VATICAN-ISRAEL TALKS

THE SODOMITE RAINBOW GROUP IS ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING RIGHT.THEY GOT A MOVIE COMING OUT THAT WILL EXPOSE HIPPOCRITES THAT CLAIM THEIR FOR A MAN AND WOMAN BUT ARE SECRETLY SODOMITES OF THE RAINBOW GROUP.THESE HIPPOCRITES ARE WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PEOPLE OF COURSE.GET READY TO SEE THE HIPPOCRITES FALL IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE.GOD WILL REVEAL THESE FRUITS OF HIPPOCRITES.

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.

Forest fire forces residents from their homes in B.C. interior town
MAY 1,09

70 MILE HOUSE, B.C. — Fire fighters are battling a forest fire near 70 Mile House, in the B.C. Interior.About 60 homes have been evacuated and Highway 97 has been closed because of the blaze just west of the community.RCMP are helping Provincial Emergency Program workers to evacuate the homes.Christa Viera, who runs a local store, says it's a chaotic time.Viera says a lot of residents are panicked because the fire is in a subdivision and people don't know whose homes might be affected or what's happening.
At least three structures have been destroyed but there have been no injuries.2009 The Canadian Press.

DISEASES

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

ALEX JONES PHONES WHITEHOUSE-LEAVES MESSAGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHNQbzaKIxo&feature=player_embedded

ALEX JONES HR SPECIAL ON HOAX PROBABLY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tS2iHRib1A&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcwXG0MQLUo&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mawWBiip0D8&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-DmsaPhfSs&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oChLMOJe1x0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9r9TCCAblU&feature=player_embedded

RON PAUL ON SWINE FLU SCARE - OVERDONE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u81Amqt_UpQ&feature=player_embedded

TOTAL SWINE FLU CASES WORLDWIDE SO FAR CONFIRMED.898 IN 18 COUNTRIES-20 DEAD.

Australia 1
Canada 85
China-Hongkong 1
Costa rica 1
Denmark 1
France 2
Germany 8
Ireland 1
Israel 3
Italy 1
Mexico 506-19 D
Netherlands 1
New Zealand 4
R O Korea 1
Spain 40
Switzerland 1
Uk 15
Usa 226 in 30 states-1 D

NORTH AMERICAN UNION-CANADA,USA,MEXICO FLU SCARE PUTS THE 3 UNDER CONTROL OF THE UNITED NATIONS GUIDELINES AND RULES.IF A PANDEMIC OUTBREAK, JUST WHATS HAPPENING NOW.NOTICE I DEFINATLY SMELL A SETUP TO BRING ABOUT THE REGIONAL NORTH AMERICAN UNION AS MEXICO LEADS THE WORLD WITH 506 CASES,USA 226 CASES,CANADA 85 CASES. THE 3 COUNTRIES WILL BRING FOREIGN TROOPS IN EACH COUNTRY (NORTHCOM,NATO LEAD) IF MARTIAL LAW IS IMPOSED IN A TRUE PANDEMIC.THIS WAS TRUELY A TRIAL RUN FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER I CAN SMELL A SKUNK IN OUR MIDST SMELLING FROM HELL.

Combatting Avian Flu in North America: The North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza Fact Sheet Under Secretary for Demcracy and Global Affairs
Washington, DC August 17, 2007SPP OFFICIAL DOCUMENT

Canada, Mexico and the United States face a growing threat posed by the spread of avian influenza and the potential emergence of a human influenza pandemic…While the virus has not yet reached North America, the three countries must be prepared for the day when it—or some other highly contagious virus—does.– North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza

The North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza was announced by the Presidents of the United States and Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada on August 21, 2007 in Montebello, Canada, at the North American Leaders Summit. The Plan was developed as part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The SPP is a trilateral effort launched in March 2005 to increase security and enhance prosperity in Canada, Mexico and the United States through greater cooperation and information sharing. The three nations are working together through the SPP to prepare for a threat that could disrupt our economies and cause widespread illness and death if it reaches our shores: highly pathogenic avian influenza—or bird flu—and the potential emergence of a human influenza pandemic.

Background
The highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, which re-emerged in Asia in late 2003, has infected birds in more than 55 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and has resulted in the deaths, through illness and culling, of over 250 million birds across Asia. The virus is now endemic in parts of Southeast Asia, is present in long-range migratory birds, and is unlikely to be eradicated in the short term. Although it has not yet become easily transmissible among humans, the disease has sickened over 300 people and resulted in more than 190 deaths.Although the timing cannot be predicted, history and science suggest the world will face at least one influenza pandemic this century. A worldwide outbreak of a new influenza virus could result in a high death toll, millions of hospitalizations, and hundreds of billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs to North American economies.

The North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza
The North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza outlines a collaborative North American approach that recognizes that mitigating the effects of a pandemic requires coordinated action by all three countries. It outlines how Canada, Mexico and the United States will work together to prepare for and manage outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza and pandemic influenza.At the March 2006 SPP summit in Cancun, Mexico, the leaders of the three countries committed to developing a comprehensive, coordinated, science-based approach to prepare for and manage avian and pandemic influenza. This common approach would be based on the four pillars of emergency management: prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Canada, Mexico and the United States also established a senior-level Coordinating Body on Avian and Pandemic Influenza to facilitate effective planning and preparedness within North America for a possible outbreak.

Key Objectives of the North American Plan
The North American Plan provides a framework to accomplish the following:

Detect, contain and control an avian influenza outbreak and prevent transmission to humans; Prevent or slow the entry of a new strain of human influenza into North America; Minimize illness and deaths; and Sustain infrastructure and mitigate the impact to the economy and the functioning of society The Plan establishes a framework for action on priority areas including: trilateral emergency coordination and communication; joint exercises and training; response to outbreaks in animals; surveillance among animals and in humans; laboratory practices; research; personnel exchange; screening for air, sea and land travel; and maintaining continuity for critical infrastructure and key services.Central to the Plan is a North American approach that undertakes measures to maintain the flow of people, services, and cargo across the borders during a severe pandemic while striving to protect our citizens.

