EU AND IMF STRENGTHENED FROM G-20 MEETING

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.

THE BIBLE SAYS GOLD WILL BE TAKEN AND CASH WORTHLESS AND NOW SINCE THE IMF,EU ARE IN WORLD CONTROL THEY CAN IMPLIMENT THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT SYSTEM THATS WHY I BELIEVE THE IMF IS GETTING RID OF GOLD.

Friday, April 3, 2009
IMF Plans To Sell Off Gold

This week gold prices have been dropping, hitting a low of $893.24 per ounce on Thursday, April 3rd. This is partly due to the rally in equities, with the Dow rising back up above 8000 points, with investors hopeful that the G20 meeting will help implement solutions to the global economic recession. The second reason is that on Thursday the G20 summit participant countries endorsed a plan by the international Monetary Fund to sell over 400 tons of gold. With this gold being seen as additional supply entering the market place, demand naturally dropped. The IMF's selling of gold, however, has been planned for some time now and Thursday's affirmation by the G20 didn't indicate any new plans to sell off gold.What does this mean for gold prices? Well, the price of gold will likely remain down in the short term, as stocks rally. Also, I imagine the prices will fall somewhat when the IMF sells off 400 tons of its reserves, simply because the selloff conjures up images of excess supply flooding the market and will scare some investors into selling. However, the market will most likely bounce bank when it becomes clear that the buyers are mostly the central banks of countries who want to increase their own gold reserves. Particularly in emerging economies like China, Russia, and India, there is a desire to acquire more gold for their reserves and reduce US dollar reserves. So even though this selloff may cause a shockwave, I think it will actually improve the fundamentals of gold, because the dollar's value will fall as it is sold off by these countries' central banks. There won't be an immediate rush out of the dollar, but they will gradually reduce the amount they hold.

As for the equities rally, I think this is another short term rally, and I don't think we've seen the market's bottom yet. This recession (I'm being nice and avoiding the "D" word, even I think that's what we're entering) is far from over. And even when the stimulus finally kicks in, we may see stocks rally again, but with inflated currency - making it an artifical rally, essentially. I have little doubt that gold will outperform stocks over the next couple of years. We are, after all, in the middle of a precious metals bull market that is far from over. Equities are in a bear market. I wonder if people have forgotten that markets are cyclical. They seem to think that equities can be in a bull market forever with only minor short term interruptions. These people are still in denial of what is really happening.I'm still holding onto all my gold. In fact, when the IMF sells off gold, if the price drops I will be buying more.Reference: Marketwatch.com

THE GROUP OF 20 SUMMIT G20 ushers in a new world order.BOLD STEPS 8 Leaders shift from U.S. model of freewheeling finance, forming historic accord to regulate risk UNITED FRONT 8 Countries pledge $1-trillion in aid for struggling nations, but economists blast lack of new stimulus ERIC REGULY AND BRIAN LAGHI April 3, 2009

LONDON -- The leaders of the Group-of-20 countries put on a show of unity yesterday to fight the global recession with pledges of more than $1-trillion (U.S.) in aid to help struggling countries and revive trade.But their failure to unveil new stimulus spending was criticized as a disappointment by economists, who fear the global downturn will only deepen unless governments everywhere open the stimulus spigots even further.The G20 countries also agreed to rein in the world's financial system through the creation of international accounting standards, the regulation of debt-ratings agencies and hedge funds, a clampdown on tax havens and controls on executive pay. But the lack of details on these proposals suggests they will not become effective any time soon.U.S. President Barack Obama, who had been calling for more stimulus spending, nonetheless welcomed the communiqué.The steps that have been taken are critical to preventing us sliding into a depression, Mr. Obama told reporters after the close of the G20 gathering. They are bolder and more rapid than any international response that we've seen to a financial crisis in memory.Characterizing the agreement as historic, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the summit's host, said the agreement ushered in a new period of international co-operation while ending the era of the Washington consensus, a term from the late 1980s that has come to be equated with market fundamentalism.Today we have reached a new consensus that we take global action together to deal with problems that we face, that we will do what is necessary to restore growth,he said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined fellow leaders in the praise, saying new regulations will help the market work better. The declaration is very clear that globalization, that open markets, that liberalized trade remain the essential base of our economic system and will be the basis of any recovery and future economic growth, he said.The agreement was the object of last-minute negotiations, and overcame the initial objections of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who at one point threatened to leave the meeting if it did not agree with his position on stricter regulation of the financial world.Ms. Merkel said she was pleased the group came to a broad agreement after such a short period of time. We now have been able to rally around a message of unity,she told a news conference.Mr. Sarkozy said his alliance with Ms. Merkel worked well.We would never have hoped to get so much,he said.Yesterday's agreement calls for the creation of a Financial Stability Board, which is designed to work with the International Monetary Fund to provide early warning of financial risks and the actions needed to reduce them. The agreement says the countries will take action against tax havens by slapping sanctions against offending nations. The era of banking secrecy is over, the communiqué said.The $1-trillion-plus in emergency aid is anchored by a commitment to add $500-billion to the resources of the IMF, taking it to $750-billion, a level that should give it enough firepower to extend bailout loans to the hardest-hit countries. Of this amount, $100-billion will come from the European Union, $100-billion from Japan and $40-billion from China.

Another $250-billion will be given to the IMF to support special drawing rights, the organization's own "basket" currency that can be used to boost global liquidity. Trade finance will be supported with $250-billion channelled through the World Bank and export agencies, though almost none of that amount has been committed yet. The IMF has also agreed to sell gold reserves to provide as much as $50-billion in aid to the poorest countries.The G20's IMF measures were more aggressive than expected and helped lift the world's markets. Commodities such as oil and metals rose as traders evidently took the view that global growth would revive more quickly than they had expected. News of possible U.S. accounting changes of the mark-to-market rules, used to value assets, helped to trigger a bank rally.What is most encouraging for the G20 leaders summit in London today is the building evidence that the Lehman-related collapse in global demand seems to be coming to an end,Derek Halpenny, the head of currency research at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in London said in a report yesterday.

The communiqué also called on countries to resist protectionist measures.

The regulatory changes agreed by the G20 countries are sweeping, but lacked detail about their scope and implementation, whether or not they could be enforced globally or nationally.Mr. Brown said that hedge funds, whose failure can trigger a domino effect in the financial-services industry, would be subject to greater regulation and oversight. Pay and bonuses will have to adhere to sustainable compensation schemes.

There will be no more rewards for failure, Mr. Brown said.

The leaders, emboldened by the recent progress in prying open tax havens, said sanctions will be slapped on any sponsor country that refuses to sign international agreements to exchange tax information.Mr. Brown said another G20 summit will take place late this year - city to be determined - to review the measures unveiled yesterday and at previous summits.

A list of those attending the G-20 Summit By The Associated Press - Thu Apr 2, 9:03 am ET

A list of the major G-20 participants:

Argentina — President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Taiana, Economy Minister Carlos Fernandez, and Central Bank Head Martin Redrado.

Australia — Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Brazil — President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Finance Minister Guido Mantega, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles.

Britain — Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Chancellor Alistair Darling.

Canada — Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

China — President Hu Jintao, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Finance Minister Xie Xuren, People's Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan.

European Union — European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton and Mirek Topolanek, President of European Council and Prime Minister of The Czech Republic.

France — President Nicolas Sarkozy and Finance Minister Christine Lagarde.

Germany — Chancellor Angela Merkel, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck.

India — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Deputy Chairman of India's Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Indonesia — President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda.

Italy — Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti.

Japan — Prime Minister Taro Aso, Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano.

Mexico — President Felipe Calderon, Treasury Secretary Agustin Carstens.

Russia — President Dmitry Medvedev.

Saudi Arabia — King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud.

South Africa — President Kgalema Motlanthe, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, National Treasury Director-General, Lesetja Kganyago.

South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan, Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun.

Turkey — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, State Minister Mehmet Simsek.

United States — President Barack Obama.

Others

Mario Draghi, chairman of the Financial Stability Forum.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Jan Peter Balkenende, prime minister of the Netherlands.

Meles Zenawi, chair of NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development) and prime minister of Ethiopia.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spanish prime minister.

Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations.

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank.

Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organization.

SECTION 15 OF THE PAPER FROM THE G-20 PUTS THE IMF AND EU IN CONTROL OF THE BANKING SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS WILL HAPPEN IN THE LAST DAYS.
THE IMF WILL BE THE SUPER REGULATOR.

WELL PEOPLE GOD (KING JESUS THE GOD OF ISRAEL AND THE WORLD)IS GETTING PROVED THAT HES FULFILLING HIS WORDS LIKE HE SAID WOULD BE DONE IN THE LAST GENERATION BEFORE HE RETURNS TO EARTH BODILY TO RULE FOREVER FROM JERUSALEM THE WORLD CAPITAL.

G-20 VIDEO FROM LONDON
http://www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en/media-centre/media-library/video-archive/

G20 radically strengthens IMF in new era
ANDREW WILLIS Today APR 3,09 @ 09:28 CET

EUOBSERVER / LONDON – World leaders mixed hubris and humility on Thursday evening (2 April) as they sought to highlight the achievements of the G20 meeting of industrial nations, while admitting much still needs to be done to restore the world's economy.

