ANTISEMITISM - HATE TODAY

213 PEOPLE HAVE SIGNED UP TO AUDIT THE FED AS OF YESTERDAY....HURRAY

Ron Paul’s Bill To Audit The Federal Reserve Now Has 213 Co-Sponsors
By tmartin • June 10, 2009

Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve (HR 1207) now has 213 co-sponsors, and the numbers keep growing!This is history in the making, and victory is within reach. Imagine what will happen if HR 1207, The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, comes up for vote in Congress! With almost 50% of the House of Representatives already co-sponsoring this bill, it has real potential to pass — BUT only if we educate and rally the people to support it and get our Congresspeople to put it to vote and pass it.

Step 1: Your Representative
If your representative is not on the following list of HR 1207 co-sponsors, call their offices, write to them, email them, etc. Let them know they need to support HR 1207. If you live in their district, let them know. Go to their office.

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

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).

Negotiations on Ireland's Lisbon guarantees continue
HONOR MAHONY Today JUNE 11,09 @ 17:20 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Negotiations on Ireland's guarantees on the EU Lisbon Treaty are going down to the wire with still no text on the table exactly a week before EU leaders are supposed to sign up to them.EU ambassadors were meant to gather Thursday (11 June) to have a special meeting on the matter but agreeing wording that does not make any other member state jittery but keeps Ireland's electorate happy is proving more difficult than first thought.Ireland is looking for special guarantees on ethical issues, tax sovereignty and its neutral status. It wants them signed off by EU leaders at their summit next week and a commitment made to make them binding as quickly as possible.The idea was to tack them on to the next available treaty - possibly Croatia's accession treaty - so that they could be ratified by national parliaments across the bloc.However, member states fear this could open the door to a further delay in the getting the text ratified, particularly if anything in the text catches the idea of eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus.The Czech president has already ruffled some Brussels feathers by refusing to sign off the treaty - the last act of ratification in the central EU member state - until the Irish have voted in their second referendum, due in October.

What we definitely want to avoid a text that raises questions. We don't want him [Klaus] to say: that is an interesting new element, let's bring it before the constitutional committee, said an EU diplomat.But being wary of reopening the debate is also a key concern of Britain, where the opposition Conservatives want to overturn the treaty and of the Netherlands, which had to do some tricky manoeuvring to get the treaty through parliament, after Dutch voters rejected its predecessor, the EU constitution, in a 2004 referendum.Bilateral discussions on the texts took place on Thursday and will continue on Friday (12 June).The Irish, who have still not circulated a full text to member states, are intending to have one ready by Tuesday when there will be a meeting of government representatives from all 27 member states.

This is a better option than having a patchwork of paragraphs,said an EU diplomat.
Dublin and the Czech EU presidency are hoping to get as complete as possible agreement on the texts on Tuesday.All member states are trying to avoid a scenario where EU leaders are writing the texts when they meet at the end of the week.It is not a pretty sight to have prime ministers drafting texts,remarked one diplomat.

EU foreign ministers are meeting on Monday but Irish foreign minister Micheal Martin said ahead of the meeting that he did "not anticipate that [they] will engage in a lengthy discussion of the legal guarantees or the outcome of the European Council, as negotiations will be on-going at both official and political level.We have to be careful that in getting what we want, we do not upset procedures for others, said the minister, referring to the already-completed parliamentary ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in all other member states.Of the three guarantees, the two on ethical issues and neutrality will be Ireland-specific. The tax guarantee will not.In addition, there will be a declaration on the workers' rights. Although this will be non-binding, it is causing concern among several countries who want to make sure it strikes a balance between employee rights and the internal market.

Barroso urges EU states to appoint new commission president next week
ELITSA VUCHEVA Today JUNE 11,09 @ 09:27 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – EU leaders meeting for a summit in Brussels next week must appoint a new head of the European Commission and not delay the decision, said the current head of the institution and only candidate for the job, Jose Manuel Barroso.

Mr Barroso, whose mandate expires at the end of October, said EU leaders should take a decision on the next commission president based on the bloc's current treaty, the Nice Treaty.It's up to the council [EU member states] and the European parliament to decide, of course based on the treaty, and the treaty in force at the moment is the Treaty of Nice,he said at a press conference in Brussels.The European parliament was elected according to the Treaty of Nice,he stressed.But some member states, notably France and Germany, are reportedly favourable to delaying the decision and giving a simple political backing to Mr Barroso next week. Under this scenario, the next commission president would be appointed in October, at the same time as the new EU foreign minister and the EU president – new posts created by the Lisbon Treaty, which may by then have been ratified by the Irish in a second referendum.French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is today meeting German chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris, will only give France's position on the issue at the EU summit next week, government spokesperson Luc Chatel said.The issue could become a sore point at the summit, with Sweden, as incoming EU presidency country, insisting that Mr Barroso be given the job a second time and with a full mandate from June.

Opposition forming in the parliament

If appointed next week, Mr Barroso would then have to be approved by the European Parliament, a simple majority under current rules.While he can count on the centre-right EPP parliamentarians' vote, this will not suffice – they are expected to have 264 seats in the new parliament – and more allies will be needed to secure the Portuguese politician a second mandate.But the Socialists, who have been unable to put forward an own candidate, have been critical of Mr Barroso and have indicated they would not support him for a second mandate.Mr Barroso stands for a policy which we opposed in the [EU] elections. I cannot recommend at the moment that my fraction supports Mr Barroso for a second term, Socialist group leader Martin Schulz told the Financial Times Deutschland on Wednesday. The Socialists suffered a blow at the European elections, but remain the second biggest force in the new parliament with 161seats.Meanwhile, the Liberals – the third group in the house with 80 MEPs – seem to be divided on the issue. Their leader Graham Watson has indicated they could support Mr Barroso. It would be the logical conclusion for there to be a centre-right alliance of liberals and the EPP for the vote, he said earlier this week.But French centrist leader Francois Bayrou, whose MoDem party sits with the Liberals and will send six MEPs in the new parliament, has said French liberals would vote against Mr Barroso. Italy's liberals would reportedly do so as well.

If we have a mixed majority of liberals, democrats, greens, socialists, we can propose an alternative, Mr Bayrou was quoted as saying by news agency AFP on Tuesday, noting that his party has already suggested former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt for the job.Mr Bayrou accepted a call by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, whose Europe Ecologie green movement in France surprised analysts by coming third (16.3%) in the elections and neck and neck with the Socialists (16.5%), to form a green-socialist-liberal coalition against the current commission president.In an interview with French daily Liberation earlier this week, Mr Cohn-Bendit said he wanted to get rid of Mr Barroso, arguing that he is not only too liberal economically, but he [also] is incapable of holding to a position.The greens will have 53 seats in the new parliament, 14 of which taken by France.

Far-right having difficulty clubbing together in EU parliament
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today JUNE 11,09 @ 08:26 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Like chocolate and mustard, or orange juice and toothpaste, the various flavours of far right in the new European Parliament just don't seem to go together and are already having trouble cooking up a united bloc in the chamber, despite the gains the extremists made in the European elections on the weekend.

The softer far-right parties so far seem more interested in jumping aboard the UK Tories' proposed European Conservatives grouping than cobbling together a nationalist bloc, but it is an open question whether the attraction will be requited.The European elections on the weekend delivered a moderate advance of eight seats on the number of MEPs in the last parliament, eliciting fears that they might club together in a political grouping in the parliament, a move that would open a tap to thousands of euros in EU funds.However, while it is still too early to make any definitive predictions, there seems to be an unbreachable antagonism between the more moderate parties and their cousins further to the right.Some of the new MEPs from the likes of Dutchman Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) or the Danish People's Party may well be opposed to migrants, Muslims and minorities, but they are reluctant to embrace the militant nationalism of the more classically fascistic parties such as the British National Party, France's Front National or newcomer Jobbik from Hungary, with its paramilitary Hungarian Guard straight out of the 1930s.At the same time, even such a division - the far-right classic and far-right lite as Glyn Ford, centre-left MEP and longtime monitor of parties to the right of the conservative mainstream, describes the two rough wings of European extremism - simplifies a situation that is further complicated by personal rivalries, competing nationalist narratives and in some cases just an inability to play together nicely.

DPP in talks with Tories

On Tuesday (9 June), freshly elected MEP Morten Messerschmidt of the Danish People's Party was in Brussels meeting on Tuesday the Tories, who have announced they are to split with the European People's Party (EPP), the centre-right - and largest - grouping in the parliament.We're definitely looking more towards the new European Conservatives grouping than the other[parties on the far right], DPP spokesperson Nina Lusty told EUobserver.It depends on whether they agree to our agenda, she said. It's not that we'd be uncomfortable with sitting with other parties, it's just that we'd be most comfortable with the Tories.Another DPP official told this paper that the party would prefer to remain in the Union for a Europe of the Nations - the other main right-wing grouping in the European Parliament, which is expected to disintegrate after the defection of Ireland's centre-right Fianna Fail for the Liberal grouping and the folding of self-styled post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale of Italy into the EPP.

But, as you know, we don't know if there'll still be a UEN.Nevertheless, the DPP says negotiations with the Tories have been tough.The Lijst Dedecker, a brand-new Flemish populist group that has attracted a number of MPs, local councillors and party members from the hard-right Flemish separatist Vlaams Belang, has also reportedly talked to the Conservatives.A source close to discussions confirmed the talks with the DPP but said: I'd be very surprised if the Danes join with the Conservatives. The Tories are trying to build a mainstream anti-federalist grouping. James Holton, spokesperson for the Conservatives in the parliament said he expected the discussions on the forming of the group with a wide number of parties to take at least another few weeks.So far the soft eurosceptic governing coalition senior partner in the former Czech government, the Civic Democrats (ODS), has officially signed up.

Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) party of President Lech Kaczynski are also on board, although no announcements have yet been made. A source close to the UEN told EUobserver that the grouping will be wrapped up and totally consumed into the European Conservative grouping, apart from those parties that the Tories don't want in.Andreas Moelzer of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) - which won 13 percent of the country's votes, more than doubling its share since the last European Parliament elections in 2004 - told this paper that they are hoping to join either the UEN or the eurosceptic Ind/Dem groupings in the parliament.In February, the FPO invited the Danish People's Party, the Vlaams Belang, France's Front National and Bulgaria's Ataka (National Union Attack) to a conference on the Lisbon Treaty.According to the UEN source, the Freedom Party wouldn't be welcomed into the UEN, let alone the new Conservative grouping.No way. Not under any circumstances, he said twice.

Northern League: No anti-semites

Mario Borghezio, the head of Italy's Lega Nord, or Northern League, delegation in the parliament believed that the UEN group would continue, despite its defections, and was surprised to hear the Poland's PiS had committed to joining the European Conservatives.We have a meeting next week with the Poles to discuss the future of the group, he said, adding nevertheless that the possibility of joining the Conservatives was not excluded.It would depend on whether they adopt acceptable positions. It's possible,he continued.The Tories for their part are believed to be opposed to the entry of the xenophobic Northern League into their new club.The only parties that would absolutely be excluded would be those that are too extreme, anti-semitic, he said, declining to name which parties he would define as too extreme.The League also has very good relations with the Flemish separatist Vlaams Belang.We will examine the terrain in Brussels in the coming weeks.

Far-right dream team

The Vlaams Belang for its part has not had any discussions with any other parties to the right of the conservative mainstream and does not expect to do so for a few weeks.We're waiting a bit to get involved in talks, said spokesperson Philip Claeys, Many of the parties we would like to work with are currently in discussions with the UK Conservatives.The Vlaams Belang is not however looking to join the Conservative grouping because of its support for Turkish entry into the EU.

That for us is a red line.

The VB's dream team, he said, would involve a core of themselves and Italy's Northern League, the Danish People's Party, the Austrian Freedom Party and the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders. This core would deliver only 19 seats from five countries, short of the 25 MEPs from seven member states that the parliament's rules require.So we would have to add some other parties as well,he said, such as Greece's Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), the Slovak National Party or the For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK from Latvia.The Flemish separatists are reluctant to work with parties further to the right, the Greater Romania Party in particular.We worked with them in the past. We know them and we don't have very good memories of that time.At the same time, we're not saying we don't want to work with them, but they have caused us a lot of problems. They're not our first choice.

Geert Wilders won't play with the others

Mr Claeys said the party would be particularly happy to work with the PVV of Geert Wilders. The Austrian Freedom Party also quickly congratulated its Dutch namesake, after its shock election of four MEPs, which pushed the junior partner in the country's coalition government, the Labour Party, into third place.They don't quite realise yet what it means to be unattached.A spokesperson for the PVV however, told the EUobsercer said that ahead of the elections, the party would sit independently in the chamber.We refuse to sit with anyone else, including the Vlaams Belang, he told EUobserver, Anyone can congratulate us all they want, but we are going in a different direction.The VB's Mr Claeys said he expected the PVV to come around in the future, once they realise what sort of isolation is involved with being non-inscrit in the parliament - the term for MEPs that do not belong to any political grouping.

