north to become the south and the sun to rise in the west. Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years. Only the prepared will survive, Geryl said, and not even all of them. These may sound like the ravings of a madman, or perhaps the head of a small apocalyptic sect. But Geryl is not the only one who believes in the apocalypse. Thousands of people worldwide seem to be preparing, in one way or another, for the end of days in 2012. Survival groups exist in Europe, Canada and the United States. A simple Google search for 2012 and the end of the world brings up nearly 300,000 hits. And the video-sharing Web site YouTube hosts more than 65,000 clips informing and warning viewers about their fate in 2012.

It's bigger than Y2K, said Mark van Stone, a specialist of Mayan hieroglyphic writings and author of a forthcoming book on 2012. The year is like a pop song or a popular movie. You type in 2012, and you get hundreds of thousands of hits.Dennis McClung, 28, a project manager for Home Depot from Phoenix, Ariz., runs one of the Web sites dedicated to 2012, an online survival supply store, which sells gas masks, knife kits, bullet-proof vests and more. I'm not a firm believer in one specific prophecy, said McClung, who runs his site with his wife, Danielle. But I think we ought to be prepared for anything.Even with December 2012 still 4½ years away, McClung said business is booming. His Web site, which features an official 2012 countdown clock and exhorts customers to be smart, be ready, averages several thousand visitors a week. McClung's best-sellers, he said, are emergency medical supplies and water purifiers. I get a lot of hits from India. I get a lot of hits from the Netherlands, McClung said. But my No. 1 customer is the U.S.

Teens Taken From N.M. Doomsday ChurchRussian Cult Members Holed Up in CaveABC News Reporting Cited As Evidence In Congressional Hearing On Global WarmingOne of those customers is Thomas Lehmann, a 25-year-old factory worker from Cape Girardeau, Mo. Lehmann said he started researching 2012 when he was 12 years old, and still spends about two hours a day reading about the topic both online and in books. He said he is saving money for survival gear.

Whatever happens, I'm just trying to be prepared for it, Lehmann said. I'm just learning to be independent of the system. I mean electricity, vehicles, alternate sources of energy. I'm learning to live without gas, basically be self-reliant.If this stuff does happen, Lehmann said, adding, I have a way to eat. I can hunt, I can fish and I can purify water. I think it's people in the big cities that need to be worried. People that can't provide for themselves.But for all the hype, there is little evidence the ancient Maya ever intended for the end of their calendar to be read as a portent for disaster. These prophecies of doom really don't have any basis in what we know about the Maya, said Stephen Houston, a professor of anthropology at Brown University and a specialist of Maya hieroglyphic writing. The Maya descriptions barely talk about this event.Instead, Houston said, the Maya saw their long count — the longest of their cyclical calendars — coming to an end in 2012 but also beginning anew on that date, without disastrous consequences. Really, it's a conversion of people's anxieties about our times, and finding some remote mythological precedent or prediction of it, Houston said about the origins of the current 2012 myths. People like to believe that ancient wisdom is somehow predicting this time of upheaval.John Hall, a professor of sociology at the University of California Davis who is writing a book on the history of apocalyptic ideas, agreed. He said movements predicting the end of the world often reflect a much larger nervousness about the state of our society. Terrorism, 9/11, ecological disasters, floods and earthquakes, Hall said. [There is] a sense that modern civilization has had its run. Those kinds of anxieties are much more widely shared than simply among people who believe in the exact date.To Lehmann, though, those very events are warnings of what's to come. We had Hurricane Katrina, the recent cyclone in Myanmar, Lehmann said. We've got major flooding in Iowa. We're always going to have natural disasters. But they are picking up quite frequently now.Lehmann said he eventually hoped to move away from Cape Girardeau, built on the banks of the Mississippi River, to the higher plains of southwest Missouri to keep safe from the floods sure to follow the earthquakes of 2012. Geryl and his Belgian and Dutch followers have similar intentions, though their plan will take them much farther from home. They are looking to buy a plot of land high up in African mountains, where they'll be able to withstand the monstrous tidal waves and wait out the cloud of volcanic dust that they said would block out the sun. Geryl said the group has recently zeroed in on a location, but won't reveal his find for fear of tipping off rival survival groups in the United States and Canada. On that land, Geryl's group, whose core membership consists of 16 people but whose wait list supposedly lists hundreds, will build concrete dwellings or outfit caves for survival.

After the cloud clears, Geryl said, they will attempt to create a new, better civilization. A guiding principle will be to keep the world population as small as possible so as not to get into the same problems we face now, Geryl said, adding that the group is currently looking for sponsors and hopes to move to Africa in 2011. There is too little oil, too little grain in the world now. Those are the kinds of problems we want to avoid.

