SWASTIKAS ON JOSEPHS TOMB

DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).

Managing Director`s Remarks at the School of Advanced International Studies
Thursday, April 23, 2009 5:00 PM
http://www.imf.org/external/mmedia/view.asp?eventid=1469

Multilateralism and the Role of the International Monetary Fund in the Global Financial Crisis Speech by Dominique Strauss-Kahn Managing Director, International Monetary Fund At the School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC,
April 23, 2009 As Prepared for Delivery

Webcast

Good afternoon, it’s a pleasure to be here. I would like to use this opportunity to talk to you about multilateralism, the need for global cooperation in macroeconomic and financial sector policies. We all know that decisions taken by countries in isolation may end up harming the global economy. This is the classic problem of coordination, and the problems become most glaring during time of economic distress.

One of the key lessons of the Great Depression was that a lack of cooperation and a retreat to isolationism can make things worse, dramatically worse. The unprecedented collapse in global activity in the 1930s also had dire social and political consequences, and contributed to the outbreak of a disastrous war that left millions dead and a whole continent in ruins. When world leaders met in Bretton Woods in 1944, they vowed never to repeat the errors of the past. They embraced multilateralism and a cooperative approach to economic and financial policies.The IMF was born in Bretton Woods, forged in the furnace of this multilateral idealism, and endowed with a mandate to oversee the global financial system and to act as a lender of last resort to members with balance of payments needs. It stands right at the heart of macroeconomic and financial sector policy coordination.Over sixty years later, although the contours of the world financial system would be unrecognizable to the Bretton Woods delegates, the IMF remains as central as ever. But it took the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression for this to be made manifest.As the process of globalization and international financial integration accelerated over the past decade or so, it might seem obvious that the multilateral institutions usefulness would be growing alongside.But the reality was different. Eighteen months ago, the institution was facing a progressive loss in its relevance and its legitimacy. Perhaps a victim of its own success, a global boom and the specter of economic crises fading further into memory left the institution somewhat unmoored. People were openly questioning the usefulness and relevance—and indeed the very future—of the Fund. We went through much soul searching. We went through a painful downsizing.

What can I say? Eighteen months seems like a lifetime! In that time, we have been in the midst of an economic crisis that originated in the U.S. housing market, immediately infected the advanced economies, and then spread like wildfire to every corner of the world.As the dust settles, we are learning a few core lessons. We are learning that links between the real economy and the financial sector are deep-rooted and complex, and that the world economy is interconnected in more ways than we had imagined. We are also learning that a multilateral solution is essential, and that the IMF has a central role to play. It is an international institution ideally placed to address financing and liquidity problems at a global level, and to conduct candid, independent, and evenhanded surveillance. I will address these issues in turn.

Effectiveness as a firefighter

This crisis has shown that while firefighters might seem useless in good times, they have a major role to play when things turn sour—especially in a crisis as deep and broad as this one.The IMF is helping emerging markets cope with the sudden stop in capital inflows. These countries had achieved impressive gains in growth and convergence. Unfortunately, for some countries, especially in Eastern Europe, these gains were associated with large current account deficits and heavy reliance on external financing. But other affected countries had sound policies and solid fundamentals, and were largely innocent bystanders of the crisis.We have also extended our help to advanced countries. Consider Iceland, a rich western European country undone by leverage. The assets and liabilities of its banking system grew alarmingly large relative to its economy, outstripping the authorities’ ability to act as a lender of last resort. Investors starting retreating, and its banking sector collapsed. The IMF stepped in and provided necessary financial support.And what about the low-income countries ? Already hit by the food and fuel price shocks, these countries are now suffering from a collapse in trade and remittances. Let us not forget the stakes—this crisis could have catastrophic implications. According to the World Bank, almost 50 million people could be pushed further into poverty this year—earning less than $2 a day—if financing needs are not met. As many as 3 million additional children may die between now and 2015 if the crisis persists. We could witness social unrest, political instability, and even war.The world community cannot simply stand by and let this happen. The G-20 has asked the IMF to provide an additional $6 billion in concessional resources to low-income countries over the next 2 – 3 years, and we are committed to achieving this goal.This crisis is by no means over, and I expect we will be called upon to help more countries before the year is out. Our latest forecasts have just been released, and they show further deterioration. We now project the global economy to shrink by 1.3 percent in 2009. I can see two forces at work. On the one hand, the major collapse in confidence and demand that began late last year continues to push the economy down. But on the other hand, the corrective policies that governments are implementing are lifting the economy up. Where does this leave us? Well, we expect a recovery in 2010—a modest recovery, yet still a recovery. So I see some light at the end of the tunnel, but this depends on the right policies stopping and reversing the descent. I will come back to this later on.As this crisis has evolved, the IMF is trying to do its job. To do so though, we need to beef up our firefighting arsenal. To this end, the G-20 pledged to triple the IMF’s lending capacity to an unprecedented $750 billion, and—in addition—to double its capacity for concessional lending to low-income countries. We are committed to achieving this target.

At the same time, the world community has placed its trust in the IMF and we intend to live up to that trust. With the world engulfed in the worst crisis in generations, it cannot simply be business as usual. We are adapting—we have introduced a package of reforms that transforms the way we do business, drawing lessons from the present crisis and also from past experience. As a key first step, we have doubled all loan access limits—including for low-income countries—to give confidence to countries that we can meet their needs.It is also better to prevent fires than put them out. Indeed, the absence of an insurance facility has been a major gap in the global financial architecture. Many countries opted instead to self-insure by building large buffers of foreign reserves. Thus, as a second step, we have introduced a flexible credit line that grants rapid upfront financing in large amounts—with no ex post conditions—for countries with a proven track record of good performance. Mexico, Poland, and Colombia have already sought to access this new facility, and I expect more countries to follow. And third, more generally, we are committed to providing larger amounts and more upfront financing across a wide range of our facilities.I want to add that conditionality remains important. We know that adjustment does not come without pain. Putting out a fire is a messy business, but it’s still better than letting the house burn down. That said, conditionality must become more focused and streamlined—this should encourage countries to approach the IMF early on, before things get really bad.

I want to point out here that the IMF remains committed to protecting the poorest and most vulnerable. Many recent programs call for sizable increases in social spending in the midst of serious and needed efforts to cut deficits. For example, social spending is set to rise by 1½ percent of GDP in Latvia, ¾ percent of GDP in Ukraine, and ½ percent of GDP in Pakistan. In Hungary, low-income pensioners were specifically protected from benefit reductions. In low-income countries too, many programs have explicit targets for health and education spending. These safeguards are critical.

One final point on firefighting: The G-20 also supported the allocation to members of $250 billion in “Special Drawing Rights”—the IMF-issued reserve asset that borrowing nations can draw upon if needed. This expansion of global liquidity would be a significant symbol of the commitment of the international community to multilateralism.

Effectiveness as a policy advisor

Let me now turn to another of the major functions a multilateral institution must have—its role as a policy advisor. As the crisis evolved, the IMF was among the first to pinpoint the policy responses that have now become part of conventional wisdom. I would like to highlight two key areas where the IMF got it right—the case for fiscal stimulus, and the need to restructure the banking system.Let me begin with fiscal stimulus. As you all know by now, we have been recommending, as early as January 2008, a discretionary loosening for countries that can afford it. At the beginning, this was a novelty coming from an institution associated with belt-tightening. But we made this recommendation because the decline in demand was exceptionally large, was expected to be long-lasting, and because we recognized the clear limits of monetary policy in this environment. We also argued early on that collective action was essential, and that countries had to move together.We recommended 2 percent of GDP and I am pleased to note that countries have delivered in 2009. I have been particularly impressed by the unprecedented degree of international coordination, contrary to what is often said. Countries are still delivering stimulus for 2010, less than in 2009, but still sizeable. The jury is still out on whether this will be enough, or whether more may be needed, since we are not out of the woods just yet.

We also noted very early on that a speedy recovery depended on cleansing banks’ balance sheets of toxic assets. This remains true today. The primary objective must be to get the stalled machinery of the financial sector moving again. Without this, efforts to boost demand will be fruitless. We can say this with confidence because we have experience with banking crises—122 banking crises, to be precise. There are different ways to do it depending on country circumstances, but it must be done. Policymakers must resist the temptation to sweep the problem under the carpet. And here, the message is mixed—while moving in the right direction, the response has tended to be slow and piecemeal. The new U.S. plan is a major step forward, but its success hinges on the willingness of banks to sell their toxic assets.Let’s not forget what is at stake. The just-published Global Financial Stability Report shows that systemic risks are still very high. Without policy action to address balance sheet weakness, the recovery will be delayed, and adverse feedback loops could get worse. We should not forget this international dimension, which is why we need coordination among the affected economies. I would caution especially against the temptation of financial protectionism—the repatriation of capital by advanced country banks. There can be no purely domestic solutions in today’s world.

Legitimacy as a provider of early warnings

I’ve talked a lot about a multilateral institution’s evolving role during the crisis, but what about predicting the crisis itself? Where was the IMF? We have been accused of sleeping at the wheel. I take some of this criticism. It is fair to say that the multilateral institutions charged with surveillance, including the IMF, made some mistakes.We certainly gave warnings, but these warnings were not loud or clear enough. We were simply too optimistic about the economic situation in advanced economies, lulled by the experience of strong growth and low and stable inflation. And we failed to pay enough attention to factors like excess leverage, systemic risk, credit booms, and asset prices. At the same time, when we did give warnings, these warnings were often ignored by policymakers. We were not vocal enough. People don’t like listening to warnings from Cassandras when times are good.Moreover, effective surveillance depends on successful outreach as much as sound analysis. Collective action also proved elusive—while we forged ahead with multilateral surveillance, fully recognizing the growing linkages across countries, this exercise had only a modest impact.I think we proved our worth once the crisis broke. Exactly a year ago, our Spring World Economic Outlook forecasts were widely derided for being too pessimistic. And yet, such pessimism was warranted. We were right. The same thing happened with our estimate of credit losses from the Global Financial Stability Report. In each case, we were ahead of the curve.Looking ahead, we intend to do better in the area of early warnings. These new early warnings must be strong, candid, credible, and even-handed. They must not shy away from naming and shaming where appropriate. Early warnings that are ignored by policymakers have limited value.