By any measure the London summit was historic, said United States President Barack Obama, adding that he had come to the meeting with the intention of listening and learning but also to provide American leadership. The G20 looks set to meet again this summer or autumn. (Photo: EUobserver)British prime minister and chair of the event Gordon Brown declared: The old Washington consensus is over, today we have reached a new consensus to take global action together to deal with the problems we face.Later, Mr Obama agreed that the era of the lightly regulated market was indeed over, saying free markets could go off the rails if not properly controlled. The International Monetary Fund was the day's main winner hands down. Showered with new resources and new tasks, its importance is set to grow in the coming years. Today you get the proof that the IMF is back,said its managing-director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Leaders agreed to triple the organisation's main lending facility from its current level of $250 billion (€186 billion) to $750 billion and will allow it to create a new Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation, essentially an overdraft facility, of $250 billion, with which to boost global liquidity. The new SDR facility was one of the few concrete measures provided as a specific step to boost the world's economy rather than to help financial fire-fighting.The new donations to the IMF, if and when they materialise, will mean the body wields a substantial $1.1 trillion chequebook with which to tackle the world's financial problems. Added to this, $100 billion of additional lending will be made available to multilateral development banks in general. A further sum of approximately $6 billion will be raised from the partial sell-off of the IMF's gold reserves, with the money going to help the world's poorest countries. Sceptics were quick to point out however that some of the money had already been pledged in previous announcements and the exact breakdown of where the rest will come from remains unclear. Mr Brown said China had agreed to provide $40 billion, possibly through the purchase of new IMF bonds.

China and a number of other emerging economies have made it clear in recent weeks that they expect the IMF's governance system to be reformed if they are to start making increasing donations. While the group's communique says leaders are determined to reform and modernise the international institutions, little change to the fund's voting rights is likely to take place before 2011, a date agreed by G20 finance ministers last month. In its increased regulatory capacity, leaders agreed that the IMF should co-operate with the Financial Stability Forum, to be renamed the Financial Stability Board, in providing early warnings on the risks faced by the world's financial system and also propose suitable actions to meet these risks. Added to this new macro-prudential role, the IMF will also monitor whether states have implemented new rules on financial regulation that include greater oversight of hedge funds.

Tax havens and trade

Leaders agreed to tone down language regarding a new OECD list of tax havens published on Thursday.Rather than including the final list in the communique, leaders said they took note of the list and insisted they stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances.China is thought to have objected to the list's inclusion in the G20 communique because of sensitivities over Hong Kong and Macao. G20 leaders repeated their pledge of last November to reject protectionism, despite a World Bank report since then which says 17 of the 20 states had increased trade barriers of one kind or another.However they agreed that $250 billion would be donated to trade finance in a bid to unblock trade channels that are currently suffering from a lack of credit.Today's meeting will not solve the crisis but we have begun the process by which it will be solved,said Mr Brown. The G20 looks set to meet again this summer or autumn.

READ 15 cLOSELY THIS WILL GIVE THE IMF,EU WORLD ECONOMIC CONTROL.

Global plan for recovery and reform (02/04/2009) The official communique issued at the close of the G20 London Summit.Read the statement
http://www.londonsummit.gov.uk/resources/en/news/15766232/communique-020409

1. We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, met in London on 2 April 2009.

2. We face the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times; a crisis which has deepened since we last met, which affects the lives of women, men, and children in every country, and which all countries must join together to resolve. A global crisis requires a global solution.

3. We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; that growth, to be sustained, has to be shared; and that our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world too; and must reflect the interests, not just of today’s population, but of future generations too. We believe that the only sure foundation for sustainable globalisation and rising prosperity for all is an open world economy based on market principles, effective regulation, and strong global institutions.

4. We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary to:

restore confidence, growth, and jobs; repair the financial system to restore lending;
strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust; fund and reform our international financial institutions to overcome this crisis and prevent future ones; promote global trade and investment and reject protectionism, to underpin prosperity; and
build an inclusive, green, and sustainable recovery. By acting together to fulfil these pledges we will bring the world economy out of recession and prevent a crisis like this from recurring in the future.

5. The agreements we have reached today, to treble resources available to the IMF to $750 billion, to support a new SDR allocation of $250 billion, to support at least $100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs, to ensure $250 billion of support for trade finance, and to use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries, constitute an additional $1.1 trillion programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy. Together with the measures we have each taken nationally, this constitutes a global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale.

Restoring growth and jobs

6. We are undertaking an unprecedented and concerted fiscal expansion, which will save or create millions of jobs which would otherwise have been destroyed, and that will, by the end of next year, amount to $5 trillion, raise output by 4 per cent, and accelerate the transition to a green economy. We are committed to deliver the scale of sustained fiscal effort necessary to restore growth.

7. Our central banks have also taken exceptional action. Interest rates have been cut aggressively in most countries, and our central banks have pledged to maintain expansionary policies for as long as needed and to use the full range of monetary policy instruments, including unconventional instruments, consistent with price stability.

8. Our actions to restore growth cannot be effective until we restore domestic lending and international capital flows. We have provided significant and comprehensive support to our banking systems to provide liquidity, recapitalise financial institutions, and address decisively the problem of impaired assets. We are committed to take all necessary actions to restore the normal flow of credit through the financial system and ensure the soundness of systemically important institutions, implementing our policies in line with the agreed G20 framework for restoring lending and repairing the financial sector.

9. Taken together, these actions will constitute the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus and the most comprehensive support programme for the financial sector in modern times. Acting together strengthens the impact and the exceptional policy actions announced so far must be implemented without delay. Today, we have further agreed over $1 trillion of additional resources for the world economy through our international financial institutions and trade finance.

10. Last month the IMF estimated that world growth in real terms would resume and rise to over 2 percent by the end of 2010. We are confident that the actions we have agreed today, and our unshakeable commitment to work together to restore growth and jobs, while preserving long-term fiscal sustainability, will accelerate the return to trend growth. We commit today to taking whatever action is necessary to secure that outcome, and we call on the IMF to assess regularly the actions taken and the global actions required.

11. We are resolved to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability and price stability and will put in place credible exit strategies from the measures that need to be taken now to support the financial sector and restore global demand. We are convinced that by implementing our agreed policies we will limit the longer-term costs to our economies, thereby reducing the scale of the fiscal consolidation necessary over the longer term.

12. We will conduct all our economic policies cooperatively and responsibly with regard to the impact on other countries and will refrain from competitive devaluation of our currencies and promote a stable and well-functioning international monetary system. We will support, now and in the future, to candid, even-handed, and independent IMF surveillance of our economies and financial sectors, of the impact of our policies on others, and of risks facing the global economy.

Strengthening financial supervision and regulation

13. Major failures in the financial sector and in financial regulation and supervision were fundamental causes of the crisis. Confidence will not be restored until we rebuild trust in our financial system. We will take action to build a stronger, more globally consistent, supervisory and regulatory framework for the future financial sector, which will support sustainable global growth and serve the needs of business and citizens.

14. We each agree to ensure our domestic regulatory systems are strong. But we also agree to establish the much greater consistency and systematic cooperation between countries, and the framework of internationally agreed high standards, that a global financial system requires. Strengthened regulation and supervision must promote propriety, integrity and transparency; guard against risk across the financial system; dampen rather than amplify the financial and economic cycle; reduce reliance on inappropriately risky sources of financing; and discourage excessive risk-taking. Regulators and supervisors must protect consumers and investors, support market discipline, avoid adverse impacts on other countries, reduce the scope for regulatory arbitrage, support competition and dynamism, and keep pace with innovation in the marketplace.

15. To this end we are implementing the Action Plan agreed at our last meeting, as set out in the attached progress report. We have today also issued a Declaration, Strengthening the Financial System. In particular we agree:

to establish a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) with a strengthened mandate, as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), including all G20 countries, FSF members, Spain, and the European Commission; that the FSB should collaborate with the IMF to provide early warning of macroeconomic and financial risks and the actions needed to address them; to reshape our regulatory systems so that our authorities are able to identify and take account of macro-prudential risks; to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets.This will include, for the first time, systemically important hedge funds;
to endorse and implement the FSF’s tough new principles on pay and compensation and to support sustainable compensation schemes and the corporate social responsibility of all firms;to take action, once recovery is assured, to improve the quality, quantity, and international consistency of capital in the banking system. In future, regulation must prevent excessive leverage and require buffers of resources to be built up in good times;to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. The era of banking secrecy is over. We note that the OECD has today published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information; to call on the accounting standard setters to work urgently with supervisors and regulators to improve standards on valuation and provisioning and achieve a single set of high-quality global accounting standards; and to extend regulatory oversight and registration to Credit Rating Agencies to ensure they meet the international code of good practice, particularly to prevent unacceptable conflicts of interest.

16. We instruct our Finance Ministers to complete the implementation of these decisions in line with the timetable set out in the Action Plan. We have asked the FSB and the IMF to monitor progress, working with the Financial Action Taskforce and other relevant bodies, and to provide a report to the next meeting of our Finance Ministers in Scotland in November.

Strengthening our global financial institutions

17. Emerging markets and developing countries, which have been the engine of recent world growth, are also now facing challenges which are adding to the current downturn in the global economy. It is imperative for global confidence and economic recovery that capital continues to flow to them.This will require a substantial strengthening of the international financial institutions, particularly the IMF. We have therefore agreed today to make available an additional $850 billion of resources through the global financial institutions to support growth in emerging market and developing countries by helping to finance counter-cyclical spending, bank recapitalisation, infrastructure, trade finance, balance of payments support, debt rollover, and social support.To this end:we have agreed to increase the resources available to the IMF through immediate financing from members of $250 billion, subsequently incorporated into an expanded and more flexible New Arrangements to Borrow, increased by up to $500billion, and to consider market borrowing if necessary; and we support a substantial increase in lending of at least $100 billion by the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), including to low income countries, and ensure that all MDBs, including have the appropriate capital.

18. It is essential that these resources can be used effectively and flexibly to support growth. We welcome in this respect the progress made by the IMF with its new Flexible Credit Line (FCL) and its reformed lending and conditionality framework which will enable the IMF to ensure that its facilities address effectively the underlying causes of countries’ balance of payments financing needs, particularly the withdrawal of external capital flows to the banking and corporate sectors. We support Mexico’s decision to seek an FCL arrangement.

19. We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250 billion into the world economy and increase global liquidity, and urgent ratification of the Fourth Amendment.

