GERMANY SIGNS LISBON TREATY - 3 TO GO

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

NIGEL FARAGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBmX5idZ7h0&feature=player_embedded
JOHN LOEFFLER THE EMP THREAT
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-loeffler-steel-on-steel-emp-threat.html#links

German president signs EU's Lisbon treaty Fri Sep 25, 11:21 am ET

BERLIN – German President Horst Koehler's office says he has signed the European Union's reform treaty — completing its ratification by the 27-nation bloc's most populous nation.Spokesman Martin Kothe says Koehler signed the ratification document for the so-called Lisbon Treaty on Friday.German lawmakers have long since approved the treaty itself, but Koehler held off signing it into law pending a legal challenge.The country's highest court dismissed complaints that the treaty hands too much power to Brussels but demanded changes to accompanying laws that govern the rights of the German parliament. Lawmakers completed those changes earlier this month.Only Ireland is submitting the treaty to a popular vote. It holds a referendum next week.

German president signs EU's Lisbon treaty
(AP) – SEPT 26,09

BERLIN — German President Horst Koehler's office says he has signed the European Union's reform treaty — completing its ratification by the 27-nation bloc's most populous nation.Spokesman Martin Kothe says Koehler signed the ratification document for the so-called Lisbon Treaty on Friday.German lawmakers have long since approved the treaty itself, but Koehler held off signing it into law pending a legal challenge.The country's highest court dismissed complaints that the treaty hands too much power to Brussels but demanded changes to accompanying laws that govern the rights of the German parliament. Lawmakers completed those changes earlier this month.Only Ireland is submitting the treaty to a popular vote. It holds a referendum next week.

Irish poll shows strong support for EU treaty By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press 2009-09-25 06:50 PM

The European Union's reform treaty could finally be on course for ratification after a poll published Friday showed a strong majority of likely Irish voters in favor, a week before a referendum.Brussels' hopes of enacting the Lisbon Treaty negotiated in 2006 but initially shot down by Irish voters last year would become law throughout the 27-nation bloc if Ireland approves the treaty in a referendum rerun Oct. 2. Ireland is the only EU member subjecting the agreement to a popular vote, while the other 26 have approved it through their national parliaments.The survey by Irish pollsters TNS mrbi found 48 percent in favor of the treaty, 31 percent opposed and 19percent unsure. Those figures were little changed from the previous poll when the referendum campaign began three weeks ago.When the uncertain voters were excluded, the poll measured the likely voter breakdown as 59 percent yes to the treaty, 41 percent no.The survey of 1,000 registered voters nationwide had an error margin of 3 percentage points.The Irish Times, which supports the treaty and published the poll, said past electoral trends and the record unpopularity of the government of Prime Minister Brian Cowen meant the final week of campaigning could yet produce an anti-treaty upset.It would be a mistake to become complacent at this stage. What momentum there is lies with the no camp,The Irish Times said in an editorial.And given the deep unpopularity of the coalition government, an unforeseen controversy, badly handled, could have disastrous consequences.

Irish voters narrowly rejected the treaty in June 2008 on a 53.1 percent turnout. A panoply of anti-EU activists from the left and right delivered a 53.4 percent no vote by warning that the EU wanted to overturn Ireland's policies on low corporate tax, military neutrality and ban on abortion.European leaders in Brussels responded to Ireland's rebuff by negotiating new assurances to Ireland that are not formally part of the treaty.The new package includes a key promise that Ireland, as well as all other smaller EU members, will continue to nominate a member of the European Commission, the EU's administration. The imminent loss of an Irish commissioner proved a potent rallying point for anti-treaty campaigners in 2008.The commission also negotiated agreements with Ireland that restate the EU's position that Ireland will continue to decide itself how it uses its military forces in EU-run deployments; will continue to have sole power over its own tax rates; and won't be forced by European court judgments to legalize abortion or liberalize other parts of its family law.The treaty's backers insist that the core goal of the treaty is to reform the EU's operating rules in line with its rapid expansion eastward in recent years. It proposes a range of measures to make decision-making easier and boost the EU's profile on the world stage but won't force Ireland to go in any directions it opposes.That hasn't stopped the same anti-EU forces from carpeting Ireland with posters forecasting a new mix of EU impositions on Irish sovereignty if the treaty is approved. They contend that the EU will legalize euthanasia, flood Ireland with Turkish jobseekers, slash Ireland's minimum hourly wage from $12.77) to $2.72), and require Ireland to draft and deploy soldiers for a future EU common defense.Many simply seek to tap into anti-government sentiment, whether in Brussels or Dublin, at a time of deep recession and soaring unemployment. One anti-treaty group, Coir _ Gaelic for justice has erected heart-shaped posters that say Politicians LOVE the gravy train vote NO.

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.

Tropical depression forms in open Atlantic AccuWeather Fri Sep 25, 5:08 pm ET

MIAMI – A tropical depression has formed in the eastern Atlantic, but doesn't pose any threat to land.The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the eighth tropical depression of the season formed Friday afternoon. It had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (22 kph) and could soon become a tropical storm.But forecasters say it is supposed to weaken after that.The system is about 505 miles (815 kilometers) west of the Cape Verde Islands. It is moving toward the northwest near 14 mph (22 kph).

4 killed, 1 missing in Turkish floods Thu Sep 24, 4:15 am ET

ANKARA, Turkey – The state-run news agency says heavy rains in northeast Turkey have triggered floods and a landslide that killed 4 people. One person is reported missing.The Anatolia news agency says three people were killed near the town of Borcka, in Artvin province, when their house collapsed in a landslide late Wednesday. A 3-year-old child was rescued but search teams were still looking for another family member.Anatolia also says an elderly woman was swept away by flood waters in Borcka, near the border with Georgia.At least 30 people were killed in flash floods in Istanbul and other parts of northwest Turkey two weeks ago after the heaviest rains in the region in eight decades.

Australia cleans up after dust storm By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer - Sept 24, 4:21 am ET

SYDNEY – Millions of Australians were wiping a film of reddish Outback grit from nearly everything Thursday after the country's worst dust storm in seven decades played havoc with transport systems and sent asthmatics scurrying inside.The country's largest airport said normal flight schedules were resuming Thursday, a day after the dust cloud caused almost 20 international flights to be diverted away from Sydney and threw domestic schedules into turmoil.Skies over eastern Australia were mostly clear and blue, and New South Wales state health officials said they expected air pollution to drop to normal safe levels after reaching record highs the day before. But child care centers in Sydney kept young children inside Thursday until an official all-clear came through.The dust storm Wednesday had shrouded Sydney and surrounding areas for about eight hours, blotting out landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge and even reaching underground to coat subway stations.

The haze, churned by powerful winds that lifted thousands of tons of topsoil from the arid and drought-stricken inland, was visible from space, appearing as a huge brown smudge in satellite photographs of Australia.The Sydney Morning Herald called it the day the country blew into town.No one was hurt in the storm, though health officials responded to hundreds of calls in two states from people complaining of breathing difficulties.One man had a lucky escape when his four-wheel drive vehicle overturned on a remote Outback road. John White set off an emergency beacon and waited for about 2 1/2 hours for police to arrive as the wind slowly covered the vehicle with sand, Senior Constable Neale McShane of Birdsville police told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.I spent most of the day pushing dirt out so I didn't get buried myself, White told Sky News television.As it cleared away from Sydney on Wednesday afternoon, the dust moved north along the heavily populated eastern coastal area clogging skies over the Queensland state capital of Brisbane. The city enjoyed clear blue skies on Thursday, though the dust cloud continued to push farther north into remote parts of the state.Emergency services responded to hundreds of calls about tree branches brought down by strong winds.The dust was quite spectacular, but didn't in itself cause a lot of damage, state Emergency Service Minister Steve Whan said.But Mark Goodsell of the Australian Industry Group said the dust storm will end up costing New South Wales state tens of millions of dollars in lost productivity from interruptions Wednesday in flights and construction.The storm also ripped an unknown amount of topsoil from farms across a huge swath of Australia.That's the real story of yesterday, what kind of damage is being done permanently to the rural landscape,Goodsell told the ABC.The dust so thoroughly blanketed everything in its path — clothes, cars, train seats — that New South Wales and Queensland government promised to lift water restrictions, imposed because of the drought, so residents could clean their homes and vehicles.Airlines on Thursday were still trying to get back on schedule, after diverted and canceled flights sent a ripple of delays and congestion through airports in Sydney, Brisbane and the southern city of Melbourne.

FAMINE

REVELATION 6:5-6
5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.(A DAYS WAGES FOR A LOAF OF BREAD)

FAMINE

MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

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

Water gushes down streets in drought-stricken LA By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer – Thu Sep 24, 12:27 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Not a drop of rain has fallen on Los Angeles in nearly four months, and the main river that runs through the city looks more like a rain-starved trickle these days.But you wouldn't know it from the wet images coming out of the city lately.Torrents of water have been sweeping cars off streets and barbeques out of backyards as aging water pipes have been bursting at a rate of more than one a day in recent weeks.A recent break in Studio City sprouted a gusher the size of Old Faithful, unleashing water 2 to 3 feet in streets, closing businesses, flooding homes and garages, and carrying away patio furniture. One water break created a sinkhole so big it nearly swallowed a fire truck.The number of breaks — 36 during the first three weeks of September — isn't unusual for a city the size of Los Angeles, said James McDaniel, senior assistant general manager with the Department of Water and Power. Rather it's the severity of the breaks that is causing alarm.

It's not what causes a break but why did the break break in such a way that it causes this much damage,McDaniel told a City Council panel Wednesday. His agency has appointed an expert panel to study the city's geology, its 7,200 miles of pipeline, its pattern of water use and any other potential causes.Los Angeles residents are getting angry, muddy and wet as they watch millions of gallons of water wash away — and wondering if their street will be the next to spout a towering geyser.It's not our fault. We didn't know we were living next to such a dangerous situation, said Robert Lee as he stood on the porch of his home on a sunny, 90-degree morning shortly after the deluge in Studio City and surveyed what was left of his front yard.

He had been standing in the driveway admiring his brother-in-law's new car, Lee said, when they heard a rumble and looked down to see water at their feet.They were walking toward the source, a small leak in the street, when the geyser erupted from a 95-year-old trunk line that rained mud, water and rocks. The water flooded the lower half of Lee's split-level home and washed away his front yard and driveway.We lost the videotapes of all our children's birthday parties,he said, shaking his head.You can't put a price on that.Down the block, Tulsy Ball pointed to an empty garage with a water ring nearly 3 feet high.That's my production office,the independent TV producer said. Nearby, sat a mud-caked pile of expensive film-editing equipment.Among the theories on possible causes are changes in water habits since the city began limiting lawn watering to twice a week because of the drought.

Potentially it could cause a surge in flow,said Richard Little, who heads the University of Southern California's Keston Institute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy.Couple that together with old brittle pipes and that's not a good recipe.The city's water system was put in place by William Mulholland, the self-taught engineer who built the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the revolutionary, gravity-flow system of pipes and channels that carries water from mountains and valleys more than 200 miles away.The system allowed Los Angeles to grow from a dusty town of 102,000 people in 1900 to a metropolis of nearly 4 million today, but some pipes are as old as the aqueduct itself, completed in 1913.The DWP has aggressively replaced old pipes in the past two years, but City Councilman Dennis Zine said work crews are finding themselves unable to keep pace with the worn-out pipes. My prediction is there will be more of these things,he said.

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).

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.

US says first swine flu vaccine to arrive Oct. 5 By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer – SEPT 25,09

ATLANTA – The first swine flu vaccine should be in some doctors' offices as early as Oct. 5, U.S. health officials said Friday.These early batches of vaccine will protect 6 million to 7 million people. Over time, the government expects to have a total of 250 million doses of the new vaccine, although 10 percent of that has been promised to other countries.The U.S. vaccine shipments will go directly to doctors, clinics and other providers designated by each state, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said at a press conference. Most of the initial doses will be a nasal spray form of vaccine, but the majority of doses during flu season will be shots.CDC officials also said swine flu is widespread in 26 states now, up from 21a week ago.Some possible good news — the intensity is trending down a little in the Southeast. The percentage of doctor's office visits for flu-like illnesses fell slightly in Georgia and some other states. However, the improvement is only slight and it's not clear if it's the start of a national trend or not, CDC officials said.