The Plan also complements existing national emergency management plans, and builds upon the core principles of the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, the standards and guidelines of the World Organization for Animal Health, the World Health Organization (including the revised International Health Regulations), and the rules and provisions of both the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement. It represents a significant contribution to the concerted efforts of national and multilateral partners worldwide to combat a growing challenge to animal and human health.The North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza may be found at www.state.gov/g/avianflu

Swine Flu A Hoax, But Martial Law All Too Real
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Monday, May 4, 20099

The H1N1 virus itself has claimed less lives than a normal flu outbreak would be expected to kill, but the architecture of martial law in the form of draconian measures readied to combat a pandemic has been firmly locked into place.Health authorities are now toning down their apocalyptic predictions of a swine flu pandemic, after the virus proved to be milder than originally feared, but officials are warning that a deadlier form of the illness could return in autumn or winter.The gargantuan fearmongering engaged in by western governments, despite the virus killing just one 23-month-old toddler in the U.S., has set the standard for what we can expect to see when the next outbreak occurs, which officials are already proclaiming will be later this year.With pandemics you get two phases. A first that is often very mild and then a much more serious one in the autumn and winter, said UK Health Secretary Alan Johnson, So we have to not just deal with this outbreak now, but prepare, perhaps, for a second phase.We know now what that preparation will entail - the creation of a vaccine to combat swine flu which, if recent history is to go by, will be more dangerous than the virus itself. Naturally, the vaccine will be voluntary to begin with but once another pandemic is unleashed and the fearmongering kicks into warp drive once again, calls for mandatory vaccination will reach a crescendo, and the media are already preparing American to accept that premise.

In addition, the Department of Homeland Security has established an outline of how BATF, FBI, and U.S. Marshals will be called upon to impose mandatory quarantines in the event of a widespread swine flu outbreak in the U.S. Under executive order 13375, if citizens attempt to free themselves from involuntary isolation they will be subject to a $250,000 fine and one year in jail.Saturation media coverage of the H1N1 scare has acclimatized people to seeing images of armed soldiers on the streets giving orders and working with the police. Endless images of troops handing out face masks to citizens in Mexico City has entrenched the notion in the minds of the population that troops are there to help in times of crisis.We also learn that, Regional governments can invoke draconian powers if the swine flu virus reaches a worst-case scenario, from monitoring people in their own homes to seizing control of entire economies,according to an AFP report.The Australian government’s plan allows for extraordinary measures including the power to manage the supply of goods and services, giving it effective control over the economy,states the article.The swine flu virus has proven less deadly than the common cold in Britain and the U.S., yet the media is still awash with stories about school closures, cancelled events and every little detail about each individual case. Why is this still even in the news? Would it normally be a major national news story if you got the sniffles? The swine flu hoax has been a perfect beta-test for how the media will hype doomsday scenarios when the next pandemic occurs.Governments could not have established such draconian response plans without the aid of media scaremongering, and now that these measures have been set in stone, we can only wait for them to be fully enacted the next time a deadlier outbreak occurs, as officials are so enthusiastic to promise.

Tea Parties Were Pro-American Monday, May 4, 2009 9:47 AM
By: James H. Walsh NEWSMAX

U.S. citizens are slow to anger and even slower to demonstrate, but when they do, it is the stuff of history. In the last two months, culminating on Tax Day, April 15, 2009, an estimated 600 to 800 grass-roots tea party protests were held throughout the country with total attendance in the tens of thousands. The protest rallies, held from New Hampshire to Hawaii, were modeled on the 1775 Boston Tea Party, at which colonists dressed as Indians and dumped a shipment of tea into the harbor to protest tea taxes levied by the British Crown. The 2009 tea parties also protested taxes.

TEA was defined on hand-lettered signs as Taxed Enough Already or Taxed Enough America — the various wordings indicative of a grass-roots movement. The TEA protesters are common folk angered by a wasteful Congress and a president with illusions of global grandeur at taxpayer expense. The tea parties are not attacks on President Barack Obama per se, but on his less-than-transparent economic policies.

Harsh news media coverage of the TEA protesters contrasted with the sympathetic coverage given to illegal immigrants, who rallied and marched on May Day. The TEA protesters were not only pilloried by the mainstream news media but also by offensive leftist bloggers.The Tea Party held at Mixon Groves in East Bradenton, Fla., on Tax Day, lasted from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., with an estimated 500 people. Local news accounts reported 300 people at another Bradenton location and 200 at another. In downtown Bradenton, a spontaneous group of young office workers, approximately 75 people, lined the main street and waved computer-generated tax protest signs that received support from passing cars. These office-worker demonstrators included white-collar blacks, whites, and Hispanics.Among the signs at the rally were: Congress, Next Time, Read the Bill,Don’t Punish Productivity,and I’ll Keep the Constitution, You Keep the Change.Others read, No Taxation for Redistribution and Spending a Trillion in 90 Days Is Not My Cup of Tea.One man at the rally had the courage to wear a Ron Paul T-shirt, despite reports that those supporting third-party candidates are now subject to surveillance by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) led by Secretary Janet Napolitano. Some signs dared show an American Revolutionary War battle flag with its motto, Don’t Tread on Me, the mere display of which is now considered evidence of right-wing extremism by DHS. The leftist news media ultimately failed in its attempts to portray the TEA protests as Republican-sponsored rallies rather than grass-roots gatherings. The Chicago tea party, intent on remaining nonpartisan, turned down the offer of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to speak, and most tea parties chose not to have elected officials as speakers. One exception was the tea party in Santa Fe, N.M. — a city and state that went heavily for Obama. The Santa Fe rally had Democratic and Republican speakers.

The Democrat, a supporter of tax bailouts and stimulus spending, was politely booed for saying he looked forward to termination of the Bush tax cuts, which he blamed for the current fiscal meltdown. One Obama supporter on MSNBC, misreading the TEA protesters, had this to say: There is nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at speech [when] they’re not certain [of] what he‘s saying. She was attempting to articulate that taxpayers are not intelligent enough to critique the president’s policies.The tea parties, she concluded, were all about hating a black man in the White House,and attendees were nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks (apparently tea-bagging has a derogatory meaning in gay jargon, and rednecks began as a derogatory term in the South). Another MSNBC talking head caustically commented that protesters, who allowed their children to hold signs critical of Congress and the stimulus package, were guilty of child abuse. When radical demonstrators allow their children to hold signs, wave foreign flags, throw objects, and scream curse words — that is free speech. CNN reporter Susan Roesgen asked a man peacefully holding his baby why he was there. When he attempted to answer, Roesgen lost her cool and verbally attacked him, screaming, Didn’t you get your tax refund? Refusing to let him finish, she turned to the camera and reported that the protesters were anti-government and, even worse, anti-CNN. In the aftermath of the Tax Day tea parties, cooler heads at many local newspapers and television stations from Frankfort, Ky., to Seattle, Wash., to Scranton, Pa., agreed that the TEA protesters were a cross-section of people of all ages, races, education, income, social status, and political orientation, who were expressing their concern for their futures and their children’s futures.