Forget 6-6-06: Every Day Is Doomsday 6/6/06: Is This the End?Uganda: Religion That KillsOne of the group's members, Jan, a 57-year-old carpenter from Amsterdam whose name has been changed because he doesn't want to be identified in the press, recently drove five hours to attend one of Geryl's meetings in Antwerp. I thought, if there's a chance that we can start a new civilization, I want to contribute, Jan told ABC News. Because whether I make it or not, and there's only a small chance I will, this is important. Jan, who has never been married and has no children, said he has lost friends over 2012. All the people I've ever told about this have declared me crazy, he said. It makes people feel uncomfortable. Now I just keep it to myself.Geryl said he found comfort in sharing his knowledge with others. Since discovering what the future holds, he has written three books on 2012 and maintains a Web site on the subject. When asked what would happen if December 2012 were to come and go without the earthquakes and tsunamis of his predictions, Geryl fell silent. I don't really contemplate that possibility, he said. [My predictions] are so spectacular, they can't possibly be wrong.

Shalom Stan JULY 7,08 MESSIANIC BIBLE PROJECT

Persecution in Israel: I just spoke with Howard Bass, the leader of the congregation in Beer Sheva. They are waiting for the pre-trial court date in order to bring justice to their congregation being desecrated. The chief rabbi of the city of Beer Sheva along with Yad L’achim (an organization that persecutes Messianic Jews) instigated a riot of about 500 angry religious fanatical Jews who rampaged and destroyed the inside of a Messianic congregation; and some of the congregants were injured. Can you imagine a church in your city being rioted against and destroyed because people in your city were against your faith? An Israeli Believer who lives on a Moshav in the Judean Hills was recently threatened because of her faith. When she came home one day, there was the decapitated bloody head of a goat placed in front of her house to frighten her. When she saw the goat head, she also heard gunfire from rubber bullets being fired at her home to warn her to stop sharing the Gospel.There are three Scriptures in Matthew where Yeshua talks about being

persecuted because of Him. (Matthew: 5:9-13, 10:22-24, 24:9).

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Matthew 5:11

Children standing at front of Messianic congregation in front or worship team at Tel Aviv congregation. New Congregations: There are six new congregations south of Tel Aviv in various surrounding cities and suburbs. These are all Russian outgrowths from a Hebrew speaking congregation. As the Messianic congregations grow, there is the natural progression for cell groups to split off and become their own congregations. The Russian Jewish Believers are very active in Israel.Telemarketer solicits a Believer and ends up accepting Yeshua: Galit picked up the phone as it rang while she was eating dinner. On the other end was an Israeli telemarketer (phone calls you don’t enjoy receiving). Galit ended up witnessing to the telemarketer who accepted the Lord, and then this telemarketer led other Israelis to the Lord.

Oversight Board : Pastor Mike Fryer, Sid Roth - Messianic Vision, Motte Sircus The CARMEL ALERT July 4th 2008 A compilation of news reports from the past week for the information of those committed to praying for Israel and the salvation of the Jewish people.

David's Comment: Will the Israeli Government Ever Act Like a Government ?

For how much longer do the people of Israel have to live in fear and shame ? In daily fear of happened in the heart of Jerusalem on Wednesday when the lives of 3 Jerusalemites came to a sudden and violent end, as a hate crazed Muslim Arab went on a rampage. The murderous rampage began when the Arab resident of East Jerusalem using the bulldozer he used in his job, to charge at buses and other vehicles on the always busy Jaffa Rd. The terrorist operating the bulldozer chose his victims deliberately - even starting his attack by motioning for a woman driver to precede him, before crushing her vehicle with his shovel. He went on to run-down pedestrians, ram two buses, and crush a number of civilian cars. Among his innocent victims is an infant, who was injured in the attack and taken to hospital. Eyewitnesses told police that the murdered mother saved her baby, by throwing the child out the car window, just before the bulldozer crushed her to death. As soon as people realised the situation was not an accident but a terror attack, a large number of them ran after the tractor. After armed police and a security guard failed to shoot him, an off duty soldier finally shooting the rogue driver dead. As if the fact that there are thousands of potential Arab terrorists already on the streets of Israel is not bad enough, the main political issue facing Israel this week is the prisoner exchange with Hizbollah and Hamas. The Olmert government is ready to exchange the two IDF soldiers whose capture ignited the 2nd Lebanon war in 2006. The two Israeli soldiers are thought to be dead, so if that is the case, in exchange for the two soldiers remains Olmert will release a number of live Hizbollah terrorists. One of the men that Israel plans to release is Samir Kuntar - a evil cold blooded murderer. He was involved in a terror attack in 1979. in which a mother and her two children, Danny and Einat were savagely murdered. According to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed the little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar. In spite of the fact that Kuntar has pledged to go back to terrorism if released, Israeli politicians are prepared to set him free.