The CDC doesn't have an exact count of swine flu deaths and hospitalizations, but existing reports suggest the infection has caused more than 600 deaths and more than 9,000 hospitalizations.

WHO: Very few Tamiflu-resistant swine flu cases SEPT 25,09

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization says 28 swine flu patients worldwide had viruses resistant to Tamiflu, but another antiviral still worked.
WHO says patients with very weak immune systems are at higher risk of developing drug-resistant viruses. Cases of resistance have also arisen in people who preventively took Tamiflu to avoid getting sick.

Q&A: H1N1 and seasonal flu: Vaccine questions-WHO says antiviral drugs should not be taken preventively.Tamiflu is made by Switzerland's Roche Holding AG and is one of two flu medicines that help against swine flu.WHO says the resistant viruses have all mutated in the same way and all respond to GlaxoSmithKline PLC's Relenza.WHO says there is no evidence that the drug-resistant viruses are circulating widely.

Swine Flu Virus Not Mutating, Making Vaccine a Good Match HealthDay Reporter by Steven Reinberg

FRIDAY, Sept. 25 (HealthDay News) -- The genetic makeup of the H1N1 swine flu continues to remain stable, making the forthcoming vaccine a good match for the virus, U.S. health officials reported Friday.And, though the virus continues to spread throughout all 50 states, most cases are mild to moderate, much like the regular seasonal flu, the officials said.H1N1 is spreading widely throughout the U.S., particularly in the southern states, but in most of the country H1N1 activity is now widespread,Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during an afternoon news conference.As was the case during the outbreak in the spring, when the H1N1 swine flu first surfaced in the United States and Mexico, the disease continues to affect mostly young adults and children, Frieden said.And though most cases are mild to moderate, the swine flu is no picnic, he noted. When you get it, you can have several bad days, and in severe cases, it can even put you in the hospital,he said.Frieden said that testing shows no genetic changes in the H1N1 virus, which he described as really good news.It means that the vaccine that we have coming off the production line shortly is a very good match -- in fact, an excellent match -- with the virus that continues to circulate, which suggests it is likely to be very effective in preventing illness, he said.This also suggests that the disease is not likely to become deadlier, Frieden said. But, he added, flu is one of the most unpredictable infectious diseases so forecasts about what might happen aren't foolproof.

As for reducing your chances of becoming infected, the advice remains the same: Get vaccinated when the vaccine becomes available next month, wash your hands frequently, cover your mouth when coughing and sneezing, and stay home if you are sick.The vaccine for the H1N1 flu will be available in large quantities by late October, Frieden said. Some vaccine, in the form of a nasal spray (FluMist), will be available the first week of October.But FluMist is not for everyone. It's not recommended for children younger than 2 years; for people with chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes; for pregnant women; or for people older than 49. Children and pregnant women are among those at greatest risk for complications from the H1N1 flu, according to the CDC. For people 10 and older, only a single dose of the H1N1 vaccine will be needed, Frieden said, adding that there is every reason to believe that this vaccine will be safe.He said it's important that people with underlying medical conditions -- such as diabetes, heart disease and respiratory problems -- get vaccinated. Other priority groups include pregnant women, health-care workers and people who care for infants and children.To get children vaccinated, there will be school vaccine clinics,something we don't usually do in a normal flu season,he said.Frieden also urged people to get a flu shot for regular seasonal flu now. Supplies are plentiful.

Antiviral medications such as Tamiflu should be used carefully, Frieden said.People who need to be treated are people who have underlying conditions or are severely ill,he said.It should not be used for prevention, and it should not be used for most mild, average cases. That way, people who really need it will have enough to go around, and we won't have an increased risk of resistance.Despite health officials' recommendations that Americans get vaccinated against the H1N1 swine flu, only 40 percent of parents plan to have their children vaccinated, even though the flu has become more active now that kids are back in school, a new survey found. Among the parents who don't plan on having their children vaccinated against H1N1 flu, 46 percent said they're not worried about their children getting swine flu and 20 percent said they believe the flu isn't serious, according to the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, which surveyed 1,678 parents from Aug. 13 to 31.This information about parents' plans to vaccinate their kids against H1N1 flu suggests that parents are much less concerned about H1N1 flu than seasonal flu for their kids,Dr. Matthew Davis, director of the poll and associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine in the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit at the University of Michigan Medical School, said in a news release.That perception may not match the actual risks.The survey found racial/ethnic differences. More than half of Hispanic parents said they'd have their children vaccinated against H1N1 flu, compared with 38 percent of white parents and 30 percent of black parents.Rates of illness and hospitalization related to H1N1 flu are higher for children than for other age groups, according to the CDC. But the survey found that only a third of parents believe H1N1 flu will be worse for children than seasonal flu.More information.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on the H1N1 swine flu.

US sends 2 missile defense satellites into orbit Fri Sep 25, 12:35 pm ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Two satellites are heading to orbit as part of a missile defense program demonstration.The pair was launched aboard a Delta 2 rocket on Friday morning as part of the Space Tracking and Surveillance System demonstration for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.According to Bob Bishop, media relations manager for satellite developer Northrop Grumman, the satellites will demonstrate technology that can detect infrared and visible light from missiles launched from earth. The space surveillance system will provide global tracking for the ballistic missile defense system.Data from the satellites' onboard sensors will be used by the military to intercept missile targets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

BENJAMIN NETANYAHUS SPEECH AT UN - VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44HkjBDQz_k&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofIwsB7xDm8&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gkjEUjK4as&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPEdIWa5H9k&feature=player_embedded

AHMADINEJADS HATE SPEECH AGAINST ISRAEL AT THE UN SEPT 23,09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EBgqgIWuoc#

Here's the full transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly Thursday, in which he responded to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial by holding up dcoumentary evidence, blasted the Goldstone Report and urged the international community to stop Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons:http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/09/24/1008134/netanyahus-un-general-assembly-speech

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland. I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie. Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie? This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie? Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state.What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations! Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially. It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet. What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances – by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after an horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind. That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction.

The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom? Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism? Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world? The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted. For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing – absolutely nothing – from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians – Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way.

Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.

Delegates of the United Nations,Will you accept this farce?

Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why.When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense. What legitimacy? What self-defense? The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us –my people, my country - of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists? We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,All of Israel wants peace.

Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace. In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples – a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it. We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state. Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more.These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland. As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don't want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them. Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the confirmed unteachability of mankind, the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them. Churchill bemoaned what he called the want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the unteachibility of mankind is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time.In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

Arabs urge Obama to present peace outline By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer – Fri Sep 25, 2:54 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS – The head of the Arab League and the Egyptian foreign minister on Friday urged President Barack Obama to present his own outline of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, in order to break the current logjam and spur negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas remain far apart on what it takes to return to peace talks, despite vigorous U.S. mediation this week, including an Obama-hosted meeting of the two leaders.The key disputes are over continued Israeli settlement construction and what should be on the agenda of future talks.Abbas says he won't resume talks without an internationally mandated settlement freeze. He insists that talks resume where they broke off last year, under Netanyahu's more pragmatic predecessor, and that all issues be on the table. Netanyahu says a partition of Jerusalem and a possible repatriation of Palestinian refugees are not up for discussion.On Friday, Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly that the settlement policy ... will abort opportunities to relaunch the peace process and warned that time for a deal is running out. He said international peace efforts have been confronted by Israeli intransigence, which refuses to adhere to the requirements for relaunching the peace process.In reiterating his position on the world stage, Abbas signaled that he's not prepared to budge.Netanyahu has been equally insistent on his right to keep building, even though an internationally backed peace blueprint of 2003 — also accepted by Israel — demands a halt to construction.Amr Moussa, secretary general of the 23-member Arab League, said Friday, in response to a question, that it would be very useful to hear from Obama what he considers to be the parameters of a fair peace agreement. Such a framework would trigger a very viable, useful process of peace,Moussa told a news conference.Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit also urged Obama to set parameters, with the backing of the international community.Aboul Gheit said such a deal should be based on the idea of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, with east Jerusalem as a capital. A framework should also state that Israelis and Palestinians agree to live in peace and security, and outline steps toward normalization, he said.This outline would allow the parties to negotiate the end game,Aboul Gheit told The Associated Press in an interview, after meeting earlier in the day with Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell.Asked why such a framework hasn't been presented, Aboul Gheit said: Maybe they are allowing the process to continue ... to the moment where people would recognize that making reference to the end game will be acceptable by the parties.

For now, the U.S. hopes to create enough common ground to allow peace talks to resume.Israeli and Palestinian teams are to meet separately next week with U.S. mediators in Washington, and Obama has asked for a progress report by Oct. 15.Meanwhile, Abbas got a boost from the Quartet of Mideast mediators and the Arab League.The Quartet, made up of the United States, Europe, the United Nations and Russia, said Thursday that peace talks must resolve all permanent status issues. That would include the future of Jerusalem and the fate of refugees, issues Netanyahu says he doesn't want to talk about. The Quartet also renewed its call for a settlement freeze.Moussa, meanwhile, said the Arab world is not prepared to take any steps toward normalization with Israel without a settlement freeze.Obama had hoped for a package deal, in which Arab gestures, such as over flight rights for civilian Israeli aircraft, would prod Netanyahu to halt settlement construction. The Arab League chief said he does not believe Israel is serious about peace, and that the Arab world does not intend to give a gift to Netanyahu at a time when Israel defies the international community over settlements. But both Obama and Aboul Gheit welcomed Obama's strong commitment to finding a solution and said it must continue.
Associated Press Writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations.

Obama's peace moves risk stoking Mideast strife By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Sep 24, 6:46 am ET

JERUSALEM – Rather than getting Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations, President Barack Obama's high-stakes attempt to relaunch Mideast peace talks runs the risk of cementing Israeli intransigence and exacerbating Palestinian weakness.A day after Obama hosted the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York, Israeli officials boasted that they had fended off U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction. Moderate Palestinians said they felt undermined by Obama's failure to back up his demand for a freeze — something Hamas militants were quick to exploit.

It has become clear in recent weeks that Obama has backed down on settlements after raising Palestinian hopes by saying in unusually blunt terms that all building must stop on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state.That could seriously damage his credibility, especially in the Arab world. But it might also be a pragmatic realization that a protracted dispute with Israel over a single issue threatened to distract attention from his wider goal of getting the sides together to start drafting a final peace deal.Obama may have had Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' predicament in mind when he outlined a tight timetable for upcoming diplomacy and chose particularly stern words to prod the sides to get serious. At one point in the three-way meeting on Tuesday, U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell said Obama told the two leaders: The only reason to hold public office is to get things done.In a speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama renewed his call for an end to Israeli settlement activity, while also urging Palestinians to halt violence. He also called for relaunching Mideast peace talks without preconditions, words that hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed on Thursday.The perception that Obama has backed off on settlements was bolstered by the fact that Israel paid no price for bucking the U.S. demand — insisting on the construction of some 3,000 housing units in the West Bank — and his decision to largely sidestep the issue at Tuesday's summit.Despite the disappointments surrounding the summit, the reluctant handshake between Netanyahu and the weary Abbas, their first since Netanyahu took office in March, is not irrelevant. It could herald the beginning of renewed engagement.None of that, however, could erase the impression on the ground that Obama has failed to achieve two of his most important goals announced early in his presidency: a halt to construction in Israeli settlements, as well as reciprocal Arab gestures, such as opening up trade offices, meant to begin normalizing relations with the Jewish state.Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's polarizing foreign minister who has faced allegations of racism, essentially declared victory for Israel's stance on settlement building.

This government has shown that you don't always need to get flustered, to surrender and give in,Lieberman said Wednesday.What's important for me is that this government kept its promises to the voter ... and the fact is that this meeting (the New York summit) happened.The Israeli right might be celebrating a hollow victory, however, since their country's true interests were likely served by Obama's demand. Palestinian statehood may be the only way for Israel to survive as both a Jewish and democratic state — given that Muslims will soon outnumber Jews in the lands comprising historic Palestine. Any peace deal would require Israel to dismantle most, if not all, of its settlements.The lack of muscle behind Obama's settlement demand has helped create the impression that Abbas, who had been emboldened enough by the tough U.S. stance to set a settlement freeze as a condition for renewed talks, has now been left to dangle.Abbas' aides tried to spin the New York meeting positively. But one Palestinian government official, Ghassan Khatib, was more candid.