As Jeff Johnson of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune wrote on April 26, 2009:I saw thousands of average, hard-working Minnesota taxpayers (many with family in tow) respectfully voicing . . . deep concerns about the future of our country . . . [I] saw no one brandishing their semiautomatic.Speakers encouraged people to research candidates and to vote. There were no insults of persons or groups, and even the messages critical of Congress and the president were respectful. There were no vitriolic attacks on elected officials, no name-calling, no hate signs, no slogans of racism; yet these protesters were targeted for surveillance by the DHS, which now finds any demonstration critiquing policies of the Obama administration or of Congress to be suspect as an act of domestic terrorism. Although the DHS is working with the FBI and state and local law enforcement officials to conduct surveillance of U.S. citizens exercising their constitutional rights of assembly and free speech, FBI agents on duty at the TEA protests could only have been proud of their fellow citizens.Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., was quoted in The Hill as saying:The Tea Parties being held . . . by groups of right-wing activists and fueled by Fox News Channel, are an effort to mislead the public about the Obama economic plan . . . this is an Obama-bashing party promoted by corporate interests, as well as Republican lobbyists and politicians.One wag questioned how this could be, when the K Street lobbyists are all working in the Obama administration. The TEA protestors actually were ordinary citizens not on the payroll of George Soros or his minions or the labor unions or ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now) currently flush with stimulus funds.The ultra-liberal St. Petersburg Times carried a front-page article and photo of a peaceful and thoughtful crowd listening to a speech at a Tampa, Fla., park. The photos showed a mix of young and old, men and women, blacks and whites. The article, with a Washington, D.C., byline, stated that the TEA protests across the country were attended by frustrated conservatives gathered to protest the Obama administration’s agenda for taxes and spending.If so, Congress need take note, for in our democracy, voter frustration over taxes and spending often is followed by congressional housecleaning. James Walsh is a former federal prosecutor.
2009 Newsmax.

REVELATION 17:2
2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.(VATICAN IN POLITICS)

Israel-Vatican Relations Established - December 20, 1993
By: 12th House
http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=1052

As the home of three of the great world religions, it’s hard to believe that it would be more than 40 years after the inception of the State of Israel for the Vatican to establish diplomatic relations. As a result of the Madrid Peace Conference and the beginning of the Arab-Israeli peace talks, the Vatican moved to being diplomatic relations with Israel.

Background: Israel Vatican Relations Formed

On July 15,1992, Israel and the Vatican agreed to a framework and agenda for negotiations. On July 29th, the Vatican decided to establish a Bilateral Permanent Working Commission to explore common areas of interest with the goal of normalizing relations.After a year of negotiations, a fundamental agreement was signed in Jerusalem calling for full diplomatic relations. Israel committed itself to maintain and respect the status quo in the Christian Holy Places and the right of the Catholic Church to carry out its religious, educational, moral and charitable functions in Israel.In July 1994, full diplomatic relations were established with the exchange of ambassadors and diplomatic staff. This agreement, although limited to state-to-state relations, was a major landmark event in international Jewish-Christian relations.

Event Ideas:
1) The Jewish-Christian Connection - When we consider the extension of formal diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel, what we have is an opportunity to explore joint programming with other campus ministry groups.Programs dealing with Jewish-Christian relations in a local or international context would be ideal. The goal is not to defend our faith or try to convert others, but to better understand each other's faith.

2) Religious Bliss – Israel is the birthplace of the three great religions. Muslim's and Christian's interest in Israel are as great as Jewish interest when it comes to the holy sites. There is a great opportunity to do collaborative programming with other religious groups on the religious and historical importance of Jerusalem and Israel.Beyond the normal speakers and panel discussions, here is a place where imagery can be highly effective. An art exhibit or photo exhibit may help emphasize the points of the discussion and illustrate the beauty of these locations. Another possibility is to submit an editorial series to your campus paper offering a non-political perspective regarding religious freedoms in Israel.

Resources:
Cultural Affairs, Israel Embassy or Consulates, Information Department, Israel Embassy or Consulates, Foreign Ministry, Government of Israel

02/05/2009 12.55.05 Israel and Holy See Continue Talks

(02 May 09 - RV) The Holy See and the State of Israel say they have made significant progress on a long-awaited economic and tax agreement between the Catholic Church and the Jewish State, but it will not be signed before the visit of Benedict XVI to the Holy Land. After a half day of talks the two delegations released a joint communiqué which announced that the next plenary is scheduled to take place on 10 December this year, at the Vatican.A long-time observer of the talks, Franciscan Father David-Maria Jaeger, told us more about the importance of signing an agreement.

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

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

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

Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.

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

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

Vatican-Israel talks make significant progress
Friday, 01 May 2009

Talks with Vatican envoys over the legal and financial status of the Roman Catholic Church in Israel achieved significant progress yesterday, Israel's foreign ministry said.The plenary noted that the working level commission achieved significant progress, on the eve of the upcoming important visit of the pope in Jerusalem,it said in a statement issued in Jerusalem..It said the meeting took place in an atmosphere of great friendship and a spirit of cooperation and goodwill.The two sides are seeking to hammer out an agreement concerning the legal and tax status of Church property in Israel and the commercial activities of Christian communities there.
The Vatican is seeking tax-exempt status for Church institutions.Negotiations resumed in 2004 after a 10-year hiatus.The Holy See recognised Israel in 1993 and the two states established diplomatic ties the following year.Pope Benedict XVI is due to visit the Holy Land from May 8 to 15.

