ARABS WANT EU TO SUPPORT NUKE OPENNESS

PERSECUSSION,BEHEADINGS

JESUS PERSECUTED BIGTIME

PSALMS 14:1
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

ISAIAH 53:4
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

MATTHEW 9:34
34 But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.

JOHN 8:41
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.

JOHN 10:20
20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?

PHILIPPIANS 2:10-11(JESUS GETS REVENGE)
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.(JUDGEMENT SEAT OF CHRIST AND FOR SINNERS, THE GREAT WHITE THRONE FINAL JUDGEMENT).

WE ARE CHRISTIANS WE WILL BE TREATED THE SAME.

2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5 (WHY WE ARE PERSECUTED BY THE WORLD)
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) 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.

MATTHEW 5:10-12
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

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.

JOHN 15:18-20
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me (JESUS) before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

REVELATION 6:9-11
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain(BEHEADED) for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

REVELATION 20:4
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

FAITH UNDER FIRE Muslim radicals behead Christian orphan workers,Militant linked to al-Qaida tells families of penalties for apostasy August 11, 2009 9:42 pm Eastern By Bob Unruh 2009 WorldNetDaily

Al-Shabaab militia man

Four Christians working in Somalia to provide services to orphans have been executed by beheading by al-Qaida-linked interests who told their families that is the penalty for apostasy. The report on the outrage comes from International Christian Concern, which said the executions took place sometime after the kidnapping of the Christians July 27, but it only discovered the tragedy recently. The organization identified the Christian orphanage workers as Fatima Sultan, Ali Ma'ow, Sheik Mohammed Abdi and Maaddey Diil. They had been kidnapped in the coastal Somalian town of Merca, about 50 miles from Mogadishu. According to ICC, al-Shabaab, an Islamic extremist organization, claimed responsibility and said the Christians were killed when they refused to renounce their faith in Jesus.The ICC report said a junior al-Shabaab militant notified the families Aug. 4 the four were beheaded for apostasy. ICC said the militant described the Christians as promoters of fitna, a Muslim term for religious discord.The militant said the families would not even be given the bodies, as Somalia does not have cemeteries for infidels.The ICC quoted one eyewitness, who said, All the four apostates were given an opportunity to return to Islam to be released but they all declined the generous offer.

The report confirmed the four Christians had been working for a local non-governmental organization that helps orphans in southern Somalia. A Somali church leader who monitors the persecution against the Somali church described the latest beheadings as a desperate attempt to purify Somalia by eliminating all Christians from what the al-Qaida-linked terror group considers an Islamic republic. But the church leader, whose identity was withheld, said such murders will only serve to launch more house churches. ICC described al-Shabaab as a radical Islamic organization fighting to establish an Islamic state in Somalia and enforce Wahhabi/Salafi Islam, an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam practiced by the Taliban and al-Qaida.The extremists already control large parts of Somalia and are trying to overthrow the internationally recognized transitional federal government of Somalia. The Islamists last year killed half a dozen Somali Christians and just last month beheaded seven people in the town of Baidoa after accusing them of converting to Christianity, ICC said.Al-Shabaab has once against demonstrated its utter disregard for the dignity of human life,said Jonathan Racho, ICC's regional manager for Africa and the Middle East. The majority of Muslims in Somalia, who are also the victims of al-Shabaab's cruelty, do not support their ideology or practices. It is high time for the international community to take robust measures to end the heinous crimes that al-Shabaab and other extremist groups are committing against the people of Somalia,he said. WND reported several weeks ago on the Compass Direct News story about al-Shabaab militants who kidnapped and beheaded two boys because their father refused to provide information about a church leader. I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,said the mother, Batula Ali Arbow.I knew they were going to be slaughtered.

A short time later, 7-year-old Abdulahi Musa Yusuf came running back to his mother, wailing and crying. Dead were his brothers 12-year-old Hussein Musa Yusuf and 11-year-old Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, according to the report. The killers were seeking the father, Musa Mohammed Yusuf, who was gone at the time, the report said. He was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village in Somalia before April, when the family fled to a Kenyan camp.Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin earlier reported when al-Shabaab was linked to the stoning execution of a 13-year-old girl.

OBAMA PLANTS AT TOWN HALL MEETINGS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOZuvQ-3uvY&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7NwsMPMZSg&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwoYtiknTKw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxna9SfmBgs&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh5vzOAEQ-A&feature=player_embedded
OBAMA PLANTS PEOPLE AT MEETINGS TO HURT CONSERVATIVES,REPUBLICANS
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106811
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106259

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Guillermo could strengthen to hurricane in Pacific AUG 14,09

MIAMI – Forecasters say Tropical Storm Guillermo is getting stronger but not quite a hurricane as it moves farther out into the Pacific.Guillermo's maximum sustained winds increased to near 70 mph Thursday. The storm is moving west near 15 mph. It's centered about 1,025 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.Forecasters expect Guillermo to become a hurricane by Friday, but it is far from land. It is then expected to weaken as it moves over cooler waters.

Taiwan president says typhoon has killed about 500 By ANNIE HUANG, Associated Press Writer – AUG 14,09

TAIPEI, Taiwan – Floods and mudslides unleashed by Typhoon Morakot last weekend have killed about 500 people on the island, Taiwan's president said Friday as he called on rescue crews to step up their efforts.Morakot destroyed the homes of 7,000 people and caused agricultural and property damage in excess of 50 billion New Taiwan dollars ($1.5 billion), President Ma Ying-jeou said at a national security conference, the first called since he took office 15 months ago.He called it the most severe damage to the island in 50 years.While the rescue operation is still going on, we have started rehabilitation and reconstruction work, which is just as imminent but might be even more difficult and cumbersome,Ma said.Morakot dumped more than 80 inches (2 meters) of rain on the island last weekend and stranded thousands in villages in the mountainous south. A total of 15,400 villagers have been ferried to safety, and rescuers are working to save another 1,900 people still stuck.Ma said the death toll includes 120 confirmed deaths, and about 380 people believed to be buried in the debris of a landslide in Shiao Lin, the hardest-hit village.Authorities have given up hope of finding anyone alive under the tons of mud that now cover Shiao Lin, Kaohsiung county chief Yang Chiu-hsing said. Instead of digging into some 170 mud-buried homes, a memorial park will be built on the site, he told reporters.With rising public complaints about the slow rescue work, the government said its operations have been hampered because many areas of the country were cut off when roads and bridges collapsed.Rescuers have relied on helicopters to reach the worst-hit areas, and on Thursday authorities requested larger choppers from foreign governments capable of carrying earth-moving equipment and shelters.Many villagers have conducted their own rescue operations. More than 20,000 troops have joined civilian workers on rescue, cleanup and rehabilitation work, officials said.

Hurricane Guillermo forms in the Pacific AUG 14,09

MIAMI – Hurricane Guillermo has formed far out in the Pacific Ocean.The National Hurricane Center says Guillermo's maximum sustained winds are near 75 mph with some strengthening possible Friday. But it's expected to weaken Saturday as it moves over cooler water.Guillermo is centered about 1,100 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. It's moving west near 15 mph.

Season's first named Atlantic storm may be forming AccuWeather Thu Aug 13, 2:16 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Atlantic Ocean could see its first named storm of the hurricane season in a day or two as a tropical wave off the west coast of Africa gains strength, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Thursday.The energy market is focused on the tropical wave, located about 250 miles south of the Cape Verde Islands, because it has potential for significant development as it marches across the Atlantic at 10 to 15 miles per hour during the next two weeks.AccuWeather.com said the system could become a strong hurricane next week and pose a significant threat to the East Coast of the United States from Florida to Maine late next week.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center gave the wave a high chance -- greater than 50 percent -- of becoming a tropical depression during the next 48 hours.The next system to reach tropical storm strength with winds of 39 to 73 mph will be named Ana.The hurricane season is getting a late start this year. By this time last year, there were already five named storms in the Atlantic basin.Another system, the poorly organized Tropical Depression Two, remained weak and will likely not strengthen into a tropical storm over the next five days, the NHC said.The depression, with maximum sustained winds of just 30 mph, was located about 885 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. It was moving west at about 7 mph. On its current track it should reach a few hundred miles north of Puerto Rico early next week.Energy traders noted the depression's track would likely put it too far north to reach the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.Energy traders watch for storms that could enter the Gulf of Mexico and threaten U.S. oil and natural gas platforms and refineries along the coast.Commodity traders watch storms that could hit crops such as citrus and cotton in Florida and other states along the coast to Texas.The NHC was also watching another tropical wave over the eastern Caribbean Sea that some forecasters said could affect the Gulf of Mexico next week.The NHC, however, gave the Caribbean wave only a small chance -- less than 30 percent -- of developing into a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours.NHC website: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by Jim Marshall)

Tropical Storm Spotted on Saturn's Moon Titan AccuWeather Staff Writer SPACE.com clara Moskowitz space.com – Wed Aug 12, 1:18 pm ET

A tropical storm was not what astronomers expected to see when they pointed their telescopes toward the equator of Saturn's moon Titan last summer.But that's exactly what they found on this beguiling moon, home to a weather system both eerily familiar and perplexingly strange. The discovery was announced today.In many ways Titan's climate resembles that of Earth, but instead of a water cycle, Titan has a methane cycle. Clouds, rain and lakes all exist on Titan, but they are all made of methane. In the moon's frigid climate, any water is frozen into rock-hard ice.

Shouldn't be there

Clouds of vaporized methane are not uncommon on Titan, though they have never before been observed in Titan's tropics. But in April 2008, astronomers using the Gemini North telescope and NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii spotted a severe storm covering almost 2 million square miles (3 million square km) over the equator.
The models predicted that the equatorial region should be very dry and should not support cloud formation, said astronomer Henry Roe of Lowell Observatory in Arizona. But this episode created clouds over both the equator and the south pole. We don't know what set off that sequence, but something gave a pretty good kick to the atmosphere.Scientists suspect the storm's trigger may have been some kind of geologic activity on the moon's surface, such as a geyser or new mountain range forming. Atmospheric effects may also have set off the storm.Whatever the cause, once the clouds were established they seem to have spread throughout Titan's atmosphere in waves.The situation is a new wrinkle in the study of this complex moon.It's an amazing place because it is deeply familiar to us, being form Earth, in terms of the processes - clouds forming, rainfall, carved out channels on the surface, huge fields of what look like sand dunes,Roe told SPACE.com.But the materials that are involved are quite alien.

More to learn

Scientists hope to learn more as Saturn's 30-year-long orbit plays out a full rotation of seasons on the moon. NASA's Cassini spacecraft is currently in orbit around Saturn, but it only flies by Titan once every six weeks or so. In the meantime, ground-based telescopes can keep a near-steady eye on the moon. We really need to keep observing Titan in detail for many more years in order to get a true understanding of how its seasons change,Roe said.The researchers, led by Emily Schaller of the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii (now at the University of Arizona), detail the new finding in the August 13 issue of the journal Nature.

FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS

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

Several wildfires scorch Calif. as thousands flee
By BROOKE DONALD (AP) – AUG 13,09

DAVENPORT, Calif. — Thousands of firefighters battled wildfires across California on Thursday, including a growing blaze that forced about 2,400 people to evacuate their homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains.The Lockheed Fire, which started around 7 p.m. Wednesday, had scorched about 2,800 acres, or 4.4 square miles, in Santa Cruz County, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.The blaze, about 10 miles north of the coastal city of Santa Cruz, threatened more than 1,000 homes and other buildings and was not contained by late afternoon.Authorities issued a mandatory evacuation order Thursday for the entire community of Bonny Doon, which has about 2,000 residents and several wineries, said CalFire spokeswoman Julie Hutchinson.Everyone also has been ordered to leave the nearby community of Swanton, where about 400 people live.It's a significant fire that is burning in a rural, inaccessible, steep terrain with vegetation that has been stressed by the drought, Hutchinson said.It's like having firewood in your fireplace that's dry and ready to burn.The blaze is about three miles from the site of last year's Martin Fire, which burned 520 acres and destroyed 11 buildings in the Bonny Doon area in June 2008.