And in the south Hamas is demanding hundreds of convicted terrorists to be set free in exchange for Gilad Shalit, the other IDF soldier who has been held hostage for more than 2 years. Seeing that Gilad is definately alive, I have no problem with a one for one hostage deal or even 2 for one, but any more than that seems to me to be massively giving in to the enemy. What ever happened to the Western world's policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists ? Apart from the fact that Israel's once victorious reputation will be further tarnished, giving into the terrorists only encourages them to kidnap other soldiers, knowing they will be able to use them as bargaining chips as well. It is downright foolish ! Having sons in the IDF, I fully identify with the families of the kidnapped soldiers, but we are in a war. As much as I want to see our precious soldiers back, even if it just their remains, I also believe that the Israeli government must be strong and resolute in its policies to defend the State of Israel. Sadly the present corrupt and politically inept Olmert is totally unsuitable for the job as Israel's leader as he does not have the moral backbone or the experience to do so. It is well over the time that Israel has a government who knows how to be a real government !! Please pray with many thousands of us here in Israel and many more thousands around the world that the Holy One of Israel will send Olmert packing - before he can do any more damage to OUR nation ! We need Bibi Netanyahu to be re-elected as the prime minister of Israel.The Lord bless you as you bless Israel by standing in defense of her right to exist on the land given to the Jewish people by the God of Israel . Lets pray that Israel will turn back to their God. Do not be silent, but share this with your fellow Christians, share it with your pastors, and with anyone you have a chance to speak to. Lets also pray for that breakthrough to the Muslims, and please remember to pray for our son Jordan, and all of his fellow soldiers in the IDF.

Shabbat Shalom ... David & Josie

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

U.K. to Begin Microchipping Prisoners
by David Gutierrez

(NaturalNews) The British government is developing a plan to track current and former prisoners by means of microchips implanted under the skin, drawing intense criticism from probation officers and civil rights groups.As a way to reduce prison crowding, many British prisoners are currently released under electronic monitoring, carried out by means of an ankle bracelet that transmits signals like those used by mobile phones. Now the Ministry of Justice is exploring the possibility of injecting prisoners in the back of the arm with a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that contains information about their name, address and criminal record. Such chips, which contain a built-in antenna, could be scanned by special readers. The implantation of RFID chips in luggage, pets and livestock has become increasingly popular in recent years.In addition to monitoring incarcerated prisoners, the ministry hopes to use the chips on those who are on probation or other conditional release. By including a satellite uplink system in the chip, police would be able to use global positioning system (GPS) technology to track subjects' exact locations at all times. According to advocates of such a measure, this could help keep sex offenders away from forbidden zones like schools.Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, blasted the measure as degrading to the people chipped and of no benefit to probation officers.Knowing where offenders like pedophiles are does not mean you know what they are doing, Fletcher said. Treating people like pieces of meat does not seem to represent an improvement in the system to me.Shami Chakrabarti of the civil rights group Liberty had even stronger words:If the Home Office doesn't understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet, they don't need a human-rights lawyer; they need a common-sense bypass.

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.

How many missiles will be fired from Iran, Syria, Lebanon in the next war? By Yossi Melman

How many missiles will be fired from Iran, Syria and Lebanon against Israel in the next war? This question, as well as the various future war scenarios, was the subject of an enlightening lecture early in the week by the commander of the Israel Air Force from 1996 to 2000, Major General (res.) Eitan Ben Eliahu. His lecture surveyed the changes in Israel's national security doctrine amid the changing nature of wars, technology and the threats posed by the country's enemies. The lecture was initiated by an organization established after the Second Lebanon War, when the Israeli home front was hit by thousands of Hezbollah rockets. The Israel Missile Defense Association (www.imda.org.il) was founded by Avi Schnurr, a senior engineer who worked for many years in the United States military industries, immigrated to Israel and served as the voice of missile defense in Israel.A number of senior former defense officials - experts on missiles and advanced weapons systems - are active in the association, such as Uzi Eilam, the former director general of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission; David Ivry, the former commander of the Israel Air Force and a former director general of the Defense Ministry; and Uzi Rubin, who was involved in the development of the Arrow missile.

Their presence gives the association prestige and credibility, but because its members are linked to the defense establishment and some are even dependent on it financially, their freedom to express their views is limited, as is their willingness to criticize the system. Eitan Ben Eliahu began his speech by defining the national security doctrine and the changes it has undergone. Since it was formulated in the early 1950s, the concept on exercising military force has advocated the following:

* An initiated war (a preventive strike). But if that is impossible then at least:

* A preemptive strike to disrupt the enemy's war preparations. But if war does break out, the Israel Defense Forces must conduct: b A holding operation after which it will go over to: Aerial superiority.