20. In order for our financial institutions to help manage the crisis and prevent future crises we must strengthen their longer term relevance, effectiveness and legitimacy. So alongside the significant increase in resources agreed today we are determined to reform and modernise the international financial institutions to ensure they can assist members and shareholders effectively in the new challenges they face. We will reform their mandates, scope and governance to reflect changes in the world economy and the new challenges of globalisation, and that emerging and developing economies, including the poorest, must have greater voice and representation. This must be accompanied by action to increase the credibility and accountability of the institutions through better strategic oversight and decision making. To this end:

we commit to implementing the package of IMF quota and voice reforms agreed in April 2008 and call on the IMF to complete the next review of quotas by January 2011;
we agree that, alongside this, consideration should be given to greater involvement of the Fund’s Governors in providing strategic direction to the IMF and increasing its accountability; we commit to implementing the World Bank reforms agreed in October 2008. We look forward to further recommendations, at the next meetings, on voice and representation reforms on an accelerated timescale, to be agreed by the 2010Spring Meetings;we agree that the heads and senior leadership of the international financial institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process; and building on the current reviews of the IMF and World Bank we asked the Chairman, working with the G20 Finance Ministers, to consult widely in an inclusive process and report back to the next meeting with proposals for further reforms to improve the responsiveness and adaptability of the IFIs.

21. In addition to reforming our international financial institutions for the new challenges of globalisation we agreed on the desirability of a new global consensus on the key values and principles that will promote sustainable economic activity. We support discussion on such a charter for sustainable economic activity with a view to further discussion at our next meeting. We take note of the work started in other fora in this regard and look forward to further discussion of this charter for sustainable economic activity.

Resisting protectionism and promoting global trade and investment

22. World trade growth has underpinned rising prosperity for half a century. But it is now falling for the first time in 25 years. Falling demand is exacerbated by growing protectionist pressures and a withdrawal of trade credit. Reinvigorating world trade and investment is essential for restoring global growth. We will not repeat the historic mistakes of protectionism of previous eras. To this end: we reaffirm the commitment made in Washington: to refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organisation (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports. In addition we will rectify promptly any such measures. We extend this pledge to the end of 2010; we will minimise any negative impact on trade and investment of our domestic policy actions including fiscal policy and action in support of the financial sector. We will not retreat into financial protectionism, particularly measures that constrain worldwide capital flows, especially to developing countries; we will notify promptly the WTO of any such measures and we call on the WTO, together with other international bodies, within their respective mandates, to monitor and report publicly on our adherence to these undertakings on a quarterly basis; we will take, at the same time, whatever steps we can to promote and facilitate trade and investment; and we will ensure availability of at least $250 billion over the next two years to support trade finance through our export credit and investment agencies and through the MDBs. We also ask our regulators to make use of available flexibility in capital requirements for trade finance.

23. We remain committed to reaching an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round, which is urgently needed. This could boost the global economy by at least $150 billion per annum. To achieve this we are committed to building on the progress already made, including with regard to modalities.

24. We will give renewed focus and political attention to this critical issue in the coming period and will use our continuing work and all international meetings that are relevant to drive progress.

Ensuring a fair and sustainable recovery for all

25. We are determined not only to restore growth but to lay the foundation for a fair and sustainable world economy. We recognise that the current crisis has a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable in the poorest countries and recognise our collective responsibility to mitigate the social impact of the crisis to minimise long-lasting damage to global potential.To this end:we reaffirm our historic commitment to meeting the Millennium Development Goals and to achieving our respective ODA pledges, including commitments on Aid for Trade, debt relief, and the Gleneagles commitments, especially to sub-Saharan Africa; the actions and decisions we have taken today will provide $50 billion to support social protection, boost trade and safeguard development in low income countries, as part of the significant increase in crisis support for these and other developing countries and emerging markets; we are making available resources for social protection for the poorest countries, including through investing in long-term food security and through voluntary bilateral contributions to the World Bank’s Vulnerability Framework, including the Infrastructure Crisis Facility, and the Rapid Social Response Fund;
we have committed, consistent with the new income model, that additional resources from agreed sales of IMF gold will be used, together with surplus income, to provide $6 billion additional concessional and flexible finance for the poorest countries over the next 2 to 3 years. We call on the IMF to come forward with concrete proposals at the Spring Meetings; we have agreed to review the flexibility of the Debt Sustainability Framework and call on the IMF and World Bank to report to the IMFC and Development Committee at the Annual Meetings; and we call on the UN, working with other global institutions, to establish an effective mechanism to monitor the impact of the crisis on the poorest and most vulnerable.

26. We recognise the human dimension to the crisis. We commit to support those affected by the crisis by creating employment opportunities and through income support measures. We will build a fair and family-friendly labour market for both women and men. We therefore welcome the reports of the London Jobs Conference and the Rome Social Summit and the key principles they proposed. We will support employment by stimulating growth, investing in education and training, and through active labour market policies, focusing on the most vulnerable. We call upon the ILO, working with other relevant organisations, to assess the actions taken and those required for the future.

27. We agreed to make the best possible use of investment funded by fiscal stimulus programmes towards the goal of building a resilient, sustainable, and green recovery. We will make the transition towards clean, innovative, resource efficient, low carbon technologies and infrastructure. We encourage the MDBs to contribute fully to the achievement of this objective. We will identify and work together on further measures to build sustainable economies.

28. We reaffirm our commitment to address the threat of irreversible climate change, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and to reach agreement at the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Delivering our commitments

29. We have committed ourselves to work together with urgency and determination to translate these words into action. We agreed to meet again before the end of this year to review progress on our commitments.

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.

In their own words Reactions of G20 leaders to the London Summit communiqué
Videos from Thursday 2 April Press Conference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_acV1eGZaU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elondonsummit%2Egov%2Euk%2Fen%2Fsummit%2Daims%2Fsummit%2Dprogress%2Fquotes%2Dleaders%2F&feature=player_embedded

Barack Obama, President, United States
This will be a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery. By any measure the London Summit is historic. It is historic because of the size and scope of the challenge that we face and because of the timeliness of our response. We owe it to our citizens to act now. Today the world leaders have responded with unprecedented effort.

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister, United Kingdom. Chair, London Summit
This is the day that the world came together, to fight back against the global recession. Not with words but a plan for global recovery and for reform and with a clear timetable.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President, Brazil
It was good, not only for Brazil or any single country, but for the hopes and the future of humanity.

Nicolas Sarkozy, President, France
(The results of the summit) are beyond what we could have imagined ... We are all happy with the results.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor, Germany
[It is] a very, very good, almost historic compromise… We have agreed to set up a clear financial market architecture… We have taken an important step toward creating order in an area in the world where there was previously no order.

Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister, Australia
Today's agreement begins to crackdown on the cowboys in financial markets that have brought global markets undone with real impact on jobs everywhere.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Prime Minister, Spain
We have set in motion the greatest concerted plan of fiscal expansion in history. It is unprecedented. It reaches $5 trillion.....This amount will contribute in a decisive way to facilitate a recovery of the world economy and to preserve millions of jobs.

Dmitry Medvedev, President, Russia
This is a step forward, this is a step in the right direction. Of course we could not solve all the issues, but such a goal wasn't on the agenda.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thai Prime Minister - representing ASEAN
The various reforms in terms of the global financial institutions and the new facilities again respond better to the needs of emerging and developing economies. We are not losing sight of medium and longer term goals in terms of development.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF Managing Director
The global crisis is hitting emerging market and poor countries hard. The G20 leaders have today sent a powerful signal that the international community is committed to support these countries, including by ensuring that the IMF has the tools to act.

José Manuel Barroso, European Commission President
It is an historic moment, a defining moment for our global response to the crisis...We took the right decisions.

HERE WE GO OBAMA THE EU BOUGHT OUT IS NOW REVEALING IT TO THE WHOLE WORLD DISQUISED AS CLOSER RELATIONS WITH THE EU.

Obama pledges new US relations with Europe By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer APR 3,09

STRASBOURG, France – Welcomed with thunderous cheers, President Barack Obama pledged on Friday to repair damaged relations with Europe, saying the world came together following the 2001 terrorist attacks but then we got sidetracked by Iraq.We must be honest with ourselves,Obama said.In recent years, we've allowed our alliance to drift.
The new U.S. president said that despite the bitter feelings that were generated by Iraq, the United States and its allies must stand together because al-Qaida is still a threat.Speaking before a French and German audience at a town-hall style gathering, Obama also encouraged a skeptical Europe to support his revamped strategy for rooting out terrorism suspects in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and said Europe should not expect America to shoulder the burden of sending in combat troops by itself.This is a joint problem,Obama said on the cusp of the NATO summit.And it requires a joint effort.He opened his appearance with a 25-minute prepared speech in which he set a dramatic, long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons.He said he would outline details of his nonproliferation proposal in a speech in Prague on Sunday, near the end of a European trip that is spanning five countries in eight days.Even with the Cold War now over, the spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet, Obama said.He held the campaign-like event in the midst of his first European trip as president as he sought to strengthen the United States' standing in the world while working with foreign counterparts to right the troubled global economy.Obama said the United States shares blame for the crisis, but that every nation bears responsibility for what lies ahead — especially now.Back home, his administration was trying to weather the fallout of another dismal monthly jobs report that was announced as Obama spoke in France. The jobless rate jumped to 8.5 percent, the highest since late 1983, as a wide range of employers eliminated a net total of 663,000 jobs in March.Later, in Baden-Baden, Germany, Obama called the new unemployment report a stark reminder of the nation's woes.