There have been no reports of injuries or property damage related to the fire, whose cause is under investigation, said CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant.Law enforcement officers went door to door Thursday as residents watered down their homes, aiming sprinklers and hoses at the rooftops. They loaded bicycles, pets, computers and other valuables into their cars and trucks.Many had to evacuate last year when flames threatened the area.Nancy Macallister said she was disappointed about the mandatory evacuation but said it's reasonable.The fire's big, the fire's hot, there's some rough terrain and the afternoon winds should be coming this direction, so it makes sense. They're trying to keep people safe,she said.A shelter for evacuees was set up in Santa Cruz, where Linda Lemaster arrived early Thursday after leaving her house on Last Chance Road near Swanton.When she got a recorded call to evacuate, she grabbed some of her son's paintings, photos, bedding and some food, she said. Her boyfriend stayed behind to take care of the cats and property.

As she drove away, she saw thick smoke and flames.

I thought of volcano lava the way it was moving in through the trees,said Lemaster, 60.If it had kept going like that, it would have headed right to my house.Rachel Beauregard, co-owner of Beauregard Vineyards in Bonny Doon, said the winery is just getting ready for the harvest.We're really nervous right now, said Beauregard, who had to evacuate Thursday. Even if the vines don't get burned, there's the smoke taint aspect. A big fire could hurt us either way.Farther down the coast, more than 1,600 firefighters were trying to control a wildfire in northern Santa Barbara County that has grown to 56 square miles. More than 170 homes and ranches have been evacuated since the La Brea Fire started Saturday. It was about 10 percent contained Thursday morning.A temporary emergency shelter was set up at a high school in New Cuyama, and there was a shelter for larger animals like horses and cattle in Santa Maria.In far northern California, two separate wildfires forced the evacuation of more than 30 homes.In Trinity County, about 25 homes were evacuated as gusty winds fed the Coffin Fire, which has burned about 1.9 square miles near Lewiston, CalFire spokeswoman Mickie Jakez said. The mountain community 30 miles west of Redding is home to 1,300 people.A 60-year-old woman — Brenda Eitzen of Los Molinos — was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of sparking the fire when she threw out a lit cigarette, Jakez said.The blaze was 40 percent contained Thursday, and firefighters hoped for complete containment Friday if winds cooperate.Farther east, a fire covering 26 square miles forced the evacuation of 10 homes about 10 miles northwest of Burney, wich is located 200 miles north of Sacramento. The Shu Fire was 70 percent contained Thursday morning.

Firefighters have nearly contained three other lightning-caused fires in Shasta and Lassen counties.Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Terence Chea in San Francisco, Solvej Schou in Los Angeles and Don Thompson in Sacramento; and AP video journalist Haven Daley in Bonny Doon.

B.C. wildfires still threat, residents told Last Updated: Thursday, August 13, 2009 | 6:08 PM PT CBC News

B.C.'s Terrace Mountain fire, near its most intense in July. (B.C. Wildfire Management Branch)B.C. residents are being warned not to be complacent about forest fires because of recent rain and cooler weather, while a campfire ban remains in effect.Our enforcement of fire restrictions will not diminish. In fact, we're doubling the patrols that will be out, compared to the previous weekend,B.C. Forests Minister Pat Bell said in a release Thursday.Between Aug. 6 and 12, officers issued 43tickets for $345 each. They also discovered 30 abandoned campfires and instructed 53 people to douse open flames such as candles and torches.Under the Wildfire Act, penalties for causing a wildfire, even accidentally, can range up to $1 million and three years' imprisonment, in addition to liability for costs and damages.About 600 fires are still burning in the province, the ministry's website reported Thursday.One of the biggest is the Terrace Mountain wildfire north of Kelowna, which is 64 per cent contained, the website said.Of the thousands of people who were forced to evacuate in recent weeks, only 18 remain under evacuation orders, the ministry said.

The 2009 wildfire season has been one of the most active and dangerous in recent memory, with more than 2,400 fires to date, 530 more than at the same point in what had been the biggest recent fire season in 2003, Bell said.

METEORS HIT THE EARTH

REVELATION 6:12-17
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

REVELATION 8:12-13
12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
13 And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels,which are yet to sound!

Report: NASA can't keep up with killer asteroids By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer – Wed Aug 12, 7:29 pm ET

WASHINGTON – NASA is charged with spotting most of the asteroids that pose a threat to Earth but doesn't have the money to complete the job, a federal report says.That's because even though Congress assigned the space agency that mission four years ago, it never gave NASA the money to build the necessary telescopes, according to the report released Wednesday by the National Academy of Sciences.Specifically, the mission calls for NASA, by the year 2020, to locate 90 percent of the potentially deadly rocks hurtling through space. The agency says it's been able to complete about one-third of its assignment with the current telescope system.NASA estimates that there are about 20,000 asteroids and comets in our solar system that are potential threats. They are larger than 460 feet in diameter — slightly smaller than the Superdome in New Orleans. So far, scientists know where about 6,000 of these objects are.Rocks between 460 feet and 3,280 feet in diameter can devastate an entire region, said Lindley Johnson, NASA's manager of the near-Earth objects program. Objects bigger than that are even more threatening, of course.Just last month astronomers were surprised when an object of unknown size and origin bashed into Jupiter and created an Earth-sized bruise that is still spreading. Jupiter does get slammed more often than Earth because of its immense gravity, enormous size and location.

Disaster movies like Armageddon and near misses in previous years may have scared people and alerted them to the threat. But when it comes to monitoring, the academy concluded there has been relatively little effort by the U.S. government.And the United States is practically the only government doing anything at all, the report found.It shows we have a problem we're not addressing,said Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society, an advocacy group.NASA calculated that to spot the asteroids as required by law would mean spending about $800 million between now and 2020, either with a new ground-based telescope or a space observation system, Johnson said. If NASA got only $300 million it could find most asteroids bigger than 1,000 feet across, he said.

But so far NASA has gotten neither sum.

It may never get the money, said John Logsdon, a space policy professor at George Washington University.The program is a little bit of a lame duck, Logsdon said. There is not a big enough group pushing for the money, he said.At the moment, NASA has identified about five near-Earth objects that pose better than a 1-in-a-million risk of hitting Earth and being big enough to cause serious damage, Johnson said. That number changes from time to time, as new asteroids are added and old ones are removed as information is gathered on their orbits.The space rocks astronomers are keeping a closest eye on are a 430-foot diameter object that has a 1-in-3,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2048 and a much-talked about asteroid, Apophis, which is twice that size and has a one-in-43,000 chance of hitting in 2036, 2037 or 2069.Last month, NASA started a new Web site for the public to learn about threatening near-Earth objects.On the Net:NASA's near-Earth object site: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch.

DRUG PUSHERS AND ADDICTS

REVELATION 18:23
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries (DRUGS) were all nations deceived.

REVELATION 9:21
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries (DRUGS), nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

Morocco seizes 2.5 tonnes of cannabis: officials Thu Aug 13, 2:58 pm ET

RABAT (AFP) – Moroccan police and customs officials have seized 2.5 tonnes of cannabis resin found in two vehicles headed to Spain, officials said Thursday.The drugs were uncovered in northern Morocco overnight from Wednesday to Thursday in two separate operations.In the first, a tonne-and-a-half of resin was uncovered in the northeast port of El Hoceima.Security services found the drugs hidden in a French van which was driven by a French baker, Dominique Chagnon.The 54-year-old arrived in Morocco almost three months earlier and was about to leave the country for Almeria, southern Spain, on board a ferry.The second stash was found at the border post of Bab Sebta, which separates northeast Morocco from the Spanish city of Ceuta, where officials uncovered one tonne of resin in a Belgian truck.The driver was a Moroccan living in Belgium. He was travelling with his wife and five children and was heading to catch a ferry to the southern Spanish port of Algeciras.

DISEASES

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

In India swine flu panic spreads faster than virus By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer – AUG 14,09

NEW DELHI, India – The streets of the western city of Pune were half-empty, schools in Mumbai were ordered closed, and people suffering aches flooded hospitals across the country as India confronted dueling outbreaks of swine flu and swine flu panic.

Twenty people have died from the flu here, according to government numbers available Friday, and 1,283 have been confirmed infected in this nation of 1.2 billion people. But fear of the flu has outpaced the virus itself.The amount of frenzy or hysteria is totally disproportionate to the overall reality of the disease,Dr. Jai Narain, the head of the regional communicable disease office for the World Health Organization, said Friday.Breathless reports of swine flu have dominated India's 24-hour news channels desperate for stories amid the August doldrums. That in turn has helped whip the public into a frenzy, even in cities with relatively few cases of flu.In New Delhi, where no deaths have been reported, people have begun wearing surgical masks in the street. In Lucknow, parents demanded their children be tested.Over 1,000 people lined up at different hospitals. ... Eleven of them tested positive, Dr. R.R. Bharati, a top health official in the northern city of Lucknow said earlier this week.

In Mumbai, the country's financial capital, the government closed all schools and movie theaters, hammering the Bollywood film industry over the long Independence Day holiday weekend. The government also asked malls in Mumbai to tone down their traditional holiday sales to keep away crowds.The nearby city of Pune is India's worst affected, with 12 of the country's 20 deaths.There, the streets were half-empty, the usual crowds shunned the shopping malls and many workers stopped showing up at offices. With schools closed, worried parents kept their children shut inside.

Many who did venture out wore surgical masks, despite a shortage that sent the price of a single mask skyrocketing from 5 rupees (10 cents) to 150 rupees ($3).The situation in Pune is alarming considering the number of ... positive cases and deaths. We are augmenting the resources in the city to handle the situation. However, we appeal to people not to panic,said Chandrakant Dalvi, a city official.In response to the outbreak, India's government has set up testing centers around the country and plans to increase its stock of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to 30 million doses, the government said. But officials have also asked people to stop wearing surgical masks in the street unless they or a family member are infected.I cannot see anything to panic about,said Dr. Jayaprakash Muliyil, a professor of epidemiology at Christian Medical College in Vellore. These kinds of rumors are not good for the health of the nation.The fatality rate from the virus is relatively low, though scientists worry it could eventually mutate into a more deadly strain, he said.Yet the flu has garnered far more attention than India's raft of other health problems, including tuberculosis, which kills nearly 1,000 Indians every day, according to World Health Organization figures.In Pune, more than 11,000 people lined up to be tested for the swine flu virus Thursday and 73 tested positive, Mahesh Zagade, a city official, told reporters.I think we are suffering a psychological disorder. We keep asking each other if we feel sick, cold, have a body ache, fever or breathlessness,said a 25-year-old man waiting to be tested in Pune who identified himself as Aditya.I called up my doctor this morning and told him that I felt like I was suffocating.The entire staff at one pharmacy donned gloves and masks after hearing a pharmacist was among those killed by the virus.

We were planning to shut down, but we know we can't do that because people here need medicine,said Anand Agarwal, the 42-year-old pharmacist. According to the World Health Organization, there were 177,457 cases of swine flu and 1,462 deaths across the world as of August 12. After more than a week of feverish coverage of India's outbreak, some news organizations are now counseling calm. Stop the panic,urged the Hindustan Times.Associated Press writers Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow and Jeeja Purohit in Pune contributed to this report.

Lead poisoning sickens 600 kids in China Fri Aug 14, 1:49 am ET

BEIJING – The number of children sickened from lead poisoning has risen to more than 600 in a northern Chinese province where authorities shut a smelter earlier this week thought to have caused the contamination, state media reported.