Far right Classic

Meanwhile, BNP deputy leader Simon Darby said that the party is to meet with the Front National next Tuesday in Brussels.As yet we don't know if anyone else will be there, but we're willing to sit down with anyone and listen, whatever their beliefs, he told EUobserver.Catherine Savagnac, a Front National spokeswoman, told this website that they continue to work with the Austrian Freedom Party, the Vlaams Belang, Bulgaria's Ataka and the newly elected BNP, and have contacts with Hungary's Jobbik.But together we're not enough to form a group in the parliament.Such a formation would total 14 MEPs from six member states, still well below the cut-off for group funding.She added that relations with the Greater Romania Party (which has just elected three MEPs) did not end well. So it is not probable that we will work with them again. But everything's possible.The Front National also refuses to work with the Movement pour la France of national sovereignist Philippe de Villiers, whose party ran under the Libertas banner during the elections.There are contacts between individual MEPs, but not at the political level. There was a rupture with Mr de Villiers.Much depends on what happens with whether the UEN and Ind/Dem are able to form a group and what sort of groups are attracted to the new Conservative group.

It's all their fault. They've scrambled everything.Identity, Sovereignty, Tradition Mark II? Graeme Atkinson of Searchlight underscored that despite the growth of the far right in the new parliament, it was lower than might have expected given the scale of the economic crisis and that it was important to neither scaremonger nor dismiss the MEPs simply because they are not explicit neo-Nazis.While they've made real gains, we shouldn't exaggerate, and really, it looks like they won't be able to forge a group once again.In 2007, 23 MEPs clubbed together to form the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty political grouping in the parliament. It only lasted a few months before it exploded as a result of remarks by member Alessandra Mussolini about Romanian criminals in Italy that the Romanian members of the group found insulting.

There were major set-backs in the elections for the Front National in France and the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, the two slickest, most professional of the far-right outfits,Graeme Atkinson said.The Front National dropped from seven seats won in 2004 to just three on Sunday. The VB dropped from three to two.Without them forming a backbone, I don't know whether they'll be able to co-ordinate much in the parliament.

Nick Griffin supposedly has influence amongst some of the European far right groups, but he's just not very smart. It'll be very hard to glue anything together.He explained that the Front National has been riven with faction fighting, notably over the issue of succession following the presumed departure of the ageing Jean-Marie Le Pen, and is virtually bankrupt, having been forced to sell their headquarters.In the June EP elections, former FN MEP Carl Lang ran a dissident far-right list under the Parti de France banner against the official FN list led by Marine Le Pen in the North-West constituency.They are incapable of presenting a united image,Mr Atkinson said.

Europe's waters safe for swimming
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today JUNE 11,09 @ 17:08 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - It's the season for getting the trunks out of the cupboard or buying a new bikini and heading to the beach, and Europeans and tourists that visit the continent can take a plunge knowing that most bathing waters in the European Union are safe for a swim.After a slight dip in the number of places safe to take a dip in 2007, the cleanliness of sea sides, river banks and watering holes was back on track and improving in 2008 - the latest year for which there are figures.The uptick is in line with a two-decade long trend of otherwise steadily improving waters, according to the European Commission's annual publication of a report on bathing water quality, put together by the European Environment Agency.The report is based on results supplied by authorities in each member state, of tests for the presence of faecal bacteria, residues of petrol-based mineral oils, detergent, toxic acids such as phenol and overall water colour. Other tests can investigate the presence of salmonella in the water, and its acidity.Member state authorities are encouraged to publish data for 2009 within weeks of having received it, but this is not required.

Some 96.8 percent of coastal bathing waters in the EU complied with mandatory safety rules in 2008, an increase of 1.1 percent on 2007, according to the report put out on Thursday (11 June). Meanwhile 88.6 percent of coastal waters complied with what are termed guide values - thresholds that are more stringent but not mandatory. This is up 2.5 percent on 2007.The safety of inland waters was up last year as well. More than nine in ten ponds, lakes and rivers complied with mandatory rules, up 3.3 percent on 2007, while the percentage of inland waters complying with guide values was up 10.7 percent.Nevertheless, environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, in presenting the report, warned member states that they must clean up their beaches or else face legal action.They have to clean the beaches up. If they do not, then they face infringement proceedings from the commission,he told reporters in Brussels.

Poland is the worst country in Europe to go bathing in, whether at the seaside or lakeside, with 14.4 percent of all bathing waters non-compliant with mandatory standards.Belgium is the second worst, with 10.3 percent, and the pebble-beached UK came third from the bottom, with 4.1 percent of its waters not up to scratch. According to the report, France, Italy, Denmark, Germany and Latvia also had significant number of non-compliant waters.The scale changes slightly if one splits up non-compliance rates between coastal and inland waters. For coastal waters, Poland had the highest non-compliance rate, at nine percent, followed by Bulgaria, Slovenia, Ireland, and Latvia. For inland waters, Ireland far and away is the biggest scofflaw, with 33.3 percent not meeting mandatory standards, although it only reports nine spots where people go swimming. Next up the list is Slovenia, on 27.8 percent, followed by Poland, Belgium and the UK.Additionally, the number of sites at which swimming has been banned in Italy continues to climb, with the number of beaches that had been closed to swimmers amounting to 553 in 2008, up from 300 the year before, 263in 2006 and 125 in 2002.Furthermore, while Romania has a relatively high rate of compliance with mandatory standards, on 98 percent, only two percent of its bathing sites meet the stricter guides.

At the other end of the scale, the safest places to go swimming at the seaside are Belgium, Estonia, Cyprus, Lithuania and the Netherlands, all of whom have a 100 percent compliance rate with the mandatory standards. In terms of the stricter guide values, Lithuania, Cyprus, Greece, France and Malta are the top scorers, with Lithuania the sole country to score a perfect 100 percent compliance rate with both the mandatory standards and guide values.Six countries have 100 percent compliance with mandatory standards for inland waters: Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Finland. On the tougher guide values scale, Greece, France, Finland, Sweden and Germany are the top scorers, with Greece the sole country to score a perfect 100 percent compliance rate on both set of standards.

MURDER

GENESIS 4:8-11 (THE FIRST MURDER)
8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;

GENESIS 6:11-13 (EARTH DESTROYED BECAUSE OF TERRORISM,MURDERS)
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

EXODUS 20:13
13 Thou shalt not kill.(Murder)

REVELATION 9:20-21
20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils,(OCCULT) and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries,(DRUG ADDICTIONS) nor of their fornication,(SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE) nor of their thefts.(STEALING)

LUKE 21:25
25 And there shall be signs in the sun,(OZONE DEPLETION) and in the moon,(FIRST MAN ON MOON) and in the stars;(JUPITER BOMBARDED ETC) and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;
26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Guard dies after Holocaust museum shooting.Authorities say they're investigating a white supremacist as the suspect Steve Ruark / AP

WASHINGTON - An 88-year-old gunman with a virulently anti-Semitic past fatally shot a security guard inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday before being shot himself by other officers, authorities said. The assailant was hospitalized in critical condition, leaving behind a sprawling investigation by federal and local law enforcement and expressions of shock from the Israeli government and a prominent Muslim organization. Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the gunman was engaged by security guards immediately after entering the door with a rifle.The second he stepped into the building he began firing. Law enforcement officials said James W. von Brunn, a white supremacist, was under investigation in the shooting and that his car was found near the museum and tested for explosives. The weapon was a .22-caliber rifle, they added. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the investigation just beginning. Museum officials identified the dead guard as Stephen T. Johns, a six-year veteran of the facility. In an e-mail, director Sara Bloomfield said he died heroically in the line of duty.

Racist Web site
At the White House, just blocks away from the museum, President Barack Obama said, This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms. No American institution is more important to this effort than the Holocaust Museum, and no act of violence will diminish our determination to honor those who were lost by building a more peaceful and tolerant world.Von Brunn has a racist, anti-Semitic Web site and wrote a book titled Kill the Best Gentiles, alleging a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool.In 1983, he was convicted of attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board. He was arrested two years earlier outside the room where the board was meeting, carrying a revolver, knife and sawed-off shotgun. At the time, police said Von Brunn wanted to take the members hostage because of high interest rates and the nation's economic difficulties.Writings attributed to von Brunn on the Internet say the Holocaust was a hoax and decry a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool.At Auschwitz the Holocaust myth became Reality, and Germany, cultural gem of the West, became a pariah among world nations,it says.The museum, which opened in 1993 and has drawn nearly 30 million visitors, houses exhibits and records relating to the Holocaust of more than a half century ago in which more than six million Jews died at the hands of Nazis. Its Web site says the museum teaches millions of people each year about the dangers of unchecked hatred and the need to prevent genocide.The museum was crowded with school children and other tourists at the time of the attack, but they all escaped injury in the outburst of violence. Ashley Camp, 14, of Forsyth, Ill., on a field trip with more than 40 other students, said she heard two or three gunshots. Soon after, she recalled, a security guard ordered the group to run to the exit. We had to sprint as fast as we could out the door,she said. I thought it was the movie (part of a museum exhibit), but then everyone started screaming and running.D. Morris / AP

The attack was the third in a recent wave of unsettling shootings that appeared to have political underpinnings. A 23-year-old Army private, William Andrew Long, was shot and killed outside a recruiting office this month in Arkansas and a fellow soldier was wounded. The suspect, a Muslim convert, has said he considers the killing justified because of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. Late last month, abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in his church.

Johns, the security guard killed Wednesday, was black.

Only last week, Obama visited the site of a German concentration camp at Buchenwald in Germany where he noted, There are those who insist the Holocaust never happened. He added,This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history.Heavy security
The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.Linda Elston, who was visiting the museum from Nevada City, Calif., said she was on the lower level of the museum watching a film when she and others were told to evacuate.It was totally full of people, Elston said.It took us a while to get out.She said she didn't hear any shots and didn't immediately know why there was an evacuation. The experience left her feeling a little anxious, she said.

Reactions from others
In a statement from Israel's government, Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein said the shooting was further proof that anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial have not passed from the world.And the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a prominent American Muslim organization, said in a statement, We condemn this apparent bias-motivated attack and stand with the Jewish community and with Americans of all faiths in repudiating the kind of hatred and intolerance that can lead to such disturbing incidents.Within minutes after the attack, federal agents were dispatched to von Brunn's home in Annapolis, Md., to check his computer. Joseph Persichini, assistant director in charge of the Washington FBI field office, said the shootings were being investigated as a possible hate crime or a case of domestic terrorism.

According to a relative, von Brunn attended Washington University in St. Louis and is an artist.He was commissioned as a naval officer decades ago, and discharged from the Navy in 1956. A cousin, Virginia Gerker of St. Louis, said in an interview she hadn't seen him in 50 years. She said her family had disowned him believed him to be mentally ill.

Tried to get his art shown in gallery
About a dozen years ago, he applied to have his art shown at a gallery in Easton, Md., according to two of the owners. Laura Era and Jennifer Wharton said they rejected his work and he stomped out.Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said von Brunn's Web site has long been listed as a hate site. The Rev. David Ostendorf, executive director of Center for a New Community in Chicago, a national civil rights group, said von Brunn has described in his own writings a long relationship with Willis Carto, founder of the Liberty Lobby, the Spotlight Newspaper and a well-known white supremacist and anti-Semite. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said von Brunn's Web site has long been listed as a hate site.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-10
9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

GALATIONS 5:19-21
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

SINS OF PEOPLE

2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

DECIEVERS WAXING WORSE AND WORSE.

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

MORE SIN SIGNS

EPHESIANS 5:5-8
5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

We've been tracking this guy for decades,said Heidi Beirich, director of research for the law center's Intelligence Project, which tracks hate crimes. He thinks the Jews control the Federal Reserve, the banking system, that basically all Jews are evil.

GLEN BECK IS TURNING ON HIS OWN PEOPLE AS HE CLAIMS TO BE A CONSERVATIVE BUT SAYS THIS VON BRUNN WAS A HERO OF TRUTHERS WHICH ARE FOR THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.ONE THING BECK WAS RIGHT ABOUT THO WAS BERMAS OF INFOWARRIOR SAYS AFTER THE 911 ATTACK THE MUSLIMS WERE NOT CHEERING THE MURDERS BUT IT WAS A WEDDING THE MUSLIMS WERE CELEBRATING.WELL BERMAS IS OUT TO LUNCH ON THAT ONE,I SEEN FOR MYSELF ON NUMEROUS TV STATIONS THE MUSLIM COUNTRIES CHEERING AND HANDING EACH OTHER CANDY TO CELEBRATE THE MURDER OF INNOCENT AMERICANS.I CAN NOT STAND IT WHEN BERMAS ALWAYS SAYS AL-QUIDA IS JUST A MADE UP EXCUSE BY THE GOVERNMENT TO COVER UP THE 911 TERRORIST ATTACK BY THE U.S GOVERNMENT.

GLEN BECK TURNS ON HIS OWN PEOPLE WITH LIES ABOUT VON BRUNN HERO OF TRUTHERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUTATYaIZYI&feature=player_embedded

Glenn Beck’s Outrageous Lie: Racist Von Brunn is Hero of 9/11 Truthers
Kurt Nimmo June 10, 2009

There should be absolutely no doubt Glenn Beck is a government disinfo operative tasked with taking down the 9/11 truth and patriot movements. In fact, Fox News — as a primary fount of Operation Mockingbird — is tasked with attacking not only the 9/11 truth movement but the pro-liberty and Constitution movements as well. Our country is now vulnerable, the operative Beck declares. Those people who would like to destroy us — our enemies like Al Qaeda. They’d like to destroy us, and they will work with anyone. There are also people like white supremacists or 9/11 truthers that would also like to destroy the country. They’ll work with anybody they can.In other words, the 9/11 truth movement, according to Beck, will work with al-Qaeda. If you read between the lines, Beck is calling for the government to dish out the same kind of violent response to the truth movement the CIA-created al-Qaeda received in Afghanistan or at Camp Gitmo. Beck is calling for murder and torture of people who disagree with the government.Fox News did a smash up job subverting the tea parties and reducing the movement to a carnival sideshow while CNN and especially MSNBC went into overtime to portray the tea baggers as irrelevant and absurd. On October 22, 2007, Beck — then a host on Prime Time News — viciously attacked the 9/11 truth movement, describing the whole movement as insane and branding 9/11 activists as dangerous anarchists.These truthers are exactly the kind of people who want to rock this nation’s foundation, tear us apart and plant the seeds of dissatisfaction in all of us said Beck. He later said the 9/11 truth movement is “the kind of group a Timothy McVeigh would come from,insinuating the movement is intent on violence.