Apr 30, 2009 13:22 Essay: The pope, the Holy Land and the truth
By DENIS MACEOIN

This month, Pope Benedict will visit the Holy Land, the third pope to do so, but only the second to make an official visit. Invited to Israel by President Shimon Peres, he will also set foot in Jordan and the West Bank, where it's expected he will go to Bethlehem. Given the sacredness of the Christian sites in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, it's astonishing that so few popes have gone there since the setting up of the British Mandate in 1920 or the establishment of Israel in 1948. The Baha'i Temple and Gardens in Haifa. Israel is the only country in the MIddle East where the international headquarters of this Iran-rooted religion would be safe.Benedict could not travel to Jerusalem at a more difficult time. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has entered a very dark phase since Israel's defensive assault on Gaza at the end of last year. That darkness has less to do with the region itself than with a swelling international hate-fest against Israel that is now growing into a frightening resurgence of anti-Semitism in many European countries. Everything the pope says and does throughout his visit will be watched and weighed against an array of what will often be incoherent and disturbing attitudes and policies, not least the global Islamist and left-wing call for Israel to be destroyed and, in more extreme versions, for the Jews there to be killed. The pope will go there as a man of peace, and will take every opportunity to advocate peace in the region. But peace may not be the most important thing for him to urge. Nor will any exhortations he may make be enough to make the peace process go forward anyway. The 1988 Hamas Charter declares: Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement... There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors (Article 13).

How do you, even if you are the pope, talk peace to men like that, or to mothers who dress their sons in suicide belts? Whether Aeschylus or Hiram Johnson said it first, many agree that the first casualty of war is truth.And that is nowhere truer than in the Middle East, where lies and outright fabrications have added greatly to an already rancorous debate. Worse than that, many have spread around the world along with any number of conspiracy theories, many of them echoes of Nazi propaganda during the 1930s and '40s. If the pope is limited in what he can do to further peace, perhaps he can use his visit to speak out about these lies. Is not, after all, one of the several sins against the Holy Spirit resisting or impugning the known truth?

Sadly, the pope need look no further than within his own church to see this sin repeated.By now, everyone knows of Bishop Richard Williamson and his flagrant denial of the Holocaust, his claim that the Jews are the enemies of Christ and his belief that that obnoxious forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, really does describe an international conspiracy by the Jews to take control of the world. I hope the pope will visit the Holocaust memorial and museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and while there he must do two things. He must denounce Holocaust denial, not as an error in fact, but as a deadly sin against the human soul. And he must ask for something reciprocal from Israel: a recognition that Pope Pius XII has been much maligned but that in truth he helped save the lives of many Jews. ISRAEL WOULD also be a perfect place for Benedict to denounce another churchman who has indulged in a similar distortion of the truth. Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace, recently bought in to a smaller but equally vicious lie, namely that the people of Gaza live in a big concentration camp.This sits next to other popular lies, chiefly that Israelis/Jews are really Nazis who kill babies for sport, or that there has been genocide, even a holocaust in Gaza. What concentration camp ever launched a single rocket at its guards, let alone over 8,000, as the Gazans have done? What Nazis ever provided oil, water, food and medicines to camp inmates, as the Israelis have done? What camps had shops stocked from floor to ceiling with goods, or are studded with expensive villas and apartment blocks? What camp inmates would ever have set about destroying £14 million worth of greenhouses provided for their well-being, as the Gazans did in 2005? The concentration camp claim is a blatant lie and an insult to the millions who really did suffer and die in the camps, and the pope must denounce it and chasten the cardinal who has promoted it. Only transparency can bring eventual peace to the region. To claim, as so many do, that there has been a genocide or a holocaust in Gaza is not merely wrong, it is indecent. According to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, the annual growth rate in Gaza is about three times the world average. The population there has grown by almost 40 percent between 1997 and 2007. What genocide has ever increased the numbers of a population? Yet that lie allows marchers round the world to call Israelis Nazis and Zionazis,and cartoonists to draw hooked-nosed Jews in SS uniforms. We all know the consequences when similar lies were told about the Jews in the 1930s and '40s. There must be no question this time that a pope will denounce these fictions for their incitement to the oldest of evils.

THE POPE must also address the widespread claim that Israel is an apartheid state. This also is both ludicrous and dangerous. There are no apartheid laws in Israel, Arabs are not excluded from restaurants, cinemas, concert halls or swimming pools, but serve in parliament and on the Supreme Court. The claim is another vicious lie and, given the Church's commitment to anti-racism, it is fitting for the pope to expose it.Passing beyond the lies (of which there are dozens more), an urgent matter on the pope's agenda must surely be the plight of Christians in the West Bank and Gaza. Harassed by militant Islamic groups, the Christian population there has been dwindling. In 1990, Christians made up 60% of the population in Bethlehem; today, a mere 19 years later, they number just 20% and that figure is shrinking rapidly. Christians in the Palestinian territories have fallen in numbers from 15% of the population in 1950 to less than 1% today. Calls have been made for their extinction, and attacks are regularly made on institutions and individual Christians. More and more Christians pack their bags and flee. In Israel, their numbers have risen from 34,000 in 1948 to more than 140,000 today. If the pope does not speak out and make this an issue of international concern, the bombings, the beatings and the intimidation will continue, and before very long the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem will be left to the tender mercies of Islamic Jihad.THERE IS ONE other thing Pope Benedict should consider doing before he leaves Israel. In Haifa, on the slopes of Mount Carmel, stands a UNESCO World Heritage Site made up of the gardens, shrines and international headquarters of the Baha'i religion. It is a beautiful place, one of the loveliest on the Mediterranean coast. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where these places would be safe. Iran, a country that threatens to wipe Israel off the map, is the original home of the Baha'is, who form its largest religious minority. There the holiest Baha'i shrines have been bulldozed into rubble. Since the revolution, Baha'is have been imprisoned and executed, and made the objects of severe persecution. If the pope could stand in the gardens in Haifa and proclaim his abhorrence of all religious persecution, it would send out a firm message to bullies like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and those, like Hizbullah and Hamas, whom he controls.The Baha'i Temple and Gardens in Haifa. Israel is the only country in the MIddle East where the international headquarters of this Iran-rooted religion would be safe.

There is a deeper message that the pope is well-situated to convey, which is that the truth is greater than the lie, and that there can be no peace while there is falsehood. Only when the Israelis and the Palestinians can engage in complete honesty with one another, and only when the deluded marchers walking on European streets chanting Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas! have their eyes opened to the enormous deceit that has been perpetrated on them will a real and lasting peace begin to grow in the Holy Land. It's a great opportunity. I pray it is not too late for Benedict to take it.The writer is a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic studies, the author of several reports on radical Islam and currently the editor-designate of an international journal, the Middle East Quarterly. This piece first appeared in the Catholic Herald.