I'll be frank. There was some disappointment here in the Palestinian territories among officials and the public that might not appear on the surface, in the official reactions, probably for diplomatic reasons,he said.The disappointment results from the fact that the (U.S.) administration ... insisted on the meeting in spite of not making enough progress on the settlement freeze,Khatib said.As long as any peace process is not good enough to stop the expansion of settlements, it will not be perceived as a constructive and meaningful process.In the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-controlled territory that together with the West Bank is supposed to make up a future Palestinian state, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said his movement condemns Mahmoud Abbas' participation in this meeting which has damaged Palestinian interests.The American administration's failure to force the occupation to stop settlement and other violations of Palestinian rights confirms its complete bias in favor of the occupation and the danger for the Arabs of counting on the American position towards the Arab-Israeli conflict,he added. Hamas' two-year-old stranglehold on Gaza has emerged as one of the leading obstacles to Palestinian statehood — and may even help explain Washington's decision not to press too hard on settlements, since the Gaza wildcard might preclude a peace deal anyway. Editor's note: Steven Gutkin is the AP's bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories. AP correspondents Ben Hubbard in Gaza and Matti Friedman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Someone’s listening on Yom Kippur By Edmon J. Rodman · September 7, 2009

Try disconnecting this Yom Kippur: A battery-free day will help you to recharge. (Edmon Rodman)HIGH HOLIDAYS FEATURE-LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- Is your idea of the perfect Yom Kippur sermon short, really short, like a Twitter max of 140 characters short?
OK, here goes: Yom Kippur is about R+P+TZ.To decode, have a listen:On Yom Kippur, as you settle back into your pew or seat, the rabbi walks up to the reader’s table. The couple in front of you is chatting, someone’s cell phone rings. Yes, it’s that time of year again -- time for the sermon.For many, this is our one pilgrimage to the synagogue and our rabbi knows it. Difficult as it may seem, in the 30 or so minutes he or she speaks, it will be the one shot at reaching you.All pass before the rabbi’s voice today, one by one, like a flock of sheep. But most of us don’t see ourselves as a flock of anything and could do without the sheep reference, thank you.

When we go to the game, before the first pitch we prepare, perusing the scorecard. Yet for Yom Kippur services there is no preparation; we go in cold. The rabbi winds up -- and we aren’t ready for the first pitch.Listening is a skill, and some of us clearly are out of practice. Others are overtaken by worldly events, and still others are newbies to the whole experience.So how do we turn, make teshuvah, toward becoming a good audience, good listeners, fully present partakers of rabbinic thought? Can we look to our we have paid, so we shall listen relationship at the concert or lecture hall as a model? Or does being a good listener in the synagogue call for a longer, more complex take on our souls and attention spans? The Shema begins Hear O Israel -- so what about it? That man or woman up there looking out over their largest congregation of the year is simply asking us before the last shofar blast to hear.How do the rabbis ask? Some do it by teaching, others by coaxing. Some take off the gloves and start punching. All are trying to take us to another level of understanding.Some sermons are easy listening, anecdotal, drawing on personal experience to draw you in. Others are in your face. A rabbi friend of mine once gave a sermon telling his congregants they should turn off the TV -- for good.For many listeners, the sermon is the only part of the service that we actually understand. That being, the red eye of the critic, is immediately turned on. A voice begins to ask, Didn’t I hear something like this a few years ago? Or, Why does the rabbi always have to talk about politics?

The beginning of Jewish homiletics, of preaching to an assembly, goes back to the Torah itself, to the speeches Moses makes to Israel in Deuteronomy.A longtime Torah-centered exegetical form, the modern sermon now covers a broad range of expository styles, sources and topics, from the Jewish response to Darfur and oppression to our response of who atones for the sins of Bernard Madoff.A sermon on Shabbat or even Rosh Hashanah is a modern invention. Rabbis traditionally only gave a sermon twice a year -- on Shabbat HaGadol, before Passover, and on Shabbat Shuvah, before Yom Kippur.Due to where I daven, I have experienced the Yom Kippur sermon both as a giver and as a receiver. At the minyan I attend, members are chosen to give a 15-minute High Holy Days drash. Another 15 minutes is left for discussion.After giving a few, and listening to many more, talking is easier. Though the liturgy and nusach of the day beg us to listen, it’s a difficult task.The Talmud tells us the day is short and the task is great.Perhaps on the day when long lists of wrongs are acknowledged, it’s time to stop sending short and start receiving long.It’s already a difficult day with fasting and Yizkor, and struggles with intention. So as an aid to help awaken your listening skills and sermon focus, try these:
-On Kol Nidre, turn off all your stuff: pagers, cell phones. Stop texting, Twittering. Go long.

During the sermon, follow the discourse. Many rabbis will tie their thoughts to a particular point in the Torah reading or prayers. It’s a wonderful tradition requiring leaps from one thought to the next. Open your book and leap with them.

-Are you like the infamous student who asks Hillel to explain the Torah while he stands on one foot? Relax. Breathe deeply. Today, stand on two feet. Remember, this is as important to the rabbi as it is to you. This is not a college lecture or political speech. It’s about you.

-Be present; no racing minds allowed. On a day when the cantor chants Hineni,” “Here I am,You be here,too.

-Lastly, listen to the sermon as if you were going to tell someone about it at the break fast. Soak up the detail and the tam, the flavor.

As to the code: Yom Kippur is about Repentance, Prayer and TZedakah.Thanks for listening.(Edmon J. Rodman is a Los Angeles writer and designer.)

September 24, 2009, 11:10pm Light One Candle: Bibi on the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Challenge By Nathan Guttman

Benjamin Netanyahu has a message to the American Jewish community: It’s time to get out and fight against the lies people are spreading about Israel.Netanyahu himself, as he told a crowd of 1,000 hand-picked Jewish activists at an invitation-only event Thursday evening at New York’s 92nd Street Y, has already embarked on the mission of making the world know the truth about Israel.And this mission was handed to Netanyahu by none other than the late Lubavitcher Rebbe.It was a lengthy tale, and Netanyahu was at his best: entertaining the audience with anecdotes, giving a personal touch and throwing in the unavoidable references to his military past. The tale begins with a friend of Netanyahu (from his army years) knocking on his door in New York when Netanyahu was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, and it ends with the Lubavitcher rabbi dancing with a Torah scroll under a glowing circle of light.The message the rabbi had for Netanyahu was that he is entering a house of lies, and that his mission would be to light a candle of truth for the Jewish people.
The lies being spread about Israel, according to Netanyahu, are three: Holocaust denial, accusations that Israel is the aggressor in the region, and claims that Jews are foreign colonialists in the Land of Israel.This is where the Israeli P.M. turned to Jewish America for help: When you light the candles in Yom Kippur, Bibi told the all-Jewish audience, light one other candle: the candle of truth and justice for the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

And with that, Netanyahu ended his address.

In his 25 minute speech, the Israeli leader did not mention Iran by name, did not discuss the status of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and only briefly mentioned that settlements are not the cause of the conflict.But the choice of a more personal address seemed to have worked well with the crowd, who gave Netanyahu an extended standing ovation. The introductions before his speech were even warmer, with Alan Solow, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, saying that he sleeps better at night knowing the Netanyahu is at the helm in Israel and with Elie Wiesel giving an intimate account of his past meetings with the Netanyahu family and assuring the listeners that what motivates him [Netanyahu] is not political gain but the future of the people of Israel.It was Netanyahu’s last stop on his New York visit, which began with a trilateral meeting with Mahmud Abbas and Barack Obama, and ended with a speech before the U.N. General Assembly. Before leaving for his flight back to Israel (planned so he makes it home before Shabbat begins), Netanyahu got a gift to take back to Israel: a shofar, the biggest one organizers could find, according to Malcolm Hoenlein, who presented Netanyahu with the gift.Hoenlein even blew the shofar to make sure it works. It did.

challenges Israel boycotters Friday, 25 September 2009 13:20 News from Jerusalem .

Are you fed up with calls to boycott Israeli goods and services? A new Web site set up by pro-Israel Canadians seeks to defy anti-Israel boycotts by encouraging subscribers to deliberately buy Israeli products that are being boycotted. The campaign, titled Buycott Israel,was organized by the Canada-Israel Committee together with the Jewish federations of Vancouver and Toronto and the Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, to counter the increasing number of boycotts in Canada over the last year.Aiming to turn a disadvantage into a strong advantage, Buycott Israel's Web site asks readers,Are you fed up with calls to boycott Israeli goods and services? Want to do something about it? and then calls on them to sign up for Buycott alerts.The enterprise promises to alert users when a boycott initiative needs to be countered,and lets subscribers know the results of every Buycott action.

These boycotts have been going on for while, but we've seen a real uptick in activity lately, and as a result, members of the community decided to push back in a very serious way,Sara Saber-Freedman, chief operating officer of the Canada-Israel Committee, told The Jerusalem Post by phone on Thursday.Saber-Freedman explained that the campaign was in the process of creating a database of people and items. The Web site is an interactive tool that will allow our subscribers to notify others when they find out about an attempt to boycott a particular [Israeli] item, and in turn the Web site will ask the subscribers to go out and buy that item.She added, We are making a statement to the people who seek to isolate Israel that we will see to it that Israel is less isolated, and we will do this because of those actions. And if you seek to limit access to Israeli academics, we will let these voices be heard.

Saber-Freedman told the Post that the worrying trend had been cropping up in the commercial sector, in labor movements and even in churches.The United Church of Canada entertained a boycott notion recently, but it was defeated,she noted.But even though it was generally defeated, it was deferred to next year for consideration, so we know that this problem is one that will keep on coming back.Over the last year, there have been three public attempts to boycott Israeli wine in Canada: two protests in Vancouver, and one in Toronto. In the Toronto boycott, protesters led by the anti-war group Not In Our Name picketed liquor store LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) to protest the sale of Israeli wine there.Dismayed and disgusted by the protest, Toronto's Jewish community rallied, and hundreds of Jews arrived at the scene to buy all the Israeli wine in the store. Activists claimed to have led LCBO to sell out of Israeli wine - over 500 cases in a just over half an hour - and to have caused the boycotters to leave in defeat not long afterward.Although there have been a number of anti-Israel boycott campaigns in Canada recently,in each of them, it comes out of our experience that [buying the product that is being boycotted] has been effective, successful and sends out an absolutely unequivocal message, explained Saber-Freedman.We even caused the store owners to stock up in anticipation for one of the boycotts, she recalled triumphantly.We used our internal mail list to ask our members to specifically go and purchase Israeli wine, and as a result the wine sold out.What's more, in Vancouver, the second time the anti-Israeli protest happened, the store went out and stocked up on Israeli wine, because they knew that, ironically, if there was a picket, they'd do more business.But turning serious, Saber-Freedman added that in our experience, consistently, whether it's store-owners or organizers of cultural festivals, people are annoyed and irritated by people attempting to assert their political agenda on them and on the public… they are tired of being taken hostage by people whose agenda is so narrow and so unthinking.

The reversal of the boycotts appears to have galvanized the Jewish community, and with the advent of the Buycott Israel campaign, Saber-Freedman's hopes for the future are now brighter.We're very keen to see where this takes us. It's an exciting step in citizen-based advocacy for Israel,she said.As much as anything, we're thrilled that people are as interested in it as they seem to be. The news of the campaign is spreading across the blogosphere,she went on.People are just fed up. What we've been seeing in Canada over the last 12 months is an increase in the number of cases and instances where Israel is being boycotted, and we needed to do something against that.Saber-Freedman stressed that there's nothing stealth in our approach. It's open and in-your-face. We're doing this in a very conscious way - we're not hiding anything.Ultimately, this campaign is part of what we all want - for Israel's right to exist in peace behind internationally recognized borders and not to be challenged at every turn.jpost.

OBAMA DECEPTION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
ENDGAME GLOBAL ENSLAVEMENT
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261
BOHEMIAN GROVE NWO OCCULTISTS
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-82095917705734983
WITCHCRAFT IN THE WHITE HOUSE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmaiX86sUoc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF2eILED00s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZARWvlz_yKI&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbh7KrUwawI&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IG0tmvCozU&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgP-SyrooKI&feature=channel
OBAMA SCAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V1nmn2zRMc&feature=player_embedded

3RD JIHAD TRAILER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJy9tpGHGXM&feature=player_embedded
3RD JIHAD MOVIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gt9UGB1-tQ&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbnaWpSS8Dk&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1d0Lx8MPtI&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZdhKcFk5vg&feature=player_embedded
SHARIA LAW IN AMERICA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuEy0uiyvNw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppTo-TTtJQo&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqV-CtEVUU&feature=player_embedded

HAMAS TEACHES CHILDREN TO KILL JEWS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwN2M6ZIIRU&feature=player_embedded

Hamas teaches kids to kill Jews Friday, 25 September 2009 10:33 News from Jerusalem.