More than 80 percent of the 731 children living in the two villages near the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co. in Shaanxi province have tested positive for lead poisoning, nearly double the number reported earlier this week, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Thursday.Families who lived near the factory began bringing in sick children to hospitals and clinics in July and blamed the smelting factory for contaminating nearby soil, air and the area's water supply, the report said.Local officials say they plan to relocate all 581 households living with 500 meters (1,600 feet) of the factory within the next two years, the report said.Of the sickened children, 166 will be hospitalized and the remainder will receive at-home treatment to process the lead from their bodies, according to Xinhua.A spokesman for the local government, surnamed Wang, confirmed the new numbers and said the case was under investigation but refused to comment on whether sicknesses are linked to environmental pollution caused by the smelting company. He refused to give his full name as us common among Chinese officials.Factory accidents and chemical leaks are common in China and are often blamed on lax enforcement of environmental regulations and safety rules and poor worker training.Lead poisoning can damage the nervous and reproductive system, cause high blood pressure, anemia, memory loss, and in extreme cases cause victims to fall into comas and die.China's waterways, especially its major rivers, are dangerously polluted chemicals after decades of rapid economic growth and poor enforcement of pollution controls.

PESTILENCES (CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS)

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

POISONED WATERS

REVELATION 8:8-11
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood:(bitter,Poisoned) and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.(poisoned)

REVELATION 16:3-7
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.(enviromentalists won't like this result)
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they(False World Church and Dictator) have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

POWER OUTAGE

REVELATION 16:10-11
10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

Millions of salmon disappear from Canadian river By Rod Nickel – Thu Aug 13, 2:05 pm ET

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – Millions of sockeye salmon have disappeared mysteriously from a river on Canada's Pacific Coast that was once known as the world's most fertile spawning ground for sockeye.Up to 10.6 million bright-red sockeye salmon were expected to return to spawn this summer on the Fraser River, which empties into the Pacific ocean near Vancouver, British Columbia. The latest estimates say fewer than 1 million have returned.The Canadian government has closed the river to commercial and recreational sockeye fishing for the third straight year, hitting the livelihood of nearby Indian reserves.It's quite the shocking drop,said Stan Proboszcz, fisheries biologist at the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. No one's exactly sure what happened to these fish.Salmon are born in fresh water before migrating to oceans to feed. They return as adults to the same rivers to spawn.

Several theories have been put forward to try to explain the sockeye's disappearance:
Climate change may have reduced food supply for salmon in the ocean.The commercial fish farms that the young Fraser River salmon pass en route to the ocean may have infected them with sea lice, a marine parasite.The rising temperature of the river may have weakened the fish.

The Canadian government doesn't know what's killing the fish, but believes the sockeye are dying off in the ocean, not in fresh water, based on healthy out-migrations, said Jeff Grout, regional resource manager of salmon for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.It's too soon to know yet how widespread salmon losses are in the Pacific salmon fishery, but British Columbia's northern Skeena River has also seen lower-than-expected returns this year, Grout said.Signs are more positive for other salmon species such as chinook, pink and coho, he said.The reduced salmon return affects the environment around the Fraser River, Proboszcz said. After spawning, adult salmon die, creating a food source for bears and eagles and adding nutrients for plants.Food companies that rely on the Fraser for some of their salmon supply will have to look to other areas of British Columbia or Alaska, Grout said.
(Editing by Peter Galloway)

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.

Australian care home allowed to starve man to death AUG 14,09

PERTH, Australia (AFP) – An Australian court on Friday ruled that a quadriplegic man who has begged to be allowed to die has the right to order his carers to starve him to death.In a landmark judgement, Western Australia's chief judge Wayne Martin said the Brightwater Care Group would not be criminally responsible if it stopped feeding and hydrating severely paralysed Christian Rossiter, 49.Martin said Rossiter had the right to direct his own treatment, and that food and water should not be administered against his wishes.It's not about euthanasia,said Martin.Nor is it about the right to life.The ruling sets a legal precedent in Australia, where helping someone take their own life is a crime punishable by life in prison in some states.It's comforting to know that when you say you're going to starve yourself to death no-one's going to come along in the night when you've lost consciousness and keep you alive to suffer a bit longer,said Rossiter.The judge found Rossiter was not terminally ill or dying and had the mental capacity to make an informed decision about stopping his treatment.

Martin ordered that medical staff fully explain to Rossiter the consequences of ceasing nutrition and hydration through a tube into his stomach, and said carers may not lawfully continue nourishing him once that had occurred .I think he has now opened up the door for people who do want to die by starvation,said Rossiter's lawyer John Hammond.It sets a precedent whereby people can easily refuse medical treatment.

In a statement read to the court Friday, the former stockbroker and outdoor adventurer said he was unable to undertake the most basic of human functions.I am unable to blow my nose, Rossiter said.I am unable to wipe the tears from my eyes.He made a public plea last week to be allowed to end his suffering, which he described as a living hell.I'm Christian Rossiter and I'd like to die. I am a prisoner in my own body. I can't move,he told reporters.I have no fear of death -- just pain. I only fear pain.Brightwater, the group that runs the nursing home where Rossiter lives, sought the court ruling on whether ceasing to feed him would place it in breach of its duty of care, and said it held no position on his wish to die.Palliative care experts said it would take between one and two weeks for Rossiter to die once nutrients were withdrawn, but he wouldn't suffer. There is not a lot of pain involved, or a lot of distress involved,doctor Scott Blackwell said. He will ultimately sink into a coma and he will die.Renowned euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke, called the decision very important and such a victory for common sense. The idea that they would have come back with some direction that his wishes would not be complied with is just too awful to think about, Nitschke said. Nitschke, head of euthanasia group Exit International, said Rossiter would be able to ask his carers to stop feeding him whenever he wanted and could also revoke it any time. He also said Rossiter was considering ending his life in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal. Rossiter developed spastic quadriplegia after separate accidents in which he fell 30 metres (100 feet) from a building and was then hit by a car whilst riding his bicycle. Australia sparked international controversy in 1995 when the Northern Territory's provincial government legalised euthanasia. Nitschke helped four people to die in the nine months before the national government intervened to overturn the law in 1996, earning the tabloid nickname Doctor Death.

Sarah Palin doubles down on death panels By ANDY BARR | 8/13/09 7:05 AM EDT

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin defended her claim that the Democratic health care proposal would create death panels in a statement Wednesday night slamming President Barack Obama. Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system, these unproductive members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care,Palin wrote in a note on her Facebook page. The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled Advance Care Planning Consultation. With all due respect, it’s misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients,she continued.
Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program.The White House and Democratic lawmakers have blasted Palin in recent days for suggesting that her own son, Trig, would have had to face a bureaucratic panel to get access to health care under the provision in the House health care proposal because he was born with Down syndrome. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s death panel so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their level of productivity in society, whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil,Palin wrote last week. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs identified Palin on Wednesday as one of the GOP leaders he says is spreading wrong information about the health care debate.Additionally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is using Palin’s death panels claim in a fundraising plea to supporters, calling the former governor’s statement disgusting and outrageous.But Palin seemed undeterred in her latest statement, pointing to columns by The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and others to support her suggestion last week that the Democratic proposal is Orwellian.

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government-authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisers are clear enough,Palin wrote.It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26078.html#ixzz0O7uwtpHj

EUROPEAN UNION ARMY

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

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

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

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

Arabs ask for EU support on Israel nuke resolution By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Aug 13, 5:29 pm ET

VIENNA – Arab states are lobbying the European Union for support in their drive to force Israel to open up its secretive nuclear program to international perusal, documents made available to The Associated Press show.In a letter addressed to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, Amre Moussa, secretary general of the 22-nation League of Arab States, urges Sweden to back an Arab resolution entitled Israel's Nuclear Capabilities.The document is to be submitted for a vote at next month's 150-nation general assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency.Sweden currently holds the EU's rotating presidency. Diplomats from EU member countries and from other nations accredited to the IAEA told the AP Thursday that the same letter was sent to the foreign ministers of the other 26 EU member countries. They demanded anonymity for commenting on a confidential issue.While Israel has never confirmed its status, it is commonly considered to have nuclear weapons, and Arab states regularly push at the annual IAEA conference for it to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open its facilities for IAEA perusal.General conference resolutions sponsored by the Arab League express concern about Israeli nuclear capabilities and ask the IAEA to help implement the nonproliferation treaty regime on Israel.A draft of the resolution prepared for next month's conference that was attached to the letter to Bildt gives voice to those same concerns and demands.But in a new twist, it welcomes recent initiatives calling for a nuclear weapons-free world — an allusion to President Barack Obama's April call to abolish nuclear weapons that appeared calculated to generate extra support for the anti-Israel resolution.

While the Americans are not expected to end their support for Israel at the weeklong conference, which opens Sept. 14, the phrase was expected to give a platform for U.S. rivals such as Iran in their criticism of Washington's backing of the Jewish state.
Muslim nations consider Israel the region's main nuclear threat. The United States and its allies see Iran's defiance of the U.N. Security Council in its development of technology that could be used to make the bomb as the greatest menace to Middle East peace.Iran says it wants to perfect the technology — uranium enrichment — not to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads but for fuel to generate power.We are hopeful that your country would support the Arab draft resolution, says the June 29 letter to Bildt.Unfortunately, Sweden was among the EU nations voting to block action on the document last year, Moussa wrote.In Stockholm, Swedish foreign ministry spokesman Anders Jorle said Thursday the Swedish EU presidency was preparing an answer on behalf of the European Union but no final stance had yet been decided.The votes of the 27 members of the EU are important for both opponents and proponents of censuring Israel at the conference — the motion critical of the Jewish state was only narrowly defeated last year. That indicated growing support for the Arab initiative, particularly among developing countries.Associated Press writer Malin Rising contributed to this report from Stockholm.

LIBERAL WACKO-CONSERVATIVES WANT OBAMA SHOT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYIE_QkqNQ&feature=player_embedded
WAYNE MADSEN ON JONES
http://rss.nfowars.net/20090813_Thu_Alex.mp3
HEALTHCARE SUPPORT FAILING
http://live.radioamerica.org/loudwater/player.pl?name=wnd&url=http://feeds.radioamerica.org/podcast/DWP/audio/000007_011793.mp3

Obama Approval Rating Sinks To Lowest Ever Rasmussen Reports
Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 29% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8.Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. That’s the lowest level of total approval yet recorded. The President’s ratings first fell below 50% just a few weeks ago on July 25. Fifty-two percent (52%) now disapprove.Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans disapprove along with 65% of those not affiliated with either party. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Democrats offer their approval. Most women (51%) offer their approval while most men (56%) disapprove. For more measures of the President’s performance, see Obama By the Numbers and recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls.

U.S. Government Preparing To Feed Children In Closed Schools
Cryptogon Thursday, August 13, 2009

What are the Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Education really saying here? Our agencies are working with the Department of Agriculture to make sure children will have access to healthy meals if their schools close, and with Departments of Commerce and Labor to reach people at work.This sounds like they’re really going to be whoopin’ it up this Fall. If it’s weasel worded pre-martial law mutterings now, what’s the Wurlitzer going to be spewing in a few months?

I would strongly suggest taking that Fall sabbatical, or arranging some kind of work-from-your-remote-cabin-in-the-woods plan, right now.Via: Yahoo:Every fall, we deal with new strains of seasonal flu. But this year, we’ll also confront a potentially serious flu virus that first appeared last spring. While scientists won’t know exactly how strong the 2009 H1N1 flu will be until the middle of the flu season, they’re warning it could cause more illness as our kids return to school.We don’t need to wait to act. In the fight against flu, preparation is more than half the battle — and we need everyone to chip in.We in the federal government have been aggressively responding to the new H1N1 since April. We’re building on what we learned from the early spring season and from health officials in the southern hemisphere where flu seasons are already underway.