Pope to Confront Myriad Challenges in Holy Land Trip
Friday May 1, 2009

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI departs next Friday (May 8) for what promises to be one of the most eventful and memorable events in his reign: a week-long visit to the Holy Land, with stops in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.Benedict has presented the trip as first and foremost a pilgrimage to the places sanctified by (Jesus) earthly passage,but given the powerful political and cultural tensions in the region, he is bound to confront a number of volatile issues on the ground -- including some that have proved among the most controversial in his four-year papacy:

Jewish-Catholic relations

Benedict clearly hopes that his presence in Israel, less than four months after the international furor over his readmission of the Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, will relieve any remaining inter-religious tensions over the affair.
According to Israel's ambassador to the Holy See, Mordechay Lewy, the two sides have overcome these difficulties and misunderstandings in the best possible way; and leading Israeli rabbis have welcomed the papal visit.Yet as Benedict's own schedule demonstrates, sources of discord remain. Though he will follow traditional practice for visiting leaders by paying respects at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Benedict will not visit the adjacent museum, because its exhibits include a photo caption critical of the war-time Pope Pius XII.Critics argue that Pius failed to do all he could to stop the Nazi genocide of the Jews, yet the Vatican is considering him for beatification, one step below sainthood.

Muslim-Catholic relations

Benedict will open his trip with nearly three full days in the Muslim-majority Kingdom of Jordan, where he will meet with Muslim religious leaders and make his second visit to a mosque as pope.Benedict will be staying much longer in Jordan than his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, did during his own Holy Land pilgrimage in 2000. The difference may reflect Benedict's increased concern for dialogue with Islam since September 2006, when he quoted a medieval description of the religion as evil and inhuman and spread by sword.That speech, which provoked sometimes violent protests throughout the Muslim world, also led to an unprecedented three-day summit between Catholic and Muslim religious leaders at the Vatican last November -- the result of an initiative by Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of Jordan.

The peace process

In a meeting with recently elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and perhaps also in public remarks, Benedict is likely to call for a revival of the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.While the pope's words and gestures can create a climactic atmosphere conducive to peace,according to Ambassador Lewy, the Vatican is not in a position to play any mediating role, he says, since its concern for Catholic minorities in Muslim lands makes it vulnerable to pressure from Arab states.Israel has long perceived a pro-Palestinian bias among many Vatican diplomats, and that perception grew stronger in January, when the Holy See's former ambassador to the United Nations, Cardinal Renato Martino, compared the Gaza Strip in the wake of Israel's invasion to a big concentration camp.

Arab Christians

The Vatican has few more urgent concerns than the plight of Catholics and other Christians in the Middle East.The Christian population of Israel and Palestine, which six decades ago was as high as 20 percent of the total, is today only 2 percent, largely on account of economically driven emigration.The Holy Father's visit will certainly encourage these people, who feel like a beleaguered minority, because they lack opportunities for employment and higher education,said American Cardinal John Foley, who heads a chivalric order that assists Catholics in the Holy Land, and who will be accompanying Benedict on his trip.At least as dire is the situation of Iraqi Catholics, tens of thousands of whom have fled their war-torn country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, many of them moving to Jordan.Jordan's Ambassador to the Vatican, Dina Kawar, said that her country is expecting Catholics from neighboring Iraq, Lebanon and Syria to attend the pope's Mass in an Amman stadium on May 10. Benedict's homily on that occasion is likely to address the needs of his followers throughout the region.

Vatican-Israel relations

When Pope Paul VI visited Jerusalem in 1964, he did not mention the word Israel,and though he met Israeli President Zalman Shazar, he refused to address him by his official title. The Holy See finally recognized Israel in 1993, and the two sovereign states established diplomatic relations the next year.A decade and a half later, however, the two parties have still not settled many complicated questions about the church's tax and legal status in Israel, along with its claims to a number of sacred sites such as the Holy Cenacle, considered the site of the Last Supper.An accelerated schedule of talks in the run-up to the papal trip had raised hopes that an agreement might be reached in time for Benedict's arrival, but those hopes fell for good after a late-April meeting, when negotiators said they had nothing more to report beyond meaningful progress.By Francis X. Rocca 2009 Religion News Service

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 MON MAY 04,2009

09:30 AM +1.19
10:00 AM +105.69
10:30 AM +171.80
11:00 AM +169.01
11:30 AM +183.18
12:00 PM +163.20
12:30 PM +146.65
01:00 PM +158.50
01:30 PM +166.38
02:00 PM +178.41
02:30 PM +194.28
03:00 PM +175.30
03:30 PM +174.59
04:00 PM +214.33 8426.74

S&P 500 907.24 +29.72

NASDAQ 1763.56 +44.36

GOLD 901.80 +13.60

OIL 54.48 +1.28

TSE 300 9870.37 +373.41

CDNX 1027.19 +17.02

S&P/TSX/60 599.18 +23.46

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -6.43%
S&P -2.85%
Nasdaq +9.02%
TSX Advances 1,005,declines 493,unchanged 262,Volume 2,085,419,434.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 449,Declines 333,Unchanged 361,Volume 260,625,767.

Dow +56 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow +1 points at low today.
Dow +181 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $899.80.OIL opens at $53.46 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow +1 points at low today so far.
Dow +202 points at high today so far.

DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 2,950,declines 674,unchanged 70,New Highs 25,New Lows 62.
Volume 3,600,995,575.
NASDAQ Advances 2,003,declines 657,unchanged 99,New highs 27,New Lows 14.
Volume 1,058,754,657.
TSX Advances 1,021,declines 366,unchanged 225,Volume 1,198,316,165.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 390,Declines 276,Unchanged 284,Volume 167,419,223.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -55 points at low today.
Dow +205 points at high today.
Dow +2.61% today Volume -.
Nasdaq +2.58% today Volume 2,147,483,648.
S&P 500 +3.39% 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

GUNS 2ND AMENDMENT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9X2VbhSH9o&feature=player_embedded

Obama Supports Treaty Outlawing Gun Possession
Infowars May 3, 2009

As Lou Dobbs notes here, Obama is in favor of the ratifying CIFTA, the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms. On its face, the treaty sounds reasonable because it would prevent, combat, and eradicate the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials (emphasis added). However, upon reading the bill we discover the following: Stressing the need, in peace processes and post-conflict situations, to achieve effective control of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials in order to prevent their entry into the illicit market.Obama has promised Mexican President Felipe Calderon that he would urge the Senate to take up CIFTA. He is doing this under the cover of the drug cartel violence in Mexico. Obama and Calderon quoted a statistic echoed by the corporate media that 90% of the weapons seized in Mexican raids were purchased from U.S. gun shops and a reason why the U.S. needs to ratify this treaty. In fact, this is a lie — only a mere 17% of guns found at Mexico crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.CIFTA would bury the Second Amendment under pertinent resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly. It would criminalize ammunition reloading (defined as explosives manufacture) and gun assembly (including firearm kits and presumably breaking down weapons for cleaning or transport).