* A breakthrough in order to achieve:

* Final lines and a defeat of the enemy.

This doctrine outlined a scenario in which Israel would find itself at war on two or three familiar fronts (Egypt, Syria and Jordan). For that purpose, up until the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the military force was built up with a budget of $30 billion to $35 billion for buying planes, armored vehicles and a few ships, emphasizing that these weapons systems would be varied and allow for flexibility.

Two major lessons

According to the security doctrine, the process of defeating the enemy was based on weapons systems that would enable surprise, movement and initiative on the ground. In the air it was based on weapons that would make it possible to attack and destroy airfields and win aerial battles, and on the development of precise weaponry that would destroy ground-to-air missiles. The War of Attrition (1968-1970) and the Yom Kippur War disrupted these basic assumptions. The Arabs drew two major lessons from their failure in the Six-Day War. They concealed their planes in underground hangars and purchased anti-aircraft missiles. As a result, the IAF suffered a severe blow (about 100 of its planes were downed or damaged - nearly 1.5 percent of its overall sorties), and at the time there was talk of the missile that bends the wing of the plane. The IAF thus decided to operate against batteries of ground-to-air missiles and to induce enemy planes to leave their hiding places and take off, and then to bring them down. According to the data presented by Ben Eliahu, during the War of Attrition, 104 enemy planes were downed. In the Yom Kippur War, 277 were downed, and in the first Lebanon war the IAF brought down 99 (Syrian) planes and hit 17 Syrian missile batteries, using electro-optical air-to-ground missiles. The new needs have led to a 15 to 20 percent increase in the defense budget to between $35 billion and $40 billion. But from the end of the 1980s, and particularly after the 1991 Gulf War, during which Iraq launched 40 Scud missiles, Israel found itself facing new and additional threats:

* strikes against the home front

* a short warning time (for beginning a war and adding a front)

* a prolonging- of the fighting

* non-conventional weapons (chemical and nuclear)

Some of these threats became even more acute during the Second Lebanon War and in the Gaza Strip. As a result, Israel was forced to increase the security budget sharply, to $50 billion, and to update its national defense doctrine to prepare for scenarios of wars against Iran, Syria, Lebanon (and additional countries?) and terror with a strategic dimension. To assess the intensity of these scenarios, Ben Eliahu presented figures from the Second Lebanon War. Hezbollah's missile inventory included about 14,000 missiles. About 4,200 missiles were launched, including about 200 medium-range missiles. The IAF carried out 11,870 sorties during the war's 34 days (an average of 340 sorties a day). During these sorties the IAF destroyed 93 missile launchers - 50 of them in sorties based on precise intelligence on the first day of the war. The IAF also destroyed 33 pipes (simple launchers) using the hunting method (planes remained in the air to search for and find the launchers).

In his estimation, Israel must prepare for the next war according to the following script:

* One to three fronts

* Crush the enemy on one front

* Containing the Palestinian front

* Long-range punishment or response (Iran)

What should Israel's aim be in the next war?

On the basis of the precedent of the Gulf War, Ben Eliahu estimates that in the next war, Syria and Iran might launch between 250 and 300 long-range missiles at Israel (Shihab and Scud missiles) and another 5,000 short-range missiles (mainly from Lebanon). To intercept a single long-range missile, one needs an average of two intercepting missiles and between 500 and 700 missiles in all. In addition, Israel must keep another 200 intercepting missiles in reserve. To destroy the short-range missiles, Israel will need mainly ground forces. Israel must prepare for a war that will last up to 20 days. Vis-a-vis Syria it must attain aerial superiority and embark on a ground attack for a strategic purpose, attack the missile and launcher sites and attack strategic targets.

Zooming in on an aerial attack

Vis-a-vis Lebanon, Israel has aerial superiority and will therefore have to focus only on an aerial attack against medium-range missiles and carry out a ground attack against short-range missiles. On the Gaza front, the threat of Qassam rockets and mortar shells is, according to this analysis, limited, exhausting and indirect, and the response must consist mainly of providing shelters for the civilians, developing more efficient warning and alarm systems - which will be able to identify launched missiles - and launching a ground offensive against the Palestinian guerrillas. And above all Israel must grant high priority to development methods for confronting the chemical and nuclear threat.

WORLD GOVERNMENT

DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he 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.