The bear puppet host, Nassur, of a Hamas children's TV program used different words for slaughter to describe how to rid Israel of Jews.First the bear explains that all Jews must be erased from our land. Later in the conversation he adds, We want to slaughter them, Saraa, so they will be expelled from our land.He repeats,We’ll have to [do it] by slaughter.He first uses the Arabic expression for slaughter,Nidbah-hom, and later on uses the word Shaht.The following is the transcript from the children’s program Tomorrow's Pioneers:

Nassur:There won't be any Jews or Zionists, if Allah wills. They'll be erased.
Saraa: Chased away.
Nassur: And just like we will visit the Qaaba [in Mecca]... everyone will visit Jerusalem.
[Seven-year old Palestinian child on phone tells how his father, a member of the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades, died as a Shahid (Martyr).
Nassur to child on phone: What do you want to do to the Jews who shot your father?
Child on phone: I want to kill them.
Saraa: We don't want to do anything to them, just expel them from our land.
Nassur: We want to slaughter (Nidbah-hom) them, so they will be expelled from our land, right?
Saraa: Yes. That's right. We will expel them from our land using all means.
Nassur: And if they don't want [to go] peacefully, by words or talking, we’ll have to [do it] by slaughter. (Shaht)[Al-Aqsa (Hamas) TV, Sept. 22, 2009]PalWatch

Civil servant fined for racist outburst against Jews-Rowan Laxton, a Foreign Office civil servant, has been found guilty of shouting ******* Jews while he exercised in a gym.Published: 11:04AM BST 24 Sep 2009

Rowan Laxton arriving at court Photo: NATIONAL PICTURES
The 48 year-old, head of the South Asia desk of the British Foreign Office, was watching a television report about the death of a farmer killed by Israeli bombs when he exclaimed: ******* Israelis, ******* Jews.Fellow gym members Gideon Falter and William Lemaine, who were on a lower floor using weights, overheard Laxton, who was on an exercise bike, and complained to staff at the gym.The incident, which took place at the London Business School gym on the evening of January 27, was described by Laxton's counsel as a moment of madness.Julian Knowles said: It is a cliche, but it's a cliche that fits in this situation.It was a moment of madness for Mr Laxton, which is going to have very grave and long-term consequences.He told the court Laxton had completed divorce proceedings that morning and added: Whatever happens in court is secondary to the effect it will have on his career and his reputation.The outburst was not premeditated, Mr Knowles told the court, and said: It was extraordinarily out of character for Mr Laxton. He used utterly debase comments, but he is not an anti-Semite.Laxton, whose salary after tax is £3,000 a month, was fined £350 at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court after District Judge Howard Riddle found him guilty of racially aggravated harassment, a charge he had denied.

He was also ordered to pay £500 prosecution costs and a £15 victim surcharge. District Judge Riddle said there was no need for compensation to be paid.Mr Falter claimed he also heard Laxton say: If I had my way, the ******* international community should be sent in, and if the Israelis got in the way, they'd be blown off the ******* earth.Laxton denied saying that however, and told Mr Falter he was sorry if he had offended him.Laxton previously told the court he was embarrassed by what happened, and was aware he had embarrassed the Foreign Office.He said during an earlier hearing: We are all human. I erred. I don't normally swear.Laxton also said ******* despicable while watching the television report, and admitted it was an unhelpful and gratuitous comment.In a written judgment, District Judge Riddle said Laxton had been under stress on the day, and may have been oblivious to others around him.He said: This was not a legitimate protest - it was an emotional reaction.

It is hard to imagine the circumstances when saying ******* Jews in a gym used by other people, and overheard by two strangers 20 feet away, could be considered reasonable.Speaking outside court on Thursday, Mr Knowles said: Mr Laxton is very disappointed by the outcome of today, and he will be considering his next steps with his legal team.Laxton was suspended from his job earlier this year and could now be sacked. A misconduct hearing is likely to start this week.A Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) spokeswoman said: The FCO takes very seriously any suggestion of inappropriate behaviour by its staff.The case will now be considered under the FCO's misconduct procedure. This is an internal matter and it would therefore be wrong to comment further.

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

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

What capital controls in the United States will look like
By Simon Black SEPT 26,09

Roughly $100 billion.Even in today’s world where politicians throw out the word ‘trillion’ as if it were a casual dinner garnish, $100 billion is still a lot of money… especially when you’re desperate to sustain glimmers of economic growth and trying to plug a budget shortfall that amounts to 13% of GDP.And yet, roughly $100 billion is exactly what got sucked out of the United States in July by foreigners: Net capital outflows increased to $97.5 billion for the month of July, according to recent data released by the Treasury department. Meanwhile, net long-term capital inflows fell to a paltry $15.3 billion in July, an 80% decline from June’s $90.2 billion capital inflow.

What do these numbers mean?

Foreigners are continuing to lose confidence in the US economy at a record pace and are finding better places for their money. This would certainly support the US Dollar Index’s dramatic 3.5% decline in July– though the dollar index only tells a partial story. DXY as it is known, though, only tells part of the story.The dollar index measures the value of the dollar only relative to a small basket of currencies– euro, pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish koruna, yen, and Swiss franc. Powerful Asian nations like the Gulf, China, Singapore, etc. are conspicuously missing. And yet, DXY still dropped 3.5% in July.Conclusion? If these relatively harmless countries that comprise the US Dollar Index are losing confidence in the greenback, you can be sure that China and the Middle East are knocking over women and children on their way to the emergency exit.Telling you that the dollar will be continually worth less until it is ultimately worthless is nothing new. So if you would indulge me a moment, I’d like to prognosticate on the greater implications.As the pace of these outflows picks up steam, you can be sure that a group of out-of-touch politicians are monitoring the data and thinking to themselves, we need to regulate this before it gets out of hand! And this sentiment is exactly what spawns capital controls.

Capital controls by design are intended to regulate the flow of capital in and out of a currency; in times of uncertainty, shaken politicians always pull this oldie-but-goody out of the playbook… it happened in Iceland, and it’s been discussed around the world recently– Russia, India, Brazil, the Baltics, Poland, Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, etc.Not to mention, a world largely free of capital controls is a relatively new phenomenon. We can look to history for a recent example of a world superpower turning to capital controls for stability:In the mid 1970s after the collapse of the Bretton-Woods system, the British economy was in serious trouble. GDP was contracting, unemployment rising, investment falling, and the government was drowning in red ink, all while social obligations were climbing.

Financial markets responded by turning their backs on Britain’s Pound Sterling, and the currency was crushed. The Wall Street Journal advised investors to ditch the British pound, running headlines Good-bye Great Britain.And the government came under intense pressure to do something.The first thing the UK did was go to the international community with hat in hand to prop up the currency with loans and bonds. This is already happening in the United States as Tim Geithner attempts to woo China and Middle East into buying US Treasuries.Subsequently, the British government imposed a slate of capital controls that essentially penalized investors for moving capital out of the country and requiring that all investment transactions go through authorized dealers who were charged with enforcing this policy.The penalty ranged from a 10% to 30% premium on the dollar/Pound spot rate at the time– essentially the same tactic that the Cuban government is employing today.Frankly I can see the same thing happening in the United States, perhaps starting off with a penalty in the Treasury markets where there is the biggest sucking sound… imposing a sort of restocking fee for foreign investors who don’t roll over to new issuances upon maturity.Eventually, though, you can be sure that the government will impose controls at the consumer level as well– requiring a certain allocation of bank deposits to be held in US Treasuries, restricting foreign remittances, and mandating scrutinous approval for overseas wire transfers above a certain amount.Naturally, US politicians would never call such measures capital controls,because the world’s reserve currency must be freely convertible. They will likely wrap up these policies in the anti-terrorism,money-laundering,or tax evasion’ blankets, and simultaneously wage a PR war against evil gold and currency speculators.So what can you do? As I’ve mentioned before, buying foreign real estate is the single best way to move money overseas where it cannot be forcibly repatriated. Physical gold stored overseas is an excellent option as well– there are no reporting requirements for either.I’ve also strongly suggested buying up such assets with tax-deferred retirement savings. In my opinion, there’s no better way to stay within the letter of the law than to buy foreign investment property and physical gold through a self-directed IRA… I am such a strong believer in this tactic that I negotiated a special discount with a trusted service provider who can set this up for you.As I conclude this missive today, I see that the world’s leaders are gathered in Pittsburgh to listen to the sound of their own voices. Nothing will be accomplished, and they will emerge from their summit with nothing but sound-bytes, empty promises, and a continued fervor to exact tighter control over the markets.Each of us has the ability to either plan for it, or dismiss reality and do nothing.

US May Face Armageddon If China, Japan Don't Buy Debt Thursday, 24 Sep 2009 | 5:22 PM ET Text Size By: JeeYeon Park News Associate

The US is too dependent on Japan and China buying up the country's debt and could face severe economic problems if that stops, Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson told CNBC.It's almost Armageddon if the Japanese and Chinese don't buy our debt,Robertson said in an interview.I don't know where we could get the money. I think we've let ourselves get in a terrible situation and I think we ought to try and get out of it.Robertson said inflation is a big risk if foreign countries were to stop buying bonds.If the Chinese and Japanese stop buying our bonds, we could easily see [inflation] go to 15 to 20 percent,he said.It's not a question of the economy. It's a question of who will lend us the money if they don't. Imagine us getting ourselves in a situation where we're totally dependent on those two countries. It's crazy.Robertson said while he doesn’t think the Chinese will stop buying US bonds, the Japanese may eventually be forced to sell some of their long-term bonds.That's much worse than not buying,he said.The other thing is, they're buying almost exclusively short-term debt. And that's what we are offering, because we can't sell the long-term debt. And you know, the history has been that people who borrow short term really get burned.The only way to avoid the problem, he said, is to grow and save our way out of it.The U.S. has to quit spending, cut back, start saving, and scale backward,Robertson said.Until that happens, I don't think we're anywhere near out of the woods.Robertson is not very optimistic about the short-term.
We're in for some real rough sledding,he said.I really do think the recession is at least temporarily over. But we haven't addressed so many of our problems and we are borrowing so much money that we can't possibly pay it back, unless the Chinese and Japanese buy our bonds.2009 CNBC.com

Fed officials say policy path hard to communicate By Mark Felsenthal and Ros Krasny – Fri Sep 25, 4:17 pm ET

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. Federal Reserve officials mused about the timing and pace of the central bank's removal of its unprecedented support for the economy on Friday, saying the shift could be abrupt and might be hard to communicate to financial markets.A shift in the Fed's policy could come before it is clearly necessary based on economic data and could be swift, Fed Governor Kevin Warsh said at a Chicago Fed/World Bank conference.If policymakers insist on waiting until the level of real activity has plainly and substantially returned to normal -- and the economy has returned to self-sustaining trend growth -- they will almost certainly have waited too long,he said.The Fed earlier this week announced it would begin tapering off some of its exceptional support for the economy amid early signs of growth after a painful recession while renewing a pledge to hold benchmark interest rates exceptionally low for a long time.Warsh's comments suggest he is among policy-makers anxious that a too-slow removal of support policies and raising of interest rates risks igniting inflation.However, he played down any notion that his remarks are a sign a shift in Fed policy would come soon.I'm confident markets will not conflate those (frank discussions of the policy outlook) with imminence, Warsh said while answering questions after a speech in Chicago.The U.S. economy may be looking up, but is still in a long, long period of repair,he added.Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said earlier in the day to a congressional group that demand for the Fed's program backing consumer and small business loans remains strong but that demand for many of the Fed's facilities aimed at making short-term funds available is fading.Warsh said velocity of the policy turn could also be faster than many expect and echo the dramatic moves made by the U.S. central bank during 2007 through 2009.If Whatever it takes was appropriate to arrest the panic, the refrain might turn out to be equally necessary at a stage during the recovery to ensure the Fed's institutional credibility,he said.

