AIG TO BIG TO FAIL

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.

Ike resurrects river flooding fears across Midwest By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer SEPT 16,08

ST. LOUIS - Just a few months after near-record flooding across the Midwest, roads in the region were under water again Tuesday and more than 1 million people were without power thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Ike. The old-timers knew it was wise to leave the sandbags, said Arnold City Manager Matthew Unrein, whose town south of St. Louis still has the sandbag defenses it built when it was threatened by floods in March. The Meramec was expected to reach 18 feet above flood stage in Arnold on Thursday.Several rivers in Missouri were rising toward crests expected later this week, some more than 15 feet above flood stage. Flooding already was occurring at several towns along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, including St. Louis. The President Casino on the St. Louis riverfront shut down for the third time since April because of high water, and the boulevard that runs in front of the Gateway Arch was closed.Ike dumped as much as 8 inches of rain on parts of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri after coming ashore in Texas during the weekend. It spawned hurricane-force wind in Ohio and a tornado in Arkansas that damaged several buildings.The devastating rain and wind in the Midwest brought Ike's total death toll to at least 47 in 10 states from the Gulf Coast to the upper Ohio Valley.The violent weather also knocked out power to more than 2 million homes and businesses across the Midwest, most of them in Ohio. As of Tuesday, the Ohio Emergency Management Agency said 1.4 million customers still had no electricity.The governors of Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky declared states of emergency. Several utilities said many customers might not be back on line until the weekend, and Louisville Gas and Electric says it could be two weeks before service is fully restored in Kentucky's largest city.More than a half-million Kentucky customers lost power at the height of the storm. This is the biggest outage on record in the commonwealth of Kentucky, said Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. He said half the state's 120 counties reported storm damage.Hundreds of roads were flooded around Missouri, including about 200 state roads and highways.

The National Weather Service is projecting moderate flooding from Hannibal south to the convergence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Major flooding is expected from St. Louis south to Cape Girardeau, although few homes are expected to be affected. At Hermann, the Missouri is expected to crest 11.5 feet above flood stage Thursday, enough to flood 37,000 acres of farmland and threaten at least two businesses.The Coast Guard closed stretches of the Missouri and Mississippi to recreational vessels Tuesday, saying the strong current created by the rising water and heavy floating debris created significant hazards.In central Illinois, the rising Illinois River had chased about 100 people from their homes in Morris, Assistant Fire Chief Robert Will said. By Friday, the river is expected to crest more than 7 feet above flood stage at Peoria, officials said.The rain from Ike combined with earlier storms in southern and western Michigan to rupture a dam in Berrien County and cause massive sewage overflows and street flooding, authorities said.An 8-foot section of that earthen dam gave way Monday night on the Dowagiac River and about a dozen homes had to be evacuated.The rain also overwhelmed Chicago's 4,300 miles of sewers — backing up into homes and inundating streets and parking lots.Stores in the Chicago area reported a run on sump and utility pumps. People were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to stop the damage, said Pete Palermo, a manager of the Keystone Ace Hardware in Albany Park.

Hundreds of homes were flooded in northwestern Indiana during the weekend and a busy stretch of Interstate 80/94 was still blocked by water Tuesday. Road crews were still working to pump water from the highway, a major route into the Chicago area, the Indiana Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.Indiana National Guard troops were activated Sunday and Monday to help evacuate about 5,000 residents from flooded parts of Munster, Ind., during the weekend. The water was nothing but a trickle in the middle of the street and by the time we decided what to do it was too late, said Munster resident George Polvich, who was rescued by boat. Associated Press writers Kantele Franko in Cincinnati, Bruce Schreiner in Louisville and Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this report.