None of us can isolate ourselves from a global market,and the world's economies are so intertwined that if we do not have concerted action then we will have collective failure,Obama said, standing beside German Chancellor Angela Merkel after a private meeting. He added that world powers are going to go back at it if steps the G-20 took to fix the crisis are not successful.He tried to counter a European perception of American arrogance on the world stage, saying: I don't come here bearing grand designs. I'm here to listen, to share ideas.As the busy day began in France, Obama invited questions from his French and German audience heavily made up of students in a sports arena. Even though Obama talked about the event as a way to interact with young foreigners, he did most of the talking and took only a handful of questions.He acknowledged my French and German are terrible but noted that translators were on hand. Much like during his presidential campaign, Obama paced the stage with a microphone, like a talk show host.In his opening remarks, he underscored European and American ties and appeared intent on improving the U.S. image abroad, which suffered under George W. Bush. I've come to Europe this week to renew our partnership, Obama said, bluntly claiming that the relationship between the United States and Europe had gone adrift, with blame on both sides.In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world,Obama said.Instead of celebrating Europe's dynamic union and seeking to work with you, Obama said, there have been times where America's shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans chose to blame America for much of what's bad,Obama said. He added: On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth.Obama also encouraged Europe to support his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. I understand there's doubt about this war in Europe, Obama said. "There's doubt even in the United States.

But he said the United States and its allies must continue to work to defeat the terrorists who threaten all of us.And, he said Europeans and Americans had to look past disagreements over Iraq.Obama opposed the Iraq war, which divided America from many of its traditional allies and was the source of bitter relations between the U.S. and Europe.We got sidetracked by Iraq and we have not fully recovered that initial insight that we have a mutual interest in ensuring that organizations like al-Qaida cannot operate,he said.I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, al-Qaida is still a threat.In Germany, Merkel said her country wants to bear its share of the responsibility in Afghanistan, and Obama thanked her for what Germany already has done.But Obama also said: We do exect that all NATO partners are going to contribute. They have thus far, but the progress in some cases has been uneven. He added, We're going to refocus the strategy and then make sure the resources are there to do it.

Earlier in France, the president said he wants to look back at his tenure and know his work drastically lessened the threat of terrorism, particularly nuclear terrorism.We can't reduce the threat of a nuclear weapon going off unless those that possess the most nuclear weapons — the United States and Russia — take serious steps to reduce our stockpiles,Obama said.So we want to pursue that vigorously in the years ahead.Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier this week pledged a new effort to both nations' nuclear arsenals. Touching on topics controversial in Europe, Obama also promoted his decision to close the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay within a year, and said without equivocation that the United States does not and will not torture.Earlier, in a symbolic gesture, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Obama that France would accept a prisoner from the detention center where terrorist suspects are held if that would facilitate its closing. Saying that he was determined to speak the truth, Sarkozy said that Guantanamo was not in keeping with U.S. values. He said democratic states have a responsibility to speak honestly and do what they say, and that Guantanamo was a contradiction in that standard.Obama said the U.S. needs help in finding a place to send those held at the center. He thanked Sarkozy for being good to his word.About 240 detainees are still held — some without charge — at the Guantanamo Bay prison, which was set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hold so-called enemy combatants accused of links to the al-Qaida terror network or the Taliban. Spain and Portugal have already said they could accept prisoners, while Germany and others remain tightlipped whether they will accept non-nationals.

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

WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS FRI APR 03,2009

09:30 AM -0.55
10:00 AM -13.56
10:30 AM -42.13
11:00 AM -49.70
11:30 AM -49.30
12:00 PM -23.33
12:30 PM -0.16
01:00 PM -26.12
01:30 PM -30.18
02:00 PM -7.96
02:30 PM +14.18
03:00 PM +15.77
03:30 PM -20.63
04:00 PM +39.51 8017.59

S&P 500 842.50 +8.12

NASDAQ 1621.87 +19.24

GOLD 894.40 -14.50

OIL 52.32 -0.32

TSE 300 9086.06 +12.92

CDNX 975.38 -2.89

S&P/TSX/60 552.46 +1.61

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -9.10%
S&P -7.62%
Nasdaq +1.62%
TSX Advances 1,091,declines 501,unchanged 230,Volume 3,070,350,744.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 441,Declines 373,Unchanged 329,Volume 245,087,243.

Dow -1 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -83 points at low today.
Dow +18 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $907.20.OIL opens at $51.91 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -83 points at low today so far.
Dow +18 points at high today so far.

DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 1,991,declines 1,559,unchanged 118,New Highs 2,New Lows 43.
Volume 2,930,810,528.
NASDAQ Advances 1,240,declines 1,350,unchanged 131,New highs 8,New Lows 13.
Volume 1,012,242,038.
TSX Advances 620,declines 669,unchanged 253,Volume 1,274,190,052.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 249,Declines 299,Unchanged 284,Volume 134,475,507.

Dow on pace for first 4-week winning streak since SEPT-OCT 2007.
Dow,S&P,Nasdaq on pace for 4th straight weekly gain.
Stocks pare early losses.
Bank of America to pay $713 MILLION in TARP preferred Dividends to US Government.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -83 points at low today.
Dow +39 points at high today.
Dow +0.50% today Volume 308,209,779.
Nasdaq +1.20% today Volume 1,982,668,340.
S&P 500 +0.97% today Volume N/A
Dow +3.1% this week.
S&P +3.2% this week.
Nasdaq +4.8% this week.

JOBS LOST MARCH 2009
Jobs lost 663,000
Unemployment rate:8.5%
Manufacturing -161,000 Jobs.
Construction -126,000 Jobs.
Service Sector -358,000 Jobs.

13 MILLION UNEMPLOYED IN THE USA,THE WORST SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1940.

4 WEEK GAINS
S&P +$1.3 TRILLION.
Financials +$280 BILLION.
Techs +$251 BILLION.
Discretionary +$157 BILLION.

RECORD LOWS DOW
-Sept 30,1996 5,882.17
-Oct 30,1996 5,993.23
-Nov 6,1996 6,177.71
-Dec 16,1996 6,268.35
-Apr 15,1997 6,587.16
-Apr 21,1997 6,660.21
-Apr 28,1997 6,783.02
-May 1,1997 6,976.48
-May 7,1997 7,085.65

RECORD LOWS S&P 500
-Sept 5,1996 649.44
-Sept 6,1996 655.68
-Sept 11,1996 667.28
-Sept 12,1996 671.13
-Oct 1,1996 689.08
-Oct 28,1996 697.26
-Nov 4,1996 706.73
-Nov 5,1996 714.14
-Dec 17,1996 726.04

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE,WEEKENDER
Dow -8.65%
S&P -6.73%
Nasdaq +2.84%
CANADAS WEEK ENDING STATS
TSX Advances 783,Declines 745,Unchanged 263 Volume 2,554,869,281.
TSX Venture Advances 364,Declines 381,Unchanged 364 Volume 226,632,402.

BUT GWYN IS WRONG THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL CONTROL THE ECONOMIES OF THE WHOLE WORLD.

Apr 03, 2009 04:30 AM Richard Gwyn COMMENT

Even before the G20 meeting of the world's largest economies had begun its sessions in London, it had already made an indelible mark in the history books.This confab constitutes the first great get-together of the new world order. This geopolitical order may follow a number of directions, by no means all of them pleasant. But its defining characteristic is already unchangeable.Essentially, the world will no longer be run by Europeans, including their offspring in North America and Australia, but, in different degrees, by everyone everywhere. The G7, that inner group of seven nations, Canada included, all of them European or of European origin but for Japan, that has functioned as a kind of executive committee of the world economy for the past 33 years, is obsolete.The G20 members come in all colours, from all parts of the globe. Many of the newcomers have their own distinctive attitudes, values and ways of doing things.One of these attitudes is of a great deal of anger at the way the previous regime has brought the entire world to the edge of a global depression.On the eve of the London meeting, Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, who is in no way an extremist like Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, blamed the crisis on the irrational behaviour of those who are white and blue-eyed.

This attitude is understandable. Far less so is another attitude that is showing itself at this meeting.The countries hardest hit by the crisis are the poor ones: it is utterly impossible for them to stimulate themselves to recovery.Yet except for the occasional flight of rhetoric, the world's poor are being ignored at the London meeting, even though the G20, unlike the G7, contains many representatives from Asia, Africa and Latin America, who ought to feel a kinship to these nations. An uncomfortable characteristic of the new world order may well turn out to be that global income gaps will widen because the rising powers, such as China, India and Brazil, regard those below them on the ladder as potential rivals rather than, as the G7 group at least occasionally used to see them, as victims deserving a helping hand.

One specific example of this is the way China has used its fast-expanding economic involvement in South Africa to get that country to ban Tibet's Dalai Lama from visiting there. So much for the legacy of Nelson Mandela.The new world order thus won't necessarily be any better than the old one. One problem of the G20 in comparison to the G7 is that it's too large for effective decision-making. Indeed, it already actually has 22 members, with more countries demanding to be included. What is certain, though, is that global affairs are going to be considerably different from now on. Thus, the governor of China's central bank has just suggested that the U.S. dollar should cease to be the world's reserve currency and be replaced by a new, global super-currency.And try to imagine what India's new car, with a selling price of $2,500, is going to do to the U.S. auto industry no matter how radically it's restructured.The U.S. is down today, but a long way from out. It has just demonstrated its resilience by electing, in Barack Obama, the most contemporary-minded national leader around the G20 table. As for Canada, the fact that we've largely dodged the credit crisis because our bankers are a conservative lot isn't really enough to keep us near the top forever.One way or another, the 21st century is going to be very different from the 20th.Richard Gwyn's column appears every other Friday. gwynr@sympatico.ca

ANDERSON COOPER ON NEW WORLD ORDER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeY4zHCA1d8&feature=player_embedded

G20 leaders nearing deal on new-model IMF
ANDREW WILLIS 02.04.2009 @ 14:47 CET

EUOBSERVER / LONDON - Leaders of the G20 industrial nations finished breakfast on Thursday (2 April) morning at London's Excel Centre and began the final phase of tough negotiations on how to reform the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and boost its resources.Mr Geldof, who for many years has put pressure on Western leaders to increase aid to developing countries, said the days of European and American domination of the world's multilateral lenders, such as the IMF and the World Bank, have to come to an end.He added that leaders must live up to aid commitments given at the 2005 G8 meeting held at Gleneagles in Scotland at which they promised to increase aid by $50 billion (€37 bilion) annually by 2010.G20 leaders are currently negotiating the exact amount of new funding to be handed to the IMF, following an agreement by G20 finance ministers on 14 March to make a substantial increase.Last month the US surprised the world by saying the fund's resources should be tripled to $700 billion (€524 billion).UK financial secretary to the treasury Stephen Timms told reporters on Thursday at the summit that he was confident G20 leaders would agree on a final figure for the summit's communique.We are certainly looking at a doubling, he said.We will have a figure by the end of the day.Douglas Alexander, the UK's secretary of state for international development, told reporters that the partial sale of the IMF's sizeable gold reserves was being considered as a means to supplement the fund's lending capacity.