With this in mind, our strategy will be to focus our surveillance on systemic risks from all quarters, better integrating the macroeconomic and financial sector work, and better monitoring policy spillovers and cross-country linkages. We are developing, in collaboration with the newly strengthened Financial Stability Board, an early warning exercise covering both advanced and emerging market countries, and here we will canvass a wide range of outside views and follow up where warranted.Let me give one example of how this approach might be useful. From the start of the crisis, we have been monitoring risks in emerging Europe. We highlighted some policy challenges—fixed exchange rate countries will need a comprehensive adjustment strategy, home and host country regulators will need to coordinate on bank recapitalization, and policymakers will need to prepare for possible private debt restructuring. The idea is to impress upon policymakers the need for a timely, coordinated, and comprehensive solution.

Legitimacy as a global institution

Before I conclude this afternoon, let me address the topic of legitimacy, the legitimacy of multilateral institutions as global institutions. In a sense, this is the tie that binds everything together. If we do not have legitimacy, countries will not approach us to meet their financing needs until it is too late. If we do not have legitimacy, the mere existence of the flexible credit line will not prevent self-insurance. If we do not have legitimacy, nobody will listen to our policy advice, or take our early warnings seriously.This is why we need to reform our governance structure to give more influence to emerging markets and low-income countries. In short, our voice must be respected in every corner of the world. We must be seen as evenhanded and independent, not beholden to the interests of any country or group of countries. This has not always been the case.The reform process began in 2008, with the decision to increase the quotas of 54 member countries—granting the emerging markets a greater stake in the institution—as well as to increase the voice of low-income countries, including by creating an additional alternate executive director position for the two African chairs at our Executive Board. These reforms are in the process of being ratified by members and I hope they will come into force very soon. We need to forge forward with quota reform, speeding up the rebalancing process begun over a year ago. In this context, I welcome the G-20 support for completing the next phase by early 2011.Of course, legitimacy is a broader consideration than quota and voice reform. We need to do a better job in reaching out to civil society, to the people on the ground—people, I must say, who have often criticized us in the past. We also need to foster a diverse staff, for that too goes hand-in-hand with legitimacy.

Conclusion

Let me briefly conclude. I have argued that a robust multilateralism is essential to the resolution of the current crisis, and indeed, to the prevention of future crises. In an increasingly globalized world, the web of connections between countries and activities will continue to grow. We have seen the walls between the financial sector and the global economy breaking down. We have seen that a financial sector problem in one country can spill swiftly across borders, gain momentum, and return to the home country with even greater ferocity.We need stronger global coordination in macroeconomic and financial sector policymaking. If countries come together to tackle their joint problems in a cooperative manner, everybody wins. As this crisis unfolded, we saw the benefits of cooperation with the global fiscal stimulus, and with coordinated liquidity provision by central banks. We also saw the costs of non-cooperation with temptations to protect domestic banking systems at the expense of neighbors, ring-fence assets, and favor domestic lending.I hope that cooperation and multilateralism will win out. I am pleased to note that countries are increasing inclined to adopt a coordinated response to policy challenges. I note especially the achievements of the G-20. I also note some of the recent agreements brokered by the IMF with banks to keep supporting subsidiaries in eastern Europe.I have argued that the IMF is perfectly poised to play a critical role in the international financial architecture. It is adapting to circumstances, shedding what did not work, improving what did. Time magazine has dubbed it IMF 2.0. I like that. But of course, we can always do better. We have made some progress, but we still have a journey ahead of us. Let’s look forward to IMF 3.0! Remember, at the end of the day, it’s not about the IMF, it’s about the global economy and the welfare of the nearly seven billion people who share this planet.Thank you.

FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS

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.

SC VIDEO HOLMES
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4965125n

SC wildfire biggest in more than 3 decades
By BRUCE SMITH – APR 23,09

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina's biggest wildfire in more than three decades — a blaze four miles wide — destroyed dozens of homes Thursday and threatened some of the area's world-famous golf courses at the height of the spring tourist season.The flames, fed by tinder-dry scrubland, forced hundreds of people to flee, and some took shelter in the House of Blues honkytonk.The fire got within 1 1/2 miles of Route 17, the main coastal road that links beachfront towns and is lined with fast-food restaurants, beachwear stores and trinket shops. By Thursday evening, the flames were about 3 miles west of the highway.The blaze scorched about 19,600 acres, or about 31 square miles, over the past two days and then veered north, heading away from the high-rise hotels that line Myrtle Beach. There were no reports of injuries, and authorities said they had not determined what sparked the flames.Fueled by dry underbrush and highly combustible swamp peat, the blaze leveled about 70 homes and damaged 100 others early Thursday as the fire jumped a four-lane highway. The flames also forced authorities to evacuate 2,500 people. Some returned home Thursday evening while, at the same time, a couple of miles north, police told people to leave 30 other homes, an order that was lifted after a few hours.Horry County officials said in a statement Thursday night the fire was 40 percent contained. Holly Welch, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Forestry Commission, said crews had successfully used plows to hold off a portion of the blaze but noted that the situation could worsen if winds were to start blowing Friday in an unexpected direction.While we think we have things secured, that could all go out the window tomorrow, she said.

Much of the damage was concentrated at Barefoot Resort, a sprawling complex of houses, condominiums and golf courses separated from the main route through Myrtle Beach by the Intracoastal Waterway.The house is completely gone, said Rachel Plaga, a 38-year-old nurse, who later began sobbing.It was like Armageddon back there. There was nothing. Everything was gone. My whole life. My kid's whole life. It was horrific.
Another woman who broke down in tears had to be helped to a seat by a Red Cross worker.Garry Alderman, Horry County's fire chief, described some homes as left with only skeletal remains.The fire appeared to hopscotch through the neighborhood, which was draped in a thick haze, and some of the rubble still smoldered hours later.One home was burned to its slab, while the brick house next door appeared undamaged, an American flag still flying.At another home, the car in the driveway was charred, but the only damage to the house was melted vinyl siding. At one address, everything burned except the garage door, which remained standing.After they were evacuated, some 200 residents spent the rest of the day in and around the nearby House of Blues, where officials gave them updates. Hours later, they were ushered inside to watch a video of the fire damage because they were not yet allowed to return to their homes. In all, some 450 people sought help at area shelters.Officials said the blaze appeared to die out at Barefoot Resort by midmorning, only to move parallel to the waterway and away from the area's major golf courses. Authorities worried it could jump the channel, a canal as wide as a football field that separates the city's main drag from the homes of retirees and people who help run the area's golf courses, hotels and other businesses.Just a few miles south along the coast, people were unaffected. Golfers kept their tee times and tourists spread out on the beaches. Hotel managers, who offered vouchers to the evacuees, said they could not even smell the smoke.As ash fell, the governor issued a state of emergency, and schools closed early. But North Myrtle Beach Mayor Marilyn Hatley managed to promote the area while announcing the number of homes destroyed.

Certainly come on to the Grand Strand area and enjoy yourself, Hatley said.

But along Route 17 near the fire, businesses lost customers, and the thick smoke chased mini-golf customers from Gail Taylor's Hawaiian Village Golf. She had only had two customers all day — both evacuees who were trying to kill time.I knew it was going to be like this when I opened up this morning, Taylor said. People aren't going to come out and play golf when they're scared.The fire started several miles inland Wednesday, near subdivisions and golf courses that have been carved from forest and swamps over decades. On Thursday, state forestry officials said they issued two citations to someone for starting a fire that got out of control, but it was unclear whether that person had started the massive blaze.The area remains prone to wildfires that spring up in the woods and scrub. Horry County Fire Rescue spokesman Todd Cartner said this week's fire was the worst blaze since some 47 square miles burned in 1976.Dense vegetation made the fire hard to fight, Cartner said. Crews used plows and tractors to cut firebreaks through heavily grown patches called Carolina Bays.

The shallow, egg-shaped depressions pockmark the coast and range in size from a few acres to thousands of acres. They are densely filled with plant life and often have boggy bottoms where peat, if it catches fire, can burn for days or weeks.Tropical downpours are often the only thing that can extinguish such fires, said state Forestry Commission spokesman Scott Hawkins.About 100 firefighters joined backhoes and six airplanes fighting the fire. We have the resources. We need to get a weather break,said William Bailey, public safety director for North Myrtle Beach.Myrtle Beach and the surrounding area is the anchor of the state's $16 billion annual tourist industry, drawing college students looking for a cheap spring break destination and families who fill miles of budget hotels in the summer.Tens of thousands of golfers visit each year, and some of the region's courses are among the best in the nation.

Maureen Hodge and her 79-year-old husband spent the past five weeks enjoying a golf vacation at Barefoot Landing until early Thursday. Hodge, 62, said they left with only what they were wearing and their medications.The Bangor, Maine, resident said she would like to get back for her golf clubs.I don't know if we'll ever come back, she said, laughing. But this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in North Myrtle Beach, and Katrina A. Goggins, Jeffrey Collins and Jack Jones in Columbia contributed to this report.

ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST

1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

ISRAELS TROUBLE

JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.

DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
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,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU Swastikas painted on Joseph's Tomb,Headstone smashed, bloody Star of David graffiti scrawled on wall April 23, 2009 11:27 am Eastern By Aaron Klein 2009 WorldNetDaily

Vandalized Joseph's Tomb
JERUSALEM – Jews who arrived last night to pray at Joseph's Tomb – Judaism's third holiest site – were stunned to learn the structure had been vandalized, with the headstone smashed in and swastikas painted on the walls. Only barbarians could do such things. People who pathologically disgrace such a holy place don't deserve to be called human beings, said Gershon Mesika, head of the Jewish regional council in the West Bank.Joseph's Tomb is the believed burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph, the son of Jacob who was sold by his brothers into slavery and later became viceroy of Egypt. Following repeated Palestinian attacks, Israel in October 2000 unilaterally retreated from Joseph's Tomb and, with very few exceptions, banned Jews from returning to the site purportedly for security reasons. The tomb area is now controlled entirely by the Palestinians.Mesika has been working with the Israel Defense Forces to lead monthly midnight excursions to the tomb in hope of restoring a Jewish presence to the area.Last night, a group of 500 Jews arrived to pray at the site under heavy protection of the IDF. But they were stunned to see the tomb had been defaced. The headstone was smashed and swastikas were painted on the walls, as was graffiti of a blood-dripping sword over a Star of David. Palestinians have defaced the tomb several times.

Smashed headstone of Joseph's Tomb

Last year, WND was first to report Palestinians tried to burn down the tomb. In 2001, within less than an hour of the original Israeli retreat, Palestinian rioters overtook Joseph's Tomb and reportedly ransacked and then partially destroyed the structure.