Obama and the Post Office Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Lew Rockwell.com Thursday, August 13, 2009

Writing in The State and Revolution in 1917, Vladimir Lenin summed up the economic aim of socialism as follows: To organize the whole economy on the lines of the postal service….Incredible, isn’t it? After centuries of treatises and miles of paper and tubs of ink, this is the great historical turning point: government employees carrying sacks of paper mail from house to house, and operating at an economic loss.

It’s fascinating how it all comes down to the post office, again and again in the history of public policy. And so it is in our time, with Obama’s admission/gaffe/slip concerning the post office and its analogy to what he wants to do with health care.
Here is a transcript of his spontaneous talk at a high school. A student raised a question about the government’s provision of health services and its impact on private services. How can a private company compete against the government? My answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining, meaning that taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services, and a good network of doctors, just like private insurers do, then I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. If you think about it, UPS and Fed-Ex are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems…. there is nothing inevitable about this somehow destroying the private marketplace. As long as it is not set up where the government is being subsidized by the taxpayers so that even if they are providing a good deal, we keep having to pony up more and more money.Now, these comments are nothing short of incredible. The Post Office has been on the loser list for many decades. Most recently, it has been included on the GAO’s high-risk list, increasing its debt to $10.2 billion and incurring a cash shortfall of $1 billion.

Note that the post office is not being shut down for this mess. On the contrary, it is being subsidized not only with tax dollars but, most importantly, with laws. Title 18 (I.83.1696) says that Whoever establishes any private express for the conveyance of letters or packets can be fined and jailed. Moreover, the law (39.I.6.606) says that any letter delivered by unlawful means can be seized and stolen by the government. It is immune from antitrust action and criminal liability. You can read the whole Post Office Gosplan here. If the Post Office were really a market institution, it would go belly up in about half an hour. So, no, there is no competition here. Only the government is permitted to deliver first-class letters. How do UPS and Fed-Ex get away with it? They slip through a hole in the law by delivering packages, not mail. And it wasn’t easy to survive even then. Just as in the 19th century when the federal government waged war on Lysander Spooner’s American Letter Mail Company and on Wells Fargo (and Benjamin Tucker defended private enterprise in the letter-carrying business), the government has been hounding private services in our time, whether through wicked labor union bullying or by restricting their services as much as possible.The freedom of UPS and Fed-Ex to operate at all is hard won. But the government has succeeded in destroying the private marketplace in the one area that government monopolizes by law. It took the innovation of digital messaging to finally horn in on that area. And this has worked in a big way, with a massive collapse in the number of people choosing government mails over digital alternatives. Therefore Obama is right in a strange way: private enterprise has triumphed and government service is terrible. Everyone knows this. It is utterly preposterous that a government mail service exists at all. There is no theory of economics that supports it. There is not now nor has there ever been any economic reason for government postal service. It should be immediately abolished and private enterprise should take over. Even on the basis of Obama’s thin and strange statements, you might argue this conclusion.But perhaps Obama meant to suggest that the reason the Post Office is so bad is because it has to compete with private enterprise. If he meant that, he lives in a socialist fantasy land, and we have a very dangerous man on our hands. In the real world, no living person could possibly believe that mail service would be improved by getting rid of the efficient producers and granting a totalitarian monopoly to a single government-backed provider.How can a private company compete against the government? Simply because government is so terrible at what it does that even a private company that is beaten down and attacked and competed against with all the tax dollars in the world will do better than the government. It is true in mail and it is true in health care. But what they will not be able to do is thrive to the point of universal service, especially when there are laws that prohibit direct service-by-service competition.

Another point that needs to be addressed is Obama’s claim that the government service will operate just like the private service, with self-sustaining financing. But here is the question that socialists have never been able to answer. If the goal is to get government to operate like a private service, what is the value added by having it provided by the government in the first place? The only reason for a government service is precisely to provide financial support for an operation that is otherwise unsustainable, else there would be no point in the government’s involvement at all.

And let us set aside the amazing and preposterous claim that if the government service doesn’t work according to market principles, it will be shut down. Never in the entire history of government has that been true. No matter how bad, no matter how financially egregious, no matter how much the people suffer, the propensity is for government services to last forever and ever, precisely because they are protected from market-based tests of profit and loss. The right path to health-care reform is the market path (no subsidies, no monopolies such as drug patents, no licensure, no anything) that tends toward universal distribution at very low prices and relentless improvement in service. The wrong path is to make health care run the same way as the post office. Obama seems to favor the latter path, even though he admits that it is the least well-performing one. This is surely the definition of fanaticism. If the mobs aren’t angry, they should be.

FCC’s Chief Diversity Officer Wants Private Broadcasters to Pay a Sum Equal to Their Total Operating Costs to Fund Public Broadcasting Thursday, August 13, 2009
By Matt Cover.

Seal of the Federal Communications Commission(CNSNews.com) - Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do.Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press.Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters.The CPB is a non-profit entity that was created by Congress and that currently receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies each year. In fiscal 2009, it is receiving an appropriation of $400 million.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level,Lloyd wrote in his book.Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,Lloyd wrote.This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. Funding should not come from congressional appropriations. Sponsorship should be prohibited at all public broadcasters.Along with this money, Lloyd would regulate much of the programming on these stations to make sure they focused on diverse views and government activities.Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs,wrote Lloyd. These programs should include coverage of all local, state and federal government meetings, as well as daily news and public issues programming.

In addition, educational programs for children and adults, and diverse, independent personal and cultural expression should be encouraged,he wrote.Dennis Wharton, Executive Vice President of Media Relations at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) told CNSNews.com that his organization, which represents radio and television broadcasters, supports public broadcasting, but that that support should come from the public in general not broadcasters alone.NAB supports federal funding for public broadcasting,said Wharton. However, we would oppose efforts to fund public broadcasting through fees assessed against free and local broadcasters who are experiencing the worst advertising recession in 50 years.Lloyd wrote Prologue to a Farce while a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. In that capacity, he co-authored the 2007 report The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio, which concluded that 91% of talk radio programming is conservative and 9% is progressive.The report argued that large corporate broadcasting networks had driven liberals off the radio, and that diversity of ownership would increase diversity of broadcasting voices.

Race-Baiting Group Hitting TV's Glenn Beck Was Founded By Obama's Communist Green Jobs Czar By Matthew Vadum (Bio | Archive)August 12, 2009 - 11:34 ET

President Obama's controversial green jobs czar --a self-described rowdy black nationalist and communist-- is a co-founder of the same unsavory left-wing pressure group that is urging an advertiser boycott of Glenn Beck's TV show after Beck did several unflattering news packages on the czar. Not surprisingly, Big Media haven't noticed the connection.The czar in question is Van Jones, a founding board member of Color of Change, an extremist racial grievance group that tries to stir up racial antagonism in order to promote a socialist agenda.As Jeff Poor noted here at NewsBusters, Color of Change isn't happy that Beck did several news packages on Jones in which he threw a spotlight on the radical views that Jones apparently still holds. And as Sam Theodosopoulos wrote on this blog, a World Net Daily article titled Will a red help blacks go green? Jones said his environmental activism was a way to fight for racial and class justice. Jones was also a founder and leader of the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM,WND reported. (Green really is the new red.) The race-baiting conspiracy theorists of Color of Change appear to be enjoying some success in their campaign to convince advertisers to boycott the Glenn Beck Program,which airs at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Fox News Channel weekdays.The group's co-founder James Rucker gloats in an op-ed at the Huffington Post that Progressive Insurance and several other advertisers have dropped Beck's show since Color of Change started promoting a boycott. Of course it's not all that surprising that Progressive Insurance dropped Beck. After all, the company was founded by left-wing philanthropist Peter B. Lewis.

Rucker is a former MoveOn.org organizer. He is also a co-founder of the Secretary of State Project, the group that helped to elect Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Ritchie, a former community organizer who has worked hand in hand with ACORN, helped set the stage for Sen. Al Franken (D-ACORN) to steal the 2008 Senate election in Minnesota.Now that Van Jones is in the news all the time, Color of Change doesn't want you to know he helped start the group. Maybe having an avowed America-hating totalitarian radical on the group's board is bad public relations.The group deleted references to Jones on its about page. That page used to say, James Rucker and Van Jones came together in the wake of [Hurricane] Katrina to use the organizing power of the Internet to give Black Americans and our allies a renewed and strengthened political voice.

But now it doesn't.

The old page still exists in the Google cache. (The cache will eventually be cleared, so for safekeeping, I made a PDF of the page here.) The 501(c)(4) group's 2006 and 2007 tax returns (IRS Form 990) show Jones as a director.Jones was also on the board of the Apollo Alliance, a hard-left environmentalist group that is now running large chunks of the Obama administration. Beck pounded away at the Apollo Alliance and Jones on a recent show.Here is just one outrage committed by Color of Change. On its website, Color of Change invited people to sign a petition to spare the life of convicted multiple murder Stanley Tookie Williams. From the petition:
Stanley Tookie Williams has become a true asset to our community. As a co-founder of the Crips, Tookie created untold suffering and death. There is nothing romantic or glamorous about the kind of violence the Crips unleashed. But Williams has taken responsibility for the harm he's done. And since then, he has saved the lives of countless young Black males. He will continue to do the same—but only if he's allowed to live. It would be senseless for the State of California to kill a man who is working every day to stop the madness of gang violence.Not convinced? Neither was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mass murderers don't usually get clemency. Williams was executed in 2005. Perhaps if he'd promoted the fraud of green jobs, Williams would still be alive today.It should also surprise no one that Jones was a senior fellow at John Podesta's left-wing think tank/activist group, the Center for American Progress.—Matthew Vadum is Editor of Organization Trends and Foundation Watch at the Capital Research Center.

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

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

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

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

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

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

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS FRI AUGUST 14,2009

09:30 AM -2.20
10:00 AM -98.55
10:30 AM -121.00
11:00 AM -141.40
11:30 AM -146.77
12:00 PM -151.23
12:30 PM -154.25
01:00 PM -136.34
01:30 PM -136.26
02:00 PM -143.52
02:30 PM -142.01
03:00 PM -117.90
03:30 PM -131.96
04:00 PM -76.79 9321.40

S&P 500 1004.09 -8.64

NASDAQ 1985.52 -23.83

GOLD 950.10 -6.10

OIL 67.56 -2.96

TSE 300 10,828.38 +2.82

CDNX 1194.21 -6.29

S&P/TSX/60 651.36 -0.28

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +7.08%
S&P +12.12%
Nasdaq +27.41%
TSX Advances 980,declines 575,unchanged 239,Volume 2,177,646,571.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 446,Declines 392,Unchanged 375,Volume 309,347,472.

Dow -18 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -166 points at low today.
Dow +3 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $958.10.OIL opens at $70.40 today.

TALK ABOUT MANIPULATING THE MARKETS.THE NEW WORLD ORDER SURE IS TODAY.THE NORMAL IS WHEN THE MARKETS ARE DOWN GOLD,OIL SKYROCKETS BUT TODAY AS OF 11:50AM THE DOW IS DOWN -137.02 POINTS,GOLD DOWN $10.01 AT $946.40 AND OIL DOWN $2.57 AT $67.94.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -166 points at low today so far.
Dow +3 points at high today so far.