BE PRO-ACTIVE

The hawkish remarks echoed those made by Warsh in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal published on Friday.That article, which suggested a more pro-active policy shift, prompted dealers to push up the implied chances for Fed rate hikes in the first half of 2010. U.S. Treasury yields rose again following Warsh's comments.
Warsh said that data in the past couple of months show continued improvement in the economy and that a virtuous circle could be developing between more stable financial markets and real economic activity.In contrast to the languid pace of policy change suggested on Thursday by White House aide Christina Romer, who said that talk of a fast exit strategy made her cringe,Warsh suggested the Fed act decisively.

Ultimately, when the decision is made to remove policy accommodation further, prudent risk management may prescribe that it be accomplished with greater swiftness than is modern central bank custom,he said.St. Louis Fed Reserve President James Bullard said on Friday it is difficult to communicate the Fed's likely monetary policy direction clearly to markets with benchmark interest rates near zero. He suggested in a presentation at a Swiss National Bank conference in Zurich that policymakers settle on some type of rule for explaining how the U.S. central bank's purchases of long-term securities should be adjusted in response to changing economic conditions. Quantitative rules are generally not as satisfactory as interest rate rules,Bullard said.But it is still worthwhile to use them because of the need to communicate future monetary policy to markets.The Fed has resorted to buying assets and other forms of pumping liquidity into the markets, or so-called quantitative easing, as it exhausted its ability to cut borrowing costs to stimulate the economy.A copy of his presentation was made available in Washington.The Fed cut rates to near zero in December to help the economy weather a wrenching financial crisis. To continue to lower borrowing costs, policymakers began buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of longer-term Treasury and mortgage-related securities.

Obama: G20 brought economy back from brink By TOM RAUM and EMMA VANDORE, Associated Press Writers – SEPT 25,09 8:50PM

PITTSBURGH – World leaders on Friday issued sweeping promises to fix a malfunctioning global economic system in hopes of heading off future financial meltdowns. President Barack Obama said actions taken so far brought the global economy back from the brink.We leave here today confident and united,Obama said at the conclusion of a two-day gathering of the world's 20 top economies to deal with the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.The leaders agreed to keep stimulus plans, which include government spending and low interest rates, generally in place in their respective countries for now to avoid derailing still-fragile recoveries. Obama had pressed for just such a course and praised the decision.Our coordinated stimulus plans played an indispensable role in averting catastrophe. Now we must make sure that when growth returns, jobs do, too,he said at a wrap-up news conference. That's why we will continue our stimulus efforts until our people are back to work and phase them out when our recovery is strong.In a statement, all the G-20 leaders declared major progress from what they called their coordinated efforts and forceful response.

It worked,they said.

Although many of the pronouncements and actions taken by the leaders lacked specifics or details on follow-through, leaders were bold in pronouncing the gathering — the third G-20 summit in a year — as a big success.There was unanimity around the table that the errors of the past won't happen again,said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.The old system of international economic cooperation is over. The new system, as of today, has begun,said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, referring to a decision to enhance the status for the Group of 20 to make it the lead group for dealing with future international economic issues, eclipsing the older, Western-dominated Group of Eight.I have the impression that we are on a successful path,said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, before leaving Pittsburgh to fly back to Berlin, where she faces German voters on Sunday.They moved to require members to subject their economic policies to the scrutiny of a peer review process that would determine whether they were collectively consistent with sustainable global growth. They promised tighter and more coordinated financial regulation.And, repeating pledges from G-20 summits in November and April, when financial panic was rampant, they vowed anew to reject protectionism in all its forms.They also went along with Obama's push for a pledge to withdraw government subsidies from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas linked to global warming.While issuing lofty vows, the leaders failed to define how to accomplish many of them and were quickly back to bickering over details.

They did not suggest, for instance, how the peer review process would be enforced. And they failed to mention that previous pledges to avoid protectionism had been ignored by nearly all 20 members.Disagreements over whether China should gain voting strength in the International Monetary Fund at the expense of European nations and over global warming language marred the summit.Obama talked about actions of the G-20as creating or saving millions of jobs.Yet the U.S. economy alone has lost 3.1 million jobs since January when Obama took office. Since the recession started in December, 2007, some 6.9 million jobs have disappeared.The group agreed to support changes in the makeup of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.The final statement said voting powers in the IMF should reflect the relative weights of its members in the world economy, which have changed substantially in view of the strong growth in dynamic emerging market and developing countries.Now, developed industrialized nations wield about 57 percent of the voting rights in the IMF to about 43 percent for developing nations. The G-20 leaders called for shifting shares from developed powers to emerging ones by at least 5 percentage points. They called for a similar shift at the World Bank. European countries, particularly France and Britain, have been resisting such changes.Said Obama: We brought the global economy back from the brink. We laid the groundwork today for long term prosperity.

Pittsburgh was a perfect venue for this work,Obama said of the one-time despairing Rust Belt city.This community has known its share of hard times. It picked itself up and dusted itself off. It serves as a model for turning the page to a 21st century.
Obama brushed off demonstrations in the city. He said they were mild compared with some in the past at international gatherings.I fundamentally disagree with their view that the free market is the source of all ills,he said.Many of the protests are just directed generically at capitalism. ... One of the great things about the United States is you can speak your mind.Obama said that tough new financial regulations backed by the G-20 summit would help avoid another economic crisis. He also said that G-20 leaders would spare no effort to reach a global warming agreement at an international gathering later this year in Copenhagen. Summit leaders agreed to Obama's call to reduce government subsidies for fossil fuels. He said if fully implemented, the move would phase out $300 billion in global subsidies.All nations have a responsibility to face this challenge,he said. Obama circulated among the leaders before the talks began, speaking to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.Said Hu: The foundation of an economic rebound is not yet solid, with many uncertainties remaining. A full economic recovery will take a slow and tortuous process.Medvedev later said that there were limits to what the G-20 could do, even though it was an improvement over the G-8 grouping.In the world, there are not just 20 countries, 20 economies, and therefore we have to think how the G-20 can work with the other countries that are not part of this club,the Russian president told reporters.

He called the United Nations the most legitimate forum for this. In an apparent reference to a recent trade spat in which the United States imposed punitive tariffs on Chinese tire imports, Hu called on the leaders to resolutely oppose and reject protectionism in all forms.Leaders papered over differences on the executive bonus issue by avoiding language for specific caps, something that France had pushed for but that the United States had opposed. A U.S. push for stronger requirements for bank capital — the cushion that banks hold against loan losses — was included, but with many of the specifics over how the capital would be determined left to set at later meetings.The leaders also agreed to a U.S. proposal for a framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth to deal with such issues as China's huge trade surpluses and the soaring U.S. budget deficit. The streets of Pittsburgh were generally calm. A few thousand demonstrators pledging nonviolence banged drums, danced and held signs advocating assorted causes.South Korean President Myung-bak said that his country will chair the G-20 next year and will host the next summit in November 2010.Associated Press writers Pan Pylas, Michael Fischer, Foster Klug, Ben Feller and Daniel Lovering contributed to this report.

Ascension of G-20 fits priorities of new century-Ascension of G-20 trades 20th-century alignment for the priorities of a new century By Ted Anthony, AP National Writer On Friday September 25, 2009, 8:09 pm EDT

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- For the world, apparently, eight is no longer enough.The G-8 group of powerhouse economies, which expanded from the original G-5 one by one over three decades, stepped off center stage Friday with the ascension of the G-20 into the role of overseeing the global economy. Henceforth, the council of 20 major economies will steer the planetary fiscal ship through its choppiest waters in a generation.The shift toward multilateral decision-making is sure to please some emerging economies -- China and India in particular -- and irritate those Americans who believe the United States shouldn't be handing off its power to international institutions. No matter that the groups lack any regulatory or administrative power other than the collective oomph of their members.The ascension of a broad-based body like the G-20 represents a growing global consensus that an international alignment firmly in place since the mid-1970s no longer suffices on a planet where fast-rising powers insist upon places at the table.Dramatic changes in the world economy have not always been reflected in the global architecture for economic cooperation,the White House said Thursday night in announcing that the G-20 would become the essential global economic council.This decision brings to the table the countries needed to build a stronger, more balanced global economy.That's one way of looking at it. But as with most economic issues, it's not just about money. It's about power and access -- not unlike the debate over whether to expand the U.N. Security Council.

Sprung from the 1973 oil crisis and its aftereffects, the original G-5 was formed as a tight union of industrialized democracies -- originally the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Japan. France pushed for the addition of Italy, the United States invited Canada in and Russia signed on in 1997.Then, in the early part of this decade -- shortly after the separate G-20 finance ministers began meeting in 1999 -- the G-8 began to bring other nations into discussions. But China and India, with cultures that date back many centuries, didn't exactly appreciate the notion of being anyone's little brother in the 21st.Thus the announcement Thursday that the larger G-20 would take over -- a council that, by simple virtue of a membership that unites more than 80 percent of the global economy, is a force to be reckoned with. The G-20 format has proven itself in times of crisis,German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday. President Barack Obama called it the most diverse collection of leaders in history.China, not unexpectedly, welcomed the expansion to a club that would finally have it as a member. On Friday, Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said the G-20 should be the main conduit for dealing with global financial and economic matters because the G-8 lacks wide representation.The G-20 has the vitality and can represent the views of various countries in a balanced way,He said.It also has the benefit of de-emphasizing the core group of the G-8 -- which, in strategic terms, also means de-emphasizing the 20th-century colonial powers of Britain, France, Germany and to some extent the United States.That's an important message that emerging economies want to hear. But it also means that, by sitting down with the big boys, they have to talk in the common vocabulary of continually growing capitalism, which does not always fit every nation's political message.

If the old colonial masters have deigned to recognize their old subjects and include them as equals at the table, the old subjects have also given up the feelings that they had to be different in order to have integrity. They've adopted the ways of their old masters,said Jeffrey Martinson, a political scientist and foreign policy analyst at Meredith College in North Carolina.In some obvious ways, a larger council makes sense. People who might not get along well can find common ground on economic goals. The increasing focus on environmental concerns might play out better with China, Brazil and India at the table. A wider economic discussion fits better in an era when huge amounts of capital move around with the click of a mouse.Yet some are wary of potential pitfalls. More democratic usually means more unwieldy, so will a group of 20 be able to get anything done? Will endless discussion and finessing replace decisive action by the world's primary economic stakeholders? Can economic policy really be decided with only one African nation represented and Switzerland absent? To me, it's not yet clear how this is going to work,said Michael Klosson, a Clinton-era State Department official who is now chief policy officer for Save the Children.We're concerned that this national commitment to development -- one that we've seen at recent G-8 summits -- is going to evaporate. We want to hear that development is squarely on the agenda for the G-20.Peter Morici, a former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission who now teaches at the University of Maryland, dismisses the move as an obvious American ploy to appease China and try to use international institutions to solve bilateral problems. Emphasis on the larger G-20, he says,actually makes things worse.This is an American president basically surrendering economic policy to an international institution, Morici said.

The creation of what is, in some respects, an economic United Nations certainly adds voices to the mix -- voices that, in some cases, have struggled mightily to be heard over the bullhorns of the traditional powers. And yet, in a new world of information where everyone demands a say, even 20 may not be enough, either -- at least to hear Egypt tell it.Its foreign minister, Ahmet Aboul Gheit, said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly that countries that are considered important players need seats at the G-20 table, too. Listen to us. Listen to the rest of the world,he said. Do not turn it into a closed club as it was with the G-8.AP writers Foster Klug in Pittsburgh and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

G-20 leaders declare major progress on economy-G-20 leaders pledge to counter financial imbalances and keep stimulating economies By Emma Vandore, Associated Press Writer On Friday September 25, 2009, 7:24 pm EDT

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Leaders of the Group of 20 nations declared major progress in their coordinated efforts and forceful response to prevent global financial collapse but cautioned that their work was far from over.The leaders of countries with the world's major economies pledged to develop goals to counter wide economic imbalances blamed for wrecking the economy, and said they would keep stimulus programs and ensure the fragile economic recovery takes hold.Financial markets have come back to life, and we stopped the crisis from spreading further to the developing world, President Barack Obama said, speaking as the summit in Pittsburgh ended. Still,he said,we know there's much further to go.He said coordinated efforts have saved millions of jobs and set the world on the road to more economic accountability and less rewarding of short-term greed.Going forward, we cannot tolerate the same old boom-and-bust economy of the past,the U.S. president said. We can't grow complacent. We can't wait for a crisis to cooperate.In the first international summit hosted by Obama, the G-20 moved to give countries in Asia and Latin America a bigger say in decision-making and to crack down on greedy bankers.They made themselves the lead group for tackling international economic issues in the future, eclipsing the older, Western-dominated Group of Eight.The old system of international economic cooperation is over. The new system, as of today, has begun,British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared.I have the impression that we are on a successful path,said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, before leaving Pittsburgh to fly back to Berlin, where she faces German voters on Sunday.The leaders also agreed that bank executives should not be guaranteed multiyear bonuses because such compensation makes them less accountable for risky investments.