Beyond stigma

He added that past hang-ups associated with seeking a loan from the IMF were disappearing rapidly and he welcomed Mexico's announcement on Wednesday to apply for a $47 billion credit line. The new facility that Mexico is taking advantage of shows we have gone beyond the era of stigma,said Mr Timms. Mexico's move is significant, as it marks the first time a Latin American country has applied for a loan from the Washington-based multilateral lender since it fell out of favour with the region in the 1990s.Mr Timms also said that leaders were discussing ways to fight the growing threat of rising protectionism since the onset of the financial crisis, suggesting the final communique would contain measures to name and shame states implementing new trade barriers.He was confident that the Doha round of global trade negotiations could be completed this year saying he felt there was an imminent window of opportunity.

Tax-havens are also firmly on the agenda of Thursday's meeting.

Mr Timms indicated that leaders would agree on a system of sanctions for those states that refused to share banking information, adding that the list of states to receive such sanctions would be produced in due course.

Bernanke says Fed to use all tools to stabilize markets APR 3,09

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday said the Fed will use all tools to stabilize markets and set the stage for an economic recovery but provided no time frame for when a recovery will occur.The Federal Reserve will make responsible use of all of its tools to stabilize financial markets and institutions, to promote the extension of credit to creditworthy borrowers, and to help build a foundation for economic recovery, Bernanke said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference organized by the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank.Bernanke did not address the jump in unemployment and job losses in March reported earlier on Friday, and did not say when he expects the economy to rebound.Relieving disruptions in credit markets and restoring the flow of credit to households and businesses are essential if we are to see, as I expect, the gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth, he said.(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Neil Stempleman)

Text of the communique of the G-20
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Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By The Associated Press The Associated Press – Thu Apr 2, 1:20 pm ET
LONDON – Here is a text of the Group of 20 Summit in London:

Text of the communique of the Group of 20 industrialized and developing economies, as released by the British government on Thursday:We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, met in London on 2 April 2009.

We face the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times; a crisis which has deepened since we last met, which affects the lives of women, men, and children in every country, and which all countries must join together to resolve. A global crisis requires a global solution.We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; that growth, to be sustained, has to be shared; and that our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hardworking families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world too; and must reflect the interests, not just of today's population, but of future generations too. We believe that the only sure foundation for sustainable globalization and rising prosperity for all is an open world economy based on market principles, effective regulation, and strong global institutions.We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary to: restore confidence, growth, and jobs; repair the financial system to restore lending; strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust; fund and reform our international financial institutions to overcome this crisis and prevent future ones; promote global trade and investment and reject protectionism, to underpin prosperity; and build an inclusive, green, and sustainable recovery.By acting together to fulfill these pledges we will bring the world economy out of recession and prevent a crisis like this from recurring in the future.The agreements we have reached today, to treble resources available to the IMF to $750 billion, to support a new SDR allocation of $250 billion, to support at least $100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs, to ensure $250 billion of support for trade finance, and to use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries, constitute an additional $1.1 trillion program of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy. Together with the measures we have each taken nationally, this constitutes a global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale.

We are undertaking an unprecedented and concerted fiscal expansion, which will save or create millions of jobs which would otherwise have been destroyed, and that will, by the end of next year, amount to $5 trillion, raise output by 4 per cent, and accelerate the transition to a green economy. We are committed to deliver the scale of sustained fiscal effort necessary to restore growth.Our central banks have also taken exceptional action. Interest rates have been cut aggressively in most countries, and our central banks have pledged to maintain expansionary policies for as long as needed and to use the full range of monetary policy instruments, including unconventional instruments, consistent with price stability.Our actions to restore growth cannot be effective until we restore domestic lending and international capital flows. We have provided significant and comprehensive support to our banking systems to provide liquidity, recapitalise financial institutions, and address decisively the problem of impaired assets. We are committed to take all necessary actions to restore the normal flow of credit through the financial system and ensure the soundness of systemically important institutions, implementing our policies in line with the agreed G20 framework for restoring lending and repairing the financial sector.Taken together, these actions will constitute the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus and the most comprehensive support program for the financial sector in modern times. Acting together strengthens the impact and the exceptional policy actions announced so far must be implemented without delay. Today, we have further agreed over $1 trillion of additional resources for the world economy through our international financial institutions and trade finance.Last month the IMF estimated that world growth in real terms would resume and rise to over 2 percent by the end of 2010. We are confident that the actions we have agreed today, and our unshakable commitment to work together to restore growth and jobs, while preserving long-term fiscal sustainability, will accelerate the return to trend growth. We commit today to taking whatever action is necessary to secure that outcome, and we call on the IMF to assess regularly the actions taken and the global actions required.We are resolved to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability and price stability and will put in place credible exit strategies from the measures that need to be taken now to support the financial sector and restore global demand. We are convinced that by implementing our agreed policies we will limit the longer-term costs to our economies, thereby reducing the scale of the fiscal consolidation necessary over the longer term.

We will conduct all our economic policies cooperatively and responsibly with regard to the impact on other countries and will refrain from competitive devaluation of our currencies and promote a stable and well-functioning international monetary system. We will support, now and in the future, to candid, evenhanded, and independent IMF surveillance of our economies and financial sectors, of the impact of our policies on others, and of risks facing the global economy.Major failures in the financial sector and in financial regulation and supervision were fundamental causes of the crisis. Confidence will not be restored until we rebuild trust in our financial system. We will take action to build a stronger, more globally consistent, supervisory and regulatory framework for the future financial sector, which will support sustainable global growth and serve the needs of business and citizens.We each agree to ensure our domestic regulatory systems are strong. But we also agree to establish the much greater consistency and systematic cooperation between countries, and the framework of internationally agreed high standards, that a global financial system requires. Strengthened regulation and supervision must promote propriety, integrity and transparency; guard against risk across the financial system; dampen rather than amplify the financial and economic cycle; reduce reliance on inappropriately risky sources of financing; and discourage excessive risk-taking. Regulators and supervisors must protect consumers and investors, support market discipline, avoid adverse impacts on other countries, reduce the scope for regulatory arbitrage, support competition and dynamism, and keep pace with innovation in the marketplace.

To this end we are implementing the Action Plan agreed at our last meeting, as set out in the attached progress report. We have today also issued a Declaration, Strengthening the Financial System. In particular we agree: to establish a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) with a strengthened mandate, as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), including all G20 countries, FSF members, Spain, and the European Commission; that the FSB should collaborate with the IMF to provide early warning of macroeconomic and financial risks and the actions needed to address them; to reshape our regulatory systems so that our authorities are able to identify and take account of macro-prudential risks; to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets. This will include, for the first time, systemically important hedge funds; to endorse and implement the FSF's tough new principles on pay and compensation and to support sustainable compensation schemes and the corporate social responsibility of all firms; to take action, once recovery is assured, to improve the quality, quantity, and international consistency of capital in the banking system. In future, regulation must prevent excessive leverage and require buffers of resources to be built up in good times; to take action against noncooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. The era of banking secrecy is over. We note that the OECD has today published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information; to call on the accounting standard setters to work urgently with supervisors and regulators to improve standards on valuation and provisioning and achieve a single set of high-quality global accounting standards; and to extend regulatory oversight and registration to Credit Rating Agencies to ensure they meet the international code of good practice, particularly to prevent unacceptable conflicts of interest. We instruct our Finance Ministers to complete the implementation of these decisions in line with the timetable set out in the Action Plan. We have asked the FSB and the IMF to monitor progress, working with the Financial Action Taskforce and other relevant bodies, and to provide a report to the next meeting of our Finance Ministers in Scotland in November.

Emerging markets and developing countries, which have been the engine of recent world growth, are also now facing challenges which are adding to the current downturn in the global economy. It is imperative for global confidence and economic recovery that capital continues to flow to them. This will require a substantial strengthening of the international financial institutions, particularly the IMF. We have therefore agreed today to make available an additional $850 billion of resources through the global financial institutions to support growth in emerging market and developing countries by helping to finance countercyclical spending, bank recapitalisation, infrastructure, trade finance, balance of payments support, debt rollover, and social support. To this end: we have agreed to increase the resources available to the IMF through immediate financing from members of $250 billion, subsequently incorporated into an expanded and more flexible New Arrangements to Borrow, increased by up to $500billion, and to consider market borrowing if necessary; and we support a substantial increase in lending of at least $100 billion by the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), including to low income countries, and ensure that all MDBs, including have the appropriate capital.It is essential that these resources can be used effectively and flexibly to support growth. We welcome in this respect the progress made by the IMF with its new Flexible Credit Line (FCL) and its reformed lending and conditionality framework which will enable the IMF to ensure that its facilities address effectively the underlying causes of countries' balance of payments financing needs, particularly the withdrawal of external capital flows to the banking and corporate sectors. We support Mexico's decision to seek an FCL arrangement. We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250 billion into the world economy and increase global liquidity, and urgent ratification of the Fourth Amendment.In order for our financial institutions to help manage the crisis and prevent future crises we must strengthen their longer term relevance, effectiveness and legitimacy. So alongside the significant increase in resources agreed today we are determined to reform and modernize the international financial institutions to ensure they can assist members and shareholders effectively in the new challenges they face. We will reform their mandates, scope and governance to reflect changes in the world economy and the new challenges of globalization, and that emerging and developing economies, including the poorest, must have greater voice and representation. This must be accompanied by action to increase the credibility and accountability of the institutions through better strategic oversight and decision making. To this end: we commit to implementing the package of IMF quota and voice reforms agreed in April 2008 and call on the IMF to complete the next review of quotas by January 2011; we agree that, alongside this, consideration should be given to greater involvement of the Fund's Governors in providing strategic direction to the IMF and increasing its accountability; we commit to implementing the World Bank reforms agreed in October 2008. We look forward to further recommendations, at the next meetings, on voice and representation reforms on an accelerated time scale, to be agreed by the 2010 Spring Meetings; we agree that the heads and senior leadership of the international financial institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process; and building on the current reviews of the IMF and World Bank we asked the Chairman, working with the G20 Finance Ministers, to consult widely in an inclusive process and report back to the next meeting with proposals for further reforms to improve the responsiveness and adaptability of the IFIs.