In November of 2007, Beck the operative teamed up with the scurrilous ex-Marxist and neocon David Horowitz to denounce Ron Paul’s supporters as terrorists. Beck opened up his show segment by inferring that the U.S. military should be used to silence domestic dissent against the war, claiming that those he would later identify as Ron Paul supporters, libertarians and the anti-war left and link with terrorists, were a physical threat, wrote Paul Joseph Watson for Prison Planet. When you enlist in the U.S. military, you have take an oath that says you’re gonna support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies - foreign and domestic - we talk a lot on this program about the foreign threats - maybe we should spend some time tonight on the domestic one….the physical threat may be developing domestically as well,said Beck.

BORN IN THE USA? Shep Smith attacks right-wing crazies.Rips people questioning eligibility as being out there in a scary place June 10, 2009 8:30 pm Eastern By Joe Kovacs 2009 WorldNetDaily

Fox News Shepard Smith

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, host of the top-rated evening cable newscast, believes Americans challenging the eligibility of Barack Obama to hold the office of president are crazies, saying there is no truth whatsoever to the suggestion Obama is not a natural born citizen.Smith made the remark during analysis of today's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where an elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle, killing a security guard before himself being shot. Police were probing an alleged white supremacist, James von Brunn, as the assailant.During his interview with Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Smith said: There are these crazies out there who want to pretend [Obama's] not a citizen of the United States, who want to pretend that his religion is something they see as in some way troublesome to them and all of us. And there is a group perpetuating this thought, and there is a culture to which you can attach yourself very easily through the Internet. ... We know it's absolutely – there is no truth whatsoever – zero – to any of those ideas, yet they live within the computer and they fester in people's minds.

Beirich agreed completely with Smith's remarks, as she responded: You're hitting the nail on the head about these kinds of crazed conspiracies whether they're about the president, or we're hearing things like FEMA setting up camps to round up Americans and put them in. I'm getting bad sort of deja-vu from the 1990s when anti-government militias were on the rise, when Tim McVeigh committed that [bombing] in Oklahoma City and I really am hoping that we're not going through a repeat of that.Are you motivated yet to join the billboard campaign and clear up the air of mystery surrounding Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve? Smith made numerous references to a Department of Homeland Security report warning of potential violence from right-wing extremists, and said he's been personally disturbed by an increase in e-mail to him from people who are way out there on a limb ... out there in a scary place.He read what he called a representative message that asked, How dare you tell us to get over the birth certificate ... ?

Shepard Smith's 2000 mugshot

Ironically, Smith himself allegedly engaged in activity some might deem out there in a scary place.As WND reported in November 2000, during the Florida presidential election fiasco, Smith was arrested for allegedly driving his Mazda Millenia into another reporter who was standing in a parking space she attempted to save for a friend. The victim, freelance journalist Maureen Walsh of Tallahassee, was hospitalized and released later the same day with bruises on her knees and legs. The St. Petersburg Times reported Tallahassee Police Sgt. Edwin Maxwell said Smith drove up and shouted some profanities at her and basically just struck her, striking her at the knees, which threw her up on the car.According to NewsBlues, a witness to the incident said Smith intentionally ran into her with his car to try and get her to move from the parking spot. She was thrown onto the hood of the car and ended up on the ground. Smith then parked the car, turned off the engine, turned to the crews assisting the reporter and said f--- you and walked into the state capital. Police and paramedics were called.When arrested on the street outside the capital, Smith said he couldn't understand why this was happening ... they then handcuffed him.Smith was charged with a felony the day of the offense, but it was later downgraded to a misdemeanor and eventually dropped.Two hours after Smith's TV remarks about crazies, his network colleague Glenn Beck said of the shooting in Washington, This is not the work of right-wing conservatives.This guy is a lone gunman nut job,Beck said. I'm not stirring the pot. I am pointing out that the pot is boiling and there is trouble in America. ... Common sense tells you that there are very hateful people on the right and on the left.The museum guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, died in the hospital. Von Brunn, 89, was listed in critical condition.

Nationwide attention about President Obama's lack of producing a long-form birth certificate proving his eligibility for office got a boost today when top-rated radio host Rush Limbaugh joked about the subject in comparing Obama to God. Asking rhetorically what God has in common with Obama, Limbaugh said, Neither has a birth certificate.

The birth certificate

WND has been reporting since before the election on questions – and lawsuits – raised over Obama's birth and eligibility. He reported in his book he was born in Hawaii and his half-sister agrees. But the woman the president says is his paternal grandmother, Sarah Obama, claimed to have been present at her grandson's birth in Mombasa, Kenya.
The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.

Barack Obama

Complicating the issue are Obama's move to Indonesia as a child, where he reportedly attended that nation's public schools, and his later travels to Pakistan, raising questions about on what nation's passport was that travel accomplished. Then there are the multiple law firms hired to make certain Obama's long-form birth certificate information, and other documentation such as college records, remain sealed from public view.Obama's presidential campaign released to select news organizations only what is known as a certification of live birth, a document obtainable in Hawaii in 1961 by Americans actually born outside the country. However, Joseph Farah, WND editor and chief executive officer, has been calling for the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate showing the hospital of his birth, attending physician and other details to confirm his citizenship status.Farah launched a national billboard campaign last month in an effort to keep the issue before the American people. The billboards, being leased around the country, ask the simple question, Where's the birth certificate? Farah is asking the public to support his campaign with donations. So far, more than $75,000 has been collected.The billboard campaign followed one launched months earlier to collect the names on an electronic petition demanding accountability and transparency on the issue. So far, that petition has gathered nearly 400,000 names.The campaign got a boost recently when WND White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asked Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, why the president wouldn't release his birth certificate. Gibbs' response was covered live on C-SPAN and by Fox News Channel and others – excluding CBS. It was the first time any member of the press corps has publicly asked a member of the administration a question directly related to Obama's constitutional eligibility for office as a natural born citizen.Congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a natural born citizen, but no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama's claim to a Hawaiian birth.Both the petition and the billboard campaign are part of what Farah calls an independent truth and transparency campaign.The first sign to be posted under the campaign, a digital, electronic one, is up and online on Highway 165 in Ball, La.. In addition, based on the heavy volume of financial donations in the first days of the campaign, WND was able to commit to leasing three more standard billboards – one in Los Angeles, another in Orange County, Calif. and a third in Pennsylvania.

Where's the Birth Certificate? billboard near the Santa Ana Freeway in Los Angeles
Farah said the campaign was born of frustration with timid elected officials in Washington, corrupt judges around the country and a news media that show a stunning lack of curiosity about the most basic facts of Obama's background – especially how it relates to constitutional eligibility for the highest office in the land. As Obama transforms this country from self-governing constitutional republic to one governed by a central ruling elite, the simple fact remains that no controlling legal authority has established that he is indeed a natural born citizen as the Constitution requires,Farah said.Obama's promises of transparency have become a bad joke as he continues to hide simple, innocuous documents like his birth certificate and his student records.

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)

MATTHEW 24:9
9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

OH MAN IS THE ANTI-SEMITISM HEATING UP.FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR ON CNN ALL I HEARD WAS THE HATE SAYING BY VON BRUNN AGAINST THE ISRAELIS AND NOW THIS WRIGHT BLAMING ISRAEL YET. LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS ISRAEL WILL BE HATED IN THE LAST DAYS,THEM LAST DAYS ARE HERE FOR SURE.

EXCLUSIVE TO THE DAILY PRESS Rev. Jeremiah Wright says Jews are keeping him from President Obama By DAVID SQUIRES | 757-247-4639 6:19 PM EDT, June 10, 2009

HAMPTON - The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says he does not feel any regrets over his severed relationship with President Barack Obama, a former member of the Chicago church in which Wright was the longtime pastor.Wright also said that he had not spoken to his former church member since Obama became president, implying that the White House won't allow Obama to talk to him. He did not indicate whether he had tried to reach Obama.Regret for what... that the media went back five, seven, 10 years and spent $4,000 buying 20 years worth of sermons to hear what I've been preaching for 20 years?

Regret for preaching like I've been preaching for 50 years? Absolutely none, Wright said.Of course I voted for him; he's my son. I'm proud of him,Wright said. I've got five biological kids. They all make mistakes and bad choices. I haven't stopped loving any of them.He made mistakes. He made bad choices. I've got kids who listen to their friends. He listened to those around him. I did not disown him.Asked if he had spoken to the president, Wright said: Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office.They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: He's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do.Wright also said Obama should have sent a U.S. delegation to the World Conference on Racism held recently in Geneva, Switzerland, but that the president did not do so for fear of offending Jews and Israel.Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing (by) the Zionist is a sin and a crime against humanity, and they don't want Barack talking like that because that's anti-Israel,Wright said.Wright is in Hampton this week attending Hampton University's 95th Annual Ministers Conference. The son of a pastor, Wright said he has attended the conference since he was a child – though he was not spotted at the conference in 2008 during the heat of the debate over comments he made that many in the media branded racially divisive.

Perhaps without the Wright controversy, the issue of race might not have become a part of the 2008 presidential campaign.After the initial rounds of the controversy, Obama made his famous speech in Philadelphia on race relations, in which he said he could no more disown Wright than his own grandmother.But the issue heated up after more comments by Wright at the National Press Club and from other controversial speakers at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama eventually distanced himself from the church.

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 THU JUNE 11,2009

09:30 AM -1.51
10:00 AM +63.38
10:30 AM +81.40
11:00 AM +48.15
11:30 AM +78.83
12:00 PM +72.86
12:30 PM +64.24
01:00 PM +71.42
01:30 PM +117.45
02:00 PM +104.75
02:30 PM +103.77
03:00 PM +103.16
03:30 PM +99.31
04:00 PM +31.90 8770.92

S&P 500 944.88 +5.73

NASDAQ 1862.37 +9.29

GOLD 956.60 +1.90

OIL 72.59 +1.26

TSE 300 10,716.44 +118.46

CDNX 1148.75 +6.36

S&P/TSX/60 651.24 +6.87

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -0.43%
S&P +3.97%
Nasdaq +17.50%
TSX Advances 846,declines 694,unchanged 280,Volume 2,525,905,553.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 425,Declines 433,Unchanged 356,Volume 316,447,299.

Dow +47 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow-1 points at low today.
Dow +107 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $949.20.OIL opens at $72.71 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -1 points at low today so far.
Dow +107 points at high today so far.

DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 2,234,declines 1,186,unchanged 113,New Highs 18,New Lows 30.
Volume 2,638,626,187.
NASDAQ Advances 1,662,declines 910,unchanged 123,New highs 37,New Lows 7.
Volume 1,059,115,898.
TSX Advances 797,declines 545,unchanged 266,Volume 1,086,507,039.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 339,Declines 303,Unchanged 323,Volume 163,877,809.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -1 points at low today.
Dow +141 points at high today.
Dow +0.37% today Volume 249,873,304.
Nasdaq +0.50% today Volume 2,147,483,648.
S&P 500 +0.61% today Volume N/A

Latvia facing fresh austerity measures
ANDREW WILLIS Today JUNE 11,09 @ 08:26 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Despite the severity of EU-imposed austerity measures, a currency devaluation would cause greater suffering for Latvian citizens the country's prime minister told EUobserver and other journalists on Wednesday (10 June). If we go through this fiscal consolidation at least we can do it in a controlled way and try to protect at least certain categories of the population,Mr Valdis Dombrovskis said after meeting with European Commission officials in Brussels. If we go for other alternatives, that being devaluation …there are no exceptions for anyone and the practice of different countries shows that this tends to go out of control,he said.

The small Baltic state is in a difficult bind at the moment. Having secured a €7.5 billion loan led by the EU and the International Monetary Fund last December, the country's escalating budget deficit has prompted lenders to halt loan payments until the problem is solved. Added to this, a government debt issuance valued at 50 million lats (€70m) last week failed to attract bidders. The European Commission and IMF insist that the Latvian government improve the state of its public finances despite concern that further efforts to reduce the country's budget deficit could provoke greater social unrest in a country that has already seen riots and the fall of one government this year. The situation since December has worsened all over Europe, but in particular in Latvia, so the programme needs adjustment,European economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia said on Wednesday.

All eyes on the Latvian parliament

Keen to restart loan payments, the Latvian government announced on Tuesday that it intends to claw back 500 million lats (€700m) from this year's budget, the third announcement of its kind this year. Earlier budget adjustments resulted in a 15 percent reduction in public wages, followed by a further 20 percent reduction. As well as this third knockdown in salaries, the latest measures include a reduction in the total number of public servants, the introduction of a progressive income tax system, a new real estate tax and, from 2011, a rise in VAT and social security contributions.It will be a bitter pill for many Latvians to swallow, raising the question as to whether the country's single chamber parliament will agree to the measures when they vote next week. Although trade unions have been consulted over the proposed budgetary adjustment, one Latvian economist this week described the proposals as economic murder.Depending on the parliament's decision, the commission and IMF are likely to decide later this month whether to hand over a €1.4 billion slice of the €7.5 billion loan.Even if the parliament agrees to the new cutbacks and the next payment is secured, there is no guarantee that the threat of a forced devaluation will have been averted, with ratings agency Fitch saying on Wednesday that the likelihood was significant and rising.