Rather, they said, a significant portion of bank officials' potential compensation should be delayed and tied to the performance of their investment decisions.The leaders said excessive compensation contributed to excessive risk-taking and the recent global recession.There was unanimity around the table that the errors of the past won't happen again,French President Nicolas Sarkozy said during a news conference after a meeting from the Group of 20 nations.I am very satisfied by what we decided.EU leaders had called for links between bankers' pay and the companies' long-term performance and have sought to end bonuses. Sarkozy in particular has lobbied for better financial regulation, warning that the world risked another speculative bubble which when it bursts would put our economies on the edge of the abyss.They agreed to require members to subject their economic policies to the scrutiny of a peer review process that would determine whether they were collectively consistent with sustainable global growth. They promised tighter and more coordinated financial regulation.And, repeating pledges from G-20 summits in November and April, when financial panic was rampant, they vowed anew to reject protectionism in all its forms.However, they did not suggest how the peer review process would be enforced. And they failed to mention that previous pledges to avoid protectionism had been ignored by nearly all 20 members.Summit leaders also agreed to a bid proposed by Obama to reduce government subsidies for fossil fuels such as oil and coal linked to global warming. If fully implemented, the move would phase out $300 billion in global subsidies, the U.S. president said.All nations have a responsibility to face this challenge,Obama said.

The final statement also tackled the issue of whether China should gain voting strength in the International Monetary Fund at the expense of European nations.The final statement said voting powers in the IMF should reflect the relative weights of its members in the world economy, which have changed substantially in view of the strong growth in dynamic emerging market and developing countries.Now, developed industrialized nations wield about 57 percent of the voting rights in the IMF to about 43 percent for developing nations. The G-20 leaders called for shifting shares from developed powers to emerging ones by at least 5 percentage points. They called for a similar shift at the World Bank.European countries, particularly France and Britain, have been resisting such changes.Earlier in the day, Obama circulated among the leaders before the talks began, speaking to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.Said Hu: The foundation of an economic rebound is not yet solid, with many uncertainties remaining. A full economic recovery will take a slow and tortuous process.The streets of Pittsburgh were generally calm.a day after police and protesters clashed. A few thousand demonstrators pledging nonviolence banged drums, danced and held signs advocating assorted causes. On Thursday, a march without a permit and other demonstrations ended with nearly 70 arrests.

G-20 Eyes Deal On Bank Reserves John Ydstie and Robert Siegel
September 25, 2009

G-20 leaders will likely leave Pittsburgh with an agreement to have banks build up their capital reserves while cutting back on bonuses and other forms of compensation. The new capital rules will be phased in and banks would have until the end of 2012 to meet the new requirements.

Emerging nations big winners at re-born G20 by Andrew Gully – SEPT 25,09

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AFP) – World leaders unveiled Friday a new vision for economic governance, with bold plans to fix global imbalances and give more clout to emerging giants such as China and India.The Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh committed the International Monetary Fund to shifting at least five percent of voting rights to the developing world and tasked it with a bigger monitoring role.

The major rejig followed an earlier announcement that the G20 summit of developed and emerging nations would become the world's top economic forum, effectively replacing the G8 of only rich countries.Modernizing the international financial institutions and global development architecture is essential to our efforts to promote global financial stability, foster sustainable development, and lift the lives of the poorest,the leaders said, explaining what amounts to a seismic shift in world diplomacy.The G20 agreed it was too early to begin to scale back the multi-trillion dollar stimulus measures that have helped stave off further economic misery following last year's financial meltdown.We will avoid any premature withdrawal of stimulus. At the same time, we will prepare our exit strategies and, when the time is right, withdraw our extraordinary policy support in a cooperative and coordinated way, maintaining our commitment to fiscal responsibility.During two days of meetings in the aptly re-born former steel city of Pittsburgh, considered a model for economic transformation, there was also tough talk about curbing banking excess, a symbolic issue for many taxpayers.Leaders, unable to come to enforce measures on the banks, could only muster a pledge -- thin on detail -- to impose strong international compensation standards aimed at ending practices that lead to excessive risk-taking.The issue, a highly symbolic one for taxpayers, had been all the rage in the days before the summit with French President Nicolas Sarkozy leading calls for tough action and even threatening to walk out of the summit.While bankers might have got off the hook, banks themselves should expect tighter regulation and monitoring as the excesses of the recent past came in for heavy suspicion in a strongly worded part of the G20 accord.Facts: G20 participants We call on banks to retain a greater proportion of current profits to build capital, where needed, to support lending,it said.

All firms whose failure could pose a risk to financial stability must be subject to consistent, consolidated supervision and regulation with high standards.The biggest announcement -- bar the one by Obama, Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that Iran had owned up to a second uranium enrichment plant -- came overnight and was about the Group of 20 itself.Today, leaders endorsed the G20 as the premier forum for their international economic cooperation,a statement said.This decision brings to the table the countries needed to build a stronger, more balanced global economy, reform the financial system, and lift the lives of the poorest.The G8 -- wealthy nations Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States -- has served in various forms as the premier economic forum since 1975and holds closely-watched annual summits.There is a new global compact,said Andrew Cooper, a regular watcher of global summits and associate director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Canada.As leaders flew back home after a hectic week of international diplomacy that saw them first at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Pittsburgh braced for a second night of violence. Riot officers had fired pepper spray and non-lethal rounds on Thursday after a 1,000-strong crowd, led by black-clad hardliners wearing goggles, helmets and masks marched towards the conference venue. Sixty-six people were arrested.

The gathering of the world's 19 biggest developed and emerging economies plus the European Union came just over a year after a US credit collapse triggered a global economic slowdown. With unemployment still rising steadily in many parts of the globe and the world economy far from out of the woods yet, G20 leaders will be judged on their bold promises the next time they meet. The steps we are taking here, when fully implemented, will result in a fundamentally stronger financial system than existed prior to the crisis,their agreement said. If we all act together, financial institutions will have stricter rules for risk-taking, governance that aligns compensation with long-term performance, and greater transparency in their operations.As the predominant economic forum, there will be two meetings in 2010, the first in Canada, before a meeting in France the following year, the first of subsequent annual summits

Indian PM welcomes rise of G20, says G8 ill-equipped Fri Sep 25, 6:40 pm ET

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AFP) – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday welcomed a decision to elevate Group of 20 summits involving developing nations, saying the G8 club was ill-equipped.The White House used a summit of 20 developed and developing nations in Pittsburgh to announce that the format would serve as the premier forum for economic decisions, eclipsing the Group of Eight of rich countries.

Interdependence in a globalized world means that no country, however powerful it may be, can take on the entire burden of economic adjustment and economic decision-making,Singh told a post-summit news conference.It is that perception and that reality which has, I think, persuaded many people in Europe and the United States that this G8 is ill-equipped to handle all the global issues,he said.With the rise of Asia, with growth of India, China and Brazil, the economic decision-making has to take into account the views of these countries if it is to have an optimum impact, he said.

Every G20 nation wants to be Canada, insists PM By David Ljunggren – SEPT 25,09

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, appearing to forget that his countrymen are generally known for their modesty, declared on Friday that his nation was the envy of the world.

Harper, usually a fairly wooden performer, seized on a routine question at a news conference and used it to deliver an impassioned defense of his 33-million strong nation and how well it has coped with the global economic crisis.Canada remains in a very special place in the world. ... We are the one major developed country that no one thinks has any responsibility for this crisis,he said to laughter.In fact, on the contrary, they look at our policies as a solution to the crisis. We're the one country in the room everybody would like to be,he said at the end of the summit of the Group of 20 advanced and developing nations in Pittsburgh.Canada, which was running a budget surplus before the recession and avoided major banking problems, has been less affected by the crisis than many of its partners.Harper said the other G20 nations would like to be an advanced developed economy with all the benefits that conveys to its citizens and at the same time not have been the source, or have any of the domestic problems, that created this crisis.By this stage of his comments, the initial premise of the question had long since vanished and Harper -- who leads the right-leaning Conservative Party -- was focusing on several other factors that in his mind make Canada so irresistible.We're so self-effacing as Canadians that we sometimes forget the assets we do have that other people see,he said, speaking with a rare passion.We are one of the most stable regimes in history. ... We are unique in that regard,he added, noting Canada had enjoyed more than 150 years of untroubled Parliamentary democracy.Just in case that was not enough to persuade doubters, Harper threw in some more facts about the geographically second-largest nation in the world.We also have no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them,he said.

And his final verdict? Canada is big enough to make a difference but not big enough to threaten anybody. And that is a huge asset if it's properly used.(Editing by Leslie Adler)

Canada offers African Development Bank 2.6 bln dollars Fri Sep 25, 1:34 pm ET

OTTAWA (AFP) – Canada has pledged 2.6 billion US dollars in loan guarantees to the African Development Bank, to increase the institution's lending capacity, the prime minister's office said Friday.Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office said the offer of 2.6 billion US dollars in so-called callable capital would triple Canada's shares in the regional bank.The money will allow the bank to increase lending by 75 percent, compared to its original plan for 2010, the statement said.Canada is the first country to have responded to a critical need of regional banks in this innovative way,Harper said in the statement.The Canadian leader is currently in the United States, attending the Group of 20 meeting being held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Our support recognizes efforts by the African Development Bank to ensure it has sufficient resources to respond quickly to the demands of its borrowing members while it continues its poverty reduction efforts.Last July, the bank said it had been seriously affected by the global financial crisis because of an unprecedented increase in the number of loan requests.Harper's statement said Canada's pledge was part of its promise at a G-20 meeting in London in April to strengthen and support international financial institutions.

MUSLIM NATIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russia won't put missiles in Kaliningrad: Medvedev By Oleg Shchedrov – SEPT 25,09

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday he will call off his decision to deploy missiles in the enclave of Kaliningrad, his response to the United States scrapping missile shield plans in Europe.U.S. President Barack Obama last week announced Washington will not put interceptor missiles in Poland or a radar system in the Czech Republic, parts of a project viewed by the United States as protection against potential attacks from Iran.Medvedev, who met Obama in New York on Wednesday, has described that decision as courageous.Dealing with the issues of the U.S. missile shield, Iran and nuclear disarmament are major elements of attempts by Medvedev and Obama to reset thorny bilateral relations that had plunged to post-Cold War lows under the Bush administration.To Russia, the U.S. missile shield plan for eastern Europe was a threat to its security.Medvedev had vowed to put Iskander missiles in the Baltic region of Kaliningrad, bordering NATO members Lithuania and Poland, if Washington went ahead with the plan.When I announced this decision I said it was a reaction to the creation of a third positioning region, Medvedev said in Pittsburgh, where he attended a summit of Group of 20 leading economies.Now that this decision was scrapped, I will make a decision not to deploy Iskanders in the appropriate region of our country.A senior Russian military official said earlier this week that the military would reverse plans to deploy Iskanders after Obama's announcement. But armed forces chief of staff General Nikolai Makarov later said such a decision should be made by the president.The West suspects Iran of seeking to make nuclear weapons. Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has so far blocked attempts to impose strong sanctions against Tehran.

But Medvedev, annoyed by reports about Iran building a new uranium enrichment plant, warned Tehran to respond to international concerns and give up any military elements of its nuclear program.Medvedev, clearly siding with the Western condemnation of Iran's plans, said Tehran should start cooperating with U.N. inspectors by the time it meets international negotiators for talks on October 1.(Editing by John O'Callaghan)

Obama warns Iran: come clean on nukes By CHARLES BABINGTON and ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writers – SEPT 25,09

PITTSBURGH – Backed by other world powers, President Barack Obama declared Friday that Iran is speeding down a path to confrontation and demanded that Tehran quickly come clean on all nuclear efforts and open a newly revealed secret site for close international inspection. He said he would not rule out military action if the Iranians refuse.Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in accusing the Islamic republic of clandestinely building an underground plant to make nuclear fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iranian officials acknowledged the facility but insisted it had been reported to nuclear authorities as required.Iran's action raised grave doubts about its promise to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes only, Obama told a news conference at the conclusion of a G-20 summit whose focus on world economic recovery was overshadowed by disclosure of the Iranian plant.