DAY TODAY PERFORMANCE - 12:30PM STATS
NYSE Advances 743,declines 2,855,unchanged 90,New Highs 47,New Lows 37.
Volume 3,133,707,332.
NASDAQ Advances 429,declines 2,166,unchanged 89,New highs 18,New Lows 05.
Volume 1,041,760,166.
TSX Advances 522,declines 806,unchanged 279,Volume 904,506,988.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 294,Declines 333,Unchanged 305,Volume 139,376,237.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -166 points at low today.
Dow +3 points at high today.
Dow -0.82% today Volume 172,665,734.
Nasdaq -1.19% today Volume 1,789,763,778.
S&P 500 -0.85% today Volume N/A

FRIDAYS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow +6.21%
S&P +11.16%
Nasdaq +25.90%
TSX Advances 752,declines 739,unchanged 268,Volume 1,550,807,234.
TSX Venture Exchange Advances 407,Declines 388,Unchanged 371,Volume 249,797,442.

NAFTA,GLOBAL WARMING,GLOBAL SCAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gptzlaG1OE&feature=player_embedded

Dollar drops as Germany, France see growth Thu Aug 13, 4:20 pm ET

NEW YORK – The dollar dropped Thursday as Germany and France returned to economic growth and U.S. retail sales slipped unexpectedly last month.The 16-nation euro rose to $1.4265 in late trading from $1.4214 late Wednesday, while the British pound gained to $1.6556 from $1.6511.The dollar dropped to 95.13 Japanese yen from 96.23 yen.On Thursday, Europe's two biggest economies, Germany and France, unexpectedly said their respective gross domestic product rose 0.3 percent in the second quarter.

That technically ends the recession in both countries. In the first quarter, Germany shrank 3.5 percent and France contracted 1.3 percent.Government programs supporting auto sales — the European version of cash for clunkers legislation — helped boost the countries' economies, as did other stimulus programs, economists said.Many thought the U.S. would be the first major economy to see an end to the recession. The U.S. economy shrank 1 percent in the second quarter, the government said last month.In the U.S., meanwhile, retail sales in July fell 0.1 percent, according to the Commerce Department. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a rise of 0.7 percent. Sales fell even though auto sales were up 2.4 percent, helped by the U.S. cash for clunkers legislation, which prompted consumers to trade in used cars for new vehicles.

Consumer spending makes up more than 70 percent of economic activity in the U.S.The number of people filing for initial jobless aid also rose to a seasonally adjusted 558,000 last week, the Labor Department said. Analysts had expected a drop in claims.

The dollar slipped on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve held a key bank lending rate at a record low near zero, saying it would leave it there for an extended period.The central bank also upgraded its take on the U.S. economic outlook and said it would slow its program of buying $300 billion worth in long-term Treasurys. The program will end in October, a month later than had been planned.Keeping interest rates extremely low — some of the lowest in the world — is weighing on the dollar as investors, spurred by a belief that the worldwide recession is easing, transfer their money into higher-yielding assets overseas.The Fed's bond-buying program, meanwhile, has sparked some fears of inflation down the road. Higher prices can eat away at the dollar's purchasing power and value.In other trading, the greenback edged up to 1.0894 Canadian dollars from 1.0879 late Wednesday, but slid to 1.0709 Swiss francs from 1.0772 francs. The dollar was also lower against the New Zealand and Australian dollars, and weakened against emerging-market currencies whose central banks have set high interest rates, such as the Brazilian real, Mexican peso, Hungarian forint and Turkish lira.

India against US trade barrier for climate policy AUG 14,09

BONN, Germany – India's chief climate change negotiator says his country wants a global warming agreement that forbids trade barriers against nations that refuse to accept limits on their carbon emissions.India has introduced language into a draft climate change accord that is largely directed against efforts by U.S. Congress to impose trade penalties on goods and services from countries that do not commit to specific action against greenhouse gases.Chief delegate Shyam Saran says such measures look like protectionism under a green label, and are further complicating the climate negotiations.The latest round of talks on a new climate accord adjourn Friday and reconvene next month in Thailand. A deal is meant to be completed in December.

Merkel-Medvedev talks to focus on energy, economy AUG 14,09

MOSCOW – German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a visit expected to include Kremlin pressure for Germany to attract other countries to a Russian gas pipeline project.Germany is Russia's key partner in the Nord Stream project, a pipeline to deliver Russian gas under the Baltic Sea directly to Europe. As an increasing number of Germany's EU neighbors have raised environmental concerns about the project and say that the pipeline would tighten Europe's dependence on Russia for gas.In the wake of this year's dispute between Ukraine and Russia that resulted in a two-week suspension of Russian gas to much of Europe, concern about Russia's reliability has risen. The Kremlin is likely to push Germany to boost its backing of Nord Stream.The meeting will take place at the presidential residence in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.On Thursday, Canada's Magna and Russian Sberbank announced that they had reached general agreement with GM to buy German unit Opel.The exact details of the deal have not been disclosed. It was earlier reported that Sberbank insisted that the deal would allow it to use Opel's intellectual property — something that the German producer was reluctant to give away.

The Russians, however, hoped that Opel's technology would finally get the Russian car industry out of the deep slump it has been in for months if not for years.The German chancellor is also widely expected to discuss possible Russian investment in struggling German shipbuilder Wadan. German papers reported earlier this week that Russia's former energy minister Igor Yusufov is among potential buyers.Merkel should have a particularly strong interest in rescuing the troubled shipyard — a major employer in her constituency — as her party is counting down the days before the parliamentary election in September.Merkel will also raise the issue of Russia's human rights profile. In an interview the night before the Sochi visit, she called for a full investigation into the murder of an activist and her husband in Chechnya, describing it as absolutely unacceptable.

Canada seen moving up in economic rankings Thu Aug 13, 2:06 pm ET

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada is expected to move up in global economic rankings in 2009 and 2010 as the recession lingers in other countries, buoyed by a stable bank sector and lower unemployment, a study showed on Thursday.After ranking 11th of 17 developed countries in the Conference Board of Canada's 2008 report card, Canada is expected to vault to 5th place in 2010, based on economic forecasts by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Conference Board said.Using the OECD's forecasts for growth, unemployment and other economic factors over the next two years, the board found Canada was poised to come out of the global recession ahead of many peers, pushing it up the rankings for international economic performance.Belgium and the United States were also expected to move up, while Britain, the Netherlands and Switzerland are expected to fall, it said.Canada is expected to weather the global recession better than most of its peers, which is a credit to its stable financial sector and a relatively healthier economic position upon entering the downturn,said Conference Board Chief Economist Glen Hodgson.

Despite substantial movement among the 17 countries, the top and bottom positions are not expected to change between 2008 and 2010. Norway is expected to retain first place in both 2009 and 2010, buoyed by its resilient economy and large petroleum sector. Ireland is forecast to remain in 17th place both years.A separate report issued on Thursday showed a growing number of Canadians are upbeat about the prospects for the national economy and employment situation in six months.The TNS Canadian Facts' Consumer Confidence Index rose to 99.2 in August, up six percentage points from July's 93.4 reading.Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney declared last month that the recession is over. While unemployed Canadians may not agree with this assessment, the fact is consumer confidence has been trending upward since it fell to an all-time low last December,said Michael Antecol, director of the marketing research company's monthly tracking study.Canadians are increasingly optimistic. Their battered investment portfolios have recovered somewhat since last fall, housing prices are up in several markets, and the key lending rate is at historic lows,he added.(Reporting by Andrea Hopkins; editing by Peter Galloway)

IMF provides $250 bln cushion against global crisis by Veronica Smith – Thu Aug 13, 5:15 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund said Thursday it would soon inject 250 billion dollars into member nations' coffers to cushion the blows of the global economic crisis.Employing a rarely used tool, the IMF said its board of governors approved the allocation to its 186 members to provide liquidity to the global economic system by supplementing fund's member countries' foreign exchange reserves.

The action is part of a 1.1 trillion dollar plan agreed by Group of 20 leaders in early April to tackle the global financial and economic crisis. The G20 also planned to triple IMF resources to 750 billion dollars.The general SDR allocation is a key example of a cooperative multilateral response to the global crisis, offering significant support to the fund's members in this challenging period,the IMF said.The board of governors, representing all members, approved the plan to allocate Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) equivalent to 250 billion dollars, by far the largest general SDR allocation in the institution's six-decade history.

The disbursement takes effect on August 28.

An SDR is an interest-bearing IMF asset based on a basket of international currencies -- the dollar, yen, euro and pound -- that is calculated daily and which members can convert into other currencies.The IMF has explained that some members may choose to sell part or all of their allocations to other members in exchange for hard currency -- for example, to meet balance of payments needs -- while other members may choose to buy more SDRs as a means of reallocating their forex reserves.The global economy is beginning to pull out of the worst recession since World War II, the IMF says, but it expects recovery will be sluggish and financial systems remain fragile.

The board of governors approved the special SDR allocation on August 7, following its July 17 endorsement by the executive board.The operation will increase each member country's allocation of SDRs by roughly 74 percent of its quota in the fund, which is broadly based on the member's relative size in the global economy.The distribution dwarfs the total 21.4 billion SDRs (33 billion dollars) allocated in yearly installments through two previous general allocations: 9.3 billion SDRs in 1970-1972 and 12.1 billion in 1979-1981.The IMF also announced a special SDR allocation of 33 billion dollars would be made on September 9.The special allocation was authorized by an amendment to the IMF Articles of Agreement proposed in September 2007. On August 5 the United States joined 133 other members in supporting the amendment, meeting the majority threshold.The special allocation will make the allocation of SDRs more equitable and correct for the fact that countries that joined the fund after 1981 -- more than one fifth of the current IMF membership -- had never received an SDR allocation,it said.Thirty-nine countries have joined the IMF after 1981, including Russia, the former Soviet bloc countries and Switzerland.The largest of the new SDR allocations will go to the most advanced economies because of their relatively heavier quotas. The United States, the biggest stakeholder, will get a combined SDR allocation of 30.4 million SDRs, or roughly 47.3 billion dollars.The IMF underscored that nearly 100 billion dollars of the general allocation will go to emerging markets and developing countries, of which low-income countries will receive over 18 billion dollars.The general and special allocations will bring the members' total to 204 billion SDRs, about 316 billion dollars.

Spain's economy shrinks further by Denholm Barnetson – AUG 14,09

MADRID (AFP) – Spain's economy shrank for a fourth quarter in the three months to June but the rate of contraction slowed, official data showed Friday, even as other European economies rebounded from the recession.Gross domestic product in Spain, Europe's fifth-largest economy, contracted 1.0 percent in the second quarter from the first, the National Statistics Institute said.Compared to the same period last year, GDP was off by 4.1 percent.If confirmed by final figures on August 27, it would be the fourth shrinkage in a row after a fall of 1.9 percent in the first quarter, 1.0 percent in the last quarter of 2008 and 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2008.The latest figure was worse than an estimate of 0.9-percent contraction issued by the Bank of Spain last month. The central bank also said that the rate of contraction in the economy would continue to slow.

Spain remains mired in its first recession for 15 years.

Its economy has proved especially vulnerable to the global credit crunch because growth relied heavily on credit-fueled domestic demand and a property boom boosted by easy access to loans.While the recession has not been as deep as in many other major economies, most economists forecast Spain will take longer to recover.Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero however said last week that the worst of the crisis is over.And the secretary of state for the economy, Jose Manuel Campa, said on Thursday that the recovery in other EU economies would help Spain grow in the same direction and possibly at the same rhythm.But the conservative opposition Popular Party leapt on the latest figures to call for a change in economic policy, warning the country runs the risk of being left behind in the global economic recovery.On Thursday, Germany and France led a surprise rebound out of recession, helping drag the 16-nation eurozone back towards positive territory in a further sign a global economic recovery is taking hold.The two largest economies in the 16-nation eurozone enjoyed growth of 0.3 percent in the second quarter -- snapping a period of negative growth dating back to early 2008.Official figures showed Portugal and Sweden had also exited recession.However, the economy in the 27-nation European Union as a whole shrank by 0.3 percent in the second quarter, weighed down in part by a 0.8 percent drop in Britain and deep recessions in Central and Eastern Europe.Analysts also warned that a painful legacy, namely in the form of rising unemployment, would not be shaken off so easily.