Paying for past mistakes

The Latvian economy is predicted to contract by 18 percent this year according to the latest data, but despite the export advantage devaluation would bring, the country's government appears resolute in its attempts to maintain the lat's currency peg against the euro. Last week alone the country's central bank spent €237 million propping up the lat, rather than abandoning plans to join the euro, which Mr Dombrovskis says can still be achieved by 2013.One fear is that a currency devaluation would greatly increase the value of the country's large private sector debt. As recently as 2007 Latvia was enjoying double-digit growth, with company and household borrowings rising dramatically as Swedish banks poured money into the small economy.A devaluation in the lat and the corresponding hike in value of these foreign currency denominated debts would create very serious difficulties says Mr Almunia. We want to avoid at any price this very serious situation.Mr Dombrovskis is candid when asked how Latvia's difficult situation arose. We had double digit growth and yet didn't balance the budget …anti-inflation measures were implemented with a large delay, there were no restrictions on credit growth and [we had] a real estate bubble, he says.All the kind of problems you can think of,he adds.

ECB to lend €3bn to Swedish central bank
ANDREW WILLIS Today JUNE 11,09 @ 09:24 CET

The European Central Bank announced plans to lend €3 billion to Sweden's central bank on Wednesday (10 June) as the country comes to terms with its heavy exposure to the crisis-hit Baltic region and in particular Latvia. The loan – part of a swap agreement whereby the Riksbank can borrow up to €10 billion from the ECB in exchange for Swedish kronor - will help the Swedish central bank in turn to provide greater support to the country's private banks that currently face extensive loan losses. As a substantial part of the Swedish banks' funding is in foreign currency, the Riksbank needs to have a sufficiently large foreign-exchange reserve to be able to meet a potential need from the banks, the Riksbank said in a statement.The ECB move is also intended to shore up confidence in the Baltic area where a collapse of Swedish banks –the main lenders in the region – could prove disastrous. The Latvian government is currently battling to maintain its currency peg against the euro, with fears that an untidy devaluation could plunge the country into further economic turmoil. The ECB has so far been reluctant to provide direct support to non-Eurozone states, although last week the bank's president, Jean-Claude Trichet, announced there was an agreement to provide a limited amount of liquidity to the Latvian central bank.

On Tuesday, the Latvian government announced further budget cuts in order to secure the next tranche of a €7.5 billion loan agreed with the EU and IMF last December, helping to stabilise the country's currency.A forced currency devaluation would see the value of Latvia's private sector debt – largely denominated in foreign currency – greatly increase in real terms, creating extreme difficulties for the county's companies and households to pay back loans owed to Swedish banks. The €3 billion loan announcement is a sign that Sweden is preparing its foreign currency reserves for extensive losses on Baltic-region loans. The country's Financial Supervisory Authority announced on Wednesday that Swedish banks have sufficient capital to weather a worst-case scenario of more than €30 billion in loan losses over the next three years.

Barroso fails eco test, say green groups
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today JUNE 11,09 @ 09:29 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Despite the EU's headline grabbing efforts at combating climate change, a coalition of ten green pressure groups has given the outgoing commission a failing grade for its efforts on the environment over the past five years.The Green 10, a group of the ten main environmental NGOs operating in Brussels, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the WWF, say that from 2004 to 2009, though there have been some bright spots, for the most part, the Barroso commission was worse than the [previous] Prodi commission.The EU is still on the road to environmental degradation, Jorgo Riss of Greenpeace, told reporters on Wednesday (10 June) when presenting the report.In an examination of 12 policy areas including climate, biodiversity, transport, agriculture and health, the groups gave the Barroso commission a rating of 4.4 out of ten.This was mainly a result of what the coalition described as a failure to reform agriculture and fisheries policies and to propose sustainable economic policies.Noting that if all individuals maintained a western standard of living, the world would use the resources of three planets, Magda Stoczkiewicz of Friends of the Earth Europe said: There are still no targets for reduction in resource use.Nature protection and biodiversity targets will not be met, she said,and the commission is fairing badly in terms of protecting Europe's seas.

She said the groups were also unhappy with the Barroso commission's very clear pro-GM [organisms] bias, despite public opposition.The commission has too often given in to vested interests when legislating on issues affecting agriculture and marine life, the groups said.The narrative the groups tell is one of a Barroso administration that came into office very much opposed to placing environmental issues on the agenda, but that midway through the president's term, had something of a damascene conversion on the issue of climate change.But this was not always of the European Commission's own choosing,said Mattias Duwe of the Climate Action Network. Rather, it was rising public awareness and therefore the need to do something.Thus the commission received passing grades in the climate, energy and transport policy areas.Most remarkable is the clear target of renewable energy,he said.It's a clear milestone in the development of clean energy.The environment commissioner however, Greece's Stavros Dimas, emerged as an unlikely hero.Upon his appointment, green groups were horrified, saying his background in the corporate world and Wall Street in particular suggested he would be a plant from industry.

But in the end, he turned out to be a real fighter within the commission, they said, even describing him as brave.He's been a very committed environment commissioner, said John Hontelez, of the European Environmental Bureau, surrounded by a commission that is not very committed.He had fights with [industry commissioner] Verheugen over Reach [the chemicals legislation]... he had fights over air pollution.Very bluntly, [the Barroso commission] has done slightly worse than the Prodi commission, he added. In the area of transport, they've done slightly better, but that is mainly because Dimas was very active.

A Regional Central Banker Blows the Whistle
Gary North / LewRockwell.com | June 10, 2009

In the long run, we are all dead but our children will be left to pick up the tab. Thomas Hoenig, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.Thomas Hoenig is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. In a recent speech, he laid out a scenario for what the Federal Reserve ought to do and what the U.S. government ought to do, and what will happen if they refuse. You can read it here.They will refuse. He did not say this, but it is clear to me that they will refuse, at least for the near term.

I hope they won’t refuse.

Hoenig surveyed what he called challenges.He said that we – a crucial word in the speech – must begin now to address them genuinely and systematically or we risk repeating past mistakes and creating an environment that leads to our next set of crises.

Who are we? How will we accomplish this?

Herbert Hoover could have said as much in 1932. So could Bush 1 in 1991 or Bush 2 in 2001. So could Barack Obama today. They never say anything like this. Neither do Federal Reserve Chairmen, except when they are about to implement past mistakes.He thinks the recession will abate in the second half of this year or in 2010. He did mention housing price declines as a drag on the economy. He did not mention foreclosures.He said that the cause of this new economic growth will be the result of the significant degree of monetary and fiscal stimulus that has taken place.He said that Monetary policy has been enormously accommodative, with the fed funds rate being near zero. This correctly identifies the cause of the fed funds rate at zero: monetary inflation. The FED cannot simply announce a lower fedfunds rate. It has to back this up with fiat money.He identified the main subsidized sectors. The FED has thrown money at housing and the financial markets. It is now buying longer-term assets, including T-bonds. If we count all of the Federal Reserve Banks’ balance sheets, the increase has been from $1 trillion to $3 trillion in less than two years (p. 2).Fiscal policy – the code words for Federal deficits – has matched the FED’s expansion of money. There was $700 billion for TARP during the past 8 months. The recent spending package will add another $800 billion in tax cuts, grants to state governments, and jobless benefits. There will be more highways.

NO FREE LUNCHES

He is a Keynesian. They all are. So, he did not mention that every dime that the Federal government spends in excess of revenues must be borrowed. That is what a deficit means. The only question is: From whom? If from foreign central banks, the dependence of the U.S. government and the economy on foreign central bankers increases.If from the domestic economy, every dime lent to the Federal government must come out of savings that would otherwise have gone into the private sector or local government. Every dime transferred from the private capital markets to the Federal government reduces economic productivity. The private sector jobs that would have been created become government jobs.If from the Federal Reserve System, fiat money will spread into the economy.If from commercial banks, this will come at the expense of either private producers or consumers, or through moving funds presently kept at the FED as excess reserves. The fractional reserve process will then take over: more money through the money multiplier, which will at last go positive.

Hoenig mentioned none of this.There are no free lunches. There are no free loans. There are always costs attached.He is cautiously optimistic. He thinks the recovery will be modest. This is becoming the standard opinion. He added this word of warning:
Our financial institutions remain fragile and will require significant additional amounts of capital to regain their stability.He did not say how this capital is going to be raised.

THE OLIGARCHY OF INTERESTS

He said that the U.S. financial system very nearly collapsed in 2008. Then he did what they all do. He announced that we need a better set of incentives within the industry and better oversight by the regulatory institutions if we are to avoid a repeat of these events in the future.

This raises a few questions.

Why were the regulators blind before? For how long? Why are they better able to see now? What kind of incentives motivate them? Who applies these incentives? What about disincentives? Who applies these?

He understands this.Unfortunately, I’m afraid we are witnessing some regulatory malpractice now (p. 4). That is exactly what we are seeing. We are seeing the financial regulatory structure being handed over to the Federal Reserve System. This was the source of the bubble in the first place. Greenspan denied that anyone can identify a bubble in the making.What if we do not get the reforms we need? His answer is amazing for its candidness: we will perpetuate an oligarchy of interests that will fail to serve the best interests of business, the consumer and the U.S. economy.

Notice the key word: perpetuate.It is an admission of the existence of such an oligarchy.It has been with us ever since the Civil War. It has consolidated its hold on the economy ever since the Federal Reserve began operations in 1914.

Why will this change now? He never said.

Today, the FED has created the legal basis of massive monetary inflation – unprecedented. How will it police the financial system? He said that before we spend time reforming the system, we should first determine which rules of conduct should be reintroduced and enforced to provide for better outcomes.How inspiring! But who are we, and how will we make these assessments? How will we get the existing oligarchy to consent to its suicide? We have heard all this before, but never from a sitting president of a regional Federal Reserve Bank.

TOO BIG TO FAIL

He called for policy-makers to abandon this doctrine (p. 5). The policy is anti-capitalistic, he said. Indeed, it is. That is the reason why the Federal Reserve System was created by the big bank oligarchy in 1913.He said the bailouts create moral hazard. Senior managers take extreme risks, looking for easy profits from high leverage, knowing that if their companies get in trouble, the government or the FED will bail them out.To warn against moral hazard at this late date is naïve. The concept was first named and discussed in the 1870’s. It is well enough known by now that a Nashville financial planner has created a country music alter ego named Merle Hazard. He sings more sense than the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve has yet to announce. If you doubt me, listen for yourself.Hoenig did not outline exactly what this new, improved let em die system should look like. He did not say how Congress will implement it. He did not say why, at this late date, the oligarchy will consent to it.This is standard fare. Nobody in authority says what needs to be done or how it will ever come to pass. Economists tell us that incentives are everything. Then, when they call for financial reform, they refuse to discuss incentives. How does the fractional reserve banking process not create booms and busts? How can regulators overcome the booms that fiat money produces, or the busts that monetary stabilization later produces?

ECONOMIC IMBALANCES

He identified several. One is the balance of payments problem. We borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from abroad.But who are we? He did not identify the major lenders: Asian central banks. He did not mention why they do this: to increase their exports of goods to the United States. How? By lowering the dollar-denominated value of their currencies. These central banks buy dollars with their own recently created fiat money.The balance of payments deficit is mainly a product of mercantilist economics in Asia and Keynesian economics in the United States. Mercantilism and Keynesianism are the mutually dependent twins of modern trade. Asian central banks buy mainly Treasury debt and Federal agency debt. The imbalance problem stems from governments on both sides of the transactions.Until very recently, the personal savings rate has fallen, he said (p. 6). Quite true. Now that it is rising again, the Federal government is running a $1.8 trillion deficit to get Americans to spend, spend, spend. The Federal Reserve has lowered the fedfunds rate to zero. Lend, lend, lend! The joint policies of the government and the FED are designed to increase spending. The lower capital gains rate will expire in 2010. That will reduce thrift.

Then there are the unfunded liabilities of the Federal government: Social Security and Medicare (p. 7). These are permanent imbalances. They have grown up over decades. Why would Hoenig imagine that Congress will reverse itself and start funding these sinkholes? With what? Congress will not invest in the private markets. It buys Treasury debt and spends the money. It always has.Where are the new incentives that will change Congress? Who will impose them? Hoenig’s whole exercise is utterly utopian. It is an economists’ fantasy: a world devoid of political incentives to correct the imbalances. Government created these imbalances for political purposes: buying votes, expanding power, deferring a day of reckoning. It has been successful. Why change now? Someday, he said,investment will slow and cause lower productivity. What does he mean, someday? We are there.The whole Western world is there. Every government and central bank has pursued the same policies. Every government is now trapped. Every central bank has lowered the overnight interest rate. Every central bank has inflated.

INTEREST RATES WILL RISE

He finally gets down to the real world (p. 8). He said that interest rates will rise.

He actually predicted monetary deflation.As the economy recovers, even at a modest pace, resource demands will begin to increase. At that point, the current level of monetary accommodation will need to be withdrawn to avoid introducing inflationary impulses.This is true. But if this is done, unemployment levels will remain high, he said.If this happens, he predicted,there will be considerable pressure on the central bank to help out in easing the adjustment process by keeping interest rates low for an extended period He’s got that right! This would lead to high inflation and an actual worsening of an economy’s long-term performance.Correct again!Conclusion: We face difficult adjustments that must be made. The process will not be free of pain.