DANIEL 12:4,1
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

REVELATION 13:1-3,7,8,12,16-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

REVELATION 17:3,7,9-10,12,18
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Weak dollar is global concern: EU's Barroso By William Schomberg Fri Jul 4, 7:42 AM ET

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The dollar's fall is a source of global concern and the European Union wants a better balance between the U.S. unit and other major currencies, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Friday. Speaking to a group of journalists before departing for the annual Group of Eight industrial nations' summit in Japan next week, Barroso endorsed the European Central Bank's decision to raise its key interest rate despite warnings from some EU governments, notably France.I believe it is important we show at European level that we are committed to fighting inflation, he said.Inflation is a real threat, he said, adding it would have been very difficult to understand any other decision by the ECB, which raised its key rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 percent on Thursday.In an indirect rebuke to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had warned publicly that a rate hike would harm a slowing euro zone economy, Barroso said: When it comes to inflation, I have more confidence in the positions of the central banks than of politicians.The head of the European Union executive said he did not expect the G8 leaders to take a stand on currencies but added: This is a matter of global concern, the falling dollar.We would like to see a more balanced relationship between the dollar and other major currencies, including the euro.

Climate change and soaring fuel and food prices are likely to be the main themes of the G8 summit at a luxury hotel in Hokkaido, northern Japan.Barroso also said he hoped President George W. Bush would show more ambition than in the past about curbing emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.(Reporting by William Schomberg; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Who runs the world? Wrestling for influence
Jul 3rd 2008 From The Economist print edition

The post-war global institutions have largely worked well. But rising countries and growing threats are challenging their pre-eminence.THE powerful, like the victorious, do not just write history. They grab the seats at the top tables, from the United Nations Security Council to the boards of the big international economic and financial institutions. They collude behind closed doors. They decide who can join their cosy clubs and expect the rest of the world to obey the instructions they hand down.That is how many outsiders, not just in the poor world, will see the summit that takes place from July 7th to 9th of the G8, the closest the world has to an informal (ie, self-appointed) steering group. Leaders of seven of the world’s richest democracies, plus oil-and gas-fired Russia, gather this year in Toyako, on Hokkaido in northern Japan, to ruminate on climate change, rising food and energy prices, and the best way to combat global scourges from disease to nuclear proliferation.But in an age when people, money and goods move around as never before, this little group no longer commands the heights of the global economy and the world’s financial system as the core G7 used to do when their small, purposeful gatherings of the democratic world’s consenting capitalists first got going in the 1970s. Nowadays summits produce mostly lengthy communiqués and photo-opportunities. And Russia’s slide from democracy into state-directed capitalism has lowered the club’s political tone.

In an effort to show that the G8 is still up with the times, Japan, like Germany last year, has invited along for a brief chat leaders from five outreach countries: Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. Yet this handshake between those who did best out of the 20th century and some potential shapers of the 21st leaves hanging the question of how the old world order should be adapting to the new.Might the world be better managed by such a G13? Or a G15 or G16, to include a couple of weighty Islamic states too? Or, to preserve the group’s original globe-steering purpose, by a G12 of the world’s biggest economies? Meanwhile, the global institutions set up after the second world war are also having to look hard at their own futures. Unlike the G7/8, which takes on a bit of everything, these institutions basically divide into two sorts: economic and financial, and political.At the pinnacle of world political management, but looking increasingly anachronistic, is the UN Security Council. Of its 15 members, ten rotate at the whim of the various UN regional groupings. The other five, which wield vetoes and are permanent, are America, Russia, China, Britain and France, roughly speaking the victors of the last long-ago world war. Alongside them is a secretary-general (currently Ban Ki-Moon from South Korea; this job, too, tends to go by regional turn), a vast bureaucracy at UN headquarters in New York, and hundreds of specialised agencies and offshoots (see table).The world had to be saved not just from another war, but from a repeat of the Great Depression of the 1930s. That job went to a clutch of institutions: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), jointly known as the Bretton Woods institutions after the place of their creation; the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a rich-country think-tank set up in 1961; the much older central bankers’ Bank for International Settlements; and the World Trade Organisation (WTO, formerly the GATT).They have been buttressed too by conventions, conferences, courts, declarations, dispute-mechanisms, special mandates and treaties governing everything from human rights to anti-dumping complaints. The whole elaborate architecture has had extra underpinning from strong regional organisations, such as the European Union, and less elaborate ones like the African Union and the various talking-shops of Latin America, the Arab world and Asia, as well as from steadying alliances, such as NATO. As a result, there has been no return to the disastrous global conflicts of the first half of the 20th century.

Yet that very success has become one of three powerful pressures to adjust the way the world is run, as new economic winners (and some new losers) demand a say. Pressure also stems from intensifying resentment and frustration. After ringing declarations on human rights and even the adoption by a UN world summit in 2005 of a responsibility to protect against genocide and crimes against humanity, the UN Security Council still finds itself unable to agree to do much to protect the people of Darfur, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and others from the murderous contempt of their rulers—just as in the 1990s the UN failed the genocide victims in Rwanda.If the Security Council, with a charter of high principles at its back, shows such feebleness towards tyrants (or to those who cavalierly flout nuclear treaties), doesn’t it deserve to be bypassed? John McCain, the Republican candidate for president of the United States, supports the creation of a new League of Democracies which, its boosters argue, would have not only the moral legitimacy but also the will to right the world’s wrongs effectively.The third impetus to rejig the way the world organises itself is a dawning realisation on the part of governments, rich and poor, that the biggest challenges shaping their future—climate change, the flaws and the forces of globalisation, the scramble for resources, state failure, mass terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction—often need global, not just national or regional, solutions. The shift in 21st-century economic power alone is justification for rebalancing influence in the top clubs. Much harder to figure out is which bits of the global architecture need mere tweaking, which need retooling or replacing—and who should have the right to decide.