In addition to reforming our international financial institutions for the new challenges of globalization we agreed on the desirability of a new global consensus on the key values and principles that will promote sustainable economic activity. We support discussion on such a charter for sustainable economic activity with a view to further discussion at our next meeting. We take note of the work started in other fora in this regard and look forward to further discussion of this charter for sustainable economic activity. World trade growth has underpinned rising prosperity for half a century. But it is now falling for the first time in 25 years. Falling demand is exacerbated by growing protectionist pressures and a withdrawal of trade credit.Reinvigorating world trade and investment is essential for restoring global growth. We will not repeat the historic mistakes of protectionism of previous eras. To this end: we reaffirm the commitment made in Washington: to refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organisation (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports. In addition we will rectify promptly any such measures. We extend this pledge to the end of 2010; we will minimize any negative impact on trade and investment of our domestic policy actions including fiscal policy and action in support of the financial sector. We will not retreat into financial protectionism, particularly measures that constrain worldwide capital flows, especially to developing countries; we will notify promptly the WTO of any such measures and we call on the WTO, together with other international bodies, within their respective mandates, to monitor and report publicly on our adherence to these undertakings on a quarterly basis; we will take, at the same time, whatever steps we can to promote and facilitate trade and investment; and we will ensure availability of at least $250 billion over the next two years to support trade finance through our export credit and investment agencies and through the MDBs. We also ask our regulators to make use of available flexibility in capital requirements for trade finance. We remain committed to reaching an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round, which is urgently needed. This could boost the global economy by at least $150 billion per annum. To achieve this we are committed to building on the progress already made, including with regard to modalities.We will give renewed focus and political attention to this critical issue in the coming period and will use our continuing work and all international meetings that are relevant to drive progress.

We are determined not only to restore growth but to lay the foundation for a fair and sustainable world economy. We recognize that the current crisis has a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable in the poorest countries and recognize our collective responsibility to mitigate the social impact of the crisis to minimize long-lasting damage to global potential. To this end: we reaffirm our historic commitment to meeting the Millennium Development Goals and to achieving our respective ODA pledges, including commitments on Aid for Trade, debt relief, and the Gleneagles commitments, especially to sub-Saharan Africa; the actions and decisions we have taken today will provide $50 billion to support social protection, boost trade and safeguard development in low income countries, as part of the significant increase in crisis support for these and other developing countries and emerging markets; we are making available resources for social protection for the poorest countries, including through investing in long-term food security and through voluntary bilateral contributions to the World Bank's Vulnerability Framework, including the Infrastructure Crisis Facility, and the Rapid Social Response Fund; we have committed, consistent with the new income model, that additional resources from agreed sales of IMF gold will be used, together with surplus income, to provide $6 billion additional concessional and flexible finance for the poorest countries over the next 2 to 3 years. We call on the IMF to come forward with concrete proposals at the Spring Meetings; we have agreed to review the flexibility of the Debt Sustainability Framework and call on the IMF and World Bank to report to the IMFC and Development Committee at the Annual Meetings; and we call on the UN, working with other global institutions, to establish an effective mechanism to monitor the impact of the crisis on the poorest and most vulnerable. We recognize the human dimension to the crisis. We commit to support those affected by the crisis by creating employment opportunities and through income support measures. We will build a fair and family-friendly labor market for both women and men. We therefore welcome the reports of the London Jobs Conference and the Rome Social Summit and the key principles they proposed. We will support employment by stimulating growth, investing in education and training, and through active labor market policies, focusing on the most vulnerable. We call upon the ILO, working with other relevant organizations, to assess the actions taken and those required for the future. We agreed to make the best possible use of investment funded by fiscal stimulus programs towards the goal of building a resilient, sustainable, and green recovery. We will make the transition towards clean, innovative, resource efficient, low carbon technologies and infrastructure. We encourage the MDBs to contribute fully to the achievement of this objective. We will identify and work together on further measures to build sustainable economies. We reaffirm our commitment to address the threat of irreversible climate change, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and to reach agreement at the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.We have committed ourselves to work together with urgency and determination to translate these words into action. We agreed to meet again before the end of this year to review progress on our commitments. On the Net::
http://www.londonsummit.gov.uk/resources/en/news/15766232/communique-020409

OZONE DEPLETION

ISAIAH 30:26-27
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:

MATTHEW 24:21-22,29
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened (Daylight hours shortened)
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

REVELATION 16:7-9
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

SIGNS IN THE SUN, MOON AND STARS

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

Sun has fewest sunspots since 1913, better GPS By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Thu Apr 2, 5:20 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The sun has been unusually quiet lately, with fewer sunspots and weaker magnetic fields than in nearly a century. A quiet sun is good for Earth: GPS systems are more accurate, satellites stay in orbit longer; even the effects of manmade global warming are marginally reduced, though just by three-tenths of a degree at most.It's all a normal part of the strange but regular cycles of the sun's activity. Scientists don't know why it happens, but for humankind it's probably a good thing, said David Hathaway, chief solar physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.This lower activity is shrinking our atmosphere a bit, too. Again, not a problem. The sun isn't bombarding the Earth with the usual amount of short-wave radiation that expands the atmosphere. Researchers at the University of Texas in Dallas found the Earth's upper atmospheric boundary at the lowest in the history of the space age. It's about 125 miles lower than normal.For centuries, people have been counting sunspots, which are cooler, darker areas of intense magnetic fields that form on the sun's surface. The number of sunspots in recent months has been the lowest since 1913, according to NASA. Scientists are looking as far back as the early 1800s for similar quiet periods. They generally last about five years. This quiet spell, which started in 2007, may follow suit.Scientists last fall were fooled when sunspot activity briefly ramped up and experts figured the quiet cycle was over. They were wrong.

Marc Hairston, a space scientist at UT-Dallas, compared it to the stock market. Just when you think it can't sink anymore, it does.This is the lowest we've ever seen, Hairston said of the solar activity. We thought we'd be out of it by now, but we're not.Generally sunspots, the easiest measurement of solar activity, follow a predictable 11-year cycle of high, then low, activity.During the last high solar period, there were sunspots each day — sometimes hundreds of them — from January 1998 to February 2004. So far this year, there have been only 14 days with sunspots. The sun is more spot-free now than it was last year when scientists thought solar action had hit bottom.Thomas Bogdan, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., said solar activity should be increasing anytime now.Others think this may be a replay of 1913 or the even deeper solar ditch of 200 years ago, the Dalton Minimum. The deepest ditch of all was in the 1600s.A deep minimum probably drops global temperatures temporarily about two-tenths to three-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit, not nearly enough to make up for global warming, said Tom Woods of the University of Colorado's atmospheric and space physics lab.Generally the heating effect from manmade greenhouse gases is 13 times greater than the variations from solar activity, said Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences and an expert in atmospheric sciences.Heavy solar radiation slows down electrons and creates radio waves that interfere with the frequencies used by GPS receivers. So during high solar activity peaks, GPS tracking can be off by nearly a football field because of the distortion from receivers to satellites, NOAA's Bogdan said. But during solar minimums like the current one, GPS is accurate to within a foot or so, he said.The sun's shrinking of Earth's atmosphere reduces the physical drag on satellites and space junk, keeping both the good and the bad in orbit, Hathaway said.On the Net
NASA's solar physics site: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/ Solar Influences Data Analysis Center: http://sidc.oma.be/sunspot-data/dailyssn.php NOAA's space weather prediction center: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

2012 may bring the perfect storm – solar flares, systems collapse April 1, 11:53 AM

SOHO/ESA/NASA - Solar flaresThis article is part of a continuing series on the implications of 2012.Long scorned as mysticism and parascience, concern about the year 2012 has now surfaced in a mainstream NASA report on the potential impacts on human society of solar flares anticipated to peak in 2012.The Obama administration and other national governments are not aggressively focused on contingency preparations for the 2012 solar flare impacts, or on introducing available anti-gravitic, new energy sources that would transform centralized high-power electrical grid systems into de-centralized, anti-gravitic and quantum process energy sources. These new energy sources are less vulnerable to destructive solar storms, have no negative environmental impact, and could unleash unprecedented economic and social transformation.

Electrical grids & anticipated solar flares of 2012

Mainstream scientific concern about 2012 has grown since a recent National Research Council report funded by NASA and issued by the National Academy of Sciences, entitled Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Economic and Societal Impact which details the potential devastation of 2012 solar storms on the current planetary energy grid and because of the inter-linkages of a cybernetic society, on our entire human civilization.According to New Scientist, science’s concern is a repetition of the 8-day 1859 Carrington event,a large solar flare accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME) that flung billions of tons of solar plasma onto the earth’s magnetosphere and disrupted Victorian-era magnetometers and the world telegraph system.The New Scientist states, The report outlines the worst case scenario for the US. The perfect storm is most likely on a spring or autumn night in a year of heightened solar activity - something like 2012. Around the equinoxes, the orientation of the Earth's field to the sun makes us particularly vulnerable to a plasma strike.The next solar maximum is expected to occur in 2012. New Scientist reports that Mike Hapgood, head of the European Space Agency's space weather team states,We're in the equivalent of an idyllic summer's day. The sun is quiet and benign, the quietest it has been for 100 years,but it could turn the other way.