Retail sales weak, but prices expected to stay low By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer – AUG 14,09

WASHINGTON – Retail sales dropped in July, government data showed, reinforcing concerns among economists that consumers won't spend enough to help a recovery take hold. But Friday is expected to bring better news: July inflation is expected to have remained flat, and industrial production is likely to have grown for the first time in nine months.Thursday's retail sales report served as a reality check for an economy that lately has appeared poised to emerge from recession and grow again. Consumer spending powers about 70 percent of economic activity.The Cash for Clunkers rebate program helped give auto sales their biggest jump in six months in July, but sales sank elsewhere. Gas stations, department stores, electronics outlets and furniture stores all suffered.Overall, sales fell 0.1 percent, the Commerce Department said, after two months of modest gains. Economists had expected a 0.7 percent increase. Excluding autos, sales fell 0.6 percent, also much worse than predicted.Unemployment, flat wages, tighter credit, fear of layoffs and the urge to save more have caused many consumers to spend less. Shrinking home equity and stock portfolios have compounded the problem.As a result, households are in no position to drive a decent economic recovery,Paul Dales, U.S. economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note to clients.Even Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which had managed to post robust sales during the recession, reported an unexpected drop in quarterly earnings. The company faulted lower prices for groceries and other products. But it warned that the economy continues to force customers to scale back their purchases.Still, low prices should provide some comfort for consumers. The worst recession since World War II has kept prices in check, as workers can't demand higher pay due to the scarcity of jobs. Companies have been unable to boost prices because of weak demand.Over the 12 months ending in June, consumer prices fell 1.4 percent, the biggest decline in almost six decades. That trend is expected to continue when the Labor Department reports the consumer price index figures for July on Friday at 8:30 a.m. EDT.The latest figures came just a day after the Federal Reserve said the economy appeared to be leveling out.The Fed, signaling the recession appears to be ending, said it would hold interest rates at their current record lows.The success of Cash for Clunkers is also expected to push industrial production up 0.3 percent in July. If the forecast is correct, the increase would come after industrial production fell in 17 of the previous 18 months.

The report is slated to be released Friday at 9:15 a.m. EDT.

But some analysts say people buying cars under Cash for Clunkers might be holding that money back from other sectors of the economy where they might otherwise spend it.
Some of Europe's largest economies also benefited from government programs to support the auto industry. Germany and France returned to economic growth in the second quarter, raising hopes the recession will end throughout Europe sooner than thought.
In the United States, weak retail sales were widespread in July. One gauge that excludes autos, gas and building materials fell slightly, the fifth straight month of declines.Department store sales fell 1.6 percent last month. And the broader category of general merchandise stores, which includes big chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp., dropped 0.8 percent.Gas station sales plunged 2.1 percent in July — more because of falling prices at the pump than shrinking demand.On Wall Street, stocks rose modestly. The Dow Jones industrials finished up about 37 points at just above 9,398 — their highest close since the market lows of early March.Employers cut the fewest number of jobs in July in nearly a year, and the unemployment rate fell for the first time in 15 months. But jobs remain scarce.More than 6.2 million Americans are receiving jobless benefits, the government said Thursday — 140,000 fewer than the previous week. Counting people taking advantage of an unemployment benefits program enacted by Congress, 9.25 million people received unemployment compensation in the week that ended July 25, down about 100,000 from the week before, as new claims rose but some recipients ran out of benefits and fell off the rolls, economists said.The nonprofit National Employment Law Project has calculated that 540,000 people will exhaust their emergency benefits without finding work by the end of September. And by the end of the year, it predicts 1.5 million will run out. That prospect has some in Congress calling for a further extension of benefits. Obama administration officials have said they would support an extension. AP Business Writers Martin Crutsinger and Alan Zibel in Washington, and Anne D'Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.

Stock futures little changed ahead of open By STEPHEN BERNARD, AP Business Writer – AUG 14,09

NEW YORK – Stock futures were trading in a narrow range as investors await new insight into a potential economic recovery. Investors will get reports on inflation, industrial production and consumer confidence Friday morning.Overseas, Asian markets were mostly higher, with Japan's main index hitting a ten-month high amid mounting optimism about a global economic recovery. European markets were narrowly mixed.The strength of the consumer will again be a focus Friday as Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment is released for August, a day after data showed an unexpected drop in consumer spending. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters expect a preliminary reading on consumer sentiment of 68.5, higher than July's final reading of 66.0. The report is due out at 9:55 a.m. EDT.Upbeat consumers are considered vital to any economic turnaround. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of all economic activity. On Thursday, the Commerce Department said consumer spending unexpectedly fell in July, which helped put a damper on optimism for a recovery following the Federal Reserve's comments Wednesday afternoon that the economy was stabilizing.The cost of goods at the retail level will also be released Friday. The Labor Department is expected to say the consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, was flat in July after a 0.7 percent increase in June.The core inflation rate, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, is expected to rise 0.1 percent in July.

The report is due out at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

Inflation could eventually become a concern down the road as the government continues to spend in an effort to stimulate the economy, though in the near term there has been little worry. A rapid increase in inflation would likely lead to higher interest rates, which could stifle any economic turnaround.Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 3, or 0.03 percent, to 9,385. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures declined 1.40, or 0.1 percent, to 1,012.10, while Nasdaq 100 index futures declined 4.00, or 0.3 percent, to 1,627.75.A third report will also provide insight into potential recovery. The Federal Reserve is expected to report that production at the nation's factories, mines and utilities grew 0.3 percent last month. It would be the first increase in nine months, a sign the recession is easing.

Traders shook off disappointing economic reports Thursday about retail sales and job losses to send major indexes modestly higher.Meanwhile, bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.59 percent from 3.62 percent late Thursday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, rose to 0.17 percent from 0.16 percent late Thursday.The dollar mostly rose against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.8 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 was rose 0.1 percent, Germany's DAX index fell less than 0.1 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.4 percent.

Asian markets gain amid signs recession easing By STEPHEN WRIGHT, AP Business Writer - AUG 14,09

BANGKOK – Most major Asian markets advanced Friday with commodity stocks rising amid more signs the world economy is emerging from a deep recession. European shares traded higher.In the U.S. overnight investors remained emboldened by the Federal Reserve's more optimistic prognosis of the world's largest economy, shrugging off weak retail sales figures.Sentiment in Asia was also underpinned by news that Europe's biggest economies Germany and France unexpectedly broke free of the recession in the second quarter. Oil prices rose toward $71 on bets that U.S. crude consumption will recover later this year.Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average added 80.14 points, or 0.8 percent, to a fresh 10-month high of 10,597.33, and South Korea's Kospi gained 1.7 percent to 1,591.41. Australia's benchmark was up 0.6 percent and Singapore's main index advanced 0.5 percent.Hong Kong's Hang Seng recovered losses to close up 32.03, or 0.2 percent, at 20,893.33 while China's Shanghai index tumbled 3 percent as investors there fretted about the strength of the recovery in Asia's second-biggest economy.As trading got underway in Europe, benchmarks in France, Britain and Germany were each about 0.5 percent higher.Analysts said signs the slump is loosening its grip have given investors more confidence that markets won't capitulate after posting massive gains since early March.The stock markets are always trading ahead of the economy. The stimulus spending in China has meant it is growing faster than other economies and Asian markets have already reflected that,said Jackson Wong, investment manager at Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong.Still, markets are now more likely to be in holding pattern until the last quarter of the year rather than significantly adding to the rally, he said. Chinese officials have been indicating that credit will be tightened in the second half of the year so there is a bit of caution and we are in for a few months of consolidation.

Optimism about global growth prospects and rising prices for metals like copper lifted commodity stocks. Miner Rio Tinto was up 2 percent in Sydney, commodities trader Noble Group jumped 3 percent in Singapore, and Japanese oil explorer Inpex gained 1.8 percent in Tokyo.On Wall Street Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 36.58, or 0.4 percent, to 9,398.19 after rising 120 Wednesday in response to the Fed's statement that the recession had leveled out. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 6.92, or 0.7 percent, to 1,012.73, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 10.63, or 0.5 percent, to 2,009.35.U.S. stock futures pointed to a slight fall Friday, with Dow futures off 4 points at 9,384.Oil prices rose to near $71 in Asia as investors brushed off bad U.S. economic news, betting instead the world's largest crude consumer will recover later this year.Benchmark crude for September delivery was up 35 cents to $70.87 a barrel by late afternoon in Singapore in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Thursday, the contract added 36 cents to settle at $70.52.In currencies, the dollar fell to 95.14 yen from 95.37 yen. The euro recovered losses to trade almost steady at $1.4280 from $1.4279.

Germany and France bounce out of recession
LUCIA KUBOSOVA Today AUG 14,09 @ 09:34 CET

Europe's two biggest economies - Germany and France - have stepped out of recession, seeing a mild GDP increase between the first and second quarter of this year, while the eurozone's broader economic decline has markedly slowed down.Both the German and French economies grew by 0.3 percent of GDP in the second quarter of this year according to flash estimates published by the EU's statistical office, Eurostat, on Thursday (13 August).Greece, Portugal and Slovakia also reported a quarterly rise.In contrast, Lithuania remained at the bottom of the bloc's list and showed little sign of improvement. Its economy shrank by a further 12.3 percent of GDP. The 27-strong bloc's overall economic performance fell less than expected, by just 0.3 percent. The 16-member eurozone saw even stronger improvement - not out of recession yet but shrinking by only 0.1 percent of GDP in the second quarter.In the first three months of 2009, it had dropped by 2.5 percent of GDP - more than the EU-27 (-2.4%).The sharpest contraction in economic activity seems to be behind us, commission spokesman Ton van Lierop commented, adding: The situation is much better than we had expected in the spring.Economists warn that the current boost is primarily a result of huge public investments, which may prove to have a temporary impact and could harm recovery in the long run due to heavy state debt.Brussels has kept up calls for member states to return to healthy public finances as soon as possible after their economies kick in.For some countries, reducing state costs also comes as a condition linked to international obligations. The Romanian government announced 10,000 job cuts in the public sector on Thursday, as part of austerity measures required by the IMF and EU lenders.

Bucharest also has plans to give all state employees 10 days of unpaid leave in the coming three months, according to Romanian media reports.The second quarter EU figures also look less rosy when commpared to the same period last year, instead of to first quarter 2009.The German and French econmies are down 5.9 percent and 2.6 percent respectively year-on-year.Latvia is down 22.6 percent, Lithuania is at minus 18.2 percent and Estonia is down 16.6 percent.

Hong Kong recession ends as economy grows 3.3 pct By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, AP Business Writer – AUG 14,09

HONG KONG – Hong Kong's economy broke out of a yearlong recession in the second quarter as the territory benefited from strong growth in mainland China and better conditions in the West, the government said Friday.The pickup adds to the list of economies in Asia and beyond to emerge from recession or shrink at a less-dismal pace since the banking crisis sent global production and demand plunging last year. Both Germany and France resumed growing last quarter.The southern Chinese territory's economy, slammed four straight quarters by free-falling world demand for exports, grew by 3.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted quarter-to-quarter basis, the government said. The economy contracted 4.3 percent in the first quarter.With the global economy starting to level out, Hong Kong made a less pessimistic forecast for all of 2009, saying gross domestic product was set to contract between 3.5 percent and 4.5 percent rather than 5.5 percent to 6.5 percent.While we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, I should warn that the outlook remain highly uncertain because the situations in the United States and Europe are still very weak, said government economist Helen Chan.Higher demand for Hong Kong's exports, particularly from mainland China, where massive stimulus spending and relaxed monetary policy is driving growth, helped explain the turnaround.