After decades of dividing the world into the rich and powerful West and the developing (or emerging) rest, China’s rapid growth and the economic dynamism of East Asia had led to talk of a new Pacific century well before the old Atlantic one had ended. On present trends, somewhere between 2025 and 2030 three of the world’s four largest economies will be from Asia. China will just pip America to top the global league, with India and Japan, both determined but so far unsuccessful campaigners for permanent seats on the UN Security Council, following on (though Chinese and Indians will still be, on average, much poorer than Americans or Japanese).

Not unipolar but what?
Yet talk of an Asian century sounds quaint. Despite America’s brief unipolar moment as its rival pole, the Soviet Union, collapsed, Russia has recovered to join a rising China, America, Europe and Japan in a new constellation of big powers that is based on far more than the old boot-and-rocket counts of the cold war. Bring India into the snapshot, and you capture 54% of the world’s population and 70% of GDP. Whether the leaders of this multipolar world will rub along or bash elbows remains to be seen.

Globalisation’s increasingly unfettered flow of information, technology, capital, goods, services and people has helped spread opportunity and influence far and wide. To re-emergent China and Russia, add not just India but Brazil (these four bracketed by Goldman Sachs in 2001 as the upcoming BRICs), Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Australia, to name just some of the new winners as money changes pockets and the world turns faster.

A modern map of power and influence should also include transformational tools such as the internet; manipulators from lobbying NGOs to terrorist groups; profit-takers such as global corporations and sovereign wealth funds; and unpredictable forces such as global financial flows. The principal characteristic of this world, argues Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations in a recent Foreign Affairs article, is not multipolarity but nonpolarity. Dozens of actors, exercising different kinds of power, vastly complicate the effort to find a better balance of influence and responsibility. But the excuse of complexity is no answer to the demand for equity.Some clubs have proved more responsive than others. China got a new economic start simply by ditching Marx, Lenin and Mao. But its reformers were able to tap the liberal rules-based system codified in the rules of the IMF and the World Bank (and later the WTO) for ideas as well as cash. China rejoined the bank in 1980 (the Nationalist government on Taiwan had been a founder member) just as its reforms got under way. Ironically, Communist-run China has since been one of the system’s biggest beneficiaries. But it is by no means the only one. Despite the latest stockmarket dips and credit squeezes, world income per head has increased by more over the past five years than during any other similar period on record.

The IMF and the World Bank, pragmatic institutions from the outset, have adapted already, in fits and starts. In April the IMF reformed the peculiar formula by which it allocates votes and financial contributions according to economic size, reserves and other measures (see chart). China’s share of votes will increase to 3.81%, still far short of its weight in the world economy. Meanwhile, old power patterns still determine who holds the two top jobs: the bank is run by an American, the fund by a European. But a bigger problem for both organisations is relevance. Until the late 1990s the IMF, monitor of exchange rates and lender of last resort to struggling governments, had plenty of work. But emerging economies, once its chief clients and source of earnings in repaid interest and loans, are these days often awash with their own cash. Earlier this year the IMF board voted to cut staff and sell off about an eighth of its gold reserves (some 400 tonnes) to meet expected future funding shortfalls. With no obvious role in coping with the aftermath of the recent banking and stockmarket turbulence, its future role may be more as an expert economic adviser.Some worry that the world may still need a lender of last resort. Critics think the fund’s days should be numbered and its reserves put to better use for development. Still others muse that what is needed is a World Investment Organisation, to set basic rules and better track the huge and complex flows of cash that now wash around in hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, banks and financial markets.

The World Bank has a more certain future, but still needs to retool. Competition has stiffened from private capital markets. Many governments that once needed the bank’s help for dams, roads and other big projects are earning plenty from the sale of raw materials. Even in Africa, the readiness of China and India to spend liberally without strings in pursuit of oil and minerals means that the Sudans and the Congos can take the bank’s cash and ignore the conditions attached. Yet the bank still has a role lending to unfashionable causes, or countries which donors neglect. It could also provide global public goods: funding energy-infrastructure and climate-change projects are two examples, agriculture another.