Language contained in the CIFTA treaty insists it respects the principles of sovereignty, nonintervention, and the juridical equality of states.Not mentioned is the fact the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties has a superior rank to national laws. If the CIFTA treaty is ratified without exception, it would kill U.S. sovereignty and lead the way to destroying the Second Amendment. It should be noted that only the Senate needs to ratify the treaty. Article II, section 2, of the Constitution states that the president shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.The United States was one of the first signatories to CIFTA in November, 1997. The Convention was transmitted to the Senate in June 1998 and to this day awaits the Senate’s advice and consent. 29 of the 34 OAS member states have ratified CIFTA. Only the US, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and St. Vincent & Grenadines have yet to do so.

New EU forecast twice as gloomy
ANDREW WILLIS Today MAY 4,09 @ 17:42 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A new economic forecast released by the European Commission on Monday (4 May) predicts EU growth will contract by 4 percent this year, a considerable downward revision from its January forecast of minus 2 percent growth.

Average unemployment is set to rise to 9.4 percent this year, while government deficits inside the 27-member union will average 6 percent of GDP, twice the figure allowed for euro area countries and used as a marker for the rest of the union.

Despite this, economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia sought to cast a more optimistic light over the new data.The outlook is still gloomy but for the first time since mid-2007 some positive signals have appeared over the last few weeks,he said.We are no longer in freefall.Improved business expectations within the EU and positive export data from Asia point to a stabilisation of Europe's economy in the second half of this year and a return to growth in 2010, he says. But while other policy-makers have mirrored the EU economy chief's mild optimism in recent weeks, the extremity of the current situation is hard to avoid. In 2008 the economies of seven EU states suffered an annual drop in GDP, yet this year the commission estimates that only Cyprus is set to enjoy positive growth.

Unemployment and budget deficits continue to rise

Faced with falling public demand, companies across the EU are currently cutting jobs and production levels as they struggle to stay alive.As a result, only Luxembourg will see more people enter the workforce than leave this year according to the new data, with EU unemployment set to rise from 7 percent in 2008 to 9.4 percent in 2009.

Only 3.9 percent of the workforce is predicted to be out of a job in the Netherlands this year, while in Spain unemployment is set to average 17.3 percent. Despite Mr Almunia's comments on a return to growth next year, unemployment will continue to rise in 2010 as the need for new workers takes time to materialise. In the meantime, falling tax receipts and the rising cost of social benefits and government stimulus packages are pushing member state budgets further into the red. In March the commission initiated the first stage of excessive deficit procedures against France, Greece, Spain and Ireland due to 2008 budgets deficits exceeding 3 percent. Hungary and the United Kingdom have already received commission guidelines under the procedure that can only result in fines for the 16 eurozone members. Based on the commission's new data, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania will now also receive recommendations from the commission on how to tackle their budget deficits. We continue to enforce the Growth and Stability Pact, no doubt about it, said Mr Almunia.

Speed of recovery

The ability of member states to deal with the crisis and the speed with which they will emerge from the recession will not be uniform across the EU. Everybody has been affected but not everybody has the same starting position to fight against the recession,said Mr Almunia. Those who consolidated their public finances during the good times and those who have a better position from the point of view of their competitiveness are in a stronger position to define a successful exit strategy.Both Spain and Ireland are likely to emerge more slowly from the recession than other EU states as their economies are currently going through a painful housing market correction.While EU growth for 2010 is predicted to be minus 0.1 percent of GDP, growth figures for Ireland and Spain will be minus 2.6 and 1 percent respectively.
Other laggards include Latvia and Lithuania whose growth forecasts for 2010 are predicted at minus 3.2 and 4.7 respectively.

Human rights no block to EU-Colombia talks
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today MAY 4,09 @ 17:47 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - As the European Union this week launches another round of negotiations with Colombia on a free trade agreement, trade unionists who live daily under the gun of right-wing paramilitaries linked to the government have in Brussels in the last week pleaded with the EU executive to suspend the talks.A third round of trade negotiations will take place in Brussels from 5-8 May between the European Commission and Colombia. But labour and indigenous leaders say that country is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist - and the situation is getting worse, not better.Over the past two decades, they said during a hearing in the European Parliament on Thursday (30 April) and a meeting at the European Trade Union Congress on Sunday (3 May), more than 2,500 union members have been murdered and another 6,500 have been threatened, attacked, kidnapped, or tortured. Some 60 percent of the trade unionists that are murdered in the world every year are killed in Colombia.Tarcisio Mora, of the Unitarian Confederation of Workers of Colombia (CUT), described the attack on union members as a genocide and accused the Colombian security services of handing over the names of trade unionists to paramilitaries.

Every three days a trade union representative is killed,he told the meeting in the parliament, adding that the rate of killings is up 25 percent in the last two months and that under the Uribe administration, there have been some 500 murders - 35 percent of the total since the beginning of the nineties. It is easier to set up a paramilitary group than it is to set up a trade union.While the EU is ploughing on ahead with negotiations with the government, the US Congress has suspended ratification of a similar free trade agreement due to human rights concerns.Norway is also in the process of reaching a free trade agreement with Colombia, but ratification has been suspended while a national delegation is dispatched to the country to assess the human rights situation.Jorge Robledo, a Colombian senator with the centre-left opposition Polo Democratico (Democratic Pole) compared the different approaches and sharply criticised the EU position.The agreement is frozen in the US Democrat-controlled congress, not for economic reasons - the one with Peru went ahead - but because the Uribe government does not come out unscathed. The FTA gives Uribe a licence for forgiveness of his crimes against humanity,he said.The crisis is Dantean in its enormity.Last November, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told reporters after a six-day fact-finding mission in the country that she felt that the scale of the extra-judicial executions committed by government forces did indeed amount to extreme descriptions.An offence becomes a crime against humanity if it is widespread and systematic against the civilian population. We are observing and keeping a record of the number of extrajudicial killings, and it does appear systematic and widespread in my view,she said, according to a report from the Inter Press Service news agency at the time.