Israel forfeits tomb

The tomb is located just outside the modern city of Nablus, or biblical Shechem, in the northern West Bank. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, which granted nearby strategic territory to the Palestinians, Joseph's Tomb was supposed to be accessible to Jews and Christians. But following repeated attacks against Jewish worshippers at the holy site by gunmen associated with then-Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat's militias, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak in October 2000 ordered an Israeli unilateral retreat from the area.Immediately following the Israeli retreat, Palestinian rioters overtook Joseph's Tomb and reportedly began to ransack the site. Palestinian mobs reportedly tore apart books, destroying prayer stands and grinding out stone carvings in the Tomb's interior. Palestinians hoisted a Muslim flag over the tomb. Amin Maqbul, an official from Arafat's office, visited the tomb to deliver a speech declaring, Today was the first step to liberate (Jerusalem).One BBC reporter described the scene: The site was reduced to smoldering rubble – festooned with Palestinian and Islamic flags – cheering Arab crowd.

Third holiest site turned into mosque

The Torah describes how Jacob purchased a land plot in Shechem, which was given as an inheritance to his sons and was used to re-inter Joseph, whose bones were taken out of Egypt during the Jewish exodus. Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are also said to be buried at the site.

Graffiti at Joseph's Tomb site

As detailed in the Torah, shortly before his death, Joseph asked the Israelites to vow they would resettle his bones in the land of Canaan, biblical Israel. That oath was fulfilled when, according to the Torah, Joseph's remains were taken by the Jews from Egypt and reburied at the plot of land Jacob had earlier purchased in Shechem, believed to be the site of the tomb. Modern archeologists confirm Nablus is the biblical city of Shechem.Yehuda Leibman, who until the Israeli retreat from Joseph's Tomb in 2000 was director of a yeshiva constructed there, explained, The sages tell us that there are three places which the world cannot claim were stolen by the Jewish people: the Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Joseph's Tomb.There is evidence suggesting that for more than 1,000 years Jews of various origins worshipped at Joseph's Tomb. The Samaritans, a local tribe that follow a religion based on the Torah, say they trace their lineage back to Joseph himself and that they worshipped at the tomb site for more than 1,700 years.Israel first gained control of Nablus and the neighboring site of Joseph's Tomb in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Oslo Accords signed by Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called for the area surrounding the tomb site to be placed under Palestinian jurisdiction but allowed for continued Jewish visits to the site and the construction of an Israeli military outpost at the tomb to ensure secure Jewish access.Following the transfer of control of Nablus and the general area encompassing the tomb to the Palestinians in the early 1990s, there were a series of outbreaks of violence in which Arab rioters and gunmen from Arafat's Fatah militias shot at Jewish worshipers and the tomb's military outpost. Six Israeli soldiers were killed, and many others, including yeshiva students, were wounded in September 1996 when Palestinian rioters and Fatah gunmen attempted to over take the tomb. Eventually, Israeli soldiers regained control of the site. The Palestinians continued to attack Joseph's Tomb with regular shootings and the lobbing of firebombs and Molotov cocktails. Security for Jews at the site increasingly became more difficult to maintain. Rumors circulated in 2000 that Barak would evacuate the Israeli military outpost and give the tomb to Arafat as a peacemaking gesture.

In early 2000, the Israeli army began denying Jewish visits to the tomb on certain days due to prospects of Arab violence. Following U.S.-mediated peace talks at Camp David in September 2000, Arafat returned to the West Bank and initiated his intifada. During one bloody week in October 2000, Fatah gunmen attacked the tomb repeatedly, killing two and injuring dozens, prompting Barak to order a complete evacuation of the holy site Oct. 6.In a WND exclusive interview, Tariq Tarawi, a Fatah lawmaker who in 2000 served as chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group in the vicinity of the tomb, said the Palestinians would never allow Israel to rebuild a yeshiva or synagogue at Joseph's Tomb. The Brigades carried out most of the attacks against the tomb site.A yeshiva is an institution,said Tarawi.An institution can be the beginning of claiming rights and these claims can bring once again the Israeli army to establish a base in the place, and we cannot accept this. If the Jews try to build a yeshiva, we will shoot at them.

Israel takes bashing in EU foreign relations audit
ANDREW RETTMAN 23.04.2009 @ 17:44 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Progress on upgrading EU-Israel relations will remain frozen until Israel takes steps to repair the peace process with Palestinians, the European Commission indicated on Thursday (23 April). We do not believe the time is right to go beyond the current level of relations, external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in Brussels during an annual stock-taking of ties with its neighbours.We expect a clear commitment from the new [Israeli] government to pursue negotiations with the Palestinians. We expect a stop of all activities undermining our objective of a two-state solution and this includes in particular settlement expansion, which is continuing on daily basis.

The ball is now in the court of Israel.

The EU in December 2008 started talks on the upgrade, which was to include regular bilateral summits and trade perks for Israel. But Israel's launch of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza later the same month, costing the lives of 415 Palestinian children, halted the process.The Portuguese and Belgian foreign ministers at an EU meeting in March indicated they would veto any re-start of the upgrade until concerns were met. Swedish diplomats delivered the same message in Israel earlier this month.The International Crisis Group, a conflict-monitoring NGO, in a new report out Thursday warned that fighting in Gaza could easily re-ignite this year, calling Israel's closure of the strip to reconstruction work dangerous.Ordinary Israeli Jews feel strongly positive about the EU, despite the diplomatic friction.Seventy-five percent said they would like Israel to join the 27-country bloc in a fresh poll conducted by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Forty percent of Israeli Arabs would also like the country to join.Accession is unlikely to happen due to Article 49 of the EU treaty, which states that any European state meeting certain criteria is eligible to apply.

The EU in 1987 rejected Morocco's application on geographic grounds. When asked about Israel's eligibility by EUobserver, the commission said in a statement: The term 'European' combines geographical, historical and cultural elements which all contribute to European identity ...[which] is subject to review by each succeeding generation.Meanwhile, Israeli diplomats are taking a hard-headed approach to European relations. A senior diplomatic source on Thursday told Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper that national security is guaranteed first of all [by] us, then the United States, and the third leg is Europe.

2008 bad for democracy

The European Commission's spring audit of development in the other 15 countries covered by the neighbourhood policy broadly found that 2008 was a good year for the economy, but a poor one for democracy. On balance however, we have to note, unfortunately, that the pace of reforms indeed has slowed particularly on democratic reforms, governance and human rights standards,Ms Benita Ferrero-Waldner said. In the south, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt emerged as the most progressive states. Ukraine, Georgia and - ironically, given the April 2009 crisis - Moldova last year led the class in the east.The stock-taking also showed up the deep differences in the group of countries placed into the neighbourhood policy basket back in 2004, with Ukraine and the EU working on nuclear decommissioning while Egypt struggles to curb female genital mutilation.The European Neighbourhood Policy remains as relevant as ever,Ms Ferrero-waldenr said.

Parliament questions Solana accounts
VALENTINA POP 23.04.2009 @ 17:44 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Parliament on Thursday (23 April) decided to delay until November approval of the Council of the European Union's accounts for 2007, in a bid to gain more financial scrutiny over the bloc's main decision maker.MEPs hope to gain momentum ahead of the June elections and scrap a gentlemen's agreement dating back to 1970, according to which the parliament does not look into the books of the Council, which are checked by the Court of Auditors and national experts.That was 39 years ago, when the EU wasn't even called like that, with six member states, a non-elected parliament and way before security and defence policy. To think that it can be prolonged forever is ridiculous,said Danish MEP Soren Bo Sondergaard, who was the parliament's rapporteur for the 2007 EU accounts. All EU institutions received a green light regarding the way they spent their budget in 2007, except for the Council, an administrative body in charge of organising EU summits, ministerial meetings, ambassadors and expert groups on various topics ranging from fisheries to security and defence.His report was endorsed by a large majority of MEPs on Thursday, with 571 votes in favour, 41 against and 21 abstentions.If the Council continued to ignore the parliament and not submit formal answers to its requests, concerning alleged undisclosed accounts, the legislature could reject the 2007 accounts in November.This would have political consequences for Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy chief and also secretary-general of the Council, as well as for future parliamentary debates on budgetary approvals, Mr Sondergaard told this website.

The MEP aims to win back his seat in the June election and stay on as rapporteur for the topic.The only time the parliament previously rejected the accounts of an EU institution was in 1998, when MEPs refused to sign off the Jacques Santer commission's expenditures, leading to the resignation of the whole body amid serious corruption allegations.In relation to the Council, however, there is a legal difference. The EU treaty says the parliament checks the accounts of the European Commission, but there is no mention of other EU institutions. The Council has nothing to hide and has always favoured transparency in its relation with the parliament on budgetary matters. The Council's budget is managed with the utmost rigour and prudence and is approved by the Court of Auditors and finance ministries of 27 member states," Mr Solana's spokeswoman, Christina Gallach, said.

Council absent from debate

MEPs were outraged at the absence of a Council representative in the plenary debate on Wednesday, which was delayed on purpose to have an EU presidency official present.

The absence was explained by the fact that responsibility for the implementation of the budget is not a matter for the EU presidency, but for the council's general secretariat,Jan Sliva, spokesman for the Czech EU presidency told this website.The Council, for its part, pointed to the disputed gentlemen's agreement, basing on which its stance that it could not formally respond to parliamentary requests related to budgetary issues. Nevertheless, since 2005, the practice of an informal exchange of views" between the Council's deputy secretary general and a delegation of the committee on budgetary control had been accepted and welcomed by the parliament, which was no longer the case this year, a Council press release states.

No black accounts

The Council also rejected fiery allegations made by MEPs on Wednesday who during the full sitting of the house accused Mr Solana of having black accounts and illegally transferring money from interpretation to travel expenses. Austrian independent MEP Hans Peter Martin called the Council lazy and incompetent,claiming that a lot of ministers don't even attend the meetings and leave decision making to low-level officials.MEPs insisted that the Council provide the EU legislature with official information and the possibility of looking into documents and papers. The Council's budget, which amounted to €594 million in 2007, accounts for 0.5 percent of the EU's total budget and eight percent of the bloc's administrative expenditures.According to the Council, more than half the money was used for paying the salaries and benefits of the 3,200 staff working in the Brussels-based headquarters.Organising meetings took up some 21 percent of the budget. Most of the expenses are related to interpreting and national delegates travelling to these working group meetings - mostly attended by minor officials from national ministries. The transfer of some €13 million from interpretation to travel expenses was approved by the Court of Auditors and finance ministers of member states, the Council points out, arguing that it was aimed at saving unspent money.

Transparency initiative welcomed

The parliament's initiative to scrap the gentlemen's agreement was welcomed by Open Europe, a London-based free-market and eurosceptic think-tank.MEPs should be credited for finally trying to end the charade whereby the parliament turns a blind eye to the expenditure of the council, Stephen Booth, an analyst at Open Europe, told EUobserver.