A bit too equal
While the bank and the fund are steered by their biggest shareholders, the WTO, though relying on a representative caucus of states to hammer out deals, belongs to all its members: India and Brazil, for example, are at the heart of the Doha round of trade talks. But egalitarianism can be a weakness as well as a strength.

Much admired, at least by government lawyers, are the 60,000 pages of jurisprudence that govern the workings of the WTO dispute mechanism, which has helped resolve many a trade spat. The WTO ensures that members do not discriminate among each other—the best deal they offer to anyone must be extended to everyone. This has helped level the playing field and expand world trade. Russia’s is the only large economy still outside the WTO, and that is its choice.Yet those wanting to join must strike deals with each of the existing members—now a daunting 152. Operating by consensus means that the Doha development round has bogged down in disputes between developed and developing countries over complex, reciprocal cuts in farm subsidies and tariff barriers. The prospects for moving on to services look dim. Slow progress has helped push many to forge bilateral or regional deals instead. And if the Doha round fails completely, the recriminations could run far and wide—threatening any attempt, for example, to get agreement between the developed and developing world on new mechanisms to deal with climate change.

Economic and financial power is to some extent up for bids by governments with a stake in the game, and trade rules are (arduously) negotiable. Yet the distribution of political power has proved stubbornly—debilitatingly—resistant to change.Most bitterly contested is membership of the UN Security Council, which has the right (whether exclusively or not is hotly debated) to decide what constitutes a threat to world peace and security, and what to do about it. In the UN’s other big decision-making institution, the General Assembly, all the world can have its say, and does. But here outsiders take their revenge: a caucus of mostly developing countries called the G77 (but these days comprising 130 members including China) tends to dominate and filibuster. Might it assuage resentment and improve the council’s authority and the UN’s effectiveness if America, Britain, France Russia and China invited other permanent members to join them—and considered giving up their veto? When the P5, as they are called, first grabbed the most powerful slots, the UN had 51 members; decades of decolonisation and splintering self-determination later, it has 192. The obstacles to reform grow no smaller either. Most recently a concerted effort by Brazil, Germany, India and Japan (a self-styled G4) to join the council’s permanent movers and shakers was thwarted by a combination of foot-dragging, jealousy and stiff-arming. African countries failed to agree on which of their several aspirants should join the bid. Regional rivals—Argentina and Mexico, Italy, Indonesia, Pakistan and others—lobbied to block the front-runners. China made it clear it would veto Japan; America, in supporting only Japan, helped destroy its friend’s chances.

New permanent members would broaden the regional balance. That could add authority and legitimacy to council decisions. Bringing in not only nuclear-armed India, but soft-powered Japan and the rest, would undercut the notion, perpetuated by the P5, that to be a winner you need first to crash the nuclear club. But might the price of a larger, permanently more diverse council be more potential spanner-tossers and thus greater deadlock? The hope would be that once difficult outsiders got their feet permanently under the table, sharing the responsibility for managing the world would stop them protecting bad elements, as South Africa (currently a rotating member) has been doing with Zimbabwe, in part to defy the permanent five.Prising the P5 from their vetoes might, however, have adverse effects. It was dependable veto power, ensuring their vital interests were never overridden, that kept America and Russia talking at the UN—and Nikita Khrushchev shoe-banging—through the darkest episodes of the cold war. Russia will not forget the mistake of the brief Soviet boycott of the council that led to force being authorised to repel North Korea at the start of the Korean war in 1950. China shows no sign of veto self-effacement, either. But staying at the table does not guarantee agreement. The UN is deliberately an organisation of states, and states differ for reasons good and bad. George Bush went to war in Iraq without explicit backing from the Security Council (just as NATO went to war to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, despite Russia’s certain veto had the issue come to a council vote). But the council’s divisions on the most contentious issues have not prevented responsible stewardship elsewhere. A Security Council summit in 1992agreed that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was a threat to peace and security to be dealt with forcibly if need be. After the attacks of September 11th 2001, new resolutions were passed to curb terrorists’ finance and keep nuclear, chemical and biological weapons out of their hands.

There has been a huge increase over the past 15 years in the numbers of blue helmets, with 100,000 soldiers and police currently deployed. This is credited with helping to reduce the number of conflicts between states, as well as calming civil wars from Bosnia to Haiti, from Cambodia to Sudan, from Congo to Lebanon. Acceptance, at least politically, of a responsibility to protect takes the council towards territory which, earlier this decade, it would not have approached: an International Criminal Court, for example, separate from the UN but able to take its referrals, and ready to prosecute the worst crimes. Yet divisions among the P5 have often slowed deployment of peacekeepers where they are most needed, such as in Sudan’s war-torn province of Darfur. Pessimists doubt that China and Russia, both arch-defenders of the Westphalian principle that state sovereignty trumps all, will ever seriously contemplate authorising forceful intervention even to end a genocide. A new UN Human Rights Council has yet to prove it is any better than its discredited predecessor at bringing brutal governments to book. Meanwhile it took years, and North Korea’s 2006 bomb test, for China to condemn Kim Jong Il’s nuclear cheating and let the Security Council pass judgment on it. The P5 plus Germany have worked together over the past three years, slapping a series of UN resolutions and sanctions on the regime in Iran for defiance over its suspect nuclear work, yet Russia and China have doggedly watered down each text, line by line.