Exports dropped 12.4 percent in the second quarter compared to the same period last year, the government said. That was tamer than the nearly 23 percent drop-off in the first quarter.Hong Kongers were also more willing to spend. Private consumption was up 4 percent from the previous quarter, though still down 1 percent from the same period last year.Hot money has been flooding Hong Kong over the last year, chasing equities, real estate and other assets, ever since central banks began freeing up funds and governments spent more to help their economies.The southern Chinese trading and financial center, Merrill Lynch said in report, has become a dumping ground for global liquidity — helped by China's hunger for non-dollar assets, lower U.S. interest rates and global demand from investors for all things China.

Icelanders protest bank repayment package
LISBETH KIRK Today AUG 14,09 @ 09:34 CET

The bank-crisss in Iceland land last autumn has cast long shadows. Almost one year after Iceland's banks collapsed, the affair threatens to unseat the government and kick the country's EU bid into the long grass.Over 3,000 Icelanders demonstrated outside parliament, the Althing, on Thursday (13 August) against a proposal to compensate clients of the online Icesave bank for money lost when it went bust last year.Icesave was Landsbanki's online savings unit in the UK and the Netherlands and attracted over 320,000 British and Dutch savers with high interest rates.When Landsbanki was nationalised in October 2008, the Icesave deposits were lost but only domestic clients' savings were guaranteed, creating anger in the UK and the Netherlands.In June, the Icelandic government agreed with London and The Hague that Iceland would be provided with loans to compensate the foreign Icesave account holders to a certain extent.But there is still one major problem. A large majority of the people of Iceland do not agree to the package for British and Dutch savers, who took advantage of the higher interest rates in Icesave before the bank collapsed.

To pay the bill Iceland needs to take a loan of almost €4 billion euro from the British and Dutch governments – close to €13,300 per Icelander.One speaker at Thursday's protest, author Einar Gudmundsson, said Icelanders were being punished for the deeds of a private company. A crime we as a nation had nothing to do with,he said, according to Reuters.Iceland's prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, writes in an article published in the Financial Times that her government plans a 30 percent cut in public spending over the next three years to meet the obligations.It is a heavy burden for our population of 300,000" people, she adds in the article.
Icelanders ..are angry at having to take on the burden of compensation for the Icesave savings accounts of Landsbanki – a failed, privately owned, commercial bank, which attracted hundreds of thousands of UK and Dutch savers with high interest rates. The amount to be shouldered by Iceland is huge – about 50 percent of our gross domestic product.The centre-right opposition party, The Independence Party has threatened to bring down the left-leaning government over the issue.If they are succesful, Iceland's EU application as well as loans from the IMF needed to restore the country's economy could run into trouble. The Indepence Party is traditionally opposed to EU membership, while the promise of IMF loans is linked to the Icesave deal.Public support for membership of the EU has fallen over the summer with a majority of 48.5 percent opposed to entering the EU against 34.7 percent in favour, the latest poll published on 5 August showed.

Senator Kerry Misfires about Global Warming and National Security
Christopher Monckton SPPI Thursday, August 13, 2009

Senator John Kerry’s statement in early August 2009 about global warming before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs, was false in every particular, leading him to draw the incorrect conclusion that global warming was a threat to national security. The Senator got every fact wrong – Wilkins Ice Shelf: Senator Kerry said the recent cracking of the thin ice-bridge linking the Wilkins Ice Shelf to the Antarctic Ice Shelf was caused by global warming. It was not: there has been no statistically-significant global warming for almost 15 years.Arctic ice-cap: Senator Kerry said the Arctic ice-cap would vanish in summer by 2013 because of global warming. It will not, and, even if it does, global warming will not be the cause: there has been rapid global cooling for very nearly eight years.Polar bears: Senator Kerry said polar bears were under threat from global warming. They are not: their population has increased fivefold since the 1940s, and they survived the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when there was no summer ice in the Arctic.

Famine and drought: Senator Kerry said global warming would bring more famine and drought. It will not: global warming, if and when it resumes, would cause the space occupied by the atmosphere to hold more water vapor, reducing drought globally. Pandemics: Senator Kerry said global warming would cause worse pandemics. It will not: so-called tropical diseases can flourish even in Arctic temperatures. It is inadequate public-health measures, not rising global temperatures, that spread supposedly tropical diseases.Natural disasters: Senator Kerry said global warming would cause more natural disasters. It will not: hurricane activity is now at its lowest in half a century, despite warmer weather worldwide; and patterns of flood and drought are much as they always were.Climate refugees: Senator Kerry said global warming would cause human displacement on a staggering scale. It will not: the only significant cause of human displacement would be rapidly-rising sea level, but this is not happening and is not likely to happen.Middle East water supply: Senator Kerry said global warming would shrink the water supply in the Middle East. It will not: water has been scarce there for 1000 years, and warmer weather is already moistening the atmosphere and greening hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the Sahara.

Asian water supply: Senator Kerry said global warming would melt the Himalayan glaciers, drying up the water supply of a quarter of the planet’s population. It will not: it is Eurasian winter snow cover, not the glaciers, that supplies Asia with its water, and that shows no trend in 50 years.Sea level rising 3 feet: Senator Kerry said global warming would raise sea level 3 feet. It will not: sea level rose 8 inches in the 20th century, is currently not rising at all, and will rise by little more than 1 foot in the 21st century.

Start counting the UN’s scary millions Andrew Bolt Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 08:02am

Two years ago a British judge reprimanded Al Gore for falsely claiming he knew of global warming refugees. Undeterred, United Nations officials take Gore’s scare and amp it up: Climate change will displace 25-50 million people by next year. The situation will be the worst in the poorer countries,says Koko Warner of the UN University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security.At least 25 million - and as many as 50 million - global warming refugees within the next 16 months? From zero to at least a million a month until December next year? Is the UN really pinning its reputation on this prediction? I’m predicting that by the end of next year the number of global warming refugees will be closer to one - Ms Koko Warner, to be specific, who will deserve the boot from her UN University position for such ludicrous scare-mongering.(Via The ShadowLands, who suspects that by 2010 Warner actually means we’ll have these refugees by next January.)

UPDATE - The UN’s map suggests even Australians from Albany, Kangaroo Island, Tiwi Island and King Island could be among those refugees.

UPDATE 2 - Since hurricane and typhoon activity is actually decreasing, not increasing, does that mean - by Koko Warner’s arithmetic - that global warming is actually preventing, rather than causing, climate change refugees?

UPDATE 3 - UN chief hysteric Ban Ki Moon flew to South Korea to warn of the apocalyptic consequences of belching out more gases of the kind that he just blew out the back of his jet: Climate change, as all previous speakers have already stated, is the fundamental threat to humankind… The damage to national economies will be enormous. The human suffering will be incalculable… We have just four months. Four months to secure the future of our planet.Just four months? Which, of course, means that if no world-wide deal to truly slash emissions has been reached by December, it will be too late to save the planet anyway, and we may just as well party until the end of the world.Right? So put it in your diary. By December, we must see millions of climate change refugees and a UN-brokered deal to save the planet. If we don’t see either, there’s no point in any more panic. By then we’ll know the UN’s warnings are false, or the UN’s solution is too late.

UPDATE - The Climate Institute can’t wait for the UN predictions to come true. And I mean literally can’t wait until next year:Environmental problems caused and exacerbated by climate change are currently responsible for an estimated 50 million refugees worldwide...Where are these 50 million, then?

UPDATE 2 - Reader Victoria 3220 traces the the UN’s claim of 50 million climate refugees by next year to its laughable source: A fact in 2009 is based on a probability in 2001, which was based on a 1995 first-cut estimate, which is based on a 1993 unsupported assumption (roughly estimated). Ah, science at its best.Read on for her astonishing account of how this preposterous claim was made without any attempt to actually count the people allegedly fleeing global warming: I’ve traced the 25-50 million climate refugee scare back to its source and it’s based on no scientific evidence, just guesstimates stated as fact but admitted to be just to focus our attention.First stop, Koko Warner herself:But how can we know that environmental refugees are the result of possible climate change? Dr Warner admitted that with no exact definitions of either of the phenomena, measuring the scale of climate change and estimating the numbers of affected people is a scientific challenge.Scientific challenge? I’d better look at the report, what’s the scientific basis of the report?- interviews with 1,000 migrants, what the! It offers a combination of empirical evidence, based on 23 case studies and interviews with 1,000 migrants and nearly as many non-migrants....How does the good Doctor arrive at the figure of 25-50 million climate refugees by 2010? I went to the report:How many people will be uprooted by environmental change? Estimates of the numbers of migrants and projections of future numbers are divergent and controversial, ranging from 25 to 50 million by the year 2010 [11] to almost 700 million by 2050. [12] IOM takes the middle road with an estimate of 200 million environmentally-induced migrants by 2050. [13]The 25 to 50 million estimate is footnoted to a 2001 article by Norman Myers- here. Starting with a figure of 25 million in 1995 (more on that starting point below), Myers states:In the light of patterns and trends of environmental decline and its associated problems, such as spreading poverty and population increase, it is probable that by 2010 there will be another 25 million such refugees on top of the 25 million in 1995....

So the whole scientific basis of the 50 million by 2010 figure is based on such a generalised assumption. That’s what passes for science if you are a believer. And what of the starting point of 25 million climate refugees, who does Norman Myers cite as the source of that figure? Norman Myers, in a 1995 report: The position today. There are at least 25 million environmental refugees today.Wow, that’s a strongly asserted fact. What’s the scientific basis of it? These estimates constitute no more, and no less, than a first-cut assessment. They are advanced with the sole purpose of enabling us to get a handle, however preliminary and exploratory, on an emergent problem of exceptional significance.So not fact at all. A figure advanced to focus our attention. That’s good science, isn’t it? But where did the 25 million climate refugee figure come from? I went to Norman Myers’ 1993 article: According to recent estimates there are at least 10 million environmental refugees today.However, Norman Myers thought that figure to be on the low side:(Climate refugees) may now number (roughly estimated) as many as 25 million. Worse, their numbers may well increase several if not many times by the time that global warming takes hold.So here’s how Climate Warming Science works. A fact in 2009 is based on a probability in 2001, which was based on a 1995 first-cut estimate, which is based on a 1993 unsupported assumption (roughly estimated). Ah, science at its best.

Australian parliament rejects carbon trade plan
Yesterday,AUG 13,09 08:07 amRob Taylor

Factbox: Australia's planned carbon trading scheme
Conservative lawmakers holding the largest block of votes in the Senate joined with Greens and independents to defeat the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme set to start in July, 2011 and aimed at reducing emissions in the biggest per-capita emitter in the developed world.But the government renewed its pledge to push through the scheme before a December U.N. meeting in Copenhagen, where world nations will try to hammer out a broad global climate pact and where Canberra is eager to take a leading role.

This bill may be going down today, but this is not the end,Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told the Senate. We will bring this bill back before the end of the year because if we don't this nation goes to Copenhagen with no means to deliver our targets,Wong said before the vote.Greens wanted tougher emissions targets, while conservative opponents are divided on the need for a scheme and want it delayed until after Copenhagen, fearing Australia will be disadvantaged if other nations fail to act on climate change.In a sign some major industrial emitters are fearful of months more uncertainty over the scheme's A$12 billion (6 billion pound) estimated cost, the second-largest power retailer warned of a possible energy supply crisis without a speedy resolution.The ongoing uncertainty surrounding the (carbon-reduction) legislation is delaying both the investment necessary to meet Australia's long-term baseload electricity needs and the investment in lower-carbon technology required to gradually reduce Australia's emissions,Origin Energy said.We remain convinced the CPRS legislation provides the framework for a good, workable scheme,it said.

ELECTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE?