Rupert Schlegelmilch, the commission's chief negotiator for the Andean nations attended the Thursday meeting, but argued that far from being in disagreement with the Colombian trade unionists, it was through trade agreements that human rights are strengthened and that Bogota is moving in the right direction.There is no disagreement on the objectives. We all want better judicial procedures, fewer killings and a government with clean hands. The EU has a long record of making this true in with other actors, not just with Colombia,he said.Human rights is the guiding principle of all we do with Colombia, including this agreement.The Colombian government is taking on board [our] recommendations,he continued.It is certainly still a bad situation, but it is improving.He also said that beyond the question of human rights, the agreement would benefit the economies of both the EU and Colombia.

All the evidence out there shows that open economies do better than closed ones. That's just a fact.Despite Mr Schlegelmilch's words to the parliament, on 2 February, Fernando Cardesa Garcia, the ambassador of the commission's delegation to the country, contradicted his colleague, telling Semana, the Colombian news magazine, that human rights are not an element in the commercial agreement currently being negotiated between the two sides.

No investigation likely

UK MEP Richard Howitt - a member of the same Labour Party as EU trade commissioner Catherine Ashton - countered that he had tried to get the commission to set up a committee of investigation into the human rights situation in the country, but had been unsuccessful.You would think it is something they could agree to, given the gravity of the case.Any final agreement has to be endorsed by the European Parliament, but the British MEP expected the right in the chamber to support the agreement and that the left in the chamber did not have the numbers to block its ratification.He said there was also still a colonial factor at play in the parliament.There are many close contacts between the right in the parliament and the Colombian government.Botond Torok-Illyes, an adviser on trade to the European People's Party, told EUobserver that Mr Howitt was wrong, and that the EPP's position on trade did not require there to be personal relations with the Uribe government.

It's up to him to prove any links.

Meanwhile, Mr Howitt said the left of the parliament was yet to be in any position to take a stance on the issue.The [centre-left] PES, the [the far left] GUE and the Greens still have to marshal support in our own groups,he said.If there were a vote in Strasbourg [this week], we would lose it.

Big names to stay away from Prague summit
ANDREW RETTMAN Today MAY 4,09 @ 17:40 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Spain's Jose Luis Zapatero will not attend the Czech EU presidency's Eastern Partnership summit on 7 May, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy also expected to stay away.London and Madrid on Monday (4 May) confirmed that the two countries will instead send foreign ministers. Mr Brown is firmly committed to the project despite his absence, the British embassy to the EU told EUobserver, while Mr Zapatero is too busy with a special meeting on unemployment, the Spanish mission said.A spokeswoman for the Elysee Palace in Paris said at this moment Mr Sarkozy is also not coming. The president is instead scheduled to listen to a report on equal rights in France and attend a World War II commemoration event.Polish premier Donald Tusk has not confirmed either. The Eastern Partnership event, disliked by Russia, comes ahead of a potential meeting between Mr Tusk and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in September.German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the most senior EU leader to have signed up so far. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi is also going. Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium will attend at the top level, despite earlier rumours they might stay away on human rights grounds. The potential French absence is being linked to the fact-acting Czech leader, Miroslav Topolanek, who skipped Mr Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union summit in Paris last year.If big countries such as the UK and France decide not to go, it will send the message that the EU is not really serious about this initiative. In a way, it would be a victory for Russian diplomacy,one EU official said. The Eastern Partnership is a €600 million EU project to forge closer relations with six former Soviet states on its eastern border: Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.Belarus is to send the lowest-level delegate to the event. First deputy prime minister Vladimir Semashko is a hardly known even in Belarus, but Minsk gossip says the energy security specialist may be promoted to prime minister in the coming days.

Moldova - which has no official government following disputed elections on 7 May - is sending acting foreign minister and former ambassador to the EU Andrei Stratan. The Czech EU presidency said Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will very probably come as well as President Viktor Yushchenko, despite long-running personal enmity between the pair.Senior EU diplomats will on Wednesday finalise the EU's proposed text for the summit's official declaration. Germany is insisting the document says steps toward visa-free travel will take place in the long-term,a phrase missing from the original Czech text, an EU diplomat said. Berlin also dislikes referring to the six states as European countries, preferring the phrase countries of eastern Europe instead. The wording European countries echoes Article 49 of the EU treaty, which says all European countries are eligible to apply for membership of the EU.

Israel's hard-right foreign minister begins European tour
VALENTINA POP Today MAY 4,09 @ 09:24 CET

Israel's hard-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, begins his European tour on Monday (4 May) in a bid to soothe European Union concerns over the new government's commitment to the peace process.Mr Lieberman's trip comes amid tensions between the Czech Republic, currently chair of the EU's six-month rotating presidency and the European Commission over a freezing of an upgrade in EU-Israeli relations until Tel Aviv reaffirms its commitment.His main message is expected to call for the Europeans to be patient until the new Israeli government drafts its foreign policy, a spokesman said.Mr Lieberman, known for his radical anti-Arab views, was scheduled to meet with all 27 European Union foreign ministers this month at a summit meeting, but he asked for a delay so the government could come up with its policy guidelines – a move that the EU agreed to.The government of Israel, because of our democratic tradition and because of the continuity principle, is going to abide by all previous commitments the former government took, including the acceptance of the road-map to peace, which will lead to a two-state solution, deputy foreign minister Daniel Ayalon said on Sunday, ahead of Mr Lieberman's tour.Previously, Mr Lieberman had said that the new government would not have to be bound by previous government decisions and hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has until now not endorsed the two-state solution to the decades-long conflict.Mr Lieberman, a former settler in the West Bank, has already caused a stir on his first day in office when he announced that Israel was no longer bound by the decision that the previous government took at a conference in Annapolis, US in November 2007 to restart negotiations with the Palestinians.