Doing it for themselves
There is much the UN Security Council will never be able to do, no matter who occupies its plushest seats. And there are lots of other ways to get useful things done these days. The internet helps campaigners on human rights, as on other issues, to get their message round the world rather effectively. Stung by constant exposure and criticism of its policy in Sudan and Darfur, China appointed a special envoy (who soon found he had a lot of explaining to do) and shifted ground on the need for a UN force, even though deployment is agonisingly slow. In some cases, regional organisations are better equipped to take the strain. Enlargement of the EU and NATO has helped stabilise Europe’s borderlands, with mostly European troops and police these days in the Balkans. Russia may protest, but its western frontier has never been more peaceful.

On a similar principle of African solutions to African problems, the African Union has provided troops in Sudan and elsewhere. But devolving security jobs to the neighbours can be a disaster: the AU delegated the problem of what to do about Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe to a southern African grouping, SADC, which left it to South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, who did nothing. The hard-pressed people of Zimbabwe are still waiting for relief.East Asia, the other big potential battlefront in the cold war, used to look very different from Europe, which has long had more than its share of shock-absorbing regional clubs and institutions. Now, alongside the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a still limited talking-shop, other regional conversations are starting up. The ASEAN Regional Forum draws in not only China, Japan and Korea, but Americans, Russians and Europeans; ASEAN-plus-three summits are clubbier, involving only regional rivals China, Japan and Korea. A new East Asian Summit excludes America but brings in India and Australia, among others; Americans naturally prefer to boost the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (APEC). Meanwhile Russia, China and their Central Asian neighbours have founded the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, in part to counter Western influence in the region as NATO battles on in Afghanistan, but in part so that Russia and China can keep an eye on each other. Annual joint military exercises are a new feature.Problem-solving groups come in all shapes and sizes, from quartets (for promoting Middle East peace or trying to settle the future of Kosovo) to entire posses. Some 80 countries in the Proliferation Security Initiative (an activity not an organisation) exchange information and train together to sharpen skills for blocking illicit shipments of nuclear or other weapons materials. Like the P5 plus 1 talks on Iran (sometimes called the E3 plus 3 by Europeans), there are six-party talks hosted by China on North Korea (and including America, South Korea, Japan and Russia), which could yet evolve into a formal north-east Asian security dialogue.More countries are taking the initiative. China, Japan and South Korea, East Asia’s rival powers, will meet this year for a first 3-minus-ASEAN summit. China, India and Russia meet from time to time to re-swear allegiance to multipolarity. They may have little more in common than an ambition to put Europe and America in the shade, but earlier this year the foreign ministers of the four BRIC countries got together for the first time; their economic and finance ministers will soon meet too. And with a wary eye to China’s growing economic and military weight, America, Australia and Japan have formed something of a security threesome, though Japan’s plan to include India too was deemed a bit provocative.

Quirky but familiar globe-spanning organisations include the Commonwealth, which knits together Britain’s former colonies plus other volunteers and does good works in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, and the Non-Aligned Movement, a cold-war hold-over with 116 members and communiqués that leave no prejudice unrecorded. But what of Mr McCain’s endorsement of a League of Democracies?The notion isn’t new. An American sponsored Community of Democracies got going with fanfare in 2000. There is nothing wrong with mobilising freedom-loving governments to speak up for democracy. But there are difficulties.Last time, America found it hard to say no to friends, and not all its friends are democrats. The new League (or Concert) of Democracies would have clearer rules for ins and outs. Supporters see it as potentially an alternative source of legitimacy, should the Security Council be hopelessly divided: a two-thirds majority of the roughly 60 countries that might qualify could even authorise the use of force to deal with threats to peace or to uphold the principle of a responsibility to protect. But would a group of countries that spans all continents from Botswana to Chile, and Israel to the Philippines, ever manage to agree on much? A supposed democracy caucus at the UN has achieved little. Dividing the world ideologically again seems a step backwards to some. Nor could such a club solve pressing global problems. Coping with climate change needs China as well as India; energy security needs Saudi Arabia and Russia, as well as oil-dependent Japan or the Europeans. The good news, given the rise of lots of new powers and players, is that this is not the 19th century. Then governments had few means other than gunboats to settle their differences. There are plenty of guns about these days, but also many other ways to settle the world’s disputes.