Surveys show Rudd well ahead in opinion polls and that most Australians favour action to combat climate warming. Elections are due in late 2010.Rudd has promised emissions cuts of 5-25 percent on 2000 levels by 2020, with the higher end dependent on a global agreement to replace the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.But if the Senate blocks or rejects the legislation a second time, after an interval of three months, it will hand Rudd a trigger for an early poll likely to be dominated by climate change.Some analysts said the legislation had become a victim of political point scoring that undermined efforts to fight climate change or reform the economy.Of more concern to future negotiations, the range of reasons for opposition to the scheme (within the Senate) is so wide as to make meaningful responses to all objections almost impossible,said Julie Toth, a senior economist with ANZ bank.Rudd told parliament the defeat of his emissions trading plan had put Australia's future on climate change in grave jeopardy. Scientists say Australia, the world's driest continent and prone to drought, faces a rapid rate of climate warming.Australia's scheme is similar, but wider in scope, to one introduced in Europe four years ago that requires big industrial emitters to buy permits for producing carbon dioxide, or sell them if they invest in clean technology reducing emissions.About 1,000 of Australia's top polluting companies will have to buy CO2 permits, covering 75 percent of national emissions.Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter, and relies on coal for about 80 percent of electricity generation, prompting industry warnings some coal mines and coal-fired power stations will be forced to close under the carbon-trade regime.But rich nations such as Australia are under pressure to firm up their emissions reductions targets to help seal a post-Kyoto pact. Big developing nations, such as India and China, which are not bound by emissions curbs under Kyoto, are already taking steps to tackle their growing CO2 pollution.

GREENS OFFER CARBON DEAL

The Australia Greens, who control five crucial Senate swing votes, wrote to Rudd and Wong after the rejection to promise future support for the 11 CPRS bills if the government hardened its reduction targets and backed renewable energy.We invite the government to immediately engage in constructive discussions with the Greens on this proposal, so we can together create meaningful action on the climate crisis,Greens leader Bob Brown said.Conservative opponents offered no such olive branch, but called on the government to delink the scheme from widely supported laws pushing a 20 percent renewable energy target. A vote on those laws is likely within days.If that vote succeeds, it would unlock a potential $22 billion in planned renewable investment.Business leaders, academics and carbon market experts all called on the government and its political opponents to end the domestic political squabbling and agree on a emissions scheme.It is now time to forge an agreement on climate change policy. An agreement is needed in the interests of business certainty, said Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout.(Additional reporting by James Grubel in CANBERRA and David Fogarty in SINGAPORE; Editing by Michael Perry and Bill Tarrant)

EU clears GM's takeover of car parts maker Delphi,EU approves GM's acquisition of Delphi's steering business; sees no antitrust problems On Thursday August 13, 2009, 5:59 am EDT

BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union said Thursday it has approved the acquisition by General Motors of U.S. car parts maker Delphi Steering Business.It said the merger, which also includes four plants of financially ailing Delphi Corp., will cause no antitrust problems in Europe.Delphi is GM's former parts division that still makes 10 percent of the parts that go into GM models. It was spun off in 1999 and sought protection from creditors in 2005.The European Commission said that for all automotive components, the merged entity will have very small market shares and will continue to face several strong, effective competitors in the EU.On July 30, a New York court approved Delphi Corp.s plan to hand control of the big auto parts supplier to its lenders to end its four-year stay under Chapter 11 protection.
On the Net: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/index/m111.html

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN Russia sides with Hezbollah against Israel?
Sources: Intel agents snooping, relaying information to terror group August 13, 2009
12:20 am Eastern 2009 WorldNetDaily

Headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service

The Russian intelligence service may be providing valuable information to Hezbollah about Israeli activities, prompting concern in Tel Aviv that any future military initiative against the group may not come as a surprise, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, may be providing intelligence based on intercepts it is acquiring from its enlarged presence in the Middle East, especially at a new base in Tartus, Syria, according to informed sources. The Syrians have allowed Russia to enlarge facilities at Tartus to increase its naval presence. Tartus is only 25 miles from Lebanon's northern border with Syria. Russia's increased presence in Syria is meant to dampen any notion to attack either Syria or Lebanon. At the same time, it has permitted the Russians to introduce sophisticated surveillance systems capable of blanketing all of Lebanon and Syria. For Hezbollah, such coverage comes at a time when Israel has warned Hezbollah that it will launch attacks on its positions in Lebanon should there be any provocations into Israel launched from there.

To date, Israeli officials have not officially commented on reports of FSB-Hezbollah cooperation. However, sources say that without the intelligence provided by the Israeli spy network in Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force would not have knocked out Hezbollah medium-range missile launchers during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND. The prospect of cooperation between the FSB and Hezbollah has led to one unconfirmed report from the Israeli website DEBKAfile claiming that the Russian intelligence service assisted Hezbollah in uncovering an alleged Israeli spy ring in Lebanon. Called the Al-Alam spy ring, it reportedly operated primarily in southern Lebanon, leading to the arrest of some 70 people of varying national origins.In addition to Lebanese, the alleged spies also were said to be Palestinian and Egyptian citizens. The spy ring reportedly developed following the 2006 failed Israeli military effort in Lebanon to eliminate Hezbollah.To date, the Russians have not commented on providing information to Hezbollah. Nevertheless, the relationship between the Russians and Hezbollah has a long history.It began between the then-Soviet Union and the Shiite religious leadership in Lebanon as far back as 1972 when Soviet authorities were asked to provide humanitarian aid. Between 1972 and 1975, Soviet military officers were in contact with Iranian opposition members and radical Lebanese Shiite groups who were undergoing training in Palestinian camps which the Soviet officers visited.

EU chides Russia for Abkhazia trip
ANDREW RETTMAN Today AUG 14,09 @ 09:54 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU has said that Russia is contributing to instability in South Caucasus by treating Georgian separatists in Abkhazia as if they were a real country.Vladimir Putin has paid a visit to the Georgian region of Abkhazia without prior consent of the Georgian authorities. The EU does not consider this visit compatible with the principle of territorial integrity nor helpful for international efforts to stabilise the region,the Swedish EU presidency said in a statement on Thursday (13 August).Mr Putin on Wednesday received a hero's welcome in Abkhazia, with women at a war memorial chanting in his honour and a mother in hospital giving his name to her newborn son.Regional tension was highlighted the same day when two people died in a bomb explosion in the Abkhazian town of Gagra.Russia recognised the independence of Abkhazia and fellow breakaway region South Ossetia after a brief war with Georgia last year.Only Nicaragua followed suit, while traditional Russian allies such as Belarus and Uzbekistan have so far kept in with the international mainstream.

The EU last month issued a similarly critical statement after Russian president Dmitry Medvedev went to South Ossetia. But Mr Putin's timing could be calculated to give EU leaders an extra poke in the eye over last year's peace accords.The Russian prime minister arrived in Abkhazia on the one year anniversary of the Six-Point Plan brokered by French president Nicolas Sarkozy.One of the six points was for Russian forces to be pulled back on the line, preceding the start of hostilities.Russian troop numbers have instead climbed to over 3,600 in Abkhazia over the past 12 months, with Mr Putin on Wednesday announcing he would spend a further €350 million on expanding military and border installations in the territory.Abkhazia needs no other recognition except by Russia,he said, newswires report.Some analysts see Russian strategy in Georgia as designed to repel US military encroachment into its old sphere of influence, rather than to counter political and economic EU integration. The US has declined to rearm the Georgian military since the 2008 conflict. But the Pentagon on Thursday said it will send in military experts to help train a Georgian battalion for action in Afghanistan.This is delicate for us,a US official told the New York Times.We don't want to be perceived incorrectly as supplying lethal capabilities that would elicit a Russian response.

France must look beneath the burqa By Symi Rom-Rymer – Wed Aug 12, 5:00 am ET

New York – French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call this summer to ban burqas, the full-body covering for Muslim women, has generated much heat but little light. This controversy is just the latest episode in the messier conflict over French identity and social cohesion. By condemning burqas as a symbol of male oppression, however, Mr. Sarkozy ignored these underlying issues and may end up pushing some women further to the margins of French society.France has taken bold steps in recent years to preserve its secular character amid a rapidly growing Muslim population. In 2004, it banned head scarves and other conspicuous religious symbols in public schools. Last year, a court denied citizenship to a burqa-wearing Moroccan immigrant, saying that her radical religious practice was at odds with French values.In his speech to the French parliament June 22, Sarkozy declared that the burqa is not simply a religious issue. He is right. It is a French issue, one that brings into question the very core of French identity.By their very existence, women wearing the burqa embrace a kind of public distinctiveness at odds with the fundamental egalitarian character of French society; symbolically undermining the secularism and national unity upon which modern France rests.

Since its revolution, in 1789, France has been willing to incorporate ethnic and religious minorities into the larger society, but only so long as those minorities were prepared to keep their ethnic and religious traditions strictly within the private sphere.Immigrants of any background are welcome to pursue their unique identities in the privacy of their own homes and places of worship, but in public everyone living within the country is emphatically considered to be French.There is no conceptual space for the idea of dual or hyphenated identities (i.e., African-American), which are very popular in the openly multicultural United States. In order to fit into this particularly French conception of identity, immigrants have had to adjust their own senses of identity along the lines of this public-private distinction.These groups have had to prove themselves assimilable in various ways, including active participation within civic institutions such as the military and the public school system, as well as by the formation of a governing body to act as a liaison between the greater community and the French government.The French Muslim community – most of whom arrived in mainland France burdened with the history of French colonization – has not always been as willing to prove themselves assimilable as other minority groups. Moreover, because of the nature of Islamic practice, which does not lend itself to organizational representation, the Muslim community has lacked, until very recently, a liaison who could lobby the French government on their behalf.Muslim women in France have now been thrust into a void, searching for an identity in a country that often seems unwilling to accept even the possibility of a dual identity.As a response, some have turned toward religious clothing to force their differences into the public sphere in order to make a statement about who they are and to stake their own claim in France and its history.

Instead of advocating social and educational programs that would be more inclusive, and using his position as a pulpit to acknowledge that French Republicanism has not, in fact, served the needs of all of its citizens, Sarkozy has become more extreme in his denouncements.His refusal to admit that France is a patchwork of various religious and ethnic communities with their own history and thus their own needs, has served only to heighten tensions and create further misunderstanding.Neither the feelings of disenfranchisement and anger toward the French majority nor the lack of understanding of why some Muslim women insist on wearing religious coverings will be solved by banning the burqa. It's worth noting that police estimate there are fewer than 400 women nationwide who wear it.There are, no doubt, some women who are forced to wear this all-encompassing garment by their families, just as there are non-Muslim French women who are mistreated by their families in other ways. But to view the garment solely as a prison and as a symbol of male oppression, as Sarkozy does, oversimplifies a complex issue and may end up hurting the very women he's trying to help.If Sarkozy is truly concerned about the rights and dignity of these women, he ought to use high-profile speeches to discuss their needs, their concerns, and to focus on what they can contribute to and gain from French society, rather than on what they wear while doing it.Symi Rom-Rymer blogs about minority issues in Western Europe. She received her master's degree in French cultural studies from Columbia University's Paris campus.

Israeli military says all troops accounted for Fri Aug 14, 1:09 am ET

JERUSALEM – The Israeli military says all troops are accounted for after investigating reports that a soldier had been abducted.The military said Friday morning that no soldiers are missing.A female soldier told police Thursday that she saw another soldier being forced into a car outside an army base. Police set up dozens of checkpoints on all roads leading to the West Bank, stopping and searching cars, causing long traffic jams across central Israel.Israel already has one soldier being held captive. Sgt. Gilad Schalit was captured by Hamas-allied militants three years ago in a cross-border raid from Gaza. Schalit has not been seen since then, and the Red Cross has not been permitted to visit him.