The modern electrical high-power grid magnifies the impact of solar flares. Since the grid is linked into major aspects of modern society, the effects of another Carrington event would be devastating.The National Academy of Sciences report states: A severe space weather event in the US could induce ground currents that would knock out 300 key transformers within about 90 seconds, cutting off the power for more than 130 million people.The New Scientist states:According to the NAS report, the impact of what it terms a severe geomagnetic storm scenario could be as high as $2 trillion. And that's just the first year after the storm. The NAS puts the recovery time at four to 10 years. It is questionable whether the US would ever bounce back.China, which is installing a high-power electrical grid more vulnerable than that of the U.S., Europe and other developed nations will be similarly impacted. The solar coronal mass ejection from the 1859 Carrington event arrived on earth in less than 15 minutes, which is faster that our early warning system NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) can detect.European Space Agency space weather head Mike Hapgood states, I don't think the NAS report is scaremongering.Scientists are conservative by nature and this group is really thoughtful,he says. This is a fair and balanced report.

More perfect storm: the hole in the earth’s magnetic field

According to a December 16, 2008 report, NASA’s THEMIS spacecraft has discovered a hole in earth’s magnetic field which is 10 times as large as previously thought. The magnetosphere, which is designed to protect earth from the plasma of solar flares, now has a hole in it four time the size of the earth.According to the NASA report, Northern IMF events don't actually trigger geomagnetic storms but they do set the stage for storms by loading the magnetosphere with plasma. A loaded magnetosphere is primed for auroras, power outages, and other disturbances that can result when, say, a CME (coronal mass ejection) hits.The solar maximum is expected in 2012.University of New Hampshire scientist Jimmy Raeder states,We're entering Solar Cycle 24. For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway. It's the perfect sequence for a really big event.

The Obama administration, 2012 and new energy

The Obama administration and most modern governmental energy departments in the 192 U.N. member nations have focused on reducing dependence on conventional energy grids (petroleum, coal or nuclear power) by introducing renewable energy sources such as wind, geo-thermal, and tidal power.These alternative sources are thought to supply about 10% of current energy needs.For example, the Obama policy with regard to the electrical energy grid is stated its official energy and the environment agenda on the White House website:Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.This policy, which replicates energy grid policy in many advanced industrialized nations, is not adequate for the challenges of 2012 solar flares. The policy does not promote new fuel-less non-polluting energy sources now sequestered in secret, national security and black budget projects, and which have been developed using U.S. tax-payer funds. These included reported anti-gravitic technology and free energy technologies, based on Tesla technology.So here is a key question: Is human society being set up to fail and suffer an effective systems collapse with great loss of life and property if 2012 solar flares materialize in the worst case scenario? Image of areas of North America affected by 2012 solar flares.

EUROPEAN UNION ARMY

DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)

DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.

DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.

REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)

Tighter military ties bring France, Germany closer By DEBORAH SEWARD, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 2, 1:40 pm ET

STRASBOURG, France – A field of white stone crosses marks the graves of French soldiers alongside gray granite crosses bearing German names in this World War II cemetery — testament to a history of tragedy and reconciliation.A few kilometers (miles) away, barracks will soon house the first postwar deployment of German soldiers in France, beginning a new era of military cooperation.The symbolic high point of NATO's 60th anniversary summit comes Saturday when Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama walk over a Rhine River footbridge linking France and Germany to meet President Nicolas Sarkozy in a show of alliance unity.Eyes around the world will be on Obama, but for France and Germany, their leaders' handshakes mean more. Each generation of major French and German leaders, from Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer to Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, has sought powerful signs that their countries have overcome historic enmity resulting in three great wars that ravaged both nations.Sarkozy and Merkel have found their own symbol in the latest chapter in the French-German Brigade, a joint mechanized formation launched in 1989 that until now has been stationed only on German soil. Their decision earlier this year to deploy German soldiers from that brigade in France comes at a time when polls show a majority of French people believe Germans are the people they can trust the most.The decision also coincides with Sarkozy's decision to have France again join NATO's military command, which France, under de Gaulle, left in 1966.Bernard de Monferrand, France's ambassador to Germany, told a recent colloquium on French-German relations that the arrival of some 600 German soldiers in Illkirch, a suburb of Strasbourg where the NATO summit is being held, will mean something extraordinary.

French and German officials hope that tighter defense cooperation between the two countries will increase their military and political weight in the alliance and strengthen efforts to build a common European defense.We are very satisfied, said Reinhard Schaefers, Germany's ambassador to France.I expect that the role of France will grow within the alliance as a result of Paris' decision to participate fully in alliance military planning, he said.It opens greater scope for European defense policy.Sarkozy gains political clout both in Europe and in Washington by plunging into the heart of the alliance's military affairs. But he also wants to ensure that Europe has the military muscle to match its economic prowess. That has become a leitmotif of his presidency.Europe cannot be an economic heavyweight if it is not capable of ensuring its defense," the French leader said this week on an early morning live interview on one of France's most popular radio stations.With the United States seeking greater military contributions from the NATO countries and a greater global role for the alliance, France and Germany are seeking to shore up their ability to shape the agenda themselves, especially in light of persistent public opposition to NATO.NATO cannot substitute for the United Nations as the framework for world security, German Foreign Minister Franz-Walter Steinmeier wrote in Thursday's edition of Spiegel Online.Even less is suited to be a `global policeman' for all possible conflict situations.Away from the hubbub and pomp of the official military ceremonies, the glamor of appearances by first ladies and the demonstrations by anti-NATO protesters in central Strasbourg, the joint cemetery on a busy highway on the eastern edge of the city was deserted and eerily silent.But the 5,843 German and French soldiers buried side by side were a powerful reminder of their countries' shared history and their leader's determination to shape their common future.In this moment, Berlin needs Paris ..Pierre Rousselin, international affairs writer for the Le Figaro daily said in a commentary on the NATO and G-20 summits in Thursday's edition of the conservative daily, and Paris needs Berlin.

A look at top candidates for the next NATO chief By The Associated Press APR 3,09

BRUSSELS – A look at the top candidates to become NATO's new secretary-general when Jaap De Hoop Scheffer's term runs out Aug. 1.

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN: Denmark's prime minister is considered the front-runner for the job, although Turkey might oppose his candidacy. Fogh Rasmussen infuriated Muslims by speaking in favor of freedom of speech during an uproar over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and by sending Danish troops to Iraq.The 56-year-old Dane would be the first sitting prime minister chosen as the alliance's secretary-general. Fogh Rasmussen became prime minister in 2001. He was praised as a consensus builder during his term as EU president in 2002.

PETER MACKAY: A popular political figure at home and abroad, MacKay has been Canada's defense minister since 2007.MacKay, 43, was previously foreign minister, and he helped rebuild ties with Washington after Canada opted to stay out of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.MacKay has been a proponent of Canada's military mission in southern Afghanistan, where it has about 2,500 soldiers. Canada has lost more than 110 soldiers since that mission began in 2002.

DES BROWNE: A former defense secretary and Labor Party politician from Scotland, Browne was replaced as defense secretary by John Hutton last year.Browne, 57, was widely criticized in 2007 after 15 British sailors and marines were captured by Iran and then were allowed to sell their stories to the media after their release.Brown entered Parliament with former Prime Minister Tony Blair's government in 1997. Before taking up politics, Browne was an attorney who specialized in family law.

RADEK SIKORSKI: He became Poland's foreign minister in November 2007, after serving as defense minister from 2005 to 2007.Sikorski, 46, has pushed for Poland to play an active role in NATO, and the country sent an additional 900 soldiers to Afghanistan when he was defense minister. He has been labeled by many as anti-Russian, but Poland's historically rocky relationship with Russia has warmed since he became the country's top diplomat.Sikorski was a war correspondent for British newspapers in Afghanistan. He is married to the American journalist and author Anne Applebaum.

JONAS GAHR STOERE: Jonas Gahr Stoere, 48, of Norway's Labor Party was named foreign minister in October 2005, after serving as chief of staff to the prime minister in 2000-2001.He was unhurt in a January 2008 terror attack on his hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed six people.Stoere speaks fluent French, English and some German in addition to Norwegian. He has refused to say whether he is a candidate for the NATO job.

SOLOMON PASI: Bulgaria's former foreign minister is the only candidate who was officially named by his country's government as a candidate to head NATO. The 52-year-old mathematician heads Bulgaria's foreign relations parliamentary committee. He served as foreign minister from 2001-2005.After the 1989 collapse of communism, Pasi founded the Atlantic Club, a non-governmental organization to lobby for NATO membership. Bulgaria joined in 2004.

NATO summit kicks off amid protests
VALENTINA POP Today APR 3,09 @ 07:35 CET

EUOBSERVER / STRASBOURG – European, US and Canadian leaders were set to meet on Friday for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg. Meanwhile, police have already arrested some one hundred protesters after violent clashes, highlighting the identity and image problems of the military alliance.If it wasn't for the delays to the city's high-tech tram system, the clashes between anti-NATO protesters and riot police in a southern suburb of the city would have passed completely unnoticed, as city residents lay on the grass in the sunny April afternoon in the center of Strasbourg, or sipped cappuccinos on crowded terraces.Due to demonstrations, the tram service is experiencing delays. We are sorry for the inconvenience,monitors in the tram stations said. Equipped with stones and metal bars, the anti-NATO activists left their camp in the suburb of Neuhof near the German border and tried to conquer the center,only to be dispersed by the police.

Some one hundred protesters were arrested after they smashed bus shelters and set trash cans on fire, clashing with about 40 riot police who fired rubber bullets and tear gas.An authorised demonstration of several thousand is set to take place in the eastern part of the city on Friday afternoon, close to the Rhine in an industrial area that is completely deserted.Democracy lives when the actions of protesters can take place in the city. The demonstration aims at showing a large public that NATO is a military war machine,Reiner Braun, from the international anti-NATO co-ordination group, told EUobserver.Members of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group in the European Parliament were also set to take part in the protests on Friday, including Francis Wurtz, the chairman of the group, as well as two other German MEPs.