It's about time the parliament took its role as watchdog over the EU's budget seriously. The more steps to bring the EU's opaque budgetary practices from behind closed to doors out into the open, the better,he added.A new agreement between council and parliament could be negotiated after the new legislature takes office following the June elections.

Crisis as a Means to Building a Global Totalitarian State
Olga Chetverikova Global Research April 23, 2009

As the world financial and economic crisis comes into its own, the Western political leaders and elites are seeking to impress on mankind the idea that this upheaval will end up turning the world into something different. Even though the picture of the new world order remains vague and fuzzy, the main idea is quite clear: A single global government, goes the argument, has to be established if we don’t want general chaos to prevail.As early as the late 1990s, David Rockefeller, author of the idea of private power that is due to replace the governments, said that we (the world) were on the threshold of global changes. All we need, he went on, is some large-scale crisis that will make people accept the new world order.Every now and again, Western politicians mention the need for a new world order, a new world financial architecture, or some kind of supranational control, calling it a New Deal for the world. Nicolas Sarkozy was the first to say so, while addressing the UN General Assembly in September 2007 (that is, before the crisis). During the February 2009 meeting in Berlin convened to prepare the G20 summit, this was echoed by Gordon Brown, who said that a worldwide New Deal was needed. We are conscious, he added, that where the world financial flows were concerned, we would not be able to emerge from this situation with the help of purely national authorities alone. We need the authorities and world watchdogs to make the activities of financial institutions operating in the world markets totally open to us. Both Sarkozy and Brown are protégés of the Rothschilds. Statements made by certain representatives of the global elite’ indicate that the current crisis is being used as a mechanism for provoking some deepening social upheavals that would make mankind – plunged as it is already into chaos and frightened by the ghost of an all-out violence – urge of its own free will that a supranational arbitrator with dictatorial powers intervene into the world affairs.

The events are following the same path as the Great Depression in 1929-1933: a financial crisis, an economic recession, social conflicts, establishing totalitarian dictatorships, inciting a war to concentrate power, and capital in the hands of a narrow circle. This time, however, the case in point is the final stage in the global control strategy, where a decisive blow should be dealt to the national state sovereignty institution, followed by a transition to a system of private power of transnational elites. As early as the late 1990s, David Rockefeller, author of the idea of private power that is due to replace the governments, said that we (the world) were on the threshold of global changes. All we need, he went on, is some large-scale crisis that will make people accept the new world order. Jacques Attali, Sarkozy’s adviser and former EBRD chief, claimed that the elites had been incapable of dealing with the currency problems of the 1930s. He was afraid, he said, that a similar mistake would be made again. At first we’ll wage wars, he went on, and let 300 million people perish. After that reforms will follow and a world government. Shouldn’t we better think about a world government already at this stage, he asked?

The same was stated by Henry Kissinger: In the final analysis, the main task is to define and formulate the general concerns of the majority of countries, as well as of all leading states with regard to the economic crisis, considering the collective fear of a terrorist jihad. Next, all of that should be converted to a common action strategy… Thus, America and its potential partners are getting a unique chance for turning the moment of the crisis into a vision of hope.The world is being led to accept the new order idea step by step to avoid provoking events that are likely to make the universal protests against the worsening conditions of human existence take a wrong course and become uncontrolled. The main thing that Stage One managed to achieve was to start a wide-ranging discussion on global government and the inadmissibility of protectionism with an emphasis on the hopelessness of the national-state models for emerging from the crisis. This discussion is proceeding against the background of information pressures that help to build up human anxieties, fear, and uncertainty. Some of those information actions are the following: WTO forecasts to the effect that 1.4 billion people are likely to sink below the poverty line in 2009; a warning by the WTO director general that the biggest world trade slide in postwar history is in the offing; a statement by the IMF’s Dominique Strauss-Kohn (a protégé of Sarkozy’s) that a world economic crash is impending unless a large-scale reform of the financial sector of the world economy is implemented, and a crash that is most likely to bring in its wake not only social unrest but also a war. Against this background, the idea to introduce a common world currency as a cornerstone of the ‘new world order’ was put forward. The real masterminds of this long-standing project are as yet in the shadow. Let us note that some or other representatives of Russia are pushed to the fore. This is reminiscent of the situation before World War I, where the Anglo-French circles that possessed some well-elaborated plans for a new division of the world instructed the Russian Foreign Minister to draw up a general program for the Entente Cordiale. It went down in history as the Sazonov program, even though Russia did not play an independent role in that war and was from the start built into the system of interests of the British financial elite.

On March 19, Henry Kissinger came to Moscow as a member of The Wise Men (James Baker, George Schultz, and others), who had meetings with the Russian leaders before the G20 summit. Dmitry Trenin, director of the Moscow Carnegie Center and participant in the latest US meeting of the Bilderbergers, called that meeting a positive signal. On March 25, Moskovsky Komsomolets published an article The Crisis and the World Problems’, by Gavriil Popov (currently President of the International Union of Economists) that openly voiced what was normally discussed behind closed doors. The article mentioned World Parliament, World Government, World Armed Forces, World Police Force, World Bank, the necessity of placing under international control the nuclear weapons, nuclear power generating capacities, the entire amount of space rocket technology, and the planet’s minerals, the imposition of birth-rate limits, the cleansing of humanity’s gene pool, the fostering of people intolerant to cultural and religious incompatibility, and the like.The countries that will not accept the global prospects,says Popov, must be expelled from the world community.Of course, the Moskovsky Komsomolets article conveys nothing new that would enable one to understand the strategy of the global elite. Another thing is important. The establishment of a totalitarian police order and the elimination of national states is being suggested as an open program of action, and what both the liberals, and the socialists, and the conservatives always viewed as new fascism is being recommended as the only possible salutary path for the whole of mankind. Someone wants the discussing of these projects to become a norm. In this context, some particularly trusted representatives of Russia are pushed to the fore, Russia that will become the main victim of the policy of total plunder should the global government become a reality.

The G20 did not discuss the common world currency issue, since time had not yet come for that. The summit itself was a step forward on the way to chaos, because its decisions, if followed blindly, will only worsen the world socioeconomic situation and, to quote Lyndon LaRouche, will finish off the patient.In the meantime, the crisis is being exacerbated, and analysts are predicting an era of mass-scale unemployment. The most pessimistic predictions come from LEAP/Europe 20201, which regularly publishes them in its bulletins and even set them out in an open letter sent to the leaders of the Twenty before the London summit. As early as February 2006, LEAP was surprisingly precise in describing the prospects for the systemic global crisis as a consequence of the financial illness caused by the US debt. LEAP analysts are viewing the current events in the context of the general crisis that began in the late 1970s and is now in its fourth, final and most grave stage, the so-called elutriation phase, where the collapse of real economy begins. According to LEAP’s Frank Biancheri, it is not simply a recession but the end of the system, in which its main pillar, the US economy, collapsed. We are witnessing the end of an entire epoch before our own eyes.The crisis may lead to some most difficult consequences. LEAP forecasts a rise in unemployment to 15-20% in Europe and as much as 30% in the United States. If the key dollar problem fails to be solved, the world events will take a most dramatic turn. The dollar collapse may take place as early as July 2009, and the potentially decades-long crisis will trigger off a world-wide geopolitical disintegration with social upheavals and civil conflicts, with the division of the world into separate blocs, with the world coming back to Europe’s1914, with military clashes, etc. The most powerful popular unrest will take place in countries with the least developed social security systems and the biggest concentrations of weapons, primarily in Latin America and the United States, where social violence is already now manifest in the activities of armed gangs. Experts note the beginning of US population fleeing to Europe, where the direct threat to life is for the time being not so great. Aside from armed conflicts, LEAP analysts forecast power, food and water shortages in areas dependent on food imports.

LEAP experts describe behavior demonstrated by the Western elites as absolutely inadequate: Our leaders have failed to understand what happened, and show the same amount of incomprehension to this day. We are amid a period of protracted recession, and it was necessary to engage in introducing some long-term measures to cushion the blows, whereas our leaders still hope to avoid a prolonged recession… All of them have been formed around the American pillar and cannot see that the pillar is a shambles…But this is not seen by the mid-level leaders, while the top-level world managers are, on the contrary, informed quite well; it is they who are implementing the controlled chaos and general disintegration policy, including a civil war and the disintegration of the United States planned for the end of 2009, a scenario that is being widely discussed both by American and world media. On the threshold of conflicts planned in various areas of the planets, a system is being established that will give a supranational center relying on a large-scale punitive machine total political, military, legal, and electronic control over the population. That system uses the network management principle that allows embedding into any society parallel structures of authority that report to external decision-making centers and are legalized through the doctrine of prevalence of international law over national law. The shell remains national, while real power becomes transnational. Jacques Attali calls this a global law-based state.The ruling center of the global law-based state is located in the US. While its fundamentals began to emerge in the 1990s, the fight against terrorism after the 9/11 events has lead to radically new phenomena. The passing of the 2001 Patriot Act not only allowed security services to control the American population and suspected foreigners, but also accelerated the passing of state responsibilities into the hands of transnational corporate structures.

Intelligence activities, trade of war, penitentiary system, and information control are passing into private hands. This is done through so-called outsourcing, a relatively new business phenomenon that consists of trusting certain functions to private firms that act as contractors and relying on individuals outside an organization to solve its internal tasks.In 2007, the American government found out that 70% of its secret intelligence budget is spent on private contracts and that Cold-War intelligence bureaucracy is transforming into something new, where contractor’s interests dominate.For American society (Congress included), their activities remain classified, which allows them to gather more and more important functions in their hands.Former CIA employees say that nearly 60% of their staff are on contracts. Those people analyze most of the information, write reports for those who make decisions in state authorities, maintain communications among various security services, help foreign stations, and analyze data interception. As a result, America’s National Security Agency is becoming more and more dependent on private companies that have access to classified information. No wonder, then, that it is lobbying a bill in the Congress that is supposed to guarantee immunity to corporations that have worked with NSA for the last five years.The same is happening to private military companies (PMCs), which have been assuming more and more army and police functions. On a significant scale, it started in the nineties in former Yugoslavia, but contract workers were especially widely used in Afghanistan and other conflict zones. They did the dirtiest actions, as was the case during the war in South Ossetia, where up to 3000 mercenaries were involved. At the moment, PMCs are real armies, each up to 70,000 strong, that operate in over 60 countries, with annual revenues of up to $180 billion (according to Brookings Institution, USA) For example, over 20,000 employees of American PMCs work in Iraq along with the 160,000 American military contingent.