Obama said a telling moment could come next week when Iran meets with U.S. and other major nations to discuss the nuclear issue.Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct. 1 they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice" between international isolation and giving up any aspirations to becoming a nuclear power, he said. If they refuse to give ground, they will stay on a path that is going to lead to confrontation.In a dramatic, early morning announcement about the secret Iranian facility, Obama said, Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow. The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program.Unbowed, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had done nothing wrong and Obama would regret his accusations.At a news conference in New York, Ahmadinejad said the plant wouldn't be operational for 18 months but sidestepped a question about whether Iran had sufficient enriched uranium to manufacture a nuclear weapon. Still, he said such armaments are against humanity, they are inhumane,and he said anyone who pursues them is retarded politically.The head of Iran's nuclear program suggested U.N. inspectors would be allowed to visit the site. Ali Akbar Salehi called the facility a semi-industrial plant for enriching nuclear fuel that is not yet complete, but he gave no other details, according to the state news agency IRNA.The plant, near the holy city of Qom southwest of Tehran, would be about the right size to enrich enough uranium to produce one or two bombs a year, but inspectors must get inside to know what is actually going on, one U.S. official said.At his Pittsburgh news conference, Obama appeared to hold out limited hope for the Oct. 1 meeting, which will be the first of its kind in more than a year. Iran has said its nuclear program should not be on the agenda.When we find that diplomacy does not work, we will be in a much stronger position to, for example, apply sanctions that have bite,Obama said.That's not the preferred course of action. I would love nothing more than to see Iran choose the responsible path.He said he was confident in the reliability of the intelligence information about Iran's secret nuclear facilities.

This was the work product of three intelligence agencies, not just one,Obama said. They checked over this work in a painstaking fashion.Obama said he was especially pleased that Russia and China agreed with him that Iran must live up to its obligations under international rules on nuclear activities. The leaders of Britain and France joined Obama at his morning announcement.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, at his own news conference in Pittsburgh, urged Iran to cooperate and demonstrate its good intentions at the Oct. 1 meeting and in allowing inspections. We call on Iran to show maximum cooperation with the IAEA on this issue,he said, a reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency.Beyond tougher economic sanctions, options for acting against Iran are limited and perilous.Military action by the United States or an ally such as Israel could set off a dangerous chain of events in the Islamic world. In addition, Iran's facilities are spread around the country and well hidden, making an effective military response difficult.Asked about the prospect of using military force to stop Iran from getting the bomb, Obama said, With respect to the military, I've always said that we do not rule out any options when it comes to U.S. security interests, but I will also re-emphasize that my preferred course of action is to resolve this in a diplomatic fashion. It's up to the Iranians to respond.Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking Friday on CNN's "State of the Union," said it would be a mistake to rule out military action, but he also said there was still room to pursue diplomacy.

The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time, Gates said, adding that the U.S. believes Iran could have a nuclear weapons within one to three years. And the only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened.Obama's European partners talked tough, too.We will not let this matter rest,said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who accused Iran of serial deception.French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Iran has until December to comply with demands for a fuller accounting of its program or face tough new sanctions. On Capitol Hill, three senators — Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana, Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona and Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut —issued a joint statement condemning Iran. Given Iran's consistent pattern of deceit, concealment and bad faith, the only way to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions is to make absolutely clear to the regime in Tehran that its current course will carry catastrophic consequences,the senators said.We must leave no doubt that we are prepared to do whatever it takes to stop Iran's nuclear breakout.Iran had previously acknowledged having only the one uranium enrichment plant, under international monitoring, and had denied allegations of undeclared nuclear activities.James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said a consensus has developed that if Iran were to decide to manufacture nuclear weapons the key material probably would be produced in a clandestine facility.This should persuade any doubters that Iran's program is not for peaceful purposes,Acton said.National Security Writer Robert Burns reported from Washington. Also contributing were Associated Press writers George Jahn in Vienna, Ben Feller, Foster Klug, Lynn Berry and Michael Fischer in Pittsburgh, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Ben Judah in Moscow, John Heilprin in New York and Pamela Hess and Desmond Butler in Washington.

New Iran uranium enrichment site raises concerns By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer – SEPT 25,09

VIENNA – Iran's newly revealed uranium enrichment plant is a heavily guarded, still-unfinished underground facility in the arid mountains near the holy city of Qom that will be able to produce nuclear fuel — or the payload for atomic warheads, Western intelligence officials and diplomats said Friday.The revelation suggests a network of facilities, including ones with centrifuges that would enrich uranium at much higher speed and efficiency than previously known sites.Iran's secrecy has heightened suspicions that the new site might have been meant to produce weapons-grade uranium while U.N. monitors were focused elsewhere — concentrating on known facilities to ensure that Tehran produces only low-enriched uranium that cannot be used for weapons.Iran says its facilities are producing nuclear fuel for power plants, not for weapons.The head of Iran's nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi, called the new facility a semi-industrial plant for enriching nuclear fuel that is not yet complete, according to the state news agency IRNA. He suggested that U.N. inspectors would be able to visit the site.Neither Iran nor the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed the facility's location or size. Western diplomats and government officials with access to intelligence provided the details on the plant, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the sensitive information.

The U.S. has known of the facility's existence for several years through intelligence developed by U.S., French and British agencies, a senior White House official said.Western intelligence locates the plant not far from Qom — one of the holiest cities in Shiite Islam, and any military strike near that city would likely provoke a backlash among Shiite Muslims across the Middle East.U.S. intelligence believes the facility is on a military base controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, according to a document the Obama administration sent to U.S. lawmakers. It was provided to The Associated Press by an official on condition of anonymity because, though unclassified, it was deemed confidential.A senior U.S. administration official, who demanded anonymity for discussing intelligence, described it as a very heavily protected, very heavily disguised facility.The military connection could undermine Iran's contention that the plant was designed for civilian purposes.At the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh, President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain declared that the secret nuclear facility puts new pressure on Tehran to quickly disclose all its nuclear efforts — including any moves toward weapons development — or be held accountable.Speaking in New York, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded that his nation was keeping nothing from international inspectors and needn't inform Mr. Obama's administration of every facility that we have.He added that Obama would regret the statement.Iran kept the facility, located 100 miles southwest of Tehran, hidden from the IAEA until revealing it in a letter to the IAEA on Monday. That suggests it may have done so only because it wanted to go on record before being exposed.The Iranians claim to have withdrawn from an agreement with the IAEA requiring them to notify the agency about their intent to build any new nuclear facilities and to be subject only to a six-month notification requirement. Ahmadinejad said Friday the plant was 18 months from being operational.

But the IAEA says Tehran cannot unilaterally withdraw from that bilateral agreement.

George Perkovich, an Iran expert at Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggested Iran must be building at least one other unreported facility, a uranium conversion plant to provide feedstuff for the newly disclosed enrichment plant. That's because the Iranians' known conversion plant, at Isfahan, is under IAEA oversight.Why would you have a secret enrichment plant under a mountain if you don't have a secret conversion plant? he asked. Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow for nonproliferation at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said there has been suspicion for some time — but no concrete evidence — that Iran had been working on a second uranium conversion facility to supplement the one at Isfahan, and he agreed that if Iran had an enrichment plant, it would also need a facility to produce the gasified uranium.

Ahmadinejad sidestepped a question about whether Iran had sufficient enriched uranium to manufacture a nuclear weapon. Still, he said Tehran rejects such armaments as inhumane.The plant would be about the right size to enrich enough uranium to produce one or two bombs a year, but inspectors must get inside to know what is actually going on, one U.S. official said. The intelligence assessment cited by diplomats says the site is meant to house no more than 3,000 enriching centrifuges — much less than the more than 8,000 machines at Natanz, Iran's known enrichment facility.But the plant, which intelligence reports say is set to start operation next year, could be set up for advanced domestically developed centrifuges that enrich uranium at much higher speed and efficiency than the decades old P-1 type centrifuges acquired on the black market and in use at Natanz.Western officials have said Natanz has already churned out enough low-enriched material to turn out weapons-grade uranium — enriched to 90 percent and beyond — for one nuclear weapon.

The senior U.S. official suggested another rationale for having a secret facility with a smaller number of high-powered centrifuges. Fewer centrifuges cannot produce a significant quantity of low-enriched uranium,he said.But if you want to use the facility in order to produce a small amount of weapons-grade uranium, enough for a bomb or two a year, it's the right size. And our information is that the Iranians began this facility with the intent that it be secret, and therefore giving them an option of producing weapons-grade uranium without the international community knowing about it.The new plant could be the place where they intended to break out of their civilian program and into a weapons mode, said David Albright of the Washington-based IISS, which has closely tracked Iran for signs of any covert proliferation. And the fact that Iran disclosed the plant's existence only a few days before it was publicly revealed suggested to Western officials that it may have done so only because it wanted to go on record before being exposed.The Iranians learned that the secrecy of the facility was compromised. So they came to believe that the value of the facility as a secret facility was no longer valid,the senior U.S. administration official said.Iran has a record of nuclear secrecy, and it is blocking an IAEA inquiry based on U.S. and other intelligence that it experimented with a nuclear weapons program.A meeting to discuss Iran's nuclear program is scheduled in Geneva for Oct. 1 with Iran and representatives of the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.Iran acknowledged running a covert enrichment program only after the National Council of Resistance in Iran revealed its existence seven years ago — a development that mushroomed into a full probe of its nuclear activities and led to three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for its refusal to stop.In an e-mail Friday to the AP, the dissident group said work on a tunnel and an underground facility near Qom began in the early part of this decade,adding that a senior general of the Iranian armed forces were responsible for the tunnel project.

The U.S. considers the council to be a terrorist organization, albeit one that has provided Washington with intelligence on Iran. The European Union removed it from its terrorism list this year.Albright said Iran would be unable to dispel suspicions about the newly disclosed plant after revealing its existence only under apparent duress.Iran cannot prove that it wants to use the plant for peaceful purposes now, having Western intelligence exposing them,he said.Contributing to the story were AP writers Paisley Dodds in London, Deborah Seward in Paris, Charles J. Hanley in New York, John Heilprin in New York and Pamela Hess and Desmond Butler in Washington.

Venezuela seeking uranium with Iran's help By FABIOLA SANCHEZ, Associated Press Writer – SEPT 25,09

PORLAMAR, Venezuela – Iran is helping to detect uranium deposits in Venezuela and initial evaluations suggest reserves are significant, President Hugo Chavez's government said Friday.Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz said Iran has been assisting Venezuela with geophysical survey flights and geochemical analysis of the deposits, and that evaluations indicate the existence of uranium in western parts of the country and in Santa Elena de Uairen,in southeastern Bolivar state.We could have important reserves of uranium,Sanz told reporters upon arrival on Venezuela's Margarita Island for a weekend Africa-South America summit. He added that efforts to certify the reserves could begin within the next three years.The announcement came as revelations that Iran has secretly been building a uranium-enrichment plant provoke concerns among countries including the U.S., Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China.On Friday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged Iran in a statement to prove it is not seeking to develop atomic weapons, saying the undeclared construction of an enrichment facility flies in the face of U.N. Security Council demands for Iran to stop uranium enrichment at its only declared facility.

Iran is under three sets of Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze enrichment at what had been its single publicly known enrichment plant, which is being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said recently that U.S. officials also have concerns about a possible transfer of nuclear materials between Iran and Venezuela.But analysts say Iran, which has significant uranium deposits, currently has no need to import uranium, although those deposits may not be enough to sustain its future enrichment goals.Sanz dismissed suggestions that Venezuela could aid Iran with its nuclear program, saying Venezuela is only aiming to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Chavez has repeatedly said that all countries should end their nuclear-weapons programs, while insisting that Iran and Venezuela have a sovereign right to pursue peaceful nuclear ambitions.Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington said that regardless of whether the uranium exploration efforts lead to nuclear cooperation, they are going to cause a serious problem in the relationship between Caracas and Washington.Chavez's government has clearly announced they're sort of beginning down this road,Shifter said.It's going to be very difficult for the U.S. to really pursue any cooperation with Caracas on other issues because this is going to top everything else.