The FED has more than doubled its balance sheet over the past two years (p. 9). The FED must now remove this stimulus carefully. What does he mean, carefully? The FED either removes it or else it doesn’t.He refused to say the obvious: to maintain today’s rate of price inflation, the FED will have to sell all of the toxic assets, all of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt, and all of the T-bonds that it has bought.

In short, it will have to collapse the already fragile financial system.How likely is this scenario? The monetary base has more than doubled. This allows a doubling of bank loans. This will double the money supply. If the FED does nothing, we will see 100% price inflation when the banks finally lend all of the money they legally can lend today.So, at some point, he is right. The FED must sell those assets, or else raise bank reserve requirements to sterilize the assets it has bought. I think the latter is more likely.If the FED does not sell assets or raise reserve requirements, then mass inflation is guaranteed.This is not just America’s problem. This is the whole world’s problem,

MORE OF THE SAME

It has finally become acceptable to blame Alan Greenspan for his policy of lowering short-term rates. The problem today is this: the central banks have inflated at a rate that makes Greenspan look like a hard-money man. They have lowered short-term rates to unprecedented levels. They have out-Greenspanned Greenspan.Now what? The supposed green shoots of recovery will persuade solvent banks to lend again. The M1 money supply will rise without being offset by a negative money multiplier, as has happened so far.If banks refuse to lend, then interest rates will go up. This will cut short the recovery.Imagine what the real estate market would look like if the FED ever unloaded its Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds, and mortgages went to 7% or 8%. If you think the Case-Shiller index of urban housing prices in 20 cities looks like Niagara Falls today, just wait.I think the FED will continue to buy T-bonds. It will not unload its assets until the political repercussions of 30% price inflation finally force it to stop buying. Then rates will soar.

CONCLUSION

The FED is on the back of the tiger. Hoenig sees this. He knows the financial system remains fragile. I presume that he knows that the only way to keep it solvent is for the FED to refuse to sell its assets to the general investment community. Bernanke knows this, too.No matter how carefully the FED sells off debt, this policy will reverse the recovery. I mean the hoped-for recovery. It is nowhere in sight yet.The FED will continue to support the T-bond market. It will not allow T-bond rates to rise dramatically.It will ignore corporate bond rates. Get ready for a bumpy ride.

Gloomy Canada data show crisis By David Ljunggren – Wed Jun 10, 10:57 am ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada unexpectedly posted a trade deficit in April on slumping exports while new house prices fell by the most in almost two decades, showing the economic crisis is still biting despite talk of a recovery.The trade deficit for April was $179 million, the third time the balance had slipped into the red since December. Until that month Canada -- which relies heavily on exports -- had posted surpluses for almost 33 years.Analysts, who variously called the data pretty dismal and simply bad news, had on average predicted a $1 billion surplus after a $1 billion surplus in March.Statistics Canada said exports fell 5.1 percent to $30.79 billion, the lowest figure since the $30.18 billion recorded in June 1999, on smaller shipments of industrial goods, machinery and equipment and energy products. It also cited a 3.2 percent reduction in prices.The figures reflect the continuing damage that the world economic crisis is wreaking on Canada, a leading commodity producer which sends 75 percent of its exports to the United States. Exports have declined by 30.6 percent since July 2008.Clearly, Canada's export sector continues to struggle against a tide of sluggish demand, but also the headwinds brought about from a pretty significant appreciation in the Canadian dollar, which gained a lot of traction in April,said Charmaine Buskas, economics strategist at TD Securities.The undercurrent in trade is unlikely to significantly change in the near term. The Canadian dollar continues to broadly rally against the U.S. dollar and is poised to appreciate even further in the near term. This complicates the export profile.

April imports dropped 1.5 percent to C$30.96 billion, the lowest since the $30.89 billion recorded in December 2004, on lower volumes of imports of machinery and industrial goods. Imports have dropped by 21.6 percent since last July.The Canadian currency slipped on the data and at 10.20 a.m. was at C$1.1101 to the U.S. dollar, or 90.08 U.S. cents, compared to Tuesday's finish at C$1.1032 to the U.S. dollar, or 90.65 U.S. cents.The trade picture ... tends to trample on some of those economic sprouts the market has been looking for,said HSBC Securities economist Stewart Hall.

The Achilles heel of the economic recovery story has been a paucity of hard economic data supporting the survey data that has hinted at a near term bottoming out (or) stabilization.In recent weeks Canadian government ministers have expressed optimism that the worst of the crisis might be over.To underline the general feeling of gloom, Statscan said the prices of new homes in April fell by 0.6 percent from March and by 3.0 percent from April 2008.The year-on-year decline was the largest since the 3.2 percent fall recorded in December 1991.Market analysts had expected new housing prices to fall by 0.4 percent from March. It was the seventh consecutive month-on-month drop.(Reporting by David Ljunggren)

Chinese exports plunge 26.4 percent in May JUNE 10,09

BEIJING – China's exports plunged in May for a seventh month as the global downturn battered trade, while imports also dropped sharply, the government reported Thursday.

May exports fell 26.4 percent from a year earlier, the customs agency reported. That was sharper than April's 22.6 decline and far below March's 17.2 percent contraction.

Chinese trade collapsed in late 2008 as the global economic crisis cut into demand for Chinese exports. The slump forced thousands of factories to close and threw millions of migrants out of work.The government is trying to shield China from the downturn by pumping up domestic consuption with a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) to pump money into the economy through higher spending on public works construction and other initiatives.May imports dropped by 25.2 percent, the agency said. That was worse than April's 23 percent fall and matched March's decline.The decline suggested Chinese demand for iron ore, industrial components and other foreign products is still weak.General Administration of Customs of China (in Chinese): http://www.customs.gov.cn

World Economic Forum on Africa opens By CLARE NULLIS, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 10, 1:47 pm ET

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Africa must seize the opportunity to turn the current economic crisis to its own advantage and reshape global institutions long dominated by the West, political and business leaders said at the annual World Economic Forum on Africa.A World Economic Forum report published to coincide with Wednesday's opening of the three-day conference showed Africa again languishing at the bottom of global competitiveness rankings because of bottlenecks in infrastructure, finance and communications.A separate report by experts including former U.N. chief Kofi Annan and former Mozambican first lady Graca Machel said Africa would continue to need aid, but that it had enough potential and untapped resources to become a net food and energy exporter and to boost intercontinental trade.We need leadership visionary enough to say where we want to put our continent in 30, 40 or 50 years, and to take the steps necessary to keep our continent there, said Machel. We have the potential, we have the capacity.Africa achieved economic growth rates of 5.5 percent last year, above the global average, said Annan. The numbers of people living in poverty are leveling out, democracy and market reforms are entrenched in many countries, and great strides are being made against killer diseases such as AIDS and malaria.

Some of this progress is unstoppable but much of it is fragile,he said.

Annan's Progress Panel Report called for more investment in renewable energy, agriculture and communications.Africa is the continent most vulnerable to the economic downturn because it does not have the economic and social levers to cushion the crisis. Countries like Zambia and Angola are hurting from the decline in commodity prices, and the regional powerhouse South Africa is reeling under the impact of massive layoffs in its mining and car manufacturing sector.Even Botswana — one of the wealthiest and best-managed economies — was given a $1.5 billion loan last week by the African Development Bank to help it cope with the collapse in diamond prices — the mainstay of its economy.We woke up one morning and we could not sell a single diamond. And for the first time, we could no longer believe that diamonds are forever,said Linah Mohohlo, governor of the Bank of Botswana. Faced with a huge budget deficit that threatened health and education programs, she said the small southern African nation had to scramble for a foreign bailout.

But many African countries do not get such a kind hearing from donors.

Zimbabwe has appealed in vain for a massive funding package to haul it back from the brink. Its immediate neighbors are too cash-strapped and Western donors remain skeptical about President Robert Mugabe's commitment to reform. His prime minister — former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai — is on a three-week trip to Europe and the United States to end a decade of isolation and re-engage with traditional investors, but it remains unclear whether Tsvangirai and his finance minister can wrest economic policy from the control of Mugabe and his allies.Annan warned the world not to turn its back on Africa despite its reputation as a basket case because of wars and corruption.We ignored Somalia and it's now come back to bite us with piracy and destruction to global trade,he said.

Stocks fall on interest-rate, inflation jitters By MADLEN READ and TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writers – Wed Jun 10, 5:45 pm ET

NEW YORK – The stock market has a new priority: interest rates.Stocks fell moderately Wednesday after the government sold $19 billion in 10-year Treasury notes in a relatively weak auction. There were plenty of bidders, but the government had to lure them in with a higher yield than the market anticipated.The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose for the fourth time in five days, jumping to 3.96 percent from 3.86 percent late Tuesday. That helped send stocks broadly lower, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 24 points.Investors are concerned the government's debt load is growing so large that it will lead to higher inflation and soaring interest rates. Higher interest rates could hamper the economy's recovery by raising borrowing costs for consumers, while inflation could also discourage them from spending.Stocks have fallen several times in the past two months on worries over interest rates. Yields on long-term Treasury bonds jumped on May 21, sending the stock market sharply lower, after Standard & Poor's warned it might downgrade the British government's AAA debt rating. That touched off fears that the U.S. government's own debt rating might be in downgraded at some point.A weakening dollar has also contributed to the concerns about interest rates, since it can lead to higher prices for imported goods, putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to hold inflation in check by raising short-term interest rates.The dollar's slump has also stirred inflationary worries by driving up prices for key commodities such as oil, which can trigger higher prices everywhere. The price of crude rose above $71 a barrel on Wednesday, its highest level this year.Jeffrey Frankel, president of Stuart Frankel & Co., said the Treasury auction rattled some traders. But he added that several cautious pullbacks in a stock market that went nearly straight up for three consecutive months are not necessarily a bad thing.

You have some people reading the history books, thinking, This looks familiar to what the books tell us happened during the Great Depression,he said.Then you have others that saying,Don't sell America short.The Dow fell 24.04, or 0.3 percent, to 8,739.02 after sliding as much as 123 points after the release of the Treasury auction results in the early afternoon.The S&P 500 index fell 3.28, or 0.4 percent, to 939.15. The Nasdaq composite index fell 7.05, or 0.4 percent, to 1,853.08.Data from the Federal Reserve on regional economies did little to help stocks. The central bank reported in what's known as its Beige Book that five of 12 U.S. regions said the economy's downward trend is showing signs of moderating.The Dow has been waffling around 8,700 this month, just below where it started the year, after its massive three-month rebound from 12-year lows reached in early March.We're going to need to have more positive news on the economic front to make another push higher,said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research.Bonds weakened as Brazil joined China and Russia in saying it was interested in buying the International Monetary Fund bonds as a way to broaden its holdings beyond the dollar. Brazil's finance minister said it was considering buying $10 billion in IMF bonds. That could mean fewer countries show up at Treasury auctions.Stephen Wood, chief market strategist for North America at Russell Investments, said inflation is just one of the unknowns as traders try to determine how quickly the economy might recover.

The market was priced for perfection a year and half ago and you had a market that was priced for Armageddon last September and now you have something priced in between.
In other trading, the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 4.22, or 0.8 percent, to 523.71. About three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 5.2 billion shares compared with 4.3billion Tuesday.Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 2.1 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.7 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 1.1 percent, and France's CAC-40rose 0.6 percent.

California nears financial meltdown as revs tumble By Jim Christie – Wed Jun 10, 7:31 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California's government risks a financial meltdown within 50days in light of its weakening May revenues unless Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers quickly plug a $24.3 billion budget gap, the state's controller said on Wednesday.Underscoring the severity of California's cash crisis, Controller John Chiang, who has previously warned the state's government risks running out of cash without a budget deal, said revenues in May fell by $1.14 billon, or 17.7 percent, from a year earlier.Additionally, the revenues of the government of the most populous U.S. state fell short of estimates in Schwarzenegger's budget plan by $827 million, Chiang said.He warned California's state government is speeding toward a financial disaster unless officials act urgently to balance its books.Without immediate solutions from the governor and legislature, we are less than 50 days away from a meltdown of state government,Chiang said in a statement.California's revenues have been on a dramatic slide as a result of recession, rising unemployment and its lengthy housing downturn.The state's revenues from personal income taxes tumbled by 39.3 percent in May from a year earlier while revenues from corporate taxes fell by 52.1 percent and revenues from sales taxes sagged by 7.6 percent, according to a report released by Chiang's office.A truly balanced budget is the only responsible way out of the worst cash crisis since the Great Depression,Chiang, a Democrat, said.

DUELING BUDGET CONCEPTS

Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has proposed filling the state's budget gap with deep spending cuts, borrowing from local governments and by scrapping some state programs, including its welfare program.Democrats who control the legislature are crafting a rival budget plan that includes spending cuts and saves programs Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating. They instead would use reserves estimated in his budget to narrow the budget gap.State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said on Tuesday he wants a budget agreement by the end of this month.California's new fiscal year begins on July 1. The sooner the state has a budget the better poised it will be to raise short-term cash to fund its operations by selling revenue anticipation notes, or RANs, on the municipal debt market.If pressed, California could sell revenue anticipation warrants, or RAWs, an idea floated by Schwarzenegger when he unveiled his budget plan last month. But he quickly shelved it amid opposition from lawmakers.No one wants to issue RAWs for our cash-flow borrowing, said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for State Treasurer Bill Lockyer. Everyone would prefer to issue RANs for the obvious reason: It costs less.Lockyer, a Democrat, supports a budget with the reserve Schwarzenegger has proposed. That would increase confidence among investors that California has cash to pay the $7 billion to $9 billion in short-term debt notes that Lockyer's office assumes the state will need to sell, Dresslar said.(Editing by Carol Bishopric)

White House had long planned GM and Chrysler bankruptcies
Jerry White Global Research June 9, 2009

While the Obama administration publicly claimed it was seeking to avoid bankruptcy filings by Chrysler and General Motors, behind the scenes the White House was determined to throw the two Detroit automakers into the bankruptcy courts.