The system of private prisons is also growing rapidly in the US. The prison industry complex, which uses slave labor and sweatshop practices, is flourishing, and its investors are based on Wall Street. The use of convict labor by private corporations has been legalized in 37 states already, and it is used by major corporations such as IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, Texas Instrument, Intel, Pierre Cardin, and others. In 2008, the number of inmates in US private prisons was about 100,000, and it is growing rapidly, along with the total number of inmates in the country (mostly African-Americans and Latin Americans), which is 2.2 million people, or 25% of all convicts in the world.After Bush came to power, privatization of the system for transportation and retention of migrants in concentration camps began. In particular, a branch of the notorious firm Halliburton, Kellog Brown and Root (once headed by Dick Cheney), did just that.The biggest achievements have been made over the last few years in the area of establishing electronic control over people’s identities, carried out under the pretext of counterterrorism. Currently, the FBI is creating the world’s biggest database of biometric indexes (fingerprints, retina scans, face shapes, scar shapes and allocation, speech and gesture patterns, etc.) that now contains 55 million fingerprints. The latest novelties include the introduction of body scanning system in US airports, tracking of literature read by passengers in flight, and so on. A new opportunity to gather detailed information on people’s private lives follow from the NSA Directive N59, passed in summer 2008, Identification and tracking biometry for the purpose of strengthening national security, and the classified Homeland Terrorism Preparedness Law. Evaluating the policy of America’s authorities, ex-Congressman and 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul said that America is gradually turning into a fascist state, We are approaching not a Hitler-type fascism, but one of a softer type, which shows in the loss of civil freedoms, when corporations rule everything and… the government lies in the same bed with big business.May we remind you that Ron Paul is one of the few American politicians speaking for the closing of the Federal Reserve System as a secret unconstitutional organization? With Obama’s coming to power, the police order in America is getting tighter and tighter in two directions – strengthening internal security and militarization of civilian institutions. Tellingly, having condemned the infringements on individual freedoms done by the Bush administration, Obama has put his own staff under total control by making them fill out a 63-question form that touches upon the most intricate details of their private lives. In January, the US President signed bills that enable the continuation of the illegal practice of abducting people, keeping them secretly in prisons, and moving them to countries where tortures are used. He also proposed a bill called National Emergency Help Center Establishment Act, which stipulates the establishment of six such centers in US military bases to provide help to people who are displaced due to an emergency situation or disaster and thus get into military jurisdiction. Analysts connect this bill with possible disturbances and consider it proof that the US administration is preparing for a military conflict which may follow after the provocation that is being planned.

The American system of police control is actively implemented in other countries, primarily in Europe – through the establishment of American law hegemony on its territory by means of closing various agreements. A big part here was played by US–European talks out of the glare of publicity on creation of the common area of control over the population that were held in spring 2008, when the European Parliament adopted resolution that ratified creation of the single transatlantic market abolishing all barriers to trade and investments by 2015. The talks resulted in the classified report prepared by the experts from six participating countries. This report described the project to create the area of cooperation in the spheres of freedom, safety and justice.The report dwells upon the reorganization of the system of justice and internal affairs of the EU member states in such a manner that it would resemble the American system. It concerns not only the ability to transfer personal data and cooperation of police services (which is already being carried out), but also, for example, extradition of EU immigrants to US authorities in accordance with the new mandate that abolished all the guarantees the European procedure of extradition provided. In the US the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is in force, and it allows persecution or imprisonment of any person who is identified as an illegally fighting enemy by the executive authorities and extends to immigrants from any country not at war with the US. They are persecuted like enemies not based on some evidence but because they were labeled so by the governmental agencies. No foreign governments have protested against this law which is of international importance.Soon they will sign the agreement on personal data communication, in accordance with which the American authorities will be able to obtain such personal information as credit card numbers, bank account details, investments, travel routes or communication via Internet, as well as the information concerning race, political and religious beliefs, habits, etc.. It was under the US pressure that the EU countries have introduced biometric passports. The new EU regulation implies the overall switch of EU citizens to electronic passports from the end of June 2009 by 2012. New passports will contain a chip with not only passport info and a photo, but also fingerprints.We are witnessing the creation of the global electronic concentration camp, and crisis, conflicts and wars are used to justify it. As Douglas Reed wrote people tend to tremble in the face of an imaginary danger and are too lazy to see the real one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS FRI APR 24,2009

09:30 AM +9.45
10:00 AM +108.08
10:30 AM +55.19
11:00 AM +96.17
11:30 AM +97.57
12:00 PM +131.42
12:30 PM +122.42
01:00 PM +136.11
01:30 PM +139.22
02:00 PM +116.44
02:30 PM +99.87
03:00 PM +154.75
03:30 PM +148.30
04:00 PM +119.23 8076.29

S&P 500 866.23 +14.31

NASDAQ 1694.29 +42.08

GOLD 914.30 +7.70

OIL 51.46 +1.84

TSE 300 9549.48 +139.98

CDNX 1006.81 +18.87

S&P/TSX/60 578.97 +7.97

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -9.34%
S&P -5.68%
Nasdaq +4.77%
TSX Advances 912,declines 630,unchanged 249,Volume 2,450,478,116.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 402,Declines 312,Unchanged 363,Volume 228,103,117.

Dow +59 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow +9 points at low today.
Dow +139 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $911.40.OIL opens at $50.46 today.
AT LEAST $14 TRILLION ROBBED BY BANKERS AND THE FED AND TREASURY.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow +9 points at low today so far.
Dow +139 points at high today so far.

DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 2,654,declines 873,unchanged 109,New Highs 6,New Lows 49.
Volume 3,241,305,228.
NASDAQ Advances 1,858,declines 721,unchanged 105,New highs 11,New Lows 16.
Volume 1,010,949,387.
TSX Advances 900,declines 393,unchanged 261,Volume 1,189,829,394.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 331,Declines 228,Unchanged 296,Volume 105,819,153.

10 YR Treasury yield rises to 3% for first time since mid-march.
S&P and Dow slightly lower on the week.
S&P and Dow try for 7th straight weekly gain.
Nasdaq goes positive for the week,trying for 7th straight weekly gain.
Copper snaps 4 session losing sreak.
Gold sees first weekly gain in 5 weeks.
Natural gas down for 5th straight session.
Crude at 2 week high on weak Dollar.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow +9 points at low today.
Dow +170 points at high today.
Dow +1.50 today Volume 402,723,198.
Nasdaq +2.55% today Volume 2,147,483,648.
S&P 500 today Volume N/A

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 -7.98%
S&P -4.10%
Nasdaq +7.44%
CANADAS WEEK ENDING STATS
TSX Advances 1,057,Declines 471,Unchanged 269,Volume 2,499,786,118.
TSX Venture Advances 499,Declines 213,Unchanged 343,Volume 232,609,447.

G-20 Riot report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auuC9cPq9m8&feature=related

GORDON BROWN NEW WORLD ORDER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT-sBPp1oL8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyn1Ah5Xpd4&feature=related

IMF Gold sale is a masterstroke from India, China
2009-04-21 10:05:00

MUMBAI: India is working on a more ambitious proposal of selling the entire gold as it is an idle asset with the IMF. India and China want the IMF to sue the money to invest to raise IMF liquidity or spend it to improve incomes of the poorest countries. A large part of the IMF gold may find its way into central banks and private players. Since most of it will be out of reach for retail markets, gold prices may not get hammered.

Get over recession. Trade in global platform

Globally gold prices now are in the $870-$950 per ounce range. India and Turkey, traditionally big buyers of gold, have not bought much lately because of low domestic demand.In India, gold now quotes at Rs 14,500 to 15,000 per 10 gm. Experts expect the price to drift to Rs 13,000 by the end of June. The IMF has built its gold reserves over 40 years. The historical value of the gold, as declared in its balance sheet, is $9.3 billion. If some countries were to approve the sale by the IMF of the gold that the countries hold there, it would be a huge benefit for India, and even more so for China according to a commentary by Guild Investment Management. It further says that this is a stroke of genius for India, and especially for China. In our opinion, this action once again demonstrates that the leadership of India and China are more intelligent and more forward thinking than other major countries, and that they are manipulating the world players to accomplish several of their goals simultaneously.

HERE IS WHAT THE GUILD SUMMARISED ON WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE ON THE SURFACE VERSUS WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING

1) APPEARANCE----It appears to be negative for gold prices.
ACTUALITY----Longer term, it is actually very bullish for gold prices. The actual outcome will be that most of this gold will never hit the market, especially if retail sellers panic and the price of the metal falls in the short term. Some central banks, primarily China's, have plenty of liquid reserves, and are willing buyers of gold, and they will be thrilled to get it so cheaply.

2) APPEARANCE----It appears to be positive for the IMF, in that it helps to accomplish their goal of loaning to the incompetent and bankrupt countries that approach them for loans, after all other sources of financing have turned the countries down.

ACTUALITY----It is true that the cash from the gold sales would solve that problem in the short run, but in the long run, these same countries will likely make the same mistake again. This is largely because their political organizations are focused on helping the political and business oligarchs who run the countries, and ignoring the best interests of the electorate. These countries will probably return to a much less capitalized IMF for more money later.

3) APPEARANCE-----It appears to be a selfless gesture on the part of China and India.
ACTUALITY----Both India and China would be buyers of the IMF's gold were it sold at reasonable prices. I imagine that China will be by far the biggest buyer of the gold, along with Russia and Saudi Arabia. Increasing their gold reserves (in exchange for the dollars in their reserves) would strengthen the value of their currencies. We anticipate that once China owns enough gold, they will partially back their currency with gold, making them the world economic and financial leader, and removing the U.S. from its position of economic power. The effect of these maneuvers will go a long way to setting THE CHINESE YUAN UP TO REPLACE THE U.S. DOLLAR AS THE WORLD RESERVE CURRENCY.

4) APPEARANCE----It helps all countries who would have to make contributions to the IMF to fund the loans that the IMF makes to indigent countries, many of which are never repaid.
ACTUALITY----This is true. However, it helps China and India more because their responsibility for financing the IMF grows as they become powerful financially. It is a method to get the IMF to self finance in the short run and save China and India money.

Why central banks refuse to sell gold?
2009-04-18 21:05:00

DUBAI: Do you know the role of Central Bank Gold Agreement in the global gold prices? The CBGA has a huge role in the prices of the yellow metal. And, this time, if you trust the World Gold Council’s advice, the central banks are not selling as much gold as it used to under the CBGA.So, according to WGC, the central banks have sold only 91 tonnes of gold in the first six months of the fifth and final year of CBGA from the 500 tonnes permitted under the agreement. And the pact will expire in September.