Chavez's project remains in its planning stages and still faces a host of practical hurdles, likely requiring billions of dollars, as well as technology and expertise that Venezuela lacks. Russia has offered to help bridge that gap, and Chavez has announced that the two countries have created an atomic energy commission.But Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom, has said there are no concrete projects and that any joint work on mining deposits of uranium or the radioactive metal thorium would have to wait until Venezuela decides whether it wants Russian help exploring them and, if so, create a joint venture for the purpose.

Both Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are well-known for their anti-U.S. rhetoric, and have forged ties in everything from finance to factories, provoking concerns in Washington. Iran now manufactures cars, tractors and bicycles in Venezuela.Earlier this month, Chavez sealed a deal to export 20,000 barrels of gasoline daily to Iran, giving Tehran a cushion if the West carries out threats of fuel sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.

CHINA AND KINGS OF THE EAST MARCH TO ISRAEL 2ND WAVE OF WW3

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

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

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

Canada says India nuclear deal imminent Fri Sep 25, 5:15 pm ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada is close to signing a deal with India to sell nuclear technology and materials, Trade Minister Stockwell Day said on Friday, adding he was confident that remaining security concerns would be resolved.Day made similar comments in May, saying at that time that a deal was imminent.He told reporters on a conference call that he was now ironing out a few final stumbling blocks.I had a telephone meeting just last week with India's national security adviser. We are down to four fine points ... He and I both agree that final agreement is possible within days, if not just a matter of a few weeks,Day told reporters on a conference call from India.Day said he did not foresee any threat of Canadian materials being diverted to military uses elsewhere in the region because of India's commitment to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as tough transparency and reporting requirements.

These are very strong provisions, he said.Canada halted nuclear co-operation with India after the country diverted material from Canadian-designed reactors to make a nuclear bomb in 1974. The conflict between India and Pakistan at the time led to widespread international concerns about India's nuclear intentions.Canada and other countries lifted their moratorium on nuclear trade with India last year.Day said one of the four items to be resolved before signing a deal was the question of reprocessing, without providing details.I'll let our negotiators make progress on those and the others without unduly trying to raise pressure points publicly on them,he said.The deal means Canadian uranium producers will be able to sell to an Indian market that is seen, along with China's, as one of the top areas of growing demand for nuclear fuel.Cameco, a top uranium miner, recently said it plans to open a marketing office in India.Certainly we're looking forward to having the opportunity to do business in India. It's a large market opportunity for any uranium fuel supplier,said Cameco spokesman Lyle Krahn.The company plans to open the office next month.Once we have the agreement in place, we'll certainly be moving forward, Krahn said.On Wednesday, the Canadian government announced a similar nuclear deal with Kazakhstan, where Cameco already has operations.(Reporting by Louise Egan, additional reporting by Cameron French in Toronto)

SKorea leader pushes tough stand on NKorea By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer – SEPT 25,09

PITTSBURGH – South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Friday the world must take a strong stand against North Korea's nuclear ambitions, despite recent conciliatory gestures from Pyongyang.After months of threatening nuclear war and conducting nuclear and missile tests, North Korea has recently eased its angry rhetoric and appeared more willing to rejoin stalled nuclear disarmament talks.In an interview with a small group of reporters at the end of the Group of 20 economic summit, Lee said North Korea must return to talks with sincerity,whatever the country's reason for reaching out to the outside world in recent weeks.If they are sincere, then we are ready to provide them with whatever is necessary, Lee said through an interpreter.But Lee, a pro-American conservative whose tough policies have stoked fury in Pyongyang, also sounded a warning about North Korean negotiating tactics.In the past, from experience, we know that negotiating with North Korea has always been a process whereby we make one step forward and we take two steps back, and we go back and forth and back and forth, without achieving much results,Lee said.It is difficult to determine what North Korea's true intentions are, Lee said, but the world can be certain the country will not readily give up its nuclear weapons program.

Negotiators, therefore, must work together closely to make sure North Korea has no choice but to disarm, Lee said.South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are trying to persuade the North to return to the so-called six-nation talks aimed at ridding the North of its nuclear weapons program.North Korea walked away from the talks in April to protest world criticism of its firing of a rocket over Japan, but signs have been emerging in recent days that North Korea might be willing to return.The North views its nuclear program as a security guarantee against what it claims are U.S. plans to attack North Korea.To jump-start the nuclear negotiations, Lee is proposing what he calls a grand bargain.His offer would give the North economic and political incentives, including a security guarantee, in exchange for the North irreversibly dismantling its nuclear weapons program.Unlike past deals, Lee has called for Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program in one step, instead of in phases.Lee on Friday dismissed the idea of negotiating a cap of North Korea's current nuclear program and said it is unthinkable for the world to accept North Korea as a de facto nuclear power. The North is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to possess enough material to make several nuclear bombs.Lee suggested that such a recognition could lead to a nuclear arms race, with Japan and South Korea and other countries pursuing their own atomic weapons programs, something he said would be tremendously detrimental to world peace and stability.

Washington previously demanded that the North first return to six-nation talks before allowing the one-on-one contact Pyongyang has long pushed for. The United States now says it is considering direct talks if that would bring the North back to negotiations.South Korea, Lee said, supports direct U.S. contact with North Korea, if it is a pre-meeting meant to encourage North Korea to return to six-nation talks.
The ultimate objective is to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program,Lee said.

Beijing’s credibility crisis Li Datong, 25 - 09 - 2009 The anniversary party of the People's Republic of China is being prepared amid an atmosphere of fear and foreboding, says Li Datong. 25 - 09 - 2009

The People's Republic of China (PRC) was declared on 1 October 1949. The authorities seek to hold an especially large celebration on every tenth anniversary. This is carefully designed to give the people the illusion of possessing strength and wealth - and to project the rulers' own vanity. This year's sixtieth anniversary will be the biggest yet. Li Datong is a Chinese journalist and former editor of Freezing Point, a weekly supplement of the China Youth Daily newspaper.

China's civil society: breaching the Green Dam (17 July 2009)
The celebrations over the last three decades have not always gone according to plan. In 1979 the damage wrought by the cultural revolution begun in the mid-1960s had not yet been repaired, and there was no money for major centrepiece events such as a military parade. By 1989, the reform and opening-up policies had brought some improvement to people's lives - cause enough, it was thought, for a splendid party. But in May-June of that year, the events of Tiananmen Square shocked the world, and China found itself more isolated than ever. Beijing was put under a strict military curfew, and the more flexible policies were set aside in place of noisy rhetoric about "opposing western peaceful evolution". It no longer seemed the time to celebrate, and the PRC anniversary events were low-key. For a while the Chinese believed they would never again see an extravagant and wasteful military parade. In spring 1992, Deng Xiaoping's famous southern tour inaugurated a second round of reform in China. Deng himself passed away in 1997, bequeathing a mixed legacy of achievement and failure. His successor as party general-secretary leader was Jiang Zemin, a figure who combined commanding power with a love of performance. He decided to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the People's Republic in 1999 with a grand military display.

The problem of governance

The aim of that second round of reform was to establish a market economy - an aim achieved by a partnership between power and capital, with numerous state-owned enterprises sold off to the able, creating a large cohort of capitalists. But many employees were forced out of work, with no social welfare to rely on - leaving them marginalised. Residential areas of cities and surrounding farmland were forcibly purchased at risible prices, and the rich-poor gap started to widen. The seeds of the social crisis that China faces today can be seen in this period, but there was not yet fierce confrontation. So the extravagant fiftieth anniversary celebrations went ahead - with the cost said to run to over RMB 100 billion ($14bn). A dampener on the celebrations came in the form of an article entitled 50 Years of Trials and Hardships, by well-known liberal intellectual and former vice-president of the China academy of sciences, Li Shenzhi. The language was pointed: 1999 is not just the fiftieth anniversary of the People's Republic of China - it is the eightieth anniversary of the May 4th Movement(a reference to the student-led protests of 1919 sparked by the unfair treatment of China embodied in the Versailles treaty which grew into a wider call for scientific advance, democracy, and social progress).The aim of the emancipation of the individual embodied in the demands of 1919 has today yet to be realised", Li Shenzhi continued.1999 is also the tenth anniversaryof the June 4th incident which brought the Tiananmen protests to an end - a date that the authorities could use to declare an amnesty, in order to offer comfort to the victims and bereaved. This would restore public morale, lay the foundation for further reform, and also do wonders for China's international standing - thus improving the external conditions for reform. But those in power ignore this and the opportunity passes by.

It is a matter of record that Jiang did nothing for political reform. The seeds of social crisis planted during his reign have exploded, one by one, during Hu Jintao's leadership.In 2008-09 alone, tens of thousands of people have been caught up in often violent protests. There has been disorder in Tibet, Weng'an, Shishou, Urumqi and at the Tonghua steel mills, among many other incidents. When public anger explodes, the authorities have no response but violent suppression. This crisis of governance is characterised by a loss of government credibility - particularly that of the authorities at the grassroots. A survey by the official publication Insight China found that government officials were rated as less trustworthy than sex-workers - surely the most devastating of verdicts.

The rot of corruption

The loss of government credibility is symbolised by two incidents. The first occurred on 17 July 2009, a million residents of Qi county in Henan province started to flee their homes. In only two or three hours, tens of thousands of vehicles flooded onto the roads, causing gridlock. Traffic police set up roadblocks and attempted to persuade drivers to turn back, but panic continued. The scene could have been taken from a Hollywood disaster movie, with the county left empty. The reason? An accident with an industrial source of radioactivity - but there had been no leak of radiation and the situation was entirely under control. The local government did not view the incident as important and made no statement about it; but the public believed that government silence indicated a cover-up. The spreading rumours of an imminent explosion caused a spontaneous evacuation - with many public servants among those taking to the roads.The second incident was the jailing for three years of a Hangzhou youth - the son of a rich family - for killing a pedestrian on 7 May 2009 while racing his car along the street. Many online commentators insisted the defendant was not the guilty party, but a stand-in; a bizarre belief, but one that earned much support, less because there was any evidence to support it than because people believe the rich can use their money to circumvent the law.Such events are supplemented by constant tales of government untrustworthiness - which can seem exaggerated but often turn out to be true. For example, 1,500 people were arrested in a single crackdown on criminal gangs in Chongqing: the detainees included the deputy head of the city's public-security bureau (who had been in his post for a decade), the head of the justice bureau, other senior officials and several mega-rich businessmen. Many of these were local, or even national,people's representatives.The people cannot be expected to believe that only Chongqing is this corrupt. In recent months alone the vice-president of the supreme court, the mayor of Shenzhen, the party secretary of Zhejiang and the vice-ministry for railways have all fallen from office due to corruption.

The unavoidable clash

What of central government? The financial crisis has worsened China's employment concerns. Beijing has called for all levels of government to seek to combat unemployment, particularly among new graduates. The news provoked bitter humour among those affected: graduates responded to the publication of official figures on graduate employment by joking that they'd been employed, internet-users reacted to the data from the statistics bureau showing increases in income by saying their incomes had been increased. The public is dubious about any official and authoritative information. Meanwhile, the record of a conversation with an old comrade has appeared online as the sixtieth anniversary celebrations approach. The identity of the source is not revealed, but the content suggests he must have been a member of the Central Political Bureau Committee, or higher. The article spread feverishly online; there were 300,000 hits within a few days. The source, speaking with particular authority, was frank in pointing out that sixty years of party rule have not been glorious - many of these years saw the people suffer at the hands of the ruling party. The party has turned its back on the commitments it made when it came to power: to build a democratic, free, China. It has still not established basic political ethics. The document sent shockwaves through the party. The analysis and the response to it reflect a crisis of credibility that is rare in the history of the People's Republic. At root, the cause lies in people's rising awareness of their rights and their desire to participate in politics - and the conflict between this and a closed, unsupervised and unfettered political system. This conflict is no longer merely theoretical; it is a living fact.So the celebrations will take place against a background of fear that something will go wrong. There is tight security on a par with that for the Beijing Olympics, with three layers of monitoring to check people and vehicles entering the capital. Besides a large contingent of police and armed police, an army of 700,000 citizens has been mobilised to participate in security work - as if the country faces a dangerous enemy.What air of celebration can there be? How long can these days of fear go on?