People try to simplify the situation with these formulas: land for peace, two-state solution, Mr. Lieberman said. It's a lot more complicated. He added that the real reason for the deadlock is not occupation, not settlements and not settlers. Nor, he said, is it the Palestinians. The biggest obstacle, he said, is the Iranians.Ahead of his planned meeting with Mr Lieberman on Monday, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said that if Israel wanted to continue enjoying Italy's support in Europe, it had to take 'suitable positions' and declare its support for continuing the peace process.Mr Frattini also called on his new Israeli counterpart to lower the tone of his declarations and to work toward an atmosphere of cooperation.

Mr Lieberman's tour will not include a stop at the European Commission in Brussels, where EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferero-Waldner last week said the bloc's planned relations upgrade would remain frozen until the new Israeli government shows a clear commitment to pursue peace negotiations with the Palestinians.Her comments prompted Tel Aviv to question the EU's mediation role in the region.Israel is asking Europe to lower the tone and conduct a discreet dialogue, deputy director for Europe at the Israeli foreign ministry, Rafi Barak, told European ambassadors in Israel, local media reported.However, if these declarations continue, Europe will not be able to be part of the diplomatic process, and both sides will lose,he said. Mr Barak said it was unclear what gave Ms Ferrero-Waldner the authority to make the statement on delaying closer ties as EU member state governments had not made a formal decision on the matter. The Czech EU presidency also criticised Ms Ferrero-Waldner for her position. Caretaker Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said the statement was really hasty.At this given moment, I would not really attribute to it more weight than just a statement by a commissioner. The action plan continuation is a political decision that is to be made by the European Council, and I am still the president of the European Council and I should know something about it,Mr Topolanek said.

EU still digesting 2004 enlargement five years on 1 May 2004 - celebrations in Brussels on the occasion of the EU's enlargement by 10 new member states (Photo: European Commission)ELITSA VUCHEVA 01.05.2009 @ 09:24 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – On 1 May 2004 the EU marked its biggest ever enlargement, accepting 10 new countries and bringing the number of member states to 25. Five years later, both old and new member states are still digesting the move, experts say, while prospects for future expansion look increasingly grim.The 10 new member states – Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Cyprus and Malta – brought 73 million people to the union and moved its borders considerably further east.The European Commission says that the accession of these countries, most of them formerly part of the Eastern Bloc, has been an unquestionable success.EU enlargement has served as an anchor of stability and democracy and as a driver of personal freedom and economic dynamism in Europe, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said during a speech in Berlin earlier this week.In February, the commission published a report stressing the economic benefits enlargement brought to both old and new member states and saying that trade between them almost tripled in less than 10 years.The bloc's executive has also encouraged old member states to scrap remaining restrictions to workers from the new countries insisting that migration flows following the 2004 and 2007 enlargements have had positive economic effects in those countries which did not restrict free movement of workers.On Friday (1 May) Denmark and Belgium lifted those restrictions, with Copenhagen also doing so for workers from Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the bloc on 1 January 2007.This left only Germany and Austria with barriers in place for the so-called EU-8 countries (workers from Cyprus and Malta have been exempted from the restrictions). By contrast, most old member states still have restrictions for Bulgarians and Romanians.

Institutional machinery works

The biggest enlargement in the EU's history also brought institutional changes, swelling the size of the three main EU bodies - the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council (the secretariat of EU member states).This has not damaged the decision-making process, as some had expected, says Sara Hagemann, an EU institutional affairs analyst with the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC) think-tank.The decision processes [in all EU institutions] ...have not slowed down. There has not been a deadlock in the system, as some observers had predicted, she told EUobserver.The numbers of legislation adopted each year have actually, compared to the last few years, increased. So, one can say that the machinery is working and performing and meeting the demand for policy-making.In terms of policy making, there has been no clear division between old and new, as neither group is a coherent entity. But some areas, especially where unanimity is required – such as justice and home affairs – have suffered as a consequence of the increase, according to Ms Hagemann.Research has shown that the numbers are low in terms of how much and how detailed legislation is provided from the EU level compared to what could be expected,in the justice field, she said, arguing that the Lisbon Treaty is a much needed tool for improving the new model bloc's functioning.It is not [simply] a political statement that the Lisbon Treaty has to go through.

Wanted:centre of gravity

The last five years have changed the EU's political identity however, analysts argue.

It's an EU of 27 member states, the dynamics are completely different,said EU affairs analyst Piotr Kaczynski from the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) think-tank.The so-called Franco-German engine of the old EU setup is no longer the centre of gravity in the 27-nation bloc, he explained.Most of the questions between [German chancellor] Merkel and [French president] Sarkozy are now between France and Germany ...They are primarily Franco-German topics,Mr Kaczynski told this website.The centre of gravity has moved and we are looking for it ...This means that we have an inflation of summits – micro-summits, different groups meeting in different forms and different formulas, there are lots of government to government meetings. We have really multiplied levels of governance.A report released earlier this week by the Open Society Institute-Sofia think-tank to which Mr Kaczynski also contributed, said that the EU agenda would look rather different from what it does today if the new member states were setting it alone.The report, called Not Your Grandfather's Eastern Bloc, argues that EU expansion and economic liberalisation would be pushed further if the new states were the agenda-setters.If these countries had more clout, Europe would adopt Lisbon Treaty and grant membership to Croatia and Serbia in a matter of months, consider membership for Ukraine and Moldova, pursue more robust economic liberalisation, and take a Nato-first approach toward European defence and security,it says.Despite the economic crisis, these countries would keep state protectionism at bay and fully liberalise labor markets.

Still digesting

The EU has not yet reached the point where the new member states can be the agenda-setters, however, both because those countries' governments are still too focused domestically and because the bloc has not yet finished digesting the big-bang enlargement, Mr Kaczynski says.In this context, enthusiasm for further enlargement has cooled in several European capitals. The Lisbon treaty deadlock and the economic crisis have exasperated this trend.And while enlargement to candidate and potential candidate countries from the western Balkans is still seen just as a matter of time, expansion beyond, to countries like Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia or even to EU candidate Turkey, is seen at the moment as unlikely in the foreseeable future.That [further enlargement] can only happen when digestion [of the latest enlargement] is over. When there is no long a question in the Eurobarometer how do you perceive the 2004 enlargement,with the majority of western Europeans saying bad and the majority of eastern Europeans saying good,Mr Kaczynski said, referring to the EU's regular opinion poll service.As long as this is relevant, it means that digestion is not over. So, only when it's over, can you consider Ukraine and Georgia.