Total sales in the 2007-2008 year were 358 tonnes and sales in 2006-2007 year were 475.8 tonnes. 24-Hour Online Forex Trading. Start with FREE practice account .With France and Sweden currently the only professed sellers, the rate of sales has slowed noticeably and is likely to remain subdued for the remainder of year 5. The CBGA was renewed in 2004 by 15 European central bankers after the pact signed in 1999 expired. The CBGA limits annual gold sales to 500 tonnes and caps total gold sales to 2,500 tonnes over five years in an attempt to moderate the flow of gold to the market. In the first four years of the agreement, 1,727 tonnes of gold were sold. As of the end of 2008, the largest holders of gold in the world were: the United States, Germany, the International Monetary Fund, Italy, France and Switzerland. And the key date to watch for is September 26, 2009. That’s when the current CBGA expires. The first CBGA was signed in 1999, and had a rather ambiguous goal. European central banks agreed to limit and publish their announced gold sales. The reason was that European Central Banks own gold as a reserve asset. The signatories of the first CBGA controlled 43.6% of the world’s official gold reserves, according to the World Gold Council. The second CBGA was then signed in 2004 and limited sales to a maximum of 500 tonnes per year over five years. And with the expansion of the European Union since then, CBGA signatories now control 46.1% of world-government gold reserves. Then you must be asking why cap official central bank gold sales? As much as they prefer their own product – paper money – central banks own gold as a crucial reserve asset in their vaults. But ten years ago, in 1999, the gold price languished at just $252 an ounce. And for the central banks, this meant the value of a major reserve asset was falling.

With the gold market then wary that further central bank gold sales could flood the market with excess supply at a time of lethargic demand, something had to be done to put a floor under the price. So to assure the market that central bank gold sales would not be used to suppress/depress the gold price, the CBGA was signed. Since then, it’s provided transparency to planned central bank sales of gold bullion. What will happen when the current five-year agreement expires on September 26 2009? There’s every chance a new agreement will replace it. You should also consider the scenario if central banks abandon the agreement this year. Global central banks are also large holders of US dollars and US-denominated bonds. Gold is now accessible to retail investors in a way it wasn’t in 1999. Gold ETFs own over 1,000 tonnes of gold. This makes ETFs the sixth-largest holder of above ground gold (behind the US, Germany, the IMF, France, and Italy). Outright gold ownership amongst private investors has also leapt.So it’s expected that central banks will prefer to hold on to their gold this year – rather like the increasing number of private individuals. As competitive currency devaluations sweep the globe in an all-out effort to fight asset deflation and recession, gold will become much more desirable as a reserve asset worth owning, not selling for cash.

U.S. Government: Attacks on Gold Investors By Gary North LewRockwell.com Tuesday, April 21, 2009

If you own gold, you are in a war. You are under assault. You had better figure this out early. There is a full-scale war against you. The politicians and central bankers who are conducting this war against you are determined to see that you lose money on your investment. I have written a detailed report on this: The Gold Wars.You can download it free of charge here: http://www.GaryNorth.com/GoldWars.pdf

The reason why you are under assault is because you have demonstrated by your purchase of gold or a gold-related investment that you do not trust the monetary policies of your nation's central bank. If you are an American, this means you do not trust the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve System. You have taken a step that confirms your lack of trust in the government and its central bank. If you think the government and the central bank will sit quietly, while millions of citizens buy gold as a way to hedge against government and central bank policies, you are terminally naive.

A PERPETUAL WAR

Governments and central banks for almost a century have done whatever they could to keep citizens from using gold as a way to hedge their economic futures against the taxation policies of the government and the inflation policies of central banks. The war escalated a few days after the outbreak of World War I in August of 1914. At that time, central banks authorized commercial banks to cease redeeming paper money for gold at a fixed rate of exchange. For most of the world, that prohibition extended during the war, after the war, during the Great Depression, during World War II, up to today. The United States government forbade American citizens from owning gold, beginning in 1933 and extending to the end of 1974. Today, no government is restrained by a gold standard. No government, no central bank, and no commercial bank is required by law to redeem paper money or bank accounts for gold at a fixed rate of exchange. This has freed governments and central banks from the limit which the traditional gold standard had imposed on them. When they inflated the currency, people who understood what was going on would go to their local bank and exchange paper money or bank account entries for gold or silver coins. They understood that the increased money supply would lead to a rise in prices, and that gold would flow out of the commercial banks and the central bank of the nation in question. They lined up early to get their gold, so they would not be stiffed by the commercial banking system and the central bank, which they knew would be the case if the central bank continued to inflate the currency.

People who own gold coins are skeptics regarding the fiscal and monetary policies of the government. There are people who buy gold as a temporary speculation, the same way that they would buy copper, but I am talking about people who buy gold coins and take delivery. These people are professional skeptics regarding governments and central banks. They are the sworn enemies of governments and central banks. The very fact that they would go to a coin store and purchase bullion gold coins testifies to their lack of trust in governments and central banks. Politicians and central bankers regard such people as enemies of the state. They will do whatever is possible to impose losses on these people, so that others in the society will not perceive that those who are skeptics about government fiscal policies and central bank monetary policies are making money. The worst thing that can happen from the point of view of a government or central bank is the people who are completely skeptical about governments and central banks should get rich as a result of the policies of governments and central banks. The goal of the politicians and central bankers to make certain that the public is anesthetized regarding the disastrous effects of severe monetary inflation on the wealth of individuals. A rising price of gold sends a signal to those members of society who trust the integrity and good judgment of politicians and central bankers. The signal says: Skeptics are making money. You're losing money. Buy gold.

FROM JOHNSON TO OBAMA

The government of the United States has had a problem with gold-buying skeptics ever since the Vietnam War. Late in Johnson's administration, foreign central banks, especially the central bank of France, began cashing in dollars and demanding delivery of gold at $35 an ounce. This led to a gold run on the Treasury, which was in effect a gold run on the Federal Reserve System. This sent a signal to investors that central banks no longer fully trusted the United States government to be able to meet its contractual obligations to governments and foreign central banks. Nixon closed the gold window on August 15, 1971. He broke contract with all foreign nations and central banks. He did exactly what the skeptics had predicted that the government would do: refuse to deliver gold at $35 an ounce. That sent a signal to investors that the Nixon administration was going to require the Federal Reserve System to inflate the currency. This is exactly what the Nixon administration did. So did Carter's. The 1970s were the worst period of price inflation in peacetime American history. By the end of the decade, January 1980, gold rose for one day above $800 an ounce. But the central bank under Paul Volcker had reversed policy in October of 1979. The Federal Reserve began to tighten money. This led to the collapse of gold and silver prices in January 1980, and also to the 1980 recession. That cost Jimmy Carter his presidency.

There is a legitimate way for central banks to fight gold and inflict losses. The way to do this is for central banks to stop increasing the money supply. That is a perfectly legitimate policy. That is what the traditional gold standard required of central banks. When central banks followed policies of monetary inflation, and the price of gold rose as a result, the run on gold would begin. Paul Volcker fought gold investors from 1979 to 1982. The Federal Reserve reduced the increase of the money supply. This was what the traditional gold standard always did. It forced central banks to stop inflating. If they did not stop inflating, there would be a run on the supply of gold by a small minority of investors. They would bring in IOUs to gold and take their gold home. Central bankers do not want to fight gold investors in this way. They want to continue to expand the money supply but not face the consequences in the arena of public opinion. They seek ways to force down the price of gold because the price of gold is an indicator of central bank monetary policy. Central bankers today have a number of anti-gold investor policies.

ANTI-GOLD INVESTOR POLICIES

The most common policy is to lease gold to a specialized group of insiders known as bullion banks. The central banks call this leasing, but it is operationally a form of gold sales. The central bank leases gold at well under 1% per annum to bullion banks. Bullion banks then sell the gold into the private market, take the money, and invest it in government bonds or other investments that pay far more than 1% per year. That gold is gone. To get the gold back, the central banks would have to demand payment in gold by the bullion banks. The bullion banks could not repay this gold without going into the gold market and purchasing it. This would drive up the price of gold. It would bankrupt the bullion banks. So, central banks do not require the bullion banks to repay the gold which the bullion banks borrowed from the central banks. The central banks simply roll the loans over, year after year, and the bullion banks invest the money that they get from selling the gold. These central bank sales are not recorded as sales by the central banks. The public remains oblivious. The central banks maintain the fiction that they still own the gold. They report their holdings of gold as not having changed. But, from an economic standpoint, the gold is gone, and there is no possibility of central banks will ever get it back from the bullion banks.Another way that central banks and governments battle investors in gold is to announce, from time to time, that the central bank is contemplating the sale of gold. This scares some gold investors, who sell their goal. Of course, other investors who know the name of the game buy the gold. By threatening to sell gold, central banks are attempting to push down the price of gold. The latest example of this came at the G20 meeting on April 2. An announcement was made that the International Monetary Fund will make available special drawing rights (SDRs), which will serve as money for central banks. To raise some of this money, the IMF will sell some of its gold. That was the official announcement.

The IMF has been threatening to sell gold for several years. To do this takes a majority vote of the member nations of the IMF. It is clear that the member nations are willing to allow the IMF to do this. Previously, this was not clear. The figure quoted by the press regarding the amount of gold be sold is 400 tonnes. World production of gold each year is in the range of 2500 tonnes. It is unlikely that the IMF will sell all of this gold at the same time. It is likely that these sales will be stretched out over at least a two-year period. So, the sales are likely to increase the supply of available gold by perhaps 8% for two years. In a time when central banks are increasing the monetary base by 100% per annum or more, this increase in the supply of gold available for purchase is not substantial. There is another issue to consider. It is likely that most of this gold will be purchased by other central banks. If this should turn out to be the case, then the actual supply of gold coming into the public domain will not change. Nevertheless, the announcement was made that these sales will take place. This put downward pressure on the price of gold.Why would a central bank or the IMF say in advance that it planned to sell a large portion of its gold holdings? When a large holder of commodities is going to sell the commodity into the open market, he does not announce this in advance. His goal is to maximize the amount of money he gains by the sale of the asset. If he warns the world in advance how much he plans to sell and over which time period, this will depress the price if the sale constitutes a significant quantity. It is economically irrational for a seller of commodity to say in advance how much she plans to sell. I say economically irrational on the assumption that the goal is to make a profit. But if the goal is not to make a profit, but rather to inflict economic harm on people who hold a particular commodity as an investment, the announcement makes eminently good sense. The fact that the IMF sale was announced by the IMF for years preceding the G20 meeting, and the fact that it was announced at the G20 meeting, indicate the degree of the hostility of the IMF and the central bankers to people who invest in gold. They were willing to take a loss in terms of the amount of money they could have obtained for the gold by quiet, unannounced sales. They are willing to take this loss because they believe that it is more important to create uncertainty in the gold market than it is to maximize the amount of fiat money gained by the sale of gold. So committed are these people to inflicting financial losses on gold investors that they are willing to suffer hundreds of millions of dollars of losses. After all, it's not their money.