NATO with one foot in the grave?

While the protesters were chastising NATO's current military operations in Afghanistan, the alliance's policy makers and young Atlanticists were debating the future of the organisation at a NATO in 2020 forum. Jamie Shea, director of NATO's policy planning unit, argued that the organisation at 60 did not have one foot in the grave,as can be the case with some people reaching an advanced age.However, he conceded that while NATO was very good at guaranteeing the security of its members during the Cold War, when there were no military clashes, things are much more complicated since NATO got involved in actual military operations. With NATO no longer an anti-Soviet military alliance, the institution is evolving into a body which should tackle new threats, such as terrorism, cyber attacks, energy security or even the security impacts of climate change and the financial crisis. The question is whether NATO should limit itself to what it does best – military operations – or go further. The change in the geopolitical environment has been augmented by a generational change. Giuseppe Belardetti, an Italian chairing the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association, said that his generation, which was now in its mid-twenties, is no longer worried about a Soviet threat, but rather the threat of eastern workers.

Enlargement not off the table

Proof that NATO is not a dying institution lies in the fact that it is still attracting countries, such as Albania and Croatia, which acquired full membership on 1April, expanding the alliance to 28 members, Mr Shea argued.NATO's enlargement to eastern Europe, hand-in-hand with EU enlargement, contributed to the democratisation and reform of these countries and should continue to do so, he said. A young Ukrainian student however asked if it was up to the countries themselves to fulfill membership criteria or whether there was a question of international solidarity in helping her country to join. She spoke of the disillusionment in her country after Germany opposed granting Ukraine a so-called membership action plan last year - the official preparatory stage before a country actually joins the alliance.NATO allies are set to re-affirm what they had promised Georgia and Ukraine last year in Bucharest, that the two countries would join the alliance once they meet the criteria, Mr Shea said.There will be no backtracking on the promise made in Bucharest,he stressed.

NATO at 60: ready for a new role By Bill Huggins – Thu Apr 2, 5:00 am ET

Washington – On Friday, President Obama will join 25 other presidents and prime ministers around a large table to mark North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 60th anniversary. Far from being an occasion for fond remembrance of shared history, the meeting will be freighted with anticipation. How the new US president approaches this milestone – as a perfunctory nod to an aging icon or as an opportunity to renegotiate and update the transatlantic security bargain – will do much to determine NATO's future. Mr. Obama could join those who see the alliance as essentially a military bulwark against Russian intimidation and, in so doing, seal NATO's fate with low expectations. What he should do is encourage a new and more versatile role for NATO as a security broker among its members and official nonmember partners. NATO is essentially a robust military potential at the collective and exclusive disposal of the leaders of member nations. It is an ensemble of officials, committees, headquarters, standard operating procedures, and war plans – rules and mechanisms designed to negotiate and facilitate common action. For its first 45-plus years, NATO's potential remained unproven in action. In the past 15 years, that potential has been tested, and it has worked. NATO has mounted combat operations, air patrols, and maritime escorts, and even conducted earthquake relief. Its partners span the globe, from Argentina to New Zealand.In mounting these operations, NATO has employed its structure of rules and organizations to effectively set goals, enlist participants, match forces to missions, and reconcile national limitations. NATO has, in effect, acted as a security broker for its members and partners. Each member and partner has different objectives for its national security portfolio and different levels of resources to invest, while all share a common goal of getting the best return on their investment in security.Images of NATO as a ponderous collection of inert functionaries shackled by outdated rules and doomed to move as a ponderous bloc belie the recent record. NATO has proven it can make deals, within and beyond the organization.For example, within a year of the cyber assault on the Estonian government in 2007, NATO brokered the creation of the Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence among a subset of its members. Similarly NATO has brokered a deal between 10 of its members and two partners to establish the NATO Airlift Management Organization to operate C-17 cargo planes. The extremely successful Partnership for Peace program prepared recently independent Central and Eastern European states for eventual membership in the alliance. NATO has been much more adaptable than its reputation suggests.

Why not put that adaptability to work?

xercising the capacity to broker collective action will give NATO member nations and partners – collectively, but more likely in small groups – a new capacity to anticipate problems and engage forces in time to head off a crisis rather than just react after things have gone bad. And what rises to the level of crisis for some will not necessarily do so for all. We have seen that in Afghanistan.To operate effectively as a broker, NATO will need some changes. The custom of making final decisions by a consensus of all members won't work anymore. A system of qualified majority voting will be needed. This will ensure that those members and partners most interested in pursuing a particular course of action are given fair opportunity to make a case for action, without risk of delay or obstruction.The load must be better balanced. European member nations' reliance on the US to provide the bulk of forces and leadership, and American willingness to allow this, distorts the alliance capacity to respond. A member nation or partner seeking NATO action should be prepared to fully contribute.An option for formal association with the alliance, beyond Partnership for Peace but short of membership, should be created. For example, Australian officials have said they have no interest in NATO membership but want to have a role in shaping the operations in which they participate. A council of contributors, sponsored by NATO and incorporating any nation seeking a part in an operation, whether a member or a partner, would meet this need. It would take both imagination and hard work to adapt NATO's committee structure and rules to give contributing partners a voice in operations, but it seems a small price to pay for the benefits the alliance receives in return. In the future, the same NATO that has been around for six decades can play a big part in forging a new multilateral security bargain for the decades to come. Obama will have the opportunity this weekend to help create the future of NATO and with it to construct a collaborative new transatlantic security partnership.Bill Huggins, a former NATO policy planner in the Pentagon, now works as a consultant at Toffler Associates, the strategy consulting firm founded by futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.

PSALMS 97:3
3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.

REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)

ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die).

ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.

2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.

JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth before them; 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.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.

EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.

ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)

LUKE 17:34-37
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).

MATTHEW 24:37-51
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Diplomats scurry to scuttle NKorean rocket launch By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer APR 3,09

SEOUL, South Korea – Reclusive North Korea pressed ahead Friday with final preparations to blast a multistage rocket over Japan as world leaders scrambled to forge a united stance on how to punish it for the launch.Saturday is the start of a five-day window during which North Korea says it will send a communications satellite into orbit. The U.S., South Korea and Japan believe the communist country is really testing long-range missile technology — a move they have warned would violate a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution banning the North from ballistic activity.The launch has sparked international alarm because North Korea has admitted it has nuclear weapons and has repeatedly broken promises to shelve its nuclear program or halt rocket tests.President Barack Obama, appearing with the French president in Strasbourg, France, said the launch is provocative and should be stopped, adding that the U.S. will take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it can't threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity.A successful launch would mean the renegade state has a long-range missile capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction, said Kim Sung-han, an international affairs professor at Seoul's Korea University, although it is unclear if the North has been able to shrink its warheads enough to fit on a rocket.It would also help North Korea's exports of missiles or missile parts, Kim said — a key consideration for one of the world's poorest countries.North Korea already has medium-range missiles that can reach Japan, over which the North has said the missile will travel. Tokyo is bracing for the possibility that debris could fall around its northern coast.Japan has deployed warships with anti-missile systems off the coast, set up Patriot missile interceptors and established a system to warn residents when the rocket is approaching. Japan says it has no intention of trying to shoot down the rocket itself, which is expected to reach its territory 10 minutes after liftoff.

It is a threat to the security of Japan, Yukio Takasu, Japan's U.N. ambassador, said Thursday, adding that the launch announcement raises tensions in our region, and also internationally.But some people living in the danger zone weren't worried.We never know what North Korea is thinking about, but I'm not concerned as long as it doesn't affect my work," said Manabu Miura, 59, a fisherman in Kamo, Japan. I'll go fishing.

South Korea is considering elevating its military alert status to the second-highest level amid concerns the North could also fire a barrage of shorter-range missiles along with the rocket.Fueling at the launch pad in Musudan-ri appears nearly complete, South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited an unidentified government official as saying. Experts say the launch would likely follow quickly because rocket fuels are generally highly corrosive.Cloudy conditions were forecast for the launch area Saturday but no strong winds that could force a delay.Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said Thursday that a Saturday launch was likely. A senior U.S. intelligence official also told The Associated Press that North Korea was on track for liftoff then. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.

Diplomats scrambled to find ways to persuade North Korea to cancel the launch. Even China, the North's closest ally, said it was working to avert a liftoff while urging all parties to avoid aggravating the tense situation.China has tried to persuade North Korea on several occasions and will attempt to do so to the last minute, Chinese President Hu Jintao said Friday in a meeting in London with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Myung-bak, according to Lee's spokeswoman, Lee Dong-kwan.Lee has been pushing for swift punishment if the launch goes ahead; Japan and other nations plan to request an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council as soon as this weekend. A strong united response likely would prove difficult because China holds veto power in the council and could argue that the 2006 ban does not extend to nonmilitary space missions. Hu and Lee agreed the rocket launch would negatively affect peace and stability in Northeast Asia and there should be a discussion among related countries after the launch, Lee's office said. But their statement stopped short of mentioning a Security Council referral or sanctions. North Korea has warned against any efforts to censure it, claiming it has the right to the peaceful use of space. It also has threatened retaliation against any efforts to intercept the rocket.North Korea has repeatedly used brinksmanship to wring aid and concessions from the West and could be doing the same thing this time. The North has also detained two Americans and a South Korean and could use them as bargaining chips.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il also appears to be trying to use the launch to solidify internal unity, with the event serving as celebratory fireworks ahead of his re-election as leader next week.At a rally in central Seoul, about 100 activists torched a North Korean flag and a missile replica plastered with Kim's portrait. Associated Press writers Pauline Jelinek in Washington, John Heilprin at the United Nations and Mari Yamaguchi in Kamo, Japan, contributed to this report.