Flood forces parts of Texas border town to empty SEPT 16,08

PRESIDIO, Texas - The rain-swollen Rio Grande began sloshing over a levee near this border town Tuesday, and officials cleared everyone from low-lying areas as they awaited a deluge they said was inevitable. There's nothing we can do. The water is coming, said James Leiman, a spokesman for the International Water and Boundary Commission.Hundreds of people in Presidio and nearby Redford already had fled their homes by the time flood control crews were pulled back Tuesday. State officials said floodwaters were expected to flow through Presidio, a city of about 5,000, later Tuesday.Water had started flowing over a levee outside the city, although it had not broken the structure, said Presidio city administrator Cynthia Clark.Presidio officials went door-to-door asking people to evacuate and made the same announcement from a helicopter.Officials were concerned that a few people in the evacuation areas refused to leave their homes, including illegal immigrants, Clark said.We're not asking their legal status. The info ... is not being shared with Border Patrol, and they have not asked for it, she said. If you have a problem with your legal status don't have that be a reason to stay at home.The city opened a shelter at an elementary school and about 100 people were staying there Tuesday. Classes were scheduled to go on Wednesday at the school, Clark said.Water releases from the Mexican state of Chihuahua have led to most of the problems. Recent rain has filled the Rio Conchos river system, which feeds into the Rio Grande, and Mexican officials have been releasing water to ease massive flooding on the southern side of the border. The rain was not related to Hurricane Ike, which hit hundreds of miles to the east.Across the border near Ojinaga, Mexico, a small plane carrying the U.S. and Mexican heads of the International Water and Boundary Commission crashed, killing all four on board. The plane, on a flight intended to give the officials a view of the floodwaters, crashed Monday but was found Tuesday.The IWBC is responsible for maintaining border levees on the Rio Grande, which separates Mexico and the United States.Presidio is about 200 miles southeast of El Paso.

Typhoon kills at least seven in Taiwan Mon Sep 15, 10:56 PM ET

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A typhoon which brought down parts of two bridges and dumped as much as 1,400 mm (55 inches) of rain in parts of Taiwan killed at least seven people with 14 missing, rescue workers and newspapers said on Tuesday. One person died when a car plunged into a frothing river from a two-lane segment of a collapsed bridge in Taichung county in central Taiwan, government disaster workers said.Six people were missing in the bridge accident that has dominated TV coverage with images of sobbing relatives and simulated re-enactments of the bridge collapse.Typhoon Sinlaku also brought down a section of a bridge in Kaohsiung county in southern Taiwan, but no one died, media reports said.Others died in mudslides, traffic accidents and a tunnel collapse, government disaster workers and local media said.Twenty people have been injured around the island as incessant rain triggered hundreds of mudslides and caused rain-swollen creeks to burst their banks.Sinlaku had brought sustained winds of 126 kph with gusts of up to 162 kph on Sunday with rain keeping up through Monday.

The centre of the storm was 550 km northeast of Taiwan at 0030 GMT on Tuesday. Meteorological service Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com) had downgraded Sinlaku to a tropical storm as it headed for southern Japan.Agricultural losses were estimated at T$280 million ($8.7 million) and likely to pressure Taiwan's inflation as food prices rise.It's going to be a bit higher in September, but this typhoon won't be a big hit since it didn't get to south-central Taiwan, just the north, said Daniel Luo, an analyst with Jih Sun Bank in Taipei. Taiwan's major crops are in the south.In China, heavy rains hit eastern and northern parts of Zhejiang province and central and northern parts of Fujian on Monday and then hit Shanghai in the afternoon.Typhoons regularly hit China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan from August until the end of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific or the South China Sea before weakening over land.(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by Nick Macfie)

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

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

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

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

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

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

THE GOVERNMENT WILL GIVE THE ISURANCE GIANT AIG AN 85 BILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT SO IT DOES NOT GO UNDER. ALI VELSHI OF CNN SAID IT WAS TO BIG TO GO UNDER. HE ALSO SAID WASHINGTON MUTUAL WOULD NOT GO UNDER EITHER HE EXPECTS THE GOVERNMENT TO BAIL THEM OUT ALSO. AIG IS TO INTERTWINED IN THE WORLD AND THERE WOULD BE TO MUCH OF A BLOOD BATH IF AIG WENT UNDER. REPORTS THE GOVERNMENT GETS 8%.

HERE IS WHAT AIG IS INVOLVED IN WORLDWIDE.