The classic example of this was Gordon Brown's decision in the late 1990s to sell half of the gold reserves held by the Bank of England in trust for Great Britain. In terms of today's price of gold, his decision cost the government something in the range of $10 billion. He drove down the price of gold to a little under $260 an ounce in 2001. He inflicted damage on a tiny minority of investors in gold, and he inflicted enormous damage on economic reserves of his country. He did this as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Today, he is the Prime Minister. He is now pressuring the Bank of England to inflate at unprecedented rates in order to save the banking system. Any suggestion that Gordon Brown understands economics is laughable. Any suggestion that Gordon Brown is envious against investors in gold seems to be substantiated by his public career. He is representative of virtually every national politician and every central banker. He hates the fact that investors in gold can drive up the price of gold, thereby embarrassing the government and the central bank.

The rising price of gold warns the general public that the government's tax policies and the central bank's monetary policies cannot be trusted. Worse, a rising price of gold transmits the availability of a profit opportunity: get rid of fiat money and purchase gold. Politicians and central bankers are frantic today to keep the general public from being aware of the enormous increase this taken place in the monetary base of every Western industrial nation. They do not want the public to perceive that the central banks are in panic mode because of the disaster has taken place in commercial bank balance sheets. Large commercial banks around the Western world are bordering on bankruptcy. Central banks and governments are intervening frantically to keep the banks' doors open, in order to keep the public confused about the implications of the worldwide economic recession that has come as a result of worldwide monetary expansion by central banks from the year 2000 until 2004.

PRICES CONVEY INFORMATION

Prices convey information about economic conditions. The price of gold conveys information about the likelihood of future price inflation. This information governments and central banks want to distort. They do this by manipulating the price of gold through leases that are actually sales and sales that are announced in advance. When an individual invests in gold, he is making a statement. He is saying that he does not trust the powers that be. The powers that be deeply resent this. So, an individual who actively takes steps to increase the price of gold, which he does by buying it, should be aware in advance that he and people like him will be the targets of deception, envy, and ridicule. Buying gold is not the same as buying other commodities. Other commodities are not perceived as touchstones of central bank monetary policy. The price of gold is, even though most of the gold in private hands winds up as jewelry to be used in dowries in India. Far more than central banks, Indian fathers set the price of gold. At the margin, however, central banks do affect the price of gold.With the rising productivity of India, the gold market has received a long-term increase in demand. This can be offset by the worldwide recession, which is now in progress. When Indian fathers decide that times are getting better, they will start buying gold again. Today's policies of monetary expansion, which lower real wages and therefore get people back to work, will begin to affect the worldwide labor markets. This will increase the demand of gold in India. It is unlikely that a tradition governing marriage that has prevailed for thousands of years is likely to change just because a relatively small fraction of the Indian population has moved into modern urban capitalism. On the contrary, there is likely to be increased demand for gold, because fathers will be enabled to purchase more gold for their daughters than before because they are making more money than ever before. This is why the attempt of governments and central banks to lower the price of gold will backfire. Eventually, governments will run out of gold to sell, and so will the IMF. They will run out of gold to lease. While I do not think the politicians will ever catch on to the fact that their nations' gold is gone, leaving only IOUs for gold written by bullion banks that are on the verge of bankruptcy anyway, I do think that at some point the central banks will stop leasing gold. They will stop leasing it because they will not have enough to lease to substantially affect the price of gold.

I do not think the central banks will ever demand repayment of their gold by the bullion banks. The bullion banks would simply declare bankruptcy, and be done with it. That would publicly expose the central bankers as economic idiots, which happens to be the case, and the idiots don't want the bad publicity. So, the gold is gone, and the public will not find out that the gold is gone. The gold is nevertheless gone. Gone in the sense of outside of control by central banks. It is inside the dowries of women in India and a small handful of goldbug investors. At some point, the number of investors who figure out that they had better buy gold is going to go from less than 1% of the public to 5%. When that happens, the supply of gold will not increase, and the price of gold will skyrocket. If as many as 10% of the investing public tries to put 10% of their assets in gold, I suspect the price of gold would go to $10,000 an ounce. The gold market is so marginal in the overall commodities market that the attempted 10% of investors to increase their holdings of gold to 10% of their assets would make today's holders of gold very rich and very happy. I think at some point this is going to happen, but I think it is going to happen in a time of price inflation so bad that the purchasing power of the currencies will decline so fast and so far that the fact that you can get rich in fiat money by selling your gold will not persuade you to sell your gold.

CONCLUSION

Who is going to win the gold wars? Holders of gold. The big winners will be Indian wives whose fathers gave them a lot of gold as a dowry. The rest of us gold bugs will also do well. The general public will never catch on in time, and by the time that it occurs to even 10% or 20% of investors that they better by gold, it will cost them so much to get into the market that they will not make the kinds of profits that today's gold investors are going to make. Governments and central banks can continue to fight the gold war by means of gold leasing, outright gold sales, and threats of gold sales, but for as long as they inflate the money supply to obfuscate the price of economic depression, they will be running out of ammunition. They are in a war in which ordinance is in fixed supply. They cannot go into the gold market and replenish the supply of gold without driving up price of gold. Central banks are expanding the money supply, which is providing ammunition for those of us who want to fight the gold war by buying more gold. In contrast, central banks are not expanding their holdings of gold, but rather depleting them, and so they will not be able to fight this fight indefinitely. They may be able to fight it for as long as the threat of recession hangs over the world economy. But when the recession ends, or appears to end, as a result of the massive monetary inflation and massive deficits that the governments of the world are running, there will be a new market for gold that is unprecedented in its intensity. This does not mean that everybody is going to buy gold. It probably does not mean that even 20% of investors will buy gold. All it will take is about 10% of investors decide to put 10% of their holdings in gold. Governments and central banks are going to lose the war on gold because they refuse to fight gold by the one technique that can give them victory: stop printing money.
SOURCE: http://www.garynorth.com/public/4857.cfm

India wants IMF to sell its gold fast
2009-04-16 13:20:00

MUMBAI: Why India wants International Monetary Fund (IMF) to sell its 400 tonne gold soon? Not only India, China also wants IMF to sell its gold fast. IMF has around 400 tonne gold which the global body is permitted to sell in the global markets. At the G20 meeting also the IMF had been allowed to go ahead with its plan to sell the gold to fund its projects for the poor nations.The IMF holds 103.4 million ounces (3,217 tonnes) of gold that, if sold, can fetch about $100 billion.

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The G20 heads of state meeting in London earlier this month agreed to sell a part of the IMF gold to raise $6 billion for poor countries during 2009-11. This was a component of a $1.1 trillion package worked out by G20. The World Bank has estimated that over 90 million people may be pushed into poverty in the global economic turmoil.In fact India is working on a more ambitious proposal of selling the entire gold as it is an idle asset with the IMF.India and China want the IMF to sue the money to invest to raise IMF liquidity or spend it to improve incomes of the poorest countries.A large part of the IMF gold may find its way into central banks and private players. Since most of it will be out of reach for retail markets, gold prices may not get hammered. Globally gold prices now are in the $870-$950 per ounce range. India and Turkey, traditionally big buyers of gold, have not bought much lately because of low domestic demand. In India, gold now quotes at Rs 14,500 to 15,000 per 10 gm. Experts expect the price to drift to Rs 13,000 by the end of June.

The IMF has built its gold reserves over 40 years. The historical value of the gold, as declared in its balance sheet, is $9.3 billion. The continuous up move in the stock markets across the globe is putting pressure on Gold prices as it continues to lose its safe haven appeal.After witnessing a steep fall, gold prices are currently trading in a sideways manner before making fresh move.

India Has Not Asked IMF to Sell Gold Reserves Article By PRASANTA SAHU

NEW DELHI -- India hasn't asked the International Monetary Fund to sell its gold reserves to raise money for funding poor nations, a senior finance ministry official said Thursday.The Financial Chronicle newspaper earlier reported India and China want the international aid agency to sell off its entire gold reserves worth about $100 billion.Nothing of that sort I know of, the official, with direct knowledge of India's dealings with multilateral agencies, said on the report. I don't think it is being considered,the official told Dow Jones Newswires.A recent meeting of the Group of 20 nations had decided IMF will sell a small portion of its gold stock to fund its administrative expenses and also finance economically weaker countries, the official, who asked not to be named, said.Write to Dow Jones Newswires editors at asknewswires@dowjones.com

Parliament approves reform of credit-rating sector
ANDREW WILLIS 23.04.2009 @ 17:34 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Credit-rating agencies operating in the European Union are to be subject to greater oversight in the future under radical new rules agreed by MEPs in Strasbourg on Thursday (23 April).Under the new legislation, which was steered through the European parliament by French centre-right MEP Jean-Paul Gauzes and backed by a large majority of parliamentarians, credit-rating agencies will soon face mandatory registration and greater supervision. Debating the document a day earlier with other MEPs, Mr Gauzes said the compromise text agreed with member states was exemplary legislation that could be the basis for an international agreement.Internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy reacted to the vote by saying: We expect the conduct of the credit rating agencies to be significantly improved as a result of this regulation, with clear benefits to the integrity and stability of the financial markets.Credit-rating agencies have been soundly criticised since the financial crisis escalated last year for failing to warn investors about the risky nature of sub-prime mortgage securities and other financial products. European investors, in part lured in by top credit ratings, bought heavily into the complicated products, only to see their value plummet as the inability of US homeowners to meet mortgage repayments became apparent.However, the power wielded by credit rating agencies in influencing financial markets can also dramatically affect national governments.

Rating downgrades handed out to Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland in recent months as a result of their deteriorating public finances have led to higher borrowing costs on international money markets for the four EU member states.