Steven Rattner

Documents filed with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York make it clear that Obama’s Auto Task Force—headed by millionaire private equity manager Steven Rattner—had decided as early as Inauguration Day that a court-ordered restructuring of GM and Chrysler was needed.The administration saw this as the most effective means for the companies to jettison unprofitable factories, brands and dealerships, gut the jobs and living standards of current auto workers and escape obligations owed to hundreds of thousands of retirees.In the aftermath of the two bankruptcy declarations, both GM and Chrysler have announced nearly two dozen plant closings, massive layoffs and the elimination of more than 3,000 car dealerships.

Under the terms of Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, the two automakers’ most profitable assets are being sold to new auto companies. This legal fiction will allow them to sidestep state laws protecting dealerships from the violation of franchise agreements and other legal liabilities, including court cases involving unsafe vehicle claims and asbestos exposure. These liabilities, along with other assets deemed to be unprofitable will languish in the courts for years until they are wound down and liquidated.In the case of GM, the US Treasury will take a controlling share of the new company in exchange for nearly $50 billion in public assets. President Obama has made it clear the government will not interfere with the prerogatives and interests of private investors and will leave it to a corporate board, made up of proven cost-cutters, to return the company to profitability.The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder, Obama said last week, In short, our goal is to get GM back on its feet, take a hands-off approach, and get out quickly.The government plan involves handing the company—once it is reduced to a fraction of its size and freed from the legacy costs of decent wages and retiree benefits—to private investors as soon as possible, at a bargain basement price. This is why Wall Street celebrated the GM bankruptcy last week with a 221-point rally on the New York stock exchange.The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that GM will use a portion of the public assets from the US Treasury to subsidize a private equity firm’s buyout of the bankrupt auto parts supplier Delphi. GM will provide more than $2.5 billion of the $3.6 billion necessary for Beverly Hills, California-based buyout firm Platinum Equity to gain control of Delphi, the Journal reported. The newspaper added, Such transactions can prove hugely profitable for a buyer, depending largely on financing costs and the buyer’s ability to turn around the business.

Obama’s Auto Task Force has focused on one thing from the beginning: how to exploit the crisis of the auto industry to create conditions for Wall Street to reap huge profits. Its leading figures—Secretary Treasurer Timothy Geithner and White House economic advisor Lawrence Summers—played a key role in the Wall Street bailout, opposing the slightest restrictions on compensation paid to banking executives receiving public money. When it has come to the auto industry, however, they have demanded the most brutal job cuts and wage and benefit concessions from auto workers.
Task force advisors include Wall Street investors Rattner and Ron Bloom. Another advisor, Brian Deese, was described in a recent New York Times article, entitled, The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M. The not-so-graduate of Yale who never set foot in an auto plant until this year has pushed for a court restructuring of the two auto makers from the earliest days of the Obama administration.After the Auto Task Force’s first meeting with Rick Wagoner, GM’s former chief executive said publicly that bankruptcy was not a viable option. However, the Times article noted, from before Inauguration Day, few in Mr. Obama’s circle saw any other choice.In late March the Obama administration would fire Wagoner—who continued to oppose bankruptcy—and made it clear it would withhold any additional funding unless the company imposed far more painful cuts than outlined in its initial plan. That plan called for the elimination of 47,000 jobs worldwide, including 21,000 hourly workers in the US.

Despite its claims to the contrary, the administration was putting its plans into motion for the forced bankruptcy of Chrysler on April 30 and the century-old GM on June 1.In his affidavit to the bankruptcy court, Frederick Henderson, who took over from Wagoner as GM’s CEO, made it clear the government left GM no choice but to file for bankruptcy. In the months leading up to the bankruptcy filing, GM had sought desperately to raise cash, cut costs and seek a potential partner. This was taking place in the face of what Henderson said were deteriorating economic conditions, which can only be described as the worst economic downturn and credit market environment since the Great Depression, including a fall in per capita vehicle sales to the lowest levels in half a century.Given the company’s massive debt burden, Henderson said, the US Treasury was the only entity with the financial wherewithal and willingness to purchase the company. The US Treasury made it clear, Henderson said, that it was only willing to proceed in the context of an expedited sale process authorized and approved under the bankruptcy code.The same was true for Chrysler. As late as April 29, the automaker’s executives reportedly still hoped to avoid bankruptcy after extracting concessions from the United Auto Workers and achieving an agreement with most bondholders. According to an article in the Detroit Free Press, Reluctantly, however, the leaders were recognizing the harsh decision Rattner made weeks earlier: Chrysler was filing for Chapter 11, no matter what.Basing itself on correspondence recently released during the Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings, the Free Press continued, Rattner had met with Ron Kolka, Chrysler’s chief financial officer, and told him how it would go. We need a deal with Fiat today. We were told to pretty much take it, Kolka wrote in an e-mail to [Chrysler CEO Bob] Nardelli, Vice Chairman Tom LaSorda and Robert Manzo, a financial consultant Chrysler hired in November. Rattner and his colleague Ron Bloom will call the union in and tell them what will happen. Then they’ll tell the banks, Here’s the deal: take it or liquidate it.

Rattner, too, has no knowledge or experience in the auto industry. His major qualifications seem to be his Wall Street connections and an aptitude for raising millions on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, an accomplishment which has earned him the moniker of the ATM of the DNC. Rattner, whose net worth is estimated at $600 million, owns a Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan, a private jet and horse farm. This is the man who has demanded that retired auto workers and their dependents go without dental care and optical benefits.The forced bankruptcies and dismantling of GM and Chrysler demonstrate the massive influence Wall Street exerts over economic and political life in the US generally and the Obama administration in particular. While the White House officials lambasted auto executives for poor economic decision-making and made any government assistance contingent on massive givebacks from workers, they have treated the financial masters of the universe with nothing but deference, and handed them trillions in public cash.The outcome of the dismantling of the auto industry will mean that the industrial base of the US will shrink even more and the economy will be further dominated by the type of reckless and socially destructive speculation that is responsible for the worst economic and social crisis since the 1930s.

Media Portrays Suspected Holocaust Museum Shooter as Antigovernment Extremist
Kurt Nimmo Infowars June 10, 2009

An elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, gravely wounding a security guard before two other officers returned fire. The assailant and his victim were both hospitalized,the Associated Press reports this afternoon.The episode unfolded inside the museum, which maintains a heavy security presence, with guards positioned inside and out. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.The suspected gunman, James Von Brunn, is described as a white supremacist whose Web site is full of anti-government and anti-Semitic rants,according to the New York Daily News. In 1981, von Brunn entered the Federal Reserve with a shotgun to make a citizens arrest, he later said, to protest high interest rates. He was sentenced to 11years in jail. Von Brunn attempted to place the treasonous Federal Reserve Board of Governors under legal, non-violent, citizens arrest,is how Von Brunn later described his action in the third person. Brunn, a WWII veteran, also wrote a screed on President Obama’s citizenship that was re-posted to popular right-wing blog Free Republic,the Soros-funded Think Progress reports. A Department of Homeland Security report leaked earlier this year — and subsequently retracted — warned of right-wing extremists that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups).The DHS document — Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment — states that threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts. The DHS made a point of conflating white supremacists with anti-government groups and individuals rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.The report cited the April 4 shooting of three police officers in Pittsburgh as an example of “right-wing extremist” terrorism. In the wake of that incident, the corporate and the so-called progressive media attempted to link the deranged shooter to radio talk show host Alex Jones and the patriot movement. On May 31, the late-term abortionist George Tiller was shot and killed in Wichita, Kansas. A mentally ill man, Scott Roeder, was arrested and charged for Tiller’s murder. Roeder had been a member of the anti-government Montana Freemen group and was convicted in 1996 on explosives charges after police discovered a fuse cord, a pound of gunpowder and nine-volt batteries in the trunk of his car. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Roeder was a member of the Sovereign Citizen Movement, which believes that the United States government is illegitimate. ADL National Director Abraham Foxman stated that Roeder’s attachment to extreme causes extended beyond anti-abortion extremism. His extremism cross-pollinated between anti-government extremism and anti-abortion activism and led to violence and murder.In the wake of the Pittsburgh shooting, the ADL attempted to link Alex Jones to the accused shooter, Richard Poplawski. One of Poplawski’s favorite places for such conspiracy theories was the Web site of the right-wing conspiracy radio talk show host Alex Jones. Poplawski visited the site, Infowars, frequently, shared links to it with others, and sometimes even posted to it,an article dated April 8, 2009, on the ADL site states. The DHS report and specifically a likewise report issued by MIAC (Missouri Information Analysis Center) leans heavily on ADL propaganda. I believe we can also assume that the source of all of these reports is either Morris Dees and his Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) or the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), or both,former presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin wrote on April 17, 2009. The MIAC report specifically describes supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as militia influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.

Sam Stein, writing for the Huffington Post this afternoon, states that the heavily criticized Department of Homeland Security Report on right-wing extremism that was released in April warned precisely of the type of violent anti-Semitic activity that occurred at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.It’s been several months now since that DHS report was issues and, sadly, the study is proving increasingly prescient. In addition to the Von Brunn shootings, there has been the killing of abortion provider George Tiller, another type of ideologically-driven killing that Napolitano warned against.Mr. Stein should take care. An earlier report issued by the DHS warned of the threat posed by left-wing extremists,including people who embrace anticapitalist and antiglobalization ideas. Many leftwing extremists use the tactic of direct action to inflict economic damage on businesses and other targets to force the targeted organization to abandon what the extremists deem objectionable,the DHS report reads. Direct actions range from animal releases, property theft, vandalism, and cyber attacks — all of which extremists regard as nonviolent — to bombings and arson.As with the rightwing extremism report, the DHS’ assessment of leftwing extremism conflates legitimate anti-globalist activism with the bombings and arson of a radical — and possibly government-sponsored — fringe. Liberals need to understand that the government holds no ideological bias and is determined to demonize and attack any political activity that challenges its authority, no matter what side of the false right-left construct that behavior hails from.

Addendum: Holocaust Museum Shooter 9/11 Truther

A sampling of things to come in regard to Von Brunn can be sampled in a post on the Examiner website. Kathy Shaidle, a neocon follower of former Marxist David Horowitz, writes that the elderly James von Brunn was a truther and — here is the remarkable part — his avowed white supremacy is an attribute of the left,not the right.Ms. Shaidle is determined to stretch the false right-left paradigm out of shape in order to dump the emerging image of Von Brunn on her ideological enemies. According to this poor deluded young woman, James von Brunn’s advocacy of 9/11 conspiracy theories also gives him an additional commonality with individuals on the far-left.In fact, members of the so-called far-left dismiss out of hand the fact the attack launched on September 11, 2001, was an inside job, as evidenced by the public pronouncements of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. But then Horowitz and his minions are certainly not beyond twisting the facts in order to mischaracterize and slander their opponents. A rather obvious example of this twisting and delusional thinking can be witnessed in Horowitz’s assertion that the globalist George Soros is a Marxist. It would seem Horowitz and his small stable of neocons have a lot in common with the Department of Homeland Security, not surprising really when you consider that Horowitz’s operation is funded and supported by the CIA operative Richard Mellon Scaife.

Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations
Stephen Lendman Global Research June 10, 2009

At least three US federal laws should concern all Americans and suggest what may be coming - mandatory vaccinations for hyped, non-existant threats, like H1N1 (Swine Flu). Vaccines and drugs like Tamiflu endanger human health but are hugely profitable to drug company manufacturers.In the wake of the hyped Swine Flu scare, media reports suggest mass vaccinations are coming.The Project BioShield Act of 2004 (S. 15) became law on July 21, 2004 to provide protections and countermeasures against chemical, radiological, or nuclear agents that may be used in a terrorist attack against the United States by giving the National Institutes of Health contracting flexibility, infrastructure improvements, and expediting the scientific peer review process, and streamlining the Food and Drug Administration approval process of countermeasures.In other words, the FDA may now recklessly approve inadequately tested, potentially dangerous vaccines and other drugs if ever the Secretaries of Health and Human Services (HHS) or Defense (DOD) declare a national emergency, whether or not one exists and regardless of whether treatments available are safe and effective. Around $6 billion or more will be spent to develop, produce, and stockpile vaccines and other drugs to counteract claimed bioterror agents.The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act slipped under the radar when George Bush signed it into law as part of the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act (HR 2863). It lets the HHS Secretary declare any disease an epidemic or national emergency requiring mandatory vaccinations. Nothing in the Act lists criteria that warrant a threat. Also potential penalties aren’t specified for those who balk, but very likely they’d include quarantine and possible fines.The HHS web site also says the Secretary may issue a declaration….that provides immunity from tort liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of (vaccine or other pharmaceutical) countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency….The industry-run US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notoriously rushes inadequately tested drugs to market, putting their efficacy and safety into question, and turning those who use them into lab rats. It includes everyone if a mass vaccination is ordered on the mere claim of a public emergency - no proof required. The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (S. 3678) is the other worrisome law, effective December 19, 2006. It amended the Public Health Service Act with respect to public health security and all-hazards preparedness and response, and for other purposes.Even its supporters worry about issues of privacy, liability, and putting profits over public health. Critics express greater concerns about dangerous remedies for exaggerated or non-existant threats as well as mass hysteria created for political purposes.