PERSONAL INSURANCE
Auto Insurance
Homeowners Insurance
Life Insurance
Travel Insurance

STOCK MARKET
401K
Mutual Funds
S+P 500 (participant)
Dow Jones Industrial Avg.(AIG one of 30 countries involved in)

BUSINESS INSURANCE
Banks
Major Airlines (900 Aircraft)
Hollywood Movies
Offshore Drilling Platforms

Government announces $85 billion loan to save AIG SEPT 16,08

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government has agreed to provide an $85 billion emergency loan to rescue the huge insurer AIG, the The Federal Reserve said Tuesday. The Fed said the U.S. Treasury Department was in full support of the decision. The Fed determined that a disorderly failure of AIG could undermine already fragile financial markets.
The government will receive an 79.9 percent equity stake in AIG, the Fed said.

AIG rescue at hand, government to take stake By Lilla Zuill and Jonathan Stempel SEPT 16,08

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An $85 billion government rescue of insurer American International Group Inc looked increasingly likely on Tuesday to stave off a bankruptcy that would have thrown world markets back into turmoil. The Federal Reserve will extend AIG (AIG.N) $85 billion in exchange for a nearly 80 percent stake to bail out the troubled insurance giant, a person briefed on the matter said.

The deal would avoid the biggest corporate bankruptcy ever and follows a government bailout of mortgage lenders Freddie Mac (FRE.N) and Fannie (FNM.N) Mae just over a week ago.Earlier, U.S. stocks clawed back from their biggest one-day drop in seven years, soothed by speculation about a government rescue of AIG, a likely sale of Lehman Brothers' investment bank to Britain's Barclays (BARC.L), and a better-than-expected quarterly profit from Goldman Sachs (GS.N).Morgan Stanley (MS.N) added a positive note after the close of trading when it reported a slight quarterly profit fall, setting it apart from rivals bleeding red ink.Then AIG shares, which had sunk 21 percent in regular trading, fell as much as 48 percent in after-hours dealings after reports of a rescue that could wipe out shareholders.The New York Times, which had reported that AIG could file as soon as Wednesday for bankruptcy protection, later reported the deal with the Fed.This would mean another shareholder wipeout, said David Ader, head of government bond strategy at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut.Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were briefing members of Congress on the deal on Tuesday evening, a Treasury official told Reuters.They're too big to fail. AIG touches too many people and too many companies globally, and it would be much more of a disorderly event if it went bankrupt than it was with Lehman, said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital in Rochester, New York.The developments overshadowed an earlier Fed decision to keep interest rates unchanged.U.S. stocks overall surged at the end of a volatile session, with the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI> gaining 1.3 percent. Dow futures gained an additional 0.5 percent after news of the AIG bailout.

CATASTROPHIC PROBLEM

In a sign of how much U.S. authorities have been trying to prop up the markets, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York took the unusual step of providing some $87 billion in financing to Lehman units to prevent disruption as customers flee.Banks' cost of overnight borrowing surged above 10 percent, signaling extreme distrust among the institutions. That's about five times the typical level, given that the Federal Reserve's target for short-term rates now stands at 2 percent.The two rates typically track each other. Overnight dollar deposit rates eased later, but were still at high levels.Hours before Lehman's creditors were set to have their first formal meeting post-bankruptcy, there was a glimmer of hope for some of its roughly 26,000 employees.Barclays agreed to pay $2 billion to buy Lehman's core U.S. broker-dealer business, including equity, fixed income, M&A advisory, a person familiar with the matter said. A potential bankruptcy filing by AIG could have a market impact of $180 billion, or 50 percent of total capital raised by financial institutions worldwide since the beginning of the credit crunch, according to one estimate. Worries about the health of AIG, until recently the world's biggest insurer by market capitalization, spread to other asset classes. Some firms ceased making markets in commodity securities backed by matching contracts from AIG on Monday afternoon, ETF Securities said. The affected securities are known as exchange-traded commodities (ETCs). Earlier, New York Governor David Paterson told CNBC that the insurer had a day to solve its problems. A failure would result in a catastrophic problem for the market, said Paterson, whose administration oversees regulation of AIG.