New measures

As a result of this influence, the new rules agreed by parliament aim to increase the transparency, independence and good governance of agencies in a bid to improve the quality of their ratings and restore consumer trust. Credit rating agencies will now be forced to register with the Committee of European Securities and Regulators (CESR) and undergo greater oversight by national supervisors.The plans also contain a rotation mechanism for senior officials who approve credit ratings, in a bid to promote greater independence and prevent the build-up of excessively cosy relationships with the financial sector. In addition, ratings produced by agencies outside the EU will need to be endorsed by a new EU agency to be set up under the law and the publication of the methodologies used by the agencies will be made obligatory.Finance ministers are set to formally adopt the bill at a meeting in Brussels next month.Standard and Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings –the main players in the sector - will all be affected by the new rules that come into effect in 2010, as will other agencies operating within the EU.In a statement released after the decision, S&P said: We are examining the detail of the regulation and looks forward to discussing its practical implementation with securities regulators.

De Larosiere report

In other debates on financial regulation on Thursday, Jacques de Larosiere discussed the details of the report named after him with members of the European parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee. The report – requested by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso last year and published in February – calls for the powers of the EU's supervisory committees on banking, insurance and securities to be beefed up. The former governor of the Bank of France told committee members that if the three committees were not given the power to make binding decisions, We will have done nothing at all.

Martial Law Lockdown Exercise in Seward, Alaska?
Kurt Nimmo Infowars April 23, 2009
http://www.infowars.com/martial-law-lockdown-exercise-in-seward-alaska/

A caller into the Alex Jones Show today provided details about a possible Department of Homeland Security drill at the end of this month in Seward, Alaska, the seventh most lucrative fisheries port in the United States.Barbara, from Seward, Alaska, calls into the Alex Jones Show.The caller, identifying herself as Barbara, said she had an encounter with a man from the Transportation Security Administration, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. The man had black and white photographs of buildings in Seward and made unusual comments about terrorism. He also seemed confident he would see Barbara again. Alex has received several emails from residents of Seward recently claiming the town will be locked down and a Homeland Security exercise conducted there.Barbara and other residents of Seward believe the Department of Homeland Security is preparing a drill or exercise of some sort, based on the following events:

1) In November of 2008, parents of students at the Seward High School were informed of an Every 15 Minutes event to be held at the school on April 27 and 28. The Every 15 Minutes Program is billed as emotionally charged event designed to dramatically instill teenagers with the potentially dangerous consequences of drinking alcohol, according to the program’s website. The Grim Reaper event held on school grounds is quite macabre, as literature on the site reveals:One student is removed from class every 15 minutes. A police officer will immediately enter the classroom to read an obituary which has been written by the dead student’s parent(s) — explaining the circumstances of their classmate’s demise and the contributions the student has made to the school and the community. A few minutes later, the student will return to class as the living dead,complete with white face make-up, a coroner’s tag, and a black Every 15 Minutes T-shirt.The man from Washington D.C. gave Barbara this business card.This death education event includes a simulated auto accident, a mock funeral service, and an actual trip to the morgue, the hospital emergency room, and to the police department jail for the purpose of being booked for drunk driving, according to the website. (For more on this ghoulish event, see the Every 15 Minutes manual.)Barbara indicated the high school will be locked down during the event, although this is not stated in the document sent to parents (it does state that students participating in a retreat associated with the event will have meals provided and be chaperoned by law enforcement personnel and responsible members of the community).2) Access in and out of Seward will be blocked the weekend of the 25th. Road traffic between Anchorage and Seward will be blocked all weekend while the state installs temporary replacements for two older bridges on the Seward Highway, the Anchorage Daily News reports.The Alaska Department of Transportation said that recent inspections showed the Falls Creek and nearby Ptarmigan Creek bridges need to be replaced.

Seward, Alaska — there is only one road leading in and out of the port town.Barbara told Alex Jones the road in question is the only one in and out of Seward. 3) In May, 2007, the final leg of Alaska Shield/Northern Edge 07 culminated in Seward. Northern Edge 2007 was a Joint Chiefs of Staff directed, Northern Command sponsored homeland defense and Defense Support of Civil Authorities exercise, according to GlobalSecurity.Hundreds of first responders, with uniforms ranging from the reflective jackets of local firefighters to military biohazard suits, were on hand at the Alaska Railroad dock to practice an integrated response to a simulated terrorist threat on a marine vessel,Capt. Amy Hansen of the Joint Task Force-Alaska Public Affairs office wrote at the time.The Seward Police Department, the FBI, and Coast Guard participated in this massive interagency effort in response to suspicious people boarding a marine vessel docked at Seward’s port.As Infowars reported earlier this week, the Northern Command, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA have graduated from exercises focused on incident response and recovery to events concentrated exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection.FEMA’s National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09), to be held on July 27 through July 31, 2009,will focus on intelligence and information sharing among intelligence and law enforcement communities, and between international, federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector participants in the aftermath of a notional terrorist event outside of the United States. So-called exercise play” will concentrate on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the United States and carry out additional attacks.

Because Seward, Alaska, is located on Resurrection Bay with access to the Pacific Ocean, it would serve as an ideal candidate for Homeland Security exercise play concentrating on preventing subsequent efforts by … terrorists to enter the United States and carry out … attacks.It is also an ideal candidate for such an operation because there is but one highway leading in and out of the town. As we noted earlier this week, the threat of al-Qaeda or Muslim terrorism in the United States is a remote possibility at best. In recent weeks, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have raised the specter of domestic terrorism carried out by rightwing extremists and this effort to stigmatize and demonize the patriot movement has been vociferously criticized and has led to a lawsuit against DHS secretary Janet Napolitano and her agency.The presence of an employee of Homeland Security, apparently engaged in less than covert surveillance of Seward, adds credence to the assertion made by Barbara and other residents in contact with Alex Jones that a DHS exercise may indeed be in store for the port town.

IRANS ROLE PARTS 1-4
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis58.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis59.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis152.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis153.htm

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF IRAN? PART 4,Please note our three interviews with Dr Cuddy By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D. April 20, 2009 NewsWithViews.com

[NOTE: Who said the following? This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture…. The basic attitude from which such activity arises, we call – to distinguish it from egoism and selfishness-idealism. By this we understand only the individual’s capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men. Doesn’t this sound like the Communitarian philosophy of today? Actually, it was Hitler who wrote the quoted words inMein Kampf (July 18, 1925). Further relevant to what is occurring today, Leonard Peikoff in Ominous Parallels (1982) wrote: “Contrary to the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation’s economy.

The issue of legal ownership, they explained, is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property – so long as the state reserves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property…. But the Nazis defended their policies, and the country did not rebel; it accepted the Nazi argument. Selfish individuals may be unhappy, the Nazis said, but what we have established in Germany is the ideal system, socialism. In its Nazi usage this term is not restricted to a theory of economics; it is to be understood in a fundamental sense. Socialism for the Nazis denotes the principle of collectivism as such and its corollary, statism – in every field of human action, including but not limited to economics. To be a socialist,says Goebbels,is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.]

The British Power Elite (PE) members didn’t like any strong national leaders. These included Egypt’s Gamal Abdal Nasser (who nationalized the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956) and Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh, who nationalized that country’s oil industry at the expense of the British. In Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ben Bagdikian’s The Media Monopoly, one reads about when Kermit Roosevelt, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, wrote a book calledCountercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran. It was the author’s inside version of how intelligence agencies overthrew a left-leaning Iranian premier, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953 and reinstated the Shah. The issue was control of oil. The plot was called Ajax, of which Roosevelt wrote: The original proposal for Ajax came from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) after its expulsion from Iran nine months earlier.The book was published by McGraw-Hill in early 1979. Books were on sale in bookstores and reviewer copies were already in the mail when British Petroleum, successor corporation to AIOC, persuaded McGraw-Hill to recall all the books – from the stores and from reviewers.As I indicated in Part 3 of this series, the British PE Milner Group didn’t want a strong Israel. Thus, during the Carter administration, according to Morton Klein, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (member of Yale University’s secret society Scroll & Key) once revealed that if Carter had won a second term, he intended to sell Israel down the river.Today, the PE uses the terrorist acts of radical Muslims against Israel as a means of pressuring Israelis to make compromises that will lead to an eventual acceptance of a World Socialist Government. I’ve quoted in the past Lincoln Bloomfield’s Study Memorandum No. 7 for Rhodes scholar Secretary of State Dean Rusk in 1962: If the communist dynamic was greatly abated, the West might lose whatever incentive it has for world government. So just substitute the words radical Muslim for communist and Israel for the West,and you will understand the PE’s mechanism at work today.

But it’s not as though no Israeli could anticipate the future, because Look magazine (January 16, 1962) published Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s prediction of what the world would look like in 25 years: The Cold War will be a thing of the past… a gradual democratization of the Soviet Union…. On the other hand, the United States [will be transformed] into a welfare state with a planned economy. Western and Eastern Europe will become a federation of autonomous states having a Socialist and democratic regime. With the exception of the USSR as a federated Eurasian state, all other continents will become united in a world alliance, at whose disposal will be an international police force…. A pill to prevent pregnancy will slow down the explosive natural increase in China and India….Concerning U.S. support for radical Muslims like Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan, on July 3, 1979 President Carter signed a directive approving covert aid to anti-Soviet fighters in Kabul. And Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (ZB) told The Guardianreporters David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor (House of Saud Looks Close to Collapse, November 21, 2001), that the Russians had been drawn into what he saw as his cleverly baited trap. The day the Soviet forces crossed the border [into Afghanistan] he wrote to Carter, saying: We now have the opportunity to give the USSR their Vietnam War.Often unreported about this chapter in U.S. history is the role of China, but Mike Evans in his new book, Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos, points out that in January 1980, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown was able to secure permission for U.S. supply planes to traverse Chinese air space on flights to arm the Afghan Mujahadeen. Soon thereafter, and despite China’s history of ignoring human rights issues, Congress conferred upon the Chinese government the status of most-favored-nation. The U.S. agreed to sell specific technological materials that had both military and civilian uses.When asked later about the wisdom of supporting radical Muslims, ZB reportedly said: What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War? (See Blowback: The Cost and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson.)

Some agitated Moslems?! According to Clare Lopez of The Centre for Counter Intelligence and Security Studies, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS, also known as VEVAK, Vezarat-e Ettela’at va Amniat-e Keshvar) was involved in the 1996 attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia (19 Americans killed), the 1998 East African Embassy bombings, and the October 2000 attack (by Al Qaeda) on the USS Cole. VEVAK was also involved in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, about which the U.S. had foreknowledge! According to CIA agent Robert Baer in See No Evil (2002), he saw an intelligence report from March 1982 – a full 13 months before the Embassy bombing – stating that Iran was in touch with a network capable of destroying the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. A subsequent report even specified a date the operation should be carried out. The source was firsthand and its validity rock solid.Ask yourself why the U.S. would allow its Embassy to be bombed when it had foreknowledge of the attack.2009 Dennis Cuddy.

Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education.Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited twenty books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.