At least one other measure is also worrisome - The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA). So far it’s just a proposal by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health - A Collaborative at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities (as) a primary, international, national, state, and local resource on public health law (and) policy for public health practitioners, judges, academics, policymakers, and others.MSEHPA is now track(ing) legal responses to the emerging international response to the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak, including declarations of public health emergency at the international, national, state, and local levels….even though forensic evidence can’t confirm any H1N1 deaths. No emergency exists anywhere, and reporting one is all hype to sell dangerous drugs to unsuspecting people globally.

On its web site, the ACLU says this about MSEHPA:

It’s written in a way that doesn’t adequately protect citizens against the misuse of the tremendous powers that it would grant in an emergency. (It’s) replete with civil liberties problems. Its three top flaws are that: (1) It fails to include basic checks and balances (by) grant(ing) extraordinary emergency powers (that) should never go unchecked. (It) could have serious consequences for individuals’ freedom, privacy, and equality.(2)It goes well beyond bioterrorism (with) an overbroad definition of public health emergency that may be anything a local or national authority declares for any reason with no conclusive evidence for proof. (3)It lacks privacy protections (and) undercut(s) existing protections for sensitive medical information.MSEHPA worries other organizations besides the ACLU, both conservative and progressive - including the Free Congress Foundation, American Legislative Exchange Council, conservative association of state legislators, Human Rights Campaign, and Health Privacy Project.

The Real Threat of Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations

In the wake of the hyped Swine Flu scare, media reports suggest mass vaccinations are coming. The May 6 Kimberly Kindy - Ceci Connolly Washington Post one, for example, headlined US May Add Shots for Swine Flu to Fall Regimen without saying they’ll be mandatory but reading between the lines suggests the possibility this year or later. The writers report that The Obama administration is considering an unprecedented fall vaccination campaign to include regular and Swine Flu shots, the latter because it’s spreading across the globe.HHS’ Dr. Robin Robinson said We are moving forward with making a vaccine,and if the government proceeds with a national program, enough supply will be produced to provide two doses for all Americans with spokespersons like National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, claiming adverse reactions aren’t to be expected and adding another shot for Swine Flu should not present a problem.The New York Times also hypes the scare with reports of city schools closed after unconfirmed Swine Flu cases, a few adult deaths blamed on H1N1 bringing the claimed total in the city to seven, and the World Health Organization (WHO) saying on June 3 that it’s moving closer to declaring a worldwide (Level 6) Swine Flu pandemic - even though none exists.With all the hype, misinformation, and willful lies WHO’s Dr. Keiji Fukuda, in charge of flu, said only 117 deaths globally have been blamed on Swine Flu and any warning may include the caveat that the virus isn’t very lethal. A more accurate statement would explain that no forensic evidence links any deaths to H1N1, and influenza annually kills about 30,000 people in America alone - something the major media never report or that scattered accounts of any type flu deaths worldwide are no cause for alarm or reason for scary headlines. It’s also unconscionable for the WHO, US and other nations’ officials to spread lies, deception, and hysteria so major pharmaceutical companies can foist dangerous vaccines and other drugs on unsuspecting people, harming their health and making them vulnerable to later diseases and possible early deaths.

Massachusetts May Be A Forerunner of What’s to Come

On April 28, the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed a pandemic flu preparation bill that rises to the level of martial law. If approved by the House and signed into law, it will mandate among other measures: –vaccination, treatment, examination, or testing of all individuals involved in providing health care - as perhaps step one before ordering the same process for all state residents; – owners or occupiers of all premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises;– closure, evacuation, and decontamination of all suspected facilities; and – restricting or prohibiting assemblages of persons.Other states may be planning similar measures as precursors to mandatory nationwide vaccinations and overall suspension of civil liberty protections.

Adverse Vaccination Effects on Gulf War Troops

Before deploying to the Persian Gulf in 1990 - 91 (and thereafter to the present), all US troops got a standard series of inoculations against infectious diseases - the same ones given to all US citizens traveling to the region. After arriving, 150,000 also got anthrax vaccinations and 8000 botulinum toxoid ones even though concerns were raised about adverse long-term health consequences. A National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) study was conducted to assess them with results released in September 2000. In December 1997, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced that all US military forces would receive anthrax vaccinations. The Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP) began in March 1998 even though IOM found little published peer-reviewed scientific information on its safety. In its study, IOM reported evidence of an association between vaccinations studied and transient acute common health effects, including redness, swelling, and fever commonly associated with other vaccinations. However, conclusive proof of long-term problems wasn’t determined - likely because study findings were skewed not to find them. More on that below.IOM also studied botulinum toxoid vaccines and found evidence of an association between the vaccine and transient acute local and systemic effects similar to anthrax vaccinations. Again, conclusive proof of long-term adverse health effects wasn’t found - another very dubious conclusion as evidence below explains. Military personnel usually get multiple vaccinations. IOM studied their effects but didn’t prove or disprove any long-term adverse effects. However several independent studies of British Gulf War veterans found some link between multiple vaccinations and later health problems.Gary Matsumoto is a New York-based award-winning investigative journalist. His 2004 book, Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That’s Killing Our Soldiers and Why GIs are Only the First Victims took sharp issue with IOM results and the Pentagon’s denial of Gulf War syndrome.

Investigating the shadowy vaccination development world, he discovered US military-employed doctors and scientists conducted secret medical experiments on US citizens in violation of the Nuremberg Code and fundamental medical ethics. For its part, Nuremberg established legal medical experimental standards now incorporated into ethical medical codes, including:– requiring voluntary consent of human subjects without coercion, fraud, deceit, and with full disclosure of known risks; – experiments should avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury;– experiments should never be conducted if there’s an a priori reason to believe death or disabling injury will occur;– risk should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved..; and – experiments should be terminated if there’s reason to believe they’ll cause injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.According to Matsumoto, the Pentagon violated these and other standards, betrayed the troops, and the fundamental duty of military and civilian leaders to protect them. Since at least 1987, biowarfare development trumped the welfare of tens of thousands of GIs used as human guinea pigs for inoculation with experimental unlicensed anthrax vaccines containing squalene - an oil-based adjuvant (to enhance immunity) known for decades to cause severe autoimmune diseases in lab animals, yet administered involuntarily without disclosure of its harmful effects to human health. Matsumoto wrote: The unethical experiments detailed in this book are ongoing, with little prospect of being self-limiting because they have been shielded from scrutiny and public accountability by national security concerns.He suggested the writing (was) on the wall of what’s to come with prospects now it may be soon.When UCLA Medical School’s Michael Whitehouse and Frances Beck injected squalene combined with other materials into rats and guinea pigs back in the 1970s, few oils were more effective at causing the animal versions of arthritis and multiple sclerosis.In 1999, immunologist Dr. Johnny Lorentzen at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute found that on injection, an otherwise benign molecule like squalene can stimulate a self-destructive immune response,even though it occurs naturally in the body. Other research shows that squalene is the experimental anthrax vaccine ingredient that caused devastating autoimmune diseases and deaths for many Gulf War veterans from the US, UK, and Australia, yet it continues in use today and for new vaccines development in labs. There’s a close match between the squalene-induced diseases in animals and those observed in humans injected with this oil: rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus.Other autoimmune diseases are also linked to humans injected with squalene. There are now data in more than two dozen peer-reviewed scientific papers, from ten different laboratories in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia, documenting that squalene-based adjuvants can induce autoimmune diseases in animals…observed in mice, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. Sweden’s Karolinska Institute has demonstrated that squalene alone can induce the animal version of rheumatoid arthritis. The Polish Academy of Sciences has shown that in animals, squalene alone can produce catastrophic injury to the nervous system and the brain. The University of Florida Medical School has shown that in animals, squalene alone can induce production of antibodies specifically associated with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Micropaleontologist Dr. Viera Scheibner conducted research into the adverse effects of adjuvants in vaccines and wrote:Squalene contributed to the cascade of reactions called Gulf War syndrome. (GIs developed) arthritis, fibromyalgia, lymphadenopathy, rashes, photosensitive rashes, malar rashes, chronic fatigue, chronic headaches, abnormal body hair loss, non-healing skin lesions, aphthous ulcers, dizziness, weakness, memory loss, seizures, mood changes, neuropsychiatric problems, anti-thyroid effects, anaemia, elevated ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, ALS, Raynaud’s phenomenon, Sjorgren’s syndrome, chronic diarrhea, night sweats and low-grade fever.Matsumoto’s book includes numerous case studies of GIs afflicted with one or more of the above syndromes, their devastating effects, and the outlandish US government reaction - failing to acknowledge their existence or a connection between them and administered vaccines. Also denying the effects of other toxic Gulf theater exposures (like depleted uranium) as well as withholding meaningful treatments or protocols.

US Army Captain George L. Skypeck spoke eloquently for many when he said:

Was the character of my valor less intense than those at Lexington? Was the pain of my wounds any less severe than those at Normandy? And was my loneliness any less sorrowful than those at Inchon? Then why am I forgotten amonst those remembered as heros? If mass vaccinations are ordered, millions of Americans may ask: Why do you keep using unsafe vaccines and other drugs when clear evidence shows their dangers? Why do you jeopardize all Americans by unleashing a future plague of serious illnesses, diseases, and disabilities? Why have you willfully and maliciously ruined my health? Immunologist Dr. Pamela Asa first recognized autoimmune diseases showing up in GIs that mirrored those in lab animals injected with oil formulated squalene adjuvants. By 1997, hundreds of millions of dollars had been spent testing vaccines containing them, in animal studies since 1988 and human clinical trials since 1991 - by leading research institutes like NIH, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). According to Matsumoto, today, Squalene adjuvants are a key ingredient in a whole new generation of vaccines intended for mass immunization around the globe even though researchers at Tulane Medical School and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research proved that the immune system responds specifically to the squalene molecule.The immune system see(s) and recognizes it as an oil molecule native to the body. Squalene is not just a molecule found in a knee or elbow - it is found throughout the nervous system and the brain. When injected in the body, the immune system attacks it as an enemy to be eliminated. Eating and digesting squalene isn’t a problem. But injecting it galvanize(s) the immune system into attacking it, which can produce self-destructive cross reactions against the same molecule in the places where it occurs naturally in the body - and where it is critical to the health of the nervous system.Once self-destruction begins, it doesn’t stop as the body keeps making the molecule that the immune system is trained to attack and destroy. Immunologist Dr. Bonnie Dunbar also did extensive research on hepatitis B-inflicted illnesses and found similar autoimmune processes involved in molecular mimicry in people with devastating neuroimmune syndromes after getting vaccine injections.Matsumoto says Squalene is a kind of trigger for (a) real biological weapon,what Soviet researchers called a biological time bomb!! and Matsumoto says is the immune system. When its full repertoire of cells and antibodies (attack) tissues they are supposed to protect, the results can be catastrophic. He and Dr. Pam Asa conclude that Oil adjuvants are the most insidious chemical weapon ever devised, including ones with squalene - something the Soviets knew could be used as a weapon in the 1980s. Matsumoto says that the real problem with using squalene (isn’t) that it mimics a molecule found in the body; it is the same molecule. So what American scientists conceived as a vaccine booster (or what’s now being developed in labs) was another nano-bomb, instigating chronic, unpredictable and debilitating disease. When the NIH….argued that squalene would be safe because it is native to the body, just the opposite was true, and, of course, still is. Squalene’s natural presence in the body made it one of the most dangerous molecules ever injected into man and using it in vaccines is outlandish and criminal.So why does Washington sanction its use? According to Matsumoto: scientists in the United States are now literally invested in squalene. Army scientists who developed the second generation anthrax vaccine have reputations to protect and licensing fees to reap (as well as) worldwide rights to develop and commercialize the new recombinant vaccine for anthrax and ones for other health threats.

Disturbingly,Many of the cutting-edge vaccines currently in development by the NIH and its corporate partners contain squalene in one formulation or another. There is squalene in the prototype recombinant vaccines for HIV, malaria, herpes, influenza (including the swine strain), cytomegalovirus and human papillomavirus. Some of these are intended for mass immunization(s) around the globe and that possibility should terrify everyone enough to refuse any mandate or doctor’s prescription to take them.

Another problem is that Autoimmunity (takes) years to diagnose because early symptoms (headaches, joint pain, etc.) are so vague they can easily be from other causes. From inception, vaccines have always been dangerous enough for some experts to call them biological weapons undermining health, manipulating and crippling the immune system, and creating the possibility of future debilitating diseases. So Big Pharma’s solution is new, more potent genetically engineered vaccines and drugs that may end up harming or killing many who take them, especially people with weakened immune systems.Matsumoto and others sounded the alarm to alert everyone to avoid these poisons masquerading as protective drugs. In fact, they benefit only the bottom lines of companies that manufacture them and scientists reaping generous royalties.

MUSLIM NATIONS

EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)

DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.

EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.

JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

Why Iran's election may not really matter,Voters choose president Friday, but real power rests with Supreme Leader By CFR's Greg Bruno and Jamal Afridi
Council on Foreign Relations updated 2:23 p.m. ET, Wed., June 10, 2009

No incumbent has lost a presidential election in post-Revolution Iran. But 2009's challengers are directing unusually intense criticism at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on matters of foreign policy, domestic economic health, and management of the nuclear file.This has triggered enormous interest in the West about the potential for a new presidential administration to engage with Washington on a range of issues. Yet questions remain about the significance of the Iranian office of president. While the Iranian president has considerable latitude in domestic matters, and is the most visible member of Iran's inner circle on the world stage, his power remains secondary to the Supreme Leader.A number of analysts and Iranians, particularly those from urban areas who support opposition candidates seen as reformers, believe this arrangement undermines the electoral process. U.S. officials regularly dismiss Iran's elections as unfair. Some experts suggest that despite the president's lack of absolute authority in Iran, the political leaning of the office holder can shape, albeit subtly, the direction of regime policies.

A presidential paradox
Officially the highest elected office in the Islamic Republic of Iran's bureaucracy, the president remains subordinate to the Supreme Leader, who serves as the final arbiter on foreign policy, media, nuclear-related decisions, and military and national security.The president, meanwhile, carries out the functions of the executive as outlined in Iran's constitution, duties that range from appointing ambassadors and cabinet ministers to planning and executing the national budget. Article 113 of the constitution stipulates that executive power is subservient to the office of Leadership.Ali Alfoneh, a visiting research fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, argues this arrangement fosters the myth that Iran's electorate has a role in the preserving Iranian sovereignty. This is false,he says.

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes in a June 2009 election scene setter that the country's current leader, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, has consolidated power over the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Guardian Council (which vets presidential candidates; see below), and the parliament.And while Ahmadinejad has repeatedly defended Iran's right to pursue peaceful nuclear technologies, final decisions on uranium enrichment and the overall direction of the program lie with Khamenei.

Historical shifts
The office of the president is generally seen as more powerful today than when it was established three decades ago. In the early years of the Islamic Republic, presidential powers were limited, with the regime's constitutional framers taking care not to give the office excessive strength for fear of a possible coup. The country's first president, Abol Hassan Bani Sadr, ran into immediate disagreement on policy between his office and Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Rajai.Mohsen Milani , an expert on Iran's presidency at the University of South Florida, writes in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies that Bani Sadr tried to create an imperial presidency, to make his office independent and powerful.He failed, was marginalized by supporters of the regime, and in 1981 fled to France amid calls for his execution . Rajai succeeded Bani Sadr, but served just two weeks in office before being assassinated (no one claimed responsibility). The election of Ali Khamenei as Iran's third president in 1981 restored order to the executive, but Khamenei (now Iran's Supreme Leader) operated in the shadow of Ayatollah Khomeini and remained a weak and uncontroversial president,Milani notes. During Khamenei's presidency, Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, now a top challenger for the presidency, was credited with displaying strong leadership, especially on economic matters.After the elimination of the post of prime minister in 1989, executive duties were consolidated in the office of the presidency. Presidential powers have ebbed and flowed since, depending on the office holder. In an interview with CFR.org, Milani said Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was an effective president due to his personal relationships and political charisma, a dynamic that was lost in 1997 with the election of Mohammad Khatami. Khatami didn't have that kind of relationship with the Supreme Leader that Rafsanjani did, says Milani, and "during that period the presidency wasn't that powerful.

Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, restored the type of political influence commanded by Rafsanjani, Milani says, and the Supreme Leader has started to give [Ahmadinejad] some room to maneuver, especially on domestic issues.Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow and Iran expert at the Brookings Institution, says Ahmadinejad's notorious personality has also contributed to interest in the 2009 Iranian presidential race. By inserting himself in all of Iran's most contentious debates and by asserting himself both on the domestic and international stage, Ahmadinejad has emerged as the focal point of Iran's contemporary political landscape,she writes.

A seat at the table
Even without the Supreme Leader's explicit consent, Iran's constitution does provide the president considerable autonomy; he unquestionably holds the second-most powerful office in Iran. Among the office's duties is the ability to appoint provincial governors, ambassadors, and cabinet members-key posts in Iran's government that hold significant sway in shaping the Supreme Leader's thinking. Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs at the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, writes in a May 2009 report that the presidency is a coveted and intensely fought over position which provides vast opportunities for the president to empower and enrich his political base.Beyond political appointments the constitution also grants the president responsibility for national planning, and budget and state employment affairs.Amir Taheri, author of The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution, writes in the National Review that by controlling the resources of the state, including the all-important oil revenues, and appointing thousands of high-ranking functionaries in a highly centralized system of government, the president is uniquely positioned to influence the direction of the regime.

Carnegie's Sadjadpour describes the balance of power this way: When visualizing how decisions are made in Tehran, I picture fifteen bearded men sitting around a long table, with [Supreme Leader Ayatollah] Khamenei seated at the head,he writes.While Ahmadinejad is president, all of these men will share a similar anti-imperialist, revolutionary Islamist disposition. But the election of a more moderate president could change the makeup of who sits at that table...Their impact won't be enormous, but it would not be negligible.

By the numbers
Presidents serve a four-year term with the option of running for a second term. The option also exists to run for a third term; however it must be nonconsecutive. To run for president, a candidate must satisfy six key qualifications outlined in the constitution, some objective (like being an Iranian national and of Iranian origin) and others subjective (such as possessing a good past record,trustworthiness and piety, and a conviction in the fundamental principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran).All candidates are then reviewed by the Guardian Council, a twelve-member panel of six theologians and six legal experts. Out of the nearly 500 people who registered as prospective candidates for the June 2009 race, the Guardian Council approved just four for inclusion on the ballot (see below). In 2005, out of 1,014 potential challengers, the council chose eight. And like in 2005, all female candidates in 2009 were blocked from running.Elections are won with an absolute majority of the vote. In cases when no candidate reaches this threshold, a run-off is held a week later between the two candidates that received the most votes in the first round. Only registered voters are permitted on Election Day (Iran's top election official says 46.2 million are eligible to vote in the June 2009 election, about 70 percent of the population).Ahmadinejad draws his support from poor, rural Iranians, who are often drawn to his populist policies and promises of wealth redistribution. The June 2009 vote will be the first presidential election since a controversial law was put into effect in late 2006 increasing the voting age to 18, from 15. Analysts believe urban Iranians, especially young city dwellers, could tip the scales in the favor of a challenger; over a third of Iran's 70 million people are between 18 and 34, according to Iran's National Portal of Statistics.

The 2009 presidential race
Analysts disagree on what the aftermath of Iran's 2009 vote might mean for U.S.-Iranian relations, and many close observers refrain from making predictions. All four of the candidates in the June 2009 race have defended Iran's right to pursue peaceful nuclear technology, and none have indicated a willingness to engage with Israel. Yet a new International Crisis Group report notes that for the first time since the 1979 revolution, every candidate in the June 2009 presidential election agrees that talking to America is desirable.The four candidates cleared to run are:Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The 53-year-old incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 with 62 percent of the vote in a second round run-off against former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-97). Campaigning on a populist platform of economic reform —largely based on pledges to combat corruption and distribute the nation's oil revenue — the former mayor of Tehran was the Islamic Republic's first non-cleric to be elected in twenty-four years. While his economic policies have made headlines at home, he is best known abroad for his statements on Israel, denial of the Holocaust, and insistence on Iran's right to develop nuclear technology. Mir-Hossein Mousavi: Mousavi, 67, is considered by many to be Ahmadinejad's strongest competitor. His backers include former President Khatami, who dropped out of the race in March 2009. Many Iranians look fondly upon Mousavi's tenure as prime minister (1981-89) during the Iran-Iraq war and his adroit management of the country's economy during the conflict. Mousavi's economic agenda includes a vow to reduce inflation to single digits, and boost private sector investment. And he says he would be more practical with foreign investment by focusing on Iran's immediate neighbors rather than flooding money into Latin America.Mehdi Karroubi: Perhaps the most vocal opponent of Ahmadinejad, the senior reformist cleric is a veteran of presidential elections. In 2005 Karroubi, 72, received 17.4 percent of the vote in the first round, placing third behind Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad. Campaigning on the slogan of change in 2009, Karroubi has criticized Ahmadinejad for his global posturing, seeing his comments on the Holocaust and Israel as unnecessarily provocative. He has served twice as speaker of the Iranian parliament, called the Majlis, from 1989 to 1992, and 2000 to 2004.

Mohsen Rezaei: A former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Rezaei, 55, is the only conservative challenger. Currently secretary of Iran's Expediency Council, Rezaei holds a PhD in economics from Tehran University and, like his reformist opposition, has endorsed the idea of improved relations with the United States . But Rezaei has also accused Iran's enemies of trying to create rifts between Tehran and Arab states in the Gulf. In an interview with the state-run news outlet Press TV on May 23, Rezaei vowed to make stability in the Persian Gulf a top priority if elected . 2009 by Council on Foreign Relations.

2ND WAVE CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL

REVELATION 16:12
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.(THIS IS THE ATATURK DAM IN TURKEY,THEY CROSS OVER).

DANIEL 11:44 (2ND WAVE OF WW3)
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)

REVELATION 9:12-18
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.(IRAQ-SYRIA)
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(1/3 Earths Population die in WW 3 2ND WAVE)
16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand:(200 MILLION MAN ARMY FROM CHINA AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST) and I heard the number of them.
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)
18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR BOMBS)

U.N. powers agree on draft North Korea sanctions By Louis Charbonneau JUNE 10,09

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – World powers on Wednesday agreed to expand sanctions to punish North Korea for its recent nuclear test and weapons program, as Russia said it expected the North to launch another provocative missile test.The draft U.N. sanctions resolution, written by the United States and endorsed by the four other permanent Security Council members, plus Japan and South Korea, was discussed at a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation Security Council.If all goes well we're expecting a vote on the resolution on Friday, a U.N. diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Delegations will now send the draft to their capitals to see if it is acceptable.The agreement ended more than two weeks of closed-door negotiations. The United States, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea all demanded tough sanctions against Pyongyang for its May nuclear test, but Russia and China held out for a milder resolution to avoid provoking North Korea.The draft condemns in the strongest terms" North Korea's nuclear test last month and demands that (it) not conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology.

The end result reflected compromises to satisfy Chinese and Russian objections. Beijing and Moscow had opposed language in earlier drafts requiring all countries to inspect North Korea ships carrying suspicious cargo that might violate a partial U.N. trade and arms embargo.In the latest version, the Security Council calls upon states to inspect suspicious sea, air and land cargoes but does not demand it. However, the draft resolution would require countries to deny fuel to any suspicious North Korean ships and direct them to dock at an appropriate and convenient port.Once docked, the draft says local authorities would conduct a required inspection and must seize and destroy any cargo transported in violation of U.N. sanctions.Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin explained this point, saying that for the country controlling the port,it is your responsibility and you are being called upon by the Security Council to do this inspection.

NEW MISSILE LAUNCH?

North Korea has angered the region and countries beyond in the past few weeks with missile launches, threats to attack the South and a nuclear test, prompting U.S. and South Korean forces to raise a military alert on the peninsula to one of its highest since the 1950-53 Korean War.Cranking up tension, Russia's military said it had information on plans for another missile launch.We have certain information about the type and characteristics of the missile. However, we do not have accurate data on the timing,Interfax news agency quoted a senior military source as saying.The United States had also been pushing for a mandatory expansion of financial sanctions against Pyongyang. Arms-related financing is banned, while the draft urges, but does not require, states to avoid any new financial deals with North Korea except for humanitarian or development projects.The resolution also expands a partial U.N. arms embargo to ban the export of all weapons by North Korea but allows Pyongyang to continue purchasing small arms, provided such sales are reported to the United Nations.This sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite, and bite in a meaningful way,U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told reporters.

Rice added that a total ban on North Korean arms exports would cut off a significant source of revenue for Pyongyang.But requiring North Korea's consent to search a ship cut into the sanctions' effectiveness.We're talking about dentures and not actual teeth,said Korea Economic Institute President Jack Pritchard, a former U.S. envoy on North Korea. Several diplomats said the latest text, which could undergo further adjustments before it is approved by the full council, was a watered-down version of an initially tougher draft aimed at expanding the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after its first nuclear test in October 2006. Until recently, those sanctions had been widely ignored and unenforced. The new draft urges countries to implement the 2006 sanctions spelled out in resolution 1718. Analysts in Washington said the effectiveness of the new sanctions, as in previous measures, depended on if China were angry enough to enforced the measures seriously. China's anger regarding North Korea is a function of the degree to which they see North Korea really upsetting the status quo and stability in the region,said Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

RUSSIA'S HEAVY HEART

Chinese envoy Liu Zhenmin made clear to reporters that Beijing, the nearest North Korea has to a major ally, was satisfied with the draft. I hope countries will endorse the text,he said.Churkin said the draft was adequate and balanced, but that Moscow was backing sanctions with a heavy heart.With Russia and China on board, Western countries hope for a unanimous vote to send a signal of international unity.

Council members Vietnam and Libya, however, are seen as potential hurdles to a unanimous vote, Western diplomats say. South Korea's Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee spoke about the heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, linking North's threats and flurry of military activity to Kim Jong-il paving the way for his son to succeed him. Kim Jong-il is bloodshot in the eyes trying to build a succession plan to pass on power by creating tension ... while ignoring the desperate plight of his starving people and the impoverished state of the economy,he said in an address to troops, according to a military aide on Wednesday. The North Korean regime is an unethical, irresponsible and inhumane group which puts its own survival ahead of the lives and happiness of the people.(Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons, Paul Eckert in Washington, Conor Sweeney in Moscow and Jack Kim in Seoul; Editing by Philip Barbara)