AIG CONTRACTS AT STAKE

Both Moody's and Fitch Ratings cut AIG's rating by two notches on Monday, while Standard & Poor's Rating Services lowered its rating by three pegs. The downgrades meant that AIG's trading partners can require the insurer to post an additional $14.5billion in collateral, according to an August 6 regulatory filing. They could also result in the early termination of some contracts, requiring an additional $5.4 billion in payments, the filing showed. You don't just have a potential impact on the reinsurer side, you have it on the institutions that might be holding AIG paper, said Lorraine Tan, director of research for Asia at Standard and Poor's in Singapore. This would have a much bigger impact than a bank going down like Lehman or Bear (Stearns), or even a Wachovia (Corp) or WaMu in the U.S. AIG has a much bigger presence globally.(Reporting by Lilla Zuill and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Jack Reerink and Ted Kerr)

Bernanke, Paulson brief Congress on AIG rescue SEPT 16,08

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were briefing members of Congress on the proposed rescue package for American International Group (AIG.N) on Tuesday evening, a Treasury official said.The official could not immediately provide any details on the plan.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Gary Hill)

Standard & Poor's downgrades Washington Mutual's rating By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent 12:53am BST 17/09/2008

Concern over the health of US savings bank Washington Mutual heightened after ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded its credit rating to junk status. Shares in WaMu, which had already dropped 95pc year-to-date, fell by as much as 25pc, later recovering to trade up 20 cents at $2.20. WaMu, which is one of the largest players in the US mortgage market, will find it increasingly difficult to raise extra funds should it need to, in addition to the $7bn it raised back in April. Last week, the bank said it had sufficient capital to see it through, but S&P still chose to downgrade the bank's debt from BBB- to BB-, with a negative outlook.

More on banking
S&P said that the cut related to the increasing market turmoil and the related impact from managing a concentrated mortgage franchise in [the] troubled housing credit cycle.WaMu responded by saying its capital remained above levels that would normally be viewed as well capitalised, and the bank stressed that it has no exposure to insurance giant AIG and de minimis exposure to Lehman Brothers.

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.

NEWS OF IRAN MISSLE WORKS
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1021782.html

NAMES OF THE RUSSIAN SUBMARINES
http://rusnavy.com/mess/kalanst8.htm

RUSSIAN NAVAL SHIP NAMES
http://128.121.102.226/shipind.html

Last update - 22:36 16/09/2008 IAEA shows photos alleging Iran nuclear missile works By Reuters HAARETZ

Tags: UN, nuclear missile, IAEA

The UN nuclear watchdog showed documents and photographs on Tuesday suggesting Iran secretly tried to modify a missile cone to fit a nuclear bomb, diplomats said, and Tehran again dismissed the findings as forged. Iran said an International Atomic Energy Agency inquiry into its nuclear activity was at a dead-end because the IAEA was demanding Tehran reveal conventional military secrets without nuclear dimensions. Iran has denied seeking atom bombs. The Vienna-based UN watchdog said in a report on Monday that Iranian stonewalling had brought an agency inquiry into whether Tehran had covertly researched ways to make a nuclear bomb to a standstill.

Britain has accused Iran of showing contempt for the UN watchdog and, with the United States and France, vowed to seek harsher sanctions on Tehran over its defiance of UN demands for full disclosure and a suspension of uranium enrichment.

The IAEA wants Iran to clarify intelligence material pointing to links between Iranian projects to process uranium, test high explosives and modify a Shahab-3 missile cone in a way suitable for a nuclear warhead. The Islamic Republic has denied the allegations but the IAEA says Iran must substantiate its position by granting access to sites, documents and relevant officials for interviews. Top agency inspectors briefed its board of governors on the report's findings on Tuesday ahead of a meeting by the 35-nation body next week likely to heighten pressure on Iran to cooperate. Washington's IAEA envoy said the group was shown photos and documents of Iranian work on re-designing a Shabab-3 to carry what would appear to be a nuclear weapon.

IAEA: Information on Iran is very credible
The (IAEA) Secretariat told us the information they have is in their words, very credible, unquote, and they have asked iran to provide substantive responses, unquote, Gregory Schulte told reporters. He said the meeting was told that Iran had refused IAEA requests to interview engineers involved in the work and visit their ostensibly civilian workshops, depicted in photos. Iran repeated that the intelligence was forged or pertained only to conventional arms. It said Iran faced extraordinary and unacceptable pressure to prove unverified allegations were wrong by revealing information vital to its national security. No country would give information about its conventional military activities, Iran's IAEA ambassador said.

I said in this briefing, Who in the world would believe there are a series of top secret documents U.S. intelligence found in a laptop regarding a Manhattan Project-type nuclear (bomb programme) in Iran and none of these documents bore seals of high confidential or secret? Ali Asghar Soltanieh said. This is simply unbelievable. This matter is over, as far as we are concerned, he said. Western concern was heightened by a revelation in the IAEA report that Iran may have had foreign expertise helping in experiments on a detonator applicable to an implosion-type nuclear blast occurring at high altitude. Informed diplomats said the expertise appeared not to have been given by a government such as North Korea or any remnants of the ex-A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network that supplied Iran in the past, but by other non-state actors. The IAEA has called for an explanation from Iran.

DISEASES

REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).

Medical journal slams Ottawa over listeriosis as 17th death linked to food recall By Chris Morris, The Canadian Press SEPT 16,08

FREDERICTON - As the death toll rose Tuesday from the national listeriosis outbreak, an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal slammed the federal government for undermining public health safeguards. An elderly woman in New Brunswick became the 17th person whose death has been linked to the recall of food products from a Maple Leaf Foods (TSX:MFI) plant in Toronto. It is the first confirmed case east of Ontario. The New Brunswick Health Department said Tuesday that the woman, in her early 80s, was infected with the same strain of listeria involved in the country-wide outbreak - which the CMAJ editorial commented on when it was released on Tuesday. As in the Walkerton and SARS epidemics, an outbreak of this size may point to systemic failures across multiple levels, states the editorial in the latest edition of the journal, referring to a deadly water contamination eight years ago in Walkerton, Ont. Listeria is the biological agent, cold cuts the vector, but the ultimate cause may be found in risky government decisions.The editorial, signed by several doctors and journal editors, states that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has reversed much of the progress previous governments made in relation to public health. The editorial takes aim at the Conservative government's decision to transfer inspection duties for ready-to-eat meats to the meat industry itself, while allowing listeria standards to remain lower than they are in most countries and stripping the Public Health Agency of Canada of much of its political clout. The editorial also makes the case for a full-scale, arms-length public inquiry similar to those for the tainted blood scandal, Walkerton and the SARS epidemic, rather than the investigation called for by the Harper government. A full-scale public inquiry into the major failings of Canada's food inspection system is necessary to protect Canadians from future epidemic threats, and the Canadian public should settle for nothing less than that, the editorial states. The woman's death in New Brunswick is the first such fatality in Atlantic Canada.

Dr. Eilish Cleary, New Brunswick's acting chief medical officer of health, said listeriosis was a contributing factor in the woman's death. Listeriosis is considered a contributing factor but it is not likely the immediate cause of death, she said, adding the woman had been seriously ill with other afflictions. Cleary said the nursing home where the woman had been living did serve a Maple Leaf product that was on the recall list. But she said there is no way of knowing if the woman was infected at the nursing home because she had access to food outside the facility. Cleary refused to release the name of the woman or the name of the nursing home. She also wouldn't reveal the region of New Brunswick where the nursing home is located. The risk is very low, Cleary said, defending the government department's secrecy in the case. It is important if you get sick to be diagnosed and treated but there is no preventative medication of early diagnosis that can be done ahead of time. The risk in this facility is no greater than it is anywhere else.Cleary said the health department will not compromise patient confidentiality even when a person is dead, unless there is a good reason for the public to be given information. New Brunswick typically has two to three cases of listeriosis every year, but this is the first and only case in the province since Maple Leaf Foods began a massive recall of deli meats last month due to fears of contamination. A Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto, where the listeria bacterium was found embedded deep inside slicing equipment, has been closed since Aug. 20. Health officials in Prince Edward Island are awaiting test results from a Winnipeg laboratory on a man hospitalized with listeriosis earlier this month.